Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.30.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of AutoNation Chevy Pembroke Pines

Episode Date: June 30, 2018

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

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. It's a long week, it seems like. We love this show so much. We look forward to it. And the name of the show is Earl Stewart on Cars.

We're on the True Oldie Station. I say this almost every week now because a lot of you folks are listening to music on this station. It's great music, by the way. It's my kind of music. 60s and 70s, but we're not going to sing to you today. We're going to talk to you about cars. Earl Stewart on Cars is all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by your car dealer. And I'm not here alone on the studio, by the way. I'm with a group of experts. I think it's fair to say that we're all kind of like experts.

We've been doing this cumulatively probably for a couple hundred years. I'm a half a century guy myself and we are competent to answer all your questions we ask you to call us you'll probably hear this number so many times if you're gonna listen for a while that you're gonna get tired of it but the folks are just tune in we got to do it for them it's 877 960 9960 the call-in number 877 960 9960 I ask you to write that number down if you're not driving of course because you might not have a question now, but you will have a question. Hey, we really got a quick question here.

We got Tina from Benita Springs. She is one of our very best callers, and Nancy loves her because she's female, and we don't get enough female callers. So thank you for calling in, Tina. What's going on? Well, I wanted to, how are you guys doing this morning? Has the coffee kicked in?

It sounds like it has. Slowly but surely. Oh, okay. You need another cup, huh? I'm working on it. Okay. Well, I was going to talk about this last week we didn't have a chance to, but, you know, shopping at one of those auto parts places that's kind of like, what do you call it,

like one of those chain auto parts places where you can pick up oil or pick up little things for your vehicle. Oh, yeah, a huge business, yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And I can't think of the name right now. Auto Advance is one of them. Advantage Auto parts. And I can't remember.

Yes. Yes. See, my brain's not working this morning. But anyway, the subject I wanted to cover was snake oil. Because if you go to one of those places, you will find all kinds of stuff that claims to do everything from starting your car automatically to making sure the exhaust is emission free. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And people get sucked into that, especially shade tree mechanics. They sometimes get sucked into it, too.

but I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on automotive snake oil and what to avoid. I mean, Flip 50 was just the beginning, you know. That sounds like a great question. Yeah, I think snake oil is going to be, and it just doesn't apply to the automobile business, it applies to all businesses. It's a matter of education. It's a matter of snake oil will always be sold. I think as long as they're human beings on the planet,

there'll be somebody out there that's going to buy the snake oil. And the car dealers are selling snake oil when they advertise. It's just a question of offering what somebody wants to buy. You go into these auto repair stores or auto parts stores, and you're going to be able to see on the shelves anything that has, there's a market for it. And unfortunately, they don't have a moral code or an ethical code that says we're not going to sell this oil additive or this gasoline additive or whatever

else they're trying to sell you. If someone says, I'd like to buy it, they're going to sell it to you. Rick can probably give you some specific examples of things in these other supply stores that are on the shelves that you should avoid. Jeremiah Peabody's little green and purple pills, to quote the old song, it's snake oil. Well, it's a placebo effect. Most cases, these things do nothing to help. In a few cases, they can actually hurt because they create a false sense of security sometimes,

and people will believe the hype, and they won't maintain their cars properly. What are some specific examples? Because we could spend an hour and a half on this, but additives come to mind that a lot of things that you put in your eyes, I suppose you have additives for your radiator fluid, your transplant. vision fluid, your oil, anything that you can put something more in to make it better. Top of the head, things that are pretty harmless, don't really do much to help, don't really do much to hurt. Things like the STP oil additives, Marvel mystery oil. You know, these were great on the older cars where the tolerances weren't as tight. The materials weren't as good. The

machining was good. Marvel mystery oil. I love that. Well, believe it or not, I still use that, but I use it in my air tools at work to lubricate my air tools. You know, one of my favorites, this tells you how old I am, how many out there can remember the Andy Granitelli TV commercials where he, okay, and he would take a screwdriver and he would dip it into the oil, and then he would try to pick the screwdriver up, and it would slip out of his finger, and that proved that it increased the lubricate, it was greater lubrication.

He could pick it up without the anti-Gretelie magic oil. Oh, the fun one, if you go into a parts store nowadays, sitting on the counter is this plastic display that has all these little gear loops in it, and it's this Lucas oil additive, and you have a little crank. And when you turn the crank, the one set of gears, the basic plain oil, you'll see a little tiny bit of oil work its way up the gears by being caught and pulled up. But that Lucas additive, you spin that, and it just fills those gears right up, and it's supposed to be, oh, this is the demonstration. I'll take six chords. Yeah, everybody, and they believe it. Now, things that can hurt, and this is one of the big ones. Any additive for the transmission?

That contains sugar. Steu. Peppers, okay. Stu's got six of those max energy. My favorite YouTuber, not to be sarcastic, seriously, he's one of my favorites. And he had a whole video, he just posted recently about do not change. your transmission fluid because you could really mess up your transmission. In some cases, that's very true.

Follow what the manufacturer recommends, but anything that's like an additive that has a stop leak, like they sell this stop leak for the radiators. Well, folks, you have a thing in there called a thermostat, and if that stop leak interferes with that thermostat, which, you know, it's meant to plug holes. Well, if it plugs up the holes in that thermostat, your coolant is not going to flow properly, and you can overheat an engine. It can plug up those tiny passageways in the radiator and cause your radiator not to cool properly, which can overheat your engine.

I think the bottom line is that the manufacturers are extremely competent in building their cars and the fluids that they need to lubricate and maintain their cars. they spend billions of billions of dollars. If there was something in a can that Andy Grenadettelli or somebody else had invented, they would probably steal the patent or they'd invent something better. You know, you go with the manufacturer's recommendation. I know there's some that don't hurt and some that do hurt. I just say don't put any additive in anything in your car and try not to buy anything that's not manufactured by the auto manufacturer.

You put anything on the car, in the car, on the car. that's not OEM original equipment manufacturer, you're asking for trouble. Now, with that said, there are some products out there that might be okay. But why take a chance? I mean, you stick with the OEM, the suggested maintenance and repair for your car, and you're not going to get any trouble at all. Yep. Now, I have no problem with using other manufacturers' products such as oils.

if you want to use mobile oil pens oil castrol a good solid brand name that's fine but I would definitely not use any sort of those additives that look like snake oil the one that really bothers me

the one that bothers me the most that I think is awful especially in a high mileage car if somebody's having some head gasket problems and they get gasket feeler no you're going to make a mess with a mechanic when you do end up needing a head gasket If your head gasket's giving you problems, just get it fixed. Don't put fluid or anything in there because then if you need to get it fixed,

the mechanic has to clean that whole mess up, and it's just going to be a disaster. So don't use head gasket feel a seed. Absolutely. Great advice from Tina. Tina, there's a heck of a lot of snake oil out there, and we're always happy to hear from you. Thank you. Do you have any other questions? In the Miata community, we used to like oil purple for our deer oil.

That did work pretty well, but other than that, we pretty much always stayed with the OEM manufactured fluids that always seem to work best, other than mobile one for all changes for low mileage cars. Very good, Tina. Stay tuned for that mystery shopper report. Are you going to be with us? Oh, I certainly will. I can't wait. Okay. Thank you so much.

If you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on cars right here at the True Oldies Channel. And you can text us, if you're a little shy, at 772-497-6530, or you can give us a call at 877-960. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I wonder if there really is such a thing as snake oil. I mean, they make oil out of almost everything. Why is that such a favorite cliche? It's used in reference to a lot of different terms.

Because the old timers actually sold a bottle of what they call snake oil, they would cure all your ills. So that's where it came from. Something I'm familiar with. Those old fake medicines used to have a little bit of snake venom in them. And the cliche that's used, snake oil is used at the, well, supplement store. They use that cliche a lot. You're buying snake oil.

They probably sell it, too, though. For real. Back room. It's to get it. Give it a bite. High in Omega. It's very good for you. There you go.

I get mine on Amazon. Snake oil caplets. So what we want are your questions, anything that you have out there on your mind. If you're thinking about bringing your car in for repair, if you have a problem with the car that couldn't be fixed, if you're thinking about leasing a car, buying a car, all the questions that must go through your mind, do I buy a used car or a new car, do I lease or buy? Any of your questions. We love to hear that. We'd like to.

I get too many calls and emails and texts after the fact, after the horse is out of the barn. We love to hear from the horse while he's still in the barn. And if you're still on the barn, you haven't made that buying a decision yet, and you've got some questions. We'd love to hear from you. Okay, we're going to take, well, first let me say, sit down for this one. Okay. All righty. This is the cliche that comes from John from Palm City, and we used to have someone,

else that would call us and that was Jonathan and he was no shenanigans Jonathan back in the early days so anyway back to John John thank you so much for calling good morning to everyone I just

want to mention from this radio program we have 67 counties in Florida the one that's not too good to buy a car from is Martin County and this show has shopped the dealers, with the exception of Johnson Honda.

Very good report from them. And what I think is behind a lot of it is, I'll give you an example. When the franchise of Toyota of Stewart was revoked, you hardly saw anything in the newspaper, you saw very little publicity on TV, and the reason behind this is the advertisement that car dealers give to these newspapers and radio programs. And the latest incident, that was a few years ago, the latest incident, which is a big thing, is on June 15th, there was a trial, okay?

19th Circuit Court, all right, from the deal of Blue Marlon Motors, he was convicted by jury trial of 54 charges of grand theft, one count each of tax fraud and racketeering. It was an 11-day trial, 80 witnesses that were stuck by him were called forward. They paid for their hotels. They paid for everything. He's going to be sentenced in September. The judge, the female judge, that sentenced, that had in charge of the trial, said he could get as sentencing as high as 590 years.

