Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.07.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Arrigo CDJ

Episode Date: August 7, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Arrigo CDJ in West Palm Beach to see if she can purchase a 2021 Ram 1500 pickup at the low advertised price. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. We're back, your auto experts, entertainers, occasionally buffoons. But we try hard, and I think we have, even if you don't enjoy, the show we have a heck of a time and we really enjoy it it's uh it's a lot of fun doing this we've been doing it for a lot of years and every show is different there's something about uh live i started to say radio live facebook live twitter live youtube uh you know we're out there with uh i guess there's a little uh you know delay i have 20 seconds something like that but if you're really

make an ass out of yourself uh you'll know about it so so so So here we are, and we love it. I hope you love it too. If you're new, stay tuned for a little while. You might think it's not applicable to you. Maybe you don't want to buy a car. But we talk about a lot more things than buying cars at Erlan cars. Most people have cars.

If you don't have a car, you know somebody that has a car. And we got a guy in the audience here, I mean the audience, and we got a guy in the studio. You're in the audience. I'm in the studio. Okay, I got that right. Rick Kearney. Rick Kearney is a certified dynastic master technician. And if you know somebody with a problem with his car, her car, give Rick a call. And by the way, I've got to correct something in the introduction.

Josh Stewart is subbing for my son, Stu Stewart. This is his third week out. If he doesn't get back next week, I might have to fire him. It's only been three weeks? Yeah. Oh, my God. You didn't sign up for this. Josh was subbing for him, and they're both active managers in my dealership,

and there's my transparency and full disclosure. Yes, I am a car dealer. Yes. I feel like admitting you're a politician or a lawyer. Yes, I am a car dealer. And yet, there is no conflict. I mean, I just, I'm a recovering car dealer. Where's my book?

Where's my book? Here it is right here. a hold up, Facebook, Twitter, streaming. You'll see it, Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer. And that book pretty much says it all about why I do what I do and why I'm a consumer advocate at the car dealer at the same time. I mean, I got religion about how many years ago, Josh, 15, 20? Yeah, almost 20 years ago.

20 years ago. I used to do things the way all the car dealers did them. And there was a movie a million years ago, Tony Curtis about a jewel thief that came over to the other side, went to work for the FBI or the police, and he was, he was an advisor, so I'm kind of like a jewel thief that got caught, served his time, and now I'm out, and I'm working for the other side, I'm working for you. I'm working for consumers because there's not much more frightening, disturbing, aggravating, difficult than buying or leasing a car or maintaining or repairing your car because

there's a lot of tricks out there you know horse trading there's a reason they use the word horse 200 years ago or more if you bought a horse you haggled and you hassle I mean everybody haggled and you hassle horse thieves got hung back then which was maybe we should enforce our laws they didn't have a lot of horses stolen sounds like a good idea to me so if you want to buy a horse it was was a game, right? I mean, you know, I want, if you'll give me your ranch, I'll sell you my horse. That's too much. Throw in the saddle, I'll take it today. Exactly, right. Take my wife. Yeah, please. Hennie Youngman, oh, we digressing here. Anyway,

Henry Youngman, here we go. It's, it's, car buying is a unique experience. Nothing else equals car buying and the games they have to play. So we're here to make that easier. And when I started to say Josh is sitting in for my son Stu and he's been in the trenches he sees what goes on every day so we got we got everything covered we got the technical thing covered here with Rick Kearney and we've got the real life hide you buy a car what happens today with Josh Stewart and then we have an entirely unique thing covered and it's females and it's ladies buying cars and I don't have to I don't have to talk about the hashtag me too

I mean just ask Governor Cuomo soon to be former Governor Cuomo about that and the times they're changing and the women have stepped up to the plate and said look no more and I want to be treated at least equally and I want to be able to be given a fair shake

when I walk in to buy a car And that's why Nancy Stewart, my co-host, founded the show with me 20 years ago. She's here to advocate for the ladies, and she's done a fine job, and we're at the point now in the show where about half the people that call her women, sometimes we have more than a half, and sometimes we don't. But, I mean, on the average, we do pretty well, and we didn't used to. I mean, I can remember the first two or three years of the show, it was the old boys club, nothing but guys call them.

And it was kind of like a guy to rain. You know, you walk into a car dealership 20 years ago, and the first thing, if you're a woman, they would say is, where's your husband? You know, or if there became a discussion that wasn't seemed to be getting anywhere for the sale and selling his car, says, why don't you go home and get your husband?

Come back in here, and I'll give you a serious price. Ain't going to happen.com, and it won't happen today, and Nancy Stewart is here to see that doesn't happen. And so we'll start with turning the microphone over to Nancy, and she'll tell you about a special deal. You know old listeners, bear with us. You know about it. Your new listeners. A special deal, if you're a lady, if you call the show for the first time.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are right here live, and we all want to thank you for joining us and being part of the show because you are an important part of the show. And as Earl said, we extend a special person. treat to the ladies and we have the best free advice for women and do you want to know what the secret is surprise it's the same advice that we give men yes ladies just want to be treated with respect and the same as men and this crazy auto industry so this morning we have fifty dollars for the first two new lady callers yes fifty dollars for the first two new lady callers.

So give us a call at 877-960. And we'll be right here for you to answer any of your questions. We want to empower, support, and connect to women. Help us. 877-960-99-60. Do you have your little card with all the numbers on it?

I don't either. Anybody got the card? I can give you one that I travel with. Oh, there we go. I do have this backdrop. It looks like you're in the front yard. That's really nice, Jonathan. Very pretty.

These are our chee-chis. We've been giving these numbers out for 20 years, but we don't remember them. I don't have much. We have to keep giving these out, and that number that Nancy just gave you is one that she did have committed to memory, but we've got a bunch of other ways, don't we? And you can also text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We also have your anonymous feedback. That's Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and you can take advantage of that.

And back to the ladies, I'll tell you what, we are a power force, power, force, power force. Well, anyway, I think that might have been a double. I'm rambling. I've been up since 1.30. I'm ready to go. Yeah, yeah, yay. It's happy hour. anyway ladies seriously you're a big part of the show and we want to pump up the numbers

i'd like to see it 50 50 that'd be real nice it's almost there but until then let's build this platform 877 960 now back to the recovering car dealer yeah and uh youtube is big facebook is big Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. Earleoncars.com is the that's a home base. And if you go there on your smartphone or your PC, I'll go to earluncars.com

and we got everything, how to contact us, all the different venues, archives, all the radio shows are archived at earlancars.com. You can listen to mystery shopping reports, earlancars.com. You can find out the dealers that we recommend and the dealers that we don't recommend.

if you're out shopping for cars at earluncars.com. And you get all these numbers, the ones that Nancy just gave you, Your Anonymous Feedback.com, highly popular. And we're already piling up some of those now. I was just checking my iPhone when I came into the show. We already got a bunch of Your Anonymous Feedbacks.com. And there's a regular text number, 772-4976530. One thing that we're passionate about is, you see this hat I'm wearing, Earl's vigilantes.

And you get a free hat if you join up. And that Earl on Cars.com, you can sign up to be a vigilante. A vigilante for Earl and Cars is someone that has some car knowledge, that they are PC-savvy, cyber-savvy, that they could go online and buy stuff. I mean, if you're good on Amazon, you're a candidate for Earl's Vangelandis. So many people, seniors, my age, Nancy's age, that are not cyber-sabby. They are really good. You know, they still want to go into the store.

They still want to touch it, feel it, smell it, drive it. They don't realize that online you can go through and buy about anything. And when you do that, you have an edge. You have a leg up. it's a little bit easier to get a fair price, an honest price, when you go online. So consider joining Earl's vigilantes, get a free hat, and when you do, we need geographic locations all over. We've got quite a few in Florida, but if you're in Indiana, if you're in, you know,

if you're in Bali, if you're anywhere in the world that you'd like to be our representative, if you have the qualifications, you send us the contact information, then you go on earluncars.com, and you can find the vigilante in your area, or you can volunteer. Yeah, that's fantastic. There's so many different ways for all of you to volunteer. But while I'm thinking about it right now, I believe if Earl has time he's going to mention his,

well, shopping experience that he had with his Tesla. I think it's worthy of, mentioning and let's see also recently this past week ernie garcia was a guest on cnbc and it was a very interesting if you don't know who ernie is he's the CEO of carvana and they certainly have a different way of doing business i was reading into that it was a interesting read also where was i going with this uh so it's uh carvana and uh the interview that took place this past week on CNBC

with Becky Becky Quick is a... We'll get to that, but let's get to the text. What do you say? I think that we should mention our... I actually have a text on that topic of Carvana. Seems to be the topic of the minute. Oh, great. That'll be

grateful entree into what Nancy wants to tell you about Carverna. Great. So the text here asks, how does a company like Carvana stay in business so long before finally making a profit? I just don't get it. I read somewhere they just recently, I guess, had their first, you know, net profit for a quarter. So, yeah, that's a good question.

Well, that's a perfect segue. A perfect segue. Let me answer the first part about how they stay in business so long without making a profit. Then Nancy will talk about something she sold on CNBC the other day about Carvana. The way Carvana is able to do what they do and spend money like a drunken sailor and not make any money. That's a pretty good trick they've been doing for a couple of years. It's called IPO. And it's a new stock offering.

And recently, with the stock market, it's going crazy. I mean, if you're in the stock market, your 401K, you have gained a lot of wealth in the past year. In fact, in the past two or three years, the stock market is almost out of control in a good way. So Carvana went public, and a lot of people bought their stock on faith. It sounded like a good idea, and they think it's good marketing, and people bought the stock, and suddenly they had billions of dollars, literally billions of dollars, and they hadn't even been in business yet, and they hadn't made any money, and they're spending it, and they're spending it in very interesting ways. Nancy will tell you about 48 silos of garages, not 48, about 15, 20, 20, 20, yeah.

No, there is 48. Okay, there are 48. And they spent millions and millions of dollars on these as a marketing tool, and that's how they are able to survive. Now, a little anecdote that Nancy will share with you about the CEO of Carmina. Yeah, that is Ernie Garcia and his son, and this all came about through a friendship. There is three guys who decided to put this together, but moving right along. The car vending machines are all over the 48 states. There's one in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma.

They're all over the place. But, you know, they get your attention because what they say is that you're going to pay $1,400 less than a traditional used car lot. And there's no fees and there's no pressure and there's no this. But I'm going to lead into an interview just recently with Becky Quick, who, who is a co-host on CNBC. Squawk box, yeah. Yeah, with Squawk Box. And she was interviewing Ernie.

At the end of this interview, she said to Ernie, it was a coincidental. She was out shopping for a used car. Jeep, yeah. Well, it ended up that she said to Ernie on the air with gazillion a number of people listening, I didn't buy my car, my Jeep from you. She says, I went somewhere else. She says, because I bought that Jeep at a much lower price. Yeah, and the funny thing is, they had a great opportunity because Becky had gone to a car dealer to buy the Jeep.

And the price was too high, and the treatment was terrible. And she says, I'm going to go to Carvana because she'd been seeing the commercials like everybody else. So she went online to Carvana. And meanwhile, she's live on the air with Ernie Garcia. And she says, your price was way too high. much higher than I want to pay and I went to another car dealer and I got a much lower price

and then she said Ernie why was your price so high I mean I can't believe she said that it was really about it's her she's a if you don't know Becky Quick and go to Squawk Box in the morning on CNBC she's really amazing

and Ernie just kind of did a hama hama hama and he said well maybe you'll give us another chance and we kind of It really didn't have an answer. Which, the thing I, the thing, what he should have said, there you go. What he should have said that people would have respected is you have to understand

that no one car seller can always have the lowest price. And we try to have the best price and we usually do, but sometimes we don't. So you did exactly the right thing, Becky, and you went out and shopped your price with somebody else. You went in one place that was too high. you came to my carvana and it was too high and you went to a third car dealership and you get a good price. You're an educated consumer, congratulations,

and maybe next time you'll give me another chance. See, that would have been a nice answer. It wasn't a mistake, it's just a fact of life. And it's a message to all you car buyers and listens to the show always get at least three prices on the car you want to buy. Yeah, that would have been a great comeback for him. And he was sort of cut off guard.

I was a little surprised that he was so, surprised because it seems like as if that he's pretty seasoned well they usually don't get answered quite ask questions like that and Becky really caught him off guard exactly I applaud her for that yeah it was interesting we're going to have to go to the phones John has been on hold for a while I apologize John good morning John's calling us from Palm City good morning I want to mention a woman that Nancy would be very proud of her name is Sarah Williams she's 41 years old she's a physician in Manhattan, New York City. She owns a Tesla Model 3. She drives from her residence

in Manhattan to the Bronx. All of a sudden, her air conditioning stopped working. She bought it into the Tesla distributorship, Paramus, New Jersey, and found out, first of all, they opened up the glove compartment and found a dead rat in a glove compartment. A wires who were eaten up by a rodent, probably by this rat, and the course is, over $5,000. The car was two months in the shop. Wires eaten. Also other models of

not only that brand, but Tesla, that the soybean coated wires in order to save energy petroleum. They're made of this soy, and the rodents are eating into it. But here's

the worst part about it. Tesla absolutely refused under warranty to cover this. cost of repair, which was over $5,000, they stated a result of nature, not of anything to do with their warranty. So it's not only a problem with this brand of car Honda, you know, it's Hondas and Hondas and also some of the radiator hoses are made the same material, so that's a problem also.

And I don't know what's going to be done to reconcile this. Because even brake cables have been affected. So I thought I'd mention the bravely... I bet you'd know about that he to change his mind. Yeah. I think that Rick Kearney has a comment on that because there is a way for auto manufacturers to solve that problem in there.

Honda actually came out with this. It's a special tape that you wrap around the wires that is impregnated with capsaicin, pepper sauce. And unless you get a rat that really has that discerning taste, it'll usually chase them away. The other way is my recommendation is mothballs. Put a couple mothballs around under the hood of your car in places where they're not going to fall out to endanger the environment. And it will keep the rats and mice away from the under hood of your car, which is where they like to get when it's nice and dry and warm and cozy in there. Why you'd be able to smell that in the car when you're driving?

Nah. The odor stays under the hood. You won't get it inside the car. You may get a tiny whiff here and there, but it's a whole lot better than the huge money can cost from rats chewing up the wiring. And generally, that's covered by your insurance under your comprehensive insurance. I forgot about that. So, John, maybe that would be something that Dr. Williams could pursue would be checking with her insurance company. Same thing as if your car got flooded, if your car got flooded, it's covered by your insurance. Comprehensive. Yeah. That's an unfortunate situation. You hear more stories like that. I'm speaking out.

I'm very proud of, and it wasn't publicized much. I think that Tesla has their way of keeping it quiet, but this is an actual fact. So beware, and I just wish they would change the content of the virus, because that's to do with, you know, the reason for the road. And let me tell you some, I lived over 45 years in New York City. the rats are in every borough they're on an increase and the mayor of New York is absolutely doing nothing about it. There's an 85%

increase in complaints about rats and it makes no difference which borough you live in. The rats are out there. Governor, oh the governor, I was thinking about the mayor. Yeah, he's got other things on his plate right now. No, this is the mayor himself to get the complaints. I was not aware.

One code that you call on a phone and it's my daughter lives in Manhattan So she could tell you for a sand, it's terrible. He mentioned soy being an ingredient in the wire insulation. I was not aware of that. Right. The plastic on the wiring insulation normally was made from petroleum product. So in order to try to get to a more ecologically friendly,

they started using oil-based from soy products because soybean is an incredible plant. Well, it was also rat-friendly. Ecologically and rats. It's better than the original cheddar cheese insulation, though. Soybeans are incredible. So the rats love the soy, which is like the glue. Well, thank you, John. That was always an interesting topic.

I appreciate the call as always. If you can, don't park your car outside, too. If you live in rural Mont County like I do, it could be a problem because we have everything out here. John, you're talking about a problem. let me tell you what come on over to our house we had a huge problem this is going to be worse than bagels let's get off the uh we had a huge problem we had more rats in our house than manhattan had in in in a week okay it's time for the mr shopping report no one what time is it time for me to have a drink kudos to sarah williams for reporting this yes that was great absolutely oh we just had a power surge there Okay, John Thanks again

You're a great caller Always something Extremely interesting Yeah, thanks a lot John You're always on top of this stuff At any rate I have a weather report

Is anybody here? Oh boy We had a lightning strike nearby And cameras are rolling around On the screen I'm not sure what he's You've been like this for Are we on the line?

Is there any way to tell if we're still on the air? We're still up on YouTube. I can tell that. We're off. We just rebooted everything. Okay, it was just a reboot situation. I have a breaking weather report that just popped up on my telephone. Okay, let's go ahead and pretend

like everything's okay, and we'll hear another text. We've got to our safe room. We're going to end at 10 o'clock no matter what. That's exactly that. We're doing the show just for ourselves. Okay, I got another anonymous feedback here. I heard Biden wants half of all cars sold in the U.S. by

2030 to be electric. Can he really do that? He can wish it. And it may have, but he can't make it. He can make it happen. It's called the free enterprise system and supply and demand. And you've got to have the demand before you can make the supply. So is he, is it just going to be in the form of, like, new fuel standards? Yeah, what he will do is probably, if he can get it through the house and the Senate, like we did with the, with the gas mileage. rules, they will tell the manufacturers that if you have X number of electrical vehicles in your fleet, you're okay. If you don't have X percentage, 50%, or whatever, then for every combustion engine vehicle you build, you'll have to pay a fine of X dollars. And the fines are pretty stiff, and they worked on the cafe,

they call them the cafe requirements for gas mileage. And if a manufacturer doesn't have enough low gas mileage cars he has to pay a ton for the guzzlers so when you build it a truck today that doesn't conform with the gas mileage then you have to pay like a $5,000 penalty for everyone you build so if you build new truck you got to build an electric vehicle to bounce that out it's a balance yeah exactly and then if you build a whole bunch of really good gas mileage and now we're talking all electric you get credits and then you can sell the credits to the people that build the non-electric cars kind of a game Juggling game. And everybody's jumping on Tesla now, like we did earlier, because Tesla is making a lot of money

because they're building a whole bunch of really, really good gas mileage cars because they don't use any gas, and they get a ton of these credits, and they sell them to the General Motors and the Chryslers that don't build the cars, and that's how they're making all their money now. Tesla wouldn't make any money if they weren't able to sell their carbon credits. they call them. So they're doing all this good for the environment, and then they sell the right to put it to another company. Exactly, yeah. Interesting. There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about these charging stations, and what they did is that Wall Street Journal

sent out a lot of their employees all over the country just to see if they could get their testes. Yeah, and see how many there were. And you know, I didn't know this, but I believe it's 80, percent of Tesla owners, they charge their cars at home, 80 percent. Well, it's not a problem if you have a Tesla. I think what the Wall Street Journal article had to do with electric cars in general. And if you don't have a Tesla, you've got a problem finding a charger sometimes. If you have a Tesla from what we know, people we know, and a lot of Tesla owners are listening, when you travel around, it's almost impossible not to find a Tesla charger really quickly.

But you have to have a Tesla to charge it there. Yeah, Stu did a pretty good job in finding when he was on the road recently. Yeah, I think that Tesla has a built-in, like, charging station finder paired with their navigation system. And when your charge runs low on a Tesla, it speaks to you and says, Stu, the nearest charger is two miles on the right at the Sunoco Station. And it's really cool. They make it idiot proof. Yeah. No offense, too.

Josh, is Tesla the only one that has that? I doubt they are. sure that sort of functionality is built in because I know there are charging station finding apps that you don't have to be a Tesla owner to download. Interesting. They're not current. The last time I checked there, they don't keep on top of it like this. Oh, there's no guarantee.

Three years ago, there was a charging station. In this, you know, in this test that they did to Wall Street Journal, this is important. What happened was that they had problems in Michigan because it was so cold that the charging stations didn't work. So there's a lot of ups and downs with the charging stations that they're fine-tuning. We're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Marty who's a regular caller. Good morning, Marty. How are you? We're well, thank you. Nice to hear from you. I wanted to tell you that your YouTube channel went off on my computer so I don't know if it was just me or something. There's a lot of thunder going on now. Yeah, we're here there too. We're trying to

reboot on YouTube, but working on it. Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask, Earl and maybe Josh can give me the answer to, of every car I've ever bought, and I bought a lot of them in the last several years, I never would buy on the Internet. First of all, I've never got into a dealership and got the final price the first time. So that's number one. Number two, how do you test drive a car that you bought on the Internet, even new one or used?

