Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.10.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Greenway Kia of West Palm Beach, FL.

Episode Date: August 10, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Kia dealer to see how much over sticker price they will charge for a new 2024 Kia Forte on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Hello, 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 listeners. 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 link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back again. And you just heard my recorded introduction there. Jonathan's got me set up with a laptop where I can watch the show. show for the first time. So I almost would rather not watch the show. I'm looking over at me and it's a little distracting. But anyway, here we are live and in color in an industry with a wholesale manufacturer, huge, huge industry, worldwide auto manufacturing and the retail, which is huge, even more retailers. I mean, tens of thousands of retailers. And I'm a retailer. And full

Disclosure for you new folks who haven't tuned in the show. We have a Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach, Florida. But we're talking to you all over the world. We're talking to you streaming and you're seeing us. We're on Zoom now, which is really cool. We're still tippy-tone. We got the bugs out of the Zoom issue, thanks to Jonathan and Jenny. unofficial producer and technical advisor but we're on we're on now where all the glitches are out and we're just trying to we're trying to do how do we maximize the fact that we can have a person in the studio albeit video is a guest or caller and it's just going to be exciting so I you know we're staying up with the times is what we're doing I mean good Nancy and I had a conference with our doctors the other day on Zoom I mean I who meets in person anymore it's really it's really interesting the pace of technology and you

fix you every day when you buy a car that's why we're here we're here to help you buy or lease or maintain a car without being taken advantage of the the purpose of the show is to well through listening to us partial but mainly listening to the callers to the show, learn ways that you can go about buying that new car of your dreams or that used car of your dreams or just fixing the darn thing,

so it'll get you from point A to point B without being ripped off by a car dealer. Car dealers are just not up to speed the way they should be. They're getting there, and we're seeing some very positive moves in that direction. I have a hand raised from Nancy Stewart, story and she always tells me if we have callers so i bet we have a caller we do indeed good morning everyone welcome to another fantastic show we are going to go straight to the phones and talk to

john he's a regular caller from palm city good morning john good morning to everyone good morning i just want to mention specifically about a topic that came up on this show and it's a it's the the warranty for repair, and a 10-minute, $10 million fine was from the Federal Trade Commission given to Car Shield, deceptive advertising, lying about coverage it offered at $80 to $20, $120 a month, and using actors and actresses in their ads. So be careful. also now presently endurance is another one

that's out there. They're promising you a person that's shown a person that showed that five claims totally 3,500 and et cetera with a famous race car woman driver and will mention her name. So you heard about it first on this

show. There's a $10 million fine against Car Shield from the Federal Trade Commission warning to be careful. You know, John, as far as Endurance is concerned, boy, they have really picked up advertising since, you know, the news hit on CarShield. And we've been talking about that for months, and finally, you know, something happened. And we're happy to save, you know, a lot of consumers out there, you know, from purchasing something that's, well, useless.

It's probably the most commonly asked question, John. Your call is very timely because emails, text, calls. If there's one question I get more than any other, it's a question about should I buy that extended warranty or not on my use car or my new car. And you answered the question, as I said in my introduction a minute ago, the listeners of this show are learning more from guys like you, John, who call in with these current situations. like Car Shield.

And as Nancy just said, the amazing thing is, here they're fined $10 million, and they're still increasing their advertising. It's just amazing how they, the same thing goes with a card, you'll say, they can be hit with a big fine, but by continuing to do the same thing, they can pay the fine and come out ahead of the game.

So my only suggestion to the regulators is increase the amount of the fines. At some point, the pain will stop some of this, and I hope the regulators are listening to the show. Well, thanks to Earl Stewart on cars, we had a red flag already on this, and he doesn't recommend any of these companies except for the original manufacturer's warranty.

Exactly, exactly. Thank you, John. Thank you for being there. Thank you, John. Thanks for being part of the show. Okay, want to go back to what you were saying? Let me just say this, that call you had is the lifeblood of the show, the real call, and the number you'll hear us give out over and over again

because we'd love to have your call, and that number is 877-9-60-9-6-0. 877-9-60-9-6-0, and Nancy Stewart, McCose, co-founder of the show 20 years ago, has got a laptop in front of her, and as soon as the call comes in, Jeremy in the control room, shoots the call through to her laptop, and she waves at me or throws a pencil at me and makes me shut up or Rick shut up. And we know that the callers really are the soul of this show. So if you haven't got a question now or a comment, please write the number down if it's safe to do so. 877-960-9960-877-960-960-960 I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy as you give you some more numbers and ways to contact us on the show and tell you something special about the ladies of the audience an offer that she makes every week and has been doing for years and years thanks and welcome everyone and you are an important part of the show and that number is 877-960 and we truly mean that you make the show so your calls are very important

any way that you would like to get in touch with us whether it be face Facebook or YouTube or any other means also we have your anonymous feedback your anonymous feedback.com the zoom number that I give you every week remains the same. It's a meeting ID number, and it is 926-589-0-586. That's 926-589-0-586. I repeat that number twice because the first two, first two, new Zoom callers, you can win yourself $100, $100 this morning. and for the ladies we continue to build a platform here for you and by offering you $50 for the first two new female callers that is our way of thanking you again for helping build this platform now back to the recovering car dealer well we got Rick Kearney sitting in the studio

we weren't sure he'd be sitting in the studio I love live radio Rick ran into a traffic jam on Florida's Turnpike and told Jonathan, who was always the first to arrive, that it's going to be a while, and I don't know how long. So we're very concerned because Nancy could answer a lot of questions. With Stu's here, he'll be back next Saturday, this coming Saturday. He's come back a little earlier than expected, which is good. He can answer a lot of questions.

I can ask a lot of questions, but when it comes, to the nuts and bolts and computers and the electronics and the rest of the high-tech stuff and cars, only Rick can answer. So he's here. And we've, Jonathan and I were talking about having you call in Zoom, do a Zoom off the... Yeah, well, I'll do it. I've got a mount for my phone. I'll set it up.

So we find the majority of the questions are really questions that Rick needs to address about batteries and about transmissions and about squeaks rattles and rolls in the car and the high-tech complicated machines that we call automobiles are computers on wheels now these are what Rick has been doing for 25 plus years and you can't think of a question about your vehicle

that he can't answer and if he can't answer it we'll get the answer for you but he gets 99% of it So if you have a question about maintenance, costs, repairs, anything about your car, before you go in and get ripped off by the service department at your car dealership, give Rick a call. You might just have a diagnosis. It'll definitely be free. It might work, and it might get your car back or make you feel better because you realize you don't have to worry about it,

or it might be something serious that you need to take care of right away. So give Rick Kearney a call 877-9-6-6-1. 9096 he's got a whole group of followers on YouTube so you can go to YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars and post a question and Rick will see it directly so that is we're relieved that you're here Rick. I got a question for you Earl. Have you driven your Tesla into a graveyard yet? A cemetery?

Is that a trick question? a trick question? No, actually it's a thing I've seen recently on YouTube and several other places. Your Tesla has your screen that you can have like icons while you're driving

that shows you what the cameras are seeing. It'll show you the shapes of the cars, tractor trucks, traffic cones, and it'll show pedestrians. Apparently, people that are going to cemeteries and driving through the cemetery,

suddenly the Tesla is showing pedestrians walking around when there's no one there. And they're wondering, are Tesla's actually picking up ghosts? I just, you're the only person I know of that has a Tesla. And I just wanted, if you ever get the chance, you should drive through a cemetery. The older one is obviously better. But just to see what you might see Because who knows Elon's technology may have taken a real step

As far away from cemeteries as you can Well But I hear what you say Interesting enough For you folks that haven't heard the show before Nancy and I have a Tesla plaid And we have it fully autonomous And we drive everywhere now on fully autonomous

And I came to a show this morning I'm fully autonomous And we named Nancy, named the Tesla Miss Nancy. And there's a place in the software for that. So we kiddingly referred to her to Miss Nancy. When we came to the, when we got into the studio parking lot, I said Ms. Nancy took that turn wrong. She has issues sometimes in private parking areas

where there are no Google, maps and things don't map private parking places. So we joke about that. I will say this, the car with the autonomous software as advanced as it is is absolutely amazing. And you have to have a temperament when you're driving a fully autonomous car that allows you to allow the car to do what it wants to do.

So probably it's not something that a lot of you folks are cut out for. I'm a little crazy. So I let Ms. Nancy kind of do what she wants up to a point. I mean, I have taken over control the other day we were going home and several traffic lights that were out in our neighborhood, approaching our neighborhood, and the police were there with their, you know, their flashing lights and the top lights were out.

Well, Ms. Nancy, I took her off automatic because what it is... Yeah, that's... It's a little advanced for her. Right. There'll come a time when she'll be able to handle that. But it is for you folks out there that are thinking about trying autonomous. If you buy a Tesla, the fully autonomous is absolutely mind-bogglingly good. It isn't ready for prime time and it isn't ready for most people.