This goes back to when he was arrested, the owner, Craig Danzig, in November 2015, it was so serious that the sheriff himself of Martin County Schneider arrested him personally. So what I want to say is you won't see, it was the smallest article in the Stewart News on June 16th on a Saturday, small like you'd need a magnifying glass to read about this trial that took place. Wow. So it's unbelievable and it's a bad vibrations for Martin, county because of people that I spoke to that have bad experiences with car dealers. I mean, one dealer himself years ago was put in federal prison setting odometers back as much

as 50 to 100,000 miles unused cars. So it's not a good reputation, but the good news is it is one good dealer that we have shopped on this show, and it's Johnson Honda. Well, that's true. And these contests that they're running, these dealers, I won't get into that. I made a comment in the past on this show, and some people love these contests. They get their free umbrella or movie tickets or whatever it is. But I spoke to a woman a week ago that got so harassed when she went in with this mail order certificate that she had

that the salesman actually blocked her from leaving to go to her car in the parking lot. and it got so bad she got on the phone and she called the steward police on his salesman. That's how bad it got. He would not leave her alone because she wouldn't buy a car from him. But naturally, later on, she followed it through and that salesman was fired.

I mean, that's personal harassment. What I have in my hand right now, I don't know whether you're watching live, but I have your mailer that you sent me and take a look at dinner in a movie. And if that doesn't sweep, If that doesn't sweeten the pot, how about that $25,000? What do you have to say about that?

Well, that's what caused these people in, and it seems that the manufacturers don't do anything about complaints that they get, because the bottom line is volume. The dealer is doing a right thing on them on volume. They just seem to leave them alone. And that's what's upsetting. And deceptive advertising sells cars. That's the problem.

That the Toyota dealer had completely revoked franchise. and you hardly knew about it or saw anything in the papers. Yeah. That's what I wanted to speak about today. They're afraid of the image manufacturers do not want to discipline their dealers because the press picks it up or actually the press doesn't pick it up. They should pick it up. But they, in matter of fact, they will require their dealers.

They don't allow their dealers to be critical of other dealers. If you have a dealer in the market that is being exploited by the deceptive advertising, of his competition if that dealer speaks out about the other dealer not the dealer that's doing the deceptive advertising is in trouble the dealer that criticized the dealer that was doing the deceptive advertising in trouble and they're censored they're fined you cannot speak negatively of another dealer of the same manufacturer brand and there it's kind of a backward way of looking at image and brand by saying just don't talk about it see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, but believe me, the evil is out there.

Well, I went through all of this when I lived in New York. I mean, it was unbelievable. It was going on for a long time. McNamara Pontiac, which everybody knows about that, and that almost bankrupt GMAC. Yes. For Tampkin from Miami, lost his franchise on Cadillac in Manhattan. But this went on for the longest time until finally the Attorney General stepped in

and the Motor Vehicle Bureau, and then the manufacturer, Cadillac gave the franchise to the rental guy. How can I think of a senior? No, no, no, no. The big rented car renter, the truck rental. Enterprise? Still has it today, I think. Penske.

Yeah, Penske, right, Penske, they gave it to them. They had no choice. But it's just ridiculous that it continues. And just to show you out, people got hurt with this Blue Marlin. There was a man with a Mustang right in a local area, Stuart, that was out over $100,000 on a collectible Mustang. The car disappeared completely. They don't even know where it was shipped somewhere to Europe,

and he was out the money, and he had to hire two or three lawyers to try to collect it, cost him a fortune from his insurance company. Well, they spent a lot of money. There's no one. I mean, when you're convicted of 54 charges of, grand theft this is very serious business john thank you very much i really appreciate you bringing this to our attention and uh we will uh do what the media would not do we're we're spreading the word blue marlin motors the guys going to jail for 500 years and uh we'll interview him when he gets

out of jail all right john thank imagine 590 years he could get he's only in his mid 50s he's not going to be around can't make this stuff up john Hold on for the shopping report for later. Thank you so much, and thank you for always, well, being with us every single Saturday that we're on in prior to that. give us excuse me give us a call at 877960

or you can text us at 772-4976530 and you know I have to say that we've got probably six ladies that are watching us live right now is that nice I want to hear from you ladies thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars We are going to go to Dennis, who's been holding.

He's calling from Lake Worth. Hi, Dennis. Hello, good morning. I just have a question about maybe buying a car. I saw an article, I guess, two days ago saying that if these tariffs go into effect all the way, the price of a camry could go up by $1,800. So if you were thinking about buying a camera, do you know when this might happen? Or is it going to happen?

or do you guys, I'm sure you, if anybody's going to know about it, you guys will. Dennis, I don't think that's accurate, and I think that there's a lot of speculation and there's a lot of excitement about this whole tariff issue. You know, again, I don't want to even touch on politics. Oh, yeah, I'm not going to politics. I'm just wondering if I was thinking about buying a camera, should I do it now? Or, you know, because if you're going to 2019, you know, it just seems to me like if it might happen, It might be a good idea to do it now rather than wait and see what happens.

No, I wouldn't advise you to do that. I think you should take your time, buy your camera after you've done your homework and your research, check with consumer reports, shopped around, found the dealer that's going to give you the best price and the best service. And, you know, buying a car, you're talking about a $30, $40, $50,000 investment, huge investment. You should take weeks, maybe even months before you make a decision. There's not going to be any tariff issue that's going to be coming up that's going to affect anything in the automotive market for a long time. And I think you're going to see a lot of the hoopla about this fade.

Cars, we'll talk about the Camry. The Camry is the most American-made vehicle. A lot of people think Chevrolet Apple Pie and all that kind of. Chevroletes have more foreign components and are built out of the country more than some foreign. foreign cars. You know, foreign cars are foreign cars by name only. So a lot of cameras are made in Kentucky and other states in the country, the United States. They use domestic parts. They use domestic labor. They use American labor. And so most of the cars that are manufactured, most all the cars, with the exception of European cars, have a heavy manufacturing base

in the U.S. So this whole tariff thing, don't let it affect your car buying decision. If a dealer tells you, you better hurry up and buy this car because there's going to be tariffs imposed in the next few weeks. So sign here, laugh at him, and continue about your business and do your homework. All right. Well, thank you for the information. Thank you, Dennis. You're welcome, Dennis. Stay in touch.

Give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960, or you can text us if you're a little bit shy at 772-497-6530. You know, we've been talking about snake oil and the mailers and all that, but I received a text this morning that I shared with you, Earl, and that was about insurance warranty, to be exact, and you're receiving these mailers, scaring a consumer into, you know, calling this toll-free number when, in fact, it's just a sham. Yeah. Now, anything that you receive from a car, well, sometimes you don't know, it comes from a car dealer, but solicitations of any kind by text, email, used to be just snail mail, but anything that comes via electronic or physical mail, we'll call it, is the most deceptive that you can find. When you go, especially with snail mail, it flies below the radar of the, regulators not that the regulators care anyway but you can certainly designate exactly who gets your mail either by text or email but when it goes out of the electronic airways like radio if someone puts the deceptive advertisement on the radio or on television everybody picks it up the Attorney General can pick it up the attorneys can pick it up everybody can pick it up but if I want to go and send a Deceptive

to mail her to Nancy Stewart, I could just mail it to her, I can text it to her, I can email it, nobody sees it except Nancy Stewart. So all of the mail and text and snail mail that you get throw in the trash can, forget about it. No, no, recycling bin. Recycling. Oh, thanks, too. You know, I think that, excuse me for interrupting you, but I think that whenever you

receive, you know, a text or the forms of, you know, contact to the. the consumer that you just mentioned, I think it really gets your attention a lot more than seeing it on TV, and you feel like as if that it's personalized. There you have your name, and it just grabs you and you go, oh, my goodness, maybe I should call that toll-free number. Maybe my warranty is going to be running out. I'll be responsible for... I can tell you, that's such an easy little trick.

Basically, every cardiol has got a computer program, and it's called Emergent. field and so you can customize it make it look like they hand wrote it for you like earl's got it in his hand days and he's going to show the camera it looks like a handwritten offer but it has these little if you look here where it says first name in brackets you can't if you're listening on the radio but basically the computer will put your name where there's brackets so it looks like they wrote it by hand personalized I got to get in touch with those people if you can't see this and you're listening on the radio what I've got here is what appears to be a yellow legal pad sheet of paper with a handwritten message and it's to a person talking

about the car that he owns and talking about the what he can buy and what his discounts can be it has the all the personal information that would seem it was handwritten by this car sales person at this particular dealership so the whole idea Nancy said it perfectly the direct mail the email the text is very personal and you get it and you tend to read it And you can get away with just about anything. We see every day in copies that customers show us or people that call us from Earl Stewart on cars that are actually illegal. We see a lot of illegal ads.

So rule of thumb, if it comes in the mail, text, or anything other than the mass television, totally ignore it. You can ignore the mass television, too. Actually, as I speak, I hear myself saying, ignore. We're all advertising, and I really mean that. Do your own research. Don't rely on what the car dealers want to tell you. And if you get a text from somebody you're not doing business with, it's a solicitation, reply back and say, I don't recall opting in because federal law says you got to opt in, and sometimes

car dealers are just starting your text, so that'll scare them. Great advice. 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And, you know, we have to stop for a moment and let you know you are an important part of the show, and we're here for you. No games, no gimmicks. So give us a call with any question. They're all important questions. Or, as I said, you can text us if you're a little bit bashful.

It's 772-497-6530, and we're going to go to Ollie, I mean Doug, from Boca. Ollie? that's funny that's your morning giggle good morning how are you guys oh yeah ollie says hello he's he's laying down right here oh no he's laying down on the job oh boy this is an inside joke so for you folks that don't

understand ollie or Doug Doug is part of the international sunrise club and nancy and i do we've live video the sunrise every morning. We were doing it for years and Doug is a regular member of the International Sunrise Club and his kitty cat, Ollie, actually watches the sunrises and he watches on Doug's Mac. He's got a Mac computer and this kitty cat actually watches the sunrises and Doug has videoed Ollie watching the sunrise and I'm telling you I'm looking at this video and he's enjoying every minute of the sunrise. So Ollie, meow, we get that cat a window. Yeah, exactly.