And when I see these ads on TV like Carvana or Vroom, where they bring the car to you and drop it off at your house, I don't know how you would even test drive a car like that, and they drop it off. And also, how do they work the financing and everything else? and to me I mean I don't mind going into a car dealership so I can go like when I buy a Camry

I'll go to the four dealerships here in Palm Beach County well three in Palm Beach County and Ale Hendrickson so usually I don't mind it but I know a lot of people don't like it well Marty you're a seasoned

negotiator and they're not a lot of people like you, but there are some. And people like you that are on top of things and are good, you know, lawyers are good negotiated. If you're really good, you can go and do combat face-to-face, head-to-head with any car dealer and usually get a pretty good price. But you're like maybe 1%, 5% tops of the whole population.

There was a time when getting a price online was virtually impossible. Today, it's not so. And you can go to virtually an unlimited, limited number of car dealerships online. What you do is this. You make it clear in your email and you use a pseudonym email so they can't contact you on your real email to drive you crazy. And you never give them your phone number. And you say, this is real simple. I'm going to shop five Chevrolet dealerships. I'm going to buy a Chevrolet Corvette. And you won't know who I am

and you won't know what other prices I have. And I'm going to get the out-the-door price from you one line, and if I don't get a price at all, you have no possibility of selling me a Corvette. If you give me a price that's too high, you won't sell me a Corvette. If you give me the lowest price, you will positively sell me a Corvette. So the choice is yours. You can take a chance, and you will have a small chance that I'll buy a car from you, or you can ignore me and you'll have zero chance, or give me a higher price, and you have zero chance. that if you do it with enough Chevrolet dealers and you start close to home, maybe three, and then you branch out to maybe five and maybe ten, maybe 12,

I ask you this, Marty, if you could save $5,000 on a Corvette, would you drive to Tampa to pick it up? And that's the way you do it today, and it works. But with you, you just go into the local Chevrolet dealer, Schumacher, and do head-to-head combat with a salesman. take a while, they give up, throw up their hands, and you probably win the game, and you buy the Corvette at a really good price.

But you're unique. Most people don't have your talent. Yeah, well, I happen to, I don't know if this is crazy, but I happen to enjoy it. I know you do. I can tell. You're a sick man, Marty. Most people that know me say they hate to buy a car.

Yeah, exactly. I don't, but I'll just tell you my last car I bought, and I'm not going to tell you, I go, but I went through all this rigmarole, and the dealership that I finally bought it from took $6,800 off a Camry. Now, usually you don't get $6,800 off a Camry. Al Hendrickson. Correct. You know, he's the second largest, he's the second largest toilet dealership in the world. world and soon to be number one. And this is interesting. I'll share a little, I hope it's not too

personal, but Al Hendrickson promised his mother that he would be the number one toilet dealership in the USA. And I can't name my source on that. And you've got to have it, got to hand it to him. He is really doing everything he can to do that. So if you're a super negotiator and you've got your bulletproof vest on and you love to negotiate, you go down to Al and you can buy a Toyota really, really cheap. But if there's a little flaw in your armor, you're going to get screwed and you will pay. Because when he sells Marty, when he sells Marty a Toyota for cost or maybe even below cost, he's got to take Charlie or Susie, who is not a seasoned negotiator and he'll make a $4,000, $5,000, $10,000 profit on the unsuspecting, unsophisticated car buyer.

And that's the way he does what he does. And more power to him. He's winning the game. He's stretching the rules, bending the rules, but he's winning the game. And I can also tell you this, they gave me $3,000 more on my trade in than anywhere else. Good for you. And you know, these other ads, like you see, buy your car, you know, sell us your car and all this on TV, and you say you'll save money. I've always been able to beat those people, number one, if you have a trade in, you've got the sales tax that you're saving.

So when you're trading in a car, you also got to figure the sales tax. Marty, you're a vigilante, right? No, I'm not a vigilante. Oh, man, you've got to sign up. Come on, roll on cars. sign up and you know you can just you don't have to buy the car for the person but you can certainly give them some good advice and you've been there and done that so you get a cool hat and you get a hat you see you're not streaming me so you can't see my hand but yeah i'll thank

you locally i'll deliver your hat to you if you'll sign up i'll deliver your hat well let's put this way i was just in your dealership for my service uh-huh i wanted to see if you were there but i was on a Wednesday. He said, you're not there every day. Oh, I am on a Wednesday. I wanted to introduce myself to him. But picking that from Josh or Sue, you come in and you give us your word, your son up as a vigilante, Josh or Stu, or my son, Jason, will give you a hat. We're in charge of hats. In charge of hats.

All right, all right. The hats are good. All right. I do say, I'm the vice president of hat distribution. How does, but my question is, which you didn't answer yet, how do you a touch drive any of these cars. I can answer one. Yeah, well, Josh will answer that. Well, I imagine with Carvana, your seven-day return period is your test drive period.

They have a seven-day return policy, but there's a mileage restriction. But for a dealer? For a dealer. If you buy it online, it's truly buying a car online. It's not really a thing you're going to experience in most car dealerships. It's going to be a hybrid of, you know, online, maybe over Federal Express, phone call, and things like that. Well, the answer is you go into a car dealer and you say, I want to drive that. Camry, L.E., and I'm not going to buy it today, but I just want to test drive.

If that's the only way you do it, you have to make it clear you're not going to buy it, because it doesn't bother you, Marty, because if they give you any guff, you'll just slap them. But when you go into a car dealership, the test drive a car, they're going to try to sell your car. So be aware of that. If you really want to be careful, you can rent the car, but that's out of pocket, and you don't want to do that. But you're right. That's a glitch.

You have to drive the car, never, ever buy a new car. car or use car without an extensive test drive yeah well I can only tell you this your store is like going to the Taj Mahal compared to Hill Hendrickson he's got the dumpiest store in the world well that's a problem I haven't been in there thank you they have the oldest facility in how south is that really I think yeah it is a real dump and he's got more money than anybody and he won't build It's a three-hour, three-and-a-half-hour ordeal. Marty, listen, you're a great caller.

Please call again next week. We love you. And think about being the vigilante. Please. All right, I will. Bye-bye. Have a good day, everybody. Thank you, Morty.

877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-60. I think we're going to go to Josh, who has some texts. Well, I neglected Anne-Marie's inaugural text for the morning. Good morning, Ann Marie. Good morning. She mentions watching all the car commercials during the Olympics, and it occurs to her that for her to get the perfect car,

it would have to be a combination of every car feature she's seen. So she wants, and this is a laundry list, so I'm going to have to paraphrase here. Her dream vehicle would have minimal or no emissions. She wants to be able to enter an address in a location, have the vehicle automatically take her there autonomously. She'd also like it to be able to power her house, like you see in that F-150 all-electric truck ad.

More and more, she wants blind spots, she wants everything. Basically, she'd like to create the dream car. And I don't blame her. You see a lot of cool features out there. Some cars have them, some cars don't. Yeah. It's going to happen. One day, someone's going to crack that down.

This Tesla that I have ordered that will be here either today or next week is the first totally autonomous car. And it is totally autonomous. I got that feature. I can't legally use it, but it is totally autonomous. So it can do turn by turn? Yeah. Wow. So the future is here. So tell me how did that car buying experience go? Well, it was terrible. And Elon Musk is a genius, and he builds an amazing vehicle. He's an engineering scientific genius. And he's a marketing genius, but in terms of selling cars, he needs

to take a lesson. And my experience buying this Tesla from a retail... Once I bought the Tesla and committed, it was almost impossible to communicate with Tesla. And it was very frustrating for me. He'll get it right. I mean, just a matter of time.

At least, the experience wasn't negative like you get when you go into a conventional card dealership, but it was like okay you decide you want to buy the Tesla now why you're bothering me you're going to get the car you'll have it we're going to deliver it to you and then give me the money I go I gave him the money and the car's coming but don't call me I'll call you and that's their attitude if you have a question how do you get the answer you don't get it just wait and wait I don't know I mean

it's been a pretty stressful situation it's been surprising and it's embarrassing because I've been such a big Elon Musk fan until I finally went through the purchase interesting process and it leaves a whole lot to be desired okay sure the product itself will blow you away though yeah I hope so all right I have a text here if Rick Scott has thinking cap on is this sounds like a technical question I just got a 2021 Kia Forte literally a week ago last night I think I might have left a light on inside by accident because it was on when I got to my car this morning my car is still running fine but the light was on for nine hours is that bad for the battery is there something I should do

take it for a good drive really any any time that you have a concern that your battery may have gotten weakened by by leaving a light on something like that the best thing you can do is take it out for about 35 40 minutes to an hour on the highway that higher speed gives the alternator the the most opportunity to fully recharge the battery and most modern batteries for the first two three years of their life they'll handle that stuff No problem. I think the lights probably still on. Don't you think you should take it to the dealer or somebody and find out why? I think they're referring to it just the light. Oh, the overhead light. Okay. I thought maybe it was like a light was stuck on.

Yeah, that's actually kind of odd because most of the modern cars. Now, they may not have all of the higher level technology in all their cars, but most cars now, any interior light is set up to run through the computer to where if this state's on for more than, say, 45, minutes to an hour, it'll actually shut them off. As a matter of fact, a lot of the newer cars now with SmartKee, if it's on for an hour, even just the ignition on, but not the engine running. So you should check with the dealer and say, why did my lights stay on overnight? I would check and see because that may be a fault with the system. It should have turned that light off. It might be a setting. A lot of the lights you can have always on or auto,

so maybe it's just in the wrong setting. Could be. Yeah. Call your dealer and ask them for their advice. Great question. Great advice. Here's another one for you, Rickia, keeping a tap dancing here. Question regarding a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. It's been leaking oil for three weeks, received three different diagnostic opinions from auto shops. How can I determine which auto shop is making the correct opinion for the issue? Signed frustrated.

Use the Missouri method. Show me. Each one of them that you go to say, show me the leak. and if you're getting three different ones I would check a fourth or a fifth or a six until you get at least two places at least that can show you the leak at the same spot and I would wonder if he's

taking it to the manufacturer to the dealers and independence you know it's unusual that a dealer would do that I mean three different three dealers for what make car is it It was a Jeep, Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Three different Jeep dealers, you would think. I would certainly want to have them. Contact the manufacturer. I would call the manufacturer, I don't know. I would say, look, I took it to a Rigo Jeep. I took it to a Schumacher Jeep. I took it to a Smith Jeep, and they all gave me a different diagnosis. What's up with that?

