Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.17.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Toyota

Episode Date: July 17, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Palm Beach Toyota to see what kind of deal they will offer her on a new 2021 Toyota Camry XSE. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. We're back live on the air. We're streaming on the Internet. We're all over the world, and we're here to help you avoid being taking advantage of when you buy your next car or lease your next car when you have your car maintain or you repair it we've got most of the answers I won't say we've got all the answers but we're kind of unusual I don't think there's another show certainly not another live show out there anywhere in cyberspace like this spread the word we'd appreciate that if you could tell your friends we have a huge number

of regulars out there and regular callers and participants and some just that don't call. In fact, most don't call. But I'm surprised every day at the number of people that say, I saw you on Facebook, or I heard you on the radio, or saw you on YouTube. And it spread.

And it's spread all over the world, literally. We've been as far as Bali. I have to mention that. We haven't had anything further. You can't get much further away from Florida than Bali, I guess. So that's pretty cool. I want to remind you, I always do this. people tend to think of this show as how not to get ripped off when you buy a car.

That's certainly a big part of it, but a lot of it has to do with the complexity of today's automobiles. And most of us have experience, including me, I'm in the business. I'm an automobile dealer in full transparency and confession. In fact, my book is Confessions of a recovering car dealer. I'm in the business, and I have difficulty with my car. cars are too complicated today I'll be honest about that

I think the manufacturers have gone overboard in complexity well-meaning I suppose are trying to sell more cars the more bills and whistles and toys you put on the car I think they believe the more vehicles they sell which is true I mean I'm one of those people out there

when I can see a product that's kind of modern and technically cool I'll buy it and then oftentimes I find out after I buy it I can't figure how to operate it. And that's where we find ourselves with cars. We've got Rick Kearney sitting on my right here in the studio. And Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician. Been around the block many times on automobiles and trucks and the rest of it. He could practically build a car if he had to. Actually, I think he did when he was a kid.

And that's how you have to get started. You have to love what you do. Rick loves what he does. and he's fascinated by automobiles and he's evolved that's the thing I like about him is he never got stuck and some of us get stuck in technology and he never did he's he's ridden the technology way

with cars I mean Bluetooth and all the other high-tech computerized things that have happened bricks on top of it so if you're stumped with your car you got a little tick or rattle or anything wrong

a smell vibration and you can't figure it out and you're afraid to go into a car dealer just call the show 877 960 9960 you might want to write that down if you just tuned in

or you're driving your car and maybe you wait till you get where you're going and you can write it down 877 960 9960 call Rick say hey I got this little vibration

and I'm kind of afraid to take it back to my dealer. My car's out of warranty, and I'm afraid they're going to get me on the repairs. And you have a chit-chat on the air. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. That's our old-fashioned text number. 772-497-65-30. If you text us, we almost certainly will get to that.

maybe not right to the second, but we will certainly get to it by the end of the show. And we also have a super neat line. I'm surprised it hasn't gone viral. Why doesn't everybody have a vehicle a way to contact a company anonymously? The police department has it. FBI has it. I think they have suicide hotlines have it I mean there are a lot of people out there that have

ways you can call and be anonymous because people sometimes just want their privacy so if you want to be anonymous and call this show Earl on Cars go to anonymous your Y-O-U-R-Y-O-U-R-AnonymousFeedback.com your anonymousfeedback.com and you can say anything you want to say.

Hopefully, it'll be productive and be something that other people would like to hear. We get a lot of those, and hopefully we'll get a lot this morning. So you add that together with the call-in number 877-960 and the text number

772-4976530 and then Your Anonymous Feedback.com there's just no damn reason. and you shouldn't contact this show. And that's what makes the show because you really come up with some cool ideas. And you just don't ask questions. You make suggestions.

You give us constructive criticism. In fact, we have the anonymous so you can even make non-constructive criticism. You know, and let's face it. Just insult us. Yeah, if we're irritating, you know, tell us because we're probably irritating somebody else. and if we don't know that we're irritating you, we can't improve.

We try to get better. There's a Japanese word, Kaizen, K-A-I-C-E-N, and the translation is continuous improvement. We try to get a little bit better every week, and there's nothing better than constructive criticism to help us. And I think we have. We've been on the show for about 20 years. You know, I've never listened to a rerun when we first started. I wonder if we could find. and Nancy was with me when we first started.

The rest of the crew here has joined us since then, but Nancy Stewart started this show with us, me, about 20 years ago, half-hour show on C.V.U. Radio. Wouldn't it be fun to listen to that show and hear it and see what we did? I bet we were pretty sloppy. I don't think so. Oh, you think we were cool, huh? I think we were always good.

And speaking of Nancy, Nancy is our female advocate I know some of you men out there don't like to hear that but too bad female advocacy is a fact of the 21st century and the fact that women are coming into their own finally in this country unlike some countries around the world where they're still treated like

third-class citizens in America we're at least getting the idea that you have to look at half the population that are so important to our economy in the world and say hey give them an equal break and that's what nancy's doing for female advocacy on her own cars and she is encouraging all of our female listeners i'm going to use that word female we were told two or three weeks ago that wasn't that was a derogatory term i can't think of a better one i know woman lady there's a lot of other uh the other sex i don't know what

Anyway, we'll say female. I'm not trying to be negative about it, but our female listeners, if you call the show, Nancy is going to tell you about a special offer that we will incentivize you if you've never called the show before, and I'll turn the mic over to Nancy. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Take advantage of www.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Really important. and say whatever you want. You can't be tracked down. www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And for the ladies this morning, I offer you $50 for the first two new lady callers. And to everyone out there that's listening,

I have a question. Has your purchase for a vehicle sort of put you on the back burner right now because, well, we're at an all-time high as far as prices are concerned, and it has a lot to do with a lot of factors. I won't go into them right now. And earlier, whenever Earl asked about our shows in the past, and I said we were good, what I meant by that comment, excuse me,

was that we've always felt passionate from the very beginning. And to my knowledge, nobody in this studio has gone to communication school. And we just sort of fell in to the positions that we're in because of our passion, because of the empathy that we have for the consumer. So that's what's made us good. It's all about you. It's all about you. And it's just like the consumer report that we often talk about.

They are not there for the companies that they investigate, that they test on and on and on. They are there for you. So with all of that said, give me a call. Ladies, what affected your car purchase this past week? Or did you decide not to? You can win yourself $50 this morning? by calling me 877-960 that's the first two new lady callers now back to the recovering car dealer and speaking of lady callers and ladies thanks to Nancy we now have a mystery shopping person who is

female and we refer to her as agent lightning because we keep our mystery shoppers very very secret so that they can shop over and over again. And Agent Lightning shops, she's been in Pennsylvania, she's been in Orlando, she's been all over. She's been in, where's it, Tennessee or? Tennessee, Pennsylvania. So she's doing an amazing job. And for many, many years, we had male shopper after male shop.

Now we have a female shopper. So thanks Nancy for recruiting Amy, I mean Agent Lightning. And let's turn the mic over to... You know, before you go on, let me mention the fact that I didn't mention Agent Lightning when we began the show just a couple of minutes ago. But what a spectacular, amazing, professional job that she has done. And you talk about being put in a position that you unknowingly are so good at. it's you know the big guy's got a plan for all of us and she was meant to be where she is and she is a great asset to the show now back to the recovering car dealer

I'm going to flip over to Stu because he's in charge of our mystery shoppers and he also was monitoring our text and other input that's right you know I think these days our mystery shopping is taken on a new importance And in the past, obviously it was meant first and foremost to be informative and just educational about what's going on in the car business around here and beyond. But when we have these weird changes like with the pandemic and the inventory shortage, it can change the car dealer behavior and tactics like overnight. And so everything that we talked about maybe last year was wholesale different from what's going on right now. it's nice to be able to get real-time data happening in a market. I don't want to sound like we're bragging, but this is better than CNBC or the Wall Street Journal.

You hit it right on there. I mean, I read things in the news that we talked about on the show three weeks ago. We see the trends appearing before the national media sees the trends appearing certainly. And also, it's just not commonly talked about. So the things that we talk about on the show might not be relevant to a lot of people at this moment. But right now, there are a lot of people with a broken. down cars. A lot of people who need to get a car right now are thinking who want to get a car. And so it's really important to listen to the show. We're not trying to chew our own horns, but it is fraught out there with dangers and pitfalls. And I really, I'll be honest with the listeners.

Sometimes I feel guilty that we do it. I feel sometimes that we pick on people, but then I remind myself of the people that matter are the people that are getting taken advantage of. So, So while we do have a certain sense of remorse, it's not that strong a sense of remorse. If there's any doubt of our integrity or transparency, let me share a little family secret with you. As you know, we have a toilet dealership, and we are in the business, and we've been doing that for 47 years. And we're advising on this radio show that you don't buy a car. So when I put my Toyota dealer hat on, I'll talk to my son, and I will say, why aren't we doing a better job selling cars? And my son will say, well, Dad, it might be because you're advising your radio audience not to buy a car.

I have brought that up. So it's not easy wearing two hats. Hey, talk about two hats. And why is my wife out there recruiting people to sell their used cars to us? Why is she passing out those business cards like M&M's? Anyway, back over to Stee. Got any text? Yeah, we'll kick it off with Anne-Marie's inaugural text,

but Nancy's waving, that means we might have a live human being. Kind of like that car salesman in our mystery shopping report. Is that what you do now? Excuse me while I choke. Okay, John. You've been waiting for quite a while. Thank you so much. John from Palm City is one of our regular callers. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone.

I want to talk about an item that's constantly overlooked, and it's very, very important, and then I have a question for Rick. The item is cabin filters. Cabin filters. Every automobile has it. It takes out the exhaust pollutants, probably 99.5%. And Earl, with degrees in chemistry, can probably tell you the actual, it's ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen dioxide, and benzene, which has been proven to cause cancer. Most people don't even remember or don't even know that that filter could be changed. According to the filter companies, it should be every 12 to 15,000 miles, but again, notified from your owner's manual that it should be changed.

