Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.17.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Florida Fine Cars

Episode Date: August 17, 2019

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

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

Good morning, everybody. I'm sitting here listening to my introduction. I'm a recovering car dealer. I've been in the automobile. retail business since 1968. So I think I know something about the business, and that's what the show is all about to share this information with you. You heard the introduction. We've got some very, very informed, educated, experienced people in the studio with me, and I'd like to go around the table here, and we'll introduce some of the folks. Normally, I've already introduced them, but I want you to hear Rick Kearney's voice and what he can do for you. He

He's been with me for 25 plus years. Rick, what are some of the things that you think are on the mind of the listeners out there that you can help them with? Well, there's lots of things about maintenance on your cars, whether or not you might be getting ripped off by an outside mechanic or by a dealership. And I'm going to put a new one on you. The idea that modern cars, now how many folks do you think have one of those little window breaker hammers in their car for smashing a window? I'm ashamed to say I don't. Well, we live in South Florida, and there are a lot of waterways here, a lot of canals, rivers, lakes, swimming pools. And truth be told, I don't think you could go a week without seeing on the news something about a car going in the water somewhere.

Did you know that a lot of the newer, and right now the higher-end luxury cars, the side glass that you would normally try to break out is laminated instead of being. tempered glass, and that little hammer that a lot of folks have is not going to break it. Wow. See, I learned something new, just like you folks out there. Rick, that's great. That's the type of thing that Rick knows that you might not know. Chances are, you didn't know it because I didn't know it and I'm an automobile dealer. So, Rick, if you have any questions for Rick, we're right here for you. 877-960, 9960. Rick Kearney, certified, master, diagnostic technician. There's nothing you can

ask this guy that he can't answer about automobiles mechanically computerized electronically he's got a lot of common-sense things too that he can share with you and just give him a call that's the best part of the show is your input your calls 877 960 9960 or you can text us I like texting better than calling myself that's what I prefer either way our text number though if you like to text like I do 7-7 area code 4976530

That text number is 772 4976530 And Stu Stewart, he's my son He's a general manager of my Toiler dealership To full transparency But this is not an infomercial I am currently an active automobile dealer

And I say that on a Well, it's hard to say I say that unashamedly actually I say it ashamedly because of the fact that car dealers have a lousy reputation, and that's the reason they show us here. But Stu is as knowledgeable as I in the car business. He's more current in the car business because he's on top of it every day.

And he's also a cyber guy. He's not a millennial. He's past that. But he's really good with a cyber tool. So, Stu, what are you going to do for us? I'm close. I like being called a spymaster, by the way. Thank you very much for that.

Spymaster, yeah. I think that's more fun than managing a Toyota dealership. Yeah, it is. Rangling a stable of spy. sending them out to inspecting dealers. It's pretty cool. And then the other thing I do, I like to try and help the show stay connected to everybody through communication channels other than the telephone.

So Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, we want to make sure we're in front of everybody and everybody has a chance to get in and ask their questions. So I kind of wrangle that here. And the Spymaster, tell them a little bit about the Mystery Shopping Report. I know our regular listeners know all about that, but I get excited about the Mystery Shopping Report. I read it every week before we come in, and it kind of gets my adrenaline going. What about the mystery shopping report?

Well, it's amazing that we've been able to continue this for 15 years, at least once a week for 15 years. There's a lot of car dealers out there. And sometimes we spread our range a little bit farther. We've been up to Pensacola. We've been to the West Coast. We've had listeners who send in mystery shopping reports from other states. Right. And, yeah, it's kind of a challenge every week.

We've got to find somebody to check out, somebody to, either it's for an advertising, something that looks too good to be true. Lately, we're on the Takata airbag recall investigations where we're seeing how car dealers handle the sale of dangerous cars with Takata airbag recalls. So we actually have a group of folks. I'm not going to identify who they are.

It's for personal safety. But no, we get together. We do research. We research the car dealer. We find out where they're from, who owns it. We got an idea of their sales. We check out things like the cross-sell report. We look at their online reputation.

When we go in, we know a lot about the dealer before we ever send Agent Thunder in. Yeah, and we tell it like it is. We name names, right? Yeah. We haven't been sued. We've been doing this for 15 years. Liable, slander. None of that, because we tell the truth.

Yeah, the only time we've kept the name of a salesperson's secret is if they said something that could get them in trouble with their boss. If they badmouthed the owner of the dealership, we'll make up a fake name. And it happens. It's really strange. Yeah, it does. Well, thanks, Stu. 877-960-9960. That's our call-in number. If you have any questions for Stu Stewart, anything about anything, he's very well-versed in all phases, especially mystery shopping reports.

Stu, he is the spymaster, and he directs the mystery shopper. He chooses the target of the mystery shop somewhere in South Florida. for a lot of reasons. It could be a crazy ad, too good to be true. It could be what is a lot more frequent lately is the dangerous recall issue where car dealers are actively selling cars, proactively selling cars and concealing the fact that they have dangerous recalls that cannot be fixed. I mean, that's about as cruel and low as you can get to have a used car buyer, trust you, and tell that used car buyer that his car is perfectly safe, And if you do spot the recall, he tells you that it can be fixed, just take it to the Honda dealer or the Ford dealer, and they will fix it to no charge, oftentimes when there is no fixed available.

That's the most nasty thing about these mystery shopping reports. So you can text to also at 772-4976530, text 772-4976530. And immediately to my left is my wife and my co-host, my friend for many years and a colleague on this show for many years. Nancy Stewart's strong suit is that she believes strongly in women. And she sees she's about my age. We've been together for a lot of years. And she's always been a strong woman's advocate. And she grew up in the time when women were kind of walked on and looked down upon.

And now they're beginning to emerge. And she is just a very, very active part of this show to tell women how they can buy a car without being taken advantage of. Good morning, everyone. Yes, it's me, Nancy Stewart, the female advocate. And it is certainly a hot topic. And it's something I like to talk about with the audience. That's the male and female audience. And just to, well, give everyone a...

an idea about confidence and knowledge and how you can use that as a powerful tool. So this morning, hopefully, we'll get some female callers, and I will offer them the first two new female callers, $50 each, and sort of an incentive to help me build a platform here that's truly important to all of us here on the panel, not just myself. and gender equality is a hot topic. And it doesn't mean it's a trend. It's a basic business principle.

And you certainly, if you're an intelligent car dealer, you're going to take advantage of that option for you because it is financial suicide to ignore the female buyer. Exactly. The buyers are out there female. They do buy cars. The cars, they don't buy, oftentimes they influence the purchase. So anyone out there with questions for Nancy Stewart, 877-960-99-60, that's 877-9-960.

And, of course, our text number, 772-4976530, text number 772, 4976530. We had an anonymous caller actually anonymous email last week, and we encouraged that, by the way, for folks that don't. want to be identified, and that's fine. We actually get a lot of good feedback. Youranonymousfeedback.com, to be exact, www. www. Youranonymousfeedback.com.

Tell us what you think. It's a totally anonymous sort of a source that you can criticize or comment or suggest. And one of the suggestions we had was that why do we only incentivize the female callers and why not the male callers do? The reason being we're trying to get. get to parity. We'd like to have 50% of our callers female. And as Nancy just said, that's because 50% of the car buyers are women. And we would like to have more and more females call. And we built our female caller audience up over the years with this incentive to pretty close to 50%.

We're getting there very closely. Very close. It's been an interesting journey. Very good. How about text? Are we getting any text in? Do you get anything over here? I've got one so far from YouTube I'm sure Excuse me Rick Jonathan If you can activate my PC From where you are

I have a dead screen And I think we have callers on hold Yeah I'll really went through that Okay Stu's going to take care of it Okay We have a caller on hold But we don't know who it is

And so if you're holding We will be able to speak to you were in a new studio, and that excuse is running a little lame because we've been in this new studio for about a month and a half, and we've been having technical problems, but I think we now know who the caller is. Tina. Ah, of course.