We need a technical specialist to talk to some of these dealers. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. All right. I'm going to remind the ladies that we did extend. end to two new callers, $50, first two new lady callers. Give us a call 877-960.

I'd like to know how your buying experience went, and whether you had a salesperson, a lady, or a guy that waited on you. You know that now women make up about 18% of the business. salespeople in the dealership, so things are moving forward for us. So 877-960-99-60, give us a call. First two new lady callers, $50. Back to Josh. I have a funny text here.

This is probably referring back to the old horse trading conversation we had earlier. They said they used to charge extra for the horse's leather exterior. I love that. Oh, whoever you are, you got a great sense of humor. That's my kind of joke. Yeah. I love a good horse hide interior. And you have to buy a leather treatment that be added onto the sticker.

You have to brush your leather. Yes. Feed it apples. Is horse hide leather? I guess it is. I mean, I don't know what the technical definition of leather is. I'm digressing. All right.

Okay, moving on. Here's another one for Rick. We got a lot of technical questions today. I went in for a tire rotation. Service advisor comes back and says they couldn't do it. because the lugnet wouldn't come off and the tech couldn't get it off. Asked them to just break it, but they said they already tried it. My last tire rotation was at that dealership.

The last time my tire would have been taken off was there as well. Service advisor wasn't clear what my options are at this point. Since I still kind of needed the rotation, what do I do? Somebody needed somebody my size. Well, that's not a real question. That's a shopping question. We take it up the line. Clearly the dealership is responsible.

And if you have it in the database, which they probably do, you could argue that you went somewhere else. But in the database, if you did it rotate the tires before six months ago, chances are they're guilty. And you have a service manager, and then you go to the general manager, and then you go through the Department of Motor Vehicles. But, yeah. Now, to be fair, as cars get older, when you're hitting 100, 150,000 miles. Here comes the defensive mechanic here. The lug studs do eventually, those threads start to wear a little bit. But at that point, the technician should have been advising you,

hey, these are starting to feel a little worn. It may be time to consider replacing the lug nuts or the studs as well. But we have seen plenty of cases where lug stud, the nut gets cross-threaded onto the stud. They lock up, and really the only way to get it loose is to break it off. And the way that I accomplished that, you get some warm. weight on that wheel, the car's weight toward the wheel's not going to spin, and I get a nice big breaker bar, and I just heave. Yeah, you can twist those off pretty easily.

They can break quite simply. Well, the bottom line is if the last place you had it was that same dealer, they're responsible, and they should pay for that process. Yeah, I never see where you, in an owner's manual where they recommend you change a lug nut at any time. Are they designed to last the life of the car? that they're supposed to, but anything in this world can wear. And, of course, if you get a car that lives near the ocean with salt corrosion,

I mean, or even just up north cars, rust, you know, there's so many factors in this world that can change things. But, the fact of the matter, you know, as they get older, things do start to wear a little bit. My guess would be an overtide in Lutnik in spite of the defense rest for Rick and the technicians of the world. That is certainly possible, too, yes. more than it was cross-threader when it was installed. The jury has reached a verdict. Oh, boy. Guilty.

Just kidding. All right. Off with his head. We have a caller. We're going to go back to the phones. We're going to talk to Phil from Jupiter. Good morning, Phil. Hey, how you doing?

Great. Thank you for calling. Morning. Yes. I've got a 2017 Prius, and I'm coming up on 50,000 miles. And I noticed on the manual, all of the All I've asked for is a tire rotation and change oil and stuff like that. But is there something else I should do, maybe like changing the coolant or something like that at 50,000 miles?

Nope. First coolant change on that car is the engine coolant and the inverter coolant at 150,000 miles. 150,000. Wow. Wow. So that's four. He's going to come up on four years. Only 17,000 miles, but 2017.

So in four years. Nothing other than that? Nope. Great. Okay. And one other comment I wanted to make about Tesla. I was on YouTube. I look at those articles all the time.

And it seems to be that some of these things, the batteries are catching on fire if they're left charging all night long. I mean, I just saw somewhere in California, the guy's garage burned up because he left his car charged all night. Is this something that, and the Chevrolet bolts have been recalled, I understand. Is this something people should be concerned about, thinking about buying an electric car? car? I would be certainly about the bolt. That was a very embarrassing thing for General Motors. And it should be concerned for anybody buying an electric car. Tesla, I would say least of all, because they've been doing it longer and they have had more experience with the problem. Rick? Those Tesla fires, from the research that I've done the reading I've done just recently,

there have been less than 10 fires with their batteries, unexplained fires like, that in the last three years. And there's a lot of Tesla's out there. That's a tiny percentage. I'd be more worried about a Ticada airbag than electrical fire in a electrical car. But it's still something to worry about. And I, you know, let's face it, it goes back to the lithium batteries. I remember laptops catching on fire on airplanes. Remember that? And everything with a lithium battery, it's an interesting problem. A couple shows ago I was brainstorming about there must be some way that you can stop a lithium battery from having oxygen access because the lithium in the process of making the electricity emits gases that are flammable when exposed to oxygen. So you know you got something bubbling flammable and you know that it can't burn without oxygen.

oxygen, why not seal it so it cannot have oxygen access to it? I mean, you seal a black box on an airplane, you seal a lot of things. You don't, as long as you have a perfect seal to oxygen, there can't be fire with that oxygen. Are you listening, Elon? Yes. Are you taking notes? Yes, I'll send you. I'll design a battery for you, on. That'll be $5 billion, please. There you go. Right to your point, I just did a little Google in, and it looks like they've sold nearly 700,000 Teslas in the last three years. So 700,000 and then how many... It's pretty tiny. It's a very small percentage. As comparison, Toyota actually had a recall on the RAV-4s a few years back where it was the rear link arms for the rear wheels

that adjusted the toe of the rear wheels. And these link arms were rusting and they would break and fall apart and lose causing the wheels to flop around. And we had a caller on the line named Phil so we we forgot about it took them three tries you're still there called poor Phil we got carried away a great question and we answered it and then told you

how to build a tractor but that's okay tell me the time the guys got into weeds with Phil go ahead Phil Phil still trying to talk if you can go to a hybrid plug-in or just stay with a hybrid

why would I want to go to a hybrid plug-in and not go all the way to an electric car? That's a really good question. Josh will answer that. Yeah, I think probably the main reason the advantage of the plug-in over the pure electric is no range anxiety. When the plug-in is, you know,

when you're done with the all-electric mode, it converts regular to a regular hybrid, so you have a much larger range. Even the amazing new Tesla can't compete with the range of a plug-in hybrid. Yeah. Good point. But it's dying out.

I agree with you. I think if a Tesla now has got 450 mile range, how many people need to worry about more range than that? That's more than getting a tank of gas for a lot of cars. And so I think the range anxiety is fading away, and so will the plug-in hybrid. I agree with that. All right, appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Phil, thanks very much. Shall we talk so much? We're supposed to listen to our callers, but we got carried away. If you call again, I promise we'll be quiet. 877960, or you can tax us at 772-497-60, and we have a great mystery shopping report coming up from Arrigo. We shopped Arrigo-Chrysler Dodge Jeep, and you want to stay tuned for that. Now back to Josh.

I love the Arrigo brothers. The most entertaining car dealers in town. Oh, crazy. Okay, I got a text here. I heard Volkswagen just did a stop sale on their new Tows model. What's the difference between a stop sale and a recall? Well, a stop sale is really dangerous and it's serious. And they tell the dealers, don't you dare sell that car

and lock it up and hide it because there's something in that car that could hurt somebody. And I think sometimes the stop sale sort of precedes a reason. recall, like they're telling the dealers stop selling that model because it's still on their lots, and if, I guess, those that were already sold will probably be recalled in the near future. It doesn't have to be that dangerous. It's just they want it because you've already got a lot of them and put them out there anyway. Now they've got to get those back. They don't want to keep pumping them out in the marketplace.

Yeah, I didn't read about that one, so I'm not sure what the issue is. All right. Well, I do know that every time that we get a recall out, it includes a stop sale on any cars that are in inventory, new car inventory. And they have to be repaired before they can be sold. Yeah. If it's like a 2017 model, it'll just be a pure recall. If this occurred in 2021, 22, it'll be a stop sale with a recall.

So there's your answer. And there's also, and I think to some extent the fact that it's a serious issue as part of it too, because unfortunately we know, as being car dealers, that we get cars that have problems that are not recalled. and they just keep selling and then you have to wait for the customer to complain about it before you fix it and it's called a what a t r d uh a t s b t sb t sb t sb they call it toilet service bullet so it would be a c sb for a Chevrolet service building and it would just say if a customer complains about the wheel coming off i'm exaggerating if the customer complains about this then fix it

But if they don't complain about it, forget about it. I think industry-wide, they refer to those as service campaigns. Service campaigns, yeah. Actually, technical service bulletins. Technically, yeah, there you go. They don't want to use the word campaign unless it's a recall. Yeah. And for the fact check.

Yep. And believe it not, the majority of those that we see are for radio updates, software updates on radios. So not really critical safety issues. Exactly. Okay, we're going to go back to the phones. And we're going to talk to Richard. Good morning.

Richard. Good morning. How are you all doing? Good. I've called before. This time I called to make a comment about the mice or rats eating wires. That's a popular topic. Well, I want to give a little tip.

It's happened to me twice. Once on a Dodge diesel truck, all the lights went out, and it happened on my Tesla. Really? And I researched it quite a bit, YouTube and whatnot, and not to argue, but it turns out that mothballs don't work. They run some experiments and rents to eat the food right next to the mothballs. What does work, however, is mint oil. Mint oil. Mint oil.

You can get it on Amazon and you mix it with water. And what I do with my cars now is about ever. I mix it with water in a spray bottle, spray can, pressurized spray can, and spray the wheel wells and the intakes with that. And I've got three cars, a Jeep, a Porsche, and a Tesla. I do all three of them, and it seems to calm it down. And they're not rats or mice, because one of them and my Porsche, they build a nest up inside the thing. Yeah, mice and rats, I saw the mice. I mean, they were in there having a happy time.

you know well maybe maybe well the tip was the minute oil mint oil yeah well maybe rats don't like mothballs but mice do yeah and in that that mint oil they had a they had an experiment they ran on the YouTube where they tried the moth balls and all that oh okay I picture a I picture a rat with a little bandana I am educated now I like it well maybe rats also but anyway it happened twice I had an excellent experience to buy my Tesla. I bought a model S a couple years ago. Did you order a model S? Yeah, I got the plaid.

The new plaid. You got the plaid? Yeah. Zero to 60 and 1.9. Can you go to get it next week? It's coming in any day. They said between the August, today's August to 6th? 7th.

And I think 13th. It should be the next few days. It could be at your house when you go home. Maybe it might be, yeah. It's driving by itself right now. You bought the wonder car of the decade. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. It's actually, and I got the totally autonomous option,

which I can't believe it, but I know it's illegal to have an autonomous car, but apparently it'll have that technical capability anyway. Well, it's not released yet. I have it, too. Oh, okay. And at least it really shouldn't Beta testing

I've got a few special drivers that are getting on feedback So we're going to at least At least pieces of the time The self-driving The auto driving, the auto driving They call it works great I mean, but the deal where you can go downtown And they make left turns on traffic

They're doing it, but they ain't here yet Yeah, well it's It's exciting, I can't wait It's I have to take it out to the Morosa Speedway in Palm Beach County to, in order to drive it fast because it's so fast literally

it's crazy fast. Well, even the normal one's a fast. You got the real monster. Anyhow, I'm sure you enjoy it. It's the best thing I ever bought. With the buying experience, I just ordered it on the all-market

iPad. You know, Richard, he told me, gave me a delivery date, and how'd you pay for it? Let's see, about 90,000 or so. I bought it at that time when they had the $7,500 rebate. Did you write a check or did you write a check or did you? And the reason I'm saying is when I came back for me to pay,

they actually wanted access to my bank account. They wanted to know my password and my username. I said, well, can I just transfer the money to Tesla? They said, no, you have to give us your bank account. account number and your username and password. I didn't do that. I'd do those kind of transact. I'd just transfer out of my bank. Well, I was thinking about it.

I'm not kidding. That's the truth. Are you sure you were talking to Tesla? I thought I'd been hacked, and I had to verify. I literally thought a hacker had got me, but I was on the official Tesla website, and I verified it, so I think I'm

verified it. Do they have a Ukrainian accent? The customer service. If it doesn't come in. I just want to relate that there is a good way to it. Oh my God, I'm an act. I can see it now. The car is delivered Earl's driveway. It's a

Barbie Corvette. Yeah. Elon. Oh, no. Anyway, I will enjoy your car. I just thought to make a couple comments about it. It's a wonderful machine and you'll enjoy it. I'm sure. I hope I'll be a fellow Tesla. I have a recommendation.

and they're tickle willing to. Thank you so much, Richard. We're going to have a whole lot of fun. Thank you, Richard. Give us a call again. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We need to hear from you.

Share your experience or just give us a call and say hello. 877-960. Now back to Josh. Mint oil to prevent mice. If I was a mouse, I far prefer mint oil to... I know. It sounds like a mohita. Given across between, you know, mock balls and mineral, but he's a lot of YouTube, and they did a bunch of tests, and I have reason I love to show. You'll find out new stuff all the time.

I thought it would be eucalyptus. It sounds so is mental is pleasant to. Yeah. I wouldn't, I would use something. It's not pleasant to mice. We just found they don't like mineral. All right. They probably have a very good reason for that.

Think of all the research that went into that. Let's move along. We're digressing. A lot of mice. We're going to call a new show Earl on digression. It doesn't have the same ring as Earl on cars. Earl of Mice and Men. There you go.

All right. We beat that mouse to death. I have a car. This is the text here. I have a car that I'm thinking of trading in. I've never done it before and I don't know how it works. My car's trade-in value is roughly $11,000. I still owe about $9,000.

Does that mean if I traded in only $2,000 goes towards the price of the trade-in? or is it the full $11,000? Sorry if this is a dumb question. It's not a dumb question at all. If you haven't bought a card, it could be confusing. The whole value will go against the selling price of the new car. And in most states, you'll save sales tax on that difference. So the sales tax on $11,000 have been roughly $770 or so.

So you save that sales tax, but only the equity, the difference between what you owe and what the car is worth would be applied towards. towards the loan. So that $2,000, the difference between the $9,000 payoff and the $11,000 value, that gets applied to the new car deals. And the reason that's such a great question is because too many dealers will not explain that to you. And people will have a car that they owe more money on than it's worth.

And they will say, how much is your car? We praise your car for $15,000 and we'll apply that to where the purchase, but I owe money on the car. Don't worry about it. We'll take care of that. So they kind of push it aside. They're not taking care of anything. They're paying your car off to your bank, and they're taking the amount, which in your case is more than the real value of the car,

and they're adding it to the price of the car you're buying. But you just don't see it in the paperwork. So you have to be very careful. Negative equity is a very bad thing. You really shouldn't be buying cars when you have negative equity in your trade. unless you absolutely have to. But that's a good question, yeah. Yeah, and sometimes, like, when you're leasing a car,

they'll tell you, oh, if you don't like it, no problem, just bring it back, we'll trade you out. Yeah, but I have another year and a half. We'll take care of that for you. And people assume you're a car dealer. Maybe it's a Honda leasing, and you're a Honda dealer. Well, that's all Honda, right? So they're saying, even though I owe them another year and a half

with lease payments, they're going to waive that. and I don't have to worry about it, and I can lease another car or buy another car. No, it ain't going to happen.com. You have to take all those lease payments and pay Honda leasing or any other leasing on me, and all that is just like negative equity if you had bought the car. All those lease payments are added to your new lease. So you really get hosed when you have a lot of leases left, lease payments left. Yeah, they're taking care of it by making you pay for it.

Exactly. Keep your ears open. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to our first-time caller, and it's a Regina. She's giving us a call from Coral Gables. Welcome to the show, Regina. Congratulations. She won yourself $50. Yay.

Oh, wow. Thank you so much. Oh, you're welcome. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, I can hear you now loud and clear, and you go ahead and send me your, well, information where I can send you your check. You can just email me. And you can go to rolling cars.

Okay. So I can write that down. Okay. Yeah, so I have been thinking about a RAV-4, buying a new car. Our vehicles are, like, quite old, and we're these kind of people that, you know, really maintain our vehicles and drive them for as long as we can. And so we're interested in getting a brand-new car. We want to get a new one, and we want to get a RAF-4 because we know people.

people who drive them and they're very, very satisfied with them. They are very, very popular. And if you've got children and you need that kind of capacity, it's a great, great choice. Yeah, I love SUVs. So we have two SUVs, and so that's what I'm looking to do. But my question is now in this market, would it be difficult to, like, order what I want because it seems like there's just it's like whatever you have you have there on the showroom but but how does that work now if I wanted like you know specific things like

leather seeds or you know whatever I'll I'm going to say one thing and then I'm going to tell world to take over but you know it's it's great for you if you have the time to wait because you will there'll be a wait involved if you want you know a special added on features. But Earl, what do you have to say about that? Well, your timing is perfect on that because, Regina, I wrote a blog. It's on AurelandCars.com. And I came to be an epiphany last week on the air about how you can actually have your cake and eat it too. That's the title of the blog. Have your car cake and eat it too. Are you a Costco member by any chance? No, I'm not

I'm a BJ member Think about Being a Costco member Cost you're 65 bucks Find a dealer A Toyota dealer In your area or you'll keep branching out And we'll agree to this

So you want a Costco dealer And Costco dealers Contract with Costco to sell their vehicle At the lowest price They will sell that car for it to anybody So if you have to buy the car today at least you know you're going to be getting the lowest price on that RAP 4 that they've sold that RAP 4 to any other customer for. Unfortunately, today, with a low supply high demand, that's a high price.

Here's what you do. You find a car, you find a Toyota dealer that will say to you, listen, you buy the car from me in two months when the microchip shortage is solved, the inventory shortage is solved, and sell it to me at the Costco price two months from today. that price will be thousands of dollars less than what you're paying today for a Toyota RAB for. So if you're not in a hurry, if you don't mind waiting two or three months, a car price is new and use will plummet in 60 to 90 days.

And if you buy a car today, you're going to be prepared, new to use, you're going to pay several thousand dollars more than you will in two or three months. Plus, in two or three months, you'll be buying a 2022 and you're going to have the advantage of not having the depreciation that you have today with the 2021. So I would, and if you're not a Costco member, go to CostcoAdo.com and take a look at their program for buying. And as I say, for $65, you become a Costco member and buy anything from a Costco warehouse, but you're also on the auto buying program. and it is the safest way to buy a car at the best price.

Okay, that's great information. I really appreciate that. I thought about joining Costco. There's just that there's not one real close by. Yeah, that's a great investment all year round. But as far as your route four is concerned, I can understand why you made that choice. And, you know, it's got low maintenance costs

and excellent fuel economy. And it's just all around a great choice. So good luck with that. Thank you so much. Tell me your email address, Nancy. That's Nancy S at E S-T-T-O-O-O-O-T-O-O-com. Okay, I'll email you my information. That's N-C-C...

Yeah, so N-A-N-C-Y-S, as in Stewart, at E-S-T-T-O-O-O-C-com. Nancy S at E-S-T-T-Y-O-O-O-com. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much, Regina. Spread the word.

Oh, no, thank you. We want more women calling. Yeah, well, my husband told me about the show, and he's at work, and I thought, well, let me just try calling in and getting some information. Yes. And I appreciate all the information that you gave me. It'll really help, and so our first step is to go on that Costco website, and maybe we could even join Costco on that website. know, I'll have to see. Yeah, that'd be a great idea. Regina, thanks so much. You've certainly made our morning, and all the ladies out there listening

to you. You give them, you know, some courage to give us a call. Most of them just want to text, you know, or YouTube. So, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. One more lady caller we're waiting for $50 for that next new lady caller. Now back to Josh. Yeah, join Costco. Get a great deal in a car and a 50-pound can of tuna. Yeah, or buy a roasted chicken for $4.99. Best chicken in town.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. All right, moving on. I pay $65 just for their chickens. All right. Good morning. This is a text from Bob and Stewart. Thank you for texting in, Bob.

Bob asks, can the auto start and stop feature on the Toytas be turned off? It can, but on most of the models, you actually have to turn it off every time you get in and start the car. I am so glad my wife's car did not have that feature when we got it because I wouldn't have survived. She'd have killed me. I mean, here you are a certified master diagnostic technician, and you can't figure out how to permanently turn that thing off? I could, but it void the warranty on the whole car. Not that you didn't tell anybody about it. Unfortunately, it's in their programming down in the software system

that they won't even allow me access in there. I thought about trying, but... Oh, you haven't tried, you know, okay. Yeah, you can turn it off for every trip, but as soon as the car goes off, you turn it back on, it defaults back on. It reactivates it. Yeah, so I wonder how many miles per gone they gain by that feature.

Not enough to put up with the aggravation of it and the annoying feel of it. It's a horrible feature. Yes, sir. Tell me what you really feel. You got anything over there, right? We don't have enough time for that. As a matter of fact, I do.

I have an interesting one here from Donovan. Let's see here. He says, Joe Biden this week made a push for greater than 50% of car sales to be EVs, electric vehicles, by 2030. I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Personally, I don't think it's fast enough.

We need to be at least 50% by 2028, or there will be no American OEMs left. China, more so Europe, is so far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to EVs. The U.S. has approximately 41,000 EV chargers in place. Currently, Europe has 285,000 chargers. We need to get moving on this much faster, or we will just continue to fall further and further behind. charging and range are the biggest issues with people being against buying an electric vehicle today. Europe is looking to install 3 million chargers by 2030, and he says the current plan they're working on will have chargers every 36 miles on the highways, and the other factor is that the U.S. needs to have a standardized plug for electric vehicles.

Well, you know, I disagree with the premise and the whole philosophy. I think the United States will, in fact, dominate in electric cars because of our system. It's called capitalism and supply and demand in the free enterprise system. And people buy what they want. And generally speaking, I think people are starting to want those. electric vehicles because they're just so damn good. And range isn't an issue anymore, used to be. Charging stations is somewhat of an issue, but Tesla has solved it completely, and everybody

else will, too. Maintenance and reliability and all these other things will happen. And when Americans see something they want and they have the money to pay for it, somehow the manufacturers figure out a way to build it, and dealers figure out a way to build it, and the dealers figure out the way to sell it. So I don't like government control, and I don't think that requiring people to build cars and so on and so forth is the way to go.

I mean, in China, they can handle that very simply. If you buy a combustion engine, you get shot. Pretty much, yeah. So, on slight exaggeration, I don't really go. I like the Chinese, but it's just a matter of, I disagree with the philosophy. that. Okay. I think when those F-150s get on the road, that'll be a major influence on the rest of the industry. Absolutely, yeah. How about the Hummer? F-150. I mean, all the morons, we used to love

those four-mile-an-hour hummers. Four-mile per gallon, yeah. Four-mile per gallon, yeah. Now they can buy an electric car. Covering car dealer has a laundry list of morons. F-150. B, M.W. Okay, I digress. We're going to go to our second new female caller, lady caller from Tequesta, and that makes me happy, and that is Shirley. Good morning, Shirley. You've won yourself

$50 this morning. Shirley, you just. Good morning, and I'll be glad to text you my information. I have a comment about the electricity. I am understanding from the internet

and electrical producers that they can't produce enough electricity to supply all it's going to be required for all of these electric cars and I also have an answer for your leather question Okay, let me address the first one

If suddenly every car on the road were all electric you're right, it would be a challenge to the power grid, it wouldn't be able to handle it But we are gaining ground simultaneously with the amount of electrical vehicles. And I assure you, by the time we do have all electric vehicles, we will have the power grid that can handle it. Remember also that most of the power is demanded during the day. And we can charge and we can build battery availability at night very easily because when everybody's sleeping in an area, you can still create electricity

and store it, and you store it, and then you use it the next day. You've got solar power, you've got all the other renewable power systems that are out there. Nuclear has gotten a bad rap. People tremble when they think of the nuclear reactors generating power. They can be totally safe now, so the power is not going to be an issue. She has something else that you want to say. I just wanted to say, we have nuclear aircraft carriers that are cities floating on the oceans

powered completely by nuclear. And what was the next one, Shirley? Well, you were asking about leather before. And from the dictionary, leather. It says that leather is a material consisting of animal skin prepared for use by removing the hair and tanning.

So a horse hide is a horse hide and leather is leather, and they're different. And leather is not necessarily from a horse. Oh, thanks, right? Could you have duck leather or no? She just said animal. Animals. No idea.

Can you tan duck skin? I knew you can get it nice and crispy with chili sauce. Oh, boy. Or rat skin, rat skin. I think you talk to a taxidermist. Surely, it's so good to hear from you. Genuine rat leather. Wait, that's the answer to the,

wire insulation. I don't rats are, wait, are rats cannibalistic? Yes. No, never mind. The guys are going crazy,

Shirley. Shirley, thank you so much for that definition. Yeah, definitely. Shirley, do you have any other questions? How many people do you know

still have a Webster's dictionary? I think you're the only one. Yeah. I have a Google dictionary. How about the problems with electricity?

the charging up in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, where it gets super cold. They can't, those charging stations aren't working when they're real cold. Yeah, that article was in the Wall Street Journal. It was very interesting. Now, there's a lot of challenges. And, you know, working through it. Yeah, demand solves everything because demand brings on entrepreneurship and more businesses compete to solve problems.

And it's a miracle of what we do in the United States and some of the countries too. And that's what it's all about. Science is moving so rapidly now, medicine and everything else, that it's just exciting. And it used to be we got a problem that will never overcome. There are no problems we can't overcome. I mean, we're going to outer space now. You can buy a ticket to go into outer space. Who would have thought that when you were young, surely, I was young, that I could literally

why I take it on the spaceship. And it's just amazing. We're part of some interesting times, that's for sure. Hey, there's nothing that American ingenuity can't solve. This is very true. Exactly right. Very true. We're very driven.

Shirley, thank you so much for calling and being the second lady caller this morning. And if you email me, your information, I can get the checkout to you this weekend. And that's, you can go to Earl on Car. and pull up my email address or if you're good at memory it's just Nancy S. at E.S.Toyota.com. I have it. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Charlie. Great talking to you. Thank you for all that interesting information. All right. I have a text here. We have some time before we're going to get to the mystery shop. A lot of time.

Oh, wow. All right. I'll read slow. Hi there. Hi there. My husband was in a car accident and is heavily concussed. Sorry to hear that. So I'm in charge of selling his car to a salvage yard. It's a 2003 Toyota Camry, roughly 174,000 miles on it. Sorry, this is a silly question. I'm completely clueless on cars, and definitely not a silly question. I think just the same advice that we give for so many different questions would apply, just get multiple bids.

Absolutely. You know, here, we learned a lesson, and we are in the business. Do you remember cash for clunkers? How many of you remember cash for clunkers? Well, we had never been involved with that many clunkers. I mean, you know, we're a new car dealer and we sell mainly nicer cars and reliable cars. So we didn't know what was going on with all the junk cars. What cash for clunkers came along, the government said, we'll allow you $75 for your car, no matter how bad a sheep it's in. And did I get that right, Josh? $75? No, it was 4,500 or 3,500, depending on how much your fuel economy was improving. No, there was an amount that when you traded your, you know, that was a subsidized amount.

Yeah, that would go on top of the actual value. Somehow, $75 came up as what people were allowing, and a lot of dealers were giving $75. dollars. So we shopped every car that came in with multiple sources for recycling and people that sold cars for parts, people that tried to put them back together again, but that was illegal because they were supposed to be total cars. And we saw an amazing spread. And Josh would know better than I because he got directly involved in it. But what would you say was the highest price we allowed because we sold the car to a third party for? or a quote unquote scrappable car.

Oh, it could be thousands and thousands of dollars depending on the type of car. Several thousand dollars. I remember 3,000 or 3,500. And the average dealers out there were only allowing them because if it really looks bad and it won't run, you can say, I'll give you $100 for that. I'll give you $200 for that.

If you shop it, you might get $2,000 for that. So if you have a real piece of junk, shop it around, and that's the name of the game. Absolutely. All right, here's another one for Rick. 98 Camero always overheats while idle. I just put new fans on it, change the thermostat, and make sure it has coolant in it. What else can I do?

I would be checking, I believe in 98 it's going to be running electric cooling fans. I would be checking the switch that turns those fans on and make sure that that switch is actually operating properly. And I'd also be checking the condenser and the radiance. sensor and the radiator to make sure that you don't have the fins on the front of them all plugged up with like bugs or other road debris that could be blocking the airflow. Very good advice. That 98 Camero sounds pretty cool. There you go.

We're going to go to Bob, his holding in Juneau. All right. Hi, Bob. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. I was going to talk to you again. I recently sold an 18 Camry, and I did it because, well, I had an accident with a car.

No one was injured. I backed into a car and did a fair amount of damage to the cosmetics of the car. Had it repaired. When I went to a repair shop, and the one I selected, he said, you know, you're going to take a $2,500 hit. when you sell this car and I didn't get an explanation for that from him and maybe you can provide one where it seems to be and when I did sell it at another

of these operations that buys cars from you and so forth yep $2,500 off and what I'd like to understand is if the person that repaired the car told you he was going to put it on a frame machine to make sure the frame was okay, then why is it an automatic $2,500 off the price of the car? Well, it might not be $2,500. That could just be a device the guy was using to get your car for cheaper.

You know, if you do have an accident noted on the Carfax, it will devalue the car, but $2,500 isn't like the standard amounted. I mean, it depends on the vehicle. If you're trading in a 2021, $80,000 Mercedes, an accident is going to have a larger impact on the value than a, you know, 20-year-old, you know, beat-up vehicle. Also, there are companies out there that, you mentioned putting it on a frame machine and determining if it's, you know, truly damaged that way.

There are companies that can, one's called True Frame that will come out in like laser measure the car. Is that a TRU or TRUE? I believe it's TRUE. I'll look it up after this and confirm. But in those services, what they do is they can attest to whether or not there's actual frame damage on the car, and that will get tagged onto the Carfax. And hopefully that'll offset the accident that you see there as well.

Great information. Very good information. I appreciate it a lot. Yeah. Well, the car was sold. I took the $2,500 a hit. I wanted to do different people. They both sent me the same thing,

so I assumed that was standard fare, and I probably lost some money on that one. I should have been probably a little more conscientious and maybe digging around, perhaps calling you before I sold a car, and I would learn that I could have gone to true and maybe eliminated or avoided that discount. Well, even if you had,

even if you had your store, still, you know, when people, it goes to the Carfax report when you have a car repaired. And always, even if you don't have frame damage, even if you, that's how off-lease only, the big used car dealer in this area, makes a lot of money. They buy cars all the time that have been on accidents, and they buy them for less money. Because as the man told you, anytime a car's been in an accident, it devalues the car. If you want to buy a car that's really a good car, and it doesn't have frame damage, and the repair has been done very well to the body damage, it's just a real value, so you save money. But it does devalue the car, and it's just a question of how much.

And, you know, true frame is a good way to find out how serious it is. And at the end of the day, getting multiple bids is a good way to minimize that depreciation. Exactly. Yes, right. Very good. Well, all right, then, as always, you give very informative information. I really appreciate watching a listen to your program every Saturday. Oh, great, Bob.

Okay. Thank you. We're very happy that you listen every Saturday. And what's great about the show, it's free information. Free. Got another animal question here. Hey, Earl, why do they call it horsepower? Is my 200 horsepower engine really the same amount of power as if 200 horses were pulling my car?

You know, I Google that a long time ago, and it is related to horses. I have to look that up. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it is a horse thing. And that's a lot of horses and 400 horses, I mean. Well, originally it goes way back to where it was an equation to how much a horse could typically pull. But truth be told, folks. So it's a more of a torque thing. Yeah.

Your horsepower is a great number to look at. but torque is more important. Now, here's the easy way to remember the comparison. Horsepower is how fast you can go at the very top end. Torque is how quickly your vehicle can get you up there, and torque is what gets that big load moving. That's fascinating, but this is more fascinating right here. How many...

Here we go. Here's a question for the ages. How many horsepower does a horse have? 21. Anyone else want to guess? One. One, 21. 10.

Nancy's closest using the Price's Right methodology, 14.9 horses. Fascinating. Well, that's not fair. How can you call it all? How can you say? It just, well, 14.9 horse power. The guy that came up with that deceived everybody. Right, but that guy was talking about a Tennessee,

walking horse. I want to bring out my Clydesdale. How many Andalusians is that in one horseback? No, folks, where else can you go? I mean, right here. Is you hear what Josh just shared with everyone? That's free advice. 14. There you go. Okay. I think that we are ready for the mystery shopping report. No, we're not. No, we're not. Why not? Because it's 932 and we've got plenty of time. Oh, okay, great. You're the bus. I want to remind everyone that Earl did a great column this week, and if you haven't gotten to it, go to Earl on Cars. Have your new car cake and eat it too. As all of his columns, they're really fantastic. I definitely love proofreading every single one of them, so if you get a chance, there's so much over there at Earl on Cars, and you can get a lot

information and read columns the essence of that column and we had a caller earlier if you happen to be tuned in earlier if not if you're looking to buy a new car or a used car and you're not in a hurry order the car if it's a new car from the manufacturer and do it on purpose because you want the car to come in later in two or three months when the prices will drop like a rock in the fourth quarter of this year, fourth quarter, they're going to drop. So you're not in a hurry, and you order the car, but you contract with the dealer to pay the price that the car will sell for in two or three months. The only way you can do that for sure and really be safe is on the Costco Auto Buying Program.

And the Costco Auto Boarding Program requires all dealers, certified auto Costco dealers, that they sell their car at the lowest price, they will sell. that car to anyone for. So you want to buy a new Honda cord. You find a certified Honda dealer in the Costco program. And you say, I want to buy this a cord. I want leather. I want this. Just be as picky as you want. And they're not going to have any anyway. You say, well, I want you to order it from Honda. They'll build the car for me. And I'm not going to take delivery until, and you fill in the blank, two months, three months. The longer out you do it, the better the price is going to be, and when I buy it, I want you to give me the Costco price

of that time. That way you have your car cake and eat it too. And if you really want to have your car cake and take your trade-in and sell your trade-in outright today. You'll get a couple thousand dollars more for the trade-in. Now you've got to figure out what you've got to do without a car, use another member of family car. Ride a horse. Right a horse. Carpool, Uber, Lyft. I mean, And be creative. I mean, public transportation. If you can get by without a car for two months, you get $2,000 more for your trade in. You buy the new car for $2,000 less. Bada Bing. You're saving $4,000 less the cost that you have to pay for, you know, the Uber or Lyft or... And the oats for the horse. Exactly.

Taking all that into consideration. It's a pretty interesting time. Exactly. Very interesting time. So there you go. Okay, any more texture? Well, I did a little math. If your car has 200 horsepower, that's the equivalent of 2,980 horses. Cheers. That's a lot of horses.

That's a lot of oats. One quick thing. Can I just say, happy birthday to my daughter Amanda. Today's her birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Amanda. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Amanda, happy birthday to you, and many more. We do it all on this show.

John is in you're not singing. It's a family show here. I have another one if we can squeeze it in. I know we're going to go to the plane time. All right. I recently bought a 2007 Civic, and while I'm driving at any speed, the steering wheel will shake. While turning the wheel, you'll also kind of want to go the other way. The car also veers to the right.

There's some steering issues here. I know an alignment will be needed, but I'm not sure what's causing the other issues. Alignment's going to be the last thing. Okay. The first thing you're going to want to check are your wheel bearings and the, steering tie rod ends sounds like you've got a bearing issue there because a vibration at all speeds is usually going to be caused by a weak bearing letting those wheels wobble and move around as you're driving it reminds me of the

book unsafe at any speed I would say that was Chevy Corvair I would say that was unsafe condition would you absolutely so you need to stop and get that fixed immediately yes have that evaluated by a good shop but and I say the alignment will be the last thing because after they've replaced whatever components need to be replaced, then the alignment will be to adjust those parts back and get everything lined up perfectly. And that's segue me into another advice to our listeners. When you have a problem with your car, don't diagnose it yourself. And you said, obviously I need an alignment. Well, you might not need an alignment. And if you took it into a car dealership and said, align my car for me,

you'd be very disappointed. First of all, you might not need the alignment. Secondly, you'd still have the rattle and the wheel, and you'd have an unsafe car. Always have your car diagnosed by a good technician and say, I've got a problem with this car. You know, if you really want to be cool, you say, I've got a problem with this car.

I want you to test drive it. I'm not going to tell you what I think of it is. You tell me what you think it is, but it's a problem that really worries me. Maybe he's a good technician. He'll tell you the exact same thing. that you observed, and maybe some things you didn't observe, which you ought to be careful about. But once you tell it, particularly when you go into a car dealership and a lot of independence,

you're not getting a technician to look at your car. You're getting a guy that's selling you something. He's paid on commission. He may or may not have good auto mechanical knowledge. And so he is going to listen too carefully to what you say, and everything you tell him to do, he's going to charge you. for it and do it, and it might not fix your problem. A good mechanic is the one that's going to take you back, show you what's wrong with

your car, and tell you what he thinks are the priorities to do first, and let you make an informed decision. A word of warning, there are a lot of shops that will say, you can say, I want to, may I come back and look at my car, but you're not allowed in the service department for insurance reasons. Well, you're not allowed just to wander around by yourself, but they should be very happy to take you back and say, here is what we see. This is why we need this problem addressed first. They should be. And this is the order you should do it. Yeah, you're pretty lucky whenever you find a mechanic like that, you know, especially, you know, if you're a lady and you want that

explanation and they're few and far between. And you know it, to me, the majority of the customers that will ask questions and intelligent questions are the ladies the the guys just seem to be like they don't want to let me know that they don't know everything about cars the ladies will come back there and say tell me why and show me why yeah and when I can give a proper explanation and let them know that I want them to make an informed decision about their vehicle that's a customer that not only are they going to keep coming back and spending money with me in the future, but they're going to tell their friends, hey, this is the guy to go to.

Exactly. You know, and there's a lot of respect in that whole heart. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to go to the mystery shopping report. It is the Arrigal Boys, and that's Chrysler Dodge Jeep. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay.

One of our favorite car dealerships, the mystery shop, over the years, many, many years, was Arrigo, Chrysler Dodge Jeep. The Rigo brothers, John and Jim, as you're local in South Florida, you've seen their commercials, and they're hysterical, and they're entertaining, and I compliment them on that. The last time we shopped them was a while back before they sold out, and a lot of people

don't even know they sold out because they're still on TV and online. They're still the face of the dealership. Yeah. At any rate, they sold all their dealerships to Larry Morgan Auto Group, and I happen to know Larry Morgan personally, and he's a great guy, and his son. I've talked to his son, and they've acquired a large auto group, and I was on the Florida Automobiles Association Board Directors with Larry many years ago. Morgan continued to operate his new acquisitions under the Rego brand.

Thankfully for us, we still get to see Jimmy and Johnny, here we go, cutting it up in their commercials. Now, we're going to play your clip, and I'll give you a cat. down because we have to coordinate the video and the audio. So I'm going to say, five, four, three, two, one, play. Johnny, why are you dressed like that? I just signed Arrigo's declaration of low prices. Great.

Now go mark down all 2,500 new vehicles. I hope my quill has enough ink. Declare independence from high prices all month long at Arrigo. Get new RAM 1,500s from 249 per month. Grand Cherokees from 259 a month. Plus, Arico needs your trade. So make this the summer event you can't miss. I do declare I am done by George.

He's got a future car sale. You got to go, O'Rigo. You got to love that, right? I'm telling you. They're pros. There's some car commercials, seriously, that I will stop what I'm doing. And if they're entertaining enough, which is very clever marketing. I mean, it's hard to be funny.

And it's hard, particularly for owners. They're not owners anymore, but they used to be, to be funny. Yeah, I'd love to take a poll just to find out how many people enjoy those commercials. I do. You know, and that's Sunday morning, 999? I love that one, too. Anyway, we mystery shopped the New Arrigo, Christlady Dodge Deep, last October just a month after the handover. I'm hearing a very loud thing in my headphones, and I'm not sure.

I guess we're okay. I hope everybody can hear me okay. It was just different before we played the clip, so I think we're probably okay. Agent Lightning, investigation revealed a fairly boring and unremarkable sales process of the past shop we did. Of course, there was a $2,000 addendum and a bunch of dealer fees,

but the salesperson manager were straightforward and helpful. And we gave the previous shop, we gave a regode Chrysley-D job, dodge a C plus. And that's a little better than average. And just the stuff we've mentioned, addendums and the common stuff. Remember, we grade on the curve our deals. We don't condone their behavior, but if we didn't grade on the curve, everybody would fail, and if you don't place in Florida, to buy a car. So we can't do that. Now that nearly years past, we're pretty sure Morgan's Origo has had the needed time to settle into their groove. So,

The Morgan Auto Group has got a lot of dealerships. And so I'll give you a little heads up. It's hard to watch a whole bunch of dealerships. And when the cats away, the mice will play, and they'll chew through the wires. I'm like, digressing it. We called up Agent Lightning for her encore. And here's the report.