We have to give Sim a little bit of recognition also. She called last week. So, Doug, thanks for bringing her on board, and she too listens to Earl Stewart on cars. Okay, Doug, now that all the formalities are out of the way, what can we do for you? Okay, so I have a question. So our car was up for the lease,

and we took it into, I can't name the dealership, I'll just say that, was on the dealership in Delray, and the car was over miles, and so basically they try to give us like three different deals, but they wouldn't forgive the miles like all the way. So they said, you know, they would pay 50% for the month. Or they said, no, we'll build it into the lease. I said, well, let me think about that. And so then I tried another dealership, and they said that they would forgive all the miles.

However, I didn't trust them. And so my question is, should I call the leasing company Honda and just see what they would do, or should I trust the dealership? Well, Doug, the mileage overage is a, I will call it a semi-legitimate charge. It's legitimate, had it been fully disclosed to you, but my guess is it wasn't. And unfortunately, the fine print strikes again. Many, many leases are advertised out there with a very low payment.

And then the fine print, which you have to use your magnifying glass to read, it has a substandard or an amount of mileage which will not meet your requirement. pharmacy average driver drives about 15,000 miles a year. A lot of people drive, you know, 50, 60, depending on what your job is and where you live. But I've seen mileage allowances as low as 5,000 a year. Typical would be like $7,500 or $10,000, and the mileage overcharge can be $0.25. I've seen as high as 50 cents a mile over. And it's all in the fine print.

So it's deceptive. it should be required to be disclosed. The Federal Trade Commission says that anything that will materially modify the price of the product must be disclosed prominently in the same size type or the same area, the same audio, or all the other things same that the actual price is advertised at. So when you lease that car, I'm sure that this did not happen. So you're stuck technically, legally, they've got you because unfortunately our regulators do not recognize the fact that fine print is deceptive. And you would be held to that.

The dealer that told you he would absorb the cost of the mileage overage was being dishonest with you too because he's just going to add it to the price of the next lease. They say roll into the price. That means you pay it. It comes out of your pocket. and you're just going to have to take that as a given if you want to lease another Honda. You take it as a given and shop three Honda dealers, apples and apples, so you get the exact same vehicle for the same lease terms and down payment and accept the fact that you're going to have to pay for that

over mileage overage that you ran the car over. How far, if you don't mind my asking, Doug, did you go over and what was the cost per mile? Okay, well, here's the thing. 15 cents a mile, but when we signed the lease, which was three years ago, we thought it was 15,000 miles, but unbeknown to us, because it's hard to even find this. We finally found it on the contract in the real small print, and it said 12,000 miles. So I called the original dealership, which was Auto Nation, and I spoke to. The sales guy said, he said, oh, you don't have to worry because I told you that I'm not going to charge you for over miles. I go, really?

Yeah. So he wanted me to come all the way down to Hollywood on Wednesday, and he said he would do a deal. But I just don't trust this dealer. No. No, this is leasing is something that is so easily manipulated. It's far easier for a car dealer to be. deceptive and trick people with the lease because there's so many variables and what you're talking about the mileage penalty is one of the biggest dirty little secrets in leasing and

people get away with what the salesman told you was just a flat-out lie one of the reasons i advise people when they go car shopping is never go alone and get everything in writing uh if you if you have two or three people and you can say if you should go to court and you had three people that heard the salesman say that you would not be charged for that mileage overage, then you'd have a chance. And they would know you had a chance, which would probably preclude them from even trying in the first place. But when it's one-on-one and you're buying or leasing a car by yourself, these salespeople will say outrageous things. If you are shopping alone, be sure it's committed to writing.

That salesperson would never have signed a piece of paper or the buyer's order saying that he would absorb the cost of the mileage overage. Wow. So, I mean, even, I like your dealership, but when, if we would lease a car from you in the future, then we would know all these things before, like, you know, you would say 12,000 or 15, and it would be, if we went over, then it would be 15 cents a mile, we would know all that, and it wouldn't be hidden in the contract, correct? Well, we, unfortunately, we don't have control over the leasing contracts. The leasing company, in this case, our case, it would be Southeast Toyota Finance, Southeast Tour leasing. They print the contracts, and they have the fine print in the contract as all leasing contracts. If we did our job, and I will be the first to say, I have over 180 employees, I have about 30 salespeople, and if I were to tell you that every salesperson I have does a completely open, transparent disclosure of all the fine print, I wouldn't be truthful. I'd like to think that most of our salespeople do it, but there's always a rotten apple in the barrel, and sometimes these things do happen.

But it is very important that when you lease a car, people ask me this question all the time, should I lease her by? I say all things being equal, you should buy because it's easier to understand. Leasing has a lot of things that you need to look at the fine print. You hit on one, the mileage overcharge. There's also a lease administrative fee that you don't have when you are, or sometimes called an inception fee. There's a lease disposal fee. There is a lease above average wear and tear fee. These are all things that you don't have when you buy a car.

And when you have a leasing contract, you've got to get your magnifying glass out, either that or have an honest salesperson that will do it for you. But in many cases, in average dealers, it's not done. In my case, we probably do it most of the time, but I'd be dishonest if I said I was sure it was done all the time. Wow. And one more question, and what do you think in the maintenance contracts where they change the oil and they do whatever on the contract? car and they charge you a certain amount a month to do this contract and they even have a tire replacement for the car so I wanted to ask you if you guys do that and what do you think of these contracts maintenance contracts can be good and it's simple it's a matter of arithmetic you

look at the first of all bear in mind that most manufacturers now are providing free maintenance for two or three years, sometimes even longer. So a maintenance contract isn't going to do you any good if the manufacturer is paying for it free anyway. But if you have to pay for your maintenance on the car, a maintenance contract can be a value. So what you need to do, look at your manufacturer's suggested maintenance, and then ask the car dealership that you're going to be taking it to, what are you going to charge me if I come in every six months or according to the schedule and have my car maintained this way get the retail price then take your maintenance contract

and see what you pay for and compare the two you should be able to save several hundred dollars on the maintenance contract now if you do the maintenance and you use the maintenance contract it can be a value where the car dealers make their money on maintenance contracts is people buy the maintenance contracts and they never come back for the maintenance one of the reasons being a lot of people that buy the maintenance contracts don't even know they bought the maintenance contract they go into the business office the F&I office and you're signing this you're signing that suddenly you go home and you've got yourself an extended warranty you got yourself a maintenance contract you got

yourself gap insurance that you didn't know you have but if you did the evaluation you measure the cost versus having the maintenance done individuals or on the whole contract and you bring it and have it done at that dealer it can be a value okay thank you guys so much and uh i will be tuning in tomorrow morning with ollie and sim for uh oh thank you Doug thank you don't go anywhere now we have the mystery shopping report coming up and uh if you if you thought last week's uh mystery shopping report from coral springs kea was something well tune in today uh see which way the uh well dominion fall, so to speak, and we're going to be shopping Penbrook Pines, the Costco Auto Program.

Hey, Doug, send me another video of Ali watching the sunrise. I'd love to see that again. Okay, I'll do that. Thanks, Doug. Just a little reminder to all of you that if you're unable to listen to our live show, or you want to listen to any of our past shows, you can simply go to Erlon Cars. and excuse me, you can take your smartphone or your tablet by using the podcast apps right there and that's Apple, SoundCloud, Google, Stitcher, we've got it all. So there's a little reminder.

I got a scratchy throat. Back to the recovering card dealer. Oh, we've got some texts. The texts are flooding in. Yes. Look out. Love to have those texts. Let's give that text number out again, somebody.

772-497-6530. Okay, first sex. Good morning. In the past, you've said the future is electric motor cars. There's a hybrid the way to go. Are they worth the money? Are they reliable? And you get this extra money back at trade-in.

You do a wonderful service for the consumer. Thank you, Robbie, from Stewart. Well, thank you, Robbie. Hybrids can be a good buy. Again, sometimes you have to do the arithmetic. and it's a matter of what do i pay extra for the hybrid versus what do i save on gas the saving on gas has to do with how many miles you drive a year and how long you keep your car so if you keep your car for a long time and drive a lot of miles you can oftentimes come out

way ahead by buying a hybrid if you get a hybrid car you might get another 20 miles per gallon over what you'd get on the gasoline version but even that isn't going to help you if you don't very many miles. So it's a matter of arithmetic. Hybrid cars, by the way, are just a fill-in because the hybrids won't exist. We're going to have electric cars everywhere. Every car you see. They're even talking about electric helicopters. Can you believe that? And the battery technology is just going crazy. And pretty soon you're going to have batteries. It'll get you 500 miles and they're going to get 1,000 miles. And who knows what the limit will be. Rick, Well, not to mention the idea of inductive charging with coils built into the road.

There you go. And your electric car will just drive forever. You wouldn't need ever to worry about the recharge. But, Robbie, you're answering your question. Do your arithmetic? And sometimes hybrids can be a good buy, sometimes not. I've seen hybrids out there that were so highly priced over the gasoline version. You'd have to do way, way too much driving to save.

Some of the manufacturers are counting on the, what is it, the prestige, the ego thing, the green planet syndrome that, hey, I'm driving a hybrid, look at me kind of a thing. If it makes you feel good to drive a hybrid, but you have to pay way too much money for the privilege, it's not worth the investment. Okay, I've got another text here. I have a 2006 Nissan Marano with 65,000 miles. It had about 5,000 when we bought it in 2007 from a Nissan dealer. Boy, you've had that car for a long time. The brakes have always squealed. Sounds like one for you, Rick.

The brakes have always squealed in reverse, and now are also squealing going forward. A lot of squealing going on. My independent mechanics is the rotors and brakes are in good working order. How can I stop the squeal, which is very loud and embarrassing? Well, um... Ear plugs? No. Oil?

That won't help the embarrassment. Moistrarizer. Actually, believe it or not, it's a little bit of snake oil, but it's actually one that works. Okay. That squeal has caused, there's a couple reasons. One of the most common ones is South Florida's humidity. Anytime your car sits for several hours, you're going to get a light layer of rust forms on those rotors. I mean, it's such a tiny amount.

You won't really even see it. but the first couple times, especially first thing in the morning, when you first step on the brakes, you may hear a little noise. There's nothing you can do about that one. The other thing you can do, though, is when your mechanics checking your brakes, ask them to pull them apart and put some lubrication on the back of the brake pads between the shims, not on the friction material, but on the metal backing, and a little bit on the, what's called the ears,

where the brake pads ride in their holder. and that little bit of break grease, it's a special grease that we, mechanics will use, will actually help to absorb those vibrations and cut down that noise a whole lot. You need to do a YouTube video on that, Rick, because it's pretty complicated. And maybe we can take that, capture that and put it on YouTube. You know, great cop. We can do that. Great talk.

You lost me at Shim. I remember Shemi, Shemi, Koko Bob, but I don't know. And I didn't know that breaks had ears. They do. Should we be careful what we say around them? Only if you want them to stop and not you to stop. Okay. Well, thank you very much.

Now, I've got another text here. I think one's for Nancy, too. Okay. She gets the one after I do this one. Are there such things as car stereo repair shops anymore? Without exceptional shops I tried. Okay. I got this blown up too big and I can't read the fine print.

to sell me a new unit or would analyze a problem possibly fix. There used to be car stereo shops. Sound advice? Is sound advice? There's still... World of sound. Yeah, and world of sound, they're still out there.

But any more, most manufacturers of radios like Kenwood, Pioneer and that for the higher-end radios, if you have a problem with it, they usually want you to remove the unit and send it to them to let them fix it. Okay. The units have become so complicated and so computerized. Oh, man, I'll tell you. Oh, they are, they're more of a computer than the laptop I've got in front of me. Yeah.

And if it's an inexpensive radio or it's two or three years old, you really might consider looking at the idea of it like a computer laptop. Absolete. Yeah. Get a new one. Go to Best Buy or one of these other electronic stores and look at some of these new technology radios, and I got to tell you, stepping up, putting up modern technology into an older car, I put a new radio in my five-year-old pickup, and I'm amazed at how much, how awesome

it is, that new technology. It's great. Exactly. Great advice. Unlike the old days, you just don't fix things anymore, electronic, you just replace them. And the technology is moving so fast. I just, I can't, you know, I can't control myself. I keep seeing new devices.

and I'm buying this stuff faster than I can figure out how to use it. She followed up, or they followed up with a question. They said it's an O2 Honda Chord with a six CD in dash and two of the CDs are stuck. So... I would

move on. An old one like that, I would get a new radio. It would actually be less expensive, less headache. You'd get some great new technology and then take your old unit and put it on eBay. Be honest about the description,

But believe it or not, there's a lot of people out there that will buy those old units, repair them, and then resell them. Can I sell my 8 track? You don't have an 8 track. You would be amazed, I bet, at how many people would be willing to buy an 8 track because they want to have the original radio to go back in their car. Other advice would be have your kids or grandkids rip your music from your CDs so you can put it on your phone. Rip it. There's another one. So that way you can listen to it on your phone and get with the times.

That means to you copy it on something else. Yes. Rippins. Or you simply download it right from iTunes or from Google. I think it depends on what you're applying that thing too. I thought a rivet is something a frog said. Well, that's rivet. That's something that they put buildings together with.

Right. That was Rosie the Riveter. You're okay. Rip. Okay, I think we got a text for Nancy here. You can use that in different forms. Nancy? Here's Nancy's text.

Nancy from one woman to another. what's the best way to respond to a pushy auto salesperson? I'll share something with you that I can share on the air and if you want to know any other ways to... Private messenger for the real answer. First of all, you're in total control whenever you walk into a dealership and if you, you know, in the event, well, encounter an aggressive salesperson. I would say that you would, well, I'd say ask for the manager.

That's who I would go to. And then the two of you could decide if there was somebody in the dealership that would be able to meet your needs. And I'm not promoting whether that would be a woman or a man. It's called giving you respect, and you deserve that. And you deserve to be treated like a knowledgeable person, who wants to go out and purchase a car, and you need advice, and you need it from a salesperson that you connect with.

I think that's a great answer. You know, one of the advantages of being an existing dealer, I'm a recovering car dealer, and in full transparency and disclosure, I have to say I do have a car dealership. So when I put on my car dealer hat, one of the conversations that I have with Stu and my other managers is, wouldn't it be nice if we could pair, the right salesperson with the right customer.

Everybody has preferences. Some people prefer women. Some people prefer older people. In other words, if I'm an elderly person, sometimes I like to talk to somebody that's not, you know, 21 years old. I might want to talk to somebody that's in their 50s. And with a little bit of thought, you can pair people. So I advise all people, not just women,

But when you walk into a car dealership, find a salesperson that you can identify with, somebody that chemically you're going to be able to have a conversation, a dialogue. I mean, you're in there to spend a lot of money, right? You're not in there to have the salesman earned a big commission or any kind of commission. You are the customer, you are the king, you're the queen. And you have a right to say, I'm not comfortable with this particular person. person, and I'm not saying anything negative about that person, I'd feel more comfortable with, and you fill in the blank. I mean, you might be Hispanic.

English might not be your first language. Maybe you would prefer to confer in Spanish. I'd like a Spanish-speaking salesperson. You're in full control. Exactly. So be sure you do it from the get-go, and don't be timid about it. I know a lot of people are timid about it, and unfortunately that's where we have a lot of problems. but if you will stand up and ask for somebody that you feel good about talking to, it'll make a world of difference.

You know, it's amazing that 54% of women purchase vehicles, and 84% are part of the decision factor. With all of that said, you do have total control whenever you walk into a dealership, and I'm not at all surprised that there are still aggressive salespeople out there. And that's the reason why I advise men and women do your homework. It's just you go in and you baffle these car salesmen whenever you know what vehicle you wanted, whether it's a good choice for you in your family. You know, whether you have children, whether you're single, doing your homework before you walk into the dealership and you have so many options.

That PC that sits in your home or at the library, there's so much. to obtain from right there on the internet. And Consumer Report, Earl and I, we can't talk enough about Consumer Report. All of your questions will be answered. So I hope that I gave you enough information to help you go out and buy a car. Well, without being taken advantage of. Now back to the recovering car dealer. We haven't had any calls in about five or ten minutes, and that's not what we do.

We take calls, we answer questions. 877-960-99-60. Please write the number down, even if you don't have a question now. If you want to call the show, 877-960-99-60, and if you want to text us, you text us at 772-497-6530. that's 772-497-6530. Please call and share anything you care to share. Observations, criticisms, suggestions. Love the questions. Rick.

You know, something you haven't done in a while, Earl, is your Jim Press quote. And that's something you used to always open the show with. Personally, I think it's something kind of important. Maybe you ought to try it again. Well, it's kind of like preaching to Sing Sing Jim Press was a former top executive for Toyota

and he said something is what you do for the customer when you don't have to. That's a true measure of character. Kind of like sticking up for somebody who can't defend themselves and it's a truism is something that we all know. Our mother's

told us this when we were growing up and something happened to car dealers. They lost that and it's happened to other businesses, to be fair, but the car dealers lag way, way back in the 20th century in terms of the way they treat customers. And we're trying to bring them up to speed. We're trying to make a dent, not just with the consumers, to help them arm them with knowledge that they can have a pleasant buying experience, but also the car dealers to get their attention. Okay, we're going to go to our next caller. First, I'm going to give you that telephone number

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30, and we're going to go to Elena, who's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Welcome to the show, Elena. Hi, I'm a first-time caller, although I listen regularly. Oh, thank you. Well, you stay on the line. Cushing, 50 bucks. And stay on the line and give us your contact information, and I'll mail you $50. How's that son?

Wow, that's nice. Okay. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I just have a question, and out of curiosity, I guess, last week I listened, and there was a knock on Kia, and I do lease from Kia on North Lake. And the reason why I went, it was because of the price, and it was very reasonable. And I was wondering, I know you talked about Secret Shopper. and I don't know if you ever, yes, and I don't know if your secret shopper ever follows up on visits to like Kia or wherever.

Do they follow up and see if they get any better service or any more information the second time or third time they go or does it not happen? Elena, we do, and we follow up whether it's a bad shop or whether it's a good shop. We try to hit as many car dealerships as we can, but just because someone gets a really good score, We still go back because you've got typical sales force, 10, 15, 20 salespeople. And even in my own car dealership, I say we're not perfect. Matter of fact, we mystery shop my car dealership because we find out things we wouldn't otherwise. No, we find out mistakes we make. We go back when we have bad reports because we don't want to put somebody on the do not buy from this dealer list if, in fact, it was a fluke.

and we want people to improve. So, yeah, absolutely. We always try to go back again, sometimes, several times. Have you found out anything else about Kia? I mean, I hear those horror stories now, and I'm like, although I got a great price per month on a lease, you know, I'm really rethinking, you know, of going to another dealer with another type of car.

But, you know, like, I didn't feel totally uncons. comfortable the first time, but, you know, follow-ups and things like that has not been easy with Kia, so I'm not surprised about, you know, and, you know, I value your ratings and things like that about dealerships. Do they, do they fear you? Do they fear you guys because you do these ratings? Well, I think fear is probably not the right word. They intensely dislike us. Intimidating? And, yeah, I think, I'll pet ourselves on the back and say that I think we have had a positive impact on the activity of cardiolships within our, within the range of this radio show. A little safety bubble.

Yeah. You know, I think we get their attention in this way. And that is, you know, they go, whoa, my goodness gracious, they're talking about us. And, you know, maybe we better clean our act up. Maybe we better get rid of the dealer fee any one of those things. But I think that we're having a positive impact on all the dealers. Let me say something about Kia because Kia is a little bit unique. The car, the Korean car, as most people know, made by the same manufacturer that makes a Hyundai.

And they have been in this country a relatively short time compared to Chevrolet and Toyota and Honda. but when they first came into the country, the product wasn't very good. There was an established network of manufacturers selling lots of different brands of cars. And so the Kia manufacturer had to kind of go out and find people that would sell a Kia. Nobody wanted a Kia franchise. So they went out and they signed up a network of dealers. And these were second-rate dealers. These were people that had never sold cars.

at a gas station or they whatever they they they got in it with a very little investment have a private lot a private lot used car dealers that would suddenly become a new car dealer so the quality of the dealer network for kia is not as good now there are some very good kia dealers i'm sure we don't happen to know any good kia dealers and we have a problem with kia because we keep trying to find a recommended kia dealer and it's difficult to find so that is That is a problem. But with that said, the Kia is a good product. The quality has come way up.

Their warranty, the manufacturer. A lot of good things to say about Kia, and the same thing goes with Hyundai. But the most negative thing I can say about Kia is the difficulty of finding a Kia dealer that will be up to standards in terms of honesty, transparency, et cetera. No, I get you. I get you.

And thank you for, you know, everything. I mean, it's funny that I noticed that dealership fees are still charged even if you say you don't it's interesting how you know companies still charge them but no i appreciate your show and uh you know enjoy learning a lot about cars and you know dealerships i appreciate it well thank you olena we love your call on we love you because you're called we love you because you're a woman and we need more women callers and that's the reason you got 50 bucks going to be mailed to you tomorrow oh great okay and keep on listening and spread the word just

This is Nancy Stewart, and please spread the word. And again, thank you for listening. That mystery shopper report last week must have been pretty interesting for you. Sure, thank you so much. You're listening. You're quite welcome. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And we're going to go to Everett, and she's calling from Palm Beach Gardens.

to the show. Hello there. I've called before, but it's been a couple years, so you may have answered this question, but I thought I'd ask it. I understand dipsticks are disappearing, and I'd like to know how the consumer benefits from this. Rick? Well, they're actually disappearing from the transmissions, and the reason being that a lot of

manufacturers are going to what's called a lifetime fluid. for the transmission and unless there's a leak from the transmission there's no need to ever even check the fluid levels as a matter of fact it's actually a very complicated process anymore to check the level and make sure that it's set properly and it takes a what's called a scan tool or a computer plugged into the car we have to get the car in the exact temperature range and then add a specific amount of fluid and there's a whole process to it. But that being

said, the only real maintenance expected on transmissions anymore is if you're in what's called a heavy duty use say you're towing something, then you might consider flushing it out at say 100 to 150,000 miles but other than that the transmissions

simply don't need it anymore. Everett was your question about transmissions or has you heard or thought that the dipsticks in the oil dipstick is being phased out. Well, I heard it was happening on both, but I watched a YouTube video, and it showed this Toyota where a tech school was showing what it takes to measure the fluid on a Toyota

Venza, I think. And it looked to me like you guys had to buy hundreds of dollars worth of equipment just to check the level properly. Make that thousands. Wow, interesting. I was off by a digit or so. Yep. But no, the engine oil still has a dipstick on. every engine I've ever seen because engine oil still has to be changed at the bare minimum on synthetic oil cars that we know of

every 10,000 miles is the longest interval I've seen yet and even then you still should check your oil at least once a month. Now that I think about it, Everett, you just made me think about something I haven't ever thought of. A dipstick is

kind of an archaic way of measuring things. I mean, we are in the electronic age with big data. And it's kind of like a stick in the pot of water to see how much water you got. It doesn't make sense. It seems to me that dipsticks should be replaced. And there's got to be an electronic way to measure your oil that would not only measure it, but tell the dealership or the repair shop that you frequented exactly how much oil.

Tell you how much oil. and when your oil got low, your app on your smartphone would pop up and say, hey, Everett, you need oil. You're down to X number of quarts, take it in within the next 30 days. Dipsticks should be obsolete. Well, but on the other hand, the gasoline engine may be obsolete soon, so we won't need it anyways. We knew that. Everett, great questions. I love questions that make me think.

You know, it's just dipsticks. I never thought about it. Why on earth do we have dipsticks? Auto manufacturers, get rid of them. They're stupid. They get your hands all dirty, and they drip oil in the engine. It's just barbaric. Yep.

Okay. Thanks, Everett. Listen here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Everett. Hope to hear from you again.

I hope we answered your questions, and would like you to give us a call at 877-9-60-9-90-60. Or you can text us as Andre's. did, and I'm going to read his text. He's listening from South Carolina. So, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Andre is from South Carolina, and he says that he visited a dealer in South Carolina and saw Phony Monroney on each of the three vehicles that he looked at. Each added a minimum of $1,000 of profit for the dealer and zero value for him.

For your new listeners, I don't know what a phony Monroney is. The Monroney label, by the way, is the federal mandated window sticker on all new cars that has to be there by law. If a dealer takes off that label, the MSRP label, called the Monroney label, he can be fined. and it's illegal to sell the car without that attached at the time of sale. So what the dealers are doing to get around the fact that the Monroney label helps you make a buying decision is they counterfeit Mondroni labels, the official manufacturer's sticker. They counterfeit it, and they put it right next to the one that you have to have on the window. And your eye falls on the phony Monroney, the counterfeit Monroney, and you look at a different price.

You think it's just a subtotal on the left and the grand total on the right. And so you believe that the MSRP is higher than it really is. So that's what the phone name Monroney is. You should be very careful. Most car dealers, I say most, I'm going to say 75 to 80 percent do use phony Monroney. Exactly. And Senator Monroney, he enforced that law a long time ago. And there's just a lot of dealers that don't abide by.

it. So food for thought. I think we have Dave who's holding from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Dave. Good morning, guys. How's everybody? Great. All right. Listen, I started off with airbags, but I have a dipstick comment, if anybody cares. I'm an old school car guy, and that transmission dipstick was always a good way to check on the condition of your. I'm an old school car guy. I'm a fluid. If you weren't getting it changed or perhaps if you were going to buy a used vehicle, you might like to be able to look at that transmission fluid and not have happened what has happened to me with my 2002 Ford Explorer. The transmission fluid was in such bad shape that I barely had the thing six months before I had to have the transmission rebuilt. If I had known that that

fluid was gummy and black and burnt, but the only way to check it is to run it up in the air and actually put more fluid in it until the fluid drips out of the overflow pin tube. Yeah, so that was unfortunate, but I love this truck, and I love driving it, so I spent the money and had the tranny rebuilt, and now I'm, I've got it, and I'm glad I did. Now, my real question is airbags. And I remember months ago, you guys did quite an extensive discussion, particularly as it surrounded Takata Airbags. Yes.

Yeah. My question would come about because of my 2002 Ford Explorer. My airbag warning indicator now is flashing. at me. And so I had asked my mechanic what it would take to replace or check or reset or whatever is wrong with the airbag system. And he indicated to me that dealers, or not dealers, but manufacturers may be obligated to take care of airbag issues.

And I just haven't been able to find any research to back that up. Are there anything to you that, Earl? I don't, I don't think so. I think that, I think that there's, there's not an unlimited warranty on airbags. And we talked about this last week or maybe the week before, and we had intended to go out and do some, some research on that. It's a great question, Dave. And you would think that of all the equipment on a car that should have a lifetime warranty,

it would be the airbag. but it does not and you buy an older car everything deteriorates and airbags are no exception especially today when we really got some serious deterioration going on

just because of a bad manufacturing so when you thank God that light came on for you and if the airbag is in fact defective then you need to decide whether you want to spend the money on a

replacement or trade the car in you said you know 2002 you're probably getting the point now where the cost of the replacement airbag is going to be more than the value of the car so you might be yeah that's if the parts are still available because manufacturers are only required by the government to keep parts available for 10 years after that car has stopped being made so depending on when the last model car was made that used those same parts. If it's longer than 10 years, you may have a hard time finding those parts. And airbags themselves, they're usually warrantied about the same length of time as seatbelts. And if you've ever had a seatbelt that reaches that point where it just doesn't want to

retract easily and you've constantly got to help it retract, you know, that's a sign that that seatbelt's getting worn inside. And I'd be a little nervous about that because like in an accident the seatbelt is supposed to lock and keep you from flying forwards and if it doesn't do that you know there's your first line of defense is gone Dave let me let me jump in here and say why your call is so important and first of all it's important because it reminded us of something we dropped the ball in last week which was to investigate this issue with airbags I would think that the national highway traffic safety association should do something there should be a law that says airbags are warrantable for the life of the vehicle.

Now here, and we've also talked about the cost of replacement of this airbag being maybe more than the value of your car. Now, you could sell that car and you could trade that car in or you could sell it to a car dealer. Now, what would that car dealer do with your car? There's no law saying that he couldn't, well, I suppose there is a law. I've got a question for myself. Is there a law, if I bought a car from you and the airbag sensor light was indicating the airbag was defective,

could I disable the sensor light? Not legally. Yeah. So not legally, but someone could do this. It's very easy to do, right, Rick? Oh, yeah. Now you take that car now. You've got a car that you had a warning about, and you were aware that's a real problem.

but you trade that car around that sensor light stops blanking that car could be retailed to another person and they would drive that car for who knows how long and maybe there was an accident where the airbag should have deployed so there's a real mess a real dirty little secret about car safety that nobody wants to talk about which is the age of airbag so thanks very much Dave for a great call we we need to pursue that and find out what the official policy is. Yeah, official policy. NHTSA on this issue. Yeah.

Just giving. Well, stay tuned and keep listening, you know, for your updates. I get a chance to catch you guys every Saturday morning, and I appreciate the information, to be honest with you. It's useful, and I'm glad I gave you a call. Listen, now, can I ask just one more quick question? Sure. Certainly.

Something that I may relate to the airbag warning light. At the almost exact same time that the airbag light started flashing, I had a check engine light. But the code read on it simply said one of the oxygen sensors was no good. So we've now replaced two of the three oxygen sensors, and the light still comes on. And I haven't had an opportunity yet to have the code. code red again. Would there be any possibility that the airbag indicator is triggering the check

engine light as well? No. Those are two totally separate systems, especially on an O2. The only thing that they share is that both lights are located in your combination meter. Now, for the O2 sensor, I would make sure your mechanic is checking to make sure that those sensors are actually bad because sometimes there can be other things that will cause the O2 sensor to look bad and it's not actually that it's another thing it's it's like the computer issue garbage information in garbage information out if the engine computer is getting a signal from that O2 sensor but it's actually some resistance in a wire somewhere it may think the O2 sensor is bad but it's another problem causing it so just make sure they're double

to make sure all those systems are, you know, that everything's reading properly, and it's definitely a bad sensor. All right, Rick, thank you very much. Thanks for the call, Dave. Great call. Call again, please. Yes, please do. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And while I'm at it, I think I'll remind our listeners that Earls' column appears in the Palm Beach, Florida Weekly. and that is for the week of June 28th to July 4th you'll find it in there and the name of that column is car dealers have blocked your right to the 7th Amendment great information so you might want to pick up a copy of that

now back to the recovering car dealer well we had a text from Virginia in Tequesta and she was asking about her 2009 Toyota she didn't mention the model of car with 120,000 miles on it and she's just asking for an opinion is what's the first major repair that she might be expecting on this car well your car's nine years old 120,000 miles so it's getting up there a little bit but if it's been properly maintained then probably and I'm just kind of guessing here that there's really no crystal ball that's going to say anything

but probably the first component that's going to start to have an issue would be air conditioning. That's what we see most common in the older cars in South Florida is air conditioning issues. Yeah, that's true, and they're very expensive too. Big time. If you're buying an extended warranty, one of the things you want to be sure that the extended warranty covers is the air conditioning. It will not cover. You'll find, if you read all the fine print, much of the electronics. the electronics or excluded, even your navigation system,

very rare to find anything in an extended warranty, but be sure that AC is covered. Yes. Okay, well, we're getting close to mystery shopping time, so we'll remind all you folks out there that have been listening now up on just a few minutes. We have an extremely interesting mystery shopping report. We continue it on with the Costco motif,

the Costco Auto Buying Program, We mystery shopped Auto Nation Chevrolet at Pembroke Pines. And an extremely interesting report, especially because it came on the heels of our meeting with the Costco executives. Stu and I and my other sons had a meeting with Jay Maxwell and William Martarillo of Costco on Wednesday. And we had over an hour we were in the meeting. We talked about all the problems that we have with the Costco buying program and the things that they're doing to try to correct some of these problems. And it'll be a very interesting shopping report. So please stay tuned.

Rick, I've got another one for you here having to do with the additives we talked about earlier. It says you mentioned all sorts of additives, but you didn't mention gasoline additives. I use Lucas, L-U-C-A-S, gas additive, and I can swear the car runs. smoother when I do. Am I nuts? Well, I'm not a psychiatrist, so I won't make any diagnosis on that. I would probably have to go with the answer that perception is reality. If it seems like it's making a difference to you, then there may be some small difference, but most gasoline additives really don't do a whole lot for the car itself.

Again, modern fuels by federal requirements are required to have certain amounts of detergents and cleaners in them. The quality on our modern fuels is through the roof anymore. We really don't see issues with fuels. I would say you're probably just pouring a little extra money in your tank that really isn't going to help you much. I've got a suggestion for you. Here's my idea. next time you fill up your gas tank don't put the Lucas in there and see how it feels or even better yet tell your wife to take the can of Lucas and she will control which tank of gas she puts it in so you won't know it'll be kind of like a blind testing taste and then after two or three tanks of gas you can say I thought the second tank of gas you can say I thought the second tank tank of gas, gave me a really smooth ride.

Honey, did you put the Lucas in that? And she can tell you. So that'll be a true blind test. I like that. Okay. That's the scientist in me. There you go. Okay, give us a call, folks.

We have a, we have some time for calls before the mystery shopping report. 877-960. And, of course, the text number, 772-497-6530. That's 772, 4976530. I haven't done my commercial yet, so I'm going to do a commercial for a big dog ranch rescue. Now, I'm also going to hold up my book, which is called Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Confessions of recovering car dealer is a how to do it book, how to buy or lease a car, maintain, or have your car repaired without being ripped off by your car dealer. Now, how does that fit in with my commercial for Big Dog Ranch Rescue?

100% of the proceeds of this book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is the largest no-kill shelter for animal rescue anywhere in Florida. We have right now about 600 doggies in our campus. We call it a campus because there's no cages. It is like a luxury resort for doggies. And our location is on Okotubi Boulevard, West on Okedjubi Boulevard, Loxahatchie Groves, brand new facility on how many acres? 300 acres? A lot of acreage out there.

A swimming pool. We have a lake. We have walking areas. The doggies are in bunk houses, we call them. They're like a college campus. Like four or five, six dogs. the walls of the dog of the can of the bunk room are decorated the dogs that we have our own vet we have our trainers it is really like a happy it's like a summer camp for dogs but we still have

to find homes for the dog so please consider adopting a dog from big dog ranch rescue and I can't see my oh I got a delay here so I can't see if I'm holding this up enough but big dog ranch rescue will be benefited if you consider buying confessions of recovering car dealer can buy it on Amazon.com. Confessions of a recovering car dealer 100% goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue.

And if you haven't got the money to spend on a book, please consider volunteering or adopting one of our dogs. Thank you very much. And now back to Earl Stewart on cars. All righty. That was my question. 877-960-99.

or you can text us at 772-4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I want to thank Channel 12, what is it, WPEC? Yep. Channel 12, CBS. They did an interview aimed by the dealership, and they talked to Rick Kearney, they talked to a customer of ours who had a car

with the Tricada airbag replaced. They talk to me, and they have the courage to talk about this dirty little secret, the Takata airbag, that is in millions of cars that are being sold every day. These cars, as we speak, there's a transaction somewhere in the United States where some unsuspecting buyer, if they used car lot, is buying a car with an unfixed Takata airbag. Unfixed to cut airbags can explode in your face like a hand grenade and kill you. and it has happened hundreds of times and it's happening every day and our laws and our legislators and our regulators are letting this happen and it's terrible so channel 12 told the story again I don't know what they're listening audience or viewing audiences but it's got to be in the hundreds of thousands and in the hundreds of thousands there had to be some Florida state legislators

There had to be some federal legislators, a lot of regulators, a lot of people that have the responsibility to do something about this. Rick Scott might have seen it. Senator Nelson might have seen it. Channel 12 said, why are these cars being sold? It should be illegal to sell a car with any dangerous recall. Takata is just one of many. Takata happens to be the worst,

because there are so many of them. Pam Bondi could help us out a little bit. Our Attorney General. Channel 12, thank you very much. I wish the rest of the media had your courage and I wish we could spread the word and get some action on the Takadir Abbas. Absolutely. I'll give you that number again.

We still have some time left to take your phone calls. And ladies, let me remind you that we have $50 to give away to the next female caller. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-2-497-6-5-30. We're going to go to Paul, who's been holding from Port St. Lucie. Good morning, Paul. What can we do for you? Good morning.

Concerning the airbags, I like to do an Einstein type of thought experiment. If you are going 60 miles an hour, that's 88 feet per second. So if you put one in your calculator and divide by 88, you get seconds per feet, and it turns out that you go afoot in about one one-hundredth of a second, and your machine has to decide that you have not bumped the curb in Publix, but you're in a real crash, and then deploy that thing in time for you to not hit the steering wheel column. Yes, it is. It's a miracle. The airbags are really a miraculous product, and they've been refined over the years,

and they react in thousands of a second. Rick, you got a quick comment? Honda has got a great video out when it shows if your airbag was 100th of a second late. And what they do is they drop a watermelon and when the airbag deploys like it's supposed to, it catches that watermelon perfectly. And then they drop the watermelon again

with the airbag set to deploy 100th of a second later and when that watermelon hits the airbag as it's deploying, it's watermelon-getten. I mean, it just explodes. Yeah, it's a great YouTube. Just Google Honda watermelon airbag, and you'll pull up that YouTube. Paul, thanks.

You sound like a scientist. Are you an engineer or a scientist? I used to be an engineer. Yes, sir. Anyway, thank you very much for your show. Thank you, Paul. Great call. Thank you.

Well, the telephone number again is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-6-5-30. You're ready for the mystery shopping report? Yes, I think we should get into that, and we can certainly take some calls as we go along. I always like to hear from the Costco members out there, especially Costco members who have been part of the auto-buying program. And this has been kind of like our crusade here for months now, and we're trying to work with the Costco Auto Buying Program folks to improve the program. And Stu and I were very encouraged when we met Wednesday with the two executives, William Martellarro and J. Maxwell.

And they listened. They were responsive. They were concerned, and we were very encouraged. We gave them seven shopping reports, mystery shopping reports, that we had aired on this radio station, and we're airing another one now. The current mystery shopping report, the eighth, which we will send a copy of to J. Maxwell and Wulton Martellaro. We shopped Auto Nation Chevy, Penbroke Pines, and this is, as I said, was the eighth. of our mystery shops with the Costco Auto Program.

In the last two months, we've seen just about every way the Costco Auto Program can be used or misused by car dealers, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Last week's visit to Coral Springs Kia was an example of the ugly. And let me tell you, that was ugly.

Really, really had to be embarrassing to a lot of folks, and it had to scare the heck other a lot of potential customers for Carl Springs Kia. Besides ignoring all of the major requirements of the Costco Auto Program, the ones that are imposed on its approved certified dealers, Carl Springs Kia purposefully, on purpose, concealed the real Costco price from the shopper. That's bad. Even making clever use of the Costco member only price sheet to further deceive

and confuse them. So we gave a copy of that shop to the two executives from Costco. They saw that and I'd like to be a fly on the wall when they read it because it had to embarrass them. The Coral Springs Kia Shop was the best example we can think of to try to convince the Costco auto program to police their dealers much more effectively and to put into place some simple rules that would help protect their members. Now we asked the Costco executives, were they shopping dealers in South Florida and they said they were and I said how many of these were failing grades for shopping they said most of them were not now that was a concern and I think and I believe that the Costco executives will look at the shopping service that they use investigate themselves maybe

do some shops themselves you know I think if Jay Maxwell were to take a walk into a car dealership. He's an executive for Costco, auto buying program, and go through the process. Be his own mystery shopper. I think he would learn a lot, and I would say the same thing for William Martillaro. Go in yourself and shop. Now, it's a national program, and Costco has warehouses all over the USA. South Florida is a solemn gomorah of car dealerships. South Florida has the worst car dealers in the country. I dare you to challenge me on that. The record speaks for itself.

Look at the laws we have or don't have on the dealer fee. Come in South Florida and do a couple of Costco shops and find out for yourself. I'm optimistic that we're going to see some changes. We recommended something that I think would solve all the problems for Costco, and we recommended this to these two executives. we said make it required that the Costco price is shown to the customer before visiting the dealership Costco said that they tell the dealers to do that but we said in our experience it never happens the second thing is the Costco price that

you give the car dealer I mean give the Costco membership person by email or text should include all dealer fees in addenda meaning phony monroney's dealer install options it should be a true out-the-door price plus government fees only the Costco member price should be a true out-the-door price plus government fees only the dealer wants to charge a dealer fee fine include it in the Costco member price if they want to charge for nitrogen in the tires and and pinstripe and window tent and all the other low priced high or high price low value addendum that's okay just included in the member price so that the member can see what he's paying for the car until he gets into the f and i department which is too late okay here we go this week we shopped

Donation Chevy, Benbrook Bines, we set out to inquire about a new 2018 Chevrolet Trax, T-R-A-X, L-T. That's a small SUV. Agent X was assigned to the mission. You know, I love Agent X more and more every time we send him out. It's tough. These shops are tough. Agent X goes in there and learns things that the average buyer just would never find out. And he's really good at what he does. Here's the report, speaking of the first person as if I were the shopper. I had a difficult time on the Costco Auto Program website. I tried several times to submit my request of the tracks, the Chevrolet SUV we were shopping. But I kept getting an error message, so I called the toll-free number, listed on the website, and was connected

with a woman from the Costco Auto Program named Jasmine. Jasmine was great. She was very helpful, and she informed me that the closest dealer to my fake zip code was Auto Nation, Chevrolet, and Pembroke Pines. I gave her my Costco card number, my email, and my phone number. She said she would handle the inquiry for me and to be expected to be contacted by the dealer. I waited but never received the usual Costco confirmation email. I also did not receive the usual flood of emails, calls, and text from the dealer. I figured something went wrong, so I called the dealership. I explained to the person who answered that I was a Costco member

and was supposed to have had an inquiry made on my behalf by the auto program. I was put on hold for a few minutes before I was connected to Dennis. Now, remember this name, because you're going to hear a lot of names. I told my story to Dennis, and he said that he was the right person to help me. I told him I'd like to get the email that explained what I got as a Costco member. The one that also lists the authorized representatives. Dennis asked for my email address and said he sent everything to me within 15 minutes. He pivoted to setting an appointment. I agreed to meet him at 3.30 in the afternoon. I waited for the email. Dennis promised

to send. Instead of the official Costco email, I received an email from Dennis confirming my appointment for 3.30. We have a copy of that, by the way. I call the dealership and ask to speak with Dennis. A man who said his name was Cheyenne. Now, write this down. Cheyenne, Cheyenne. He said you weren't going to sing. Oh, no.

Okay, I love it. Old TV show. Anybody remember Cheyenne? No, I'm too young. Oh, yeah. I'm 50. Where will you be? Sorry, good.

So anyway, he said Dennis was busy. I explained everything to Cheyenne, and he said he'd look into it and make sure I got what I needed. He asked me to confirm my email address, and I carefully spelled it out for him. I waited it again, but no email came. I shrank my junk folders, nothing. I decided to head down to Pembroke Pines. I would be a little early, but I figured real customers don't always show up at the right time either.

I arrived about an hour before I had arranged to meet with Dennis and Cheyenne. I asked the receptions for Dennis, and she called them. Dennis greeted me. We said our hellos, and then I asked him. why I never got the official Costco information. Dennis said that the manager in charge of Costco sales had to leave the dealership that day for a family issue. You know, if you've listened to our other shopping reports,

it was always a battle to get the Costco representatives. Sometimes we did. Usually we didn't. The only Costco representative, and by the way, it's unusual to only have one, so there should have been several, but this one had a family issue. I asked him if he was authorized to handle the Costco member.

He said he was not. I was honest. He implied he was on the phone just a few hours earlier. Hmm. Strange. Dennis suggested he speak with a manager in charge, Cheyenne. Dennis spoke to Cheyenne, who in turn spoke to Miguel. I'm already confused.

Dennis, Cheyenne, Miguel. Don't have a song for Miguel. You got Jasmine in there too, but she's not... Jasmine. Jasmine. Okay, yeah. Anyway, Miguel was supposed to be the Costco guy. Finally, since I had no official Costco Auto Program confirmation,

I couldn't be sure if Miguel really was a guy, but I went with it. I also began to suspect maybe Jasmine, the woman from Costco I first spoke with, may have dropped the ball. I think maybe she just never notified the dealership. What's possible? Or maybe she did. And they ignored it. Yeah.

Miguel asked to see my Costco card. That's the first time that's happened. They're supposed to do that. So, and we go with our theme that we mentioned last week. The only consistent thing about our Costco shopping reports is there is no consistency because everything is different every time we go in. Bengal brought a white 2018 Chevy Trax, TREX, LT, around. The MSRP was 25, 695.

I did not see an addendum sticker on it. That's refreshing. No phony monies. which is unusual because the last auto nation store we did did have a denim sticker. After the test drive, we returned to the dealership. I followed Miguel to an office. He asked me to sit while he went to get the numbers. I waited for 10 minutes, and then Miguel returned with a Costco member only price sheet.

That was refreshing. Now, we finally have the first proof that Costco exists in this dealership. The Costco member only price sheet showed a price. 22,972,272, $2,722 off the 25695 MSRP. Then they took off another 4,750 manufactured rebate, which is important because that's supposed to be taken off, manufactured rebates, cost of requirements that. In the last shop, they didn't take it off. They lied about it.

They lied about it. Consistently inconsistent. The disclosure indicated that the post-rebait price. of 18,000 222 would be subject to an additional $799 doc fee. I think doc fee is becoming far more common. Dealer fee, nobody calls it a dealer fee anymore. It's just become a generic term. We should probably change the generic firm to dock fee.

In fact, the Costco executive was referring to him as doc fee, so they see that. It sounds more official that way. It does, yeah. There was actually a lawsuit in Kansas about the fact that it is illegal to call it a doc fee because it's imposed. It implies a notary public, and that's a deception. I thought it was a fee you paid it when you got a check up from your doctor. Anyway, as a secret agent X, what's up, Doc, took some pictures. I asked to see the other price sheet, the one that shows all the models with discounts in relation to the invoice price.

I told Miguel that Costco Auto Program said I should see it as well as the actual invoice. Miguel said, they do not do that. We don't do Windows. We don't do that. I mean, if you're a certified member of the Costco Auto Buying Program, you are bound by contract to do what the auto buying program tells you to do. But in reality, it's like a box of chocolates. It is.

You never know what you're going to do. And every... So sad. So sad. At any rate, Miguel said they did not do that, and the Costco discount on this model was $2,200 bill invoice. So you've got to take Miguel's word for it. I repeated that Costco advises its members to ask for those items.

Miguel said that no one had ever asked me for these before. That's probably true. Well, you know, it is true. And this is what I hope the Costco executives understand. We understand car buyers, because not only are we, consumer advocates and Earl Stoner cars. We are car sellers. We are a dealership. We know what customers do. And this goes to Costco members too. I'm a Costco member. I think we're all Costco members here in the studio. And if I'm a Costco member and I go into a Costco

warehouse and I see a big sign on the wall that says investigate the Costco auto member buying program to get a really good price, I would call my dealership and say, I'm a Costco member. Do I get a really good price? And we know what that customer, that dealer's going to say. We know what that salesman's going to say. Yes. He's not going to say no. I'm a Costco auto member. I'm a Costco member. Are you going to give me a good price? No. He's not going to say that. Right. So, anyway, I'm digressing here. I took pictures, meaning Agent X, that is really good. out that smartphone,

he takes pictures of everything. If you see the pictures, these are really like sneaky spy pictures. They are, yeah. You see the guy's arm, they're blurry. He gets pictures of everything. And that's the reason of why we find out more

than people normally find out because of heroes like Agent X. He showed me the invoice price was, okay, $25,172 said $2,200, below invoice matched my sale price before a rebate of 22, 972. I asked him what my out-the-door price would be. He said that Bussam, we'll take care.

You missed a little section there. We went from Miguel. He had to go see a manager, and we had to get Mark involved. Oh, yeah. Did you skip Mark? Yeah, that's a good part. Oh, we got Mark. I'm totally confused.

I jump from Mark to Bissam. Yeah, because we said, Dennis, Cheyenne, Miguel, Mark, now Basam. Basam. Wow. Basam. Are you sure we got that spelled right? Yeah.

Passam. I think we got the whole dealership involved there. Basam is a business manager. I complained to Mark. I said this was ridiculous. I'm paying cash. What do I need to talk to a business manager for? What was the problem with giving me a buyer's order now?

Mark excused himself and returned the price my 10 minutes later with Pissom himself. They both sat down in front of me. Mark said he just received a call from another auto nation store that was working a deal on my tracks, TRX. This is science fiction. You're making us all up. Wait, we've got to listen to this. He got to call. He said it would sell tonight, so we better wrap it up and finalize our deal now.

I asked incredulously if he was serious. He said, he needed my answer now so he could call his countercard back at the other automation store. I said, I wasn't going to do it now. The heat is on. Mark said that he may have some extra coupons available, this is really science fiction, that would allow Bissom to take an additional $500 off the deal, making it even better than the Costco price.

If I did it now, now. If he waits five minutes, that coupon's going away. Exactly. Now, bear in mind that the Costco rules are that the price has to be lower than any price. you sell a car to anybody. So they've already violated that because the Costco price,

they're already going to beat the Costco price, and the Costco price has got to be the one that beats all the prices. I'm confusing myself. I said, no, this wasn't happening until I had gone over the figures at home with my wife. Mark told Bassem to print me a bar's order.

They both got up. I asked Mark to see the other Costco price sheet. Mark said he didn't know anything about that and left. flat. I mean, how confrontational do you have to get? I mean, short of physically attacking the salesperson and saying, I'm going to beat it out of you, they insist on getting the invoice,

which the Costco program tells the member to be sure you get the invoice, and they wouldn't give it to them. You shouldn't have to resort to violence. You shouldn't have to. Maybe our next shop would go to violence. Alas, Agent X. Agent X, do you think he's up to it?

Well, we have to put him through additional training first. I don't know if he could handle it. Have him walk in there wearing full camo. Like body armor. Just a camo outfit, the web belt, a canteen. I don't know. Honestly, I don't think he could pull that off. It wouldn't be believable.

So Sam came back a few months later and gave me a printed buyer's order. Now, this fact that he got a printed buyer's order, Good. Kudos to Agent X. The numbers almost matched to Costco member-only price sheet. There was one difference. Here we go. The additions of an undisclosed $149 tag agency fee

slash electronic registration. Now, we talked to the Costco executives in our Wednesday meeting about this, and we told them that nobody in South Florida has one dealer fee anymore, or one doc fee or whatever you want to call it, multiple. And you usually don't

find out about the other ones until you go into the finance office and this is where Bassam was going to take him because he's a finance manager and suddenly we got the extra dealer fee this was only $149 sometimes here $399, $499

whenever they want to charge in Florida there is no rule on how much you charge for dealer fee. Right but you had a dock fee of $799 and now $149 that's $950 worth of fee. right there. And the hidden

fee could have been $10,000. And we've seen it, not 10, but we've seen it up there. Yeah, we educated the Costco. They had no idea about this other fee. So that's what's going on. Now, we, I will say this about the Costco executives, both William

and who was the other guy? William and Jay. Yeah, William and Jay. They were both very positive about this, and I believe they were being sincere. And they will go back. I I think they were a little embarrassed, and I know they were embarrassed after they read our reports. They were embarrassed after hearing this report, and they'll get a copy of this too.

And I think there are going to be some changes. So, to sum up everything, Auto Nation Chevy Penbought Binds may have given Agent X the real Costco price, but we can't be sure, because they refused to show them the other price sheet. We confirmed with Costco Auto Program executives this week that their dealers are supposed to show both the personalized price sheet and the other one that shows the models of discounts the discount of $2,200 below invoice before rebates is a very low price even after adding $948 in bogus fees it would be right in line with a

typical cost costco price but we can't know for sure no reason why we should know for sure because they're just not playing by the rules but agent X we shuffled around from person in person and subjected to some of the oldest style sales tax tactics we've ever run into now this is pinbrook pines further south you go the rougher the sales tactics go and then when you get past homestead it eases up and gets nice and mellow Palm Beach County this radio station is originating in Palm Beach County Broward it's getting rougher and then you go down to Dade it gets even rougher South Florida is just, as I said, the Sodom Gaborah of Cardinalists.

The Wild Wild West. Wild West. We checked True Car to see what a good price on the 2018 Chevrolet Trax L.T. would be. The average True Car price was several hundred dollars higher. Now, that is a real plus for the Costco buying program. true car typically excludes the dealers sold options and the dealer fees true car requires that now i'm not saying that the car dealers abide by it sometimes they play games all car dealers play games the Costco certified and the true car you have to watch the car dealer you're dealing

with even though they're certified and these shopping reports prove that but in this case here we think the Costco price was actually a good price but why did they have to go through all this and why wouldn't they abide by the rules I don't know this is going to be a tough one to score but we have to score this for the benefit of the recommended list versus the do not buy list and this is Pembroke prines Chevy you know I think I'll just go ahead and go first okay last week's mystery shopping report You know, it said volumes about this program that's supposed to be so transparent. And for me, this week, it just doesn't represent a Costco buying experience.

I mean, between this bus load of people that had to be dealt with on more than one level, we're talking Miguel, we're talking Jasmine, we're talking Mark, we're talking Bassem, where it just doesn't represent the culture that I'm accustomed to dealing with with Costco therefore I fail them let me have before we get a score from Rick let me read this that just came up on the screen here from cable new house who is watching us stream here and I'll just read his posting concerning other dealers in Martin County I can speak for only one Audi in Stewart I bought a car there using true car and have had an excellent all-around experience as far i think that the dealer has

a pretty good reputation overall at least based on what i read uh thank you very much uh cable uh for that post and uh we do like to be positive we do like to shout out for good dealers we seem to pick on the the bad dealers a lot unfortunately they're more bad dealers than good so uh Audi of Stewart, a good plus for you honoring the true car program, which, as I said earlier, excludes dealer fees or it doesn't exclude them. It includes a dealer fee and the dealer installed options and the true car price. So the true car price is a price you get to compare with other dealers for the best price. And if it is the best price, you can buy without surprises. So shout out a plus for Audi of Stewart.

Thank you very much for that posting. Rick, let's score Pembroke Pines, Chevrolet. Well, I'm going to go with a D-minus only because I like the fact that they did bring out a Costco member price sheet. And I think Agent X has seen enough of those that he would know to recognize a real one. He knows what they look like. Now, if I was to be in there, I've never seen one before in my life except a couple pictures that we've had online, I wouldn't know for sure if it was real or not. I think he would recognize a real one.

I think he probably saw a real Costco price sheet. So for that matter, I'm not going to call them as a total F. I'm going to say give them a D-minus, but it's so close to fail that they just goofed everything else up. I'm going to score Pembroke Pines, Chevrolet, AutoNation Store. I'm going to score them with a C-minus. And the reason I give them a little higher score has to do with the fact that it is so difficult to get a recommended list anywhere in South Florida that in spite of their sins, we're not going to have anybody south of Palm Beach County that we can recommend unless we grade on the curve.

So reluctantly, I don't like the hidden dealer fee. I don't like the not-abiding by the Costco Auto Buying Program. But they did have a good price. And albeit with the fact that Agent X is one tough cookie, and he almost had to beat it out of them. That's why I graded the mystery shopper airport like I did. I mean, to have to go through all of this is just totally ridiculous. Transparency.

I understand. Where is it? Stu? I'll agree with you on the C-minus for the dealership. But Mark, the sales manager, I'm going to fail. That just was, that was, he went, he went medieval on Agent X. And that's, that I don't think that, that has no place. Yeah, that has no place today.

Whole school. Well, I, we're going to, we're going to go with, uh, the recommended list of C minus. And we will be back because it was a close call. And I agree with Nancy. I agree with Rick. Uh, there was some pretty rough stuff there. Uh, I think we need to change the curve parameters for Broward County. And we think that, you know, actually, clearly the further south you go, the worse it gets.

In North Florida, even on the west coast in Tampa, up in Jacksonville area, Orlando, it's not nearly as rough as it is in South Florida. Well, no, no, it's maybe they'll hear a little bit about what we just did, and they'll change their ways, and that curve will change. But it'll be because they straightened out a little bit. Exactly. Let's take one more text, and it has to do with a car being in the accident, in an accident. My car was in an accident, but I recently used the Carfax app on my, used the, it's really small print, the Carfax app on my car. The accident isn't showing.

Are they accurate reports? Let me answer that. They are accurate only if the insurance. company was the one that repaired it. If you have something that fell with in your deductible, insurance didn't pay. If you had something that you were self-insured on and you had to pay for the repair, it will not necessarily appear on the Carfax report. The dealership, if dealerships can put anything they want in the Carfax report, I assume we put mechanical repairs. You can also put body repairs on the Carfax report.

How long does it take for, say if my car was in an accident in May and I can, got it back the end of the month of May, and now at the beginning of July, would it already be in Carfax, or is there a little bit of time that it takes before they get that information and get it into their database? Well, there's always time. It's a question of how fast it is with the database. I would say CarMax is probably pretty quick, and they probably are wired into the insurance computers, so I would believe as soon as they went into the insurance, it would almost instantaneously

go into CarMax reports. Carfax. But I don't know the, I don't know that to be true. Okay. We can ask Carfax that question. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that was a great text. And, well, the mystery shopping report that we just went over, in case you missed it,

it was from the Auto Nation Chevy Penbrook Pines. John Neal has posted something that is important. And he asked about the mystery shopping reports. says, I have a question. Do you have an archive of past mystery shopping reports? I'd love to listen as I find that both entertaining educational. That's on our to-do list, right, Stu? We want to do this.

We should have done it. We have that information, John. It's not hard to do. It's hard to do. Well, it is. I mean, it's time-consuming. Time-consuming. But we need to do that.

We will, John, and thanks for goading us on this. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you enjoyed our show. we certainly did we enjoyed hearing from you and I want to remind you that you are here listening to the oldies true oldies channel and you tuned in to Earl Stewart on cars you could do the same thing next week and thanks for watching for live on Facebook we had a lot of viewers today yeah we did thank you very much and I apologize to all the text I didn't get to because we had so many but we will try to catch up next week absolutely have a great weekend everyone Vennon. Vennon. Vendom. Vendutton.

Thank you. Red Book, Toon.