I should have known. Hi, Tina. Thanks for calling in and being patient. What's on your mind this morning? Well, I was thinking about how we live in the age of conveniences. Nowadays, you could be at home 24-7 and have everything you can say. of delivered to your home. And recently, like within the last year, there's apps you can find on your phone or get

on the internet and actually have a vehicle delivered to your home of your choice. Of course, it's not that easy. You have to jump through a few hoops, but this is a possibility. However, the question I have is, okay, if you go to some dealers, you're going to pay a dealer fee. I wonder what kind of hidden costs are added onto this convenience. convenience and if the cost really doesn't pay off and you'd be much better off going to an actual dealership. Well, yeah, that is a fearsome thing. And clearly to enter the 21st century retail, we have to be sure that you can sell online. You can sell without fear because you know what the price is. You know

what the product is. One of the reasons I love Amazon so much is you can read those Amazon reviews. I often use Amazon reviews in place of Googling the information of the product. I think the automotive business is going to have to enter that sphere, and I believe they're going to have to offer their products actively online, include their hidden fees into the stated price. I've lobbied for a long time for Florida and all the other states to make it illegal to add hidden fees to the price of a car. the price advertised, price quoted to the buyer, be it online or verbally, in person,

advertised should have all the fees included and any cost included, and the price you buy, just like the price is on Amazon. How'd you like to buy a product on Amazon and suddenly find out that they hit your credit card with an extra $100 beyond what was online and advertised? The only legitimate fee that should be added in Amazon, does this is add sales tax, that's a government fee. They also add car dealers, it's okay for them

to add sales tax, and of course with a car you have to have a license and registration, and that's legitimate too. But Tina, you're absolutely right, the car dealers are probably last in line in terms of being in the 21st century and meeting the needs of the 21st century consumer.

Yes, and I think there's a downfall that can't be disputed when it comes to buying something this serious online. Sure. And that's going to the dealership, for one thing, talking to someone there that technically knows

all about ends and out to the car can show you all the features, and being able to examine the car from stem to stern and test driving it. Those are things that you don't get necessarily if the car is delivered to your home. Well, this is true. So I think what would have to be, Tina,

would be a return policy. money-back guarantee. And this is what Amazon has. You aren't able to examine all the products that you buy on Amazon, but if you get a product that you can't use because it was misrepresented or whatever, you can return it. And Amazon makes it extremely easy to return products. I think the car dealers is just kind of, if they're going to sell cars online and they're going to deliver cars as Amazon does, they're going to have to offer an unconditional money-back guarantee. It's a risk, but it's a risk for Amazon. too. A lot of manufacturers, retailers today have realized that part of life with the 21st century

is you have to have an easy return policy. Costco, my favorite store, they sell online. Of course, they have the box stores. You go into Costco. You can return almost anything you buy at Costco pretty much without question anytime you want. It's part of doing business. It's the cost of doing business. They even have outlets now that buy return products. And that's a whole, secondary market created because of this new initiative that the retailers have said it's a fact of life we don't like it on conditional returns but we have to accept it if we're going to be competitive yeah the market is completely changing and before I go I just wanted to mention the PSA really quick today is

here the Shelters Day please visit Big Dog Ranch oh well thank you very much for the plug the Big Dog Ranch Saturday is a great day to visit Big Dog Ranch rescue. Absolutely. It's a good way to spend the day with the kids. Big Dog Ranch is the largest no-kill shelter in Florida and we have at any given time four or five hundred dogs available. We're taking dogs in from all over Florida from out of state. We even take them in from a far away of China during the disasters in Puerto Rico and North Carolina, South Carolina, Houston. We took hurricane dogs in and we have a huge collection of dogs and we're located in Oxahatchie out of Okachiobe Boulevard.

I'd love to have anybody that's interested shop around and pick up one of our doggies. It's a fun day out there. And speaking of Big Dog Ranch, let me tell all of you that it's easier for you to purchase Earle's Book now. You can go to Earle'sbook.com and you can find his confessions

of a recovering car dealer. And 100% of that cost of the book goes to Big Dog Ranch. It's a two-for. You get a book that tells you how to get ripped off by your car dealer and you're finding a home, or you're contributing toward buying a home for a homeless dog. It's a great

donation to the Big Dog Ranch. Very good. 877-960-9960 and you can text us at 772-497-6530. Do we have any more callers on hold? I don't believe so, but we have a lot of texts. Okay, let's get to the text, I know, about that, Stu. Okay, great.

The first one we're going to go to, came in after the show last week. They said, basically, they drive a night, this is going to be for Rick, by the way. It's in a 2013 Venza, his wife's Venza, Toyota Venza, has a Samsung basic non-smart phone and won't stay connected to the Entune head unit. This is my older, Samsung basic type, does stay paired. It's been three years now with no issues. Does Toyota have any flash updates for this issue? Everything else is great, but it doesn't stay connected.

There's a very good likelihood that Toyota has an update for the radio. Unfortunately, radio updates are not usually advertised very well, but I would suggest stopping into a dealership and have them check and see if the radio's got an update. And then, as silly as this sounds, erase all the phones from the radio, and erase the radio pairing from your phones and then reconnect them. Quite often that actually solves a lot of the problems. And one other issue that we've discovered, and unfortunately this is something to do with the programming and the radio, if any of your contact numbers in your phone book have like odd characters, anything other than A, B, C, C, D, regular letters or regular numbers.

Like a quotation mark? Right. Anything like a quotation mark and exclamation point. anything like that, it confuses the system and it will actually cause the phone to be knocked out. That's a bug in the software which we're having to take a little around about six four, which we shouldn't have to do. Let me just say this about today's cars and Apple Play and Bluetooth and a lot of electronics. I think the manufacturers have gone too far too fast and not as carefully as they should. This includes Toyota and all the manufacturers. I have

Apple play in my car. And not only is it confusing, I'm fairly cyber-sabby for an old guy, and it's distracting, and it causes, takes my attention off the road, and there are bugs in it, and I see things that, you know, little glitches here and there, and you have to work around them. It's enough of a problem to drive a car in today's traffic situations to focus and concentrate on safety without having to fool around with Bluetooth and glitches in your software that are supposed to make life easier for you in the car. They make life more complicated, and I just wish the manufacturers,

the manufacturers that gets it first and makes it simplest and more user-friendly will sell a lot more cars. There's a motive. Good point. I've seen what's coming. There's some good stuff coming. Autonomous cars.

No, better than that. Well, sooner than that, actually. We've got some good stuff coming, not just Toyota, lots of other cars. I think we have a caller. We're our sign language in the studio. Yeah, we're going to go to Howard. Thanks for waiting, Howard. Good morning.

Hey, Howard. I hope you're still there, Howard. I think we did this to you last week. Is anybody out there in Radio Lentz? Hey. Hey, Doug. Hey, Doug. Hey, how are you?

We're good. Where's Ollie? He's sleeping right over here. It is early. It is early on a Saturday. Ollie is the kitty cat in case. for you new listeners. Yeah, he's going to be 21, by the way.

We have to have a big birthday party. Wow, that's fantastic. I'm telling you. I'm surprised he was up for the sunrise. But I can understand he's taking a cat now. That means he can drink and vote now. That's right. He's voted for the last three years.

So I have a technical question for whoever can answer this. That's Rick. On Wednesday, my car was down. damaged by lightning. Actually, there's a big hole in the ground. I saw that, Doug. Yeah. And so I took it to the dealership, and I spoke to the service guy, and I said, can this car be fixed? And he looked at me and kind of smiled and said, well, he says, the airbag deployed on this, so he says, I would say that it can be fixed, but I would declare it a total loss.

That's what he did. But the insurance company hasn't come, and he seems to think that State Farm is going to have a fix because of the 2018 Honda Civic S.I. So I just wanted to know your thoughts on that. Well, having repaired quite a few lightning cars in the past 25 years, it's actually a very common occurrence in South Florida. Florida, whether it's a direct hit or even a nearby hit, and lightning is a very powerful force.

But there again, insurance companies are too. And generally the rule of thumb that they go by, I think, is if the cost of the repairs is going to hit 70% of the value of the car, they generally will total out the car. And that being said, they've had experience too, and they're pretty good at being able to estimate just how many computers have gotten damaged on the car, how many other items need to be repaired. If the airbags have deployed from that lightning strike, it's probably going to be quite a few of the other computers got affected as well. Let me jump in here a minute. Here's my recommendation, Doug. Insist that State Farm total list. and you should have a body shop, a dealership that would support you on that. If they give you a hard time, the thing with lightning is that you never know what damage is caused. And cars are rolling computers now, and when lightning hits a computer, you can bet you're going to have problems you didn't realize you had. Even in a normal accident, when you hit a fire hydrant or a tree, there's hidden damage.

When lightning hits the car, there's far more hidden damage. So the dealership may well repair the car, and it's only 65% damaged. But two weeks from now or two months from now or a year from now, suddenly something else happens. And oops, we didn't see it. By then it's too late. I'd hire an attorney or have an attorney write a letter to State Farm if they give you a hard time. But I'd put my foot down, say, I want that car replaced. And by the way, you should also have something for diminished value.

at least ask the question of your attorney because if I was buying a car that had been hit by lightning I wouldn't want to pay that even though it had been repaired I wouldn't want to pay as much as if it had been not hit by lightning it's something that people know they're they're afraid of but yeah get your get your insurance company to agree if not get an attorney's opinion well the good the good news is the car is a lease car so um oh you have some protection that I'm kind of happy about that That's one of the best things about leases That's very fortunate Doug

Yeah and the other good thing is Neesim and Ollie weren't in the car When it can't hit Now we saw the pictures on Facebook Doug It was pretty dramatic It hit near the car right It didn't hit it directly but there was a line Where it like it streaked to the car

And it looks like there was an explosion of sand It was pretty violent Wow And someone said to me that what actually happened is the aura of the lightning actually surrounded the car and it's a term that they even use for insurance.

