Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.13.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet of Coconut Creek, FL.

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels south to visits a local Chevrolet dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2024 Chevy Silverado 1500 Pickup on their car lot. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

Hello, 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 listeners. 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 link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back doing our favorite thing of the week. Maybe that sounds like we should get some hobbies on it, but we love this show. This is Earl Stewart live. You just heard my recorded introduction, and we've been doing this show for a long time. The regular listings will get tired of me saying that, but it is a long time. And 20 plus you. Nancy Stewart and myself founded this show back in the day, 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, I think your mic may have been off. Oh, boy. You may want to start over there, boss. Okay. Is my mic on now? Yep, we just, I just started hearing you. At first, I wasn't hearing you in the headphones. I'm like, wait a minute, what's going on?

My head phone's down, but... Might have been a better show. My mic was off. Sorry about that, folks. I'll try it without my mic on someday. Anyway, I said this is our favorite thing we do every week, Nancy Stewart and I. We founded the show back in 20-plus years ago. I can't remember what year it was.

But half an hour, it was on C-VU radio. It was 30 minutes on Saturday, Thursday, I think. I can't even remember now. Now it's two hours live every Saturday from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. And we're persistent and nothing else. We had been pushing and pushing and pushing to bring your life, buying, leasing, maintaining, or repairing a car into a better position. And that voice we just heard telling me my microphone wasn't working.

is Rick Kearney. Rick Kearney is probably the most important part of the show. We used to think it was about buying cars and leasing cars, but let's face it, folks, if you've been around for a while, you know that maintaining and repairing your car is actually more expensive than anything else you do. I mean, you can get hoes when you buy a car, and you do,

because this is Florida. In fact, this is South Florida, but we're international. I have to keep reminding people of that. But boy, oh boy, can you pull. pay through the nose for maintenance and repairs if you're not careful. And I got a guy sitting next to me. Rick Kearney's been with me for a quarter of a century. Does that make you feel old, Rick?

Yeah, but I am old. And he can fix them all. I mean, I say that not just because we've been around for a while, but, you know, I think if you have a perspective of how to fix the basics, and if you stay on top of technology, you have a bit of grasp of the technology. There's a front page article I just showed Rick in my automotive news,

and the headline is, dipstick slides into obsolescence. Now, this is almost humorous. Dipstick slides into obsolescence. Now, we got people out here listening to the show. Hopefully we got a few youngsters out there say, what the hell is it? a dipstick. Well, you know, a dipstick is an archaic dinosaur of cars that shouldn't be

around anymore. There's still a few left out there, but cars are rocket chips today, folks. We're looking at SpaceX here. We're talking about high-tech. And Rick has been on top of this. So if you've got a spaceship or if you've got a buggy, Rick has pretty much worked the spectrum and I'm not suggesting that you want to get something for free but if if you have a potentially expensive repair on your car a tick tick a smell you know those little things that worry you when you start the car up or when it won't start up in the morning and you say oh boy and you start seeing your checkbook your credit card statement I got to go to the dealer you might be surprised with a call to 877 960 996 you

might do eight seven seven nine six oh nine six oh you might save yourself a few bucks I mean we have callers and they're listening now I hope and they will be listening later they've saved literally thousands of dollars because what they thought was a problem was not a problem or it was a problem but the fixed cost was much less than they've been told or anticipated long story short Rick Kearney, certified diagnostic master technician. If you will call this number 877-960-9960, Nancy Stewart, who is sitting right across her in the studio, she will stop everything.

She'll wave at me, she'll throw a bottle of water at me, she'll get my attention. Because when a call comes in, we want to take those home calls. We've only got five lines, and sometimes they get jammed up, and people, waiting, waiting, and they hang up, and we hate it when that happens. So if you want to call Rick Kearney, dial 877-960, 960, we change chairs in the studio, by the way, just so Nancy and I could look at each other, and she could signal me better because there's all sorts of things going. Callers, color. We have other important things.

She sits at Control Central here with the show. So if I don't hear her or see her, the show goes into the bucket. So I'll stop when I'm doing. She'll wave at me, and I'll have Rick Kearney tell you what's wrong with your car. It'll give you a diagnosis. Ask any questions you can. You cannot stop Rick, I promise you. Now, I know I'm rambling on, but I'll stop when Nancy tells me to.

We have some breaking news today, and I mean, I'm telling you, breaking news. I keep saying how long we've been around on this show we've been through a lot of attorney generals and we have had no attorney general that's ever done their job we pick on Ashley Moody these days but Ashley's only one of I think four attorney generals when we started to show there was a guy by the name of Bob Butterworth

he was the attorney general and they passed some great laws back in Bob's day and the problem is nobody cares we have great laws protecting you the car buyer and nobody cares and we've been through now on our i'll say our fourth attorney general so the exciting news is that all the dealers in florida got a certified letter to the registered owner of the dealership now that's got to go to the head man there's a lot of dealerships out there that are owned by people, you don't even know who they are. You think Arrigo dealerships

are owned by Joe and Jim Arrigo, they're not. They're owned by guy named Larry Morgan. You think that this Hyundai store, that Nissan store, is owned by somebody. It's really Terry Taylor who owns it, but he hides his name, but he's a

registered agent. And so all the big shots, all the people that know got this certified letter that said, and the letter basically says, I'm paraphrasing, watch out for folks, they have woken up, is that right, or had they waked up, something like that. English teachers, please tell me.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is, on September 1st, I know here are with another deadline, they're going to start fining dealers and putting dealers, canceling, I started to say in jail, canceling dealers franchises, and this is so important that. I like that. That slip.

I'm going to put them in jail. Yeah, put them in jail. Where they belong, those dogs. Yeah, it's so important that they want the dealerships registered agents. So we're having, my dealership is having my general counsel, my legal counsel, attend what they call, a roadshow meeting, to get the literal verbal, online, in front, present, Q and N. kind of an answer is to, are they really getting serious about enforcing the Florida law that's been there for 20 years since Bob Butterworth? And that's the breaking news. We'll talk about that.

And we've got a lot of really sharp people out there. YouTube.com forward slash rule on cars. Those are Rick's followers and Facebook.com forward slash rule on cars. And there's also, of course, our texters, 772-4976530. Now I'm yakking. I'm going to turn the microphone over with Nancy Stewart. She is my co-host. Most of you know her. If you knew you don't, if you know you don't know her, you should know her, because she is not only an incredibly knowledgeable person when it comes to cars, she's an incredible person when it comes to female rights and women's rights. And she has built this audience of ours over the past 20 years to parity. We have 50-50 women, and she has a super special offer for female callers.

and if you're a lady and you're afraid to call, don't be afraid. You can sit a text with anonymous feedbacks. You'll tell you about that, too. I'm yakkin. I'm turning the mic over to Nancy. Sounds good. Good morning, everyone.

Let's step back to what you were talking about, this letter that went on to, a certified letter that went out to all the franchises, okay? Yeah, $500 dealers, yeah. And is this fact or is this fiction? This all began with, Bob Butterworth's wife who is a fact or fiction

seriously I did read this but who knows she was charged a $35 undercoding fee a lot of people don't know what undercoding is but that's fact the only reason we got this regulation on the books the Florida regulation on the books that no one's enforcing

is because Bob Butterworth's wife got taking advantage of the tune of 35 bucks Right now, wives are being taken advantage of and husbands are being taken advantage of to tune of $3,500, and still nothing is being done. But, yeah, that's back many, many years ago when he was... And he was Attorney General in 1987?

1987, that's when the law, about when the law went through. It's been there over 20 years. Okay, sounds good. And this letter that went out, ladies and gentlemen, you know, let me remind you, This is certainly connected, you know, with this whole thing that Earl has been working on, which seems like forever. And that is the cracking down on junk fees, lowering cost for consumers, everything. So this is all going to come together and it will be successful finally.

It definitely has been a long journey with Ashley Moody. I'm going to get to the ladies real quick. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. We have our mystery shopping report this morning from none other than Coconut Creek, very famous. Soss, kind of do battle down there. They're well known for charging everybody, everything.

that comes in and purchases a vehicle we're going to go uh i'll talk to you later about zoom we're going to get right to the phones we're going to talk to earl and he's calling us from stewart good morning i'm here you there's another earl how are you this morning earl hello maybe it is good morning earl good morning welcome hey google Arnold the timer caught me doing a, caught me mid-flank. I was so shocked because there are very few of us earls around. Nice to meet another earl always. And I'm in Stewart.

Oh, God, get out of here. I love it. Hey, two questions. I just had an upgrade, a new, I had upgrade to a new par. And one is about tires, and I got an annoying feedback on my phone. I don't, let me, let me, let me get all. Maybe you can turn your, turn off your, no, my radio's off. Oh, it is, okay.

Yeah, now, now it's better. I just, no, it's not. I'm still hearing myself, but let me try to check through it. So you're picking up an echo? Yeah, I'm hearing everything I'm saying. I don't know how to turn that off. Can you move further away from the phone? Well, I have my hand.

well that's not going to be easy how's that sounds good now you sound good to us we hear you fine all right anyway i'll just have to listen myself this new car excuse me hey earl maybe if you set the phone right down on your desk or your console in your car wherever you are and separate yourself mouth to phone the speaker maybe that'll help how's that that's good we can hear you real well am I still there

am I still there yes for a loud and clearer I'm going to just go through with it anyway 20,000 miles I bought the car I got a flat tire within the first month or not a flat tire

I was reading low the sense was reading low so I took it to the dealership there was a nail on the inside of the tire, how to replace the tire. Now, the other tires have 20,000 miles on them. This has nothing. What do I do when I

rotate these things? Rick? Unfortunately, the best answer really is just continue the rotation normally, because otherwise the three tires that you've got that are old, you're going to get some ugly wear

patterns there. And obviously, they're, depending on how you drive the car, you might still have a lot of life left on those. I would continue with your normal rotation pattern. Okay. Okay, that's what I thought I was going to do. All right, the second one. This is the first car that I've owned that's truly, really electronic. What I mean by that is I was always taught when I grew up to turn off the AC so that when you start the car back up, it doesn't put a strain on the engine. You just turn the AC back on after. after the car starts.

