Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.30.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Braman Honda of Palm Beach

Episode Date: July 30, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning re-visits a local high volume Honda dealer to see how much over sticker they will charge for a 2022 Honda Pilot SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question. The Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn, 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 have a substitute this morning. Josh Stewart is substituting for Stu Stewart, and he's a frequent replacement for Stu. When he's getting a little R&R, taking some time off, which is well deserved. And if you're new to the show, you heard the recorded introduction,

we're an unusual show. I mean, you might not like us, but try us out if you're new. I promise you, you won't find anything like us on the air. We're kind of like the old 60-minute style expose. Remember Mike Wallace back in the day? I mean, he really used to stir things up,

come in undercover to a company, and that's kind of what we do. We have a mystery shopping report. We do this every week. It's a highlight of our show. We go into a car dealership somewhere in the USA. We used to be mainly South Florida. We hit pretty much all over Florida now and venturing out of state, Tennessee, Pennsylvania. We've been around quite a bit, and we plan to continue reaching out, going into car dealerships,

pretending to buy or lease a car, and just telling you what happened. I mean, we go through the whole thing. We don't tell them until we're back on the radio show that we shopped them. And we name names. We name dealerships. Really exciting. I promise you, there's nothing like this on the air anywhere. I mean, when I see it on the air, not just radio.

A lot of this is YouTube, it's Facebook, is Twitter. We have a man, Rick Kearney, who is also our technical guy. He is the one that you call, if you have any problems with your car, any questions about the electronics, computerization, whatever you want to call it, about your car today. Rick can answer it. He also monitors our YouTube channel, and that's just YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars. YouTube.com forward slash Earl and Cars. Josh Stewart, who, as I said earlier, is sitting in for my other son, Stu. he's monitoring our Facebook channel and the Facebook channel is Facebook.com forward slash

furl on cars so however you want to watch us, hear us, stream us you can do that we love to have your input that's the key and all of us are all of us sitting in the studio the four of us we have a tendency to pontificate sometimes

we get a little carried away I'm probably the worst we love to talk about cars we love to talk about car dealers and we have fun we're probably having more fun than you are so you have to keep as professional the way you do that

is to call because your calls that's the essence is a lifeblood of the show what's on your mind your questions your things that are irritating you about car dealers or maybe things that you like about car dealers I don't stress often enough there's some good dealers out there

and if you have a dealer that you've had a pleasant experience with, call us, tell us about it, and we'll plug that dealer. We'll say, buy your next fill in the blank from this dealer. And if you like to help a dealer, because he was nice to you, treated you well, was fair, honest, and totally transparent, call us, give us his name. If you have the reverse problem, we'll do that too. We've already got the mystery shopping report, but we'll do that too.

comments, recommendations, constructive criticism. Your calls are very important. Now, if you can safely write those number down, if you're not driving, write it down. You probably don't have a question right this second, but you will. The call-in number is 877-960-99-60. 877-960-99-60. Nancy Stewart, my co-host here, and she's also the co-founder of the show.

She has a laptop and she watches it very carefully. And we prioritize these types of phone calls. We get to the text after the phone calls. We get to something called anonymous feedback. I'll explain in a minute after the phone calls. We love the sound of a human voice. It just, you know, you can feel the sincerity or lack of it, I guess. We have so many good callers.

We like new callers. By the way, Nancy Stewart has a special offer. She's our female advocate of the show. And as you all know, females have a different look on life than men. I mean, that's what makes a happy world, right? If we were all the same, it'd really be boring. Women are a little bit different than men, and they buy differently, they think differently. They have different requirements to make them happy when they buy a little.

product and they represent half the population of the planet and you companies out there including car dealers and other manufacturers ought to think that's pretty important we need to bring you ladies into the fold when it comes to expressing your opinion on the show and Nancy Stewart has a very special offer which she'll get to very shortly and she'll tell you what that is if you haven't called the show before she's really got a special deal for you and it's too good to be true but it's true It's really true.

No strings attached. Now, other ways to reach the show is text. I'm a text guy. I like text. I got on my voice machine. I mean, when I, if I, my answer machine, when you call me on my phone, I say, if I'm tied up, I say, please text me. You know, text are less invasive. And you get to a text in five minutes, ten minutes.

Sometimes we don't get to text until maybe the end of the show. But our text number will, I promise. you will read the text. I promise you will answer the text. And you don't have to sit around and wait because your time is valuable too. So you can go to our podcast and listen to yourself or listen to your text

being answered. However, you want to try, it's a far more passive. The text number, if you've got a pencil, only write it down if you're in a safe position to do so. Text number is 772-497-6530. Again, the text number

is 772 4976530 and of course going back to the main number 877-960 90-960 did I say we prioritize phone calls we do we've got about five lines and they're open now and if you call we'll get right to you

even if we're doing something else we stop what we're doing and we answer the phone call 877 960 9960 I know you're getting dizzy but I got to give you one more This is my favorite, anonymousfeedback.com. I don't know why I like it so much. We get a lot of response there.

You are totally anonymous with this. We don't know who you are, where you are, we can't come and get you. We don't know where you live. We can't find you. Say anything you want. You can be abusive, profane, vulgar. Now we censor it a little bit.

I mean, we don't use the four-letter words. And we don't get a lot of them. I'm, this is tongue-in-cheek. Honestly, we get very few attacks. It worries me a little bit that we don't get more attacks because I wonder if some of you think maybe they really can trace these down. I think privacy is such an issue with people.

But I promise you, you have my word of honor. We don't know who you are or where you are. Your anonymous feedback.com. It's a URL. It's an address on the web. You go to that web address, Y-O-U-R, A-N-O-N-Y-M-U-L. says, Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Put anything you want to say, Josh will read it on the show, and we will answer it honestly. I mean, we're very transparent. We're very honest. We really, really get to the crux of things, and you're going to enjoy the show. 15 minutes, 20 minutes,

we're not asking you to stick around for two hours. We're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. So, with that said, let me introduce Nancy Stewart, my co-host. and the female advocate, and she'll tell you about a super-duper offer to you first-time lady callers. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome another exciting show this morning. So stay tuned and stay with us the next two hours. And ladies, I have a special message for you.

I recently learned that some of you are hesitant to give me your contact information. I know that this seems like as if that it would be too good to be true to win $50. And I extend that invitation to two new lady callers every Saturday morning. But your information that you have to share with me so I can get you that check is really necessary. And I want to let you know I don't share that information with anyone. It's very private. And therefore, it's very important because that's the only way you can get your check for $50. So share your superpowers with us this morning, ladies.

I know we have them, don't we? We wear many hats. One of them could be going into a dealership and purchasing a vehicle or maybe having service. So share your story, whether it's good, bad, or ugly, $50 for the first two new lady caller. 877-960-99-60 or you can text us for the others 877-960 I'm sorry you can call us at 877-960 and you can text us at 772-497-6-530 that telephone that text number escaped me there for a second it's real important that you take advantage of the $50 for the first two new lady callers. It's the only way we can build the platform here and sort of form a cult, so to speak.

So take advantage of that this morning. And as Earl said, how important it is to take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, probably equally important, maybe more important than that. anything else we do on the show, is help you with your repair and maintenance. And during this whole COVID thing, I find personally Nancy and I, I think the whole world has gone into a bit of a cocoon. We changed our ammo, the way we move around, where we go, how we do it. And we cut back on some things that we shouldn't do.

I cut back on the dentist. I ended up in the chair for three appointments to catch up because I didn't go to the dentist and have my teeth clean in about three years. That ain't a good thing. Some people aren't taking care of their cars the way they should. And some people are still a little bit hesitant. You may be one of them. You just don't feel like, I don't know. I mean, depending on what part of the country you're in,

you know, the COVID could be mild, medium, or high. But it's still something you think about, you think about the monkey pox. I mean, I hate to turn the TV on, right? You hate to look at the news, read the news. But if you have a problem in your car, Rick Kearney, he's sitting to my right here in the studio. This is a freebie, folks. And let me tell you something.

He could save you thousands of dollars. He's probably the most qualified auto technician I've ever dealt with. I've been around a long time, folks. I've been a car dealer since 1968, and Rick is just about as good as they come. Not easy today, because back in the day, you know, when I was first starting in the business, you had carburetors, and, you know, you had everything was pretty fundamentally

you opened the hood. You could actually see the part. and identify them and can almost fix the car yourself. Today there's a monolith if you can figure out how to open the hood. Everything's computerized. And Rick has stayed on top of that. Rick Kearney is in school. I'll exaggerate slightly as much he is working on cars.

He stays online. He has to be requalified. He's got all the badges, all the certifications, certified master diagnostic technician, ASC certified and everything. And he just stays on top of it. So, if you smell something funny in your car, and it's not that McDonald's fried chicken sandwich, there's something different in your car, and you don't know what it is, hey, a smell can be diagnosed.

Rick has got a nose like a blood down, and he, if you can describe it to him, you can't do a file. It's cold and wet. But if you have a noise, you can send him an audio file or even a video file. So if there's something that you detect in your car, a noise, a smell, a feel, a rattle, you know, save you a lot of money. I'll tell you if he can't solve it, well, we'll go to Google too. We searched the planet for the answer.

And then if it's all something we really can't be sure about, we'll tell you to take it to a qualified technician and help you try to find that. So Rick Kearney, if you have any problems with your car, you're worried about the safety or the driveability, so on and so forth, rather than take it into that service department where you never know what they're going to tell you, you just don't trust the diagnosis. Rick Kearney will give you an honest diagnosis. Well, we can also help to interpret what their diagnosis means. Exactly. Give you an understanding of what you're looking at if they recommend a repair. Exactly, yeah. The best thing to do when you go into, if you have to go into the service department, is describe as we ask you to do to Rick, the symptoms. When you go into your doctor, you say, well, I'm having rapid heartbeat. I have a pain in my foot. You know, I have a pain there. I have a dizziness, all the, you describe the symptoms. Let the doctor, you know, just decide what you have.

So you describe the symptoms, Rick will give you a diagnosis, and then, rather than have to go through the description of the symptoms all over again, I talked to a friend of mine who is an expert technician, and he said that he'd like you to check this out for me, and Rick will give you that information just by describing the symptoms. So a lot of you know, Josh Stewart, he's my youngest son. I have three sons. I'm buying full disclosure transparency. We are toilet dealers, and we've been toilet. dealers since 1975.

It's not a conflict of interest. We do not try to sell you Toyotas on this show. We don't try to talk about our dealership on the show. That's an advantage because being insiders, we are car dealers. And we go after car dealers. I mean, we're a nemesis. We're the pariah of car dealers. But we are one.

And so it helps us, you know, we know what we're talking. talking about. So Josh is in the trenches every day. In fact, he's really working now because his two brothers are vacationing, and Josh is, he's killing himself, frankly, being in the dealership. And I'm especially grateful that he took a little bit of his Saturday morning to come in and help us on the show. But Josh Stewart's hands-on, he's now in charge of the, he's always been a part of the mystery shopping report because he works with our mystery shopper closely, as does too. So, Josh, you got any comments about the the mystery shop. I'm not a specific report, but just the mystery shops in general. All I can say is the, uh, we're lucky to have the world's greatest mystery shopper in Agent Lightning. Yeah. Wow. I think the folks will be really, uh, really entertained by this week's shop. Yeah. It's, it's not easy.

And we, we know that. We've had a few really expert mystery shoppers over the years. This one is as good or better than any we've had. More importantly, she's female. And, and, uh, we, it's hard to find female. mystery shoppers you have to have a very a very a lot of self-confidence you have to be you got to be you got to be quick-witted you've got to be observant and she's got all of that and she doesn't miss a thing no she does and when I read the reports of what she does you can see how it's it's you can't have a script and go in the mystery shop you just go in there with an outline and you've got to move fast because every time she goes in

there's a surprise something's different and she's fast on her feet she's faster on the feet what's the old saying uh everyone has a plan until they get hit yeah she is definitely quick on her feet exactly yeah and so uh and she she hasn't even been close i don't think to being busted i don't i don't think knock on wood knock on wood yeah so anyway there we are mr chavigworth I have to add my comment about the mystery shopper. Let me tell you, the first time she knocked on our door, and we met eye to eye, you could see it. You could just see it in her.

Yeah. She was meant she had a calling. Exactly. And the mystery shop was her baby. That's right. And she was going to do very well at it. So, kudos to you, mystery shopper. Whoever you are.

I'll tell you how good she is, is that, as Josh knows this, but I used to recently just to shop our own dealership. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell Josh. I didn't tell anybody. And I just had our mystery shopper go in. Because, hey, listen, all you car dealers out there that get so mad at us for doing the mystery shops,

let me tell you something. You want to improve your operation? Mystery shop yourself. You think you know what's going on in your dealership? You don't. You know what people tell you. And you're the boss. And people tell you what you want.

to hear. So how accurate do you think the sum total of the comments you get? You walk into the service department and you say the service manager, how's everything going, Charlie? He says, Mr. Jones, everything's just fine. A-O-K. A-O-K, Mr. Jones. But let me tell you something, you send a mystery shopper into that service department and you'll find out it might not be terrible, but life isn't A-O-K in any business. Sometimes the truth hurts a little bit It does And the truth is what helps you get better

Because you have to be humble Except the fact that you're not perfect And the human beings working for you Are not perfect And you fine-tune it So you car dealers out there Mystery Shop yourselves Don't wait for me to do it

I know I embarrass you On the air sometimes And oh speaking of that Let me stop me from yak If we have a call I mean you're watching I definitely will She loves to stop

I mean, I could do six hours. I mean, you've got to stop me. You have a gift. But we mystery shopped Offleys Only two or three weeks ago. Yeah. Well, last week, I think. Oh, it was the last week. No, it was a week before last.

So anyway, the founder of Offleys Only is, his name is Mark, and we've become buddies, Mark Fisher. He and his wife founded it years ago, and it grew into a very large operation. So we mystery shop on a week before last. And I texted Mark, I said, tune up to the show today. We're going to mystery shop your story. He's still on his 20%. He sold it to a big group who expanded it.

So he's still an owner, but he's not active in it. So it turned out not to be a good report, I'm sad to say. And Mark and I conversed after that, and he said, thank you. He says, you're right. He says, if I was running it, this would not have happened, but I forwarded the Mr. Chopin Report to the powers that be the new power for off-lease only. So it's hard when you're in there doing it yourself to be admitted, but now you're an absentee owner, but he still has a financial interest,

and he is a good car guy, and he would not have allowed some of the things that happened at off-lease-only week before that. happen so again mystery shopping report it'll be in the last half hour of the show be sometime between 930 and 10 Eastern standard time so even if you can't listen to the rest of the show please tune in between 930 and 10 text do we have any text in what we have Anne Marie's good morning text good let's do that the day wouldn't feel complete without this text so here it goes good morning I know there are are things that should be done if your car will be sitting for six months a year or longer.

But what about a shorter period? One, people are traveling again. If you're going on a long vacation, like an extended cruise or a grand European tour, and your vehicle will be sitting for three or four weeks, does it matter if you have a full tank, a quarter tank? Number two, are there any impacts to electric cars, regardless of whether they are fully charged or not, if they sit idle for three or four weeks?

Just wondering, thanks, signed, dreaming of a long trip if I win the Mega Millions, pot. Anybody won't? I think it was up in the air still. Yes. Up in Ohio. Northeast.

Oh, Ohio. Well, congratulations to someone very lucky. Yeah. So Rick can handle this about the car sitting for six months or just a few weeks? For just a few weeks, the only thing I really would recommend, and especially here in South Florida where we have a large, large population of retired folks who don't drive their cars very much, or if they do it's only very small amounts a battery tender is very important is that same thing as a trickle charger it's a trickle charger basically if you have a

garage makes it much easier you simply have a couple wires connected to your battery kind of pop out from under the hood right up near the windshield and when you put your car in the garage you just plug this in and it keeps a small charge going into the battery to help maintain your battery and keep it at a good charge rate. If you don't have access to electricity, but your car is parked outside, even under a car port, solar chargers. You can actually get one that will sit on the dash or in the back window and it will just collect sunlight to help keep that battery charged up. They can actually, they don't do a great job, but they do pretty do

dog-on well and it will actually help keep that battery charged so you're in a much better condition for that and batteries are getting expensive right now especially with the issues we've seen with commerce and trade and sometimes even going on back order for a long time certain models of battery there's a trickle charger a solar power trickle charger cost i'd have to look one up right now i've seen them as around twenty five thirty dollars and you can actually put it inside the car in the rear window as it's facing to where the solar panel is to the outside yeah and the solar panel technology has come quite a ways.

But then you've got to run the wire all the way up to the battery. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But like the article you sent me a couple weeks ago about the solar powered electric car. Yeah. Granted, I think that one's a little ahead of its time right now, but it's a technology that needs

to grow. It'll happen. Another question is, maybe it doesn't apply today, but one time the keyless remotes, if you didn't turn off the feature that seeks that looks for your keyless remote, It would slightly drain your battery. Yeah, unfortunately, most cars now don't have a turnoff for that.

When they first came out, they did. But that was because the systems weren't as sophisticated as you are now. And they've reached the point now where the computers understand, if it doesn't see that key within a 24-hour period, it will shut itself into a sleep mode. And at that point, when you come up to your car, if it's been a couple weeks, you may not be able to use that instant touch feature. You may have to actually pull the remote out and hit the unlock,

and then it will unlock your car and let you have the access. Another quick question I had. Turn everything back on. And maybe this doesn't apply to two or three weeks, but if you're going to leave your car for a while, should you inflate your tires more? I hear people talking about square off on the tires. They sit.

Yeah, flat spots on the tire. Actually, the best way, and I know this sounds a little extreme, but the best way to prevent that if you're going to leave your car sit for any good length of time is actually to jack the car up off the ground if you can't that would definitely be the best way but what would happen if you inflated it up to the tire manufacturer's recommended limit it really wouldn't make that big a difference i had a neighbor who uh had four squares a carpet when they would go up north it looked like yeah it didn't look that great but does that actually prevent the the squaring off I don't think it would help any much at all.

I mean, that's a little bad of cushions. Yeah, even that, I don't think it would help very much. All right. The best thing you can do in case like that is you just kind of have to live with it for about the first hour or two. Just take the car out for a nice drive. And once those tires have had some time spinning, they build up a little heat in the tires, and they will actually tend to straighten back out again. Okay, thank you.

Rick. Do you have any more text over there, Josh? Yeah, we do. Okay. Would you like me to go to it? All right. This actually came in shortly after last week's show, and this again for Rick. Well, I can't.