They call it an aura hitting or a direct hit and that's something that I found out. So anyhow, I'm just glad we're okay. But I'll let you know what happens, okay? Yeah, thanks, Doug. I'm curious about that. It's, you know, the next time somebody says to you, ah, the odds like that are about the odds, like getting hit by lightning, you'll think twice.

Absolutely. Have a good one. Thanks, Doug. That's not going to comfort Doug anymore. 877960-9960, where you can text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, ladies, first two new lady callers. You can, well, you can win yourself $50 this morning. I know you could use it.

And, well, I guess we'll go back to Stu. I think he's got some text. over there. We do. We have a long distance text from California. It says, hello there. It's kind of a long one, but it's a really good question. Hello there. My name is Brian 29 from California. I started watching your show around two months ago and I've become a big fan

ever since. Being on the West Coast, I never see your show live, but I always watch it later that same afternoon, which is why I'm resorting the text messages instead of calling you. I've heard Earl talk about the option of purchasing a vehicle at the end of its lease. The manufacturers obviously have to estimate at the start of the lease

what the car's value is going to be at the end of the least, and that's how they come up with the purchase price if you decide to keep the vehicle. Sometimes this can turn out to be a great deal if you like the vehicle enough to keep it. Well, I think I got a deal for you today. I have a 2016 Ford Eco Boost Premium Mustang. My purchase price for the vehicle at the end of the lease is $17,512. After doing some research on KB, it says that the fair purchase price of the same car trim and similar mileage as mine goes for $21,000, about $21,000. And the typical listing is 21,0810.

I've seen other dealerships list very similar vehicles on the user car that's between 22 and 23,000 miles with higher mileage. My question for you, Earl, is this. Since my purchase price is in a legally binding contract, they can't change that price at all, correct? That is my price, no matter what. I plan to purchase this car with a loan from a bank I'm familiar with. Any other advice you could possibly give me.

It's the first car I've ever purchased. I plan not to stretch this loan out any farther than three years. I want to pay it off and soon. The car is an excellent condition inside and out. Nicest vehicle I ever had. Thanks for all your hard work on the show, and I will write back to you guys soon. Thanks and take care.

Brian, you're absolutely right. That's a legally binding contract, and the leasing company is required to sell it to you at the residual value, your option to purchase price. When the actual time comes, you want to verify that, that the market value is, in fact, higher than your purchase price, but be sure. It's unusual today to see the purchase option price be a real bargain.

The car dealers are more car manufacturers and leasing companies are more aggressive, and they tend to price their residuals higher. So usually, we've found, with our experience, that the option of purchase price isn't as good of value as it could be. But leasing companies do make mistakes, and we have seen it happen. In this case, it looks like you found yourself a gold nugget because that's a real option. One of the ways you maybe get around it depends if the dealer will work with you. If you turn the car in, they call it grounding the car, then it's up for grabs by the dealers,

and they might be able to buy it for a lower price than that lease-end buyout. So if you can find out with the dealer, and I don't know if Ford does this, some manufacturers do. So if there's a dealer buyout, that might be lower than the lease end residual, you might be able to get a little bit, a better deal on the repurchase. Well, congratulations, Brian. Thanks for being our West Coast listener. And that's really encouraging. We have people as far as California, streaming us on Facebook or YouTube or something like that. Very interesting.

We're going to go to Julio, who's calling us from Miami. Hi, Julio. You still out there on Radio Land, Julio? I hear something. I hear a button or a click or something. Julio, sounds like we're having some of those technical problems. Yeah, so for Julio and Howard, give us a call back, please. We'd love to talk to you.

Howard's one of our favorite callers. So we'll wait to hear back from you, Julio. You know, I have an interesting question that I just got from a young lady named Jennifer, speaking of the West Coast, and she wanted to know how I felt about a young lady who works in the software engineering for Tesla and that she had a chip inserted in her arm so that she would be able to get in and out of her Tesla. And she wants to know how I feel if that is a, well, an ongoing trend

that's going to affect all of us. Well, Jennifer, I don't think I have to think about that twice, but I don't really think I would want a chip inserted in my arm. Okay, guys, what do you think? Maybe jewelry. Can you answer, Julia? Or excuse me, Jennifer? I don't, I mean, I'm with you. I think that's a step too far. I don't like that idea. Maybe that's where we're going. I have no idea. I might be too old to appreciate this trend and technology, but no, don't ship me. I do not want to be chipped. That's for her Tesla Model 3. What do you think, Rick? agree with Stu, I think put your, put a program into my Apple Watch or like I just recently

went to Disney World and they have a little wristband you can get that has the chip built into the wristband so you can open your hotel room door and everything else just with that chip. I'd rather have it a little wrist strap. That was really stupid thing to do. Do we have any more text? You know, to Stu mentioning earlier, but he always talks about the self-driving cars and so on. I think because of technology, I think this is going to drive us closer to self-driving cars. Yeah, I think so. I think it's going to be, it's going to happen sooner than we think. That's where we're headed. Okay, so this is from Anne Marie, and she's a long time listener. She says, good morning. What percentage of the new 2019 and 2020 Toyotas have the advanced driver

assistance systems such as 360-degree cams, lane departure, warnings, adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking and collision avoidance. I'm presuming these are not all standard features in all cars yet. Or to put it a different way, what safety features are now found on the least expensive Toyota vehicles in which Toyota vehicles are loaded with the most features. Anyway, she said I specify Toyota because that's your specialty. So I'll address it a little bit in terms broader with most manufacturers. These safety trends are being provided by all manufacturers, not just Toyota.

We've only got one 2020 Toyota so far, so. Yeah, but the 2019s, you know, for several years, a lot of standard equipment that used to be optional is now standard. Manufacturers are recognizing that's what consumers wants, and some of this technology is pretty impressive, pretty amazing, all the backup cams, radar, all sorts of stuff. You'd be hard-pressed to find a new 2019 vehicle anywhere that doesn't have some of this stuff. Well, she specifically mentioned the 360-degree camera, and I don't think we have that.

Oh, we do. Yeah, we do. There's on, well, I don't want to be commercial, but the Ravours, the Avalon's, I think there's other vehicles that have it already. It's pretty cool. I didn't realize that. So literally, you can see. Well, it's similar to your vehicle where you look, it's a vision, it's a computer image of the car, and it uses multiple cameras to put together, so you can see all the way around you. Okay, it's not something you can see when you're driving. No. It's something you can see when you're parking.

At low speeds, you can see it. Yeah. I believe eventually we're going to have, we'll literally, we'll be a, literally, we'll be a. to see anywhere anytime yeah um one and i'm really sensitive about making it a commercial but there's a cool feature it's a digital camera back uh rearview mirror and that we have that on one of our vehicles and other vehicles have it and it's really cool it uses a camera and i used always wonder why wouldn't they use a camera a mirror is an ancient technology the camera's pretty cool yeah they've actually been doing that on uh RVs the large big bus sized RVs for many many years

with a TV screen and a camera because you can't have a rearview mirror on most of those. What about a big semi-truck? They need those, too. They probably got a ton of blind spots. Well, the problem there is most of those trucks are constantly switching the trailer out. So you'd have to try to get the technology

on every trailer and every truck to match up. All right, and then also, Amory wanted to follow up on Tina's mention of Clear the Shelters Day. She says, if you don't live close to Big Dog Ranch, but you'd like to find a furry friend, please go to www.com to find a shelter near you. Just put in your zip code, and the map will show you the shelters close to you. Thanks, thank you, that's great information.

Ladies and gentlemen, you know, there is a possibility we may be having problems with our telephones. So don't be discouraged. Give us a call back at 877-960-9960, and if you'll send us a text and let us know whether you try to get through, would certainly appreciate it 772 would you find out what's going on with the phones I don't know whether we should be talking about calling us on the phones or circling on the text but we're people trying to call us on the phones are dropping like flies there were 772 4976530 okay we got some more text here we'll get to those I can keep you guys entertained all morning they're piling up so here we go we have another we

have a text from Steve in New Jersey he says I have a question regarding when the manufacturer's new car warranty starts, particularly for unregistered demo or dealer loaner cars. These cars often have several thousand miles on it but are sold as new. In this case, does the new car warranty start when it's first purchased or when the dealer started using the car? Well, you get credit for the mileage that's on the car, basically, and you still get the full time. So if it's got 2,000 miles on it and the warranty is 36, now you get 38,000, but you still get three years. There is an important caveat to that. The dealer has to register the demo officially as a demo, the vehicle as a demo.