Now, whether that was somebody just trained me to do that, I think it was my dad, but nonetheless, this I really can't do it because it's digital. Yep. Is it matter? Or when I start the car up and the AC's already on, is that hurting anything? That used to be the case back in the old days. When you turned the key on, everything got power.

And, of course, when you fired the car up first, it put a bit of an extra strain on it. So if you wanted to really try to get every bit of lifespan out of that car, yeah, it was a good idea to shut things down when you turned the car off. But nowadays, the way the engines, the computers control it, they automatically do that. They turn everything off. And when you start the car, it'll keep that stuff off for a moment or two

and then slowly bring it on. You'll notice when you turn the AC on, you can set it all the way up to high. and most of the newer cars, the fan will start out real slow and then bring itself gradually up and the computers are programmed to do that automatically now so you don't have to. The engineers have really thought about a lot of these things and they have made them so fine-tuned now

so that it expands the lifespan of these cars and the lifespan of the parts. Awesome. Okay. All right. Well, thanks, guys. I really appreciate your help. We've got a great name, Earl. We'll call again anytime. All right, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And I mentioned earlier that I was going to mention Zoom, and we're under construction. Yeah, working process still. Yeah, so have some papers. and it'll be up and running. We have the Zoom technology. It's a little rusty. And we got Jonathan, who is our technical guy,

and it caught us all by surprise, including the radio station. The radio station was caught by surprise, because it's a new technology for radio. I mean, Zoom's not new, obviously, but how many radio stations do you know that do that? So what we're going to do, we were paying $100 for the first so many Zoom calls, but we don't want to promulgate a lot of echoing

and confusion, and we'd like to get to the essence of the show. So if you do want to call us on Zoom, you have to have a Zoom account, and Nancy could give you that number, but we're not going to be rewarded anyone. If you're a regular Zoom, if you called us before successfully,

you might want to try it again, because we have worked out a few bugs, and it probably is better, But we're going to be, I hate to make promises that we can't keep, but I think we're going to be ready to go next Saturday for sure. Nancy. Jonathan just passed me a note that we are up and running, but for me to remind everyone out there to use a pair of earphones.

Oh, I forgot. Yeah, that's what he told me to. I forgot. Yeah. So. Wear your headphones. If you're a zoomer, and we'll give you the account number for Zoom. You want that now?

After I get through talking about the headphones, but you can't use your mic on your PC. You had to plug a separate earphones into your PC, and with your earphones, we think that might iron out the problem. So we encourage you Zoom callers who are technical savvy enough to have the account number, the Nancy will give you just a minute, and also technical savvy enough to have a set of earphones. you can plug in to your PC. Now back to Nancy. Okay, that meeting ID number is 926-589-0-586. Again, 926-589-0-5-86.

I think we're going to go back to the recovering car dealer. Okay. The older I get, I mean, I hope this. This isn't a danger signal, but I start having these memories of the past. My memory of today isn't that good, but I had this recollection. We shopped a car dealer today, and I didn't mention mystery shopping reports because that's the highlight of the show. And I got to keep reminding myself that half the people, I pulled that out of my head, I just

don't know how many tune in first for the first time every every week. I don't know what it is. It's a significant percentage, though. So if you haven't tuned in, the most exciting part of our show is the mystery shopping report where we send an undercover agent, literally secret agent, and we call that agent, Agent Lightning, and she goes in, female, she goes into dealerships around the United States, mainly Florida, mainly southeast, but also Michigan, and she's been around Pennsylvania.

So we do a mystery shopping, a separate one. We go in and we don't play games. We pretend to buy a car, we tell you, our live radio audience, exactly what happened if you were tried to take advantage of if laws were broken, if ethics were violated, if bait and switch advertising incurred, of drug fees and all the other nasty stuff

that we talk about on the show, we tell you about it. So this particular Mr. Shopping report is on a dealership in South Florida called Lou Bachrot. You folks have been down in South Florida for a while. Most people haven't heard of them, but if you're a South Florida person, Bachr-R-O-D-T, Lou Bachar.

Been around for a long, long time, as long as I have. And that goes back to my primary reason for making the business. comment that back in the 80s Lou Bockrod and I were selected by the J.D. Power Group, and you're familiar with the show, that's a big, big survey group, not as prestigious as Gallup, but they are mainly car dealer-type people. I'm going to stop. Nancy's got a call. Thank you very much. You're welcome. That number is 877960-99-60. And we are going to go to Ellen, who's calling us from Pompano Beach.

Good morning, Ellen. Welcome back. Oh, thank you. Yes. Yes. I was just now, you know, I'm getting that feedback, too, but anyway. Do I sound okay to you? Yeah.

You're loud and clear. It's just on your. All right. Yeah, I don't know. Yes, so I'm seeing, I haven't, I have a 2023 Toyota that I bought new, and I'm seeing rust on the brake. Now, maybe I didn't notice it, and I thought when you're dry that it's supposed to go away, but it doesn't soon too.

Rick Kearney could answer that. You're seeing it on the brake rotors themselves? Squeak. It seems like the the rotor and I think the brake pad. Yeah. Unfortunately in Florida with our humidity, those

rotors are going to, they'll get rust on them within an hour's time. It's just, it's Florida and the humidity. And that light little bit of surface rust it'll wear off pretty quickly as you're driving and it won't affect the safety or the performance.

of the breaks. You may get a little bit of a noise. First thing in the morning, the first couple times that you step on the brakes. Let me interrupt briefly. She said it won't go away. So I think that, Ellen, you must mean it does go away every day, but they keep next day, a new ball game and it comes back again. So it doesn't squeak all the time just in the morning when you started up and drive for the first couple of miles. It's not squeaking. It's just, looks that way. Oh, you're looking at your brakes. Yeah.

Unfortunately, there's... When I bring it home, thinking that they say, well, when you drive it, if that it's supposed to, you know, go away, and it doesn't. So, Ellen, you said this was a 20-23 Toyota,

and you've been hearing that sound since you drove off the lot. It's not a sound, but it's... She sees it. She sees it. I don't know. How does she see it, Rick? It's because there's... the wheels have the spokes of the wheels have big spaces between them right so you can see the brake rotor in through those spaces oh and it's going to get that light bit of surface rust yeah unfortunately sometimes it'll stay visible but as long as the brakes are still functioning normally I wouldn't worry about it and for it's just one of those things you kind of have to just accept because of South Florida yeah not only even Ellen um And it also depends on where you're parked, you know, what location you keep your car in.

Because I have the same thing that you have. It's like a car. And like Rick said, you know, we live here in the state of Florida and we deal with the elements. The only thing, I remember when I bought the car, and I did learn, well, I learned a lot from you, but that it was a new 2023, but I bought it in September. So you're supposed to treat it like it's a used car, which I never thought about. And I remember I looked at the tailpipe, and it was rusty. And I brought it back, and they said, well, that's normal, and they did nothing for me.

I brought it back to the dealer. Yeah, that's one of the ironies of buying cars is that the disclosure is so smoky and cloudy to the consumer. to be able to call a car new that's been sitting on the lot and rusting as we just described to you for a year or more. You know, that car, if you had bought, that car could have been on the lot for three years. You're going to be buying a 2021 car. And as long as it hasn't been titled, they're going to call it a new car. And there should be better disclosure for people when they buy a quote-unquote new car. and being new means how long has it been sitting on the lot,

just like how long has it been driven? Yeah, I just thought it's new, and that's good, you know, and I didn't even think about, I never got an adjustment on the price or anything because of that, but I learned that from you anyway, so that was, among other things. So you think if I brought it back to the dealer, you know, because it is under warranty with the break and the rest, then they're not going to do anything.

I don't think there's much they'll be able to do for you. They're going to tell you, they might tell you to hose it down, or something. I'm not sure. There's really nothing that can be done for that. Do you happen to live near the salt water? I live a couple of blocks away. Yeah. Unfortunately, I have actually seen customer cars

that you could literally tell by looking at the brake rotors that one side of the car is when they're parking it, that same side faces towards the salt water more than the other side. Just because the way the wind would blow the salt and like the passenger side would be solid rust under there

and the driver's side only have half as much and it's just an environmental thing in Florida so Ellen if it's any consolation to you at all you know what Rick just shared with you and what I shared with you about location and I have the same thing on my car from the elements you know if that satisfies you and I hear a little doubt

in your voice if it's if it means I would to set you know your mind at ease go back to the dealership see what they say you might get somebody else who knows it's worth it yeah well you said you

he said to water it down now do you dry it like no because even even spraying water on there isn't going to do anything because the the rust is it's oxidation and it's caused just by the air

but of course when they get damp then it actually helps to it acts as a catalyst they don't make that oxidation occur quicker you have to wash and buy it should be even then it's going to come right back so we won't be doing any watering or anything like that

Ellen I've got some calls backed up could you give us a call next week and let us know yeah thank you very much thank you We're going to go to the roadrunner, and that's Roadrunner, Steve. Good morning. Hey, babe.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. I see they paid the ransom for $25 million to the people that hacked the car companies. Oh, you're talking about CDK? Yeah. And what makes it think they're not going to do it again? Well, what can I say? One thing I've learned over all these years is don't believe anything that the government says, much less the Florida Attorney General's office.

