Earl Stewart on Cars - 07.31.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Schumacher Buick GMC

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Schumacher Buick GMC in North Palm Beach to see if she can get the low monthly payment advertised on their website for a 2021 Buick Encore. 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”

WIRK-H-G-3 Indian Town. Programming paid for by Vic Canales Media Group. Broadcasting from the Robs Studio. Injured recently, call the Robs Law Group where winning is a habit. 561-570-5-700. 561-570-500. Robs winning for you and our community. Oldies 959 and 106-9.

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, are linked to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spy. master director of our mystery shopping report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, the team is back. It seems like our team's been modified here and there. We're very flexible and adaptable. My son, Josh Stewart, is replacing Stu Stewart. Temporarily.

I beg a pardon? Temporarily. Temporarily. He had to be sure to get that in there. We had to twist his arm a little bit. He's a little Mike shy, but when he gets here, he does an amazing job. But everybody's a little Mike shy, I guess. I mean, it's good.

The adrenaline thing gives you the energy. So now you're not under contract, Josh, and Stu, we'll be back next Saturday. And, of course, we got Rick Kearney, who is back. He had a little cold, or what was it? I know you didn't have COVID. I'm guessing just some nasty head pet cold bug that just knocked me down. We believe it airing on the side of caution. And so he stuck it out last Saturday.

He's back looking great. And I told him if he sneezed or caught, put the mask on immediately. Yep. And ultra caution, that's what we're doing, folks. This is July 31st, 2021. And we're here with the COVID situation and the variant. delta variant and we're dealing with it and we wish you all the health in the world out there and we urge you to take all the necessary precautions and uh um mrs uh i started to say

ms sunrise i wear a lot of hats nancy's sort got herself a really cool black mask but it's an n95 k n95 and she's got it up peaked on her microphone she might put it on later just to show off. But be careful out there, folks. I mean, it's heating up again, but it's going to get better. And we're here to talk about cars. We're not going to talk about COVID. We're here to help you

I guess negotiate the minefields of car dealerships and auto repair facilities during the COVID crisis because things have changed. And prices have gone through the roof with cars. Repairs

too. I've never thought about that, but any way they can raise prices. Inflation is reared as that ugly head. But not everywhere. And two of the leaders, if you look at the top ten factors in the inflation rate today, use cars and new cars. I mean, what car dealers are charging is obscene as a word I... Monstrous. Monstrous, yeah, is monstrous. And there's something called the manufacturer suggested to retail. price, which to me has always been a guidepost. Remember, suggested, MSRP suggested. The manufacturers

suggest this price, and yet car dealers don't seem to like the suggestion very much, because even before COVID, if they could get you over sticker, they do it. And there's a vernacular term in the car industry among car dealers called a slam dunk. I might have coined that. I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised. I played basketball, and maybe that's where it came from. Who knows? I'll take credit for it. Because that means you just charge too much money to the customer, unsuspecting customer.

And what's worse, the customer thought they got a good deal. And today, virtually all prices are slam dunks because most of the prices are over MSRP, manufacturer's suggested retail price. and we're going to talk about that today we'd like to hear your feedback love to have your experience from your car buying, shopping or whatever it may be

the dealerships all around the country that you've been into love to hear from you we have a network of communication vehicles here you probably get tired of hearing it every week, the regular listeners so my apologies

the 877 960 9960 I've only been saying that for 20 years but I forget it every now and then. You know, it's not an interesting memory thing. If you have it in front of you and you don't commit it to memory because you know you can look at it,

every now and then I'll blank on that. 877-9-60-99-6. Look, I snuck a look. It's a crush. It is, yeah. So most of you know that number that are regular. Text number, 772-4976530.

772-497-3530. easy to remember. Our latest communication vehicle. Really cool. I love it. And I looked at my iPhone when I came in this morning in the car and we've got a bunch of anonymous feedbacks. Youranonymousfeedback.com. That's a link. A URL. What's URL stand for, Josh? Universal Resource Locator.

Yeah, that's a mouthful. I like link. Do I get a $50? Oh, no, never mind. That's for something else. Your anonymous feedback. Why, oh, you are, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback.com. And we don't know who you are when you send that in.

For some reason, you know, I can't figure, I need to ask a psychologist why this is. I don't consider myself a privacy nut. I don't consider, you know, I'm open, I'm public. I'm a public figure, and, you know, I, everything about me is out there. Well, not everything. Let's clarify that. Everything outside of the statute of limitations is out there. Everything's out there except.

Anyway, your anonymous feedback.com. We won't know what you are, say anything you want, spit it out, let us have it. We love constructive criticism, but if you want to send us some destructive criticism, that's okay, too. Profanity, vulgarity, everything is accepted on your anonymous feedback, but we won't read it. We will expedite, delete it, expedite, expedite, expedite, delete it. Yeah. So you can tell me to go, expletive, delete myself if you want to, and that's okay. I think we have a couple of those today.

Where are we going this morning? I have no idea. I think you spike my coffee. I'm going nutty here. And anyway, let's get around. Listen, I'm going to go to Rick first because we really missed him last week. And I had no idea of what I hold on the show when Rick wasn't here. We tried to have him on the telephone and with delay or technical difficulty, some other stuff.

It was, you were probably sweating bullets. I mean, we were talking to you and you couldn't hear us or we couldn't hear you. Anyway, you're right back. Well, we had some microphone issues last week. it was my Mike kept getting muted but this week back and ready to go and ready to have some fun

Mike's too Mike I said Mike so Rick can I call you a mic Sure Rick Anything but late to dinner Exactly

When you had Giddy and silly I think we're losing listeners I think our I think our listeners just dropped in that Earl's drunk Let's listen to music I'm not drunk I'm just drunk with happiness.

Anyway, Rick, Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician. He's too modest to say this, but he knows more about cars than anybody I know, and I know a lot of people. I mean, I've been doing this since 1968. I've had, in my first started business, we call them grease monkeys, and then we call them mechanics, and now we call them certified diagnostic master technicians, and they're computer scientists. It's amazing how the trade has become very, very elite, and it's getting more and more so.

And it's going to be kind of interesting to see what you do with a computer on, literally, a computer on wheels, a totally autonomous car. It'll probably be sealed. I mean, what do we need you for? It'll be sealed. You'll have a plug-in, so you'll be reading your computer, right? You'll need somebody there. Yeah. Realistic is what he'll do for you when you call

877-960-960 or when you go to YouTube.com for slash early cars and Rick monitors YouTube by the way so if you do a YouTube, bam, he'll be on it. Ask him a question you've got about your car. Before you go in to see the dealer or the independent mechanic or pep boys

or Firestone or Goodyear wherever you take your car, call Rick first. I bet she. can save you some money. He might tell you, you can fix it yourself. He might tell you where you can get it fixed free. At the very least, he can probably diagnose it close enough where he can give you an estimate. So, Rick Kearney, YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars, or call us 877-960-960, text us 772-497-60. Now, I got Nancy St.com. Now, I got Nancy

My co-host, she's throwing papers on the floor, and she's shuffling papers. Yeah, I'm doing my thing. And she's doing her thing. Trying to find my hat. She is, and I use the name shamelessly, our female advocate there. I mean, we were attacked a couple weeks ago about using the word. We're female and sexes. I've scratched my head.

I've looked for another word, and females the best I can do. To me, it's a scientific term. actually not because I'm a male and she's a female what I mean why can't she sometimes something I'm I mean why do you have to add a prefix to my name to give her name and ah but I digress that's another discussion for another another discussion but Nancy has brought our female listenership up to parity over the many many years we've been doing this show together and we have a a cadre of interested females out there, contributors.

And the first, I won't say it, I'm going to let Nancy tell you. She has a very special cash offer to encourage new listeners of the female persuasion to call the show. Nancy? I do indeed. Good morning, everyone. And welcome. You're an extremely important part of this show. And we appreciate your company Saturday in and Saturday out.

So give us a call toll free at 877. 960 9960 and you can take advantage of www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. You can use that in many ways as Earl well detailed earlier. But this morning I want to talk to the ladies and I want to thank you for, well, empowering and supporting this amazing platform to connect to women and we offer you $50, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And you're very, very important to the show and the car dealers out there that don't understand the financial power that you have. Well, it's a financial disaster for them and the dealership that they're running where they own and whether it's a success or a failure. And, you know, before I go on, I noticed that there are a lot of,

there are a lot of listeners out there that don't realize what an impact words are when a woman comes into the dealership, and today it still exists that boys' club. And one day, one day, I hope that, things will be a whole lot better. And I won't have to mention this as often because I know there are listeners out there. They're kind of tired of hearing certain, well, innuendos that I mentioned.

All the middle chauvinas pigs are tired of that. But there are men out there that are very respectful, more respectful to women than they are men. So it just depends on what area you're in, how old you are. most of all how empowered you are by knowledge knowledge is power but one of the things that are most annoying to me whenever I read even the consumer report or I'm on the internet and I'm looking at things that have to do with purchasing a car leasing a car anything in the auto industry and that's the emotional look the emotional words that they concentrate i say the they i don't want to name anyone in specifically but we are looked at as

very emotional everything is based on emotion and that is so wrong so anyway ladies what do you have to say about that men please give me a call i give you a special invitation to give me a call 877-960 and don't forget if you want to really get knee-deep and dirty www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com Okay. Josh Stewart is the Cybermaster with Stu Stewart on vacation being back next Saturday. Temporary. And he's running our cyber department where we sneak into dealerships and protect to buy a car. And I'll turn the mic over to Josh. We used a substitute shopper.

Yeah, it was a last minute substitution. But thankfully, we have a deep bench with the Erlon Cars mystery shopping team. So we're excited to announce Agent Storm went into the field this week. Interesting. Yeah, Agent Lightning took some well-deserved time off. And yeah, I think he'll be pleased with the report this week. Fantastic. Can we ask if it's a female or a male? Sure. It's a female. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're all pushing for this. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I, in my opinion, I think they make a far more superior mystery shopper. I agree. And we've had nothing but we had, we started back with,

did we start with Agent X? Yes, yeah. He was the legendary Asian X. Yeah, I still, I still see him on Facebook every now and then or somewhere. I see it. Maybe it's my dreams. My nightmares. Agent X, if you're listening, I'm only teasing. We love you. We love you. He went to California, didn't he?