If they don't and there's just miles on it, it goes by the date of first use and you will lose mileage. I believe they give you a credit even for dealer-traded cars. So as long as that amount of mileage is noted when you buy the car, sometimes cars that have traded from other car dealers can have 500 or 1,000 miles on them. So whatever the mileage is on your new car, be sure that it is on record with the manufacturer, as Stu said. and if not, then chances are it wasn't registered as a demonstrator,

and therefore you are going to be gigged for the amount of mileage. And another important note to make is I'm not sure how it is in all 50 states in Florida. I do know that you have to, that's the laws that were governed under it in New Jersey. It could be different. Well, that's true. State laws, exactly. Next. The next one, there's no name on this.

It says, Good Morning All. Can you please tell me what exactly is soft text leather and what will clean it? I purchased amoral leather cleaner wipes, and it seems to have discolored the soft text dash. What's a safe cleaner? Well, Softex is a synthetic leather. It's nicer than vinyl. I'm not sure what it's made out. I'm assuming it's plastic or some sort of petroleum product that's, you know, some, I don't know what it's made out of, but it's easy to clean.

I do believe when you buy a new vehicle, there is an insert in your owner's manual that will tell you what to, how to keep the leather or the soft X clean. So refer to that. If you don't call the dealer, they can tell you what the proper cleaning solution is. Very good. Report from the control room. Rick,

are the phones on fire, hit by lightning? What's going on? Our shields are down. Actually, they say that Julio apparently hung up, and Howard may have also, his call may have dropped. They wanted me to let listeners know.

Right now, first, we're having a little glitch that while you're on hold, You won't be able to hear the show. But just please bear with us and hang on hold with us. We'll get with you very quickly. And then, of course, once we pick the phone up, you'll be able to hear the show. So if they don't hear anything, they're still connected, just to hang on and we'll get to the call.

Right. If you don't hear anything, you're probably still connected. That's a good chance. I'm really sorry. They tell us you still. I'm sorry. I can't believe, frankly, I'm a little disappointed in the radio station here for not getting the phones figured out. after we've been doing this in the new studio for about a month.

And it's kind of frustrating. But give us a try, 877-9-60-99-60. That's 877-9-60-9-60. As a matter of fact, maybe we should call ourselves and see if it works. They're doing that right now. Oh, are they doing test calls right now. That's fantastic.

And while they're calling the show, we'll do another text. And we have Rudy on the line. This is kidding. Okay, these are good questions, by the way. Sam and Port St. Lucie asks, what kind of damage am I doing if I drive through street flooded water so fast that it splashes the inside of my engine compartment? And what if it's an electric car? I'm looking at you. I'm going to let Rick answer that. I will start the answer by saying a lot of it has to do with the type of car, the design of your car, the height of your car as it

rides over the water. If you've got one of these trucks with a huge tires, you probably don't have too much to worry about if you're driving the sedan, you probably do, Rick. Well, any vehicle, if you drive high speed through water, you do have one thing to worry about, especially here in Florida, and that's the police, because if you drive fast through those puddles, they will pull you over and write you a ticket for it. It's unsafe driving. That's not fun. That being said, however, my advice is if you cannot be absolutely certain how deep that water is, don't go in it. And if you have to, drive slow as possible, no wake zone, just like there were manatees out there, just go nice and slow. The reason being, if that water

splashes up into your engine and enough water gets into the air intake, that water gets sucked into your engine, and water does not compress. So when the pistons are coming up in those cylinders, things bend and they break and your wallet takes a huge hit. Isn't it true that some cars are designed with deflectors to keep the water from coming up and is our off-road vehicles, for example, that are designed and expected to be driven off the road in puddles and things of this nature? That's absolutely true. Yeah.

So it's good to know the design of your vehicle. And, of course, you can advise people never to drive fast. through water, but if people buy a car that's off-road type of vehicle, SUV, off-road type of vehicle, they should know the design of it, and that way they would know how safe it is. Absolutely. Boy, I'll tell you, last week was a disaster downtown in West Palm Beach. You couldn't even get to the parking garage. Especially because Earl likes driving fast-through puddles.

Yeah, there you go. Folks, one thing to remember also, even though your car, you may be driving, like, I drive a pickup that's up in the air. My truck, I don't have to worry about high water. I can cruise through it nice and gentle. But that wave that I'm creating could very well swamp out the car next to me that is not designed for it. Yeah, exactly. And that would be my responsibility if I just damaged a car just with that water. Absolutely. We have got good news. Julio is back. He's back with us. And Chris is calling from Jupiter. You hold on, Chris. We're going to take Julio's call. Good morning, Julio.

I hear him. Julio, we're here. Are you there? Julio is not there. Okay, let's go to Chris and Jupiter. Hey, good morning, guys. Love your show, by the way. Hey, good morning.

Good morning. A couple of years back, Dodge vehicles had a very bad reputation for transmission issues. and, you know, obviously, Ford guys hate Chevy, Chevy guys hate Ford. Everybody seems to hate Dodge because of that. What is the, what is like the current trend or the current industry opinion on Dodge? Have they straightened out their transmission problems? You know, that's a good question. I didn't even know they still made Dodgers, but, you know, I haven't seen a Dodge on the road in a long time.

who knows something about Dodge They got trucks They got They still have darts They did they still have darts They did they They actually split their trucks off Into the RAM division

However They still make the charger The Challenger Quite a few other models So yeah Dodge is still very much there Dorego That actually may

The Durango may have become a ram now I'm not sure on their SUVs Their transmission issues Yeah they're They try to keep that as quiet as possible, but I honestly can't talk to you much about the quality

of Dodge transmissions because I do work at a Toyota dealership, but I would be leery of it unless you do a whole lot of research on the internet and consumer reports and I would get into the forums of Dodge owners

and look and see how many of them are complaining about transmission issues still today. Right. I mean, they're all Mopal products. They all fall under that umbrella. So it doesn't matter what name is on there. The parts are all made in the same factories, right? Well, and of course, now it's Fiat.

Isn't it Fiat that owns Dodge now? Yeah, so, well, all I can say is, yeah, they make some really nice looking cars. I still say every time I see a Challenger, it turns my head, but I'm not going to own one. Doesn't Fiat, Sam, for fixing it all the time? that's what I thought thanks for the input you're welcome Chris give us a call again and Julio and Howard out there

give us a call yeah and Chris congratulations for getting through we have a protection system against phone calls you win if you get through and you got through and we should have a prize see if you can get through like Chris did it's not easy but call 877 960 9960

That's 877, 960, 99060, we should have a $50 cash price for anybody that can make any kind of a call. I mean, we're giving $50 females, we should open up to anybody that gets through the switchboard. Yeah, well, I know for our callers how I would feel if I was calling in and there was just dead silence. It's very bothersome, you know, and there should be maybe a little soft music playing while you're on hold. Or maybe some information. We can get to the text. So maybe we can make a change next week. Okay.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49765-30. And, Stu, do you want me to ask Linda's question? Oh, yeah. She's interested in her rubber tires. And Linda is a big part of our international sunrise. And she, well, she listens to the show every single Saturday. she is a follower. So, anyway, Nancy,

ask them about the protection of the rubber tires when lightning strikes the car or nearby. Protection? Yeah, she's referring to Doug's question. She wanted to know if you're safe in the car because you have rubber tires. Well, folks, lightning is a spark of electricity, basically, that is traveling from anywhere to 30,000 to 45,000,

feet through the air to hit your car. Is that you? I'm sorry. I do it's all. That couple inches of rubber. I think she's interested in her own protection. That couple inches of rubber is doing nothing to protect you. It's the metal around you.

And it's water covered in water. The metal of your car, that metal cage, is creating what's called a Faraday cage effect. And it protects you from the lightning. So don't worry about the rubber. It's the car that's protecting you. And the best advice, though, is don't be out in an electrical storm, be inside your house, where it's safe, inside a building. Cars are better than nothing, but not the best solution. Especially very wet tires.