I'm going to interrupt you just to give the number out because this is a long time without a phone call. 877-9-60-99-60. We prioritize your call. So if you're worried about that, our lines are completely open now. 877-9-60, you will not have to wait. We will get to your call. We stop what we're doing. 877-960-9960 okay all right again for Rick this says Rick you told us last week that the battery warranty for electric tootas are 10 years and 150,000 miles if at the end of nine years the entire battery system dies and is replaced by Toyota do they replace it for free or do they prorate it free so it's not like the warranty on a regular battery yeah as a matter of fact there there is no proration

at all on a hybrid battery once that warranty period has ended it's ended now there is always the chance of a goodwill if you're say your battery's like four or five thousand miles just out of warranty uh you can talk to the service manager and quite often they'll get with a district representative and get what's called goodwill participation and it may cover the cost of the part itself or maybe even the parts and labor completely I get this question a lot when someone's approaching the end of the warranty is there something they can do like a checkup to make sure to see if it's the battery still operating at full capacity we can hook a scan tool to it and just double check to make sure

everything's operational only takes 10 15 20 minutes of the most but there's really not much else you can do with the hybrid batteries but believe it or not the quality on that, the amount of batteries that we've been replacing, has dropped down quite a bit. They're getting much better quality on them now. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I'll tell you, as a side note, we're talking about, I had a question for Rick, too, on that subject. Side note about batteries. Nancy and I had our, we kept our iPhones, our Apple iPhones, for a lot longer than normal,

for all the reasons we talked about earlier, just didn't feel like ordering another one at the time. So our batteries degraded, and we had to have them replaced. So all batteries do degrade and we'll have to be replaced. Question for Rick on cars. My Tesla, I drive a Tesla for a lot of folks that might not know that, my Tesla tells me not to charge my battery all the way up because repeated charging of the battery all the way up will degrade the battery life. Now, a long time ago, somewhere in my psyche,

I thought it was the other way around, that you were supposed to let a battery go all the way down and then recharge it completely to maintain battery life. So obviously, Apple knows what they're, I mean, Tesla knows what they're talking about. But is that correct? I mean, for most batteries? It is now because the batteries have changed from being nickel-metal hydride, rechargeable batteries. Now most of our rechargeable batteries are a lithium polymer or lithium-ion.

and because of that the change in the build of the battery that technology has changed on the charging features and it's not recommended to totally fill it or to totally deplete it all the way down they want to kind of keep it in a state of flux constantly going up and down save from like 80 percent 85 percent full down to about 25 percent empty and then back up again at first you know I was I just love the idea of going to way down to like 20 miles and boom I got a full you know full charge but and then I got a warning on my dashes don't do that so you were going down to like five or 10 percent that's probably a little too little rick says 20 25 percent yeah yeah Tesla recommends that you go down to about what you drive on an average day driving and when you charge it don't charge all the way up so you you you set your

charger so it'll only do like 80 percent or you know maybe 75 And then if you do 100%, it's not good for the battery. Right. And also, as far as a gas-driven car, Earl, you know, he brings it to my attention all the time. You really shouldn't wait. You really shouldn't. I mean, my alert is on. Fill up your tank.

And I just, I don't fill it up. I go for like a day or so. And I've learned that that, too, is not real good for the, you know, the car. We're running out of the gas for $9.95. Right. That's the big one. There's always a chance you might run out. So you want to be careful with that.

Isn't that an exciting thought? Isn't that orange light so pretty? I like to stare at it. Oh, boy. It's like that episode of science, though. Also, as far as the gas in the tank, the residue that accumulates in the bottom of the tank, isn't there a theory of that cleaning out if you leave your gas,

if you leave it almost empty. Actually, it's not that big an issue anymore because they've designed the tanks now with baffles in them. The surface inside is designed in such a manner that as you're driving, that fuel is constantly being mixed. So the residue never gets a chance to settle. It's constantly being worked through, picked up, and run into the filter where it's caught and kept through. Great information. 877-960-99-60. or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0.

We have got some calls. Oh, thank you. So we are going to talk. Hallelujah. Let's do it fast. Hurry. Before they hang up. We're going to talk to John in Palm City, and we're going to ask John in West Palm Beach

to just hang in there for a moment. Good morning, John. Good morning. Hello, John. You there? Yes, I am. Can you hear me? We hear you, loud and clear?

Okay, so I got a couple comments. About three weeks ago, I called and told you about the guy in Treasure Coast here, Shane, that was really good when I went to the dealership. But then my wife and I were thinking about buying a Highlander hybrid. So I called your guys. And I hadn't really talked to anybody before, and so she gave me this fellow, and it was totally pleasant. I mean, it was really good. I mean, it's just like you said. I said, so MSRP, he said, yep, that's all he charged.

And he got these other, and he showed me everything. He sent me the whole thing. So he did a great job. So as soon as I can ask this next question, I think when my wife comes back, she flies, I want to get your opinion on this. So we're debating between leasing a car, which you've never done before, and just buying it outright. What's your suggestion on it?

If it was a Toyota, if you could do that with a Toyota, high, Highlander hybrid. Well, I'm going to let Josh answer that question. The only advantage to leasing is sometimes the manufacturers, leasing companies have special subsidized leases. But if that isn't the case, it's pretty much a wash. Yeah, you're right on the money. Like when it's a good lease program,

it's oftentimes like the best deal. The manufacturers oftentimes spend the most money on those really good lease payments you see advertised. But in today's market, with the inventory shortage, manufacturers across the board have really pulled back on their lease programs. So in the case of the Highlander hybrid, I don't believe that's the case where it's going to be a really strong program. So, you know, a traditional purchase might be a better option there. John, it's up.

The leases were really kind of created for businesses, and then they became consumer leases. And businesses had a real advantage because you can determine if you're having a use a car strictly for business, you can deduct a lease payment or a portion of the lease payment. And it was a tax thing. It was an accounting thing. And then it spread to consumerism, and consumers releasing now. It's almost personal preference. My feeling is I think you're better off to buy it.

Even though interest rates have been going up, they're still relatively low compared to historical numbers. And I'd buy the car, but it's a six of one and a half dozen. other. That's what I'm leaning towards finding a car. And my buddy said, who used to be a big Toyota general manager up in Maryland or somewhere, he said that if you buy a hybrid, it takes you like the difference in the cost of that and the just ordinary one. It's like about three years and then you can see a turnover in what you pay. Is that not right or not? That's right. Yeah, John, one other thing I forgot

to mention to you also is one of the reasons I say rule of thumb by the car is because leasing is a temptation to the dealers for the hanky-panky for the lack of transparency. And when you say MSRP, you appreciate our honesty and the fact that our outdoor price is the MSRP, we don't have anything. When you go, when you say, okay, MSRP but now I'll lease it, that opens the window for the dealer to increase the profit. Leases typically are much more profitable than purchases in this COVID environment. Now, that might not be the case anymore, but leasing gives, it's more difficult for a customer or buyer to understand a lease. So there are ways they can manipulate the rate

and the capitalized cost, the length of the lease. All these are affecting your actual out-of-pocket total cost so that's another reason to go with a purchase okay so that's what I'm thinking about so would you would you get a hybrid or just a burden because a hybrid you guys told me from your place he said they get like 36 miles a gallon in the city and I just drive mine around Stewart basically I don't drive it in place I don't drive it in place high hybrids I think are the way to go I'm I mean it really I think it depends on the motivation if it's a purely dollars and cents thing if you're not a like I mean gas is expensive but if you're doing very low miles you know obviously it'll take you

longer to make up for the premium you're paying for the hybrid but there's other reasons people want the hybrids they like the technology the there's really good acceleration just the you know it's good for the environment so if some of those reasons are in the mix then yeah then go for the hybrid but granted like you mentioned the hybrid is is much harder to get that the production of the hybrids is is a fraction of what the gas highlanders are but there's resale value too so the hybrid would have higher resale value and maybe offset the incremental growth. Yeah, if in the economic decision, you've got to factor in the resale value for sure. So, yeah, so there's determined lots of factors.

But if time is a really important factor for you in this market, you know, then the gas highlander will come in a lot more quickly than the hybrid. Yeah, that's what the guy said. He said it would be like maybe seven to nine months before you could get. Yeah. Yeah, and like, you know, Toyota makes probably, you know, 10 gas islanders for every one hybrid, you know, so there's a pretty big discrepancy between the production there. Okay, thank you. One other thing, just real quick, is I have a Porsche Cayenne that I've been driving, and the check engine light came on.

So my buddy down the street, he told me about a guy by the name of, it starts with an age, it's a his spinning, it's like Hubert, Hubert. Euro and Jensen Beach. And I called the guy and asked about it, and he said, well, bring it down, we'll look, or whatever. So I drove it down, and when I pulled in the parking lot, I mean, they were busy and stuff, too. I pulled in the parking lot, and before I could even park my car,

the guy came out with his little handheld computer thing. He put it in there. He scanned it all. He said, I just think it just needs to reset. He said, try that and drive it, and if it doesn't. So he reset it, and I said, here, I was reaching in my pocket, He said, no, no, no, no, don't worry about it.

You know, he said, if it doesn't work, come back and see this. Wow. I thought that was so good because every other place I've been going, they've just been throwing parts of things and stuff like that. So that guy was, do you need, somebody needs a car worked on. Good, John, can you, if you can get that exact name for us or spell it, we'd like to give a plug and tell his location. Okay, it's like H-U-M-V-E-R-T, is Euro,

in Jensen Beach and I'm trying to think of the the address. It's on I found him. He's on Northeast Pop-Tilton Place. Oh, great.

That's it. Okay. All right, man. I mean, I really recommend a guy. He just was totally honest. Thank you very much, John. I'll probably be doing business. Great call, thank you.

That gentleman has a five-star Google review on 87 reviews. Okay, read it from the Google, and we'll give them a plug now. Yeah, it's Umberto's Euro Motor in Jensen Beach, Florida. Yes, sir, that's it, buddy. Very good. Have a great day. Thank you, John.

877-960, 9960, and John from Palm City, give us a call back. I'm sorry, your call skipped ahead. I want to let everyone know that the August 22 edition of the Consumer Report, it has a great section. in it, and they focus on whether your next car will be gas-only, hybrid, or electric, and it's definitely worthwhile picking up and taking a look at it. They take you through every level of that decision, the purchase, all of it, how much driving you do, and whether the hybrid, in other words, whether the hybrid would be conducive to your situation.

We're going to go to Lynn, who's giving us a call from Stewart. Hi, Lynn. Good morning, Lynn. Welcome. Good morning. Actually, my name is Liz, but I'll answer to anything. The reason I'm calling, we have a 2019 forerunner limited, and we love it. But I have a question.