So you've got to have hope. My hope, you've got to have hope. Yeah, plus they use that cryptocurrency, which cannot be traced anywhere, you know, when they make the payoff. Well, that's exactly what's happening. You know, you can't make this stuff up, Steve. You can't make it up that the car dealers, and it isn't just the state of Florida, almost every state, the car dealers, money talks. I won't say the rest of that, but oh, I will too, bullshit walks, so it beat me. Oh, that's the first time I can hear that.

But money talks. And just look at politics today, national or otherwise. You're out of here. you'll see any politician you see you see you know exactly what's going on he's telling you what you want to hear to reelect him or her and that's what happens it's life it's the best system in the world folks I do not want to move to India or China or any other place I love America but our best system has got some flaws and one of them is the way we elect our politicians and when you elect a politician attorney general in Florida Going all the way back to Bob Butterworth, up to Ashley Moody. If you want to get elected, Attorney General of the state of Florida, you've got to pay off the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, which is nothing more than a political action committee,

a giant organization formed to raise funds to protect card dealers. That's life. Insurance companies have it. Every big, big bit of pharmaceutical hazard. I mean, just read the papers. Everybody owns the politicians. Yeah. And Steve, you asked a question. You wanted to know if it would be the last cyber attack. You know something? I know the answer to that, as I sit here in this chair. Absolutely not. Anyway, do you have any other questions? I've got some calls backed up. Did you hear about the story in Phoenix, Arizona? A cop pulled over a car that was driving erratically. The cop call follows, and the guy gets out of the car. He goes up to the car.

there's nobody driving. It's one of those taxis, self-driving taxis. The cop don't know what to do now. Oh, yeah, that's right. Are you having a problem? He goes, yeah, there's no driving. They have a phone number in the car or something,

and they call them up, and they tell them, hey, your car's driving erratic all over the place. I got the answer to just put the car in jail. and make the Overecome and bail it out. That's that way you had your cake and eat it too. Okay, guys, I've got to wrap it up. Okay, wrap it up. Everybody stays safe and well.

Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Marty. Thanks for your patience, Marty. Welcome back. Yeah, good morning. Morning.

I have a question. My son gave, my son who lives in Miami gave me a project for today, which I didn't really need. He's looking at a used, model as Tesla, and it has only 98,000 miles on it. So I wanted to ask Earl or Rick, what do I, I mean, I've driven a Tesla, but just, you know, just for two minutes, what do I have to look for?

And there's 98,000 miles, I'd say maybe the battery's ready to go. So how do you know what to do? Well, you want, you do it. You can test the battery. And there, Tesla has, anybody that has a Tesla, this Tesla, right on its, you know, instrument panel is a way to test the battery. So that's the number one, the most important thing. And that's done with an app?

App? Yeah. Because we discussed it. Yeah. And the number two thing is, you want to, you want to be sure that the price is right. the price is right because the prices of electric cars are dropping like rocks and uh... tessa is probably holding up better than some

there's one uh... manufacturer out there i think it's fisker uh... they're selling brand new brand new cars on their lot they went bankrupt for fourteen thousand dollars apiece that uh... they were charging a hundred thousand

uh... before so if you have an uh... electric vehicle that's not cut and the price drops. But if you get a good price on a Tesla and the battery's strong, buy it. It's a good car. Your son will have fun with it. Yeah, but he's buying it for his son.

Oh, well, his son. So, you know, that'll be like his first car. So to me, it's a fast, Tesla's are very fast. So I don't know if it's a good idea, but I'm not going to discourage him if the price is raised. Well, that's a very good point. I forget about that. I'm an 83-year-old kid, and I love speed.

And this grandson of yours is probably more mature than I am. So hope for his safety. Yeah, yeah. Rick's got us the finger up in the air. Yeah, go ahead, Rick. Our buddy online, Donovan, has come up. He says, you can go into the screen and on your main screen and look up how to get into service mode

he says it will tell you the battery the vehicle's battery life and it will also tell you any faults that the vehicle has in the service mode that the original owner they can't hide that from you to be able to see it we love you donovan god bless you i love that caller wow in other words if i ask this salesman when i go to look at this car today he won't know what you're talking about You have to find, I would take it to the Tesla.

I'd say, I want to take this car to the Tesla dealership, which is really a factory-owned outlet. I would tell them, I would tell them I want to buy this car and do what Rick or what Donova just said to do. It'll tell you the full of the chart, how well the battery is holding up, and anything that's wrong with the car. It won't cost you anything.

All right, take it down the Okotchobie Boulevard. Yeah, that's the location. And be sure the price is right because electric car prices are in the toilet right now. If you ever was, but that's an average, I mean, so, you know, Tesla's going to cost more than Fisker. So just be careful what you buy. Hey, Marty, you said that this was your son's son first car? No, it was my son telling me. to go look he went to buy it for his his son yeah correct his son uh how old is his son

right now he's he's 15 and it'll be 16 in uh november oh boy that's interesting okay back to earl no no yeah i say i think it'd be great if he checks it out carefully and i just be sure he drives carefully because those cars that tesla is faster than the speaking bullet faster you don't think 98,000 miles is too many miles no no you got a whole you got you got another lifetime on that car as a matter of fact according to donovan he says uh that's that battery should last about four times that amount so you're looking at a battery the main battery he says that's maybe 25% of its life oh i should give you the year of the car the year is

2015. 15? Still sounds like a baby to me. All right. Yeah, you've got a lifetime. I'll look at it, and if I don't know what I'm doing, I'll tell my son, he better go look at himself.

Yeah, I tell you, or he'll be calling me. I mean, I love to talk about electric cars. All right. All right, thanks. Thanks, Marty. Have a great weekend. Have a good weekend. Our number here is 877-9-60-99.

You can also text us at 772-4976530 ladies waiting for that first two new lady callers. Going to win yourself $50 this morning. 877-960-9960. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Unless Rick, you have some face down? Well, we've got our Facebook, YouTube. Texts in, we can do Anne-Marie's text. Okay.

Let's see. She says, good morning. I'm familiar with two-seater sports cars, sedans, and pickup trucks, but some of the other types of vehicles tend to blur together in my mind. They tend to be bigger, boxier, and hold more stuff than a sedan. Please clarify what are the differences between SUVs, crossovers, and minivans? is the designation of SUV, crossover or minivan

dependent on marketing, the number of passengers, towing capacity, cargo capacity, ground clearance, and or the type of frame they're built on? Is there a simple rule of thumb to tell them apart from one another? Well, it's kind of an odd, tricky question there. It is a marketing thing. I think crossover is a good name,

but you give the details, but my thought was a crossover is just a word to cross over between an SUV and a van. Yeah. People, vans used to be the big thing, and there was no such thing as an SUV, and then they evolved, and the crossover is the evolution. To me, an SUV, a sport utility, can be the really big ones like the Sequoia, the forerunner, like Ford Expedition, the really big ones, the Chevy Suburbanes. Land cruisers. These are the ones that have a full frame underneath the body, and they're actually a two-part vehicle where the frame and the body are separate. Smaller SUVs, which include crossovers, these will be the ones that are unibody construction.

The frame and the body are all one unit, and the drive line is added to it, And this would be like, say, a Highlander. The Hondas, most of the Hondas are this way. Excuse me. Which one's that? The Honda Pilot. Would the unibody be similar to a vehicle? The unibody construction.

This is similar to a passenger car. Yes. Unibody means that the frame and the body are all one, one entire unit together. You can't actually separate them. Okay, unlike a traditional issue. Right, unlike the big trucks where there's a frame and then the body is bolted down to the frame.

Basically, it's going to be a matter of taste. Throwing a name on it, it's like the idea of, well, Shakespeare, a rose by any other name, which smell is sweet. I mean, it doesn't really matter what you call it. It's what is the size and what size is that vehicle? Will it handle what you're looking to handle? For me personally, my wife has one of those little mobility scooters. So when we're looking at vehicles, we have to determine,

is this going to be able to let her put that mobility scooter in the back of it and still have room for other things? And so everybody's different. You've got to determine, will this vehicle be able to be able to? handle someone with a family where they've got five kids versus the group that the family only has two kids or one kid or none and maybe the person that has three dogs that they want to be able to carry along with them you know it's they've made so many different sizes now to be able to accommodate everybody it's you get to just pick and

choose the one that fits you that's a that's a great answer if the shoe fits wear it. There you go. So that's it on your text. Okay, that's for Anne-Marie. And let's see, we got one here says YouTube isn't up, but no, we are up and running, I think, right

now. Sounds good. Does anybody have your anonymous feedback for me? Well, I haven't checked that yet, but we'll... Okay. Maybe Rick can get back to... Yeah, still out today, by the way, in case you haven't noticed, too, is not feeling well, so we're having

to double up on checking input, and I'll see what I can find it with anonymous feedback. Okay, and meanwhile, Kim appreciates life, says you can get a good deal on Tesla Model 3s these days with the tax credits if you buy new. Oh, I forgot to mention that. Thank you very much. And Donovan backing that up says, yes, there's an additional $4,000 for a tax credit on a used one the is under 25k so apparently if you're finding a used Tesla that is under $25,000 you can get an additional $4,000 tax credit even on a used electric vehicle

amazing so folks if you're going to look at a electric vehicle used or new investigate these tax credits because they are out there and you can save a fortune And the good news about the tax credit is now, the government is now giving it directly to you, the buyer, whereas before, in their ignorance, they were giving it to the dealers. The dealers were hiding the tax credit and getting you to assign the tax credit over to them, just like they get to the manufacturer to assign incentives over to them and not go to the customer. So you're protected with your electric vehicle tax credit, and it is substantial. on a lot of vehicles, not all vehicles, but Tesla is one of them that is included on. Great information. Hope you're listening, Marty. That was real good information for you. We are going to go back to the phones where Mary is waiting to be heard, and she's calling us from Pompano Beach.

