Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.13.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of CarMax Pompano Beach

Episode Date: July 13, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits CarMax of Pompano Beach, to see if they will disclose a Takata Airbag Recall on a targeted Ford Mustang. 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 is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn CyberSiber. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show.

Hi, folks. A guy you were just listening to, that's me. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. And this is the show, as I just described to you in the introduction, about how to buy least, maintain a repair car without being. taking advantage of. We rely heavily on you in the audience, and there's a lot of ways you can access us. We're live for two hours between now and 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, because

we're worldwide. We're out on Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, YouTube, and you can just about get us anywhere. Radio, we call it a radio show, but we're live and in color. You can see us in the studio. I've got some good-looking folks here with me. I've got to Rick Kearney, a very handsome young man, who is the world's foremost authority on mechanics, computers, anything to do with what makes a car run right or wrong, and you can answer all your questions. Next to him is Nancy Stewart, my co-host, I mentioned earlier, and we'd love to have you ladies call.

I'll let Nancy tell you about that in a minute about a special deal we've got for female callers. We want to balance at 50-50. We're really into this hashtag, Me Too. we want the ladies to participate we think you know at least as much as the guys and I know you buy at least half the cars

so love to hear from you ladies and my son Stu he's on camera now he can wave we used to hide Stu I don't know why we hit him but he's there he's our cyber guy and he's a guy that's kind of pulling the reins on the periscope

on the Twitter and the YouTube when you post on Facebook he'll see it when you post on YouTube I think Rick takes those over, and the calls are great. We beg you to call, 877-9-60-99-60. Somebody took my little sign I have here for the text number, which I never remember. And that's 772-4976530. I've been asked to give those out twice because you can't write them down that fast.

So the text number is 772-4976530. Audio, call us at 877-960-9960, and there's nothing more important than your calls. I'm not saying this to flatter you, blow smoke, or whatever. I'm saying your calls are the most interesting part of our show, and you also have some insight. There's not a show goes by that we don't learn something from you out there in Cyberland or Radio Land or whatever land you're in. That's right. And we are complimented by Jonathan and Rudy. Yes.

And Rudy's here to take all your calls. And Jonathan is also here to fulfill most of our needs right here in the studio. So we thank them for joining us. Well, let's see some texture postings. I see some marks on Stu's pad there. Let's start with our longtime texter and listener. This is Anne Marie. Anne Marie says, good morning.

as a curmudgeon in training I'm obligated to tell tales of the golden age when I was young and how things were going wrong today I grew up in a small mill town in the northeast where there were only two types of people Ford people and Chevy people we were fiercely loyal to the brand of her choice the cars were American made affordable and dependable

we loved our cars unfortunately this golden age didn't last cars became less dependable and we fell out of love through bitter experience as the late Lee Iococo said if you can find a better car buy it We did. I'm currently quite satisfied with my American-built Camry. It may not be love, but with routine maintenance, it has been a solid relationship.

On July 11, 2019, USA Today reprinted a Detroit Free Press investigation out of gear that states, Ford, new focus, and Fiesta models had transmission problems and sold them anyway. I'll admit it's very well done, even though it breaks the heart of an old Ford girl. If you know of anyone who drives a focus or Fiesta, please tell them to read this story. Google Free Press Investigation Out of gear. Thank you. That's a great text, Amory. Thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you so much, Ann Mary. Let me jump in there. I think Nancy has a copy of that USA Day. I do. If you can show that headline to the camera, and that was a great article. It's written by a Detroit Free Press reporter, and her name is Phoebe Howard, Phoebe Howard.

And I've been in contact with Phoebe Howard because Nancy and I both read that article. Anne Marie, I'm glad you read it too. It is really depressing to think that a great motor company like Ford, Ford and manufacturing, would do something premeditatively, sell cars with defective recall. They weren't even recalled. They knew the parts were defective. They were dangerous, and they sold the vehicle anyway. I've been in contact, I say, with Detroit Free Press, Phoebe Howard,

and I think we'll be collaborating on this. Hopefully, we'll see some more articles. but it's just a terrible thing for an auto manufacturer to do. We have another text, and this comes from Kentucky. Oh, we have a call, so let's defer to Howard. Yeah, we're going to take Howard's call. He's a regular, and we enjoy his phone calls every Saturday morning. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning, nice talking to you, as usual. A question I have is concerning electric cars, fully electric cars. my son just purchased a home in middle new york state and he's thinking of buying a fully electric car because his commute to work is about a half an hour and he's thinking of buying a car but he asked me about how does he charge it now uh he has the 240 volt outlet in his dryer, the dryer in his house, I think that's a 240 outlet. He would need an extension cord from the dryer, from the dryer outlet, electrical outlet, to a window to charge his car.

Is an extension cord allowed? I mean, is it okay to do something like that? And is that outlet, the right outlet? This is 240. Howard, I'd check with... I hope Rick is there. Yeah, I was going to say, check with the auto manufacturer. And did you say what make car that was, Howard?

E-O-L-T. Oh, okay, the bolt. Boulder Bolt. I would check with General Motors and see what they recommend off the top of my head. It probably would work, but why take a chance? I believe that the chargers that they recommend are the 240s. I believe they will also charge. on a 110, but it takes a long, long time to put the charge on the battery.

Rick, what do you think? From what I'm seeing... No, 110 wouldn't be viable. He says he can't wait that long. I think it takes like eight, something like eight hours or something. Something like that, yes. Yeah, you need to charge overnight. Most of them seem to have like a charging station, like a small device that they want you

to hook up, that then would be. be able to charge up off of it. It's what they, for the Chevy Bolt, it's what they call their level two. And it's basically just a small converter box that plugs in the 240. And I'm sure their cords are usually going to be long enough to get to where most places where you're going to want to go. Yeah, they're going to want you to buy a charger for your garage is what Rick saying. And probably not a bad idea.

More I think about it, running a cord to the dryer might not be the way. way to go. It might cost you some money. It might burn something out. Yeah, I'd be very careful about that. Yeah, for sure. Who installs? Let us suppose he wants to get a charger that would be accessible to the car. You hire any electrician to do it

or an automotive guy? What's the deal on that? Right now I'm looking at Chevrolet's site for the bolt. and they actually have an app that you can go on where you put in your home address and it finds installers near you that you can contact those installers that are specifically trained to install this system by Chevrolet and they'll give you quotes and then you schedule it and they come to your house and set it all up for you.

Oh, in other words, a special kind of guy that has with an expertise to do it, not just an electrician. Right. Is that what you're saying? Yes, because they're trained specifically by Chevrolet. overlay, they know how the system's going to operate and what its tolerances are, what it's required for it. Now, he has two cords.

He has an 18-inch, an 18-foot and a 25-foot charging cord. So I think he would be able to hook it up inside his dryer, if that's possible, and out the window and into, you know, to charge his car. but I have to Google and find out what the story is. But thanks for your information. Yeah, I call the Chevrolet dealer, and I'm sure he knows the answer to both those questions. Yep.

Or even the installer, if you talk with one of the installers, I'm sure they would have specific information too on what distance is, how far away you can be and what you're going to need for a setup. And my next question is the future of these electric vehicles, at one time you think they'll all be electric, let's say 20 years down the road. Is that correct? Yes, and maybe sooner.

Okay, so sooner, okay. Then you would have to have, well, would it be viable for, it takes so long to charge? In other words, if I'm driving, I need a charge and I have to wait four, five, six hours for it to charge up? How are they?

Could they reduce the time eventually, or how's that going to work? Yeah, the Tesla, I believe, will charge in like a less than two hours. They have a fast charger. They have charging stations all over the country, I think, maybe a little bit, not too many in Oklahoma, maybe, but if you're on the west coast or east coast, you're wall-to-wall charging stations and more and more coming.

And as time passes, the chargers get better, the batteries get better. I'm guessing that before we have a whole lot of electric cars, the charging stations will be able to give you charge. maybe half an hour or 15 minutes. Well, one of the Tesla's points that they've made is they're superchargers where you pull in and they have like a gas station type place, they said within 35 to 45 minutes, they could charge a Tesla battery back to 85%. So, I mean, that's a pretty substantial amount.

And when you figure that if you stop for a break for hit the bathroom, a little something to eat and stretch your legs a little bit, that gets you a lot of charge. And Stu was just holding up a map of the U.S. with the charging stations. Stu, holding that up again. And it looks like measles. I had no idea. There were that many charging stations. They've really grown.

There are 1,533 supercharger stations with 13,344 superchargers. Unless you drop down to Mexico, there's no place you can go in north, not even Canada either. Well, they've got quite a few in Mexico. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Down near the coast. That's amazing. The last time I pulled that map up, it didn't look like that.

Welcome to the 21st century. Little dots everywhere. That's right. You know what I would like? I would like to, you know, if I'm alive, which I don't think I will be. You're right. You're right. To drive down, go to a docking station, and have a car charged up in 15 minutes.

And that'll be like 50 years from now, probably. I don't think it'll be sooner, really. I think you're going to find the, you're going to find. The battery technology, see, the chargers are getting better and the batteries are getting better, and they're going to have chargers that you can charge almost, I want to say, instantaneously, but 15 minutes, certainly. Howard, I got to say, I just got to bring this one quick story up about a week and a half ago. My wife and I went to the Sunny's barbecue on Lake Worth Road,

and as we were getting out of the car, we watched a fellow pull up in a Tesla, plug his car in at the Tesla charger that they have there at the Sunny's barbecue before he came in to have his dinner. He gets his car charged up for free while he's having dinner at Sunny's barbecue. There's a Sunny's barbecue in where? Lake Worth Road.

Yeah, just Easter Jock, yeah. Earl and I used to drive down there. That's just about the best. And the food is awesome still. Yeah. Isn't it? It's amazing. The food's still.

West Palm Beach. They have a free charger. At the airport, at the airport, yeah oh there's a free charge there most libraries uh the west palm beach parking garages where the library is there's there's chargers everywhere but they charge you correct no they charge you to charge no i don't think so they're free i mean it's a good business to have a free charger you know if you if you got a free charge of sundays you go in there and buy some ribs if you get a free charger here you go and use air service nobody charges you charge to charge the car and the spots are usually

We'll get rid of the gasoline and have Saudi Arabia go bankrupt. Well, the gasoline stations are in serious trouble, just like car dealers. I mean, I hate to think about it, but there's a whole lot of changes going on, and industry, as we know, with gas stations and car dealerships, are slowly going to disappear. That's a shame. It is. Times are changing.

