Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.29.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Ed Morse Delray Toyota

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to south Florida, to visit a local Toyota dealer and see how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Sequoia Platinum SUV on the lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn's cyber. 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. We're back. We're on cars, and we're here to help you. And you're there to help us. We really appreciate your calls because we learn as much or more from you than I think you learn from this show. So don't be timid. We've got a telephone number here. They'll like you to write down early in the show because you probably don't have a question now. We're going to

prioritize the call-ins and that number is 877-960-960. For about 20 years now, we've been in South Florida. North Palm Beach area, and we've been trying to help you buy a car at retail from a car dealer. And that's a lot easier than it sounds. It is very difficult. We tell you the tricks of the trade. We're car dealers in this studio. We have a car dealership in North Palm Beach, and we have been in the business for a long time. I've been in the business since 1968.

as a retail car dealer. So I've been there, and I've done that, so to speak. I used to do business the same way the car dealers that are doing business now do business. And I evolved to where I am tonight, which I like to think I'm a transparent, honest guy, to give you a fair break and a fair price when I sell a car. So that's another story.

If you want to read about it, you can buy my book, Irwin Cars, you can go to Irwin Cars, or you could go to Amazon.com and look up Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. That kind of tells my story about how I got where I am today. So I'm a consumer advocate and the people in this room, Nancy Stewart, Rick Kearney, Stu Stewart, we're here to help you buy a car without being ripped off by a car dealer. It sounds a little crude, but for you folks out there that maybe aren't aware of it, car dealers have been doing it wrong,

retailing it in a very opaque, if that's the opposite of transparent manner, to trick and surprise you with hidden fees, junk fees, we call them now, take advantage you've on the financing. So we're basically here to help you avoid that. You could go to our website, that's burlongcars.com. You can listen to the show.

We have podcasts. We have YouTube. A lot of people are streaming, and YouTube is the most popular way to stream us, YouTube.com or slash or long cars. We have a huge following there. In fact, Rick Kearney, who is sitting to my right here in the studio, he's our certified diagnostic master technician. And he monitors the YouTube channel. He's gotten to be buddies with all of these people, and we all have. We have some regular callers that are outstanding.

and they do a lot of research. I thought I did a lot of research, and we all try to prepare for the show each week. But some of these folks out there, especially YouTube, really come up with things I didn't know about. And that goes for everybody. We have some people that could be doing the show. In a way, sometimes I feel like we're preaching to the choir

because maybe the people that really need our help aren't listening. And we have a cure for that, too. It's called Earl's Vigiland. And I gave my hat away the other day, so I'll have to get another hat, but we even furnish you with a cap that says Earl's vigilantes. And if you want to see if there is a vigilante in your area, you go to Earl on Cars.com, and you can find a list of all of Earl's vigilantes. Now, a vigilante isn't, there's a negative slant. Especially in Florida. Yeah.

There's good vigilantes, yeah. Good vigilantes. We're good vigilantes because we're here to help you locally. So if you're in Missouri or if you're in Pennsylvania and there's not a vigilante near you, it's great to be able to talk to a vigilante who is in your market because he has a lot of local knowledge that you can't get otherwise. Vigilante is like in the sense of the old Westerns. The town folks need a rebel, someone who is reverent and will protect them. Forget about the negative connotation.

We're talking about the good vigilante. Right. That's right. Like Clint News would. Yeah. So other ways to reach us. I mentioned YouTube. YouTube.com, forward slash roll on cars.

Facebook.com. I always thought I was really ahead of the game because I was on Facebook a long time ago, but that's for all folks now. So I still like Facebook. And Facebook.com forward slash Earl on cars. And a text, we could text this directly. Stu, my son, Sue, you just heard him a moment ago. He monitors the texts that come in.

We have some remarkable textors, just like we have some remarkable YouTubers. That text number is 772-4976530. That's area code 772, 4976530. We accumulate the text as they come in. I think we might have a phone call. I saw my lovely wife, Nancy, wave at me. Okay, let's go. I was sending you loving kisses.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome. We sure enjoy your company. You are a fantastic part of the show, and we depend on you week in and week out. Our number is 877-960, and our text number is 772. 4976530. Ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. And I notice we're getting off to a great start this morning, where we have Sarah and Donna, who are first-time callers.

And ladies, let me share this with you. Did you know that women now drive the world economy? I have much more to say about that. I'll add this to it. Most companies have much, much to learn, you know, about selling to women. They need to get into the 21st century. We're going to go to Sarah, who has won herself $50 this morning from Boca. She is a first-time caller. Good morning, Sarah.

Hello. Thank you for taking my call. Thank you for holding. I have $50 for you this morning. If after we're done talking, you'll stay on the line with Jeremy, who's in the control room. He'll take your contact information, and he'll pass it alone to me, and I'll send you out that check. Thank you. You're welcome.

What can we do for you? Well, what happened to me is I went to a Toyota dealer, and when I first spoke with the maintenance repair shop person, he said that I had a loose radiator belt and that I shouldn't drive the car anymore because it could fall off any moment and I'd be in terrible trouble. And then at the end, he said it was broken.

It didn't say it was loose. It was broken. And I thought, well, that's funny. How could I have a broken fan when my car never overheated. I never saw any, that thing go, the dial go up for heat.

I thought if you had a broken hand, wouldn't that go up? I mean, I'm just wondering. So I don't know if I was given a bill of goods or if this is legit. What type of car is that, Sarah? Oh, I have an old Amelon.

And I mean 2005, I think. Okay. Oh, 2007. Yeah, first off, somebody's really, somebody's giving you some bad information there. The Avalon has two belts on it. One drives the alternator and the AC compressor, the air conditioning. The other one drives the power steering.

The fan is actually electrically driven, and it is nothing to do with the cooling system on those belts because the water pump is driven by the timing belt and if that timing belt broke your car wouldn't run it'd be completely shut down so yes somebody is giving you some very very bad information and I would be demanding to see a whole lot more information about what they repaired and why and if they haven't done anything and haven't spent any money

I would go somewhere else immediately because somebody's somebody's giving you uh a run around sarah did they give you an estimate uh we've established that the repair uh it was not needed but did he did they give you an estimate of what if you had agreed would they have charged you

if i if i agreed to what now i'm sorry i couldn't did you get an estimate on the fake repair because uh rick kearney our certified diagnostic master technician basically said that can't be that the person had misinformed you i'll just want to wondering if they had indicated to you how much they were going to charge to fix the... Oh, well, yeah, because they did so-called do it. I'm calling, as all my thoughts happened, of course, after I left the place that I thought it came to me,

what in the world, how put my fan, a radiator fan, so does the car doesn't have a radiator fan at all? Well, no, it has, it has, okay, I thought you'd said belt at the beginning. Okay, no, sir, it's the fan, the fan. Yeah, if the fans quit, then that can cause the car to get hot to run, to overheat. So, yeah, that's what I mean. My car did not overheat. But he was maintaining, and my fan was broken by the end of the story. At the beginning, he said it was, it looked like it was going to be broken.

Oh, going to be broken. Now we're, now we're getting closer. What about that? How would he know that it was? going to be broken unless something was really cracked and falling apart or maybe he was going to break it himself that that sounds a little more likely I mean would you be able to see if the belt was getting old and worn well there's no belt it wouldn't have anything to do with the belts oh he just thought because

yeah the fan's up on the radiator and that's actually electric he might have been just saying because it's a 15 year old car probably yeah somebody somebody I think just upsold you work that you didn't need that's what I thought because He was predicting. The fan replacement was $262.88. And then the fan, it says fan A-S-S-Y. I guess that's assembly or something. Yeah, yes.

At $349.99. Yeah, that's about the right price for it. That's okay. Sarah. Sarah, maybe the moral to the story or the sad story is that you give a second opinion. and that's pretty good for whether you talk about medical doctors or auto mechanics, especially when you've got several hundred dollars being charged. And give a second opinion.

That's a good message for all the listeners out there. But, you know, the clincher was he said, oh, you can't drive. They're not recommending you drive this car. Yeah. This could fall off any moment, and you'd ruin your motor, and you'd ruin your car. Would you care to mention the name of this technician or the guy, company you went to you don't have to if you feel funny about that but we name names here on on this radio show all the time if it would act as a warning to others in

the in the area it was in it was in Del Rey Edmores Del Rey Toyota Ed Morris Jolray Toyota very interesting yeah that's that's pretty interesting Sarah what a co-winkie think yeah very interesting and Sarah let me let me tell you this don't go anywhere tuned for this show that we have today because we mystery shopped at Morris del Rey Toyota secondly secondly it doesn't sound like your folks but trust me that's just a we just yeah it just happened Sarah you sound like you're pretty knowledgeable and you know this isn't the first time that this happened in service

I have a question for you did you take your car in yourself yes ma'am okay you know It happens often that you're sold things that you don't need and you're taking advantage of. There's a survey that was recently done several, but this morning I'm going to mention a survey and a lot of information about the female economy from a reputable site, and that's the Harvard Business Review. But I do have to tell you, if I sound like a zift and I'm a little excited and a little aggressive, I am because there's more women going through service today, more women than men getting their cars serviced. And I tell you, you've really got to do your homework because it is just, well, it's crazy out there. And if you don't protect yourself with knowledge, you don't have to know how to take an engine apart. part, you know, but just stay on your toes. Because we have not reached the level that we should

have reached by now in the 21st century. There's things that are going on now that happened in the 50s. So that, you know, is my advice to you. I would get three different opinions. I always do. Wow. And what are you doing? They tell you, oh, you can't drive it. It's going to ruin your car if you don't get this fixed right away. That should be an alarm to me to just say, well, they're just trying to get your attention. They want to get your attention. Sarah,

why did you go in to add more Toyota in the first place? Did you, was it just a routine visit? Why did you? It was. It was, it was the time for, I didn't know I needed a new tire, but it was

the time, it was the time, you know, that they put up there, the miles and the, it was a general inspection type thing. Another, another good message for our audience, and we love calls like yours, because your message hits home with a lot of people, and you have an owner's manual for your Avalon, and Toyota, the manufacturer, lists the recommended maintenance for that vehicle. I just double check with Rick and this isn't in the

owner's manual. So a good rule of thumb for any time you are recommended a repair and it's not mentioned in the owner's manual anywhere you should be skeptical and as Nancy said earlier get three other opinions because

it's probably not accurate. I do want to add one thing though and if you're at a reputable place or you're not sure and they say don't drive the car because it's not safe and you're not sure that they're being straight with you, maybe call somebody and get somebody else that you could have a conversation if you're not comfortable

because if somebody is telling you that you're not safe, you don't want to make that mistake and not listen to them either. So just be careful. Yeah, it's definitely their way of getting in. Who would I call? I call Earl. Well, see, that's part of what makes it so despicable is that what Stu said.