He's all over the place. All over the place. Everywhere. At any rate, they're chasing him. He's one step ahead of the law. He's in a protected program. Well, let's jump into our... I got a text here if you want the kickoff text from Ann Marie.

Good morning. she says. Bigger is not always better for everyone. I couldn't agree more. I have a friend who loves her Toyota Matrix. She says the Rav4 is just too big for her. Is there a chance that Toyota will bring back the Matrix anytime soon? I don't, I can feel that. It's not going to happen, I don't believe, but there is a car in our lineup now that is sort of like the Matrix. It's the Kurola hatchback, and they are coming out with something called the Kurola Cross, which is a brand new model. And it's sort of that hatchbacky sort of body style, and that's coming out this fall. So it may not be the Matrix, which, by the way, I loved, and it was a very smart car.

But there's a nice substitute out there. I'm not piggyback that because Anne-Marie, her thought was, bigger isn't necessarily better. And I think you're right about that, but smaller isn't necessarily better either. And I think cars got too small. And, you know, some of you know that I'm a physicist by education. And there is something about the size of two objects that meet in a collision. And the law of physics is that the, you know, the giant truck will win the battle between the, what's the smallest car on the road today? Smart car.

A mini car? A mini-roaster? Yeah, Mini or a smart car. Smart for two. Yeah. So I think there is a, no matter how safe you build a teeny-weeney car. Remember the picture you took of the smart car in the parking lot when we were together? And unfortunately, because cars tend to get larger, or at least they have for a while,

I don't know when that's going to stop, but I think there's still, the trucks are still getting larger. And more people are buying trucks and vans and SUVs than ever. So if you're driving a small car, I think the smaller cars, like the Matrix, will be replaced. But there'll still be smaller cars, but there's not teeny-witty cars. I think like the universe, the cars had, they started to expand and contract, and now they're expanding again. Just to speak to your physics background. Errol said, stand beside the smart car and want to take a picture. I looked tall.

I liked that. I looked very tall. And, of course, human beings are getting bigger, too. And there was a time, you know, when small cars were big cars, I guess. You're shrinking. I am shrinking. Oh, no. Yeah, they'll make small cars for old guys like me.

I meant losing weight, not height. Well, my height, I've lost two inches. You know, so I used to love my Pontiac Montyville, a two-door. I had a huge amount of leg room. And you guys, my son's ride with me and they laugh because I had the seat all the way back. I'm still, I've still put the seat all the way back, just like I was six foot five. You drive like you're in a Shays Lawn. He's like a rapper.

Okay. We're digressing a lot. We need to move along. Next text here. We're in the weeds. I'm digressing, not you. No problem. We got one from Frank here.

Know how you like Costco. This is not really auto-related. I'm sorry. It's a screenshot of six pounds of meat for 750 bucks at Costco. Apparently it's Japanese Wagyu. I didn't know this was a, I didn't know this was a, I thought Earl on steak is on Sunday is between 8. I believe it is at 8 p.m.

Frank, I'm way ahead of you on that. I have thought about it. And, you know, at some point, it isn't that I, I'll admit, I have a lot of money. I mean, I've been working hard all my life. That's not go crazy. And I can afford to buy things. But some things reach a price where you say, if I pay that, I'm just stupid. And that's where the wigoo goes, even at Costco, which probably has the best wigoo cost.

I bet, yeah. And just, did Frank say how much it was? It's $750. Yeah, I mean, I could afford it. Is it really that tasty? But I would choke on it. Is it really that I find it is not. Yeah, how good could it be?

It is not. Yeah, okay. I've ever had it. It's probably tasty, but not $750. It's my fault. It's my fault we're digress. I'm going to, I'm a brand. the train back on the track here with Costco as I have I have any bounce this office too

or you uh or you excuse me before you go on I have to I have to make a comment about that money that you're bragging about and I find this is an opportune time to let you know that I did order my own Tesla yeah very good and I put a down payment train off the track again then you I did okay now we're back to that barracuda you used to drive We're back on the track. Now, this is serious, folks. Here is an ingenious idea, because I thought of it, this morning when I was over-cathinated. My son's kidding me about that, but I was highly caffeinated this morning, and this thought came to my mind.

How do you buy a car during the COVID crisis when car prices are an all-time high? Even the prices of my dealership are charging are at an all-time high, but we stay below MSRP or never go over MSRP. Other dealers are all that most of the dealers are way over MSRP. So what do you do? Well, I've said before, just don't buy a car. Wait till this microchip shortage is over and then two months from now or three months from now. Then buy a car and you can get a really good price. Wait, don't buy the car today.

Then the thought occurred to me. Now, Josh, what do you think about this? Josh is in the trenches every day. I think you're the worst car salesman I've ever heard. Well, you're right about that. that. And I'm afraid to even go into my own dealership because my salesman attacked me when I say, don't buy a car. And I had to go in. Not only wear a mask or a helmet when I go in. Anyway. How about that bulletproof? Go to Costco and see what the price is on

a car that you want to buy. Costco's got the best auto buying program. So use the Costco auto buying program and go into the dealership, but don't buy the car that they have in stock. order the car you want and you order when you order a car the bad news is you got to wait the good news is you get exactly what you want and you have time to think about it and uh so you go into you want to buy a buick you go into shoemock or buick and you uh and you go to Costco they're a Costco member and uh and you say this is the price today and i'm gonna i will order the car at that price. But I want to

you to change that price to the Costco price when the car comes in. And order a car that you know is going to be coming in in a week. If you order a car from the manufacturer, I don't mean order a car that they get from the West Palm Beach Buick dealer

versus the North Palm Beach. You'll have that the same day. Order a car from the manufacturer. And they put in there, I'm making this up as I go along and say in there, I expect delivery no sooner than 60 days and, of course, you could put in no later than 180 days, you know. So you get a time frame that would be right around 90 days and then you have the option in your contractual agreement with a dealer

to change that price that you agreed to today. It will be right on the contract. Today's Costco price or Costco price 90 days from today. You have your cake and eat it too. I think that'll give you a fighting chance. I give you a fighting chance. So what do you think about that idea? You attorneys are out there, especially, what do you think about that?

And you can use true car, same way. And there are other third-party car buying services. I prefer Costco. And if you're not a Costco member, pay the $60 or $65 for an annual membership. And it's nickels and dimes compared to the money you'll save. Yeah, you can make up for that in the free samples. Exactly. Okay.

to text. Okay, well, I don't have any more text right now, but I do have some anonymous feedbacks I can get to, or Nancy might have something. You know, real quick, I've got John on the line, but I want to mention before we take his call. I want to thank you, John, for, you know, weekend, week out, updating me by sending me some news articles, and I truly appreciate it. I don't always get a chance to thank you, but a recent article that John sent me was in reference to the Crypto King and he was driving and this was from

CNBC. He's a rich guy right? He's a yeah the Crypto King and he is very very wealthy so anyway he was driving the Tesla

Plaid and it burst into flames and this guy's worth I don't know a billion over a billion dollars and he was I believe he was outside of

Philadelphia, and it took responders 90 minutes to put that out. And it is really frightening, startling that these things happen without

notice. So anyway, John is on the phone and he'd like to speak to us and he calls us from Palm City. Good morning, John. Well, thank you for the reference. I just want to mention what Nancy brought up financial power. And I know Earl and Nancy know exactly what this group. This group of people just absolutely hate going to car dealers, absolutely despise it. So they go

online, they buy new and used cars. And that's one of the reasons besides the coronavirus, that there's so many even popping up with car buying sites. And the group in 2020, they bought 32% of all new car sales. And guess what the group is called the Millennians. Millennians are 1981 to 1996. That's approximately 72 million people. But they just despise and hate going, and you really can't blame them to go directly to car dealers.

So they buy online. But it's a financial power of these people. And like I say, they make up 32% of the new car sales from 2020. And that's actual facts. So I just bought them up. Earl and I don't buy a lot of cars except somebody buys a Tesla, which I can't afford. But we're in the silent generation. That's a lower group, probably the lowest of all groups.

That's 1928 to 45. That's only 24 million people in that. The biggest group that's in America, the baby boomers, that's 46 or 64. That's a heavy buying group, too. so I just want to mention good for the millennials they don't want to go to car dealers they buy online

I'm a pre-boomer I was born in 1940 before the war before we went into the war yeah that's the silent generation I may not too hi Ray you're not that silent though

alright dad no I'm a millennial I'm a millennial at heart yes my body's pre-boomer and my mind is a millennial. John, how'd they come up with that? The silent, the silent group?

I have no idea with that. I don't think most of the people I know my age. I have to look that up. Earl's far from silent. Yes, yes. Everyone here will second that. What did they come up with Generation X from 65 to 80? I have the answer.

65 million people. That's me. I've looked up the etymology of the silent generation. It's because children of this era were expected to be seen and not heard. That's right. Exactly.

Exactly. I used to hear that all the time from my father. Yeah. Yes. And then everyone in... I grew up under that room. Me too. Everybody under my roof that I grew up with

were all speaking, Sicilian. All of them. And the kids were just like, huh? But we started to understand the curse words. So that's all I know. Right. Well, I grew up in New York, and they spoke every language that you can imagine New York City. Yeah. But anyhow, I just thought I'd point that out to you, and that's a very important group, the millennials.

Yeah, you're right. They are, they are indeed. They have minds of their own, that's for sure. They do things a different way. Tell me about it. And people think it's the reason what, with the coronavirus, that there's so many audible buying groups, oh, it's a lot to do with this generation. Sure. They just don't want to go to dealers.

You got that right, John. Well, thanks again. You are a great source of information, and I love talking to you mainly because you're an old guy like me. Okay. And we, you know, us old guys, I like that. I get a bumper sticker. Old guys rule or a t-shirt, something like that.

Sure, we can make that. Thank you, John. You're right. Call again, please. Thank you, John. Keep that mail coming, John. I appreciate it. Have a wonderful weekend.

877960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530 and don't forget wwwWWURanonymous Feedback.com You know, back to that silent generation, you and I are excluded. I mentioned you, but you and I are... You're a boomer. You and I are excluded. You're born in 1942. You're a boomer.

There might be some overlap, you know, a silent. Boomer. Yeah. I'm far from a silent boomer, that's for sure. She ain't no silent boomer. Silent but deadly. Okay. They can hear me down in Lake Worth.

Okay, let's move on. We're getting, we're digressing squared. Rick is really going to leave. This is what happens when Stu goes on vacation. Yeah. Everything goes off the rails. I have a love letter from somebody from last week. I thought it was very sweet.

Came through the anonymous feedback. One of your worst shows ever. You need some good guests to keep your audience interested in less return callers to add nothing to your show. You know, he's right. I don't think we have the worst show ever, but he's right about guests. And I've been trying, we've had guests occasionally, just very, very occasionally. And the logistics of it are difficult, but we should do it. And let's throw an invitation out.

We want, first of all, you have to be interesting. I mean, we've had Justin Lynn. I mean, the attorney from New York? I'm talking about a live guest, but a phone-in guest is good. I'd like to have a live guest on the studio, but you really have, what I'm talking about is a blue chip of, you know, like Ashley Moody, the Attorney General or Elon Musk. No, I know I'm shooting for the movie.

My father always hits your wagon to a star, and if you fall short of your goal, you still do pretty well. So all you celebrities out there, rich guys, billion. billionaires, geniuses, politicians. Criminals, you know, criminals are welcome. We want people. We know a lot of them. We want people that are well-known, interesting, articulate.

If you're an articulate criminal, we'd love to have you on. Yeah. You know, like, I'm a criminal. I mean, I'm a reformed. Yeah, reformed. Look, how interesting I am. So if you think, listen, this started something. See, a negative feedback became a positive feedback because we're going to act on it.

And I would like right now to put in motion a contest, apply, not vigilante and not anything else, but you apply for vigilante too, but apply to be a guest on our own cars. And we would love to have someone really interesting. And if you know somebody that's really interesting, ask them, we'll have you live in the studio. If we have to, we'll phone in or YouTube or we can video in them. Couldn't we, Jonathan? I'm we could come have them in my video. Jonathan can do anything. I'm telling you right now, you need to be interesting and challenging.

Controversial is good. We don't care if you're pretty or handsome or, you know, we just want you to be interesting. How about another dealer? You could even be stupid if you're interesting enough and articulate enough. Another car dealer would be fantastic. In fact, this, I'll just, any, franchise car dealer in the world if you're a franchise car dealer you have an invitation the first

franchise car dealer to agree to come on the show in person or call in we take you up on it i don't care who you are yeah and we had uh mentioning car dealers we had uh the guy from off lease mark yeah mark he you know he he called in maybe uh how about the guy from uh sonic uh he was President Sonic Automotive Group, one of the largest automotive groups. Yeah. He was pretty interesting on CNBC. How about Michael Jackson, CEO of Auto Nation? Yeah, I mean.

That'd be gold. He, he, he, he. Yeah. Not to be accused, but. Where's your gloves? For the Jackson 5. I'll be here all week. Anyway, let's get back to something.

I don't know where we're going. We'll see. This one, this one's in Rick's wheelhouse here. I have a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Took it to my auto mechanic for routine oil change. A week later, I noticed oil on the garage floor. Took it back in as I thought they did not secure the oil filter. But I was shocked.

They told me to take the Jeep to a transmission shop for a rear main seal and tranpan gasket replacement. Obviously, I was taken aback by this. What's your opinion? I sense I was taken advantage of as my husband passed away last year, so they must think I'm ignorant. P.S. I took the Jeep to another mechanic for a second opinion. He stated, I did not. not need those parts replaced. Good for you. Perfect answer. Congratulations.

Second opinion. She kind of answered it herself. Have it checked. Yes, because I... You remember the old joke about the neighbor that would go next door to his... He bought a Volkswagen when they were hot and they were super fuel economy and he was bragging about getting

50 miles a gallon or what was good back then. And so he would come over and he would siphon gas out of his neighbor's Volkswagen. And then suddenly his gas mileage he was bragging about dropped to 10 miles per gallon so he took it in to the car dealership and they and they spent hundreds of dollars going over and probably told him it was fixed and then he brought the Volkswagen back home and now his neighbor snuck over and started adding gas

every day now the guy's getting 300 miles a gallon maybe a guy did the same thing with the oil leak maybe there's a neighbor that hates you and comes over there i mean it would be a really cool joke, pour a little oil onto the car in the guy's garage and sneak back. You truly have an evil mind. I do. It's astonishing. I go to my group meetings which keeps me recovering.

And that's supposed to be a secret. There's a group of recovery card dealers and I can't talk about it. I like the one that you went to and they presented you with a gift and it was an egg beater because you stir and stir and stir things. Stirring the pot.

Well, what's more likely is they had left the drain plug a little bit loose. It was dripping. They tightened it up, and the oil that had been blown back by the wind as you're driving, they said, well, look there. See, that's your rear main seal leaking. And then they washed it down. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with the car.

Do you think that was an honest mistake, or do they get, like, a referral? No, that's the way described that, that was a felony. Well, my opinion, what probably happened, and it's just a guess, a fictional thought here, is the mechanic goofed up he didn't double check his work he didn't double check his drain plug and then when they saw the drips they brought it in

they tighten it up and instead of being honest about it saying yes we made a mistake we're sorry he could have lost his job there's a coupon for a free oil change for the next one and had a customer that would have been back to them over and over and over now that customer is never going to go to them again

and that customer is going to tell hundreds and hundreds of people how terrible they are. Versus if you do the right thing and you admit that yes, you made a mistake, which we're all human. Exactly. I make mistakes every day. Yeah. The fact is you own up to it.

You fix the mistake. You make the customer happy. And you tell them you made a mistake. And that customer is going to tell 10, maybe 15 or 20 other people, hey, this shop, yeah, they goofed up, but they made it right. And they were honest. I got a great idea. After we get through the rest of the text, we're going back to the room. text, we're going back to Rick, and I'm giving time to think about it. Rick, I want

to tell us what was the worst mistake that you ever made while you're working for me. I know that one right now. Okay. Well, wait. He's going to say, when I came to work for you, anyway, we'll come back to you and we'll get back on these texts. That's a great point, Rick. Don't be afraid of the truth. No. Exactly. It can really empower you in so many different ways. And boy, I'll tell you what. But that word of mouth, it really is, it travels. It's much better than any advertisement or commercial you're going to see in the newspaper or on TV. If you do right by people, they will tell 10 or 12 other people.

If you do wrong by them, when they find it out, they're going to tell 150 other people. Very good point, Rick. Why don't I feel like I'm a church? Josh. Because you've been preaching all these years and we're finally listening. Josh, that last textor, you said that her husband had passed away. Yes, sadly. And that's how all of this unraveled about her Jeep.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm just, would you say she would be a senior or she, it's hard to determine. Yeah, it might be a safe assumption to make, but you never know. But to my, to that text in my point, you know, that you can really volunteer and you sound like you're the texter. Was that an anonymous? That was anonymous, yes. Okay, so two anonymous, you can volunteer. You can volunteer with the Attorney General's office, and you can do so much good because it sounds like as if that you are definitely knowledgeable.

And it also takes me to... Seniors versus crime is the name of that group. Yeah, with the Attorney General, Seniors versus Crime. And Earl and I had the opportunity to speak at one of our speaking engagements to several. well, authorities on this, and there are so many scams that are going on even today in this element and being taken advantage of in this industry. It's just unbelievable. This also takes me to the volunteers that we need to assist seniors online and to more or less take them through the steps to get them the information that they need. You can go to Erlon cars.

and you can volunteer there for the assistance for senior car buyers. And also really another important volunteers that we need, and that's for Earl's vigilantes. You don't have to take an engine apart. You can help the people in your community. You can help us. And we definitely need help here in achieving our goals. We need all of us.

Now, we are going to go to a first-time caller that makes me happy, and that's Stacy from West Palm Beach. She is a first-time caller. Good morning, Stacey. Hi, how are you guys? We're doing well. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for calling Earl on Cars, and you have won yourself $50, and I can get that out to you.

If you'll mail me your address, you can go to Earl on Cars to find my email address. What can we do for you? Thank you. Well, we went into, my husband and I are big Earl Stewart fans, but we've never bought a car in there. And yesterday, we went in, we put a deposit down on a brand new Venza that we're very excited about. But I have friends and family who say, do not buy a brand new, redesign car. You know, it's the same thing you hear, don't buy a brand, a new model. first year. So I just want some reassurance that the Venza is going to be a decent car

for us. I guess that's my question. Josh is more qualified on products, current product knowledge than anyone. So, well, the Venza came back. It was around from like 2009 to 2014 originally. And then it came back this year as a brand new redesign as a hybrid, sort of like the RAV-4, you know, I do hear that a lot about people are concerned about getting a car the first year that it comes out. But, you know, I believe that through the research and development, I mean, there's iterations of that car that are being built for years and years before it's released to the public. And I think Toyota's been pretty good about vetting out their new models. And so I can only speak anecdotally, but, you know, we've sold, you know,

quite a few events since they came out this year and I've had nothing but raid reviews granted there's you know we don't have one on the road with 50,000 miles yet but so far so good I check the consumer reports rating and I we can do that for you and give you

that it wouldn't have the history because it would only have the new vehicle preliminary but you're correct your friends are correct and the fact that I've said on the show many times if you're a conservative person and you want to to be sure that you get the very, very best bang for your buck, find a car that was introduced

at least a year ago, and that way you're, there's bugs on every car. The best car built is not perfect. And that's the way you would get the most perfect car is one that had been on the road for probably one or two years. I would, my fallback would be consumer reports, and then we can get you that information. I got it right here. It's a recommended vehicle with a score of 78. Well, that's a high score, recommended by consumer reports. But the caveat is it'll have bugs in it that it wouldn't have if you bought it three years from now.

But the bugs hopefully would be minor. Toyota, as Stu said, I hate to scratch our back because we are Toyota dealers in full transparency. But Toyota bills are one of the best cars on the market. They're always on most of the models who are on the recommended list. And so you picked a good high-quality car, but in a strict sense, if you want to wait for a year or two, you probably have one with fewer bugs and the one you bought. Okay. And that's a really...