But wherever we go now, we use that fully autonomous. And as she does, I do. I ask her, do you want to be the pastor? you want to be the passenger or the co-pilot. And we call the person sitting behind the wheel the co-pilot because the autonomous Tesla is the pilot. That's right. And we treat her like, if anyone picked up

from the conversation that Earl just had, we treat her like a human. I mean, we talk to her a lot. We treat her like a human. And we really feel that that is going to help connect the three of us. you know to drive the of the the the Tesla safely so anyway so much about the Tesla we are going to go to the phones where deck has been holding from a Boca good morning good morning

are you do we still have you on the line welcome hello hello welcome what can we do for you this morning good morning thank you Nancy, but there's a plane overhead. Thank you, Nancy, with the Great Voice, and Rick, and Rick,

and Earl with the Great Wisdom. You're... I just want to mention something here. You're breaking up. Oh. Well, I'm a major point, but... Let's see how that is.

That's better? That's a little better. Yeah, we can hear you a little better now. I like to... I like to... like to walk it next time and I always like to listen to your podcast it's a great idea for somebody that like to walk well our podcasts are available on earl on cars.com we have all of our shows podcast and we also have a lot of other podcasts up that cover interesting topics that we cover like with the blog and things of this nature and you go to earl on cars.com

And then you can even, I guess, a podcast on our mystery shopping reports that we do at the last half hour of every show. I saw. I just want to say it's terrific. And everybody else that we're walking around and eating the morning or what. They can all this listen to this radio. Yeah, I'm having difficulty. Rick, are you able to? I'm catching only every other word.

Yeah, yeah, your connection. Are you on the way up? Desk, could you give us a call back? Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so you're going to call us back. He's going to call us back.

Okay, that number is 877-960-99-60. You can go to the Zoom meeting ID number and call us. 926-589-0-5-86. $100 for the first two new Zoom callers, $50 for the first two new. female callers. I have a question for the audience. As repair costs rise, so does this popularity in service. They're allowing you to finance, meaning that you can go to three different venues.

We talked about this last week, and there's just a lot of expensive repairs today. They're rising. people can't afford to pay for their vehicle when they come through. So they have three different options as far as finances are concerned. You know, you can go to your bank, your lender, get yourself three bids just to be sure that, you know, the price is what you, you know, should pay and you can, you know, get, you know, financed. Well, my comment would be the dealers are now looking at this as a profit center. Now, it's not a bad thing that they have financing available for you

if the repair on your car is legitimately too high for you to afford. But my advice to you is just like when you're buying a car or you always want to check with your own bank for financing and your credit union is by far the most preferable way to obtain financing. And, of course, the other thing is, before you commit to a repair, you should get an estimate. Almost all states, I know Florida does, and most all states require that if you ask for a written estimate on your car, they must give it to you. Never turn your car over to a service department anywhere, independent repair shop or car dealer, and just say, fix it.

I mean, because they will have a blank check. Say you want an estimate on the cost of repairs. State of Florida requires that they stay within 10% of that written estimate. And that way you know in advance if you're going to have to go to your credit you to the bank. I would be very leery and I would stay away from dealers offering financing of the repair of your car. It sometimes gives customers a little more flexibility, you know, in the service drive. You go through and suddenly, you know, you're hit with this outrageous, you know, cost for fixing something that you didn't expect. So anyway, give us a call tool free.

let us know if you you know decided on that option 877 960 9960 and again we have the yes you have a call uh yes we do you're a migrator we have bob bob's calling us from lake park good morning bob good morning everyone how's everybody doing this morning early voting starts today Say again? Early voting. Early voting starts today. Yes, it definitely is. Early voting.

No, I haven't voted today. It's early, early voting starts today. Oh, early voting. Okay, good, yeah, very good, very good. Early voting. Thank you. Yeah. Now, Nancy, do you remember Alfred Hitchcock movie with Jimmy Stewart called the rear window?

yes well if you look at the star car it has none you're you're breaking up Bob hello if you look at the new Pulse star 4 it has none no rear window no wow okay all right and if you remember Remember, in 1963, Chevrolet made a car become very famous. It was a lot of money. It was called a split window, Corvette. Yeah. I've seen those.

They're beautiful. Beautiful. You can't see at the back, but it's a beautiful car. Well, I hate it when design overcomes practicality, and where these cars get carried away by look at Gould, and they hamper your ability to see out of the car or in the car or whatever it is. That's not good. Utility should be number one design.

Yeah, but 60% of pickup trucks out on the road today have a camper top on the back, a topper, and you've got no rear view directly out of those. You're using side view mirrors or cameras. I got a question for Rick. Okay. I've been reading on the Toyota forums that the people in Supras are having difficulty getting service at the Toyota deal with it. That's because it's a, well, it's a, well, it's a be so few on the road. They can be serviced, but Supras generally require, for any, for any major work, they require a,

Toyota trained Supra technician. There's a week-long class that you have to go to for Supras to be able to do most of the work on them. Now, basic oil changes and the like. Anybody can do an oil. It's actually a very, very easy car of all the Toyota's we have. It's one of the easiest to do an oil change on. What about pot? Parts are sometimes a little tricky to get, because remember, they only made them for five years.

and they're really, they didn't sell as many as they had hoped. Far, far fewer than they thought. Yeah, so a lot of dealers don't stock a lot of the parts. They just say, if you need it, we'll order it, and when it comes in, you'll get it. But so many of those cars also were, people didn't really buy them as a daily grocery getter. Basically, it's a very good observation. So Rick hit it on the head, very short. few of them on the road, and therefore

parts might be a problem. So if you're thinking about buying a super, think twice. That's a situation. That's reality. We've got five callers holding, I believe. Cool. Four. Okay. I was just one other thing before, though.

This report on the truck from Toyota, where you have to replace the entire engine? How long does that take to do? We don't know yet because we have not, it's still in

the planning stages, they haven't even assigned a labor time as to how long they will pay for it. Once this thing gets going, we'll see how long it's going to take for the text to do it. Shoot out a just a wild-ass guess. Wild guess, I'm going to say two days of labor from the technician. So you're talking about 16 hours. Yeah, and I was planned on your truck being at the shop for at least three or four days. Several thousand dollars. For them to order parts and that sort of thing, you know.

several thousand dollars yeah oh it's a big it's a massive money job and fortunately it's under warranty so there you know so the dealers are the dealers are looking forward to that so you know the this is one of the reasons why there's a tension between car dealers and car buyers when a big recall comes in a big we call that a big juicy recall now it of course it hurts the reputation of the vehicle but it also helps the pocketbooks for the dealers because we dealers make a ton of money when we have a whole bunch of people waiting for several thousand dollar repair because Toyota reimburses this under warranty for all the money of the repair just like I get it I get it I get it but what will you do if you get about a half a dozen

of those coming in in a short period of time how are you going to handle that I mean we'll open 24 hours a day if we have to yeah we handle rick's had a palpitations when I said that but no no we just know the the hungry smart dealers will get to it quickly because they'll find matter of fact there's competition among the dealers to get the juicy warranty work into their dealership away from the other dealers so it's good for the it's good for the consumers bad that you had to have the recall and the injury place but the good news is you'll find a dealer that's very anxious to get that job yeah we got four callers that gives out there bob That's a real incentive, you know, a real incentive by the dealers just clawing for that business.

I have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Thank you. You do the same. We're going to go to Deck, who's calling us back from Boca. Welcome back, Dick. Thank you. Thank you for morning. Rick, at 2016, Toyota Corolla that I bought you.

I've got $72,000. Okay. And I noticed lately when I come up to us, the RPMs go down from one down to five, and the car almost, like, stopped. Okay. I took here a little assembly off, and I cleaned it with the butterfly, and I also cleaned the map center with a different cleanup. it's still happening I'd be a little nervous myself about the math sensor

that mass airflow sensor they can be a little delicate if you took the throttle body off and you cleaned up that butterfly valve and the bore of it really well and it's still got that situation you may be looking at needing a new mass airflow sensor because if it's not reading correct the computer doesn't know just how much air is coming in and once you get bad

information to the computer it's not going to be able to set the car to run properly you can try replacing it it's probably about a hundred and fifty dollar part obviously you've you've seen this very easy it's just two screws and quick to replace but if you want to give that a try one other thing I'd recommend trying disconnect your battery the negative terminal wait about 10 minutes and reconnect it and then take the car out just for a nice easy test drive like 20 or 30 miles just to cruise around a little

the old reboot trick exactly you'd be amazed at how many times that can solve a lot of problems this applies to everything in the world when something doesn't work on plug it then plug it back in again that's all we do many many many thanks I love your show listen every week Oh, thank you, Dick.

