Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.16.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Lexus of Pembroke Pines

Episode Date: June 16, 2018

messages. Agent X visits Lexus of Pembroke Pines to purchase a car from the Costco Auto Buying Program. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back. Your auto team. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer, and I'm in a studio with a bunch of other assistants, advisors, experts.

We've all been in the business cumulatively. I don't know how many years. 50 for me. You had Rick Kearney and Nancy Stewart and my son, Stu, and it's probably been well over 100 years that we have in the way of experience. And this is the True Oldie Channel, 95.9, 106.9, 960 a.m. The true oldies, but we're not true oldies. We're not going to sing to you.

We're a show about how to buy a car, lease a car, maintain or repair your car without being ripped off by your car dealer. That's what the show is all about. I know a lot of you, I'm preaching to the choir. You've heard the show before. You know, we've been on the air for over 10 years. Started out a long time ago with a half an hour show. Went to an hour, an hour, two hours every Saturday.

True oldies, 95.9 FM, 106.9 and 960 a.m. So here we are, not singing to you, but trying to help you. Trying to save you from embarrassment, aggravation, and anger situation. I mean, let me tell you what justifies our existence here. It's called the Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. Now, all that is is a reflection of the true facts of what car dealers are doing, not just in the United States, but all over the world. They're trying to take advantage of you, and they are, Nancy's holding up a copy of that Gallup annual poll.

and the Gallup organization has been doing this every year since 1977. What is this? 2018? That's a lot of years. And every year, for all those years, car dealers have ranked at the bottom or very near the bottom of the honesty and ethics ranking. Simple poll, they just went out to thousands and thousands of U.S. citizens and said, which professions that you deal with, doctors, lawyers, nurses, car dealers? you know, whatever, lobbyist, congressman.

Well, of all the professions that you deal with, rank your experience. And that's what it was. 50 or 60 professions, car dealers have been dead last, many years. Last year, they were next to last, last full year for the survey, 2017. So they lack honesty and they lack ethics. And that's why we're here. And we're here, of course, to listen to you. And we ask you to call the show.

We will be asking you to the point where you're going to be annoyed if you're watching for two hours. But I'd rather annoy you a little bit than not know how to not know how to call us. Our number, if you want to talk to us, is 877-9-60-99-60. That's 877-9-60. And if you want to text us, we get a surprising number of texts. A lot of people just don't feel like they want to be on live. radio kind of scary nancy gets a little scared i get a little scared uh when you think that we've got 20 000 people out there and i was really surprised earlier before the show

jonathan canter our technical advisor and cyber guy and he's on the control room every week he showed me a list of our podcast viewers and it just knocked me off my stool here in the studio we've got people from all over the world and i'll just mean a fluky thing I'm talking about all over the world and the United States and Portugal and you name it. And I'm going to have a list here just to show you some of the reach that we have out there. So dishonest, non-transparent card dealers are not a USA phenomenon. They are a worldwide phenomenon. And I wish to get Gallup Poll would do a worldwide poll.

I frankly was surprised. I thought in certain countries that they were more civilized, but apparently not. And we have people, it's just amazing. So I'm so excited about the reach of this program. And we thrive on your questions, your comments, your experiences with car dealers. We love to hear from you. The text number, by the way, in case you don't want to call, is 772, there you go, 4976530. Text us, please, at 772-4976530.

audio number, the caller number, the regular number, is 877-960-9960. That's 877-9-60. Another thing that I want you to understand is that this isn't all about buying and leasing cars. It's also about maintaining and repairing cars. And we've got a guy in the studio, his name is Rick Kearney, sitting to my immediate right, and he knows, I hate, I'm not going to exaggerate, but he knows almost everything about automobiles. He's been in the business a long, long time. He isn't just a doer. He's a studier. He's a learner. And I've known Rick for 20 of those years plus, and he's in school all the time. He's online. He's studying. He's learning. We are living in the information age. We are living in an explosive age of artificial

intelligence, the cloud, the big data, and all these things you hear about all the time. And every time you pick up the newspaper, of course, people don't read newspapers anymore, anytime you go online or you turn on the television or whatever your source of information, you find out that what you knew yesterday is obsolete. There's new cures for medical conditions. People are not watching TV, they're streaming. People won't be driving cars pretty soon. The cars will be driving them.

And the digital explosion, the information explosion, is just absolutely making it necessary for a guy like Rick Kearney to stay on top of his trade. And you probably have questions about maintaining and repairing your car. A lot of people are maintaining and repairing their cars the way they did five years ago. Hey, it's obsolete. If you're maintaining and repairing your car the way you did 10 years ago, it's really obsolete. Cars today are rolling computers. and I'm just not trying to shock you.

Once's the last time you opened your hood? If you're an old timer like me, you used to be able to open the hood, look under the hood, look at the engine, and the other, you could look at the coil and distributor and a carburetor and a lot of things. And if you knew what you were doing, which I never did.

But if you did, you could probably tweak the car, tune it up a little bit, fix it if it broke, make it run better. Today, forget about it. Unless you have a diagnostic machinery and that diagnostic machinery is becoming obsolete every day. So, bottom line, calls at 877-960-960 if you have any questions for Rick Kearney. Next to Rick is Nancy Stewart, who is my co-host.

Nancy is a woman's advocate. And you know, hashtag me too, you know what's happening. Employers, males are going to jail every day. They're being exposed every day. They're being sued every day. the woman's oppression is we're putting a stop to it and Nancy I saw your head jerk over to the right there

I think there is a reason for that why did your head jerk to the right we have a caller and that's Tina from Benita Springs welcome to the show Tina Good morning how are you guys doing going great Is Rick there by any chance Sit right next to me

Oh okay well I'm going to talk him in just a minute, but I'm kind of a little bit perturbed at the local newspaper because guess what they did? Just this week, they posted an article about the Takata Airbag recall, and you and I

and Nancy and Rick have been talking about this for much, and I can't believe they're just now publishing them. The thing that irritates me is those few people unfortunately that passed away due to the Takata Airbag recall that they found out about too late,

Who knows? Maybe their lives could have been saved if the article was posted sooner. But it's kind of flabbergasted me, but they waited all this time to publish it. Well, I guess, Tina, in a way, it's better late than never, but I agree with you. I'm sadly disappointed with the media, the way they've given up on trying to publicize. We know that the legislators, our legislators and federal government and the state governments aren't doing their job. The regulators aren't doing the job. The auto manufacturers aren't doing their job, and neither are the car dealers. So we've got the fourth estate.

We've got one hope, and that's the media, and they're dropping the ball. And I totally agree with you. It's just a shame that somebody doesn't turn up the heat on those that are responsible for this terrible situation. Yeah, and the problem is the worst and originally thought, too. So it's just, why did they wait so long? Why did they wait a month? maybe it was a presidential campaign that kind of got in the way. I don't know, but I just kind of shook my head in any disbelief.

Yeah, it's, I think it needs to sell newspapers. That's an old expression. It needs to sell advertising. It needs to be something that gets the viewers pumped up. And unfortunately, it's become a matter of economics. There's an apathy among drivers. We know, for example, that three out of four recall cars never gets fixed. So there's an apathy among the drivers.

People come in and they buy cars without checking them with CarMax, with NHTSA, with www. safercar.gov. There's a lot of ways you can check to keep yourself safe. But there's an apathy with the car buyers, and therefore there's an apathy with the media. It's kind of like what comes first to check into the egg. Somebody's got to get people excited. Any one entity could do it. The auto manufacturers could get people excited.

The car dealers could. The legislators or the regulators. But everybody's laying back. I don't understand it. And I can tell by what you're saying, Tina, you don't understand it either. No. But it all boils down to this. It all boils down to quality control with the auto manufacturer to begin with

to not allow these defects to come onto the market in the first place. So the blame is squarely and their supplier and their suppliers. Well, it's exactly right. And it's a case where, you know, Nancy is an advocate for females, but this is a case where it affects everybody equally. If a Takata airbag blows up in your face with your male or female, it's going to be a terrible situation. And women, I believe, are probably more concerned.

I believe women are more, we know statistics show that women will shop longer and do more research before they make a decision. And we can appeal to the women out there. I know Nancy would agree with me to show their indignation. We talked in the car on the way to the show about car dealers. They were selling cars with Takata Airbags two years ago that had been recalled today. Now, the Takata Airbag recall was already well known two years ago,

and manufacturers were installing airbags with Takata airbags that they knew would be recalled in the future. And the fact of the Takadi Airbag is that there's a degeneration of the accelerant. I don't want to get too technical. But once the airbag has been sold, it's on the road, the humidity and the heat, degrade the ammonium nitrate, which causes it to become unstable, which causes it to blow up. So two years ago, three years ago, we were selling cars that we knew would have to come back and be replaced.

And it's so shocking. I feel like is everybody sleeping out there? I don't know. Nancy, do you have any comments on that? We got Tina on the line. Yes, I agree with you that women are more aware of the Takato issue. And to add to what Tina said, the fact remains that we have felt here in the studio

that we are the Lone Ranger that everyone else, excuse me everyone else has not thought that this is an important topic and I'm talking about people like our governor I'm talking about our governor Rick Scott I'm talking about the attorney general Pam Bondi and we certainly haven't gotten any response from any of them and they would be a big help most definitely we have made the to an issue to our listeners, our callers, anyone that knows us how serious this topic is, and it has taken lives. And that about covers it.

Yeah, Rick Scott, I'm glad you mentioned Rick, because Rick's running for Senator against Bill Nelson. I do know that Bill Nelson has come out in the past actively in favor of regulation to prevent cars being sold, defective, you know, dangerous recall. especially to cut airbag. I've seen him on camera with a picture of the face of a person that had been injured in a Takada airbag and a picture of the defective airbag.

So Bill Nelson's running for Senate against Rick Scott. I urge all of you to take that into consideration. Let's find out who cares more about the drivers of Florida for the senator from Florida. Is it Bill Nelson or Rick Scott? I'm not playing politics here. I'm just saying if you're going to represent us in the United States Senate, the drivers of the state of Florida, get off your duff and come out there and talk about the Takata Airbag. Bill Nelson did six months ago, but I haven't heard a word from him.