Okay, Linda. I hope that we answered your question. And folks, this is an exciting show. This is the reason why it's called Live. So, to all of our callers, to all of our listeners, Be patient with us. We're still trying to fine-tune the new studio and give us a call at 877-9-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60, and don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We love hearing from you, and you are totally protected 100%.

your anonymous feedback.com we also on the second half of the show have our mystery shopping report coming up mystery shopping report is from Florida fine cars all of that and Muir more and you can even get some sound effects from the recovering car dealer

okay any more text yeah we have a lot of text I was just thinking about lighting hitting my car and there's other issues than just surviving it's surviving the terror that will go through you and actually I mean it can set off airbags like that happened to Dugs and that could be

very unsafe if you're driving if you got a hit on the turn bike it could be it could turn into an accident all right so we have a text from wow we're getting them all over the country today from Washington State this is from Max Max says I bought a 2018 Rav4 for my older parents and registered under mine in his dad's name

then they got to an accident and it's not their fault the insurance is paying for fixing it and the estimates around 12 thousand dollars. His question for Earl is, is the car losing value now? Is the, will the accident be on Carfax? And if so, should he try to get from the insurance? And he's referring to diminished value. Exactly. Take it away. Yeah, exactly. And it's one of the dirty little secrets insurance companies don't like to talk about because they are liable for this diminished value. And simply this, you have a car that's in an accident. $12,000 is a pretty serious accident.

and you fix the car perfectly. Okay, you take it to the best pot of shop in town and you fix it perfectly. Can't even tell the car's been in an accident. It's perfectly safe. But as you said, it's on the Carfax Report. You have that car on a used car lot alongside of another car identical to it.

One has been in the accident, yours. The other one has not. The one that has not been in the accident is worth considerably more. Two or three thousand dollars. Therefore, your insurance company should compensate you for that. In addition to the cost of fixing the car, they should add the diminished value, which can be

$2,000 or $3,000. They won't want to do it, and sometimes you have to call an attorney. With our dealership, we use Gordon. It used to be Gordon Donner. Now it's Donner, or is it Gordon? I think they had a falling out. They had a falling out. But call an attorney.

I don't know. Call an attorney if your insurance company gives you a hard time, and they will compensate you. They usually, once you call their hand, they will pay out. They don't advertise it. to ask about it. Exactly. Or demand it. I'm not sure if we answered this one already.

It was for Rick. Was it about the piston ring problem? Did you hear about that one? Nope. Okay, here we go. For Rick, is Toyota covering up the piston ring problems in their Toyota is claiming there's nothing wrong with excessive burning of oil? And they set a link to, I guess it's a forum that discusses the problems.

My personal opinion, I don't know as they're covering it up, so much is ignoring it. And that situation is that a lot of our Toyota engines, as they're getting older, they are burning quite a bit of oil. And it a call, kind of a recall, where we brought them in under an extended warranty and replaced piston rings and cleaned up the engine. But a lot of other models, they're ignoring it. So, in my opinion, it's on Toyota and they need to step up in that case. I thought what the question referred to was the fact of the variability between oil consumption of the exact same year-make model car. And cars are manufactured, come off the same assembly line, will have different tolerances in the pistons and the cylinders. And sometimes you can have the exact same car will burn five or ten times as much oil as the other car.

And it's within the specifications that the manufacturer issues. Well, that's very true. problem is, they're offering a specification that is so broad. Toyota is basically going back to the days of the 1930s where they said you had to check your oil at every time you filled up your car. And if you go back to, say, the mid-90s, our cars didn't burn oil. They really didn't. Toyota engines, you didn't need to worry about checking the oil because you knew it was full

because they didn't burn oil. And modern cars now, for some reason, a lot of the models, of Toyota engines are burning oil and they say up to one quart per thousand miles. This is true of all cars. All cars and I think all the manufacturers are a little careless about their tolerances and they should test these cars and have a narrow, tighter tolerance. They have such a wide tolerance that some cars are just on the verge of being dangerous in the sense that you could run out of oil before scheduled maintenance.

And if you're burning a cord of oil every month and you're supposed to have your car service every 10 months, then you're going to burn out all your oil before you are scheduled for a maintenance. And this can happen within the accepted tolerances of many cars. We see it because we're Toyota dealers, but it happens with other cars too. Something, again, that the government should look into. I know a lot of you folks out there in the audience say government interference is a bad thing. I agree that government affairs can be a bad thing, but I think there are certain things that are so important. Yeah, you need a balance.

And a manufacturer should not be able to manufacture a car with the tolerance on oil consumption so great that you can burn your engine up and still adhere to the manufacturers recommend the maintenance. I agree. Next. The next one, this is came on our anonymous feedback, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We had a few that came in that were compliments for our dealership. I'm not going to read those because we want to make it a commercial, but thank you for sending those in. This says, good morning. Why can't I get the wheels of a 19 Camry XLE on a 19 Camry L.E?

It's the same model, just a different trim level, not a different model like the Avalon. Thank you. I don't know. Well, they ship them that way. That's one thing. I do know that some dealers could offer to swap the wheels out for the XLE to an Ellie, but then the problem is they have an XLE with the wheels of an Ellie on it, and that would be very hard to sell. Most customers probably wouldn't

want that. If you're going to buy an XLE, you're going to want XLA wheels. There is another issue there, which is if you were to order these wheels separately, they're a lot more. They're very expensive, so it's almost cost prohibitive to do it that way. So I really don't have a good answer for you other than they don't offer them that way. Wheels are, they've become a styling, cosmetic kind of thing, and people want to cool wheels. Wheels also have a very important role, as you know, and they have to... That's the understatement of there. They have to be compatible with the car or the truck.

And if you put the wrong wheel on the wrong vehicle, you can run into problems with alignment and vibration and things of this nature. So my rule of thumb for everybody out there buying a vehicle, stick with the wheels that are designed for that particular model car you bought. Even though another wheel might fit your vehicle, you're asking for trouble. Even custom wheels off that are not even factory wheels. Rick? I agree totally.

Well, we've got several YouTube questions here. Comas from Texas is asking, he has a 12 Mazda 3, 2012. And he says he went to his dealership, and they were recommending cleaning the battery for corrosion and trying to sell them an injector flush and I believe an AC refresh, she says, well, most of that's just pure fluff. However, the battery corrosion issue is a very real thing. And yes, that should cost you up to about $30 to $35 to have that battery cleaned up and have some protective spray put on the terminals. Let me jump in there for a second. You're supposed to bring your current every six months. Typically, I'm not sure.

with the Mazda is, but probably every six months. About the same, yeah. And dealers typically, or independent repair shops, typically do an inspection on a car. Sometimes they do courtesy things for you, too. If a person had his terminals on his battery check every six months, it would be highly unlikely that it would be severely corroded if you wiped it off and kept it clean every six months, right?

That's very true. So find yourself a service department or a dealer that will take care of your battery terminal, wiping them off such that they never become so encrusted is to create a problem with your car starting. Absolutely. And if you happen to be a do-it-your-sulfur type, a simple spray bottle with plain old water,

spray a whole bunch of water on those terminals, and you'll see that corrosion just melt away, and for a couple dollars at your local auto parts store, you can get a can of protective spray, let the battery dry down, spray that on the terminals and you'll be fine. Yeah, I wouldn't take my car to a dealer or an independent mechanic that didn't wipe my terminals off for them, or spray them, as Rick says, to keep them clean.

Because if you let them go too long, they become encrusted, and then you have to pay a lot of money, what did you say, about 20 bucks? $30, $35 really to clean it up and protect it. And you shouldn't have to pay anything if you wipe them off every six months. Yep. Okay. Okay. Kit Kat is asking, how do you find if a dealer has registered,

a car as a demo? Well, that's a good question. There's no governmental agency that'll show you that unless he reports it that way when he sells it. It's up to him to do that. You'd have to trust a dealer and you could ask for confirmation to see

when he notified his manufacturer. To register it as a demonstrator, they register it not with the state but with the manufacturer. The manufacturer will know that the mileage that accumulated on that demonstrator can be transferred to the new car warranty so you don't get gigs too yeah the other thing I would insist on if I was

considering buying a demo and first of all like Earl said you got to make sure it's officially registered so it doesn't impact your warranty is that you better get a really really good discount on that car so not to get into accounting but dealers who have demos the for the length of the time that they're being driven driven as a demo they're writing that down they're lowering the cost of that as an expense month the month so they're actual their cost of that vehicle goes down over time So you should be able to get that vehicle lower than any other new car sitting on their lot.