But it's such a major item, you know, 50 million. people in America have allergies, 20 million of them have asthma, and this is very important for us when we get in the car, never mind to open the window because that's pollutant. You're in the car, and this filter is critical. So my question to Rick is, with a common filter, can the average person, male or female, where is it located, and can they change it themselves? Yes, they can, and it's usually located behind the glove box. I mean, it's a little bit of a trick to get to some of them, but yeah, the average person could change one out in about 10 minutes.

There's probably a YouTube on every cabin filter on every make car. No, probably about it. I guarantee there's 20 YouTubes of every single model that has one. However, I do recommend for people with allergies and the like, if you have breathing issues, step up and buy one of the heavy-duty activated charcoal-type cabin filters. They filter a lot more of the poisons out of that air that is then being blown into your face from the air conditioning. Manufacturers don't make that? Yes, they do, but they offer different levels.

You can get one that's an activated charcoal that is much more proficient, but they're a lot more expensive. What comes with the car? Usually just a normal paper filter. I got you. Well, thanks, John. That's a great suggestion. That's why I wanted to point it out to the people.

Just don't neglect. It's very, very important, and naturally it should be changed if road conditions or where you live, it's a lot of dust. But the normal thing is to follow your owner's manual, and it's 12 to 15, the manufacturer of the filters recommend. Well, thank you very much, John. You just got my brain going now on filters. Why, I'm asking Rick this, why don't they make a cabin filter that you can wash? Why isn't there Why can't you

Instead of having to buy the whole filter Is there Do you think it would make any sense Or is that impossible to get the benzene out? I guess maybe I think trying to get the pollutants out of that filter Would be rather difficult Without using special cleaners

Yeah And I think you'd be creating Such a more difficult procedure Same thing for the air conditioning filters in your home Exactly Most people simply have a disposable filter that they pull out, replace put it going in. If I were being cynical, I would say maybe it's because the filters

want to sell more filters, and if they came up with a filter that lasted forever because you could wash it and cleanse it, they wouldn't make as much money. That's only if I was being a cynic. Well, there is a company called K&N that does filters like that for the engine, but the procedure for cleaning and re-oiling that filter takes about an hour and a half to two hours to do. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, and also my opinion, unless you have to mortgage your home, I suggest not only for your vehicle and your home, but I suggest highly. That's the air that you're breathing. Folks, spend the money. And it's a relatively inexpensive item. I was just going to say, you know, for the cost of your health, and for the constricted inside of your vehicle where you are, where you're inhaling. everything that's coming at you, the charcoal filter is a great idea. And there's only one filter in our home that I used to wash, and I no longer do that because there's so much construction and there's so much in the elements that is coming into

the house, it's really worth it. It's really worth it. And it's inexpensive. But Earl has given away something about rage of Earl and myself. In the old, old days, the air filter in the car, in the automobile for the carburetor, actually was oil. It was infiltrated with oil, and it was an oil bath filter. And actually, basically, what you did, you changed out the oil when it got contaminated and dirty. That's what he's probably thinking of, too. Yeah, those were good old days, weren't they, John?

Yes, yes. Things were easier. Change your own oil and do your things yourself. It was simple. Yeah. I liked it. I like doing it all myself. Well, thank you, John.

I was worried about you. You didn't call last week, and you're one of our best regular callers, so I'm glad you're feeling okay, and I'm glad you're back on the air with us. Thank you very much. Have a good day. You too, my friend. And thank you for the mail, John. Appreciate it.

We are going to go to our first time caller, and her name is Misty. She's from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Misty. And welcome to Erlon Kars. Thank you. You've won yourself $50. If you can send me your contact information, that's your address at nancy S. at E.S.Toyota.com. And if you couldn't write it down or can't write it down right now before we hang up, I'll make sure you have it.

What can we do for you? Well, my question is more of a philosophy. sort. I was, I've grown up working with my own oil, changing my own tires, that kind of thing. But I've always had, like, multiple cars or cars that make sense. Instead of putting their battery in the back in the trunk, like a Prius, it's up in the front on the engine block. And I was just wondering, why do they move the battery? We're going to answer that? Basically, they were looking at the space that they needed under the hood for the hybrids.

The Prius, the hybrid Camry, the hybrid Avalon, they put them all in the trunk, and yet now for the Prius, they've moved it back up in the front because they were able to shrink the size of the inverter down that he gave more room up in the front. The Camry has come back to the front, I believe, now, and Avalon's going to be doing the same. It's much more convenient having it in the front and having shorter cables means the electric power doesn't degrade as much. It doesn't get quite as much resistance for having to travel a shorter distance. Awesome. That's great. I just wanted to make it simple again. Yep. Well, it was also kind of annoying because if the battery went dead on a Prius with the battery in the back, the hatch for it only is accessible by electric. So you had to have a point up in the front where you could jump power to it to get the hatch open to get back to the 12-volt battery. So it was kind of silly, but they've got that straightened around now.

Yeah, no. When I started dating my fiancé, his battery died, and I'm like, well, why don't we just change it? And he's like, I can't. I get a call Triple-A. And I'm like, what? I hope, Rick, I hope that he was able to answer your question. I was just imagining you when I'm laughing. I'm imagining you crawling.

Something I would do, Misty. You always break a window, you know. Can we answer any other question? No, that was my main concern, and I'm glad to hear that they're actually moving it to the front it was just space yeah yeah yes yes is right uh Rick's amazing isn't he he can just he can answer um he can answer anything um Misty I want to thank you for taking a moment and calling her on cars I hope that you know what an important part of this platform I'm trying to build in what exists in some places as called

is called the boys club and we're trying to take that myth and we're trying to eliminate it in a lot of different ways whether it be in the service department whether it be in the showroom whether it be on the used car lot

women are a huge huge part of this industry and for the auto dealers not to know that is a financial disaster for them so I thank you and the $50 is well worth it and if you do have a pen pencil it is nancy s at e s toyota dot com send me your mailing address

and please give us a call again i may i may if i ever come up with another question yeah there's all kind of questions that you can ask and there isn't a question it's not important they're all important thank you misty thank you bye bye bye 877 960 9960 don't forget your anonymous feedback.com and you can text us at 877 number 960 9960 thank you uh-huh stew knows it all I hear it every Saturday mentioning mentioning stew I blanked it's my age I thought you're quizzing me you should have played along quiz in you yes okay um Stu's got to share some text with us. We're going to jump to Amory's text.

Amory says, good morning. This pandemic has certainly upended the American car market. Cars are more expensive than ever. Loans are longer than ever, and parts are in such short supply that manufacturers are trying to adapt in new and novel ways. Chalapnik referenced a story by Michael Martinez in Automotive News, which mentions that the Ford Motor Company is considering shipping partially built vehicles that are awaiting semiconductors or related components to dealers. If this plan is approved,

Ford's retail network would have the responsibility to complete the assembly once the chips are available. Only dealerships who would choose to receive the unfinished vehicles would get them and their service technicians would be trained on how to install them. These are indeed extraordinary times. They have created challenges that could pressure a major manufacturer to contemplate making a move like this. After a year like we've had, what could possibly go wrong? I think that is really interesting. I didn't hear about that. I didn't know. If they did that for us, I would feel supremely confident that Rick could finish building the cars. Well, I think every dealer would take all the cars if they needed. I mean,

I soon poured a shorter cars like everybody else, but I would be nervous about having a microchip installed by a technician. I mean, I think, have you ever installed a microchip, Rick? Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I've replaced them. Oh, I mean, literally, the integrated circuit that is, is within, are you talking, you probably talk about a module. Well, actually, in the inverter, which is the main power box for hybrid cars, I've replaced the circuit board that is the power management control circuit board. Oh, a couple hundred now on Priuses.

Yeah. And Highlander hybrids, so. And very usual. Just you can grab a soldering iron and a wrench and, right? I put on my special microscope glasses. I've been back in the shop. I saw Rick in the clean suit, and they had like, you know, like they're making it. Yeah, that'd be a great update your profile.

Go ahead. I like that. I used my imagination. You look real cute. Anne-Marie said, in the beginning of that text, I think that's what she said. I think so. What else can go wrong? Oh, Anne-Marie, I'm holding my head.

Nothing can go wrong. Everything's fine. I thank you for that. what else can go wrong? So you mean that everything that's gone wrong, everything's going to be good now. Exactly. No way anything go wrong now.

All right, let's jump over to a text from Brian from California. He says, hey guys, Brian from California. Hope all is well. My parents just leased a 2021 Lexus ES300H last week. That's the hybrid. First off, they got a great lease deal, especially given the current climate. I go into specifics another day.

What really surprises me, though, is how bad the infotainment system is set up on this modern Lexus. This was a $48,000 car MSRP, and the infotainant screen is still not a touch screen. I know they were famous for having that awkward joystick setup before, and now it's just a mouse pad sort of setup. That's what you got in your car. I think it's fair to say the demographic of most Lexus buyers are people in the upper age brackets.

My folks are in their early 70s, so wouldn't you think they would. want to make those systems intuitive. I mean, nearly any Toyota product has a touchscreen and the infatainment system works pretty well. Why doesn't Lexus use the same setup? The dealer helped a bunch with trying to get them familiar with the system and they are using it, but would you think Lexus would have something better for their customers other than the infatement system? The rest of the car is amazing and they're happy with it. What do you think of this approach by Lexus and will it be a thing of the past soon? Thanks for everything, guys. I totally agree. I started the show off about the complexity of cars and I think a lot of manufacturers are just looking to

sell cars with a gadgetry and you can advertise things that will get people's attention and maybe lure them in to buy a product but using their product after you buy it is another thing and I happen to drive a Lexus and there's complexities on that vehicle there's awkward things about the vehicle there are things on every vehicle that I am aware of that take the driver's attention off the road. And I think that's the biggest sin. I mean, you know, Nancy is always saying to me, you know, watch the road because I'm, I'm a gadget freak and I'm still learning things about my Lexus.

You're really going to stop shining your shoes. And I can't stand. You know, I'm all these people I can't be bored. So even when I'm driving, if I start to get bored, I start thinking about my navigation system or my sound system or what's that switch over there? I've never used that. And I'm thinking about the complexity of the car. Meanwhile, the world goes on around me. You could do that in your driveway, too.

I do on the driveway. No, you should do that in the drive. So my prediction, another reason why autonomous cars are going to be the answer. You put a human being in an automobile, and you give them a bunch of switches and dials and touchscreens and all the rest of it, and what are we going to do? We're going to touch them. We're going to try to figure things out, and we're not thinking about the car. We got our cell phone. We got our, you got your laptops.

You got your, I mean, there's so many things that we do in a car. Rick? Earl's new car, totally autonomous, with 27 fidget spinners on built into the dash that do. absolutely nothing but abuse him. He just spins them. Well, you know, we're talking about something really serious here that I take very serious. And let me tell you, I may make a lot of enemies right now, but a lot of people have the attention span of a net.

You're in a car, put your hands on the steering wheel, and guess what? you're on the road with a gazillion other people. Focus, focus, focus. Trust me, I've seen Nats before. They have a long attention span. They won't leave you alone. People that sit in traffic, they stop in a traffic light, and immediately a phone is up, and the light turns green,

and they're still playing on their phone. I'm not talking about the people that are sitting in traffic. I'm talking about the people that are on the expressway. Both of you are making an argument for what I just said. Autonomous cars, and then you say, well, autonomous cars are way in the future. I got one on order now, a totally autonomous car, that will be arriving hopefully in a few weeks. Yeah, we'll see. And so, autonomous cars are becoming available today and in a few years sooner than we think.

And you can't change human nature. If you don't have an autonomous car, you're going to continue to have fools like me on the road that are not paying attention to their driving. And I've only been lucky that I haven't had more problems and we all do the same thing. So autonomous cars are a blessing to the human race. And you're putting that much faith

into the autonomous car. I am, yes. This problem that is worldwide will be eliminated. I don't think so. We'll see. It's going to take some time, but it will happen. It's going to take a long time. Let's move along. All right. Okay.

We have a first-time caller, and she is a young lady. Her name is Susan, and she's from Jupiter. Good morning, Susan. Good morning, Nancy. How are you? I will thank you. Thank you so much for calling Earl on Cars. You won yourself $50. And if you go to Earl on Cars, you can pick up my email address.

Send me your mailing address, and, well, you can take that $50. dollars and have a good time. I will. I will. Thank you, Nancy. You're welcome. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I just bought a Corolla hybrid, 2002.

Nice. As a matter of fact, two days ago, the sales crew is terrific. They're very polite. They don't push. And it's a lovely place to go and buy a car. There's no pressuring. It's just a wonderful situation because we bought a lot of cars and we were pressured by salespeople and, matter of fact, lining outside the door.

And that's very upsetting to me because when you buy, you're buying for yourself or your family and not for them. Everybody wants to make a living, Nancy, but to be pressured into something you don't want. That's not the right way of selling. Exactly. You know, it's an investment. that you're making and you're walking into the dealership and you hope that you have done all of the research that you needed to without taking being taken advantage of that's number one

and this is a very serious transaction and it's an investment and you want to drive off that lot knowing that your family is safe you got a good price you didn't get taken advantage of whether you're a male or a lady. It doesn't matter. Everyone should be treated the same. Equally. Equally and respectfully and so forth. That's all we asked for.

This is our third car we bought from you. So we knew we were coming back to the first car. There was never a hassle with any of the salespeople, with any of it. The maintenance people are very good. Everything is great. We are so pleased. Believe me, this will not be the last car we'll buy from you because we have a camera that's sitting in the garage. And we keep it very good, but it's getting older, and we don't have that much miles on it.

But I'm telling you, we are thrilled with the service we get from Earl Stewart. And we have service from the people that work there. Susan, thanks so much, but you know something? What I'd like to hear, I would like to hear our callers call us and say that they went to Honda, they went to Chevrolet, they were respected, they got a great price, they didn't get taken advantage of. I want to hear all the dealers say something like you just said. And no, we didn't pay Susan to call us, you know, to spread the word on Earl Stewart. That's right. We want all dealers to do business like this.

No, and that's what we respect you and your people respect us. And that's what makes the purchase goes through. We are very thrilled with you and your company. And definitely you walk into your places. It's absolutely gorgeous. But beyond that, there's signs saying this is guaranteed seven days, no hassle. I mean, and it's not a comment. It's the truth, Nancy.

It's the truth. And we are thrilled, and we will continue to come back to you. And, you know, today, that's what you're looking for, and you don't get it a lot. Yes, you're correct, Susan. In a lot of different businesses, you don't get the truth. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Please spread the word, and maybe some of your girlfriends would like to give us a call. and ask any question at all.

I hope so. Thank you, Nancy, very, very much. Thank you. You're quite welcome, Susan. Thank you. You take care. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Okay, Jonathan, get that audio clip.

We're going to run that as a commercial for Earl Stewart Toyota. You know, we have to get a waiver from Susan first, but then. It's amazing that we sit here weekend and week out, and I think all of us feel the same. you just only want to mention certain things we don't want to sit here and say you know hey we're doing a fantastic job or somebody calls and mentions the dealership and we feel just a little uncomfortable but i'm hoping that these dealers are listening to the show and they can't sleep at night because of the way they're doing business it's a new world everybody wants to make money everyone can't If we clean up Dodge, we're out of work. Do you understand that? I doubt that very much. It's the same with the autonomous car.

Let's see what happens with the autonomous car. You don't like doing this show? I'm going to take you out in a parking lot and knock you around. Oh, yeah? A-77960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-9-9-6-9-7-2-49-6-7-6-3-6. Zero. We are going to go to Palm Beach Gardens and my eyesight is failing me. This is Laurie, I believe. I got to see my eye, doctor. Good morning. Good morning. It's lovely to hear your voice. By the way, I'm a loyal Earl Stewart customer. I know, I know you got to

got your two callers already, but I'm still loyal. My beeper goes off. Even, like, if I'm a second late with my turn signal, it beats. It is so sensitive. How do you turn that off? The beeper that lets you know that you're going over at the lane. Right. Lane departure alert.

Yep. Yeah. You'd have to turn that. Yeah, you'd have to turn that feature off, the lane departure alert or the lane keep assist. Yes. Depending on the model of car, most of them in your center combination meter, you go into settings on that, and it gives you the option to turn that off. Are they usually that's sensitive? Like, is your second late putting on your turn signal?

Yes. My wife is driving a 19. RAV that we got for and she drives it all the time. I very seldom drive it, but the times that I do, it teaches me to use that turn signal very early and it's a little annoying to me, but it worked on me. I've used to naughty words. When I go to change lanes, when no one is anywhere around me and I go to change lanes and it beats and yells at me. As soon, if you start crossing the line before the signal is that is, it will beep. Yep. Which makes sense. And Larry, I know that it can be annoying, and sometimes you do want to turn it off,

but I wish there were more people on the road who had that feature on their car, because everybody is just running in a different direction. And I say to myself, oh, that car, it was sold. They probably got that at a cheaper price because it doesn't have turn signals. Not everyone is using. It was an option. Yeah, your turn signals. is an option as Stu just said and it's really it it's a great safety feature but I can understand

though what you're saying I do the same thing with my seatbelt and it's just in you know it we're all so distracted today and we're in a vehicle and do you do you know how much that vehicle weighs I mean do you know that you've got some you could use it as a weapon so a lot of the features that they're putting in cars, you know, they're not meant to irritate anybody. Maybe if you turned it, is there a volume? I'm pretty sure. Nope. Most cars do not have a volume adjustment, only on or off.

But you do have to put the signal on earlier? Yes. Before you leave the lane. Yeah, and that part of it is a great feature because it's just letting the other, unless you're on a country road, I mean, you're just letting everyone know you're about to change lanes. Okay. All right. Awesome. Laurie, thank you so much for the phone call.

Thank you. And spread the word. I'd love to hear from all the ladies about their car, whether it be mechanical or safety features or just changing the oil. It's all important questions. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. We have a YouTube over here from Rick. Oh, we got a couple, actually. Let's see.

First one is, let me get back here to it. Guy is asking, what do you think of the recent pronouncement from President Biden on the right to repair issue, and how will it affect car dealers? Right to repair. I didn't hear about that. They're mainly talking about tech like phones and things like that, that have propriety like, for example, like these independent Apple shops that fix iPhones, like I fix it. I think that falls into that category, and a lot of manufacturers of high-tech are saying,

no, you have to send it to us, and there's a movement to say, no, we have a right to be able to have the parts and the ability to fix our own technology. As far as cars goes, there already is a right to fix it. But we support it, because if you're going to do a good job, as long as you follow the proper guidelines, we don't know how easy it is to fix some of the high-tech stuff now, but it's not. Yeah, I don't think there's a simple answer to that question because there are some situations where the manufacturer or maybe the representative of the network, retail network and repair network owned by the manufacturer is qualified to do it safely. On the other hand, there's a selfish motivation that the manufacturer wants their string of establishments to reap the benefits for the profits from the repairs. So you have to be careful.

When you legislate something, you can create a problem on unintended consequences, and you don't want to have every Tom, Dick and Harry, able to repair every product on the market because they're not going to get the repairs right. Then you have an unsafe situation. Exactly. And from Negan 1, we have bumped in a little, there we go, okay. I'm on a three-week quest now to buy new tires and wheels for my 2020 Ford Raptor.

I'm finding that the majority of tires are on back order. Are you seeing this also at your dealership, microchips, and now tires? People may end up with tires or brands they do not want because there are no other choices. We can't get batteries, I know that. Well, we talked about that very thing in our last management meeting at our dealership. And yes, tires are a problem, and we are having greater difficulty now getting tires that we need. And you name a product, and there's probably a problem. problem giving that product. The whole pandemic has created a product shortage, inflation, high

prices. And a shortage of drivers. I mean, that's major too, and with everything else. And to a greater extent, batteries. Batteries, the one is like the crisis thing. And we got just standard, just regular old cars that just can't, we're not talking about a hybrid battery, we're just talking about a regular 12-volt battery. You can't get them. And the last one I've got here from Steve E is, it's disappointing to see the land cruiser get discontinued in the U.S. market? Is it because the Sequoia already had the same place in the market or for some of the reason? It's probably the price point. I mean, it's an incredibly expensive vehicle. I think most Toyota dealers might sell a land cruiser a year, if that it, you know, it's just a low sale. I'm sure it had a very high margin, but the volume

probably didn't justify it. And yeah, it was also kind of didn't make sense. They had these too big SUV is occupying the same space and one is really really nice and about 20,000 less dollars in the landowners. So I think that's what it was. And someone's going to spend that kind of money, they will go over to the Lexus and buy their

the, what's the LX-570? 570, yeah. Interesting. We're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Marty, who is a regular caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How are you?

We're well, thank you A couple weeks ago I called to complain about like a creaking noise in my armrest console that was an on and off one. So rather than hiring somebody to drive with me

all the time and put their hand on it, I decided to stop at the dealership, so I stopped it at your dealership and the service advisor said well nothing you can do with that. So I figured that's got to be something you can do because the rest of the car is very quiet. So I went over to this

place. I'm going to give them a plug. It's called driver's seat in Okeechobee Boulevard. And what the guy did was he cut off two maybe one inch strips of a foam, like a little piece of foam. And it had an adhesive back to it. And he said, put one on each side of the latch. and presto it solved the problem so I just want to tell Rick if anybody if anybody ever comes in with that problem

that strip probably cost I mean he didn't charge me he just cut off a couple little one inch strips and I'm sure you can buy it somewhere but it was like maybe a quarter of a half an inch maybe I don't think it was a half an inch

but maybe a quarter inch thick but with the adhesive backing on. Marty, let me ask you guys to repeat the name, Drivers what on Okotrobby? Driver's seat. Drivers? The driver's seat.

Oh, the driver's seat. Nice. Like being the driver's seat. Let's make a note of that and thank you. You know, I don't know the company but we're going to give them a plug and we're going to, Rick,

do you know him? The driver's seat started in the Cross County Mall, probably 30, 40 years ago, when it was an Okachovian military, and when they started revamping that mall, they moved from there, and they're now in Okachobee about a mile east of military, a mile and a half, maybe. They're across from the, let's see, the Haverty's furniture and all that. But it's a great little shop. They have all kinds of really great products, cleaning products, really good stuff. It's a great shop.

Do they do repairs, too? No, they're more of like... Marty says yes. Well, they do seat covers. Yeah, certain things. Seat covers and that. Certain things they do. Yep.

But it's a really nice little shop. They get cleaning products, stereo equipment, different things for add-ons in your car. See, I love companies like that, and I'm embarrassed that we were stupid and gave Marty the wrong answer. There's nothing we can do about that. You know, that to me that's unacceptable to say to anybody, there's nothing we can do about it.

And too many of our technicians and too many of our service advisors and people just today, if there isn't something in the book that tells you how to fix something, they don't do it the way Rick used to do it when he was younger. And a lot of people, you know, there's old-fashioned isn't a dirty word. Sometimes if you don't have a part or there isn't something in a manual that tells you how to fix something, you use creative thinking and you come up with something unusual exactly what driver's seat on Okotoba did. There's a way to fix everything. You can fabricate a part. You can use your brain to come up with something different. And it isn't always in a manual how to fix something. Sometimes it's common sense. And we're going to get driver's seat

a plug, and Marty, thanks very much for that call. Yeah. It is not always... I just wanted to tell you, the guy came out to the car and looked, you know, looked at item, and he said, you know, there's a space right next to the latch on both sides. And then he said, well, this should do it, and they did it. So I thanked him, and just wanted to let you guys know. That's a great story. I like that, driver's seat, and I was in the driver's seat when And I, when they were at the Cross County Mall, and another place I used to go to is the hubcap shop.

I'm not sure. Are they stole around, Rick? Hubcap warehouse, military trail between Summit and Forest Hill. They're still. Stolen HUDCAPs? They get them everywhere, but it's a bright pink building. But I loved going in there, too. And how great is that, that someone came out to take a look at your car?

You know, great service. So thank you. Yes, yes. Okay, have a good day. Thank you, my. Ladies and gentlemen, I like to mention Earl's vigilantes. You know, you don't have to change an engine. You don't have to consider yourself.

If you're wondering why I'm wearing a silly hat, that's what. You don't have to consider yourself, you know, an auto expert. And you'd be helping us. You'd be helping yourself. You'd be helping the people in your community. So you can go to Errol on cars and you can sign up. at earlsvigilantes.com. And you get one of these hats?

Yeah, you can get a hat, and they're cute little hats. I didn't wear mine this morning. At any rate, take advantage of that also and help us 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. www. Your anonymous Feedback.com. now back to stew all right we got a text here good morning ladies lady and gentlemen my question

this morning is why are certain Kia and Hyundai models targeted for theft maybe Rick can explain why why are these cars easier to hotwire than all the others I had a co-worker whose car was unsuccessfully targeted basically without his car for several weeks as he waited for parts that are in short supply due to the epidemic thefts and damage not all cars are targeted. So did Kia and Hyundai knowingly go cheap with their design like it was in the Ford Pinto? That car makers knew it was cheaper to pay the lawsuits than redesign the car properly. And that's from Tom in West Alice, Wisconsin. I have one answer. There are probably multiple answers.

But if you look at the demographics of the purchases of Kia's and the neighborhoods that they're parked and the, you know, the type of of people that buy these vehicles. That all has something to do with it. I mean, you probably, Rolls-Royces don't get stolen very often. And that's because they're in gated communities, usually in garages. And they're probably protected by webcans and burglar systems and things like that. So unfortunately, the, make a car, the price of the car, and the type of buyer affects the amount of theft that are, occurs, but there are a lot of other reasons too.

Well, that's going to be one factor, but actually he basically almost answered his own question. It's the availability of parts in a lot of cases for repairing them. So what happens is they'll steal a car or steal the parts off of the car, sell them to disreputable repair shops that are looking to get these parts and maybe the parts aren't available, or maybe they just like paying a whole lot less for them then charging their customer full price. this was a big thing with airbags back years ago. Why would Keyes get stolen more than, say, BMWs? Well, could be likely with Keyes especially. You figure most repair shops that are repairing BMWs are going to have to provide documentation of where they get their parts from.

Versus a place repairing Kia is a small shade tree shop, which is where a lot of Kia people would probably go for repairs. which was my demographic point again yes but they're going to be a little more shall we say unconcerned about the origin of those parts so if they can get the parts cheap that's just one factor of what they'll do with them okay interesting stew okay okay okay good morning last summer i was trying to buy a new car on the last day of the month and the dealer seemed not willing to budge then months later I heard Stu mention that Toyota had paused their monthly bonuses to dealers for hitting those numbers. Have they come back since then?

I'd like to hear more about how they work and how much below dead cost a dealer would go to hit one of those bonuses. They did come back this year. They paused it just during 2020 due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, but then you might have heard the car business has come roaring back since then, and so they're back in place. and they do, it depends on the manufacturer. The Toyota dealer might get an additional. There's already a lot of incentives,

but a Toyota dealer might get an additional $400,500 per car for hitting these numbers, and that's how much they could go additionally lower, but it's up to the dealer how low below cost that they choose to go. These days with the inventory shortage, we're not seeing that. That will come back as soon as competition revs up and there's more cars to sell. Yeah, but the incentives for the manufacturers

at the end of the month is only one of many reasons. I mean, a lot of it is, I think, the whole system we're based on a 30-day cycle. The manufacturers live and die, you know, the president of Ford Motor Company, he looks at the Ford's production and sales for the previous month, so to the stockholders, so to the board of directors,

and his job depends on how well he does month to month to month. The automobile business for most manufacturers is a month-to-month thing. It isn't how well did you do last year for the past two years, is how, you know, tell me what you did for me last month, and you live or die. People lose their jobs, salesman lose their jobs, managers lose their jobs, manufacturers, managers lose their jobs. So, you know, a 30-day cycle is very important, and the last day of the month will always be very important. and you can get a better deal. All right, here's another one.

With regards to the Prius battery being in the back of the car, you can jumpstart it from the front. In the fuse box, you will see a red cap, remove it, connect your red cable to it, and find a ground for the black cable. And that's from Jim and Rivera Beach. Correct? As a matter of fact, back when Prius's first

started that generation, 2004, when they started doing that, I put together a PowerPoint presentation, basically a photo video that showed how to get to that because so many people had no clue. And then when they were stuck at home or something, we could simply send that to them so they can see how to access it. That's right. Okay, so the next one, we have a text here. It says, good morning.

I've read that there will be an all-new 2022 Toyota Tundra. Have you seen one? If so, what are your first impressions? And when will it be available? And that's from Everett. Toyota started teasing it the summer. and then they did a reveal, and you can see the pictures of it online. I think it looks pretty cool.

It's just my personal opinion. And I think we're going to start seeing these things, I think, early in 2022. I saw negative comments that looked like a tank. Well, that looks good to me. I'm looking at it right now, and I might want to drive with these things. Well, you like tanks, yeah. Yeah, I was always kind of a military sort of nerd. So I have seen it.

It was kind of funny. There was a little inside information. and they started to, they were going to do a dealer-only leak online, like a special reveal. And some dealers, and they weren't in Florida, so dealers were already starting to, like, post on social media to leak it. And they got slapped down, and we got a nasty email from the president of SCT saying, not us personally, you know, group email saying, hey. Yeah, he says, how dare you. Reveal this. Reveal the tundra, right?

Well, they think they have great pains to keep it secret, but, you know, there's always leaks. always leaks. Sometimes the leaks are on purpose. Oh, yeah. And sometimes the objection to the leaks are to get PR. You can't believe anything anybody says anymore when it comes to marketing. Yeah. All right, we've got another Toyota-centric text. Looking to buy a Toyota Ravrefour XLE in a specific color, all are in transit and inquiring about how to purchase a car that's not in the lot. Is it a good time to buy our way? Absolutely, come on. No, I'm saying. I'll see it. This I can't say. He's got to say it. You can say it.

Well, I mean, let's face it, folks. It's called supply in an end. We have a peak in prices. So if you like to buy products at high prices, go ahead and buy a car. I mean, do you want to pay more money for a car? If you have to pay more money for a car, then you should buy a car. If you don't have to pay more money and you don't mind waiting 90 days, you can save yourself several thousand dollars. So you decide what you want to do. I mean, we have a dealership. We love to sell your car when I put my dealer hat on. But if I got my consumer advocacy hat on, which I have on right now,

you're crazy if you buy a car today unless you have to. All right. Hey, Ann Marie texted us again and has got some clarification on the right to repair. And she says, right to repair really affects farmers. Equipment manufacturers are actually telling farmers that they can no longer fix the tractors, etc. Only the dealers slash manufacturers will have to work on the new machinery. If a farmer's machinery breaks down in the middle of a

field during harvesting, the farmer is supposed to get the equipment to the dealer to get it fixed and just let the harvest wait. I understand that it's the farmers that are pushing the right to repair moment movement. Apple customers might be right behind the farmers. Yeah, I did read that.

So that's a little bit more serious. The farmers say that anybody can fix their tractor and they want to have the right to call anybody out there. I would kind of tend toward a believe the farmer because he's the one driving the factory of the tractor,

or at least if it's a small farm. And if it's a giant farm, a mega farm and you're having some poor slob drive to your factory, your tractor for you, I would question whether or not you just should have anybody fix it. So I don't know.

Two sides to every argument. Okay, we got a text from Bob. Bob for us, if you deliver a car to a customer in Orlando, can you also take the trade in? Yes, we can, and a lot of companies, like, for example, you know, Carvana, they do the same thing. They are sight unseen, but they do their best to, like, give a good appraisal figure for your car, and they've been honoring it, and a good company would do that. I would be maybe hesitant if you weren't so sure about the ethics of the dealer you're dealing with. Things could change when they see your car, and, you know,

there could be a gotcha, saying, oh, you didn't describe the car the right, way. But for an online sale, there's a lot of pictures being sent. A lot of, you know, obviously they're not driving the car ahead of time, but a pretty good appraisal can be done sight unseen. The key is to get it in writing. And before you drive 200 miles to pick up a car and trade your car in, I have in writing, okay, this is the appraisal in my car. This is the way I described it to you. These are the pictures I sent you. And if they didn't ask for pictures, and for a precise specific description, then I'd be worried about it.

But once you have an agreement with a specific description, committed to writing, and then you have them legally because they can't back out, you can sue them if they don't give you what they said they were going to give you. But Stu's absolutely right. The used car, if you had told me 25 or 30 years ago, that I'd be buying used cars, lots of them online,

which I'm doing today at our dealership. And the whole world is buying and selling used cars online, sight unseen. And they do it because it's committed to writing. Well, I'll buy a car in Orlando on a computer, and I will pay for the car because I am covered if the car is not as represented in writing, I get my money back. Legally, they can't refuse me. So, yes, the world is going to go totally online.

and you buy on Amazon, everything's online. You get trade-ins online. Everything's going to happen online over the next few years. The foundation of this has been being laid for the last maybe 25, 30 years, eBay. I mean, people selling, use things on eBay. There's a trust that needs to be established

and the dealers that have established trust and the companies that established trust will do better and the ones that are iffy. Verbly doesn't work. It's got to be. writing. You've got a lot of writing. You got text. That'll work. You got email. You got old-fashioned writing. I suppose you could record something if you told them you're recording it. Florida, both sides need to know it's being recorded. But if you don't have documentation, then you

don't have a case, a leg to stand on. So be sure you get everything in writing that you agree to before you pick up the car. You can apply that to anything and everything. Speaking of online, ladies and gentlemen, We need volunteers to help the senior citizens with their maneuvering their way around the Internet. Not everybody is savvy, and you can help us by going to Erlon Cars, and you can help up by volunteering to assist the senior in buying a car, leasing, even getting their cars, So take advantage of that, and we'd love you to come on board. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-9-3-0.

Ladies, I have $50 here. One more lady caller, and you can win yourself $50. You know, I'd like to ask you, in case there's some ladies out there listening, and I go, oh, goodness, what could I call and ask a question about? I'd like to find out how much of a focus you put on a brand when you're purchasing a vehicle. Is that something you really concentrate on? 877-960-99-60. Give us a text, 772-497-497-6530.

Now back to Stu. We have another text from Kyle and says, I love what you said at the beginning of the show that you're on the pulse of the car business more than the media. Could you see manufacturers raising MSRPs 10 to 15% next year when maybe 1 to 2% is normal? I don't. I don't think that's, I think the, after this inventory crime, car dealers are going to go, I mean, and manufacturers are, they want to sell a lot of cars. Like Earl reminds me all the time, every time they wholesale a new car to us, they're getting full sticker and making a ton of money. They don't really care.

Well, they say they care. but how much the car dealer sells it for, as long as the car is getting wholesale to the dealer, they've done their job. So I really don't see an MSRP going up to 10 to 15%. That would just, I think, that would crush sales. It would be too high of a price point for most vehicles. Hey, I have an input.

I've never had a voicemail message input, but I got a call from Steve Weiss, and he called me and he said, Earl, I'm listening to your show on 106.9. It's Saturday at 905 p.m. You said those types of people who like to use KIAs, well, you know if you don't like those types of people who would like to drive Kiyas, and then it's voice recognition,

you should stop selling them on your lot. You know what I'm saying? You know what kind of makes you a horse's ass, right? So basically, Steve White's. says that I shouldn't be selling Kiyas on the used car lot. And the point is that I, as a retailer, I provide every type of car that people want. That's my business. And the KIA happens to be a pretty good car.

The fact that people that buy Kiyas happen to have them stolen more often, that's just a statistical fact. And we were trying to figure brainstorm why certain types of cars are sold. though someone's in the Fort Pinto is still long. They're less likely to be in a gated community. In a gated community, people. Better policed area. Better police and so on and so on. So if I'm a horse's ass and I am a horse's ass.

Well, what about a consumer report? I mean, are we going to make it illegal to purchase Akea? Let's talk about the, what is it? Tell your ride. I mean, consumer report rates it pretty low for a whole lot of reasons. Anyway, Steve, why? That proves that we will air any criticism, constructive or otherwise, on the air. So keep them coming, and let's get back to Stu.

Okay. I have more to say. Earl, when is your implied Model S arriving? Oh, man, I wish you hadn't said that. I'm really irritated. In fact, I'm really glad you said that. I tried to call Tesla the other day, and Stu did too. And they have a terrible system for customer input.

We tried chat. We tried email. The chat was only for buying solar roof panels and the big wall battery that they sell. So Tesla, I mean, I love the product. I love Elon Musk. I love a lot of things about Tesla, but their retail ability in terms of dealing with customers is terrible. And I'm a potential customer. And they make it easy.

I'll say this. They make it easy to get my money back or cancel my order. every time I go on laundry, trying to find out where my Tesla plat is, they say, if you want to cancel your order, sign here. So they got such a great product that they know that people buy it. You know, this is helping you become more empathetic to the car customers. Exactly, yeah. This is the first time I think I've seen you in your entire life as a car buying customer. Consumer, yeah.

Elon, are you listening? Elon, listen, forget about going into outer space for a minute. You have a lot of customers, and I'm one of them, and I want to know when my damn Tesla plaid's going to come. And I ordered it in May, and you won't talk to me. Nobody from Tesla will talk to me. No, we just got a text from Elon Musk. He says, hold your horses, Earl. There's people that are listening to the recovering car dealer.

Three blocks down from our home. He's on a spaceship, and he... He stays on the ground. Oh, okay. You're thinking of Bezos and Branson. Okay. He's building of the spaceship. That's right.

I got my billionaires confused. Okay. There's so many of them. All right, here's another text. Rick, would you recommend replacing the OEM wiper blades with better-performing, longer-lasting, aftermarket wiper blades? Can you recommend a brand? I ask because every new car that I've ever bought had terrible wipers that streaked, skipped,

stuttered, and jumped? The first thing I always recommend with wipers, if they seem you have an issue, clean your windshield a real well first, because that's usually the cause of it. All the road crime and stuff on the windshield caused it to deteriorate quick. But we're in South Florida, rubber wipers break down. I recommend replacing them at least once a year, and especially when we got rainy season starting, like right now, put a new set of wipers on their folks. They're not really that expensive, and you'll thank yourself and me when you can see properly in that pounding rain. There's not anything like the silicon wiper blades any better than rubber. There's so many gimmicky ones, and to me...

Like the triple ones. Yeah. Whether you go with OEM or just simple wiper blades from the parts sore, look for a reasonable price on. if you want to check consumer reports, but I would just look for a good popular brand at a reasonable price, and I would recommend just replace them more often. And keep your windshield super clean. That makes sense. All right.

Can I jump in there on that? I love Amazon, and I just went to Amazon for WiperBlaze, and I sorted by Consumer Satisfaction Reports and 4-Star Rating Plus. and you get a whole bunch of them in there. So I'm looking at Ranex. It's a bestseller. 54,813 confirmed buys, four and a half stars, $15.27 for Ranex Wiper Blights up.

It's so easy today to find a really good product on Amazon. I mean, I'm like, to me, Amazon is kind of like Tesla. I mean, there's certain companies out there that just are doing one hell. of a job and it's easy to buy good products. Yeah, and they definitely are. But buyer beware because compare prices. Amazon's a great place to go, but be very careful of the pricing. But if you get the consumer rating and they won't talk about price on the star rating, price is one of the criteria. So if you get the highest rated product, it includes the fact that they think the price is fair. Yes. Yes, they do.

By the way, Wayne says that Elon sent your plaid Tesla to Mars. All right, we'll pick it up there. Maybe Jeff Bezos will take me to Mars and I can pick up my Tesla. If he doesn't, I will. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. Don't forget, I'm waiting to hear from one more lady caller, first time lady caller who can win herself $50. $877-960-99-6-6-6-6-8.

I thought we already had to. Misty and Susan. Oh, we do have to, we have, no, Susan, wasn't Susan. Oh, there is, Jonathan gave me the high sign. Ah, okay, well, I got all excited. We're out of money. Okay. Today.

All right, it'll come out of my pocket. Okay, I think we're going to go to Rick, because he's got some YouTubes down there. From Donovan. This one is, are Earl and Stu surprised at how long is taking the Japanese automakers to get into the EV market and ship a product comparable to the U.S., Korean, and European automakers? And how does Toyota still think so many of its cars will have a gasoline engine in 2030? I mean, I've said this on the show before. I think that they are behind the wheel on this.

I mean, behind the times on this. They were definitely looking at, particularly Toyota, and we know most about Toyota, putting all their eggs in the hybrid basket, and they saw us a transitional thing, transitional technology. They are doing it. They don't have as ambitious goals as some of the other manufacturers, but I think by 2030, they're expecting to see something like 13% all EV and 50% hybrid, and then growing as they're. go further in time. I think they're going to speed it up. It's going to be the, I think demand's going to fuel it. I think people are going to start seeing it experiencing and driving it. They're more popular and that's going to explode faster. I'll go out on a limb and say that there will always be hybrid cars. And I think that until we have a battery that is totally foolproof,

and I mean one that won't catch on fire, which I'm surprised we didn't get a lot of calls this morning about the bolt. Not only are the lithium batteries catching on fire, but they're catching on fire after they've already been fixed. And the bolt batteries that are catching on fire today were recalled a year ago, and they came into the dealerships, got fixed, and they catch on fire again. So you kind of wonder, the nice thing about a hybrid is you've got a backup,

you've got an engine. And most people don't need the engine, but some people do. That's the reason I say there'll always be some hybrids. If you're a long-distance person and you have to go a thousand miles or you really got to go hundreds of miles and you've got to rely on one source of power, maybe having a backup source of power is not such a bad idea. I look forward to the day that they can do like that company's testing over in Europe where they have electrified roads. Yeah. I mean, it'll be a long, long time before there's just one. vehicle that is all electric and uh but say it'll be 99% electric yeah yeah i would like to see i

thought this was a neat idea um and i don't know any manufacturers that's it's doing it was the the idea of having a quick replacement battery where you drive over and the battery would you would take out your old one that way because that's the one thing i'm starting to learn with the um it's not a big deal because i'm uh local so charging is not a big deal but i'm going to be going up to Orlando in a few days and so I'm feeling a little stress about okay I'm going to be able to make it to Orlando on one charge but then I'm going to have to find a charging station up there and kind of plan it out on my trip it's more thinking involved and remember a hybrid vehicle it would still be a hybrid vehicle if you had an engine that was only purpose was to charge the

vehicle I mean you could have a hybrid and you never use the gasoline engine except if the battery ran out of juice, then you could use it as a generator to charge your battery. So that's a hybrid. And what's wrong with that? Well, it would have a few issues with like issues might be the fuel going bad. You'd have to find work on. There's things that they would have to work out, like the idea of how to stabilize the fuel. If you're a trucker in Australia, and all you do is go from one coast to the other, and you're in the outback away from everything. And your battery goes dead and you're in the middle of the outback in Australia be nice to be able to crank up your hybrid engine charge your battery and continue on so could you imagine if the top of an 18 wheeler

were set up with solar panels yeah for that an electric vehicle that could go across Australia without ever having to stop that if they get solar panels working right that'd be awesome but you'd need the hybrid in australia in alaska oh yeah yeah it was during the winter And Stu, to your concern about the charge and you're getting to Orlando, can you answer this question? I was reading about a lot of people who can't afford a charging station in their garage. A lot of people just don't have a garage. Do you think that, you know, they're going to work on adding more stations as, you know, we get further into the future? Oh, yeah.

That's happening now. I mean, if you look at just even. because there's not enough. No. Well, I mean, exactly. Well, there's, like, for example, Tesla has their proprietary superchargers, and I forgot how many they have around the country, you know, thousands, and you find them, your car can find them.

They just, it's a program to find these things. And there's other things, other manufacturers like ChargePoint, and they're growing exponentially. At your home, you don't have to install a, like, a higher output charging thing. You can plug it into a regular 110. It doesn't charge as fast. But for topping up overnight, you can do that with electricity. vehicles just with an extension cord great information we're going to go back to the phones where

lynn has been waiting from stewart good morning lynn welcome morning uh you've talked to uh my wife called about uh six weeks ago her name was Heidi and it was about the uh radio go on and off and uh stew repaired it just by speaking because the day after we talk to you after months of this problem it fix itself that's that's a special talent i have um Supernatural. He did go to Best Buy I did. I'm doing that while she's driving a car, and then she tells me it didn't go off anymore.

But anyhow, the guy said that they didn't have a Prius 3 listed in their computer list. And he also said that they have a problem getting various radios, and he could put one in there that would fit should you need it, and the face thing would be the same on the front. Let's pass off of that. My problem now with the Prius is I have a windshield washer in the back works, and the wiper goes on. the front and winch your way to pump the white but but the doesn't doesn't spray does it have fluid

oh yeah okay is it yes there's separate pump for front and rear is that one pump that does everything or is there one little pump in the i can see one little pump is that though everything no there's there's two separate pumps so you're going to have one for the front and one for the back so it could be that that pump is quit definitely definitely okay and i would find that I know where the first one is. I can see that one, but I don't know if I have to find the second one or just, the car's in a dealership right now. I'll have them replace it because it's in there for some problem that it had

and it's an extended warranty deal, so, and they're waiting for parts. Well, they need to test it first because you want to make sure you're getting power to that little pump first. And if it is the pump, then they can get you into one. Thank you. That's all I need to know. All right, thank you very much. Thanks, Lynn.

Give us a call again. or you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget to go to Erlon Cars where his latest column is, well, it's very informative because there's a lot of hazards in going into the dealership to get your car serviced. It's just an amazing place where they can sell you just about anything. So I'll take advantage of that column. It's at Erlon Car's. common hazards of servicing the vehicle you purchased from your car dealership. Now back to Stu. Oh, excuse me.

We have Mimi. We have Mimi calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Mimi. Welcome back. Good morning. I'm continuing this saga of the conversion van I have. It's a Dodge Grand Caravan. I believe I told you like the light swim.

on with the brake and the ABS and the swerving line parts. I forget what that is, ESP or something. Anyway, I took it to the repairman who usually just does simple things, and he said it was electrical, so I did take it to the dealer. I went to Erigo because they're the one that didn't give me a hard time or overcharge me, at least I didn't think they did, and they put it through a diagnostic, and they said it needs an ABS module and a hydraulic unit. Now, the young lady, who was my service advisor, was brand new kind of only six months old,

and I need more information, and I wondered if, well, I might even call them, but what is the hydraulic unit for? Because of conversion part works, the ramp goes down, so evidently it might be a separate hydraulic unit for that. but she did say something about it, it helps with the brakes. Can you educate me, please? Right. The hydraulic unit is basically going to be like a booster that provides a pump, really, that pressurizes the fluid so that when the car needs extra power for the ABS brakes,

it pressurizes that fluid and gets high pressure to apply the brakes, even on and off, even when you're stepping only lightly on the pedal. It's a complicated system. The systems are very complex on these cars now, especially for like if you have pre-collision where you have automatic braking, but antelac brakes require extremely high-pressure fluid, and sometimes the person stepping on the brake doesn't give quite enough pressure, so the ABS system will actually work this pump to build up the pressures that it needs. Oh, okay.

It's a 2008. I don't know how advanced that is. Okay, they said the ABS module is on a nationwide back order. Yeah, not surprised there. Oh, okay. A lot of parts are on back order for everybody. Oh, okay. So I just wait, but it runs as well as it can. They said I also need a valve cover gasket change.

and that the engine and transmission mounts are cracking. So that's a different thing. But as far as the, I mean, it drove, you know, it still has a little trouble starting. Like, I mean, I start the car. It starts great. I run it a little, try to warm it up a little bit. But then when I engage the transmission, I notice it hesitates a little.

And I have to, like, be patient and let it get, going and then put the gas on when I go in drive and push it a little. I'm wondering, does that indicate anything that I need to work on in the future? That sounds like, excuse me, that sounds like a transmission issue, like it's starting to just have some problems getting the gears to change in the valve body. Depending on the age and miles of the vehicle. 2008. Yeah, and, you know.

75,000 miles. Yeah, well, it is kind of low miles for that, but depending on your situation and obviously to get a new conversion van, I know those are quite expensive, it may be more economical to consider saving up towards a different vehicle rather than putting a lot of money in an older vehicle. Like Earl says, within another few months, four or five, six months, we're going to see this market turn around and car prices are going to start dropping dramatically. So you'd have to kind of weigh the options on that. Well, my husband has passed away. That's why I needed the conversion then. And I guess I've kept it because I have osteoporosis and figured, okay, well, I'll use it then in 10 years or something.

But I don't know if it's going to last 10 years. The thing is, when I bought it, the lady says you have to get your $22,000 worth of conversion out of it. And I don't know if that's possible. Are you familiar with reselling conversion ads? I mean, David bought it online. He looked online. Somebody had put, you know, they put the ads there, and then they brought it up, and we tried it out.

Let me ask you this question. How much driving, you say, 75,000 miles on 2012? That's very low mileage. And on today, during 30-day period, how many miles do you drive? Right now, not much. I may go to Boynton. I'm in West Palm. I may go to Boynton Saturdays, and then I go to Port St. Lucie, like, every three weeks or every week.

And what you might consider is because you have two issues here. prices are going to come down dramatically, as Rick says, in three to six months. But the prices are very high now for used cars. So your vehicle is worth a lot more today than it will be worth in three or four months. If you could somehow get by without a vehicle for a few months, you could have your cake and eat it too. You could sell your van, and you could get maximum money for it. And then you could also buy a car to replace that van, which would be more, you know, a smaller vehicle that would be more practical for you at a lot lower price. You know, I wrote a blog column a few weeks ago that you can use carpooling, you can use Uber or Lyft.

I used Uber the other night myself. You can even rent a car. Rental car prices are high too. but if you don't use a car much, on a monthly basis, you could get by fairly inexpensively, especially if you had a friend that would help you out and you could do some carpooling. Then you could sell your van, get a lot of money for it,

and then buy the replacement vehicle for it and three or four months and save a lot of money. That does sound tempting. So to sell the van, I guess I'll get the ABS module and the hydraulic unit fix, probably. Should, Ben, do you put it online? Well, we can help you with that.

You have a lot of sources for selling a vehicle today. You would, I would shop, but you always want to get competitive bids. Your vehicle is in very high demand. I would go to various slots that sold RVs, and I would ask them to give you a bid on your vehicle.

and sell it to the highest bidder. If you go to three or four places, you could probably go to CarMax. Do they sell RVs, too? I don't think so. You mean conversion vans? Convergent vans? Oh, Converging vans, they probably do.

Yeah, conversion vans. And conversion vans. Any place that sells conversion vans, you could go to Carvana. You could go to We Buy Anycar.com. We could owe there's CarMax, automation stores, buy cars, all dealers buy, you know, we buy vehicles.

You get a bid from us, go to other dealers. The more you shop it, the better price you're going to get. And down's the time to sell. You get on, it's a high price, high time on the market. And then you would have to be sure that the extra money you would make, which probably would be an extra $1,000 or so, would be more than you would have to spend over the next three or four months for transportation until you could buy a car.

car at a lower price. And Mimi, that's a great suggestion by Earl because right now, these prices are soaring right now. And boy, I'll tell you, what a great time to take advantage of turning that van in, that conversion van. I mean, prices are up 54.3% on these used car prices. And you're in a position to wheel and deal. Well, that's good to know.

So, okay, so then do you recommend I start, I mean, should I wait around for the parts to get it fixed or just let them know that it's going to cost $2,200 to get it fixed and take that, you know. I would shop it right now as is, and you can always change your mind. But, you know, start out by giving a price from us and then take that price and go to some other. places like Carvana, CarMax, AutoNation, and we buy any car.com, and shopping around. And then you can always change your mind and have it fixed. You might find out that it's better just to go ahead and do it now without getting it fixed. Wow.

Okay, well, I thank you for the information. Thank you so much. You're very welcome, Amy. Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you again.

ladies and gentlemen our lines excuse me are frozen now so we're not going to be taking any more calls. It's 80 degrees outside not going to be frozen and we're going to

excuse me we're going to be talking about the mystery shopping report soon and that mystery shopping report comes from Palm Beach Toyota and Asian Lightning like I said before you know what a natural talent

she makes it look and sounds so effortlessly and she does a fantastic job weekend and week out and you can be guaranteed this too will be a great mystery shopping report and stew our talented talented writer among other things have a whole lot to do with us than we have ever had on this show we'll have to count them but uh you know a nancy a paddle on the back for what she's done to get the audience, female audience, up to where it should be. It's a team effort. Thank you very much.

We're going to go back to Stu, where I believe he's got some texts. Rick, do you have YouTube's down there? We're a little caught up right now. Okay. All right. Here's a text says, I have a question for Earl and Rick about air filters inspired by your caller, John. Rick always says, show me when a service person tells you that the air filter needs to be changed and decline it. if the filter doesn't appear dirty.

John said it filters out benzene, a carcinogen. You can't see that. I'll give my take is that if the filter is clean and why it appearing, the chances are it doesn't have a problem with benzene. So the manufacturer's recommendation is based on average conditions, and if you happen to live in an environment and drive your car in such a manner that you don't use your filters up as quickly as other people, you should take advantage of that and not replace them as often.

When I walk out to a customer's car and I pull that filter out and it's jammed up with dirt and dust and debris and I say this is what the air goes through before it blows into your face, would you like to replace it? And I guarantee you, most people, when they see the condition, yeah, you don't see the benzene, but you'll see everything else that's in there. I think the caller's point was that you can't see the benzene. And I thought about that when the original caller made their point. And I'm shooting from the hip now because I don't know.

But my guess would be there's not very much benzene in the air. And that depending on where you live, maybe that's... would differ. But as far as I'm concerned, if I were the driver and I saw a sparkling clean filter, I wouldn't want to replace it. No, but you won't ever, unless you just replaced it, you won't see it sparkling clean because it's going to catch everything else as well. You don't, you don't see the benzene being filtered out of it, but you'll see all the other stuff that's been filtered out of the air. Yeah. What if there's no other stuff that was filtered out of the air? I mean, if you live in, I'll say Pittsburgh used to be a city, so I'm an old guy.

If you live in Pittsburgh, your filter's going to clog up a lot faster than if you live in Arizona or if you live in South Florida. So my point is that it's a big world we live in, and the air quality differs from area to area, and the manufacturers say you replace your filter at exact the same interval, whether you're in Saudi Arabia, or Pittsburgh and I say that can't be you have to use common sense sometimes and you'll still get sand and dust and dirt in them you know about these filters there's a whole lot of things that you can't see in them but boy they can be deadly when you're driving your vehicle and how many service departments are going to take a filter and show the customer what they're driving with

you know so Rick my hat's off to you I just love it when you see that part that they're going to replace or even the filter that is really can be very detrimental to your health. We're going to go back to Stu before we go to that mystery shopping report. We just have a few anonymous feedback messages to get through. First one says the way that these dealers do business is why I'm still driving a 2005 truck. I had helped my daughter with a used car purchase recently in the process made my skin crawl dealing with people who are true vultures. I tried to talk her through it and understand the game. Thanks, as always, Earl for the honesty.

When the manufacturers understand this and start clamping down on their dealers, because the only thing the manufacturers do is we'll sell them more cars. When they realize that the negative treatments that customers are receiving by their dealers, and they step up to the plate and push those dealers to do the right thing, then Earl on Cars will have accomplished his mission. All right. Next one says, I disagree with your comment on old tires. As long as there is no cracking, the tire doesn't have obvious wear. Most 10-year-old spare tires are still better than one-year-old tires that are exposed to heat, UV ozone, and loads on the cars.

I think if you carefully inspect the tires, you're probably right, but why would you buy a 10-year-old tire or 4-year-old or 2-year-old tire? And if you're driving a car and you have no cracks, keep the tires on there. But if you're buying tires, be sure you get a fresh set of tires. And, you know, just, again, it's kind of like air filters. Tires deteriorate in different climates and conditions differently. So buy fresh tires when you can. All right. Good afternoon, Earl.

So I'm reading in the tow yard blogs of California that no tow yard or recycling yard will take an electric car involved in a car fire because the environmental catastrophe of the huge burn. lithium batteries. It's a toxic nightmare. Have you heard about this happening in your state? Yes, I think the lithium battery is still an issue and they need to get it fixed. I don't know why these batteries are bursting in the flame and that's what General Motors is scratching your head right now. What the hell is going on with the bolt? So as long as this continues to happen, to me it's a simple solution. You have a battery, a fires can exist without oxygen,

Why the hell can't they just seal the battery in such a manner that no oxygen can get to it? And if no oxygen can get to it, the battery's not going to burn. So the engineers need to get to work and fix the lithium batteries so they don't burst into flame anymore. All right. Next one. I just watched your mystery shopping report for Phil Smith Kia, and it reminded me of a news article I recently read about a Toyota dealer in California that was asking $30,000 over MSS. S-R-P for a TRD Pro.

Who are the fools that are paying these prices? Unfortunately, I asked myself... Lenny is no object. You see it every day. Do you get to emails that I do in the text from India, and the words are misspelled, and they say your uncle died? Yeah, or Nigeria.

And send me a good faith deposit for $500, and I'll send you $200 million. Somebody does that. And I say to myself, who is dumb enough to fall for these things? and the answer is a few people and that's the reason. And they're the same people. Same people who are paying $30,000 over a sticker for a TRD Pro are sending all their money to Nigeria.

Last one, anonymous feedback. Good morning, Rick. Thank you for answering my question last week about the low oil due to a leak from the oil filter. You were correct. I did not have an oil light and no check engine light. You really know your stuff. Take care. Love the show. What a perfect segue.

That's the next phase of the show. You're a genius, right? I'm telling you. He's a good guy. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Mystery shop. Ladies and gentlemen, you are part of the voting process here,

so we want to hear from you. So text those votes in, and we are going to mystery shop, Palm Beach Toyota, and that is the famous Agent Lightning, who is out there. Palm Beach Toyota is having a good sales month. Relo to the other Toyota lives in South Florida,

Palm Beach Toyota's achieving a greater percentage of their sales objective for July. Some of this can be attributed to inventory before the Big Crunch came in June. Bomb Beach Toyota's relatively sales performance wasn't that spectacular. Selling fewer cars in May and June meant they started this month with more cars in stock and many of their competitors. When the crunch came, they were a better position to capitalize on this advantage. But that's not likely the only reason. Clearly, their marketing efforts have been effective,

and this has resulted in a steady stream of customers walking through the front doors. Lately, they've mainly run ads featuring low payments and customer testimonials. Whatever an anomaly appears on a radar, we can't resist in investigating. We're pathologically curious here at our own cars, and what has really piqued our interest is what is actually happening when that stream of customers come walking through their door. mystery shop, Palm Beach Toyota, maybe a dozen times, and each time is different. They currently have an impressive C-plus or B-minus grade on good-dealer, baddealer list.com. Before you buy a car, go to our list.

Go to our list, bad-dealer, list.com, and so on our own cars and choose somebody on the good-dealer list. Yep. We're recommending them as a good place to buy a new Toyota. as long as you follow our advice to avoid a potential minefield of common car dealer sales practices. And that goes for every dealer on the list. For our

investigation this week, we send Agent Lightning to Palm Beach Toyota with a buyer's order. Now, a buyer's order is a legal document. Very hard to get a buyer's order. If you are in the process of shopping and comparing prices on cars, if you can get a copy of a buyer's order, with

the out-the-door price, you are in the driver's seat. The price on our buyer's order was the same clear price we offer everyone. We didn't muck you around to trick Palm Beach Toyota. It's a real price. Agent Lightning's instructions were to see what happens when she tries to get Palm Beach Toyota to match the car and the deal. And this is the way you should buy any car. Honda otherwise.

Find one dealer who will give you the out-the-door price. Take that out-the-door price. That's the price you can write a check for. hand it to the salesman and drive the car home. Real simple. Get the out-the-door price and shop it, shop it as many places you can. Here's a report. I arrived at Palm Beach, Toyota, late morning, parked right in front of the showroom.

I barely made it out of my car when I saw a salesperson waving his arms and yelling, a little strange, trying to get someone's attention. I quickly realized he was trying to get my attention. I'm Agent Lightning, speaking in the first person here. He yelled, help you today? Not very professional. He's about 50 feet away. I didn't shout back and said I waited for him to come to me. He approached me in a much lower volume, asked, how can I help you? I told him I was shopping around for New Camry, XSE. The salesperson, who still hasn't introduced

himself, again, not very professional, asked me to come with him inside. He led me to a desk, offered me a seat, left for about 12 minutes. He returned. and reported that he had only one Camry, excess in stock, and it was a hybrid. Now, this is standard. You're going into any car dealership today. They don't have many cars, period. And if you're looking for a specific model and color, forget about it. You're not going to find that car, probably.

I told them I didn't want a hybrid. I explained that I've already done all my research, and I was now in the process of finding the right price and the right dealership. If you just tuned in, we're talking about Palm Beach, Toyota, and West Palm Beach, Florida. The salesman insisted that we go out and just take a look at the hybrid. Well, what's he going to do? That's all he has.

He's going to try to sell you what he has. And that's the marching orders from his manager and the owner. Sell what you have. You can't sell what you don't have. I relented, followed him outside. At this point, I assume he was never going to tell me his name. So I asked, what's your name? His name was lucky.

That's funny, my name's Lucky too. Then he said, I'm sorry, I never got your name either. Then I told him my name. I mean, not to get a customer's name. Don't say it again. Yeah, okay. We found the Camry XSE Hybrid, and Lucky began to do a presentation. But I stopped him.

I said, I wasn't sure where he was going with this because I don't want a hybrid. I took out the offer from the other toilet dealership, and that was Earl Stewart Toyota and showed them the equipment. I said, I need the gas model. I don't want the hybrid. I need the one with a panoramic sunroof, navigation, and advanced technology package.

I'm not flexible. Lucky said that it would be really hard to get the car because of the inventory situation and recommended I take something that we already had there. He said it could be 10, 20, maybe 7, even longer than 30 days before they could bring in something for me the way I described it. He says, give me a $500 refundable deposit, and they'll go try to find the car for me. I asked if he would give me a more specific estimated time of arrival if I was willing to order one.

He said he believed he could and suggested we go back inside. I sat down at the same table. Lucky went to speak with his manager. like to return with Andy, the manager, a few months later. Andy reported sadly that they could not find any Camry XSE hybrids out there with a panoramic sum roof. I said that that was fine because I did not want a hybrid. They just couldn't communicate.

I said, I made this perfectly clear. We're lucky. Andy apologized and said Andy is, you know, Lucky's manager. He'd go back and look for one right. now. Before he did, he took the offer from Earl Store Toyota and looked at it. He assured me that he would be able to beat that deal by $300 to $400 because that particular dealership will not negotiate on price. And he returned in seven, and that's true, and he returned in seven minutes, seven minutes, with a vehicle information sheet, not a worksheet, with a $35,500,500 out the door,

OTD written in ballpoint pen on it. Earl Stewart was 35,800 out the door. That was the price bottom line. He said it was arriving in five days. I started to ask Andy what fees were included in the price. You know, dealer fees, hidden fees. He said there were no fees added because he gave me the out-the-door price. And this is true. I mean, you don't care, I've said this over and over, you don't care about hidden fees. When you start playing the hidden fee game, you're playing their game, you just say, out the door. That's your game. Out the door.

Write the check and the check over the salesman, go home with the car. That's the out-the-door price. All taxes and fees were included of that number. That's what you want to get. Then he walked away to speak with another customer at an nearby desk without saying a word.

I don't know if he thought I was finished, but it felt rude for him to just do that, and that was rude. I looked at Lucky and asked, what just happened? His manager just walked away. I asked him if he could get something from me that itemized what I was paying

for the vehicle. Lucky said I would need to give him my driver's lessons and some more information from me before he could do that. Now I'm feeling frustrated. Need to clear my head so I excused myself, walked out for a few minutes, walked out to my car, sat down in the driver's seat,

called Stu with an update for an update. Look, he stood nearby and watched me. After a few minutes, I walked back over to Lucky, who said he didn't understand why I'd left. I said, I just needed a few minutes. He walked inside, Lucky pointed to the seat and said, you can sit there while I get Andy.

And that offended me, as speaking as if I were Agent Lightning, because it felt like I was being given a command. Some people don't like to be pushed around, most people. Lucky and Andy went back quickly, Andy said he didn't know what they'd done to upset me but he wanted to make it up to me I explained what had upset me

from pushing a hybrid model to introduce himself Lucky to introduce himself to Andy walking away to speak with another customer to the way Lucky spoke to me when showing me words said so you know that's just not right

Andy listened and then apologize he said he was trying to help and another customer and he screwed up and dropped the ball. Okay, he admitted he was wrong. That's a good thing to do. Admit when you're wrong. I asked for a different salesperson, Andy nodded, asked Lucky to excuse us.

I spoke with Andy for a few minutes. He was being extremely nice and apologetic. Then he got another salesperson to assist. And that was AJ. Andy brought A.G. up to speed. I left to give me a worksheet. AJ took my license, asked me for some more information to enter and the computer.

computer. And to return with a worksheet shows that the bottom line was 35,005. That was Earl Sturt. It was bottom line. That was our bottom line. He pointed out that the Camry Excessi has some more equipment on it, so it was even a better deal that I was looking at. He said that if I left him a $500 refundable deposit, that's good. I'd have the right of first refusal when it arrived in five days. He said he really wanted to earn my business, And he deeply regrets how poorly things start out. He seemed legitimately remorseful. I told him that it had been a roller coaster day for me,

and I need to go home and talk about it with my husband. So there's a situation. Climsy presentation, perceptively rude treatment, but bottom line, a better price. And as I said before, folks, this is a textbook way to get a good price. One dealer somewhere, whether you're buying a Honda or a Ford or Chevrolet, find some out-the-door price. Once you get that one off-the-door price, you have got a weapon to use on the competition. And you shop that out-the-door price with as many other dealers as you can.

And be sure you give a price at least as low or lower. And that's the way you beat the dealer at his own game. and Agent Lightning beat my dealership and got a better price from another dealership and she won the gold medal for being able to get a good price. And it was a damn good price because the price we gave her was a good price and she got a better price. And that is to be applauded. And if you can emulate that when you buy your next car,

don't do it today because you get cheaper three or four months, three or four months, use this mode of operation and buy a car, and you get the gold medal just like Asia Lightning should. Now we need to vote. Okay, we've only had one grade, actually two grades came in. Mark gives them, he says, based on customer service, D, and then Bob gives them a C for Palm Beach Toy. I'm going to go higher. I'm going to raise their grade from the C plus B minus to a regular B.

just based on this experience. I mean, and that's all we do on a mystery shopping report. So, yeah, I think there was some clumsy handling by Lucky, maybe even Andy, but ultimately I think they redeemed themselves, and they stuck true to what they promised her. So they did do a better deal, $300 less than us. So I'm going to give them a B. Okay, I've got, let's see, Guy with a B plus,

Mark from St. Louis with a C. Agent Lightning had the power. Negan with a B. Andrew with a B plus. Donovan with a C. Frank says a rough start, but extra marks for admitting their mistakes. I'm guessing he's going pasting grade there.

John Strine with a C. Mark Smith, B-minus. Wayne Veit with a B-minus. Brian with a B. Bro's scientist says it hurts, but I'll give him a C. And Frank, of course, says,

given this crazy pandemic environment a B. And I'm agreeing. I'm going with, actually, I'm going to give them an A-minus. I say they were a little pushy, a little odd there, but I'm going A-minus on it. That's me. Well, I'm going to give them a D. Not everybody wants to be pushed around. And the fact that Andy and Lucky apologized, I'm not going to make any experience. for what I'm about to say, but in this climate, they're real anxious to sell a car. Whether they were sincere about their apologies and the way they handled communication in the very beginning, I don't know. It's questionable. And is everyone is savvy as Agent

Lightning? I don't think so. So knowledge is power, ladies and gentlemen, and go to Erl on cars and download that affidavit that I invented where you can get the final out-the-door price without any haggling and negotiating and all this other stuff. That's my vote. I give them a D. We have a few more coming in. We've got a B-minus from Tim on Facebook. Karen gives him a C.

Linda gives him a C. And Steve says another great show. Thanks. No great. Well, let me, I want to echo Nancy's comment. about another but everybody is as powerful in fact the caller also with the texture as agent lighting agent lightning and this is her personality this is who she is you don't want to mess with agent lightning be like messing with

Nancy you know she's she's a tough gal and she doesn't take any BS and she's you know she is a if she'd never met us she'd be a good car shopper and car buyer because she doesn't take any guff So if you're that type of personality, I'm going to give them a B. I'm going to give them a Palm Beach Toyota B because they did what they should do is give an out-the-door price to beat a competitor. Most dealerships wouldn't even do that. And they would give you a low ball price and then they would try to switch it on you later.

Very few dealers will do that. So if you stick to your guns and you're tough like Agent Lightning, this is the way you get a good price. Unfortunately, most people out there are not tough, and they get swayed. They would have gotten swayed and ended up with a car they didn't want to buy or something else, and all the efforts that were attempted. But give the devil it's due a B for Palm Beach Toyota, and you can buy a Toyota from them if you're tough. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're just about out of trouble. time. I want to thank all of you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars. You make the show,

and we so appreciate you weekend and week out. We'll be right back here next week. Same time. Have a wonderful weekend.