She has called before. Good morning, Mary. Hi. I just want to say that you guys are great, and you're really a resource for all of us. Thank you. I'm asking this question because I live in a condo on the beach. We have parking, you know, on the first few floors. It's covered parking in a cement building, but, you know, there's openings along the side. And I'm leaving for a few months. And I'm thinking of buying one of the, whether the cammy or the easy slide covers.

But I have concerns that possibly moisture going under them might damage the surface of the car. Are these safe enough to leave on the cars for extended periods of time, especially with moisture? Great question. Yes. Most of the new covers are designed to be breathable to allow that moisture to escape from inside. So they're designed to accept that. And they'll have little vents here and there that let that moisture in the air circulate a little bit. So yes, they're pretty safe nowadays, especially the good high quality.

ones. The manufacturers have really looked into that and they're making sure they're doing a quality product anymore. I'm glad you emphasize new. I just had a flashback nightmare many years ago when I was a Harley Davidson driver

and going through my middle life crisis. Oh boy. And I lived, Nancy and I lived on the ocean and a condominium like you described. And I took my beautiful new Harley. and I put it in the garage and I wanted to protect that baby.

I love that baby. And I covered it up. And I can't remember where we went. We might have gone on vacation. All I know is next time I looked at my Harley, it had rusted apart. So it occurred to me, and Rick just hit it on the head. You've got to have ventilation. Because whatever moisture and salt was in the air when I put that cover on,

it was held there forever until I got back and found. on my ruined motorcycle and no exaggeration on earl's part let me tell you what we did a lot of riding back in those days and uh i had to call harley davison to come pick up the motorcycle because it looks so bad let me tell you what they almost arrested earl and i for the condition that harley was in they said it was sinful so things do rust can i ask you know they have new ones that have a zipper a zipper opening on the side which is great because if people want to start up the car or anything like that they can get into the car without taking the cover off but some of these covers are literally $65 so when you're talking about quality you could go

to griot's garage and and pay $300 do you guys have any suggestions on what is really quality there's a big spectrum here are there are there guarantees now when I haven't shop for cover, but I would look carefully to see what sort of guarantee. If they won't give you any guarantee whatsoever, I'd look at, I normally never recommend extended service contract, but for something, if you live on the ocean and you want to protect your motorcycle or your car, I'd want to be sure that if I was gone for four months and I had rushed, somebody be there to compensate me to fix my car back up because I, you might not have the rust. had you not put on the cover in the first place.

I would go with... Go ahead. I would go with the attitude of you get what you pay for, but check the reviews, and look them up on consumer reports as well to see if you can find any listings in there. Go on Amazon and use your

Google reviews, four stars and up. And don't read the good ones. Read the bad ones first. They put them at the bottom of the list. That's great. That's great advice. But, you know, the thing is, you get a lot of people i've already done that and they say well what the hell for 65 you know and so they're not really judging on quality they're judging on well i could just

throw it away when i get home but i haven't seen anybody say anything that the car was damaged but like i said we get a missed on our car even in these garages yeah but being a being away is you know puts a different spin on this situation and you know um it's been a while since Rick has mentioned, you know, make sure you have somebody, you know, around that can start your car and take it for a drive. That's important. But also, Mary, $65, you know, any amount as an investment to protect, you know, a beautiful car. Yeah. And also another place for you to go would be Consumer Report. I recall reading about their ratings on a different covers so that too is another place to go that's great I actually have I've been to the

Colchester Connecticut track I'm a major donor too there are many people who are more major than I am but a major donor to consumer report and I'll like on subscription and I look again or I'll call Jennifer soccer who is actually in charge of that that department for consumer report well that's really something that people want you know, to have a reliable cover. And a lot of these covers, especially in Florida, I did read in the Google reviews, people say, well, I'm out, I don't have a garage, and it lasts about a year, and like the aluminum, it's not aluminum, but the outside, the silver outside,

it peels, but I don't care. Nobody seems to be really saying what they're doing it like with me, like three months, four months. So, yeah, I'll call them because, you know, they do, believe it or not, take suggestions, even if you call, everybody called them to send an email to them and ask certain questions because, you know, they have a publication that they've got to, you know, published and they want to be relevant. So it's a good idea. I'll give them a call if I don't see it. And maybe they'll run an article. Oh, absolutely. Thanks, Mary. Please give us a call back and let us know how that all turned out for you when you get back from up north Rick. Mary, one quick note. George Petrillo

from our YouTube channel. He says the Evolution 3 and Evolution 4 car covers. He says they breathe well. They're very breathable inside. And most major auto parts stores sell them for around $100 to $120. And you can find them on Amazon with lots of options. And he said they are really good quality and get good reviews. So that's when you want to look into and Rick what was the name of that cover evolution three and evolution four okay all right thank you so much I really appreciate it absolutely you're welcome Mary give us a call back ladies $50 for the next two lady callers if you're the first time caller $50 this morning 877 960 9960 back to the

recovering car dealer you know I know I talk about electric vehicles too much but Nancy I are just nuts about our Tesla plaid. We just got a software update two days ago, and the autonomous driving is now evolved to a weird. It's like a robot. I mean, I often think of my car now as a human being because it is getting so good at autonomous driving. A little spooky this morning when we're leaving for the radio show, the new autonomous update won't let me wear my sunglasses so big brother is watching you if you got a privacy issue you don't want to be driving a Tesla because hey cameras inside the cabin cameras eight cameras outside the cat the cabin so Nancy's waving at me

miss Nancy said that no brace on the wrist whether you have carpal tonal or not it interferes so so what this has done now is actually It takes a certain mindset. I'm not suggesting that you use my type of mindset because I know I'm strange. But you have to be a little bit of a risk taker. Maybe I shouldn't be, but I am. And you have to let your autonomous car do some things,

but not crazy things, but some things that you say, I wouldn't have done that. We all drive our cars differently. I mean, let's face it, whether you want to admit or not, you think you're really a good driver. Everybody thinks they're really a good driver. And they think I'm a bad driver and they think other people think you're a bad driver.

We all have this thing about we know how to drive better than anything, including our autonomous car. So I have to let my ego drop. And when our autonomous Tesla does something like changes lanes, I always ask, why did we just change lanes? We named her Miss Nancy. So I say to my, I say to Nancy, why did Miss Nancy change lanes? And we taught, we have a conversation about it.

She's driving. She'll say, why did it? The other day, we left the house, and it was going very, very slow. And we said, why is the car going so slow usually? And this was after the software update. So you get questions and answers or you don't get answers. And this is, if you start and understand now why, you might not be ready for autonomy. because there's a lot of talking you don't want to have this conversation you just want to go to the store you want to go to the pharmacy you want to go to the public's but I'm telling you right now folks I say this and all with all sincerity when I get into that car now and I have to go somewhere that Tesla on its current degree of autonomy will get me there safer faster than I can or Nancy can or anybody that I know can

And I'm just telling you, that's the way it is, folks. And they're not perfect. And somebody's going to call in or somebody's going to send a text, well, there was five people killed it on an autonomous car. I know it. There was 10 people killed in a regular car. I mean, there's going to be deaths in autonomous cars, but there are fewer deaths.

So I know it's hard to write your head around that. You don't want any deaths. But I'm telling you, folks, autonomy is here. but you don't buy an autonomous car and turn them autonomous unless you're prepared to be a free spirit and let yourself go. Everybody can't do that, but it's fun. I love it.

Okay. I have a lot to add to that, but we don't have time. Okay, 877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. So, ladies, again, $50 for the first two, new lady callers. Give us a call. We're waiting to hear from you. What I was going to say about the autonomous was, you know,

I have not come to terms yet with the fact that everyone around us that is in a vehicle, combustion vehicle, they're not ready for autonomous. You mean non-autonomous? So those are the people that I'm concerned about. Yeah, you know, I, that's true. But let me add this, that the way I drive myself, I'm more obnoxious to those around me than my Tesla is. The Tesla, for example, will travel closer.

I tend to lay back. People hate it because I lay back. You probably have people ahead of you that do that should go up to the stoplight, and they start slowing down way before the stoplight, and you want to zoom and get in front of them. And so the Tesla doesn't do that. It stays up close. There's a lot of things that I don't do.

But at the end of the trip, I say, boy, that was really a good ride. So as I say, word of caution, try it before you buy it. That's a simple way. And, you know, that was troubling this morning whenever you figured out that it was the sunglasses. So there's a short list that we have now because not only Earl's sunglasses, but when I'm driving, I just didn't know what was going on whenever autonomous was deactivated. Well, lo and behold, it was my brace for my carpal tunnel.

And Rick and I were talking about that, and he was talking about what was, you know, the brace was made out of... You have to feel your hand. It can't feel something. There had to be the skin to yoke kind of, you know. Tesla wants to defeat the possibility of some jerk, is going to put a pair of fake hands on the car and go to sleep on the back seat

and kill somebody. So it's washing you at all times and it's not going to let you get away with it. So I don't like the sunglasses thing. I like to wear my sunglasses, but now I'm thinking about it. I realize I got tinted glass. I don't need a sunglasses.

You know, a lot of this is psychological way. Well, with those blue eyes, all the protection you can get. That's true, my baby blues. Yes, yeah. they're a plus and a minus okay we are going to go back to the phones we're going to talk to lane and uh lane is calling us from fort Myers good morning lane uh good morning I hadn't called before I've been talking about trying to get my hands on a forerunner and trying to trying to sell my little Chevy and I just wanted to give you an update

and I thought you would you would find this funny because I talked before about the one dealership Toyota dealership around me I've been going to has a TRD Pro, the four-runner, TRD Pro. And listen to these figures. I'm not sure if I told you before. It has an MSRP of 57-614, has installed equipment for basically $1,000 of window tint, real locks, and all weather mats, appearance protection for three years for $700, dent protection for three years for $700.

and a market adjustment of 15,000 for a total price before everything else of 75,000 zero zero seven and I think I'm not sure if I told you by I was talking for one salesman yesterday and said who in the right mind is going to buy this thing yeah and uh lane I'll tell you what the irony is uh his dealer he lane doesn't know the uh the salesman doesn't know anything about this but the guy that owns that dealership and sometimes nobody knows who owns the dealership is a secret but he knows now because a registered agent got a letter and I'm holding that letter in my hand because I'm the registered agent for my dealership and they are going to begin enforcing the floral law that's been there for 20 years and everything you've just named is a violation of the law

and every violation is finable by $10,000. Now, you're one guy looking at one vehicle, and I think you rattled off four or five violations. So on September 1st, that dealer could be fined $40,000 or $50,000. And his license could be revoked, basically put out of business. The Department of Motor Vehicles, if you violate

and they so deem the fact you have violated this law that's been on the book for $20, I mean for 20 years, they can take away your license. You're out of business. You've got your life tied up in your dealership. I shudder when I say this because

our dealership, I mean, that's everything. That's us. That's what we do. We're car dealers. Everything I own, everything I have, that's my car dealership. If I break the law now on September first they can take away my license that means I can't sell Toyotas anymore I can't sell used cars anymore well that's that's a registered letter so exciting and when

you when you get these experience like that lane and somebody called an earlier says you think it's really going to happen well you know the story you know the answer that I sure hope it happens and now by talking about it and you talking about it and And everybody talking about it, they kind of stuck their neck out. They say, we're going to do it on September 1st. So I'm not going to let them forget about that. And on September 1st, I'm going to be hammering them. And Lane, let me ask you this question.

Did you total that out-the-door price when you... No, no, I didn't do an OTD because the salesman I was talking to wasn't my salesman when I was out in the yard looking at it because my salesman what I was supposed to have appointment with, was talking to somebody else. So I started to ask him questions, and he said to me, he could not talk to me because he wasn't my salesman. And I said, okay, I'll just, I'll just wander the yard and look around. And the car also did not have a Moroni label on. Oh, boy.

So I was looking at that. Where's the Maroney? And what was this, a four, did you say it was a forerunner? Yes, it was a, it's the top of the line one, the one you can climb mountains with, a TRD Pro one there. And oddly enough, it's not the one I'm interested in. I'm interested in a limiter or another one of the models. But as I had talked to before, I'm still in the process of trying to sell my one car,

which also has turned out to be almost a mountain too high to climb. But this I just thought was so funny. No one would talk to me. and it had that morodia had that additional thing. I took a photo of it, but I'm in the photo, so it's no good, but

I just thought it was so funny, and I'm going to keep on searching, and I just wanted to relate this back to you all. We're real happy you did. What you could do is at anybody listening out there before it was whistling in the wind, but

Ashley Moody signed this letter and this is going to be in the hands of every owner of every car dealership in Florida. So I'd start papering the file with letters, emails, text, anything I can in writing to Ashley Moody, Office of the Attorney General, and a list of the offenses. And you keep adding to the offenses here, this dealership is probably MSR, Barony labeled, not there. he's probably looking at close to $100,000 in fines, and that's if he's lucky on September 1st, 2024.

Now, if he's not lucky, and I just don't see this happening, but it could happen. If I'm a dealer, if it could happen, it'd get my attention. They take away his license to sell new and used cars. So, huge. This is huge. Yeah, I can't emphasize that enough, Lane. When Earl and I sat down and read this letter that went out to all these car dealers,

I mean, we're keeping our fingers crossed. This thing has legs, and it is really going to put a lot of these car dealers under the bus. And you just proved that, you know, by mentioning all of these fees, you're talking, market adjustment, 15? It was one of several vehicles that had market adjustments on it. Some of them, the littler cars had $7,000 market adjustments on them. Yeah. And I was looking at it, and I just laughed, and I said to the salesman who couldn't talk to me. I said, well, if he ever wants to sell it at MSRP or lower, let me know.

And I looked at it. I like that. And then just took off. These guys are the bonds. They were out trying to make a buck, trying to make a living just like you and me. It's a shame that they get into this. A lot of people don't even realize how bad it is. It's the guy in the ivory tower whose name you probably don't know that's guilty.

And so we'll see how, there'll be a real shake-up. You know, actually, for salespeople, I don't know about you, but if I were starting all over again and I wanted to sell something, I'd like to sell something legally. I'd like to sell something I could sleep at night by selling. So if all car dealers suddenly became honest, which, you know, that ain't going to happen. come but if all if they did how wonderful how many more jobs you would provide for people you

know cardio's employ whether you like them hate them or love them or whatever what if you feel about cardio is they employ a huge number of people and to have an honest dealership suddenly occur boy what a great thing for the population of florida you know just just with a few of the junk fees that you mentioned you know i just jotted some numbers down i think you're talking like $30,000, so, you know, that's pretty crazy. Can I ask you an important question before we go on? Would you be at liberty to share with us the name of the dealership? Could I do it offline?

Okay, I got a little hesitation in your voice when you first started talking about this. You can text me, Lane. What is your text number? 5-6-1-386-6-4-98 we went 5-6-8-6-6-4-9-8 okay I will text you the name of the dealer but I just want to you know I have no problems with a dealer making a problem we'll give you anonymous I promise I want them to stay in business but I want them also be reasonable with the consumer I'll keep I ask that question to

you know for our audience because there's a good possibility that Agent Lightning could well help us out also so we're all in this together but I appreciate the fact that you may be going back into the dealership who knows you might get a heck of a deal

you want to remain anonymous well thank you very much and I'll keep you all advise what happens on my Thank you, Lane. Sell a car and buy a car. There you go. 877-9-60-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-9-7-6-5-30. Ladies, I'm waiting for you to give us a call.

First two new lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning. Now back to Rick. Oh, we've got George Petrillo's asking, hey, Earl, could you possibly post on your website a sample dealer purchase agreement sheet that the salesman fill out when a car purchase is done

just something without a dealer name but make it printable to where they could have it as a sample. That's a great idea. They call that the worksheet and my son Stu handles that sort of thing and I'll make a note to see that that

is added to earluncars.com The worksheet that he refers to is premeditated by car dealers because there's no legal obligation. And if you read the every dealer has this preliminary sheet, typically if you buy something and you go into a retail store and there's going to be a buyer's order, there is going to be a contract, you sign the contract and you go home and you take their product. But with car dealers, you don't sign any contracts because they don't know what they can get you to sign. So they have something called a worksheet. They're going to work on you. They're going to work you real hard on that worksheet. And down at the bottom of the worksheet, you can't make this stuff up, folks.

I mean, every dealer does this. I'm talking about not just in Florida, but everywhere. And it's the advice of the dealer associations. And in the fine print it says, this is not a legal document. This is, nothing is signed, nothing has legal binding unless signed by an officer of the company. If you have a, this is all fine print, if you have a complaint of something is out of order here, then you may not sue this dealer. You must file an arbitration with the American Arbitration Association.

Now, for those of you, I'm the only car dealer that I know of. our dealership is the only one that I know and if somebody out there can catch me on this call me and tell me we don't have an arbitration agreement we don't want an arbitration agreement if you want to sue me I want you to have the right to sue me you're entitled by your by your rights as America to a trial by jury so you want to sue me sue me I'll do my best because I think I'm honest but the car dealers don't want to be sued so they they go to the A American for arbitration and this is a business organization and the people to pay them

are the businesses so now if I'm the guy paying the a the arbitration association and you're the guy coming to get me who do you think they're gonna favor me or them if if they really get me angry I'm gonna drop them I'm not gonna pay him anymore I say what good is me paying you for this arbitration thing if you're gonna have that agreement broken and I get sued. That's the worksheet. And I will take your advice.

We'll put the worksheet up there. We'll blow the fine print up so you can see what you're authorizing. And you really don't get to the really nasty stuff, the really binding stuff until you get into the box, which is the finance department. They call it the business office. It's not a business office.

We have a business office. Carter was have a business office. That's not it. This is the finance office, and we have highly paid commissions in our finance offices to sell you everything but the kitchen sink, everything you don't need. And in the process of signing all these things, you sign the legal documents. The worksheet means nothing. Well, he follows up by saying, it's incredible all the fees that they try to push. Because I've been visiting Dodge dealerships from South Florida all the way up to Tampa.

and the markups and dealer fees are laughable. Now, that's the reason that Earl calls South Florida, the wild, wild west. Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah. Don't come a day when we don't say that, it's going to happen. I promise everyone.

You know, here's an interesting article, and it's one of the professional basketball players is Angel Reese, and she plays for the, LSU Tigers. And guess what she found out front of her home? Do you recall this article? A Mercedes-Benz with a big red bow on it.

Do you recall the article that we were talking about and how, you know, there was a time when it was called, what, payola or it was something scandalous that they were paying off the NFL, the basketball, everybody. And now it's commonplace. And the article appeared in the New York Times sports section. So they're paying a lot of these professional basketball players. Well, how about our college kids are getting paid to endorse now?

I mean, used to be college sports was pure and clean, and now it's just about like any other sport. Well, yeah. Yeah, women like Angel Reese has really put them on them on the mouth. and Caleb, to name a few, and they are college basketball players with high performance. Okay, do we have anything from Facebook, any YouTube, any anonymous feedback? George goes on to say, what do you think of the deep discounts Dodge is doing to push out their 23 overstocks, 20-23s? he says he's looking to pull the trigger

on either a 23 Challenger RT or a charger RT Well I can tell you this There is If you're ready to negotiate And you want to do your homework You want to use Costco

You want to use Consumer Report You want to listen to the advice on this show And you want to stay online Because you don't want to be physically attacked Everything online Now is a great place to do battle with I was going to say Chrysler Jeep Dodge it's now Stalantis but the stalantis dealers I think of them as Jeep dealers because that's what keeps them alive the

Jeep dealers are in trouble and they're they are rising up against stalantis they're going against the the main their manufacturer it's a war between the Chrysler job I would love to say Stalantis except half the world doesn't know what Stalantis is anymore but Jeep Chrysler Jodd Dodge Jeep I mean they got so many different lines yeah even fiat's but the fact of the matter probably one of the reasons why they're doing so bad is they don't know what their name is and but they're they're trying to they have a record number of cars and stocks so back to our caller or le or a texter it is a good

time if you're if you're ready for battle to really just beat the hell out of us to land a stealer they're begging for they're begging for help their cars are overpriced but they admit it and they have a huge inventory and interest rates are off the chart so they have more jeeps in stock they're having to rent parking lots to store their jeeps so jeep is just a hot car i mean Dancy and I love jeeps. Every time we drive by and see a really sexy-looking Jeep, we say, hey, boy, that's really a cool-looking vehicle. So we're not immune to what jeeps are.

And the reason we haven't purchased one is because we've canceled the trip to the Grand Canyon. That's true, yeah. Anyway, go out there and do your homework and look at the day's supply, and you can just have a lot of fun online. and find a dealer that's got so many cars in stock, he's getting ready to hang himself because he's paying the manufacturer 12% or 14% interest to keep those cars in stock.

And he's hanging on by a thread. They're going after Stalanda saying, help us, help us. We need to lower prices, we need more incentives. You quit shoving these cars down our throat. So if you're strong and you're informed, or you use a good car buying program like Costco, or you want to use true car, or consumer reports, and you're an informed consumer.

You can get a hell of a deal on a Chrysler-Chap Dodge or any Stalantis product today. Ernest Ortego says, if you get financing through the dealership and pay off the loan in less than 30 days, does the financial institution not give the dealership a kickback? Usually, that's true. The thing you have to be careful of when you finance a car and pay it off soon is what will they allow you to pay off?

Now, it varies from lender to lender, but typically there is a time limit before you can pay the whole loan off, and that means they get you for a big slug of interest, even though you only keep the loan for a short period. at a time. So you might cancel the contract in weeks, but you might be charged for a year interest. So there's a minimum charge that car dealers before they go through the expense, their rationale, before I get all this expense to investigate your credit and get you all set up at the computer and get your monthly payment going. I'm doing all this work. And I don't want you to borrow the money today and pay it off tomorrow because you cost me money. And here's what is in the fine print, so I assure you that you won't.

So just be careful. I hear that from a lot of people. I'm just going to go ahead and get my, I'm going to get my big fat incentive because I'm going to finance it, and then I'll pay it off early. Be careful. Read the fine print and the installment sales contract. Oh, as a matter of fact, Donovan says at Ernesto Ortekeges, it's usually $90,000. days, and if you pay it off within that, the bank will charge the dealer a fee.

He says, he forgets the name of it. And he says, if the bank says no prepayment penalty, then you're good to pay it with one, even one day later. My man, Donovan. He is on the ball. I'm telling you, he's amazing. He is our fourth member or fifth member of the group that he should have a chair here with his name on it for this show.

I'll make it easy on you, Donovan. You don't have to have a chair here. You can join us once we fine-tune the construction of Zoom. You could start at, well, I'm not sure if you'll have enough time. 8.06. Yep, right here with us. We'll be watching you. You can be sharing all of this, well, great information that nobody else has.

Okay. Silence on the air is very scary. I think it has a place. Oh, okay. We'll have a moment of silence. I'll show you. 877-960-99-60. Please ladies, excuse me, give me a call. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Okay, boys. What you got for me?

Well, I'm just going to pick up the other money of news here because we're still talking about, this is a dealer problem, and so it doesn't get me a lot. I got lucky, by the way. Our dealership did not get cyberhacked, but this is almost deserving of what's going on with his DMS, CDK, and the cyber hack, affected virtually every car dealership in the country,

and we got lucky. We didn't have that dealer management system, that computer system, and we were not hurt. By the way, Stalantis was heard big time. And that's one of the reasons they're having problems now. And big, big earnings hit by most of all of the cartilage out there. Now it's turned into infighting. So CDK, everybody suing CDK because they say they caused it.

CDK paid the ransom money, 10 or 20 million. We don't know exactly how much to see these terrible people somewhere and God knows where. and they don't know where they are. I mean, if you follow these cyber hackers, they're strange people. They're like, all they know is cyber hacking. I don't think they have any education.

They're extremely smart people, but they majored in hacking. And they're in Nigeria, they're in Siberia. I don't know where they are. And they can sit at a computer anywhere in the world. and hack, oh, they just got AT&T. So I'm laughing at them. They're probably going to come and get our dealership.

You want to talk about another problem. We got enough problems with what we talk about on car dealerships. Well, once we fix this, maybe we'll go after cyber hackers. There you go. I mean, that could cripple the world, right? Cyberhackers? Anyway, the dealers are suing their customers.

The customers are suing the dealers. Everybody suing everybody. And the only people get to, you know, getting fat and happy are the lawyers. And there's only one group of people, well, I will say, there's three groups of people that I've got problems with. Lawyers, what was I say, lawyers, the car dealers. The hackers.

The hackers. The hackers. The hackers. I love dogs, but I love dogs. I have a short list. That list is for all of you out there, the consumer. That's who we're here for, and there's no in-between, no in-between man. So, we have no phone calls.

So what does anybody have your anonymous feedback? Anybody have by YouTube? We do have one other in the text messages. Jonathan from Palm Coast says, Earl, if you don't recommend the extended warranty, why do they push it so hard in the finance office? Let me answer that. No, go ahead.

Well, you know, again, I feel defensive. when I have to answer questions like that, truthfully. I sell finance contracts because it's profitable. I make money, and I'm a capitalist, and I'm a car dealer. I try to do it with total honesty and integrity and disclosure. I personally don't like extended service contracts. I don't, when I buy a product or Nancy buys a product, they always offer you an extended service contract.

But we don't buy them unless it's something that we feel should we need it and can't afford to buy the repair, then we'll buy it. But, you know, if I buy something that I can afford to take care of. Nancy and I feel if our house burns down, that would be a financial burden on us. So we have fire insurance. but if if if my if my new oh okay my new iPhone breaks I can buy another iPhone it'll cost me what how much an iPhone cost 200 bucks 300 bucks I can I can new a thousand okay I saw you how long as I bought one can I say no I'll be honest with you I can afford a thousand dollars but I can't I'm not going to tell you how much my house got

but it's a lot of money and I and I would it would bring tears to my eyes to have to to build another house so it's kind of like what you have what you feel good about I know this without about over the long haul of my life with collision deductible with extended service contract over all the things I purchased in my life I buy very little extended warnings I am way ahead of the game I have more money in the bank than had I by buying extended warranty. So back to the question. Everybody forgot the question. The caller want to know, why do I shall extended awards? Because my customers want to buy them. And if I, and I say on this radio show every week, I wouldn't buy one, but

that's me. If you feel better about buying an extended warranty and it covers what it says it's going to cover and there's no surprises and the price is fair. then buy it. But I think that you could do better by if that warrant it cost you $1,000, I'd rather bank that $1,000, put it in the stock market, get 10% annual return on my investment, which is historically what the stock market is paid for a million years, slight exaggeration, and you always come out ahead of the game,

and you don't need the extended service contract. Long answer to a simple contract. question I'm sorry and that's let's see yeah that's got me caught up for right now okay I think that it is time for us to go to Dutch you're wondering who Dutch is he's our dog of the week dog of the week he's a Dutch pup he's a Dutch pup he's a has boundless energy and he has a heart filled with Do we need to see any more? Take a look at this video of Dutch. My name is Joshua from lead dog for ski rants. This is Dutch. He's a Belgian

Malinwell mixed with shepherd. He's very smart, very loving. He's got a lot of energy. He's ready to go home, great on the leash. I hear the dog is in the background. Sit. Good boy. Dutch, are you okay? Good boy. Oh, Dutch is out of control.

Oh, boy. I'm going to come down there and get you, Dutch. Your behavior is, though. For those of you that can't see, Dutch is this beautiful, brindle-colored, like a Malin-Wi mix. And he, she's a Malin-W Shepherd mix, and he's gorgeous.

He's ready for home. Walking so well on the leash. We are big supporters of the Good Dog Ranch Rescue, and they are the largest no-kill shelter in the United States. They take in hundreds, thousands of dogs, and they keep them until they find a loving home. When you adopt our sponsored dog through us, we take care of the adoption fees. There's a lot of expenses that goes into getting the dogs ready for adopting and housing them, some indefinitely. And you get charged a few hundred dollars based on the breed, age of the dog, and how long they've been at the ranch. But we take care of that for you.

You get a dog that's ready to go with all his shots, neutered, spade, bathed, clean. And we highlight these dogs. He looks like he weighs about 40, 45 pounds, maybe 50. He is incredibly intelligent and attentive to the fellow handling with him. Extremely good on the leash. I'm impressed by how well he is on the leash there. Oh, that was amazing, wasn't it? Folks, if you're looking for a dog that will do really,

well on the leash. Now, bear in mind, Malinwas, Shepherds mix like that, they're going to require exercise, so be ready, you know, be aware of that one. But go out and talk to them, and if you're the right fit for Dutch, hey, Earl Stewart's going to cover the adoption fees for Dutch. He is looking for a forever home. I don't think he's going to last too long. He'll be adopted quickly. He will. Dutch is only four years old, and he is energetic. but if if and when you see the video you can see how well trained he is so he's not going to be jumping all over you and you know doing things that puppies do so if you want to go to big dog ranch rescue you can go to wwwbdrr.org and you can go there

you can fill out an application if you'd like to do that before you get out there They do a background check, and you can fill that out, and you can have it already or send it in prior to you arriving out at the Big Dog Ranch. And I have to mention Earl's book, his book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer, well, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. All proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch when you purchase Confessions. of a recovering car dealer. You can go to Earl and Cores. You can go to Amazon. You go to Amazon.

Amazon.com is the best place to buy them. So go ahead out there and take a look at Dutch. And, boy, I'll tell you what, they have some beautiful dogs out there right now. It's an amazing place and an adventure. And with all the heat, you can still go out there and you can spend a whole lot of time in the air conditioning. and you can, as a sidebar here, I'm going back out

because I want to take a look at Puppieville. Yeah. Okay. She's not making that up, Dr. was literally, I mean, I want you envision a beautiful green area with cute little cottages, multi-colored colleges, just beautiful. You'd love to live in one of these yourselves,

and that's where the puppies are. And then that's next to the maternity row. I'm not making this stuff. up and that's where pregnant dogs go and they have their babies and the puppies are moved into puppyville and they're just this place is uh if i were a dog i'd never leave there i think one of the problems with big dog ranch rescue it's too nice and the dogs get out there hey uh the hell with a foster home i'm staying here at the uh uh ritz carleton you know i'm a i'm gonna growl you bring me a Foster, I'm only kidding.

It's an amazing place. Folks, let's remember one thing. Dogs are all about love. And when you find the right dog for you, it doesn't matter if you live in a cardboard box or a mansion. That dog's going to love you forever.

That's all that matters. Can I tell one of my really bad male chauvinist jokes? You've got to remember because I'm an old guy, a lot of my jokes go back to the days of discrimination. So here's an old joke, and I admit I'm a pig in a lot of ways. But this makes me laugh. That's another show.

For all you pigs out there, we don't have time for that. Here's my old joke, and I apologize to the pigs I've already told the old joke to. Okay. Do you know how to tell who loves you more, your wife or your dog? How? Well, you wife. Please, Rick. You lock your wife in the car trunk and let her out, and you lock your dog in the car trunk and see who likes you when they get out of the trunk.

Okay, Jonathan, are you going to be muting? I'm not going there. Silence on the set here. Jonathan, will you be muting my microphone? I recommend that you do. Okay, folks, that's enough fun for us. we are going to be going to the mystery shopping report it is

it's been done down in coconut creek hang on to your hats Lou Bankerat Chevrolet if you want to vote and I know you will you can do so at 772-497-6530 hey before you do the mystery shopping report

I have to share this real real quick okay we have um in the home beach post honolulu tops list for the safest drivers in the u.s and here's what the report finds number one hard break the least honolulu drive at high speed the least honolulu handle their phones the least this is the whole united states san jose california yeah here are the riskiest drivers number one port st lucy port st lucy for you folks out there for you folks out of the area drive at high speed for your folks out of the area of port st lucid a little bitty community to the north of north of palm beach and nobody's heard of it unless you're in this area and it's supposed

to be a little rural happy of town but the drivers they're all apparently all maniacs We have a small, poor St. Lucie is full of driving maniacs, according to the survey. I don't think they called them maniacs, but it was close. But you were asking about the phones, whether handling or not handling, you know who handles their phones the most? Rhode Island there you go okay mystery shopping report okay one more quickly

forward to the Mr. Shepard report I forgot to tell you about this you know one of my favorite targets on this show is Napleton probably one of the most corrupt car dealers anywhere and every time we drop them it's just ludicrous

he's got dozens and dozens of dealership they just get bigger and bigger and bigger But one of the interesting is about Mapleton, I mean, in a way you have to admire the devil by the way he goes about. I mean, if someone's a really bad guy and they just never, never get in until they're gone, I mean, you've got to give them a pat on the back for persistence. Here's what Naplesa, Hyundai has been trying to get rid of Naples, because Hyundai's got a bunch of Napleton dealerships, or I should say Naples got a bunch of Hyundai dealerships. And he's all over the country. He's got quite a few in Florida.

So Hyundai's trying to get the dealerships back from Mapleton, but with the state laws lobbied in by the money-grubbing attorney generals that are protecting the dealers, you can't get rid of a car dealer. A car dealer's got to be a murderer and then some to get rid of them today because the laws aren't enforced. That's another story. So, Napleton sues Hyundai all the time.

Another lawsuit. Now, Napleton's suing Hyundai because they've been forcing him to report, falsely report electric vehicle sales. Now, if you know Napleson, he falsely reports everything. I mean, nobody's forcing him to falsely report, that's what he does. So it's just to me, it's a little bit of humor. He'll probably sue me now, but it's not going to do anything to get to sue me. He's going to sue Hyundai to stall Hyundai off on getting rid of him. And that's my little nugget of the day.

Okay. Okay, so we're going to go to the mystery shopping report? Blue Bacrot. Here you go. Moobachrot, Chevrolet, and Coconut Creek, or in Pompano, Fort Lauderdale, I think. Speaking of the first person, I got a little story I might tell you if I have time. after this shopping report goes Lou Bacrod and I go way back. Okay, mystery shopping report.

Speaking in the first person is if I were Agent Lightning. I arrived just before lunch as I was walking up the front steps. Salesman was smiling at me and been over extending his hand for a handshake. He introduced himself as Matt and asked if I had an appointment with anyone today. Matt said he was happy to help me out and suggested we go over to his desk. He asked, what do you have to be? to accomplish today I said I'm looking for a truck to haul a fifth-wheel camper and I saw some great deals on the website and again speaking as myself

here we try to get advertisements that sound too good to be true that's a good way to get a juicy mystery shopping report because anything that a car dealer advertises today you can count on one thing it ain't true I mean there's the car dealership ads are all fictitious man asked what features are most important to you I said adaptive cruise control and leather seats and then I showed him the truck advertised online a new 2024 Chevrolet Silverado silver auto silver out 1500 RST with an MSRP of 59,925 dollars mononi label MSRP fifty nine thousand nine hundred twenty five dollars Lou Bucrot was offering it for

for 47,937 bucks. Woo! Too early to say woo, but I always say woo with this stage of the report. $12,000 of MSRP. Matt confirmed it was in stock and available for sale. He suggested we go take a look and get the keys. Matt offered me for me to sit in the air conditioning for a while and if you're not from this area of course I guess anywhere in the world now it's hot everywhere so is really hot here in South Florida. So that was a smart move. Set the AC while he pulled the car around up front.

About two minutes later, back was back already. I mentioned for me to come and see my new truck. She's a beauty. We went outside, there she was. Matt used the auto start feature. They all do that now. They're fun. I like the other start feature to start it.

And then he showed me all the features he had to offer. He pointed out that it has a hitch already. and also the adaptive cruise control already on the car. That's almost everything I wanted in the truck. Matt then pulled up the big screen and went through the investigation. I'm sorry. He went through the navigation, adding Google Play, Apple Car Play, etc. He also mentioned that there was a lift kit and a bedliner in the truck bed,

which they don't all have. Okay, we affirmed that lift kit was not in all trucks, but it wasn't this one. Now, the addendum label, the infamous addendum label, next to the properly placed monoroni label, and I underlined this for the simple reason. This is in Pompano Beach, Florida, which is in South Florida, which is Solomon Yamora, which is the worst, worst place you can buy a car. the monorone labels to find a monorone label on the window where the manufacturer in the federal law so it should be is almost never happens so i underline it so but uh lu bachrot

pad on the back to lou botrod actually not tearing the monorny label off and hiding it somewhere uh and listed the typical appearance package kit for about four thousand and fourteen thousand dollars for the lift kit which is supposed to be included uh lu bachrot's price on the addendum was $78,000. Oh, 64. Now, he did say the price was, what he said the price was. So the addendum is a shocker. Now, here's another reason for the addendum.

The addendum is there for the people that are not sophisticated enough and not educated enough and careful to find out what the advertised price are, what the fine print is, and to have that discussion with the salesman. There are those people, believe it or not, who just wander innocently into a car dealership and says, I'll take that one over there. Now, when you do that, what can I tell you? You're going to get hosed big time. But that's the reason the addendum there, because if you said that, I promise you that the salesperson is going to say, no, no, no, no,

you can't pay that. He gets paid 25% of whatever he sells a car for. So if he, if he, if he can get another $14,000 on addendums and junk trees and the rest of it, he's not going to volunteer that information. You're going to pay. So always, always question the price. I said, I really like it. I suggested we go for a test drive. I acted a little nervous and said, I think I'll leave that up to my husband. And I really just wanted to come in and take your best price, get your best price, and see if the online prices were too good to be true, like my hubby always says they are. Smart hubby.

Man assured me they honor their online prices and that he would work to get me the best thing they could. Okay, we'll see. How soon are you looking to make a purchase, Matt said? I replied, if the price is right, possibly today. Now, if you want to get a price, you better say yes today. I mean, if you don't want to do a car dealership and you say you're not ready to give them,

to buy, you're not going to get the real price. You're going to get a promise that the price will be lower than anybody else, but you won't get a price. You won't get a legal, you will not get a firm price if you don't tell them you're going to drive that car home today. Okay, we hit it back inside. Matt collected some info from me before excusing himself to talk to a sales manager.

He returned a few minutes later and apologized for taking so long. I said, I think you're going to be very happy and laid down a worksheet. We talked about the worksheet earlier. That's the arbitration agreement, the no legal obligation. This worksheet can go up and down and sideways. It means nothing. That's a piece of paper that you're working with.

So he had that there, and we're going to put one on our website because, Erloncores.com, because a very, very smart caller said, Why don't you do that? And we should have done it, but I'm going to ask my son, Stu, to do that. So we'll have it up by next week. Okay, the top line was thankfully MSRP, 59,925. There was a $12,000 discount. Whoops, good discount.

Making my adjusted price, $47,937. They added and inflated, here we go, the additions, 699 in DMV, that's Department of Motor Vehicle Field. Now that's inflated because we know that tax and the tag aren't that much. So that's inflated. We don't know by how much. I'd say probably a couple hundred bucks. And here's a doozy.

1693 junk fee they called a processing dock fee. Oh man. That's a doozy, isn't it? $1,193 processing dock fee. Matt explained the big discount came courtesy of some very aggressive factory insuracy. I noticed that the total out-the-door price was less than MSRP. There you have it, folks. A year ago, that out-the-door price would have been way over MSRP.

Good times are coming back slowly, too slowly, but they are coming back. So here we actually have a price below MSRP in spite of the junk fees and the processing fees and the rest of it. And part of that is due to factory, aggressive factory incentives. So you will see that too, but it's all money, right? And be very careful when you buy a car today because you might not know about the factory incentives. And when you get into the box, the finance department, and they start throwing these papers at you in a white blur

and they got the pen in your hand and they're rubbing your fingers over the paper, you're signing stuff, you don't even know what you're signing. what you're signing and one of the things you might be signing is you assign all factory incentives to the dealer now that could be a customer incentive and you might have a couple thousand dollars that they advertise they're going to give you if you buy this car but if you don't know about it you ain't going to get it you're going to assign it to the dealer and you'll never know you did it and you'll put it in his pocket that's profit and that's what happens in

the box uh i noticed that the total off-the-door price was less the MSRP. I also noticed, and that's good news, that the worksheet did not reflect the inclusion of lift kit. Now, I find it hard to believe after he affirmed that multiple times in writing, they would dare to try to slip that little lift kit back in on top of that price that they just gave you.

I don't think they would, but I don't know. I thanked him first time, and that is, so I'd be in touch after I talk with my husband, Matt asked me to please give him a moment, huh? Just the moment. Gotta get Kenny, gotta get my sales manager. Same old, same old, the name of the game. A few minutes later, return with Kenny.

Matt introduced him and Kenny explained that it's a great deal on this truck, on his truck, they always call it their truck. And usually you only get special financing or deal with discounts, but he could probably work something out. Probably get both if he's just, If I decide to buy today, he went on to say that GMC offers annual percentage rate incentives or dealer discounts,

but not both. They're virtually always excluded one or the other, so that's an accurate disclosure. I won't get off of that, but you basically will use the APR if you're gonna finance for a long time, which most people do, unfortunately. And your cash is usually, your cash incentives are usually less, because of the high interest rates if you're gonna finance through the dealer which

you shouldn't but if you have to I'm then asked as a truck come as it sits right now with the lift kit at that price you should be they both assured me it does so there it did it didn't it did it didn't and the last it's been I walked out the door it was it is included a small box anyway I thank them said I'd be be in touch right okay the South Florida Pompano Beach, Florida, a shopping report, which is a special category of car dealers, I've said many, many times. So we agreed on the curve.

That means C. The average dealer down here is pretty bad, so the average dealer down here gets a C. If we didn't have a passing grade, there'd be nobody place, no place to buy a car in South Florida if you looked at our list of recommended car dealers, and that's on uran cars.com. So you go to www.organtars.com, recommended dealer list, and you have a dealer, do not buy lists. Don't touch those with a 10-foot pole.

Those are dealers that are terrible, and they will lie and cheat and steal and break the law. But if they're on the recommended list, they're still going to be pretty fluffy with you, but you've got to be careful. So take the dealers with the higher scores. So you'll call in the show, and you'll give, please don't give an A in this.

unless his dealer can walk on water and there aren't any dealers that can walk on water. So if it's an average dealer for South Florida, give them a C. If they're really bad, I'm not going to tell you you can't give it F. If you want to fluck a dealer, fluck a dealer. But remember, we say to them, you will never sell a dealer a car in South Florida if we have our way. And we put them on the do not buy this. That's pretty severe. And if we say A, we don't like to say that.

because I don't know a dealer here in South Florida that I could say that you could just walk in to buy a car and forget about it. I mean, there aren't any. So C is average. You could text us. Your number at 772-4976530, and we will get to your text, and we will get to your YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash early cars, and we got Facebook. 4th last year old Facebook.com

4 slash you're on the car Let's hear what votes we have Rick, are you got anything coming in? Okay, we will start with Jonathan and Palm Coast He says, Lou Backrote originally offered under MSRP but ended up way over

MSRP. The addendum level is nothing but a laundry list of useless fraudulent fees and add-ons. Bait and switch, dishonest, disreputable, Disgusting. Whatever is less than an F is my grade. They should have their own. Do not buy lists of their own. He does not like them. He's a tough guy. Bob says B for backroot Chevrolet. Excuse me. Frank says, let's see. Interesting mystery shopping report below MSRP. I'm sorry folks.

Below MSRP is encouraging. Still have to see what the out-to-door price actually would be. Oh yes, the grade C plus. And let's see that here. First channel YouTube, nobody right here. Second channel, let's see, we are got Brian Zedlatko says, the out-to-door price is lower than the MSRP equals A every day.

Tom Steckle C minus Too many moving parts The F&I price Will likely be higher Than what was on the worksheet I'd go to West Haney Chevrolet in Live Oak

Joseph Kelleherd D Outrageous dock fee Reason for D grade T-cash D plus Too much give and take Instead of an 11K

discount than throwing on 3K and fees Why not just offer 8 key in discount with no fees George Petrillo, State of Florida, tag title transfer registration is $380. I contacted State of Florida Motor Vehicles, and that's what I was told. Johnny Z. Fradley says, see, they could do better. And George says, it's a D for me.

Here we go. Let's see, Mark Smith, D, they could do way better than that. Cram 1624 says, D, D, M. minus. I bet they make up the difference in the F and I department. Oh, boy. For me, I'm going to say a C plus. I think they actually, they put the lift kit on basically for free. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I'm going to say a C plus.

I say, as long as you're careful, you might get a good deal there. What does a lift kit cost, Rick? They're listing it at $14,000. And, yeah, they're expensive. Okay. I haven't installed one lately or purchased one. All kidding aside, you know, this mystery shopping report really takes my breath away. You know, here they have at the end in this mystery shopping report the fact that it's a special deal today.

And that deal would involve special financing or, Dealer discounts, but today, they'll give you both. Run. Don't walk. Run. I give them an F. Oh, my God. Well, she's in a bad mood today, folks.

Stay away from Nancy. No, stay away from Lou Backrod, Chevrolet, Coconut Creek. About Lou Backrod, one thing that I mentioned is that at one time he was a leader, and I was on the stage with him in Dallas at the NAD meeting. So this is what can happen if you let your dealership go. And that's what happens. Most people don't hang on and try to manage your dealerships. And they make a lot of money, and they move to Montana.

They moved to the Greek Isles. I don't know where they moved to. But most of these people like Naples, they don't even know what the dealerships look like anymore. And they're in the hands of the mercenary. Well, I think we're Ready to wrap it up What's your vote, Earl? My vote is for a C-plus.

Okay, C-plus. Okay, folks, we'll be right back here Next week, the Oldies Channel, us, Roland Cars. Have a great weekend. We'll see you back then at 8 a.m. Thank you.