Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.22.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Mazda in Delray Beach

Episode Date: June 22, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Grieco Mazda of Delray Beach to see if they will sell him a car with a defect Takata Airbag recall notice. 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. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Rick Kearney. Reach them with your questions at 877-9-6-0-960, and now here's Earl Stewart. Good morning, everybody. Another Saturday, another show. And this isn't, we're not going to sing to you, this is the truly station. So you have to understand that Earl Stewart on Cars is all about how not to be ripped off by a car dealer. There I said it. I feel nicer when I say how not to be taken advantage of by a car dealer,

but I think it ripped off kind of grabs you like that. So, yeah, we don't want you to be taking advantage of buy car dealers, whether you're buying or leasing or maintaining or repairing your car. They can all be quite an adventure, quite a bad adventure. A lot of friends of mine say I'd rather have a root canal than buy a car. It's actually kind of bad for the economy when you think about it, because, you know, car dealers like to sell cars, and in full disclosure, I'm a car dealer, been one for 50-plus years.

So if you don't like to do something, you tend to put it off. I wonder if all car dealers treated people with honesty and transparency. I wonder if the economy would get a boost. I mean, you buy more cars. The auto industry is huge. Instead of having a trading cycle on new cars of every four to five years, it might be three to four years. It would be every other month. Yeah, I mean, if you love the experience.

But people put it off, and they're afraid, and that's the reason this show exists. We're pulling off my microphone here. I got my cord thrusting. We exist to help you, give you tips, and above all, we're a live talk show. We thrive on your input, your calls to 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. We also are on YouTube, we're also on Facebook and Twitter and Periscope. So, Erlon Cars, Facebook.com.com slash Erlon Cars, YouTube.com port slash Erlon Cars. Anything you want to use to communicate with us, ask us questions, make comments.

We'd love to hear from you. In the studio with me today are a group of people that have been with me for a long while. actually from the get-go, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, and also a very strong female advocate. She is a consumer advocate, but especially for the ladies in the audience. We would love to have you call the show. She has us, in a minute, she's going to tell you about a special deal she's got for women because we want to keep the balance there.

We want to have, at least have as many female callers as we do male callers. To my immediate right is Rick Kearney. Rick has been with me for a long, long time. I can't remember why I haven't seen Rick around. He's just a quarter century, right? Pretty much, yeah. It's a long time, I mean, 25 years doesn't sound as long as a quarter century. I'm just a piece of the furniture now.

I'm there. Used to wear a little beanie cap and shorts, I think, when I... There was a propeller on top of the beanie. Well, I still wear the shorts. But I'm telling you, Rick, and I've been around a long time. And when I say Rick is the most knowledgeable, I never know what to call him, way back when he was a grease monkey. No, you were, you never were young enough. You're not old enough to have been a grease monkey.

You start out as a mechanic, and then you evolve into a technician, then you evolved into what we call Rick today, an auto-computer scientist. But seriously, he is a certified diagnostic master technician, and to get to be that, you have got to go through a lot of schooling, and then a lot of. of testing over and over again. By the way, auto technology is going in such a pace today that it's like going to a doctor. If you're going to a doctor that graduated from medical school 40 years ago, you're in trouble. You have to stay on top of your trade, your profession. And Rick does that, constant, constant education. And the technology today is computerized electronics. Our cars are rolling computers, and Rick can answer any question I dare you to call the show, and ask Rick a question, he cannot answer a question about the operation of your vehicle.

You know, some of the fancy electronic stuff, I have to admit, I probably cannot identify or use correctly a third of the fancy buttons on my car. And I'm a car dealer. And I bet you, if you've got a late model car, I bet you're the same way. So call Rick Kearney, call Nancy Stewart. And we've got Stu Stewart, my son, he's Earl Stewart, the third. And he has also been in the car business a long time, too. He's kind of an overall expert.

Rick is more of an expert, a technical expert. Stu and I are generalist. And he's also our cyberspace connection. And he's the one when you Facebook us or Twitter us or Periscopus or whatever. He's the first one to see it. And Texas, 772-4976530. So this show isn't here to pontificate in lecture. I know it sounds this way now because I'm yacking a lot,

and I'm going to shut up in just a minute. And after that, we just are hoping that we have a lot of calls. Love to hear from car dealers, by the way. We never hear from car dealers. We know they're out there because we hear in a roundabout way through third parties. They don't like us, mainly because the biggest reason is because of the mystery shops. we get more negative comments in our anonymous feedback and other methods of communication from car dealers who have to remain anonymous. It's about the mystery shopping reports.

And what that is, it is very exciting. You have to stay tuned for that. And Tina, hang on just for a second. Tina, one of our very, very best callers and also who happens to be female, is holding, and we'll be right with you. But the mystery shopping report, we send an undercover agent out. every week. Been doing it for 15 years. And they go into a car dealership somewhere in South Florida.

They pretend to buy or lease a car. And they name names, they name managers and salespeople. We name the dealership and we tell you exactly what happened. We maintain a recommended dealer list and we have a do not buy from this dealer list. If they pass the test in the mystery shopping report, they get recommended. And we've got actually more recommended dealers than not. that said, I have to tell you we grade it on the curve. We don't have any dealers out there that really qualify for a non-curve score of an A, but we give them an A sometimes when they

just do better than everybody else. Hey, if you didn't do that, there'd be no place in Florida that we would recommend you buy a car, and the Florida economy would crash. Nancy. I wanted to let you know that I extended a personal invitation to our car dealers this morning, encouraging them to call. Thanks. You know, they won't be, you know, cut off. You'll listen to them. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Oh, I feel a love today. It's going to be a great show, just like Earl said. And what makes it even more great is the fact that we just want to build a platform here for ladies, and we want you to give us a call. A little encouragement, $50 for the first two new lady callers. So stay tuned for a fabulous show. Give us a call, if you're a little bit shy. Texas at 772-497-6530, and now we are going to go to Tina from Benita Springs.

Good morning, Tina. Good morning, Tina. Good morning, y'all. How you doing? We're great. Let's listen to the song for a second. I just love that music. Oh, my goodness.

That's when the devil goes down to Georgia. That's Tina's theme song. And nobody knows the name of the song. We played anyway. What's up, Tina? The devil goes down to the car dealership and wreaks havoc, how's that sound? That's even better.

Well, I sent you a link just a little bit ago, but GM is in the news because they want to weasel out of replacing the Kakata airbags. And they've already petitioned NHTSA, so they're on the bad guy list. They're not concerned. I hated

that. I read that article, Tina, and it is very, very depressing, honestly. I just don't know why it doesn't get more headlines and more comment in the mainstream media, but it is embarrassing as an automobile dealer to find a major manufacturer that would dare to do that. Gentle Motors is actually asking for delay on recalling their cars on the road with hang grenades in the front that will blow up and kill you. And I hope the NHTSA does not allow them, does not honor that request. I hope the consumers, too.

I hope there's a class action lawsuit. There should be. And there's another little tidbit on the news. Now we know how GM treats its employees because they're going to do something different. The higher paid employees are going to have to pay more for their health care, and they're going to be subcontracting out more low-paid staff. So they're just doing it as a cost-saving measure, but they're not really being good to their employees or their subcontractors either.

So that's something else to consider. And if you have low employee morale and a company, then the end product is not going to come out as it should because the employees and the subcontractors just won't care because they're not getting paid but they need to be paid and they'll just do the job the lowest quality way they can just to get the paycheck. So true. Very true, Tina.

And Tina, it's consumers like you. And it's folks like us right here in the studio that are doing our part to bring Takata to the front line. And, well, we're in a bit of a small, successful place as far as the Takata topic is concerned. But what's even more rewarding is I got to mention my husband and how proud I am that he has led this battle. And it wasn't just today or yesterday, but it was. been, it's been for years, and there's been a lot of people that have lost their lives. And for you to see this news in the USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Palm Beach Post, it is, well, so satisfying, but we have so much work to do.

Man, I can't believe this. I'll read this right now. Yeah, if I was a GM owner right now, I'd be not a very happy person. They actually said that the... I would probably be a thorn in the site of my dealership. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, GM says that the Takata airbag inflators, quote, do not present an unreasonable risk to safety, and they continue to perform as designed. What the hell are they talking about?

I don't know. Honestly. It's embarrassing. I think it might be a financial thing with them. They're worried, as a lot of manufacturers are, that if there's legislation on this and they force them not to sell cars with Takata airbags and not to sell existing used cars with defective Takata airbags, the economic hit would probably take gentle motorists. goes right down. Yeah. And they're afraid of it.

The whole industry is afraid of it. And they say, I hate to sound like someone with a conspiracy theory, but I honestly believe it's a giant industry conspiracy theory to hide the danger of the Tocada airbags from the consumers. Oh, I don't doubt that, but our show is helping kind of get the word out a little bit and it's getting reported in the news more and more. so that's a good thing like if somebody dies unfortunately heaven forbid is a cause of the airbag malfunctioning now it's being splashed all over the internet so that's good the awareness is getting

out there but one person being killed by these airbags is one person too many it's just awful sure tennie you're right i was just i was just i was just i was just i was just reading a story but a 27 year old lady that got killed this was not didn't have anything to do with the airbags themselves but the recall it was an ignition switch recall and she got caught in a chain reaction crash died at the age of 27 so it's the recalls too and some of these big companies like GM are kind of wanting to go hush hush on their recalls and not take responsibility and that's the problem these auto manufacturers don't want to take responsibility and another hit that GM has on its record is a history in consumer reports of having subpar vehicles and they just don't seem to care too

much about addressing the reliability issues. Yeah, they have a challenge economically, and I think that's making them even more and more dangerous. They went bankrupt once, the government had the bail amount, and, you know, the car industry is struggling a little bit now. Auto sales are down, and the marginal manufacturers, the ones that have not as much cash as they need are starting to get desperate, and what General Motors just did is an act of desperation.

Yeah, I wonder if they're going to go the way of Pontiac. I really do. I think they're on the cusp of it. Well, I used to be a Pontiac dealer. I'm glad I sold out before they decided to close the doors. Excellent foresight there, sir. Yes. Great foresight.

Yeah. Tina, thanks very much. Anybody looking to buy a GM this weekend, do your homework first. There you go. Absolutely. Consumer Report, you can't go wrong. Thank you, Tina. Our number is 877-9-6.

So, 9960, and you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I can't believe the number of texts that are coming in, Stu. Oh, yeah, yeah. They were waiting for us when we got here. Oh, jeez. People got up early ago, I'm going to get line.

I didn't look because I didn't think they're, that's amazing. They have like nine of them, I think. Let's go. One of this GM article really quick, first of all, it mentions there's another 20 million Taked airbags that have yet to be recalled and just that in and of itself would have been like a world record safety recall and it hasn't even happened yet add that to the 31 million they've already recalled it's insane 41 million yeah insane all right let's go to the text that we got um this is from david and he says i would like to have a tactic to walk to a dealer and shop for a deal price

let me let me read this for a deal a price out the door without losing all day I want to use the form that you created, Nancy, but I'm confused on when I'm supposed to use it. Can you explain it better? Thank you. I sure can. That site that you can go to is www. Out the Door Price Affidavit.com. And to explain it, it's self-explanatory.

That is the out-the-door price. Nothing more, nothing less. And if the car dealer, the manager, the salesperson, doesn't want to. sign it and they can't charge you a dealer fee, a dock fee, a mozzarella cheese fee, nothing. That is the out-the-door price and it ensures that whenever you, you can fax that over to the car dealer that you're purchasing the car from or you can email it. There's several ways and if they won't sign it, walk away. The time to ask for the person to sign the affidavit is

after you have completed your negotiation. In other words, you're going to be shopping competitively, or are you going to be using true car or Costco? You're going to have arrived at a price that is satisfactory to you, and at that point, you're going to say, now is this an out-the-door price? He'll probably say yes, and you say, well, you wouldn't mind signing this form. You present the form at the end of the negotiation or at the end of the selection of the dealer that you choose to buy from when they have given you the price.

if they tell you that you can go home and talk to your wife about it, say, please sign this before I go home and show it to my wife. And it is a guarantee that the price does not have any add-ons other than government fees. That's the key, because that's the way the dealers suck in. They give you a price that is lower than they can possibly sell the car for. And when you come and sign the paperwork in the business office, they had thousands of dollars in fees, which is absolutely disgraceful. Absolutely.

And you've got to make sure. You've got to make sure that whatever they guaranteed you that you were going to pay for that car, the price that they quoted, that's the out-the-door price. Nothing in between. www. Out-the-door price affidavit.com. And I have another suggestion for a good time to deploy that forum is if you're shopping, on the internet. You could download that form and you can get a quote on the internet from

a dealership and then you could email them that form. Love it. And say before I even drive to the dealership, please sign this, scan it and send it back to me. Otherwise, I'll go to the next dealership down the road. That's a good point. Yeah. That way you avoid having the good of the Haglin asshole of going inside a dealership, do it online. I love it. And you don't even, you don't even have to do that. You can call them up, ask for their fax numbers, fax it to them. Just get it done before you go to the box. Before you walk into the box. The dealership. Exactly.

The next one, there's no name on this. It says, why did Toyota not recall the 2009 Camry? Just from my memory, they did, but I looked it up, and there was actually 10 recalls on that year car, including the sticky accelerator pedal issue, which was controversial. There was also a seat heater wiring recall, a couple of minor ones, but there was a total of 10 recalls in the 2009 Camry. So I suppose that answers the question Next one Do your brake lights come on while in cruise control

When a car pulls in front of you and slows down So they're probably talking about that dynamic radar laser cruise control That slows your car down to the flow of traffic One more time on the question So do your brake lights come on when your car slows down Say you're cruising along at 65 A guy going 60 pulls in front of you Your car will slow down to the brake lights come on

only if the system engages the brakes and when I say that it's because it would be the same thing as if you were simply to let off the gas to let your car slow down versus you applying the brakes and the system can do both if it detects a car coming in front of you but it simply needs to slow down just a little bit then it will just reduce speed by letting off the accelerator and if it really is approaching quickly say they hit their brakes and you're your automatic braking engages, then your brake lights will come on. That's a great question. I never thought about that. And that was a great answer. It basically does the same thing that the human does. The cruise control acts like you do. If you hit the brakes, the brake light goes on.

If you take, put off the accelerator slow down, the brake light doesn't go on. You know, my kids, because I learned how to drive on a stick shift, I will still downshift, even though I drive an automatic car, but I'll shift it in a load just to, because I'm used to doing it. And they're concerned about the same thing. Well, your brake lights don't come on when you do that. And I'm like, well, I'm not really slamming on the brakes. I'm kind of slowing down a little faster.

That's why our kids are smarter than us. That's right. It's really neat. It's really neat to be able to shift those gears. I mean, almost like a zift at your driving a stick shift, you know. It gives you a low. It puts a little fun back into your drive, yeah. Yeah.

By the way, that was sent by my 11-year-old daughter, Josie. Just kidding. So last week we got a call from a gentleman who was having an issue at one of the Schumacher dealerships. And we provided Chuck Schumacher. personal cell phone, and so he has a little follow-up here. It's short. It says I got my car back today, but I had to take it with a check engine light still on due to an O2 sensor issue. It's drivable, but it's not yet complete. Schumacher ordered a sensor, and we'll get back when they have it. A horrible experience, so it hasn't resolved itself yet, but he does have

the direct line to Mr. Chuck Schumacher. Let me ask you a quick question of Rick here. The O-2. sensor light, when the check engine line goes on, it's an O2 sensor, is that a catalytic converter or can be something less expensive than a catalytic converter? Generally, there's actually two sensors called O2 sensors. One of them is ahead of the catalytic converter, and what it does is it tells the computer how well the engine is running, how well it's burning the fuel and air that go into the engine. and from that information the engine can adjust the air and fuel to keep everything

it's kind of like adjusting the carburetor but it's doing it many times a second so the one up front to replace is not as expensive as a catalytic converter actually that one that sensor is less expensive than a catalytic converter yeah but the sensors usually are a couple hundred dollars they're kind of expensive yeah the one that sits behind the catalytic converter its only job is to tell the computer, how well the catalytic converter is cleaning up those gases that go out through the exhaust pipe. Very good. And that

one, you rarely see it go bad. And catalytic converters anymore have become so I want to say bulletproof. It's actually rare to replace the catalytic converter unless you've had some sort of bad contamination get in the engine

that messes it up. Thank you, Rick. We've got a bunch of text here. I'm going to give the number out because we're not getting as many calls as we normally do. 877-9-60-99-60. We'd like to hear your voice when you call in. Text or find, post-or-fine, 877-9-60-99-60, and Nancy.

Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget that fax. A text number, you can text us at 772-497-6530, and ladies, $50 for the first two new lady-dollar, lady callers. I'm sitting here. I'm waiting to hear. from a lady back to the recovering car or back to stew we have 50 collars for the first lady dollars here finish my coffee there we go all right this one is a little bit long but it's very

interesting and it comes to us from dan hamilton at montana mobile oil and lube in missoula montana so a big shout out to the the great mountainous state of montana i used i hunted out there one time and i went up on top of a mountain that had an observatory on it and Montana has got the cleanest air anywhere in the USA and it was most beautiful sight I ever saw on top of a mountain out there yeah amazing I thought we were going to move there for a while because your dad did so much hunting there I would love just to go there for the dark sky about the weather oh I believe they're nickn there is it's the big sky state yes there you go all right so from from Dan in Missoula Montana he says here's an environmentally friendly way

to get the rain X effect on your windshield one cut a potato in half 2. Hold the exposed cut portion of the potato against the windshield and wipe it all over your windshield. The starch and the potato will act as an invisible barrier between the windshield and the rain. Three, repeat as necessary. I've used this before, and it worked as well as Rainex. However, I'm not a big fan of the Rainex effect. For those that do, this is an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to get similar results. I search for information on what is in Rainex and found special polymers. The vagueness of the description makes me why. wonder, and that's from Dan.

Dan, I'm going to Google that, but I'm not, you know, somebody ought to try it. It doesn't sound like you. You can't hurt anything. I know that you got to try it. I mean, I just want to cut the potato into and rub it and see what happens, right? And you could probably cook. Rick, you want me to do or do you want to do it? You can cook it afterwards.

Well, let's see. Throw in the microwave. Do we risk you and your Lexus or me and my Tacoma? Come on. What could a spud do to a windshield? Well, Dan, I appreciate that. We're going to try it, and we will report back next week, and I love the idea. I mean, hey, if nothing else, you save money, how much does one potato cost?

One potato, two potato. We've had a lot of rain lately, so... Well, it depends if you're whole foods. Might be a few bucks of whole foods. I'll give this an attempt. We'll see what happens. All right. Mythbusters.

These texts are popping in. These are all our callers. They're all texting now. So the next one, this is a perfect opportunity to let you all know about a... way to get in touch with us and the question is as hi does earl uh stuart's car show have an email address i can send a long question to thanks i gave them your email address which is earl at earl on cars.com and i also said you can go to your anonymous feedback.com and that comes to us directly and it also conceals um your phone number won't be revealed your name won't be revealed it's encrypted so uh that's a good uh good avenue for controversial yeah one of the reasons for your anonymous feedback

dot com is for car dealers and car manufacturers a lot of people are listening out there that are adversarial. They don't like what we do. They don't like the transparency. They consider an attack on the retail auto industry, which it is. And even on auto

manufacturers, we just tell it like it is. I don't care if it's good for my business or good for the toilet manufacturer or good for Honda. I just believe and tell them the truth as I see it. And we've been on the air for 15 years. We've never been sued. successfully. No, we've never been sued at all.

We've been threatened with lawsuits. We've received a cease and desist letter. Yes. And the fact that you haven't been sued tells you that you have told the truth because every lawyer out there in the listing audience knows that libel and slander, perfect

defense against those, is truth. You tell the truth. You can say the worst thing. I could say terrible things about Rudy in the control room right now. But if they were true, Rudy could not successfully sue me. Yeah, Rudy's wearing beat

headphones right now. It's true. So, anonymousfeedback.com, www. www. Your Anonymous, A-N-O-N-Y, M-O-U-S. I do think because I'm proud that I could spell anonymous

quickly. Youranonymousfeedback.com for the industry. Manufacturers, car dealers, people that work at car dealerships, we'd love to hear from you, or just text us or call us. We'd love to hear from you.

It is worth noting that when we receive the cease and desist letter, we decline to cease. We do. And we decline to desist. Exactly. All right, this comes from Anne-Marie, the next text. And Anne-Marie is a long-time listener, long-time texter. She says, good morning. I learned a lesson years ago, and I'd like to share it with you.

I was dining with a friend out in California. The food was great and the service was excellent. My friend asked to speak to the manager when we finished our dinner. I asked why. She explained to me that while it's important for management to know when something is wrong, it's also important for them to know what's being done right and to give recognition for a job well done. On that basis, I'd like to give you an update.

My 2013 Camry had the white paint that flaked and wouldn't keep a shine. I brought it into your body shop. Alan checked it out. He contacted Toyota. The work was done under warranty. It was finished a day early and my car looks as pretty as the day I bought it. Thank you very much to Alan and James and the entire team that made my car look like new again. Thank you very much for a great customer service.

And just as an educational word, Anne-Marie, thank you very much for the compliment. All you listeners out there, when you have a problem with your car that you think is warrantable, but your car's a little bit out of warranty or maybe a lot out of warranty, there's a second chance that you can attempt. That's called Goodwill. It's an industry term. There's nothing legal or official about it, but all the manufacturers and car dealers know about it. Goodwill.

Your car's auto warranty, and you know it's just because of defective manufacturer some kind, but technically they got you. You go to the manager, or you go directly to the owner of the dealership. You need somebody higher up and someone that has your interest at heart, and you explain to them, and they can go to the manufacturer, any auto manufacturer, and they will advocate for you and say, you know, this car is only 3,000 miles on a warranty, or 6 months out of warranty, or 6 months out of warranty, You know we have this problem. You had a recaller, and it wasn't a recall, but you had a, what they call, TDA, a technical, TA, TSB, TSP, technical service bullet.

TSP, they call them technical service bullets. They're kind of secret recalls or warranties. So you ask for that, and if you go about it in the right way, you can get surprisingly positive results out of warranty. Okay. That is true. Okay. The next one. This is from a listener who wants to, we're going to send it to him in a text,

the answer in a text, because he's going to be golfing while we're on the show. But you can also get the podcast. You can get the replay of the show and just go to Earl on Cars for that. You can find that? But it says, Earl, and I know the answer to this. Earl, can I buy a car from a Southeast Florida dealer and then have it drop shipped to the Cleveland, Ohio area? And if I can, when I buy it in Florida, can I have the dealer title in Ohio and not Florida? And he says, I'll be on the golf course during the broadcast.

And the answer is, within the southeast distributor ship for Toyota dealers, what could be done, it can be dropped shipped to the state, the farthest north state, say North Carolina, or whatever the closest state is to Ohio, and then transportation would have to be arranged, like a private car carrier or a shipping service, to take it up to the Cleveland area. Within our distributor ship down here, we can't ship it up there, but we can get it as close as we can. And the dealer up there would have to be paid a courtesy delivery fee, which should be nominal, maybe a hundred bucks, which would be well worth it for you. Yeah, and also the second part of your question, yes, you can have it titled in Ohio and not Florida. Yes.

So there you go. The next one. Remember, you've got to text that to him because he's playing golf. I will. I will. My 2016 Malibu has that feature where the engine turns off when you stop. Is there any way that this function can be done? Disabled, thanks, and that's from Karen.

That's a good question for Rick. It's probably not talking to the one where you pull into the garage and you're worried about carbon monoxide. You're talking about the stoplight to save fuel. Yeah, Rick? Yeah, that's known as the start-stop technology. And in my opinion, not a very wonderful idea, especially because both the starter and the battery on that car

have a recommended lifespan and a recommended maintenance interval when they have to be replaced. and they are very expensive. I know the starter is triple the cost of a normal, or the battery rather, is triple the cost of a normal battery. And yes, there should be a setting that you can go to on your car to disable that feature.

Check your owner's manual. I know Toyota's with our system. And pretty much when they design one, all of them are going to be very similar. there is a way for the owner to simply go in and disable that system. That drive me crazy. I disable it right away. Absolutely.

Here we go. I know Rick has some questions that came in on YouTube, but before we get to that, I just want to give a shout out to Linda, long-time listener, Facebook fan, friend, and cohort. She's commenting on the use of potatoes for Rainex. She says, use the potatoes on a wart. Then go bury that potato. My grandmother told me that. And it worked.

So thanks, Linda. So we have medical advice and we have a car advice. Thank you, Linda. Here's a good question here. This is actually, this is from Dan in Montana again. If a passenger is drunk riding in a self-driving car that gets into an accident and causes injuries, who's at fault for the subsequent lawsuit? What does that person tell the police officer that shows up to the scene?

That's a great question. I think they're going to have to rewrite a lot of laws with autonomous cars. I think that with the ultimate autonomous car there's going to be absolutely nothing wrong with being drunk and that's one of the great things about it. I mean, just think about it. You can go out and party hardy and get drunk as a skunk and as long as you can say, take me home,

what a wonderful way to be safe and have the other people on the road safe. But that's a long time before we will have that situation. Yeah, they're talking about like there's different levels of autonomous driving and the anytime, I would guess, and this is just speculation, if there's still something for a human being that they have to do, you can't be impaired. For a long time, yeah.

But at the pure, like, limousine mode where you have, like, a chauffeur where you can just go to sleep, get as drunk as you want. Yeah, eventually the autonomous cars will be better than humans, more reliable than humans, and there will be no reason why somebody that was impaired cannot have someone take him home, but someone is a very, very intelligent car.

Okay. I got one more. I'm sorry, Rick, it came in because it's, It's kind of criticizing my driving style. Stu, on the way to the radio show this morning, I'm just kidding. I, like Stu, shift my 2010 Sion's automatic transmission. Most always downshifts.

But I've heard on numerous car websites that this will prematurely destroy the tranny, true or false. Uh-oh. Rick? That's for you. False. Okay, good. As a matter of fact, I quite often do this if I'm coming down off a hill or a bridge. I'll downshift my transmission.

It is not going to hurt the transmission. as long as you're not like banging the shifter around. If you're, you know, very aggressive and hard on the shifter, you might damage the shifter. But just normal active driving, no, you're not going to hurt it at all. Okay. You got some YouTube, don't you, Rick? We do indeed.

Ernesto has a great one here. He says, good morning. He says, how well are Toyota mechanics trained on Lexus? A friend is considering buying a Lexus, but the nearest Lexus dealer is two hours away. and there's a Toyota dealership right close in his city. I can answer 90% of that and give you a great answer here. We are trained for just about every model of Lexus

because all of them are simply, shall we say, dressed up Toyotas for the most part. There are a couple models of Lexus that we do not have, and in those cases for things to get very technical with them on those few, we would refer you to a Lexus dealer. Bear in mind, however, Toyota dealerships cannot do any warranty work on a Lexus. And that would include the free maintenance that you would get from buying a Lexus, your first two years of maintenance or whatever.

We've got a phone caller here. And Ernesto, one thing I'll add is that's a great idea. You'll save a ton of money. If you drive a luxury car like an Accura or an Infinity or a Cadillac, you're driving a Cadillac, go to a Chevy dealer. You're driving the affinity to go to a Nissan dealer. The prices will be about half of what you have to pay. Justin, thank you so much for holding,

and Justin is calling us from Dallas, Texas. Good morning, Justin. Good morning. I had a quick question. My wife and I just paid off our Nissan Rogue that we bought about two and a half years ago, and we're almost in the market for a new car for myself. And I wanted to know if I would get a better deal if I told the dealership that I was willing to finance with them, or would they give me a

worse deal if I said I was willing to pay cash for the entire car? Well, it's almost like we push you up to that question, Justin, because we've got a mystery shopping report today that indirectly addresses that issue. But the answer simply is you're far better off to tell them you will finance with them when you negotiate the price for the car, and that is because car dealers make more money financing cars than they do selling cars oftentimes they will let a very very slim deal a very narrow profit deal happen because they never going to have a chance to make two or three or four or five or even more thousand dollars on you in the finance department but

by always tell them and this applies to everybody out there that you're thinking about financing the car and then go about your negotiation there's nothing to stop you from at the when you finally got your price from saying, but I think I just changed my mind. I'm going to pay cash. But when you do that, Justin, do not focus on payment. When you say you're going to finance, they're going to present you a bunch of payments.

You don't want to see the payments. You want to see the selling price. Good point. Bottom line, Althador price. They will play with you on the payments. So that's absolutely true. Same with leasing too. Yeah.

Get a sale price. When I'm in the F&I, I can just tell them I've changed my mind. I've decided to pay cash. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And there, this is a, this comes from the mystery shopping report that we'll be talking about in the second hour. But in this particular case, I'll have to let a little bit be revealed. The car dealer told us in the mystery shopping report that the price the mystery shopper came in on was only good if they financed with that dealer.

Now, that's illegal. But if they tell you that, just say you can't do that. That is illegal. You cannot tie the financing to the purchase price. There are a few exceptions when the financing they're talking about is manufacturers financing that you have availed, say, 0% and or a rebate. But 99% of the cases, they won't raise that issue. But this was raised with us for the first time, or maybe the second time, then I can recall.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you, Justin. Great call. Your anonymousfeedback.com. We can't repeat that. Your Anonymous Feedback.com, 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530, and I think I'm going to send it over to Rick. We have one last one here.

William is asking, good morning from New Jersey. It says, what advice would you give to a first-time buyer when it comes to use cars and comparing dealers against one another when it can be hard to find similar cars for, fail? Auto trader can be your best friend when you're buying a used car because you can expand your radius by adding different zip codes and you identify the specific vehicle you want. Virtually every dealer in the United States lists their entire inventory on auto trader. So if you want to go far enough radius, I mean enough miles, you'll probably find the exact car you want. And you can shop online, remember, you don't have to actually go in until you actually have to drive the car and feel it, smell it, and be sure is what it represented to be.

But you shop and compare online, start with AutoTrader to find the car you want, and deal as much as online as you possibly can, and a used car is the best way to go. Use car is a better value than a new car. Late model, a used car is, in a lot of ways, better than a new car. So that's the answer, William. If you have any other questions, give us a call anytime. Okay, I think I have a call. We're going to go to John in Palm City.

Good morning, John. Morning, John. John, you're with us. Can you hear us? Okay. I think we have a phone issue. We got him. Good morning, John.

Good morning to everyone. Nice day. Another warm day. Yes. Want to talk about Ford, the one company that did not need a bailout. Here's your basic reasons why. Ford basically knows what to do to survive. Ford is cutting 7,000 white-colored jobs worldwide.

That's going to save them $600 million a year. That's basically 10% of the global world workforce. There'll be 2,300 of buyouts and layoffs in the USA alone. Actually, it eliminates bureaucracy. It doesn't say anything naturally about the union. workers. This is strictly white collar, and it's extra, you know, extra meat, stuff that they didn't need, people reporting to somebody else, and it's eliminating the waste. So, again, it sounds bad to the people that are going to lose the job, but again, it's ford knowing what to do and why in the past that they

needed to bail out. And, you know, we all know, again, I talked in the back past about COVID. vet, well, the Mustang is still a very hot seller since it came out in April 64. At that time, I was at the World's Fair corporate exhibit for another company, and it was announced, and the first day they sold 2,200. In 18 months, they sold over a million Mustangs. In 66, they sold, I read for a member, 607,000 cars, and in 66 it was the only American car that received a Tiffany Award for excellence in American design. Nobody else ever resists. So again, congratulations to Ford. It's a good car. It's a hot seller. And again,

it's bad news to the people that are losing the job, but Ford knows basically how to turn, you know, the economize. And then the second thing I want to mention, and I don't really understand this, and I don't think Rick or Earl understand it. has been caught in Delaware in the state of Delaware selling federal greenhouse credits Tesla

that were selling them to, or they are selling them to, the Fiat Chrysler and GM. The details are unknown, but what it does, it offsets the gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs of GM and Chrysler.

So basically the details are not fully known, but it is the fact that they're selling credits to the two companies that need them. Does anybody know anything about that? John, it's selling greenhouse credits is not against the law. It's, it happens. I think the embarrassing part with Tesla is the fact that they are having a cash flow problem. And, you know, there's questions about their longevity, whether Tesla can survive. And I think what they're doing is probably trying to raise cash.

But all the manufacturers will do this. They will, people that have built up credits. You build up credits by complying with the law in terms of emissions, and then you can actually exceed your number of emission-satisfied government official cars. You have to build your cars to meet a certain gas mileage. And if you build too many cars that are over that gas mileage limitation, you have to pay for it. And the way you pay for it is you have to buy the greenhouse credits

from other manufacturers that exceed. I can see where Tesla would accumulate a huge storehouse full of greenhouse credits. They probably have more than they need. So they go to Chrysler, who's in trouble. They're selling too many cars with high emissions, and they have to buy these greenhouse credits to cover that. So it's kind of a crazy system, but that's the way it's been for 20 years. Well, I didn't know that.

I didn't know it was going for that fact. Yes. And, you know, it sounds to me a little shady. It does sound shady. It's going on for, as you say, about 20 years. I thought it was something basically within the last couple of years. Yeah. One other fans comment, too, on the Tesla, not Tesla, but the recall, all right,

whenever you get a car and it has, and the dealer is covering it up, to me, this is actually worse than playing Russian roulette. Sure. I mean, especially with the hot weather now in Florida that we're having, I mean, that thing could go off any time whatsoever. And I can't understand how it's so covered up or dealers can actually sell a car and cover it up and lie outright and tell you, well, it's, you know, it's nothing wrong. It's the safety. It's been checked in our shop. John, did you see that? Just one comment on that, especially in this hot weather we've been having. That could be set off in South Florida, so fast it's not funny.

You want to talk about a conspiracy? I had a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter yesterday, and he and I were talking about this USA Today article that we commented on the show a couple weeks ago. A headline in the article was, headline USA Today, Use car dealers didn't want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a new law to avoid it. And this is a conspiracy, and they actually, conspired. There was a group in Washington that is supported and financed by the state car dealers

associations. It's called the Automotive Trade Association. And they wrote a model legislation, they call it, that goes to all the state legislatures. And this was designed to avoid car dealers who sell cars knowingly with defective airbags or any other dangerous recall to protect them against lawsuits when you sell a defective product that can kill you and someone is injured your whole business is at stake you could be sued on punitive damages to put you out of business so this model legislation that is being passed in state legislatures around the USA gets them off the hook and what this is is legislation that says the car dealer must disclose the fact that there's a a dangerous recall in the car. Now, the devil is in the detail of fine print. Disclosure means

fine print that nobody reads. Reams of paper when you buy a car, you sign it. And those reams of paper among dealer fees and hidden fees, you will find this disclosure that, by the way, this car you're buying has a dangerous recall. Doesn't even require the dealer to fix it. Now, this is headline USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal reporter talked to me about this. So this is simmering. I hope it begins to boil, and the whole media jumps on this, a conspiracy plot to protect car dealers against a terrible thing, which is selling cars with defective airbags, and they're trying to hide it in the detail. Well, thank you for that information.

Thank you, John, for the call. Thank you, John. It was a great hearing from you. You know, I sit here, and as you repeat what you just said, I can, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you made it up. Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense. I love to hear from an official out there somewhere.

I mean, we have regulators, we have legislators, we have legislators, we have lawyers, we have car dealers, we have auto manufacturers. You know, we're nationwide now. We just heard from Montana and who else? Dallas, Texas, New Jersey. We're all over the United States. I know some folks out there are listening that understand this kind of thing. You don't have to identify yourself.

And, of course, we've got your anonymousfeedback.com. We'll never know who you are. Talk about this. Talk about this. I've just accused the auto industry and the car dealers of a massive conspiracy to hide the fact that they are selling you a car with a dangerous recall. And how can no one comment on that on the other side? legislators, attorneys, regulators,

attorney generals all over the USA. Somebody call this show 877-960-99-60 or text us at 772-4976530. And if you're checking, your anonymousfeedback.com, www.w.com and tell us what you think about what we're saying.

Exactly. Wouldn't it be great to hear from Ashley, Ashley Moody, the Attorney General, wouldn't it be great if she could partner up with us and do something drastic about this situation? Ladies and gentlemen, we want to hear from you. You can hear us in the studio. We love what we're doing here, and we love providing you with information, but we love hearing from you and your information that, you know, we may not have heard this past week. So if you're shy, 7-7-2, you know, 497-6530 if you want to call us 877-960-90-60 and remember we got a fabulous

fabulous mystery shopping report from none other than Greco Mazda now back to the recovering car dealer I'm just going to ask if we got any text I think we just got one just popped in let's see no name on this but it says wow I just stumbled on your show on the way to breakfast with my kids believe that they're or not, our plans today was to head over to AutoNation Cadillac to get a CTS. Heard the caller this morning about GM and the recalled airbags. Guess what? Not going to any GM dealer now.

Know anyone who sells Toyotas? L.O.L. Thanks. You know, speaking of AutoNation, an interesting point there. There are a lot of changes happening with AutoNation now. And we found out this through a mystery shopping report, actually. Auto Nation has decided that they are having a difficult time making a profit in the new car department and they've decided to raise their prices and they've made a corporate decision now there's the largest retail of cars in the USA about 220 dealerships

nationwide all makes Cadillac Toyota Honda they got every franchise and but all the car dealers are facing a challenge in the new car departments really thanks to you consumers out there we're becoming more and more educated you know what the dealers call are you know what a good price is with Costco true car programs and the pressure is on the competition is terrible there's still a lot of people being taken advantage of but the fact the matter is automation about a year ago said we're going to raise our prices so what that tells me if you're thinking about buying a car be very careful for two reasons when you go into an automation store

first of all their prices are higher than they were a year ago secondly they're making up for the high car prices with the F and I the finance. They are taking huge advantage of people in the finance department. Their average profit is about $2,000 per car in the finance department, and they're trying to raise it above that. Great information. We're going to go to Lori, who I'm very excited to speak with, and she's a first-time caller from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Lori. Good morning. How are you all today? Good morning. Great. Good. Hot, beautiful day.

here in Florida. Steamy. So what can we do for you? Okay. So my daughter and I are in the market of buying a new car. Mm-hmm. And, you know, there's always, I'm a good negotiator. Good. And we were offered for her car pretty much book value. Is there any negotiation, you know, any way of negotiator? higher than what they're really giving you when you're doing a trade in, and they are offering you book value.

And the reason why I'm asking that is because she's obviously upside down. You know, she owes more than what they're offering her for the car. Sure. Lori, did you get three prices for your traded? Did you go to three different places? No, we definitely did not. We went to one dealer that we normally deal with and got their price. I'll let the recovering car dealer answer that.

Yeah, Laura, you should negotiate the price on your trade-in just like you negotiated the price on the car you're buying. And you said you're a good negotiator. Take that trade-in. Let's say you're, I'm not sure what make you're buying, but let's say you're buying a Honda. You go to a Honda. It's actually a Hyundai. Oh, Hyundai. Okay.

You go to three Hyundai dealers, but you deal directly with their used car department. I would call on the phone ahead of time, make an appointment with the used car manager. And you tell the used car manager that you have a Hyundai, you're driving, describe it, and say, I want to sell that Hyundai to you. Car dealers buy a lot of cars. We call it over the curb directly from consumers, and that's a real source of inventory for car dealers to sell on their used car lots. So the used car dealer will be thrilled to death. you drive over there and when you get there say okay what will you pay me today

cash for my car and before you praise my car and tell me I'm taking it to two other Hyundai dealers and I'm going to get their best price so be sure you give me the price you will pay me. Armed with that information you go back to the Hyundai dealer you'll want to buy the car from

and say if you can meet the price that your competition offered me on my car then I will trade it into you and there's an advantage to trading it in by the way because If you're in Florida, which I believe you are, you get a 6% sales tax advantage on the value of your trade. If your trade is worth $10,000, 6% would be $600 that you would be actually saving because you get an exemption on that sales tax.

So be sure when you get your competitive bids from the other Hyundai dealers that you take into account the sales tax advantage of trading it to the dealer you buy it from. that makes so much sense i never thought to go to a used car department before i actually go to the new car department it just makes so much sense because that's the market that they're in absolutely they want my car absolutely well laura call us back and tell us how it work we'd love to hear from again we love female callers especially sharp callers like you good negotiators and if you'd call us next week and tell us how much more you were able to get for your trade in we'd love to hear from you Lori, we keep you on the cutting edge, Lori, giving you a lot of tools to save you a whole lot of money.

And talking about money, you just won yourself $50 today for being the first female caller. And if you stay on the line, you can talk with Rudy in our control room. And he'll get your information, and I'll get that checkout to you on Monday. Woo-woo. That's the car. Thank you. Is that wonderful? We got a whoop-whoop.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us. 772-497-65-3-0. We had a caller one time that said you should give the numbers out twice, so in deference to that caller, 772-497-6530 is our text number, and 877-960 is our call-in number.

And you know what's really another good idea is exchanging back and forth. The listener is listening, and he's listening to your voice, and then all of a sudden, I think that's a good idea. I would say the number. You say the text, and they would, you know, be able to grasp it a little quicker. I think we have another text here, don't we still? We do.

It's a good question. It's from Joe, and he's actually a snowbird. He lives part of the year in Cleveland, and he lives part of the year down in Boka. And he says, since you are so strong in your opinions about the auto industry, which other dealers may consider negative, has Toyota threatened to take any action against you unless you keep quiet?

That's interesting, and it's almost like an insider question there, Joe. Joe, I've been around for a long time. I've been a Toyota dealer since 1975. Most of the executives in Toyota, I know when they were in knee pants, and I'm kind of, I guess I'm a legend in my own time. You're the elder statesman. Yeah. You know, the one, I talk about the truth being the great defense against libel and slander.

Success is the greatest protection against action by auto manufacturers. If you're selling cars? You're forcing me to brag that we sell a whole lot of cars, and we have extremely high customer satisfaction, and we comply with all the rules and regulations. We exceed their expectations and all the parameters that they measure toilet dealers on. And so when I open my big mouth, I will say this. I do get calls from top executives in Toyota.

Back in 2009, when the sudden acceleration, was that in 2009? Yes. Sudden acceleration. Or 10. We began giving away free loaners to all of our customers who were terrified to drive Toyotas. And I won't name the executive, but the top Toyota executive called me and said, you're putting a lot of pressure on us and other Toyota dealers. We wish you would stop doing that.

And I said, no, I'm not going to stop doing that. So when you've been around a long time and you've got the credentials, they let me get away with it. Yeah. I mean, it's always informal stuff. And then the manufacturers have rules built in to the advertising that they allow you to say, so you can't come out and, like, outwardly attack the competitor. And with that said, now you're forced me to do something else I don't want to do. Toyota of all the manufacturers I've been affiliated with,

and I've been affiliated with lots and lots of them, General Motors and Myrtle Motors and, Mazda and Fiat and Bujo. Toyota is head and shoulders above all the other manufacturers and quality and the way they treat their dealers, the way they respect their dealers, and the way they treat their customers. They just need to get a lot better, just like everybody does. We all need to get better. And there's a Japanese word, which is my motto, it's Kaizen, Continuous Improvement. No matter how good you get, you got to get better. And that's Toyota's motto. I stole that from Toyota. So, whereas I can attack them, they let me attack them because they know I love them. Yes, exactly. And you named your cat, Kaisen, too.

I was kidding, Earl, doesn't have a cat. All right, I'm going to read, well, I'm not going to read something. I'm going to refer to it. I'm going to interrupt you for a moment. And I'm going to go to Julie. Hey, we've got a call. Julie is a first-time caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Julie. You win yourself $50. Good morning. Everybody loves another $50. Yeah, exactly. So what can we do for you this morning? Yeah. I'm doing well, thank you. My question is on engine coolant flushing. I just recently took my 2012 Prius into Earl Stewart, of course, and I got the AC coolant flush, but I've never had an hybrid engine coolant gun before. Why is that necessary? What does that do? Well, there's actually two cooling systems on a Prius. The first one is the actual engine coolant, which is its normal radiator coolant in both.

And the engine coolant, of course, keeps the engine cool and provides heat for the heater core. The hybrid cooling system uses the same type of fluid, but it's a totally separate system. both of these that coolant eventually over time starts to get contaminated and it starts to break down and the Toyota recommended service maintenance on it is at 100 let's see a 2012 priest will be 120,000 miles and then about every 50,000 miles after that they recommend to have that coolant replaced in order to keep everything running properly get the contaminants out of there and keep your car tip top shape Julie, how many miles do you have on your Prius? I have 97,000.

So I've got a few more miles before I need to do the engine cooling, correct? Yes, yes. We probably should have just told you that when you reach 120,000, you should have it done. 97,000 would be flushing it too soon, wouldn't it, Rick? A little bit early, yep. Okay, well, that sounds great. I've never had a hybrid before. I love it, and keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you so much, Lori. I also want to say that when you said flush, you got me nervous because a lot of cardioes are recommending flushes that are positively not needed, like transmission flushes and like radiator flushes that you really don't have to have done. And this cooling flush of the pre is something I wasn't even aware of. And Rick jumped on that. And I'm going to talk to my service manager about your call because I don't like the idea of recommending services without explaining.

And the fact that they recommended at 97,000 miles makes me a little bit nervous when it should have been done at 120,000 miles. So we'll investigate that. Just let's double check because the 2012, I believe, was right in the range of the cutoff when they were switching from 100,000 to 120,000. Oh, so Rick may be a mistake. It may have been my mistake. Let me look that up as a matter of fact.

There were a lot of the older ones that were recommended at 100. Stay on the line and give us your contact information, Lori, and spread the word. We just love to hear from the ladies. We're trying to build a, well, a stronger platform today. We have come a long way with the ladies, and we need to hear from them. We need to hear all of them. from all of them. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We've got some more text here. Well, we do, and one is it came in on anonymous feedback, and I will not read it on the air because FCC has regulations about this kind of language you can use, but it says, blank, you, Earl.

Blank, I think I know where it was. Can I guess? Don't do it now. But the reason I'm reading it is because we're going to read anything on the air, and nothing you can say is going to, well, Maybe it bothers a little bit, but we're going to read it. We take it seriously. Was it the F word?

Huh? Yep. Yes. It said flabberg asked you, Earl. Oh, okay. And that's all? That was the whole time. There's no punctuation or anything.

I got it the first time. But I had to say something that thank you. And why am I saying thank you? It's because we're finally getting the courage of you folks out there that disagree with us. And you have proven that we will, as Stu just said, we'll read anything. So the only thing we'll do is we'll bleep a little bit, the pornography, profanity, or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, we're PG-13 rated on the show, I would say, yeah. But we'll tell that, we'll communicate what was said.

So I think when we said the F word, you know, they said, F me, and that's okay. And so if you feel that way about me, get it out. AnonymousFeedback.com. Let it all out. Your anonymousfeedback.com. Tell me what you think about the show and everybody else. And, you know, I remember something about Eli, and he would say, let it go, let it go. So, ladies and gentlemen, and car dealers, let it go.

You can do it many ways, 772-497-6530, or take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We, as Stu just proved, we put it all out there. We understand that it's frustrating to, as a car dealer, to listen to this show and hearing all the secrets get out. And if you've got to just, like you said, just release, go ahead, your anonymous feedback.com. We got Carlos from holding it while we're asking. Okay, Carlos. Wait, that might have come from Nancy now that I think about. Thank you for holding Carlos.

Carlos is calling from West Palm Beach. Thanks for having me on, guys. Love your show. Hey, good morning. Good morning. Morning. We're in the process in the market for actually two calls. cars. We're looking at a Mazda 3 and a Mazda 6. Some of the things that I've come up with, I guess you've possibly answered these questions before. I just haven't come around

them, so I'm kind of new to your channel on YouTube. Is the dealer fees and the listed price. I'm getting a lot of dealer fees of $899 plus electronic registration fees of like $3.99. One dealer had a perma plate. whatever the heck that is, a fee of like $997, then he changed it to like $2.97 when I called later. But to get to the bottom of the question, I guess it's like when the listed price for the car, is there a profit already built into the listed price online? I mean, I'm all for the dealer making money.

I just don't want to get hosed while doing it. I understand. Carlos, the listed price is a general term. The price that you want to focus on when you're looking at new cars is the MSRP, which is the official, federally mandated, they call it Monroney label, manufacturer suggested retail price. The dealers will often have their own list price, and that include things like permanent permatex or whatever you just said, worthless, virtually worthless, add-ons like nitrogen, and, and paint seal and fabric protection and things that cost them virtually nothing that they can charge thousands of dollars for so when you're comparing models you're looking at a Mazda 3 and a Mazda 6 be sure you're comparing if you're comparing prices with different dealers and you should compare the MSRP on the MSA 3 or the Mazda 6 of your choice now once you decide which which vehicle you want you negotiate you best price by a discount from the manufacturer suggested retail price.

When you get your best discount from the dealer that you're shopping and you should shop at least three Mazda dealers, then that's where you have to start worrying about dealer fees. The dealer fee is not going to be included in anything you've seen in the way of advertising. It might be in the fine print and it would probably just say plus fees or some innocuous term. A lot of times you'll get at the dealer's ship, you'll have a price, and then plus, plus, plus. One of the pluses is the dealer fees.

So what you have to do is you need to corner the dealer. You have to say, okay, this is the price you quoted me. And I want you to promise me that this is an out-the-door price. You don't care what dealer fees he puts in there or what permit tax or anything else. Because what you're comparing is an out-the-door price plus government fees only. That's tax and tax. for sales tax and license plate. So as long as they add only the license plate

and the sales tax, you're happy. You're going to compare their out-the-door price with whatever they want to include in it because you're going to buy it from the dealer that gives you the lowest price. And we have a form, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, invented this form, and it's called an out-the-door price affidavit.

You can go online www. out-the-door-priceaffidavid.com. You can download it. You can either fax it or email it, scan it, send it of the dealer, bring it in yourself. And when you are ready to buy from the dealer who has the lowest price, they must sign this. And when they sign it, they've legally obligated themselves to the price they quoted you. The only thing they can add to that is you take delivery and go through the F&I process is government fees,

which are sales tax and license tag. now is that different from like also like looking at a used car how's it how's the approach different from looking at a used car well use car you don't have an msrp in terms of the list price yeah the msrp doesn't exist for use cars the dealers will ask a price for used cars i advise that you go to auto-treater and find out the masta three or the masta six you're looking for equipment color and everything else and you can expand your territory by zip code got as far as you want. In South Florida, there's probably 15 Mazda dealers, and you can find out which Mazda has the Mazda has to use Mazda that you're looking to buy, and it will have a price on there, and then you'll communicate online or by phone, and you'll do the same thing

that I discussed earlier with a new car purchase that you would do in person, and you can email the dealer. Let's say you found a Mazda dealer in Fort Lauderdale that have the Mazda 6, you want to buy the used Mazda, and you would communicate with him online, and you'll get a price. And then you would call the dealer, email him back, say, if this is an out-the-door price, I want you to sign this forum. I'm going to fax you or email you, and you'd be sure that the price you gave you is out-the-door plus government fees only.

Right. All right. Okay, yeah, because I've noticed that some of the list prices are lower, but then when you, like, when comparing two, you know, two pretty much identical cars, you know, you know, comparing apples to apples, right? But one price, one list price, one online price may be, let's say, $1,500 or $1,000 lower than another one. Sure. But then when you start getting back and forth and they start emailing, you find out that the one that was lower actually has like maybe, you know, almost $2,000 worth of dealer fees where the only, the other one only has maybe $900.

Yeah, I prefer the word hidden fees. Dealer fee has become kind of a term that we use in the industry. they don't call dealer fees, dealer fees. 25 years ago, they called them dealer fees. Now they call dealer fees everything but a dealer fee because the word dealer fee has been exposed. They are hidden fees. They call them electronic fees, filing fees, administrative fees.

Exactly. And they don't have one fee anymore, one hidden fee. They have several. So you hit it right on the head, Carlos. The guy that's got the lowest price probably has the highest hidden fees. And that's the reason you need to get the out-the-door price. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I just want to make sure that, you know, when I'm getting the outdoor price,

I'm trying to negotiate something that's fair. Because, again, you know, I want the dealer to make money. I mean, I'm trying to support my local businesses, so, you know, I need them to stay in business. But I just don't want to get, you know. As you said, hose. Yeah, you said hose earlier. Yeah, you're a good guy, and the car dealers should respect you for that.

They like to think of their buyers as shislers and liars. There's a phrase in the industry, buyers or liars. And car dealers really hold their customers in a lot of low regard. And I think they demonize their customers to solve their consciousness because of what they do to them. But there are a lot of people like you, Carlos, that really respect business and think it's fair for them to make a fair profit. You just don't want to be taken advantage of. And I respect that, and they should respect you. And we just want to inform you.

So here's one last question for you, Earl. So if I'm getting a list, right, I've got the online list price, and there is, you know, a dealer fee and an e-tag fee, is it, is it fair to try to negotiate that, you know, that dealer fee, that $899 or whatever it is, plus e-tag fee, whatever those other charges are off from the list, online listing price? or is there no profit in that online listing price? Some dealers will negotiate it, and there are different ways you can negotiate it. One of the best ways to negotiate it is say, listen, if they agree to, they say we can't take it off because we charge this to all our customers,

and there's a rumor going around, and it's a false rumor propagated by car dealers that they could get in trouble liability-wise if they pick and chose who they charge the dealer fee. So, okay, charge me the dealer fee, the $899, just lower the price by $899, and they can't argue against that. Another way you can do it is just say that I don't care, you know, charge all the fees you want because I'm going to take your price that you give me, the out of the door, and I'm going to compare it with your competition. So that defuses the effect of the dealer fee.

The only power and the only benefit to a car dealer of the dealer fee is, the surprise is hidden. Once you know the dealer fee exists, he loses that advantage of surprise. He is making his money by the unsuspecting customers that buy the car, they see the price, they think they're charged, saving $1,500 over the competition, and when they go into the business office,

he has $2,000 in hidden fees that they might not even be aware of. Right. One other thing you got to answer your question, Carlos, are they making money with their listed online price? The answer is yes, not as much as they'd like to make, but there are so many kickbacks to the dealer from the manufacturer, even a low price, even if they tell you it's below invoice, they're making money. They wouldn't put a price online that wouldn't allow them to sustain their business. Well, I'm going to, I'll disagree with you on that.

I think that's mostly true, but advertised prices in general are so bogus in South Florida that they actually lose money. Yeah, let me jump back in. Some manufacturers, it's why. open some manufacturers have restrictions on how low they can advertise the price. In those cases, yes, they're making some money. So Carlos, you're talking, like what you just mentioned, that's considering new cars, right? Because what we're looking actually is for used cars. It's the same game with used cars.

I could say there is a chance because car dealers, they will lower the price of their cars as they age in their inventory. So there's a chance if you find a car that's been there to say 50 days, 75 days, they might not be making any money in that car, but they're avoiding a much bigger loss when they try to wholesale it at an auction. Yeah, great information. Carlos, I just want to...

So your bottom line is try to fight those, you know, whatever extra fees off of there, and they're still likely to still be making money. Absolutely. They will be making money. They won't sell your car if they're going to lose money, and it's just a matter of full transparency disclosure. you just want to know their best price that they can make money on.

And when you don't ask those questions, you're going to be paying a lot more than that. Right. And Carlos, we're here to, well, try to keep the car dealers honest, and we're also here for the consumer to try to save you some money. And this whole deal doesn't have to be as stressful as they make it out. So I hope that we've helped you. and I also help, I would like to help you by telling you to print out that legal document and have whomever sign it, whatever dealership that you're dealing with

because you will, that will ensure that you pay the out-the-door price. And believe me, even then, they're making money. Good luck. Yeah, I printed that out yesterday because we're out, we've been out looking for the last week and we'll be out again today. Great. Love to hear from me again and see how it went. We love to hear success stories.

If you could call us back, if you bought a car by then, next Saturday, we'd love to hear from you, Carlos. Excellent. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate the show and the information. Thank you very much. Keep it up. Thank you.

To Julie, if you're still listening, your 2012 Prius, I looked it up, according to the Toyota Factory Recommended Maintenance, your engine coolant and hybrid coolant were due at 100,000 miles, not 120. So, Rick made a little mistake there, but then again, Booboo. Thank God for Google, right? That and all those repair manuals and books, because even my head can't store all the facts. Yeah.

Factory recommended maintenance, you have to adhere to. Anything in the owner's manual you should adhere to. There's a lot of good reasons for that. And the other side of that coin is don't pay any attention to the dealer's recommended maintenance unless it equals what the owner's manual says. That's right. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars, and we are here from you, and we love hearing from our listeners, whether it's a text,

whether you're going to give us a call, or you're going to take advantage of your anonymousfeedback.com. We'd like to know how you rate the show, and we'd love for you to rate that mystery shopping report that will be coming up at 772-497-65. Rick, let's do some U-tubes. I see a couple of marks on your pad there. Yep. I've got, Scott is asking, are you guys going to get the new Toyota Supra? And do you know if they're going to be a limited production car?

I heard somewhere that we're only going to be $7,500 built in three years, and that is super limited production. Those cars will be priced to the sky. The car dealers will add market adjustment add, they'll mark up the MSRP by thousands of dollars. I would say a $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 markup would not be unexpected. And be very, very careful. If you're very liquid, go out and buy one.

But if you care about saving some money, just wait. Eventually you'll be able to get one. You'll have to get on a waiting list because the dealers will only be getting one at a time at the beginning. and maybe they'll only get one at a time throughout the entire production. And you would want to be sure that you knew what the price was. And if you can find a dealer that will sell you one at MSRP, I'd grab it. There's nobody going to discount the new Supra. And I don't think you'll find anybody that will even sell it at MSRP.

But if you do, that's a good price. Look for the addendum label and be sure you have a written buyer's order committing to sell you that vehicle. When the vehicle finally comes in, stay on top of it, call the dealer, and be sure that he does not sell that car that you bought at a price you felt was fair to the highest bidder. That's another game that all manufacturers, or I should say car dealers, play with limited addition, low-supply high-demand cars. They will take the customer's car when it comes in, don't tell them it came in and sell it to somebody that outbid the price that you paid. this is the only time we will recommend paying MSRP for MSRP, yeah. But that happens

so seriously, you might have a deposit, you might have been waiting for a year for this thing and somebody's going to come in and says I'll pay you whatever you want and your car is gone guaranteed. And the salesman's getting 25% of the profit. Think about that. A $5,000 markup is going to give him

$1,200. $1,250. Just plus the other commission. And ladies and gentlemen, Earl's information he just shared with you, I'll tell you what it's gold because supply and demand, it can rear its ugly head and really muddy the waters. We've got a lot of text here,

and let's get the other YouTube, and then we'll start on Stu's text. Mr. Hand, one of our YouTubers that we talk, he talks with us every week here. Steady Stu. I have information about that, by the way. Says Auto Nation Nissan

of Pembroke Pines advertised a used Camry that he was interested in for his daughter. Their out-the-door price was actually $2,300 higher than the ad price on a used Camry. Wow, that's shocking. It's a damn shame. Yeah. Fortunately, you're sharp and you caught it, and just be careful, folks. Car dealers are desperate, and the profits are down.

down. This year, sales are down. Car dealers are struggling. A lot of car dealers are selling out. Some car dealers are going broke. You can only Ford one shirt. Yeah. That's a joke, guys. Exactly. So, desperation brings on crazy things like this. So be double your, double your due diligence when you're buying a car today. I have a trivia question about Mr. Hand. In the 70s and Saturday Night Live, Mr. Bill Show, there was a character called, Mr. Hans. Who played Mr. Hans? We'll get back to that later, but we have texts. This is a great one. Are there any women car dealers? I don't think I've ever heard of one. That's from Marion up in Gainesville. Great time. You know, there are women car dealers, and unfortunately, these women car dealers tend to be women, widows of male car dealers. And, you know, let me show you something. I've got here the Automotive News magazine. This is the trade journal for the

Automotive News. And on the back, there's a full page ad by the National Automobile Dealers Association, which has an academy to train car dealers. And I'm going to hold up a picture of the most recent graduating class. If you look closely, you'll see something unusual. Those lapels on the guy, Sue? Yes, that's unusual. How many women do you see there?

I see zero. Yeah. So from the get-go, the car dealers have a thing about women. And sometimes it's the way they treat their customers, and it's a way the manufacturers choose their dealers. And there are virtually no female dealers. And unfortunately, there's virtually no employees, female employees, and a lot of car dealerships. 20% female employees would be a lot. It should be 50-50. And it's a shame. And with hashtag Me Too movement going on, we hope to see that corrected. But sadly to say, the only female dealers are kind of token dealers that inherited the dealerships. Yeah, I know one. Just one. Yes. Okay.

Okay. We're going to go to Rod. Who's calling us from beautiful North Carolina? Oh, yeah. Good morning, Rod. Good morning, everybody. Calling you from the Magic Mountains up here in North Carolina. It was down there in South Florida.

for quite a few years, and, oh, had to move up and move on. Good for you. Good for you. Yes, definitely. What a magical mountain scene it is. I can close my eyes and remember it. I haven't been there in years. I need to come on up, get on around Cherokee and all that.

There's fantastic restaurants there and everything. A lot of people that closed up in. South Florida, they moved up this way and got their restaurants up there now. Anyway, I wanted to wish everybody and all the listening people are very happy and safe Fourth of July. Well, thank you, Rod. I appreciate that very much. Well, thank you. All right. Well, the crash dummy rod up. Take care. Okay. Thank you for the phone.

I hope it's cool. Bye for now. Keep listening. The mountain breeze. Yes. Okay. We've got some more text here. from Dana and Palm Beach Gardens must have been listening to the show just bought a russet at Publix for 69 cents

A what? A russet at Publix for 69 cents We'll be applying it to my windshield As soon as I get home We'll report later if it rains and it works Thank you, Dana. Please do call us or Texas Let us know if that worked.

Very exciting. I can't wait to do that. Well, I have a feeling I know where Nancy and Earl are going after the show. Costco, a bunch of potatoes. Red potatoes, Idaho potatoes, Yukon potatoes. Yeah, they didn't specify the species of potato. I would imagine one with a high starch content,

which would be a russet. So good job, Dana. Yeah, the Idaho russet. Yeah. Okay, I hate to have to do this, but we have a follow-up on Incognito from the listener who must have continued to listen. Oh, boy.

Very short, no punctuation. It says, no, really, blank. You. We admire his patience. He's still listening. Was that another F you? Yeah. Yeah.

So, Hey, the guy's listening. Yeah, exactly. He's listening. He's waiting for the mystery shopping airport. He's a car dealer. I like fudge, too. Okay, and we also just got a shout out.

We got a hi. Good morning from Lenny, who's listening up in Atlanta. We got a lot of those. Just people want to say hi. Now, just, again, once again, let me say this. And I love anonymous feedbacks. We even do it at our dealership from our employees. We do it on the radio show.

We do it for our customers. A lot of people would like to speak out. And let's face it, people are just afraid of retaliation. So we want the floodgates of opinion and ideas to be unimpeded. And what is better to unimped an idea or a comment than anonymity? You are anonymous. You car dealers out there, by the way, I have my $100,000 challenge, and we have yet to have anybody respond to that.

And here is the $100,000 challenge to debate me on the air on this radio station at any time, or not any time, between 8 and 10 on Saturdays. And we will have a debate, and the proposition would be the dealer fees, the hidden fees charged on cars, should be made. illegal. And I think the reason, we've been doing this for weeks now, no one, I will pay you $100,000 if you win the debate, okay? If I win the debate, I'm not even going to keep your $100,000. I'm going to give it to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And I'm negotiable on the amount. Exactly. You're read my mind. If $100,000 is too rich for your blood, then let's do a lower

number. Make me a proposition, and you can do it anonymously. I'm not going to say, blank, blank dealer just called me and tried to negotiate the price down. You send me a negotiated deal at Anonymous, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We have one guy out there that keeps telling me to go F myself on anonymous feedback. You don't know who he is. And I don't care who he is. He has the right to say anything he wants to. It wants to me. And I want anybody out there, including car dealers, who would elects to negotiate a better deal on the $100,000 challenge.

I want to argue the honesty, transparency, ethics of the dealer fee, the hidden fee. And I want to debate it in public on the air, and we'll vote on it. $100,000 challenge, your anonymous feedback.com. Okay. It's a great challenge. We've got one more text that came in. Okay. And it's from our old friend.

the bell. It's from Don and LaBelle. And Don says Fuchillo Kia, who we have mystery shut before, Fuchila Kia says they save customers hundreds of dollars by buying their cars in foreign currencies and various currency changes.

Know anything about this, Earl? Oh, God. Fuchillo is a man. I got to meet this guy. He is an amazing guy. His advertisements. Go YouTube. Go Fuchillo, Fouccio, if you see.

C-I-L-O and then put videos or advertisements. Commercials, yeah. Yeah, and go get some of his TV advertisements are hysterical. And he is really funny and they're entertaining. And to me, that's a genius. Now, his ethics and honesty don't exist. His transparency is non-existent. But he is such a showman that he sells a huge number.

I believe Fichio-Kia is the largest volume Kia dealership. They claim to be the large-volume key dealership, and then I think there is Rick Case in Broward County that makes the same claim, so we don't know. But this is, Don and LaBelle, this is a classic. I'm going to, if you could text us, faxes or email us that advertisement, I'd love to see that. He's actually saying that he will save you money by selling you a car in a foreign currency.

I can't think of anything more ludicrous than that. There is no way you're going to come out ahead on that. That's something appealing to the larceny that we all have in our hearts. And I can see some people coming in. Rick's crying right now. I can see him some Venezuelans or Brazilians or Haitians or Haitians or people that come from other countries thinking that they're going to get them a special deal because we'll deal in Portuguese money.

It's just, it's crazy. but I got to see the advertisement because I just thought I'd heard everything. Well, I'm just looking for this thing right now. Okay, are we cleaned up on text? I think so, yeah. Are we getting close to Mystery Shopping Report time? I think we're pretty close.

Yeah, I'm going to mention one thing. Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't been paying attention to Consumer Report lately, I'm going to tell you what. They are going after these fees, whether it's a new, new, car, you know, hidden fees, and it could be telecommunications, it could be advertisement, it could be credit cards, they are going after everyone and what you should

pay. Pick up yourself a subscription, well, apply for a subscription, go to the library. There's many, many ways that you can read the Consumer Report. Okay, let's get to the mystery shopping report. The most, oh, I got, nobody challenges on this. I know of nothing on TV, radio, anywhere where people will go out and actually mystery shop any business and name names. I mean, we are exposing ourselves to a lot of liability, but we've never been challenged in the way of a lawsuit because we tell the truth. And this is our 15th year. We have archives of dozens, hundreds, hundreds of mystery shopping reports that you can access.

Go to earluncars.com. You can look at all mystery shopping reports. How about a special invitation to our friend, Go-mm-yourself, Earl Stewart. Listen, we would love to hear from you. We'd love for you to write that mystery shopping report, and it is going to be a doozy. We went to Grego, and Earl's ready for the mystery shopper report.

This is our third week of Takata Recall Investigations, and so far things don't look great. I mean, we laid off for a while, and we thought we were making some advances and gains, and we did, but we laid off too long. long. First we revisited Easy Pay cars and that's in Stewart. Easy Pay car

sales. That's part of the Bill Wallace Group. Correct. When we first investigate the Easy owned in 2017 they passed with flying colors. An amazing report we were in a state of shock, gave them A's. They stopped the sale of a very dangerous

Honda CRV in its tracks. I mean, the salesman just our sale. We're not going to sell you the car. This slipped through. We didn't know about it. uh we said can we take delivery and get it fixed later no i won't sell you the car unless we fix it we were overwhelmed i congratulated bill wallis was the happiest day of my life happy happiest day and so we thought things had changed um and however earlier this month when we returned to takata shops they failed miserably easy car sales and stewart failed miserably our salesperson said it's

dependent on the customer on the guest as to whether a Takada recall affected vehicle would be repaired prior to the sale. That's just terrible. If the guest asks. Yeah, yeah. What it says is to the uneducated, to the uninformed, to the person that is coming in there desperate, because easy pay car sales is what we call a buy here, pay here a lot. People come in there to get financed.

They don't care about the car they buy, they want it to run so they can get to working back or to the pharmacy and back or to school and back, they want a car that can get them around. They don't care anything else, and they take cars without asking questions, and that's what he meant, which is absolutely a repugnant. After that, we shopped

Roger Dean Chevrolet. This decatta test failure was arguably the most traumatic we've ever experienced. Not only did our salesperson represent this vehicle is safe, he erroneously told our shopper that the Takana recall had been repaired, even

gave a date of repair. It was a blatant lie. It claimed that the date that the recall was issued was the repair date. Exactly. We mentioned recently that since we began our campaign to make selling used cars with Takada recalls illegal, it's become a little more difficult to find them in car dealer inventories. However, in recent weeks, it feels like it's getting a little easier. It's taken me less time now to find them.

And when we say that, I hasten to add that the reason it was, was a little more difficult is that the car dealers that were aware, the car dealers that were under fire by this show and what a little media coverage there was, have decided that it is in their best interest not to retail these to cut airbags, so they're wholesaling them. And when they wholesale the car, they don't disappear into thin air. Some of the else buys the car. Eventually, that car ends up on a lot somewhere, maybe out of South Florida, maybe out of Florida, maybe in a different state, maybe overseas. A lot of cars bought at auctions in Florida

are exported. But the number of cars being sold every day has not ceased. There are more dangerous to cut airbags on the road today than ever before. We mentioned this suggests that as attention fades from the issue, car dealers are getting more lax in how they're handling the crisis without any scrutiny um i'm sorry from state from state or federal laws a little typo there uh complete lack of interest from the media not complete but virtual it's a few folks are still talking about it i mentioned that USA today headline uh a couple weeks ago about the fact that there are laws being passed to protect the used car dealers so they can sell cars with defective and dangerous recalls it's becoming safer than ever for car dealers

to ignore this significant threat to public safety i'm not being overly dramatic when i say that we seem to be the only entity still trying to keep the public's attention on this issue and again that's not a hundred percent true because there are there is some media discussion about but just far too little as you already know our efforts to shine some light on this issue included mystery shopping dozens of car dealers across Florida and putting them to what we call the Takada test. On each mission we sought to learn whether a car dealer

would willingly sell a car, they know to be unsafe. At the same time we did the in dealership shops we did a lot of phone shops and we got up to like a hundred phone shops. We could find virtually no car dealer two years

ago that wasn't selling these tecotte airbags. They're still being sold but in different areas. The only passing grade we give for the test comes when the car dealer stops to sale and refuses to sell the Cotta airbag to our Mr. Shopper. Now, that's a pretty loose rule, because most buyers will not even ask the question. Most buyers are unaware that there is a recall. And so they're not going to ask the question, and the cars are getting sold that way. If the questions were being asked, the car dealers would get them fixed because they would want to sell the car and they know, hey, everybody comes in here, wants to know if there's a tecotta airbag that has been fixed in this car.

We better start having them fix free if the dealer that manufactures the car. But they're not doing that. And they're trying to cover up so they can sell them by having laws passed and say you have to give a disclosure. The disclosure is not a disclosure. The disclosure is hidden in the fine print. And people don't know about Takata Airbags when they're disclosed any more than they know that they're hidden fees. Rick? Well, if they hand you a Carfax report and don't say anything, just hand it to you and let you look at it.

That's disclosure. Yeah. Even though they didn't point out, hey, you should be aware of this. Exactly. And these reports, the Carfax report, could be several pages. Exactly. Typically two or three, sometimes five or six. And people don't read this stuff, and they should.

But they don't. Okay. This month, we are zero for two on the Takata test, and this is our third. Let's see if we're going to be zero for three. This week we paid a visit to Greco, or is it Greco? I think it's Greco. This week we paid a visit to Greco Mazda in Delray Beach. There's also a Greco Mazda in Northbound Beach.

There used to be. They sold it. Oh, they sold, that's right, yeah. to see if someone would book the trend. We found not one but three used Jeep Wranglers with unfixed Akkad Airbags recalls. All three recalls were verified as being unfixed by Carfax,

National Highway Traffic Safety Association, and Chrysler Jeep Manufacture. And I remind you all that you can go to safercar.gov www.w.w.safercar.gov don't ever ever buy a car until you check the VIN number in that website that's the National Highway Traffic Safety Association and you'll be surprised how many cars out there have unfixed TACTA airbags and other dangerous recalls. Agent Thunder, our new regular investigator, our undercover agent went out.

Speaking of the first person is if I were Agent Thunder saying as how Greco had three jeeps listed for sale with Tricot Airbag recalls, I decided. to go to Del Rey without first calling, which I normally do, and I figured the odds are pretty good. They're not going to sell all three of those cars. I arrived around 1 p.m. parked, observed a well-organized and clean, used car a lot. That's a Del Rey Greco, Masta, maybe 75 to 100 cars on it, walked around inside the office building, listing for one of the Tocati Airbags up on my phone.

I was approached and greeted by a young salesman named Eduardo. I showed him the listing on the phone, asked if it was still available, this Jeep wrangler. Eduardo recognized his Jeep said it was there. Eduardo escorted me to a desk. And these are real names, by the way. This really is Greco Masta and Del Rey, and this really is a man named Eduardo. Mr. Shopping Report, we tell it like it is. We name names.

He explained he was still pretext. pretty new on the job and we'd be getting the help of the manager through the sales process, I said that would be okay. You regular listeners know that we experience a lot of newbies, we call them in the trade, new salespeople, very high turnover. Greenpeace. Green peas, they also call a high turnover because it's a high stress position. Imagine you going to work as a car salesman, and you know the car dealer is advertising cars

for prices he won't sell you the car for, and you know people are going to come in on advertisements and say I want to see this car and in the back of your mind you have to explain why it's a lot you know a conflict is coming yeah so people can't handle that stress and car sales but don't last very long it's a huge turnover uh virtually a hundred percent turnover in car salespeople at a lot of car dealerships uh within a couple minutes a man approached us and introduced himself to me as a floor manager kind of a vernacular term car salespeople call that floor manager the manager sat down he's helping out edwardo later on we found out his name was joe that's not your report okay the manager sat down uh took over for edwardo he collected my driver's license

and began asking questions about my contact information while simultaneously tapping on his computer keyboard real pro the guy knew what he was doing when he was finished he told eduardo to take me for a test drive he told him where we should go recommended opening it up on 995 Now, that'll scare you. Eduardo, take this Mazda out and open it up. Especially since Agent Thunder was aware of the defective airbag. So here you are traveling at 110 miles an hour. Don't do it.

$9.95 with a defective airbag. Do we pay, do we give hazardous duty pay? No, he's wearing a flack jacket and some other protective gear. Just kidding. I followed Eduardo outside while the manager trail behind both of us. Eduardo opened the door on the Jeep comment on how clean the vehicle was. The manager interjected

that all four tires were new. I asked Eduardo if he had a Carfax report of the vehicle and the manager answered for him, yes, and he would give him, have a copy waiting for me when we got back from the test drive, if we got back from the

test drive. Right. Open it up on I-95. Okay. On the drive, I asked about jeep's mechanical condition is the first of our three questions and edwardo confirmed that it's been through the shop and passed inspection he said the manager could show me the details about what was looked at and fixed before they put it on the lot i said that was good as we pulled back into the dealership oh you skip oh i'm sorry i wait a few minutes before asking question two was he aware of any accidents

question number two edwardo knew the answer right away there were no accidents on the car fact report. I said, that's good. As we pulled back into the dealership, I asked question number three. And by the way, these are three questions you should all ask. Question number three, are there any safety issues that he's aware of? Question one is a mechanical condition. Question number two, was he aware of any accidents? Question number three, were there any safety issues? That's pretty thorough. Eduardo said he was not aware of any safety issues. I said that was good. Rick? Frank actually brings up a great point here online.

He says, check the date when the Carfax report was printed. Because if it's a couple months old, recalls may have been issued for that car in that short time. Good point. Excellent point. So that's a great point, Frank. Thank you. The manager was waiting for us back

at the desk. He had a Carfax report and a service import. I think you skipped a paragraph. Oh, man. Must be my. You're excited. It's all that caffeine in your new smart. My trifocals. Edward asked me how I like the Jeep and whether I would take it home today if everything worked out. That's a pre-closing test close, they call it.

Is everything okay? Well, you'd be taking the Jeep home. They didn't ask you if you're going to buy it. That's too aggressive. Edward remembered his training. He did. Trial close. That's what I was searching for.

I said if the price looked good on this one, I'd take it that night. I wanted to go over the numbers and then come back in a few hours with my wife to take delivery. The manager was waiting for his back of the desk. He had a Carfax report and a service invoice in front of him. He addressed the service invoice first. He pointed out that Greco has spent $832 of its own money. Kind of strange. It's kind of an impact full statement.

Who else's money would Greco be spending? Maybe I shouldn't answer that. They're so nice. They sell $832 so this car doesn't kill you. Exactly right. Getting the car ready to sell. He said most dealers buy used cars from the arms. auction and put to them on a lot with making any repairs.

That's not true. Not all of them. That's not true. Some, some do. Yeah. And one of those is, one of those is off-lease-only.com. You have to be very careful because you can buy a car at the auction for, you know, pretty low amount of money.

And you, typically, the average dealer would spend around $500 average reconditioning costs. Offleash-only.com spends much less than that. but they price their cars very low and offlease only.com is on our recommended dealer list. I picked up the Carfax report and began to read. I pointed to the recall and asked him about it. I said I was under the impression that Jeep was being represented safe. Now, if you just tuned in, the salesman just said that the Jeep was safe in question number three. And in his hand was his Carfax report and he didn't mention anything about the recall.

so I looked at the recall in the Carvex report and I asked him about it. The manager took the report and tracing the text with his fingers read quickly out loud, mumbling. That was a good description because I pictured that very well.

Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah. He stopped at the recall and acknowledged it, okay. Here it is. But then he pointed to the next item that indicated a service visit at a rego Fiat, Sawgrass, Jeep, Fiat, Chrysler. in sawgrass he said look it was fixed there and went on to assure me they wouldn't sell

an unsafe product should have played scary music as you read that yeah scary music because it's not true he said that if they had any reason to think the jeep was unsafe or mechanically unsound they were to return it to the auction and by the way the auctions openly sell cars with defective unfixed to cut airbags and other unsafe recalls that haven't been fixed and you can't bring it back because of that when you buy a car at the auction you buy it sight unseen and you buy it buyer beware

if there are certain problems with a car they must be disclosed but one of those things is not unfix safety regulations have they call it a condition report if something is wrong with the car that did not appear in the condition report there is recourse for the dealer

but a recall is on the car fax report is publicly available information I asked about the price and the manager said the online price was $27,900 and if you just tuned in, there's a Greco Mazda and Del Rey that were

mystery shopping. Online price was 279 which represented a $1,750 discount of the retail price of $29.650. The online price was not negotiable on all used cars. Online price, not negotiable.

It was their best price. Now this isn't unusual. And I always tell our listeners, don't ever get in the, you know, when you walk into a car showroom, the salesman says, this is the price. Ignore that kind of a price. Get all your prices online. They're always lower than the salesman's verbal price in the showroom. He asked me if I was financing or paying cash.

I said I was paying cash. Okay, you better sit down for this one. Hang on to your hats. The next thing he said, really threw me for a loop. He said, the online. price was for a customer who was financing if I was paying cash the price would be $1,000 more 28,900 instead of what I said before 29,650 he said the disclosure on a listing stated this much he then recommended that I financed with

them to get the lower price then paid the loan off in a month or two now this is illegal you cannot tie the financing of the car to the price you will sell it for another reason is simple you can make a huge amount of money when you finance a car for a customer car dealers do make a huge amount of money when they finance a car and they make more money when they finance the car than when they sell the car so to advertise a car for a very low price and in the fine print say this price is only good if you let me finance it it's fraudulent it's illegal you can't do it so that's a that's a no-no I concealed

my consternation said that his suggestion might work and asked him to see the numbers in detail he said he would give me the detail and asked me to write them down I asked for a buyer's order and he said I would get it I would get all my paperwork when I took delivery that evening and it's awfully hard to get buyers orders out of salespeople we've been remarkably successful in the past we typically use the old credit union trick and we say when they hesitate to give a copy of the buyers or say we got a deal I'm gonna buy the car I need an official buyers order to take a short at the credit union so I get my check to come back in and buy the

car I wrote down what he said on the service invoice sale price was 28,900 but I was getting the one thousand dollar dealer financing incentive now leads me to another point manufacturers financing and settings are legal a manufacturer's financing incentive is something like 0% or 1% is a true incentive which can only be realized when you finance the car and you there's a flip-flop of a cash rebate either or take advantage but a dealer's finance incentives does not have any validity whatsoever. So I wrote this down.

The technical term is flim flam. Flem, exactly. That's a legal term. Flam, scam, fraud. And they was also added a $999 deal fee and sales tax and $132 filing fee, which, of course, is another dealer fee. And he said my license registration would be somewhere between $3 and $500. I thanked him, said I'd be back at 5 p.m. with my wife.

I left and returned to base, home base, on the way I call the dealership, and I speak with Eduardo. I said that I really needed to get a buyer's order to review with my wife. He said he would email it to me. At time of publication, no buyer's order had been sent. And what happened was Eduardo went into Joe, and Joe said, I need a buyer's order, and Joe said, no way. Well, I have an update.

Later that night, we did get something emailed to us. It was not a buyer's order. It was a screenshot from what we call the DMS. That's the dealer management computer system that puts together all the numbers for a deal. It's a screenshot. It was completely unhelpful. It had the price on it.

It lumped all the fees onto one line, and it didn't really give any kind of, like, transparency for the deal. Shocking report, folks. Very shocking report. Very bad report. And I hate to keep doing this to you because you regular listeners, You hear these negative reports, and this is the third in the row that is really, really bad about the Taccata Airbag. I don't want you to think that we are being biased.

We are truly trying to give those dealers that will comply. To pass the Ticada test, you just have to simply say to the customer, we will have the Taccata Airbag fix for you, but we will not deliver the car until we fix it. Now, that's cutting a lot of slack because you should have it fixed a long time ago. and you just have to offer to fix the Takada airbag or any dangerous recall. Is that asking too much? No. Couldn't cost you anything.

I don't think so. Terrible, terrible report following with Easy Pay and Roger Dean. And then, of course, the icing on the cake was this $1,000 dealer financing, gotcha, which is illegal. And then in the final analysis here, we're talking about the irony. of Greco devoting a whole page on their website for addressing the danger to get out of airbags. Can I also read something real quick that just, I got a laugh on, on their website. It does have the disclosure for the $1,000 dealer finance incentive.

It says, internet special price includes $1,000 dealer finance incentive. Just a little bit further down the page, it says at Greco Mazza, we do not believe in artificially inflating our pre-owned vehicle prices. We do not play pricing games. That's like within proximity, within inches of that, of that. Yeah. In a lot of dealerships, there's no communication between the floor sales force, the online sales force, and the executive force. It's like three groups of people, and they'll say things in one group, and they don't agree with or know about any other group. A lot of the fraud and deception is almost accidental.

A lot of it's premeditated. I mean, it's kind of a pulpery of deception and lack of transparency. see. We're voting on Greco Mazda and Del Rey, our online votes. Who wants to start out? We'll do the... I have four votes that came in. We have Linda with a huge fat F. That's an upgrade from her big fat F. Gino gives him an F, Larry Gismuth, and Danny gives him an F minus. And I concur with our listeners, Phelam. Do we have anything on the YouTube?

Not yet on YouTube. We're waiting to see, but for me, it's an F. Yeah. Yeah, it's... That's the angry mob out outside the studio right now with pitchforks and torches. Yeah, I was going to say, in Frankenstein. Yeah, after Frankenstein. Thanks, Rudy. Nancy, I don't even have to ask you, but I will. Well, as far as that buyer's order is concerned, I have a new affidavit that I'm going to make up,

and folks, you can, that's to come. But anyway, on a more serious side, just so sad, so bothered, so speechless, give them an F. I'm going to be sending this mystery shopping report. In fact, I think I'll send all three mystery shopping reports to my contacts in the media, among them the new automotive reporter for the Wall Street Journal. We have more than a grade. we have a recommendation for incarceration. Steve on Facebook says, jail the criminal,

and Doug and Ollie, gives him a triple F. Wow. Well, I haven't voted, but I will vote an F, and I think Rick's got some coming on YouTube. We've only got one minute left, so we're going to have to get these grades out fast, Rick.

Frank and F, Mr. Hand, in F, Roger, and F, Thomas and LJ, both Fs, and Nate says D-minus, he says the reason he didn't give him an F was that at least they did acknowledge the recall. Okay, we made that clear. Lenny gives him an F. And Lenny gives them an F.

So here we go. Okay. Another show. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in. You are an important part of the show. And Jonathan and Rudy, thank you so much for being part of the team here and making our job just a little bit easier. Have a wonderful weekend. Happy birthday, Lisa.

And we will be right back here next Saturday morning. Let's go. Oh, my mother. No. Oh, more. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bento.