I understand that they're pretty good about not having a question. not having any servicing meetings done and I mean they're like tanks but the other night I was waiting for my daughter to pick her up from work and I turned the engine off and I was in a lighted area so I didn't know whether or not I mean I assumed since my light was automatically an automatic turn off turn on that it would go off and so I ended up waiting for her for a an hour and come to find out the engine when I came out the engine wouldn't start and I could not believe it I was just in shock and it almost sounded like the starter and or maybe the battery

and then finally after trying it a couple times and it didn't work my daughter said oh mom by the way when I came in the lights were on so I was looking in the manual and it doesn't talk about anything like that and I experimented with it today in the garage and it's true when I'm sitting in the car the lights stay on as long as I'm sitting in the car and the engine is off now if I get out of the car and close the door and stand outside the car the lights go off should I why is that is that something I can change how do I turn it off from doing that the way the computer is set up on that they kind of drop the ball a little bit the automatic headlights will remain on until it sees a door open and then

close again well especially the driver's door is the one that's looking at once it sees that door open and close then the lights stay on for about 30 seconds to a minute to kind of give you time to save you parked in a dark garage or a dark driveway it still gives you light to get up to your door find your keys, get to the door, and unlock the door right before the lights will turn off. But if you don't open and close the door, those headlights will remain on. So it's just something you need to be aware of. And if you're going to stay in the car, either turn the lights off manually,

or once you shut the engine off, just open and close the door and then they'll go off. what probably happened is because those lights do draw quite a bit of power if your battery is a bit old and getting a little weak it probably drew it down just enough that it wouldn't have enough power to start the engine

Wow Well eventually I have to The good news is it is like a thing Because after I waited a little while It did start I had to try it like three or four times Growing up I know my dad always said If it's the starter, you don't want to keep doing that, but I pretty, once my daughter told me it was the life, I figured it was the battery, not the starter.

Right. And that's basically just, once you shut down that power draw, after it sits for a few minutes, the battery will naturally gain a little bit of power back. And luckily for you, it was just enough that you were able to get enough power back in it that it could crank the engine over and start it. So does that mean that my battery might need to? to change? I would definitely have it checked and you might likely need a new battery in there. Yeah, it might be getting pretty old at this point. Yeah, over three years, I imagine. Yep. Well, thank you so much. I really, it was changed once already, just so you know,

but once this happens to it, I think it was changed like a year ago. So it is relatively new. I'd still have it tested. Okay. And if it is not holding a charge, if you bought a year ago, there's a chance the battery manufacturer has a partial warranty on it. Right. As a matter of fact, most batteries usually have a minimum of one-year warranty and then pro-rated. Some of them have two or even three years warranty, and then they're pro-rated after that. So wherever you bought the battery from, I would go back there to have them test it, and it might save a good portion of the money getting it replaced. okay well just so you know it was under it was through your

through the warranty on the car so I'll just come back to you guys and then you can look it over for me okay hey Liz thank you for thank you for calling Liz I just want to let you know you sound like an educated consumer and checking on that warranty on the battery bill great idea like the guys said give us a call back let us know how that turns turned out for you. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. We are going to, I believe that we already talked to John in West Palm Beach and I, I don't know, I got a funny feeling that John in Palm City has either hung up or he is still holding. Can somebody give me a clue? Has John left the building? in the meantime who's next okay all right we're going to go to marty good morning marty good morning how are you well thank you nice to hear from you i have a question for me

for josh or whatever first question is i ordered a camry hybrid in march now it's almost August, I haven't seen or heard about it. Is that going to take a lot more than six months, as you think? And then I got another question. Yeah, just to answer the first part, it's really hard to, it's hard to tell because it's so dependent on the production. And just to put things in perspective, you know, how it works with Toyota at least every month, you get, there's a couple allocations of vehicles. And to put that in perspective, in this latest allocation, there's over 14,000 vehicles, so it sounds like a lot, but there's only, on this next allocation, only one of those is a Camry hybrid. And so the next one, there might

be more, so it's kind of inconsistent. If you could text me to the show number, your full name, I'd be happy to check on the specific case there and reach out to you personally with an update. Yeah, Marty, the reason this Earl, the reason this is so difficult for the customer and the dealer is the fact that in normal time, you order a car and that car goes through and to the manufacturer the manufacturer builds a car and it takes some time and then it has to be transported to the dealer that's the way it normally works right now because the wiring arnages microchip shortages and the whole situation when you

order a car today the manufacturer might not decide to build that car for two months or three months after you order it so you your order doesn't precipitate manufacturing as it did during normal times. And you heard Josh earlier, if you were listening to the show, tell a gentleman who was contemplating, do I get a gasoline engine or a hybrid engine and a Camry? And Josh said, well, if you don't mind waiting a long time, you can, you know, the hybrid is the car of the day.

We think that's a great car. But they won't build it for a long time. And the hybrid has a lot of microchips and other parts that are not available, even precious metals, that during this shortage, you just can't build the car. But if you order a non-hybrid, they'll build it. And then you can get it in three months instead of eight months. So we don't know. Toyota doesn't share with us, the dealer, when they're going to build your car. Okay.

Well, personally, I don't need it right away. I've only got 30,000 miles on my 2020. So I'm not really in a rush. So I guess if they make this a 23 instead of a 22 car, it's not going to affect me really. My other question is I went over to a Toyota dealer that's a little near my house to say, do you have a hybrid?

I never drove a hybrid Camry. So I ask them, do you have a hybrid in stock, which of course they didn't? I said, is there any difference when you're driving the car other than it being a hybrid? Do you notice anything different? Is a dash different? Or what's different than a hybrid than a regular camera? Oh, is that a question for us?

Yes. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's lots of differences. I mean, having a completely different drive train and transmission is going to make it a completely different driving experience. The electric motor, you know, has lots of torque. So the hybrid has a lot more pickup. You know, there will be different aesthetics.

You know, some finishes in the interior will be different, kind of more unique to the hybrid. There's a hybrid badge. One of the things that it takes getting used to, I like it. But when you take your foot off the accelerator, you'll decelerate quickly than you don't coast. Yeah, that's called regenerative braking. It's a really great feature.

So it gets, it gets, uh, nancy, drives all, you know, gas engine Avalon, I drive the all-electric Tesla. When I go back and forth, I'll drive her car, she'll drive my car. The first thing that I have to get used to is when I take my foot off the accelerator on her Avalon, it creeps forward. When I take my foot off the accelerator on my Prius, it breaks. So, you know, it takes you about 30 seconds and a minute of driving to get used to that. but a definite difference from the two.

Okay, so just get back to Josh a minute. It's probably going to take longer than another couple months. Originally, he told me three to six months. So now I'm in like the four-month period. So whatever it is, I guess it is. Well, like I said, Marty, if you could text to the show, I can give you a more specific answer. really because there's two factors at play how many camera hybrid sort is making

and how many people are ahead of you in line and I don't I can't give you that answer right now but I promise you this we are getting the car as fast as possible I'll text you and I ordered an XLE fully loaded you know hybrid so it's it's probably slows it down even more it'll be worth the weight I promise you Marty do you have the text number yeah the text number that the regular Yeah, 772-497-6-5-30. Perfect. Yeah.

Okay. We'll take care of all that for you, and give us a call again. It was nice hearing from you. Okay. Have a great day. We're going to see what's going on with John and whether John's calling from Palm City, whether he's been waiting for a while. Good morning, John.

This is John from West Palm Beach. Okay. John from Palm City, give us a call back. I'd love to hear from you. So many Johns. John is a regular caller. He calls us every Saturday morning. Okay, moving along, we're going to go to John in West Palm Beach.

I believe it was. Oh, good, good, yeah. And we're going to, like Josh just said, there was too many Johns. Good morning, John. How are you doing? Good morning. Good morning. Welcome.

Any way, John from Palm City has more to contribute than I do. Now, he'll be calling back. I don't look up questions. during the week to ask for the Saturday show. You got to do your research. He has superpowers. And it's not fun. I'm a teacher.

I don't. Anyways, hey, I just want to let you know. Some Tesla owners, such as myself, we have the European model, Tesla, that was sent here to the States and you can charge the battery up to 100% without degradation.

Yeah, I remember you mentioned that before. I forgot about that. Yeah, that's really cool. I don't know why they don't build them that way in the USA, but that would certainly be a good thing. Even though we were fortunate to test drive the Tesla, and we were able to actually purchase it the same day because they had 300 cars coming in

because they were transferred over from Europe. We had to wait a little bit longer for delivery, not as long as you, but a little bit longer for delivery because some sensors had to be changed. And I think there was some software stuff that they had to do as well. But the prep time or the preparation took a little bit longer. than normal because the things had to be changed for U.S. standards than the European

standards. Sure, yeah. Yeah. But all they should do is contact Tesla or give the, you know, the service call. Give them the VIN number and they'll let you know which model you have. Okay, great. Thank you very much. And also, I know this isn't the Tesla show, but I just wanted to give

a shout out to the service center because we developed the bubble in our steering wheel and that leather wrap, and they replaced they're replacing it for free and they even had it in stock wow that's great as a matter of fact we uh we went in there um we were a couple hours behind you because you had gone in i think like two saturdays ago oh yeah yeah i had a little i dismissed meeting you i had a bad i had a bad experience now with tesla is with uh the my employee who drove my car the tesla after to have to have

he dropped my driving score to a 93 and I'm trying to get up I'm trying to get up to a hundred so I'm at 99 now now I can't trust anybody except Nancy to drive my car because they're very very skittish about following too close and sudden breaking and things like that how many how many drivers do you have John just two so there is two drivers that use your Tesla yourself and someone else okay Are you trying to achieve autonomy? No, no, because, first of all, the expense just doesn't outweigh the means. But they did go ahead and they did that $6,000 option, which I like, and that's the recall, where you call your car back to you and that and the automatic parking. So you don't have to buy the full package now. You can get half the package for half the price.

And that's the really cool feature there, though. Yeah, that's a good feature. Well, right now, Earl and I are trying to decide who has 100 and who has 99. We're very competitive. See, there's my safety score. I got 99. Earl's showing his safety score. All I need is one more point, and Tesla take me to Taco Bell.

I'm adapting quite well. Is that the first place you're going to go on autonomous driving? To the Tesla, considering I do drive the Avalon from time to time. but John it was great talking to you Earl's going south of the border enjoy your Tesla we will thank you

okay a quick bit of information from Donovan here he says it may not be technically a European model of the Tesla but it has what's called the LFP battery

which is lithium iron phosphate the car itself still made in America not in Europe but it's using because it's an iron-based battery they're less energy dense but more durable and that's why that battery can be charged all the way up to full full charge and it says the standard range model three comes with the LFP type battery but interesting good information LFP is in Papa yes I'll check I mean Donovan seems to be quite an expert on Tesla I think he owns a couple of them at least, and he's got some great information here each week for us.

You know, we love hearing from Donovan. We hear from him practically every week. He has also some great information to share with us. I am going to tell the ladies, I am standing here, waiting patiently to hear from you. Well, I've heard from a few ladies, but I'm talking to two new female callers this morning. I have $50 for you, $50 for the first two new female callers. And John from Palm City, my heart awaits you. We're going to go to Julie in West Palm Beach.

I think he's mad at you. Good morning, Julie. Good morning. One of your prior callers had mentioned a starter, and I had a question. I'd had a prior camera that I'd had for many years had over 170,000 miles when I got rid of it. And I never had a starter replaced. I've never had a starter replaced in any of my cars. Is it rare to have starter trouble?

And how many miles does that starter give you for starting your car up? Or how many times can you start your car up? It's actually getting, we, back in the day, we used to replace a lot of starters. Going back just like 10, 15 years, I remember doing one or two a week on different cars. Now, starter motors have become incredibly much more durable, and it's getting a lot more rare. The engines have become easier to crank over so the starter motors don't have to work as hard. The technology has improved, and we don't see them going bad very often. Yeah, because like I said, my car, I had it for almost 10 years, 170,000 miles, and various things went wrong on it, but that was not one of them.

Yeah. Interesting. About how many starts do you get out of a starter? Does it vary? There's no way to even count it anymore. I couldn't even give you a guess a half million maybe more Wow

It's like trying to figure out the licks in the tussie pop Yep Right Okay, thank you You're welcome Julie Give us a call again 877-960-9960 And you can text us at 772

4976530 Don't forget Your Anonymous Feedback.com Now back to Josh Yeah, speaking of texting I have a text from Doug He says he's a new caller in Jupiter. He asks, if new prices are very high and used car prices are also very high,

then if I were to trade in my use car for a new car, should not the prices equal out? Close. You know, it depends on the trade and it depends on the new car, but it mitigates the pain. I won't say it's a wash, but... If you could stay close to MSRP, it could be as close to a wash as possible. But if someone's paying a five, six, ten thousand over a sticker, they'd have to go pretty high on that trade in to offset that premium. Exactly, yeah. And the use car prices actually are coming down a little bit faster than a new car.

It's like the stock market. You know, daily, every day it's a little weirder. You're better off the trade. And you'll find that out if your car shop and our mystery shop today, the person of the dealership mystery shop was begging our mystery shopper to trade a car in because car dealers are very short of good used cars or any used cars and they know if the customer doesn't have a used car they're going to feel the huge pain because they're being overcharged for the new cars yeah exactly it is a you know it's it's pretty crazy out there

I can tell you this that there are more car owners that are holding on to their old car than ever before. There are dealers who want your car. It's just a popery of different things that are going on today. And I'll tell you what, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And you've got to be careful out there. It's a minefield.

877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-60. We're going to go to Julie, who's been holding. Good morning, Julie. I'm sorry, good morning, Jenny, from Palm Beach Gardens. say there's a lot of Johns and Julie good morning good morning Johnny how are you we're well thank you oh that's good I just had a question I had a missing a cap not on the radiator but on the little plastic bottle that is underneath the hood do you have to have that cap I just wondered or I can't find a cap anywhere so I just

wondered if you had to have that cap not on the radiator but the little plastic piece where the anti-freezer water goes in yes I would definitely get that replace um that's actually for what's called the the coolant overflow or the coolant reservoir and I would definitely want to get that replaced if I were you because dirt and debris that can get in there can possibly be drawn back into the radiator and it could actually clog up the radiator cap itself The way the radiator system works is when it gets extremely hot, you know, of course, it's building temperature normally, and when they're full operating temperature, the pressure

that builds up sometimes gets to be a little too high, so the radiator cap will release some of that coolant into the reservoir, and it's stored there, and then when the system cools back down, of course, the pressure goes down and it creates a vacuum, and rather than sucking in air, it will draw that coolant back out of the reservoir, back into the radiator, so it keeps the radiator and cooling system always full up where it should be. But if that plastic cap has gone missing from the reservoir, dirt and debris and contaminants can get into that coolant that's being stored there. So, yeah, you definitely would want to get that cap replaced.

I'm guessing maybe on eBay you might be able to find something, or if not, not a local parts store might be able to have one or a dealership. Rockado.com. Rockato.com, very good chance there. How about some duct tape? Would that work? No, okay.

Never mind. Duck tape would more. It would swim around in it. It would not work. It would not work. It would swim around in it. Oh, did you say auto.com? Rockato. Yes.

Okay, because I looked at all the auto parts stores already. and I couldn't find one. So, wow. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're very welcome. Oh, you're welcome, Jenny.

Give us a call again. I will. Thank you so much. 877-960. And you can text us at 772-49730. Rick, do you have anything for us? As a matter of fact, I've got an interesting question here from Donovan. He says, why would a dealer offer a flat in the 5?

office, if you buy, say, a tire and wheel protection package that increases the out-the-door price, but tries to keep the monthly payment the same. And Tom Stecker came in with a comment also on it. He says, they manipulate the loan terms by either reducing the interest rate or extending the term of the loan. He says, always ask the F&I salesman to show you the buy rate he obtained. Well, that's true. I mean, if he will or If he's being honest with you, the buy rate means the interest rate that they're paying the bank. So that's what it would be. It's a broker deal.

The car dealers don't finance your car. They get a contract sign and they sell the contract to a bank. And it could be a Capty Bank owned by the manufacturer or it could be Wells Fargo or Bank America. And they sell the contract. And the differences between what their interest rate cost is and what your interest rate cost is. they'll mark it up one, two, three percent depending on the dealer and depending on your credit. All right. Good advice there. I have an anonymous feedback. This one's a poignant question because times are tough and lots of people have hard decisions to make. What do I do if I can't make my car

payment? I saw that one. I'm glad you caught that one. We're going through a time now where a lot of people are in that area where you are finding difficult to make your payments. The first thing you should do is contact your lender, not the dealer, but the lender. If you bought the car to the dealer, he placed it with the lender, as I said earlier. Call the lender up and be totally forthright and honest with them. And oftentimes, they will compromise with you. They don't want to repossess your car. They don't want to, or maybe they do now. In this market, I was just thinking, maybe. Normal times, they wouldn't want to

repossess your car. But you talk to them and say, here's what I can do. Can you give me a hiatus on this payment? Sometimes I'll let you skip a payment and then make up the next month.

Work a deal out. Try to work a deal out. The worst thing you can do is just don't make it. Because if they don't hear from you and they don't know your situation, they're going to take action immediately. That one thing they don't want to do is not be able to find their collateral.

And some people that can't make payments, they'll hide from the lender, they'll hide their car, and that gets very expensive for the lender. And tempers flare, the lender gets mad, you get mad. Best thing to do is to have as pleasant as possible under the circumstances understanding with lender. And he might surprise you. I hope he does.

That's the best way to be up front and forthright. Yeah, I agree with that. During the heart of the pandemic, I know a lot of banks were very kind with that with doing payment deferrals. You know, they'll tack it on to the end of the loan, but they'll give you some breathing room for a couple months sometimes. I agree. Definitely. Have a rapport with them. And tell them your true status.

If you're in between jobs, if you are maybe getting a raise, if, I mean, as bad as it is, tell them, as good as it is, tell them. and give them, you know, the picture. I mean, that way, they'll treat you fairly. Otherwise, they'll get, you'll get kind of mean. I mean, they have. Hiding from them would be, you know, definitely the wrong thing to do. And just being honest with them and working something out, let me tell you, first hand, it works, sharing your story with them.

They become very sympathetic. Yeah. All right. This one came in a few days ago. It says, since GM pays workers in Mexico between $7 and $35 per day, how important is it to check where the car is made if someone wants to buy a GM vehicle? I assume that if someone's underpaid compared to the U.S., they may not have the best attitude.

I'm not sure if that, I mean, cost of living is a factor there. A long time ago, that was a problem. And I remember back with Toyota many years ago, the cars that came from Japan were far better quality-wise and the cars that were built here. But that's been remedied. And cars that are built by General Motors in Mexico and the cars that are built in Detroit are the same quality.

They have quality standards, and one way the other, it might take them longer, it might be less expensive, more expensive, but they have a quality meter and whatever car comes off, whatever manufacturing line, whether it's China or Detroit or Kentucky, the car quality is surprisingly equal. Yeah, to this day, people still, like, do inquire, is this built in Japan or not? But it's good to know that that's not really a factor anymore. Okay, here's another one for you.

Hey, Earl, do you think that this new Chips Act that's in Congress will help out the car shortage? Like everything else that's in Congress and Washington, and politically inspired. I don't know. One side says that by pouring a huge amount of money onto this problem, subsidizing the chip manufacturers, giving Intel, for example, who really made a big mistake by reducing their manufacturing capacity.

They love to have the money, and they probably would start building chips more than they do here. The other side, but the problem is do you really want to take a company that made a mistake and have the government bail them out

and rescue them? Depends on your politics. I think that I think we should have a certain amount of self-sufficiency in the United States on the one hand. But we are a world economy.

And nobody was complaining about buying iPhones that were made in China. because the quality was just the same and they were a lot less expensive. So a global economy from a good company like Apple or some of the other manufacturers, the global economy, the savings are passed along to you, the availability, the quality, the cost. If you say to somebody, you must build this product here, sooner or later is going to mean a higher price for you. price for you because it isn't like it was 50 60 years ago it truly is a world

economy I mean Taiwan is a very important place now in manufacture of microelectronics and and if suddenly they should disappear and depending on what happens between them and China they may or may not become and if if you took Taiwan offline for microchips there's half the world's chips are gone right there we'd be in serious serious trouble so I don't know you can argue either size of it I hate to say to anybody I don't know the answer but I don't know the answer no and and I doubt that would have any impact even if it does bootstrap domestic production it'll be years before we feel that like on the

road you know I mean in car parts and such that's what I wrote that it would be years but you know it's never too late to start things that might change okay Rick you got your thinking cap on Always. This customer here, or this texter has a 2012 corolla. They say it has 94,000 miles, no engine lights or warnings, no issues except when I slow down and then press the gas pedal to speed up and makes a sound, and is spelled C-R-R-R-R-R-R, from around the driver's side.

Also, the sound comes when I normally turn the steering wheel at low speeds and then press the gas pedal a bit suddenly and makes this brief gur sound. This was a G R-R-R-R. I can produce my voice acting isn't very good. Sorry. I can produce this problem most of the time. What seems to be the problem? I would check the drive axle, the left side. Drive axle. Constant velocity joints. Usually when those axles are starting to get a bit worn, they'll start making noises, especially in turning, but also when you're slowing and accelerating, because what happens is when you're slowing down, the wheel is actually turning the axle,

and it's pulling it one direction, and then when you accelerate, the axle starts turning to pull the wheel forwards, which causes it to move that joint forwards and can make a change in noise. The guring noise. As far as the G.R., how long has it been since you've seen your dog? Good question. Let's hope it's that drive axle.

Yeah. All right. Great. I got another text here from Bob. Bob asks, if it's 10 years warranty on a hybrid for full replacement, does a battery scan show a battery health percentage number? Is there a number that is a minimum value that would warrant it to be replaced? I was thinking that the same thing. If you can kind of diagnose the health status,

the battery and it's not at optimal status would you could you get a preemptive help from Toyota it has to basically it's pass fail yeah unfortunately even the best of our scan tools don't give us any information like that unlike your apple iPhone where you can go into on your battery screen and and show your battery health as a percentage we don't have that for the hybrid battery they really don't even have that for the 12 volt battery for us yeah Well, there's a health check on the 12 volt though, right? Well, we can do a load test on it, and it will tell us the cold cranking amps available. So as they're getting weaker, we can give you an idea of whether your battery is in great shape

or whether it's getting old and really time for replacement, even though it hasn't quite failed yet. But the hybrid battery, we really just don't have that available to us. All right. Good information. Thank you very much. Okay. Ladies, let me remind you, you still have time. You have time to call to female callers. New female callers. You win yourself $50 this morning. $877-960. And for you others, give us a text at 772-497-60. And did you notice Earl's latest column? You can go to Earl on Cars if you'd like to read it. And it's a proposal. high-tech solution for reducing traffic deaths. Boy, I'll tell you what, it's a doozy.

You can find it in the hometown news and in the Florida Weekly. And also, if you go to Erlon Cars, you can find all of his columns. They're all filled with information, and they're all interesting. This is kind of a far-out column I wrote on the high-tech solution. It comes from my experience with Tesla

and the fact that I'm not suggesting that everybody's motivated to have. have an autonomous car but different things motivate different people and I'm a high-tech guy I like the idea of autonomy and I won't go into all the reasons why but it really motivated me to try to drive more carefully and I am a better driver now I mean I I'm a safer driver and it's only because I wanted to be because I'll be honest with you before I feel like too many people like me feel like I'm a really great driver and I'm not

going to get in one accident but intellectually I know I'm crazy but I just feel good about driving so everybody in the studio they all know me here and people that know me know that I'm a crazy driver I'm I drive too fast and I have

now I don't do that anymore but the column is this maybe if we could come up with a strong motivation for all drivers You can't threaten to find a guy, $250 or a gal, $250, you can't threaten because you don't follow through. Consequently, you go on the expressways, and everybody's speeding. And so you have an out-of-control situation.

People follow too close. People do all these crazy things. The threats don't work. How about motivations? Well, there is some things in place, but most cars don't have the technology that Tesla have. But I know some insurance companies have, like, you can plug in some sort of device that monitors. And that's in my blog. That's exactly right.

So I'm suggesting, to sum up the blog, I'm suggesting that the auto manufacturers team with the leasing companies, a team with the dealers, a team with the government, make a tax deduction if you have a certain driving score. Free registration. Free registration. Incentives. Lower premium on your insurance. In other words, if you could come up with a combination of free enterprise and government insurance companies, manufacturers, and I knew that if this year that if I drove very safely, I would be $2,000 to the good. What if they publish the safest drivers in each county?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, how much would you love to be in the top ten of that? Exactly. So just a suggestion. Nobody's going to read this, but... It's a shame because of all your crazy ideas, I think this is the best. Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I think we were in bed, and all of a sudden, that light went off in your head, and you said, what do you... Eureka! What do you think about this? And you already had your idea before Monday morning. So, anyway, kudos to you. A proposed high-tech solution for reducing traffic deaths. Ladies and gentlemen, go to Erlon Cars, and you can find that column right there.

Or, as I said earlier, you can find it in the hometown news and in the Florida Home, Florida Weekly. Yeah, that's it, the Florida Weekly. Okay, again, 877-960, 9960, we have time for some calls. We do have texts from Josh, and I think that Rick will have some YouTube. Well, as a matter of fact, Tom Steckle just came in kind of one of the things I do too. He says, I watch YouTube videos from dash cam posters that makes me more aware of potential issues to cause accidents. And yeah, car fails and idiots in cars. The videos on YouTube, there's thousands of them that people will send in clips from their dash cams showing accidents

occurring that either they're involved in or that they've seen occur right in front of them and it's amazing the number of people they just they'll run red lights it turns right in front of other cars and so many of them mainly because they've got that cell phone right up in their face while they're driving the car yeah here's the criteria the Tesla has and they had algorithms and they have measured these effects on accidents and these are the things that cause most actions. A forward collision warning goes off. Hard breaking, aggressive turning, unsafe following. That's my nemesis, by the way. Because it's hard when someone pulls in front of you. Oh, yeah. So, but yeah, it would absolutely be amazing when you consider that I think like 75 million

people, 75,000 people a year die on the highway. And it's 10% up over last year. There's got to be a way. that we could motivate people to drive safer. You can't. Threats don't work. And cops don't work. Can you imagine what would happen if every cop today ticketed every speeder on the turnpike in 95

and every through way and expressway? You need 800 million police. The USA? Well, it wouldn't take that many police to bring the country to a stop. I mean, you pull a car over, what happens? Everybody slows down. Oh, there's a cop.

I'm going to slow down. If every cop pulled over every speeder on every turnpike and threw away in the United States or the world, the world would stop. You can't do it. We created a monster of speeders and we just have to let it go. Back to your Tesla app that you're reading from. As I asked you before, I'll ask you again, does Tesla, we're both registered. We're right on the screen. We hit my name or your name, whoever's driving.

the app have the ability to know exactly who is driving? I want to know who has the 99 and who has the 100. I think they must stay out of this. That's not just for competition. They know, but they don't care. That'll allow, well, that'll allow the driver to know whether they followed too closely or, you know, what their weaknesses are. They're not going to say, we're going to turn in on autonomous, but you have to promise not to let Earl drive the car. It only was works when Nancy's in the car. It does break it down, I think, by the trip. So if you had, like, if you kept a log of what, what day in time you drove? Yeah. You could probably do that. Okay, we're going to keep a log. That's good. You know, any kind of feedback, I think, helps

improve behavior. I remember when I first had a Prius, and you'd get the mileage feedback. And then me and my brothers were competing to who could get the best miles, miles per gallon. You know, you're wearing your Fitbit or your Apple Watch. Now you're going for 10,000 steps a just just getting that feedback helps helps improve performance yeah it's such an incentive mm-hmm yeah all right good stuff I can imagine that if I pulled up to the gas pump and it said enter your driver number for your your driving record you get a 5% discount or 10% discount boom because you are a cautious driver you know come on you should you need to you need to get to

Tallahassee, Dad, get this on the books. Hey, everyone that's listening, what do you think of this conversation that's going on in the studio this morning? Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-960. And you can text us, if you're shy, at 772-497-6530. And ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Now back to Josh. Okay, I got a couple of feedbacks here I can read. This person sends in a question. I have excellent credit. Can I get a sub-$100 monthly car payment and zero money down? I drive only a few times a month. Uber isn't a good option for me. I have excellent credit.

Basically, is there any way I could find someone to lease me or finance me a car for under $100 a month and zero down? Unfortunately, that's a tough payment to get to without a significant down payment. most banks want to would only loan out a minimum amount of money and to have a $100 car payment it would have to be something around a $5,000 or $6,000 loan. The average car payment today,

this shook me up when I read it or Nancy told me, I'm not sure, $1,000. The average car payment is $1,000. So for you to get a car payment for $100 no matter how good your credit is, is www.com. Yeah, it's the same. They mentioned Uber,

a good option, but for 100 bucks a month, you could probably get quite a few Uber rides. Uber's up, too. Everything's up, yeah. Everything's up. Yeah, 100 bucks a month, I think you're going to be on Palm Dron. So good luck to you. Here's another one on the... Oh, let's going back to Nancy. We're going to get back to the phones. I see where Charles is calling from North Palm Beach. Good morning, Nancy, and good morning to all of you.

A quick question for Rick. I live up in Connecticut for about five months of the year, and then I'm down in North Palm for seven months. And thinking about buying a hybrid. So my question right now is, it's really easy to store my car over the winter up in Connecticut. It's just gas stabilizer and a battery tender. But for a hybrid, are there special considerations? Nope. Pretty much same thing.

The hybrid, the long-term battery, it's not an issue, everything's okay? Generally not, because the newer cars now, the newer hybrids, are all running a lithium-type battery, and they actually handle it the storage quite a bit better than the old nickel and metal hydride or the 12-volt batteries that are normally used for starting them. Okay, and then one other quick question. right now you're charging MSRP, I'm a Costco member, and I'm wondering, does it really matter if I come in off the street and say I'm a Costco buyer or MSRP? It's going to be the same price, isn't it?

No, Costco requires that you pay no more than the lowest price that model was sold. Now, of course, the contingency, the whole problem is the dealers have to follow the auto rules of the Costco auto member of buying program. But if they follow the rules, it's in their contract. If they violate the rules, Costco can terminate them as a Costco dealer. But if you bought a car, whatever model to buy in a Cadillac or a Honda, whatever it is, on a Costco price, if they're honoring the contract, the dealer is selling you a car at a price lower than he sold that car to anyone else. Now, if he's selling that car for $3,000 over a sticker to everybody else, and he sells it to you for only $2,000 over a sticker, then he'd be honoring the contract.

So the prices are still sky high even for Costco dealers. So that's the problem. To me, the ideal combination is to go to a Costco dealer and get them to sign an agreement that you will get the Costco price when the car arrives. I think we all agree, most everybody agrees, that car prices have peaked, they're not going to go up any higher, they're going to come down, we just don't know how quickly. So if you order a car today from a dealer that was a Costco member, and he agreed to sell it to you at the Costco price, when you took delivery, it could be a pretty good price. no actually my question I have to do specifically with you Earl if I come in off the street and I say I'm a Costco buyer versus your MSRP price that's going to be the same isn't that

no it'll be a discount but it just won't be as good as the Costco discount was you know before the before the inventory service yeah we're right now we're pricing our cars and what we think is a price lower than the other dealers That's what all dealers try to do. Some people try to trick you. I mean, but in reality, all businesses, they want to have a product that's priced competitively. So we believe MSRP is a really good price in today's crazy market. Now, six months from now or three months from now, it might be 1,000 off MSRP or 2,000 of MSRP. Whatever the price is, two months or three months from now, you will, as a Costco member, pay less than the, price that we post on our website and on our cars. Good to know. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. You're welcome, Charles. We're going to go to Bennett, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bennett.

Hey, good morning, guys. I have a question, Earl. I recently read an article in the paper, roll by Earl, and it seems like it's another way that the dealers are ripping off the consumers. and I want you to elaborate a little more on it it's about getting the warranty correctly on the vehicle when you purchase it or when it came in to the dealer

you know what I'm talking about can you elaborate on that? I know exactly what happens now is the dealers in a frenzy to earn inventory because cars are in such short supply the manufacturer shipped the cars to the very dealers based on when they sell the car, or when they tell the manufacturer they sold the car. So the manufacturers obviously don't want to send all their cars to a dealer that's not selling

them very quickly, so to be fair, they try to send more cars to the dealers that sell them quicker. So what the dealers did right away is to try to cheat the manufacturer and try to fool the manufacturer and they're giving them more cars. they report cars sold months before the car, weeks before the car actually arise. They cannot report a car sold to the manufacturer until they have the VIN number. But they can know the VIN number and the car can still take weeks or maybe even a month or two before you get it, depending on the car where the plan is and so on and so forth.

So the manufacturers think you took delivery of the car three weeks for a month, before you did. And that's when the warranty starts to tick. The warranty clock starts ticking when the manufacturer is told you bought the car. The dealers are lying to the manufacturers and telling the manufacturers that you bought the car several weeks before it actually came in. So my advice to you is be sure that they correct that when you buy the car. Say, I'm buying the car today. I want my warranty to start today. And I want you to advise the man. manufacturer that you bought the car today. They could be reluctant to do that because they're penalized if they've already reported

the car sold and then they have to back it out, then they will lose a car that they were anticipating earning in terms of production. So it's a very prevalent problem and it'll cost you, it could cost you a lot of money if you had a transmission problem and you found out that the warranty ended a week ago, but you really actually had bought the car before that. let me ask you so if you get into uh you purchase the car you go into finance where do you look to find that out or do you just ask that question if you're smart enough to i can't probably trust that i think you you won't it won't be

apparent in the finance office because everything you sign will probably be dated that day but what will happen is in the in the manufacturer's computer system their their data first use or when they think that you had the car will actually be a month or two earlier if the dealer reported it to you then. So I think a good weapon to have is to make sure you have your you keep that buyer's order that has the date and the mileage of the actual day you took delivery of that car. And then you could probably check with the service department and to have them verify your date of first use and make sure it matches up with the date that you actually took the car from the dealership. And just to really nail it down, you could you could, you could

email or text the manufacturer directly and say give your name, your address, your VIN number, and then you can send them a photostat or attach a copy of a photostat of your vehicle buyer's order and say, this is a date I took delivery of my new Honda Civic, and this is the date I want my warranty to begin from. That way, if something should happen down the pike, you'll be on record in writing with a manufacturer, and they can't argue with you. get ahead of it. Tell you that with no problem.

Okay. Great information. Let me ask you one more question. Sure. Do I buy a car car car, do I buy a Toyota from Earl Stewart or Costco? Well, you're buying it from Earl Stewart, but we're an approved Costco member. And the Costco auto membership problem, actually, they have a separate company. Costco has a separate company they go through, but it's legitimate.

If you use that Costco member buying program and you follow the rules, you will get the lowest price that you can buy that car for anywhere. But it's the dealer the selling of the car. Now, I'm not worried about trusting Costco. I trust Costco. They're the best company I can think of. But the dealer is the problem. If you have a problem, you need to let Costco know that this particular dealer violated the terms of the agreement. they will call that dealer and either cancel him or get him to do the thing he should have done in the first place.

Okay, thank you very much for the call. It was great hearing from you, Bennett. I believe we are going to go back to Josh for some texts, and we'll talk to Rick. We have a couple minutes to burn before the mystery shopping report. Here's the text that comes in My friend recently took her 2016 Audi to Coral Springs Audi for a new battery They charged 205 for the battery

But 433 for the installation They said it took one and a half hours to install Because they had to reconnect the computer to the battery The transmission and all the other systems Why did it take so long and does this sound legit? Wow Something sounds a little off there I have seen so

cars that take a little longer to change the battery because of the location of it like Dodge for a while was putting them down in a behind the fender but I can't imagine that amount the moral to the story is get in writing an estimate of what it's going to cost what state is you from that she said is in Florida Coral Springs okay in Florida the dealer is required to vary no more than 10% from the written estimate. So always get a written estimate in Florida and in other states check with your state law to see what your consumer rights are. And if they say it's going to cost you $150 and they charge your $700, they can't do it.

They can only go 10% over the quarter of the amount. Get the estimate in writing. Yeah. That just sounds crazy. Somebody's playing a game there. Yeah. All right. Here's another one for you, Rick.

I filled the gas tank as full as it could get it. I've done this many times. Bad idea. Now the fuel tank is stuck on F full. Anyone else have this problem? How do I fix it? Is that from overfilling? Like after the click?

It very much can be. The best thing to drive the car for a while to use some of that fuel out. Try to find a place with some speed bumps. No kidding. Because literally the 99.9% of fuel tanks, the sending unit, is actually just a float on a little metal arm. And when you fill it too full, if it got up there all the way, it may jam. So once you've driven to where that gas level has dropped a little ways, hit a few speed bumps, it may jolt it and drop it loose. Is that the way you fix it on cars at our dealership?

No, because they rarely come in with that problem. No, he goes to, he has the railroad tracks. If they do, you can't really be flattery, couldn't you? Could be. The faster the better. One of the biggest reasons why it's a bad, bad, bad idea to keep filling up after that gas handle has clicked off is because of the charcoal canister. Now, what this system does is it collects the fumes as the fuel in your tank will evaporate. Some will evaporate and you'll get some gas fumes there.

These fumes are collected in the charcoal canister and then sucked up into the engine and burned while the engine's running. If you overfill your tank, liquid fuel can get into the charcoal canister. That doesn't sound good. And that liquid fuel then can be sucked up into the engine, but because it's not coming in through the injectors, it can make your engine run horrible for a while and it can also destroy that catalytic or the charcoal canister. and your EVAP system is government required that it be on your vehicle and operating properly so if you damage it by running all that extra fuel in there

you have just cost yourself maybe a couple thousand dollars in repairs yikes all right you heard it here folks don't overfill your tank oh boy Rick is filled with information by the way Rick got me on the straight and arrow I don't do that anymore when he hits that first click that it shuts off Stop there. There you go. We're going to the mystery shopping report, and I want to let all of you know it's very important that we hear from you.

We'd love for you to grade this mystery shopping report from Bremen Honda of Palm Beach. You can log in your grade at 772-497-6530. So take advantage of that. Be part of the show. As I always say, you are a very important part of the show. now back to the recovering car dealer Okay here we go We've been on used car kick for the last couple of weeks

Mr. Shop wise Agent Lightning The world's greatest Mr. Shopper Paid a visit to CarMax and off-lease only Two of the biggest used car operations in South Florida This week we're back with a new car shop of Bremen Honda

In beautiful Green Acres Florida I never knew Most folks in our area are well aware That's near Lake Worth, Florida, by the way, now Lake Worth Beach. Both folks in our area are well aware of the Bremen Auto Group. The Bremen name is synonymous with luxury car sales in South Florida. They offer a high-end branch like Bentley, Porsche, Rolls Royce. Norman Bremen owns 23 dealerships.

I didn't know it was that many in all, including Bremen Honda of Palm Beach. It was April of 2020 when we last shopped the dealership. Back then, they received a D-plus. That's pretty low. folks. That's when, you know, failing is the last resort. We let them squeak by, and that was two years ago, D-plus. Have they improved in the meantime? Well, it's the understatement of the century to say that a lot has changed in the last couple of years. The car business has gone bonkers along with everything else. Upside down. Business, this whole COVID thing,

Ukraine thing, you name it. Monkey Box. I mean, Everything is going on. With astronomical markups now commonplace, we sent Agent Lightning to Bramondh, Palm Beach, to see how they're behaving in this treacherous seller's market. Never been more of a seller's market. Here's a report. I'm speaking as if I were Agent Lightning.

I arrived at Bremenhonda in the mid-morning. I was greeted by Pedro, who asked, What brings you in today, Mommy? What is that? Can you believe that? I mean, you wonder why we have an answer here as a female advocate? I mean, what would I say if I walked in and I'm buying something? They said, hi, Daddy.

Say, what the hell are you talking about? I can't believe he said that. Actually, in the Spanish community, mammy and poppy are generally signs of respect and endearment, usually from a younger person to an older person. Are you kidding? But it's more, it's a familiar turn. We're going to bring age into this? do another. But it's also

it's for the Spanish community. I understand the terms of... Okay. Stop it. I want to tell you what. I told them that we need... This is where it stops. I'm going to do the mystery driver. You two are crazy. We only have 16 minutes of us. I told them that we needed another car. We had five drivers in the house now and only two cars, okay?

He asked if I was looking for something new or I was open to pre-owned. I told him I was looking for a new car, maybe a hatchback. I followed them outside to check out their inventory. They didn't have many cars addressing the lack of inventory. He said he could order me anything I wanted. Very accommodating.

I asked him how long it would take and he replied, you better be sitting down for this folks. Just two or three weeks. Okay, think about that. Ain't going to happen.com. Just two or three weeks. Tell him mommy what she wants to hear. I told him I was in a pension.

I needed something sooner. He then asked if I was trading in a car, replied that I already told him we needed an additional car for the house. He kept pushing me to trade in my car. That's what I said earlier in the show to. Boy, the dealers are sure to use cars. So they would get me top dollar. I told them no.

Again, and we continued on. After walking around the nearly empty lot, they took me to the service area where two new cars were sitting. He pointed at a beautiful SUV and said, this one's available. I took a closer look. It was a 2022 Honda Passport Elite. The window sticker showed an MSRP of $50,808. Next to that, there was this addendum. Here we go.

It's a doozy. A doozy of an addendum. Wheel locks, $399. Whoa. Window 10, 379. Fabric protector, this is even a bigger whoa. Fabric protector, $499. Unbelievable.

Skush guard. Scots card, yeah. A can of scotch card for $3.99, $499 to spray the fabric protector off. Basic maintenance plan, $399. How long would it take to spend $399 on a new car in maintenance? Pinned stripes and doorage cars, oh, jeez. $580, bashful, they aren't. Market adjustment, $2,000.

So now we got the total price, $55,000. 64. And at the bottom of the sticker stated, this is really serious. I mean, I'm not going to laugh at this. This is violation of federal law. The bottom of the sticker stated, destination and handling not included. Well, I got bad news for Brayman. Destination and handling is included. It's included in all new vehicles. It included in the dealer invoice. It's included in the MSRP Marlonian label. So that is a violation of federal law. With basically no other vehicles to choose from, we decided this was a car for me. He then suggested we take it for a ride. Back in the show, I waited more than 10 minutes while he

pulled a passport out for a test drive. We took it for a spin and returned to look at the numbers. Again, Pedro asked me if I was sure, I didn't want to trade something in, annoyed. I snapped back, sure. I'll sell you my car. and I'll just have one vehicle for five licensed drivers. I think she's irritated at Pedro. I think he got to her there. Yeah, yeah. No thanks, he laughed, and nothing phased Pedro.

He laughed it off and said he was only joking. He left me sitting at a table while we went to find the sales manager for pricing. What are we been doing? All these, now he gets the sales manager, the game. The game began. Pedro returned with a worksheet. top lines showed 52,808 bucks. Below that they added 2,256 for accessories. This adds up exactly to the $55,604 total price I saw on the addendum sticker. But they weren't done there. Here we go. Below the accessories, they added $3.99 for electronic filing fee. That's a hidden fee. That's a dealer profit. It's not a tag or registration thing. It's phony.

$9.98 for dealer services. Fony, hidden fee. 995 for you guessed at destination handling violation of federal law. That's a doozy. With all junk fees and accessories, they were

$6,648 over MSRP. And we're talking Bremen Honda in Green Acres, Lakeworth Beach, South Florida. Brayman Honda. I told Pedro was obviously not going to pay all those fees, and he asked what I would be willing to pay for the vehicle. My reply was MSRP. He said he didn't see that happening, but he was on my side, and he would see what he could do. He returned about eight minutes later with a revised worksheet. They lowered the accessories to $1079, $1,079, about $1,200 less than the original sheet. all the other junk fees, including the destination handling, we're still there.

I told them I needed to talk things over, but I highly doubt we'll be back with all the add-on fees and bogus markups. I especially don't like the double dipping on the destination charge. I walked outside, pretended to make a call, and left. Well, folks, that's it. We have pictures of the Moroni of the addendum label of the worksheet. There it is on the addendum at the very bottom, destination and handling. not included. It's the

Hutzpah to put a violation of federal law on each car. Yeah, it's absolutely egregious. I mean, I, for Brehman, I mean, he's an important guy. I mean, he's a billionaire. He used to own the Philadelphia Eagles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at this the addendum sticker. It shows MSRP 50,000-808 that has all the accessories added and then comes down to 55, thousand and 64 then when you come down to their buyer sheet it says sales price is 52,808 where'd that extra two grand cup from that's the they added

the the the market adjustment of 2000 the last item all right so they included that and then they added those accessories again they want to make sure you knew exactly what you're being overcharged for the bottom line is that no one can ever figure out the rationale to any of this and it's just a way of smoke and mirrors to confuse the buyer. And of course, Agent Lightning is definitely not confusable. You can't confuse her. Nothing. Nothing gets by her. And so, but people do. People do get confused. And they assume it's in writing. And Pedro probably has an honest look about them. Most salespeople do. I mean, if you look like a crook, you're not going to make a very good

salespeople person because you're not going to get hired in the first place. And if you get hired, You won't sell any cars. So you have to look on this. Pedro looked on us. That's what happened. People, I promise you, Bremen's selling a lot of Hondas and make a lot of money. But like you said, you don't think Norman Braven really knows what's going on in Green Acres. I guarantee you he doesn't.

And, I mean, I don't know the man. I've known him for a long time, but I've never known him real well. I think he's a good guy. I mean, I know this. He's stood up to manufacturers. He just seemed like a stand-up kind of a guy. No way he is on top of everything that's going on in 23 dealerships. By the way, those wheel locks, I looked it up on Amazon just now.

Between $19 and $25 all across the board for a set of wheel locks. Yeah, not to mention the door-edge guards or, you know, a piece of rubber. Well, folks, it's voting time for Bremen and Honda, Lake Worth Beach, Green Acres, South Florida. And how do you grade them? Let's hear the grades. I mean, I can give you my grade personally. Okay. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to give them another D, but I'm going to be a flat D.

I'm going to downgrade their D plus to a regular D. Even though it's commonplace in this market, it's egregious, but the destination handling charge that took them from a C to a D. Okay, here we go. Negan 1, F, F, F, F, get the heck out of there. Kirk and West 5, God, Virginia, Brayman, equals full of bowl solid F Joseph Kelleher

F run for the exits Vincent G F Tommy Cash F bring back up the smiley face let's see here back to

okay here we go Guy Larraby hope the FTC clamps down on these types of practices a big fat F Mark Anderson Mark from St. Louis F ain't happening

daddy-o Tom Seco F for Mr. Haney and Green Acres Honda Pressure on Trade In and violating laws by double charging destination Wayne Vite huge F Tim Gilliland the biggest F ever

Brian Siddlacko I'll be kind and give them an F plus Mark Ryan F Cram 1624 F when you're violated leave I'm going to go with the crowd here and I'm going to say that's an F right around

about you just yeah well I think Norman Bremen is really out of touch and does everyone realize that it costs more than the what the average American makes in a year to purchase a car I mean the average American isn't making this much a year and Rick you talked about Amazon let's talk about Amazon let's talk about the pinstripes the fabric protector. I mean, I checked that out this morning on the fabric protector. You can play anywhere from $10 to $69.95 on Amazon. Same with the pinstripes. I mean, if you're interested in enhancing your curves on your vehicle, it's all just totally ridiculous and it certainly isn't necessary, really isn't necessary. This double dipping. I don't know what to say. I don't know if there's

a grade that I can give it. I think I'm going to leave. No, I'll grade. I'll grade Brayman. Braymond Honda, Palm Beach, you get a F from me. Any more? Oh, I got a bunch from the texting world. Bob

F for Brayman, what a joke. We got another one here. F right out of the gate. The greeting and first impression was unprofessional and unacceptable. A big F. If my car was on fire in front of Brayman, I wouldn't go in there. to get a bucket of water in their service department are bigger crooks.

Yikes. Anne-Marie, she says, I've drove Hondas for 25 years. Then they lied to me when I went in for another Honda. I walked out and bought a Camry. Jonathan Wellington, all the scammers deserve an F. This one is no exception. And Frank says, I'm in a generous mood. F.

So I think the consensus, I feel like the world's biggest softy for being a D. So I'm going to go down to a D minus. just to maintain a little bit of integrity and a little bit of credibility here. Yeah, I'm going to give them a matter. If we don't fail Bremen Honda, we'll never fail anybody, and they are the worst. I mean, you got Edmore's Honda, you got Del Rey Honda in this area. Don't go into Bremen Honda. We'll go back.

We're going back to Bremenana. I think if we somehow get word to Bremen, he would clean up his act. I just know, he just doesn't know what's going on. Can he beat that out of touch? I mean, I know he has 24. stores. But please, there has to be someone who's been put into place. Most car dealers are out of time. Who can oversee all of this craziness.

They don't. You can't personalize it. It's just the business. He's ultimately responsible. The buck stops with him. But he doesn't know what's going on. Why would he? He doesn't need the money. He doesn't have to lie to people to sell vehicles. So, you know, if he finds out, he'll clean it up for a while. Yeah, I believe that. But there's no enforcement. So why is Ashley Moody? the Florida Attorney General allowed this to happen.

And it's like a speeder's on 995. When everybody's doing 100 miles an hour, what goods are going to do to give one ticket to a guy? It's not going to do any good. So we'll take them off the recommended list. And I'm going to send a copy of this report to Ashley Moody just for fun,

just so I can talk about it when she ignores me. I think it's a great idea. I know she won't respond, but I'm going to send it to her say, this is the kind of stuff that you're allowing to go on in the state of Florida. I think she knows a little more than we give her credit for, and we give her an excuse all the time. And Ashley Moody, if you're listening by now, if you haven't, you should. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars.

We enjoyed your company, and we hope you enjoyed the show. Stay tuned next week, same time, 8 a.m. We'll be right here. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.