Not just a regular discount. I'm talking going on to Costco, go to True Car, and then expect a hefty discount below that. Yeah, I'll tell you what might work for you too. Rather than start out with a demonstrator, start out with an identical vehicle that's brand new. And negotiate, if you feel like you're going to negotiate or do Costco or True Car, or whatever means you do competitive bids. but when you end up with the lowest price you can get on that new vehicle

then you can use the old switch you switch the dealer say okay I don't think I want to buy a new vehicle this demonstrator over here is identical but it's got 6,000 miles on it how much further will you discount it yeah when you're when you have a car with 6,000 miles on it the

the market value that is now governed by used car book values you can't even look at it as a new car anymore it hasn't been titled so it's technically new you might want to look at Kelly Bluebook can see what a used car with the same miles might be going for. Very good. Okay.

Another text, no YouTube? We do. Patrick is asking, what's our opinion on K&N oil-type filters, air filters, versus the original equipment manufacturer paper filters? Right. And that one I'll handle. K&N filters do seem to improve the airflow a little bit in the engine, but they, to my opinion, they really don't make that big of a difference like in your fuel economy or the power of the engine really on most passenger cars.

Not enough that you're really going to notice a difference. The biggest difference really is instead of spending $30 every six months to replace that paper air filter, you're going to spend $30 to $50 each month and several hours of time cleaning that K&N filter and re-oiling it properly. And remember, if you get too much of that oil in there, it can damage components in the engine. So you have to be very careful to follow K&N's recommendations on how to apply the oil to that filter. And it can take a couple hours to do that job properly. I will say this. I just went to Amazon, look at K&N oil filters, and they have extremely high ratings.

Four and a half stars, almost every K&N Amazon Choice, $11.97 for oil filter, K&N, 228 reviews. That's very high. And it sounds to me like they make a very good oil filter. Well, it's the air filter, but yeah, they... Oil filters and air filters. I was looking at the oil, I'm sorry. Oh, the oil filter.

Now, that's another story. I would have no... If I didn't want to buy factory oil filters, I'd have no problems with buying a K&N oil filter. I got you. But it's the air filter because of the difference in cleaning it and not replacing it versus replacing a paper filter. Okay, this one is from Philip, and this is from last week, I apologize.

And folks, I hope you're still trying to get through on the lines and haven't given up at 877-9-60-9960. And this question, this is for Rick. I know you're a Toyota technician and therefore bias. But what car or truck would you buy if you couldn't buy a Toyota? Hmm. If you were telling me that I had to purchase a new vehicle, a brand new one? Yes.

I would probably look at a Honda and most likely a ridge line because I like the pickup style. But I think Honda makes a fantastic product. They don't have as wider range. What about Nissan? Nissan, I'd be able to live. I've never been really impressed with their quality, but push-gum to shove a small Nissan sedan. If you had to buy a domestic, would you buy a Ford or a RAM or a Chevrolet?

Domestic, although I hate to say it, I'd be in a Ford F-150. And my only real issue at Ford's is that working on them through the years, it always seems like if you want to work on a Ford, you've got to have every tool out of your toolbox because none of their bolts are the same size throughout the vehicle. It's like they've got every single size bolt that they could find to put on that car. Are they aluminum now? I mean aluminum bonding?

Some of them, yeah. But Ford, in my opinion, the F-150 is an animal that has stood the test of time and that's one quality pickup truck. I've got to say they... Number one-selling vehicle in the world, is it? Their pickups are just outrageous. Well, there you go, Philip. Good luck with your next purchase

and send us a text and keep us informed as what you chose. Okay, and Rudy tried to get through. I guess he didn't make it. 877-960. I'm not suggesting you call that number because our switchboard is pretty much bulletproof. You can't get through the switchboard.

877-960960. Did one of us, maybe one of us should try to call and see what happens. I'm just curious why nobody can call our radio show. We're doing well with text. Thank you for being patient with us. You callers who tried and struck out. I think we had one make it through, or did we get two?

We had a few, I think. We had Chris, we had Tina. And Doug. We lost Howard. We lost Tolio. That's right. Okay, that's right. We got some texts.

Seems like nobody got through, but let's go to the text. Yeah, it's a very frustrating situation. Fran and West Palm Beach says, Hi, Earl, Nancy, Stu, and Rick. first time texter. Been listening to your show for a while. Thanks for being such caring consumer advocates. Question. Do credit unions who have the service of having someone do the haggling for the customer really get a better deal than if they haggle themselves? Also, is it better to have your car serviced and painted in order to get the best price when selling

or trading it in? Thank you. And that's from Fran. Some credit unions actually do negotiate for their members. I think that's great. Not many do. more than they just provide the loan but yes I think that if you have a credit union that would call on your behalf a car dealer would be far less likely to flim flam a credit union

because they represent a large base of potential customers and if you flim flam a credit union you lose a bunch of customers all at once and I'd love if you could text us back I'd love to know which credit union you deal with but I think that's a great idea and then credit unions out there

they're listening. You ought to consider that service for your members. It's really, it would be a valuable service. In the past, with my dealerships, I've had more than one. We have had credit unions that used to negotiate for their members. And when the credit union got on the phone, we paid attention. We really tried to take good care of their member and give them a good price. Try and avoid mistakes at all costs. Exactly. Okay. Here's a good one. Don't you feel superior, Earl. You get on the radio and throw darts at your competitors for your own benefit. How convenient you make it by claiming to be recovering. You're in it to make money. That's it. We finally got a car dealer. Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, the funny thing is we do make money.

And it does have, I have a dual role here. I inform, I educate, I help people buy cars whether they're taking advantage of. And at the same time, people realize that because I'm an honest person and I don't do the things that I accuse people of, and the fact that I admit that I used to do those things, and I am a recovering car dealer for that reason, it does benefit my business. So I plead guilty, yes, I am successful.

And part of it has to do with the fact that I am honest. Yeah, that's what happens when you're just so good. It is. You can't help it. Hey, yeah, you caught him. Okay, the next one. Oh, wow, we got some... Excuse me, Sto.

Yeah. We have Todd. Hey, Todd. On the line, and he's calling from North Palm Beach. Good morning. You there, Tom? Yeah, I had no trouble at all. Hey, fantastic.

Thank you. I don't know what's going on, but maybe I just had the magic touch. There you go. What's on your mind, Todd? I was calling because... Well, I want to... to get a Takata airbag update, my sister has a Mustang, which apparently was on the list, and has been waiting and has had no updates for some time now, and I think somebody dropped the ball.

You have a vehicle that has a... Ford Mustang. You have a Ford Mustang that does have a recall, are you saying? Yes. And was there an inflator available, a fix available for that Mustang? It was on the list, and she contacted the... Ford dealer on North Lake and they said, well, good, we have you in the system, we'll let you know. Oh, I see. So they did not have the fix. The best way to do it would just be go to

safercar.gov, S-A-F-E-R-C-R-G-O-V. We can probably, if you had the VIN and you could text us, we could do that for you. But safercar.gov is the NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Association website and they will tell you if a fix is is available for any VIN, and if one is available for your Mustang. The car dealer, that would be Molinex on North Lake Boulevard, should have called you, and if they haven't called you, it could be because they're remiss, or there isn't a fix available. But we can check that for you with your VIN.

Stu? I was going to say, and if you like Morgan Freeman, you can go to Safeairbags.com and check your VIN there, but also get to see a video with Morgan Freeman. Yes. So, you know, he's almost, is the icon that Earl Stewart is. Right. He's working on it.

Oh, thank you. Well, Todd, as I say, Texas Advent, we'll check that for you. All right. I don't have it today, but maybe it's later in the week. What year Mustang is it? I believe it

isn't 09. Oh, 9. Yeah, we can check on 09s and see if there are any 09s that are unavailable in that are unavailable on the Takata and we can let you know that so stay tuned I sure will thank you dog appreciate the call had an opportunity to come back to have to pick up a

friend of mine who was dropping his car off for service and I cannot tell you how impressed I was with the amazing new facility it's almost an amusement park thanks thank you thank you Todd have a great day give us a call again 609960. Obviously, the phones are working. And you can text us at 772-497-6530. Jonathan, is Julio giving us a call back, or is that an old message? Okay, we're going to go back to Stu. Okay, we have a follow-up from Fran and West Palm, who told us about the, who asked him about the credit union. She said the credit union that negotiates is Guardians

Credit Union, which used to be Palm Beach County Credit Union. So thanks for the follow-up. Guardians Credit Union. So all Palm Beach County employees have an advocate in the credit union that will go to the car dealer and say, what is the price and so on and so forth. That's great. There you go. That's great.

All right. Here's another good one. My son said he was listening to your show a few months ago and said that you recommended using a potato to defog your windows. I tried this and made a mess of my windshield. please investigate the efficacy of your old wives' tails before promoting them on your show. And I have to issue a correction. It wasn't to defog them.

It was to prevent, it was like a rainneck solution on the windshield. And we did not recommend it. Or did you use a raw potato or were they fried or mashed potatoes? If you could follow up and let us know, if you cook the potato first, that is a big no-no. Actually, folks, I did do that experiment. I tested it on my own pickup. And, no, it, it didn't work.

And I even tried it three different times with three different breeds of potato. I tried an Idaho russet, a golden potato, and a Maine potato. And unfortunately, none of the three would do or anything except just kind of smear things. They did seem to keep the rain off, but it left a lot of smear marks. And he just sent a text in. He said he used mashed potatoes from KFC. Ah, well, there's that, yeah, bad idea, bad, bad. Can't go wrong with that one.

I sure do. I think we have Dan on the line. Is that right, Thomas, then? Okay, good morning, Dan, from Jupiter. What can we do for you? Good morning, can you hear me, Nancy? Yes, I can hear you now. All right, I finally got through.

I tried three times, hung up, disconnected twice. Oh, man, so sorry. Thanks for that info, Dan. And thanks for your patience. Yeah. my question is we can't get through the show without an airbag question what is the length of time for an airbag to be liable to last not have something wrong with it in the heat

and the temperature of this thousand degrees in Florida well the there's two factors that really affect the degradation of the accelerant in the airbags one is time and the other is heat and humidity so in South Florida We have the worst, we have the combination of the heat and humidity. And they're saying six to seven years is when it starts to really reach that peak. Is that correct, Rick? Yes.

And the reason of that is, it's in a black car. It's in the sun most of the time, and it did for the first four. It's in 2007, and only has 60,000 miles on it. It was in the sun on the beach. We're like the first few years. And the paint is faded, but I only got 60,000. I was wondering about the airbags. Have you checked your VIN number to see if it is effective?

Yes, and I run through Safergov.org. And it's not on the list. Okay. And I was just concerned with the amount of eight, you know, the time and the heat in Florida. I think the problem is the ammonium nitrate is the accelerant. And apparently, your vehicle's airbag inflator, does not use ammonium nitrate, which case it is not a danger because of the heat and humidity. the Takata Airbag did have the

Monium nitrate which degrades over time with heat and humidity Yeah, this is in a Chrysler Yes, well you're fortunate you don't have a Takada airbag Okay, I just wanted to verify that to be safe I don't blame you for being nervous You're exactly right and I'm glad you did check But I've never

You went to safercar.gov in which case That's pretty reliable source in HTSA if it's not on the list, then you're safe. Right. Earl, can I ask you one more question? Oh, please, yeah, sure. You know what you, you know about the 1939 Pontiac Ghost car. Ghost car? I don't think so. A silver ghost?

Like a goat. Oh, the Goat 39 World's Fair. Okay. I don't, I don't remember that. No, but when you said goat, I thought you meant G-T-O. No, ghost. G-O-S-T. G-O-S-T. No, I don't. I don't. I'm not. familiar with that. And it's a Pontiac, and it started, they started production of this thing. The reason they called a

ghost car, we're making it out of Plexiglass, and it's all original, a perfectly run in car. Wow. That is amazing. I can't believe I didn't know that. Yeah, I just looked it up. You'll really be amazed, because you're a Pontiac dealer, and I like Pontiacs.

The best car ever had was a 1949 straight-eight Pontiac convertible. Amazing. This is really cool. Yeah. Yeah, we have a 1937 Pontiac that's fully restored, and it looks exactly like this, except for we can't see through ours.

I wonder. I asked you about it. If you want to look at it, take it. Where is the car now, I wonder? It sold in 2011 for 1 million.1. The name of the buyer. That is amazing. I'll have to Google that,

and we might want to put that on the, the showroom, maybe next to the 1937 Boniang, we'll try to get a big picture of that. Yeah, this is crazy. I can't believe my father never told me about that, or he might have told me about it, and I didn't register. But thank you so much. I learned something new. I've been street rod builders, antique dealers, as a matter of fact, that he's 75 years old,

and he just bought a 1937 Chevy Cooper, Matt with him, but just bought a 1931 Model A. I'll be right. Buy sells them and restores them from a frame up at 75 years old. Fantastic. I'll tell you what. Well, it's nice to have us old guys do something notable like that. And I really appreciate your call, and I thank you so much for telling me about the ghost car. We're going to get... Enjoy your show. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Check your phone. I just sent you a picture. Give us a call again. Hey, folks, hang on to your hats. Hang on to your hats. We have Stephen from Bali calling us right now. I mean Bali from the other side of the globe? Are you really talking from Bally, Stephen Chimelda? Bally, hi.

Yes, I am. Oh, wow, how exciting, Steven. A new long-distance record for a caller. Stephen Chimelda, who has a wellness center in Bali, and he's a member of the International Sunrise Club, and every morning he's out there. Thank you so much. I am honored that you would make that call.

Yeah, I've got to pick myself up off the floor. Good. Well, I'm glad. You didn't really have to get off with the floor. I noticed that there was problems with the phone, so we had our Bali gods over here cleared the lines for you. And I just... I was watching the Internet here.

You know, it's 9.17 p.m. here, so we're exactly on the other side of the globe. Nice. And I want to let you know that we've been buying cars from this young Earl Stewart since 1970 my first one was

1973, 1974. Wow. And I think that I don't know was when you started in the Lake Park

location because I think you had a one southern from there but my family my father has three brothers

and we all bought from you until I decided at 18 that I needed a Transam we were getting all of our

cars there and I'm very very pleased that you've been so successful and so outspoken about the right way to buy a car. In Singapore, you know, that the cars are so expensive. You do know that I'm visiting South Florida back again next month. Oh, good. And I heard that you had a super that you were going to allow, you know, somebody to drive around while you were there or something.

Is that still available? Yeah, we have one super on the showroom floor. That's a limited edition, 2020, and we're getting like one a month, but we would certainly make it available to you to drive when you come in. Oh, my God, you're blowing me over now. I was just kidding, but I look forward to seeing you. I'll be there probably in one lunar month. That's how we gauge things here in Bali by the moons. So around the 12th or so of September, I should be there just for a retreat. so I'm just trying to get five days out and wanted to just to reach out and say hi

I can finally talk to you in person. How nice. Stephen, I'll let me, can I ask you one more question? What cars are being driven in Bali when you look out on the street and go? Toyota. Toyas is really. I mean, I'm good.

There are so many Toyota silver vans here. Wow, very interesting. That you have to look at the license plate because there's a few others, but they're scattered, and there's so few of them. I'll take pictures down the street because you'll see 20 cars, and 18 of them are going to be Toyota Silver Vans. Wow. Well, I hope that volcano stays quiet, because I know it's been giving you some troubles there,

and stay away from the lava. It all goes together here. Like I said, the whole island of Bali is about the size of Palm Beach County, Yet it's very, very exciting to live here, and we'll look forward to seeing you. I know it's a long trip, but I think Air France has a La Premiere edition that you guys might like. We'd love to. Otherwise, I'll look forward to watching your shows for the sunrises, and like I said, that's the beach that I adore so much. So I really can't tell you how much, how wonderful that makes me feel to watch the show every day.

Oh, thank you. And continued more success with your... I hope everybody catches the Earl Stewart truthness kind of thing where they can be honest and they can do business in a way so that people don't get scam. Thank you very much. My pleasure, give yourself a big hug, and I'll see in about a month. Sounds good, Steven.

Thank you, Stephen. Bye-bye. How exciting. What a great connection. Bye-bye now. Clear is a bell. I could hear Steve clear than I could hear the guys in West Palm. Yeah, it's funny that here we are having a problem

of the phones, and all of a sudden, and Stephen, by the way, in case you're wondering, he really is in Bali, because we track him around. He's in Manila. He's in Paris. He's in Vancouver. He's an amazing guy. And he has wellness centers around the world, and he provides free wellness care to all

the Bali citizens. So if you're a citizen of Bali, you can use his wellness center for rejuvenation and all the other things to go with that. You can take advantage of it. Yeah, he'll be right here in Florida. Yeah. And that helps us keep things in perspective. When we're complaining about technology,

and we realize there's a guy instantly speaking to us from the other side of the globe. Exactly. It reminds me of a, there was a comedian, I won't mention the name because he's controversial, but he says, for all the people who are complaining about not being able to connect a Wi-fly on a plane, just remember this. You're sitting on a chair in the sky. I appreciate, you know, what we got. I know the one you're talking about.

Hey, we're going to go to North Carolina, and that is Rod. Rod's calling us. Good morning. Hey, Rod. Good morning, oh, good morning, Mr. Earl. Good morning, young lady. Good morning. Rod, the old crash dummy. I heard on TV that they've got the things going with Morgan Freeman up here

talking about the airbag problem that you can get for free. Oh, yeah. Get it fixed. That's right. I've first time I've seen it on, seen it, the ads on TV, Morgan Freeman. Isn't it amazing? Hopefully people start paying attention. Way long overdue.