Rick Scott has never gotten off his duff and come out and talked about the record air to Scottierbeg. So maybe that's the way we do with, Tino. What do you think? Well, what I think is that the Automotive Deals Association and the used car luts that belong to that association, they're going to push back on that, especially the used car dealers because it's going to affect their bottom line greatly, but this is about saving lives. This isn't about their bottom line. Yeah, exactly right. And that's the economic, is the 800-pound gorilla that nobody sees sitting in the corner. And that is saying that someone made it illegal to sell cars with defective recalls. then it would have a crushing effect on the economy. I'm sorry, folks.

Listen, do you value your life more than the economy? I mean, I guess it must be a tough call. So what do you do? Do you do the right thing for humanity? Or do you worry about the auto manufacturer's bottom line, the car dealer's bottom line? It would really be crushing. I'm a car dealer.

So if you told me that I could never sell a car with a defective, It affects it affecting me right now because I'm not selling cars with dangerous recalls. But most people haven't taken that step. But I understand how car dealers feel. Rick? I just don't know if it would really be that crushing of a blow to the economy. I mean, let's go back to the whole unintended acceleration fiasco that nobody ever proved that anything occurred.

And yet huge media blitz, everybody going totally nuts about it. Nothing ever got proven on it. Everything recovered very nicely. That was one manufacturer. Wow, that's true. And we're talking about virtually all the manufacturers. We're talking about millions and millions of cars versus the sudden acceleration, which was a Toyota problem alone.

Very true. No, if you stopped every car on the road and said to the middle law that says you can't drive that car, then the manufacturers would be forced to reimburse those people. The manufacturing would be forced to reimburse the car dealers. it would be billions of dollars on the manufacturers. They would have to provide substitute transportation while they found the car, the airbag, to replace it. So I think the buck stops with the manufacturers. I think they're the ones that would suffer the biggest economic damage,

and then they would have to also take care of the customers and the car dealer. So, Tina, you're doing what everybody should be doing, is talking about it. You called us live on the air, and 20,000 people are listening to, to you. People all over the world are listening to you. And I thank you very, very much for bringing this terrible situation to everybody's attention. Hopefully, it'll get legs, it'll get some momentum, and maybe one day we can do something about it. Yeah, and, you know, I was worried about my aunt's car last week because she had that care recall. Fortunately, I looked

up for VIN, and she didn't have any, she doesn't have any problems with her particular vehicle, but this is the attitude of drivers. Well, and this is what she said. I said, well, you know, I need to go to the store and I need to drive and I need to do my errands in an incident, Sharon. You know, even though you're not going on a long trip, you can end up really getting hurt if your cars under repulse. Thank goodness it wasn't. But people, like, she's a lower income person. People at that stage, you know, they really can't give up their one vehicle and they're particularly vulnerable. Exactly.

And another point, women and older children, they're normally across the board smaller than an average. average size meal. And they're more vulnerable to getting injured by these airbags than anybody else. And that's, you know, something that really gives pause for thought. That's a good point. You've got the passenger side of your bag, the driver side airbag, and that shrapnel doesn't go necessarily in a straight line. It goes out all over the cockpit of the car. So, yeah, everybody, I suppose, even in the back seat to some except there's possibility. There's a very real possibility, yes. So it's one of the most dangerous situations we've ever had. It's the largest recall we've ever had, and everybody just sitting on their hands.

Rick? There's a video that's actually on the NHTSA website on NHTSA, and it shows an inflator exploding. And I've got to tell you, it's terrifying to watch. It's extremely slow motion, but when you realize just how fast those pieces of metal are actually moving in real life, it's incredible. I mean, it's terrifying. It's like watching a hand grenade go off. and it's scary well thank you Tina very much for the call and yeah we appreciate you calling Tina and bringing the attention of the Takata tragedy I call it at this point because we have been on a long

journey all of us here in the studio and it's like as if that I don't I I can't explain it I can't define it as to why there hasn't been more attention paid to the Takata airbag problem and the desks that have taken place and these used car dealers that are just selling them like hotcakes with they're just sending them off the lot and saying good luck and there you go they have a defective Takata airbag that they're sitting in front of thank you again and I hope you call again next week and I will text and I will text Rick in just a little bit because I have a question for him. Oh, very good. We'll be looking

forward to that. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I believe we have a caller, don't we? We do, and she is a first-time caller, and her name is Judy, and she is from Jupiter.

Welcome to the show, Judy. Thank you so much for taking my call. You're welcome. Judy, you have won yourself $50 as the first female caller this morning. Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much. So whenever you have finished, you can stay on the line and share your information with us so that I can get that checkout to you. What can we do for you this morning?

Well, I have a 2012 Honda-Alauntra, and in the past, week I believe I have a transmission problem but no light is coming on and five times in the past week I'd be going to a stoplight completely stopped and it would not go to second gear without my hesitating waiting and it's never happened for the dealership and they had it for days and I took it out with them and I believe it's a transmission problem not quite broken because nothing shows up on the test or the dashboard. Okay, so just to make sure I've got the right information,

it's when you're accelerating up from a stop? Correct. Okay, and it just kind of stays in first gear the whole time. And it takes a while for it to, I wait, I take my foot off the gas, I hit the gas again, and after a little bit, it will start to go to second gear. Ah, yeah. Yeah, that definitely sounds like something is intermittently kind of sticking or seizing in what's known as the throttle body of the transmission. How many miles do you have on the car?

81,000. Ah, yeah, I'm not sure what their warranty is on that. Hyundai's got a good warranty. I think a quick look here. Yeah, it's a five-year, 60,000 basic, but 10-year 100,000-mile power. train um yeah what i would recommend now this this sounds a little silly and you might need get a second person is the safest way to do this have a passenger with you if they can try take the car out for a good long test drive and videotape and see if you can get this on a video on your

phone and if you can get a video of that occurring obviously keep copies of it for yourself but send that to the managers, the service manager, and say, hey, look, here's what's going on. You know, I'm not coming in here for no reason. Here is this video showing it occur, and they can take that up the line then. Is it more of an audio thing? How do you get a video of a car not shifting into second year? You kind of hold the camera to where you can see the instrument cluster, and you'll be able to watch the tachometer.

The engine RPMs will go way up, and you'll see. that they don't drop down back into second gear. And if you can get that to occur on a video, then you've got a beautiful weapon to walk right in there and say, look, here it is. This is it occurring. And this is what I want you to correct. And at that point, go with polite persistence

and don't take no for an answer. Because your car is still under warranty. It's got a 100,000-mile warranty on that transmission. Judy, a couple other suggestions, too. have you had it into the dealer Hyundai dealer? Yes, I have. Okay. Yes. I would suggest

you try a different dealer and I would also suggest that you use the 800 number to call Hyundai manufacturer. Those two steps will get the dealer's attention and if it's not too far drive, if you go to another

dealer, another Hyundai dealer and explain to the other dealer couldn't do anything about it. They should have diagnostic equipment that should bring this to light. And if they don't, they should offer you a free loaner car and give it to a technician with your permission to drive that car until the phenomena occurred that you described. So you've got three courses of action there,

and I think you should probably maybe, before you do the video, try the other dealer. And if that doesn't work, then the video is a great idea. I hadn't thought about that. Rick's got a great idea to video the tachometer and show it as proof that it is happening as you described. Okay, yes, and I had the tech go with me at Hyundai, and we drove to the exact distance that had happened to me,

and doggone it, it never happened. That happens so often. But with today's diagnostic equipment, usually they can find the problem even if it won't happen sometimes. They can't, but, yeah, you should try a different dealer, call, put in an 800 call, and they will call the dealer. When you call the manufacturer, they will notify the dealer, especially when you're talking about a warrantable item, because your warranty gives you the right to have that fixed,

and it is a problem, you know it's a problem, and the manufacturer and the dealer are not fulfilling their obligation. So when they hear about that, they get right on the dealer, and the top folks in the dealership, the dealership manager, general manager, will know about it, and they'll put some pressure on the technician to get it fixed for you. Great. Okay. Because they tell me until it really breaks that they can't do, they can't diagnose it.

I said, oh, no, I'm waiting for an accident to happen here. Well, you'd be surprised how often go into another dealer and sometimes even a third dealer. There's good Hyundai dealers and there's bad Hyundai dealers. And just like doctors, you know, you get, you get a bad doctor, you go to another doctor, you get a second opinion. So we need a second opinion from your other Hyundai dealer. And definitely call that 800 number, because once you get the factory guys involved, the higher-ups, that's when the ball starts to roll.

But like I say, polite persistence. Just don't take no for an answer. I won't. Thank you so much for your help. Judy, this is Nancy Stewart, and I'd like to ask you how you heard about our show, number one. I listen to it all the time on Saturdays. Thank you so much for taking the time to give us a call. And number two question would be, did you go to the dealership alone, or did you have someone with you?

My husband was with me. Oh, very good. Okay. Well, Pat, excuse me, Judy, stay on the line and give us your information. We'll get the $50 out to you. And we all want to thank you for listening. Thank you. You guys are great.

Thank you so much. I have one thing to say before we take our next caller, and that is you can be the shrewdest negotiator on the block whenever you go into a dealership, whether it's for service, sales, leasing, anything. But let me tell you something, when you take someone in with you, you have a whole lot more protection. And that goes for the gentleman and the ladies, but it goes, I have to repeat it twice for the ladies. So keep that in mind. Give us a call. Be part of the show.

As I always say, you do make the show. 877-960-99-60. Or you can text us. As Earl says, if you're a little shy, 772-497-6530. and, well, we are going to go to another female caller. Her name is Debbie, and she's calling us from Lake Worth. Good morning, Debbie. Hi.

I just wanted to tell you something that happened to me. I always listen to this radio station, and there's a car commercial that comes on about bringing in a trade-in, and I can't remember the exact commercial, but it, like, beeps the horn every time, like, if it's going to, to say a swear word or something it beats the horn and I was coming out of a parking lot is the first time I heard the commercial I was coming out of a um parking lot and I was like edging out because cars were coming both ways and I pull out and then it beats the horn on the commercial and I like I almost had a heart attack I thought I had gone into a car or something oh no yeah I didn't know if I should call the um you know call the radio station and say how

dangerous that commercial is because it really scared me. It reminds me of our phone commercial. When you said you trade-in commercial or use car, I thought you were saying push, pearl, or drag your trade-in in, and we'll give you at least $5,000. That's one of my favorites. Yes? Yeah, it is.

It might be. It might be. But it constantly beeps the horn in it. Yeah, they come up with some pretty hokey commercials. It makes us wonder here at Earl Struthan Cars, all of us in the studio Marvel at how people fall for these things. But we get calls off the air all the time, and Nancy gets them, Stu gets them, Rick and I get them.

People will see advertisements. And I had one last week. Nancy might want to talk about it later in the show. I talked to a man who was absolutely convinced he'd won $25,000. But he was a little skeptical, and he said the salesman set up $125,000. And I said, I don't really think you have run $25,000. And I said, do you have the direct mail piece? He said, yes.

I said, can you read me the fine print? He says, no, I can't read the fine print. So that's a lot of that going on, Debbie. And I appreciate you sharing that with us. But I do think it's dangerous. I do think that commercial is dangerous. Very dangerous. Absolutely.

I agree. I really feel like it's a horn beeping at you. Yeah, I agree, Debbie. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Debbie. Call again. We love female calls. Okay. Our third or fourth is Saturday, and usually we don't have as many as we like. So we're on a roll.

So thank you, Debbie. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Tina. And you gals, keep calling. Yes, Debbie. Thank you so much from Nancy Stewart. That was pretty special that you took the time to give us a call. Okay.

I think that we are going to take and read a text right now. I think we have several of them. I've got a text here from Steve from New Jersey, and I love it when we're out of state. I love it when we're out of country. Ever since Jonathan showed me these podcast viewers all over the world, I'm just, you know, I'm amazed. I'm so pleased that the word's getting out the way it is.

Anyway, Steve from New Jersey, I'm selling my Honda, which I bought new many years ago. I got a Carfax report from my car, much to my surprise, it noted that my car had a rear-end collision. in 2008. This is incorrect. My car was never in an accident, nor did it ever receive a collision repair. Do you know how I can get this error corrected? Thank you, Steve. Well, that's a shock. I'm really surprised. I guess it goes to show that everybody makes mistakes. Carfax gets their information from the insurance companies. Insurance companies publish all the repairs that they

pay for. The only time you can get blindsided is when there is something that did not go through their insurance company. In this case here, it has to be a situation where it went through the insurance company. Whether it did or not didn't make any difference because the damage isn't there and it was reported as being there. So there must have been some sort of a Venn transposition of a VIN or something mistake. But that's very interesting. Now, as far as to where it can be removed, I haven't been confronted with this problem. My first reaction would be to contact Carfax directly, and I do it in writing. Carfax is a user-friendly, customer-friendly type of company.

I think they're progressive, transparent. And I think if you can get online and contact somebody with Carfax, I think they can make that adjustment. I give them all the details. You're going to need, of course, your Venn number, and you're going to have to have the proof, maybe photographs, maybe a certified body shop, collision repair center, they would say this car has not been in an accident. You give them the VIN number. You get it to the right person in Carfax,

and I would think they would take it off. So thanks for the call. I love new calls that have questions that have never been asked before, and you really got me on that one. Thank you very much, Steve from New Jersey. Great text. Ladies and gentlemen, that number again, in case you didn't shot it down, is 877-9-60-9-9-8-8-8-8-9-8.

And you can text us at 772-497-6530. And I'd like to bring to your attention, Earl's latest column. And it's a pretty important one, as they all are, but some of them really stand out. And that's car dealer's dirty little secret. Not so little anymore. As, well, everyone knows or might not know, you can certainly pay. a pretty high price as far as a dealer fee is concerned, and it can be labeled in any form. You can pay up to, what is it, Earl, $2,000?

Yes. Yeah, $2,000. Can anyone afford that? The dirty little secret. So keep that in mind, and I'll also take a moment to thank all of you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. You are an extremely important part of the show, and we appreciate each and every one of you. Again, that number, 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And now we are going to go to John, a very important caller from Palm City and a regular caller. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Thank you for giving up your Saturday morning to educate the public. Thank you, John. Let me interrupt you for a second, John. I want to thank you very much for sending me the mailer that you did. Now, you go ahead and tell us why you're calling.

My pleasure. I like to inform everybody what's going on in this car business. But what I want to say, another thing you don't hear about, and they don't tell you, is people that don't keep their cars. They keep their cars like a new car less than one year. Now, there is a very good automotive data and research company in Massachusetts that offers guidance to car buyers, and their website is Icars.com. Okay, sit down for this one. The dealers are not going to like me.

The number one car by far, there's ten of them. I'm going to not give all ten, but the number one car by far, that's kept less than one year, is a BMW, series sedan, three, and five, also the X-3 SUV, and the 4-series coupon convertible. Number two, Mercedes Benz, C-Class, E-class, sedans,

three, Nissan Versa, hatchback, four, Dodge, Dot, five, Chrysler, 200, sedan, six, Subaru W-R-X. Now, there's many reasons that this happens. People, they don't like the car, the way

It performs or the disappointments or regrets. Also, some of them upscale, problem meeting their payments, it strained their budgets. But the saddest part, bottom line is, by keeping some of these cars, like, for instance, the lowest one, Subaru, there's a price reduction at 6.9%. A Chrysler 200 series, it can be as much as 29.9%. So the people that are looking to change, get away from their brand loyalty, and deviate from consumer reports, will give you these figures, but that's the Bible that people should stay with when they're buying a new car. John, that's ICars.com? Is that like I as in Idaho, C is in Charlie? The small I-I-C-Cars.com. Great information. Wow.

Fabulous. Didn't know about that. We'll check that out. and they give the length of ownership for all manufacturers, all brands? Yes, and they also, which is fabulous about them, they give also the top cars that people keep for 200,000 miles or more, and a very interesting website. What are the top five cars?

Do you have that in front of you? What's that? What are the top five cars in terms of length of ownership, the brands that the owners keep on. Well, Earl, I'll tell you. you're the one that's standing right on the top absolutely far above all that i think six of their models is toyotas and what's below that okay next to that toyotas are on there um uh let me just think if i have that handy uh yep toyotas and hunders you know all cars that we know there are some

american cars on them too like the chevi and power um the torus and you know all cars that we know there are some american cars on them too like the the Taurus, and Nissan, Maxima, it's a large list, but it's a very good website, but the people will be shocked, especially BMW owners, that don't keep their cars. It's less than one year. Wow. And it's like shocking because it's an expensive and it's an upscale car, you know, like the Mercedes. Huge here. Shocking people.

There's no shocker. about Chrysler 200 or the Dodge Dot because we all know about Chrysle products. Yeah. So go to this website and hesitate. Don't be so fast people to run out and buy these BMWs. I-C-Cars.com. I-C-C-C-R-S dot com. I-C-C-Cars.com.

Great source of information. Thank you, John, for a great call. Okay. And, John, that mailer, let's give it a little. a little bit of attention because I dealt with a few callers this past week about the mailer. So what do you have to share with us? What do I have to share? One time I recommended that people go to their new car dealer because they're going to get the right oil, the right manufacturer of SAE weight, but now I take that back because this coupon is from a brand new car dealer

and sit down for this one, that offers a coupon special of $9. I repeat, $9 for an oil change. It does not say what type of oil. It does not say anything about a filter. It does not say about anything about what type of oil synthetic. And this is a brand-new dealer, incidentally, which I could tell you so many stories that I hear because I'm in the Stewart area,

and it's on your list of car dealers, you know, good and a bad list. This is bad, bad, bad. And this is just a come-on to get you to come into the service and get the $9, supposedly, with this coupon, oil change. Now, anybody knows that a quart of oil, I mean, you can get a synthetic, go to an auto store and some synthetic oils on $9 alone just for one quart. So this is strictly a come on. And by the way, inside the booklet at the same time is one of these scratch-off contests

to see if you won a new corolla or a gift of $25,000, et cetera, et cetera. And it's just to get you to come into the dealer. That's strictly what it is. And it probably works with people, especially you scratch your things when you scratch the numbers and all of these things are match. But in the past, I was criticized because there's some of the callers that love to get these things in the mail

and they go to the dealer and they love to get the free umbrella or whatever they're getting. But boy, some of these dealers, once you walk in the door, they don't let you go. They'll hammer you beyond belief to the point that gets you to sign up

and buy one of their cars. Absolutely. It's terrible what they do and get away with it. than the worst of the advertisers of the direct mail. I used to say it flies below the radar of the regulators, but everything is below the radar of the regulators in Florida. Pam Bondi could care less about a consumer.

Apparently, Rick Scott could care less about the consumers. And violations are bound in all the media, whether it's Facebook or Instagram or the newspaper or the television. The dealers are getting away with bloody murder, and yours is just another example, John. Thanks very much for sending Nancy that mailer and for sharing that experience with you. I only hope that the people that get taken in on this

that express their opinion to the manufacturer. They get enough complaints about things like this. They'll get after them and do something about it. That I'm sure of what it takes a complaint to the manufacturer about this gimmicks. You're right about that, but I'll say something that I know from personal experience. the manufacturers don't beat up on the dealers that sell a lot of cars.

If you have a high-volume car dealer, this deal you're talking about, by the way, is a high-volume car dealer. I know it's a small community, but in terms of his sales efficiency and the number of cars he sells for the size of the community in this market, he's a very, very large volume car dealer. And they don't come down on high-volume car dealers because they like the fact that they sell a lot of cars. It's all about the money.

I know that sounds cynical, but it's the facts of life. I agree with you, and the perfect example is AutoNation. Mm-hmm. There you go. Right. That's exactly right. Okay, I'm going to hang up and look forward to the shopping report. Thanks, John.

You know, there's so many perfect ways for these car dealers to get you into the dealership. And like John said, once you get into the dealership, boy, they have you. And this past week, a lady gave me a call, and she was going up to Tresherst Coast Toyota to claim her $25,000 and I tried to tell her that it would be a mistake for her to go into the dealership for the $25,000 because it doesn't exist. And number two, to go into the dealership alone, I emphasize all the time and so does Earl. You never go into a dealership alone. So please, ladies and gentlemen, keep that in mind. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Okay, lest we forget that this is a show about service and repairs as well as to cut airbags and scams, the dealers pulled on buyers and lessors. Here's a text from Richard and a popka. He says, I have a 2002 Chevy Suburban, 1500 with 218,000 miles, a lot of miles. It leaks oil, but has been well maintained. Other than the obvious valve cover and oil pan gasket's cause a leak to the sheriff. shaft seals typically start to leak in these babies. Richard and a pop-go.

I'm going to give this to Rick, because I have no idea. My first question is going to be, which shaft seals are you speaking of? Because there's, could be the drive shafts, could be the shift seals for the transmission. There's a lot of different shafts, but unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of experience with Chevys. My best recommendation, and I'm going to do this right now, is I would look at some of the forum sites for Chevy Suburbans. These are a great resource. Just Google 2002 Chevy Suburban forums. Oil leak.

Oil leak, yeah. And a lot of these forum sites, they're pretty much posts by owners. And they will share a lot of information about issues they've seen. So if you see a lot of those guys that are posting that, yes, they've seen axle seal leaks, then I would be looking forward to doing that because it'd be a good idea. And, of course, the obvious thing is look and see if you have any signs of leakage around those axle shafts. Yeah, I guess if he could locate the area of the leak, and that would be maybe to put some paper under the vehicle in his garage or wherever he parks it overnight and come back, and he could specifically identify where the well was dropping down.

Right. That would be helpful. Well, it sounds like he's kind of a little more capable, do it yourself. Yeah. And just sliding up under on a piece of cardboard, just to get a look underneath there, just look all over those axle seals. And if you see anything that looks like it's wet around those axle shafts seals. But if he's 77 years old, maybe he doesn't want to do that.

Well, in that case, I would stop in a local garage and ask him, put it in the air and take a look at it. I would slide papers under the vehicle, and that way you can find out where. it is without having to get down on your back and get underneath it. But, yeah, I, I love, I like your idea about going online, or if you don't have the technical wherewithal, get your grandson or your son, daughter, granddaughter to get online and go to Google and go to Google and put in 2002 Chevrolet Suburban 1,500 oil leak. You would be amazed at the information there will be, I won't say hundreds, but there'll be 20, 30 different comments.

You might be surprised at it. that might be. You'll find a lot of stuff that you didn't know and you have to kind of sort through the wheat to get the chaff out. But you'll find some good answers that. And thank you very much for your text. Richard and a popka. And by the way, for that paper, stop in at your local drugstore and just get some white poster board. It's very inexpensive. But the nice part is you'll be able to tell what color the fluid is that's leaking out. And then you can always just cut that section out if you go to a mechanic, show it to them and say this leaked from this

spot, and it helps the mechanic to narrow problems down and give you a quick, honest opinion as to what's going on and what you need to repair. Love that idea. Thank you very much. That's a great idea, Rick, and that's why Rick is here. He can answer all of your questions and give you some

great advice. So, 877, 960, or you can text us at 772 497-6-5. 3530. Keep the calls in Texas coming in. You're an important part of the show. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Stay tuned, you folks out there, if you're thinking about changing your channel because we have a mystery shopping report coming up, and we continue in our series of mystery

shops with our Costco theme, and we're talking about the Costco Auto Buying Program. So this mystery shopping report involves a Costco dealership. And Pembroke Pines, Lexus, Pembroke Pines, Lexus, want you to know that it's going to be a doozy of a report. So, stay tuned. Don't touch that dial, as they like to say. Absolutely. Again, I'll give that number just in case you didn't jot it down, and that's 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We do have another caller, and that's Bob that's calling from Lake Park.

Welcome back, Bob. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I just want to let you know that I did call NHTSA on that break light issue that I had with my Mustang. I was going to do it online, but I called them directly and had a nice conversation with them. They gave me a reference number, and I thought it was interesting. They had told me that even though I explained to them exactly what the problem was, that they cannot actually tell the manufacturer how to re-engineer something that is defective.

They can only tell them that it is defective and issued a recall, which I thought that was interesting. And then I also saw something when I had to give them my VIN, and I took it off the work order that the, our friendly Ford dealer on North Lake gave me. And I noticed that they wrote it up as a bent, bright pedal. assembly. But that brake pedal assembly was not bent. It was just that plastic bumper that disintegrated that was sitting

off the brake lights, which needed the place, which they told me, of course, was unserviceable and I had to buy the whole piece. Bob, let me in a brief here to fill our listeners in the minute. I could get you a thought on why they might write it up like

that. Yeah. You know, I'm not not know if they're trying to hide something from NHTSA by doing that or, you know, exactly why they write it up as a bent brake pedal assembly when it was not bent at all. It was just that little piece

that had broken apart. Yeah, Bob, for those who didn't hear you when you called last week, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this had to do with a repair regarding your brake light and you were asked to be to replace the entire assembly and you were feeling that could be repaired with just one part, you know, that was one little part that was defective, but that part was not available.

Is that correct? Yeah, it's a little plastic bumper, which Ford has had a number of issues with this set up. They had it on a lot of their other vehicles in the past. They had these little plastic bumpers, and they had them on the brake pedal assemblies. They had them on the accelerator assemblies. And they had them on the clutch, you know, assemblies. Exactly, yeah. And they were constantly, you know, over time, just, you know,

breaking apart because they're made out of cheap plastic, and the heat disintegrates and it degrades them. Right. And so they came up with this idea, I imagine, that they didn't want people to go out and buy the part and fix it themselves because it's only a $4 issue. You know, you can just snap it in there, just a little bumper. So now they tell you it you're from serviceable,

and they want you to replace the whole assembly. But it's a function of how it's engineered. I told the people at Nitzar, he says, all they needed really to do is to make that piece out of a different type of material that won't get down. The plastic is not good in Florida because of the heat. Over time, anything in Florida, or in the closet is made out of plastic or rubber, you know, if you have the car for a number of years, you can forget about it because everything, all that stuff just degrades.

Yeah, Bob, Ra, Rick, Rick has got a point he'd like to make. Hey, Bob, but you said that they, when they wrote up the repair order, they wrote it as a bent bracket or a bent pedal? Yes, a bright pedal simply bent. Right, yeah. I hate to be the evil person. I think I know what you're going to say.

But I think it sounds like they were trying to cover their butts. They didn't want to put down simply that that little tiny plastic or rubber bumper had disintegrated that it could be a 99 cent part that they could easily, you know, get forward to make and sell to them. That sounds to me like they were kind of going, hey, let's write it as a bent pedal, and that way it shows up as not being that bumper being at fault, but oh, the pedal's bent and that's why that switch isn't acting. Bob, let me ask you, have you checked by any chance with some of your local auto stores

to see if that bumper might be available as an aftermarket part? It's not, you know, I did, of course I did that. I mean, you know, I didn't want to go in and spend the deductible $100, plus they charge for sales tax, $107, right, and buy the part for $3 or $4. Yeah. I mean, I told, like I said last week, I ordered a bumper off of Ford Escort, which I saw that someone replaced on YouTube, because it looked like it was going to fit, but it didn't. I went to all the auto body stores, and they have the bumpers,

but they have them only for the barn cars. And they're not that they don't look, but they're not going to fit. But you can see, you can visualize what they look like. It's not going to fit on that hinge. Right. So I did try that, but I do have a theory on what they might be trying to do here. I think that they may have been notified by Ford when people come in with this particular issue. maybe the service managers got an email from Ford or they sent at a TSP

as saying that when people come in with this issue don't write it up but make sure you write it up a certain way because we don't want to be subjected to having to recall if they had to recall all the Mustangs and have to replace all these brake pedal assemblies of course the country they're looking at a big number right I don't think they would ever put that into an email or in writing because putting a statement like that available anywhere that it could be, because something like that, it would wind up finding its way on the Internet very soon.

And once it did, oh, that would be worse than that. What was the memo thing they had about the Ford Pintoes? Remember when the Pintoes were blowing up from the rear end collisions? And when it came out with that bean counter memo. Well, we're getting into a conspiracy theory. Yeah, yeah. We don't want to go down that rabbit hole. We haven't got the time for that.

But, Bob, thanks for sharing that with us. That's a bad experience. I'm amazed that you got through to NHTSA. That's the good news. Let's share this with our listeners before I let you hang up. What number did you call to get NHTSA? Because they were able to speak directly with them, which is an accomplishment to a government agency.

You know, I don't have it in front of me. I deleted it, but you can go online. I went online originally, and I was going to fill out the first. They have an online form you can fill out, but they also have a contact number, and I thought it would be best to speak to them directly. Good. Well, that's good. It's good to know they're accessible.

They weren't responsive, but at least you were able to talk to them. And I can understand their point. They can't tell a manufacturer how to re-engineer something. If it's a safety issue, they have the right to do a recall, and I think they really have to sit on their hands on some of these recalls. They like to issue because there's a lot of politics involved. But a great call, Bob. your experience really is something

and a lot of people learned a lot from and we thank you very much for the call. Well, thank you and I just want to let you know that, you know, they had this other issue with the ignition switches where all these people actually lost their lives because they had defective ignition switches

in the General Motors. Exactly. Yeah, that was terrible. That was terrible. That was terrible. And, you know, I got to let them, we had an O2 DeVille that we bought brand new. And we drove that thing around.

I had that call for 13 years, and I got a notification from General Motors, 12 years after we had been driving the car on the road, not to put anything heavy on the key chain. Yeah. Yeah, that's why they almost... Yeah, that's why they almost sent some GM execs to jail. That was almost considered premeditated

and that they had put lives at stake just for the saving savings. of the expense. That was a real close call for General Motors that it didn't go worse for them. But you're right, that was one of the worst recalls of all time. And they really... Well, the only person that lost his job there was, if you remember, was

Roger Smith, who was the head of the company. And this Mary Barrow who's in charge of GM now, she was part of that problem. She was in charge of quality control at General Motors during those years. And now

He's running a fun company. Bob, I can't. And no one went to jail. Yeah, absolutely. Bob, you know, you've shared so much information with us and with our listeners. We can't thank you enough for staying in touch and becoming a regular caller. And we look forward to talking to you next week. Okay, everyone.

Have a great weekend, everyone. And stay tuned for that. Happy proud of this day. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. Earl will appreciate that. And so will Stu and Rick. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, we've got that mystery shopping report coming up from Lexus of Penbrook Pines.

It is going to be a doozy. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I think I like to do a commercial. Okay. We don't have enough commercials. I think you're right. I'm going to do a commercial on my book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Am I holding that up where people can see it?

I don't know. But, yeah, this is Confessions of Recovering Car Deal. It's my book. and you can buy it on Amazon, you know Amazon, Amazon.com, you can buy it Amazon, and you can also buy it in the bookstores. You are going to learn everything you ever want to know about buying, leasing, maintaining, or repairing your car. Now, before you think I'm a greedy capitalist, just trying to make money by selling books, let me tell you that 100% of the proceeds, not just a profit, 100% of the selling price of this book goes to my favorite charity. which is Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Now I'm going to do a back-to-back commercial.

I'm going to do a commercial for a big dog ranch rescue. They are the largest no-kill shelter in Florida. We have five or six hundred dogs in our, can I call it inventory? I think we like to call it campus. Campus is the proper. It sounds more humane. Campus. We have five or six hundred dogs.

We still have a lot of dogs that are hurricane refugees from the Virgin Islands, even from Texas in Puerto Rico All over Because we don't euthanize our dogs We have older dogs And these are frankly Some of the most difficult dogs to find homes for

Nancy Wouldn't you add to the description of the big dog ranch that is I love it I think we have a caller No, that was a dog Oh okay We're going to put him through later

But listen What I call that big dog ranch facility. It's like a spa out there. If you ever get a chance to go out and take a walk around, you will be amazed. Swimming pool. Oh, it's just an adorable place. I started to say a putting green.

Actually, we don't have a pudding green. But we do have a lot of grassy areas, walk areas. We have a lake. And the dogs have their own toys. Here's the amazing thing is there's no cage. You go to any rescue facility, wherever you go. The dogs are in cages. It's like putting them

in prison. You go to a big dog ranch. rescue it's like a college campus and they call their rooms they have rooms they call them the bunk room yeah and it is a delight they're little bunk well they're not little bunk rooms they're pretty big four or five dogs in the bunk room they have the walls are painted and decorated full finish kind of a painting thing with a theme every every bunk room has a theme uh no there's no room service uh but uh we do have a full-time veterinarian trainer uh we even have a quarantine area We bring the dogs in from Puerto Rico and out of the USA. They go through a quarantine thing.

When the dogs come in, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, they get all their shots. They're deworm, the heartworm, and the rest of the worms. The dogs are all neutered. They are 100% ready for adoption when you take them. And we have a huge selection of dogs. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is kind of a misnomer because we have little dogs too. We have a lot of chihuahuas. We even have chihueneas.

You know what a chieweeney is? What is a chihuini? A chihuini is half dachshin and half chihuahua. A chihueney. Seriously? I thought that was a pasta. We got them all. That's cool.

And excuse me, but Samuel describes the big dog ranch as a college campus for dogs. It is. And it truly is. There's no dealer fleas. No dealer fleas. And I think one of our problems is because it's so comfortable for the dogs that they don't want to leave. I mean, why would you want to leave the Ritz Carlton? I mean, they are staying at a beautiful place.

But we find homes for them. We don't euthanize our dogs. We have some old dogs out there, been around for a year, year and a half. We find homes for them. Adopt the old dogs, people. Adopt the old dogs first. Everybody likes a cute little squiggly puppies. But if you want to do a favor for a dog, big dog, ranch rescue,

and go to this website. We've got to call our waiting, but I want to give you the website for Big Dog or Ranch Rescue. Okay? Okay. www. B-D-R-R, like Baker-Baker, Dog Rescue, Rescue, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, www. www.b-D-R-R-R-D-R-R-G. www. www.bdrr.org. You can go online. You can see all our doggies.

You can see the facility. You can see how many dogs we have available that desperately need homes. Absolutely. And ladies and gentlemen, like I said, go out and take a look around. It's a wonderful place, or more than that, by Earl's book. Confessions of a recovering car dealer, and Earl is holding it up as we speak. Help the doggies. And 100% of the donation goes to Big Dog Ranch.

And we have a little dog that's holding, but we're going to first take, she's a patient caller, and she's a first-time caller. She might win herself $50. But we're going to go to Steve. A little humor there. Oh, the guys aren't laughing. We're going to go to Steve in West Palm Beach. I was on and out.

I understand. Okay, Steve. What can we do for you? Hi, good morning, Mr. Stewart and Rick and staff. I had called last week, but I have a FYI report as well as a maintenance question and related to marketing. I just wanted to give an FYI report that, can you hear me okay? We do. We can.

Okay. I just want to say that the tracks are being, CSS tracks at fours still going east and west through Lake Clark Shores. If you're coming off what I'd like, it's been closed, and the traffic has been terrible, even on 10th Avenue. So if you can avoid it and go down summit or southern and, you know, I think until at least a weekend and into early next week. Well, thanks for the head job, sir. And then the other question I had was, I got a thing, it seemed pretty good, a family-oriented business in Palm Beach Gardens up where you're at, it's called Kimco, tire, and auto repair. They have ASE mechanics. But the guy that was coming around, I was at one of shops, and he was, I got it for $47, but they gave, you know, how they do the oil change at one side, and they give so much its value that, you know, couple hundred dollars and then but i got the free alignment with you know certain things you know you check your tires and things and i just want to know if you do those kind of businesses

or have ever done any business with them or um you know what do you think of those marketing things is it worth it or they get you in and then they it happens like what we heard of previous call or things like that i love the idea of steve i you know i don't have any personal experience with Pluto tire, Rick, do you? Chemco tire. Oh, Kempko. Yeah, pretty much what they're looking to do, I think,

is all mechanics work on flat rate, and if your car comes in and all you're doing is an oil change, just a basic maintenance. Yeah, for most of you folks don't know what flat rate is. That's a trade term for car dealers. Flat rate just means commission. Right. And they're paid on

commission. So go ahead, Rick. And if all they're doing is just a basic oil change maintenance. They're not making very much money. They're making only a couple dollars at the most. So what they like to do is they get you to come in expecting to spend a little extra time there for that alignment check and the full inspection. And what they're doing is they're looking your car over to find anything that might be out of shape or damaged or worn that they can upsell you on. The whole business is based on selling more work. A legitimate. A legitimate honest mechanic and a legitimate honest shop is going to look for things that are beneficial to you and will help keep your car running properly and running good for you.

Unfortunately, there are a very few of the dishonest places, too. They're going to sell you a bunch of fluff. They're going to sell you things that you don't need. They're going to tell you, oh, these little tiny cracks on the side of your tire. Yeah, you've got to replace that right now. and the best thing is if it sounds like they're pushing a little too much get a second opinion

anytime it looks like a big cell get a second opinion on it but other than that I would actually say show me why you're recommending these upsells but that's really what they're doing they're just looking to get as much money out of your car as they can for repairs

and like I say honest mechanics do it too but they do it in a way that is meant to be beneficial to you I appreciate. But like I said, if you get in a free alignment and then you're going to buy tires because you need two fun tires, I mean, that's pretty, I mean, that's pretty good deal in itself. Sure. Yeah, there's nothing wrong. Every advertiser does this, every company does this.

The name of the game is to be able to get people you can talk to. and in an automotive industry, you need to look at their car too. So we heard earlier in the show, we were talking about a car dealership in Stewart that was offering oil changes for $9. The clear reason to come in for a $9 oil change is so they can look at your car and find something else that needs to be done. And, of course, that begs the question. If it needs to be done, then they did you a favor.

If it doesn't need to be done, then they've done you a disservice. It boils down to integrity, transparency, So you should check anybody out if you've got any company that gives you an offer that sounds too good to be true. It isn't necessarily too good to be true if they're going to be honest with you when you come in there. And you want to check them out with a Better Business Bureau, County Office Consumer Affairs, Google Review, Yelp reviews. There's a lot of online ways to check out companies. And do you find someone that's in trouble with a Better Business Bureau? You might want to stay away from them.

But there's nothing wrong with persuading people or incentivizing people to come into your company. place of business as long as you don't take advantage of them when they do come in. That's right. I understand. And that free alignment, doing an alignment anymore on most of the modern machines is a pretty straightforward job

and most cars are so close to being in alignment anyways. They can make it look like it's in and just with a small adjustment they'll bring it back into alignment and it only takes a short time. So they probably

compensate the mechanics themselves and then just say, hey, you know, while we're doing this free alignment, let's see if we can sell brakes, let's see if the tires are worn, the belts are worn, the wipers, anything else that they can recommend they're going to look for. Thank you, Rick. Well, Steve, thanks very much for the call. There's still some do-it-yourselfers out there, and if you find some of this offer in the service to help you do some basics, that's okay, but just check them out before they try to sell you something you don't need.

very much for the call, Steve. Yeah, that's a... That's good. I'm looking about getting the book. There you. Help a dog. Save a dog and read the book. There you go. Stu? Hey, we've got a bunch of people watching us live on Facebook right now,

and we just want to acknowledge that we are aware of the audio issue, so you can hear what's in the studio, but not the callers right now. We're working to fix that, but if you want to hear the whole show, you can stream it live at stream earl-oncars.com, or catch the replay of the show and all of our shows on SoundCloud.com, Erlon Cars and the Apple Podcast app. Great information, Stu, and I'm glad that you brought that to the listeners' attention. You know, I have to share one more of my stories.

I got a phone call this week from a young lady who went to a dealership up in Stewart. Earl, can I mention the name of the dealership? Oh, sure, sure. Okay, she went into Treasure Coast Toyota, and she was going to go. in for service and what happened was that she was trapped like a rat as I call it and a salesperson wanted to convince her to purchase a new vehicle and not only that but she too was talked into some add-ons in the service department fortunately she declined and she left the dealership but ladies I do have to

bring that to your attention don't Go into the dealership alone. It is very important that you take a friend. This is definitely a male-dominated sales force most of the time. Things are getting better. They definitely are getting better for the ladies and the guys. So keep that information in mind, and it's very important. Make yourself a mental note.

Give us a call 877-960, or you can text us at 772 4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. A few minutes ago, I talked about how we're reaching so many people and surprised me around the country and the world on our podcast. And Jonathan and the control room just sent me a screenshot

of some of the places we've been reaching. This is astounding. Huntington Valley, I'm not sure where that is. Sounds like California. Queensland, that's a place. Gainesville, we know where that is in Florida, Valley Village, Wainsville, that sounds like North Carolina, Alexandria, sounds like Virginia, Santa Ana, California, Lisbon, Portugal, I love that. Hello in Lisbon. Yes.

Shout out to all the folks in Lisbon. We got 10 people in Lisbon, Portugal. We can't make this up. We've got, of course, Fort Lauderdale, we've got the Bronx, we've got Atlantic City, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Newark, New Jersey, of course, Miami, Mountain View, California, Los Angeles. There are a lot of the West Coast folks there. Palm Beach Cards, naturally Cape Coral. Porte St. Lucie, naturally.

Ashburn. I'm not sure about Ashburn. Panorama City. I thought that was going to be Panama City. Huntington Valley, according to Google, is in Pennsylvania. Wow. Fort Myers, naturally, Chandler, don't know. Muldon, Jonathan told me that South Carolina.

Carolina, and a lot of people from modeling, M-A-U-D, no, M-A-U-D-I-N, a lot of people, 39 people, 38 people, or 38, it's been viewed 38 times. So it's just interesting to me, and, of course, Jupiter and West Palm Beach here, but it's amazing the breadth of our podcast. So, you know, you've got podcasts, you've got iTunes, you can read our podcast. Sue, tell them how you get to the podcast. We can go to soundcloud.com, get the SoundCloud app, search for Erlon Cars. Also on the Apple Podcast app, you can go search Erlon Cars and hear all the old shows. So put that into your, if you've never done a podcast before, it'll be a challenge. But if you have, just go to your podcast and search Erl on Cars and watch us.

What was that modern? What was that spelling? M-A-U-D-I-N. M-A-U-D-I-N. Yeah, Jonathan, I think, said it was, did I get that right, Jonathan? South Carolina, yeah. Oh, oh, Malden, okay. Malden.

M-A-U-L, yeah, South Carolina, yeah, okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't believe that we're already at 9-16, according to my watch. And I want to remind everyone that we have a very important mystery shopping report coming up, and it is from Lexus of Penbrook Pines. That's Lexus of Penbroke Pines. please stay tuned and if we do have time I would love to extend an invitation to you to Texas as everyone is doing right now and let us know how you feel about that mystery shopping report and if you'd like to give us a call we definitely have time

877-960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 now back to the recovering car dealer I'm going to talk a little bit more about Takata because that is going to be our main continuous theme for a long time here and started the show out with Tina from Benita Springs talking about it. And a fact that you probably don't know about recalls is that for every thousand cars on the road with a recall, only 250 of them are being fixed. 25% are finally being fixed. Now, here's another fact that you don't know. The manufacturers with this Takata airbag recall were putting Takata airbags back on to cars that were recalled with Takata airbags. Doesn't make sense, does it? Well, here's what was going on.

The airbag they recalled was an older airbag, four, five, six years old. So they recalled it. If the person brought the car back in, they replaced it with another Takata airbag, same airbag, but it was fresh. They knew when they put that to cut airbag on the car that it was going to have to be recalled again. So two years later, these same airbag are being recalled. Now, you say, what's the problem? Well, I think you see what the problem is. Another problem you probably don't know about is how difficult it is to find people once they buy a car.

We had John from Palm City talking earlier about how many people trade their cars in in one year and two years and three years. once a car has been traded and gone from owner to owner to owner it's almost impossible to trace these people down now as a car dealer and full disclosure and transparency I am a Toyota dealer and I do have recalls and I have to go after those people and try to find them to bring them in to get them safe and sound

and get their cars fixed and what I'm finding now with the lists that I'm provided for by Toyota you can't find these people I was given lists the other day and I would say it was about 90% inaccurate. 850 people and these people don't own the cars anymore. Yeah, 850 people who I was supposed to call to say you've got a dangerous car you've been driving, but the people don't own the cars anymore.

This registration list purportedly came from the Department of Motor Vehicles in Tallahassee for Florida. Well, if all the Department of Motor Vehicles are providing these type of inaccurate lists, we've got a real problem in this country. Yes. I don't know who's fault. it is, whether it's the manufacturer's fault, whether it's the Department of Motor Vehicles and the state's fault, I don't know where the problem is, but it seems to me in today's digital age, the explosion

and information and computers and big data that we can't find the owner of somebody with a VIN number. You have to register your car, right? Yes. How hard would it be for the state of Florida, with all the money we spend on such silly things that we do, how hard would it be to have them simply take a program, pull all the VIN numbers, compare them on Nitz's website, and then

send a notification to each of those people if there's an open campaign. But how do they find their address? Because it's current registration. If the car is currently registered to that person, it's got their address because they've mailed them the registration, right? They've done that.

They've notified the people that are currently, if I bought a car from ABC Honda and my car is recalled, I will get a recall notice. But if I trade that car in, owner two and owner three, owner four, don't get the recalls. But that's why if I buy a car from John off the side of the road and I register that car with the state of Florida, then the state of Florida knows that that VIN number is tagged to my address and they should automatically have their computer compare it on the NHTSA website and send me a notification that I have an open

I know what they should do, but they don't do it. Right. Yeah, and that's why the point is that the information is available and it's not being utilized and no one is upset about it. And at that point, there would be no invasion of privacy because the state already has that information. It's not like an outside source is getting your information or any invasion of your privacy. All the state has to do is run a computer program and send a notification, hey, you own this car now. you've got it registered right now at this moment you have an open recall exactly save people's lives absolutely before we get to the mystery shopping report do we hell we do we have another text come in i can do

that and we've got two of them in there okay we got two of them in there let's go with the last one first hi i'm a new listener and find your newscast amazing thank you very much i was listening to a caller earlier. He was talking about a Mustang and a brake pedal that he was having trouble with. They're plastic. I want a metal company. We fabricate all different kinds of items. Name we do, perhaps, we could help in designing an item to fix this problem.

That's an interesting point. I would think that just about any part can be fabricated in an automobile. Not all, of course, but most can. I think it's a matter of expense. I'd be interested to know what you I don't know

I guess it depends on the complexity of the part you know a simple shape probably could be fabricated easily more complex shape and then you might have

a moving part or something like that 3D printer yeah 3D printer yeah good point very good point but thanks very much for

texting the show and for telling us about that and for the compliment the other text I have is oops that's that's what I just did you sure

I have another fresh text. Yes, you do. You got one from Richard and Apopka. Richard and Apopka. 2002 Chevy Suburban. I think I just did that. Nope, that was the Mustang. Okay. The oil leak,

Rick handled that. Oh, okay. No problem. I bet. Richard from Apocula? A popka. A popka. A popka. A popka. We did that. Okay. Yes, we did. Now, the mystery shopping report we're going to get into a little bit earlier because it is a theme that we're continuing.

And the theme has to do with the Costco member auto buying program. And I like to preface these shopping reports that do every week. I don't want to come across people thinking I am a Costco hater. All contrary, Nancy and I and everybody in this room, as far as I know, everybody loves Costco. Costco is one of the most amazing companies on the planet. Got best hot dogs in town. Exactly.

Best hot dogs, best chickens. Cheapest chickens, $4.99. And what I'm holding in my hand is a column that Earl wrote recently, buy your next car through Costco, the Costco Auto Program. Continue? So we were devotees of the Costco Auto Bike Program until we learned certain facts. Absolutely. And we have entered into an adversarial relationship with the Costco Auto Program,

which is counterintuitively not part of Costco. It's a subcontracted division, you might say. It's a separate company in San Diego, the Affinity Development Corporation, who administer and pretty much run the whole Costco auto member buying program. So as I proceed to be critical of the Costco Auto Member Buying Program, buying program. I want you to understand that this in no way measures my lack

of esteem for the Costco company. Absolutely. I think they're an amazing company. And I highly recommend Costco. I second a motion. If you're not a member of Costco, then you should be a member the service. 100% unconditional returns. They will not mark up any product

over 15%. When Nancy and I shop on Costco online or otherwise, we don't shop and compare price because we know worst-case scenario, I'm paying 15% more than what Costco paid. Now, when you go to the car dealership, you better hope you're not paying 100% more than the dealer paid or 200% more than the dealer paid. So I will proceed with this mystery shop of Lexus of Pemboe Pines with that in mind of how high esteem I hold Costco.

