Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.01.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Ford of Delray Beach

Episode Date: August 1, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Grieco Ford in Delray Beah to see if he can purchase a 2019 Ford F-150 and get the special financing offer on their website. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

This is Earl Stewart, the recovering car dealer. I'm live, and we're here in a very exciting time we're just talking about before we got on live on the air. It's kind of a stressful time here in South Florida. Now only do we have the greatest crisis, arguably the greatest crisis in human history with the coronavirus. Now we have a hurricane coming in on us. And that's always exciting for us car dealers that this is the end of the month. So that's an exciting time for car dealers all over. They get really excited. Sometimes it can be a really good time for you, but that's another story. We'll talk about that later. For you newbies, this is a show all about how not to get ripped off by a car dealer.

And strangely enough, the car business is very good. New vehicles, used vehicle sales are doing very well. Now, it's not uniformly so. There are some car dealerships that are off, some other dealerships. They're actually setting new records. Overall, the car business in the United States is quite brisk, which is counterintuitive, as they say, because there are a lot of business, like restaurants,

that are just dying and bankruptcies are going up. But for some reason, you, consumers, are buying cars. And I have a theory, which is we feel safer in our cars, and we want to do things that we did differently before the virus hit. Instead of taking a plane or a train, you take an automobile. And you feel safer inside. You can disinfect it, and you're like in your little capsules.

with your family, and you're happy. You don't have to wear your mask. So I think that's part of it. Whatever, just a heads up, the car dealers are making a ton of money, and they're selling cars like hotcakes, new and use, and because of the shortage,

they're charged on a lot of money. So I think if you're out there listening now, you can probably pick up some tips from the show, ask some questions. We love the questions. I give the number out. Nancy and Josh, my son, Rick Kearney, who is a technician, has been with me for 25 years. We're going to keep bombarding you

with this number. 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960. It's our call-in number. We also have the Facebook posting, earl on cars.com forward slash Facebook. We got YouTube, same thing with YouTube. We've got Twitter. We're all on cars. We're all over cyberspace. We have callers from all over the United States. And we even have some from international. So we have a text number. 772 4976530. That's area code 772, 4976530. So you make the show. You truly do. Your questions tell us what you're interested in, what you want answers to. And it's a particularly important time to be informed buying a car. When you have a short supply of new and used cars and you have car dealers out there that are doing a whole lot of business, supply and demand, basic law of economics, when you have a few Ford F-150 pickup trucks versus a whole lot of them, the few are going to be higher priced just by definition.

and the profits are up to dealers considerably, like 20, 25, 28, 30% in new and used cars. So don't be a victim of that. The advice we give you on this show can still work and it can still take care of you. Less than I forget, the most important thing, probably more important than buying or leasing a car, is repairing or retaining a car. Rick Kearney, who I mentioned earlier sitting to my right, he's a certified diagnostic master technician. That's a mouthful. I call them an auto computer scientist, which is true.

And if you have anything wrong with your car, and you just don't feel like going into a service department, a bunch of people wearing masks, hopefully, and you're wearing a mask, and then some guy works on your car, and you wonder, did he touch my steering wheel? Did he sneeze? I mean, you don't want your car to be infected. So you say, hey, maybe I just, let me postpone it.

If you have some questions that are making you nervous when you drive, call Rick 877-960-9960 and say hey I got a sound like this and it does it this time and just when I started up or describe it to him he might tell you hey nothing to worry about or he might tell you you probably ought to have it looked at it and he'll give you some advice on doing that I've got my son Josh who is substituting for my son Stu Josh Stewart, and he's our cybermaster, our investigator of the mystery shopping report. What are we? A spy master, that was the word I was looking for. He dispatches the agent thunder into the field to try to find out which car dealers are legitimate and which are not legitimate and which ones are taking advantage of you and which ones are not.

And we report this live, it'll be in the second part of the show. And, of course, Nancy Stewart, also the founder of this show, been with me for 17 plus years. And she is our female advocate. We have a special offer for all first-time female callers. We built, I say we, Nancy, thanks to her over the years, has built the female audience up to half. We didn't used to be that way. And I used to be kind of an old guys club. You know, we just a bunch of guys called in.

now we have a bunch of gals going in too and it's very refreshing and Nancy sees the auto world purchasing leasing buying maintaining repairing through female eyes which is half of the folks out there that buy cars so it's perfectly natural

I'll turn the mic over to Nancy and she'll tell you about the special offer she has thank you good morning ladies and gentlemen that special offer that Earl talked about is $50 for the first two new lady callers and we certainly enjoy hearing from the ladies you have a whole lot to say so

let your voice be heard and take advantage of the $50 for the first two new lady callers at 877-960 9960 and if you're a little shy you can give us a text at 772-497-60 and also I'll mention the fact that But you can, well, you can voice your opinion and you don't even have to, you know, give your identity. You can go to your anonymous feedback.com. Your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Oh, excuse me. You know, to what you were talking about earlier with Rick, I really think that there are a lot of consumers that really don't take.

into consideration that sometimes they're going to spend more money on maintenance, repairs, all of that, and they do on the car, and they have to take that into consideration. Rick, isn't, what would you say to that statement? It's absolutely true. If you keep the car for any number of years, I mean, if you are the sort that you lease cars and you trade into a new car every two to three years, the maintenance is usually covered by the manufacturer so there's next to nothing but otherwise if you're going to keep that car seven eight nine years 10 years you pretty much can expect you're going to need maintenance

you're going to need certain repairs yeah it can be pretty costly and the fact that uh the cars are like on the road for i don't know now it's like people keep their cars for maybe 12 years and also the fact that the older cars Josh what is the rule of thumb we use when an older car comes into the service department and the older cars are the ones that have the highest cost of repairs and maintenance doesn't make any sense to spend too much money doesn't

no no it doesn't you have to look at the value of the car versus the cost of the repair and if you have a car it's worth $3,000 is it worth doing a new AC that might cost you around $1,000 or more you have to do that math and you got to remember that the people in the service drive when you go into a service department are all paid on commission. So you might have an engine or transmission or some situation with a 10-year-old car that does require transmission or heavy engine work, and it could be several thousand dollars.

And if he sells it to you and you buy that, he's going to get a nice commission on that sale. The technician that works on your car, Rick Kearney, works on commission. Everybody in the car dealership virtually is kind of on commission and some are on direct commission. So if you've got a car that's worth wholesale, and that's the way you have to look at it, $5,000, you don't want to spend $5,000 to fix it. And in fact, you don't want to spend $4,000 to fix it. Best thing to do is to trade it. And then that goes into a whole other discussion about be sure you get a good deal when you trade the cars.

Yeah, it's one of the most common mistakes I see consumers making are spending too much money, good money after bad, on an older car. Typically, when the car starts to deteriorate, it probably will continue. It's not going to, well-maintained, it usually hangs in there for a long time. But once they start to go, you could spend $2,000, and that was okay. But then two months later, you spend another $2,000. Now you wish you hadn't spent the first $2,000. not to mention the fact that you're putting a lot of money into

an old car and it's still going to be an old car yes those new parts are fine but the rest of the car is still an old car exactly it doesn't increase the value okay 877 960 9960

text number is 772 4976530 I'll be doing on phone calls text YouTube so we got anything coming in We've got a couple of texts here. Okay. This will be definitely for Rick. It reads, a friend of mine was told that the fuel injectors on her car were installed backwards.

Is that even possible? And if so, how much should it cost for a pair? Thank you. If you could see the book on Rick's face, right? Well, maybe they were upside down. Rick says, say what? Maybe they're inside out. I would be heading for a second opinion very, very quickly, somewhere else.

fuel injectors really by their design cannot be installed backwards in most cars that I'm aware of because it's basically just a cylinder with an electrical connector on one side

and if the only way it could be backwards is if the connector was turned the wrong way and then you wouldn't be able to plug in the wires to it so I would be going to find a reputable mechanic that understands how they're supposed to be and get a second opinion on that yeah absolutely sounds

like sound advice we have a another couple ones here I believe this one came in last week it's a comment on you a dad oh good it reads I stopped anonymous was this anonymous Jonathan no no name but it was a text okay but they did not sign their text he says I stopped listening or I'm assuming say he that's that's a presumption mine but they said I stopped listening when Earl kept calling the Genesis a Honda come on guys so the it's an easy mistake to make between Hyundai and Honda well you know I apologize that's stupid I'm supposed to be an expert and for me not to recognize a model of a car I plead not guilty I will say this

this is not an excuse but there was a time and before I was actually in the car business when I could identify every car on the road there's only two manufacturers back then yeah i was a i was a kid right to show i was a kid and i i mean i could tell you the year uh make model uh cubic inches uh i mean everything about cars and now you know i guess i'm just i don't know what it is i see cars out there this is an exaggeration they all look the same to me and um and there are there's just a preponderance of model models and makes. You've got to be on top of it. I made a mistake, and I was wrong. I'll try to be better about that. You know, I can confirm what you just said about knowing each and every

car. I think that your dad was trying to impress me 30-some years ago. He would name that one, that one. I said, how do you know? He said, I just do. And now they, you're right. They all look the same. And I can still name the old ones. I can see a 57 Chevy Power Pack. I know it's got a four-barrel carburetor. I mean, I know all that kind of stuff. I can tell you the cubic inches and the rest of it. But today I see a truck. I said, that's a truck as far as I can go. It's hard to keep it straight even within the brand. There's like, I mean, just a mid-named Toyota has probably 15 different models with three or four different trim levels each. So you have 60 or 70 different models to memorize there. I'm having a sudden flashback to the movie

My Cousin Vinny. I'm sure everybody knows the quote. I'm won't even go there okay another text over there Josh actually no do we have any YouTube comments right oh we're holding quiet right now here's something I wanted to cover while we have a lull but I'll give the numbers out again we got the callers I know the hurricane's coming but we're talking to people all over the United States hurricane's not going to hit you in Kansas or California so call us please at 877 960 that's 877 990 960, 9960. Remember the first two female callers, if you haven't called the show before,

first two new female callers get 50 bucks. No conditions, cash on the on the barrelhead. You don't even have to talk to us. We'd like it if you talk to us, but if you just call 877-9-60-99-60 and you're female, and you haven't called the show before, Caching. Nancy. Speaking of which, we do have. Grace on the line. Good morning, Grace. Good morning. How are you? Well, thank you. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Are you're calling from Volusia County? Yeah. Welcome to the show. Thank you. How can we help you? Well, my question is what Toyota has the best gas mileage. Oh, boy,

am I glad Josh is here? Or Rick, either one of them. You think I'm stupid about models of cars. I don't even know all the stuff about Toyota. There's a lot of data out there. So, Josh, which one has got the best gas mileage? Well, the first that jumps to mind is the Prius, of course.

And now we have a Corolla hybrid that gets mileage right up there with the Prius, well over 50. And then they're not very common, but you have the plug-ins. You have the Prius Prime, which gets the equivalent of 95 miles per gallon between the all-electric mode and the hybrid mode. 95 miles per gallon.

The equivalent is the MPGEE, they call it. Exactly, yeah, you have to plug it in on that, yeah, so equivalent. Yeah, that's the answer. The Prius and the Corolla Hybrid. Prius and Prius Prime is the king of the road. It is. They're a little more difficult to find. You know, the Corolla hybrid and the regular Prius are much more common.

Grace, that answer to your question? Okay. that you answered it thank you well thank you very very much i hope you can call again we love female callers and uh we talked about at the beginning of the show we're trying to get a a balance here 50 50 and we love all you ladies to give us your perspective on things and hear your questions yeah definitely grace and spread the word you can help us build this platform for the females that participate in the show or want to and most of them are just a little bit bashful but thank you thank you again for calling earl stewart on cars okay well i was going

i was just going to mention something that i think can be useful to all of our listeners i opened my automotive news this is the trade journal for for the car dealers and all the auto manufacturers and on the right there a sellers market for those with cars to sell they're talking to dealers out there it is a seller's market and you know the seller's market means. The seller's market means that you're selling your product at a higher price than you normally do. And when this coronavirus hit, it was actually a good time to buy because the volume of the inventories were higher and there were incentives out there to encourage people to come in and the dealers were selling cars pretty freely. And then as the

inventories began to shrink, the prices begin to go up. So it's just a heads-up. up to you now that if you're buying a new or used car, it is going to cost you a lot more money. And I think Auto Nation announced in their public quarterly report that just came out that their profits on new cars are up 28%. Now, they're making somewhere around $21, over $2,100 per new vehicle, and that's not even counting the profits they make in the finance department, which is another $2,000. So when you go to an auto-nation, you go to an auto-nation, store and they're really they made a decision Michael Jackson the president CEO of Auto Nation he made a decision about two and a half years ago not to try to push

new car sales but to raise the prices and now he's even raised them again so when you go into an automation store on the average when you buy that new car you're paying about a four thousand dollar profit which is considerably high then you would pay for most other dealers. Automation successfully, I mean, as a business person, I respect it, as a publicly held company, and the stockholders are very happy to hear that, that automation is doing quite well. And other dealers are, too.

Be careful. And you just listen to the fundamentals, the basics that we talk about on the show, competitive comparison of prices, using Costco auto buying program, using True Car, and what else, you know? Josh, what are other some of the important things we need to remember today? Well, I mean, other sites are Kelly Bubok. I don't think you mentioned that one. Yeah.

I think most importantly, it's just multiple bids. You know, especially it's easier on a new car because they're a commodity. You can find the same new car at several different dealerships. So if you're looking at a Chevy Camaro, just, you know, get a price online from one dealer and then shop it around on email to three, four, a dozen other dealers if you have the time. and you will get the best price and that's you you came up with this affidavit is a document that can really help the buyers out there be sure they get the real price the out-the-door price yes absolutely you can download that affidavit at erlan cars and what it will

allow you to do is to either fax it to the dealership that you're dealing with or take it in And what they do is they sign it. They sign it for the out-the-door price. No shenanigans. It's a solid deal. And I borrowed your word, Jonathan. Sanigans? Thank you.

A good definition to remember, and I think in plain words, you know, the affidavit, if they sign it, then you have them committed to do what they should have done in the first place. Right. But you can, I like this. an out-the-door price is the price that I can write you a check for I'm talking to you're the sales lady

so you're the sales lady and I say to you okay now I'm talking to you on the phone okay and I'm going to come down there and pick up that new Honda Civic and I'm going to write a checkout for $18,219 and $12. I'm going to

hand you that check and you're going to accept the check and I'm going to get in that car and I'm going to go home and meaning that you're not going to say, whoops, wait a minute, there's more. We've got LoJack, we've got Toyo Guard, we've got addendum label,

we have a dock fee, we have an electronic filing fee, we have an administrative fee. These are all the sneaky tricks that virtually every car dealer employs when they quote you a price or appetizer price. So what Nancy's affidavit, when they sign it, they say no, that's a total price. total out the door and I'm going to give you the check for that amount and it's the honest price

it's the honest price you know what a shame you have to paint such a specific picture you have to tell such a detailed story now this is what I'm going to do I'm going to write a check and I want to be able to drive off with my car yeah out the door doesn't mean out the door anymore unless you really define it that's a good word details and they do use a they'll use a word to trick you Alpacar Ford. I'm not picking on Alpacar Ford. I mean, they're basically a good dealership. I think they're on their recommended list. We haven't shopped him in a while. But they use the slogan, bottom line price. But their bottom line price is not a bottom line price. And a lot of dealers use out-the-door price.

So this is the Earl Stewart on Cars definition of an out-l-door price. Write my checkout for that amount and take my car home. in the conversation, and that is a definition. We know that the dealer fee has become a generic term, and we actually have Cargulus out there that are so sneaky. They're saying, no dealer fee. Well, that means they don't name their dealer fee a dealer fee. They name their dealer fee a dock fee or an electronic filing fee

or a tag agency fee or an administrative fee, and they'll have several of them. So it's the only way car dealers are making money today is by tricking you, and Nancy's affidavit will prevent that from happening. You know, you the consumer can really protect yourself, and today there's a number of ways that you can protect yourself when purchasing a vehicle. And, you know, I have a question for our listeners.

Give us a call or text us with your answer. In light of, you know, the way things are right now, with the pandemic and shortage of cars and, well, that's just to name a few. Would you, the consumer, still think about going out in purchasing a vehicle, or would you be more likely to go to the Internet and start there? 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We are going to go to Ralph, who's calling us from Stewart. Good morning, Ralph.

Good morning, folks. Good morning. I have a... Good morning. I have a 2009 Nissan Ultima. It's an older car, obviously. It's one of those gunpowder gray ones. It's a pretty popular color.

All right? And I'll explain why I brought that up. It's because about three years ago. Now, I bought this car used it because I think it was like three years old when I bought it. The first five years I had it was undercover. okay but it's been outside you know it's not been in a garage or anything it's been outside the last two years or so whatever notice the roof the pain on the roof is just deteriorating deteriorating the rest of the car is fine and this is that clear code

I believe that's what all cars are correct and so I took it to Nissan my my dealership right where I did buy the car and I only use I I do everything at the dealership I have a brother in the business and he told me you know you go to the dealer you get the best service they'll take care you uh they didn't want anything to do with it they bounced me to Nissan Nissan I contacted Nissan they bounced me back they kept bouncing me back nobody was doing anything and do I have any recourse on that I don't think I do anymore but um it seems to me that was a lot of these cars this color the roof and and a lot of the other car parts of the car, the hood and the trumps, are deteriorated.

You know, I was just wondering if you guys have any knowledge of that. Do I have any recourse? I think I'm good faith with them. I would thought they would have been good faith with me and just painted the roof for me. But they told me not. One of the reasons they gave me was I kind of laughed at it. One of the guys told me, well, the roof. I said, why is it just the roof, not the rest of the car?

They said, well, the roof's higher. I said, well, the sun's 93 million miles away. I said, I don't think it's closer to the sun, I get it. Ralph, you're in a situation that millions of other car owners are. First of all, you're in a sunbelt state. South Florida is particularly a sun bill. And the sun is what deteriorates paint, one of the biggest elements. We have a lot of that in Florida.

You've done the right thing. You've taken it to Nissan's attention and the dealer as well. Well, did the dealer go directly to Nissan manufacturing? Sometimes manufacturers of cars with paint problems will take care of it, even on older cars. I'm not sure about a 2009 that's getting up there, 11-year-old. But there is a chance. You talk directly to Nissan, they have something called Goodwill. Now, you've got a couple strikes against you because you bought the car used.

and when people buy the car new, they tend to look at it as you're their customer, but you bought it from somebody else, you're not Nissan, and it's not right, but that's the way they look at it. I see a lot of this. Toyota has a big problem with this. Right now there's a big problem with white cars, and the white car paints deteriorating, and Toyota will paint those cars. They will pay to have the car painted, but a lot of people don't know that. And if you have any car out there, like you did, you had a Nissan Ultima, you did the right thing. Go to the dealer and say, look, I've got a problem with this car.

I know it's five years old or whatever it is, and it's out of warranty, but my pain shouldn't fade. By the way, the answer about the roof, the reason it hits the roof is because it's under the direct sunlight. And the hood will fade and the trunk lid will fade. You know, the horizontal parts of the car will fade quickly. And you see this in a lot of cars. White is a huge color. It does it. You see it in red, and I hadn't heard about gunpowder gray, but apparently that's a problem, too.

So if the manufacturer has not declared it a problem, you're just out of luck. If they have, you need to call it loudly to their attention, and they'll step up. They'll paint a car and reimburse the dealer, I mean, the dealer or the body shop, to paint a new car completely before $5,000. dollars and they will pay that in some cases but the dealer is not allowed to talk to the customer the the manufacturer will chastise a dealer if he calls up a customer and say you know that white car is fading and the paint is is defective and you can get Toyota to reimburse you but you have to ask me a dealer get a lot of trouble for doing that you have to go to the dealer and then the dealer has to go to the manufacturer

Okay, so like I said, I understand the age, you know, the age of the car is going against me. Sure. I just thought in good sense because I had bought a new car that. Yeah. Last 20 years, that's the only place I've purchased cars from and taken them there for everything. You know, it's extremely, you know, everything. Well, Ralph, I'm glad you called the show because you have a question that a lot of people may not even know they have. So with all the listeners out there, if you're listening now, and you don't have, and you don't,

have a car, whatever make it is, and you have that fading situation on the hood, the roof, or wherever, and it's just not right. I mean, you just say, why is it fading? Go to that dealer that you bought the car from and ask them to check with the manufacturer and see if the manufacturer can give you some assistance in repairing that paint. You have to direct to the question, the manufacturer's not going to call you, and the dealer's not going to call you, you have to do it. So anybody that's got a problem with a paint on a car doesn't have to be, you know, out of warranty, call it to their attention. Ralph, you probably enlighten a lot of people there that might have better luck than you did. All right.

Well, good. Well, I'll tell you what. I appreciate what you guys do. I'm going to rest my case at this point because I've been wanting to call in for a year or so when I last dealt with you, son, and the deal or so. But I appreciate it. You guys finalize my case. I'm just going to have to live with it. Thank you, Ralph.

Please go all again. I appreciate it. Thank you. And you guys are the beetles of what you do, so we appreciate what you do. You're the best. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll take a moment and let you know that we really appreciate all of you.

You do make the show, and we just want to take a moment, and thank you. I know everybody's got a whole lot to do this weekend, but thanks for tuning in to all Stuart on cars. Give us a call, tool. free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Speaking of text, Josh is ready to rock and roll. Actually, I have some anonymous feedbacks, but they are in text forms. Exciting, exciting. This one is not so anonymous.

He signed it, Richard. Oh, boy. I hate when that happens. No, his name is really Tom. Yeah, there you go. You never can't trust these anonymous feedbacks. He's referring to an older mystery shop, one of this on our website. And he says, regarding your mystery shop of Kagan Honda in Fort Pierce, I found this on the Polk County website.

And basically what it is is an explanation of some government registration fees. And he says, it sounds like a lot of these pesky fees might be legitimate, even if not common. So I guess the question is, and he's referring to an out-of-state tax registration fee, does the rule about tax being on a fee kind of being a signal that is a dealer fee, does that apply outside of the state of Florida, I'm wondering? Yes, it does. There's probably some minor exceptions.

And if you, because there's 50 states and you never know exactly what all the states are going to do. There's no significant fees that are government fees that are not that are taxed. There's some minor ones that might be, But you're talking $2 and nickels and dime kind of thing there. But no, there's no excuse. There are a lot of fees from state to state, more in some states and others.

But the dealers are making in Florida an obscene amount of money on what they're getting for their hidden fees. It's really sad. And they keep going up and up and up. I used to charge a dealer fee at my dealership many years ago. I think it was $495. yep and and that was 15 years ago we dropped it in 2004 I believe 16 years ago so 16 years ago that was a that was my last giant step toward honesty we were doing everything else right but we're charging a $495 dealer fee and I can still remember holding the meeting on the showroom floor

I don't think you were there Josh I wasn't involved at that time and your brother probably I didn't join until you stopped becoming evil that's true And I thought they were going to lynch me. I said, from now on, we're going to drop the $495.00. Think about it as a business person, pretend like you're a car dealership owner, and you sell 100 cars a month, we'll do it, just a small dealer, 100 cars a month. What's $400,495? I was told there would not be math at this test.

$4,950. I think $49,000. 49,000. So that's $49,000 a month. Now, how about a dealer like Hollywood Toyota that's selling 1,000 cars a month? That's easy, easy, man. And they don't sell 1,000 cars every month, but they come close to it. Close to half a million dollars in fees a month. Exactly. So dealers literally have relied on their dealer fee for all their profit. And the profit that they get from the dealer fee is about all they make. It allows them to do something very important to advertise a car lower than their competition. If my dealer fee is higher than my competitors, I can advertise a lower price because I have a bigger dealer fee to sneak in in the hidden fees when they buy the car. You know, it was really a time back then. I recall, like yesterday, and I was fearful that it was going to be a coup d'etat. Yeah, could have been.

And it was, everybody just went, what? Yeah. Your claim to fame back then was you had the smallest dealer fee in town. Yeah, exactly. Those were the days. Wait, excuse me, Josh. We're going to go to Tina from Benita Springs. Thanks for holding on, Tina.

Good morning. Yo, Tina. Not Tina. That's actually Tom of the beach. Come on. Well, it's hopping in Tina. Tina from Bonita. We drop Tina.

We'll go back to Tina. We're going to go to Josh. he's got some text for us Yeah, I got another feedback here This one reads I just went to look at a car yesterday advertised for 12,700 on Auto Trader Out the door was 16-5

Doing a little math in my head That does seem a bit on the high side right there She breaks down some of the fees here Reconditioning fee 99 Dealer process fee 800 Admin fee 200 Non-tax fees 200 Also the price was actually

13,700 when we arrived because the $1,000 off was apparently only for credit, meaning if they compelled you to finance, they'd give you a deeper discount because, of course, they'll make up the money on the financing end. Really ticked off, I'll paraphrase, that's not the word she used. Oh, boy. Plus, this is what we haggled them down to. It was more than that at first. Car is still on the lot. Shame, because we love the car, but hate games. Brom, and they signed it, Stuff, stuff, stuff, yay. Yeah, this is one of the most, what is the word? It's just dangerous parts about buying a car online.

AutoTrader is the big gun. They're the 800-pound gorilla. Every car dealer in the United States has their used cars and new cars on AutoTrader. And it's a great website. It really is well-constructed, and you can sort for anything you want. You can sort by distance from you, the dealerships,

the ear-meg model. price. It's really user-friendly, great. I recommend everybody if they use auto-trader. But the Python, hidden in the bushes, is the hidden fees. And they take the hidden fees out of their auto-trader price. Now, Mark Fisher, who was the founder, a lot of you know about off-lease-only.com, one of the largest used car dealers in Florida. and I believe soon to be the country. They were going on after CarMax. And I talked to Mark Fisher about this. He and his auto,

off-lease-only lobbyists are going after Auto-Trader. They talked to Auto-Trader, and Auto-Trader, according to Mark Fisher, has agreed to drop their hidden fees in their posted prices. And I think it was supposed to be at the end of July. And here we are. So we'll verify that.

We'll go and see if AutoTrader did drop all their hidden fees. That would mean that you could find a car on AutoTrader, and the price would be out the door except for government fees, and that boils down to simply sales tax and license plate. Easy to verify, and we'll check on that. Another thing that the dealer fee allows dealers to do or it helps their cars be misrepresented online. Some of these sites like AutoTrader and Car Gurus,

they'll rate the selling price as good, better, or best. So they do that on the non-dealer fee price, and they say, oh, this is a great price, but had there been $1,000 in dealer fees added into the posted price, it might be just good or moderate. So it helps them misrepresent the cars. Great information. And that's a shame.

We're going to go to Fort Walton, and where Tom has been holding. Good morning, Tom. Good morning. Welcome. Hey, I wanted to call up to say that I had an excellent experience buying a car online. You know, I went to three Toyota dealers. I was looking for a 2019, a new 2019 forerunner.

You know, I didn't bother me getting a 2019 as long as it was priced appropriately. and I felt all three were priced appropriately. I ended up getting the forerunner from Rochester Hills, Michigan, and I can't say how great it was. You know, I just asked for an out-the-door price. The only thing I wanted listed was, you know, out-the-door price in taxes. And, you know, all three of them followed up with

the outdoor price, but they did include a dock fee, a temporary tag fee, and the taxes. You know, I paid a $220 dock fee up in Detroit. And, you know, it was listed. I was very happy with that. And the strange thing about it, when I came down here looking, I initially looked at a 2019 Honda Passport knew, and the dock fee in Fort Walton. Beach was just, you know, it was close to $800. And so I went over to the Toyota dealership here, $800 dollar dot fee.

Well, you know, that's not going to happen. You know, go to another state, you can go to Alabama. And it's sad, I never asked for, I asked for a price on the Honda. I didn't have the Toyota dealer. From here, you can drive to Mobile, Alabama, or you can go online. And Tom, how much does it cost to transport the car from Rochester Hills to Port Walden Beach? Well, I actually drove it back because I went up to visit somebody. But it was $1,250 to bring it back or have it brought back in a covered vehicle if I would have wanted to do that.

Right. And the thing for me, I ended up going to, I'm from Chicago, so I went to classic Toyota up there. I could have wanted and visited, you know, folks up there. I went, you know, I went to a dealer down in St. Louis, new people down there, so I was going to tie it into a trip. And, you know, they're all the nice vehicles. They were all great vehicles. The color pattern that I wanted was probably the one in St. Willis, but when I asked for the Maroni label to be sent down,

they wouldn't send a copy of it, which was kind of, you know, but they were very kind with everything else. Oh, yeah, smooth, slick. Yeah, they sent more what she called it internal sheet. It didn't look like the standard of Moroni, but it didn't have some of the other stuff. And, you know, you're just out there, and it's like, how could you be so good on everything else and just that one thing unless you know you wonder if it's just a

frustration that maybe the rep was you know is getting a million of these a week and are you know a lot of these and you know nobody ever follows back up to say you know I'm not getting or I went elsewhere I did want to give one heads up on buying the car online. I experienced this up in Rochester Hills. You know, I want to believe most dealers are, for the most part, by and large, you know, pretty honest with what they advertise. For instance, classic Toyota had one. They listed there were 3,000 miles on the new Toyota, which is fine.

They advertised it. I called up, I asked, you know, how do you have 3,000 miles on a new vehicle? And, you know, the young lady had mentioned that, well, this was the owner was driving this vehicle. The other thing that's not listed, he put a DVD in the back and remote start. And, you know, and that's fine. When I got up to Auburn Hills, something hit me the morning to ask how many miles were on this new vehicle. and I left the voicemail before I went to pick the car up. I was told, the sales rep was there, when the store opened, pulled the car up,

and she noticed that there were 900 miles on the vehicle. She came into the office, got my voicemail. And that's fine. You know, I came in, the dealer was kind enough. They compensated me. I was very happy with the compensation on it. They just said it was an oversight. In our system, we have several different areas where the mileage was all listed correctly in there.

Somehow on both our website, it didn't list a mile, but mileage on it. And then on the auto trader, there were no miles listed, which is consistent with many of the other new vehicle. So, you know, I asked them if they could lift, you know, I can go and take a look at the car underneath the car just to see that nobody took it out four-wheeling in the Upper Peninsula. They were very good with that. Let me speak with the mechanic in there. And I, you know, I can't, you know, I can't say enough. To me, I've had demos before with Miles.

There's nothing wrong with that. No. Well, you get that added to the new car warranty, if you ask, typically the manufacturers allow you to add the mileage if it is technically a new car, and you have 900 miles on it, and the mileage is 36,000 in the warranty, then you get 36,000 plus 900 miles. But you want to, you want a new car, you want a fresh car, you don't want one with 900 miles, and that's understandable. Tom, let me say this. I particularly appreciate your call because I think you're a trendsetter for the way cars will be bought in the future. And this whole coronavirus thing and a lot of changes in the way our country is doing retail business, online, online, online. And cars haven't been something that have really jumped into that.

And now they're beginning to. And interesting thing, too, by you going so far away from the dealership, When a car dealer has a market, and it's typically a market that he, it's his local market, it might have a 10-mile or a 20-mile radius. And there's a lot of competition in that market, but he has to maintain a certain profit margin. When a dealer sells a car way out of his market, if you negotiate hard, which you did, they'll give you a car much lower because they consider it plus business. and it's an extra unit is the vernacular they use.

So in my market, I'm in Palm Beach County with my car dealership. If I can sell a car in Fort Lauderdale or Miami, I'll sell a car for less than I would if it were in the Palm Beach market. And in this case, here you went all the way to Michigan from Fort Walton Beach, and that was plus business for the dealer that sold it to me. So you got a great price, and I think it's more and more people should be. doing like you is reaching out. You can always do this, too.

If you get an unbelievably good price, 200 miles away from your market, you can go to your local dealers. Look, here it is in writing. Do you want to match it, or do you want me to drive 200 miles and buy it from your competitor? A lot of times they'll match that price.

You know, which is, you know, you're right on that if you walk in there, they have a choice, take it or lose it. Yes. And, yeah, I want to also give a, can I give a shout out to my sales rep up there who was just fantastic? Oh, sure. What's his name?

Lauren Dempsey. Yeah, Lauren Dempsey. Lauren Dempsey. And, yeah, and she was fantastic. The other thing about that dealership, I was surprised when I got into the finance office. He just brought up, just brought up the two warranties on it. Just, and no pushing, nothing. You know, he explained it, and, you know, and I said no, didn't come back.

There was the other one, I think, which, or he went over what the power train, the 100,000-mile power train warranty covered, and he said, you know, most of the equipment's not going to fail. It's probably going to be an electrical issue if something goes wrong, because there's, you know, there's so many miles of electric. Well, you found yourself a good, honest dealer? and a good honest salesperson. And thank you for sharing it with us, Tom.

Please call again. You're a great caller. You're an educated consumer. And we'd love to hear from me again. Fort Walton Beach. Give us a call anytime. We'd love to hear from you. And Tom, thanks for giving your sales rep a shout,

Lauren, a female salesperson. And, you know, that's really great. I appreciate what you did. And isn't there so many? ways to negotiate. My goodness gracious today. And you dotted your eyes and crossed your cheese, that's for sure. Thank you, Tom. I'm happy. Okay, folks. Well, that's a great caller. I think we have a YouTube over here, Rick. We do. We've got a couple of them, actually. First one is Ashley is asking, what's your opinion on oil undercoding?

I live in the Northeast and keep vehicles to 200,000 miles plus. We are meticulous about maintenance and this is one we want to know the value of. I don't know what the oil undercoating is. I know what undercoating is. What do you say, Rick? I actually had to look this up to find out just what was going on with this. I know undercoating but we're in the south and undercoating down here is kind of snake oil. You don't really need it as much. Up north however with the road salt and ice, apparently oil undercoating is a slightly different material that instead of like a sticky thick plastic layer, it goes on as almost a liquid and then adheres down to help keep stuff

from sticking. And it sounds like a pretty good value from what I've been able to see on it. I assume it's not flammable. Nope, nope, not flammable. It's kept pretty safe. Known as a Molotov cocktail undergoating. Well, that would be those older keyists. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, interesting, yeah. I never heard of it, so I learned something new every day. Okay, what else? We've got another text. Well, Frank is asking on, with our previous caller here, is it a good idea to drive a new vehicle such a long distance prior to breaking it in? I know they usually recommend not using the cruise control for the first 600 miles or so.

And really the answer there is just try not to do long travel at the exact same miles per hour. Varying your speed will help to keep. the engine give it that short break-in. But modern engines don't really need the break-in like they used to. Engines back in the 60s and 70s, you needed that break-in in order to get the materials to kind of smooth in and work together. But the quality has improved so much on these engines and the tolerances that you don't need it anymore. If you don't need to break it in, why do you have to worry about varying your speed? It's just a little bit of break-in. And I would say for the first 50 to 100 miles at the most.

Hmm. Okay. There you go. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't jot that number, Don, 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. And I believe we're going to go straight to Josh. Yeah, we have a text here, a couple. This person asks, is updating the maps on your toy-to-ve vehicle,

a part of the manufacturer warranty or part of ToyotaCare or either. And it's really not part of either. There's free over-the-air updates on some of the newer Toyotas. Yep. If I'm not mistaken, Rick probably answered this better than me. The older DVD-based navigations, you have to pay a pretty penny to get those updated, a couple hundred dollars if I recall. 250, yeah.

And that is terrible. It's a shame on Toyota. You sell somebody a car. They pay $45,000 for a brand new car, and now you've got to pay to get your software updated. Thankfully, that's less common. Most of the models now are over-the-air update. It's not a DVD-based CD. Yeah, Nancy and I just bought a generator, a new generator for our house,

and they have a really cool app that you can download on your iPhone, and you can see the generator's condition, and you can change the test time and all sorts of cool things. and they charge you $4.95 a month. So they slam dunked me on the generator, and now they're bleeding me for $4.95 a month. And that's the way I feel about having to pay a manufacturer for software stuff.

It's just cheap. These subscription services are more and more popular. You have $5 here, $990 there. All adds up, that's for sure. Hopefully we won't have to use that app. Yeah, let's knock on wood here. We got another text here. It has four questions within the text. It's a cornucopia of questions here.

Number one, I understand that red vehicles don't have a good resale value. Why? I think red is pretty, although it fades easily. It's the question of how many people think red is beautiful. And purple is beautiful to some people. Indeed. White is beautiful to more people than... Yellow is lovely. Yes.

So, no, it's a very... I'm glad the question was asked because... color is hugely important to the resale value of a car. And think about it, people buy car on emotional reasons more than they do on practical reasons. Otherwise, they'd never sell a Jeep, right? I mean, jeeps are sexy, but they're high maintenance, high insurance, unsafe. And so when you buy a car, color is very important. So if you buy a white car, more people buy white cars than any other car, white, silver,

was it beige or what are the top white silver and black would be your top gray so if you if you have a favorite color and it's not real popular like purple you love the car and you drive it for four years and it cost you a thousand or two thousand dollars in trade-in value so don't do it unless you really really love purple yeah if you love it and you're going to keep that car for a while then I suggest you get what you want but if you're going to you know trade the car in three years you want a car with a broad appeal. Exactly. So that kind of answers

her other follow-up questions. She had a question about blue vehicles having the same resale problem, and the same principle applies. Some people absolutely love blue, but some people wouldn't even consider a blue car. So on resale value, that will have an effect. Years ago, when I was a Pontiac dealer, my brother was in business with me,

and he was older than I, and he was in charge, and he ordered all the cars. And his name was Doug, and he loved green, love green. And it was, Pontiac had a color called Verdoro Green. And we had this parking lot full of Adoro Green cars. And I kept explaining to him that, you know, some people don't like green cars. And anyway, oh, but I digress. I'm sorry. Nowadays, we have, you know, sophisticated computer systems that tell us what colors to order or not. They also asked the same textors asked if the interior color will affect the vehicle's

value. I could address that. It would have to be a pretty extreme interior color, I think, to affect it. Most interiors are beige, black, or gray. We've seen people come in with custom bright red leather interiors, and I can see that dissuading of potential buyer down the road. So as long as it's in the common palette of interior colors, I don't think that'll have too bad an effect on your vehicle's value. And lastly, they asked what color vehicle interior holds his value the best. I would say, just like I mentioned, something traditional, beige, gray, or black is actually more and more popular nowadays.

Yeah, and you can ask a used car dealer. I mean, the best way to find out, I mean, people that buy and sell cars at auctions, they typical have somebody that is an expert on that. No. I mean, oh, this is a, see, it varies by model, too. I mean, a sports car, a red sports car is really cool. A red sedan ain't cool. And then if you have a red, if you have a red sports car, you want to have maybe a white interior, maybe black. You don't want to have necessarily a clashing color. So it's very important. And if you want to maximize the value, because you're going to trade that car in, check around, find out what everybody else loves. For high-end cars, like you really want to stick with white or black if you're buying a Lexus or Mercedes. They might have a real pretty red, but that it will have, because of the higher value, to begin with, it will have more of an effect in terms of resale value. Yeah. I have a couple more texts unless there's something pressing.

Let's keep on rolling. Great. All right. Let's give the number out again. There you go. 877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. we're going to go to Josh and then we're going to hear from

Rick. He's got a YouTube over there. All right. This is from John in California. He says, good morning. I'm going to be in the market for a car for my wife soon. If the dealer doesn't want to sign the affidavit that Nancy provides, should I just walk away? Should I assume they're just playing games? Thank you and love your show. I tune in

every Saturday morning, John and California. I would but it's you know, I think I would try this. I would say can you give me a reason why you won't sign it and if they still won't sign it I would divert to the definition of an out-the-door price

what would you say Nancy I would say that when you walk into a dealership and you're negotiating for whether it be a used car or a new car and you just don't get the right vibes for lack of another word the right vibes.

If this person isn't going to cooperate with you, whether it be sign my affidavit that you can download at Earl on Cars or anything verbally that you have to say, and you feel uncomfortable, I just turn around and leave because there is a dealer out there that is going to sign the out-the-door price.

I hope I answered your question. Earl, what do you have? No, I think you actually really enlighten the whole, when you actually leave, you will find out that you might not get to the car because it's a poker game. Buying a car is a little bit like a poker game. And if they think you're bluffing, they're pretty good at it. They're pros.

They're professionals. Some of these really, really good salespeople have been selling cars for 20, 30 years. And they're psychologists. So they'll stare at you and say, I'm sorry, we can't, the policy prohibits us. from signing legal documents. It'd have to go through the legal department and we're not permitted to do that.

And then you would say, well, I understand. And your competitor, I believe we'll sign it. And I'd rather buy the car from you, but I'm going to buy it from the competitor. I'll see in four or five years when I buy another car and we'll see if the legal department has eased up. And then I would turn around and I'd walk out the door with a smile and I'd get in my car.

And I wouldn't be surprised if someone wasn't beating on my window saying, oh, I just called the legal department, and they said, it's okay. It's happened. It's happened before. And ladies and gentlemen, as I mentioned earlier, there's so many different ways to negotiate in purchasing a vehicle, and you've got more power than you think you do. Some in the biz call that a parking lot save. Yes.

You run out at the very last second. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Throw your body in front of the car. I think Rick had a comment from YouTube. We do. Correct page here. George is asking,

which is the better buy a certified range rover or buying an extended warranty on a 2017? Well, by the extended warranty, I assume you mean, is this a factory offered warranty or is this a independent warranty? we don't know. He doesn't really say and I'm assuming he means buying it

on the car he already has. The car, range rovers are not in my top list of reliable vehicles. And I see a lot of them on the road. A lot of people are, they're an end car, kind of like a

mini cooper and a Jeep and a, but it's a high end in car. So if you want to look cool at the country club, you'll a land rover or range rover if you look at consumer reports they don't give you very good ratings i i i always say if you're buying a good quality car forget about the extended service contract but a range rover land rover it might be a good idea but you want to be sure you know what's covered

and what's not covered typically extended warranties omit some of the most expensive things to take care of And Ricky would know the computer units, the navigation systems. There are a lot of items on a car that you know, and the dealer knows, really costly. So when you buy the extended service contract, you find they have been omitted. One of the first things they'll try to admit is air conditioning components. Yes. Because not only are those parts rather expensive, but they're extremely labor-intensive and very expensive to replace. see things like engine, transmission, axle, you know, important, big, heavy, you

say, boy, that covers the whole car. Let me tell you something. The drive train, you know, from the engine block and the water pump and the axle and all that kind of stuff, they're lubricated items, and they will last forever as long as you maintain it according to the fact you recommended maintenance. And if you don't, the warranty is void. So you have to do it. And so you're paying, you're paying for nothing on a power train warranty.

So be sure, if you're going to buy a warranty for your land cruiser, be sure, I'm at your Land Rover, be sure that you've checked to see what it covers. Yeah, given that choice, Mike Gut would tell me the certified warranty would be the way to go. Certified. Because I imagine if it's an aftermarket warranty, it's either incredibly expensive to cover 2017 Land Rover or if it's not expensive, then you've got to look for the fine print and the loopholes in that warranty. Yeah, I must have certified, yes, that at the very beginning.

That means it was designed by the manufacturer, and so it's a legitimate warranty. But certified isn't easily, you can use, certified is tossed around too much, and be sure it is the manufacturer's certified warrant. Absolutely. Okay. Any more text? I do. I do. All right.

It says, good morning, Earl. Hope you and yours are in good health. Steve from New Jersey here. I share your concern and irritation with hidden fees. in my opinion, the bottom line is the bottom line, whether via an online or in-person price request. Always, all caps, ask for an out-the-door price, inclusive of all charges, always get a minimum of at least three bids, and do the research to verify the deal of reputation. This is what you advise me and what I can attest to.

I've been shopping for cars online for years and have never had an issue. And from reading his text, I'm not surprised he hasn't had an issue. It looks like he really covers the basis there. Yeah. Okay. I've got something here that I was going to cover, and if we have a little lull in text, are we have a caller? We do. Okay. We have a regular caller, and that's Howard. Good morning, Howard. Howard calls us from Jupiter. Okay, I'm calling you from the Bronx now. Oh. Hey. And it's just, just to start here, it is in Florida. Give us a Bronx. Although the humidity, humidity is not that high, but it's just, the temperature is actually higher.

It's pleasure to talk to you guys. And my question is about breaks. Now, when I need breaks, can I have the rotors cut? And I have a 2017 Toyota. I was told that it can be cut once. And the OEM Toyota rotors are very expensive, and I wouldn't get a Chinese rotor. I mean, that's definitely not in my vocabulary, Chinese rotors.

So, Rick, what do you say about that? I cut rotors all day long, and I've seen some cars that the thickness of the rotor, before you get down to the minimum allowable thickness, you can get three or even four cuts out of it depending on how much metal has to be removed in order to true that rotor up. So average, I'm going to say at least two to three cuts on most Toyota rotors down here in South Florida. Now up north where they get a lot of heavy rust from the road salt, a lot of times they wind up, they can't every cut them even once, and they've got to be replaced. But that's because of the environmental conditions of where you live.

Okay, that's very good information. I appreciate your help. And the next question. A friend of mine wants to buy an aftermarket rotor. He has a 2015 corolla. And I told him, stay away from Chinese rotors. And he found out that all the OEM rotors are Chinese. You can't get one that's not. So the Chinese cornered the market.

What do you say about Chinese rotors or anything? Chinese automotives coming from China, Rick? Well, excuse me, it comes right down to what the person can really afford. If they simply cannot afford the factory rotor, you may have to go to the aftermarket rotors. And let me jump in there, too. You know, iPhones are made in China. And if you have an American product designed and engineered in America, and if the

They sublet the manufacturer to China, and there's quality control because you say, listen, this is the way I want to build. It's going to be go through our quality inspectors before I pay you. Then basically all you've done is have the product manufactured and then ship back. I would be skeptical of an American car that had a rotor that was designed and engineered in China and manufactured in China. but I wouldn't have a problem if I bought a Nissan and it was a manufacturer of the United States and it was designed and engineered by Nissan and the Chinese manufacturer were to manufacture the product.

Okay, it's a good point. Okay, thank you very much for taking my call and you guys stay safe. Thank you, Howard. You too. Thank you, Howard. Enjoy the Bronx. Ladies and gentlemen, our telephone number is 877-966. 9960 and you can text us at 772-4976530 and before the moments get away from us and the show was over I forgot earlier to mention our attorney general Ashley Moody you know although we expose car dealers that are taking advantage of consumers we still need your help out there so give the Attorney General Ashley Moody a call she's there she's there to protect us she's there to protect us from fraud from scams from dangerous products so we're asking for her help to well protect us from these unscrupulous car dealers her phone number 850 414 3300 that's 850 414 3300 now we're going to go to a youtube i believe

Raymond has one of the best comments that I've heard in a while he says what do you think of dealers that use the line if you purchase it today and his comeback is why are you going out of business tomorrow? Well done Raymond I love that amazing you know every time I sit here as a consumer advocate and I'm also a car dealer and but I just I hear these things as you

consumers think of it. You can imagine going into any other store. I mean, you're buying a couch, you're buying a television set, you're buying a loaf of bread, and if the person there in the store said, if you buy it today, the price is this. And it just, it's laughable that people, and it's common, and they do do that. One of the, one of my favorites is you go into a car dealership and you talk to salesman and they ask for the out-the-door price says, I'm not going to give you the price because I want you to shop around

and then they'll take out their business card and you're looking at me and I'm a salesman and I go like this and I take it and I go like this and you say, what's that? Say, that's my best price and after you shopped around

and looked at all the other dealers you come back and I'm going to show you this. can you imagine how insulting that's a great tactic did you know that one? No, that's new to me

Okay, see I just flashback evil many years ago Works real well Hey all you evil car sales people out to try that It really works. Hard to believe Anyway I'd just be laughing and walking away Yeah, yeah

You'd think so Okay We're going to go to a caller Paul is calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Paul. Good morning. I have a question on a 2012 Toyota Sienna. I happened to buy it at your dealership new, and it was a great experience for a change. I hate buying cars because the way they treat you and all the things you mentioned on the phone, but it really was a good experience. And the Toyota Sienna is a great vehicle. We love it. We have about 100,000 miles on

it. The air conditioning has been working fine, and then suddenly one of the clean lights on the air conditioner was flashing on and off, on and off, and the air conditioner was just blowing warm air. When we started it again and ran it for a while, the air conditioner was fine. So it seems like something's ready to go, and do you have any ideas on that? What could be? Did you, by any chance, run through a mud puddle? I don't think so. A splash of water or anything right before it happened? I don't think so. No, I don't think it was raining that day.

Okay, because what usually happens is the air conditioning compressor is run by a belt, and if it suddenly gets a splash of water on it, it starts to slip the belt, And the sensor that reads the speed of that compressor will automatically shut it off and start flashing the light because it thinks that the compressor might be binding up and seizing. And it doesn't want to have it lock up and have the belt suddenly break and leave you stranded on the side of the road. So if you get a splash of water on it, it'll start flashing that light. Otherwise, if it's doing it when you didn't have anything else happen, it could be the third. the AC compressor is starting to get old and it's starting to seize up inside, and you're probably going to wind up needing an air conditioning compressor

if it happens again and keeps happening. Okay, yeah, it hasn't happened since. One of the mentioned something about the sun hitting something on the dashboard and some module that controls something in the air conditioner might need replacing, but then they weren't really an expert or anything, and I don't know if that runs still or not. Right, that's the solar sensor, and that actually has to do with whether the AC is running at certain levels or not. That wouldn't have anything to do with that.

If it happens again, though, try pushing the button to turn the AC off, you know, the one that actually says AC, and then push it again to turn back on. If it comes right back on and starts blowing cold, you should be okay, but it sounds like it might be that compressor getting old and tired. and getting ready to go out. I know how it feels. I do too. Says the youngest guy in the room.

All righty. I have one other question, if I can. Sure. You know, we have the tires for life program. We've always had all services done at the dealership. And they replaced two tires of the four recently, which is great. But the other two weren't quite low in a lot. You've given it for a while.

It's still not absolutely down to the wear bars, I guess that's it. But it's really close, and we plan on going on a long trip. If we hit heavy rain or whatever, we're concerned. It's so close. We feel like we always have our service there. You've got to do all the fact we recommend. amended services, which we do. I wonder if

an exception could be made or if it's not exactly totally worn out. Absolutely. What I should do. Yeah, bring it in, let us measure it. The guideline is below 3.30 seconds

and what would be done, if you're going to take a long trip and still above 3.30 seconds, there'd be just a small charge we call a proration fee and it would be a fraction of the cost of the tire it would amount to the remaining wear. But, you know, we try to be flexible on those things,

and I think if you come in and measure it, if it's anywhere close to 3.30 seconds, we'll go ahead and take care of it. Oh, great. Well, thank you so much. A great dealership, and I do trust your dealership, which I've had really bad experiences with some others around here, and you guys are great. Well, thank you so much.

share the call. Thank you. You bet. Thanks, Paul. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go back to Josh. He has some texts over there. Yeah, actually I have an anonymous feedback. This is some kudos for us from a gentleman named Dave. Again, a not-so-anonymous feedback.

I just want to say that your advice is absolute gold. I did what you suggested and got the out-the-door price at dealer number one. I took that to several other dealers and had the dealers negotiate against each other. Sounds like a buzz sport. At the end of the day, I got the car $5,500, about 20% less than what they originally quoted with tax, stock fee, et cetera, et cetera. And about 15% off of MSRP signed Dave. So he did a great job and way to go.

Wonderful. Yeah, Dave's got a personality that allows him to be forceful. I don't want to say aggressive, but you have to have kind of a tough exterior to be able to deal with these people. If you stick to your guns, it's amazing what you can do. Remember this. The average retailer sells cars, sells whatever their product is, and they have a price. And that's a stated price. It's the price you pay when you walk in the store. Car dealers don't have that. Every person that comes in buys the same car. They pay a different price. It's all a matter of the salesperson and the customer, the strength of the negotiating

power of each, and the salesperson is going to win. I mean, he's been doing it for 10 years or 15 years. He's been trained. He's retrained weekly, and they're sharp. Salespeople are smart, sharp professionals. So you're going head to head with a professional when you go in there. And the The only way that you can beat it a professional is to bring in the competition in, and then you go in to three, at least three dealerships. And I love the idea of these folks that are doing online, and they're going as far, hundreds of miles away, and they're getting, and that is the ultimate way to win the battle. You're just going to have to be tough, and $5,000.

Take a big dealership that sells, you know, like 20 cars a day. Let's say it's a Honda dealership. They'll sell their most popular amount of what would be a civic. So they'll sell five civics that day. And on the profit margin, one person will pay $100 profit to the dealer. And another person will pay $1,200 profit dealer. And maybe a person will pay a $10,000 profit to the dealer. And it's whatever that salesperson can push that buyer.

into paying is what he pays. And the average profit, you know, automation or all these other, they report their average profit, an average profit of $1,200 represents a profit of $1,000 and another profit of $10,000. Dutas can easily make $10,000 or even $20,000 on a price of a car by undervaluing the trade in and then by charging an exorbitant interest rate and a lot of aftermarket things. the amount of profits you can make on a car sale is almost unlimited there have been class action suits for senior citizens that paid $20,000 profits on lease cars and the last one I remember was in Martin County and often is the person who could afford it the least that pays the most unfortunately exactly the victims the people that are not sophisticated and forceful all right I have another anonymous feedback if I may please all right good morning everyone Rick, I have checked and filled my tires with the proper pressure early in the morning. What kind of pressure increase might a passenger car see while driving on a hot road in the

middle of summer? The tires list of maximum pressure. Is that a max-cold inflation spec? Or is it the max pressure that the tire must stay below at all times? Thank you. That's the max cold pressure on the sidewall of the tire. Cold meaning the car has been sitting still for at least 30 or 40 minutes. down the highway, South Florida,

I would say you could see the tire pressure increase as much as 5 to 7 pounds. Yeah, I saw that myself on a, I went on a road trip recently, and I went from 31 to 36 PSI. You know, the way my mind works, it's kind of, you know, I have a devious

sort of. No, I've never noticed that about you. Yeah. Okay. But I keep thinking about Death Valley and 120 degrees, and you're, and you inflate your tires according to coal pressure and you go to Death Valley and there's no cops around and you got a straight highway. So now you're going 120 miles an hour with 110 degree ambient

temperature. Is it possible to blow a tire because it is over inflated because of in extreme conditions? I don't know if you could over do it by overinflation at that point? No, no, you have you inflated according to specs by the coal when the tire was cold. Then you took it to death Valley, 120 degrees outside, and you drove it 120 miles an hour for an hour and a half. I don't think the pressure would be the issue. Okay. Because the tires, I have actually seen cars come into the shop that are rated for 35 pounds, and they've had 70 pounds of air in the tire.

Were you nervous? Terrified. As I'm trying to get the air out of that tire, I was terrified that it was going to burst in my face. Did you let your apprentice do that, and you walk over it? No, I don't have an apprentice. I have me. Oh, okay. Well, that's interesting.

I don't know why. These things come to my... No, it seems like that would be a pretty hazardous situation. Okay, guys, we're going to go to Casey from Danridge, Tennessee. Good morning, Casey. Good morning. How are you all doing? Thank you for your patience.

We're well. You bet. I've got a question since you all in the car business and own a dealership. I'd like to find out an age-old question that I've always had, and that is, why do dealers charge exorbitant amounts of money to fix vehicles when my wife's 2011 RAV-4 needed struts all the way around it? I called into the dealer to find out how much that would be, and they quoted me a price of $1,600. $400. And then I go online and I check how much I can get struts for, about $400. And my son, who's not a mechanic, but he changed that out, including making a special tool to get to the rear strut or shock. In two hours, he had that done and completely back on the road, and it cost me $4.25.

Why, I understand they have overhead, but it gets to the point of being ridiculous what they want to charge the average guy to try to maintain a car, and maybe your perspective on that. Well, it's just, the reason is because they can, and you have to take away their ability to charge that by competition, just when you're buying a car. And I always recommend when you have a unique repair like struts or even a failed air conditioner, transmission or engine, any big repair, you should always get competitive bids just like when you buy a car. What car dealers do is they charge competitive prices, good prices, for things like will changes, tire rotations, filters, and maintenance items that you can check and easily compare prices. on. And on the big prices that you're not familiar with, like, who knew? I hadn't, I didn't know how much it cost to replace struts. I don't know. Unless you're in the business, you don't

really know. So by not being familiar with what a competitive price is on an engine transmission or a strut job, they charge the highest price they can think of. And some people say, yes, you are smart enough to question it and check and get a great price. because you question it. So car dealers will charge you all the money they can get away with, whether it's for repairs or buying cars. Okay. Now, let me ask you one last question to deal with that.

So, like, a car dealer, do they have, like, we need to, in the maintenance shop, we need to make $150 per hour in order for us to be profitable, pay the mechanic, pay all the benefits, all that stuff. Is there a, you know, kind of a break-even or a profit-line hourly rate? Or would that, that's something that each dealer would, it would vary, that type of thing? It varies from dealer to dealer. And the profit, the charge per hour, a lot of people think that $150 an hour really means you pay the mechanic, $150 for every hour, he works on the car. It's a very confusing process in terminology.

It's not a clock hour, it's what's called a flat rate hour, and it should be a skill range hour or something like that. If you have a qualified mechanic that can fix a car and do this process, we'll get paid X number of hours. And it probably was based originally on measuring in a test area the chronological time. but in reality a good mechanic like Rick Kearney here he can take a repair that pays two hours and if he's done a lot of them and he's been in the business for 25 years he can do it in half the time so if the rates $150 an hour Rick can do it in a half an hour

and the dealership still makes 75 now Rick doesn't make that much Rick gets a percentage of what the dealer made and that can be, you know, that can vary. Right. So it's complicated. It shouldn't be. It should be transparent and easy for the customer, you, to understand, but it's not. Very confusing. Do the maintenance people at the front end when that car comes in, do they get paid on commission

so if they can tell you whatever repair costs 500 and they can really do it for three, but they charge five? So do they make a percentage of whatever they got the customer to agree to? Yes, everybody, and every now and there's some, it varies once in a while, but typically anybody that's working on your car, whether he's changing the oil or repairing your transmission, they're paid on commission. Now, there are salary employees, but they're typical lower-level employees like the people that jockey the cars and watch the cars and things like that.

And sometimes you have an apprentice that comes on with a guarantee. and he'll get a salary, but the rule of thumb, 95% of the people and the car dealership are on commission. Oh, very good. Well, guys, excuse me, thank you for your transparency and answering some of these questions because a lot of people like myself just don't know how they operate in order to go in there

and not be hoodooed, you know, and just pay a fair price for whatever. And if you don't know the business, you don't know what questions do. even ask. Exactly. Call the show anytime, and you or a friend of yours or anybody else listening. If you have a question on the cost of repairs, we've got Rick Kearney here, and we can

give you what we think would be a competitive price for whatever operation you have to have done in your car, and you can shop and compare until you get that price. Yeah, that'd be very good. I appreciate all your help. Thank you so much. Take care. Call again, please. Yeah, thanks, Casey.

It was nice hearing from you from Tennessee. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to close the phone lines, but we are still going to go to our text, our YouTube, and we will be going next to the Mystery Shopping Report, and I mention that because you can vote on that Mystery Shopping Report, and we're going to, we mystery shopped Graco Ford of Del Rey Beach. So, which do we, where are we going to YouTube or the YouTube? Got one quick one on YouTube here. Crickets is asking is the purchase agreement that is signed before seeing a financial agreement

binding. He says, I had to sign an agreement before the purchase was finalized. Well, there are actually three documents. There's a worksheet which is totally in my disclosure, albeit fine print, not legal document. And there's also

a vehicle buyer's order. The answer to your question is, The only legal document you sign if you're financing it is the installment sales contract. Now, if you're paying cash, the vehicle buyer's order is the legal document. The worksheet, which is typical now in dealers all over for it, I think probably everywhere, they use the worksheet because they can get away with things and they disclose, say, this is not a binding document, so they can write anything they want. And they typically will not release any document for you.

we find our mystery shoppers every now and then will be refused but they sometimes say you can take a picture of it but we can't let you have the document the reason for that is they don't want you going to their competition and saying this is the price that

they promised me and they don't if you don't have it in writing they'll say well if it's not in writing they will honor it so they don't want to give you ammunition to get a good price from the competition okay where are we on I have a text here. Okay.

This morning, Josh, to me, you sound very similar to Malcolm Gladwell, which in my opinion is a good thing. I'm a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, so I appreciate that. I don't know who Malcolm Graywell. He's an author and podcaster. He wrote lots of books, Talking with Strangers is his most recent. He's a real intellectual.

He used to write for the New Yorker and stuff. He's really fascinating stuff. I'll check him out. He has a really cool podcast called Revision and History. Anyway, my question regarding truck purchases, how much aftermarket work are you allowed to do, i.e. lifting your truck after purchase without avoiding the warranty. Is it best to do all aftermarket work at the dealership so that the warranty remains intact? I can address that a little bit. I'm sure Rick can also. I believe there's a certain amount of subjectivity and what you can do to the vehicle if you read your warranty guide carefully. And in my experience, experience a minor modification like a two or three inch lift on a truck will not void the warranty if it's done properly if something beyond that like a six inch lift or something like that you're getting into dangerous waters a lot of these aftermarket companies will

also provide their own warranty which will supersede the manufacturer's warranty so if you are going to explore that option I would definitely find a reputable place make sure they have a solid warranty that acts as a backup because the last thing you want to do is have a severe suspension issue or something like that, take it back to your dealership and say, I'm sorry you've made a modification and that's just not covered. Exactly. Yeah, it's true cars or trucks or any vehicle. You have to be careful. Yep. And I have one more, and if we can squeeze it in. Anne-Marie Grotham has a 2012 Lexus RX-350 since new. Usually she has the service done at your dealership. She won a free oil change from the radio show and

went to minus on Northlake. They told her she needed a new air filter for the engine and cabin. Wait to see the cabin filter and send a picture of a, you know, dirty looking cabin filter. So there's not a question there. I'm not sure what to...

She looked at it. That was a key thing. I was going to say, visually inspected, and Rick is recommended that in the past, but if it's a dirty, dirty filter, then it should be replaced. Don't take the, don't take them at the ward necessarily asked to see the filter. And I believe that's it for text.

I do have one more anonymous feedback, and it's just a quick comment, and then I can read that, and we can move on. Good morning, Earl. I think you are fighting two tough battles, one on the dealer front to make them give up their deceitful and shameful tactics, and the other on the consumer front to educate and establish some level of vigilance. How can the listeners of the show help you? Well, Nancy Stewart has asked at every show that someone contact Ashley Moody, the Attorney General. Ashley Moody is the chief law enforcement officer in the United States,

and nobody strikes fear into the heart of a car dealer greater than Ashley Moody, the Attorney General. One letter from Ashley Moody's office would get any car dealer's attention. And Nancy, do you have that number handy that we can give all the folks out there to contact Ashley Moody? Yes, I do. I'm saying that hasn't we, because I don't have it in front of me. The number is 850-414-3300. That's 850-4-14-3300. You can also go to Erlon Cars and download

where to complain and it has the form, the form for the Attorney General complaints that you can download, fill that out, and mail it in. It also gives you the forms for the County Officer Consumer Affairs, I think. What else do we have on there?

There's three agents, oh, Department of Motor Vehicles also, but you get the Attorney General complaint form, you can do it that way or just call the Attorney General directly, and I promise you, it will get the dealer's attention. The Department of Motor Vehicles is also very good.

The Better Business Bureau, that doesn't work too well. Even the County Office of Consumer Affairs doesn't work too well. But Department of Motor Vehicles, Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Attorney General, Ashley Moody, if you can get them to contact the dealer, you will give action. We've been exposing these car dealers week in and week out, and we really need your help and let your voice be heard and you can do that as Earl said by calling Ashley

and yes I'm on a first name basis with her her number is 850 414 3300 850 414 3300 help us help you okay you want to get to the mystery shopping report or do we have any text lingering in the back no I think we're ready to go okay folks you can continue to text and YouTube and Twitter. And if we have room after this Mr. Shopping report, we will get those before we end the show.

Mystery Shop, is that Greco or Greco? I say Greco. Greco. I say potato. You say Greco, I say Greco. Mystery shop of Greco Ford of Delray Beach. Today's mystery shop brings us back to a familiar automotive group, the Greco family of Cargulish, specifically, Greco Ford. of Delray Beach.

This is our first visit to this particular location. You know, that dealership was originally owned by Earl Wallace, Bill Wallace's father. Really? And my mother worked at that dealership for Earl Wallace. That's fascinating. Certain advantages of being an old guy. Seen it all. Yeah, seen it all.

In the first visit, I said, to Greco Fort of Delray Beach. Greco Ford is one of five dealerships. The Greco family owns in the state. I said earlier to Nancy 10. They have five dealership, but they own 11 nationwide. Our mystery shopping team has investigated the Greco dealership several times over the years without getting into all the details. Let's just say they've ended up on the bad dealer list more often than not.

And we had some doozy reports for Greco Masta in North Palm Beach, which is no longer Greco Mastro. They sold that, but we had some crazy reports from that one. Time and time again, Greco has failed to get a passing grade for consistently using old school high pressure sales tactics and deceptive advertising. Now, old school, I mean, it's amazing. The franchise system has been around for 100 years, car dealers for 100 years. And there are dealers out there that are doing things the same way they did it almost 100 years ago. I mean, nothing has remained as consistent as some of these crazy old school tactics. you know just because I'm an old guy I know most of the old school stuff and

some of the stuff we used to do back back when I was really evil there were actually car dealers they would take literally take the keys to the trade end and throw them up on the roof of the dealership so that the buyer couldn't leave I want to go home I'm sorry the keys are open I thought those were old wife sales well it's not it's not an old wife's day they used to actually bug the offices where the customers came in and they would listen to the husband and wife discuss among themselves the price that they were quoted

to see if they were. The FBI raided dealerships in Texas and closed them down because of what they were doing. I mean, it was rough. I was part of a little bit of that. We have to list all this inside. As a statute of limitations, I'm not sure, but I better.

Let's consult our attorney, I'll talk to my attorney before we continue. All this inside information that we have, and we've shared a lot through the years. We need to list that on Irwin Carth's. Okay, not a bad idea. That'll be the next book. Okay, they've also failed the Takata test,

and we shopped them a lot. So we thought, Greco, if we returned them, we can go to the chance to do something right. We always do that. We go back to the bad dealers and the good ones. We keep on top of everything. Hey, we've been doing this for 17 years, so we've hit just about everybody. The subject of our investigation, Greco, Ford, and Del Rey, is a brightly colored advertisement displayed on the new car specials page of their website.

It offers a new 2019 Ford F-150XLT for up to $13,380 off MSRP. Now, that's a lot of money. $13,380 discount off of Monroney label MSRP or 0% for 84 months. Of course, the up to is a much smaller font and the huge $13,800 off MSRP, and the ore is much smaller than the 0% for 84 months. So two really strong, powerful inducements to come in and buy that truck. The attention, of course, is being the intention of course, is to make one believe they can get both

if they get the zero percent financing and the seven years and dare I say my favorite, I coined this by the way I bought the website www.w.w. ain't going to happen.com ain't going to happen. Okay

now I'm trying to lick my finger again. Do that every week. Of course below the pretty graphic is the car dealer's best friend fine friend. It's every sneaky retailer's best friend, fine print. I mean, you know, fine print should be made illegal.

I bet I could run for president of the United States on, and my only thing would be make fine print illegal. I mean, I couldn't get elected because I never get any donations because every retailer in the world would attack me. But fine print. What a joke, fine print is. I think it was created by lawyers. Without fine print, we wouldn't need lawyers, would we?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. For example, this is a fine print that you can't read and it's blown off here. For example, 2019 F150 XLT stock number, hashtag KFB 77 101. You know what that means? There's only one vehicle and that's it that they identify. Although they just say, for example, okay, maybe they got another one.

RP 51,380 sale price, 3799, tag, tax, title, and dealer fee extra. And they don't say plural dealer fees, but they have more than one dealer fee because they have something, and I'm jumping ahead here, they have something called taxable fees. Taxable fees, hidden fees are dealer fees. 0% APR for 84 months at $11.9 cents per month per $1,000 finance. That's a ridiculous truth of lending law that doesn't help me at all, see what I'm paying. But it's in every offer. It's not very helpful. All offers with approved credit through forward credit, and not all will qualify.

All incentives to dealer cannot be combined with any other offer. Florida free illustration purposes only, so that means. they could show you a new car and sell you a tricycle, right? Or big fancy wheels and nearest has ugly steel wheels. Yeah, we're selling tricycles. Well, money. That's for illustration purposes only. A portion of this fine print states all incentives to deal is this phrase

is commonly found in disclaimers and is usually there to justify a tremendous discount that only 100 million people could qualify for. Will this be the case with today's investigation? we called upon Agent Funder to find out. We should get a sound effect, a thunder. We're going to ask Mike under control that when we say Agent Funder, we can have a thunder sound effect. Can you do

a thunder, Rick? Rick does dogs, I don't think . Not bad. Not bad. We'll get it. That was lightning, though. We'll get something else for next week. Lightning doesn't make noise. It makes thunder. Okay, here's the report. Operation Report, arrived at Greco Ford. It was pleasantly surprised.

not to see a group of salespeople waiting outside to pounce I call them the wolfback and it's scary you know so intimidating you see that lineup yeah they're smoking cigarettes they got long sunglasses yeah yeah yeah and upon entering the store I was pleased to see that everyone was wearing a mask and you know when you you feel like when you even before COVID you think they should be wearing masks or a biohazard suits or something a man named Drew approach Then we bumped elbows as he introduced himself. He came across as kind and professional. These are real names, by the way.

Greco, Ford, and Drew. These are real names. We name names, places, and events. Hold nothing back. He'd been gathering some basic information for me, name, email, phone number, and ask what vehicle I was interested. And I told him about the ad.

I saw it for the 2019 Ford F-150. I explained that I needed a work truck that the big discount really caught my attention. perfect he replied I have a few lined up let's go take a look we landed on a truck in a lovely shade of blue as I was enjoying the comment that came in earlier because of that yeah and you sound like your brother there because Stu gets caught up in I have big shoes to fill with Stu he's a he's a poet I dare I say a poet he opened all doors cranked the AC did a thorough presentation Drew really knew his

stuff. I thought you were going to say, Drew really drew me in. It was then time to head inside and get to the numbers. Referring to the ad, Drew, informed me that I could get the $13,000 discount with the 0% financing. That's an either or. And folks out there, anytime you see the real low financing rate by the manufacturer, it's an either or. They'll always offer you an alternative to take a discount. And you've got to do the arithmetic. How long you want to finance it? how big is your down payment, meaning how big is you're going to have to, how big a number you're going to have to finance.

It's a simple decision, really, and you should do the arithmetic before you decide. So I said that I would take the cash rebate in the discount that could not be applied. I was afraid I told them that I understood that's for pricing both ways. Okay, yeah, that's a good idea, get it both ways, with a 0% and also with the 13%. thousand dollars off he asked a few questions was I in the military here we go you've heard you regular listeners have heard this one

or am or a veteran was that either or that's what yeah thunder said is there are two distinct categories you're military and a veteran so if you're in the military you're not a veteran so I think it's probably logically impossible to qualify for both

because you're if you're active duty you're not a veteran I currently and I wonder if I own the Ford and a couple of questions related to my credit. I answered no to the military, veteran, and forward ownership, and explained I had excellent credit. He left to go see his manager.

About eight minutes later, we returned with two printed proposals, one with a zero percent financing and one without. He pointed to the first one. This is with the cash rebate, but you didn't qualify for everything, so your total savings are $8,652. By not qualifying for everything, he meant the rebates related to being in the military veteran in the current forward ownership.

And the odds of that happening, one out of 500? Astronomical. Yeah, I mean, just, just this is. Pointing to the second sheet, and here's your pricing with a 0% for 84 months, with total savings, the $4,152. So apparently there was a $4,500 cash rebate that you had to give up to get the 0% financing. Yeah. Which in my mind really doesn't make a 0% if you're paying for the low interest.

Yeah, you are, exactly. Exactly, it's almost a violation of truth in lending. Yeah, you would think so in a way. So here's the next deception is right below that. I'm looking at the worksheet, market value selling price, and we'll talk about that later. It was $40,000, $885,000 jacked it up considerably. Unfortunately, this latest trip to Greco did not book the trend. landed them on our bed dealer list multiple times they advertised a discount that's nearly

impossible to qualify for that's so that wasn't disclosed in the fine print or wasn't disclosed um didn't say Ford owner they said all incentives to dealer so I think in some way saying all incentives refers to it in a very roundabout way that I'm sure that doesn't legally qualify as disclosure it's like dealer fees and hidden fees, you're supposed to include them in the price, not just say, we have a hidden fee or we have a dealer fee, you have to include it in the price. That's the law. Additionally, a close-like-the-buy's order shows that the market value of selling price of

$40,085,000, upon which they calculated the total savings was not the real MSRP. The actual MSRP of this vehicle is $39,635. So how much do you want me to discount the car for? well, I'll have a market value of $1 million. I'll give you a really big discount. And so it just makes it meaningless. The Monroney suggested retail is by law a figure that is supposed to be in all cars, new cars, and it gives the buyer the option to compare the dealer A, B, and C.

You get the same MMSRP, the dealer with the biggest discount has the best price. If every dealer can come up with his own market value, smoke in mirror market value, you have nothing to base it on. Nothing's real anymore. Hidden fees, the guy with the biggest hidden fee can advertise the lowest price because he's going to hit you over the head with a $2,000 hidden fee. It's just embarrassing. To be a car dealer, sometimes I'm embarrassed. I'm at a party if they ask me, what do you do for a living? I tell him I'm a shepherd.

I don't. I tend to my flock. Yes. The actual MSRP is, okay, the arbitrary $1,50 markup over a sticker simply allows them to show a greater discount than they're actually offering. In addition to this bogus market, they included something called Zurich Shield, Swiss sort of thing. The finest made persistent shield available. $249, Zurich Shield. It's the Swiss Army knife of shields.

The Swiss Army knife of shields. Agent Thunder called the dealership later to explain to this charge. It was told that it was an exterior protective application, but it was optional. So now they're vacillating on the Zurich shield. If you hadn't said anything, bam, you'd have it. Exactly. Or you'd have a lojack, or you'd have Toyo Guard. There's always something to protect you that you don't want to be protected from.

And the laugh is it doesn't really protect you. They're so nurturing. All they want to do is protect everybody. Napleton had the Hyundai, was it the protection package? The Napleton, something rather. I think then they have the Napleton experience. Experience, yeah. Just the abstract notion, the idea of being there is worth $8,000.

Somebody would have to pay me for the Napleson experience. I wouldn't have a Naples. unless you pay me to go in there. I don't want that experience. And lastly, they added their dealer doc fee of $999 along with unnamed taxable fees of $675. Now, I looked at the other document and it's had $139.45. I meant to ask you before the show.

That would be the taxable fees and then there's non- I'm sorry, yeah, the non-tax fees are $675 and the taxable fees are $139. So I, maybe we had the reverse there, the taxable fees I'm would be a e-filing or like I said it's a they don't have a name they just run into a category it's a dealer fee in the generic term and so so between that the Zurich shield and the dealer doc fee you're looking at you know about fourteen hundred dollars in dealer fees yeah so here we are another Greco

shop Nancy and I were talking in the car on the way the radio station about the shop and and we're talking about what was this a passing shopper not passing and we're talking about the fact that it really is not a good shop but then again we have to look at the curve because we have to rather than absolute scores because most dealers charge dealer fees we can't fail so many for charging a dealer fee because most dealers have addendum labels we can't fail a dealer for having addendum label and that conversation so when we look at Greco del Rey Ford we have to look at what does they do that most other dealers don't. do I won't say most but other dealers don't do that is crosses the line that either passes them or fails them so that's a criteria we use and hopefully we'll get some callers and and we'll get some texters I should say and YouTubers to give us a votes we have any votes yet on Greco Ford not yet okay I think they're they passed out from shock yeah looking for well let's let's go Nancy what do you say

Are you saying we have no votes on the... We have no bananas. Yes, we have no bananas. We've said that a lot, haven't we? Josh, do we have any... Not on my end, but I'd be happy to offer my personal assessment. Well, let's get started, yeah, and then we'll have some text flow in as we discuss it. I was going to go with an F, but you tugged at my heartstrings when he said we should grade on a curve.

So I'll go with a D. Yeah, yeah. What do you say, Rick? I'm going to agree with the D. I do too. I think the one that tempted me to fail them, and I won't fail them, is the criteria for discounts you can't qualify for, for being a veteran, being in the active military in owning a Ford. If you're going to do that, dealers out there listening, make it clear, clear disclosure. I mean, just say Ford owners get an extra $500 discount. If you have fees that, how many people in the South Florida market are in active military, would it be 1%? Probably, yeah, close to that. If we were in Pensacola, you know, it would be a different story.

And there are parts of the country where that would be a fair thing. And we've actually seen dealers have farmer discounts. How many farmers do we have in Palm Ridge County? I mean, that's what I asked this morning about the farmers, you know. Now we've got some coming in. Okay. I'll go ahead, excuse me, I'll go ahead and vote, and, you know, I'm not going to take your advice about the voting on the curve.

I give them an F, you know. Okay. I was close, right? I almost done it. And so did Josh. It's a, we're probably D minus, aren't we, Josh? Yeah, the low end of D. D minus.

So they remain on the bad dealer list. Tim would like to give them an A, but unfortunately the only qualify for an F, but the F is protected by Zurich Shield. Donovan says simply an F. Cram, F, I have better things to do with $1,400. Let's see, Frank, D, Mark Smith, D. And I have Mark from St. Louis. J for joke, marking up the MSRP should be criminal.

Karen gives them a D minus. Guy Larrabee gives him a D. RICO West, A for Zurich Shield. D for fees and deceitfulness. Casey Neary, a fail. Yeah, that was a close call. You made it through by the Harrier Cheney Chin Chin, Greco Ford, and we're going to be back, and maybe next time we're not going to be so kind.

So you've got a D minus, and we're going to keep you, put you on the recommended list, but we're going to be back. I really don't like that military rebate, the veteran rebate, and the Ford owner without disclosure. That's the worst thing you did. And the rest of it, you know, you could have slipped by on the curve grading. But next time we'll fail you. You need to get rid of that.

Don't use those unqualifiable rebates or discounts that you know people are going to qualify for. Just one dirty trick at a time. One dirty trick at a time. And Cramm 1624 is asking, will the Zurich shield protect you from the virus? What happens if you, what happens if you wax your car over? that Zurich showed? I don't know. I mean,

the waxes falls right off. You know, Josh was talking about voiding warranties earlier in the show. What happens to the Zor? Ha ha ha ha. Anyway, folks, thank you so much for tuning in

without you. Well, it wouldn't be an exciting show. And we'll be right back here next week. And you can tune in at 8 a.m. We'll be right here. Stay safe and have a great weekend. Vettombe

Vettombe Vettom Duh Bento D. Thank you. Thank you.