I guess it depends on your state of mind. I'm one of these people. If I had a car and I'd drive it anyway and it was running fine, and I took it in just for a routine check, and someone told me that you shouldn't drive this car, leave it here, and we're going to have to fix it. I'd be very skeptical. Yeah, I would say I think I'd take the chance to drive it to another mechanic

and get a second opinion. I'd pull out the Missouri attitude and say, show me. Yeah. can you say can you tell them to take you to your car and show you the part yes oh absolutely and you can take that part and put it in your trunk you know there's no messing around here when you go into service and you get something replaced a part you ask them for that part you want to look at it yeah you want to touch it you want to feel it you want to put it in your trunk unless it's a warranty job you know you got to be a warranty job but don't worry you don't have a warranty on that but you don't care because you don't have to pay for it and Sarah let me add to this you're driving a great car

I don't care if it's a 2007 or not I drive in avalon and if you take care of your avalon your avalon your avalon and I believe that you have taken care of your avalon but don't be intimidated get the opinions like we all said and if you would please give us a call back and let us know how that turned out for you well thank you so much okay collect your $50 stay on on the line, talk to Jeremy. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. When I mentioned earlier about women and how they are driving this world economy, this is just amazing. As a market, women represent an opportunity bigger, bigger than China and India combined.

They control $20 trillion in consumer spending, and the figure could reach $28 trillion in five years. Phenomenal. And for anyone in this business to ignore women, it's a financial disaster. We are going to go to Donna, who also is a first-time caller, and she's calling us from Miami. Good morning, Donna. good morning all thank you for taking my call welcome Donna thank you for calling you've won yourself $50 this morning and when we're done talking please stay on the line and give Jeremy in the control room your information he'll pass it along to me and I'll get that check out to you

oh thank you thank you're welcome what can we do for you this morning Donna well first I want to thank you for having this great show supporting women in situations like dealing with the cars thank you yeah and that's why i have a honda CRV 2021 and i have gotten a message on my dashboard that there's only 15% usage of the oil left but i don't know why i need to change it if there's still 15% oil so i wanted to know if i can wait if it's okay to wait till 10 or you know 5% yes wow I was gonna get I was gonna say I was gonna guess no this 15% percent seems pretty low to me but what do I know well that means that you have if you're if you're going on a traveling journey and you've got to

drive a hundred miles oh okay it's not and you've gone 85 miles it's not like the oil's been depleted down to 50% you have 50% before you get to it's recommended that in the oil change time that you have 15 percent of its time left and when it gets closer to zero now when it gets down to about five percent time that's when you think okay now I need to schedule my oil change go in and get that taken care of drive on drive on right so yes my husband said this so then I said well wouldn't there be residue that would you know start getting into the um yeah well no because it's not talking about the actual volume of oil remaining it's just it's the volume of time right and the

oil filter is going to collect all the dirt and debris from it okay that sounds great so okay so I'm still waiting and I just check it by pushing the information button and it's still on 10% now so thank you thank you for I just want to give a shout out to my son our son-in-law Eric for introducing me to your station thanks Eric thank you Eric thank you for calling in and helping me build this platform here for ladies as you heard earlier you know about the female economy you know we're a huge part of it and uh thank you for voicing your opinion have a great day thank you you all too bye bye bye donna we're going to go to karen who's calling and she's a regular caller from alabama welcome karen oh hi how are you we're great thank you thank you for calling what can we do

for you this morning. You could help me to know how to determine where to sell my car. I have an Accura 2012 TSX and I'm going to fly down to Sarasota on Monday and I'm going to pick up my car from a place. I had driven down on I-75 a few weeks ago and hit something, and it was pitch black, and I think it was like a piece of furniture or something. So I had to have my car repaired and everything, and so it's all looking all nice and beautiful. I'm thinking when I pick it up, I'll see.

And so I have several places that I could take it, and one of them is Stewart, Florida. I have a parking place for it there, and I was wondering if I should drive around with a for-sale sign. What's the best way to sell it, and what's the best way to help? How do I figure, I remember I was going to sell a car before, and I did, like, some of the places where you can get it valued. When was that? How long ago was that? Oh, I don't remember.

time ago? Maybe a year or two years ago or something like that. And it seemed like in the Tampa area, it was, if I sold it there, that it priced a little higher and then like in the Palm Beach area, it was a little bit lower how it appraised. And so I was thinking that maybe selling it in a certain area, my be better than a different area that you could get a better price that might be true and but you could market your car to all the areas if you if you list it on online you can put your car up for sale individually on auto trader um but um if you want to probably a quicker way to do it is you could use

a lot of online sources um like carvana um or we buy any car dot com karen is there a car max near you um i'm sure i could find one Yeah, there should be. You're in our area here. There are quite a few CarMax. They're probably the most honest, reliable source, but you should get several. I would not sell my car without getting a bid from CarMax, and you can take it in. They'll give you a bid. It's good for five days, and if you want to shop more, you'll go back and get another bid, which is good for five days. They usually give you a fair price, but sometimes it's too low. And Stu mentioned Carvana.com, and there's also. So, Broome, V-R-O-O-O-M.com, you can do We Buy Any Car.com. It's a seller's market. I definitely wouldn't put a sign in my car saying, this car is for sale. You don't want to deal directly off the street with people that may or may not be serious or honest about buying a car. But sick with a firm that you've heard of, and Vroom, We Buy Any Car, CarMax, Carvana.

And these are big companies. So, like, your notion that some markets might get more money, well, they're in all those markets. So CarMax near us, they have an outlet in Alabama that might need that car more, and they'll pay if they need it. What make a card do you have? It's a 2012. Accura.

Accura. Yeah, Accura dealers are another good source. I would go to the used car department directly. Be sure you make it clear you don't want to trade the car that you're, You want to sell it. You have to tell them you just want to get rid of the car and tell them that you're going to shop it around with other ACRA dealers. Go directly to the used car department and say,

what would you pay me for my car? I'm going to go to two other ACRA dealers and get their prices. But you're in the driver's seat. You will get a very good price for your car if you follow our advice. And take your time. I mean, there's very few times in history where it's been a better market for a owner of a car to sell it you are you're at the peak of ability to be able to sell a car and get a really good price so if it takes you a week or two weeks the longer you take probably the more

money you're going to get oh karen we're going to wrap this up but i'm going to leave you with this thought um in my opinion and experience i've spoken to several ladies and they've decided to go to carbana first there was very little haggling and uh it's They're reputable, and you're in the driver's seat to get the price that you want for that car, so be prepared to negotiate. Negotiating is a fabulous thing, and you end up being the winner. Well, let me jump in there. The nice thing about doing what you're doing, you don't have to negotiate,

because just make it clear to each party, whether it's Carvana, CarMax, or the used car manager, the Accurator, use car lot, say, give me your best price because I'm going to shop. if I get a better price, then I'm going to go there. That takes away the need to have to hassle and haggle and argue. You just get one price from everybody you talk to, and keep on going until you get tired of doing it, and then take the high price and sell the car.

And also, Karen, you know, even today, in today's climate, I see signs in ladies' cars, not only a sign that their cars for sale, but their phone number. and boy I'll tell you you're asking for trouble whenever you do something like that you know it's a it's a different world today so be cautious Karen thank you so much for calling okay thank you so much that was very helpful oh thank you very much from everyone here have a great weekend we're going to go to

Paul and Paul is our friend from Denver good morning good morning good morning nice to hear from you I don't know whether or not you covered it recently, the fact that Congress chose to not pass the very recent FTC proposed rules, regulations to protect consumers when they purchase cars, you know, certain requirements that dealers had to do processes that they had to revise when selling a car. a lot of it had to do with accurate pricing and all and how they list and portray all the options that you can buy and not just physical options but you know third party yeah paul you're right about that i didn't know that happened no the house that was in their spending bill that hasn't passed the congress yet that's just a house bill that got passed It hasn't passed the Senate or it has been signed in the law.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. It's expected to pass from what I understand. But where did you get the information that it didn't pass? Automotive news ran it today. Automotive news ran it. It's the last week, I think. It was on the 13th of July, the House.

I was talking to Paul. Oh, sorry. No, he said. Yeah, yeah. Well, I had seen it on an auto forum that I'm on. I mean, I knew about it. But I didn't know that they had declined to, they voted it down, as far as I know. Yeah, I'm just saying that's not a final thing.

That's, and it has to pass the both houses of Congress and they get signed by the president. Okay, well, so my thing is, and I'm an older guy, but, and so I, but I came to an awareness of how car dealers, dealers generally had done their transactions over many, many decades. But I'm still amazed now we go to the Internet and all the information, free flow of information, how easy it is to learn how to go about buying a car, whether it be used or new, that people don't know how to do it yet. A lot of people don't know. A growing number do, but still so many don't.

because there's, let me say, there's nothing in that bill, that proposal that can't, that educated consumer can't protect themselves from, you know, the dealer would do. That being said, I wanted it to pass. I wanted to pass. But still, an educated consumer can certainly read their contracts. If they don't know how to read a contract, bring someone along. who can read it, know your auto credit score, not just your general credit score, before you go, preferably set up alternative financing, you know, just in case the, in case the dealership,

you know, isn't going to offer you something better, but know what financing you can get the cost of financing, if that's the way you're going to go. Don't accept spot deliveries. Don't overbuy what you can't afford. understand that ahead of time, know what options exist and whether it be third party or product options on the car, know ahead of time what you want. I mean, be an educated consumer. Now, I don't like the idea that dealers will, many dealers will advertise a vehicle and

then have a little asterisk next to it for all their extra charges. Hey, Paul, let me jump in here. Sorry to interrupt you, but No, I totally agree And Stu and I both, all of us here agree with what you're saying We joke about this a little bit on the show That Earl on Cars is kind of like preaching to the choir Most of the listeners are like you

They're educated and they don't need our advice The people that are actually victimized And I call them victims They're very young buyers You know, they're maybe the first car They're 18, 19, 20 years old. And they're the elderly people, especially elderly women, going back to women born in the 40s and 50s when it was a man's world more than it is today. And they never made major transactions.

So you take an 80-year-old widow in South Florida, she's fair game for the car dealers. And they take advantage of her. People who's in English-speaking areas where English is not your first language. and you're not comfortable with it. They're victims, people that don't have the advantage like you did. I can tell right from listening to you, you're very well educated. A lot of people, you know, dropped out of high school. I mean, there's a whole lot of people out there that are ripe for the picking for car dealers.

And they're the ones that can take advantage of. You go into a Chevrolet dealer and you'll buy a vehicle from that dealer for maybe a thousand dollar profit. or $2,000 profit. And right behind you, a young woman will walk in who never bought a car before or maybe an elderly woman, a widow will go in there and they'll pay a $10,000 profit. Car dealers take advantage of those that are not prepared.

And that's one of the reasons for this show. How about considering volunteering as a vigilante in Colorado or Denver? Yeah. We need people that we can list on our Earl and Cars blog area and web page and let people contact you in the Denver area if they like advice on how not to be taken advantage of.

Well, I'm not. I'm hearing about the Vigilante program for the first time, so I don't know. I mean, I'm comfortable helping people, but I don't know how they would, I don't know how they would contact me in a manner that I'm not that I'm maintaining my safety

sure well go to earlongcars.com I'll go on the website and check it out read more about it one of my concerns is that people I mean I've take taught my son he's 20 and I started late

having kids but and I think the communities themselves and you know like these these programs that you run are the way to do it. Government, I mean, they're a stopgap. They're the last-ditch effort.

I just hate the idea that people are relying on governments for protecting them from themselves. Paul, we agree on that. We've got three callers holding right now. I thank you, Earl. Would you call back after you check Earlongars.com? I'd love to talk to you next week. Thank you. Take care.

Thank you. We're going to go to Bob, who's been holding in Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. How are you today, everyone? Welcome. Good. I'd like to stop by saying I see. Auderation is looking to buy cards. They advertise on TV every five minutes.

Yeah. They need cards. Ordo Nation. But I wanted to ask you about what you thought about the situation here with this diversion team that was structured. by this individual that you always sing his praise. You bought one of his cars. I think it's called a plaid.

And what they did was they set up a clandestine diversion team to stifen off these people that were calling up with their problem of not getting any mileage on the full charge. They were told when they bought them, car they were going to get 250 miles on a charge and they're only getting 150 miles on the car so they're calling up and saying you know there's something wrong with my car it's not getting the proper uh mileage on a full charge and uh they tried to uh set up this team to divert all these complaints i hadn't heard about that thanks for bringing up where what's your source of information

it's been all over there i stored on i think royders and ap everybody's got the story. I hadn't heard that. If that's accurate from a reliable source, that's certainly despicable and should not be done. But I haven't read it yet. If anybody else has seen that, so you're saying that Tesla was trying to stop people from making legitimate complaints because they said their cars were not getting the charge that it was advertised to get when they bought it? Well, if they sell you a car and they tell you it goes 250 miles on a charge. One fellow said he tried to go from Colorado to California.

He had to stop 12 times to charge his car. I can tell you this from on combustion engine cars. It depends on who's driving the car. And I believe the same thing is true with electric vehicles and hybrids.

Driving has the ability to maximize mileage is kind of like a skill that you'll and some people don't have that skill I have you mentioned I have a Tesla I do with my Tesla right now it's outside the radio studio and I have it on something called doggy mode because it's going to be 105 degrees when I walk out of the studio but when I get it on my Tesla it'll be 72 degrees but that's using

electricity so I'm probably one of those people that would not get 300 miles for a charge because of the way I used to car and uh you use the um the sentry mode the uh security system on it it also uh right exactly so whether you vs or uh hybrids or combustion engines uh the mileage that you get on a full charge or full tank depends on the driver as much as it does the car really right well i just thought it was i just thought it was despicable about what they did i mean you know i'm on Google that and see if I can find the source because when you don't know the source sometimes you get misinformation. I'm not doubting your word. I'm sure you read it, but unless

it's from a reliable source, I'd be skeptical. It's in Reuters, Los Angeles Times. Oh. So it's, you know, it's a story. Tesla's secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints from Reuters two days ago. Secret teams? Tesla's secret, the headline says Tesla's secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints. It's in the Reuters from two days ago. Oh, well, thanks for bringing that out. Reuters is reliable, and I appreciate the heads up on that. Yeah, and I see there's another ship on fire with 3,000 cars,

and I guess it's these lithium batteries. They can't put the fire out. Oh, boy. Everybody had to abandon ship. I think the car is full of Mercedes and BMWs, so forth and so on, and I think this is going to be a big issue with these lithium batteries. You know, you have that thing on a boat. And one of those things goes off, and they can't put the fire out.

You're going to cook some whales out there. The solid-state batteries, which sound like they're going to be ushered in before the end of this decade, they don't have the same fire issue. So I think hopefully if the industry transitions to that, then that would be a problem of the past. Hopefully. I have something for Nancy. They used to be a phrase, they say, taking candy from a baby. well you know when a service advisor sees a woman walk in to get her car examined the first thing they see is the cash register ringing

the same thing with the same thing with a salesman when they see elderly couple coming in to buy a car yes if you're an older person this has been going on for a long time it's the old looney tunes they see it they turn into a ham or a recipe yeah i got news for you as complicated as today's cars are. I could see some guy walking in with Ph.D. on his shirt, and I can still befuddled him so much talking about his car that I can make him spend probably three times more than he needed to. Yeah, that's a good point. He does that to me every day. Yeah, twice on Sundays. But, Bob, you're absolutely right, and we're here to change things, because if you were listening earlier, you know, it's just an amazing time for Wednesday.

women, and they rule. They rule the world. They are part of his economy, and they're carrying it. So without us, there's- I think a lot of, I think a lot of women, especially, don't understand that that service advisor works on his numbers. Everything is based on numbers. The higher the number he produces, the more money he makes.

Same thing with the, same thing with the mechanic. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. It's all numbers. Yeah. So it behooves him. to sell you all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Well, I hope, and, you know, the flips side of that coin, I hope you're wrong, you know, about ladies being easily taken advantage of because there are an awful lot of

ladies who are listening to this show, and they sound very knowledgeable. They do, and if they haven't done their homework, they do so after listening to us, and we have changed the platform most definitely. I appreciate your input, Bob. Please give us a call again. Have a great weekend, everyone. Thank you. 877960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-4-9-7-6-5-30.

Just a heads-up, we won't have a dog this morning. I'm so disappointed about that. Yeah, we were having such a ball with that. So you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. that is WWBDRR.org Big Dog Ranch Rescue and you can take a look at all the dogs

that are up for adoption and you can browse through that beautiful piece of property out there that they have for the dogs. It's like a spa. Do we have any word on Sully, our sponsored dog from last week, the Coon Hound?

No, we haven't had a report on Sully. Well, then if you're a word, If you're going to visit the ranch out there, go out there and ask us to see Sully. He was a coon hound. Beautiful. One of the most loving dogs we've had in here. What a personality. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Okay, folks, that number again is 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback. We'd love to hear from you. I think we're going to go over to Stu. Yeah. I got Anne-Marie's text. Am Marie says, Good morning.

every week you have Agent Lightning do a mystery shopping report you've said that you've never been sued because the truth the truth is the perfect defense against libel but I was wondering do you ever get any feedback

complaints or comments from the dealers that you've mystery shopped? Just wondering thanks. Surprisingly no I mean that's not actually I have had people call me I had the owner of most of the used car.

Offleys only. The owner of Offleys only call me. But it was a good conversation, and he was fairly complimentary about the whole issue. Usually the owners of the dealership are in a situation where I guess they live in La La Land.

They think, they go out and they say, now we want to be sure you're honest and transparent and don't take advantage of anybody, then they go to their ski lodge in Aspen and they don't ever check in with the store. So I think a lot of things that go on in car dealerships are, as the previous caller, Bob from Lake Park said,

remember that everybody's on commission. So it's almost automatic when you go into any business and the person can negotiate the price and about the only one I can think of now are car dealers. so the salesman has the prerogative the duty to get the to set the price on the vehicle the whole system is it's priced by combat and it's not very fun so so if you're going to get 25% of the profit and you come into a cordial the salesman a salesman is going to get his 25% and he can sell to you for a thousand dollar profit or a two thousand dollar profit guess which one he's going to sell it to you for that's human nature I I blame the system. I blame the owner of the dealership that allows that to happen. You can pay a salesman a lot of ways. You can pay him on customer satisfaction. You can pay him on volume.

If he sells a lot of cars, he makes more money, if he sells fewer cars. But the price should be set by you, the owner of the dealership. And that price should be firm. It should be the best price that you're willing to sell the car to, whether it's the President of the United States or whether it's your worst. enemy. Whoever comes in should be able to buy the same car at the same price. And if you're smart, it'll be a good price because otherwise you won't sell enough cars. And another reason that we, I think that we don't hear from dealers or get complaints from them is just, it's what I would, I wouldn't, if there was a gadfly in my market like us that was exposing the stuff, I think I wouldn't want to give that person oxygen. I think you don't want to do that. And also, As far as a lawsuit goes, and we've talked about this before,

if you sue somebody, then there's a process that you go through called discovery where you're gathering evidence to support the case, and it goes both ways. But I don't think a dealership, like, say, Nabilton. Publicity, too. Publicity, yeah, you don't want that in the newspaper, online, and you don't want, you know, documents coming out of your office being made public. I've said to myself since the show began, because the very first, time we were on the air it was very scary for the radio station owner and for us and because we

thought we were going to be sued because we knew what we were going to do and so I've always said that if I if I am sued by a car dealer I will insist on a trial by jury and I the publicity from a trial by jury open to the public would be just for whoever lost that that that trial. If it were me or if it were the deal that sued me, it would be pretty serious. So I think that's the other reason. They don't raise a lot of problems. We have some callers. I'm sorry. I'll shut up and turn it over to Nancy. Thank you. We are going to be speaking to Nick, and he's calling from Boston. Welcome to the show, Nick. Hi, Nancy, Earl, and Sue. How have you all been? Great.

Great, of course. Nice to hear from you. Thank you. Listen, I've you been following the whiplash with General Motors going back and forth, how they had said they were going to discontinue the bolt just a quarter ago. And then now at this earnings call, they're all of a sudden saying, oh, no, it's, yeah, that they're going to transition it over to the Ultium, you know, the new battery, new battery platform and I don't know I just I just find it find it funny that they're

they're going back and forth and well they're second and volume to Tesla they're they the bolt is uh yeah the Tesla Y and I think the Tesla S is number one or one of the two Tesla models are one and two in EV sales and number three in EV sales is a Chevy bolt I read that they were looking at focusing on their electric trucks and that that's for the change of heart. Yeah, they decided that wasn't because I think the bolt was selling well, like you said. Very well. But anyway, I just like know that it sounded like they kind of their party line was well.

If we can have like the equinox at, what was it, 30K, you know, approximately net assuming. And that assumes the buyer qualifies for the $7,500 from the IRA inflation reduction act. You know, the tax credit. Anyway, I just find it interesting that, I mean, I don't know if it's just that the calculus around the Inflation Reduction Act or that they had maybe made. Well, that and also their new proposed EPA rules, you know, right now I think it's 50 by 2025. I think it's going up to 58 by 2032 using like an incremental formula over the rest of the decade. So, you know, the calculus they're looking at like, well, you got, we sold a lot of trucks. Let's get our gas trucks off the road, and let's put it in.

So we have the electric Silverado and the electric Sierra. Or we can put it into a smaller car that we're selling a lot of. It's probably pretty complex on their side. Yeah, I mean, and just a couple more things on the Bolt and GM specifically. I mean, I found it interesting that Mary Barra had publicly said that, I mean, I guess it's not earth-shattering, but I guess I just had never thought of it this way. that apparently it's a huge source of conquest of them getting new people to Chevy. Well, that's what she said.

That they realized they can't abandon that pipeline. She said she wanted to keep the momentum going. So it makes sense if you've got a hot product that's selling a lot to shut it down. I think she, maybe she's imagining the regret she would have a year from now after a stop. I think there's another very interesting thing that General Motors has just done. They are going to introduce their autonomous car. without having to have your hands on the steering wheel. A real one.

And they won't, you know, they won't have a, they will, you know, you can drive their autonomous car. Tesla requires that you keep your hands on the wheel or else they'll take away the self-driving privilege. GM's going all in and saying you can drive ours in autonomous. And I guess I don't know what they expect you to do with your hands, but they don't have to be on the steering wheel. They provide reading material.

I have, Earl, I have a lyric with hands-free supercrues. Now, that's only on interstates and limited access highways, but are you talking the ultra-crues, the next gen that does city driving to? Because the supercrues is out, and that's, I think they're on the third generation of supercrues, I want to say, because the first-gen wouldn't do the lane changes. But my new lyric has, you know, has supercues. And is it hooked to the navigation? like it just goes through kind of like enter the highway on an entrance and exit and all that change lands

yeah it's geo fence um it doesn't do the entrance and the exits but it will do lane changes you know with your blinker or then um auto lane change like if you're behind a you know a slow moving vehicle i mean super cruz is the new thing super cruz is the newest uh self-driving for GM I so well it's the the the I believe they're on their second or possibly their third iteration of it. I know I think it debuted in 2017 on the CT6, and then I think that same original iteration of it is on the Bolt today, the Premier one, but then the Cadillac, the lyric, and I think the Hummer E.V and just the other stuff that they have also on the Ice Portfolio is

on the second or the third generation, I believe some of the trucks and maybe the, certainly the Escalade has a special trailering-assisted capable super crew. It's similar with other manufacturers, like we're familiar with Toyota, Ling Trace Assist is their version. And they just, they keep incrementally each year comes out. I think it's more responsible what the mainstream manufacturers have done and described it, marketed it as exactly what it is instead of is a self-driving feature. But it's really cool to hear all the things that GM's doing because it's a window into the other side.

We see Toyota's technology advances much faster, and we see more of it. And I feel bad if I interrupted Earl. I'm sorry, Earl. He said that, and I was like, I'm sitting there. He just got up and walked out and slammed the door. No, I'm just kind of shocked me when a gentleman said that because I've had some close calls in my Tesla,

and I'm glad I had my hands on the steering wheel. But there's no way I would get into a car, even the manufacturer claimed. I didn't have to have my hands on the wheel. I'd want them on the wheel. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you if you, I mean, you know, when I got mine, you know, earlier this year, they were much harder, you know, to get in more limited availability because of issues that they were having out of, I think it's Spring Hill, Tennessee.

that they're produced, but, you know, apparently they now have them on the ground. Now, whether they're trying to charge market adjustments and, you know, all kinds of things, right, that's probably another story altogether. But, I mean, I think things are kind of thawing, and, you know, if you want the car, I think, you know, you can get one. So you might, you might be interested as a Tesla driver to go and. Absolutely. We've got some customers, they're customers. We've got some listeners holding.

so thanks very much for the goal. Mary Barrow has done a phenomenal job with affordability, with range, with technology. She has done an amazing job. I think she's been in that position. She was just injected to the Hall of Fame also. Yes, absolutely. Thanks for pointing that out. Nick, have a wonderful weekend.

It was nice chatting with you. Our number is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772. 4976530 now back to stew all right what do we got waiting over here oh that's right we had anonymous feedback that I wanted to get to and it kicked me out so I'm just going to talk I'm logging in to anonymous feedback right now it just takes a second all right um anonymous feedback okay this came in a couple of days ago um Agent Lightning acted as an entitled prima donna to show up at Champion Porsche right at closing time and expect service. Any customer is wrong to show up at closing and expect to be waited on.

I think it was a very low-class move. I read that, and I rarely get angry at a posting, but the mentality of whoever wrote that, it sounds to me like a car dealer. And the luxury car dealer, maybe. How dare you? But how could you possibly chastise a customer for going to a retail establishment too close to closing time? I mean, you set the seller sets the closing time. And to me, open for business means open for business. He's either the owner of the Porsche dealership or part of the cleaning crew who wanted to get in there right away.

So I think that's a phone. That's the reason we have the anonymous feedback so somebody can say something really stupid and we can't find out who you are, but we'll read it, but we'll disagree with it. But is there anybody else out there that thinks that if a retail establishment closes at 9 p.m., you should not be able to get there within 15 million? You should probably get there an hour early. If you can't get there by 8 p.m., just don't go in. The only thing that has a, I put a judgment call into it is at a restaurant. I don't show up at a restaurant at the moment of closing, but within a half hour of closing. Well, that's because you've learned for the experience.

But I say the restaurant that says we're open until 9 o'clock, you should rethink it. I mean, you need to change your hours if you can't. You can say, you should say seating until 9 o'clock. Yeah. I had a restaurant do that to Nancy May a few years ago in Dequestor. and you know really got us angry and uh it was 15 or 20 minutes before closing and they said i'm sorry the kitchen is already closed yeah and but if they had said we seat until nine o'clock you would have gotten there and everything would have been fine then advertise exactly what you're

right exactly that's what we try to do here yeah we have a call we have three callers we're going to go to marty one of our favorite callers from west palm beach good morning marty good morning morning morning i'm walking out welcome You're doing great. Nice to hear from you, Marty. What I have to say is, first of all, and maybe Stu will agree with me or not, used car prices are dropping like a rock, and new car prices are not. So now when I go on, let's say, KB.com, I get a price for my car, and then if you go to a dealer, they're even giving you a lower price. So a dealer said to me, oh, well, you're asking retail for your car. I said, well, not only are you asking retail, you're asking retail plus.

So I said, there's no reason why I shouldn't get retail for my used car. So they, you know, we had a little bit of an argument. I didn't, obviously, I didn't buy the car anyways. But what do you think as far as buying a car today, and you're telling these people, You know, I understand you're telling people shop your car. Today, they're going to get $5,000 to $10,000 less for their used car than they would a year ago. Mark, I don't believe that. I mean, I'm not saying it can't happen with a given trade or purchase, but used car prices are going down,

but they're going down like a feather, not like a rock. and we're below our prices on used cars now are below what they were a year ago but a year ago they were sky high and the year before that they were high so a picture a curve where four years ago used car prices were average

and they begin to climb three years ago or then the two years and then three years and we're in the fourth year now and they're coming down slowly. So if you leased a car, let's say three years ago, the estimated residual value, which would be your purchase option price, was considerably lower.

And if you still have that car today, that estimated residual value purchase option price is extremely low compared today's market price. You should still exercise that right to buy the car on a lease car. But it isn't as good a deal is if you had exercised it six months ago. So you're right, prices are coming down, but not like a rock, like a feather.

Okay, well, you know, obviously you know more about cars than me. But as far as I'm concerned, right now, until they start discount and use cars, new cars again, I think it's not good to buy a car at this point in time unless obviously you need a car. A new car or a use car? A new car.

A new car. Well, yeah, you're right. I mean, if you have patience and you have a good car that you can reliably drive, I totally agree with you. The new car prices, Mark, might never go back to where they were. I think the manufacturers and the dealers have had a taste of prosperity unparalleled in their careers. The car dealers are getting filthy rich.

The manufacturers are getting. filthy rich making a ton of money and they don't want to go back to the days where intense competition caused them to slash prices so I think the manufacturers will be trying to stabilize production and distribution of vehicles to maintain a reasonable price level competition will still be there but it will not be insane competition like it was five years ago so yeah if you can if you can wait another couple of years, you will get a lower price on a car than you do today, new car or used

car. Yeah, now our friend Ed Morris, who has your back, he's still adding $4,000 to a new car MSRP. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Stay tuned for the mystery shopping report,

because that reinforces exactly what you said, but add $2,000. Oh, okay. Well, I guess he got worse. Yeah, but I've got your back. Is that possible? Hey, Marty, it was great talking to you.

Okay. That mystery shop is going to be from Ed Morris, Delray, Toyota. So you want to stay tuned for that. All right. I'm going to listen. No doubt about it. Okay. Thank you. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Doug in Boca.

Good morning, Doug. Good morning. How are you guys? Great. Good morning, Sam. So anyhow, Sam took our car in to see what could we do, because we can't lease it anymore. It actually, we leased it for 60 months, even though it was a 30-6, and they kept renewing the lease until finally. It's been five years for a 2018 cart. So they were really interested in buying this car, and they offered us 14, and obviously there's equity in it, and this and that. And then they said, oh, we'll give you a new accord, same price that you had before, no money down, and two years of free maintenance, oil changes, and all that.

So Sim wanted to do it, and I said, hold on a second. And so I decided, well, maybe we should just buy the car because the buyout is really low. I think it's 11-2. Yes. that seems like it's pretty low and then I just did one more test of course del Rey Honda has been calling me since yesterday when are you coming in are you going to do it we have someone else that wants the accord and I go yeah sure really so I went to car max and they offered me

19,800. There you go. There you go. And I said, great. And they said, we want to buy it, but we can't. I go, what? They can't get a payoff. Yeah, we can't do that because Honda will not let us do that. So why don't you buy the car and then you'll have to wait 30 days and we'll buy it from you. Here's the quote we're giving you, but, you know, it could go down. Yeah, it's going to change, but it's still not going to change enough that I won't be able to do this. It's not going to go down to the 14,000, probably, but we are in a declining use car market right now.

It's getting very depressing for us, and so, yeah, it's definitely going to, I mean, it's been topsy-turvy. even earlier this year it had gone down, went back up, but currently we're declining in the prices. But the new cars are not. In fact, they were funny because on the accord, they didn't

They are. They just haven't followed. Use cars start declining before that new cars have declined. But it's not even across all the manufacturers. Yeah, but some of the specialty cars like the one that I want.

those are not the clock. Hey, Doug, thanks for calling the show. We have some calls that are backed up, and we're going to have to run. Have a good day, Elle. It says hi. Have a great weekend. Yeah, thanks, Doug. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530.

Don't forget, we have our mystery shopping report coming up. And Agent Lightning did another fabulous job at Edmores Delray Toyota. We're going to go to John in Palm City. For you others that are holding, I'll be right with you. Good morning, John. Good morning. If this will help the woman, it'll call earlier. My friend in New York is going through the same exact thing on a 2019 Honda CRV 1.5 engine.

He's due for a state inspection, and he goes to an independent guy, and they won't pass it, because the computer is completely screwed up, and he has an appointment only for next week. He has to go to Honda. Every time he presses the button, he gets a different reading on the oil. He gets reading on the temperature. It's completely messed up, and they won't inspect it for state inspection until this problem is solved. And he knows it's not low on oil because the guy just changed his oil two weeks ago in it. So it's a major problem with the computer.

And I want to just say, also, he received a recall note. a recall notice dating June 2023 from Honda on that car 2017 to 2022 they're extending the compressor shaft oil seal it's usually three years limit you know warranty on the car it's being extended from three years to 10 years with no mileage limit and they will replace that compressor shift seal and no charge and if anybody has any problems they can call 888 234-2138 at Honda but they are such a problem with this air conditioning compressor it's called a compressor shaft oil seal that they will replace it up to 10 years and no charge

whatsoever John please give that number out again so anyone interested I'll have time to write it down okay it's 888 234 2138 that's their the headquarters in torrents california thanks john but what it is is that's got to be a major problem that they're extending something from the regular three years up to 10 years with no mileage limit he's got a 2019 with 47 000 miles but he's his mechanic private mechanic is cannot fix this computer whatever the problem is and it's like the woman is going through now Every time he goes through a reading, particularly with the oil, it shows a different reading, but his mechanic knows that it's not the oil because he just replaced, changed the oil two weeks ago.

So if that'll help or any people with a Honda, CRV, it's important information. Thank you, John. Definitely is, John. Thanks so much. My pleasure. Have a great weekend. I'm looking forward to the shopping report because it's getting worse with a dealer that does not. attach an MSRP to cars that's highly illegal I just don't understand what's happening

right it's like everything is a line to like deliver the agent lightning it had texted me earlier this week so any ideas for this week and I said I don't know I said I just said Ed Morris Del Rey Toyota perhaps she goes sounds great and there we go and now everybody it's what a coincidence the stars are lining up for exposing these people it's terrible whacked by Morse yes all right thanks so much joe thank you guys okay um as john said earlier uh the honda headquarters you can give them a call at 888 234 2138 great number if you're looking to speak to somebody out there at the honda headquarters uh we're going to go to jersey mike hi jersey mike

how you doing there uh i want to again compliment uh the north uh lake uh dealership because i had that uh 2018 that i bought with uh 12 000 miles on it i gave to my daughter as a wedding press present at 38 000 miles and it never ever broke down i never put anything into it and the air condition was so strong you can never put it all the way up because you get frostbite on your face you know it's just really an amazing car and i got the carfax there And everything was legit. I mean, it was really, and this was like, you know, years ago, I could blend to 2018, and I gave it to her, you know, a couple of years later.

And when I had 38,000 miles on it. So I was really grateful for that. Great story. Yeah, what I want to ask you about is I got a 2014 Cadillac AST. The car is abominable. I mean, it's just horrible. I mean, they don't make catalog. likes they used. I used to buy a new Cadillac every three years. In my business, I put

190,000 miles on it three years. I had to turn them and get a new one. That's way back before I retired. In any case, do they make an escalade that's used, that's at least decent, that maybe might be a 2020 or a 2021 or a 2020-19? And would that be a very expensive card? I can just call Braymond's Chev, a Cadillade and find out. But Mike, the quality of Cadillac, interestingly, has gone up amazingly. I mean, the Cadillac kind of let itself go a few years back. But they've moved into the top ten in terms of product now, as far as the surveys go, in terms of the reports on quality.

But, you know, 10 years ago, Cadillac as a car, I wouldn't recommend today. I think, and I don't know by model, but I check consumers report, and I think you can find a really good quality Cadillac by checking with consumer reports. You know, you're right, because I used to surprise soon. Years ago, I subscribed to that, and I'll tell you, refrigerate, anything you want. That's the best place to go look. Yeah, we agree.

Okay, well, thank you very much. By the way, this car, right now, as of yesterday, the front race locked up, and I burned the pay. hands off. Can you believe that? By the way, I didn't get out of my driveway. My only, I'm rather, out of my street. My house is like 10 house, 12 houses down from the military trail here in West Palm Beach.

And I did not get to the end of the street. Find somebody that you really don't like and sell that car to him. Yeah, you've got a good idea, man. Well, you know, I'm going to try, let me issue this here. I'm going to try putting some oil. I don't know how much pears left because you can't really quite feel in there like you used to be able to, like you used to be able to see, so to speak. So I can't tell you how much kids left, but it was really smoking and burning.

So I might have taken it all off, I may not. I figured maybe try it a little oil on and see if maybe it frees up enough so I can drive the car there instead of having to have a towed. This will be the fourth time I've had that car towed. Oh, boy. Amazing. The first time was, the cooling system went kaput. They had to put a whole radiator in it.

You can leave it out of the street with the keys in. I bought it from the dealer that's at the end of North Lake Boulevard. They say, Napleton. They say they're the biggest dealer in all of Florida. And I know I say to that, I say, if you go there, you've got rocks in your head. I like that. Okay, Jersey, Mike, thanks for the phone call. Appreciate it.

Stay tuned for that mystery shopping report from Ed Morrison Delray. Delray Toyota. We're going to go to Kyle, who's been holding from Lake Worth. Good morning, Kyle. Good morning, everyone. How are you doing? Hi, Kyle. I can hear me. We can hear you. Okay. I just had a question. I have a route four hybrid that I bought from your dealer, and I love your guy's dealer. My wife had a little fender bender in it a couple weeks ago, and we brought it into your collision shop. And he told me it's about a two or three-week job, but they're

They're trying to find a couple parts right now. We didn't have rental car coverage on our own our insurance, unfortunately. But I was wondering if it's kind of a unique situation, but I didn't know if you guys ever took a car that has damage in as a trade. Like if I needed a car sooner than when they're able to fix it. Yes. Yeah. And how that would work.

Yeah, there's the amount of the damage would be factored in to the appraisal, because I don't know what the amount needed to repair the car, but if it was $2,000 or $1,000, that would just be worked into the appraisal because the car would eventually need it to be sold. Yeah, that's commonly done. Yeah, it's nothing unusual there, yeah. I usually work with Leo as a salesman if he was able to find a new car, so that that trade would be like a normal trade-in because the insurance company already

wrote checked Earl Stewart so yeah so yeah that's it's very easy and very routine so yeah just give her a call and do you know so with the trade in like value is it the lower amount that would be applied to the it's yeah it would be um it because there's a repair and an insurance claim um and it's it's uh that's going to be on record it would have to be considered when we trade that car in and uh it's on the car Carfax report. So anybody, and we advise everyone, never buy a car without checking the Garfax report. Carfax report will show the damage, the amount of damage, and the fact that was repaired. And that, of course, negatively affects the value of the car.

Okay. And, yeah, Stu, I send you a text. I just had a question about, like, what are the current wait times for, like, parola crosses and the carola hybrid? Oh, I was just texting you in saying that we have a lot of callers and saying they didn't know if it's going to get to you, so I was answering you here. Coral across and both the Corolla Cross and the hybrid sedan. It's about a six to nine month wait, so it's not as bad as some of the other wait times that you heard about. And also to answer your question, we do still have over 1,000 cars on order that haven't been filled yet, and we are adding more every day.

And the cancellation, we're always looking for a rise in the cancellation rate, and also the evidence of real competitive offers so we can control how we're going to price them and how fast we can fill the orders. But the cancellation rate has been steady right around 25% monthly, so we haven't seen this, so we still have the orders. Those big dealerships like Al Hendrickson and Hollywood,

I'm sorry, to the listeners, you don't know what the question is. The question is, these big dealerships like Al Hendrickson, Hollywood, Toyota that are selling cars with Toyas with big markups, $5,000, $7,000 markups. If they're not getting, aren't their cars sitting on the lot waiting,

and therefore it's hurting their ability to get cars in the toy to allocation system. Well, they don't always get the full $7,000. When somebody comes in, they'll go through the usual grind and back and forth, and they will sell it for less. And then at the end of the month, when they have vehicles, they have a variety of means to what we call zeroing out inventory. They can sell them to fleet accounts like rental companies to themselves. They'll even blow them out to customers on the last day of the month.

they call to get back in. So, no, it's not hurting them. They're earning just as many cars. And so they've learned, they have figured out a way to manipulate the system. Yeah, I know you guys are doing Edmorest pretty soon, so I'll let you go soon. But now Hendrickson, I drove someone down to Coconut Creek,

and I pumped in there. They got a couple hundred new cars in the back lot, which used to be empty. Yeah. And they switched every single market adjustment to $5,000 plus $2,000 package. and on some cars like the Prius, it's $10,000 markup. Right, yeah.

By the way, that's Larry Morgan, Toriola. Now they're still using Al's name, but Larry Morgan bought that out. Is it closed now? Is it now operating under Morgan? No, they don't change their names. I'm not saying, but they close the deal. It's a done deal, yeah. So now it's operated under John Morgan, yeah. John Morgan, all right.

Well, have a good day, guys. Thanks for your help. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you know that Earl's been writing a column for over 20, years and he's in the hometown news and the Florida weekly the latest column is the nature of the beast why car dealers deceive you take a look and take a read and there you go there's all the graphics it's a little scary actually it's kind of the column is interesting I think because it actually defends car dealers to some extent I I I remove some of the guilt from the backs of car dealers as to why they're taking advantage of you.

I explain that they were forced into that position because of the manufacturers. Manufacturers are perceived as the good guys, but really they're the ones that created the problem with the retail way cars are retail today. And interesting read in Florida Weekly. Harold, Donovan happened to come in with something that fits perfectly into that. he says Tesla is going to open its first store

and delivery center in Connecticut a state that bans direct sales they're going to open it at the Mohegan Indian Reservation Bradley Hoffman

of the Hoffman Auto Group is not happy about it at all he says Tesla is breaking the law and is mad that Tesla consumers won't have dealership support. This is not the first time Tesla has opened

on a reservation. It seems like a very smart way to get around dealer franchise laws in some states. What's going to happen? Almost every state. It's going to happen sooner or later. So car dealers, you know, in their hearts, the manufacturers,

we all know that the franchise system is dead. It's just a question of how long it's going to take to get the body out of the room. You head down the hard rock and drive off in a and a new Tesla. I love it on Indian Reservation. And a quick note here

from Kyle in Pennsylvania he says, would Carvana, CarMax, and other YouTubers like Zach and Ray, it doesn't seem like to use car prices are coming down like a feather. It's much faster.

Well, it depends on the feather, I guess. I mean, relatively speaking, they're still way higher than they were three years ago. Use car prices are much higher today than they were three years ago. Yeah, the way that it should be.

I mean, they might have come down, but. I'll not talk about, you know, I'm talking about the equivalent year model. Yeah. I'm saying the way the values have gone over the last few years has been cockat. And Johnny Fraudley just came in and said, $100 casino credit with every Tesla sale. Ooh, I'll get him in the door. We're going to go back to the phones, and we are going to talk to our favorite caller, Roadrunner, Steve, in Boynton.

Good morning. Good morning, everybody. How you doing? Hey, Steve. We're good. Okay, you brought up the subject of Carfax. Not everything is on a Carfax list, as you quite know. Yes.

Because if you have a minor accident with only a few hundred dollars, it's not going to be reported to the insurance company to get on a Carfax. That is true. But who cares about that? And sometimes they miss big repairs, too. We had a very embarrassing incident at our dealership. We sold a car, and it had been repaired by us, and it was covered by insurance, and there was no mention of it on the Carfax Report.

So everything falls through the cracks every now and then. You should always get your car checked by a good technician as to whether or not it's been in an accident. Not only that roadrunner, Steve, even new cars get damaged even before they arrive at the dealerships, and they are repaired by the manufacturer. before it get there and it's not disclosed unless it's a major thing the reason i brought that up a friend of mine went to buy a car he looked at the car facts oh this car is great so i took a walk around the car because i have a car check sheet with me that i got from my uh mopar power club that i was in new york it had a list of like 50 things i'm looking around i'm looking at my car list

what word do I see, but overspray. Yeah, orange So I'm looking at the car and guess what I see? Overspray. So I nudged my friend with my elbow and I shook my head. So he goes, what's up? I said, the car's in an accident.

How do you know that? The car fax says no accident. You can see it. Look at the overspray. So the deal is talking to him. My friend takes out his phone. He goes, oh, that's my wife. I got to go home. I got an emergency. Steve, Carfax isn't the only game in town. Auto Check

if you want to make a note of that. Auto Check is a competitor with Carfax, and sometimes you'll see accidents on Auto Check that aren't Carfax and vice versa. That's true. True, true. And speaking of used auto, not used, but new auto parts. It costs me

$14 for an after for my permit. Is that good or bad? I was going to be $3 or $4 for an asterer. Okay. All right, everybody, have a good shake day. Thanks, Steve. Bye, bye.

It's great hearing from your roadrunner. You know, do we have another caller waiting? We do not. We do not. I was going to say that incident where we had a car that was repaired by the manufacturer, and I learned it when I was younger and kind of greener in the business, it was used car manager, and it was a heated situation with a customer that was trading in a car. and I had a paint meter that could measure the thickness of the paint,

and somebody's breaking through the ceiling. There's workers outside and the other across the hall. Anyway, they swore up and down. There was never an accident, and this is how we came up with the concept. If the customer believes they're right, they're right. And they did. We took care of them, but we could not figure out what happened until eventually, through some investigation,

we found out that there had been report repair. There's state laws on that, Florida that any damage greater than 1% of MSRP would have to be disclosed to the customer. But as Stu says, by the time the trains, planes, and automobiles, by the time a car gets to a dealer, there's a lot of reasons that it could have been some damage. And check with your state law as to what has to be disclosed. It may be, you know, one percent of a $50,000 car is a few bucks. Yeah.

So it's better, it's more than a scratch. So if you're going to do that, you know, have someone inspect the car if you want to be extra careful. Speaking of MSRP, I'm going to throw a curveball at you right here because I just, I just, you had triggered a thought. Toyota and also what we're told is other manufacturers, and I don't know how this relates to the Monroney Act, but is the changing the name of MSRP to TSRP, total suggestion. retail price and they've renamed the various it doesn't necessarily change the value of things it does not obviously include dealer installed options it's all manufacturer and distributor but the all the terminology folks I don't know if you heard that but that sounds like a saw is about to come through into our studio anyway the name is changing from MSRP to TSRP total suggested retail

price and I'll get more information that for next week's show and I'm sure you're probably have some questions from Toyota because I don't know if that's a Rick can you go out there and find out who the moron is with a drill well he's just a guy working he doesn't know there's a radio show in here we should put a sign outside that says live on the air but like I said I don't know if it's a federal change in federal law because MSRP is a federally mandated term and it's also the sticker that's got to go in the car yeah where is this in the

Oh, this was, we had a presentation from our repert, our Toyota rep, Brock. TSRP. TSRP. I also got an email about it recently. It's really kind of stupid, don't you think? It is. I don't know what the meaning is.

I was a little suspect. I asked, I said, does this allow dealers to get around, you know, MSRP and put their own equipment on it? He says, no, it excludes all that. So I said, okay, good. But I don't know what the, what prompted this. You know, what is the impetus? Well, wait a minute.

You talk about Southeast Toyota. I don't know if it's Southeast Toyota or TMNA. Because what we got here is we got a distributorship. No, I think it is TM&A. I think it's coming from National Toyota because it's going to be listed on the whole Mononi label. Southeast Toyota attaches the right side to it. So, yeah, it's a Toyota thing. Very good.

I think Rick stop the drilling. If he comes back with blood on his hands, I'm going to be very, very upset. It was unnecessary to go out there and choose violence. Nancy? We do not. We don't, but I have an anonymous feedback here. It says, I disagree with Earl's assessment. I think GM is holding back on car manufacturing. Say that?

He says, I disagree with Earl's assessment. I think that GM is holding back on car manufacturing. Yeah, I just, I mean, we all have these things. I think General Motors and Ford and Toyota, the rest of them, they're awfully big targets. And the consequences for, there's some antitrust laws and some price-fixing laws. There's a lot of very, very strong laws that could just take a corporation and bankrupt them. I just don't think they would take that chance to withhold production deliberately to raise. There's so many, in a conspiracy, there's so many tendrils.

and things. And just going over to Toyota, we had the same question about Toyota, like, conspiring to hold back production. There's so many communications that would be used in a huge lawsuit by dealers and consumers. It's, you know what I'm saying? There's normal people acting on information. No one is... Plus the fact, I think one thing in capitalism, everybody wants to be big.

and the biggest to dominate almost everybody and so therefore the competition it's your best friend the listeners for this show I say it over and over again competition is your best friend what happened with competition with auto manufacturers and with dealers is it got so intense in order to survive the dealer franchise system which are there they're they're in it's engraved in stone the dealers can't be fired they can't be dismayed missed and you have too many dealers and really too many manufacturers and too many vehicles and therefore the only way dealers could sell would be the light sheet and steel and that's

where we are now and they created this monster and they don't have it in them to withhold production they just right it's not nature of the beast that's the reason I titled it nature of the beast Toyota wants to be number one Chevrolet wants to be number one Honda wants to be number one Honda wants to be number one. And they just crank those cars out if they can if they have the supply of microchips et cetera. They'll build too many cars again. They'll be right back where we started.

They also know that there's a mad rush towards EVs and no manufacturers want to sit on lots and lots of gas cars that in three years might not, nobody might want. Everything they've built and everything they're planning to build has got to go

and they've got to push them to dealers and that's what's happening. And And we know because we're here. We're in the middle of it. Got a text from Jonathan and Del Rey. He says, he's talking about the comment about Agent Lightning. If a customer shows up even one minute before closing, that customer will be served the same care and courtesy as if it was midday.

No exceptions. If that's not acceptable, close your business. And I think we are all, yeah. A smart guy. I mean, it's shocking to me. That's the reason I'm sure this was a dealer. and a lot of, you know, having been in the, we are in the business. And let me tell you something, I'll just, I'll empathize with my salespeople and my salesperson.

It wouldn't a dealer. The dealer wants you to take care of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, sales is hard, and you work a lot of hours, and a lot of it, it's either panic, busy, or nothing to do. And to have to, at 9 o'clock at night, if you're open until 9, at 8.30, there's nobody in the dealership usually most nights so everybody hates the idea you want to go home and have dinner you want to take your wife out to a movie I mean people have things they want to do and it's very tempting to lock that door and get out of there and of course I raise hell or stew raises

hell when that happens at our dealership because we say we're open until nine o'clock and it's not easy for the people that work there when they're they're thinking about that pot roast in the oven, they're ready to get home and have something to eat. And the next thing you know, the guy walks in and says, let me see what you've got to sell. And you know it's going to be a long walk. Let me kick some tires for an hour. It's going to be a two-hour affair. So I have empathy. But the customer's king. If you want to be success, you've got to do whatever the customer wants you to do. If you don't care, do whatever you want to do. And hopefully the business establishment staffs accordingly. You don't need to have 20 salespeople at, you know,

a half hour before closing. You usually have one or two, and that's just, and they rotate that. So this guy at the Porsche dealership, I think it was just a little cranky. We got a text. Who's this from?

I don't know. Oh, from Kyle. The thing that Tesla did better than anything, than anything is make themselves an appealing luxury brand that people want. Chevy doesn't have that. So the market for a $40,000, compact electric Chevy was very limited.

Okay, that's a good point. Yeah, I thought it's kind of cool. I've never understood why. I don't think of my Tesla plaid as a luxury car, but it is. But I guess it's all about price. Well, it is. And speaking of that, Negan has sent some information over on the new Lucid Sapphire. And if you heard about that one, it's the $250,000 super luxury car from Lucid, all-electric.

Unfortunately, for you, it will beat the Tesla Plaid, the Tesla Model S Plaid in a race. I don't know by how much. No, I heard about that. Negan actually sent some pictures. He's driving his old 2010 Ford Raptor by the Lucid plant right now, when he sent the picture. And he sent some pictures of the manufacturing facility with a bunch of lucid, Lucid Emerald's parked out front, or Sapphire is parked out front. Unfortunately for Tesla, Lucid will probably be out of business in a few months.

Well, they're selling it for $250,000, so it's a limited market for that vehicle. Interesting. Okay, folks, I see by the clock that we are going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report, and as I said earlier, Agent Lightning did a fabulous job, and she went to Ed Morris-Delray Toyota. it's really important that we hear from you what you think about the mystery shopping report and you can vote your vote is very important you can do so at 772-4976530 and now back to the recovering car dealer okay mr. shop of Ed Morris Delray Toyota speaking in the first person if I were agent lightning I arrived in the evening and noticed a salesman

sitting outside as I walked into the dealership. Tried not to make eye contact with him, but he smiled real big, asked me if there was anything he could do to help me this evening. I said I was just checking out the hybrid sequoia and pointed to the one part right by the front door. He replied, okay, great. Would you like me to get the keys for you? I replied, yes, as long as it's available.

He started to walk away, but then turn around with his hand extended, introduced himself as Ernie. I took my hand, said he'd be right. back with the keys. As I say always about mystery shopping reports, we name names and people. There really is an Ernie, and there really is an Ed Worse Del Rey Toyota. And we always get

interesting names. And that's, so you know, we, and if we're lying, we're going to get sued about this, probably. Continuing. Am I identifying myself as a Gen Xer if I picture for Ernie from Sesame Street as you're reading this report? I forgot about that.

Yeah, yeah. I worked for the Maroni label. I looked for the Maroni label, but couldn't find it. Here we go again. Okay. Can't find the Maroni label. So I opened the passenger door and saw it, along with an addendum, the infamous addendum. They were both on the passenger seat.

Both were laminated with plastic. So that's premeditated. And as we talked about last week. It didn't fall off and become laminated on the way down to the seat. just magically fell in that machine. Federal law says that you have to have the Monroney label affixed by the manufacturer when the car is built and it must remain stuck to that windshield or window

until the customer removes it when they buy it retail. That's a law. The penalty is $1,000 per offense. It's death. I've never heard of anyone being penalized. That's probably why they're. They're laminating. The problem, we had a call earlier.

It says, I don't know why we need more federal laws. He's right. We don't need more federal laws. We need to enforce the ones we already got. But here we are. Ed Morris, Del Rey Toyota, violating the federal law. And if Ed wants to stab me in the back by suing me, he can do it. But you're going to lose because you're going to lie, Ed.

And it's actually Teddy, by the way. MSRP for the new 2,023 Toilers Coit Platinum Hybrid was $80,331. MSRP, that's pretty hefty, $80,331. The addendum added $6,488 to the price for the Ed Morris safety package. Ed Morris has got your back, or $6,488 for their safety package. package. Safety package. Which included. Yeah, what's in a safety package. Here we go. This is what's worth $6,0498. We'll locks. An antiviral treatment. This is a carryover from COVID, but he's keeping the antiviral treatment. The addendum also disclosed a $999 dealer fee. Which that's a

positive thing. Which was not in the 6,0004.98. No, no, that's additional. They started doing this. I remember back in the days of Scion, when they're everybody was posting like the one price and they required them to put a dealer fee Ed Morris started doing that and it's been doing it for the last 20 years. Okay continuing the report here

at Ed Morris Delray Toyota has promised was it? Ernie, yeah. Ernie returned just a few minutes and asked if I wanted to go on a longer test drive on Highway 95 or just locals stating that if we stayed

local we wouldn't need to get a plate Now, I can't quite figure that one out. I figured it out, but I mean... I mean, if you're, like, within a block of the dealership, a cop is not going to pull you over. He knows that there's, you know, cars going on to test strikes. So I said I'm not good going on 995 during rush hours, so off we went without a plate.

Ernie went over all the safety feature of the Sequoia while I drove and was quite knowledgeable. We drove down US 1 for a while and then headed back to the dealership. We pulled in. He asked me what I thought, and how soon I was looking to buy the car. I said I was, I really liked it a lot. I love my hybrid.

I have now. He didn't ask what I was driving. It's curious. He just wanted to know if I was going to be trading in a car. I said, no, I needed an additional car. I said, one thing I don't like is a hefty markup. Ernie said they could work with me on that since they're approaching the end of the month and have quarters they need to meet.

So right away, he agreed. to haggle. I smiled and said great. I'd like to see what it would cost me then. We headed back inside and noticed that they had the same identical sequoia on the shore floor surrounded by big one-day sales events signs all around it.

That's a Toyota. That's a Toyota national thing. Yeah. But the irony here is, I mean, there's a sequoia sitting outside, identical to the showroom. The one outside costs all the money. You're quoted all the money.

but when you go inside, suddenly there's... No, no, that's not. It might have look like that, but they're just dealership decorations. We walked over to a table. Well, they are. It's a toy and a thing, and there's not really much to it. The obvious intent was to make you think that there's a big discount. We walked over to a table where Ernie pulled out the chair for me to have a seat. Asked by my license and phone number.

He then acquired if I was looking to lease or purchase. I said purchase. He excused themselves to speak with his manager and returned a few minutes later. with a worksheet and went over the figures the infamous worksheet they all use them. Top line labeled market value selling price was the MSRP, 80,331. I hate it that they use selling because a selling price is what you sell the car for and this is what not what they're going to sell the car for. That's worse.

They added the Edmore Safety Package, which brought the total to $86,819. dollars. To the total purchase price, which is I just said, it's not the purchase price. They added $6,488. And to purchase it, you've got to pay that. So how got, I'm confusing myself. They added $291 in taxable fees, which are more junk fees, a $999 dealer service fee, junk fee, and inflated $789. and non-tax fees. And that was puffed up. Yeah, they puffed up a little bit.

They weren't really all non-tax fees. Some were. Bottom line, I'm out of the breath here. The bottom line, Althador price was $94,210. And just keep in mind, sales tax and that walk up from selling was only $5,000, so that's all profit, mostly. I asked about them working with me on the price, and he said, well, this car could actually be sold at all. auction for much more that is true that's why it's marked up so much and there's some some truth not much but you car dealers can sell new cars now at auctions

for over MSRP depending on the making model it used to be almost commonplace well it was really intense and they were virtually no cars available but not so much anymore today that's why it's marked up so much you said this is a starting price starting price how soon are you wanting to buy? I said, well, I'll like to finalize this tonight, but definitely not with that markup, plus the $999 dealer fee. He then asked what price I would buy at tonight. I replied, well, I'm not even wasting my husband's time because I already know the answer, so give me your best price, and then I'll decide from there. He asked

if I have my own financing or if I'll be using theirs, I said, likely we'll go through your financing here. And it doesn't say this to the shopping report, but I'm sure his heart started to be a little faster. Skip the beat. A little smile on his face. And I just made that up. But they want you to finance because they make more money financing. Sometimes they do selling. Ernie excused himself again, returned a few minutes later after chit-chatting with his sales manager, sat right down, got to business saying, Ernie here, oh, this is a sales manager Ernie tells me you're willing to buy now if we can remove the markup this is really really surprising when I read this I said well I'll definitely have a

serious discussion with my husband he then said okay I'll take it off if you buy right now but that's a lot of money right I replied well you put that in writing he then took a spin out this is a sales manager at Edmorest Delray Toyota and and wrote minus $6,488. So they came down enormously. And I just, I wouldn't believe I do that. Ernie went in there and said, hey, boss, I'm telling you right now. She's taking home time.

If you take that off, she's driving home then I got one. I said, I'm going to step outside and try to reach my husband. Now she's worried about how am I going to get out of here? Because Agent Lightning had to be surprised too. Yeah. Ernie worked out with me. You know, it's funny, I didn't even, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just, I mean, did Agent Landing start to run toward her car?

She started to trot. And I acted like I just saw the big ones, sales even signs. Sorry, sales and event. Big one sales event. And then asked him about that. He spurred and said, we're a dealership. We always have big sales going on to attract customers. I last said, I don't want to shoot myself with the foot by taking this deal if I could save you to more money.

He replied, I can always present Indiana. Boy, this guy was really, really willing to work. I like this phrase. It must have been in his report. They came down $6,488, and he's still willing to come more. I mean, I wish H. Lightning and stayed to see how far they would have gone. Because these Sequoia hybrids aren't flying off the shelves. I mean, it's a very low production vehicle.

Anyway, I thanked him as Agent Lightning and then walked the other way to leave. But Willie out was an exciting. Very brave. And the funny thing is we had a call right after the show started about Edmore's Delary Toyota. And Stu says there's this is a coincidence that we happened to shop at Moore's Delray Toyota. We did not. The caller was talking about their service department, a bad experience. And so we hit him with the one too today, wouldn't plant.

So there we have it. And just for your information, Toyota is in better supply now than most cars. And they have nationally, they have like almost a 60-day supply, 59-day supply. And some dealers don't, some dealers do. So you're better off with Toyota than you were a year ago for sure. To get your votes in, you can text us at 772-4976530. We're waiting to hear from all of you. It's very important that you do vote and let us know how you feel about the Mystery Shopping Report from Ed Morris del Rey Toyota.

Okay, we have some customers, I mean we have some grades coming in. I'll give Ed Morris, who sent this in? I got no name. Oh, it's from Kyle. I'll give Ed Morris an F plus for getting rid of the $3.99 nitrogen fee. Bob says four years ago, it would have been an F, but in today's world, it's a C because unfortunately, dealers have become really greedy. You know, I was thinking about giving them credit for disclosing the dealer fee on the addendum label.

because at least you know the customers knew they had it coming if you open up the door and look on the passenger seat and actually find them an only label so I don't really know what the point is I think it's convenience for the dealership to do that I don't know if it's really to hide hide it because it's there they see yeah the Ford Automobile dealers association recommends you put your dealer fee on the addendum label yeah So I got another question here.

I got it from Steve. We've got a C from Steve. Frank says, Enjoy your Mr. Shopping Report each week. F. Keep up the great work. Oh, I have a question here. What's the invoice on that $80,000 tundra?

That's a great question. There's a lot of markup. I'm going to say there's probably about $3.5,000 to $4,000 and markup without a couple of thousand dollars, a few thousand dollars in holdback. So I'd say if they sold you, sold it just at MSRP. It's probably a $7,000 or $8,000 deal, maybe $9,000. With the addendum, obviously, they get a lot more. I'm going to give them a lower than a C. I don't

think that, I think that goes, I'm going to give them a C minus. Okay. Here on the YouTube channels, we've got Tom Steckle says, F, worthless package plus fake taxable fees plus dealer fees. I'd have asked him if we could take a test drive up to Lake Park. Tim Gilliland, fees, fees, fees equals F, F, F. F. F. F. Cliff, Manthy, I've redacted his. Let's see if you give him a moment. See if he comes back. Brian said, Lacko, I was going to give Ed Morris an F. However, after the negotiation, they deserve a C. Johnny Z. Fradley, dot, dot, dash, dot is Ed Morse code for F.

That's good. I don't know because a lot of things I don't like with the Moroni being down on the seat, all the games they're playing there. But the fact that they were willing to work on that price immediately, I'm going to say a C minus because I think if you're going in there, you're prepared to buy, and you've got your weapons lined up, I think you can get a pretty decent deal. Yeah.

Okay. Nancy? Bad news. Let me tell you. I read this three times. Hit him hard, Mama. Pardon me? I said, hit him hard.

Hit him hard, Mama. Okay. I just can't believe any of this. You know, weekend we got in every once in a while. You know, it just knocked you off your chair. And I certainly don't know what an anti-viral treatment or whatever, whatever the hell they called it. And please stay away from the big one sales event.

I give the mystery shop of Edmour's Toyota in Delray, NF. I'm going to give them a seat because I think that's very average, especially for South Florida. And a matter of fact, if you're a haggler and a negotiator and you don't mind going through all that Agent Lightning went through, you can probably negotiate a pretty good price at Ed Morris. They come down pretty quick. Because you know that Ernie and his sales manager are weak as circus lemonade

because they come right down. It's old school traditional haggle hassle, and that is average, and that's the problem. So, yeah, I'm going to give them a sea. And you say, I would recommend you go down there if you're a good negotiator. Got a quick note here from John Strine that I wanted to bring this one out. He says, the big three automakers have an oversupply of product, but you claim Toyota is not limiting production on purpose.

Sorry, not buying it. I waited for over a year for my Toyota from your dealership and finally gave up and bought a Honda. That must mean that they're holding back on production then. Toyota's losing market share with this strategy. I mean, I'm just saying it is his opinion, but he's a way to hear. I'm just saying that having been in the business 50 years and knowing the manufacturers quite well, they don't ever hold back on production. It's based on more than that.

It's not just what we know. Okay, folks. We have about two minutes left. That gives me time to mention Earl's Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Don't forget you go to Amazon. done, or you can go to Earl's book, and you can purchase this book, and it is timeless. 1999 for the book, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. So, you can go to www.

Excuse me, www.bdrr.org, and you can take a look at all the dogs that are up for adoption, and we want to send out a special hello to Sully. And everyone out there, everyone, thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you right back here next week, Saturday morning, 8 a.m.