Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.06.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of CarMax of Jensen Beach

Episode Date: July 6, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits CarMax of Jensen Beach, to see if the dealer will disclose the Takata airbag recall on an identified auto. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Here we are in the studio, and very excited. I hope you believe this. I think we love this show more than just about anything. It's just a real thrill to be able to. talk to so many people and have them talk to us. It's an exchange. It's live radio talk. I mean, what could be more exciting than live radio?

I mean, what you say is what everybody hears and what you hear, you're responsible for. And you've got to be kind of accurate because if we're not accurate, then we hear from you. But even when we're not accurate, we hear from you, we like it. And in order to hear from me, you've got to call us, and we'll be giving you this number out a whole lot, 877-960-9-9-60-877-9-6-0-9-6-0. People don't like me looking up to the right, so they finally got right in front of me. I got the number.

You would think after 15 years you'd know the number? I don't know. If you don't try to memorize something, it just doesn't happen. I wake up at night saying that number. I know you do. You wake me up when you wake up. And the text number is 772-497-6530. that text number is 772

4976530 by the way all you folks out there we've been thinking of a easy to remember text number that we could use is there a company or a source or a way we could come up something would be oh I think we do have a way

and we'll check in the control room and see what that way it may be but anyway for the meantime we'll say text us at 772 4976530 and call us at 877 960. You are the lifeblood of the show. I'm not just saying that to flatter you because we have some really cool callers out there. We have some regulars. We love the new callers. And speaking of new callers, I can't wait to let Nancy tell you about what we have for all new female callers. Nancy, what is that?

Well, as usual. Are you cutting up paper dolls over there? You're so cute. Thank you. What a first class act. Ladies and gentlemen, and as Earl said, I do have something special for the ladies because you are an important part of the show, and we want to hear your voice. We want to hear from you whether you bought a car, leased a car, you had service, whatever it is, or if you just want to call in, well, say hello. Please, I offer you $50 for the first two new lady callers. So there's an incentive, 877-9-60-99-60. Now back to the humorous recovering car dealer.

And remember, we're also on Facebook. If you can't catch us with the, if you're not local in the Martin County, Palm Beach County, maybe Broward County area, you can stream us on Facebook. That's just Facebook.com forward slash Erlon Cars. Same thing with YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars. And you can even stream us at streameralloncars.com. I mean, we're available worldwide. We have calls from all over.

We really do. And we've got some text coming in. I see my son's too frantically making marks on his little piece of paper, which usually indicates we have some text. That's right. Actually, they're waiting for us when we got here this morning. Wonderful. So we'll start with the first one that came in on our text line.

It says, love your mystery shopping report each week. Unfortunately, CarMax failed the test, more specifically, the salesman. And we definitely agree with that. Next one came in. This is a great question, a great way to start the show. Hi, my name is Cody, and I'm buying a car for the first time. I'm on a limited budget. I'm looking at a Nissan Versa 2012.

It's an S hatchback model with a little over 37,915 miles on it. The price is 7,988, and that's way above the Blue Book value. And the dealer told us, he can take only. take $400 off and I want to know how low we can go with the price because Kelly Blue Book for fair market value is $5,600 up to $7,300. And we'd like to bring it to our mechanic to the vehicle checked out. And I just want to make sure I'm getting the best deal. Well, Cody, I'll tell you what, you've already got a head start on 90% of the car buying public as young as you are and the fact that it is your first car. Congratulations, already

doing a lot of homework. All I can tell you is to continue to do what you're doing, One of great source is AutoTrader.com, and they have a list of, Tina, we see you holding. Let me finish with my answer to this texture here, Cody. I think you go to AutoTrader. You can locate that Nissan Versa, 2012, describe as you want, at every dealer that has one in their inventory. So it could be you go out by the radius. It could be zip code. You can go out a mile, five miles, a hundred miles, a thousand miles, find every Nissan Bursa that suit your description.

You'll see asking prices. And then when you see the asking price, you can even sort by lowest price to highest price. When you do that, you have to be sure that the dealer is not going to bump the price with hidden fees, like add-ons, dealer-installed accessories, and dealer fees that are called all sorts of different things. So what you want to do is verify the off-the-door price. and the Nancy Stewart, my co-host here, came up with a great source. It's a car buying affidavit.com, a tool for an honest car buyer, and you can go to www.

Althadoreprice.com. www. www. www.offidoreprice.com. Download that. When you finally buy the car, you can get them to sign that affidavit that it is an Althador price, and you'll be assured. But, Cody, congratulations.

Be sure to check Carfax. when you buy the car. Be sure to check safercar.gov to be sure there are those outstanding recalls because the 2012 could be ripe for a problem with, say, it took out of airbag, Carfax, and then take the car before you buy it to an independent mechanic. If you do all those things, you've got yourself a good deal. Okay. Okay, and you'll save yourself a load of money by going to www.

Out the Door Price Affidavit.com. so don't forget to download that. We're going to go to Tina, who's a regular caller from Benita Springs. Good morning, Tina. Good morning. How are you guys doing? Great. Hey, Tina. Hi.

What was it I wanted to talk about first? Oh, yes. I'm going to talk about my recall experience. We've talked before about how if you're the second owner of a vehicle, you might not necessarily get a recall notice in the mail. But in my case, that wasn't true. We were talking just recently, I think it was last week or the week before, about, you know, go on to safercar.gov, put your VIN number in there and see if there's an open recall. So I did.

And the mailbox actually beat me to it because I checked the mail. I think it was the week before that. And I had gotten a recall notice from Toyota for the side curtain airbag. So Jermaine Toyota is going to be taking care of that for me. Wow. And that was you, you're the second owner, Tina? Yeah, mm-hmm. Well, that's great one.

I bought the car when it had 16,000 miles on it, and I was just really floored because that doesn't usually happen. Congratulations to Toyota. Yeah, I got to give props to Germaine Toyota because they've been very good to my brother and sister-mother, Toyota family, and they've been good to me as well. So they're very well-rated around this area. Encouraging. A lot of the manufacturers aren't doing that, and maybe, uh, maybe, uh, Maybe they've all jumped on the bandwagon for a long while. Stu actually had a Toyota that had a recall didn't you, and you didn't have the notice?

Correct, yeah. I had a, no, I got a recall notice on a car that I hadn't owned in about six years. That's what it was, yeah. So I had a 2014 Prius, I think, and it had been a few years. So Toyota's got their act together, and congratulations. And that's great information, Tina. I'm glad you told us about that. Yeah, because that doesn't usually.

happened, but I really think that the best thing people can do is go on to either car complaints.com or safercar.gov, put your VIN number in there, and you'll find out immediately because you might not be fortunate enough to get a notice. Exactly. And on another, and on another subject, when I bought my RIS and financed it, at the time, my credit wasn't really all that great, and I was able to get financing from the, I was able to get financing but the percentage point they offered me was a little bit high and I thought I wonder if I could do any shopping around because sometimes you feel like when you buy a car you're pressured

into having the dealer arranged finance for you and they're not going to give you the best rate of course so about a month later before my first payment I called my bank and I ended up getting a finance rate that was two percent different well than the one that the dealer gave me So, within, before, almost before my second car payment, I was able to refinance my car. So if you're at the car dealer, you really want a vehicle, and they kind of pressure you into using their financing, go visit your bank before your first payment, and you may be able to turn that whole situation around for yourself. You're absolutely right. So it's never too early to refinance.

Well, thank you, that's where the dealers make all the money is in finance. They call it the finance reserve. It's in the F&I office. They make more money financing and selling you after-sale products than they do in selling the car. That's auto-nation is the biggest source of revenue. They've actually, Autonation, the biggest retailer of cars in the country, has actually reduced their prices, and they're losing money. They're trying to, actually, I misspoke. They raised their prices.

They raised their prices because they were losing money in the new car departments, and they're having to make a profit by going to the finance department. So always check with your credit union and your bank, as you did. And congratulations on being an educated consumer. Thanks. I appreciate hearing that. Tina, we are always glad to hear from you. Thank you for opening up the show.

And we will talk to you next week. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you. And ladies, I can't do this by myself. Please call in. Thanks, Tina. Thank you, Tina. Appreciate that one. Give us a call toll free at 877960, or you can text us at 772-4976530.

And I'll repeat what I said earlier, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You YouTubers start sending us a post because they got Rick over here with a blank slate. He's taken all of our YouTube posts. So, YouTube.com forward slash hurlun cars. YouTube.com ford slash hurln cars. Give us a post and a question or comment, whatever. And Stu's way ahead of Rick over here with Marks on his pad.

So what do we got? Well, Tina has a question. Tina says, what is your opinion of off-lease only versus purchasing pre-owned from a dealer? Both have dealer fees, but off-lease's fee is less. Well, off-lease only is a major. factor in the used car market, and you can't ignore them. What off leaves and only does is sell cars for less money than the average used car dealer sells cars.

And the way they do that is they buy cars at auction, and they buy virtually every car that comes across the auction block, including a whole lot of cars with damage. Most car dealers will not buy cars with frame damage and serious damage to the car. I'm not saying it off least only buys cars that are unsafe, technically, legally they can sell these cars. When a car is damaged in an accident, chances are today it can be repaired where it will be safe. The negative thing about buying a car that's been damaged in an accident is it depreciates the value of the car, the mere fact of the accident. So two cars, used cars, let's say two, two, 2016 cars, one has been an accident, the other has not, side by side on a used car lot, the one that's been in the accident would have a $2,000 less value.

These cars are being sold by CarMax, I mean, yes, CarMax. Offlease. Offlease. I'm sorry. I'm getting all confused here. Offlease-only.com has a large selection of cars that have been, had problems like crashes. and they sell them for less money. So if you take the car to your independent mechanic,

if you inspect it, have an inspected, if you get a Carfax report, you'll buy the car for less. So it's a good source of cheap cars. Rick? One other factors, always have, especially from off-lease, have a mechanic, check that car over with a fine-tooth comb because we've had customers come in with cars with issues,

and it turns out it was from accident damage in the past. Unfortunately, I do not believe that they allow you to take the vehicles off the lot to get them checked out. Oh, yeah, I think they move the car when you're going to buy it. Yeah, they give you a five-day money back, but they charge you a restocking fee or something. Yeah. I think there's definitely a restocking fee, and there's also a mileage restrictions on it. Yeah.

At the very least, you might try bringing someone with you to really look the car over. That's a good idea. You know, excuse me, speaking of inspections, let me get this text in for Lori that she asked me this past week. Lori asked, I'm looking for a used car. Can I take it off the lot to have it inspected before buying? Lori, my hat is off to you. You are an educated consumer. And I'll give you my input, and then I'll turn this over to one of the guys here that may know more than I do.

most dealerships allow potential buyers to take a car off a lot and have it inspected. These dealers want to sell a car. So they want to cooperate with the customer. We should clear that up before the show is over. And we will have somebody call Carfax and find out if we can be carfax. Offleysonly.com to see if you'd be able to take the car off the lot and get inspected. Because I thought they did. I happen to know a lot of recent employees of.

Offleets only, so we'll find out. Before the show is over. We'll find out. Lori, stay tuned. We'll get to that later on in the show. And we have one of our favorite callers, and he is from Palm City. And welcome to the show, John. Good morning to everyone.

Happy 4th of July. Hey, John. Today I'd like to discuss tires. Very important that the tire that you buy has to be the exact original specifications that came with your car. It's in the owner's manual. It may not be on the tires that are on there now. But I'll give you, I want to go into a 15-minute dissertation,

but I'll give you an example. P-215-65-R-15. Basically, the P is a passenger tire. The others are all rim-size, and the closing number is 15-inch rim. But after that number is a major, major three digits. I'll give the example of this 89H. What the 89 means, that's,

the weight that the tire will handle the weight on that particular part of the car. For instance, 75 to 100 of the numbers, 89 on that just means it's a higher, maximum load rating. And then the critical one after that number of the 89 would be an H, okay? That's a spin number. They run from U all the way up to V, which is 149 miles per hour. The S is the lowest one, 112, the H is a 130. Now, the reason that's so important is the spin speed is the life of the tire when it's rotating.

It doesn't mean it can't go over that, but that's safe at that speed. So people don't know this, but those last digits are very, very important. Again, the other thing that makes the tire worth more is the traction. they go from A to C, A being the best, C is the worst. Then it's the heat ratio on it. Again, A is the best, C is the worst. Very important for Florida that you want an A rating because of the heat on the roads.

Then the most important thing which separates the men from the boys is the threadware on it. The treadwear is listed. 110 is the lowest, like it goes over 200. In other words, a 220 would be double the mileage that you'll get out of it from the 110. Other factors, which I won't go into, they have a plan code on it. There's so many things, and you really have to look with a magnifying glass. If you get an old guy like an eye, you don't see some of these items on there.

But everything specifically is mentioned DOT, is the specifications. There's no bad new tire. Every tire, no matter where it's made, must be in the United States, must meet the DOT specifications. So the important thing is that it must be the same size. Don't let the dealer, they'll try to sell you something, a substitute, because they don't have you in stock. They can get that. Within two hours, every day in Stewart here, I see tire wholesalers that deliver, they come from Palm Beach County. They can get you that tire, certainly the next day.

John, can I interrupt you here? with that. And you also must buy from a authorized tire dealer, not from a gypsy. John, let me interrupt you here just for a second. I agree substantially with what you said. However, the manufacturers, the OEM tire that comes on the car, is a custom designed by that manufacturer. So when Ford has a F-150, they have a, it could be a Michelin tire, could be a Firestone tire, but Michelin or Firestone builds those tires for Ford,

for the f-150 and those two those those tires are provided only to ford now the fact is the specifications you're concerned about like treadwear index and other things you need to take into consideration when you buy a replacement tire i always recommend to my customers that they buy a replacement tire with a higher treadware index than the one that came on the vehicle from the manufacturer oftentimes the manufacturers will put a low treadware index on because it's a softer rubber, it's a smoother ride. The harder rubber that gives you a better mileage and also a greater longevity is a little bit bumpier ride. So you cannot get an exact duplicate to that vehicle. And also, as Rick just showed me, reminded me, the Department of Transportation

Data Manufacture is very important because when you buy a tire, it's like buying fresh bread, fresh milk. You want to buy milk that was out of the cow six years ago. You want to buy the tire that was out of the manufacturer that same year. Six years is the recommended length of a tire that you should replace. After six years, the Department of Transportation recommends you replace the tire. But, John, thanks very much. That's substantially good information. You've got to watch all those.

One thing is that you mentioned the date, and thanks to this show in the past, a shady car dealer, a tire dealer will hide that date on it and turn the tire inside out. Oh, yeah. So you can't read it unless you put it up on a lift at the date that the tire was manufactured. So that's a very important point that you just brought up about the date code because you don't want in South Florida here a tire that's sitting in a hot warehouse for three or four years. That's a no-no. But we pointed out on this show in the past that the dealer that's hiding something

will install that tire inside out that the date code will appear in the way. inside and it's not obvious. Now the second, the last thing that I want to say, if you don't read it on the side so easily, demand, when the tire comes in, it has a sticker on it, just like a new car has an MSRP sticker on the window. This peels off easily, and this sticker that's on the tire can tell you basic things mainly the size. So you can ask the dealer, please, can I have that when you take it off on the bottom thread of the tire? A lot of people don't ask for that, and that has a lot of information alone on that manufacturer's sticker that they take off. Thanks, John.

I didn't know that. Thanks very much for that tip. That's a good one. Appreciate the call, John. As always, you're extremely well. Thank you. Take care. Stay tuned for that mystery shopping report, John.

Boy, it's had a great call. I mean, John always has great information for us. Rick had a comment on that John's call before we get through with that subject. I would actually ask to see the DOT date number before they put the tire on your car. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Okay, Nancy. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call. 877-960-9960, and you can also text us at 772-497-6-530.

And there was an article here real quick that I want to mention to our audience, if they didn't know. It was from the Daily Business Review. And Earl brought this to my attention last week. And that's the lawyers. Here's some great news. Lawyers who were suing Tagata and targeting them. And now they're after another airbag manufacturer. And it's an interesting article if you want to pick up the daily business review.

And that's from Tuesday, July 22nd. Well, the YouTubers finally got it on the bandwagon. www. www. YouTube.com for slash Rerlan cars. YouTube.com

for slash Rerland Cars. Love to hear from me on YouTube and we've got one. Well, it's actually more of just a comment from Karen. Okay.

She says she's kind of bummed out. She found out that her 2016 Chevy Malibu which has the stop-start driving feature to it,

that feature cannot be turned off on her car. Oh, me. That's kind of unfortunate because it's unfortunately that was an experiment that they tried a lot of manufacturers basically what it is folks is when you come to a stop sign

or a traffic light and you stop your car turns the engine off the engine shuts off and then when you step on the gas it automatically restarts and starts going again unfortunately it just doesn't work really very well it doesn't really save as much fuel as they hoped it would and the biggest drawback is that the starter motor on the engine and the battery for it both have a manufacturer-specified lifespan

and they're extremely expensive to replace and by manufacturer recommendation they have to be replaced another bad idea by the auto manufacturers wow wow yeah okay we got some other text over here don't we yeah sandy on facebook live says she has a 2012 Nissan Ultima I'm sorry 2012 10 needs an ultima with 56,000 miles, and she'd like to know which oil is the best. And I'm going to say a 5W30. You're right on the money.

All right. Thanks, Google. I was willing to be corrected if I was wrong. We would have made the correction. Brief in, to the point. We're going to go to Howard, who is also a regular caller from Jupiter. Welcome to the show, Howard. Thank you for taking my call.

Hey, Howard. And it's pretty hot up here. I heard. I'll take it. Anyway, here's my question. My granddaughter lives in Cape Cod, and she made a big mistake. She bought a

challenger with low-profile tires. She already had a blow-up. You know, on the front tire, she had a pothole. I didn't know Cape Cod had pothal, but I guess all of the Northern States had potholes. So she didn't buy the extra insurance. My question to you is,

Is there a possibility since she had the car only three weeks to buy the extra insurance on the wheels? Is that a possibility? Well, Howard, if she can, I just don't know that it's a good investment. It's a very profitable insurance premium. A lot of car dealers sell it, and I suppose other folks sell it too, road hazard insurance. It's like any kind of insurance. If it gives you peace of mind, it gives your daughter piece of mind, I would shop around.

I would also read the policy to be sure what it doesn't cover, what it does cover. But most of these insurance things that car dealers sell you are very high profit margins to the car dealer. And if you can self-insure and you can afford to take care of a blowout when it happens, you're better off just to self-insure. How do you self-insure? Well, self-insure just means you pay for it out of your pocket. If you want to get a little bit more formal about it, she could put $10 a month into the bank account or into an investment account.

And her mind's eye would be her entire road hazard insurance. And the chances are she'd probably never use it. And about five years from now, she could go and buy herself something fancy. Or invest it. That was a very big mistake. I tried to talk her out of it. And I said, it's not a car. That's for you.

You know, you know, pot holes in shape card, you know. Yeah. And not only that, but it's not a great car, you know, the challenge you, and it looks great, but the handling is good, but that's about it. Exactly, yeah. It's something you're never going to hear from a salesperson that sells those kind of cars, but in a perfect world advising somebody on the actual cost of ownership, you know, how much this tire is going to cost to replace and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, low road profile. And these fancy racing wheels are extremely expensive. If you damage the wheel, it costs a fortune.

If you damage the tire, it costs a fortune. Every time, and we sell them, I'm in full transparency. I'm a toilet dealer, and we sell cars like that with the low-profile tires and the fancy wheels. And I shudder when I said, boy, I'm glad I'm not selling that to my, you know, mother or my relative or a friend because they're very expensive to maintain and repair. Okay, I have a question about Camry. Camerries that come with low-profile tires? Not like the Challenger. Yeah.

I don't believe so. You're pretty safe. You're pretty safe with a camera. With a camera. Yeah, with a camera. Most vehicles, the trucks are notorious, big, huge tires on trucks. And the bigger the tire, the more expensive. And the lower the profile, the more expensive.

And the fancier, the wheel. I mean, see them going down the street, a really cool set of wheels. I mean, it really is a head turner. And they look great, and you feel good. and then you just hit a curb with that wheel and you're looking at what, $500 or $1,000 or $1,000? Crazy money. For the most part, most of the toy to stock tires aren't like these ridiculously low profile,

but we have some pretty expensive. The run-flat ones are extremely expensive. How about the tires on the Supra? Well, we don't want to talk about that. We don't even know how much that super is going to cost. When I was driving that Supra, I found out. We actually have an employee. Anybody that drives a super doesn't worry.

he's not low car I found. Oh, come on, Howard. We have an employee at the shop who had a Dodge Hellcat challenger, and he actually got rid of it because of the cost of tires and brakes because that car would literally

eat the tires and eat the brakes and it was costing him more for tires and brakes than what he was paying for insurance on the car. But he sure looked cool going down the road, didn't he? It looked awesome. He did for a few months, and he said, not for me. Explain why the cars would eat brakes. Why the car would eat brakes?

Because it was an extremely fast, powerful engine, and our employee liked to drive rather quickly, and that meant hard on the brakes. The faster you go, the harder you got a brake, yeah. And the other side of it, the brake rotors were kind of a softer compound in order to work better, and they were what's called a vented brake rotor with drill marks in them,

so they could not be resurfaced. He had to replace the rotors every time he did new brakes. So it got extremely expensive. But he got a good deal on the car. Oh, yeah. Okay, so the vented rotors cannot be resurfaced. Not those fancy ones with grooves or holes drilled in them.

Those cannot. If you see any, the surface of the brake rotor has holes in it, it cannot be resurfaced. That's a good reason not to get one, not to get a car that has that. Absolutely. Well, it's high performance, and if you can afford a high performance car, you can afford the brakes on them. That's good. That's pretty good.

Okay, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate you. Have a nice day. Stay cool. Stay cool up there in New York, Howard. It was always great to hear from you. You know, I talk to more consumers who today say that they do take into consideration not only how much the car, costs, but how much it costs to maintain that car.

And it really makes me happy because I was never confronted by a consumer on that topic, but it is something to take into consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call. You are a very important part of the show, 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530, and ladies, $50 for the first two. new lady callers. Stu's got some more text. Beverly wants to know.

If I am pre-qualified for a car loan and the institution has a person that goes to the dealer with you to facilitate the deal, does it really matter what time of the month or year you buy the car? It does, Beverly, because the banker doesn't have any control over the incentives to the salespeople, to the dealership. The reason it's the end of the month or the end of the year, which is the perfect time to buy a car,

is because it's a culmination of all the bonuses and incentive money that is poured on to car dealers and to car salespeople to maximize the number of sale in a 30-day cycle or a 365-day cycle at the end of the year. But the banker is a great idea to get your financing exactly right because if the salesman's talking about beating the bank deal, he'll be able to tell you whether he's really beating the deal or not. There we go.

So we have a question on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. It comes from Britt and L.A. Where there's a whole lot of shaking going on. Sorry about that. My family are out there. They experienced it as well. Yes, indeed. Hi, all.

Just last weekend, my tire pressure light came on, and I noticed there was a large screw in the side of my tire. I had it patched, uh-oh, but was advised to replace it as early as possible because I was told the side of the tire flexes the most and could pop easily. I went to Costco and purchased a tire, but they advised that I purchased two instead of one. I decided for the time being just to purchase one tire and leave the other three on.

The new tire is a higher performance tire, while the older three are the original standard tires on my two-year-old Corolla. They put the new tire in the back and rotated one of the older ones to the front. Is there any danger or potential problems with having a tire mismatch like this? Should I buy a second tire like Costco recommended? Thank you. Britt and L.A., yes, we had a few small tremors yesterday, but nothing serious. Correct. Well, it actually depends.

I'll address the first part about the patch first. The main reason that they don't want you to try to patch repair the side of the tire is because that section is a lot thinner, rubber, and material. There aren't as many belts in there. And any damage to it can very easily spread and destroy the tire. usually when you're going on the highway at high speed. So Costco was right in doing that. Now, how about the, how about telling them to replace a tire?

Now, replacing tires, it depends upon how much tread is left. If your tires are still relatively new, I see no issue whatsoever with only putting one tire. And it's always best to have the highest amount of tread wear in the back. If that other matching tire is like 50% or less, then I would recommend two tires. but for economy's sake, if you can only really afford to do one at a time, then that's what you do.

And obviously put the newest one in the back. You always want the most tread in the back of the car. Very good. Okay, well, it's a good question, and I learned something. We have another text. Yes, we do. Also on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Question for Earl.

With so many cities now building condensed living, i.e. apartments, condos with little or no parking, do you think big American automakers are shooting themselves in the foot by only offering SUVs? I was able to get an apartment because the resident who tried to lease it before me couldn't fit his truck in the parking space. It appears the government is guiding us to smaller cars or no cars. What are your thoughts on this? That's a great question, a very interesting question. And I'm really not qualified to answer what's the extent of this smaller housing movement.

I've lived, Nancy and I lived in a place where we couldn't have a truck or a large vehicle one time. And it is a trend. I know you're right about that. I think that the manufacturers are getting themselves into more trouble than the outside influences with this trend toward SUVs, vans, and trucks. I think that it's a gas price thing. Cars are becoming out of favor. People are buying the bigger vehicles for a lot of reasons. Visibility is something they don't.

talk about, but a huge number of people are buying the bigger vehicles because they're higher and you can see better. I'm one of them. I hate driving in my car. I actually thinking about going into an SUV, increase visibility. The other thing is the big vehicles are much more profitable to the manufacturers. The profit margin on a big van or a big truck is huge compared to a car. The car manufacturers now are actually losing money on all of the cars they sell. And the competitive nature of the price of the car, the fact that people are not buying cars now because they can afford to buy more gas and put it in their SUVs. Plus, gas mileage is getting better in the SUVs.

And if that's not a big enough problem for manufacturers, we have the trend toward hybrids and electrified cars, and all electric is just around the corner. So, Stu? And also the trend towards SUVs are trending towards those smaller crossovers. Yes. Without naming the brand, I am getting 40 miles to gather. gallon in a nice mid-sized SUV right now.

Yeah. So cars in serious trouble, and I think it's more of what we just talked about, than the fact that the downsized and living in spaces and parking places. Well, it's actually not even restricted just to parking spaces for apartments and condos. A lot of folks with even newer homes, the garages are not always built big enough to accommodate some of these monster SUVs, the really big ones. Yeah, it's hard to put two hummers into a garage. Well, some cars like the Ford Expeditions and Sequoias,

won't even fit in a standard garage, just one of them. Which actually brings up a very good thing, advice for consumers, is we have, I've encountered many customers of the years, and not everybody asks this. They are very specific on the length and width of the car, and a lot of people ask, can I bring this home so I can just see if it fits in my garage, do that, because you don't want to buy a car, get home, and find it,

it doesn't fit in your garage. Do they build hummers anymore? I don't know. I should know. I have no idea. We can Google that. Okay, we've got another text. Are we...

Everett once has a question about oil. This is on our text line. Ever asked, I've heard you say that an oil change is recommended every 5,000 miles or every six months, which ever comes first. Over time, what happens to oil? I have oil stored on the shelf in my garage. Can oil stored go bad over time? Does oil have a shelf life? I love your show.

Well, let me correct one thing. 5,000 miles or six months if you're using fossil fuel, not the synthetic oil. Synthetic oil is 10,000 miles, and you still should have your car check every six months for other things, but you don't need to change your oil except once a year or every 10,000 miles. I'm going to get the official answer from Rick, but I'm going to guess. See as how oil is in the ground for tens of thousands of years, I wouldn't think when you refine it that it would have a shelf life. I would say that canned oil does not have a shelf life, but I could be wrong. Rick?

I say you're totally on the ball. I've never heard of an expiration date for motor oil. And if there was one, I would have to say it would be at least 10 or 12 years. I was going to say like about 10 million years. 10 million years. Good very likely to be. There's millions of years, right? By the way, according to Google, the Hummer was last produced in 2010.

although GM still owns the rights to it and they were talking about the idea of producing another one in 2017 but I don't think it ever happened. All electric. Now that would be a trick. They call it a tank, an electric tank, right? We're going to go to John. He is calling us from, I don't know where.

Good morning, John. I'm calling from West Palm Beach. Hi, John, welcome. Hello. Oh, you're just talking about the length of vehicles, but about the width, I have a question. Isn't there a constraint to it that they have to build the cars within a certain width so that they fit the car carriers and the auto trains to transport them? I know the only one that ever talked about wide track was Pontiac,

but that was because of an engineering mistake anyways. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that definitely has to be. I was a Ponniak dealer, and I didn't know that was an engineering mistake. So, why Trekked Poniac was an accident? You didn't care. Just sell them. Yeah, I grew up in Detroit, I went to Dearborn College,

and that's one of the things that they taught us in drafting school, that a lot of, when you make a mistake, if you can profit from it, that's good. Just like the Florida Thunderbirds, the reason why they came out with that scoop was, the uh they found out that the bolt to the air cleaner was too tall and when they shut the hood and poked the hole through so they and they just created the hood skews and they have to go redesign the length of the bolt yeah meant to do that you know that is john that is amazing the reason i love callers listen to this uh i've been a pontiac dealer in 1968 my father was a pontiac dealer in 1937 and here it is

2019 and I find out for the first time that the white track Pontiac was a mistake yeah it was just it was a half inch wider than what it was supposed to be and so they just instead of retooling it and going back they just went ahead and

you know floating on the white track or more stability and then amazing that is fantastic well John if you want

I got another story that I learned oh yeah you're on a lot You're on a roll. Yeah, go ahead. But this happens to do with Henry Ford. He was very frugal. Didn't want to spend money.

He was always trying to find ways to save money. When he put his contract out to have his engines crated from one plant to go to the other plant, he wanted the crates designed a certain way. And what he did was it cost the people that put in the bids, it cost them more money. Well, the one company that did take it cost them like a dime more for each crate. they want to know why did the crate have to be designed to that specification. He said, well, come out to the plan, I'll show you why, because it'll help you give you a better understanding. When they crated up the motor, they went ahead and took the motor in the crate, they put it on the frame. When they undid the bolts for the crate, it folded out and made the floorboard for the model T.

And that way Ford didn't have to throw away the crates anymore, and he just went ahead and used the crate is the floorboard. Wow. What a story. That is absolutely amazing. You ought to write a book, John. I'm telling you, that is really cool stuff. What did you do in Deer?

Would you work for a manufacturer in Deerborn? Oh, yeah. They're always. Well, I'm a big Pontiac fan. I've called the show before. I had a 70 GTO judge. I used to run around Detroit area. Yeah.

And for Pontiac Mosul Cards Division of Detroit. Yeah. We called it PMD, but that was the name of our car club. Paniac, most of the cars of Detroit. But I'm here in Florida now. Pontiac headquarters was in Oakland, I guess. Did you know John DeLorean? Hope and Packard.

Oh, yeah. John DeLoreen was with a gentlemaners of Pontiac at one time. Well, that's very good, John. I tell you, I appreciate that input calls again. You're a great caller. For sure. You're a book of knowledge. Hey, John, from West Palm Beach.

Give us a call again. please would love to hear from you thank you have a great weekend ladies and gentlemen like all of our callers all over our texters you're an important part of the show so take advantage of a few things that we have here you can text us at 772-4976530 you can give us a call at 877 960 9960 and if you want to take advantage of your anonymous feedback dot com Please do so on any topic. Back to the recovering car dealer.

Yeah, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're starting to get a regular flow now, and we're getting feedback from all over. www.w.w.orgononymous feedback.com. We're getting some good stuff. A lot of things that you wouldn't think they would want to be anonymous about, but they do it anyway. I think people feel it's a freer flow. You're not giving up their cell phone number. Exactly.

Rick. Cody who was texted us earlier about the Nissan he was looking to buy he just sent us a message on YouTube saying thank you for the information and he's glad he found us on YouTube says we're awesome and he'll never miss another episode wow cool Cody you're an educated consumer at a young age buying your first car we have a lot of them okay we got some more text coming in yeah also on this is we have two YouTube channels streaming right now

So on the other one, this comes from Paul. Paul says, I just moved down here from New York. They have a cap on dock fees of $75. I went to look at a few XRs down here, and I see dock fees of $1,000 or more. Question mark, question mark, question mark. To register a car, I just don't get it. Yikes.

What is so special about Florida? A thousand bucks to register a car, and then he's in Fort Myers right now. So, well, we got news for you. Paul, that's not to register your car. That's to pad the wallet of the dealer who is selling you the car. Yeah, it's a damn shame, Paul, and I'm glad to hear that New York has some good rules, and California does too. A lot of the states have caps.

Dealer fees, hidden fees, should be eliminated, but if you can't eliminate it, if you haven't got the nerve to get it eliminated because of the lobbying from the car dealers, then put a cap on it. Florida has no cap, and a car dealer can literally charge thousands. thousands of dollars in hidden fees, and some of them do. Yes, and they get away with it. Be careful, Paul, when you're shopping, and we have a caller, and I'm going to get to Frank in just a second, but Paul, the texter, when you're buying a car down here, the dealer fees, the hidden fees, go by different names. They can call them anything they like, electronic filing fee, notary fee, doc fee,

administrative fee, handling fee. They make up these, and they call them fees. and they slip them in on you when you're signing your paperwork and you don't know you paid it. And they can be any amount, $1,000, $2,000. There's a dealer down at Coconut Creek floor that charges $3,000 in dealer fees. So be very careful. And that's all the more reason for you to download www. Out the Door, Out the Door Price Affidavit.com to ensure you will be protected against any fees.

We are going to go to Frank, who's holding. Good morning, Frank. Good morning. I'm the fellow with the RAV-4, and Stu was going to check his wife's cart last week to see if you push the whole button if the tail lights go on when you break. I have a confession to make.

You forgot. I forgot to do that. I will do it this afternoon. I'm writing it on my hand. Yes. Well, my pen's not working. I will not forget, Frank. We apologize.

that was stupid. No problem. My other point is I was trying to text you this message, and every time I call that number, it would say, Google something and what's your name

and we'll connect you. And then it just rang it. Yes, we only use that number for text. The phone number for the show is 877-960-99-60, the 772-497-625-3-7. 6530 is just for text communication. Text number.

It doesn't even regularly. Well, I was trying to text. Yes. I was, I've texted you before, but now I tried it three times today, and I get that Google message. Huh. Well, I'm glad you told us about that. We'll check that right now. We'll text ourselves.

Somebody text us, and we'll check that number. Frank, thanks for the heads up. And Frank, Sue wrote that down, and he will definitely get back with you. You have yourself a great weekend. And then I'll forget to call next week, so. Oh, okay. We'll address it anyway. All right, thank you very much.

You're welcome. You're welcome. You know, getting back to the fees and what states have caps and what states don't. According to Consumer Report, paying more now is in unexpected or hidden fees than five years ago. It is up to 64%. Yeah. Yeah, it's so rampant. And at least it's controlled in some states like New York and California.

But hidden fees are rampant in South Florida, and they range up to $3,000, as we said. Outrageous. Okay, we've got some more text coming in here. We do. This is also on your anonymous feedback.com. Rick, does a car's black box operate as a purely information recording device, or is that information fed back to various modules to, quote, unquote, learn the driving behaviors of the driver and other factors that influence a car's performance.

What would happen if the black box is disconnected? It's a very interesting question. You answer that to me, and I forward it to the inquiry, but this is for the radio. We will put this right on the air. Basically, what's being termed the black box in a car is not the same thing as the black box in an airplane that everyone has heard of in the news.

those are actually a special data recorder that's armored and meant to survive a crash. In a car, Black Box is actually a section of the memory in several different computers. Primarily the anteloc brake computer, the engine computer, and the airbag computers. And so obviously you can't disconnect any of those because you would lose that function. and your car probably if you obviously if you disconnect the engine computer your car's not going to run airbag or a BS you would see some serious issues by disconnecting those they actually are meant to just simply store data to help diagnose issues and yes in the event that the car was in a collision it will store data such as whether the brakes were

applied whether the accelerator pedal was being pressed and how fast the car was going and any information that it can. Now, Rick, are you talking about all black boxes for all manufacturers, or are you speaking from your specific knowledge of Toyota? This is specific knowledge of Toyota, because unfortunately I don't know about other manufacturers. Well, we think it's probably just part of an integrated system in most cars and the amount of data that is stored, probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but I'm sure you're right that in the event of an accident, they definitely are going to be able to tell you the speed

and the break application in all factors that may be involved in determining why the accident occurred. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We have another text that came in from longtime listener and longtime texter Anne-Marie. Amory says, good morning. Sorry, I don't have a question today because you answered my questions before I even had a chance

to ask it. I just replaced the original tires on my camry, and I notice that the new tires change the way the car rides. It's not as comfortable as it was with the original tires. I wondered if I was imagining things. I wasn't. It sounds like it won't matter which brand of replacement tire I use. It just won't be as comfy as the originals.

Thanks for explaining the difference between original tires and replacement tires. Have a great day. Well, I, Mary, you should be happy about the fact that your tires will last a lot longer. It'll be a little bumpier, but if it has a higher treadwear, The tread wear index varies from about 200 up to 600 or even 800. And if you have a 400 tread wear index and you're used to a 200, the tires will wear twice as fast in the 200. So you're getting twice the mileage and the higher treadwear index

and you're sacrificing for a little bumpiness. That's right. And on Facebook, Steve has a question. He wants to know are there any dealer fee restrictions in New Jersey? New Jersey, and I am Googling that right now, because I don't know. There probably are, and we will find that out for you.

Remember, I get nervous. I've stopped using the word dealer fee by dealership. I'm trying to use the word, and we don't have a fee, by the way, but we call them hidden fees, because when they first came out 20 years ago or however long,

dealer fees really got serious, they called them dealer fees. And so the dealer has realized that the buyers were wise to the fact of what a dealer fee was. A hidden fee added profit to the dealer. So what do they do? They just start calling them something else. So when you own a car dealership, they won't call it a dealer fee.

They're going to call it something else. There's so many definitions is unbelievable, but New Jersey has no cap, just like a lot of the states. And I think Stu probably has more information on that. I just found a really cool website. It's called realcartips.com. I've never seen this before. and it's got a list of every state.

There you go to? It gives you the average for each state and whether there's a cap or not. Yeah. And like Nancy just said, there is no cap. The average in New Jersey is 270. Yep. Well, take a look at that sheet, either one of you. I'm curious that what other states have no cap on hidden fees.

Missouri's got caps. Kansas has got caps. Also on terminology, Arizona has some. You can't sort, It looks like there's a handful, but not too many. New Hampshire's got restrictions on display and what you can call it. New Mexico has restrictions on what you can call it. Texas has $150 max.

I'm betting that Florida is a wild west Dodge City. I bet you there's no state is bad in Florida on the lack of restrictions on hidden fees. Yeah, this is interesting in Florida, you know, the average, which is kind of funny, $607. and then they range from zero to 999, but we know that the fees are more than 99. Well, South Florida is a while west, and then you go further north, you get up into the panhandle, things are a little bit more conservative up there. Well, yeah, on the page, on the website here, it's conveniently color-coded, and so the red ones stand out. So here are the highest dealer-fee states in the union.

Oh, good. Oh, boy. I'm not going to go in order. I'm just going to, alphabetical. Alaska, $458 is the average hidden fee. Arizona, $401. Colorado, 508. Florida, 607, and Georgia, 502.

Those are the chief offenders. And then in green, it tells you's the lowest one. So you got Arizona with $97, California with $55, and that's the cap. Louisiana with $103. Minnesota was $75. New York was $7. Oregon 61, Pennsylvania, 122, and South Dakota, $93. But, folks, if you're local, and we have people from all over the USA, but if you're a Floridian and you're in South Florida,

the average fee is over $1,000, and we haven't done an actual calculation. It's difficult to do because there are multiple dealer fees, but I'm guessing right now, and we should do this for information purposes, we should do another average for South Florida, Palm Beach Broward and Dade County. In fact, we include Martin County, and we'll see exactly what the average is. I'm going to guess it's $1,500. Easy. Yeah.

At least. Rick? William on YouTube says, Hi there. About dealer fees and limits, I live in the tri-state area, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and even though New York has a $75 dealer fee cap, I know for a fact they still have other fees processing, et cetera. Well, that's very interesting because they fooled the Department of Motor Vehicles, or maybe not. Maybe the lobbyists have gotten through to the regulators and to the Attorney General's,

and some of the dealers now are in fact separating from they'll call the disclosure for one dealer fee, and they won't do a disclosure for another dealer fee. So there's a lot of fraud going on. There's a lot of lack of oversight. I'm very, very disappointed with our Attorney General's in Florida. I was hoping that after Pam Bondi left office, that our new Attorney General, what's her name? Her name is Ashley Moody. Ashley Moody.

I was hoping Ashley Moody would get on the ball. And we need some help for the consumers of the state of Florida. And the car dealers are getting away with bloody murder and hidden fees, and they're overcharging our car car. buyers and we need some help yeah and until then consumer report is helping everyone and what the fee is what everyone is saying to themselves you're not going to forget you're not going to forget thanks nancy what the fee dot com you can't forget that that's the consumer reports exposure and warning not just on dealer fees but on all sorts of hidden fees rental car companies

hotels yeah there's a woman that i read about is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. She is fighting direct TV about her NFL package and the fact that she's been paying a fee to sign up for the NFL package. Whatthefea.com. What thefee.com. Okay, we got some more text.

Yeah, we got some more on your anonymous feedback.com. Just a compliment here. This is the new introduction is great. Keep using it. It keeps the purpose of the introduction while moving the show along to the heart of the matter. So thank you, very much. Well, that's Earl himself.

I read that, and I had another one that said that I was yacking too much after the introduction, and that was last week, and we changed that. So we're always trying to improve the show. Yes, absolutely. And if you want to share your ideas of us improving the show, you can go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Kai Zen. That's right. Also on Your Anonymous Feedback.com, we have a comment.

It says, I enjoy listening to The Mystery Shopping Reports each week. but I look forward to hearing Earl's vote, which is sometimes missing. He lets everyone else vote, but runs out of time at the end of the show and doesn't vote. For example, last show I wanted to hear his vote on CarMax, but the show ran out of time before I could hear his vote. He needs to vote, just as everyone else does. I will. I will. I stand corrected. I apologize, and I will be sure to vote from that one.

Absolutely. And we're all caught up. Okay. Ladies, I'm still waiting to hear from you. $50 for the first two new ladies. lady callers, give us a call tool free. 877-960-99-60. And if you'd like to text us, 772-497-6-5-30. And I think that Rick has some comments.

I just wanted to mention one thing for good or bad. The automotive world lost one of our greats. Lee Ayacocca passed away this past week. and for those that don't know, he actually was the major force behind the invention of the Ford Mustang. So every time you see a Mustang, that's Lee Ayacocca going down the road. Not to mention making Chrysler profitable with a K-car, not to mention the forsyth to buy American motors because they have the Jeep. And today, the Jeep is the only thing keeping Chrysler alive. What amazing.

Right, they're still feeling the effect. What an amazing story. What an amazing, excuse me, family history. And here's this guy from Allentown, Pennsylvania, you know? And it's an interesting story if you want to take a look at it. I'm sure you can Google it. And one more bit of trivia on Leah Iacocca is her, his daddy was an immigrant that came through Ellis Island to New York, and he sold hot dogs from a vending stand in New York City.

And that was Leahy. Wow. Is that amazing? I couldn't believe that. And I think that he may have come over through Ellis Island with my grandparents, Giuseppe, and Bridgeta. God bless their souls. We have a first-time caller, and her name is Cheryl from Lake Park. Good morning, Cheryl, and welcome to the show, and welcome to your $50.

Oh, good morning, and thank you. You're quite welcome. What can we do for you this morning? I have a question about how to get the best deal on a lease. Okay. I warn you in advance, Carol, leasing is the most complicated way to drive a car. The manufacturers and the car dealers encourage you to lease for a very good reason. When you lease a car, you're pretty much forced to come back and consider leasing or buying another car.

If not, there is a penalty that you have to pay to this. stop leasing or buying from that particular manufacturer the profit to the dealer is much higher on a lease that's another reason they want you to lease a car now with all that said it's still possible to get a good buy I say it's not the wrong word to get a good price on a lease and you can't get a good deal on a lease but you have to be far more careful rule my rule of thumb is buy the car rather than lease it because it's a simpler procedure leasing is got some good advantages such as when you damage your car and we hope you never do but have to have it repaired it devalues the car if you own the car

you suffer that depreciation yourself when you sell it or trade it in if you lease the car you have to repair it of course you turn it back in the leasing company and you don't suffer any penalty there's some negatives because insurance ought to lease is higher but if you want to lease a car it's fine uh there is no advantage to leasing and there's no disadvantage other than the ones that i just explained to you and if you go about it in a wise way by shopping and comparing just like you would if you buy the car you can get a good deal when you shop and compare a lease payment you have to be sure that you're comparing apples and apples exact same year make model car with exact same equipment and the msrp and the same terms so 30

months on the exact same car, go to three different dealers of that make and get their lowest payment. Be sure down payment is quoted to you because virtually every lease you see advertised has a very large down payment. That's the secret of why they lure you in. $5,000 is not an unusually high down payment, and they hide that in the fine print. Okay. And, Cheryl, if you'll stay on the line, you can give Sam, the young lady in our control room all your information and I'll get that $50 checkout to you but back to your question about leasing it can be so complicated for some of us and Earl has

written a lot of columns and in reference to leasing so you can go to Earl on cars if you weren't able to absorb all the information he just gave you and you can read today's don't be trapped into leasing for the rest of your life column that he just wrote recently or you can read all of his past columns on leasing and I'm sure that'll protect you before you go out and make your decision okay I will do that I appreciate it thank you thank you you you're welcome you know I'm glad you mentioned that last blog I did the last article because one of the things I haven't mentioned in my few previous blog articles on leasing is that people get trapped into the lease

by virtue of the fact that they're no longer building equity when you buy a car you're building equity it's like having a bank account and you make your monthly payments after a certain period of time you start to build equity of that car

and at the end of the lease 36 months you're going to have an average of about 50% equity on what you paid for the car if a lease after 36 months you've got zero so if you have zero equity what are you going to do

if you have to buy a car you have to come up with a down payment. Maybe you don't have a down payment. If you had bought the car, you would have had the down payment in the virtual you tried in. So people get trapped into leasing, and then all they can do

is lease for the rest of their lives. The average person, I was amazed to know that the average person in the United States has a very small amount of money saved up to be able to deal with emergencies. And leasing saves you nothing. Buying is like a forced saving

account. So it's a good way to maintain your flexibility. That way you can lease or buy. Absolutely. I also want to add that Earl on cars, you know, that website that you can go to, Earl wrote a column that is

really near and dear to my heart and that seniors think twice before leasing a car. So there's a lot of information there about leasing cars and as I said earlier, it is definitely complicated. Stu? Oh, I was just going to chime in on the leasing thing, there is, I'm not trying to sell leasing or promote it, but you do transfer

the risk of a lot of depreciation to the, to the lessor of the car. So if you were to get to an accident and you own the car, you carry that diminished value from the accident where the leasing company would if you leased it. However, they're very, they're getting tighter and tighter on holding you to higher and higher standards of repair. So it might not wind up being that big of a benefit at the end of the day. So if you had it got into a fender bender and you had it fixed, you still might have an issue after the fact. Interesting. Yeah, I actually have some information we were talking about.

We had a question about off-lease only and whether they allow customers to take a car to their mechanic before they buy it. And I found that they do. There is a form that you have to fill out, and I think that's usual. It's a loaner agreement or a rental agreement, and you fill out the form, and they will, according to my source, let you take it off. Well, that's good. I'm glad we clear that up. And so the rule is, if you're considering to buy a used car, it's mandatory. I'm going to come out there and get you if you ever buy a used car without having a check by an independent mechanic.

It's the single most important thing you can do. Carfax Report is important. Safercar.gov is important, but checking for recalls. But you have to take it to an independent mechanic. Don't ever buy a used car. And don't let the seller's mechanic check it. I mean, let's let the Fox Guard, the chicken coop, have an independent mechanic, pay the $150. It'll be the best $150 you ever spent.

Yeah, I checked that out near some places. It cost maybe $129 to get it inspected. But, Rick, what do you have? I shared the text earlier about Lori and her driving the car, you know, off the lot and getting it inspected. Should she go to two or three different mechanics? or is one enough? I think if you find a good reputable mechanic, someone that you can trust, one is plenty enough, especially someone that's willing to bring you out, show you the underside of the car,

and show you any points that they're going to bring up. Okay. I hope we led you in the right direction. Oh, I was being distracting. Sorry. I raised my hand in the middle of the studio. Everybody will stop talking and look at me because I have information. Frank, I'm not going to check the brake lights on that route for

because I already had somebody to do it and when you put the parking hold button on, the brake lights do come on. We had somebody just do it just now. Very interesting. Oh, great. Okay, give us a call to, excuse me, give us a call tool free. We'd love to hear from you, 877-960-9960

or, as I said earlier, your anonymous feedback.com. You can go there and tell us what you. you think suggest anything at all your anonymous feedback.com and don't forget you can text us at 772-4976530 this is for the old days i i brought this in nancy actually brought it and i forgot it i left it at home but back in the old days we know we were doing this show for 15 plus years we used to bring all the classified ads in from the newspapers i get the sunset on the bombage post and now all the car dealers have stopped advertising in the local paper.

Where's your magnifying glass? So we brought the one dealer that still advertise that in, and this is just like it was in the old days. And it's so easy. I think one of the reasons people stopped advertising the newspaper is too easy for the regulators to find out about all the shenanigans. It's evidence. It is evidence, yes.

It's hard copy evidence. You can show it in the courtroom. You can shut down a website in a second. And here's Roger Dean Chevrolet, just doing it like they. did 25 years ago. Exhibition A. Let me read some of the fine print on this. You see the big $17,000 off, and let me read that to you.

Here's a fine print. $17,000 off, and the discount is off dealer list price. And dealer list price is not the MSRP. Dealer list price is what Roger Dean says dealer list prices. Of course, Roger Dean is no longer with us. but the owners of Roger Dean, which I believe Janie Dean is the owner of Roger Dean Chevrolet. Is it Patty?

Or Patty Dean. Patty Dean. A daughter of the late Roger Dean. But anyway, just kind of like Frozen in Time, the old newspaper ad, you still have the same shenanigans going on online. You have been on television, except they're a lot harder to see. It's almost comical on the television when you see the fine print. and I try to take pictures of it and I got my iPhone out

I'm not fast enough and sometimes I'll just stand in front of the screen and they'll flash it on and I can't hit the shutter fast enough to take the picture. You just have to go over and over again before you finally get the picture. It's amazing how much progress we have made.

Do you realize, I don't even have to close my eyes. You and I would come in here and this whole desk would be completely empty and we'd bring in all of these ads from Saturday morning, and it was truly amazing. And let's fast forward just a little bit, and there was a man who introduced us to the word shenanigans, and his name was Jonathan, and we, well, have really progressed. Anyway, give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-6-5-30. of Alan holding from Jupiter.

Good morning, Alan. Good morning. Earl, Mike, I'm calling from Jupiter. My question, I guess, advice I'm looking for, is regarding one at least a 2019 or 2020 car for my grandson. He's going to be 18. And I wanted to find out of one manufacturer is better. to deal with than another

where I guess we're looking for like an intermediate SUV who would be the best people to deal with? Alan, I think all the manufacturers are pretty reputable when it comes to leasing. They

have to be competitive and they most all have what they call captive leasing companies. Their financing company also does the leasing. I'd be more concerned about the best vehicle typically when you go for the best vehicle you have the lowest lease price because the better vehicles as recommended by consumer reports have the highest residual value that's the resale value if you have a high quality low maintenance vehicle a safe high quality low maintenance vehicle consumer reports will tell you which SUV and make it very clear there'll be a recommended vehicle list for 2019 and when the 2020s come out there'll be on the list, too. And because

they have high resale, then the monthly payment of the lease will be lower. And the terms and conditions, the rates are pretty much similar between all the leasing manufacturers. Okay. I'm a member

of AAA, and they recommend using their buying service and leasing service, they work through True Car, which I guess a couple of these consumer reports does also. Is that a good way to go first, to go through them?

It is. It is, Alan. That's excellent. I didn't realize AAA used True Car. I knew Consumer Reports does. But yeah, True Car is an excellent way to get the lowest price. The leasing is a little more fuzzy. And if you use a true car, Sue, maybe you can help me on this.

you're not going to be able to really get a leasing price you're going to get a purchase price if you if you get the purchase price and the nice thing about true car is the true car price has to include any fees hidden or otherwise so if they're included in the price it's not really a hidden fee and dealer installed accessories

are also included in the price so when you have that true car price you have to shop and compare it with other dealers but usually the true car prices a very good one and it should be a legitimate one if you want to convert that to a lease it gets a little bit more complicated because you have to take the selling price the true car gave you and you have to put in the capitalized cost of the lease on the lease contract so yes you can use true car consumer reports for a price use that price as a capitalized cost and when you're comparing lease prices be sure that the terms and down payment are similar with all the dealers that you're dealing with.

Where is the best place to find the information on incentives that the manufacturer is offering, i.e. leasing and over buying. Where's the best place to look for that? The manufacturer's website, I would say. The manufacturer's website, and if there is a more regional or a local group, say a distributorship, or a local ad group, they call it a TDA is what they call them in dealer parlance. They might have regional specials. So if you just Google, if you're looking for a Honda, Honda leasing specials, the first things you're going to come up in the search is probably going to be Honda's manufacturer's website.

So check there. And as long as it's a legitimate website, you can consider that accurate information. Alan, there's one more issue with leasing, and you're leasing this for your grandson. I don't know if you'll be signing on the lease or how that will be. But remember, when you lease a car, you are responsible for the lease for the entire term of the contract. So if you sign a 36-month lease contract and for whatever reason cannot continue to drive the car or pay for the car, you're still obligated for the full term. And your grandson should be an issue, but I'm 78 years old.

I would think twice about leasing a car myself because if I become incapacitated or I die or sight, earring, or whatever reason, I can't drive my car, I have to pay 36 lease payments if I sign the lease contract. Okay. Okay, well, thank you very much. I appreciate the advice. And a great show, and I listen to it every chance I get. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Alan. Give us a call again. 877-960-99-60 and you can text us at 772-497-6530 and Frank is on line too welcome to the show Frank hey good morning it's Frank from Jupiter Farms so I have welcome yes thank you and happy close 4th of July thanks thank you same to you first thing every time it's like going down memory lane I mentioned that last week about the gasoline and stuff like that and things like on your show hearing things. The deceptive TV ads is an interesting thing to look at.

I see them on TV. The print is so small. It's flashed up there so quickly. Just to have fun, and this shows you sometimes how, what a boring life I must leave. I freeze the frame. I take a picture of the ad. Oh, you too. And on your phone, you can enlarge the ad and read everything that you couldn't read on the TV.

so there's one suggestion for people they really want to see what's going on those deceptive ads shocking yeah yeah i mean you just can't believe what you're seeing right frank so you want to freeze it oh and uh earl does that a lot it's it's like a comedy show you'll read this and after hearing your show you're enlightened and enlarge and more well-informed and you can see the deceptiveness that they do it's amazing now here's a question for um You're a mechanic guy, or excuse me, your technician guy. Gasoline. It obviously doesn't have a long lifespan if you have it sitting around in your cans

in the house for a lawnmower or for whatever. Since they added the sugar thing, which in back in old days, you would kill the car to put sugar in your gas tank, but today they do it under the guise of 10% ethanol. How long can they really keep the gas in your car, especially for the snowbirds that might leave and leave their car parked the whole summer that they don't take it back north is that an issue um i don't actually have any empirical evidence on it but my recommendation would be to go no more than five to six months

at the most uh simply because gasoline does start to break down and it can be corrosive it can damage components in the car the ethanol actually is very lightly corrosive so i would go more than five to six months. Isn't there an additive you can put in that will allow the sitting time to increase? You can get fuel stabilizers to put in that will help to keep your fuel in better shape. But again, it's kind of a band-aid thing. I would stick with the idea of fresh fuel. Okay. Sounds good. When we're back to gas, I think I mentioned that sometimes we have a fire pit out here. We take some gas, throw it on to get the farm started. And it's amazing if you have an old can of gas laying around that you forgot about for maybe close to a year,

it almost doesn't flame up. It's almost like light and kerosing as opposed to gas down the vapor effect. And talking about that, people feeling their cars and stuff like that, I still see people not turn their cars off. But I had the great blessing to be able to watch what you do with fuel when you throw raw fuel into a hot tail pipe. it goes into what they call your afterburners

so I got to see that in my Air Force career so that was a nice chapter after 4th of July on a sad note about this line in aviation I saw on TV on the billionaire Klein who's really a big donor

for Big Dog Rants it is very sad about seeing what happened Traged Terrible, absolutely terrible yeah terrible well Frank again thank you guys for having a great show It's, um, I can tell, my cat can tell when he gets loud to go out on Saturday mornings

because there's no traffic on in the farm. When I turn on the old short show, he said, oh, you're up, you're going to listen to the show. I can go outside, so I open the door and he goes wandering around the yard. And he gets warmer, starts raining. He comes right back. He has it down pat. He knows it so it's a day to go out. What's your cat's name?

Okay. Um, it's Moose, and he's all black, and he's got a very unique person on. And then we have his brother named, wow, great Pascal. And that guy's totally two different personalities. But I had dogs my whole life, and my daughter gave me a couple of kids. People she went away to college. And I go, oh, great, more things to take care of it. Actually, when you travel, is nice.

You can just leave a lot of food and water in a clean litter box and go away for three days. You do that with your dogs. Yeah. You're going to have to leave out of your house. They're pretty independent, aren't they? We've got to get those guys. And I compliment you very quickly. Here in Samantha is in the background.

And she answered the phone. It's really nice hearing the nice little guys like hers. Not that the other guys didn't do any good, but you've got a really, very special young lady there. And I appreciate you for that. Thank you, Frank. Frank, thank you so much for that. And I have to tell you that Moose has good taste. We always love hearing from you.

Well, we have our mystery. You have a nice weekend. Thank you. We have our mystery shop coming up, so stay tuned for that. And thank you, thank you, Samantha. We call her Sammy. Sal, the black box expert, is holding. Welcome to the show, Sal.

Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you touched on the subject before when I was driving in the car, and I didn't know how far you wanted to get involved in it. You touched on the subject and then you were off it. Is there anything in particular you need to know about the black box, which is the event data recorded, a crash data.

Is that what you were referring to? Well, the question was, was the black box an independent unit in the car? And Rick answered that it was integrated with the entire system of the car and that it wasn't an independent source of data. But in the event of a crash, it did record all the pertinent data. so that the fault of the crash, the cause of the crash, would be determined. And we also talk about the fact that black boxes probably vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and Rick was speaking mainly from his knowledge of Toyota black boxes.

But that's what we came up with. Frank, do you have something to add to that? Yeah, a little history. This started back around the year 2009, 1999, when General Motors used the data for a very popular crash that happened. It was Jerome Brown at the Philadelphia Eagle, died in a Corvette. And in trial, a few years later, 95, 97, General Motors comes up with this black box data, which the attorney that was handling the case was just stunned by this data. How did they get this data? And nobody ever knew there were any type of crash recorders in the car whatsoever.

Now local attorney here was Ed Ritchie, very powerful attorney. And he basically caused the dealers, and he, and through the DOT, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association to make the technology available to 100, so someone could refute the manufacturer's reading on it. Yeah. It really took off from there, from 2000 to now, it's just phenomenal. The amount of data, the quality of the data, the precision of the data you can get out of a car. It's been in a crash.

It's phenomenal. Yeah, you're right, Phil. In the beginning, it was a big secret. The manufacturers had their black box data, and they weren't going to show it to anybody. And then they got the lawyers mad at them, as you say. And it's evolved now where it's become very productive. The insurance companies like it, the lawyers like it. I think the consumers should like it because the facts are the facts.

The truth is the truth. And when there's an accident, you want to know why it happened. Oh, and it keeps getting more sophisticated. Every day, more sophisticated. In fact, I put in a... complaint with Toyota was one of the people that said all they had for whether the brakes are on the roof was was the brake light on the roof so at a 2013 seminar I presented to Toyota well I don't know how much pressure would be applied to the break oh break line on

or off doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy right and Toyota actually came through and they were the first ones to actually volunteer how much hydraulic pressure would be applied to the break. I mean, it's just phenomenal. I'm a misdemeanor mechanic and I'm flabbergasted. I didn't know that. That's the reason I love you callers, because you tell us stuff all the time that we didn't know, and we're Toyota dealers. So that's very interesting. Thanks. Thank you very much, Sal. Thank you, Sal. Okay. Anytime you can call me back again. I'd love

to help you out. Bye-bye. Thanks, I appreciate it. Oh, and he's got a sense of humor. Hey, Sal, we need to hear from you again. The listeners, I can't thank you enough. All of us can't thank you enough. You're such a great asset to the show, and I hope that all of you continue to call. And speaking of calls, we have Jack on line two, and he's calling from New York. Good morning, Jack. Hey, good morning, Earl. How are you? Good morning. Love the show. Thank you. Great job. Thank you. My problem role is I have a 2012.

Cadillac SRX with 100,000 miles on it. And the stable link light keeps coming on on my dashboard. And I brought the car to my mechanic, and he can't seem to find the trouble why this is happening. And he's telling me to bring it to the dealer, which I want to avoid doing, because that means I have to bring my bank book with me. Any idea on this?

I think Rick can give you some advice. I think maybe you can get the diagnostic instrument from an independent source that should be able to give some information before you go to the dealer. Yeah, independent sources should be able to pull any diagnostic codes on it, but if it's an intermittent issue, which if the light's going on and off, I would actually ask the mechanic to try checking for any wiring issues first, especially a ground wire issue. that intermittent issues uh one of the first things i see ground wires are a big problem

you get one loose connection and and that can cause that system to any system to go a little screwy on you and sal it's not such a bad deal to take it to the dealer if you protect yourself you know dealers obviously have a reputation of overcharging and that's the reason you're afraid to go see the dealer but i would call the dealer and i explain my situation i'd ask to speak to the service manager and say I'd like to bring my 2012 SRX in for you to check it but will you do a diagnosis for me and will you do it at no charge can you hook it up to your diagnostic machine and if there's a problem I'll let you fix it for me but I don't want you to charge me a lot of money and without having done anything to fix my car if they say yes and go on in the car dealer the

manufacturer the Cadillac dealer has the latest state-of-the-art diagnostic machinery that the independent mechanic might not have, but as long as you're protected against being overcharged, I would take it to a Cadillac dealer. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Jack. Thank you for the call. I am going to share this with our female audience, and by the way, ladies, I have, you've got to give me a call.

I have $50 right here in my hand to give to you just for calling. 877-960. Very quickly. This is from Brianna. Men buy just over half of all cars sold in the United States and take care of 80% of all family car buying decisions. Women car buyers do more research than men. So there, those are her words. I am woman, hear me roar.

We've had a bunch of texts. A bunch of texts backed up over here. Piling in. We got one here. This is from John in California. Good morning. I just want to say I love the show live on YouTube and has two questions. One, would you ever do a mystery shopping report in California?

And two, why don't we ever get to see Stu? He's always behind the scenes. Well, I can address both questions. My son is out in California right now. I'll ask him to head into the closest car dealership. Great idea. Honestly, I don't know if I get him to do that, but I will ask. My wife's out there as well.

And I was going to come up with a funny answer to why you don't see me on camera, but I'll give you a truthful answer, a better one, is you're going to see me pretty soon because we checked out the new stew. that's been under construction. It looks like it's almost done. Yeah. And there's cameras all over the place, so I'm going to be forced to be on camera very shortly. So you'll all get to see what I actually look like. We're going to have to be camera ready. Right. We'll have to do makeup before we get in here.

There you go. All right. So we have a bunch that came in. Oh, I'm sorry. We have another text. This came on the text line. Why is it so hard to find a car that has a power passenger seat without having to go to the top of the line model? I can't imagine that equipment is that expensive. My wife and I are both elderly, and a power passenger seat is a major convenience for my wife. We don't want to spend over $30,000 to have that simple convenience. And unfortunately, they're right. Usually you have to go to the top of the line model to get, and that's not even on every car.

But, for example, like Camry, you can't get the base on them. That's a very good question. And there's a comment on the manufacturer's lack of sensitivity. A lot of older people, I mean, I used to be six for five. I'm six for three. I know. And a lot of older people are. are, said, lower the seat, and there are a lot of, in Florida, we have a huge elderly population,

and a power seat's almost a necessity. And why make somebody pay thousands of dollars more just so they can get the luxury version of the vehicle? Show me a car that's got manual rolled up windows anymore. Yeah. You know, that's just part of it. Exactly. Excuse me. Breaking news to our listening audience.

If you call and the lines busy, it's because we are no longer taking any phone calls, because we do have to get to the mystery shopping report, but you can still text, and that mystery shopping report is from Carmex of Jensen Beach. Okay, next text. Some 2019 cars use R-134 refrigerant. Is that going to be a big problem five years down the road for repair? That's for Rick.

And 25 words are less, Rick. R-134 should be available for a long time, because even now you can still find R-12 by looking online like Craigslist or places like that. All right. Very good. Rapid fire. Here we go.

On your anonymous feedback.com, the story about Lee Ayacuka would have been a perfect start for the show after Earl's new intro. Why take a caller within five minutes of the show starting? I think a short story to get everyone started with questions, comments, and get into the show would be perfect. I love that comment. That's a great question. I agree with that comment. Yeah.

Okay. Next question, does it matter what time of year you buy a car? Is it true that October through December is the best time? What about these mid-year holiday specials? There is the question right there. Best time to buy the car is at the end of the month or toward the end of the year because of bonuses and incentives by the manufacturers and the dealers and to the car salespeople.

I always recommend buying the current year model. You can get a discount on last year's model, but the depreciation you suffer. instantaneous depreciation when you buy if you buy a 2018 car today you have instantaneous depreciation by the 2019 if there's a 2020 available by that you negotiate and you use true card you use Costco you use consumer reports I found out that AAA uses true car get the best price you can on the current model the depreciation that you suffer on

last year's model does not, more than all sets of savings. Okay. Another one came in on your anonymous feedback.com. Good morning. I may have missed your answer last week due to streaming issues. Why haven't you expanded to another car make like Lexus? Because I have been unable to convince Toyota to assign a Lexus dealership to me. I would love to have a Lexus dealership.

And getting a new franchise for any model car is a, very difficult thing and it's political in a lot of ways and don't get me started on that because we don't have enough time. One day I'll do an entire two-hour show on why the corruption and the politics

and the signing new car franchises. There you go. Next one, also on your anonymous feedback.com. I have a mechanical question. Speaking about highway miles versus city miles and the wear on the engine, the idea being the startup of the engine causes wear

when there's less oil circulating. About hybrids and they're shutting off the engine when stopped, would this cause similar wear on the engine compared to city trips of multiple startups of the engine? Or are the hybrids designed to address this potential issue? Great question. They are actually designed to address that, as are all cars now,

because they have what's called an anti-drainback valve that keeps the oil in the passageways, and it takes long time for that oil to actually work its way all the way back down out of the engine. So the hybrids have that advantage over the standard cars that have the engine shut off with the red light, which is a bad idea. Well, actually, all cars will keep the oil up in the engine. It's just with conventional cars, when you shut them off for a longer period of time,

the oil can slowly leak its way back down into the oil pan. Gotcha. Okay. Are we caught up on deck? We are all caught up. Okay, let's glide in to our... mystery shopping report here. Yeah, and ladies and gentlemen, vote on that

mystery shopping report, please. 8777, excuse me, 772-497-6530. We should mystery shop Carmax, again. We mystery shop them last week, and that was in Boynton. This week, we shopped them in Jensen Beach, another

Takata test. Part 2 of the test, we found it 2015 Jeep Wrangler with a fix but unfixed Takata airbag recall. And this is the one in Boynton, right? Yeah.

And we said in Agent Thunder instead of proactively requesting information from the salesperson, but the safety and mechanical soundness for the Jeep, Agent Thunder said nothing and waited for CarMax to stop the sale on their own. We call this technique the silent Takata test. We're sad

to report that CarMax Boynton failed the silent Takata test. This failure came on the heels of two prior mystery shops at the Boynton location, both with the Cotta test failures. Things aren't looking good at CarMax Point, and so we decided to see if another CarMax location would fare better. We targeted CarMax and Jensen Beach, hoping that Boynton Beach had gone rogue, just got a fluke. You know, we find that with car dealers, you could go in three times in three successive months

and get three different types of reports. you get a good salesperson, a corrupt salesperson. It depends so much. And it's like Russian roulette. So even a recommended car dealer on our recommended list, be careful. Happened to us. We had a salesperson who recently told a customer the price was good that day only. I guess he doesn't work for us anymore, but it happened.

And we had another salesperson. We got caught red-handed by Frank, a caller, I think, said that this was the Costco price. Right. That person doesn't work for us anymore. They don't work for us anymore. So no matter who you're shopping and buying a car from, be careful. Our initial exam of Carfax Carfax CarMax in Jensen Beach was a little discouraging. We found it was a cot air bag listed for sale within one minute.

It was easy. And usually you have to look and look at all. Stu does the looking and the searching. It's very time consuming. Selfishly, I'm very happy when that happens because it's easier. but still the offending vehicle which came up right away

was a 2012 Ford Fusion with a no-fix Takata Rico no fix means the inflators the repair part is not available

and you just are in serious trouble if you buy one of those cars and this is terrible I mean even if they didn't ban the sale of cars with defective Takata airbags or dangerous recalls they certainly

make it illegal to sell a car with an unfixable dangerous recall i mean what what are the regulators and the legislators thinking what are the manufacturers and the car dealers thinking that it is legal to sell a car with a dangerous recall and you can't fix it they're thinking they don't want the florida automob dealers association uh to come after them that's right not giving them money to get re-elected um we verify the recall with resources Carfax, NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and 4.com.

To Carmax's credit, they provided the link to the NHTSA website on the Fusions Listing, clicking the link, auto-filled with a van, and ran the recall check. Very cool, but it relies on buyer-beware, relies on the educated consumer. And I can assure you, I'm a car dealer, I still am a car dealer, and I can tell you that shoppers are not thinking mainly about recalls when they buy a car. Buying a car is an emotional thing. It is a visceral thing. People get excited.

They get emotional. And they're not thinking about safety. They should. And if you want to hold them responsible, and car manufacturers and car dealers do hold you responsible, but we know in the real world, the average shopper, is not thinking about recalls, and they don't ask these questions. To keep our two CarMax investigations comparable, Agent Thunder was instructed

to administer the silent Takata test again. We wouldn't ask anything about the safety of the vehicle. Here's the report, and I'm speaking in the first person, as if I were Agent Thunder. And again, we're at CarMax and Jensen Beach, just a little bit north of North Palm Beach, up there in the Martin County area. Before embarking on my mission, I called ahead to make sure the 2012 Ford Fusion was on their lot and available for sale. I was told it was, so I jumped in my car and I headed north. My first impression upon arriving at the dealership was that it was quite a bit smaller than the Boynton location.

However, the place looked very new, clean, interior was nicer and more modern than Boyton. It was pretty busy inside, but it didn't take long for Mike to approach me and introduce himself. we name names, we name dealerships, we name managers. This is no punch it's pulled. We tell the truth as we see it. I told Mike I came in to see 2012 Fusion. I found a line. He knew exactly the one I was thinking about and said it was nearby.

The two of us walked outside, quickly found the car. Mike opened the door, attempted to start the car. It wouldn't start. Very embarrassing. Happens. Very embarrassing when it happens. But Mike wasn't phased. and he ran inside to get a jumper box.

Once the car was started, we went on test drive. Same procedure as the last CarMax. Sales portion drove first, then offered to switch places. This is a protocol, and this is the same thing that other car dealers do, especially CarMax, and it tells you CarMax has consistent training among the different CarMax locations, and they have hundreds of them all around the country, largest retailer of used cars in the world.

Mike was informative and funny. He described the features of the car and expressed his surprise at how good the condition of the seven-year-old car was. Now, think about this, seven years. That car with a defective to cut airbag has been sitting around a long time.

It's got the seven-year itch. Seven-year-rich, and it's in Florida with high humidity, high heat, and Florida has a dubious honor of being the most dangerous state to own a car with its defective to cutta airbag heat and humidity we have more airbag problems exploding to cutta airbags than any other state after we've turned to the lot and had it back inside might describe the steps that lay ahead he said we would review a vehicle history report

and explain he would be my sole point of contact explained the pricing the price was given up front and there was no haggling no negotiating then he would be my sole point of contact explained the pricing the price was given up front and there was no negotiating Then he collected some information from me and asked if I was financing her paying cash. I said I was paying cash. Mike left me briefly and returned with a vehicle history report and a printed buyer's order. Something you don't normally see at other car dealerships. Right up front. Right up front.

And usually you have to beg for a vehicle buyer's order. They don't want you to have their price because you can shop and compare their price. CarMax, though. CarMax is one price. And that's a good thing. Because, you know, I should have told an earlier caller to, he was asking about buying a Nissan. And I said, check the CarMax price on that Euro-Mec model, Nissan. And that gives you a basis for comparison.

Now, if you find a better Nissan, at a lower price, buy it. But they give you the right. CarMax gives you the right to shop and compare. That is a right that we have as Americans to be able to, like the free enterprise system, shopping and comparing. and other dealers deprive you deprive you of that right um he mentioned mike there was still an outstanding airbag recall he told me that all i needed to do was to take it to a four dealer for a free repair i pause do you remember earlier in the report yeah this is unfixable i asked him why carmacks didn't do this before trying to sell it to us which is a very good question you know you got the airbag the manufacturer responsible for will have their dealer fix it at no charge and the question was why didn't you do it and here's what he said mike replied it would be too difficult with all the car max had an inventory he said they wouldn't have time it would cost too much money to pay people to take them back and forth for these repairs now think about this

This is the CarMax alibi. First of all, CarMax does have a lot of used cars in their inventories, but hopefully they don't all have dangerous recalls, and hopefully there aren't that many cars in inventory, a CarMax inventory around the country, that have unfixed dangerous recalls. So why not send them out as part of the reconditioning? A lot of been true a few years ago,

and there was thousands of them everywhere. And I will assure you that if they have a warrantable condition in a late model used car, I assure you they send it to the dealer. If they'll send a transmission problem or an air conditioning problem to another deal to get fixed at no charge, why won't they send a recall to another dealer?

Because no one will notice the recall, but they'll notice a jerky transmission. Exactly. Wow. Okay. That's their excuse. Their excuse is nonsense. I asked him if it was legal to sell used cars with a recall like this, and he said that it was. Sad statement, isn't it?

It is legal, and that's one of our biggest problems now is trying to get the legislators of the world, I should say mainly the United States, and the regulators of the United States, to make it illegal to sell cars with dangerous recalls. After the recall discussion, Mike reviewed the buyer's order and pointed out the $399 dealer fee. excuse me they have a different name they all have different names nobody calls a spade a spade anymore they call it whatever they want to call it they don't call them dealer fees this is a car max processing fee sounds pretty official doesn't it except it's hidden profit to the dealer I've heard better yeah and there's also some more hidden profit we'll get to later called an electronic filing fee

he didn't even mention that one at this point of the discussion I asked if I could take the buyer's order with me and then come back in an hour to do the paperwork Mike said that was no big deal and hands me the document again back from the badge of the good this is a good thing about Caramax they give you a buyer's order they give you a fixed price non-negotiable and you think shop it compare it with anybody you want to and that should be the right of everybody but they're very very almost no dealers that will allow you to do that okay Apple law car max jensen failed the silent the silent takata test in more more ways than one while the sale person did disclose the recall he still proceeded with the sale that is the defining moment of the

takata test but even worse than that mike incorrectly told agent thunder that he could take the fusion to any four dealer for a free repair there is no fix available for this recall whoever actually buys this car will have to remain exposed to the danger of a potential explosion for how long we don't know some of these people people that have bought these cars with the inflators they fixed not available have been driving them for years so you don't know when you buy a car with an unfixed recall how long it's going to take it's important to remember that time is one thing the driver or passion of this car doesn't have this airbag is seven years old. It's a 2012, and it can blow up at any minute. Airbags blow up, by the way, even without

collisions. Tocadas have actually spontaneously exploded. When they explode, the shrapnel goes through the compartment, whether it's the driver's side or the passenger side. You're talking about a hand grenade. You're going to get shrapnel if you're sitting in the front seat one way or the other. So here we are. A serious violation by Karmax, but then again, is a serious violation by virtually every car that we have shopped. And now we come to the end of the report, and we ask you to vote on it.

I do mention one more thing here. I alluded to earlier, they said the dealer fee, and they called the Carmackett Processing fee, was $3.99. They also have a $27 electronic filing fee. That's also a hidden profit. And so you add that to the $3.99, you now have $4209. $26 in hidden fees.

Which, interestingly, well, a little bit less. I'm sorry, the Florida average is 6.07, I thought that pretty close to the average. CarMax has a dealer fee like virtually every other dealer in the state of Florida and a higher fee than most other states. And no control on naming the fee in other states, they have a control. They call it whatever they want to call, but they can't call it different names. usually a dealer fee and that's

misleading in itself, but at least they have a cap on it. Okay. I will mention one other thing before we get into the votes. How much time do we have? We have nine minutes, say? Oh, we've got plenty of time. Carfax was the target of a lawsuit

by the consumers against cars, C.A.R. Consumers, against recall safety, C.A.R.S. Rosemary Shahan, the president of cars, filed lawsuit against CarMax and also General Motors through the Federal Trade Commission. I actually sued the Federal Trade Commission. Sure.

And they lost the suit. And the reason they lost the suit is the Federal Trade Commission said it's okay to sell cars with dangerous recalls as long as you disclose it. And we take the position, and Rosemary Shahan takes a position, and all consumer advocates take the position that disclosure is a sham to allow cars to be sold with dangerous recalls, because the recall is disclosed via text, via print, fine print or otherwise. And you sign a bunch of papers when you buy a car, and the disclosures in the fine print, and you don't know what you're signing it. So that is the reason that we're very down on the legality of selling cars with dangerous recalls. Okay, CarMax, Jensen Beach, the votes are coming in. Who wants to start with the voter?

I think that would you like to go to the techs, or would you like to have the recovering car dealer give us his great? It's up to the recovering car dealer. I'm going to pass them because all the other car dealers are doing the same thing. And it brings tears to my eye. If we fail CarMax on buying a used car, who are we going to tell you to buy a used car from in Florida? And I'd love to fail them, but we have a responsibility to the consumers of Florida. And when we give you a recommended dealer, we say it's with a caveat. They're not going to tell you about the recall.

And you're going to have to do it yourself, saveforcar.gov, and put the VIN number in, because the dealers will not tell you. And you will not see it in the disclosure. Here they are. They're coming in. Michael gives them an F. Linda gives them in all caps, Big Fat F, Greg gives them an F, Heather

gives them an F, Sandy gives them an F, Deb gives them an F minus, Michael gives them a D plus, another Michael, and James gives them a C. And I'm going to go for the D minus. It will be mine.

Yeah, lowest passing, Greg, Nancy. Because they were asked if it was legal to sell used cars with recalls like this, and he said it was legal to sell them, but Carmack's policy was to let their customers know about any recalls before a purchase, D-minus.

Well, that's true. And remember, they let them know about the recall, but they also said they could take it to the Ford dealer and get it fixed, and they cannot take it to a four-dealer because there is no fix available. So it really, really pains me to pass CarMax, But unfortunately, you're going to be exposed to the same thing, no matter where you buy a used car in Florida. So I don't know what to say. I'm speechless.

Next, Rick. Me personally, I'm saying a D-minus passing, but, you know, hey, they kind of goofed it. Ernesto says B, Wayne, and Mr. Hand both come in with Fs. Yeah, by far the vast majority of mailing. It would a few more come in. Andreas on Facebook gives him a C. Doug and Ollie give them three Fs. And Andreas also comment, in light of the legislation, it would be up to us.

I would not purchase this car because I'd have it checked on safercar.gov, and Andreas is an educated consumer. Well, the position of the consumer advocates are that the educated consumer, truly has very little to worry about. Educated consumer can survive in South Florida buying a car. Because if you do what we recommend on this show, which is protect yourself with consumer reports for True Car, Costco, with all the other resources available to you on the Internet,

you're not going to have one put over on you. But the majority of the buying public out there are not as sufficient. investigated and cannot defend themselves. Therefore, we have to have laws to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Think about the English language-impaired folks in South Florida, that English is not their native language. A lot of people can't read English, and you have your disclosures in English. You don't have Spanish or Creole or Portuguese.

California does that. California requires a lot of language, Mandarin, the Vietnamese. Yeah. I agree with you, Stu. It's amazing out there. My sister lives out there. And the things that she tells me about the car business out there, it's unbelievable. In terms of disclosure in writing, let's be honest, you can't read it in many cases because the fine print's too small.

We're talking about advertising disclosure. That's laughable because we heard a caller earlier in the show that was taking still pictures of the flash on the screen of the fine print. And nobody reads the fine print in contracts. I'm a sophisticated buyer, I'm a sophisticated consumer, and I do not read the contracts that I sign. When I buy something... I read them for you, sir. Well, or my lawyer does.

I have my lawyer, if it's a huge amount of money, I have my lawyer do it, but in most cases, I don't read things. We just don't read things in fine print. But not everybody has a stew. That's true. There's actually a sorry company where you sign that end user, license agreement on software,

they actually put a clause in that if someone were to contact them and request it, they had a several thousand dollar prize just for the people who actually read that license agreement for the first person. And it was years before somebody

finally called them up and said, hey, I want to claim this prize. And they gave them. I did the same thing to my management team at the dealership. And the last thing I said in my lesson to all the manager was, if you read this, you win $500, and guess what?

I won $500. No, you didn't. Well, before we put the... People don't read a lot of stuff. Well, we're getting into the habit at home. Before we put the gloves on and go at each other, we read, let's go get the manual. Let's check this out. Let's check that out.

Yeah. When we're putting things together. Okay, we've only got about a minute. We got one minute. And so we'll have to just, I want to say one more brief thing here. I want to say I'm sorry. sorry about Channel 5, WPTV, who just a few days ago did an expose on hidden fees and never mentioned car dealers. And I think it's a shame because car dealers are the biggest offenders.

And Channel 5, WPTV, you might not like this, but I think you're afraid of losing their advertising. And shame on you, WPTV. And you can call me anytime. I think that you're the best channel, the best local news. I watch WPTV. I love you guys, but shame on you. Thank you very much for that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. We do enjoy your company. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right back here.

Have a great weekend.