Thank you. Thanks for calling in. Okay, we're going to go to Barry. Good morning, Barry. Barry's calling us from Tampa. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. I have a question about, well, I'm looking right at chapter 8 of my Toyota Camry owner's manual.

She has a section called customizable features, and it shows a series of tables that list setting. things that are configurable by the owner by the setup screen versus ones that only the dealer can do things like door lock behavior window functions like timing stuff like that so my question why are some of these settings so restricted and can they be changed without cost as part of the new car delivery prep because I imagine that most dealers are probably charged to change this stuff later on I'm not sure why they set it up you know, the way they did, I guess because some of it can get a little complicated and they wanted to make sure that customers wouldn't get in and, you know, get a little over their head

trying to adjust things. However, at least at our dealership, anything that you want adjusted for the customizable features, we normally, that is part of the new car deal, and it only takes about 15 minutes really for us to plug a scan tool into it, go in and turn a, turn a on whichever ones you want on turn off the ones you don't want you know set them the way you'd like it and bang boom it's done and we normally the used car department will pay the service department for the time that we spend doing that so it's a pretty straightforward thing yeah well you know i i found out um watching a video by the car turn out a Toyota mechanic on youtube that there's a setting that you can you can hold down your unlock button for about two and a half second

and it automatically rolls down all your windows, which is great on a hot floor today before you get in your car. That feature actually has been available on a lot of models and a lot of other manufacturers for over 10 years now. And yet surprisingly, some cars don't have it. And not one person of 1,000 knows that. Yeah, very few people know about that one. I was talking about that last week,

and the person I was speaking to was in shock. and just like Rick just said it's been around for 10 years or more 10 to 15 years for some of the cars and what a special feature that is I like you say on a hot summer day that makes a huge difference and what I was able to do is I could buy a little $20 module that plugged into the OBD port

and talks to an app on my phone instead of that way which probably more than a lot of people would want to do but it was way cheaper than paying a mechanic to do it sure yeah you go But this whole thing seems like, you know, another stepping stone along the path of mothership control. You know, a lot of these features now are controlled by subscription and stuff. You know, in my opinion, what's happening is that the designers, engineers are jumping on the technology bandwagon. And every time something new comes up in software development, it allows them to do something really cool, they say, hey, look at this.

have they put it in the car. What they fail to do is communicate this to the customer. So now the customer gets a miracle car that will do almost anything. It'll brush your hair, it'll scratch your back, it'll do anything, but you don't know it. And what's even sadder is the car dealership that you bought it from, they don't know it either in a lot of cases. So the way this is going to go, I hope, full cycle, is that the manufacturers, the developers, the engineers, the people that, the think-fank that build these cars will say, you know, what we need is a dumb car that automatically does these things

and is so user-friendly that you don't have to have a Ph.D. to drive your car. Right now you need a PhD and you need hours of classes to get the full functionality out of your car. That's crazy. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Barry. give us a call again. I'm going to give out that Zoom number for the first two new Zoom callers. You're doing yourself $100, and that meeting ID number is $9-26-589-0586.

And ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, $50. Tell me, ladies, when you went out looking for a vehicle, were you interested in, say, you know, safety? features were you looking for some special features and did you find them give me a call by 877 960 9960 now back to the recovering card you know I should have done this earlier but Jonathan suggested something I think is a great idea to invite Ashley Moody to nominate someone from her department that will be doing the implementation of the combat auto scams rule

that the Federal Trade Commission is working on. Florida is, if you're regular list of the show, knows that Ashley Booty, the Attorney General of the State of Florida has committed to cleaning up Dodge, meaning South Florida. And all of Florida, actually, South Florida is the worst part. Well, on September 1st, and that's almost here, she is committed, and the Florida,

the Florida Automobile Dealers Association is committed to back Ashley Moody, the regulators will be knocking on doors, they'll be closing down dealerships, they'll be fining dealerships, it's got to be a bloodbath in the southern part of Florida. So what is today, August the 11th of the 10th? 10th. And so that's only 21 days away, 20 days away, from that implementation. So Ashley Moody or any of your lieutenants or fans or family or friends, if you're listening to this show, we would love to have someone from your department as a guest on our show. Love to have you.

Hey, you can be in person. We'll find a way to get an extra chair in the studio here. But certainly we can have you on Zoom. And the person that would be implementing this because we have a lot of people, especially in South Florida, that listen to the show and the if we make the the people in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and Del Ray and West Palm Beach and all these the strip all the way down to Key West are aware that the implementation is going to start step up first virtually every car dealership in South Florida is breaking the law right now virtually every car dealership in South Florida

are committing crimes under the Unfair Discepting Trade Practices Act, and I don't see how it has hit the breaks on September 1st, so there will be some enforcement, and we have the word of Ashley Moody on that. So I don't think Ashley is going to call the show right now, although if you're listening, Ashley, 877-960-99-60, that's 877-960, or maybe you'd prefer our anonymous feedback. And you can tell me, and I won't know what's really you. We have a link you could go to. This is a weblink, and that web link is Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And if you would alert us to someone that we could call, we will have them as a guest on the show, September 1st, or maybe the week before, the week after, or better the week before. once you start in Forest Credit we want to be able to have someone tell the people in South Florida and the car dealers will hear this that the implementation is going on now the combat auto retail scams and this is for those who may not know is a Federal Trade Commission set of regulations that basically said this it's a it's a long document I'll summarize it for you when car dealers quote a price advertise a car the price the price that you quote the price that you advertise must be the price that you can pay the dealership and drive the car on it it makes it illegal to add junk fees electronic filing fees dealer prep fees all that other stuff we put under the

general classification of junk fees it makes it illegal to pop on dealer installed options like nitrogen in the tires paint sealant fabric protectant mud flaps and all the other crap that they add to the car and say we can't take it off it also makes it illegal to modify the advertised price in the fine print so you get the price you see is going to be the price you pay and if you don't do that the Federal Trade Commission and the Florida Automobile Little Association is backing this and the Attorney General is going to find you they have the power by the way to take your franchise away, not your franchise,

but your license to sell cars away. So it's pretty serious. You can lose your business. And I'm talking to the car dealers right now. If you do not abide by this, you can lose your business. So Ashley Moody, please consider, we'd love to have you personally as a guest. That's probably not going to happen, but surprise me. I'd love to have you on the show.

But one of your lieutenants that can speak directly in the guest, in your words, not my words, and tell the Cardinals of Florida what's happening on September 1st. So the invitation's out there. Anybody that knows Ashley, I've got to believe, with all the thousands and thousands of people we have

that go follow this show, someone must know Ashley, do you. I mean, up in the Tallahassee area, somebody do her a favor, send her, shoot her a text, send her an email, give her a call, say, hey, Earl Stewart would like to talk to you, Earl Stewart on cars. Yeah, and what an exciting time

she has really given this some legs and you know what I mean is a whole lot of attention and boy I'll tell you we've been waiting for this moment and when this letter went out to all of the dealerships it it really got some attention so give us a call tool free tell us what you think you know about September 1st 877 960 9960 and again you have the Zoom ID number which is 926-589-0586 we are going to go back to the phones where Marty has been waiting good morning Marty good morning how are you we're well thank you I have a question for Rick if I'm in my car obviously not driving at the time but over let's say in a parking letter shopping center and the radio was on and I go on my iPhone to Google something. Once I hit the Google on my iPhone, the radio goes off. Now, I don't know if it's supposed to, because everything's tied into the radio, and your iPhone is tied into the

radio. So what do you think? Is there something wrong, or do you think it's supposed to do that? All right. Well, first question, what's the car? crown okay and when you're listening to the radio are you do you mean as in just like over-the-air normal AM FM radio or are you listening to it through your phone no I'm listening to it would say XM something and in the car okay so it's probably got with your phone connected is probably using a portion of your your phone programming to do that and if your Bluetooth is on obviously once you go to Google it's going to automatically mute your radio now if you if you close out of

Google does radio come back on yes soon as I close out the radio is back yeah that's what it is it's just it's a feature that mutes the radio so because when you're when you go into Google or you're looking at something on there if there's an audio source for that you would wind up with two audio sources playing at the same time so say say a video came up and there's somebody talking in the video you'd have the radio playing and the video trying to talk and it would just get all scrambled so what it does is it mutes the one source you need to prioritize the other one you need two phones yeah so it's the best thing to do i mean obviously i don't do it too often but just shut off the radio and then the google will work

work? Well, no, because once you switch to Google, the Google should work anyways. It just mutes the radio while you're working with Google, and then once you turn Google off, the radio comes back on. Okay, so in other words, the Google will work, it's just that the radio is getting shut off. Exactly. It's kind of like if you're listening to music on your phone and someone calls you and you answer the phone, it'll mute the radio on your phone. mute the music while you're talking on the phone. Yeah, I don't want to overthink this, but I was kidding, but I'm really happy serious.

If Nancy and I were in the car, this happened to us, and Nancy's Bluetooth was engaged, would I be able to use my Bluetooth on the radio where the radio would be able to get it? No, generally only one phone at a time can connect and control the radio system. Bad idea. Yeah. All right.

So it's not a malfunction of the car. No, no, it's actually a feature. It just means you don't have to turn down the radio in order to work something on your phone because it does it automatically, and then once you're finished with that on your phone, boom, the radio comes right back up. Yeah, all right.

Don't have to bring it in then. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. My pleasure. All right. Have a good weekend, everybody. Thank you, you too. I'm glad you're still having a great time with that crown.

We do have our mystery shopping report that will be coming up just about 9.30. Our mystery shop is from Greenway Kia in West Palm Beach, and you'll get to see whether or here, whether this particular dealership went on the good dealer or the bad dealer list. And you can go to gooddealer, baddealer.com and check it out. We have all of our mystery shopping reports right there. We're going to go to Joni, and Joni is calling us from Palm Beach Gardens, I believe. She's calling us from Boyden, and Joni is a first-time caller.

Good morning, Joanne. Good morning. Hi, my name is Joanne. I'm calling from Boynton Beach, Florida. Welcome, Joanne. You just won yourself $50. This is Nancy Stewart, and if you stay on the line and you give Jeremy in our control room your contact information, I'll get that check out to you. What can we do for you this morning?

Well, that's wonderful. Thank you. I've got a 2011 Camry, and I just discovered that the side column, I guess they called it curtain for my airbag, it's coming over. away from the it's coming towards me it's loose the plastic trim is loose yeah no no the plastic column right the whole column okay right right up next to the windshield there yes between the windshield and the window okay yeah there's my steering wheel like yeah there's there's a couple of plastic clips behind there that when they put those in, sometimes those clips can get old dry out a little bit, and they'll start

to crack and loosen a little bit, and that trim can pull loose, or if someone has had to go in there and do any sort of wiring work behind it, and they put those clips back in, sometimes the clips get a little scraped up. What you'll need to do is go to a dealership and get new clips for holding that piece of trim in place, and then they can be replaced. I sometimes it's kind of a tricky job so you may want to have a technician do it and be sure to ask for an estimate ahead of time and if you're if you've got a couple dealers that are in your area you really ought to get two estimates what's a what's a guess on what it might cost the clips should be maybe $25 total for the parts

and the labor time on it I myself I'd have it at a half hour so figure it's probably going to be around $100 labor to take that loose, install the new clips and get reinstalled. What's the total cost? You're looking probably about $125 to $150. So this is what you're looking at, Joe. And so get two or three prizes. If you ask for estimates, first of all, the deal that you ask is going to know that that means you're shopping. So it'll minimize the first quote you get. And then when you check with another dealer, because you don't even have to go in. You can describe the issue and say, this is what I have to have done.

You'll save yourself probably 20, 30%, just by getting a couple more prices. Do you think I could call to get the prices, or should I go in? Well, you should go to one dealer for sure and just be sure that that's the accurate issue. You want to get an estimate. And then once you have that, pay attention. They'll should put it in writing for you. And you can call the other dealers to describe it and say, dealer a is going to charge me this what will you do for better yet don't even tell them what the

charges just say what's your best price i've already got another price from another dealer what will you do it for good in the meantime is it okay for me to drive the car yes as long as it's not completely falling down it's it's totally safe to drive because those clips usually have like a two-stage system where they'll pop a little ways out and then you have to go in and work with tools behind it to get it to pop the rest of the way loose. By the way, the piece that you're going to be talking about is going to be called the A-pillar trim. Because what they do is they look at the front of the car and they say that first column

between the windshield and the front door is the A-pillar. The next one by the back of the front door is the B-pillar, and the one back by the rear window is called the C-pillar. so that lets you know what term you're looking for so if you tell them you're looking that you've got a problem with that a pillar trim it's going to kind of catch them off guard a little bit because you're going to sound like you definitely know what you're talking about and they're going to be less likely to try to take advantage of you

wow thanks to you I wouldn't know what I was talking about that's why we're here we like to help it isn't important it isn't important that you know what you're talking about it's just that you sounds like you know what you're talking about. So they'll be honest with you. Yeah, it's amazing what happens, Joanne, whenever you walk in with that kind of knowledge. You definitely have the edge.

Yeah, now you don't think that the airbag will pop out and hit me while I'm driving? No, no. I'm signing a trip, and I don't know if I should drive the car. I understand you're concerned. If I saw what you saw, I probably had to ask Rick the same question because the first thing, when I see

an airbag bulging in my face is, I better get out of here. Rick says, and I'm sure he's accurate, he sees a million airbags in his day. That is just a clip that's loose. There's no danger. Yeah, those clips are made to pop away

in a certain manner so that the airbag will actually push that trim kind of over to the side as the airbag comes out. but the airbag will only inflate in a collision. It has to be an impact collision that the car detects with the sensors before it will fire the electric charge to inflate that airbag. And it's bolted into place, and the folds of the bag,

it's all folded in kind of accordion style, and it's tied in there with little fabric strips. So they will break away in the event of an accident, but otherwise, no, that bag is going to stay exactly. where it belongs yeah impact is the operative word for sure yeah joanne i hope that uh we we helped you guys have we'd love to have you calls back and let you know how it went uh maybe next week if you've had a chance we'd love to say i as rick described what you and i were both afraid of i mean i not to be afraid of that i can see a car dealer taking advantage of that and knowing that you're

worried that airbag's going to blow up in your face. And so when he tells he's going to charge you $1,000 to fix it, you say, well, it's probably worth $1,000 so I don't get my head blown off by the airbag. So, yeah, now that you've been a prize and warned and educated by Rick, we'd love to hear you call back next week and see how it went. Well, I'm so glad I did. My neighbor Paul listens, and he told me to call you. And I thought, well, I'm going to take a chance.

and do that. Oh, great. Okay, well, thank you guys. Stay on the line, we'll get your 50 bucks. Joanne, I'll take a... Or 100 bucks, or 50 bucks. 50. Joanne, I'm going to take a moment to remind you to stay on the line

and give Jeremy your contact information for me. And, you know, most of all, I'm not sure whether you realize, you know, you're making a... I'm going to use the word again, impact on our female audience, and you're helping... and encouraging them to call us and build the platform here at Erlon Kars. So I thank you for that. Well, you're entirely welcome.

I thank you guys. Thank you. Okay, that number is 877-960-9960. And to all of you out there that are listening, isn't it great that you can call? And all these questions that you're asking, Rick can answer. And guess what? This is all free. It's free. So give us a call tool free at 877-9-60-90-60. And you can also give us a call on that Zoom number, which is 926-589-0-5-86. Now back to the phones, and we are going to talk to Paul in Lake Park. Good morning, Paul. good morning um i'm have i'm familiar with the days when the car radio had a had a needle okay um and i'm guessing there was uh i'll just say like a rubber band inside that that would when you turn the volume

knob the needle would move uh one direction or the other and eventually eventually that would wear out. It would wear to the point where you would continually try to turn the knob to increase the volume. Eventually it might increase. In fact, sometimes it would even go backwards. Okay. And I have a newer car. It's a 2019. It happens to be a Chevy Sonic with the electronic radio, you know, with the display screen. And it's basically doing the same thing. so the the 2019 Chevy Sonic and your volume control isn't working properly

well yeah when I go to say turn the volume up or down it it doesn't it doesn't move per my necessarily um

it doesn't the volume doesn't necessarily go up and down and there and there's a little that there's a little a little bar that indicates where the volume is set

right but sometimes I'll turn it up and it'll actually go backwards and sometimes I'll try to turn it down and it'll go up yeah unfortunately that's going to be the radio itself and you'll probably have to get the radio replaced

my recommendation on that 2019 we've got the 2025 cars about to come out so technically your radio is six years old obviously Chevy is going to charge you an arm and a leg for a new radio my recommendation is go to

like Best Buy one of the other chain stores that does automotive stereo systems and price out an aftermarket unit and look at some of those you can get an aftermarket radio installed in your car for like $5 or $600 that will have all the new features

of 2025 instead of 2019 you'll wind up with all the new Bluetooth, the Apple CarPlay, the Google CarPlay, hands-free. You can have backup cameras hooked into it you can have various forward cameras hooked in for like you know drive

cams in that car cams for while you're driving down the road it's amazing how awesome the new technology changes just each year and especially for stereo units what you can wind up with getting in a new one will outshine that 2019 radio like nobody's business but unfortunately most of the them are not repairable anymore the the older radios it appears as though my my radio is actually integrated into the entire display console okay i'm not too familiar with how sonics are set up yeah you you may wind up having to go through Chevy on it then okay um yeah but i was just curious because this seems like a 40-year-old problem you know back when back before the radios were you know back when they were all analog and had more yeah

nice you what you're talking now is an electronic potentiometer that is going to be way different let's see uh i found a 2019 Chevrolet's sonic volume controls, which... Yeah. Does your car have the steering wheel controls? Yeah, it actually does.

And, well, does it work normally from the steering wheel controls? No, I have not verified that. I would check that, because if not, Earl just pulled one up on... I'm guessing this would be on, like... I don't think it was Amazon.

No, not Amazon, but he found one on a car site here. for like $36 and I don't know how hard it would be to replace it but you could probably get an aftermarket shop to put to install that for maybe a hundred dollars labor and 350 bucks if if that is the problem but I would try using your steering wheel controls and see if that audio control works properly by it yeah that's a great idea I will definitely look at that cool Nice for the call.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have it. Thank you, Paul. Give us a call back. Let us know how that went. Our number here is 877-960 and you can text us at 772-49-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.

We'd love to hear from you. That's Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Lou Anna and she's a first-time caller from Fort Lauderdale. good morning good morning good morning good morning everyone good

you just won yourself $50 and if you stay on the line when we're finished talking you can give your information contact information to Jeremy in the control room and he'll pass it along to me

okay wonderful thank you very much you're welcome what can we do for you I have a 1998 Chevrolet Suburban C-1500 and I was driving home the other day and I noticed that it was hot

I could smell it when I came home I waited till it cooled off I opened up the radiator there was nothing in the radiator so I filled it up with water I didn't have any any freeze and it was fine

I didn't see anything leaking until I turned on the engine and I started started it up, and water started pouring out of the bottom of my car. Hmm. Oh, really. I'm sure probably has something to do with the water pump. I don't know if it's a hose or not,

but I called a mobile mechanic to come out, and I'm wondering how you feel about mobile mechanics. Well, those guys... Those guys... Yeah, there's good and there's bad, but those guys have got guts, in my opinion. opinion. Because anybody that is going to go to your house to work on your car and try to carry enough tools and supplies that they need, the good ones worth their weight in gold. My best

recommendation is go on like Angie's List or some of the other recommendation sites for that and look for places where they recommend, you know, who review them and say, hey, these guys are worthwhile. A coolant leak like that, especially something so large, is going to be pretty easy to diagnose, but the repair can get extremely expensive. No, Anna, are you a member of the American Automobile Association? Are you the member of AAA? You are? If you're a member of AAA, you should try to find an AAA-approved member. and if they will give you the list in your zip code area, call AAA approved, they'll come out to your house, and they have a code of ethics that they have to adhere to

and qualifications they have to adhere to to come out. So put your AA membership to use and call an AA approved. Excellent. That's a good idea. I did Google someone, the very first one that came up, and I called him, and he charged $100 to come out and give me an estimate and tell me what was wrong. And then they put the $100 towards the repair. That's a very fair thing to do.

And you can call two or three more and find the one that you feel more comfortable with and gives you a fair price. Okay. Okay. What do you think could be the problem? Depending on where the water came out, it could be as simple as the lower radiator hose split. And, of course, hopefully you didn't have any engine damage occurred due to the overheating. Or it could be the radiator burst, or it could be the water pump, or even the block. I mean, there's a lot of things that coolant goes through.

so but of course the big issue is how long that car was running hot and how hot it actually got as to whether it had any damage inside i only drove it about two miles to get it home okay hopefully it's okay but um until you can get until they can find where there where that big leak is and get that repaired enough so that they can get fluid in the engine and run it and see what's going on, see if there was anything done. It's a crapshoot at this point. It could go either way.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's, unfortunately, coolant is, it's a major, major issue if you lose all your coolant. Same thing with the oil, I mean. And Lou Anna. One possibility, if you, what my car do you have? 19, 98. It's a suburb.

It's a suburb in 1,500. What's the nearest Chevrolet dealership to you? Phil Smith. How far away is that? Oh, probably four or five miles. Yeah, what you might do is in terms of e-com and e-county. Phil Smith, I used to know personally he passed away, but at that time he ran an honest dealership.

I would consider having my car towed, and then at that point, you still want to get an estimate, but to drive a car that you're not comfortable with having an overheating problem, it might be. I would never drive it. I'd never, I wouldn't drive it anywhere. See what the tow charge would be to Phil Smith, Chevrolet. I have AAA, so I have four toes. Oh, okay.

Very good. That's great. Luanna, you sound like as if you're very knowledgeable, and, you know, it goes without saying that I would say to proceed with caution. You know, the first person that came out to the house that said that they would apply that $100 they charged you towards, you know, the repair. That's a good start, you know, that they would be, you know, reputable. But as I said, proceed with caution. You've had that car a long time. Sounds like a very nice vehicle, a 1998 suburban.

My father bought it off the showroom floor, and I inherited it from him. Wow. So he took very good care of that car. Well, that's a sentimental attachment. You want to take good care of that car. Great memory, yeah, definitely. Yes, definitely. Okay, I blew in, give us a call and let us know how that all went for you.

All right. I can do that. I'd love to. And leave that contact information. And spread the word. Tell the ladies they can give us a call right here. I do. I do tell them.

And I listen to your show every Saturday. Oh, thank you. Without fail. Thank you so much. You'll have a great weekend. It's interesting, even though I don't have all those new fancy cars out there. Sounds to me like I like the one I've got. Yeah, it sounds like it's a very nice.

and it's a fancy car, for sure. Yes, it was the 2-2 edition. Yeah, they just don't make them like that anymore. No, they don't. And I don't want to have to get rid of it because of a block or anything like that. We understand. There you go.

We understand. All right, folks. Thank you so much for your help, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you. Okay, our number here is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.

Back to the recovering car. Luana's call reminded me of an article in the automotive dues this week. There's a high-demand, low-supply situation going on with 10-year-old-old-plus used cars, and for a lot of reasons. And, of course, the primary reason is cost. and people are finding out that the old cars, if they're maintained properly, are really pretty reliable. And it used to be you'd laugh at somebody that bought a 10-year-old car because that's about all a car would last before it went to the scrap heap. Now, a 10-year-old car, if it's properly maintained, is just getting warmed up.

And that's the good news. The bad news is there's not many about there. If you have an older car, remember this, the value today, if you want to get rid of it or you have to get rid of it, today is an optimum time to sell an older car. The dealers, Nancy and I had our management meeting with the dealership on Wednesday, and one of the problems that we have is we can't find older cars. And when we can't find older cars, we're not trading for them and we're not able to buy them easily, that means the price goes up. So if you have a 10, 15, even 20-year-old car and you're not using it, or maybe you got the it and you want to buy a new car, shop that 10-year-plus old car around, you might be surprised how much a car dealer or Carvana.com or a CarMax is a great place

to sell a used car. They're short of the older cars too. So good news for older car, and I'm not talking to you, Luanna, because I know that's a special car for you. You don't want to sell it. You want to take care of it. Okay. Okay. I think it might be a good idea to address your anonymous feedback, YouTube, Facebook. Then we will start right off with Anne-Marie's text.

Good morning. For years, I've read that Consumer Reports does not allow any company to use Consumer Reports approval ratings in the company's advertising. Subaru. So, I guess they aren't supposed to do that, but yet during the Olympic telecast in the last week, I've seen BMW flash Consumer Reports' best brand in their TV ads. They put a disclaimer in very fine print that Consumer Reports does not endorse any products or services Consumer Reports Best Brands Review Consumer Reports Best Brands

on the BMWUSA.com website. Excuse me. This strikes me as a sneaky way to advertise CR's ratings. in your opinion has consumer reports don't advertise using our name policy changed or could BMW possibly be creating a loophole thank you yeah and Marie god bless you i'll tell you what for you new listeners anne marie has been calling the show for years and years texting i should say and her questions are just so interesting and intelligent and useful for all concerned.

You heard me interrupt Rick there. I said when we're talking about Consumer Reports rule, I've seen a Subaru ad, and I felt the same way Anne-Marie did. I should have probably brought it up on the show, but Anne-Marie did bring it up on the show, and now it's BMW. That has been a rule that Consumer Reports

will not allow a car dealer or a manufacturer to use their name. Now, it's frustrating, to me as a car dealer because we have a Toyota dealership. And if you go to Consumer Reports, you'll find that Toyota is very highly regarded by consumer reports for quality, a cost of repair, just about every other way. Not all models, but more models than most car manufacturers have recognized by Consumer Reports. And I actually, years and years ago, I did an advertisement, and I used Consumer Reports,

the name not knowing, or maybe I didn't know, I was evil back in those days, but I did advertise, and say Consumer Reports said this particular Toyota is the best car of the road or something like that, and Consumer Reports wrote me a very scathing letter indicating I would be sued if I didn't stop that ad right away. So, Ann Marie, you're right, that was a rule.

To my knowledge, consumer reports has not changed that rule. I'm hopeful that, BMW and Subaru both will be contacted by consumer reports. If not, I will contact consumer reports and tell them what sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander. So if you won't let me advertise Toyotas, then you're not going to let BMW or Subaru advertise their cars either. So actually, now the way I feel personally about that is, and I don't want to give consumer reports of the advice. They're a lot smarter than I am.

But wouldn't it really improve your reach if when you gave the blessing to a great car like Subaru to allow Subaru to say so, I guess the answer is you just don't want to take that step because there are other

many of there are other rating companies J.D. Powers comes to mind. Now, J.D. Powers analyzes cars, and they come out with the reports, and they say, this is a car with the fewest defects, and they have lists, and they allow the manufacturers to use these lists, and they're advertising. And that raises the question, you know, are they pristine, clean, and uninfluenced by manufacturers? So I'm arguing with myself here. I'm wasting everybody's time. But I will look in to consumer reports.

I will report Subaru, and I will report Nancy's a big contributor to consumer reports. So I'll let her use her influence because they'll listen to contributors more than they listen to me and say, you've got to do something about these manufacturers' ads on the Olympics, and you've got to stop them using that report's not fair to the other manufacturer. Yeah. Okay, T-Cash is asking. Hey, Rick, before we get to that, you two, we're going to go back to the phones and talk to Tina, and Tina is calling us from Kentucky, and she's a first-time caller. Good morning, Tina. Hi, how are you?

We're great. Thank you. You've just won yourself $50, Tina. Well, I'm happy about that. I can always use it. Good. I'm glad I made you happy. Stay on the line and you can give Jeremy your contact information. He'll pass it a loan to me and I'll get you the $50. What can we do for you this morning? Okay. I have a 350-EF Lexus. It's an 08 and I had breaks put on it. And now every time I come to, like if I'm on the expressway and I want to, you know, kind of get. break kind of fast. Well, it's got a wobble. And my son says, you know, that's because it's new brakes. Nope. No. And so I, that's my problem. And I'm wondering what should I do with it. Who did the breaks for you? Well, it's a good, reputable person that did it. It's just that's far away. and I was told that just leave it

because it's only been maybe three weeks or something like that. Yeah. That I had it done. What you're in... I'm sorry. Go ahead. I said I'm just not happy with that.

Yeah, no. What you're encountering is the rotors, either they were not resurfaced or they were cut poorly when they resurfaced them. Either that or if they... It's fine to what the rotors are. Well, if they replaced them,

then they gave you cheap rotors and they need to get you new rotors that are better. The brake rotor is actually a big metal disc that the brake pads will squeeze down on to slow the car. You can picture the brake rotor. It actually sits right behind the wheel. And if you have aluminum rims on it,

which an ES350, I'm pretty certain you're going to have aluminum rims, If you look in through the opening, you'll see this big silvery disk on the inside there, and that's that brake rotor. What happens is when you step on the brakes, the caliper will take the brake pads and it will squeeze down on either side of that brake rotor

to slow it down. Now if that brake rotor is not perfectly true and flat and smooth, when you step on the brake like that, it actually starts a shimmy and a shake in the steering wheel, and that's why you feel your wheel because it's it's trying to slow those front wheels down and if they're not perfectly smooth and straight and flat like they should be it creates a vibration and it transmits right through to the steering wheel it actually can get kind of dangerous if it gets severe enough

so what you should definitely do go back to the shop tell them you have what's known as a brake pulsation when you're slowing down from highway speeds and that you just had this work done If they cut the rotors, ask them to measure those rotors to make sure that they are still thick enough to be safe. And if they're not, then you need to have those rotors replaced. And I would definitely make sure they get a good quality rotor on there. Breaks are not something to take lightly. That's one area. It's a big safety concern.

And it's one place that I would rather spend an extra $300 or $400 on having my brakes. done properly and correctly to make sure they're safe, especially when myself or my wife or daughter is going to be in that car, because, I mean, it's nice to have a car with cold AC and a great radio, and it runs really well. But if it don't stop, I'm scared. And that's all it is for me. I guess I'll just have to take it back then. It's just fun of it. It's so inconvenient, but yeah um it's the only time it happens so is when i'm put on the brake like um i'm going to maybe stay 60 and i'm glad to put on the brake right otherwise if i'm going around town i'm okay yeah because at slower speeds that vibration has time to just simply dampen down and you

don't feel it but at the higher speeds that's what it creates that big vibration and it's not going to get better by itself it's only going to get worse so it's definitely something you'll want to get taken care of and like i say it you know in some cases that can be extremely dangerous did you have a dealership or was it an independent mechanic to work on the car no it was a mechanic it's a well-known person that worked on my son's cars yeah you might you might call first maybe and talk to him if he's got a heart and he and he would admit he might not have done something right he might really surprise you and say let me come pick up the car take a look at it and I'll leave you a car to drive I mean that's what we would do at our dealership but most people won't do that but he can't hurt

it can't hurt to ask you know I just was told that you know give it time and it won't happen so that's why I haven't taken it back oh you've given that time and it didn't happen so time time to call him but time to call okay well I think you're very much that's what i'll do then oh you're so welcome Tina um a good look and uh give us a call and let us know how that went for you okay okay have a great weekend thank you okay all right uh merl as i was starting there before uh t cash is asking is the cars act actually law in the united states he says last i heard it was going to be voted on in july So what's the status on that one right now?

Oh, the cars, which is the Federal Trade Commission Regulation Combat Auto Retail Scams. I'd like to say that because scam isn't my word. Scam was the word that the Federal Trade Commission used. And it's a really in-your-face indication that the Federal Trade Commission has just fed up to here with what car dealers are doing. I mean, to call a law, it's not a law, it's a regulation. to call the official name of this regulation is combat, auto retail, scam. I mean, scam is an in-your-face term.

And so that's the Federal Trade Commission to say, car dealers, we're fed up. You're scamming your customers, and we're going to stop you. To answer the question, it was supposed to be implemented in July. There was a request of the court in Texas, know a lot of interesting things happen in Texas and so the Texas Circuit Court was

petitioned by the National Automobile Dealers Association and also by the Texas Automobile Deal Association and they're trying to delay or stop this this action that was supposed to have taken place July 31st the consensus of opinion is it is going to take place and the indications we're getting from the Florida Attorney General and a lot of other Attorney Generals is common. The cars, combat auto retail scans

will be implemented and the bottom line is if it gets implemented where the car dealer gives you a price or advertises a price, it will be the Althador price that you pay. You're not going to get fooled, tricked,

deceived by the dealer-added accessories, by the junk fees and by the Dendor labels and all the other crap that they put in the fine print that you don't know about. Sometimes you never know about it until you sign the paperwork and you drive the car home. So yeah, it's probably going to be implemented. By the way, my dealership and I have filed an amicus with a court at the Texas Circuit Court

in support of the Federal Trade Commission. and one other car dealer has done this. So where are the minority? Two car dealers have filed an amicus with the court supporting it. I wish there were some honest car dealers out there listening to this show now. They would consider joining this in our petition to the court to support the Federal Trade Commission regulation. By the way, it's going to be in effect in Florida on September 1st

because the Florida Automobile Dealers Association is supporting the Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to implement the CARS Act in Florida on September 1st. And we've actually invited Ashley Moody or her lieutenant to come on the show and describe what's going to happen on September 1st, which will be basically the implementation of the combat auto retail scam federal Trade Commission regulation. And this one is from Donovan. He says, a friend asked me this week, what is the best way to get out of a vehicle that you're upside down in with a large amount of negative equity? He purchased a Kia tell you ride a few years ago with a large markup and a $15,000 to $18,000 upside down right now. The only thing that came to my mind, Donovan, he says, was to find a league. with a large incentive on it.

But apparently he's got a several-year-old tell you ride, and he's upside down by $15,000 to $18,000. I've got a lot of answers to a lot of problems. I don't have an answer to that. Negative equity, the only thing you could do is just wear out your fingers online, going around trying to get the maximum price on a car. You can't do anything about the negative equity.

the equity is there the bank's going to get paid come hell or high water the only thing you can you can modify in that equation is the value of the car you're in the driver's seat today on good cars and so uh i let my fingers do the walking and i would go to i'd go to carvana we buy any car dot com room car max uh cardyler lots i mean you can go online and shop a used car all day long long you can get hundreds of prices if you want to go crazy and uh i would just maximize what i could sell that car for but the negative equity is going to haunt you and it's got to be there and you just it's going to have to be paid and that's got us caught up over here okay very good okay uh we are going to go to our dog of the week a big dog ranch and our little poodle yes it's a poodle this week and she's as cute as can be and her name is leechie yeah her name is leachie she's only a two years old she's got some medical problems uh but with the great medical staff out at big dog ranch they're handling it and she's doing much better she's a very happy dog and her

owners had to give her up and uh go to big dog ranch rescue that's b d ron are rescue and you can take a look at all of the dogs that are up for adoption that's not org right orgy but correct okay big dog ranch org uh dot org uh so leachy is up for adoption she's as sweet as she can be we have a video uh that you can take a look at you want to roll that jonathan Susan from Big Dog Ranch, and this is Leachey. Leach is a three-year-old poodle who is paralyzed. Doesn't stop her, though. Once she's in her wheelchair here, she's very mobile, very happy dog.

Look at that. Loves kids, loves people, loves attention, loves stealing toys and playing with them. She's just looking for somebody to give her love. She's very loving dog as well. come see her today if you can't see this is heartbreaking this little poodle as happy as a clam one of the reasons that i love dogs so much is that they can have a disadvantage like that and still be happy great companions the dog's fine she thinks she's doing fine yeah she thinks She's normal, and like I said, she's the sweet as she can be, and it's a little two-year-old poodle.

And you know something? This dog is special because we pay the adoption fees. It's expensive, and we do a background check. The fees are paid. It's $200, and you can fill out an application before you go out to Big Dog Ranch, and you can, you know, get that all started. You don't have to, you know, spend a lot of time on the paperwork, and you can take advantage of literally walking around and taking a look at these dogs out there. There are so many of them, and I always rave about Puppie Land. It is just an amazing place.

And don't forget, Earl has a book. It's Confessions of a Recovery and Car Dealer. And you can go to Amazon, purchase the book, and the cost of that book is 1999, all proceeds. go to Big Dog Ranch. Yes, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. That's Discovery, I forgot the name of your book. Confessions of Recovery Cardinals of Recovery Cardio. We emphasize it all proceeds.

Everything, when a book gets bought, I don't get any money. It all goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. All the money that Amazon pays us for the books that we sell on Amazon. goes to Big Dog Grants Rescue. I repeat this because there's so many advertisements out there that imply that we're making donations to this charity and that charity. Every time you buy a sponge, every time you buy a radio,

every time you buy a car, we make a donate. They don't tell you what the donation is. We don't make a nickel off this book. 100% goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And I wouldn't do that if we weren't such an amazing organization. I could do two hours on what an amazing organization, Big Dog Ranch Rescue is. I urge you, rather than me mouth off about it,

go to, and Nancy just gave it to you, I'll give it to you again. Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org. That's B-D-R-R as in Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org. That's our website, and they have got a great website, and you'll see what I mean. They have locations in Texas, and they have three or four locations in the United States. They're the largest no-kill shelter.

Big Dog Ranch Rescue does not euthanize any dogs. If you're lucky enough dog to get into Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and we have hundreds and thousands, we have thousands of dogs in all the locations. And once you make it to Big Dog Grants Rescue, you're home. You're in a vacation area. You're in, it's like going to a fancy resort somewhere in the Caribbean. They got everything. And as he said, Puppieville, they have maternity wards, they have doctors, and they have

exercisers. I mean, dogs have a ball there. Yeah, most of all, they have a great spa. I can't say too much about it. They're an amazing group of people. It's like Puppopia. Popopia, yeah. I mean, hey, you doggy's out there.

Any dogs listening? If you can somehow break in the big dog graduate school, you're probably better off than where you are. I mean, that is a great place to be. Yeah, and folks, let me remind you that, you know, Big Dog Ranch is having some summer specials, adoption specials out there, and needless to say, they're filled to capacity. So take advantage of going to big dog ranch, big dog ranch rescue.org and check that out and take a look at Leachie. Okay, we are going to get ready for our mystery shopping report, and that mystery shop. property report is from Greenway Kia, West Palm Beach. Okay, Greenway, Kia, you know, I'm not sure who actually owns that.

That might be a, you know, car dealerships now so often hide their names. I'm not sure. I tried to research it. I didn't get the information. Anyway, they are in West Palm Beach, and that name has been there for. And folks, you can vote on this mystery shopping report at 772. 4976530. Text number 772, 4976530, or on YouTube.com, foreslash or on cars.

We get more votes on YouTube than any other place, but a lot of you folks that vote, just use the text line if you don't have YouTube available. 7-2-497-6-5-30. Yes, absolutely take advantage. We'd love to know how you feel about the mystery shopping reports. Now back to the... So if you get a passing vote, they go on the Earls' recommended list. If they don't, the Earls do not buy a car list. So it's important that you give a fair score, and we do great on the curve,

because there are very few A's and very few Fs. We try to keep it in the middle, so you do have a choice wherever you live to buy a car. Okay, here we go, mystery shop of Greenway Kia, West Palm Beach. Speaking of the first person is if I were Agent Lightning, our favorite, she's been with us for years now. We've had other mystery shoppers, but none is good as Agent Lightning. I arrived late in the morning to find the location under construction, make it very difficult to find parking and maneuver around.

I walked around a lot for about seven minutes to see if anyone would approach me, before heading inside. Once inside, the makeshift trailer, I looked around and made contact with a guy sitting in an office. He smiled, asked me if I had been helped yet today. I told him that I'd been looking around the lot for a bit, but hadn't spoken to anyone yet. He apologized and mentioned that they were a bit short staff that morning, but assured me that he would get someone to help me right away. He mentioned for Reggie to come over and assist me. Reggie said that he was waiting for an appointment, but was happy to get me started until his appointment arrived. He gathered my information. I showed him the car I was interested in on my phone, my smartphone,

and it was a 2024 Kia Forte LX with an MSRP of $21,615. I always ask this question, Forte, right? It's not the Forte, Forte? Forte. Forte, okay. They're French-inized over there. The listing was showed a Greenway Kia discount of $500. And that was on the ad.

was on the ad on my phone. Kia customer cash in the amount of $1,000, leaving a greenway price of $20,150. So I went in there because the price advertised was $20,150. Reggie asked me if I'd like to drive today. I said we could take a look, but I'd rather just see the numbers

since there was so much going on. If the numbers made sense, I'd go for a test drive with my newly licensed daughter as this car was going to be for her he laughed and he said he completely understood and couldn't wait for the new building to be ready and that will tell you a little something about the success of Kia they built new dealerships and there's a lot of card deals out there that are getting rid of their dealerships but the Kia is cranked out long and been very successful we found the car and

the window sticker matched the MSRP of the website listing now that's a that's a good start so far next to the wooden sticker was there I did them okay you don't find cars in South Florida without addendum unfortunately on the adenab was the front and rear mud guards chrome wheels chrome wheel locks for a total dealer install options of they got to be kids 3,995 dollars i mean those are some good wheel walks uh or maybe it's the mud guards those wheel locks aren't chrome they're made of unobtainio yeah right right okay 3995 dealer and small options uh this raised a dealer asking price to 25 000 six hundred and ten dollars richy asked if i was looking

to pay cash finance or lease i said either cash or finance since I saw they had some special specials online now I'll digress just a little bit here my advice to folks when they're shopping for a car is let them think that you're going to finance the car and the reason for that is car dealers won't stole a lot of people make more money when they finance the car than when they sell the car now this hasn't always been through throughout history most notably the COVID history where they it was a shortage of supply, but now they're getting back to normal.

The average car dealer is making more money financing your car that he does in the markup when he finally, if you're buying smart, that he actually gets to the markup of the car. So if you let him think he can knock your head off in financing and make several thousand dollars, he's liable to go a little easier on you in the selling of the car and cut the margin and give you a lower price so he can get you into the finance.

office and really lay you away so let them know that you're thinking about financing with him that'll make him be more inclined to give you a discount okay back to the shopping report he said he asked if I was trading anything in to which I replied no he then excused himself to speak with the sales manager again I don't want to get too granular here but the less information you give the car sales people the better off you are. If he thinks that you have a trade in, then he has in his mind's eye a possible source of profit. And just as I said in the finance comments, he can make a lot of money finance in the car.

He can make a lot of money by giving you less for your trade in than he should. We call that stealing the trade. So in this case here, Agent Lightning has taken away the opportunity of the finance profit, and now she's taking away the advantage of the trade-in profit. So he only has one way where he can make a lot of money, and that's on the car he sells you. So he's going to go for all he can get on that car. So this is psychological things I'm throwing out at you if you decide you want to negotiate, which I highly recommend you don't.

But that's what, unfortunately, the way most people buy cars today. Okay, I, when I said I didn't have a trade and he excused and felt to speak with the sales manager. A few minutes later, he turned with a young saleswoman, Amber, named Amber, introduced her to me. He laid down a proposal sheet for me to review as well. He thanked me for stopping in and said I'd be in good hands with Amber. Amber went over the breakdown with me, and then I asked her about the monthly payments that Reggie had mentioned. Amber excused ourselves and returned right away with Sam.

Boy, there are a lot of people here, aren't there? Got Reggie, Sam, and Amber, now. Sam was really nice, introduced himself and apologized for not bringing the payment information earlier. He had to be a new sheet and went over all the fees with me explaining these rates were Tier 1 rates, and that means high credit means the lowest rate I could get because you have the really good credit,

probably over 700 beacon score explained that these rates you know okay he also mentioned he was able to find another discount he found another discount and which would give me the best price possible so you see what's happening here they're finding the discounts and adjusting the price as they move toward the end of this negotiation this quick negotiation because You're not going to be buying the car today. He said this would give me the best, this guy he just found will give me the best price possible on this vehicle. The revised pricing sheet gave me a larger discount, I'll say, of $5,495 off the market selling price,

lowering the adjusted price to $20, 115, which matched the price on the website. know big go after all that I think of the trip we just took here and you see what was happening I the shopper I was being diagnosed I was being read I was being analyzed and the communication was going back and forth with the manager and so the price was being adjusted to fit my mood and my comments about everything that he was able to elicit from me and that's what they negotiate that's what happens so I hung around long enough to get a much better price than I would have otherwise there's a little more detail of their fees on the new proposal so here here everything

comes out in the wash so this is what came out in the wash the fees included here we go Ashley Moody you got one here to go into Greenway Kia and in West Palm Beach because It's almost September 1st. And what would you do to Greenwood Kia on September 1st if you found this? Here's a fee that was undisclosed in the advertised price online

and quoted price to me, the buyer. And that was an electronic filing fee of $249.50. That's a junk fee. It's a nonsense fee. It's illegal under the Federal Trade Commission's combat auto retail scams. rule and it's also illegal under the enforcement of the attorney general for florida

ashley moody whoops here goes another junk fee illegal greenway kea in westbound beach eight hundred ninety nine dollars and ninety five cents whoops another illegal tag agency fee of ninety nine dollars ninety five cents okay wait a minute here's an illegal one for five dollars that's a federal tire fee as a taxable fee that's okay the little ones are okay the license fee was slightly lower at 390 that's probably okay we haven't broken that down but it probably is so try you know the tag of registration that's a non-taxable fee but we now had doc stamps I mean that's it's

only $81 55 but that adds up right doc stamps are a, it's not only a junk fee, but it's a lie. Because I said, as a shopper, I'm not gonna finance the car. So if you don't finance the car, there are no doc stamps. So not only are they given me a junk fee, but they're lying about what the junk fee is.

They could have said anything other than doc fee and it would only have been half a lie. And that delivery fee, the it's a double dip because they've got it on the original monroney as well yeah so that okay and and i'm going to digress a little bit because i think we've got the time i forgot to mention two days ago nancy and i were sitting side by side and my phone rang and she heard the conversation it was christina rogers from the wall street journal and she was calling me about an issue she was having with car dealers because they were delivering cars uh this this

will be probably coming up in the Wall Street Journal. It might be in today's journal, but if you're a Wall Street Journal, Christina Rogers is the reporter. And they're delivering the cars that are not prepared for delivery. They're dirty inside and outside. And nothing has been checked or inspected or anything.

And she wants to know if the dealers are just doing that because they don't want to spend the money to prepare the cars for delivery. Rick just made the comment here. That's all part of the pre-delivery process that the manufacturer has already paid you for. And it's on the window sticker of the car. It's built into the cost of the car.

And the dealer has been paid to wash your car and check it out, road test it. Rick, you probably know better than I do. All the things, there's a whole checklist of things that car dealers are required by the manufacturers do before it goes to the customer. Yeah. Here, the dealers are charging you for that, and double-charging you is what they're doing. Okay, the bottom line, after all that, came to $23,233.11, and this is $1,500 less than the original quote.

So that $1,500 list was all breaking the law, and that is why I kept invoking Ashley Moody, Florida's Attorney General's name. Hopefully, someone is listening that will contact Ashley Moody and have her or one of her lieutenants be a guest on this show before September 1st. I thanked them for the time. Amber wrote her phone number on the sheet for me, and thanks for me for coming in. Here you have the mystery shopping report of Greenway Kia in West Palm Beach, Florida. And the vote should come in with a curve vote. We talk about, don't even think about an A and don't even think about an F. We have to leave room for somebody to buy a car in South Florida, so if you fail them, they're going to have to find another Kia dealer somewhere that's probably no better than the

one we just talked about so try to keep your grades uh between f and a well uh jonathan in palm coast right off the bat says f just plain f i'd be well you might add reasons there feel it you got to say it so uh and maybe it's a good time to say f because september 1st might be the time for ashley moody to say you're going to jail And that's not literally going to happen, of course, but she could say $5,000 fine, or she should say, I'm going to suspend your license to sell cars. So Greenway Kia, I hope you change what you're doing down there on September 1st

because we're talking, we're throwing your name a lot around a lot, and we're talking about Ashley Moody a lot, and I think somehow that might get back to, or you might be on her checklist on September 1st. Okay, T-Cash says F-minus. Now I know why that last poster is $18,000 upside down on the P-O-S-Telioride. Almost $800 per wheel lock, get all four online for $40. Really?

Yeah. Tom Steckle, C. Ridiculous addendums and fees. Amber waves goodbye as I walk out the door. Less knowledgeable buyers would not get. a good deal. Joseph Kelleher, D. High fees and addendum label ruined that car

deal. Scott H. Sr. says, D. Too many fees. Tim Gilliland Fees, fees, fees, equal D. Crams 1624. Junk. Junk fees, double

dipping. Go get him. Ashley Moody. F. Go get him, Ashley Moody. Brian Sedlocko, D for deceiving. George Petrillo, D. Jeffrey Banda's C-minus, typical South Florida junk fees. But they actually did wipe out the addendums 3995. All right, let's see here.

We got Bob in Maryland says it should be an F, but in the land of Oz car dealership world of South Florida, It's a C. And do we have any others right now? Not so far. So for me, I'm going to say a C minus because they did eventually get down to a reasonable price with all those dealer fees added on it. Yeah, and it's South Florida.

But, yeah, I'm going to say a C minus. If you go in there with your eyes open and you have some knowledge beforehand, you got a chance to get a reasonable deal. Yeah. Maybe not a good one, but a reasonable one. Yeah, if you have the education to do what Agent Lightning did and push a little bit and walk out without buying, that's what saved her. And anybody that went in there to buy a car today would have been in trouble.

Yep. Nancy? Well, you ask yourself why distress? It runs so high, you know. It's just, it's amazing. The consumer just doesn't trust the idea. the dealers and this is the reason why we need your help and boy I'll tell you what attorney general Ashley Moody she is going to help us tremendously you

watch and see this has been a long journey but definitely worth it for Greenway Kia West Palm I'm gonna give them a D minus I just that it we have to put these dealers on notice yeah I I I wonder what the grades are going to look like in September. It's going to be interesting. What will be accomplished by this? And by the way, my grade is going to be a C minus. I gave a higher grade because it was South Florida.

But after September 1st, hopefully this is what's going to happen. The egregious worst dealers will be slammed. I don't know that, I don't know that, Kia of West Palm Beach Greenway Kia would be in that list. We do know some dealers that we've seen. Napleton comes to mind. We have some dealers out there that are so bad that they've already been fined and they've

already been chastised, they've already been to court and they're still doing the same thing. The FADA presentation, the Florida Automobile Dealers Association presentation, Nancy and I saw the other day, compared what's going to happen in enforcement to I-95, that's one of our expressways in Florida, a turnpike super highway. And on I-95, the highway, the speed limit in some places is 70 miles an hour. So if you're going 80 miles an hour, you're okay. You're speeding by 10 miles an hour but if you go 85 miles an hour they'll pull you over they give you about an 11 mile 11 miles over the speed limit is the way it works so the

high speeders of South Florida like Dapleton they're gonna go down first and then the Greenway Kia will probably fall later but they'll eventually bring it down hopefully pretty close to the speed limit and it'll it's never gonna be perfect folks let's face it as long as you got so many car dealers but it will get better I really believe it's going to be fun watching this in Florida we're almost there yeah most definitely okay we have maybe a minute or two would you like to mention Stalantis or anything else yeah I that's I'm glad you mention that too the car dealerships of the world are in financial disarray

Stalantis, Jeep, for all practical purposes, that's what they are as Jeep, they're losing money, they're laying off people, and therefore take into consideration when you decide to buy a car, the manufacturer. You don't want that manufacturer to be gone when you go back for a warranty work, and this applies to, especially to a lot of electric vehicles, like, what is it, Rivian. Rivian lost $1.46 billion in the last quarter. So do a little financial research on the manufacturer before you buy the car. Great advice. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for joining us here at Erlon Cars. We'll be right back here next week at the same time, 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend.