Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.19.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mullinax Ford

Episode Date: June 19, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Mullinax Ford in Lake Park to see if she can get the advertised discount from their website on a 2021 Ford Bronco Sport. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “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”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, are linked inside of space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Hey, we're back.

Your Auto Team. Welcome back all you regular folks out there, and I hope we have some new folks in the audience. If you're listening to the introduction, you know a little bit of the... about what this is all about. You new folks, you old folks, been listening for a long time, maybe 20 years. That's how long we've been doing this. Start out of a half an hour

long, long, long, long time ago. We are the crew of auto experts, I say unashamedly, that we can help you buy a car. Lease a car. Maintain your car, repair your car, without being taken advantage

of. Or in the vernacular ripped off by a car dealer. I use that just to get people's attention, mainly car dealers. A lot of them listening to the show. Hi guys. Welcome back. Some manufacturers out there, people in the auto retail and wholesale industry. We've made a little niche. I mean,

I'm not going to say we're famous or anything like that, but people know who we are. And I get comments, a lot of comments, all over. I mean, we're international. Thanks to Facebook. Twitter, YouTube, we're all over the globe. And even Bali, hi, Bali. We actually had a call from Bali.

And all over America, all the states, I don't think we've hit all 50, but we've hit a lot of them. South Florida's our homeland, aka Dodge City, when it comes to automobile dealers. I suppose that's why we, it was almost like, like for, what was it, Destin, that we would emerge from the heart of the, what is the din of iniquity? Is that what is?

Gosh. Yes. We're, the car dealers in South Florida are totally ungoverned and the Florida has cooperated quite a bit with vague laws and many cases, no laws. also have decided not to enforce the laws. And so we're a perfect testing ground, and we're the home of the Mystery Shopping Report, which if you haven't heard this show,

you are in for some real entertainment. And in education, we're just trying to be spectacular. In fact, some of our mystery shopping reports aren't as spectacular as they are encouraged. You get informing. I'll give you a little bit of a hint. our mystery shopping report today was not far from perfect I'm not going to score it ahead of time we ask you to call in and give us your score ABCDF do you fail this dealership or do you pass

the dealership and we have a recommended dealer list and we have a do not buy from this dealer list that they fail and we put the we put the grades on now so it give you an idea if you're if you're in Pennsylvania or you're in California you can look at the Florida car list just to give you an idea of what dealers do and I said earlier that these dealers are a little rougher than probably in your state because we have no laws in Dodge City we have no laws in Florida that are effective and so we see it all the good the bad and the ugly I will be talking later in the show about the automotive news article the current week this is our trade journal I'll hold it up for you to see the

familiar face you will see on the cover is Elon Musk. And we'll talk about him. Everybody has an opinion on Elon Musk. Some people love him. Some people hate him. Some people don't care one way the other, but he's certainly on the tip of everybody's tongue now. He could probably run for public office. I don't know whether he would win or lose, but everybody knows him. And he's made some comments. One of the comments he made I underlined, and that is, he said, I never had a good experience at a car dealership. And that was quoted in automotive news. Now, this person that we all laughed at 10 years ago or 15 years ago, a real jerk, he's a nut, he'll be out of business. His company's going to go broke. Ain't no way he's going to make it kind of a stuff. Guess what?

Tesla is the most valuable auto company in the world. You see this red line here? Right here. That's the value of Tesla. You see the blue line down here? That's the value of the second most valuable automobile industry in the world. Guess what? Manufacture, Toyota.

Tesla is worth almost twice as much as Toyota. Who would have thunk? So, anyway, whether you like Elon Musk or not, you have to admit that he's a visionary. I mean, hey, the man's going to Mars, right? I mean, you know. You have to admit there's a new sheriff in town. Anyway, this is an exciting thing we do. We like it because you regulars to the show remember years ago when Nancy and I went into a Tesla dealership almost bought a

Tesla and you know a lot of people laughed at us and you're crazy hey you're a Toyota dealer what are you doing buying a Tesla ha ha ha ha what a jerk well we didn't buy the Tesla I'm I did I'm I'm in the process now but I put it off for a lot of reasons and turns out that a lot of people buying Teslas Rick I read an article recently that said that Toyota is actually one of the few car manufacturers that is not going full force towards electric. And I don't understand why. They're still looking at hydrogen fuel cells and saying they want to keep that option open. And it just, it boggles my mind. Well, it really isn't, again, without getting into the detail, hydrogen fuel cell, there's

nothing wrong with these. The whole idea is electric and how you power the electric. The main thing we can remember is zero emissions. So how do we get to zero emissions? And the hydrogen fuel fuel power electric motors. So it's still an electric vehicle. It's almost terminology. And even the hydrogen converters in the car are zero emissions. So there is that.

Sure. So anyway, here we are. We've got a lot of things on our mind to talk about. The main thing is you. We love to hear from you. This isn't something I'm just saying to make you feel good, you folks in the audience. we truly learn a lot from you folks. We have some amazingly interesting and intelligent callers out there

and new ones every week. And we love to hear from you. We give these numbers out and the text numbers and the Facebook and the Twitter and YouTube. We do it a lot. It's repetitive. For two hours, you hear a lot of it. If you're listening to the whole show,

I'm sorry for you because we get this number out to the point where it drives you crazy. But by doing that, we spread the word. And we spread the interest, and we bring that information in, and we love the calls. The main number, and we love the personality of a real phone call. Isn't it an ironic that a phone call today is almost, you know, it's like a dinosaur. I can say to one of my grandkids, I'm going to call you and say, what are you talking about? They look at you like you have two heads.

Yeah, what is that? I mean, I'll ring you up. What? I'll dial. the phone. I'll dial. It ain't going to happen.com. 877-960-9960. 877-9-60. We have four phone lines and we have so many calls and we will have a lot of calls to the show. We prioritize calls because we don't have enough, a big enough switchboard and we don't want you to wait and wait and wait. So when that ringing dingy happens, Nancy, my co-host over here is going to to be monitoring the call lens very closely. And when we get a call from you, we will take the call ASAP. If we forget, if I get tied up, if I'm on a pontification, I apologize.

We try not to do that. We try to get to you as quickly as possible. So if you're not going to call now, write the number down. If you're not driving, 877-960-89-877-960-9-9-690-9960. And for you texters, I'm a texter. I don't like phone calls. I mean, personally, I'd rather text and be text. It makes me more efficient, and it's not as invasive on the people that I'm contacting.

So I like texting. That text number is 772-497-6530. If we don't get to all the text, we eventually do during the show. Josh is monitoring the text. Normally Stu does. Josh is my younger, nicer son. Much nicer. Subbing, yes, much nicer, yeah.

Anyway, by the end of the show, we will get to your text. And unfortunately, you might not be listening, but you can play the archive. All these shows are in podcasts, you're online, available at earluncars.com. I mean, we are high tech. Let me tell you, I'm an old guy. I'm an old time. You know, Josh is a, he's a super high-tech young guy, but I'm pretty good for an old guy, aren't they? Oh, you're way above the curve.

Oh, come on. You get some of the technology from Apple before Jonathan even does, and he works for Apple. Not supposed to say that way. You're the most technologically advanced person I've seen yet. I think we had that discussion this morning. Yeah. Recovering car dealer. Anyway, anyway, what I'm saying is that if you are going to, or contact you,

this show, you can reach us on Facebook.com, YouTube.com, you can go to Erloncars.com. That's a good place to start, Erlandcars.com. And that way, you can find out, if we mystery shopped a dealer somewhere in your area, if you live in Florida, and we've been in Tennessee and Pennsylvania, I think, other states too. So, look there, you see all the, you can, you can listen to the mystery shopping reports. You can, you can, you can, you can, you can read the blogs. I do a weekly blog. I've been doing a blog, a newspaper column for almost as long as we've been on the show. Nancy. www.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. That is really. Why hasn't anybody copied that? I mean, there's so many shows and places that people would contact. The police figured it out a long time ago. Anonymous feedback to the police.

People don't want to call and say, my name is John Smith and I live at 25 3rd Street and I want to tell you about a bad guy that his name is Jim Blake and he just robbed the 7-11. You don't want to say that in public. You might afraid the bad guy is going to find you and get you. So they have anonymous reporting and crimes, why not have anonymous call into talk shows? I don't know one that does that, your anonymous Feedback.com, just the way it sounds.

who you are, anonymous, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Feedback.com. And if you send us your text, I mean, on that anonymous feedback URL, then we can't find you. You say anything you want. Call me names, call Rick names. Don't call Nancy names. That's not nice. That's not nice. You can call Josh names.

That's not nice either. I can defend myself. And we won't, we're not going to, we're not going to edit it, but we'll take out the vulgarity profanities, but it doesn't happen that often. That's what really amazes me, is we don't get attacked that often. We have the most generous and kind listeners in the world. Yeah, we do. But we do get some good intelligent comments and criticisms and shall we say discussions. We get some good people on there.

We do. So all your regulars, don't forget, come on and give us your input and your ideas and your suggestions. And I'm I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart, who most of you know. Nancy founded the show with me 20 years ago when we were half an hour. She is best known for her advocacy of the female. And I know a lot of people are tired of hearing this, but the ladies of the world, and I say the world, aren't getting a fair shake. We all know that. We hear about it.

And us guys sometimes shake it off, we shouldn't, because it's a real fact. And the ladies of the world, and especially in America, are economic force. And they not only buy half the cars, but they probably influence a lot of the purchases beyond that 50%. For some reason, they don't yak as much as we do, us guys, and they don't call the show. And Nancy's built that up from virtually nothing to close to 50%. And so she has a special offer. Well, if you already know this, but if you don't know it, stay tuned. Nancy, tell them what we're going to do for the ladies.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You make the show your knowledge, your opinion, your conversation. We enjoy your company. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Let us know whether you went into the dealership to have your car serviced, whether or not the microchip shortage has affected your buying power, whether you, well, got a whole lot more money for your used car

in light of the conditions that exist in the atmosphere today. $50 for the first two new lady callers, 877, 960, 9960, and you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget to go to Erwan Cars. Join us, the vigilantes. You can help us in so many ways by just volunteering. You don't have to take an engine apart. You can help us with so much. in our, what do you want to call it?

This is my quest. Quest, that's a good word. To follow the star. There you go. Uh-oh, he's going to break into song. He usually does that in the shower. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to have to go right to the phones because John from Palm City has been holding for quite some time.

Yo, John. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Good morning. An important topic, especially with the value of use cards. It's the rollback odometers. Very important. I want to ask Rick, in two years, last two years,

have a vehicle ever come into your dealership that the mileage that was stated on the car didn't match the factory computer? I had one. I might have been a little over two years ago, but it was a Camry hybrid that the odometer was incorrect, and we actually felt,

found it pretty quick because it was pretty obvious the car had been converted to a taxi and the odometer was showing only like 60,000 miles and by checking car fax we found the car actually had well over 200,000 miles. Wow. Well, actual government figures now, 40 million used cars were sold last year 2020. 450,000 of them had the speedometers illegally altered according to the highway traffic and safety administration. These are actual figures. And in 72, the government passed the law, federal law, that it's illegal, the rollback odometers. And in 86, was the Truth in Mileage Act, which when you transfer the car, you have to reveal the true mileage upon transfer. Now, what's to blame on this is the Internet.

The Internet, if you look it up, it actually sells online freezer switches, particularly I saw one for Audi 8-8. okay, they're not expensive there's another website you send them your instrument clusters and for $120 they set it back but you have to mail it back to them

and there's tools that are available on the internet and it's scary it really is basically what amounts to is when you buy in a used car make sure it's from a legitimate

source mainly a new car dealer because they do their homework for you, they would never allow in their franchise to be jeopardized by selling a car that has a bad history on it with an odometer. So this is very, very important today, especially with the prices that erupt on used cars. And it's a consideration that people to do. Another question for Rick, what is an OBD2 tool? What does that do on the car? Does that read codes on mileage? Yeah, OBD2 is the onboard diagnostic, and the connector is located under the dash. It's been industry standard across the board since 1994, I want to say.

All cars have that same identical connector so that a computer can be plugged into it. You can retrieve treble codes from the car and a whole lot of different data information. and now this is how any technician would communicate with all the computer systems in the car is through that onboard diagnostic port. Well, the scariest part is they sell an instrument that plugs into that, and especially for lease cars, it stops registering the mileage. So when you turn it in, it doesn't have the actual legitimate mileage with buying this instrument that's sold, by the way, on the internet.

So it's kind of frightening. what's going on out there, and it's especially important now because the value of used cars are up. So just want to make people aware that it does exist, and imagine a 40 million used cars sold that $450,000 actually were illegally altered, according to the government. So, buyer beware, be careful where to buy the car. One good news, when I came in 1997 to Martin County, they used to be cars on the side of the road. what they did get curbside, mostly was dealers, put them with a sign for sale, looked like an individual, and it was really from a car lot, and they got clamped down on that, even in shopping centers.

They put it at the end of a shopping center with a for sale sign on. That has stopped completely. Thank God for the sheriff of Martin County. So it's not a good place to buy a car. You don't know what their history is, what's going on, and mileage statements mean nothing. It's do your homework and be careful of who you buy the car from. John, I appreciate that.

That's good advice. I had no idea that there were many being set back, and I had no idea that the Internet was offering illegal services that were not being monitored. Hopefully some authorities out there regulatory will be looking at that and see if they can track down some of this. One thing that I want to mention is that you mention that the internet is a problem.

Internet is also the solution because by going online, you can find out the history of just about any car. Carfax is the most famous for checking service histories. And every time a car goes in for service, they always register the mileage. So a car that's been maintained, you could track its history from the time the car was sold new and you can see the mileages. So every few thousand miles, you see what the mileage is. So if you're buying a car that has 25,000 miles on the odometer, and you go to Carfax,

and the last time it was serviced, it had 250,000 miles, you might want to think twice. And this is, if you do your homework, if you use the tools that we have available to us, it's almost impossible to be tricked. You know, I have to, I, my book is called Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer, and I have that here. And if you want to buy a copy on Amazon, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And so I make nothing off this book. But I've been in business a long time. And confessions, that's the name of it.

And the reason I'm confessing, I did some stuff. I guess I repressed it. And then you called John and mentioned something like odometers. When I started in the business, I still remember the guy's name. Not old guys remember detail. The old guy's name was Ed Zuck. and he was a professional odometer rollbacker and he would go from lot to lot to lot

so we'd say hey Ed he says you got anything for me oh yeah I got they're all in the back line I said take 20,000 off all of them are you sure that wasn't Matthew Broderick no okay hey guys if you can't pick up confessions of a recovering car dealer pull up Ferris Bueller's day off and you can learn how to

inform yourself about that odometer The point was it was respectable, and it was legal, and all the dealers did it. You kind of wonder, I mean, did the customer... Was it really legal? Did you say legal? I don't know. I mean, I probably rationalized it being illegal. John said, if he's still there, that they passed the law in 1976.

I started the business in 68, so maybe it was legal back then. Or a gray area. A gray area, yeah. And anyway, easy to check odomers. Very important, obviously. If you don't check it, and you buy the car and somebody else does check it, you're in serious trouble because if the car had any warranty or anything left on it and the manufacturer detected someone was fooling with the odometer,

forget about it. So be careful. I think John's point. Actually, just to give you a case in the early 90s, when I also moved here to Bond County, this dealer on Route 1 called Plotties. he was indicted, went to federal prison, many cases, 50 to 100,000, setting back the clocks, and this was an actual car dealership that was caught outright, and that's a lot of mileage

is setback, and it's an exact example of what could happen, and see you, but be careful again where you buy the call. John, thanks for the call. I really appreciate it. Good thing to heads us, everybody about them. Be careful out there. Yes, John. You've become a regular part of the show, and we really appreciate hearing from you every Saturday morning.

I think Josh was going to say something about the odometer. Yeah, I was just going to say John's point about picking a reputable dealer is really important because it's in their best interest to make sure that they don't buy a car from someone off the street with a bad odometer or inconsistent odometer because it's a huge devaluation to the vehicle. So your interests are aligned, so make sure you deal with a reputable place. And you get to a lot of trouble with the lender, too. The lenders are double-checking of these things. If you're financing a used car, you can bet the lender has checked the car in terms of accuracy of options, equipment, year, all the things that add to the value of that car. And what adds more value than the correctodominee rating? So it's really risky if you don't check and you can hurt yourself.

If you have the car repossessed, find out it was fraudulent financing, a lot of bad things. As a matter of fact, the camera that I mentioned, the fellow that owned it had just purchased it, almost sight unseen, on the internet from an individual, and he brought it to us because the hybrid lights were on and it needed a hybrid battery. He thought he'd be able to get it fixed under warranty, and then comes to find out he's got a car with 200,000 miles on it, and he had very little recourse at that point. Okay, that voice you're listening to right now is Rick Kearney, in case you don't know. I forgot to introduce him properly at the beginning of the show. Rick is a diagnostic master certified technician. He is kind of like having a Ph.D. and how to fix a car and how to diagnose the problems with the car. I call him an auto-computer scientist because the cars now are computers on wheels.

Rick's always going to school. He's always online getting another certification, another certification, because the technology in cars are advancing so fast now that Frank. Basically, even the drivers don't know all there is to know about a car. And I think the manufacturers actually have gone too far in high-tech because what's the sense of making something so fancy that even the owner of the car doesn't know about? People are trading cars and with features that they never knew were there and never used. And you've got to go to a guy like Rick Kearney, he'll tell you how to get that YouTube,

how to get that Bluetooth paired with your sound system. or whatever you have to do. And that's probably the most common question we get. You know, I got a problem with my Bluetooth. It won't pair with my phone. That's actually getting better now because the newer cars now, they're introducing things like the Google CarPlay and the Apple CarPlay, and it's even becoming wireless.

So now it's one simple connection and everything works. And it's, I got to say, my life on that side has gotten a lot easier because now it works. It's great. Yeah, finally, Apple and Google stepped in where the auto manufacturers couldn't. The growing pains have started to ease up now. Yes, definitely.

You know, I have to point out that we really have a very knowledgeable staff. I'm going to call them staff, their family, right here before us. And I want to thank Josh for standing in at the last moment. And he is, if we need anything, the to go-to-go-to guy. we know he will be right there, and that's why he sits in his chair this morning, very knowledgeable and has been in the business. Well, I think he started when he was three. I'm not sure.

So like 21 years. Just kidding. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, knowledge is power. 877-960-99-60, and in light of the used car prices that have surged, you may be thinking about keeping your car and fixing it and knowledge is power ladies and gentlemen because you can be taken advantage right there

and I know Rick will agree with me and this takes me to vigilantes Earl's vigilantes and Earl created this and you know how talented he is and Earl's vigilantes you can take and you can help us you can help us you can help us

by helping others somebody in your community and it's all of us working together we can't do it alone although our show has escalated as far as helping people informing people

so join Earl's vigilantes and help us out 877-960 or you can Texas at 7-7. That's another word on the mission of the vigilantes. We've for a long time talked about the victims of the unethical car dealers. And they fall into different categories, starting chronologically with a very young. Think about your first car when you bought it. You probably had help from your parents, or maybe you didn't. But when a young person goes out

into a car dealership and they've never bought a vehicle before, they can be victimized. And it happens quite frequently. The very young, category number one. We have another category. In Florida, we have a lot of people from outside the United States. And we have a lot of Hispanics. We have from Cuba and Costa Rica in the Middle East, the Middle East, I mean South America.

And English isn't their first language. And so English language impaired. Think of you being in Peking trying to buy a car at a Chinese dealership and you don't speak Chinese or anywhere in another country. I mean, we Americans don't speak many languages. And so if we go into another country, can you imagine how help us you would feel if you were dealing with an unethical Spanish-speaking salesperson and the contract was in Spanish and the whole conversation dialogue and you're sitting there going like this? So the English language impaired. Also, one of our biggest challenges is education. Some people aren't fortunate enough to have the education they need.

They don't learn the ABCs of finance and interest rates and other things. And maybe they can't even read all that well. So educational impairment is a fact of life. I mean, you don't have to be stupid to not to be educated. I mean, there are a lot of very smart people out there that just don't have that formal education and they can be they can be fool yes that's another category of victim and in south florida we have a lot of elderly people i talk about widows a lot because uh we men usually pre-deceased are our wives and if you go back in time and you were born in the 40s or 50s you know and you're a

woman uh the man was a decision maker they they earned a paycheck you were a housewife and all these things that make women so angry today about why we look down on women. Some of these women have never bought a car in their life and their husband passed away and they're going into a car dealership for the first time and making the second biggest investment ever to a home is an automobile. And I get more calls from elderly women than any other single source saying how they were victimized. Terrible. So the vigilantes, that's why we're here.

We asked you to participate all over the country, like to have people in all states. We will put you on our website, earlancars.com, with a little profile, your contact information. We'll give you a free hat, and you can assist these people. One of the biggest assistance is you offer as a vigilante. We ask that you have online experience, that you understand a computer keyboard, you understand a smartphone, that you know how to pull up a website, go to Google, you can go a dealership website, navigate a website. This way, you can do your car shopping and assist the potential victim online. A lot of people out there, whether they're elderly or whatever, aren't really skilled online.

That's the only way to ensure that you won't be taken advantage of. And there's services like the Costco Auto Buying Program online, truecar.com, online, cars.com, edmunds.com. There's so many wonderful sources. And if you're very knowledgeable about online, you can, in the comfort of your home, assist another person. And you'll never have to go to their home or go to the car dealership.

Assist that other person and buy your car. So that's what vigilantes. That's what we're looking for. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I think Josh has something. Well, I have our kickoff text, if you'd like me to read it. Yes, but first, ladies, some of us were born with a survival kit, and there of us that weren't.

Please, give us a call. Tell us what your experience was, 877-960-99-60, and for you, for those that would like to text us, A-7-7, I'm giving out the telephone number. 772-497-6530, and speaking of text, Josh is right. All right. We have Ann Marie's Good Morning, Text. Good morning, Ann Marie. Good morning. Have you ever encountered this scenario?

A Texas, a Toyota or a Lexis driver, brakes injures their right leg. It is put in a cast or boot which makes normal driving impossible until the leg heals and the boot is removed. The internet indicates that currently there are temporary hand-controlled devices to access the accelerator and the brake. Have you ever installed any of those devices? If so, how well do they work? By the way, I'm fine, just curious. However, I am looking forward to a time when the vehicles will be automated and totally reliable so people will be able to get around independently and safely in spite of a broken leg,

an immobilized arm or impaired vision, et cetera, et cetera, and not to have to rely on a spouse or friend, a neighbor, Uber, Lyft, or other public transportation. Thank you. Rick, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are special companies that we sublet to that do handicapped assistance driving. We have to be very careful with this because it's a safety factor, and it's like re-learning how to drive. You have to be sure that, first of all, that it's legal by federal law, probably not state law, maybe state law too, but certainly federal law. When we have a request like that, Rick, if you had any direct experience with the people that handle this sort of thing?

You are exactly 100% correct. action mobility is one company local that we would recommend I personally have had customer cars come in that I've had to drive with those controls and I'll tell you I was terrified just driving them through the parking lot because of that it's something you're not used to it's a whole new ballgame so those who do use them they have to be trained and learn how to control the vehicle using those new controls but once Once you get them, they're incredible. The people I've talked to that use them, they've loved it. But we won't do it for liability reasons, but yes, action mobility or others like that, you can find them on the internet, and they're great. There's probably a certification that they have to get a federal authorization, and we really should do a little bit more due diligence on that and tell people, because we're

worldwide now, and tell people around the country, find a federally certified. a handicap assist installer of these types of things. Some things are legal and some things are not legal. You know, one of the things that pops to mind when we're talking about that, and by the way, Anne-Marie is our most articulate, caller period, male or female. She always comes up with some of the most valuable, interesting questions. And a lot of times we don't have the answers, but we find them. but I wonder when you have some people injured one foot

and they only have maybe their left foot to drive or they're only a right foot to drive. I wonder what the legality is on that. Is it anybody, is it legal or illegal to drive with one foot? I wouldn't know. Hopefully someone out in the radio land knows the answer to that. I can't speak to the legality of it. I've driven with one foot

You may be confessing to a crime you realize Oh hey I can deal with it That makes two of you What I was going to say was What I did was propped up my left leg At the window of my car at that time It was in a cast Do you have any pictures of that?

I do She's very limber everybody Don't try this at home Yes Was that the passenger window? window or the driver's window is or both that would be the that would be the challenge you go I'm double-jointed anybody out there know the answer to the legality of being able to if I were pulled over in my left foot or my right

foot were in a cash and the policeman pulled me over am I committing a crime we'll have to investigate I would guess that there it's not written in law but it's just you know best practices like some people drive with two feet and I know that's a big no-no how about if I had two feet in a can Would that be legal? Two feet and two arms definitely should be. Well, let's say we don't know, do we? But what if you're near Tesla with autopilot, then?

That's true. That might be the answer to Anne Marie's question, too. Okay. The cars with autonomous driving will definitely help those with disabilities and similar. Yeah, absolutely. Ann Marie, say what you do. You educate us. You get us to realize what we don't know, and we ask the question on the air,

and pretty soon somebody will call in. maybe we'll just Google it, and we'll get that answer sooner or later. And I have one other thing I can add to that. In the past, Toyota has offered, they call it Mobility Assistance. So although at a Toyota dealership, we can't perform those modifications necessarily. But Toyota, if you buy a new Toyota in the past, they've offered up to $1,000 towards a modification from a legitimate place. And this is probably true of all manufacturers, at one degree or another. If they don't do it, they should do it.

but I believe all manufacturers, I mean, it's important that handicap to have this assistance. That is really important information, Josh. I really like that because I hadn't thought about that. I mean, I ordered a hot tub, and because of medical problems, there was a discount that I was allotted because of it. Yeah, similar thing. And it's a big savings. It is. Look it up.

Yeah, definitely. Ladies and gentlemen, the energy is, well, shall we say, contagious. So give us a call. 877-960. Don't forget, ladies, first two new lady callers, you and yourself, $50 today. And I want to alert you to go to Erwan Cars. What an interesting column that he has written this past week, and it's buying a car during this microchip shortage.

And it is worth your read. And we have a great mystery shopping report from Molynex Ford. And I have to acknowledge Agent Lightning. What an asset she is to this show and to all of you out there because she alerts you of what is really going on out there in the real world. 877-960, 9960. and I think that, well, excuse me, before we get back to Josh, I have to go to the phones and Marty is calling. Good morning, Marty.

Marty's a regular caller. Good morning. How's everybody doing? Good, thank you. My question is, anytime I go to buy a car or lease a car, I go on Kelly Blue Book and I look up the, what they say is the invoice. Now, no car dealer, in my opinion, ever pays that invoice price. You're right. My question to you is, first of all, because most dealers are selling under-invoice.

Yes. So it's possible to be paying. They for sure are not giving the car away for free. So my question is, is there any dealership, including yours, that will ever show you what they really pay for the car? Well, very few, and this is going to sound a little crazy, but a lot of car dealers don't know

what they pay for the car. I have some degrees in industrial administration, business, and other things that help me understand what cost really is. Cost is a complicated thing, and there are courses in cost accounting, and you accountants out there will know what I'm talking about,

But we honestly sometimes don't know what the true cost. I'm including our dealership. It changes throughout the month. It could, depending on how much you sell. Exactly. We have incentives, and we have a contest, and we have things with the manufacturers. All dealers do.

And as you're selling cars, and the dealer tells you, if you hit your quota, then we're going to give you back $500 retroactively on every one of those cars that you sold in the month of June. say, then, and it's June the 15th, you don't know what your cost on that car that you sold today if it's the 15th because you don't know if you hit your quota until June 30th. So dealers don't know their true cost, but they do know their true cost is a lot less than they want you to think, and the invoice typically packs in several thousand dollars

of profit to the dealer. So in other words, if I sell, Marty, if I sell you, you a car at my invoice, I'm probably going to be making at least $3,000 a real nice profit far more than I normally make on a car. In average times, dealers will sell about two-thirds of their cars, maybe a half to two-thirds of their cars below invoice. And don't ever believe that the piece of paper that they show you is at their true cost because it is not. And thank you for pointing that out, Marty. Yeah, well, like I say, for every car I've bought, well, that's why I assume when I go win, I always give out, if I'm buying the car, a lower price than any invoice price.

But I usually, if I'm buying, I usually have a trade-in. So there's, you know, two, you know, that becomes another factor in the deal. a lease is a lot harder to figure out to me than a true buy. Much harder. Yeah, Marty, also, before we talk too much about buying cars below invoice, we are in an unprecedented unique situation today with a microchip shortage and other factors of the COVID phenomenon that have created an unprecedented demand

and a very, very low supply of vehicles, new and use. So right now, there aren't any cars being sold below invoice, All cars are being sold above invoice, and I think that's a safe statement. And most cars, believe it or not, are being sold above MSRP, sticker price. So it's a crazy world out there. This will fade, and by the end of the year, I'm predicting that we will return more or less to normal. But even though an invoice has a lot of profit packed in, you're not going to buy a car today, a new car, below invoice. All right, very good. Have a good day, everybody.

Thank you, Marty. Thanks for the call. Thanks for being part of the show, Marty. 877960-99-60. You can text us at 772-497-6530. I think we're going to go back to Josh. Probably has a lot of texts. Yeah, I have another text here. This one from a, I believe, a Washington State area code.

Cool. My daughter was victimized her first car. $21,000 Camry ended up at a $500 per month payment for $80,000. four months. I took the liberty of doing the math there. That's $42,000 totally. I ended up having to go to the dealer and having all the extras canceled. That is a, that's a bad

one right there. Yeah, it's truly bad at. When you finance a car, you open the door to the back end. We call it the box and the vernacular for car dealers. That's where they soak you with a bunch of unneeded additional products they call them like gap insurance.

Now, the gap insurance can be a value. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's not a value. It's not even necessary. You have maintenance plans, you have extended service contracts and warranties, road hazard protection. A lot of things that they mark up insanely high and sell you or sometimes sneak in on the contract. So just because you buy the car at the right price doesn't mean your payment's not going to be $500 a month, and that's how they may have gotten your daughter. And I'm very sorry to hear that.

What a story. Yeah. We're going to go back to the phones. We have a regular caller, and it is Dave, the Dog Walker. Mark Farr. Hi. Good morning. Good morning.

Listen, saw an article a couple weeks ago. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia representative in the House of Representatives, introduced a bill that would require gender equality in the crash test dummies for the national testing standards for cars. And I thought Nancy might find this interesting. I can't find anything else out about it. It's like it just got ignored, or maybe nobody cared, or maybe they thought, oh, here we go again, you know, you have to have gender equality. when it's really an issue. I mean, it's a serious issue.

And I thought Nancy might be interested in that. Maybe she could look into that for us. Oh, definitely. I have to apologize. I'm a bit hearing impaired, and I didn't hear the first part. He's talking about the fact that women are physically different than men, and smaller typically, and cars are designed from a safety standpoint to take care of men,

to hell with the women. I got you. You know, that's a, thank you. That's an interesting topic, Dave. And the reason it's interesting is because can you believe that all of these tests that consumer report, the highway of safety, everybody, women were not included? Their small bodies, the way they're built, and it was always those dummies that they used, there was. never a female and now they're really recognizing the fact that these cars have to be built for women for children and it definitely still is a safety issue so consumer report excuse me consumer

report had a great article on that under the current standards of safety that we have i read that women were 47% more likely to suffer serious injury in most car crashes, which is just, that's, it's, wow, you know? And like I, the first part of what I was, what I brought up, Nancy, was that there was a bill introduced into Congress by Senator, uh, Congress lady, uh, Norton from the District of Columbia. and it's getting nothing, no traction, nobody is taking it serious, you know, and it's just, it's astounding, 47% more likely to get serious injuries in a car crash. Yes, well, I can confirm that because I did look up the numbers, and it's shocking in today's 21st century, and women are the, as you said, I thought it was more than 47%. and I'm going to take a look at the information you just shared with me

and I'm going to give it, well, I'm going to give it some attention and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. Dave, the reason this happens is because of the power of the lobbyists, the power of the manufacturers, National Automobile Dealers Association, I promise you, behind the scenes, is lobbying heavily against that. Can you imagine the cost? And remember, follow the money. Imagine the cost to the auto manufacturers of the world.

You'd have to redesign the car. You have to redesign a car taking into consideration in women. They never did it. It's obscene that they never did it. It's obscene that they never thought about it. And it reminds me, the nice thing about being around a long time, I remember when we didn't have seatbelts. And I thought, before I became a recovering car dealer,

I thought a seatbelt was a joke, because I just was a because I just was stupid. And then they really outraged me when they came up to this thing called an airbag. I said, what the hell is an airbag? We need this like we need a, you know, a third arm. You don't need an airbag. You know how much an airbag costs? We'll never sell a car.

We'll have to market up another $1,000. So this is the way to the manufacturers look at their business. Last week I talked on the show about the manufacturers and the stockholders that you have a responsibility to the stockholder. Capitalism is a good thing, right? Okay. If I own stock in Chrysler Corporation

or I own stock in Honda, then I'm entitled to a return on my investment. And to get a return, you have to make a profit. To make a profit, you have to sell a lot of cars, make a lot of money. Now, if someone tells me, suddenly, I have to spend billions of dollars to retool and redesign

my plants and equipment to build cars that are safe for women, I'm not going to make much of a profit. I failed my investors. I've failed my stockholders, and I've committed a crime. It's a crime to not fulfill. Now, if only Honda were to make the concession, then they would lose business to Toyota and to Chevrolet and everybody else. So it would have to be a federal law for all manufacturers.

Now, when you're asking all manufacturers to spend billions of dollars, you know, it just ain't going to happen.com. And it'll be a long time before that happens, and it's very sad. It really is, you know, particularly since the number of the percentage of women buying new cars continues to grow year after year. And I understand the economics to the manufacturers, but, you know, if enough women, if the women got behind this, you know, and let their money speak, you know, and have a voice. Yeah, but it really is something. You know, you've got to fear a little bit for your kids and your wife's, sisters, and mothers a little bit when you know that the standards are just not there.

Exactly. Exactly. Sad. Thanks, guys. Great call. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much, Dave.

and thank you for bringing to attention this, you know, I'm kind of slowing down right now because, you know, this kind of information and talking about women, I feel so passionate about it. And if I could just reach all of the auto dealers and let them know that it's a financial disaster not to recognize women and the impact that they have on the auto industry and on everything in between. Because women are shorter and smaller and why on earth weren't these cars tested, for them, these dummies were. always for men. And I thank you, Dave. A77. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ramble. A77-960. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. And I think we're going to go back to Josh. Well, I have some anonymous feedbacks if I may. All right. This one asks, are car dealers equally willing to negotiate on the price of an ordered car as with one on the lot? This industry. Interesting question.

Josh, you see this all the time, so explain that phenomenon. Well, in the current climate, things are different right now, since most cars are going to be ordered if you walk into a car dealership because of the inventory shortage. But in normal times, it's usually the dealers are willing to work more with you on a in-stock unit rather than an order. They figure a bird in the hands, we're two in the bush, that sort of thing. So I think... Prefer to sell a car out of stock and will really push you to buy you to buy.

But when you end up ordering the car, you open yourself up to some surprises that are beyond the control of the dealer. Yeah, exactly. If it takes too long for the vehicle to get there, the incentives from the manufacturer might have changed and things like that. So there is an upside and a downside to order the car. Trade and value can change. Exactly. Exactly. But, yeah, if you, I would recommend that you press, if they don't have the vehicle you want, press to order the car that you want, don't compromise.

Especially today, because you're not going to find the car you want today. The inventories are so limited and wait. And then expect to maybe pay some more because the incentives that are on the cars change all the time. And you never know whether they're going to be more incentives or less incentives, and you're taking a chance. Yeah, and nowadays you could probably bank on the incentives being reduced because of the supply and demand. Yes. Okay. All right.

I have another one here. Go ahead. I work on YouTube and, you know, you'll work on YouTube. Actually, we've had an interesting conversation going on between Kit Kat and Donovan here about the electric car situation. And just kind of to paraphrase it, coming in, the two of them like Kit Kat is coming, that if we went to all electric cars, we'd have to build a ton of nuclear power stations in order to help power them, because obviously the increased amounts of electricity needed. He says, and right now, Texas and California are having issues with power outages. Texas, obviously, with their problems they've had in the past, and with the huge heat wave hitting across those areas right now, they're asking people to cut back on using electricity,

cut back on air conditioning, and, of course, charging electric vehicles, which are huge in California. And as Donovan is coming in, they're kind of talking back and forth about things such as the amount of electricity required just to run pump jacks to pump oil versus how much would be used in electric cars. And then the comments, of course, going about what the governments of California and Texas are asking their citizens to do to help save electricity. So it's just been a kind of interesting conversation between the two of them going back and forth about, you know, where are we going? It's just the idea that if we do switch over to electric vehicles to

get rid of fossil fuels, where are we going to get the electricity from, and who's going to pay the prices? Well, you know, it's a short-run problem and it will resolve itself, and there's always going to be that. We could spend the entire show about that, but you've got a lot of renewable energy being produced, you've got wind power, you've got solar power, there's a huge amount of ways to solve that problem. Efficiency of batteries is another way.

One of the things that people don't think about is that you don't use electricity very much all the time. You don't use nearly as much electricity at midnight than you do during the day with the air conditioning. And it varies. So if you can run energy all the time and you can produce energy 24-7 around the globe, and this is a global economy now, it will be not as expensive because it will be a continuous process. As we have more renewable producing energy, it won't be a problem. But the fact of the matter is, this will be an all-electric world for vehicles and is coming, whether we like it or not, the energy problem will be solved,

and it'll take years, it won't take weeks or months, and it will happen. But, you know, nuclear power, it was something we're terribly afraid of. You go back to Chernobyl years ago, everybody is traumatized with a whole thought of a nuclear plan boiling up and killing everybody within a 5,000 mile radius. But that's been, that problem's been fixed. A lot of other problems been fixed. And nuclear power is going to be a fact of life probably. And solar panels, solar cells have come a huge way. Wind power, sure. So imagine the day when a simple solar panel on the top of your car powers your car and while it's just sitting out there waiting for you at work, it's charging up.

A wind-powered car with a large sail on top. Yeah. That'd be an interesting trick. I'm a traditional kind of guy. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not Comedy Corner, but we are here to not only entertain you, but to inform you. And ladies, I have a question for you.

If you think that, you know, there are just certain things that are important for you, you to give us a call because the first two new lady callers win themselves $50? Here's my question. Who do you think male or female are in more accidents today per year? Give me a call. $50 for the first two new lady callers. I have a guess. 877-960-99-60.

I'd like you to answer that question. I'm just going to guess it's guys. Thank you. Just based on my personal experience of being a fool. Well, there you go. You heard it from Josh. But ladies, 6.1 million men per year are in more accidents. And guess what?

Ladies, 4.4 million are in accidents per year. I'll take my $50 now. Now back to Josh. I have a few anonymous feedbacks here. This one reads, I've been watching house and car prices rise like crazy for months. Is this a bubble? And if so, when, and how fast do you think it will burst?

It'll be over by the end of the year. Remember, you heard it here first. You heard it here first? And I'm talking about the car chores. I don't know about the housing shortage. That's not my field of expertise, but I know how it works in the automobile industry and the manufacturers will overcorrect.

And by the end of the year, there will be a surplus, and it'll be a high inventory, a higher supply and lower demand than we have now by far, and you'll be able to get a bargain. The blog I wrote about how to buy a car during the microchip shortage, the number one recommendation is don't buy a car. The old joke, when I go to the doctor, I says, it hurts when I raise my arm like that. He says, don't do that. And so it hurts when you buy a car today. Don't buy a car. You get a bargain if you wait a few months. If you have to have a car, go buy a car.

If you have an extra car line around, this is definitely the time to sell it for sure. Oh, man. Talk about that. Yeah, if you have a car line around somewhere, now is the time to cash out, and you can make 50% more on that car than you would have if you had sold it a year ago. That's crazy. Amazing times that we're in back to Josh. All right.

Here's a fun one. Just out of curiosity, what's the favorite car you all have ever owned? Gosh, you know, that's such an emotional thing. I have to digress to my teenage years. And 1957, and it was a 1957, Pontiac Bonneville. It was the very first fuel-injected vehicle made. And this one was a convertible. And it was white and blue. and it had a leather interior, and it had posit traction. That's, you know, the limit of the slip differential. And it was a powerful car. It was no carburetors.

It was unheard of. A car without carburetors, 1957. And all the girls love me because I had that car. I was going to ask that question. Yes. All the girls still love you. I was 17 years old. Which takes me to...

When I was 17. Oh, I'm talking about... It was a very good year. I'm talking about all the women that are chasing you now when you're 80. Hey, this brings... They can catch me easily, you know. Unless they're 80, too. It's a fair fight.

Would you like to hear about my car? Absolutely. The barracuda. Tell us about the barracuda. Please, please. I'll mess them with you. Inside joke. To all the listeners the show, it was her first car.

You know, when you have your first car is something you'll never forget. It's like your first girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever it may be. I was an ugly duckling, so my car is very... important. Anyway, guess what? We have a female caller. Good morning and welcome to Erwan Cars. Lou, are you there? You won yourself $50. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. Great. So, I have a dilemma, a question. I just My car was just totaled

I own my car straight out Insurance company gave me $8,000 for my car I'm having a tough time Going to a reputable place where I can get A car that I know I'm not going to come back

In three months To $8,000 I'm looking to You guys' suggestions Where do you live Are you in the Palm Beach County area? I'm in Palm Beach Gardens. Yeah, Palm Beach Garden. You know, you say your car was totaled?

Yep. You know, you can argue with the insurance company, and sometimes it's good to argue with an attorney. And we've referred customers to Donner, and it's called Donor and Associates. And used to be Gordon and Donner. Now it's Donner. Or is it Gordon and Associates?

It used to be Donner. I think it's daughter. And they're pretty good. And they're pretty good. What you need to do is to be sure you're getting a fair value for your car. And it can be or it might not be. And it's something that you need to. Yeah, sometimes you can negotiate with the insurance company on that.

Maybe you have some documentation. I feel I'm getting more than what my car is worth. Oh. Don't tell them that. Lucky you. No, I know that. And I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is me, like, guide me.

Do I, I need something immediately? Do I go to a dealer? I don't want to make payments. Do I go to a car dealer? Do I go to, like, one of these, buy here, pay here, you know, and buy a car outright? Like, where would you go to buy a reputable car? Hmm. You know, the main thing you need to focus on is reliable.

reliability and safety. And when you're spending a smaller amount for a car, you have to give up on the aesthetics and, you know, you might get a color you don't like. You might get a car that's got a scratch. I mean, you have to, cosmetically, you have to be very, very flexible. But you want to be sure it's safe and you want to be sure that it's reliable. It's a very difficult thing. We're still in the business and we try not to talk too much about our dealership because this is not an This is a consumer advocate show. So we want to tell you that when we trade in a car, we take it to the auction and wholesale and if we feel like it could be a safety or a reliability issue. If the cost of fixing the car is prohibitive to what the selling price should be, then we take to the auction. But someone buys that car at the auction and then they sell it. So you go to a buy here, pay here a lot, especially, and a lot of the other smaller used

car dealers, they buy cars at auctions because they're cheap and they don't fix them. If you go to a car dealer and he's reputable, he's probably going to be pretty leery of selling you a car that he knows is unsafe. That's what happens that you might be buying one of those cars. You have to beware of the bargain. it out, have an independent mechanic, check whatever you buy. Forget about what it looks. You have to make that compromise.

It might have a torn fabric interior, it might have stains, it might have a den on the fender. All these things are okay when you have to have a car at a low price. But be sure an independent mechanic, pay him $100, $150, go with a car and have the, this is a safe car and this car isn't going to require $1,000 or $2,000 in the next few months. He wants to tell you that as it stands now, it's a pretty reliable car. Okay. And Lou, this is Nancy Stewart. Yes.

Let me share this with you. You still have the control. You don't have to have the car, the dealer, whomever you go to dictate to you. Whether it be finance, do you sound like as if that, well, for last, of another word you're a little bit desperate to get something to drive but you you can still get so much knowledge and by looking into Consumer Report and so many other tools that we have out there the internet is so powerful today and you know as far as going into the dealership or the buy here pay here alone I say find

anyone to take with you but there's another situation that really aggravates me and that is if you have to finance your car you know the most powerful thing for a woman to do is to walk into a dealership with a file filled with information under her arm and her own finance company and all the other information that comes with it. Okay. Well, Nancy, when are you available? I do have to pat my back, pat myself on the back.

I'm a real negotiator. Thanks for the compliment, Lou. Your $50 will be in the mail. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. Have a great weekend. Thank you, too.

877-960, or you can text us. At 772-497-6530. Don't forget, your anonymousfeedback.com. Now back to Josh. All right. Here's another one that you kind of touched on earlier. Mr. Stewart, as a Toyota dealer, do you agree with Toyota's strategy of sticking with a variety of alternative fuel options like hydrogen fuel cell and hybrids instead of going all in on electric? I think they are the most advanced when it comes to electric. the media have you believe otherwise.

You've got to remember that a hybrid car isn't an electric car. They had the, when they came out with the Prius back in the early 70s, early 80s, late 90s, I'm sorry. And when they came out with the Prius, it was a joke. And General Motors made fun of them. Everybody made fun of them.

And they went and built that car, and they spent more money to build the car than they sold it for. Yeah, they were losing money for everyone they sold. When they sold the car to a dealer, they lost money. And they saw what was happening. And electric cars were impossible, and all electric car was impossible. So they had the electric, you know, the Prius was powered by an electric motor.

The Tesla is powered by an electric motor. They're both electric cars. And so what happened, I mean, Elon Bus wasn't even born back then. I'm only kidding, but he was in short pants. And, and Toyota saw what was coming. So they diverged. They went into hydrogen. And they, but they have the, they have the worldwide experience in electric vehicles.

And eventually they will have the all electric vehicles. No, I don't, they're saying they're behind, but when the smoke clears, there'll be, maybe a half a dozen if we're lucky, maybe only three or four manufacturers in the world. One of them will be Tesla, and one of them will be Toyota, and I don't know who the other ones would be, but you question Ford, and you question, will Ford be around? Is that possible?

Ford might not be around 20 years from now. And General Motors might not be around 20 miles. We don't know, but Toyota will be here, and so will Tesla. Can you imagine? All right, this one's for Rick. Rick, do you agree with only changing synthetic oil every 10,000 miles? Isn't more often better? I go with what the manufacturer recommends.

I say you can't go wrong with following what Toyota, Ford, Chevy, whatever they say is right for that engine. They're the guys that designed it. The engineers told them this is what I designed this engine to be capable of doing. It's one year or 10,000 miles. Right, yes. You know, that owner's manual is worth its weight in gold. If you only put 1,000 miles on it in a year, you still change the oil.

So time and mileage are important. Now, bear in mind that some cars have different requirement levels. Some say every 7,500. Some say every 12,000. But go with what your manufacturer recommends for your model of car. Can't go wrong. Great information. And guess what, ladies and gentlemen, it's free.

Free, free, right here at Erlan Cars, 877-960, 9960. Not for your oil. Just the advice. I'm going to have to interrupt Josh because we have another caller, and that's Kyle is calling. Good morning, Kyle. Good morning. How are you guys doing? Very good. Good, good. Good, thank you.

Thank you. Good, good. I had a question about a lease. You almost answered a couple weeks ago, but it was a question about. tax on the lease. I know when I, it has a residual of 22, I have a Highlander, and I know if I were to buy that at the end of the lease, I have to pay sales tax on that. And when I look up my payoff currently on Southeast Toyota Finance, that number that they give me includes the sales tax also.

But what if I were to sell the car to a dealer early because the values are up right now? Do I have to pay sales tax before? like on the full amount before they buy the car from me? I can handle that. The dealer won't have to pay sales tax. So if you're selling it directly to a dealer, they'll buy it from the bank without sales tax.

If you're going to buy your lease out through the dealer, you will pay sales tax on the pre-sales tax amount, so it'll match what you're seeing when you look up the payoff. Okay, so the payoff right now, if it says 29,000, but that number that Southeast Toyota gives me includes sales tax. If I took it to a dealer right now, it's not actually $29. It should be, you know, that less the 6% sales tax.

So, you know, 26 and change, and then it should come out to around 28 once you add the sales tax. Okay, and then, like, also at the end of my lease, when I have the option to purchase it at $22,000, if I were to not buy it and not return it, but instead sell it to that. same dealer. I wouldn't have to pay that sales tax then either. Is that correct? That's correct. If it's worth more than that residual buyout, then you should put that money

in your pocket. Say it's worth $25,000 at the end of the lease. The dealer will buy it and cut you a check for the $3,000. Something you should definitely look at today because there's a good chance, a better chance than ever, that that car is worth more than the residual value. It might be right now, it might be worth more than your payoff now, which is historically, usually never the case, you know, midway through a lease, but nowadays it might be. And you don't have to wait until the end of the lease. You can exercise that residual earlier. Yeah, you can use that payout any time.

So basically it's a rolling payoff. It's the residual value plus the amount of your remaining payments is a rough way to calculate it. Oh, okay. Great. All right. Thanks for help, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks, Kyle. Give us a call again.

Kyle was a first time caller. and we have so many callers the two in for the first time and continue to become callers, well, for life. Anyway, give us a call toll-free at 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. I'm going to reach out to Donovan from last week, and Rick took his YouTube and the knowledge that he shared with us about Tesla. I really appreciate you bringing that new technology to my attention. Rick? As a matter of fact, Donovan just came up with a comment here. This is Earl.

Ford is really in on EVs, electric vehicles, and is far ahead of most companies. The Mock E Mustang is really good. They also have partnered with a really good battery company, S.K., to build several battery factories in the U.S. So Ford may actually have their toes in the dirt too to dig in and hold on. The thing to remember about electric vehicles is it's only half of the word. The word is electric and autonomous. Yes.

I said earlier that there'll only be this number of manufacturers survive. It isn't going to be so much before who hits the best electric car first. It's going to be who hits the combination of the best electric and autonomous. And the autonomous is a mouthful because it's not a car, it's a software. And Port is not a software company. Tesla is a software company. All the manufacturers are having to partner with software companies to survive. Software is the 21st century, and it's what's going to determine the survivors

and the people that are not going to make it. And I don't think Ford has that ability they're going to have to find, a company that does have that ability and merge. And you're going to see a lot of mergers before this whole thing pans out. Yeah, I find that fascinating. Like a Tesla, the price of a Tesla can vary tens of thousands of dollars just depending on the software that they download into your vehicle. The car I ordered.

I ordered the software option, Autonomous, cost an extra $10,000. Yeah. And they didn't put any hardware or any physical material into the vehicle. All they have to do is plug it in. and download for $10,000, you know, I give them $10,000, they go, vood, and they say. They flip a switch. Okay. So you can see how much research and investment that they have had to put in over the years.

And remember when Tesla was losing money hand over fist, well, that's what someone has to be prepared to do. They have to go out there and spend the money that are not going to get back for years and years and years, billions and billions of dollars and maybe get it back. So there's going to be very few that are going to be standing when this is all over. And coming again from Donovan here, Earl, funny on the software because Ford also partnered with Google for the software side, but you are right on the software, and none of the traditional car makers are software companies. Exactly, yeah. Waymo, I think it was the name that Google put on their software company. And I used to know the president of that company. He was president of Trucarr.

And then he quit. I went to work for Google. I don't blame him. Smart man. Yeah. Okay, guys. Thank you, Donovan. I just love it that you join us every Saturday.

I hope you heard me tell you that I was thankful for your information. Okay, we're going to John. Before we get back to Josh, and John, too, is a first-time caller. Isn't this great? Our reach is amazing with this show, and the response that we get from our listeners, John, thank you for calling. Good morning. I have two questions for you. Thank you. First question, does your dealership have a body shop, or do you use a vendor?

We have a body shop. We're a dying breed. Most dealerships don't have body shops anymore, and partly because of insurance companies that keep their thumb on the person. strings and I don't pay a very good price to the collision repair centers or body shops that fixed cars so most dealers have dropped their body shops because they can't make money you know that's why I asked I was involved in hit and run and damage isn't bad to my vehicle but I want a reputable dealer to take care of it second question I was interested many years ago in the FJ and then I saw that you got your Toyota had a the FJ out at some of the car shows, but I was really disappointed in what they had presented.

Do you know anything about them bringing out another FJ? Josh can probably answer that. I've heard rumors about it. Nothing's concrete right now, unfortunately. But we'll see. It was a hugely popular vehicle, and I think they stopped it in 2014. Yeah, Toyota has a way of dropping their very popular vehicles. That was one of our hottest cars.

The other one was the super convert. I mean, the solar convertible. The solar convertible. dropped that. The good news, if you bought a solar a convertible, you bought an FJ, it's worth a lot of money today because everybody wanted one and Toyota says, oh, we're just not going to

build it anymore. Yep. I want my Selica back. That's a real shame because it was a nice vehicle. If I had had the opportunity to buy the FJ before I bought my Highlander, I definitely would have. Thank you so much for taking my call. Have a great day, folks.

You too, John. Thank you, John. All right. I have a text if you'd like. Here's one in Rick's wheelhouse. What do oil changes do for your car and how do you know when you should replace your tires? My car is at 31,000 miles with the original set of tires and during a recent alignment at a tire store, they recommended replacing them. Okay, we'll go with the tires first because it's very easy. If you look across the tread of the tire, about every six inches around the tire, there's a little raised section in between the treads that's called the treadware indicator. and when the tread wears down to below 2.30 seconds of an inch, that'll actually form a solid bar

all the way across the tread that you can see, and that means it's time for new tires now. Let me jump in there. That 2.30 seconds is the NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Association recommendation. And let me tell you, when you hit 2.30 seconds, those tires are looking mighty dangerous. And this is one of the biggest problems that car dealers have that we have because we care about the safety of our customers. Replacing tires on tread, there's a lot of other factors involved besides the technicality. I would say you definitely should replace your tires before 2.30 seconds and before it goes below that wear bar. We recommend below 3.30 seconds. And to some people, that's got to get too close.

Remember, when you buy a new tire, a new set of tires you put on your car, it has 8.30 seconds? How much is it varies, I guess, depending on the tire? 10, actually, in most cases. Okay, so you buy a new set of tires. It's got 10 30 seconds. Now, when you drive it around the block, that car is not as safe as it was when you bought it. Because it has a little bit less. And then a year later, it's a little bit less safe.

And when it's raining, a light, misty rain, or you're in ice, or your conditions, remember, where you drive, high you drive, the tread is a function of what you feel comfortable with. Do you have children in the car? Do you have people that you care about, your family? So we get a lot of discussions with our customers, and they say, I want a new set of tires because they don't look safe to me and we measure the tires

and it'll have four 30 seconds NHTSA says you've got twice as much tread as you need the person says they don't look safe and I don't feel safe so you see what I'm saying is subjective I guess you have to go with what you believe and what you feel

and sometimes it's two 30 seconds is too slick and you don't want to be And I don't, I think, we, it looks too slick to me. I can live with 3.30 seconds, but I can't live with 2.30 seconds. Now, when it, well, we actually say when he gets below, just a hair below that 3.30 seconds. And actually at that point, you'll be able to see that treadwear line showing up.

The other shade tree trick is if you take a brand new penny and you put it to where Abe is upside down in the tread. What's a penny? That's that little, oh, okay, you don't carry coins. No, no, I don't think anybody's seen up in a long time. Yeah, they are getting rare. Can you use Apple Pay to do this? That would be a trick. But it's the old trick.

You turn Abe upside down, and if you can see almost all of his head, it's time to replace those tires. They're down to about 3.30 seconds. I haven't seen a quarter or a dime or a nickel in a long time. All you got to do is look in the cubbyhole of my truck. I got a bunch of coins in there. Me too. Hey, we're getting into the ways. Ladies and gentlemen, maintenance on tires is just underrated.

Do you know it... I think there was another part to that question. Yeah, on the oil. And the quick answer on that is oil helps to keep the dirt and all the contaminants out of the engine and keep the moving parts moving smoothly, and its number one job is to remove heat from the engine. Dirty oil does not flow as easily and cannot remove the heat as effectively, So clean oil is hugely important.

That's why you replace the oil as the manufacturer recommends. Absolutely. Mandatory. What I was getting ready to say was whenever you, a lot of people don't really think about their tires and how important the maintenance is on them and how they drive, tire pressure, the whole gambit of things.

And it's extremely important to your safety. So maintaining your tires, think about it, how far it will take you, how much gas you'll save. Josh? It's for the Rubber Meester Road. There you go. This is from Michael in Kentucky. Earl, I finally bought the Nissan Pathfinder, and thanks to you all, I think I got a good deal.

I use the tactics from the book, and I feel good about the deal. See you on the next car I purchase. So you use my book against this, huh? Oh, no, no, he's in Kentucky. Oh, in Kentucky, okay. So maybe he can send you a bottle of bourbon as a thank you. And just remember, you all, you contributed to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and you found a home for a doggy, and thank you very much for buying the book. All proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue.

Absolutely. Bourbon has become very popular. It's the in-licker now, Bays. Is that it? We're watching a series, and that's all they drink is bourbon in the morning for breakfast, lunchtime, and dinner time. I digress. We are going to go back to the telephones. and telephones.

Hmm. We're going to go to John, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. He's a regular caller. Hey, John. Good morning, John. Hello. How you doing? Good.

Good. Good. I'm doing great. I teach high school, and we, you know, no longer in school. But you guys are driving me crazy with this 2.30 seconds. Mm-hmm. How come it's not 116th or 464th? You must be a math teacher.

2.30 seconds does not, 2.30 seconds just, it doesn't sit right with the science community. I think because they give you. What's the lowest common denominator? It's been a while since I had to work that out. That's a good question. Seriously, you teach math? No, I teach science. Oh, science, okay, okay, yeah.

It's ratio in proportion. Yeah. But, you know, the 2.30 seconds is, you know, 116th, but the same number is 464s. I guess if you wanted to play with numbers, Tom 8, he started with 464s, now you've got 2.30 seconds. You'll say, oh, my gosh, I lost that much, and it's the same thing. Well, so it's probably less confusing. You know, Rick says it starts out with 10.30 seconds? Yep.

So if you say you've got 10.30 seconds, you go 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and if you alternated with 16th or 8s, it would confuse the issue. I think my eyes just crossed. And I love Donovan's comment. How about we just do it in millimeters like the rest of the world? I hate these imperial fractions. I hate millimeters. I hate millimeters. Oh, love Donovan.

Thank you, Donovan. Ladies and gentlemen, John was our last caller. We have to shut our lines down, and we're going to go to Josh. He's going to be taking care of all the texts, and Rick will be doing the YouTube's. And then, of course, we will be getting to our famous. Agent Lightning. All right. I have a few more

feedbacks to read. This one is for Rick again. It's a couple parts here. Rick, does oil really degrade that fast after the 5,000 miles or six months? That would be, I guess, for regular oil. They said there's a couple of YouTubers out there, I guess your competition.

Specifically, Scotty Kilmer recommends changing the oil 3,000 miles or three months. The Ford boss says 3,000 miles or three months. The car care nut, he's a he's a TMD like you he's at 5,000 miles or every six months so what do the what do those guys know that you don't I know one thing they're not the engineers that

designed those engines that's for sure and I will go with what the engineer that designed that engine says for his engine if he says do it this often that's what I'm going to follow because then if something happens to that engine I can come back to him and say, hey, you guys need to warranty this engine because I followed what you said. There you go. There's my answer. These are black and white issues and it's like the tires.

I mean, what makes you feel comfortable? I know guys like you, Rick, and you technicians that are nutty about taking care of your cars and over the years, I had technicians that were changing their oil every 20 minutes. I'm exaggerating. But, you know, it's like brushing your teeth.

I know people that brush your teeth five times a day, three times a day, Once a day, some people, I hope I don't know them, they don't brush your teeth at all. But, I mean, people vary as to what they feel comfortable with. And you guys, and you had to admit it, that maybe you matured, but I can remember you telling me how often you change your oil in your truck. And I'd say, isn't that kind of excessive? And you say, well, you know how many miles I got on the truck? Here, come look at my truck.

I'm going to show you the injured. Look at my truck. So, if you feel good about changing your oil every 3,000 miles, go ahead and do it. If you can afford it, do it. But like Rick says, you don't have to. No, I have it matured. And probably, and probably because you don't keep your vehicles as long as Rick. Rick, you know, if everybody kept their vehicles as long as Rick, I'd be broke as a car dealer.

He never buys a car. All he does is fix it and repair it and maintain it, and the car, his trucks last forever. So if you want a truck to the last forever, I guess you could change your oil every 3,000 miles. But on the other hand, when you go looking for a used vehicle, if I happen to be looking to sell one of mine. You'll get more money in anybody. Yeah, that's your baby. But when I get ready to let one go, whoever comes to get it after me, they've got a hell of a vehicle to drive. I mean, you might take it back if they're not taking care of it.

They could be, yeah. Do you have a separation issue? Yes. Do you? I get anxiety. Yeah, it's amazing how many people out there have a separation issue when they get rid of a car that they've had for so long, especially women. You know, one time we traded in a vehicle, and the person was so attached to their car, she made a deal with us. True story, true story.

She wanted visitation rights to visit her vehicle at the next owner's house just a couple of times a year. And she named the vehicle off her out of course, yeah. Yeah, and guess what? women move into their vehicle. They move in. I mean, it's their baby. It's their life. And whenever they have to get rid of it, separation issues.

Your home away from home. Rick, we never heard what your favorite car was. I was curious about that. You mean, if I could go get a car... All the cars you've owned in your life, your favorite? Actually, right now, it's my Tacoma that I'm driving right now, because I just love the way it rides. The technology I've got in it, it's a great vehicle, and I love it.

But if I could actually pick a car that I could just make it my own and have it as just a toy driver, I'd probably go with about a 95 CELICA with the four-cylinder convertible. There you go. A very simple car to work on, but a fun little convertible to drive. Oh, my memories. My heart. They had a great design, that nice curved body style. They were great little cars.

My heart be still. Can I talk about my barracuda? No. One week we'll devote the entire show to your barracuda. But it won't be real soon. I have one last feedback, and then I guess we could go on to the Shopping Report if that works. No, we got time. All right.

This is kind of funny. Back to the 50s car show is happening in St. Paul, Minnesota. 12,000 cars expected. No problem here with a shortage of... chips because I guess they're 1964 cars and older so things were simpler back then they were yeah

car shows you know how many car shows do we have today I mean used to be car shows used to be a whole lot more popular and today they're virtual right I mean I think they'll stay virtual I can't see the old car show ever coming back yeah a lot of things will change

the 50s I think I'm going to cry oh one last one just popped in here This is for Rick, too. You kind of touched on this. Will you void your warranty by over-servicing your car? No. All right, simple answer.

But it's a good point, and you're not going to void your warranty. The one thing you will do is you will void your pocketbook by overservicing your car. And when you go into a car dealership today, they're going to ask you to over-service your car. They're going to tell you this is their recommended maintenance. Now, the operating word there is, not manufacturers. All car dealers have the manufacturers recommending maintenance in the bottom drawer, and the top drawer is their recommended maintenance.

So the person in the service drive that comes out with you to write up your repair order is going to say, now this is your recommended maintenance. And that's his recommended maintenance because he's paid on commission. And he will recommend that you have a lot of things done to your car that you don't need. One of the reasons, and it's always been the case, by the way, but the reason it's more acute today is because the cars are so good, and they don't have much maintenance. In fact, the manufacturers are providing free maintenance in many cases for years, two years, three years. The maintenance is minimal, so they can afford to give you free maintenance. That way you come back to the dealership and maybe you buy another car.

So if you're in it up, if you've got a two-year-old car and you go in there and you get a maintenance bill for $400 or $500, you were hosed. You were taken advantage of, and you didn't need to do that. Beware of flushes, radio flushes, transmission flushes, beware of all sorts of flushes. Absolutely. And you know, ladies and gentlemen, back in my younger days, if I had to have a repair done on my car, that part was going to that they were going to replace that went into my trunk I wanted to see the part that they repaired and the part that I had to pay for okay ladies and gentlemen I want to remind you you can pick yourself up the June edition of Consumer Report where you can find

car repairs it is certainly informative and enlightening and if you want to take it a step further pick up the July edition, because there you're going to find dangerous pickup trucks. A great read. Now back to Josh. I believe we are out of anonymous feedback, so without further ado. Mystery Shop of Mullinac's Ford. Excuse me. Agent Lightning, from now on, I'm going to take a moment for her,

because she has done a phenomenal job, and without her, we couldn't explain. expose the number of dealers that we have, but also we are really getting some great mystery shopping reports. And that mystery shopping report you can vote on just by texting Josh and let him know how you feel about Mullinex Ford. We spent a lot of time investigating with Cardio as we've come to know as the bad boys. Ed Nabilton, numero uno. The Grico brothers, also known as the Greco brothers. The father like Greco. The boys don't like Greco.

They like Greco. Where do I get that backwards? Anyway. Not sure. Billy Fuchillo. Billy Fichillo. Over the years, the most informative and entertaining mystery shopping reports came from these three rough and tumble dealer group. Sadly, and truly sadly.

We learned yesterday that the biggest big... bad boy of the mall, Billy Fuchillo, passed away. While we called out his dealerships for time for aggressive and misleading sales tactics, we've also recognized as marketing genius and is huger. You'll get this in a minute if you haven't heard of Billy than life per and that's not a grammatical error. I did that on purpose. He came from an era when car dealers commonly starred in their old TV ads. They're trying to out each other with absurd and energetic performances. Some of you out there remember, Cal Worthington from California.

I mean, he was famous. I mean, really hysterical. And there was a guy in Las Vegas, Fletcher Jones. Fletcher Jones was really, he was in our, I have a group of dealers. We used to get together with a 20 group. We called them. and we had Fletcher Jones was a member of that group and Fletcher used to he used to sponsor dogs from the pound and like we're doing Big Dog Ranch but he he did a dog all the time and it was a character and it was entertaining so if you're going to do a crazy deceptive car commercial make it entertaining because Billy Fichillo did a crazy deceptive car advertising as did Caleworthy as did Fletcher Jones, but it was very entertaining.

Prime Motors. 99. My favorite. Josh does it a whole lot better. So if you're going to do, if you car dealers are going to do it, do it and make us laugh, and we'll listen to you, which is genius because Vichillo sold a lot of cars. In honor, in honor of the late, great, Billy Vichillo. We're going to, and remember, he'll be remembered 20, 30, 40 years from now, just like Cal

Worthington and Fletcher Jones. We're going to run our favorite Facillo Hyundai commercial cue. Oh, my Lord. I never thought there were so many Hyundai's here in heaven. They're building new roads to accommodate all these new Hyundais that get over 30 miles a gallon, that have 10-year warranties. It's very similar to Ridge Road in Greece. They're enlarging that road to accommodate all the Hyundais that are going to be sold.

Because you know they get over 30 miles a gallon. It's the best buy in the market. It's huge, Rochester. Huge. Oh, man. Play it again, Sam. Can you play it again? Oh, my Lord.

I never thought there were so many Hyundais here in heaven. They're building new roads to accommodate all these new Hyundai's. that get over 30 miles a gallon, that have 10-year warranties. It's very similar to Ridge Road in Greece. They're enlarging that road to accommodate all the Hyundais that are going to be sold because you know they get over 30 miles a gallon.

It's the best buy in the market. It's huge, Rochester. Huge! Really, rest in peace. You're going to be missed, and you're going down in auto history. One of the kind. One of the kind. Anyway, this week,

we're going to switch directions and take a look at a car dealer who we've always considered to be among the most ethical. Mullinix Ford in Lake Park. Now, nobody knows where Lake Park is. It's right on the borderline of North Palm Beach. Now you know where it is. It's a northern Palm Beach County. Malinx Ford has had mixed,

but mostly good results from about a half dozen mystery shops. Malinx Ford was the first. And remember, I wasn't the first. My car dealership does this. The only car dealer to pass, well, I'm sorry, they passed the cathartitez. But they were also one price, and they invented the lowest price. They invented the lowest price before we went to our one lowest price. So again, they're pioneers, and it was a dealership in their first dealership, I believe, was in Fort Lauderdale or Miami area, Malnix Ford.

And they really, the guy that started this, Ed Mullinix, the guy that started it, He was a pioneer, like Billy Fachillo, but a different type of pioneer. And so they really had a lot of respect and still have a lot of respect in the auto community. Now there are dozens of dealers that are part of. I mean, Molmec's name, they sold out, they have sons in the dealerships, and they have partners and so on and so forth. So anyway, we place them on our recommended dealer this. for their no haggle approach and they do stick to that and there are no dealer fee policy but

unfortunately the last two times we shopped them we were disappointed to find out they were in fact charging uh dealer fees even more disappointing was the fact that then and now they advertised no dealer fees that was that was very disappointing and i actually called one of the sons about our last shop and said that you're advertising no dealer fees. He said, well, you don't charge a dealer fee there. We're charging an electronic filing fee. I said, an electronic filing fee is the same thing. And so this is where we get into semantics.

Dealer fee is a generic term. Back in the day, they used to call it a dealer fee. And then they got smart and said, everybody knows that a dealer fee is a hidden fee, and it's dishonest. and we're being taken. They don't call it dealer fee. We'll change the name. So they change the name, and they change the name, and they change the name,

and now there's dozens, literally, of names. Electronic filing fee, dealer prep fee, doc fee, administrative fee, you name it. Let your mind wander, come up with anything. And they call it that, and they slide it in when you go to sign in the FNI office. And they increase the price. South Florida by over $1,000. So we got Mullinix to talk to the person that managed the store in Lake Park, that's North Palm Beach really, and they didn't change because we shopped them again.

So now we're going back and we're going to shop them again and see what happens. Here are two bullet points from the Mullinx website that the shopper looked at. We offer upfront pricing lets you buy with confidence and puts your mind at ease when you come to a dealership. Our prices are non-negotiable, and you never have to haggle. That's refreshing. We don't spring dealer fees on you at the last moment. The price you see is the price you get.

Now, if that's true, that's great. Let's see if there's an electronic filing fee. They did that last time we shopped. We sent on Agent Lightning, who you know how much we revere. She's an amazing shopper. to see how they're behaving themselves and a year and a half of pandemics and inventory shortage, what do they do now?

See if they really live up to their promises on their website. Okay, here's the report. Prior to driving, we're to Malnick's Ford, speaking in the first person, as I were, Agent Lightning, I found a new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport listed on Malnex website.

The NSRP was 28,315, and Malnex was advertised a $500 discount and a selling price of $27,815. You know, a year ago or two years ago, $500 discount. What a joke. See what I'm saying, folks? They're not even trying to hide it now. Low supply, high demand, prices are obscene.

Two-thirds of the cars sold in May. Two-thirds in the whole United States were over-sticker. Two-thirds. So, $500 over-sticker? That's a bargain. And that was the advertisement. The MSRP was $28,0315, and Malnix was advertising a $5.0.5 discount, making it $27,8.15. Right below the price, the ad said, no dealer fees.

You know, Malnix, if you're listening, change that to no hidden fees. Because dealer fees is too innocuous. It's too generic. It's too meaningless anymore. Hidden fee is the key word. hidden fees. You want to know all the fees that are in the price that you pay. You don't care what they call them. All you want, you want the bottom line. You want to be able to write a check at that number, give it to the salesperson, get in the car, and take it home. That's an out-the-door

price. That's what you want. Okay. Interesting, Wayne, Molynex's website showed that it had 391 new vehicles in stock. Ain't going to happen.com, folks. Ain't going to happen. However, after a little exploration, I discovered that these cars were shared across Malenex's seven locations. So, in seven locations and dealerships, all over, they got 391 cars, maybe. The Lake Park, North Palm Beach location, showed only 70 new vehicles of stock. Okay.

I arrived, Mr. Sharper, Agent Lightning, at 10.57 a.m. She's very objective and specific. Very specific. And was quickly greeted by a salesman who introduced himself as Raspberry. You know, we have a salesman named Magic Mike. And when I first saw that, I said, why does he call himself Magic Mike? That's embarrassing. You'll never forget that name.

You'll never forget the name. Now we got Raspberry. You'll never forget that one either. This could be, you salesman out there listen? We're going to start a whole new trend now. And, you know, you'll have ping pong. Bananas. How do you do?

Yeah. And, you know, think of a silly name. Call yourself that name. And you're a car salesman. Okay, Raspberry. Where are we? I forgot. I lost my place.

I really did lose my place. Oh, here you're. What brought me in? He asked what brought me in. I showed him the ad on the Bronco on the phone. That was on a good show me. on the phone. Raspberry asked me to follow him. We found a desk, sat down. Raspberry logged in this

computer and said he was searching the inventory for the Bronco from the end. Now, I'm just thinking to myself, if you're just tuned in, and I'm saying Raspberry found the phone. See, that's one of the problems when you call yourself Raspberry. You've got to laugh. You go to the bank and say, I want to know the balance in my checking account. And they say, what's your name? You say, Raspberry. You get out of here. You get a problem there. As he searched, he told me they had a very limited inventory that was shared by seven stores across Florida. They admitted that, okay. Transparency at last.

He said, not in the air of transparency, but by Raspberry. Raspberry is transparent. He said inventory had never been so tight. Another fact. If asked why they were short on vehicles, Raspberry explained, oh, I ask. I asked, a typo. Explained that there was a microchip shortage that was affecting new vehicle production. He said they had a four-story parking garage that is normally full of fords.

Then he pointed out the window to a smattering of cars parked outside. I said, that's it. So surely he didn't have very many cars. He was telling the truth. We walked out to find the Bronco. A raspberry was getting. The lot was practically empty. We found the Bronco in the ad.

MSRP matched. You always got to do that. Always look at the sticker, folks. There was no dealer addendum. That's refreshing. I've seen that twice in a row last week. Dealer addendums are almost 100%. Well, they don't need them now because they're just up front charging through the news.

Good point. Good point. The addendum is the microchip shortage. Raspberry took a picture of the window sticker, then let me back inside, offered me a, well, isn't that a refreshing? Raspberry took a picture of the window sticker normally. Yeah. Agent Lightning takes a picture. He left to go speak with management, SOP.

He returned a few minutes to telling me that the Bronco was sold, and we'd have to find something else dumb to dumb, this is when you start to worry. I suggest that instead of walking back outside to find another one, he should check to see what was available for sale first. He agreed, went back to the manager. Raspberry returned quickly, said he had a gray one with the same MSRP. Okay, now.

Dodged a bullet. Yeah, dodged a bullet. He asked for my driver's license so he could make a copy, get a license plate, and then he left to get the key. After several minutes, Raspberry came back and said he was having difficulty finding the keys. This is standard with Cardivas, by the way, including us sometimes. And then he walked off to continue the search. Occasionally, I see him walking through the showroom on the phone, muttering.

Raspberry was stressed. What's a stressed raspberry look like? You don't want to buy a stressed raspberry I'm getting silly I waited for another dehydrated I hope the show's over soon I'm really straight

He looks like a raisin Oh that's one better It was raining Raspberry offered to get the car for me I waited by the door He pulled the car up I climbed in He drove us off the lot

The cage indicated It only had 14 miles That's also standard In car dealerships What's up with that? The fuel tank was empty I pointed this out to Raspberry grimaced.

I've got another joke. I can't. This is getting silly. He said we should be okay. Take a short drive. One 95. Don't get me on the turnpike, all right? But I said, I didn't want to risk

run out of gas. This has happened to Agent Lightning on several occasions. He agreed we took a short drive around the neighborhood, Lake Park, which is really North Palm Beach. Back of the dealership, I told a Raspberry, I wanted to see him, I wanted to see some numbers.

He got more information about me and entered it into his computer. Then he returned to the manager's desk. He was gone for 17 minutes, not 18, not 16. Very specific. 17 minutes. Raspberry returned with a worksheet. The selling price was MSRP, but there was no discount. Uh-huh.

Here we go. But then there was no dealer fee either. Okay. Not even a tag agency fee, even better. A dealer fee by any other name is still a dealer fee, right? So here we go. The only thing added was sales tax and a sort of big-ish, made me a little nervous, a registration fee of 5-11.

Could be okay, could be an estimate, maybe not. Could be a tag agency fee. We don't know because we didn't get in to the F&I office, aka the box. High protested that said That wasn't clear at all The $500 was labeled You Save and this implied A discount

Raspberry pointed to the fine print Okay, now here we are Fine print Folks was another invented by lawyers Well just real quick The $500 they said was a trade assistance Trade assistance Okay that's right

So without a trade no discount That's right Now You could say it was playing this way because they want trades because used cars are worth a lot of money. But the big offense is it was in the fine print and it wasn't transparent. And any kind of a discount that you have to find in the fine print is deception. And it's also legally deception by the Federal Trade Commission. Okay?

So it's a violation of federal regulations. I protested and blah, blah, blah, and said it shouldn't be in the fine print. Here's what the fine print said, and I'm reading it, but it's not fine print, or I couldn't read it. The upfront price includes small-neck discounts, factory rebates, forward credit financing rebates. The price may also include trade assist. What does that mean? Business owner rebate, what does that mean? Owner-loyalty rebate when available.

For more information, speak directly with a salesperson, and this is all in fine print. In addition, you may be eligible for other rebates, college, military, private offers, including the upfront price. So the sin is the fine print and it's deception, okay? But everybody does it, folks. Everybody does it. I explained this was misleading since the discount wasn't offered to everyone. I said I felt foolish because I'd fallen for it. He apologized and asked if we could still put something together. I said, I was still interested, but I'd like to speak to my husband first. Raspberry said, I could leave my $500 deposit to hold it. He said he couldn't hold it otherwise

and probably true because the car won't be there at a week. Cars are selling fast today folks given the inventory problem. I declined and said I would risk it. He asked if I would meet his manager, standard procedure. I reluctantly agreed

and he walked me over to the area where all managers were. It was uncomfortable. I met his manager who also implored me to leave a deposit declined again and I left. And so there we are. what do you think let's have the votes what do you think

any votes come in yet I have one here let's see I believe Mark gives it a B plus B plus yeah it's not really a bad report Rick you get anything so far we've got Wayne with a C minus

Ernesto with a B minus and Brian with a B and let's see we have Mark with a B and Andrew with a C plus Bob gives them a D Tom with a B Mark Ryan with a C plus so they're all coming

in pretty much right in the middle Nate with a C minus Jonathan and Wellington says a solid B and I think I'm going to agree with a B I don't really care much for that little bit with the $500 but other than that the no dealer fee and full transparency look pretty good

to me. Boris with a C plus I'd be a B myself The Bronco is a brand new model It just came out The fact that they're not going to a couple grand over stickers Refreshing Good point Good point

Bronco amazing Brings back a lot of memories I give it a B Yeah I was thinking I was talking to the car I'm in the dealer to the show And I said a C plus I'm going to change that to a B

Thank you And recommend it list folks Buy your next Ford From All Next Ford In Lake Park Which is really in North Palm Beach And Negan and Guy, both with B Plus. Ladies and gentlemen, we are out of time, and I want to thank everyone.

Michael and Jonathan, that's behind the scenes, they do a fabulous job, and thank you for being part of Earl Stewart on Cars. We'll see you right back here next week, 8 a.m. Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there. Thank you. Let's come.