I'm speaking as if I were a female shopper, Agent Lightning. I arrived in the evening around 6 o'clock. I entered the shore room and was greeted by a woman seated at the front visk. She asked how she could help me. I told her I was interested in a new 2021 Dodge Ram. I'd seen it online. A woman looked puzzled and said she'd need to check to see if they'd carry those. I mean, obviously, first day on the job.

She turned her attention to another woman standing nearby. Melissa, do we carry Dodge Rams at this location? She asked. Melissa laughed and said, they carried Dodge Rams. They had a bunch of them. in stock right now. She walked over to me, she's a salesperson, obviously,

introduced herself. I showed the online listing for their truck. The MSRP was $46,075, and the Erigo price was $39,989. Ooh, what a deal. What a deal. Now, here we are in the pandemic, high demand, low supply,

microchip shortage, cars are selling two-thirds, more over a sticker. And Arrigo's online price is $39,989, which is $6,000. Over, about $6,000 less. That's a hell of a deal. Melissa wrote down the stock number, and then she'd go check and see if it was available. And I'm thinking, well, probably ain't going to be here,

but she asked me to wait and walked off. She was back in three minutes with the keys and said it was my lucky day. Oh, yeah. Melissa asked me to follow her to the desk where she could get some information, you know, the stick. We sat down, went through the ritual. When she finished, Melissa asked for my driver's license. I handed it over, and then she asked if I was planning to finance my truck. I said, I intended to pick cash, but I'd entertain financing if there were some compelling incentives.

We went outside, Melissa had a hard time finding the vehicle. She tried pushing the panning button on the key fob, very clever, no avail. Even though it was late in the day the sun, the heat were brutal, so Melissa suggested I wait in the shade while she searched. And this is not uncommon. Cardi, let's do this all the time. It's got to be embarrassing. But it happens.

It's a hard job, you know. It is. I waited only a few minutes before Melissa drove up to the truck honking joyfully. It was the same truck I found online. Same VIN, she checked that, same MSRP. And this is very important, folks, always, always, shop and compare apples and apples, same MSRP of the same VIN. Perfect. Well, you can't do the same van, but same as MSRP when you're shopping competitive dealers.

There was also an addendum, of course, next to the Monroney label, aka Phony Monroney, same O'Rigo Advantage package as in the last, and boy, they have a bunch of stuff on them. there. If we have time later, I'll reach all the junk. It's totally worthless. 1,999, can I say $2,000? Yeah, let's round up. Yeah. Let's round up. Yeah. Melissa popped the hood. We looked at the engine. I don't know why she did that. That's a monolith, right? She described all the technical specs to me perfectly while we looked at the monolith. She opened all the doors and continued to go over all the features. Melissa handed me the key. We took it on a test drive. I ask her why I should choose

the Dodge Ram over its competitors. Melissa gave me a very diplomatic and I thought honest answer. She said she did not believe in bashing the competition. Refreshing. Or overhyping her brand. Also refreshing. She told me that all the

trucks and Rams class were very good. Each had the advantages and disadvantages. That's scary on us, right? I like Melissa. I like, yeah. I took a U-turn, headed back down Okachobee to dealership, if you're new, that's a strange sounding name in South Florida, Palm Beach County. Okeechobee, Indian name. And went back to the dealership, back of the desk.

Melissa asked if I was ready to move forward. I said I was, but caution that I would not allow my credit to be run because I was learning to pay cash. I was planning pay cash. She told me that she was fine and assured me she would advocate for me. and make the process easy. Melissa went to get the numbers, prices. She was back in eight minutes with a worksheet. I love the way Agent Lightning times everything.

Top line labeled market value selling price was MSRP, 46075. There was a $1,186 discount and then a $3,500 rebate. This made the adjusted group price, $41,000. 389. Then came, here we go. Here comes the funny business, folks. $1995 Arrigo Advantage. And even though Arrigo doesn't own the place, it's still called the Arrigo Advantage. A $99998 dock fee, that's dealer fee, hidden fee. $380.50 and taxable fees, also a hidden fee. Dealer fee.

price was $46,766, $46,76,000, and that's $691 over MSRP, but the advertised price was $6,000 under MSRP. I hope Larry Morgan and his son are listing, see, it's illegal to advertise a price below, which will sell the car for. This was a far cry from the online or ego price of $39,989. But everybody does it. But the law doesn't recognize that, just because everybody does it. It's just because the law is not doing the job enforcing the law. I told Melissa I do not want the Arrigo Advantage package and said the price they had on line was much less.

She replied that the price included rebates I didn't qualify for, and that's not right or legal either. And this really made me mad when she said this, a first responders rebate? I mean, that's really below the belt. Pandemic crisis, first responders. How many people come in the door are first responders? Are you a fireman?

You're a policeman? That's just not right. I protested that I did not see anything about that in the listing. And there wasn't. Even in the fine print, Melissa asked for a moment to confer with her manager, left the desk. She's back quickly and told me, our manager, wanted to make sure I understood that I was already getting 35. $500 in rebate, yeah, for, if I'm a fireman, and he had no more room to go on the price. I stood up, thanked Melissa for her time, and I said that nobody was giving me anything.

I told her this was all bait and switch. Melissa pled with me to stay so I could meet her sales manager. I said, no, and I left. As I was approaching my car, here it comes. There it comes. Melissa ran out, say that her manager agreed to take off another $2,000 of my side and tonight. I kept walking, I laughed, and I got it in my car. How sweet it is. They tried the, they called that the parking lot save.

The parking lot saved. And the manager was too damn lazy to run out himself. He sent him, hey, run out and get her. Tell her if she comes back in when they were two ran off. I would love to see the look on Melissa's face when Agent Lightning just laughed and kept walking. Yeah, yeah. I imagine it was a very evil laugh, like Mr. Bray's heartbroken, you know. You know, if you were listening early on the show, Marty or negotiated, he probably does that a lot.

You know, I mean, if you really want to play the game, you've got to get the very best price after you hammer, negotiate. Then you get up and say, I'm out of here, and they'll actually, the parking lot of clothes, they'll come run out, knock another couple thousand. dollars off. If you want to play that game, you've got to get down and dirty. You've got to be like Marty. And Marty knows how to do it. Where are you running shoes? Exactly. There you go. Okay, it's voting time on Arrigo, Chrysler Jeep Dodge, and were they, West Palm Beach? I believe so, yes. Yes. Oh, yes. They have a couple locations. This was the West Palm. West Palm Beach. Okay, well, you can vote online. You can vote on anywhere you want to. You can text us. I got Jonathan Wellington. I'll give the dealership a C-minus.

But rebates and the Doc Fee and O'Rigo stuff was still a scam. So he's still keeping them in the passing column. And we got Mark, lots of BS, grade D minus. D minus, yeah. Well, so far I've got Guy with a C. And Tom Sekel F, I don't have any other grades in stock. I love the Internet. I love my YouTube page.

You know, toward the end of the shopping report, and if you've already voted, you can vote again if you want to, maybe you didn't hear this. I mean, the thing that really got me has surprised me and disappointed me a little bit in Larry Morgan group. And trust me, Larry Morgan and the son are strictly honest people. I mean, they're really good people. You've got too many dealerships, guys, and you've got the wrong people in the wrong places.

But when you advertise a car today with a first responders rebate that you don't disclose, that's hidden below the bell. And that really lowered you in my estimate. and the way I would vote. But, Nancy, what are your voters looking at? I give the Erigo boys A. I love their costumes and, you know, how they deceive everyone and get you in the door.

And I wonder how many people know that Larry Morgan came along and purchased the dealership. Anyway, they built a brand. So I give them a D-minus. D-minus. Okay. I'm with Nancy there. I'm going to give them a D.

The salesperson seemed to be a real pro-know or stuff, but she's working in a D-minus environment there. And we've got more coming in with Donovan with an F. That was pretty bad. The AG really needs to start to put pressure on these dealers for an advertised price. Ernesto with a C. Mark Ryan with an F. Andrew Kimberlin with a D. Let's see Mark Smith with a C.

Kirk Farrell F. Let's see here. Karen with a, what a waste of time for everyone, I give them an F. Rico D minus 4 don't believe the ads and I'm gonna agree with that D keep them on the passing just barely but the you know those extra rebate you just don't get and too many games old school Bob here gives them an F yeah so that's I think we're seeing the we're averaging around a D it sounds like yeah I really liked the way you know Melissa you know really respected

at lightning and popping the hood and all of that but I think that Melissa needs to move on to where she could really put her you know techniques to work well I don't blame Melissa I blame well she's following the instructions and the rule of the Arrigo boys yeah well that's how they did business and now it's Larry Morgan and it shouldn't be you know going on so to your point the Morgan group has 46 dealerships That's spread pretty thin. 46? That's huge.

That's huge. You know, Larry Morgan was in the tire business, and he sold his tire business and bought one store in Tampa, and that's when I knew him, the board directors. Now he's up to 46 stores. Larry, you're growing too fast. You need to pull the controls in a little bit. What about Warren Buffett? How many does he have?

Not that money. I don't think so. He bought the Van Nuys Group. Okay, we've got to go. Okay, you've got to vote. I'm going to make it a D. I'm going to give you a break because I like Larry Morgan and I know he knows that didn't happen.

I will actually contact him and tell him about this and send him a copy of the report. I'm going to give you the next time I'm going to fail you if you don't fix this. We're coming for you. Yeah. And we have a couple minutes. Do you have something profound to assure with the audience?

The only thing I was going to say earlier on the show I didn't have time if I have time. I believe that all CEOs should be held personally responsible for the bad things they do. I think you need to take away the corporate shield against things like this. I think you need to make people realize that you can't use deniability

as an excuse to get off the hook. Let me tell you something. If you're personally responsible for something, you're very careful about what you do. I know, for example, if I have something in my service department that's unsafe and I have somebody gets hurt seriously and I get sued and I'm,

found guilty for punitive damages, I can lose everything I have. I can't use the corporate shield. I can't use deniability. Take away all those excuses that corporations and CEOs have. And if Larry Morgan were held personally responsible for the acts of the people in his 46 corporations, he would probably be more careful. Yeah, definitely. First responders, boo-hoo. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We definitely enjoy your company. We'll be right back here next week. Same time, 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend.