Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.24.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Greenacres Nissan

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Greenacres Nissan to see if she can get the low monthly lease offer featured on their website. 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 is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn, space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Another morning, Saturday, hurl on cars sitting here on the team with kind of a modified mix here. One of your favorites that I said in the, uh, in the, uh, in the interoperative. introduction, Rick Kearney is remotely participating. I guess they call that virtual participation. A little cough and sneezing going on. So, and abundance of caution, as the lawyers like to say,

we decided to keep Rick home. But he's got all the electronic gadgetary going. So he's actually online right now, literally on the telephone. And he's monitoring our Facebook and our YouTube and everything else. So it'll be almost like having Rick here. Actually, we have another substitute, Josh Stewart, my son, is sitting in Rick's chair. Good morning, everybody. So you remember Josh, if you're a regular, he fills in for Stu, who is on vacation with my grandchildren and my daughter-in-law. And he's having a good time, and he's entitled to it.

He works real hard. and he'll be back next week. So we have a temporary crew filling in, very competent, and we'll try to do your right with particularly with Rick's question. She's coming in. He's such an important part of the show. I'm so glad he can be remote because we have a lot of questions of how to operate your car.

We talk about Earl and Cars a lot about buying and selling and being ripped off by car dealers and leasing and all that kind of things. thing. It's more fun to talk about that. A lot of people, it's, you know, it's an exciting part of the business, I guess you'd say. But the realistic nuts and bolts of a car, and you drive a car for five, six, seven years, you only buy, you know, you buy a car every five or six, seven years, and you have to drive it during that time. So every three or four, six months a year, at least, you're going to be coming in for service of maintenance and repairs. So you need to know how to protect yourself in the clenches.

with repairing your car. So, as I say, Rick Kearney is online. There's a lot of... Excuse me. Yes, ma'am. Nancy Stewart is in the studio. Yes, live in that color, Nancy Stewart. And as all of you know, who are regulars,

she is the female advocate version of this show. She is the magnet to attract female callers, and she's done a marvelous job. we really, really reach out to all the females because they do have a different perspective on a lot of things than men. And we finally come to realize that. I mean, we're coming of age.

It's amazing to look around the world and see countries where they're still operating in the shadows, I mean females, and they're being disrespected, and they're being abused, and they're being considered second-class citizens. It's almost amazing to think that we've done the same thing in this country

for a long, long time, and here we are. 21st century, we just about got it figured out. Almost. And ladies, you have a voice. Use it. Yeah, tell them about the special offer if they call the show, please. Ladies, you can win yourself $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call at 877-960.

Talk about anything. call to say hello or let us know how your well visit to a dealership went whether you leased whether you purchased whether you just wanted to stop in and take a look around and see what your options are and how you were treated 877 960 9960 yeah and uh we've got so many different ways to contact us that I think sometimes I confuse you. I confuse myself. I'm caught between the devil and dark blue sea here because what do I do? We have a lot of great ways to go. A lot of them are quite different. We have the anonymous feedback line, which has really become our most popular way to contact the show. And the anonymous feedback line is pretty much like

just what I said, except for you are, Y-O-U-R, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you contact us, you say your piece, you say it any way you want to, because, as I say, it's totally anonymous. Even if I wanted to find out who you were, I can't do it. There's a company, and it's an amazing company. They have a lot of blue-chip companies that use it for employee input, customer input, And we have to pay for this website, and they guarantee your anonymity if you go to your anonymousfeedback.com, then we will get the, it's actually a text or an email.

It's an email. It comes in both forums, actually. Yeah. Oh, is that right? Well, I didn't know you could do it a text. Oh, you could do it on your mobile device. Mobile device, yeah. So, we respond, and then you have to, and you can ask for a response or you can not even get a response.

So if you just don't ask for a response, we'll talk about it on the air, but you will not be, even through the website, you won't hear back on your anonymous feedback.com. And, of course, we have the old-fashioned text line. Amazing, you know, 20 years ago. Old-fashioned. Yeah, text, right. And I can remember when text came along, and of course most of you can, and it was kind of a, you know, a gadget, you know, why would you use that when you've got the good old-fashioned telephone?

It's just so cold and heartless and impersonal. And now, I don't like telephones. I like text better. It's completely flipped, yeah. And one thing, it kind of makes you cut to the chase with a text unless you really want sit down and do a lot of thumbing on the smartphone, you've kind of cut to the chase and you get your point across. That's what we like. Exactly. In this age that we're living in and how fast we're moving, texting, you know, isn't always my favorite. I like talking to people, but it

really cuts, as I all said, to the chase. Talking about cutting to the chase, let's open the show with our first lady caller. Hallelujah. And that is Bonnie. Good morning. Hey, Bonnie. Good morning, Bonnie. And welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. My husband and I are avid listeners to your show. We enjoy it every weekend. We look forward to it. Oh, thank you. The issue that I was really calling about is it's something that, Can you hear me? Yes, loud and clear.

Oh, okay. It's something that's bothered me over the years. It didn't matter if I'd go shopping with my dad for a car and now with my husband. When we would pull into the parking lot, the salesperson would go automatically to my husband and would introduce himself and, hi, how are you? and this and that and not really pay attention to me. And so my husband would introduce himself

and then he'd say, well, I'm really here we're shopping for a car for my wife. And at that point, I would think I'd be recognized and what's your name and what are you looking? Instead, it was always questions directed

at my husband. As if, I couldn't make a decision myself or wouldn't know what was about a car other than what color would you like. Did they ask you about your makeup mirror? You know, Bonnie, I've heard this not as often as we used to, but it is, well, shocking to me in today's climate. the dealers, the salespeople at the dealerships, as desperate as everyone is to make a sale, it's a financial disaster to ignore a woman and her voice and what she needs and what she's interested in. And we certainly don't have to, well, let's say, you know, take an engine apart.

we are an important part of this business and it's unfortunate that there are still more than there should be out there that are ignoring women and in the 21st century the Boys Club well it can well discuss a woman whenever this happens because you just you think to yourself that this shouldn't happen anymore but it does. Well, the smart car dealers have figured it out

and the dumb ones are still doing it, Bonnie, you hit it on the head. It used to be a lot worse, and it's getting better and better. And eventually, you will prevail, women will prevail because you buy half the cars. And the retailers out there where they're selling cars or TV says, realize you have to look,

make eye contact with a woman, you have to treat her with total credit and respect, well, she's not going to buy from you, and then you go out of business. just let her know that just let that person know in the showroom that hey guess what we know how to tie our shoes that's right so your voice is important it is it is and we've taught our daughters the same fashion and I will tell you my daughter can probably go in and negotiate with the best of them.

I can agree with you. I have three, and they can also do the same thing. And they were born in the 60s, and it was because of the, again, I'll use the word the climate back then in the 50s and 60s. For whatever reason, I was ahead of my time, and it may have been the environment that I came from and the ability to stand up for myself. And with all of that, it just brought me here to Erwin Cars. Right.

I wonder if they even think about or discuss in their meetings. You know, the other half of the client tell that are women have just as much a voice. You know, I have to say that I don't think that they, think that they're doing anything wrong and it's a learned behavior and they're just not privy to the behavior that is accepted today and is not accepted today. So they just, until their mindset changes and they, well, just listen to themselves and what they sounded like and how a man would feel if he came in and was treated the same way and it comes down to this we all want to be treated with respect exactly and to not just be you know a little fancy appendage exactly why you and nancy

need to have coffee together someday because i can see you have a lot in common and you can spend hours talking about this and I, the good news is things are getting a lot better and and thanks to people like you and Nancy that just say, just say no. I mean, you're not going to treat me that way. And as I said earlier, the smart retailers and smart men are taking advantage of the fact that if they show courtesy and respect to a woman, guess what? They'll buy a car. If they don't, they won't buy a car. And that's a hard lesson that sooner or later all the dealers will have to learn because if they don't they won't be around any longer but thank you very much for calling them you know especially no it's a pleasure paying you the 50 bucks because you

are you're probably the best caller we've had in a long time at least than nancy's eyes and and bonnie it it's not to say that i don't get myself in trouble um because um you know i voiced my opinion a lot um but guess what i'm not a bottle of tequila i can't can't make everybody happy so bonnie thank you so much for the conversation you've been an important part of the show and please spread the word to your lady friends and let them know that they too can win themselves fifty dollars and if you email me i can get that check out to you okay do you know how to email her bonnie uh yes very good that's important because we don't get your contact information and we can't send you the 50 bucks.

So be sure to email your contact information, and it'll go out very quickly. Yeah. Otherwise, everyone will hear my voice. Pony, have a great weekend. Thank you. You as well. Bye.

Bye-bye. 877-960-9960. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. There you can voice your opinion and let your voice be heard no matter what you have to say. because we can't track you down. And also, I'm going to take a moment and thank everyone for tuning in to Erwan Cars. You are an extremely important part of the show, and we look forward to you joining us every Saturday.

Now, back to the recovering car dealer. Now, don't forget, folks, Rick Kearney is here in spirit and virtually as well. Rick Kearney is a certified diagnostic master technician. He's listening to us now. In fact, he's on the line waiting right now for your calls. So if you've got a problem with your car, if you've got some of that complicated computer software, Bluetooth problems, or anything else,

you've got a squeak, rattle, or roll that you can't figure out. I got my car this morning, crank it up, and said, I needed pressure on my tires. And then that pressure light went out, and I'm okay because my tires got cold last night. And now they're okay. these are the kind of things that people think about. So you call the show 877-960-99-60-960.

He's on the line already. A little handicap because he's listening to a 20-second delay. Rick, did you hear what I said 20 seconds ago? Good. I am the ghost in the machine. That's not creepy at all. And Rick, guess what? I remember to bring my own water.

I miss you. just like having me I think maybe we could just get a big great big picture a record he wouldn't even have to come in there you go I miss your smiling face I do I do well let's turn the mic over to Josh Stewart

subbing for Stu and as you know Stu is our cybermaster and our spy master in charge of the mystery shopping report and Stu or Josh actually did the write-up this morning. I'm just the talent that reads it with drama.

Just the pretty face. I'm the pretty face. And these guys do the hard work and they usually pick the targets and dispatch Agent Lightning. And Josh did that today. And he's also monitoring our anonymous feedbacks and text.

So he's here for us. Josh, did we have any anonymous feedbacks or text? You won't talk about the mystery shopping report at all? It's a good one, but we can save that for later. I do have to kick off the text from Anne-Marie, if you'd like me to read that. Yes, please. Oh, hi, Ann Marie. The Saturday morning tradition.

Good morning. Normally by the end of July, I'd be looking forward to seeing a lot of next year's vehicles coming in soon. Since these are not ordinary times and car dealers have had trouble getting their 2021 models in due to the chip shortage, will the 22 models be delayed as well? Thank you. Don't think so. I'm sure there are some exceptions with the computer modules that require the microchips. We're already seeing cars being shipped without certain features that require the microchips, and then they have to be installed later. At some point on certain models, I'm sure they just won't be able to ship it at all.

So I think it'll be, but I think mostly you'll see quite a few 20-22s. And to me, having been in the business so long since 1968, the frustrating thing is the way that the new model dribble in. And they come in extraordinarily soon, some years. In fact, they've actually come in a year early, and sometimes they come in a year late, and sometimes they come in in the middle of the year. In the old days, they used to come out all at once, so it was really kind of cool. And all the car dealers would have their showrooms covered with paper.

and they would have their cars, all the new models. Big reveal. Big reveal, and it was exciting, and nobody saw the new Chevy until opening day for the new models. And that excitement's all gone. They just come in all the time, which is a good point because you need to know, to be sure when they say this is a new car,

is in a current modeled used car. If you buy a new car that's a year old, guess what, you bought a year old car. And they could call the new car, but you're buying to use car. And sure, you get incentive money and you get discounts, but usually the discounts and incentive money do not offset the fact that it is a one-year-old car.

Especially now when the incentive money has been pulled back so much, do you think the inventory shortage. When that 22 comes out, you're 21 is a year old. Yeah. Great point. So, Amory, a great question. I found out that, I think it was last week,

we shop, who we shop? Palm Beach, Toyota. Well, one, you know, we shop somebody that had a 20-22 model and I didn't realize they were out yet. I think it was Kia. Okay. Well, we do have, you know, they're staggered. So Toyas have a couple of the models are 22s. The Corollos, DePrius has already come out with 22s.

And the rest will be staggered throughout the year. So what you've got right now in Edentary, you've got probably some 2019s hanging around, some 2020s for sure, 2,021, so some 2-12. So you've got a cafeteria to choose from, and, of course, the prices will be higher. My advice has always been, buy the latest model, but in today's situation, don't buy anything today. Wait a couple of months, and the prices will come down dramatically. Okay, Josh. You made that point about the manufacturers making cars with a lot of chips.

Sometimes I've read they're building them up to a certain point. It's called Building Shy. And then they kind of store it, waiting for the chips. come. So hopefully when the chip manufacturing comes back up to full speed, there'll be a big rush of these shy-built cars coming into the shut rooms. Oh, cool. Fantastic. All right, I have anonymous feedback if you want to. Yes. All right. This one came in a few days ago. Do dealers charge each other dealer fees when they exchange new car inventory? Funny you should mention that. They kind of do, actually. They do. And I was starting to say back in the day when I was evil,

might have done it fairly recently, but first of all, dealer trades for you, who are not familiar with the term, about half the sales, new car sales, are cars that were available, not in the dealer you bought it from, but from another dealer. And all dealers use this. This is one of the few things that competing dealers do to cooperate with each other is actually swap inventory because it's a mutual benefit. So if you've got a car, dealer, you're a new car dealer, and you've got 200 cars in stock typically, and there's probably 300 different, 400 or 500 or 1,000. How many make and model combinations are there? No, it's exponentially impossible to calculate. So you can't possibly have everything everybody wants,

so what do you do? You go to the pooled inventory, which are all the other competing dealers. So if you're a Chevrolet dealer, probably within a reasonable dealer trading range, there's probably 25 dealers and you have 25 times 300 average dealer inventory say to choose from and that's what the reason you can buy your Chevrolet and pretty much get what you want during normal times today that's not true because there's a few cars total when you dealer trade the larger dealers that have most of the cars they get sometimes a little bit pestered by small dealers that don't carry big so they make it hard and they you have to beg and plead to get the car and sometimes what the larger dealers will do is they will add fees to the car they trade you they'll charge you the

same well they'll try to make you take the same options the dealer installed options that they try to charge to their customers so if a dealer wants it they still have to buy the window tint and the pinstripe and the nitro for $700 and the dealer that gets charged that remembers that so when that dealer goes back and buys from him he does the same thing same thing to him. So dealers, you know, they're just like, they get nasty and they take advantage of it. It's like a tariff war. I was actually a victim. I hate to digress, but that's my privilege. It's your show. You can do what you want. I actually got into trouble with a bunch of toilet dealers in South Florida because I was advertising when I first started when I cut my

hidden fees and I decided and made the decision that my dealership, we were going to charge any more hidden fees. So all the other Toyota dealers got mad at me and they boycotted me and they would not dealer trade. So if I went to a dealer and asked for a car, I'd say we don't have it or I wouldn't dealer trade with Earl Stewart and he said no good you know what. So I was really frustrated. So I called my attorney and he said, well that's called an illegal boycott. And I got into a big fight and I had to get a fact I got to a big fight with Toyota and manufacturer. And went back and forth, and lawyers got involved. Finally, my lawyer had to send a letter out to all the Toyota dealers

and say, listen, if you don't dealer trade with Earl Stewart Toyota, you can be fined or imprisoned. And suddenly, they all changed their mind. Imagine that. Imagine that. And now all the car dealers, maybe I got myself a trouble. I might have to send another letter out. And you see, ladies and gentlemen, even Earl Stewart is not an exception.

You have to, well, accept the fact that sometimes there's repercussions when you let your voice be heard. And that leads me to the $50 that I have left for one more lady out there. Give me a call. Give all of us a call. We can answer your questions, 877-960, 9960. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com and our text number, which Josh is Manning. and Rick is he's on the line

and he's waiting for your questions and excuse me we are going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Warren who's calling us from Pompano Hi Warren Hi guys, how are you doing? Good morning. Hey, good morning.

Good morning, can you hear me? Loud and clear. Five by five. Okay, great. Okay, I got one observation and one sort of story. The observation is I'm up in New Jersey now, and where I stay, it's Fort Lee, New Jersey, which is next to the George Washington Bridge. The last week or so I have to get off the Acese at the highway, near the bridge, and so the traffic is always crawling.

I have seen about five or six car carriers, you know, with brand-new Toyotas, Buicks, Nissan. I've seen them going into the city. I've seen them going into New Jersey. I've just said, so that's one man's observation that I've seen all his new car carriers all over the place. It's probably been in the last week or so. So I think, from my observation, it looks like they're delivering all

over the place. I mean, you know better than me, but it looks like they have a ton of them. How many cars are those carriers carry? 12 cars, something like that? Something like that, depending, yeah. Nine or ten. Warren, what you're seeing, you're seeing cars that are already sold. And car sales

are quite brisk, and a lot of cars are being sold, but unfortunately they're being sold at very high prices, and they're probably being sold to people that would have had preferred a different color, different equipment, and people that are, for whatever reason, desperate or insistent on buying a new car. And when we have a car carrier come into our dealership, it rolls up, usually almost every car on there is sold. Yeah, 9 out of 10 will be sold. Yeah, 9 out of 10. So it isn't building inventories, and so the shortage still exists in spite of all

the car carriers. Those are cars people bought 45, 60 days ago. Yeah, I'm sure you're not going to fill, I'm sure, all the cars by five or six carriers. I understand that. But isn't that sort of a sign, a good sign that they're moving off the assembly line? I was just curious about that. Exactly. Yeah, that's an interesting observation because we think in terms, we look at our own sales. And we surprise ourselves every month. Josh monitors our dealership sales closely. And if I need to know how we're doing, I asked Josh. And he always tells me we're doing better than we thought we were going to do. And because it doesn't seem, when you come to work in the morning at a car dealership today and you don't see any new cars on your lot, it kind of gives you heart palpitations.

It's depressing. What am I going to do? I don't have any cars. Well, what you forget is you sold a bunch of cars, but they just weren't there. And here comes the car carrier. And you've got the customers lined up, waiting to take the cars, and they're paying very high prices. And the dealers are making very large money, including us. So we're making a ton of money. We're charging high prices for our cars. The cars are coming in, and we feel like we've died and gone to heaven. Tell them what you really feel. The other thing was that I want to make an observation sort of story. I have a friend of mine. and this is what some of the dealers are doing.

He has a Honda that's all fully loaded coming off a lease, and he got a call from the dealer, and the dealer said to him, oh, well, you know, we're going to put you in a new one. We're going to put your new one. He said, I really want to buy my Honda because I really didn't use it during the pandemic. It's got like 15,000 miles on.

So anyway, the dealer kept calling him up and said, well, if you bring the car in, we're going to bring you a new car, new car. So he said, he's pretty sharp. He says, I can get about $4,000, $5,000 more for my car if I just buy it. And the dealer kept calling him, and all he did was give him numbers, say, well, if you bring it in, it's going to cost you so much. You know, it's so much a month, so much a month.

So finally I said to my friend, I said, tell him if you really want to make a deal to give you a check for your car over what you're this. I don't know what the pay off was like 16, 17, whatever. So I said, why don't you tell him if he really is. interested, then, you know, pay off your car and give you the difference of what it's worth. Perfect advice. You know, three, four thousand dollars. And then you'll start to negotiate because he's a retired accountant, no less.

And, you know, and all this guy was doing was throwing numbers at him, you know, like, and it didn't mean anything to him. He said, well, you will put you in a new one for less than what you have now. We do da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And he just wouldn't give up on it. So finally, he said, well, it doesn't work that way. You know, so he said, yes, it does. But in New Jersey, you can buy the card directly from the bank of the leasing company.

You don't have to buy from a dealer. And he said, you know, I really had enough of this. And I'm just going to buy the car out. And he called the leasing, whoever owned the car. And he wrote a check, whoever the car was, and put the sales tax and whatever. And they told him up front, they charge him $100 for, you know, service charge or whatever. And he's waiting for the place and everything like that. But the point I'm trying to make is this is what they're trying to do.

They're trying to bamboozle you into giving them your car and not acknowledging that you could buy it off the lease and make a profit on it. He wanted the car so badly he was probably going to take a loss on a new car just so he could get his old one. Warren, that's great information to everybody listening. And you heard Warren, if you're driving a lease car now, you have a residual value that is probably, Probably below market. It might not be, but probably, and it could be substantially, meaning you have an option to buy that car. In Warren's friend's case, he said several thousand dollars below the true market value.

And the dealers will fight tooth and nail to have that car themselves. And a lot of smoke and mirrors to make you think that you should let them have the car. But perfect advice, Warren gave his friend. Make the dealer write the checkout for what he says. the car's worth, and once you have the check in your hand, then you can turn around and start all over to buy the new car you want to buy and negotiate your best price, which today is going to be a pretty high price. You might want to wait a few months and get a bargain on the new car, and you've got a bargain

on your purchase of your used car, so you'd have the best of both worlds. Yeah, the last point I'm trying to make is that they come right out and lie to you because, like I said in New Jersey, I don't know about other states, I know in Florida, you have to go to the dealer. But in New Jersey, you could buy the card directly from whoever owns it. And when he said to him, you know, the dealer kept saying, well, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that. You got to give it to a job. And it, and it does totally false.

It does work that way. But he wrote the check for it. And now he's got the card. He can go into the dealer and say, or any dealer, and say, you know, my Honda's worth, you know, $20,000 if you want to give it to me. You know, and he would make $4,000 on it. So they bamboozled you into believing that that's not the way it works. Makes me want to resurrect the old joke. How can you tell when a car dealer's lying?

And we all know the punchlines. Just left to a moment. I thought that was teenagers. I thought that was politicians. And Warren? Thank you. I agree to go. And I was happy to tell my friend the, you know, the accountant and say,

look, you know, tell him to write you a check for the car. And that's what. You don't want to mix apples in the art. If you want to give you, you'll let him know what the new car is this way. You know, he's throwing numbers at you. He's able to bamboozle you to figure, well, I don't know what he's talking about. And that's the price of the car, and he's going to get the Honda. Warren, and that's what he wants.

Warren, we need to sign you up as a vigilante. Earl's vigilantes? Have you heard about us, the vigilante group? Sure. Well, if you sign, go to Earl and Car. dot com send your information and we'll send you a hat just like the one I'm wearing now for you I don't know if you're streaming us but we have a vigilante and we have vigilantees all over the country and your point is to advise people

the way you advise your friend save them thousands of dollars and that way what we do here in South Florida can be spread all over the country so love to have you join Earl's vigilantes you know what I would find interesting though is like what the difference? I'm up in New Jersey when I come back to Florida for the winter. Like what the difference is between buying the car, New York, or New York City, or New Jersey,

and buying the car in Florida? I wonder, like, what the price differentials would be. That's a lot more civilized than New Jersey in New York. And you come to Dodge City, that's South Florida, and it is a nightmare, and it's just terrible. There's very little enforcement of

regulations of laws are crazy and hidden fees in Florida. range anywhere from a low and maybe $700 to a high of several thousand dollars and it's terrible. If you hear a Mr. Shopping Report at the end of the show, you will not believe

how bad this dealership was. I mean, illegal bad. And in New York, you have some rules and regulations and I believe New Jersey too. I know they limit a lot of things like hidden fees in New York.

Yeah, well, In New Jersey, the bank said to my friend, you know, he had to pay the sales tax and all the other registrations, blah, blah, blah. And they came right up in front, and the guy said that it's a $100 service. He just called it a service charge. He said, that's all you're going to pay. We're not charging you anymore for registration or plates. So he said, if you went to motor vehicles on your own, this is what you'd pay. He says, but there's a $100 service charge it.

So he was right up front, you know, and just said, yeah, this is, you know, all. This is exactly what it is $100 service charge to the bank or whatever. And, you know, that friend didn't care. It was $100 was a big deal. But he was up front about it. He didn't hide it. He didn't say anything and called some stupid name. He just said it's $100, and that was it.

Yeah. Warren, thank you very much. You're a great caller. Please call again. And your friend, I should thank you for saving him a lot of money. Warren, thanks for sharing that great story with us. And I love that word. amboozle and it's safer to purchase a car in Jersey.

Thank you. Have a wonderful weekend. I got a free lunch out of it. Thanks. Bye, guys. Thank you. Have a great weekend. 877-960-9960.

Or you can text us. 772-497-6530. Back to Earl's Vigilantes. You can help a whole lot. You can help us here. and you can help the people in your community. You don't have to know how to take an engine apart. Just join Earl's vigilantes.

And you can do that by going to Earl on cars. When yourself a cute little hat. Speaking of taking an engine apart, Rick Kearney dozed off. He's on the phone now. I hear the story. I'm starting. You've got to get some calls in here about how to take care of your car, maintain your car, fix your car. Rick can give you a free fix.

He's a certified diagnostic master technician. And if you just tuned in, he's normally sitting where Josh is sitting now in the studio. He was feeling a little under the weather this morning. But he volunteered to sit in at home, and he's got his phone to his ear. So he's live on the show in that sense, and he's got the computer going. So he's streaming us. He sees what you see, and here's what you hear. And if you will phone in a question, Rick is waiting, and he will answer a question.

certified diagnostic master technician there's nothing you can ask Rick he's not going to have an answer boy isn't that the truth even if he makes it up he'll have the answer he'll have the answer he can answer any question he is amazing an amazing asset to the show we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Marty good morning Marty welcome back how are you we're well thank you good morning I got a question for Earl. Okay. Right now, if you have a used car that you don't need, I understand you can get more money for the car.

Yes. What's the difference if you're, let's say, not discounting a Camry by 3,000, but you're going to give me 3,000 more for my used car? So I'm going to be paying. Basically, I'm paying the same by trading in, getting 3,000 more on my use, and I'm paying 3,000 more for the new. So I don't see any harm unless you're going to give me 6,000 for the used and only charge me 3,000 more for the new.

Good point. Well, you're asking, you know, you're asking a general question in general, that is true. I mean, you just have to weigh how much more you can get for used car than normal and how much more you have to pay for the new car. and it could be a wash, or you might even come out ahead. So you have to weigh the alternative. Now, the win-win is if you can somehow get by without that used car, so that way you actually come out ahead of the game.

You make an extra $2,000, $3,000 on the used car, and you sit tight maybe with Uber and Lyft and carpooling for two or three months, and then you buy that new car as a substantial discount from what it's selling for today. So you come way out ahead that way. But you need to weigh both. If you have a used car today, you definitely have an advantage over the person. I feel sorry for the people that don't have a used car to trade because they're really going to take it when they buy a new car.

If you don't have anything to trade, you definitely ought to wait. If you do have a trade, as Marty said, you can get a wash on the deal or maybe actually come out of head. Yeah, well, that's how I look at. Well, first of all, if you're used to, a car that I've had for the last 60 years, one way or the other, you don't want to start doing Uber or some other taking a bus. Yeah. A lot of people have houses today. They could make a whole lot of money on them,

but what are you going to do when you sell your house? Right. So buy another house for too much money. So a lot of people are sitting tight and we'll see a big flurry of people coming in, I think, in two or three months. The educated consumers are going to be buying in two or three months, or people that just flat half to buy today, and that's the only reason you should buy a car. Right. Every car dealer that I've seen at advertises now says, we'll buy yours even if you don't buy ours.

Sure they will. So everyone is saying that obviously you can buy, you know, you buy a new car that's it. Now, just for the sake, did you get your Tesla yet? Oh, no. No, and I'm very angry. I wish I hadn't mentioned that. I was happy and then you reminded me and I realized that I'm it's funny how I personalize this I'm mad at Elon Musk and he's my hero and I have to keep reminding myself this guy's got a lot more things on his mind than my Tesla I mean

he's going to Mars I mean the guy's got big stuff on his mind and he's a genius so who cares about Earl's Tesla Elon doesn't even know I exist that's a humbling thought I I test drove a Y yesterday because I had enough to do and it's a totally different kind of a car and when you're used to driving a regular car for 60 years it's something you got to get used to I'm sure you I could get used to it but when you take your foot off the gas on their car and I assume it'll be on yours too the car automatically slows down there's like no no real coasting yeah hybrids do that today You know, Toyota's been selling hybrids for how long, 15 years, 20 years?

No, going back to late 90s with the first briefs came out. Yeah, any hybrid automatic deceleration, which also charges the battery at the same time. Very cool. Sometimes they call that regenerative braking. Yes. You're doing that because Rick's not here to say it. I'm making a board like Rick does. I don't know how the screen is on yours.

I hear no one when you finally get it. But the screen, you've got to look at the screen versus, like, look it in your side view mirror. Yeah, it is. That's like being in a spaceship. You got to eat at all that. It is. Very cool. Well, Barney, thanks very much.

Thank you very much. The car I looked at was in the 50s. Yeah. And it's more than, it's not worth 50s to me. I'll stick to my camera. Smart man. You guys still sell the bus cars. Thank you, Marty.

Thank you so much. morning. Stay in touch. Have a great weekend. I like that word regeneration. That's what I'm working on, regenerating my collagen. It feels like a rebirth. Exactly. And as far as your Tesla's concerned, the money's on the table. There are no exceptions. All customers or potential customers should be treated the same. Even if they're Earl Stewart. I want to hear from Rick again, but he can't hear me for 20 seconds. So we'll be quiet for 20 seconds. Yeah. And I'll I'm going to remind everyone, as far as Rick is concerned, he will be voting on the Mystery Shopping Report.

In about 20 seconds. Rick, did you doze off? Ricky. Rickie, Ricky. Interrupt you, Josh, because I'm going to put Josh on, and then you can interrupt him. Folks, I want to remind the ladies that I do have $50 here, and whatever question you have, please give us a call at 877-960-960-9.

And you know, we're also looking for volunteers to help some of us maneuver through the Internet whenever you're, some of the seniors, you know, and I'm speaking for myself and Earl, you know, we're, we need a little help is what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to go after the seniors, but we could use some volunteers and you can help to, well, further educate the senior and purchase. a vehicle on the internet. I think we've got a bunch of texts over here, piling up. Oh, yeah, I got some of the feedbacks, anonymous feedbacks, we've got some texts. This is a text from Liz and Stewart. It's kind of the classic question

about leasing versus buying. She has a friend who's a senior and they wouldn't do anything but lease. Their rationalization is that they only have a monthly car payment. They don't have to worry about maintenance, repairs, or any other issues that come up when you have a car that's out of warranty.

So she's, her daughters are looking for a car, and she's wondering if it's okay for them to think about the same way. If they can lease a car with a monthly payment, have a new car, be under warranty, you know, is that a good thing? So what's the downside to leasing? Well, you can explain that, Josh. We go through this every day, don't we? Yeah, it's a, I don't think there's any one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

It really depends on the person's situation. Of course, you know, you have to be very educated no matter if you're going into a lease or purchase, but there's predictability when it comes to leasing. You know exactly what your payment is going to be for the next 36 months. You know you're not going to worry, in most cases, about being out of warranty. So some people find a sense of security and that sort of predictability. But at the end of the day, unless, of course, there's a crazy inventory shortage like we have now, typically you have no equity at the end of the lease, and you're starting from scratch again.

So if you're the kind of person who wants to get a new car every three years for sure, you know, and you like the sense of predictability, then leasing's for you. you. If you want to build equity and have a car and drive it to the wheels fall off, obviously, you know, buying the car outright or financing it is more for that person. And Liz mentioned her parents like to lease, and I'm not sure how old your parents are, Liz, but elderly people have to remember that if something happens in their health or, God forbid, they pass away, those payments still have to be made. And if you have a 36-month lease and say after 18 months, for whatever reason, you cannot make any more payments,

your estate, if you pass away, or you, if you're disabled and have a problem with vision or hearing or something that takes away your driver's license, or you just don't want to drive anymore, you've got 36 payments, whether you've only made 18 or not. And you don't negotiate with the leasing company. They just, that's it. The danger is sometimes you go to a car dealer, they'll say, no problem, we'll take care of it. But they take the lease payments, and if you want to buy a car, they're attacking the lease payments, owe the leasing company, added to the price of the car, then they take that and pay the leasing company.

But that leasing company will be paid 36 months or 48 or whatever the length of the lease is. They get paid one way the other. The bank always gets its money. And you know what Josh pointed out, that one size doesn't. doesn't fit all. And knowledge is power, even if you're leasing a car and mileage is really something to factor in amongst so many other things. If you have a couple German shepherds are going to tear it to pieces, you might want to think twice about leasing as well. Exactly. We're going to go back to the phones, Josh, and we're going to talk with Mark, who's calling us from Palm Beach Gardens.

welcome back mark good morning all i'm sure everyone is doing fine thank you thank you i uh been thinking about this issue for the last couple of days and i had a short commentary that i wanted to call in about it's about the earl stewart vigilante program as i'm listening i'm hearing you guys commenting about it but my point of calling in was just to kind of remind the list audience of what the program is about rather than just trying to, you know, gain more vigilantes. So to your listeners, I just want to say I'm a vigilante and I've been, I think one of the first ones to join. I don't know. Maybe you guys can answer how many months the vigilante program has been active. But I've only gotten one call.

through all these months. So I just want to remind everybody that the point of a vigilante program is for the listening audience. If you have, don't think that any question is silly or that, you know, that you would be wasting someone's time. Anybody that joins to be a vigilante does it out of their heart. You know, they want to be helping other people. So, you know, to vigilantees, my specialty is more in the service end of the business. But when you've been in the business as long as I have and you work around a dealership, you learn about leasing programs, sales, parts, service, body shop, all that kind of stuff.

So when I joined, I was actually kind of excited that I could share my knowledge with your listeners. but I think what's happened is that maybe somebody says, well, you know, I have this question, but, you know, I don't want to call them and waste their time, or they might think I'm silly. But, you know, listeners, there is a goldmines of information that is at your fingertips. All you have to do is dial the phone.

Look up on the website, Earl Vigilantes. And, you know, as I understand it, there's vigilantes now around the country. country. Yes. But I myself am located in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and I'm looking forward to your phone calls. Well, thank you, Marcus. Like I say, any subject whatsoever, if you have a question, remember, you're not wasting my time. Sure. I get excited when I get a phone call. Sure. I think that's great, and I know you volunteer because you want to help people. It makes you feel good when you help people. And I, and we have all of our vigilantes feel that way. On Cars, and we have the contact information for the vigilantes, and where that vigilante is located geographically. And Palm Beach Guard, you call Mark, and to contact him, and he's highly qualified.

We've known him for a while, and he's called the show many, many times, and he knows his stuff. And if you're in other parts of the country, check earluncars.com, vigilantes, and you will see the nearest vigilante to your area. And it's good to go to somebody that's in your area because the rules and regulations and the car dealers vary all over the country. And if you're in Missouri and you're in California or South Florida, there's three different types of experiences you might have at the car dealership. So thanks very much for the plug on the vigilantes. And don't forget the hat. One real quick thing back. The one customer that called me and elderly lady that have been involved in a car accident,

And we interacted about six times, and whenever she had a question about, oh, they want to give me an aftermarket bumper rather than that originally quit that. Or how do I get my deductible back? Remember, there is no question too small or too innocent. Call your vigilantees. Use the program. It's a great program, but it needs to be used. Thanks for listening to my rant.

That was a good rant, Mark. Thank you very much. Mark, thanks so much. you know thank you for sharing and you know one of the words um one of the attributes i'll say that really you must have you're not looking to get your your name in you know on a billboard or anything but passion to have passion and to want to help someone and want to treat them like you want to be treated that is key exactly yes and you're so educated and you have so much passion and we so appreciate you joining Earl's vigilantes.

It's fun for me. And hey, Josh, nice to see you in a lot of years. Yes. You're getting right up there, top of you're going to take the dealership away from Pops, everybody. That's the plan. That's the master plan. He is really amazing. You talk about assets.

There's a big one sitting in the studio. I'm glad you said asset because I thought you were going somewhere else with that. Guys, have a great weekend. And thanks for the listeners. Thanks, Mark. You can see that now there's a couple of comedians here. We had the Bloody Mary's at 9 o'clock. Oh, it was early.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 877-960-99-60. Ladies, I'm holding $50 in my hand. One more lady caller. I'd be so happy. Let's get it. You can ask any question, just like Mark said, small, big, anything.

Personal? Private? Yeah. Sure. Share it all. Earl, boxers or breeds. Don't say that. Just throw it out there.

And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to Josh. I got some feedbacks if I may. Hey, did you guys read about the new Chevy Bolt recall? Another electric vehicle catches fire. What gives what is happening all the time? Are they really safe? You know what worries me about that recall?

And I was shocked to learn. And I think what precipitated the recall, as you know, the fire started months and months ago and with the Chevrolet, it's 2000, not all bolts, 2019 and 20, or is it 2018 and 19? I think it's 18 and 19. I'll look it up. It's 2017 to 2019. 2017 to 2019. 51,000 vehicles.

And these that were recalled several months ago actually went back to the dealer and were fixed. and then they failed again. In other words, burst into flame again. Yikes. So that's very worrisome. It tells me that General Motors thought they knew how to fix it, and they didn't. And that is a terrible thing. It is.

And they're asking you to park your car outside, not in the garage. And there's also information, again, I apologize for not having more specifics on this, but they're also asking you to be sure to charge your car up to a certain point. And I didn't catch the whole thing on the news, but if you do have the car, if you can't get it into the dealer right away, there's instructions if you have a 2017, 18, or 19 bolt, then you want to be sure to find out exactly about the charging recommendations. But the main thing is get it back into the dealership immediately because they're catching on fire. And these lithium batteries, it's not like we haven't heard that before. They have laptops and smartphones, anything with a lithium battery, this problem has existed for a long time. And there's got to be a scientist or an engineer out there that can figure this out.

Absolutely. And, you know, I think we should take the opportunity to have Rick chime in on this situation because he probably knows a lot about it. Okay, Rick. One, two, three, four, five. Twenty-second delay. Hello, Rick. We have sound effects.

If you don't start talking, you're not going to have your chance. Can't have silence on the radio, silence on the air. I think they call that dead air. You there, Rick? I was a little reluctant because I lost him on my computer screen here, but it's lighting up again, and he may be, you know, there may be a breakdown here. Rick's back. Rick's back. Did you hear my question?

Okay. where you can vote enough time to that. About the vote. Okay. Do you think this is an indictment on electric vehicles, you know, at large with the lithium batteries? This should be a concern for Tesla and other all-electric vehicles? You know, I think that, like so many other things, the hype that we get, and I could even drag this over to the COVID crisis, the bad stuff gets lit up and talked about. and then in your mind you'll multiply it.

So I'm not even sure how many Chevrolet bolts are out there. I do know this. There's millions and millions of hybrid cars that have batteries and their lithium-powered batteries. And very, very few of those percentage-wise. So if you think one tragic occurrence paints the entire industry, you're wrong. If you said that, you'd have to say that any product, Can you name any product that hasn't had a serious problem?

No. No. You need to put it in perspective. But certainly no, I don't think that the lithium battery problem is an indictment of the entire electric volt, electric car or hybrid car, clearly. But it's been going on so long. It just seems like it shouldn't happen anymore. You would think so. I would think there should be a way to seal a battery so that the whole thing. The whole thing, as I understand with lithium batteries, is that oxygen gets to the gases that are being emitted naturally in the process of generating electricity in a lithium battery.

So without oxygen, you can't have fire. Why can't we keep the oxygen away from the fumes that are being emitted? Why can't they be exhausted, just like exhaust from a combustion engine? Too bad a Rick isn't here to help answer that. Exactly. And is that the reason that the... I'm here. Oh, Rick, are you there?

I'm here. You're having a little issue with the microphones on the board side, but... Okay. Did you hear my question? I missed your question. Okay, what I was saying was... What I was saying, what I was asking, we were talking about the latest fiasco with the Chevy vote. And a catching fire.

Bolt. Volt. Right. I'm from Pittsburgh. Yeah, bye. Be his own boy. Bolt. Yeah, well, lithium batteries have had issues all right along.

I mean, even going back to their little baby cousins, the radio control cars and airplanes, a little toy, I would call them toy, they're tiny brothers. They're not really toys, but they've always had issues with lithium, heating up when they're charging and discharging. And so those issues simply are, unfortunately, transferring over to the bigger vehicles, but obviously that increases that size factor as well. Well, thank you, Rick. And as Josh said earlier, that you can't look at the few fires that we've had with lithium and the Chevrolet Bolt or any other lithium fires and indictment of the entire electric vehicle industry.

because you've got literally tens of millions of hybrids out there and pretty soon we'll have tens of millions of all-electric and the percentage that we have problems with are middiscule compared to the total. And it's a little bit like the fact that once in a while a person with been vaccinated for COVID can actually come down with it. That doesn't say that you shouldn't get your vaccination. You positively should. Exactly.

So, you know, percentages are important to look at. Yep, you've got to keep it in perspective. All right, thanks, Rex. And the other factor there, those systems are so complex that there's going to be some growing paint. They've got to learn how they're going to respond in the real world. Good point. Well, Rick, let's stand by and we'll grab you again when we have another mechanical electronic issue, and we're going to go back to our text now.

Hey, excuse me. I wanted to ask Rick, is it true that you can only charge the bolt to, well, I think, 90%, and you shouldn't even touch it if it's at 25%. So, in other words, the charging is modified. Okay. You may not have read that article, you know. By the computer system, though. Excuse me?

the computers in the car should be controlling whether it's charging or not so that may be a programming error in those computers where it's letting it charge to that full capacity that it shouldn't go beyond i mean it's basically like putting air in a tire if you put too much air in the tire it can explode if you have too little air the tire has a problem exactly thank you rick and we'll get back to you on that we're going to get to the text right now we're going to go back to the phones and we're We are going to talk to John in Palm City, and I thank you for your patience, John. Good morning to everyone. I have a question for Rick. And then after that, I'd like to discuss it's on brakes. I have a Toyota product, 76,000 miles. I bought it brand new, and it needs brakes, four-wheel brake. Not bad, but it needs it as soon as possible.

and hydraulic brake fluid it's called hydroscopic which girl knows as a chemist that it means it absorbs moisture from the air and he suggested on the brake job that he flushes all the break fluid out completely and put in new brake fluid does that make sense to Rick

that's the service that a lot of places and I always recommend it if to me the brake fluid appears to be contaminated and in the owner's manuals you will see that if it does say that the fluid is contaminated it is recommended to replace the fluid well he said it looks a little cloudy to him so that would be contamination and probably moisture in it to me I would do the simple trick of put a flashlight against the reservoir for the break fluid look at the color if it

appears to be a light kind of straw yellow color, I would leave it alone. If it's seriously black and dark, I would replace it. Okay, well, I thank you for that. And I just want to mention to people, usually you never have to add brake fluid, but sometime a light comes on. The brake fluid is a DOT 3, 4, and 5, and a 5.1. Never, never mixed. You have to know what's in your car if you ever want to add it to it.

For instance, DOT 5, which is silicon base, it absorbs a little moisture, but DOT 5 can't be used on any car that has anti-lock brakes. So the important thing is for people to know if it's ever added to what's low in the car, make sure it's the correct proper grade. And I say there's three, four, and five. and you've got probably most of them, Rick will say, uses DOT3, which is actually the lowest grade that most manufacturers use. But do not ever mix different type of fluids because it can damage the system. Is that correct, Rich?

Absolutely correct. Look at the cap on the brake reservoir and it will tell you what brake fluid should be used. What I want to ask you is, On a boiling point, D-O-3, D-O-T-3 is the lowest, and four is the highest. But why are, I guess it's too expensive, why don't cars use the more expensive brake fluid because it has higher boiling point? Is there any reason for that?

Not really, but you're never going to reach that boiling point with standard brakes on a car. If it does, there's a major, major issue with that system. and you need to pick that first. John and Rick, do you realize that less than one-tenth of one percent of our audience has any idea what either one of you are talking about? And my advice is don't worry about DOT3 and the boiling point, but go to a good mechanic that's qualified like Rick Kearney or some other mechanic and some other dealership.

And if you get an honest, smart mechanic, you don't have to worry about that. But thank you, John, and thank you, Rick, for that information. and there's probably one guy out there that understood you. Not me. He's like, Earl, be quiet. I was listening. Well, Rick answered it all. If it looks dark and contaminated, it really did.

It should be changed. Exactly. Let me go back to the bolts that you mentioned. The reason for the disgrace of this, this was announced last week, and it's 51,000 bolts that's involved, 2017 to 2019. This is the second recall of these particular cause. The first recall from General Motors was for the software that controls the charging. That was replaced on them.

So now it comes up again. But again, the good, bad, and the ugly is publicized too much. Basically, EV cars is the thing of the future. And when they do have a problem like this, it's publicized too heavily. But it's important to people that know that have this car that just used announced again that you should bring the car in and not use it, I'll park it in the garage. But all these problems will be corrected to the future.

Basically, an electric vehicle is a safe car and they play up too much these incidents like this and the public gets scared and skeptic. Exactly. Amen. Exactly. A little bit like Takata replacing their airbags with other defective airbags, and the manufacturers did that. So if something really gets me angry when the manufacturer recalls a vehicle and quote-unquote fixes it

and then comes back later for the same identical problem, I just don't think that should be acceptable by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. Fool me twice, shame on you. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Well, guys, I look forward to the shopping report. Thank you.

Thank you, very much, ma'am. Thank you, John. Thank you, Rick. We do have that mystery shopping report from Green Acres and Nissan, and our hats are off to Agent Lightning, who does, as a lady, a great job every single week. 877960, or you can text us at 772-49-30-3530. Don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now back to Josh. All right, I got an anonymous feedback here says Elon Musk says he'll start taking Bitcoin again when there's evidence that 50% of the mining is powered by renewable energy.

Do you think this is something he wants for the environment or is this just another attention-grabbing scheme? I think it's both. I think the guy's a genius and, you know, I think he discovered the fact that when you do something it's really good. People appreciate that and then they buy your product. And so I'd rather have someone tricking me by doing good stuff and advocating a cleaner planet and advocating honest and saying transparency and walking the talk, then not do that. I think I think if he sells more Teslas and he's entitled to do it because of that. Exactly. Good point. We've got another one here. I think you'll like this one. Hey, Earl, when are you going to take a ride

into space with Bezos? You got the money. You know, I'll tell you something. A month ago, I would never even thought about it. And I did happen to watch that Bezos live on, I watched it on the CNBC when it happened about 9 o'clock in the morning. And I was, I was so in awe and so amazed watching that spaceship take off and accelerate into space.

I mean, and it was such a cool thing. And they had the 81-year-old, 82-year-old woman, Wally, and they had the 18-year-old kid and Bezos brother. And they didn't even have a pilot. It was an autonomous.

You folks are worried about an autopilot. autonomous car. Jeff Bezos was an autonomous spaceship. And he didn't worry about it. And he went into space. He floated around and had a ball. I tell you what, I'm seriously thinking. I'm 80. Wally's 82. Maybe if they give me, if I can get a ticket the next couple of years, I might do it. You know, I was so happy that you changed your mind because I was so excited and ready to go. And you said, go ahead without me. I knew you want me to go out in the space. You're excited to launch your husband into space. Nancy's been trying to get me to launch for a long time, but not. Okay.

The tiniest world's tiniest violin. I have another text, if you want me to keep rolling. Please, yeah. This is from Mark in Iowa. Generally, how far in advance does a dealership know what new vehicles they'll be receiving? I can handle this one. It's typically months in advance. You get a, at least for Toyota, we get a model launch calendar usually early in the year, and sometimes the days change.

But, yeah, we know well in advance when the new models were coming out. But we don't know anything more than that. We just, they really try to keep it close to the vest on the, on the, what's it all about. Especially if it's a chain, if it's a redesign, especially. Yeah. And we get a lot of questions. And usually the media knows before we do, because somebody gets a spy cam out and gets a picture and gets some information. And the dealers read the paper to find out what's going on.

Yeah, they have. Well, not the paper. They get online. You get those grainy photographs with the cars covered in paper. Very exciting stuff. stuff. Okay, here's another anonymous feedback. I read Amazon and Ford have invested two and a half billion dollars into an EV startup called Erivian. Why would a car company invest into a competitor? It's a good question. It's a matter of knowledge and capability and and you have a company that has intellectual properties. In other words, they, they, they I'll be patent a lot of what they've done.

They spent maybe billions on research, but they're not going to quite get where they need to get, and so they need to partner with somebody else. And Toyota just partnered with the world's greatest mapping company. Did you read about that, Josh? No, no, tell me. Yeah, they just partnered with, I can't even think of the name of it now. Google it, you'll see it.

But when they do their autonomous car, and here's Toyota, They were way behind, and they were pushing hybrids and hydrogen cells. And suddenly they said, whoops, got to go all electric, got to go autonomous. So they have to have maps. So they got, they probably got something that's as good or better than Google Maps. And they bought the company. Interesting. Or partner with them.

I can't remember which. I think they bought them. I think it's called Carmera. Yeah, Carmarra, that's right. Never even heard of that mapping company. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of partnerships. Software companies being bought up.

and the car companies that got flat-footed have to merge and acquire, and, you know, it's just going to be a whole new ballgame. Is that for, I imagine, for the autonomous driving, I imagine you'd have to have some sophisticated mapping and GPS capabilities? Exactly, yeah. I mean, if you have the world's greatest sensors and lasers and radar and all that other stuff, it doesn't do you any good. But, you know, on map, even Google Maps, as you know this, I know this, sometimes is, you know, my house on Google Maps is in a wrong place.

Yeah. Well, you can't have that with an anonymous car. You've got to trust your eyes. If you get in your test list, say, take me to Earl's house. Right now, you're going to my neighbor's house. Or the ocean. Exactly. You don't want to go to your neighbor's house, that's for sure.

Hey, folks, I wanted to share with you that I want to introduce the youngest. listener to Erlon Carr's, and that's Jackson. He is listening, and he is taking notes. Welcome, Jackson. That's pop, pop, Jackson. Hi. Okay, let's move along. Also, I want to mention to our audience,

pick up an addition of Consumer Report. It has so much information on the... It's called the annual auto issue, And it's reviews and tests 260 vehicles, excuse me, and they rate and review them. And they've got the best and the worst. They've got the top picks. They have the EVs that you might like. And also the best, listen to this, the best used cars under $20,000.

And right now, they're going to be even more than that, right, Josh? Yes, that's very true Okay, we're going to go back to Josh And he has some texts to share with us I have a text, this is from Steve in New Jersey We have quite a bond with the state The Garden State He says, I don't have a car question or comment today

Just want to let you guys know That I really appreciate the empathy and kindness You all show towards others It's refreshing to listen to such nice and caring people You guys are great role models, thank you Oh, thank you That's very sweet. I promise I didn't write that myself And as I was reading that, another one just popped in.

This is a good question. How much could a customer save by ordering a car compared to buying one off the lot? Not really much today, right, John? I was going to say the same thing. There was a text here. I don't know if you guys covered it last week, but it was a screenshot of a Facebook post where a customer bought or ordered a Ford Bronco, brand new, the new redesign Bronco. And they ordered it.

came in it had an MSRP of 39,000 and they want to charge them $60,000 for the car so despite the fact that it was special order just for them they were charging over $20,000 above sticker and you know with customers that I've dealt with I have found that to be very true a special order is gonna cost an enormous amount yeah compared to purchasing it right there in normal times but not today yeah and it looks from the article that it looked like they were basically having an auction for that car, even though, and the person's complaint was, you wouldn't have that car if I didn't order it six months ago, and now you're putting it on the auction block and getting $20,000 over

sticker. Wow. Pretty crazy stuff. Yeah. Mm-hmm. All right. Let's see what we got here. I have another anonymous feedback.

Love the show, guys. Just read that General Motors is slowing or stopping production at three plants in North America. This is due to the microchip shortage. I thought you said it was going to get better around now. Well, not now. I predicted the last quarter, and we're not there yet. So in October, November, December, I think you'll see some substantial prices coming down. I think it may be even a little bit sooner.

I think maybe September. What would you say, Josh? Well, that's what I'm hoping, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. And each manufacturer will be different. Some manufacturers got stung much worse by the microchip shortage, General Motors especially got hurt, and Toyota actually had stockpiled microchips, and they had anticipated, you've heard of the just-on-time manufacturing system, they decided that wasn't such a good idea after the tsunami hit,

and we had the nuclear reactor thing. So Toyota's a manufacturer, there's a leg ahead of the other manufacturers when it comes to microchips. Yeah, and there's some mixed reviews out there, and I've read them in the Wall Street Journal, and all the newspapers where they're taking this microchip shortage into 2023. It just depends on the make and the brand of the car. All right. Linda on Facebook asks, hey, Earl, do you wear swim trunks or speedos? Take care.

Next question. Do you wear swim trunks or speedos? And I said, next question. Oh, next one. I'm sorry. I thought you didn't hear me. And excuse me. Would you like to feel that, Nancy?

No, let's move along. We are going to go back to the phones. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to our regular caller, Steve, the Roadrunner. Hi, Steve. Good morning, everybody. I got two things to talk about. One, I was at Walmart. I always go by the charging stations for the electric cars.

Okay? I never seen such big cobwebs on these things. Because I guess nobody's using them with that. And the other thing, how do they charge the charges that are inside those charges? Propane or what do they use? I believe they're just hooked up to the electric. Floor power and light. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they pay the bill. So when there's a blackout, they're no good, right? I guess they're. And there's no, I mean, we have them. at our place, and there's no battery backup, so if the power's out, you're out of luck. Yeah. Okay. But there are free charger.

Here's the funny story. I went on Calvana to see how much I could get for my 2003 Chevy Malibu. Okay? So I go on there, I answer all the questions, honestly. So I hit submit. Guess how much they wanted to buy my

Chevy Malibu for, my 2003? How much? How much do you think they would pay? $1,000. $1,200. Okay, you ready? Ready to laugh? $200.

Oh, my. That is interesting. My two-back tires cost $250 that are new. Well, you know, that's an interesting point because I didn't know Carvana was doing that. I know CarMax does that. CarMax has a very sophisticated software program, and they, have their internal supply and demand for cars. And if you hit it right, you could have gotten $5,000 for that 2003.

But if they didn't want it, they're giving you $200. So apparently Carvana's copy and CarMax. And they are, you should shop Carvana, CarMax, Auto Nation, We Buy Anycar.com, Vroom. No, I don't like We Buy Anycar.com. I hate that commercial. It's a great jingle. Where's on you? No, it's very annoying.

Very, very annoying. Yeah, you're never going to one source. Let's say I sold the car, the car max. Let's say I sold it for $1,000. How much would they turn around and sell it for? Yeah, exactly. Now, I ask, you are... I mean, do they have a thing set market life?

We'll sell it for 35% more, or... They sell it for what they can get for it. Yeah. Yeah, they'll pay you too much for the car if they got somebody else that'll pay more. it's a shopping around if you really want to sell that I would recommend you try all the sources even the ones

with the bad commercials and you might find someone that needs the car and then you'll get more money for that 2003 today than you will six months from now I promise you a lot more so you just need to keep on shopping yes I will

you did that all just start taking the chips out and selling them you're sure you're not related to Jackie Mason. We love hearing from you, Steve. Okay, everybody have a good and safe weekend. Thank you, you too.

Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, I was reading in the automotive news about these strained power grids that's going on now from the heat wave and also the limited charging time that the EV drivers are getting. So that's something

something else to deal with range anxiety I know I know we good way to put it I know you want to get to the mystery shop I do have we have plenty of time okay I have a anonymous feedback this is a blast from the past do you remember the Ugo oh what do you think is the worst car ever made it probably I think it's a you know that was a Russian car adopted by Fiat Fiat built built cars in Russia and the Ugo clearly was the worst car ever made and the car dealers made more money

off that car probably than any other car ever made because it was so cheap and they could sell it because it was such a bad car and made so cheaply that they could sell, they could find people that normally bought used cars so they

they found a for the used car dealer they could get a Ugo franchise and they could call it a new car and they could charge you and make thousands of dollars a profit when it came out. I was sorry I didn't get a Ugo franchise. I was offered it and they

wanted me to buy one year worth of Ugoes ahead of time and I told them no. But the Dodge dealer on Okatchelby Boulevard in West Palm Beach was dumb enough to take the Ego franchise and he got it and he made a ton of money by selling terrible cars

had too much money. How about that Fiat? Well, if Fiat was a Ugo, yeah. The memory is making you cough. Ah, memories. Here's another text. Earl, curious, who is the new owner of I-95 Nissan and Boo-Haron? I wasn't aware they changed hands recently. Is that Terry Taylor?

Terry Taylor? Is that... I will have to do some research and maybe follow up next week. I'm not sure. Terry Taylor owns a lot. He's the largest owner of private dealerships in the United States. A mysterious figure, isn't he? And yeah, and he's very...

He's very unusual because he stays undercover, and he doesn't put his name on the dealership, and it's very difficult to find out. So we know of dealerships that he owns, and you have to really dive deep to discover. And I think he owns the one we shop today. Yeah, he's in this mystery shopperer, another with the other guy. He flies under the radar. Yeah. Not your typical car dealer.

No. They started out in South Florida, and then he struck it rich when he sued Mercedes for $100 million and turned that into buying and acquiring dealerships, and the rest is history. Now, he's kind of like the, you know, I was trying to think of the rich movie star billionaire. Howard Hughes. He's like the Howard Hughes of car dealers. I wonder how long his fingernails are. Just kidding, Mr. Taylor.

Let's see here. This is Buck, your ex-UPS driver. Hey, hi Buck. Hey, you guys know everybody. Do you think the Toyota Land Cruiser will come back and compete with the Jeep? I don't think so. I don't think so either, but I'm a big fan of those old FJ40 Land Cruisers. I think that would be pretty cool if they did.

The current iteration in the United States. The FJ Cruiser was a copy of the Land Cruiser is a miniaturized version. So maybe they'll bring that back too. to. There's such a cult out there for the Jeep. And even though the reviews in the consumer report are not exactly, well, in favor of purchasing a Jeep, they have their followers, you know, and they just love their jeeps, no matter if they're expensive to fix or if something goes wrong with them all the time. They're blinded by their love. That happens a lot. And families all the time, trust me. All right. I think we're winding down here.

Yeah, let me cover something of import. I talked to Josh and Nancy about this before the show. About the tariff? No. Spoiler alert. Okay, 20 questions. You got 20. Is it an animal, vegetable, or?

F&I profits soar at largest U.S. dealerships. And this is in the current automotive news. And it takes a lot to shock me. I usually talk a lot about the box and the EF&E. and I department and how dealers are making more money in the box, the F&I department, financing the car and selling products to you after you bought the car. And I've always talked about how they make more money. And I've always been amazed at Automation, the largest retailer in the USA of automobiles,

makes over $2,000 on every car they sell in the box. So they might make, if they're lucky, $1,000 on the new car. Today, they're making a lot more than that. But typically, yeah. Normally. But in the box, in the F&I department, they make $2,000. So you go in there and you negotiate and you wheel and deal, or you do a true car, or you consumer reports it,

or you Costco it, and you get a really good deal on the car. And then you breathe a sigh of relief. And then they take you into the box, and they make more money on you than you would have made, they'd have made on you if you hadn't used Costco or true car. So the F&I department is to be feared at car dealerships. Now, with the pandemic and the issue of shortage of inventory has gotten even worse. And here's an article, as I just showed you in the automotive news,

that's a trade magazine for car dealers and manufacturers. I'm going to read your quote here from one of the larger auto groups. A lot of you have heard the name John Stalupi. He's been in the business a long time. I know him personally. He's had dealerships locally. He has a lot of dealerships in New York. His sons in the business.

But he recorded in Automotive News. I'm going to read this quote. A main driver, this is actually from the quote comes a little bit later, this is from the automotive teams. A main driver of F&I products at Stalupi Auto Group, one of the leading retailers in terms of F&I revenue, was the motivation of F&I managers to sell more products among dwindling vehicle inventory, said,

is it quote, John Stalupi, let's see, oh, yeah, said John Stalupi, senior, because there was a junior, with fewer opportunities to sell managers had to maximize their income on every deal. So the F&I people, because they have so few cars to sell, they have to sell the few they have,

and make as much money as possible. So they redoubled selling you stuff you don't need. Turning up the heat. Turning up the heat. Charging you higher interest rates and selling you products that you don't need, like road hazard insurance or things of this nature. The pandemic, and this is a quote,

help get a lot of fat off the bone, said John Staloupie. We're selling, quote, a lot more products to customers. So products is dealer code for stuff you don't need. And it's things like extended service contracts, maintenance contracts, Gap insurance, road hazard

insurance. What am I leaving out, Josh? There's a whole menu. The list is endless. You covered it pretty well. Maintenance packages. Exactly. Now some of these do have value and that's the reason you need to study them and analyze before

you buy. Just like you did the car. I'm assuming you did the homework on the car. You tried very hard, and you got educated, and you got a good deal on the car. Do the same thing before you go in the EFNI Department. Gap insurance can be very good. Maintenance plans can be good. Extended warranties can be good. You just need to know that it fits with your needs,

and you need to study the product before you pay for it. Yeah, absolutely. And to pay, here's how much the Stalupi Auto Group has averaged, on every new and used cars that they've sold this year in the back end, in the F&I department. This doesn't count the upfront profit when they sold to the car, they marked the car up, and they marked the car up higher than they've ever marked it up,

and they probably made, what, a couple thousand dollars on the average? And then some. At least sit down for this one. $3,046 in finance and insurance products. And that's interest rate. and all the products we just talked about. And that's the Stalupi Auto Group, one of the largest groups of the country,

$3,000 on every car. So that's a lot of money, folks. Be careful out there. A whole lot. Hey, we're going to go over to Rick, who's got some YouTube's. Oh, great. And he'd like to share them with us.

Great. Rick, it's all yours. Well, we did have a couple of comments earlier. I answered them online, but to get them on air, let's see here Ernesto was asking about a battery issue whether his batteries would fail immediately or whether they'd give warnings

12-volt batteries typically will just kind of start to give you a little warning but sometimes they'll fail completely the best thing if you're concerned about them go to an auto parts store and have it tested but then go to a second one and have it tested again because a lot of those places they may go with the idea of Hey, I just want to sell you a battery, so I'm going to tell you it's bad.

So if they say it's bad, have a second one, check it. A couple of estimates type deal. Good advice. And we've got Tom Steckle says, the F&I process is moving many back-end items onto addendum stickers on the front end. It says you can't rely on the verbal claims of the F&I salesman. You need to review the contract and compare the offer with at least two competing products before making a choice. Good point. And there's something, Rick, that a lot of people don't know, and Josh will corroborate this.

The highest paid people in the car dealership are in the F&I department. Yeah, often the case. What would be an average compensation for a manager of an F&I department in a normal size, big size? Well, I've heard of some stores, you know, F&I managers, they can make north of $20,000 a month. Yeah, per month. You heard him right. So F&I managers are among the highest paid, and they're on commission. So you do the logical conclusion.

If you're on commission, you're making $22,000 a month, then how much did they have to sell and make profit for that dealership to earn that $22,000? And at the Stolopi Auto Group, they made over $3,000 on every car. Do the math. Yes. It adds up pretty big. Yes.

Interesting. Rick, go ahead, Rick. Well, that just tells me I know where my next career is going to be when I physically can't be a mechanic anymore. So, Richard, I'm out there turning on the ranchers, and this guy, you know, with a clean white shirt, he's making $22,000. That ain't right. I'm covered in oil. There ought to be a law. You got another YouTube, Rick?

Yeah. We're caught up at the moment. Very good. Thank you so much. Rick. Nancy just passed me a car. My pleasure. Nancy just passed me a card that we got in the mail the other day, and it's typical, and you've probably got one in your mail. It's just the motor vehicle service notification, clearly from the government. I'm being tongue-in-cheek here, and it's a car dealer, sends these out, or someone's selling you extended warranties,

probably and more both and uh they're trying to get you to come in so they can send you an extended warranty this is on a 2013 lexas i must have owned a 2013 lexas i would say about eight years ago eight years ago and that's what and they're still trying to get me to come in and by their extended warranty which is probably a worthless power train warranty they want to charge me three thousand dollars for which is practically not worth the paper it's better enough you don't want to see Earl Stewart or the Lexus he's driving. It's seen better days. Yes.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I see by the clock that we are going to go to our mystery shopping report, and that takes us to, well, Agent Lightning took us to Green Acres, Nissan, and, wow. It's a doozy. It is a doozy. So Rick's going to be voting, and I have. ask all of you to vote on the Mystery Shopping Report. It's very important that we all join in, and I'll send it back to the recovering car dealer. Okay. Mystery, Green Acres, Nissan, I never knew

where Green Acres was, and I guess maybe more people now, but I really call it, it's kind of like Lake Worth, which is now no longer Lake Worth. It's Lake Worth Beach. Really? Yes. Doesn't have a nice ring to it, doesn't it. I know of Green Acres because I used to go to Poe folks. I knew from the TV show, but I'm... Green Acres is a simple. This is transforming. Sorry everybody. So anyway, well, let's say...

I digress. We know it's in the southern Palm Beach County. It's Green Acres, Nissan. And this is our third visit to this dealership over the years, but the first time in the era of Agent Lightning, our female shopper. Green Acres Nissan opened up just a few years ago with that name in the Lake Worth area, and we believe it's partly owned. currently owned by the Terry Taylor Auto Group, the Howard Hughes of the auto industry.

That's a compliment, by the way. Yeah, well, Howard is a, I was, a billionaire. I don't think Terry ever was as exciting as Howard, but, I mean, meaning dating movie stars and that kind of stuff. Oh, what an exciting life. Making airplanes. Bruce Goose, yeah, exactly, I digress. His general manager and managing partner, and this is Green Acres Nissan, my, Mike Panachio.

Best name in the world. It's kind of close to Pinocchio. What are you implying there? I just cracked myself up. Mark Panaccio. You got to love it. Also runs Terry Taylor's Southern 441 Nissan in Royal Palm Beach. And you may say, I know you've seen them if you're in this area.

You may have seen a star in their television commercials. A lot of them. And along with his two, really cute, adorable sons. He's got two kids. Really cute kids. They're just really cool. And I wonder if I could hire him and do some commercials. Wait, you have three cute sons yourself, though.

I forget about that. Wait a second, here. Hold on a minute. We could all dress alike. I'll wear a blue shirt. Short pants. My beard is getting great. The idea can't grow attention was on the website of Green Acres Nissan,

promising a new 2021 Nissan Rogue Sport. lease for only $116 per month. Now, who can't afford $116 a month? Almost everybody can. Anybody. I mean, I don't care if you're unemployed. You can afford $116 of the month because you're getting that much money from the government. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm coming in. I'm going to buy that new 2,021 Nissan Rogue, and it's only going to cost me $116 per month. And an offer this amazing, you're sure to bring in a lot of customers. Okay. I'll show you this online ad. You can't read it, and you can't read it even online.

So just, in place, you're curious. And by the way, that's where most cars are being sold these days are online. I mean, we think TV, we think newspaper, radio. No, it's online. That's where the action is. And it's hard to police online because there's a whole lot of it. And the regulators, not that they care, because they don't even police the TV ads, but they sure aren't going to be policing the online.

The ad headline says, we've got your covered. Got you covered, typo. I'm used to that with Stu, but I thought you were. I'll just keep you on your toes and just want to make sure they're not falling asleep up there. And probably displayed zero percent annual percentage rate, zero dollars down, no payment, for 90 days. One had two. One has to wonder.

If those wonderful sounding perks apply to the $116 per month offer. Spoiler alert, they do not. Of course, there's a paragraph of smaller print, though surprisingly legible, to you may be a charge, not to me, which reads $3,770 due in signing,

plus tax, title, license, and $999 dealer fee, $10,000 miles per year, that's a mile's limitation on the lease, $0 security deposit required. Nobody requires a security deposit anymore, and they put that in there on purpose to say, ooh, look. This is how nice we're being to you.

Yeah, no, they're not going to ask for a security deposit. They haven't asked for security deposits on leases in a long time. Have you ever seen one? It's a rare case. A rare case. A rare case. With approved credit, blah, blah, blah. Right away, we can see that zero down is not referring to the lease.

The fine print reveals that the customer will need to come up with tax, title, license, and a $999 dealer fee on top of $3,77, do it signing. And that's a lot of money. And this adds up to about $5,000. So there you go. No down payment. But the $5,000 you want, what's, what's, that. Hardly the zero

down so prominently displayed in the end. Now, there's not to say that there aren't things that are not down payment that you have to come up with like tax attack, but people that see zero down, they think nothing in a pocket. Big difference between nothing out of pocket.

Of course, they lie about the out of pocket, too. So, if his lips are moving, he's lying. We send an agent lightning to investigate. Here's a report. Speaking of the first person, if I were, our female shopper, Agent Lightning. It was late afternoon when I arrived at Green Acres, Nissan.

As soon as I parked my car, I could see a guy anxiously waiting at the front door with it popped open. Propped open. I slowly approached, and he greeted me by asking if I had scheduled an appointment for the day. I said, no, I hadn't. Do I need an appointment to lease a car? He laughed. I laughed, and we all moved along. No, please come.

on in with me. Let's see what we can do. He then apologized and introduced himself as Carlos as we walked to his desk. Carlos asked what car I had my eyes on. I showed up the $116 per month lease ad. He quickly interrupted me to say that in order to get that monthly payment, I would need to be willing to put a nice down payment up front for it. Now, I guess you give Carlos credit for that. I mean, he's trying to defuse a bomb before it goes off. He'd probably been attacked maybe physically a few times because he didn't say something about it until much later. You have to have sympathy for Carlos.

Carlos, and a lot of these salespeople in the front lines, they don't call the shots, they don't make the rules. It's Pinocchio. Or I'm sorry. I got that name wrong. I think you mispronounced that. Panachio. Yeah, Panaccio.

Accidentally mispronounce that. Wasn't Pinocchio. that designed the ad, and this poor guy, Carlos, here they come, they're going to ask to buy that car for $116 a month, and I've got to explain it. So Carlos just says right away. You're going to need a lot of money. Ain't going to happen.com.

He replied, okay, great, to the fact that I understood that I couldn't really buy it. She acknowledged that she saw the $3,700 in the final. Yeah, yeah, and so, and so, and Agent Lightning didn't have to say that, she said it, and a lot of people don't see it, and don't pay attention to it, but it was really amazing that Agent Lightning came right up, yeah, yeah, I see the fine print, and I know it's going to take $3777, and I know I can't really get it for a no-down payment, so let's go, and so Carlos must have breathed a sigh of relief, and he went through a series of questions about, how much money down and where I could see my monthly payments and so and so forth, standard qualifying. And he asked me, and then he went to get his, oh, he got my, he got my driver's license, Agent Lightning, to take a test drive with it. So, okay, I skipped over a lot of stuff there. I said that I wanted to do the online deal for $116 a month for 2021 Nissan Rogue Sport, Yes. He asked me to please give him a few minutes while he goes to check with the sales manager

to make sure that we could do this lease deal. Now, that's got to make you nervous. He re-tick, because I already said yes to everything, but he still wants to talk to the manager. Still got a check. Yeah, still got a check. He returned just a few short minutes and said, they should be able to get me that deal, or at least pretty close to it. And you talk about a red flag. That's the price. I said I'll go along with the final. print and he comes back after talks to his manager says I think we can get pretty close to it but pretty close but what I mean but she didn't say what she just kind of rolled around and so let's continue Carl suggested I stay there in

this desk at his desk while he goes and pulls it up front for me to drive yeah they got you have to drive the car yeah we took it for a short test drive return to the lot that's mandatory usually a good salesman always push for the demo wants you to fall in love with the car and if you fall in love you're not thinking properly you know love emotions clouds the judgment exactly we went back inside to his desk while he finished inputting my information into the computer he wanted me to make sure i was going to be okay with only 10 000 miles a year give carlos credit yeah kudos to or carlos 36 month leave 10 000

is about $5,000 less than the average driver. And they do that on purpose because the leasing companies do lower. They raise their residual, which lowers the cost of the lease. And so rather than lowering the cost of the lease, you can also increase the profit. And that's what they usually do. And that's why they quote very low payments. I actually have seen leases with $5,000 max. Haven't seen one in a long time, but I have seen them.

Some of the luxury brands, like Mercedes and such. Yeah, exactly. I sure this was perfect for my needs. When he was done, she just agreed to everything. When he's done, he asked me to sign my name to the bottom of my information sheet, saying, I like this car, and then excused him to go speak for the sales manager. Again. I've got to say, I like the car.

Sign here. Sign here saying you like the car. It's called getting the commitment. Yes, exactly. Old school, folks. Very old school. Carlos returned with his worksheet. And I've got a picture of the worksheet.

A pretty standard worksheet that you see on all. Every cart dealership's got these. And they don't do what used to. They did used to have worksheets. They had just a buyer's order. And then they started getting in trouble with the buyer's order. It can be interpreted as a legal document. A worksheet explicitly denies this is legal.

And it said this is all just for fun. You know, we're just doing this. This is not an offer or contract for sale. So you can't lock me into something I put on my worksheet because it's not a legal document. And, of course, it said, with $377,37 down, the payment was $3,745 a month. Wait, $345. But that's not what the ad said. Was I dreaming?

$116. And I think I frightened them because, I mean, And I screamed, not literally, I just said that, because he immediately said, let me go get my sales manager. See, when they scream, and we used to say in the old days back when I was evil, you have to peel them off the wall. You know, you have to hit them with a number so high that they just knocks them against the wall. And then the next offer is so much better. It's much better. You peel them off the wall.

About six months earlier, he returned with Norm. And his sales manager, Norm works for Pinocchio. I explained that I need, I read all the fine print, but this payment just isn't going to work for me. What exactly am I paying for because this isn't anywhere near what I was expecting? I can only imagine this conversation. Yeah, even with $3,777.7 down, it's almost triple. And remember, this is the ad with the fine print.

Their online ad, and they're bouncing me this amount of money. Trouble. Norrna asked me to give him another few minutes. I mean, this is like the old movie, what was the used car movie? I can't remember. Use cars? Yeah. I love that. Just like the old used car.

You could turn this mystery shopping board into a comedy. And he returned to ask me to please pull up the ad I have on my phone so I can take a picture of it. So like Norma saying, what ad? Pinocchio didn't tell me about this ad. So he should, is, am I going to get in trouble, Josh? Panachio. I'm taking a separate car from you on the way back. Almost 15 minutes ago by, and I mean, that was a long 15 minutes.

I'm getting the rather antsy, I'd say, RC, antsy. Now, they left me sitting long enough. I stand up, and I start walking around knowing darn well, The aren't going to honor the $116 per month deal, but I'm still pacing. Norm finally comes back after 18 minutes, I mean, approximately, with a new pricing sheet. Not 19, not 17, 18 minutes. Right. So here's a new pricing sheet, and again, it's a worksheet, and oops, there it is there.

For you streaming us, I know radio, you don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm streaming it here. And you can see the circles. And so he's got all the fees out now. And so we can cover those. This new sheet shows that a payment of 110 that we came down from 116, pretty close to the 116 would require $9,500 down. Oh!

$9,500 down. Triple, what was in the fine print almost. Triple, what was in the fine print. And this is the ad with the fine print. We haven't seen this before. We have not, Erlon Carr is doing this 20 years. We haven't seen this before. So I love First.

We put this into the Erlon Car's Book of Records. The Book of Firsts. The Book of First. Triple the down payment and everything else almost of what was in the ad with the fine print. Now we always see triple with the ad, but not with the fine print. He actually said that he had to do this deal.

If he had to do this deal, he'd be losing money. And now you'll want to, why I call him Pinocchio? He's going to lose money. Yeah, right. Car shortage, he's only got one of these cars that he knows he's going to slam dunk and sell somebody for a car for too much money. But he's going to sell it to me and lose money

at the ad price with the fine print. He's still going to lose money. I believe that. Pinocchio. We went around and around. I added up the additional money required in the fine print, and it comes to just over $5,000 do it signing nowhere near the $9,500 I was just quoted. I could tell I was going to know nowhere, so I, Agent Lightning, thanked him first time Carlos and Norm and Pinocchio. And I said I had a lot to think about, but I highly doubted my husband was going to go for it.

So the epilogue, it's a sad state of affairs, and this is, I underline this, that Josh wrote this, because it sums it up nicely. It's a sad state of affairs when a dealer can't even honor the fine print. And it's a sad state of affairs to his lawyer when someone calls the lawyer and says, I know a dealer, here's the ad, and here's the fine print,

and I went in to buy it. and he wouldn't sell to him at that price. That's happy news to your lawyer. It's bad news to the dealer's lawyer because you can sue them. And it's illegal. You can't do that. Federal Trade Commission won't let you do that.

You're not even supposed to do it with a fine print disclosure, but when you put it in the fine print, that's a no-no. It's doubling down on deception. Double down. I like that too. Double down. It's a literative.

The triple D. Said well. Double down deception. I like it. The market value selling price, MSRP, is MSRP, from which they show a discount.

So they jacked up, they did the Phony Monroney, and they jacked up the MSRP of $4,250. Then they then added $19773 for an appearance package, which nobody talked about,

which is comprised, of doorage guards, window tent, leather protection, and of course, a $999 hidden fee, tacked on, they call it doc fee on their worksheet, and there is no documentary stamps here because it's a lease. Dock fee doesn't exist, and yet there's still a $999 doc fee and the rest of the nonsense, and the old famous $277 in non-tax fees, which is another dealer fee, another hidden fee, giving us a total price of $24,699. This actually represents a $1,000 discount off a sticker, which is surprising.

Because normally it would be a good price, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean, not a bad price. In today's market, it's not bad. In today's market, it's not a bad price. But they wouldn't sell it for that price. Well, they advertise the payment that doesn't get to that price. They're selling for that price, but the payment is like halfway there. You didn't come in on the payments. You didn't come in on the price.

You didn't come in on the payments. Here we are. And we put this also when the ain't going to happen.com column. And we have to vote about this. And I'm afraid to have the votes come in. Please, no profanity, no obscenity in the voting. Well, I got F from Mark Smith, F from Mark Ryan, F minus from Ernesto. Brian gives him an F. Wayne, big, gigantic, F. Any on your side there, Nancy?

Oh, I got some more here. Let's go to Rick. He's got some YouTube grades for us. I think I just read those. Go ahead, Rick. Yeah, got a couple. We've got Karen with a big triple F. Tom with an F.

And for me, it's an F. Yeah, yeah. Can't go any way but enough, Nancy. And Tina, do you have your vote in? Tina's been on with us this morning. The Tina? The Tina. Wow, Tina.

Tina. Oh, so glad to not hear your voice but see your text. Yeah, we really appreciate you tuning in. So for me, I'm going to keep it clean. For once. F. Yeah, and I give an unequivocal F. That's the worst F I've had to assign.

You know, when you lie about the fine print, you're really lying. And it's not only illegal, it's immoral. And the dealer ought to be ashamed of himself. Terry Taylor, you'll never know about this because you're the Howard Hughes of the auto industry. And you don't know what's going on in the trenches, and you don't care, apparently. But this kind of advertising is inexcusable. and we're going to go back and I think people should be aware

that Nissan of Green Acres their advertising is beyond contempt is illegal and somebody should go in there and find them and stop what's going on Mark gives the dealership bad ad and F but the salesperson gets a B plus

I like that's trying to make a buck I think he came off well Yeah. I don't know how to grade the sales, but he works there. He needs some money. He probably feels very bad about it. He did try to warn her. That was going to take a lot of money. He did. He warned her, and actually, that was a problem because she said she read the fine print, and he didn't warn her there, but maybe he didn't know. Maybe Norm surprised him. I'm thinking he didn't know. And Marie gives it an F, Bob, F-minus. It's just a bad one. And for me, it's a big F.

Jonathan Wellington, a big F, and I think that's F's all around. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. We are going to take a moment and thank you, Agent Lightning, for exposing Green Acres, Nissan, and a special thank you to Josh for his creative writing. And thank you, Tina, for tuning in. And to all of our listeners, our callers, our users, are you. our Facebook. Thank you so much for tuning in to Earl on Cars. We'll be right back here

next week, same time. Have a fabulous weekend. And, Jackson, we hope you continue to watch.