Absolutely. Thanks for your expertise. I appreciate it. Have a good day. Great call, Howard, as always. Thank you. Speaking of times change. How do you feel about the, you know, it's free now to charge your car, but when will that change?

I don't think it will change. When will they take advantage? I don't think so. I think because most people are going to be charging at home. I mean, and the range of the batteries is going to get greater. Greater right now is 300 miles. When the battery gets to 1,000 miles, who's going to worry about charging your battery? You'll come home and bam, you get a quick charge.

You get some free electricity and a hot dog. There you go. And what about when we get solar cells to the point that you have a solar cell the size of your cell phone on top of the roof that charges your car while you're driving? Or there's a country in Europe you talk about a lot that has a rail running down the middle of the road. You charge the car the whole time you're driving. Right. Inductive charging. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, if you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on cars right here with myself, Nancy, Rick, Stu, and of course the star of the show.

The recovering car dealer, and we have a whole lot to get to. Let me throw this out there for our listeners and tune in and comment at 877-960-99-60. How do you feel about there's so much news this past week in the auto industry, and if you don't know, the Volkswagen has been retired, and that is just about as recognizable as a Coca-Cola bottle. It's retired. Give us a call. Give us your comments.

And the number is 877-960-9-60-99-60, and the text number is 77-49-7-49-7-6-5-30. And also in the news is Ford and Volkswagen. They're collaborating on the autonomous and electrified vehicles. Call us and tell us what you think about. that. And ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. 877-960-99-60. You are an important part of the show. Now back to Stu. He's got some texts for us. That's right. Before I get to our text from Kentucky, we had a question from Andreas on Facebook, who had a great question, wants to know what these blue boxes are on the table. And therefore, when Earl's about to start

using profanity we just we hit the button we cut his mic actually seriously it's if we have to cough or whisper it cuts thanks for leaving me out of that all right um from kentucky it says good morning hope you all can pencil me in this morning um i have a gm 2.2 ecotech i'm looking at you rec because this is a technical question uh shop a shop changed the power steering rack but may not have burped the system all the way i drove the car home and it squealed burped burped like a baby um and it squealed Got home, and the PS fluid reservoir was near empty. I topped it off and the squealing went away. But now the reservoir is really hot.

The pump is connected to the camshaft. I'll keep going. Keep this under an hour, Rick. Because nobody understood the question and nobody's going to understand the answer. Where was I? I was at the camshaft. Okay. The pump is connected to the camshaft.

Is the fluid supposed to be that hot in the reservoir? I have a car with a belt-driven, PS pump, power steering, PS pump, and the fluid in the bottle is warm, but not hot. Thank you. Take it away. Temperature-wise, you shouldn't have any worries.

It will get hotter when you have a system connected directly on the engine. As for burping the system, that's basically exactly what it sounds like. It's getting the air out of the system, and no, apparently the shop did not do it correctly. That's why the system lowers down.

And it, technically, burps itself as you drive. So just topping the fluid up, you're fine. So everything should be fine with your car. Just keep an eye on that fluid level. Hey, excuse me, guys, I have to share this with you. The only burping that I've ever done in my lifetime was for my children. And as I'm really showing my age, as I put the formula together for those little babies

and poured it into the box, it was quite a event. I had to burp the nipples to get the air out. I burped a lot of babies, too, and I burped myself after chugging a beer. But I was burping baby bottles. There are a couple of real niche labbers there. Let's move along. Hey, we have to entertain the folks. Okay, this comes to us through our anonymous feedback.

That's Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and it goes. It says, Dear Earl, my question is about paying for a car in full in cash, but instead using a personal check. I purchased a modest toy for my grandson at a local dealer and told the salesman, I would be paying with a personal check unless they wanted to wait to the next day for me to get a cashier's check. Of course, they did not want to wait until the following day. They said they still had to run my credit and made me sign a form giving them permission to do so. They delivered the car and took my personal check that day, making my grandson very happy. In retrospect, I think I should have stood my ground and not let them run my credit.

What are your thoughts? Running your credit at one time is not going to hurt your credit. and the car dealership did what they had to do because they wanted to be sure that you check cleared. And if anyone came up to you and gave you a personal check in payment for something that you owned, you would probably want to be sure that the check would clear. They could have called the bank, and that might have been a better idea. If it was during banking hours, they could have called, say, I have a check for Mr. Jones, and this is a check number, and I just want to be sure if I deposited it today, it will clear.

Yeah, and some dealerships use a service. It's called a, I forgot what they call it, they secure the check. Basically, if they pay a company to approve or not approve the check, if it bounces, they collect for you. They don't like to do that because they pay a fee every time they do that. Exactly. So you could have asked them if they could have secured the check. That telephone number again is 877-960-99-60. Remember, we have quite a bit to get to, and we are going to be sharing the mystery shopping report with you.

the second half of the show, and that's from a CarMax in Pompano Beach. And another regular caller is on the line right now, and that's John from Port St. Lucie. Hey, John. Hi, John. Good morning, good morning, but I'm not the regular caller. This is my first time. Oh. Oh, Fort St. Lucy. There's another John up there real close to you.

That's right. A question I have. My wife had a new old change about a year ago. She drove less than 3,000 miles on the car. How important is it to change the growth because it's over six months? It's important, and it's probably one of the biggest misunderstandings that owners of vehicles have. It's hard to get through even my head, although I know the facts. It is important.

Oil deteriorates and needs to be changed just by sitting there. And you don't have to drive a car one mile. If you have fresh oil today and six months from now, you should change that oil, because oil will deteriorate from here. heat, humidity and other conditions, and Rick can add to that. You actually, you tagged it all. The humidity is the biggest factor there. Yeah.

Does that answer your question, John? I guess it does. I didn't think oil wore out, to be honest with you. Yeah, most people don't, and the danger is that you will void a warranty on a car or something like that. The manufacturers will, technically, they can hold you to the fact that you did not abide by the manufacturers' recommended maintenance. And if you read your owner's manual, every owner's manual will always give you a time and a mileage.

And you have to change your oil based on both. In South Florida, a lot of retirees, and we have low mileage drivers. And because we sell so many cars, I am a car dealer, an active car dealer, in full transparency. And we have a lot of people that will put maybe two or three thousand miles a year on their car. And they come in and say, do I really have to have my oil change? because I only put a thousand miles on my car since the last time I came in. And we tell them, yes, if you want to maintain your car according to the owner's manual, which is required to have warranty when you have a problem, you have to do that.

All right. Thank you. You're very welcome. Another factor there is if your car is out of warranty, and yet you have records showing that you have maintained it every six months, and you do have a problem outside of warranty, you can use that to your advantage to get help for goodwill, and the dealerships and the manufacturers will take that into account and help you. That's a very good point, and that's probably more important than maintaining it within the warranty.

The fact is, during the warranty, I don't know of a time when somebody questioned the oil changes for a routine warranty repair. But where you have the problem is your auto warranty, as Rick just said, they will look at your records, and if you're a loyal customer and you kept your car according to the warranty and owner's manual, they will stretch and goodwill repair out of warranty. Okay. And the other, I think we have a real call coming in. We have Tina on the line. Good morning, Tina.

Good morning. How are you doing this morning? Great, Tina. I just came across four little words that can change everything. There's a Kia dealership on my end of the state. You know who he is. Very famous, kind of bombastic. And he's got some deals going.

on this month, but the end of the ad on the radio says, see dealer for details. And I'm just wondering what those details are and if they can totally change the appearance of an apparent good deal on its face. Seeing the dealer for details is a way to negate everything they said in the ad. It's one car in stock. It requires this, requires this much money down. It's a, it's kind of like a fine print disclosure that they don't have to actually articulate. Yeah, that's kind of like the word virtually. You throw virtually in there and it negates everything they just said. Up to?

Up to is another one, yeah. Yeah, I kind of thought so, but a lot of people don't realize that because when they hear the ad, they think, oh, here's this deal, I should go in and take advantage of it. And then they find out that there's a whole lot of hoops they have to jump over. And one of the ones that was thinking, overall was the leasing because most of these deals are lease deals. And if I'm not mistaken, this used to be true years ago, but your credit had to be really good, like almost perfect to get a lease. Hey, excuse me, guys. Tina, hold on for a second. Hold on for a second, Tina. I want to

let Doug know that our lines are all lit up, and if he will just hang on and be patient, we'll be right with you. Okay, Tina, you can continue. I was going to say, a lot of these deals are lease deals. And it used to be that you had to have pretty much almost perfect credit to get a lease. Is that true now, or does the leasing agency or bank hold the customer to a higher standard? It's not a perfect credit, Tina. You have to be like over 700 beacon, 720 beacon. Well, they have tiers, so you get a better rate.

So if you're over 720, you'll get the lowest money factor, the best rate. But you can probably lease down into the mid-sixes, but you're going to be paying more. Yeah, they relax the standards on leasing because there's so many people leasing cars now. And the reason there's so many people leasing cars is the dealers make more money when they lease a car. And the auto manufacturers also like to lease because they command a higher return loyalty rate when you lease a car. Okay, that pretty much answers my question. And one more thing before I go, because I have to go to work. there's a big hurricane getting ready to hit Louisiana

and in about a month or two we're going to be dealing with flood cars so all y'all are that are looking to buy a used car in the very near future watch out for flood cars and do your due diligence and research on carfax

that's great yeah as a matter of fact if you can next show we should devote some time to that yeah that's an important topic That's a great head job. We've dealt with that before. A lot of people have been taking advantage with those flood cars. Knowledge is power. Thank you for the call, Tina.

No problem. Thank you, guys. Have a great weekend. You're quite welcome. We're going to go to Doug, and he, too, is a regular caller. Good morning, Doug. Doug, we got you on the line here. I think Ollie dropped the phone.

Good morning. Good morning. Ali says meow. So I wanted to ask the question about... Ah, Rudy gave us a kitty cat. Thank you, Rudy. About the gas that I'm using. And should I be using a gas that doesn't have the alcohol in it?

You got to tell what kind of a car you have first. Yeah, we both have haunted. So trying to find a gas that doesn't... doesn't have the alcohol in it. You're going to have 10% or less in almost all gasoline. If you get the marine version and the ethanol free, you're going to pay a lot more money for it. I wouldn't worry about a 10% or less ethanol.

That's standard. It's not going to hurt your car. As long as you've got a relatively modern car, you're not going to have any problem with it. Okay. And on your advice, I stopped using premium. And the car is running fine. Great.

You save yourself a ton of money. Yeah, thank you for that. You're very welcome. You guys have a great weekend. Same to you. See you and Ollie at Sunrise on Sunday morning. Thanks, Doc. Have a great weekend.

We're going to go to John in Palm City. Good morning, John. Hey, John. Good morning to everyone. Morning. I just want to mention a great automobile icon. It's not mentioned too much about his death. July the 2nd, Lee Iacocca.

He died at age 94, and he was the son of American and Italian immigrants. But Lee is noted very much so. When he was with Ford, he pushed the successful Mustang. I was at the World's Fair in 41764 when he announced personally about the introduction of the new Mustang in 2000. 200 cars was sold. He was a lot of years with Ford. He was president to Ford in the 70s. Then in 78, he went to Chrysler. He was the president to Chrysler. He turned Christa around completely. He fired the first day he was on the job. He fired 33 of 355 vice presidents there. He bought in a new ad agency because their losses at Chrysler at that time was $155 million per quarter. And his big success story at Chrysler, The biggest one is in 83, the introduction of the minivan, Plymouth Voyager, and a Dodge Caravan. And in 82, he was one of those that said nuts to all you people that are discontinuing convertibles.

He kept a LeBaron Chrysler convertible, which is still made today. And others all stopped their convertibles. So he had quite a history with Ford and with Chrysler, and I pay tribute to. a man like this that did so much for the automobile industry. One negative on him, believe it or not, in 1966, when the government mandated the seatbelts, he was anti-seatbelt. He just didn't think they did any good

until the engineers proved to him that the success of how they save lives and he turned in about face and then he was on a campaign for seatbelts tremendously. out about face from what he originally thought about him. Back in those days, nobody likes he told. Again, it's a tribute to an American icon in the automobile industry, Lee Ayacocca. Yeah, I agree.

Thank you very much, John, a real testimony to Leoacogne, probably the greatest auto executive that ever lived. Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. While you were speaking about him, I held the automotive news up on the camera, and he's front page. Every automobile dealer has always thought he was the greatest of the great,

and he will be missed. Did a lot for Chrysler. John, thanks for the call. You have a good day. You too. Take care. 877-960-9960, and text number is 77272-49-3530. Great.

Okay, and remember, ladies, I've got $50 for you, the first two. two new lady callers. And Mitch, if you're listening, rather than read your text on the air, I'd like for you to give us a call. And you did say you were going to be listening this morning about that lease buyout and the RAV4 purchase. So give us a call 877-960-90-60,

and we'll answer or at least try to answer all your questions. That's right. We have a question that came in on your anonymous feedback.com. The question is for me. They heard me last week when I mentioned that I drove an SUV that gets almost 40 miles per gallon. And to make this fair, not a commercial for the brand that we happen to sell on the side, our day job.

There are several small SUVs that come in hybrids now that get great gas mileage. I happen to drive a 2019 Rav4, gets great gas mileage. However, the Kia Nero. Now, I've never heard of that one, but it's a small SUV made by Kia, actually gets a better gas mileage than the 2019 RAP 4. It gets 43 miles per gallon.

Another one that's close but not as great as the Lexus NX300H gets 31 miles per gallon, and like I mentioned, the Rav 4 gets 41. I didn't see many that came up close to these guys, so those would be the three. I thought Honda CRV came in a hybrid, apparently. It does not, so no surprise. Yeah, I know we sound like a broken record on this show about consumer reports, but if you go on consumer reports, you look up SUVs, They give you all the information, including the gas mileage.

And when you buy a SUV, you don't want to rely solely on gas biologists or a whole lot of other things that you've got to worry about, like safety and reliability. Absolutely. Nothing like the Consumer Report, ladies and gentlemen. Pick one up. We're going to go to Warren. He's calling from New Jersey. Welcome to the show.

How you doing, Warren? Thank you. Thank you very much. My question is, I looked up on the government website about recalls. I have a 2010 Ford Taurus SCL, and it said there were three recalls on it. Now, I called the dealer who I did some work with, but what the car took? Put me on hold and said there were no recalls on that car. What do I do if they say there's none, but the government website says there was?

Well, you don't buy the car if the dealer doesn't know. No, I have the car. It's my car. It's my car. You can verify. You check safercar.org, and if it's on NHTSA, Gov, I'm sorry, safercar.gov, www.org, www.safercar.gov.

And that's the NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Association website. If they say there's a recall, there's a recall. Yeah, we find discrepancies and inconsistent information. Sometimes if you look at a vehicle history report like Carfax, sometimes it doesn't reflect it. So we always check three. We always check the NHTSA site, safercar.gov. We check the manufacturer's site, and we check. check the vehicle history report.

That should give you a good idea. Now, I do believe, and now, Rick has something, but I think would the manufacturer's site be the most authoritative source? It depends on the dealer. Yeah. I mean, the manufacturer site, yeah. I think what he's saying is he went on the safer car.gov. It says it's there.

And it says there are recalls, but the dealer that he called says there or not. What I would do is I would go to not that dealer, because obviously, they're already made their mind up. I would go to another dealership. I would take your cell phone, show them those recalls on that website on your phone, and say,

please put my VIN in your computer and show me now whether or not I have these recalls. Warren, there's a possibility that the recall was fixed and it might didn't go off the NHDSA website. So it's possible

if a car comes in and has recall done today. It's on the paperwork that the dealer did it, but the paperwork has to get put on the computer before the NHTSA knows it's been done. So theoretically, the dealer that did the recall will know about it maybe a few days before or longer, maybe a couple of weeks before it goes up. But Rick is absolutely right. Check with another dealer verified it, but I would not take anybody's word for it as long as it showed on that NHTSA website. It should come down. shortly if the recall has been performed okay I have I have one more question for you yeah I like I said I have a 2000 Ted Ford SEO I'm 140,000 miles I'm probably

looking to get a new car maybe in about six months the black molding on the car came off I hit it one time and it just came off you can't see it unless you go underneath and look at it they want like a thousand dollars to fix it yeah I went to a couple of place body shots is it worth doing if I'm going to get rid of the car I mean, but the car's worth a couple of grand at most. Is it worth that, to fix the molding for $1,000 or just sell it? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

You'd be spending a large percentage of the value of the car for something that's not that important. When you buy a nine-year-old used car, and some dealer will be selling that, he might do something different to recondition the car, but he's not going to spend anywhere near $1,000. And the dealer would probably give you no more. for the gar. If you had it fixed, then if you didn't have it fixed. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time on it. Thanks for giving us a call. If you didn't jot that number done, it's 877-960-99-60,

and you certainly can text us and would love you to do so. When the mystery shopping report comes up, you can rate it. That text number is 772-497-6530, and we're going to go to Mitch, who's calling from Hollywood. Good morning, Mitch. Hey, how's it going? Hey, good morning. I've got a question. I've got a question with a couple of moving parts. I have a friend of mine in New York who is leasing a 2017 Prius v. The car is registered in New York. I would like to purchase the car from her and she wants to get a 2020 Rav4 hybrid. Now, she's a snowbird. She comes down here in October and goes back up north in April. So my question is, if she buys the car from Toyota Financial,

she has to pay for the car and pay for the tax. Then if I buy the car from her, I have to pay for the car and pay for tax in Florida. Is there any way of only paying tax once? Well, that's a great question. I haven't been asked that question. I would probably have to consult with my title clerk on that. It doesn't make sense that you should be double-dipped on that tax.

There must be some way to get around that, but I don't know. Maybe gifting the car to you and you purchasing it from the dealer, but I don't know. Well, what I was thinking was if I take over her lease in October from Toyota Financial, so she's out of the car, she doesn't make any more payment. She comes to Florida, does her little thing. She's got a Toyota down here that she drives around in. I would take over her lease. I would make the payments for the six months or whatever,

and then I would purchase it from Toyota Financial and pay tax once. That would be difficult, if not impossible, to do. The lessorers, Toyota Financial or any other lessor, doesn't like people. They don't encourage people to transfer, and it can be a cumbersome process. Yeah, you can't get on the contract. could take over payments, but you will not be the official lessee. I think the answer lies, and because you have a friend that you trust and she trust you, I think there's probably a way for her to exercise their purchase option.

I'm assuming when she exercised a purchase option, it's at a price that's attractive to you because you will be paying her that price. And if that's a good price, as Stu said, there might be a way to gift the... or if you paid her the full amount to her directly and she pays off the car with that money. That's what I plan on doing. Whatever her buyout was, I was going to give her that money. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, we could turn this into a high technical discussion about gift taxes and things like that,

but I think the practical solution would be to do that. Hey, Mitch, Nancy, forward me your email, so I have all the information in the details. So on Monday, I'll get with our title clerks and sort this out for you. Okay. The other thing is she wants to buy a 2020 RavS4 hybrid. And I told her you were a reputable dealer. She's down here in April in Florida. So I was thinking, is there any way we could wrap this all together with the transfer of the Prius buying a RAB for a hybrid? I get her car. She buys it from you. Would that work?

I'm sure we can figure something out. We'll work it out. You want to be sure that you like our price, and you probably should shop and compare with other toilet dealers. But if we've got the best price, we'd love to sell you a car. But be sure to get at least two bids from... Yeah, and we'll help you out figuring out either way. Yeah.

We'll work with you. Okay. Thank you, Mitch. Thanks for tuning again, Mitch. 877-960 or you can text us 772-49-3-0-9-30 okay I got a question that's coming to us on our live Facebook feed from Steve he says my Accura RDX 3.5 V6 says premium recommended so so far that's all I put in it how much will it regard I guess degrade the timing if I put in regular

Well, without going into the technical terms of it, basically, it's going to cost you a small amount of performance and possibly a small amount of fuel economy. You probably won't even notice the difference in performance, and you might notice a little dip in your fuel economy. You might lose about 10 to 15 miles per tank full of fuel. Okay. Save a lot of money. Very popular question. Yeah, it is. I really think that what is a differential?

Now, I'm asking the questions. What's the differential between regular and eye test on the average? 87 to what, 91? 87 to 91 octane. And basically what octane is. No, I'm not talking about octane. What's the difference in price? Oh, in price.

Oh. Well, remember years ago it used to be from regular to midgrade to premium was 10 cents each. It jumped 10 cents for each. What is it today? Now it'll jump about 15 to 18 cents that I've seen for. midgrade and another 20 to 25 cents for premium on a lot of things like 50 cents yes can you imagine 50 cents a gallon pretty accurate that's huge and then you drive a car for three years that's a lot of money we ought to do the arithmetic on that once you run that off rick that's okay this next text

might be for rick and robert asks because synthetic oil is better on your engine and has fewer impurities can you change your oil less time than you can for regular? Absolutely, you change it half as often. Half as often, Roberta. 10,000 miles for synthetic and 5,000 miles from regular. Six months for regular, one year for synthetic. Exactly. There you go, Roberta.

Hope he answered your question. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497. 6530. And ladies, I'm still waiting to hear from you. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Now back to Stu. Okay, we have another text that came in. It says Earl and Stu both mentioned a few weeks ago that they have dash cams in their cars. Can you tell me more about these and what brand do you guys have? Owl. Just like in the hoo-hoo, the owl.

Do that again. Hoo-hoo. And they're great. I love it. everybody's got to have an owl it is really a reliable camera it does the if you have a someone hits your car or jiggles it

you can see the valet person valet goes right to your phone yeah you can look at it yeah and we're also looking into who dropped a rock a can whatever it is on your hood so it takes a little bit of time to rerun the tape but it's

really worth your while to have a dash Cam. Love them. Yeah, I got the owl, too, and I'm just hoping. I want some big dramatic scene to unfold in front of my car, like a meteor strike. We're looking for a big, you know, that's whomever, you know, drop the rock on your dad's hood. Slight tangent. If you really want to amuse yourself, look at Russian dash cams on YouTube. Oh, yeah. Very entertaining. They're nuts. Just to go back onto that fuel thing, I run about one tank of fuel per week in my truck. 18 gallons per fill-up. So if I was saving 50 cents a gallon,

I'd save about 468 bucks a year in fuel. That's significant, yeah. That's a hefty chunk right there. It is, yeah. Okay, we're all cut up. Okay, fantastic. I've got a couple over here, actually. My favorite one, and this is on the Ford issue with the,

they're selling their cars knowing they had a problem. and this comes from Dino on YouTube and he gave us a two-word comment the Ford Pinto. Yeah. Remember that infamous memo that suddenly popped up from Ford saying that it was cheaper

to pay off the lawsuits than to fix those cars. That, yeah. Nancy and I were talking about this whole moral issue with Ford and jokes wagon and you name it, General Motors. And Nancy says that it's a terrible thing for them to do.

They should do the right thing. And I said, you know, it is a terrible thing, but they can't do the right thing. And the reason the manufacturers do this is because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders. A publicly held company has got an obligation, a legal obligation to their investors. And they have to make a profit. and they have to make a profit legally. And the fact that it is legal to drive a car with a dangerous recall,

the onus goes on the legislators and the regulators. I believe that CarMax came into play this morning, you know, whenever I addressed that issue, and that's when you elaborate on it. CarMax, Ford, General Motors. All the manufacturers out there that we jump on, all the companies that we jump on for doing immoral things, the immorality is based on the fact that it's still legal.

If you are the CEO of AutoNation, and Michael Jackson at one time, was he just gave it up about six months ago, Michael Jackson's CEO of AutoNation, when the recalls on the Takata Airbag and the other dangerous recalls were out there, he took the position with Auto Nation not to retail a car with a defective recall.

It lasted for about a year. I'm surmising, and I probably believe, I think this is the truth, The stockholders rose up and said, our sales are down. We're not selling as many cars. And the reason is you won't sell these cars with the Dakota Airbag recalls. And you're costing me money. You're violating your fiduciary responsibility.

And he caved in. He apologized and said, we are now going to start selling cars with dangerous recalls. Don't get mad at Ford. Don't get mad at CarMax. Get mad at our regulators and our legislators that are sitting on their hands. And the reason they're sitting on their hands is because the lobbyists from the auto manufacturers and the auto dealers are preventing them or threatening them with, I won't donate to your campaign, you won't get reelected. Yeah, that's what we talked about, Rick, the whole money factor, some very unfortunate situation. And ladies and gentlemen, you can tune in and you can listen to the mystery shopping report from CarMax and Pompano Beach, just about 930, I would say.

Again, you can vote on the mystery shopping report. Please do at 772-497-6530. And don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, at 877-960, and back to Roberta real quick, she asked about the synthetic oil versus regular oil. She forgot to mention that she has a much older car, and she wanted to know if the synthetic oil could be. used on a much older car. Yes, I can't. There you go, Roberta. Rick's got some text here, or YouTube's, I guess, huh? Yep. Well, this one is right up

your alley. Scott is asking, when leasing a car, how can I check what the residual value would be besides getting it from the dealer? Who determines the residual value for whatever car I'm looking at? And also, with the

money factor, any way to find out if the dealer is adding to profit on the money factor? in the i guess in the residual yes you you can get into that and you can analyze the residual you can analyze the money factor they also mark up the capitalized cost there are a lot of different ways uh that a car dealer can increase his lease profit i think it's too complex uh if you get into that kind of granular uh detail to try to shop and compare best way is to take the exact same car you want and the exact same down payment and get lease payment

for the exact same term from three different dealers. That takes into consideration everything. The cap cost, the residual value, and also the lease factor. If you try to play the dealer's game with him, he's going to win because he's an expert. You're also going to spend way too much time and brain damage going through that shopping compare. It's the best way. I recommend that people buy rather than lease because of that very fact.

Leasing is complex. The manufacturers and the dealers are aware of that, and they know they can flimplam you. They can blow the smoke, smoke and mirrors, and they can trick you on a lease a lot easier than the purchase. But leasing can be a good option for the sophisticated, educated consumer. Yeah, and ladies and gentlemen, you know, of course, you can go to Erlon Cars, and you can read so many of his columns and blogs that appear in the hometown news and in the Florida Weekly. I can't pick out just one of importance. They will fill the consumer with so much knowledge,

and as I always say, knowledge is power. And Bob Blazer, I want to thank you for emailing Earl and complimenting him on his last column. Thank you for listening to the show, and thank you for taking the time to email us. Rick? Okay. Did you mention it?

How do you find the residual value? other than the dealer? Is there another way to find out what that residual value is? Well, the only way you have to find a residual value is to look at the residual book which each dealer's had. You could ask other dealers to look at the residual

for that vehicle. AIG, is that it? ALG. ALG is the company. It's the Bible. You can't buy a residual book unless you're a dealer. You can probably get one.

And if you go on ALG's website, they'll give you some guides. But my answer was, don't worry about the residual value because you're playing the dealer's game. You've got the lease factor, you have the residual value, and you also have the... Another reason to ignore all that detail of noise is that most manufacturers have like an enhanced residual. So even if you were to see the LG, it might be higher. They could show you the LG and it would be a worse deal for you.

You're playing the dealer's game and you're not going to win. Okay. And my next one that we have here is from Mario. He says he's been looking for a good dash cam. And you mentioned you have the owl. He says, what model would that be? And I looked at it. It looks like there's only one model for owl.

Is that true? Sto's looking up on his app right there. I haven't really looked at owls much myself on the dash cams, that is. But from what I'm seeing, there is really only one model available. Yeah, it's the owl. Okay. Download the app and you can learn a lot about it by downloading the app, which is what Stu just goes to your app store and take a look at it. It won't cost you anything to download the app. Nope. And it's a really cool. Very cool. If everybody wants to see what

the front of the studio looks like, that's looking out on my car right now. Okay, we've got another YouTuber over there. Actually, that covers it. That's it. Yep. Well, Stu's got a texture. Yeah, I got a tough one here. It says, I've listened with horror for the last few shows about Takata Airbags. I listened to your advice and check my serial number on safercar.gov. My Ford also has a recall that there isn't a remedy for it yet. It's a 2012, and there is apparently nothing I can do.

I bought this used from a private seller, but I read on the recall website that Ford would notify the owners. How will they know who I am, and what do I do in the meantime? Well, I don't know. It is a tough one. It's a seven-year-old car. I mean, not to scare you, but this is probably the worst time in South Florida. I'm assuming you're from South Florida. It might not be. The accelerant degrades in over six or seven years, it's probably at the most dangerous point it can get. If you don't have another alternative for transportation or selling the cars, kicking the car down the road, I would try going to a Ford dealer and seeing if they could get you out, put you in a loaner. I'll tell you another thing you might do is call. the media. Call the newspaper. Call the TV station. Call the radio station. Go online. I'd raise holy hell about that. It's one of the most disgraceful things that we have going on in our country right now are people like you driving a car that could kill you. And every day, as Stu said, on a tecotta airbag, the longer you own the car, an older car is like a time bomb.

Hand grenade that could go off in your face at any time. I would call the consumer affairs. reporters, the local media. And this is a great story. The media, the fourth of state, you're our only hope out there. The folks out there that have got the courage to go up against our legislators, our regulators, this is what true journalism is all about. That's the reason we have the Congress, the Senate, the executive branch, and we also have the fourth of state, which is you. You've got to hold our lawmakers honest. And you media folks out there listening, Wall Street Journal USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Channel 5, Channel 12, Channel 25. You're sitting under your hands, folks.

We've got U.S. citizens driving around this country now in dangerous cars, and it's absolutely insane that it's not illegal to do it. And here we have this, our texter, he doesn't know what to do. He's got an old Ford that is a potential time bomb. He can't get it fixed. I don't even know if you can afford to buy another car, right? Yeah. And, you know, everyone that you just mentioned, you have spoken to all of them.

Over and over again, yeah. And ladies and gentlemen, we need your help. We can't do this on our own. We definitely need your help. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And we are going to go to Long Island, New York. And we're going to talk to Jack this morning. Good morning, Jack.

Good morning. Good morning, guys. Thanks for joining us. I'm a Florida resident, and I'm up here in Long Island visiting my family. And while I'm up here, I want to buy a new car, by that of a showroom. And as a Florida resident, I am assuming I would pay Florida sales tax on that car. But I'm also trying to find out if the dealer would be able to get a Florida license plate for me so I can drive the car back down to Florida.

True. If the, and I'm not clear on the details between New York and Florida, but I believe that they are reciprocal, which means they can handle the registration on the car on your behalf. So they would collect sales tax from you there, and they would assist you in getting a Florida plate and registration. You do have to ask the question, though. So some states are not reciprocal, so you would say buy the car in New York and maybe you want to register it in Kansas. you would buy the car there but pay the sales tax when you registered it in the state that you lived. But just ask the question, and they should be able to tell you. You should be able to get a 30-day tag that you get a paper tag that will allow you to safely without being pulled over,

get from New York to Florida. And when you get to Florida, then you can get your tag from the local department motor vehicles. That way you only pay sales tax one time. I see. Okay. Hey, thank you very much. You're very welcome, Jack. Thanks for the call.

Okay, 877-960-9-90-960, or you can text us at 772-49-7-6-5-30. And this question is for you, Rick, and this is from Jill. Jill wants to know if the mechanics are they certified online? She's noticed that there's different, you know, online mechanics that answer your questions now about, you know, what's going on with your? vehicle? Are they certified? Most of those sites, I've looked at a couple of them because I've considered signing up on some of them. And they don't really seem to ask for any real proof of certification. There are some of them that will ask for a mechanic to prove his ASC certification

by giving his ASE numbers. But for the most part, I would take any advice they give you with the grain of salt and confirm it with multiple sources or with a real qualified mechanic. There you go, Jill. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to text us, please do 772-4976530. And I can't emphasize enough, ladies, $50 for the first two. New lady callers, 877-960-99-60. And, Rick, I think the ASE Society for Auto Excellence, what is this? Automotive service excellence.

That's the standard in the industry. And any time you're looking for a certified mechanic, be sure he has his ASE badges in the particular expertise you're requiring transmission, whatever it may be. Exactly. Okay, so that's ASE. Right. Okay. We have a text over on Sue's Pad.

Yes, we do. It comes to us from Andreas on Facebook, and he just did a calculation similar to Rick on the savings that you'd get if you didn't do premium. I'm not going to go through all the math here, but he came up with a difference of $560 in a year. That's really, I'm surprised. When you put the numbers to it, it's surprising.

So if you drive a car for three years, $1,500. I misread that. He did it over three years. Oh, fine? So I'll go through some of the details here. He says 30 miles per gallon fuel economy vehicle, AAA regular gas price, national average is $2.78. Premium gas national average is $3.34, and so over three years, it will save you $560, which is still not insignificant. No, it's certainly not.

And what's it cost you? You try the high test. You're using a high test. You put the regular in. You drive the car. How does it feel? It's not making any funny noises. the performance deficit isn't even noticeable to you.

It's a freebie. And most modern fuels by reputable companies, they've got all the detergents and the cleaners in there. The fuels are very clean. They're not going to cause damage to your car by running the 87 octane fuel. Exactly. Okay, well, stay tuned. Remember, we've got another mystery shopping report coming up shortly,

and we mystery shoped CarMax for the third week in a row. CarMax, the largest seller of used automobiles in the world, and it's a publicly owned company. So if regular listeners, you know what happened the last two weeks. We'll see if CarMax gets a better reputation this time. So I didn't realize how many CarMaxes there were in South Florida. So I was thinking, as we did this, this would be the third and final chapter. I don't want to give a heads up to all the CarMaxes down there,

But there's a lot down in the Miami area. So we might be doing this for weeks. Good news. Well, we talked about this a little while ago. Nancy and I were talking in the car coming into the studio this morning about CarMax and how they were bad guys because they were selling cars with defective airbags and not telling the customer in some cases telling the car could be repaired when there was no airbag fix available for that car.

And we're really beaten up CarMax and the salespeople and the managers and so on and so forth. Not that I don't think they deserve it, but I think that we're not focusing on the true responsibility. And it's kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. If you're a company, you're a publicly held company, and I said that earlier, you really legally have an obligation to your stockholders. And when a publicly held company does not do everything legally they can to make money for their stockholders, they can be held accountable. A CEO could be sued personally.

the corporation can be sued, so you have to sell cars with defective Takada airbags. You have to, by the law, because our legislators will not make the law any different. To me, that's a huge media story. Huge. Are there any journalists out there listening? Anybody, reporters for newspapers, radio stations, online, Rick? You know, I've seen a lot of news stories about the Takata issue. issue. I don't think I've ever seen a journalist bring it out from that angle. So it's a whole new angle from it. And maybe this could bring some attention to it in a proper way.

Anybody listening out there? CBS? I was on CBS morning news about, it was it about a year ago? In fact, Nancy and I were in New York. And we went to the CBS headquarters and we talked about this. So I know there's a lot of folks out there in the media that are aware of this. But I think this is this angle. we just kind of accidentally stumbled on, the manufacturers are pushing, are putting the pressure on the legislators not to pass a law, making it illegal, the auto dealers too. And so, therefore, it's legal to sell a car with a dangerous recall, and the companies, the car dealers that are selling them, are allowed to do this. How can you hold the sellers liable when they get sued if they don't sell the car? Yeah, yeah. Great story.

Yeah, the text that we got from the guy in the Ford, and Nancy addresses too, the pressure's got to be on, well, not the pressure, but they should speak out, and they should call the local consumer affairs reporter. No one's going to pay attention until the public says something. You could say it all you want, to go to Lou in the face. You can talk to us many people.

You know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, you've been everywhere, but we really need the public's hands. help. And ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening, we're begging you to get involved. We can't do this on our own. So please get involved. Let your voice be heard. It's important. Very, very important. Barbara sent me a text about window shopping for a vehicle this past week, and she noticed that there were more than one fee that she was going to have to pay, and she wants to know if she's able to negotiate on all of those fees.

Rather than play the fee game, it's kind of like playing the residual game. You're playing on the dealer's turf, their game. Look at the Althador Price, and you came up, Nancy Stewart came up with this form. I'll hold it up. You can download it online and go to, actually you can go to Althadorprice affidavit.com. Out of the door price affidavit.com. Download this form, and before you buy a car, make the dealer sign it, saying, that the price you're giving me is the full price plus government fees only.

And that's the answer. The extra fees that you see are either government fees or non-government. If they're non-government fees, they're smoke and mirrors, their profit to the dealer. It's something they hide from the advertised price or the price they quoted you, and they sneak it into the paperwork. So out-the-door price, affidavit.com, have them sign that. and if they won't sign it, don't buy the car from them. Exactly. You know, get that certified signature from the manager, the salesperson.

You know, I'd go for the manager. But did you know that most dealerships, most dealerships, have hidden fees? And they get it by consumers so easily if you don't do your homework. And if you don't insist on out the door. price. You're not going to pay anything else. Out the door price. It's like you're going out and shopping for a what, a broom. Are you going to pay fees? How many fees are you going to pay on that? The broom fee. Sweet fee. So back to what the fee? Let me tell you this. www. Out the door fee affidavit. Out the door price affidavit.com.

You've got some text over here. download that forum on earloncars.com. It's right there in all our downloads. Thank you, Stu. Yeah, we have some textures. We've got a flurry that just came in. Why did they call high-octane gas gasoline ethyl years ago?

When did they stop using that term? I'm too young to know that, apparently. Ethel alcohol? Ethel. And I think the alcohol additive is what they call ethyl. Okay. Why are more cars with manual transmissions sold in Europe and Asia than in the USA, and that is from Jake in Newark, New Jersey.

I think that dates back to the time when you got better gas mileage with a stick shift. It might also date to the frugality factor because automatic transmissions are more expensive. But I think, what was it, 25 or 30 years ago, a lot of people that were really frugal and wanted to get good gas mileage and maybe longer ago than that would use a stick shift. Today, the automatic transmissions actually give you better fuel economy. I mean, than the stick ship. But I think that's the reason gas prices are extremely high in Europe compared to the United States. And I think that's just kind of the momentum of stick shifts continued.

Not to mention, the vehicles are also a lot smaller over there, too. That's right. They have to drive down those medieval roads and cobblestones. This comes from Victor in West Palm Beach. It says, I understand that dealers use NADA to find out the wholesale and resale value of a car. Can I, as a consumer, get access to this and use this to better negotiate the selling price? Is there an alternative? And that's from Victor.

Victor, the NADA guide is a very unreliable guide. We don't recommend you use that at all. Dealers input the data for the NADA, and they ask a dealer selling Ford's, you know, what did you appraise your cars for? And they report, they typically report higher prices because it's at the dealer's best interest, have higher prices reflected because people that drive Fords trade them in on Fords and the higher the trade end, the easier it is for the Ford dealer to sell a new Ford. And also dealers don't really use that to determine the value of the trades at all.

It's mainly used by banks on determining the loan value. So it's not an appraisal. Today, if you want to determine the value of a car, there's some other sources. Even the dealers themselves are using sources like Carvana, We Buy Anycar.com, true car. the ability to determine the value of a car online is at the highest I've ever seen. And car dealers are actually buying cars, used cars, online. Mannheim Auto Auction has real-time data on every car that's sold. I guess millions of cars are sold monthly in the USA.

That's all online data real-time available to all the dealers. So stay away from the books. that's obsolete data. Okay. We have another text here. It says, I see a classic car for sale online that says there are holes in the frame that need to be addressed by a professional body shop. Can a car with rusted or damaged frame be repaired? I thought that was unrepairable.

Boy, I wish I had Alan Napier on here, our buddy shop guy. You will in about two weeks. A couple of weeks, yeah. I would think you'd have to be very careful about repairing a frame. I think frames or something. that probably are more likely better to be replaced. But if you've got the classic car, where are you going to find the frame on a classic car? Well, older classic cars, depending on the age,

had a very different design from our modern vehicles. And yes, you can actually repair a frame by cutting out a section and replacing it, welding it in, and they simply weld extra supports inside the frame of that car. Unibody cars, however, with what's called the frame. is part of the body of the car, those generally you cannot repair the frame. Okay, well, the answer is, yes, on a classic car can be repaired just by welding, cutting out the defective part, welding in a new iron bar. Very good.

Here is an important text from Rhonda about leasing, and, Earl, you can answer this. You are the leasing guru. Would the biggest benefit of leasing a car rather than buying would be that you get more car for your money by leasing? No, you don't. Actually, you get the same car for your money as when you buy. What you don't get is you don't get any equity bill in the car. You can't argue that you're paying only for the time you use the car. The only true advantage to leasing, assuming that you analyze the purchase and get a good

purchase price and a good lease price with leasing, actually there are a couple advantages. you should have a lower down payment, and that's not true anymore in leasing because all the car dealers hide a large down payment in their advertised prices. Your insurance is higher. That's the negative. Technically, you're only paying for the time that you use the car. Another advantage is if you wreck the car and you have it repaired, the devaluation, which occurs inherently in a wrecked car,

even when it's repaired perfectly, is the problem with the leasing. entity. So the leasing company has to bear the diminished value of the car when you, or let's see, if you own the car, then you suffer that diminished value. Very good. I hope we answered your question, Rhonda. And also, I have to point out that Earl has written a number of columns on leasing, and you can go to Earl on Cars his latest. Should I exercise my option to buy a leased car and as I said you can go to Earl on Cars. You can also go to Earl on Cars as Stu pointed

out earlier and you can download that affidavit, www. out-the-door price affidavit.com to ensure you do get the right out-the-door price for your vehicle. Rick, we've got to YouTube here. Actually, Wayne

has come in on YouTube. He says on the customer that was wanting to buy the car in New York. He says he doesn't know if things have changed, but in 2001, he purchased a new Chevy in New York. The dealer did not charge tax, and when Wayne got down to Florida, he paid the Florida sales tax, and he had a temporary paper New York tag for 30 days. So it pretty much confirms, and things are probably still the same, even 18 years later.

I'll bet they're still the same for that sort of situation. I believe so. It's not the same in all 50 states, but we get a lot of experience because we have a lot of New York, snowbirds that come down, and I've never heard anyone have a problem with that. Nope. The weird states are Alaska, North Dakota. Massachusetts is pretty bad. Yeah.

Okay. Another text, too? Yeah. We have one. Let's see. Is it possible to get parts in the U.S. for Toyota models exclusive to foreign markets, like the Australian Toyota Highlix pickup? And my first answer, my instinctive answer is if you are determined enough,

Yes. Now, Toyota has prohibitions on exporting parts to different markets, but I'm sure if you called every Toyota dealer in Australia, might find one that will send them. But I looked up, you can actually go on to Alibaba, which is China's version of Amazon, right? And you can order foreign auto parts, including the Toyota Hylux. So that's kind of cool. The thing you want to be careful of is the crash parts in Australia are to a different standard. than the U.S. In fact, the crash parts in any country

are different than any place else. That doesn't mean you can't put them on your car. I don't think there's any law against it. Well, he's talking about

put him on a Hylix. So somehow this textor has a Hylix in the United States. So let's say, Yeah. How did you get the Hylux? How did you get the Hylux here?

Okay. And then we have Andreas and Facebook has a comment. It says, I think the hard part in providing a solution to the public in regards to providing safe cars,

whether that be repairing the cars or replacing the cars, is that the safe solution doesn't exist, and the OEMs can't provide equivalent replacement parts in regards, sorry, can't provide the replacement parts. And in regards to legislation, making laws to outlaw the selling of unsafe cars is equally difficult. We voted people into the office who are willing to be lobbied against making such decisions, and that's the hard of the matter right there. Yeah, it's, uh, politicians have rule number one.

their handbook and that is get reelected or get elected. And so the politicians will tell you what you want to hear that they feel will get them reelected. And that excludes the truth too often. And then they apologize later or they change their minds. But our system is such that it's the best system on earth. But nevertheless, the credo of the politician is get elected. It requires active participation by the electorate. If they don't, don't do that, then they run the show. And the fourth of state, you know, the media is so important. A lot of

folks out there don't like the media. I'm not particularly crazy about the media. I'm not particularly, you know, I'm not crazy about anything, really. I mean, the politicians have their problems. The media has a problem. You like popcorn? I love popcorn. That's right. Okay, but I want

some of whatever Rudy's got in that jug he's drinking there. I hope that's water, Rudy. He's very energetic. But I do appeal I do appeal to the media. You are very important in this country, and our founding fathers may have even looked at you as part of the whole equation

because you're supposed to do things that you're supposed to be unafraid, and you're supposed to be able to go up against the president, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and you're supposed to say what is right and listen to the people. And you have a job to do because we've got a serious problem, problem with these cars on the road now with dangerous recalls.

The only industry giving any kind of consideration in the Constitution, First Amendment. Any attorneys out there? There's got to be some, Justin Lynn is a fan. And we know Justin, he's an attorney. I don't know if you're listening to Justin, but any attorneys out there, am I right that publicly held companies have a legal obligation to make a profit in any legal way they can? And by definition, selling cars with dangerous recalls is legal, and they have to sell cars with dangerous recalls. If I'm wrong about that, if there are any lawyers out there, I'd love to hear.

By the way, a lot of politicians are lawyers. In fact, most politicians are lawyers. So somebody out there call the show 877-960-960, or text us at 7-7-2-49-60, or text us at 7-2-4-960. 676530, 497, 772, 497-49530, and tell us what can we do to make it not obligatory for corporations to sell dangerous cars? What else can we do besides making it illegal to sell dangerous cars? That's the only way making it illegal. I have a text from Philip. Philip is 80 years old, and he's purchasing, where he'd like to purchase, a used car from a private seller.

He wants to know what the most important question is, and my answer, and then I'll get to you and Rick, is the car's history. I'd be very interested in the car's history, Philip, but I'll let the guys answer that also. Well, you want to get a Carfax report, just if you were buying it from a dealer. You don't want to take the car to an independent mechanic. That's probably the number one. Take that car, independent mechanic, pay him $125,000, say, check this out for me. Has it been in a flood? Is it check your recall?

Safercar.gov. You'll get that on the Carfax report. You can do a double check by going to safercar.gov. But the independent mechanic is the name of the game. $150 is the best investment you ever made. made before you buy a used car. You also want to be sure about the price, and you can get a pretty good idea for the price by going to other trader and looking at prices that car dealers are charging for that. You're making a model. I'd like to see the records, the service records from that

private owner also. That would be important to me. Well, just to get a one-on-one with that private owner and, you know, form a some sort of a, whatever, what do you want to call? A relationship. There you go. Thanks, Rick. A relationship to get them to tell you everything. You can also take it to the dealership and ask their mechanics there to take a look at the car to inspect it. But you know how much money car dealers charge.

Yeah, yeah. You may pay a little bit more, but you've got the guys that have tons of experience. You know, Ford mechanics looking at a Ford are going to know what to look for to point out to you. and they're probably going to be hungry enough that they're going to look it over really well to give you a good list of anything because they're hoping you'll come back to them to have them fix it.

Well, I think $150 is a fair investment and if a Ford dealer mechanic can do it for $150, that would be a good idea. I typically think you get a better rate from the dependent mechanic, someone you trust and for a used car that should suffice. Yeah, Philip, stay in touch with us.

Let us know how your car buying experience went and um you were saying that you were nervous you know and i don't blame you you know you're 80 years old uh and uh there's uh there's a reason to be nervous you know if you don't do your homework you can really be taking advantage of uh so uh keep in touch okay we got we're gonna go to rick he's got a youtube i i've got one i definitely want to get out here this is from chris in atlanta uh he says hello from atlanta i love the show have a question for rick he says My father-in-law recently purchased a 2019 Toyota RAV-4 2.5-liter non-hybrided 8-speed automatic transmission front-wheel drive. He's experiencing rough shifts at low speeds.

Chris, I've got the same vehicle. My wife just bought one for my wife a couple months ago. Yes, at low speeds, it's going to do this funny little thump of a shift. Toyota is aware of it. I personally have sent in multiple dealer product reports where I work. complaining about it. We're saying, hey, you've got to do something. So far, the engineers are working on it. They haven't got a solution yet, but they are working on it. It's going to be a software fix. It most likely will be a software fix where all you'll need to do is come into the dealership.

We'll download a reprogram into the computer and you'll be done and out of there in a short time. But they're working on it. They are aware of it. And we're making some noise. Just be patient. but I feel for you, sir, because I've, like I say, my wife's driving the same vehicle. Well, we have a whole lot of great information here, ladies and gentlemen, and someone out there, excuse me, I will say that Marcia out there was listening to me. Well, I was trying to egg the ladies on for that $50 reward for calling the show, and Marcia from Boynton has done just that. She is a first-time caller.

Good morning, Marcia. good morning how are you very well you can stay on the line when we're done and you can give Rudy your information and I'll get the $50 checkout to you that's great helps pay for the guess there you go what can we do for you this morning okay I purchased a car two years ago because I did not have good credit I was forced to go to one of these places that rents out cars and then sells them. They were able to help me. At the time, I bought my car at a very high premium because my credit was not that good.

I drive a lot, and now my car is at 2016 with 130,000 miles on it, and I am ready for a new car. obviously when I go to trade in my car I'm not going to get much in the you know trade in value or even in a resale value if I was able to do it myself my payments are high so I would you know classify myself as very upside down

in my car I'm looking for any type of advice on how am I going to go out and get a new car my credit is much much better I'm in the higher 600s now, which probably, you know, is better than what I was before. Well, you should get a much lower rate, obviously, because your credit is better. You want to shop now that you're in a position of having good credit, you can do a better job of shopping and comparing price of the vehicle you want to buy as well as the interest rate. Interest rates are a little higher now than they were before,

but they're still at historic lows. You can shop around with, are you a member of a credit union? Marcia is your company or anybody. Can you join a credit union? No, I'm a subcontractor. I'm 1099. Okay. You, wherever you bank, you want to go to your bank and maybe another bank or two.

You can join a credit union. You don't have to be part of a company that has a credit union. You can join a credit union for a nominal annual fee. and the credit unions in the bank will give you a much better interest rate than the car dealer. Now, the one exception to that, sometimes car dealers will have what they call a captive lender special promotional rate can be as low as 0%. It was a legitimate rate by the manufacturer of the car you're buying. It can give you a great deal. But again, it depends on your credit.

And as your credit is improved, you have to qualify for the subvented lending rate, they call. it. But you hold the cards now before you were forced to pay too much money for the car at too high an interest rate. You had to do it and you did it. You made your payments regularly and you paid the car down. And so you've earned the right now to buy a car at a lower price at a lower interest rate. Competition is your friend. Talk to at least three dealers. Go ahead. what about the money that I owe on the vehicle because obviously not like although I've made higher payments than my payments what about all that money that I owe still in this vehicle so that's my point about the trading yeah you have to quantify that and it might be to be honest

prohibitive that you can't buy another car now you say you're upside down you need to know the actual value of your vehicle you said probably not worth a lot of money I would, you might tell me what make, model it is? You said it was a 2010? No, 2016. 2016. 2016 with 130,000 miles. Okay, 2016 Dodge Journey.

Okay. Take the car to CarMax, and I don't know where you live, but if you're in this area, there should be a car max. It's not too far from you. They will give you a bit. I'm going to. I'm sorry. Boynton. I'm in Boynton.

Okay, there's one in Boynton, right off of I-95. CarMax will give you an offer to buy your car. That will help you establish the value. Then you take it to another Chrysler Dodge dealer, and you go to the used car department, and you ask him, what would he pay you cash for your car? Tell him you're shopping with CarMax and another Dodge Chrysler dealer, and you do that.

You get three bids from three different sources, two Dodge Chrysler dealers, and CarMax, and then you can see what the best price you can get, and then you look at the payoff on your car. You compare the two, that way to determine whether you have negative equity or not. If you have negative equity, then you've got a problem. Hey, Marsha, is it a four-cylinder, or is it a V-6? Oh, I don't know that answer.

Okay. Do you know if it's an SE model or a cross-road model? It's not a cross-out. It's not a cross-out. Okay. Okay. It's a Dodge Journey, SUV. Got it, yeah.

I think it's like an S-L-T or something. Oh, yeah, S-X-T. How much do you owe on it? I'm going to tell you probably 14. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you have a pretty big chunk of negative equity. You're going to have to overcome. So, yeah, it's probably not, it's not going to be worth $10,000.

Okay, so you're looking at $4,000. or more, maybe $6,000, or more in negative equity, and therefore it is prohibitive for you to trade now. If the car runs okay, Marcia, I would just hang on to it, take good care of it until you can finally build some equity. It's worthwhile looking into refinancing at a lower rate, and you might try to do that. Check with a couple of lenders, as I said earlier, and explain your situation and see if you can refinance it. what is your annual percentage rate they're charging you um gosh i think i'm i think i'm paying 17 17 17 yeah you should be able to refinance that depending on your beacon score your fico score and i do get um i do get offers um on credit karma to refinance so that is advisable

uh i would i'd go to my bank first the first place I go and they'll give you an answer because you're a customer and that might be your only route now is to refinance and make it a lot easier to reduce that negative equity okay and for now Marsha you're very welcome for now Marsha you know that may be you know your best alternative but whenever you are ready to to make a purchase you know time it accordingly. Don't be backed in or forced into anything. And as Earl said about those keeping your trade in separate, definitely keep it separate and take it to three different places to see if you can get the best price. Because 2016 at 130,000 miles, you're in pretty

good shape except for what you owe on that car. So I hope that we help you just stay on the line and we'll get your information. And 50 bucks. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Marcia. All right. Give us a call again. 877-960-99-60 or you can text us at 772-497-9-7-4-9-7-6-5-30.

And we do have the mystery shopping report coming up from CarMax and Pompano Beach, and we'd like you to vote on it at 772-497. 6530. Now back to Stu and a few Texas that are left. That's right. Question, is it worth it to buy the prepaid maintenance plan from a new car dealership? Do I end up paying less than I would if I paid for my services on each visit? Depends on the dealer.

So what you need to do is just sit down. It's an easy task to go over the manufacturer's recommended maintenance and ask the dealer service department to tell you what each service costs. And then you compare that to the cost of the prepaid maintenance. If you save money, it's a good deal. And make sure that the car that you're buying, if you're talking about a new car, see if they have free maintenance, like some, I think BMW, Honda, Toyota has it. Make sure that it's not free in the first place. Brick.

Another thing to be aware of, though, one of the reasons that they like to get those prepaid maintenance plans, you're a captive audience, and their mechanics can keep looking over your car every single time you come in. to upsell you on services that may be necessary or may not be. It helpful, they can keep a good eye on your tires, your brakes, filters, things like that that do wear out and need replacement. Well, actually, you can take your car to other dealers to have the maintenance done, so it's not, you don't have to go back to the same dealer. True. But it gives them a chance to get a look at your car each time, so keep that in mind. Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, if you call on the line's busy, it's because we are no longer taking

phone calls because we are going to get to the mystery shopping report. So we're sorry, but we can only take so many phone calls. And that mystery shopping report again is from Carmex and Pompano. Stay tuned for that. We got a text from California. Good morning. This is John from California. My question is, how can I go about this safety issue I'm concerned about my 2014 Dodge Ram?

The issue is, on some occasions, when I turn on my truck, it takes about three to five minutes for my stereo navigation to link up. But the biggest concern is that the issue also affects my backup camera. So it's a big safety issue for a large truck because I could be backing up and possibly hit someone or another car. What do you suggest I do? It's out of warranty. You said 2014? 2014. Yeah, that's a power train warranty maybe, but it's not going to cover those items. That's something that, as you say, it's a safety item and you just have to find a good, reliable dealer. that can get that fixed for you. I assume those are factory options that you have there,

and you should get the dealer's attention and the manufacturer's attention when you talk safety. Yeah, it's ridiculous. You have to wait that long before your systems come online. Yeah, there's definitely something odd going on there. And if they can't get it repaired for a reasonable price, I would seriously look at the idea of switching that out to an aftermarket stereo system that would hook in on that backup camera.

because the backup camera should need no cell service or anything like that, and it should be available instantaneously when you start the engine. That's right. We got a text from Jim, and Jim has a question for us, and he had asked us the same question last month. I think we answered it, but let's answer it anyway again. He says, while traveling down the highway with the cruise control on, and you come up to slower traffic, and your radar slows your car down,

do your brake lights come on to warn the drivers behind us? you, and I'll defer to Rick again. In this case, I'm going to say no unless you feel the unit applying the brakes. If it's simply letting off the gas to slow down, it would be the same as if you were driving the car, and odds are no. In my experience, if it just adjusts the speed, it's not going to do that if you have a pre-collision or an automatic stopping thing, if that gets activated, that's not the cruise control, but yes, in that case, the brake lights will come on.

Well, there are times, just to clarify, there are times, so if you're coming up really fast, somebody a lot slower, your car will even use the brakes to slow you down to match their speed if there's a great differential. Okay, I thought it was kicked in a different system. And then the last question, how do you know if your car can handle flex fuel, such as E20, 20% ethanol? And is there any advantage to doing so?

Owners menu? That would be a great answer, a great answer, very simple answer. And the fastest one, I would say just about every flex fuel car, the emblem is on the side of the car, say flex fuel. There you go. But also look at your gas cap. Real quick, I got one question from Andreas and Facebook. We can move on. He says, what's the best way to document the maintenance while under warranty and performing the maintenance yourself?

Save your receipts and have a little notebook in your car where you write down what you did, what date, what mileage, and just, just. save the receipts for it there you go mystery shopping time i'm ready yeah mystery shopper report remember ladies and gentlemen i've been talking about you voting on that mystery shopping report your vote is very important so you can text us at 772 4976530 and uh you can vote right there i i'd like to alert everyone listening watching anywhere if you know a lawyer or you know somebody in the media. If you know anybody in the industry, I'd like them to listen to this mystery shopping report.

This is the third mystery shopping report of CarMax, the largest seller of used cars in the world. And there's something terrible happening in the world now with the sale of used cars. We're selling tens of thousands of used cars with dangerous recalls, and there's no law against it. And there's a record number of dangerous recalls. Tricotta airbag keeps coming to mind, but there are a lot of other dangerous recalls.

And something that I don't ever recall in my 50 years as a car dealer, we're unable to fix these cars for a lack of parts and capacity to be able to take a car that we know has a dangerous recall. If you take it to a dealer, they say, I'm sorry, I can't help you. I can't fix it. We had a caller earlier in the show with a Ford with a dangerous recall and the Ford dealer couldn't fix it. So you politicians, legislators, regulators, lawyers, media, listen to this. CarMax, the biggest seller of used cars, and they are by definition selling thousands, maybe millions of cars with dangerous recalls and it's not against the law.

And they have to do it. It's the law that they have to do it. It's a 180. It should be against the law, but now they have a law that says they have to do it because it's their fiduciary responsibility as publicly held companies to make money for the stockholders.

The stockholders have to have a return on their investment. So listen to this report, third in a series. And you can't call now We've got the phones turned off, but you can text us, and you can access us on YouTube or Facebook. We'd like to know how is this happening? I don't understand it. Doesn't make any sense.

Mystery Shop of CarMax, Pompano Beach, Dakota Test. Today's mystery shop is part three of our in-depth investigation of Caramax's practice of selling used vehicles with Takata Airbag recalls. This probe began three weeks ago at CarMax Boynton Beach and brought us to CarMax Jensen Beach. last week. CarMax failed a Tocotta test at both locations. In each case, CarMax was willing to sell used vehicles to our secret shopper, but the Vinson Beach stores' actions were pretty incomprehensible. They sold our shopper, Agent Thunder, and unfixable to cut in our bag and said it could be repaired. Now, it was unfixable because no inflator, no part was available, but they told them it could be repaired when it's impossible to be repaired.

The salesperson didn't say that one day in an indeterminate future their car would be repaired. He meant Agent Thunder could bring it in for free repair any time at his inconvenience, which would have convinced me if I were buying the car to go ahead and buy the car, and then I would have been stuck. CarMax publishes their recall policy on their website and on their buyer's orders. They say they will disclose the existence of an airbag recall. But what good does that do, especially if the repairs can't be made until parts are available? The only way to prevent a possible tragedy is to not sell the car.

And the disclosure is nonsense. If you've ever bought a car, how many papers that you have to sign? How much fine print is there? Do you read the fine print on all the contracts you sign? I don't. No. I don't think anybody in the studio does, unless you're an attorney, and even attorneys don't do it. I don't have time for that.

It blows my mind that this isn't taken more seriously. Nearly every car dealer, we mystery shop, does not treat these defective airbags as the deadly threat they are. And CarMax is supposed to be the one of the good guys. We have them our recommended list is just as care list. with this situation as any other dealer. You know what happens when a decad airbag explodes? Metal shrapnel from the inflator, it's a steel canister. It's filled with ammonium nitrate.

Ammonium nitrate is what the accelerant is that explodes to fill the airbag. Well, it's supposed to be a controlled explosion and drive the air into the airbag. When it's uncontrolled because of deterioration due to high humidity and heat, it explodes, it breaks the metal casing. And the shrapnel flies through the cockpit in the car. Whether you're in the passenger side or the driver's side, you're going to get hit with shrapnel and the rear seat too. It's a terrible thing.

And the other thing is it's supposed to be a safety system, and that's even the scariest thing. You think the thing that would save your life in an accident is the thing that's actually going to kill you in that. Safety system will kill you. And ladies and gentlemen, it's more apt to happen, right here in the state of Florida because of the humidity.

Number one. Number one state for exploding airbags in the state of Florida. Death trap. The legislators in Florida are especially to blame and the governor of Florida has got a chance to make things right.

The governor of Florida, Governor DeSanti, could pass a executive order right now making it illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall in the state of Florida. I'd love to hear from Ashley Mooney. You know, I really, really would.

she could help us out tremendously. Yeah. There are videos on YouTube that will show NHTSA testing where they have the inflator and it shows it in slow motion ripping apart jagged shards of metal that are razor-edged, flying out at hypersonic speeds. It's terrifying because this literally is a pipe bomb

and a hand grenade exploding inches or feet from you. And there's some details from Rick that will set you back on your heels. Help us. So this week we headed down to Broward County to check out a used 2014 Ford Mustang with no fix. To the Cotleyer, beg recall, no fix. Flater's not available. So 2014, this is 2019. That vehicle is five years old, and it's a Florida car, and it is a.

ticking time bomb. As always, we triple-check the recall with independent sources, including Ford's own recall website. You can check it with NHTSA by Safercar.gov. You can check it with the dealer, the manufacturer, and check it with Carfax. Multiple ways to check the car. And check it multiple ways every time. Yeah. Because we'll see it not appear on one source, but the other sources it'll show up. It is buyer beware, folks. Nobody's going to tell you about these airbags. You better check it before you buy a used car. Again, we despaired when we realized how easy it was to find one of these dangerous vehicles in CarMax's inventory. But Agent Thunder bravely volunteered for the mission.

Now, that's not really tongue-in-cheek because Agent Thunder rides in the car. We test drive these cars, and I sometimes wonder if we should do it. It is putting our mystery shopper at risk as well as the salesperson in the car. Yes. After confirming the 2014 Mustang was available with the Pompano Beach CarMax, I headed down to begin my mission. I'm speaking as if I were Agent Thunder. I arrived in the early afternoon park, enter the building.

I was immediately greeted by Danielle, who was positioned near the front door. She greeted me warmly and asked me how she could assist. I told her about the Mustang I'd seen online. Danielle was well-trained, very poised. She knew exactly which vehicle I was referring to. she asked me to follow her to the car once we reached the spot where the Mustang was parked daniel began a presentation she didn't seem to be as knowledgeable as my last car max salesperson she quickly read the features printed on the window sticker

however i didn't find this to be bothersome i actually appreciated it and i wasn't dragging on too long i was actually i was anxious to drive the car so as if i could daniel said of course She took my driver's license, asked me to wait by the car. She went inside, she's there for a pretty long time, maybe 15 minutes, and it was hot out there. When Daniel returned, she apologized for the wait, explained that she had difficulty getting a decent copy of my driver's license. I told her, that's okay. We didn't speak much on the test drive, but I did ask what she thought of the car, and if she thought it was in good shape and priced right. Daniel said, it was a great car, no issues.

And the price was a great deal. She asked me if I was financing. I said I was paying cash. We returned to the lot, walked inside to take a seat at the desk. The work areas are much more enclosed compared to the CarMax. Other showrooms were in Boynton and we were in Jensen Beach before. Danielle began to gather in front from me, enter it into the computer. When she was finished, she said she could review a vehicle history report with me before going over the sale figures.

she showed me the Mustang had only one order and there were no accident one what? I'm laughing at the auto correct when I typed these things up. She showed me the mustache. Yeah, I got the mustache but I missed the order. She was finished.

She said she would review the vehicle history report with me before we're going over the sales figures. She showed me that the Mustang had only one and there were no actions reported. She included by saying the report looked pretty good. Danielle left me to get a buyer's order While she was gone, I approved the vehicle history report, identified the cut airbag recall. As soon as she returned, I asked her about it.

Daniel picked up the report and appeared to read it carefully. She said she didn't know enough about the particular recall to tell me much about it, but she said she thought it looked like it had been taken care of already. Man, I'll tell you. And we know it had not been. give her a chance to get it right, I asked if she was sure about that. And she said, this was the kind of thing I don't like, and I said, this kind of thing I don't want to take any chances on.

Are you sure this has been taken care of? She studied the report again, and then she said that it looked like it still may be an outstanding recall, but I could take it to a Ford dealership for a free repair. I said, that sounded good and reiterated. I'm doing a lot of reiterating. So I just take it back to my local Ford dealer after I buy it, and she replied, yes. Now, you can't be any more careful than that as a consumer. We looked at the buyer's order together.

Top line was $16,000, $9.98. She pointed out the car max processing fee, which is a dealer fee. What was that, $149. $3.99. $3.99. Yeah, $3.99. You know, in the scheme of things, with this hand grenade in the front seat, who cares? Who cares about the $3.99 dealer fee?

It's a little insult to injury. It is, yeah. And there's also a $27 dealer fee, she didn't mention at all. That's called labeled up optional electronic registration filing fee. I told her everything looked great. I'd be back in the morning to take delivery. We shook hands and left with the buyer's. order car max failed three out of three times car max the largest retailer of use cars in the

world selling dangerous cars with dangerous recalls unfixed and i almost bite my tongue when they say this lying lying to our customers lying to their customers these are commissioned salespeople the responsibility is with the management and the responsibility is with the upper management too the responsibility with the CARMAX I know you have the policies and procedures but if you don't enforce the policies and procedures this is what happens and the CARMAX salespeople are lying to the customers now I've been on the air for 15 years of this radio show for 15 years I

I haven't been sued yet. I'm knocking on the wood. I don't want to get sued. But the perfect defense against liable and slander is the truth. I'm telling the truth. CarMax, if I'm lying, sue me. This is what's happening. Now, I'm not even holding you responsible for selling the car,

or wanting to sell the car with a dangerous recall. I see that you're obligated legally as a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders of CarMax, right? so i think that's a terrible thing but i'm blaming the legislators and the regulators for that the manufacturers who lobby the legislators and the uh regulators i blame them but i blame you because you don't control your salespeople and you let your salespeople lie and mislead customers that is your responsibility so sue me okay here we are at the end of another shopping report and uh it's a it's a we have another dilemma here at earl sturd on cars because we have to grade you

and your grades are being called in as we speak and we have to maintain a list of recommended cardios car max is on the recommended list and they're one of the best recommended dealers used and new because they're the best of the of all the car dealers but when we start talking about this kind of stuff how can we recommend you But if we don't recommend you, can we just say there's no place in Florida that you can buy a car? Is that a practical solution? I don't know. It is not.

It is not. Well, I'm going to vote first this time. Okay. And what I'm going to do first is I implore you. Ashley Moody, she's the Attorney General. This show goes out on Facebook, on Twitter. It's everywhere. And there is a possibility that somebody maybe knows the Attorney General and she can share, you know, our journey with her in putting a law into place to stop this madness to save lives.

If you voted for Ashley Moody, why don't you send her an email? Why don't you send her a text? Why don't you call her leave a message with one of her secretaries? But if you voted for Ashley Moody, ask her why she's not enforcing the laws. It may just trickle down to her, and you would be part of saving lives. And I want to tell you that Carmex in Pompano Beach, I give them an F. Okay, let's look at some of our posters here. Linda, I predicted this.

She predicted it too, because she said this in the beginning. She has a feeling. but she gives them a big fat F Glenn gives him an F Sarah feeling very charitable gives him a D plus still not a great grade Al gives him an F Amin Gism an F and Sandy

Gizum an F Rick how about our two YouTubers I think my YouTubers are in shock they're in shocked silence I just got one in from Wayne a D a D a grade of a D from Wayne which I'm going to agree

with Wayne. I say a D. I say, yeah, you've got to buy a car somewhere, but you need to do your homework. You need to be aware of this. The lawmakers aren't helping. They're not going to help you. They're throwing you to the wolves, folks. So unfortunately, it leaves it to you to be aware of this. Do your research, check these cars, and be as safe as you can. I got an anonymous input from somebody that asked me why I didn't vote. Sometimes at the end of the show, we get rushed and I don't vote. I'm going to vote here because this is an unusual case. I'm going to take CarMax off the list and fail them because their salespeople are lying to the customers about the recalls.

I am not going to take them off the list because they're selling cars. with dangerous recalls because as i said earlier they have a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders and i blame the regulators and the legislators for not making it illegal but when you don't police your sales force and your management teams and you use car operations for car max and allow them to tell a buyer that they can get this fixed by the ford dealer or the um uh the honda dealer when they can't get it fixed, that is just unforgivable. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to take Carmack's off the recommendalus.

Do you want to do this specifically for those three locations? No, just for the ones that did it, Papano. We're talking about Pompano. Yeah, Boynton. And Mark in Iowa says F. Yeah. Thank you, Mark. Yeah.

And thank you, Wayne. Yeah. So I, well, I'm going to have to go with the general. consensus and fail them too. Yeah, I felt a lot of conflict coming up with that grade as well. I mean, because overall, it is a great place to buy a car. I thought maybe we would put them on the recommended list with an asterisk with urging caution when it comes to recalls, but this seems to be a pattern.

And the sad thing is CarMax is probably one of the best dealerships in terms of consistent training. Like if you go to Carmack's and Jensen Beach or Boynton, you're going to get virtually the identical experience. So I don't think it would be too hard to nationwide have CarMax explain the recall situation to their customers accurately and honestly. No, I totally agree. I think that, again, I really hope that we have some media folks listening out there.

Phoebe Howard, the Detroit Free Press journalist who wrote the art. article on Ford selling cars knowingly with dangerous situations and she did a great job there I've emailed her she's emailed me I hope she might be listening to the show Phoebe Howard with Detroit Free Press but if any journalist out there is listening this is a huge story folks I'm not I'm not in your business but I can't believe there's a bigger story than carmacks right now carmacks who dodged a bullet a while back

they were sued because they were not disclosing the fact that they were dangerous recalls and cars they were selling they begin to disclose it but they're not disclosing it so here we have a double whammy they're violating the

federal trade commission rules and violating the terms of the lawsuit and they're also having their salespeople lie to the people about recall when they cannot be fixed, Stu? Do you know how many where it stands right now with Ticada deaths so far nationwide? On record, there's in the low teens.

The thing about Ticada airbags is the fact that there are dozens and dozens of deaths you don't know about because you can't track the original cause of death in a horrible accident. Great information. Well, Rick looks that up real quick. I'm going to call upon our listeners

everyone to shoot a storm of emails to our Attorney General. That's Ashley Brooke Moody. Send her some emails and get some help. We can't do it alone, ladies and gentlemen. Did you find that? Are we long on time, Rudy? Yeah, we have one minute left. One minute, I thought so.

As of March 29, another driver was killed in Los Angeles, I believe, bringing the death toll to at least 24. I was low. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. And I'll guarantee you there's a lot more than that. You can imagine a terrible accident. Who knows what caused the death. Yeah, it's not reported.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning here at Earl Stewart on Cars. And we hope to see you right back here next week. Have a wonderful weekend. Welcome to me. Welcome to. Let go. Let's go. Go!

Go! Let's go away Wrault Wrecked Go Let go!