Well, we're very happy, and the salespeople yesterday couldn't have been nicer, and we've read all the reviews, you know, from Edmund to Kelly to Motor Trend. And they've all been good, but I just wanted, I was a little worried about what people were saying. Well, it's nice of you to call, and I have to be, as Rick said earlier, you've got to be totally honest. And I could have told you, don't worry about it, you'll never have a problem with a car. And I'll tell you this, if you cancel the order, the salesman is going to be really mad at me. well i don't think we plan to do that but and hopefully i will be uh you know at your service department a lot either so sure and you know stacey it i i wonder why the uh i wonder why the venza was

discontinued uh it really surprises me i drove that utility vehicle and i really liked it uh but i I'm driving an Avalon now, but that is a nice vehicle, but you do have your concerns when so many people are saying, you know, wait a while until, you know, the vehicle has, you know, been on the market for a while. But you did purchase a great vehicle, and Stacey, I thank you for calling and help. Thank you, guys. I hope you have a great weekend. And $50 coming your way, Stacey. We got you in the database so we can. And Stacey, spread the word.

spread the word that we are inviting ladies to give us a call because they are an important part of this industry and they can empower and support and connect with women right here and help us build this platform. Thank you. Well, thank you. I will. 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-49-30. And don't forget, www. You're Anonymous Feedback.com.

We're going to get back to Josh, where he's got some texts piling up. I got some feedback here from a skeptic. Earl, I thought you were supposed to be a recovering dealer. Are you selling cars over MSRP? If so, you're just like the rest of them. I certainly am not. I'm sure you have your hidden fees somewhere like all the other dealers. That sounds like, yeah, a lot of car dealers that are competing with my dealers

say that Earl Stewart really has hidden fees. He hides him in the price of the car. That's my favorite line. You hide the fee in the price. And then I have to explain to people the whole point of a hidden fee. You can have all the hidden fees you want as long as you put it in the advertised price. Charge whatever you want to try. Give the customer the opportunity to shop and compare your price.

No, we've never, we haven't sold the car over MSRP. since I've been there. Yeah, and Josh has been, what, 20 years? Close to it. Yeah. So we used to back in the day, and it was a matter of pride, to be able to get something over sticker. And the way we would do that, we would steal the trade.

And people would come in and you was undervalue the trade. Don't say that. Yeah. In fact, I don't think we're selling any cars now at MSRP, but maybe one or two. Yeah, like one. or two niche models. I mean, inventories are super low and some are even lower than others, but never a penny over. Yeah. Okay. Next. All right. Here's one. We talked about this earlier. This is about the unvarnished truth you want to hear from our listeners. Your video,

how to check oil and jumpstart your battery is disgustingly sexist. Apparently, the only reason women need to check their oil is if their husband is out of town and they need to haul the kids across the country to a soccer match. Shame on you. looked up the video in question and you know it's guilty as charged I mean we the technician in the video clearly said this is for you soccer moms out there whose husband might be out of town and this is where you put it in your window washer fluid and this is where you check your oil and I think it was well intended but very very near-sighted well we're you know we're talking about

a revolution this the women have really really jumped on the bandwagon now you're reading about it in the Olympics. Nancy, this is your turf. You know, you've been around a while and you've lived through the worst of male chauvinism and he's referring to the second term, soccer mom.

I shamelessly admit I've used that term and it's not right. You have. Not right. You have. You know, I don't know where to start. It's I'm a little

reluctant to give out my home address, but you can drive by my home, see me in the driveway, and you can see me checking out the PSI in my tires, make sure they're cold, and, you know, putting the windshield wiper fluid in the reservoir, doing so many things with my car, but I came out of the 50s, the 40s, the 50s, and today's mindset is just an incredible situation where there's so much assumption that women aren't educated enough to do so many different things. And you certainly don't have to graduate from college. It's just a given you're responsible, you're educated, you're street smart, you know exactly what you want, you know what you need, and you know how to fix it.

So we're going to correct that video, and that's... And this takes me, you know, to a lot of... a lot of advertisement where, uh, pardon I kind of scratched and etched and everything else, but it seems like as if that everyone's, uh, they're concentrating on this, this look, uh, if Jonathan can pick it up where women are so emotional. And this is, uh, they are emotional, but it is in a positive way. I find that some men are, uh, aggressive. And they want to prove that they're, for lack of another word, macho. So I can be macho.

I can be anything that you want. And I also can be emotional. It can be an advantage. It can be a disadvantage. It's how you control it. So to this sexist remark, Josh, there's really nothing more that I can say without rank. It was inadvertent, and until Josh and I talked about it, we never thought about it. And we both, I think, all of us in the room here, and probably including you, Nancy, use the term soccer mom.

And then you start to think about it, and you see the implication. And there are a lot of terms that we use innocently. And because we grew up in a culture that terms we use every day, we're starting out to look at them. I mean, look at the Olympics, the costuming in the Olympics. Now, how long have the Olympics been going on? How long have you seen front page pictures and on television of costuming, and everybody's applauding it and say, look how cute that gymnast is? And now somebody finally has the nerve to stand up and say,

why don't you dress them in? Why the double standard? Why the double standard? So we're learning, and thank you very much for that excellent anonymous feedback. And if Stu said, Josh, you look alike. All my sons look alike to me. That's the second time you called him, Stowe. That's my nickname in high school.

Thank you very much for that, for that, an honest feedback. Yeah, you should have named everybody Stu. Who is the... George Foreman. Yeah, George. I'll be Stu 3. Yeah, it's not too late. There you go.

I don't think you're allowed to legally change my name now. I'd have to consent to that. Ladies, remember, I have $50 for one more new lady caller. So give us a call at 877960. And I'm going to go back to the phones. We're going to go to Lake Worth where L. Matthews is calling us. Good morning. Morning.

How's it going? Hey, hi. How are you? You're a first-time caller, and you are a lady. Yes, I am. Yeah, I only, I only had your last name. Which, what's your first? L-L-E-L-E-L.

Okay, yeah, yeah. That's her first name, Mel. Oh. Good morning, Al. Good morning. Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. Thank you. Yeah, my friend is daily listener.

We listen to you every weekend. He always tell me, like, you've got to call these guys, because I always have questions about my vehicles, and now I have a question about my trailer, actually. So going back to the street smarts, right? I bought this trailer. I was making payments on it to this guy. He shows up, and it's just a complete, like, construction site in here,

and nothing's working. And so I am writing up contracts each day that he comes back to work on it, an agreement saying, you know, he's going to bring the title from his ex-wife after court and things like that crazy stuff. And so the second day he comes back, I give him as another payment of $1,500 towards it. And he was sleeping in his truck when I got back. And so I wrote up the agreement saying, you know, if I don't get the title by this date,

then I can still back out of the agreement and get all my money back, and he gets his trailer. he signs it and then he comes back like an hour later and he tells me that I shorted him $440 that I owe him $440

and he didn't count the money in front of me so he's threatening the whole place he's like I'm going to take it I'm going to burn it and he's like you're not getting the title or my help and so anyway

I spent the last week fixing it up trying to get the title with the bill sale that I have. And so I sent on the bill sale. I got the VIN verified because I do have a picture of the title. I just don't have it. I got the VIN verified by the

sheriff. And the tax collector place, they wouldn't title it still because it's out of state. You guys know of any way that I could get it titled here in Florida without having to contact this guy again? Josh can answer that.

Oh, actually, I'd have to look that one up. That's a tough one. This sounds more like a like a legal matter than a titling matter i mean good point i'd have to take a the court probably how i'd do like a civil thing you could probably do small claims it's a it's a slam dunk i mean you would uh i think once the uh once he was uh received a subpoena for trial he know he would lose uh but uh maybe before you do that uh find an attorney uh if you have a friend attorney would do it pro bono just have them write a letter because you clearly would win this in court, but you might

need to do that. You probably wouldn't need to do it if you made the threat in writing from an attorney. Yeah, and that definitely would create a lot of press also because you definitely have a case. Yeah, a well-warded, a semi-threatening letter from an attorney can work wonders. It can go a long, long way, Al. Oh, perfect. I'm new to Florida, so I've played it smart, right? Like, I got all in the paper and all that stuff,

but now here I am. It's like you've just got to know who to trust and read them well. Welcome to the Sunshine Station. I understand where you're coming from. We'll give you the name of an attorney, and it's called the show, and he's local in the New York, and we'll ask him, I can't promise you he'll do it, but I think he will.

We'll ask him to write a letter for you if you give him the fact. So we'll hook you up with Justin Lynn. Yeah, I mentioned him earlier. Justin Lynn would be a great source of information and to lead you in the right direction, definitely. And to what you said about being new to Florida, well, life is just a little bit different here in this state, and it's a beautiful state.

I love it. Pittsburgh is a great place to be from but the rules are different here and you learn quickly especially when you're a lady It's the wild west Oh my goodness Yeah definitely

So I thank you Thank you for calling Oh no thank you guys And please give us a call back And let us know how things turned out for you And please you can go to Earl on Cars And you can get my email address

where I will send you $50 to whatever mailing address you have given me. How do you call the show before, Elle? Are you a first-time caller? Yeah. Very good, great. And spread the word, Elle. We need ladies to spread the word once they give us a call and learn about the show and help us to empower and support

and to let them know that we are here to connect with them. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Okay, let's get back to the text here. We've got a whole bunch of them backing up. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. That number is real important for us to give out in the morning because there's people tuning in and tuning out.

And another great source is if you're a little shy, www. www. Your AnonymousFeedback.com. Now back to Josh. All right. Here's one on the anonymous feedbacks. This one's referring to a previous mystery shop. I just watched your mystery shop, shopping report for City Kia of Greater Orlando, and that's just disgusting. There's no excuse for that kind of rip-off. I have to be nuts to pay that price. And I guess they're referring to, what was it, the $10,000 over sticker for a tell you ride? Was it 10,000 or 20?

17,000, Jonathan just said. 17. Let me ask you this, Dad. If you sell someone a car for 17,000, $1,000 over a sticker. When do you think you'll be able to trade that person out of that car? Oh, man. You probably won't live long enough. There was a, by the way, there is a, there was a class action suit in Stewart, Florida, and it was considered a crime against seniors, the law in Florida. I think all states don't have laws that make it a crime.

or a more egregious crime when you take advantage of a senior. And there was a group of car dealers, there was one car dealer. It was actually Toyota Stewart, which is now Treasure Coast Toyota. And there was 10 people in the class action, and they went against them for that, for charging numbers like $17,000. Targeted to seniors. To seniors, yeah. And there were leases mainly.

And what they were doing is they were taking the trade-ins in for zero. Yeah, a paid-off trade. Yeah, they would. And the senior wouldn't assume that there was something in the transaction that was legal, and they would get their brand-new car. They probably thought they were buying the car. And they would give them the trade-in, and they would apply the full value to the lease

and charging, you know, unbelievably high, obscene profits. Shameful, shameful stuff. Rick, do you often come in contact in your department with comments that are made about, you know, taking, being taken advantage of whether it's service, whether it's maintenance or whether, hey, did you listen, did you hear that so-and-so bought this car and this was a nightmare, and they just comment? We hear it all the time. And you wouldn't believe the number of people that will come in and see, well, I was just at this other shop.

And they charged me to do this, this, this, this, and they give us a whole list of things. And you look at the car and it's like, maybe they did about half that work. And they did a slipshod job on the rest of it. Second opinion, if you're spending a lot of money, you know, I can't believe the number of people that don't get second opinions. And a lot of people, I'm going to digress a little bit, do this. with a medical do that with the doctors and if they find a doctor that they like and they're close and around the corner and they have a complex serious operation or diagnosis or whatever the case may be let me tell you folks most second opinions result in a different opinion not always

the right one but if you go to three doctors and you get three diagnoses you will see differences. Yeah, for sure. With a car the same way. So I'm not comparing your life to your car, but with any expensive repair, you have a second, even a third opinion on your repair. And Rick, you know, most often, and I think you might find this situation, as I said, in your department, there's a lot of people who purchase a vehicle and never take into consideration

how much it's going to cost to keep that car on the road. That is something that I get a call phone calls about all the time and also the comfort of that vehicle. You are stuck. And you can't predict things that are going to happen. Just yesterday I diagnosed a car. Brand new car, the folks have only had it less than a month, 1,700 miles on it.

The air conditioning quit blowing cold, and it was because a rock or something on the road had hit the condenser just right and poked the hole in the condenser. It's an expensive repair, but fortunately for that, with insurance, your insurance will cover that. So it's under the comprehensive insurance portion, so they've only got to cover their deductible, but still, you know, a three-week-old car, and it's just all of a sudden, boom, the air conditioning's out, but things can happen. I mean, this world is crazy. It's very important to do your homework for sure.

They're jumping on that comprehensive insurance, a lot of people don't realize that, and you take it into a country. car dealer, shareper, then you've been a mechanic working on your car, they might not tell you either, but if it's external damage, then your comprehensive insurance. A lot of people, and sometimes they don't even know, oh, was your fault, or, you know, you just don't think. Always contact your insurance company. And the thing that a lot of people don't know that with windshields, if you have a little bitty crack, a little chip, you get a new windshield. And no, no charge. Yeah, yeah. And glass companies will come right to you to do it.

Yeah, isn't that amazing? Everybody listening to Earl on cars now, when you go out and get in your car, look at your windshield very carefully. And if you have any kind of damage, no matter how minuscule, small, chip or scratch, if it won't come out, which you probably won't, you get a new windshield and your insurance company will pay for it. Just don't break it yourself. Don't break it yourself, no, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You had to throw that out there. Well, I was just thinking that, yeah.

Yeah, mine's getting kind of dirty. That actually happened to me about six months ago. You're driving on a turnpike. I don't know. A rock got kicked up by another vehicle, hit my windshield, and I had a crack that went about six inches across the windshield now. So I called up the glass company, and they ordered the new windshield. The next day they came out, replaced it right there in the parking lot while it was at work.

Boom. Yeah, that's a great story. There's a lot more out there that don't have that success. And it takes them just a little longer to prove and to get it done. I do have a little warning for people, though. Just nowadays there's so many complicated sensors and cameras in the mounted right by the windscreen. So make sure you get the right windshield for your car. If it's incompatible, it can make your pre-collision system and your radar cruise control and those things.

Put those on the fritz. And if you're going to break the windshield yourself, you want to be sure the webcam doesn't get you with a hammer. Yes, never have the cameras on when you're committing a crime. Great detail, Josh. We're going to go to Doug. Doug's a regular caller from Boca. Good morning, Doug. Hey, good morning. How are you guys?

That's my middle name, Doug. Douglas. Earl Douglas Stewart. Hey, Doug. Oh, wow. Hey, how are you guys? I miss the sun's surprise but I can watch it now. I was going to say Sim is having end of lease

and I'm not going to mention the dealership but it's okay with us if you want to. It's up to you. Okay, so it's Del Rey Honda. And they used to be really nice but all of a sudden we went in there

and I didn't like any of their deals they were just like really high I go, you know, it looks like you're taking advantage of people now. And last time I did the lease with them, they were really nice. And now one of the managers said, well, you've got to understand it's just a sign of the times. And we really don't need to do anything because everyone needs a car and we're just going to do what we want to do. And I go, really? I go, are you kidding me?

Yeah, Doug, that dealership is owned by Warren Buffett. I don't know if you knew that, but that's a Berkshire Hathaway company, and I don't know how that can help you because it's going to be kind of hard to get hold of Warren. But I think if you went online and tried to make a formal complaint, I think because it's a publicly traded company and because it's a Berkshire Hathaway company, you could probably get their attention. But, yeah, their Del Rey, oh yeah, Deerfield Toyota was also bought by Berkshire Hathaway.

That's great. They bought the Van Nuys Auto Group. Berkshire Hathaway did a while back, but I'm glad you report that, but there's an element of truth to what he says, Doug. All the car dealers are charging too much money for cars now, including us, and you can get a better deal if you wait because of the microchip shortage

so Del Rey Honda just joined the bandwagon raising all their prices. They are charging maximum money because as the man said was the truth there's so few hondas people are paying because they have to. Wow.

Okay, well then maybe we'll just wait. Wait, yeah. Good idea. Wait and two months you can buy that same Honda for less money. Okay. It was weird, too, because I brought my car, and then they go, hey, we would like to buy your car. Yeah. And I said, it's not for sale.

They wanted my Honda Civic S-I. And I said, no. If you could somehow sell that car, Doug, and get by with that for two months, without it for two months. Yeah, if you put a little mileage on it, if you could use Uber or carpool or something and get by, you would find out that you got a lot more money. for your car than you will when you trade it in. Because just like new car prices are sky high, use car prices, aka trade-in prices, are sky high too.

So if you want your cake and eat it too, sell your used car today and then buy your new car in two or three months. Oh, okay, that sounds like a good idea. And we do have two cars. So what we do is I'm not driving her car. We drive my car because my car has hardly any miles.

So we'll do that for two more months and see what happens. Yeah, shop the car that you don't need with two or three places. Go to CarMax. They're in Boynton. You can go to We Buy Anycar.com. You go to Carvana. And it's easy to shop a car today. There are a lot of people out there actively buying car dealers.

Get two or three or three or four prices on your Honda trade in. and you will get thousands of dollars more today than you will in three months. And you'll be able to buy that Honda for probably thousands of dollars less in three months. You'll have your cake and eat it too. Okay, I will try that. You guys have a nice say I'm making coffee. I need coffee, you know. All done.

Take care. Enjoy your coffee. Thanks so much, Doug. Great hearing from you. Hey, 77-960, and you can go to www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Take advantage of that. I think that Rick is up, and he's got some YouTubes. We've got a couple right now.

Stevie is asking, when is Toyota going to bring out a full electric vehicle? Actually, I have the answer right here in my brain. It's the BZ4 is coming out, and I believe it's going to be middle. of next year. And the BZ4 is a conglomeration between Toyota and Subaru, as I recall, for a full electric car. They've done that before with the FRS and the BRZ. So hopefully we will see that very soon, and we'll see other models of electric coming out soon. Yeah, I think they're, and they're intending on having, by 2025, about 10 or more, all electric vehicles. So they, you know, Toyota's been sort of late to the game there. They put other money into the

hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell, but I think the wind's blowing in pure EV. And Kit Kat is asking a question for Earl. With all the chip shortages, why wouldn't the manufacturers make more of the models with less required chips, like manual e-breaks and keyed ignitions? Well, you know, you have to make the cars that people want to buy. And if you make, I think what they're doing right now is there are a lot of A lot of the shortages are in trucks. Ford is getting murdered because of their truck microchip shortage for trucks. So they could probably build more other models, but people want trucks.

And supply them in. All right. Interesting. Are they, I've heard that some manufacturers are just withholding some chips from the cars. So certain features, maybe very unimportant minor features aren't there. And then they'll bring you back in, like a recall to replace the chips when they're available. Yes. Okay. Yeah, excuse me, speaking of microchips, you know, there's still so many people who are not familiar with what the microchip does.

They do everything. Exactly, they do everything. And short of, you know, sounding like a physicist, just break it down, they do everything. And back in the day, I believe it was back when Earl was at Westinghouse, little did we know that we were both. in the same area. Isn't it amazing? That story. I lived in Pittsburgh. He worked in Pittsburgh. Anyway, the microchip revolution was huge back then, and it was for these huge computers and everything else in between. But today we are in a shortage which has affected a lot of the auto industry. Back to Rick? We're caught up at the moment on the YouTube's, but

Well, keep those vocal cords warm because I've got a question for you, Rick, or somebody does, an anonymous person. Rick, I saw on Channel 5, on the Channel 5 news recently that the only two lights I should be alarmed to see on my dashboard are the oil light and the overheating light. All others can wait but should be addressed soon. Do you find that accurate? Except for one, brakes. I forever tell people a check engine light. If your car is still running relatively smooth, the engine's running normally, the check engine light can come on for a hundred different reasons, 200, 300. Well, let me ask you a question here. The question that has to do with the oil and the temperature.

So do all cars have an oil and temperature light, or some, do they have the oil temperature that would be included in the check engine? I would think all cars have the oil and temperature. All cars will have separate, either a light or. a gauge for temperature and for oil pressure. Yeah, that was the question. And as a matter of fact, and the only reason I'll add in is for brakes, because brakes are the huge safety factor. If you get a brake warning light, get the car off the road, get it checked by a mechanic.

They have a separate for brake, they're separate for oil and separate for temperature. Is there anything else that's separate besides that's not on the check engine? There can be other separate lights, like for your airbag, your seat belt, other warning lights. Tire pressure. Tire pressure. Most of these are not a huge panic factor. These are the things where... Well, they could be. I mean, you know, I mean... You're going to want to get it checked, but it's... The tires can be a huge panic factor if you have a flat tire. Right. So you want to at least look at your tire if you get that and then, yeah. I guess they're wondering, like, what, like, if I see what light do I need to immediately get off the road and get it addressed and what do I have a little bit of time to worry about? Oil, overheat, and brakes.

Makes sense. And as a matter of fact, Earl, that actually ties in with your earlier question of my biggest screw-up. And that was... I thought he was going to try to dodge that. I thought, nope. I wasn't going to bring it up again. I'm going to stand right up, and I'm going to say it. Let's see if it agrees with the one that I think it is.

Uh-oh. Stir the pot. I was working on an older Sequoia. I had done an oil change. and I let myself get distracted. Now, Sequoias have a gauge, not a light, for the oil pressure, and I failed to put oil in the car. How much did that cause me? Not quite as much.

Of course, all the work had to replace the engine all, you know, no labor charge for me. But that was, it was an expensive mistake. And it was a honest, I mean, I screwed up. Did I take it out of your paycheck? Yep. I did. No, you didn't. But when the car came back on the tow truck and I went to go look at it, find out what it happened, and I realized what it happened, I immediately went to the service manager, and I said, look, I screwed up.

I made this mistake. And when I was working on this vehicle, and it's a common thing in our shop. When you've got a big job going, people come around, they ask, hey, what's going on with this one? And anyone that asked me, I told them, I screwed up, I made a mistake. And it was simply the idea that this is, to me, it was a good thing for the younger text to see this, too, that an older guy can make mistakes too. Yeah. But you own up to it, you fix it, you make it right, and you're honest about it. And it also made the younger guys realize that the boss has mercy.

Exactly. Because I didn't fire you. I've still got a job. Exactly. It really makes the other. And they will come forward and not be afraid to come forward. Exactly. Because honesty is the only policy.

And that's quite a story. And I can truly appreciate it. And what an example you set for the younger guys because mistakes can be made. I make them every day. Happens to the best. Well, my father drilled it into my head. Honesty is the only policy. And that probably happened quite some time ago.

and it stays with you. What size drill bit did he use? Three-quarter-inch. Okay. Diamond-tipped. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Jay from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Jay.

Hi, everybody. So I'm not sure I have the full story correctly here, but earlier this week, I was listening to another radio show, and somebody had called in and said that they brought their car in to be serviced, and ended up having to leave the car. Somehow, some way, one of the service techs ended up taking the car out on the road and got in an accident, and the dealership refused to pay for the damage on it. This is the story that I think that I heard correctly,

and it sounds a little far-fetched that the dealership would not pay for that, just flat out refused to do it, basically saying that's what you have insurance for. And then another caller called in and said that he had worked at a dealership, and periodically the service manager would let the service tech know that a car was in there and a service tech would take the car overnight and drive around however they want and bring it back the next day and I wouldn't be surprised if I heard this once in a while but was this something that that's been fairly common over time or is this not as far-fetched as I think it is it's not far-fetched that's unfortunately that's a common occurrence I mean

And how many texts do we have now, Rick, 35, 30? We have, I think, about 28 to 30. Okay, so, you know, when you have a lot of people working for you, every now and then there's a rotten apple in the barrel, and it happens. And you're a good, I'm glad you mentioned that, a good precaution when you take your car in anywhere, because there's rotten apples and a lot of barrels, is make a note of your odometer reading,

make a note of your condition of your interior and your exterior, and be very careful about valuables. I mean, when your car comes into a car dealership, it passes through a lot of hands. There's a porter, we call them, that takes your car and parks it, and there's someone that has to bring the car into the shop, and somebody brings the car back and parks it. When you pay your car, maybe somebody else, you might have three or four people that are in your car. And you need to know that you don't want to leave your Rolex on your front seat, and you don't want to not know how many miles you have on your car, especially if the car's there for two or three days, Rick. Not to mention, technically every single car that comes into our dealership should be test driven before the tech starts working on it and after.

to make sure that, you know, if there's something may not have got right, that they make sure it's right. Yeah. And we have had times when cars come in with an issue that only occurs on a longer drive or first thing in the morning, and we will get the customer's permission, only with their permission, a technician will drive the vehicle home overnight in order to put extra miles on it and make sure it's right. And we had a technician, you both will remember this. If you don't have a dash cam, you should consider getting a dash cam.

I knew you were going to go there. We had a technician. I don't think he's still with us. That he borrowed the car overnight, took his girlfriend out, had a good time in our customer's car, and we didn't know about it. He had a good time. But the eye in the sky knew.

The eye on the sky, the customer's dash cam. So about three days later, I got a call. And he described the technician, his girlfriend, quite attractive. And the music they listen to. And the music they listen to and where they were and the bar they were in and the whole nine yards. So, yeah, it's dash cams are a great precaution for valet parkers, for service departments. Anytime someone's in your car. Or just when your car is in a parking lot.

In a parking lot. It gets the outside and the inside. You may not have heard this little part, but I did hear this from a reliable source when that technician was brought into the service manager's office and was told he was obviously being let go, and they looked at him and said, well, why would you do that? What did you do that? He said, well, it was a really nice car. And that was his answer.

And I remember the car, it was Alexis, a beautiful car. Hey, boy, you're really impressed his girlfriend. Where'd you get that? But at that point, I just bought it. It's a company car. Yeah, right. But, Earl, at that point, if you give them permission to take your car, and let's say, you know, if you say, yeah, we're going to have to take your car home to drive it, do you say something like you're going straight home? Obviously, if I'm a customer, I'm thinking, well, you're not using my car to go party or anything.

You're going straight home. But if you get an accident. Rick does that all the time. I mean, because Rick lives, what do you, about 20 miles from the dealership? 25 almost. So 50 miles on a trip. Rick drives cars home all the time, but we tell the customer, and he can check gas mileage. You can check for squeaks and rattles.

You know, when you get your car road tested, typically it's around the block or maybe a couple of miles. Yeah, it's great. If you have a technician you can trust, it will take your car home and back. And that's the key. And trust. And then you have to be sure. And, of course, you have the dash cam. If you don't trust Rick, you can find out, you know,

his home looks like and what he says while he's in the car but uh you know and you know i i actually almost like what you call a little messed up in the head i i talk to myself when i'm driving alone oh oh boy so it you might want to have the sound off on that dash cam because and i'll even sing sometimes too but but no if i'm driving a customer's car home it goes from the dealership straight to my home straight back to the dealership but you're right i don't stop it but you're right i don't stop it anywhere. You should ask a good technician to take your car home and then you should make a note of how far his home is and when he's coming back. But yeah, it's a good idea. Good idea. Does that sound realistic then that the dealership, if an accident happened during that, that the dealership would just say, no, we're not going to have insurance for that? They're totally responsible on their insurance covers that, which makes it stupid that they would try to duck their responsibility. That's what you have insurance for, to cover salesmen and technicians. anybody driving a customer's car. Whether it's on the lot or on a test drive, it's the dealership's responsibility.

It doesn't cost the dealership, other than anything more than a deductible, and all dealers carry it. Okay, perfect. All right. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jay. Great call. Yeah, that's a great call, Jay. Give us a call again. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-30.

And don't forget, we have a pretty interesting. Mystery Shopping Report coming up from Mystery Shopper Storm. And she took us to Schumacher, and that is Schumacher, Bewick, in North Palm Beach. I think we're going to go back to Josh. Yeah, we have a few more anonymous feedbacks. Did you guys see that Uber and Lyft have lowered traffic deaths by 4% in the United States? I had not seen that article I did not know that

It makes sense to me I mean I'm just thinking for drunk driving right there Exactly Did you know that Uber is now delivering flowers They deliver everything What a great idea that is I mean food Yeah

Everything Yeah Uber's great And they're also expensive by the way They do They raise your prices like everybody else And lift the same way I think yeah they're experiencing this labor shortage

Just like many other industries And when the spy driver goes down the cost of rides goes up. I'm taking Uber down when I go out once a month drinking with my friends. You have drinking buddies? I have a bunch of guys and we go out and we have dinner and we have too much to drink and I take Uber there and Uber back. I respect that.

The only one has to confront me is Nancy and she just tells me to shut up and go to sleep. So do you do the Uber X or the Uber Lux? Whatever is quickest. Is that the ladies that you meet once a month or? Is that the guys? You know, on a positive note, it's really great to hear a positive story about Uber because recently in the news, what a horrific story that came out. I'm not sure what the location was, but it was a terrible story about a young girl who got in.

She was waiting for an Uber, and she got into the wrong vehicle, and it ended her life. and it just took place, I think, in 2019. Yeah, it's a tragic story. I just saw that, too. Oh, did you? The stories about the changes Uber and Lyft made to their app to help protect against those things, verifying the license plate number. I'm asking the driver to ask, do you know my name?

Because the real driver will know your name. They've done a lot of positive things. Yeah, you have to have a certain sense of responsibility. And when I ask you and I take Uber, when we were vacationing, which we're not now, during the COVID thing, we would always say, a car would come up, it looked like an Uber, they're supposed to have a sign,

maybe we didn't see it, supposed to be on the dash, but you walk and you say, is your name Sidney? And then Sidney's supposed to say, that's the Uber driver, and you got that on your app. It says, is your name Nancy, is your name Earl? And then right away, you know. One time we came on, we were in a cruise,

and we were in New York, We got off, and we were going to take a Uber over to Central Park, and we walked across the street, and there were 25 Uber drivers. I was just going to mention that. Everyone else said they were an Uber driver, and we hadn't even called an Uber driver. And so, but you're right. You really had to be careful then. I want to let Jonathan know that I did get your text. Something unusual going on here today.

I can't see your handsome face. It's a shame because he's looking very good today. Anyway, thanks, Jonathan. We're going to go ahead and close the lines down because we have reached that hour that we get to the mystery shopping report, finish up on some texts, some YouTubes, so keep them coming in. Back to Josh. We've got just a few more, and then we can get to the mystery shop. I was wondering, with cars being so expensive today, or more people repairing their old cars? Seems to make sense to spend $500 to $1,000 to keep my car on the road rather than spend $5,000 more than usual on a new car.

I think you should. I think I would tend, if I were buying a new car, wanted to buy a new car, and I had some repairs done in normal times, I would probably trade it in and let them worry about repairing it because the car dealer will repair the car for less money than it would cost you, and he will, you'll come out ahead on the trading allowance. But today, I'd spend a few hundred bucks and keep it going and then save a few thousand dollars in 90 days. we're seeing that too. I mean, our service business is better this year than last, but the sales are up a lot more, so I think it's happening in both departments, but I think it's a good idea to, if it's not too much to invest in the repair rather than getting gouged on the new car price. Exactly. All right, this one is in Rick's wheelhouse. If I buy a new car in Florida, does it come with antifreeze, or do I need to put some in when I moved to Michigan this fall? I have no idea. No, the coolant that's in your car is designed to handle high temperatures and the low temperatures.

They should call something other than coolant then, I believe. Well, you can call it anti-freeze coolant, but we use industry standard. We just call it coolant. So we have the same stuff they use in Minnesota? Yep. Oh, I didn't know it. And it's at the same concentrations, and you're ready pretty much to handle anything south of the Arctic Circle all the way down to the. tip of South America.

So I've got to stay out of T.R. DeFlego. You could probably handle T.R. to DeFlego. I think your GPS brought you there one time, right? However, if you're heading for Point Barrow, you may want to adjust that concentration a little bit and be ready for those temperatures. I hear you. So in Minnesota, it's called antifreeze,

and in Arizona is called coolant. Yep. Same stuff. But it's the exact same stuff, and it's the exact same concentration as compared to water. How does it know? How do it now? It's like that, the thermos.

Yeah. Old family joke there. All right, here's a real serious one. This is from our jokester out there. I hate when my windshield fogs up and the defroster takes forever. Can you install windshield wipers on the inside of your car? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. See, there you go. Out of the box, meant to be a joke. Why not? Why not? I'm sure if I think hard, I'll come up with water terresis. what it is about where we live, Nancy, but every time we get, it seems like, a certain times a year, every time we get in the car, there's a film on the inside of our windshield.

Now, why not an inside? You need a cover in your mouth when you sneeze, Dad. Ah, that's what it is. Yeah, and that's where one of my hats come into play. Between your eyeglasses and your windshield, I'm a very busy girl. I bet you if you're Google inside windshield wipers, you will find that there are some. What I found now, if you can think about it, Google has already been there. And they'll tell you something about it.

So we'll Google that, but we'll move along to another. Okay, just two more, and then I think we can hit the shopping report. Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle technology startup, backed by Ford and VW, has landed a permit in California that will allow the company to give people free rides in their self-driving vehicles. Do you see this happening in Florida anytime soon? Wow. Is that, I mean, I haven't looked at that much so. I want a riding one.

That is really cool. That's scary. Yeah. I love the idea. Yeah, I did. There was something in Las Vegas that... A self-driving taxi or something? Something, yeah.

They had something in Las Vegas a long time ago. When I was dying, I almost wanted to go to Las Vegas just to try it out. but I think that's a great promotion, great idea, and I hope they do that. Yeah, me too. Exciting stuff. And the last one is an inventory question. It says, if you had a lot filled with Corolla L's, would you have any problem selling them? I have been looking for one and can't find any.

The Corolla L is the entry-level Corolla. The far more popular model, and much easier to find, would be the Corolla L.E. I'm sure if we had Corolla L's on the lot, we would sell them because there's just so few cars out there. there, but I think, you know, I'm just guessing here, there's probably 10 LEs made for every L. So it's a small price differential. I say just go for the L.E. And it reminds me, before we go to the mystery shopping report, going back to my ingenious idea of going to a car dealership and saying I'm on the Costco Auto Bike program, will you

agree to sell me that car that I want to buy if I order it from the manufacturer? You can't buy one in the lot. You have to buy one that's not there and will not be there for hopefully a month or two and hopefully three months would be better. And you get the option

in your vehicle buyer's order contract to use the Costco price at the time of delivery. Because the Costco price requires that the dealer give you the lowest price that he'll sell that car for to anybody. Today, he's selling everybody

cars at high prices. So the Costco price is sky high. It's still the lowest price, but it's still a high price if you follow me. So you say I will pay today is July 31st on

November 15th. I want to be able to buy that car that I ordered at the Costco price on November the 15th. And it will be thousands of dollars less than they'll charge you today. That's a cool way to buy a car you have to wait for your car but you'll be able to save and lock in the very best

price yeah good point and there's a lot of a lot of different uh situations that that is applied to when you buy something at that price right then and there and they put it on hold and you'll you know they'll recognize that price whenever you purchase the car maybe we can test that with a mystery shopping report for next week sounds like a great idea see if it works You know, real quick, there was a newspaper article in the Palm Beach Post money section that you brought to my attention. You and Stu had addressed it a couple of weeks ago, and that is how drivers can cash in by ending a lease early. And if you still have that addition, or you can pull it up on the Internet, it is the Palm Beach Post, and it's in the money section. Excellent point.

When you have a lease and you've got a lease, and you've got it. The game is changing. When you have a couple months to go, the dealer is begging you to bring that in early. And he won't tell you that he's going to take that car and sell for more than the option price because the market value is much higher, probably. So don't let him grab your advantage. You get the advantage. You say, I know what my car is worth.

If you want it, this is what you're going to pay me for it. And if you don't want it, I'll take it somewhere else and I'll be able to sell it. and pay the car off with the and still take care of the residual and come on the head. If you want my business, then you buy it from me. Another article that appeared also that got our attention was, wow, everyone has been there, I believe, I have, and that's co-signing for a car.

Don't do it. What a strain that can put on a relationship. And unless it's really necessary, where typically, you know, they don't have a credit history, it's a laundry list of things that you take into consideration. Don't co-sign. When you co-sign, you co-sign with your heart,

but cash trumps, what is it, sentimentality, something like that. Tread carefully. Yeah. At any rate, Mr. Schropp, Schumacher-Bewick, GMC of North Palm Beach. And Schumacher Auto Group, one of the older auto groups in South Florida, established over 50 years ago. You know, I'll bet you very few people except me

and John from Palm City, remember. The silent generation. The Buick dealer before that was Cochrane Buick on Oak Tribune Boulevard. Cochrane Buick, and his daughter, and a lapse into male chauvinism, was a real hobby. And she was, I went to high school with her. Her name was Liz Cochran, and she dated George Hamilton, the movie star. Used to be a movie star. That really tan guy?

Yeah, the really tan. with the early tan. Oh, the poor girl. That was Ed Cocker, the Buick dealer, and Dick Schumacher came down from Chicago and bought out Ed Cochran. I met George. Not impressed. Yeah.

Okay. I digress. Okay. So I digress again, as I earl digress, Douglas Stewart. His tan turned me off. He brought his family and successful careers. Yeah, in Chicago.

And in 1971, Schumacher Buick. And then he opened up a whole bunch of more stores, Chuck Schumacher joined the family business and sold cars. He was a salesman, worked for his dad, and then he took over the Empire and expanded the Empire. Their current television advertising is well known if you're in this market. If it's not, it's worthwhile going on YouTube to pick up a Schumacher commercial. It's unique and slow-key, it's classy.

class and his motto is come join the family join the family and the way he says it so mellow join the family join warm and inviting yeah very very passionate at any rate respected dealer

good scores and he has 13 dealerships in this area Schumacher projects an image of sophistication refined experience they're marketing focuses on the their reputation and calm or buying process. Their online reputation, it's not foolproof, a way of gauging a good customer treatment, but it's something you should check out, and they've got good Google reviews, right?

And I'm sure the rest of them are... The store we shopped has a 4.5 rating with a couple thousand reviews, so that's pretty good. You should always check on the number of reviews and the score of the review. not to say that someone with fewer reviews or lower reviews is necessarily bad or the one that has a whole bunch of reviews is necessarily good, but it's a good

indicator. Okay. It's been about a year since we shopped. The Schumacher's store we thought it's time to check in on the family. We're laughing about that. Josh and I began I had lunch with my sons, Josh and Jason the other day, and I said to my

son, Jason, I'm called a customer and you spoke to him and I said oh my son Jason spoke with you he said I didn't know he was your son I said well yeah he is my son so I said to Jason at lunch I said why didn't you tell this customer

you were my son he said well dad he says I told him I was I was part of the Stuart family I said oh you mean like the Juremacher family which is you know that's a little inside joke for us

I have to mention that I have I also have lunch with my daughters on Wednesday. Yes, you do. But they do ask me, those are your daughters? I thought they were your sisters. Ah, ha ha ha. Okay, so we found an ad on the website promising a new 2021 Buick Encore lease for $185 a month

was $0 down. Now that's a heck of a deal, particularly in today's super high prices. Zero down, $185 a month. This sounds, I skip one here. This sounds like a hell of a deal, especially in today's market. Of course, there are a few lines of fine print. A close look under a microscope reveals, they say, all leases are zero down. First payment, here's what you need.

First payment, tax, title, tag, registration, and dealer fees, plural, options, and I can't be dealerized. options because that'd be in the NSRP are extra. So those are dealer installed. Must have lease loyalty in the household, and that's not clearly explained. And they use a base MSRP, a base, so they actually excluded the factory options too, apparently.

We'll see. Yeah. Must take from the dealer's stock, well. Good luck with that. That's good. And that goes to my COMSCO, that goes to my Costco thing. order the car. Don't take anything from dealer stock. You can buy a car if you order the car and then you stipulate the price in the future price and you stipulate that as a Costco price.

Okay, starting to sound like this offer's too good to be true, and that's how we do most of our mystery shops. Agent Lightning is taking some well-deserved time off, so we called in a brand-new mystery shopper, Agent Storm, to investigate. Operation Report, it was mid-afternoon. I arrived to the dealership. I was glad not to see an intimidating pack. We call them the wolf packs. You see him at various dealerships standing around, lurking in the shadows, waiting. Upon entering the building, I was quickly greeted by a friendly man named Scott. Introduced himself and asked how he could help. I told him I was shopping for my daughter, who's in college, and she needs a small SUV and a low monthly payment.

I showed him the Buick Encore lease advertisement that I printed from their website, and he escorted me to an office. He repeatedly mentioned how low their inventory was and warned me that selection was limited for the Buick Encourner. Now, that could be good and bad. I mean, you say, well, you don't beat me up with this, but that's true. I mean, he might have not mentioned it and not prepared you. So he was telling you the truth. he showed me a few options on his computer but he didn't have any on there a lot

he'd have to go get a car from their West Palm Beach location and that's only 10 miles away luckily they did have one in West Palm Beach so you got Schumacher Buick Westpom Schumacher Buick and Northbom and the one in West Palm had the MSRP I was looking for at least the one that was advertised

25-935 that matched that matched the advertised lucky day. But then he informed me that I would need to have prior leasing history. Now the snakes come out of the hat. Back to quality, beauty quality you have to... To qualify. Oh yeah, to qualify, yeah. So that expands over the normal one that you leased a car before, I think. Anybody in the family

leases a car, qualify? We don't have that at Toyota, but I see that on some other manufacturer. Probably the family household. And where are you going to register the vehicle? I mean, you can't go to 23 in me and say I got a third cousin. We share 2% of our DNA in there in Scotland. Yeah. Although that's something to remember if they didn't put that in there in the household.

But are we all related? We are all related. We come from a common ancestor. We come from a gorilla in Africa. So therefore, I have a prior Buick lease then. I'm sure someone I'm related to does. We all qualify. You're dangerous, Josh, because you lure me into digression.

Oh, I know. But it's so much fun. I'm so excited to see what you're going to say. Okay. Okay. Time me end the show. I'm only kidding. Don't turn off the radio or whatever you're listening.

I want to watch it. Okay. They did not have any encores on a lot. You offered me to show me a pre-owned. I like this part here. They often showed me to 2018, and it showed me there was no difference in the 2021. I wonder what he would say in normal times. Why waste your money on this 2021?

There's so much difference in the same car. Okay. I'm looking for my medication. We took a quick look. He did not ask me to take a test drive. That's another lack of professionalism. And it only would occur during a situation when he knows you're going to have to buy. the one car he's got so why try to persuade you when he's in the driver's seat he's

going to charge all the money for the car and you're going to pay it or he's going to say bye-bye I'll sell to the miss sucker that comes in will buy a car from me today at this ridiculous price now back at his desk he offered me some water always water we don't offer free water do we yes we do we do we have a cooler with ice cold spring filtered water Clear water. We even have a water station for your dogs. I almost lapsed. That's right. There's a song that usually laughs to do.

Haven't got time for that. A cool, clear, no, I'm with it. His sales manager appeared introduced himself as Ben. He told me there was no pressure to buy today. Of course not. In fact, you either buy or out of here because that's the price. But no pressure.

No pressure. But this deal was over at the end of the month. Today was the 29th. Yeah. By the way, tomorrow's the 31st, that's the end of the month, and today's the 31st. And tomorrow, we still have the end of the month, because some of the card dealers stretch it today. Yeah, the fiscal month ends on Monday. Yeah, so you've got an extra couple days to get hosed if you want to pay too much money. Or taken well care of.

Yes, exactly. He then presented me a computer printout with lots and lots of figures. I was impressed with this. I'm just going to flash it on the screen, but it's just a lot of detail. And it looks legal. It looks official. It almost looks like they're not hiding anything, but they're hiding a lot of stuff in there. And here's some of the stuff they're hiding.

Well, I'll just go over the stuff that they're hiding. Yeah, we listed right. Yeah. What they're hiding is the electronic filing fee, which is profit to the dealer. It's also electronic filing agency fee. For $379, it might, it might cost Schumacher $10 for sublet that. So he charged you to $3.79,000% markup. Temp tag fee, that should be overhead expense, $25.75, nickel and dime in you on that.

Rental surcharge, I don't even know what that is. That's part of the lease. part of the lease registration. It should be included in the payment, and they're adding it on after they quote you the payment. Dealer administrative fee, that's pure dealer profit, $9.95, and that's the standard generic dealer fee, and they call theirs dealer administrative fee. Cap reduction tax, that's sales tax, right? Well, there's a tax on the amount of money you put down on the cap cost reduction,

So that's the tax on this rebate and all the other stuff you're putting out of pocket. And then there's a tax on the fees. That's totally not legitimate because they're charging the fee for profit, then you're putting your tax on it. And the county taxes, that's legitimate. And customer cash is capri there. $12.26. It's like they wanted a nice even number to add up to $26. Anyway, they're adding that no down payment, $2,650.

Most people think when they see no down. payment, that means not out of pocket. I don't have to come up with any cash. Well, that cash you don't have to come up with is $2,650 on the Schumacher due at lease. But the best part is what the payment actually was. Yeah, and here we go. Stand by, you better be sitting down for this. And the payment is, the payment is $395 that you're supposed to pay $199 for. So the zero out of pocket, the zero down payment is really, well, I say 2650, and the 189 is really 395. What can I tell you? This is how they treat the family.

I'd hate to see what they do to you a stranger. Oh my. I laugh every time I see Schumacher's commercial, and I like Chuck. He should get a new suit. He's a class act. I like his father. With all that money he's making. But there is no... Chuck's in Montana. He's not even in the dealership.

So there is no family there. You're the family. Join the family. Anyway, there you are. That's a tough one, isn't? How much time we got? You got a lot of time. Think about this... I think about this score on the shopping report, because he is on our recommended list

and we do great on the curve and this is deceptive advertising I don't care if Chuck's my friend I have to say it's deceptive and we got a vote on it so send us in those votes anywhere right

in the meantime I have a text here from someone who also used to work for Chuck this is from Mark he says Chuck's motto when I was a kid here was nobody walks that's right that's right that was the original and that was a hard school it was funny because he used it on television he used on television and in the parlance of the dealer vernacular nobody walks as

hardcore sales manager talks to all the salesmen in the morning and they're all getting motivated and pumped up he says now listen let me tell you something when we get a body on that showroom floor nobody walks and nobody gets out of here till i talk to him because I'm going to sell them a car. Nobody walks. And they translated that into, nobody walks. That's brilliant. I mean, what it means is they break your legs

and you're not going to leave until you buy a car. That's nobody walks. They drive out or they're on a stretcher. So we've got to vote on that. YouTube, anonymous feedback, text. Mark comes in with misleading ads. D-minus, I think that's very generous D-minus.

And Reid's in here, she says, I guess I'll have to disown the family. Bait and switch, solid F. Yep. Anyone on YouTube there, Rick? Oh, I've got a stack. Tom, D-minus for deceptive and redundant fees. Mark Smith with a D.

Wayne with a D-minus. Steve with a D. Andrew below Schumacher standards, F. Mark Ryan, D-minus. Brian with a D, Mark Anderson, who's Mark from St. Louis, D, too many phony numbers. And I've got Guy Larrabee, with all the not-so-hidden fees, I give them a D. A bit of poetry.

Yeah. I like it when it rhymes. We got Jonathan and Wellington says I should charge them a $999 electronic grading fee. I think that's fair. I like that, yeah. What's your votes, Josh? What's your grade? I have to go with an F.

It's just, it's blatant, it's blatant deception. 185 was zero down, turning into 395 with 2650 down is, I mean, that's a difference of $8,000 if you add it up. So that's just, it's shameless. Yeah, definitely. Oh, very degrading. And their defense, of course, says, well, we did disclose it. It's in the fine print. And it's a shame on the state attorney general's office and the Federal Trade Commission for not enforcing the loss.

But, you know, it says in the fine print that, You must have lease loyalty to qualify, but I doubt there's an $8,000 lease loyalty incentive out there. So, I mean, you can't even make the math work. No, definitely not. Not even with a calculator. I am going to give them an F. I was talking to Jacks, who is one of our youngest listeners, and he says that he's going to simply stick with the autonomous shuttle up in traditions called Tim.

and that's the way he's going to roll. Smart, smart, smart kid. Bob gives him an F. Another F. And I've got Kit Kat with a D-minus and J-Lady with an F. And for me, I'm going to go with the crowd on this. I'm going to go with a D-minus

because they're there, but I think you've just got to do your homework and be ready for them. I'm going to give them, I was going to do a C-minus, I told Nancy. Yeah, I was surprised. I'm going to make that a D-minus. I'm going to keep them on there. D-minus. Heads up to Chuck, if you're out there, you probably don't know about this.

You've got too many stores now, Chuck. You need to keep an eye on the store and check your advertising. But I'm going to let you slide with a D-minus. But we'll be back. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you work on a brand for so many years and a family. and you just, you know, you wanted to go on and on and on, but then you start to just reach these depths that you don't really need to.

Chuck has made a lot of money. He certainly can afford a new suit, that's for sure, and he hasn't bought one yet. Ladies and gentlemen, as I told you earlier, I can't see my main man, and that's Jonathan, and I see by his digits over there, We've got four minutes, so I'm going to take a moment and mention Earl's latest column, which plays right in with our show, and it's everything you'll ever need to know about how not to get ripped off by a car dealer, and it is a great read. Give a shout out to our daughter out there. She's listening to the show. Oh, yeah, at least she is listening to the show.

And Jackson? Yeah, Jackson. He's infatuated with that. Baritone voice of yours. Hi, Jackson. Hi, Jackson. Are you smiling? Jackson. That's Craig Grandpa. He's reading the newspapers. We've got one other quick question here, Earl, if you've got a moment. Robert Nichols is asking, what do you guys usually advertise in terms of leases? The answer to you.

Southeast Toyota has standard lease offers, and we just pass those along. Yeah, and I don't like their advertising. Because they put the money down in the fine print, too. And they do the TV ad with a big fat payment. So you see a payment, and there's usually a $5,000 down payment hidden in the fine print. So Toyota, the manufacturers are doing the same thing that Schumacher does. They hide the truth in the fine print. That's true, but at least there is truth in the fine print, unlike Schumacher today.

There's true of the fine print, but the fine print is against the law by the Federal Trade Commission, and we don't have time to go into that. But it is against the law not to have full disclosure in big print. Okay, we're going. We're out of here. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in, Earl Stewart on cars. We so appreciate your company. We appreciate your feedback on YouTube, Facebook, and all of our callers.

Stay tuned next week. Next Saturday at 8 a.m. We'll be right back here. Have a wonderful weekend. I don't know. Oh! I don't know.