Well said. Okay. For over a month, we've been mystery shopping car dealers who, participate in the Costco Auto Program. So far we've uncovered a very inconsistently administered car buying program, poor management. And I think a lot of this has to do with sloppy management, not preconceived evil. I do not believe for a minute that there is a conspiracy between the Costco Auto Buying Program and the car dealers. I think it is an inconsistently administered program with a lack of knowledge, sometimes maybe not wanting to know what's going on, but

nevertheless, not a conspiracy. Willful ignorance. I like that. On its surface, on its surface, the Costco Auto Program is a great thing. Do you just compete to offer extremely low prices to Costco warehouse members? All the member has to do is go online, select a vehicle. The Costco Auto Program will refer him or her to the closest participating dealer with the best price. I mean, what could be more elegant? To be more accurate, Costco members are

supposed, I underlined, supposed to go online and submit an inquiry. But in reality, most just go to the dealership and ask for the Costco price there. Now, how do I know that? People out there listening with the Affinity Development Corporation, how do I know that? Because we know. We know it because we are Costco certified dealers, at least as of now, we might be canceled in five minutes. Well, in five seconds. In five seconds. Because they don't like what I'm saying.

But the reason we know that most Costco members don't go through the online website for Costco is because we sell most of our Costco members otherwise. They know there's a Costco auto member buying program. They go into the Costco warehouse to buy a chicken or a hot dog. And they see a big banner that says Costco auto member buying program, buy a car at a really great price. Now, you know, they're in there because they trust Costco. And they trust Costco to say that if I call a certified dealer,

I're going to get a really good price. So they called probably the dealer they normally deal with, and they call the dealer up. They say, hey, I'm a Costco member. Are you going to get me the Costco member price, a really good price? And what is the car salesman going to say? No. Of course we will.

So that's the way it goes. So here we are. Because of this, even the Costco Auto Program has no idea how many people are actually using their service. It's basically about one out of four. Is that about right, Sue? We figure it like one out of three, yes. One out of three. About one third go through the procedure of one line.

Two-thirds, the vast majority, just call in and say, here's my card. I want a good price. So the Costco Auto Buying Program has no idea about this. Costco themselves have less of an idea. And they have no idea at all of how the dealer is treating the Costco member, or even if they're honoring their prearranged pricing. How could they know? Because they haven't gone through, they haven't been forewarned on the website. In our mystery shops, we've seen car dealers follow the program to the letter, and still, they follow the program to the letter,

and they still take advantage of the customer with surprise dealer fees and overcharging for worthless equipment installed in the dealership. The Costco Auto Program supports these practices. Now, we could say inadvertently through lack of knowledge or lack of wanting the knowledge, but they are inconsistently aiding and abetting the sloppiness of this program. One official Costco Auto Program confirmation email assured our shoppers. This is an example of the inconsistency. An official email from the Costco Auto Program assured

the member that he would have to pay only 50% of the price of dealer installed options. In this case, the equipment was $1,095 for nitrogen, mud guards, and a taped-on pinstripe. $1,095. The Costco Auto Program guaranteed he'd pay only $547.50 for this garbage. The cost of the dealer was about maybe $100 tops. on the very next mystery shop this is inconsistency the official confirmation email from Costco advised the shopper there would be no charge for the same garbage for the dealer installed options there seems to be no plan no reason no rhyme for every car dealer that

followed the program there was another who just used a Costco auto program as a hook bait and switch to get a customer in the door just last week even after going through the official program online process our shopper was treated to a high pressure back and forth the salesperson and his manager refused to provide the documentation required by the Costco auto buying program until he practically begged to see it so if the Costco member does go through the portal the online website they instruct them to look at the Costco member pricing sheet they also instruct them to look at the invoice on the car they are told as a Costco member to ask for this, we find the dealers still won't give it to them.

And you have to argue and threaten, and sometimes you still can't see it. It's total inconsistency. We've also learned that the dealers were the biggest in most dealer fees. I say the most because unlike most states, the state of Florida has multiple dealer fees. There is no legal cap on dealer fees in Florida. You could charge a million dollars for a dealer fee. There's no cap on the number of dealer fees. You could have a thousand dealer fees if you wanted to.

And there's no requirement that you call a dealer fee a dealer fee. A rose is not a rose is not a rose with dealer fees. You can call a dealer fee, electronic filing fee, a dock fee, an administrative fee, a tag agency fee, limited only by your imagination of the imagination. The list is endless. It is. It is. This week, we continue our investigation with a mystery shop of Lexus of Penbroke Pines

in Broward County. We submitted a request for a new 2018 Lexus NX 300. Immediately we received the confirmation email. A list of the authorized Costco representatives. It indicated that we would be shown the Costco member only price sheet. So the first thing the Costco member gets is that you're going to be shown the price sheet. This is going to be the Costco member price. When you go in, you're going to see that. They're all advised of this. It made no mention of any additional fees that a shopper would be subject to. Agent X was our investigator. Now, I'll pause a little bit here too. Why the games? Why doesn't the Costco Auto Member Program simply give you the price? If you're online and you want to know the Costco member price, Costco has the

price, the Costco member program knows the price. They set the price. They go to the dealer and say, lower the price, set this price here. Every month, the Costco Auto Member Program, Affinity Development Corporation, goes to the dealers and say, these are your prices, changes, change this. And they have a copy of it online. So I'm a Costco member. I go online to the Costco member of Auto Buying Program, and I say I want to buy a vehicle.

Why don't they just tell me what the price is? Oh, I know this one. Okay, you're right? Because then the dealer can't add on extra. on the phony moroni and 17 dealer fees for an additional five or six thousand dollars bingo bingo and also i'd like to add to the fact that it takes us a very long time to build a brand and if i'm going to go through Costco there's not a doubt in my mind that there is complete transparency and i am going to be treated just like the Costco brand advertises

Exactly. That's a very, very good point, Nessie, because if someone wanted to take advantage of me at Costco, boy, could they ever do it. I walk up. I pick up an appliance. I pick up a loaf of bread. I pick up a medication. Everything I buy at Costco, I just pop it in the basket. I walk through the line, I give them my credit card, and I walk out and I'm happy because I trust them totally. I've been known to pick up a refrigerator. Yes. There you go. I mean, I'm totally convinced that Costco is totally transparent and honest, and the prices are low. Okay. And good chicken.

Here's our operation report. I speak in the first person as if I were the shopper and good chicken. You're absolutely right. $4.99. I can't get over that. I mean, this could solve the world hunger problems. I mean, there would be no hungry person in America. All you hungry folks, that's in bad place.

A Costco chicken in every pot. $4.99. I'm telling you. If you could see Earl whenever I leave Costco and I call him and say, I'm bringing home a chicken, I want to tell you what, he's the happiest man in the whole wide world, loves Costco chicken. I see him walk around with his shiny fingers. The problem is every time you walk in there for chicken,

you come back with $600 worth of stuff in the cart. That's part of the plan. That's okay, right? Not as fast as I'm moving. Because let me tell you, I have gone in there and you have gone there. You can't buy a chicken, tackle you. And they don't, when you come to the cashier, they don't say, are you sure you would like to buy something more? And they don't give you a Costco dealer fee. Is that the chicken

tackling us? Hey, we're getting into the wheeves. Now, we're shutting a little bit of humor on Costco and our delight with them. But this mystery shopping report that Earl is reading from Lexus of Penbrook Pines, I want to tell you, listen closely. Okay, the physical layout of dealership was confusing but i eventually made my way inside found a receptionist i asked for a salesperson and she made a quick phone call to summer sebastian someone Sebastian yes coincidentally Sebastian was also the name of our Costco rep last week at auto nation Toyota western however this time Sebastian was just a regular salesperson his name was not i repeat his name was not on the Costco auto program confirmation email we talked about the vehicle i wanted to buy while we

in the showroom before Sebastian suggested we sit at his desk. Once seated, he gathered info from me and entered it into his computer. I decided at that point right away, decided to reveal that I was a Costco member who had just made an inquiry through the portal, the computer, online that morning. I wanted to give them a chance to follow the rules of the program and get the right person before he had spent too much time with me. So there's different ways these things can happen. In this point here, we can go in right away and ask for the Costco member. We can go in sometimes. We do it this way. We waited five minutes before we ask. Sometimes we wait toward the end of the negotiation. So this is, we're trying to try all the different

things, eventualities that may happen. Based on our experience. Based on our experience. Based on how it really happens. How it happened. We talked about the vehicle I wanted to buy, well, okay. I'm right. I thought I lost my place. We talked about the vehicle I wanted to buy Well, we stood in the show before Sebastian says... No, we're going to go. Next paragraph. I apologize. Can we bleak that out?

Edit that out. We're alive, right? I'm just joking. We are alive, right? Well, no, I'm scared again. That's a chicken in you talking. I try to pretend that we're recorded so I don't get nervous. Sebastian continued with...

Thousands of people are listening to it right now. And in Portugal. I don't know. Possibly 17,000. Winistias. That's probably close. Sebastian continued the sales process and did not offer to turn me over to the official rep. Now, I just asked to see the Costco representative, and I disclosed who I was.

He didn't offer to turn me over. He asked me to wait while he got the key to the new NX 300 Lexus we discussed. He came back quickly and led me upstairs to their parking garage. By the way, Earl met, Bom dia. That's good morning in Portuguese. Oh, thank you very much. I was close. I tried again

and asked him if there was some body there who was supposed to handle Costco members so bam, I've hit him twice I'm a Costco member and is this right should I be talking to the Costco member I was told I had to speak to the Costco member

I assured him I had no problem with him personally no problem with you Sebastian I just want don't want to jeopardize my special Costco savings he said he would make sure I got the Costco pricing. Okay.

I'll start logging these little conversations in your head when we get to the grand finale here because this is all circumstantial evidence. I confirmed this again. I think this is confirmation number three. So you're the right guy. You're the Costco guy. Sebastian, of course.

We looked the car over. MSRP was 38,073. There was no addendable. on it points that's a good thing yeah we drove the car returned and parked and headed back to Sebastian's desk we sat down and then Sebastian reached over and handed me the key saying your keys as he did this he asked if I was ready to take it home with me right now they call that the trial closed they do that with chickens at Costco is that right no you know where we're going we leave here Costco there's no there's no easier sale for the chickens at

We're not buying one chicken. We're getting a half a dozen. I stand there and I study the chickens for a long time. Then I try to get one fresh off the rotisserie. Oh, you're looking for a crispy chicken. Yeah, I'm looking for crispy chicken. Now, Nancy goes up and says, she has no shame. She goes up and says, can you tell me the last chicken to come off the rotisserie?

And has him come around and point to the case. She says, I'll take that one. Hey, I'm a negotiator no matter what I do. Never go to Costco alone. Chickens, eyelash, liners. Oh, whatever. Anyway, so Sebastian did the trial close. I said, look, I'm not ready to buy right to the second.

I told him we needed to review the Costco pricing. I then said I would need to return the next day with my wife to do the paperwork. Sebastian looked a little grim, but he jumped up and said he would be right back with my figures. He walked over to another man, carried on a conversation. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I said Sebastian gesture towards me a couple of times. and the man, who I assume was a manager, kept glancing my way and nodding. He came back with, I mean, this typical car dealer stuff, you know, back and forth. He came back with a printed document that looked very official, clinical, almost.

It didn't look like most worksheed I'd been presented. It was a dealer track of an ice cream. Now, that's a mouthful, and it's a insider thing. Dealer track is a computer system that a lot of car dealers have. maybe arguably most very very common computer system and you can see when something is printed out by a dealer track computer and this was a screenshot there was no reference to MSRP or invoice what that means is it's not Costco it's a car dealer thing yeah and it was I think deliberately confusing absolutely absolutely there was no reference to MSRP or

invoice it showed my price is 34,740 and an additional 7909 dollar dock fee. And as I say, dock fee is just another name for dealer fee. Because in Florida, you can call a dealer fee anything you want to.

Dirty little secret. You could call it mother. Yeah, mama. You could call it Bobby. Bobby. Mama Mia. You could call anything you want to. 1,022 in government fees

were indicated, and my out-the-door price was $36,779. Because I was somewhat familiar with the docket. because I'm a car dealer and I've seen these over and over again. I could make sense of it. I seriously doubt someone from the outside of the car business would have been able to decipher it.

It's a technical document meant for car dealers. I asked Sebastian what this was supposed to be, sounding slightly agitated. He replied that it was my Costco deal. Well, that's a word game, right? It could have been the Costco deal, but it certainly had nothing to do with Costco. had nothing to do with Costco and it wasn't originated by Costco and Costco had never seen it before but he said it was my Costco deal I asked where my Costco member only price sheet was request number multiple four or five I asked him

where my copy the invoice was another request first request for the invoice I asked him how was supposed to know I was actually getting a Costco deal now the Costco email that you receive tells you as a member to ask for these documents. And you can see it's like pulling teeth. They don't want to show you the documents. Sebastian was little flustered. He repeated that what he had shown me was a Costco price. I replied that the Costco auto program emailed me after my inquiry and stated that I would be provided with this documentation. Sebastian looked lost now. Now remember, Sebastian is not a Costco authorized member. He kept repeating that he was essentially a Costco member.

authorized member because he was going to take care of the Costco transaction he said he would figure this out and asked for a few minutes to go speak with someone he came back with another document which wasn't the Costco member-only price sheet again again it was a consumer sheet from Toyota Lexus inventory program this is a manufacturer sheet so we've got dealer computer sheets and we've got manufacturer computer sheets and they're holding back in the back They will not show us the Costco computer sheet, if you want to call it. It's a Costco member price sheet.

Won't show it to us. And they're showing us sheets that they want us to believe are the Costco sheets and they're not. I explained to Sebastian this was not what I was talking about. Sebastian did its best to press on. He tried to explain that my price was based on the Costco member discount for $3,300 off MSRP. And that's not the way they normally express a discount. They express it as a discount from invoice. I asked if he needed to get someone to help, and he said he did.

I watched him run off to get someone. Rick? He quickly added that I was also getting 2,000 in factory rebates? Yes. Uh-uh. The sticker price was $38,073. The Costco price that he listed first, or the first sheet was $34,700 and change. That's only $33.3.3.3.

300 off. That's not 50,300 off. It comes in after taxes. The $2,000 rebate? Yeah, so they're off the door. That's all reflected in the after tax. Oh, okay. All right. Customer, yeah, customer rebates, I guess, before taxes. Dealer cash before, customer after. Okay. He came back with someone named Jean-Claude Diamond.

He introduced himself as a Costco rep for Alexis of Pembroke Pines. He was, indeed, one of the names listed on the original confirmation email. After all this, we finally get the official designated Costco member representative, John Claude Diamond, or perhaps Damien, D-A-M-I-O. Yeah, John Collin, Damien was the Costco rep for Lexus. Okay, John Claude had a Costco member-only price sheet with them finally. Okay, here we go. I don't know how many minutes or hours transpired that our mystery shopper was in before we finally saw the price sheet,

or how many requests. and how many times it was denied. But we finally got it. He reviewed it with me. The price was the same as what Sebastian had shown me on his printed deal sheet. That's starting to look better now. Maybe that's not such a bad deal. On the member-only price sheet, there was a disclaimer that indicated that the price did not include their $799 dock fee.

Now, that's the reason I didn't want you to see that, because now the dock fee raises the ugly head, the dock fee, which is the dealer fee. $799 that they didn't want you to see. It wasn't included in the Costco member price. It was noted as being not in the Costco member price. I asked John Claude to see the other member only price sheet, the one that shows a discount loaded to invoice price. And this is also advised by Costco that you should see this. John Claude replied that the discount was $1,300 under invoice. Okay. I asked to see that document.

He replied that they do not provide that sheet. We don't do that. So he just said, we don't do what Costco says, I do-do. No pun intended. No pun intended. He made a do-do. Exactly. Costco says, you're supposed to see the sheet?

And he says, we don't do that. I told him that I worked at a Toyota dealership in Pensacola, and we always provided that to the Costco members. He said, Lexus of Penbroke Pines does not. So basically there's a confession, if anybody's listening, there's a confession that Lexus of Penbroke Pines has premeditatedly and proactively violated the provisions of the Costco member auto buying program, and I would say audaciously. As a matter of policy.

As a matter of policy. Now, why doesn't Costco Auto Member Program know about that? If they mystery shopped, like they say they do, they would know about it. They don't want to know. They don't want to know. Plausible deniability. You've heard that. I asked if it was just supposed to take it, we were just supposed to take his word for it.

He said that's the best he had to offer. I asked for a printed buyer's order, and he said I would get one when I took delivery in finance. I explained, I was returning the next day to take delivery, and he said, I would get it then. They just wanted to give you the facts and writing. Close another car business. Speechless. I told Jean Claude that if he wouldn't get me that buyer's order, I would just have to take my business elsewhere. I told him my next shop would be J.M. Lexus.

He sighed and agreed to get one printed by the business manager for me. I waited a short while for this, and once I had it, I left. So how many people would get as aggressive? Our mystery shopper, by the way, Agent X is very aggressive. He can be passive or he can be aggressive. And you have to be pretty aggressive when you really push like that. And most people aren't that way. But you don't want that kind of aggravation.

People are nice. Agent X is not. Agent X. When he needs to be. And the average Costco member would have never gone that far. Not at all. And that's how far we had to go. And the reason they wouldn't is because they believe in the brain.

It wasn't until I'd return to the office before I noticed. This is the one that just absolutely knocks my socks off. Listen carefully. It wasn't until I'd returned to the office before I noticed they had added an additional $499 electronic processing e-tag fee and $20 private tag agency fee on top of the $799. fee now the 799 dollar dock fee dealer fee was disclosed on the Costco member price sheet which they wouldn't show us until we threatened them this was never disclosed the Costco member would never have known about this until it

was printed out and that's the reason our mystery shopper didn't see it until they got back to the dealership and read it and I have a copy of it right here four hundred ninety nine dollar of this electronic processing E tag fee. So the total dealer fees were really about, what is that, over $1,500. Yes. No, $800 plus $1,300, $1,300. Yeah. Okay.

And the Costco member never would have known the total amount of dealer fees. That's the reason we have a problem with the Costco member auto buying program. And by the way, just as an aside, in our experience shopping, luxury car dealers typically tend to be nicer, lower pressure, then you find out a Cadillac dealer, a BMW dealer, a Lexus dealer, is typically a little bit more kind and gentle than a Kia dealer or a Hyundai dealer or a Ford dealer. In this case here, we had a luxury car dealer, Lexus. You get down to Broward County, all bets are off. You better believe it.

It's the jungle down there, folks. Further south to go, we don't include Key West. That's very nice. But once you get through Miami and Broward County, that's the jungle down there. It is a jungle. We actually had, and I know we're running out of time here, we actually had a mystery shopper physically attacked. And he was trying to get out of the car dealership with his buyer's order,

and they snatched it out of his hands. Yes. True story. Nasty paper cut, too. Yeah. Uh-oh. Emergency room. That wraps up for mystery shopping report.

A quick vote around the table here. F. All the way around that. Duck fee, dealer fee, chicken fee, electronic fee. Oh, I'm so disappointing. A brand that has taken and been built for years and years and years. Transparency, that's all it takes, ladies and gentlemen. Let's call the fee that's on the Costco sheet.

Let's call that the chicken fee. Chicken fee. Yeah, I mean, they could make a problem on the chicken that they had a $10 chicken fee. The rotissory fee. $4.9, that'll be $4.99 plus a $10 chicken fee. Okay, Sue, we know. Fail, Phil. fail them.

Fail them, do not buy a car from Lexus of Benbow Pines. Hey, Ted, if you're listening, we put that on the list for me? Yeah. Okay, folks. Thank you very much for a great show. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars right here at the True Oldies Channel. And we do appreciate you. You are an extremely important part of the show.

I can't say it enough every week. Have a wonderful weekend. And happy Father's Day to all you daddies out there. Thank you. Welcome to Goh Go and go

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