Yeah, that's a pretty, I would say that is the highest profile effort that's been made. Well, hoping he'll get the politicians attention. I can, but Morgan Freeman is a pretty charismatic guy. He's played the president a couple of times. Exactly. Yeah. He's hoping. Here's hoping, here's hoping that it goes on.

So hope all's well down there. It is, Ron. And it's nice and cloudy this morning. It's about 65 right now. That's nice. Oh, how nice. I'm jealous. Really?

Well, Ron, thank you so much. I miss the show. I miss the show and good day to all. Thanks, Rod. Take care. Bye for now. How nice to take that moment and give us a call. How nice.

We have such. great listeners, callers, and as I always say, you guys really make the show. We've got a lot of texts and YouTube's waiting there. And we want to thank all of you, and we want to thank you for your patience with the phones. Give us a call toll free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We're going to go to Rick. He's got a lot of little lines on his tablet. I do.

Ernesto is asking he's got actually two questions the first one is the difference in price between the Camry LE and XLE worth it for the technical differences, the technical

products that have changed between those two models I would say so but I'll defer to my son who is active in the business and you're going to have to repeat the question is the LE and the XLE and the XLE Camry

is one more valuable than the other in terms of the standard features on the XLE? I think it definitely is when you're looking at a used car of value and you're booking it out. That's what we call it in the industry. You start adding all the features that were available in that car. And the more high-end sort of things like leather and fancier wheels and entertainment options

increases the value of the car. So at the end of the day, you go to trade in a car five years down the road, say, and you're looking at an XLE versus an L.E., The LE is going to be worth more. You know, a good way to get the exact read on that would be to look at the residual value of those two vehicles on a lease. To take a 36-month lease on an LE, 36 months on an XLE, and see what the residual is. The residual is pretty high. Around 60%.

Yeah, that's what we're seeing on new vehicles now. But it's also important, and you brought this up last week, is that manufacturers will enhance the residual value to help lower the payments on the lease. So you might see a vehicle that's artificially higher than really what it is. But it would still give you the relative measurement. Not necessarily. They might be promoting, for example, and I'll just speak for Toyota. Toyota is promoting LEases right now. And so they're going to enhance the LEA, but they're not necessarily enhancing the XLE lease.

Good point. Yeah. Okay. We've got a YouTube over here. Ernesto also asked, he says, I saw a new, new 16, 2016, Buick Cascade for sale. at the price of used at a dealership and wondered how can a new 16 still be on the lot? Well, they're not doing a good job at selling their cars.

Yeah, it is frightening to me as a dealer when I see how long some car dealers keep their vehicles in inventory. And as too said, if you're not a busy dealer, you're not selling a lot of vehicles. Sometimes those new vehicles sit around for a long time. They have to be very, you know, you have to be very stoo. That's a good way to go broke. They might be selling a lot. They might be selling a lot of vehicles, but they're not doing a good job managing their inventory.

This car could be parked on a lot. It could be hidden in the back. Nobody's paying attention to it. And then before you know it, it has a birthday, maybe a second birthday. And that's not a good way to run your business. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Next, we've got Wayne.

He says, I remember once taking a test drive on a new car and the speedometer and odometer were not registering. I don't remember where that happened. But that sounds like a pretty illegal thing to me. Yeah, I don't even think it's possible now to... Can you disconnect a odominer on a modern car? Not on the new modern ones. If you disconnect it, it's going to throw a bunch of warning lights.

Back in the day, it was common practice. You know, I've been in the business since 1968, and you go back in those days, the dealers would disconnect their odometer on all their demonstrators and disconnect their odomers on the company cars and drive them and then when they're ready to sell them, they reconnect them and there was that brand new car. Couldn't quite figure out what the tires were worn.

But it still said zero miles on the odometer. But today is highly unusual. I suppose there are some cars out there that I don't know about that can be disconnected, but I wouldn't buy that car. Yeah. Oh, and we've got Don asking, is there a place on the internet to see photos or diagrams where the underbody splash guards are supposed to be located on a 2012 Camry? And I believe he's referring back to where we were talking about going through puddles and the guards to keep water from getting in the engine. Google images for that, and you'll also find YouTube videos that will show you where those shields are supposed to go.

So it'll give you a pretty good picture and idea of how good the protection is underneath that car. I love Google. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. My only problem with Google is I just have been around so long without Google. My mind doesn't automatically think to Google. So I'm getting better and better. Here's a typical conversation between you and me. Exactly.

I mean, and Nancy and I and everybody, why should anybody ask anybody else a question? Ask Google. Let's stop talking. Yeah, stop talking. I mean, just talk to Google. Earl will call me up and ask me a question. I'm like, I don't know, did you Google it? And you're like, damn it.

Okay, what else? More text? The last one I have here is from TJ asking, how long will chip keys last? In other words, the immobilizer chip, I have a 1999 Avalon with 27,000 miles. They're plastic, they will last forever. Just kidding. That's actually pretty true. The immobilizer chip that communicates with your car,

that's located in your key, doesn't use a battery. It simply reflects the signal back with a code. So technically, that key can last forever. The only part that's going to eventually wear down is the metal part of the key from turning in the ignition solar. So that lady in California that put the chip in her arm isn't going to have to have the chip replaced forever. It's there forever.

Her Tesla won't be there forever. And what if she buys another car? Another Tesla. Then she can open the door. on whoever buys a car. A future archaeologist is going to find that chip. Okay. How many chips is she going to have in her arms?

Whoa. Okay. More text? Yes, we do. Steve in New Jersey text us again. He says, I own a Subaru, which I bought new several years ago. I religiously take care of my cars. In my opinion, the Subaru's paint and sheet metal are inferior.

My paint is easily scratched, and it looks like only one thin coat of paint has been applied. And the fender and the door metal easily bends. my Lexus has none of these issues. In your opinion, which manufacturers have the best paint jobs in the thickest door and fender panels? I'm going to defer to you, but I can say that I do know that on all cars, you're going to get a thicker coat of paint on the leading edges, on the front of the hood, on the fenders, and then on the sides that get less road debris, things like that. There'll be thinner paint, and they do it as a cost-controlling measure. So I'm going to go on a limb before I turn it over to you and say,

luxury cars are probably going to have better paint. They're less concerned with having a lower price point, so they might spend a little bit more money during the manufacturing process on paint. I would agree, and I think that Subaru is a very, very good vehicle for the money. And I'd say pound

for pound, it's probably as good as Alexis, but it's a smaller vehicle, and Alexis is a great vehicle, it's much more expensive, but for the dollar invested, the Subaru's a great car. Paint I'm not that familiar with, but as Stu said, Mercedes and Lexus and other luxury cars tend to have the super, super, I don't know if they put an extra coat on, but they probably use better paying.

I think like, yeah, Subaru, they're competing with Toyotas and Hondas, and they need a, and luxury cars, their customers might not be as focused on the price. Exactly. If you go to consumer reports, Subaru is right up there with Lexus in terms of quality, low maintenance, safety, and. and everything else. Okay. Okay, excuse me, Stu. We're going to go to Diane, and she is our first female, new female caller. Welcome to the show, Diane.

Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. How are you? Thank you. Thank you. Got a question? Yes, I do.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I have a Hyundai Sonata 2011, and I took to the Hyundai dealership where I bought it in Stewart, Florida, and for an oil change. And he told me that I needed a cabin filter, and it was about $50, and I declined, and he kind of talked me into it. He said, no, no, you definitely need this cabin filter.

And that had never happened to me before. Is this a common thing? And what is the cabin filter? Diane, how many, when you bought the vehicle, did you say it was 2011? Yes. And have you had it in for service regularly and had your cabin filter changed previously because you've had the car for eight years now? I'm not sure if I've ever had the cabin filter change. It doesn't ring the bell with me.

Yeah. Well, you should have had a change. The cabin filter is just something that keeps the air clean in the cockpit of your car, the cabin of your car, and it keeps the contaminants out. You probably should have a change. Rick Wood about every year. so? We usually recommend about every 30,000 miles on Toyota's. So that would be maybe every two years

I don't know how many miles you drive, but it's not a super terrible thing. It's not like an oil filter, which is going to cause problems. It's just not going to be as clean air you're breathing, and it's a good purpose for changing it, and if you haven't changed it before, it was an excellent idea that you change it. Which model was it again?

Sonata. Sonata. A 2011, yeah. I'm looking at it right now. It says, it's similar to Toyota. So through most of the maintenance visits, it says inspect it. On 30,000 miles, it says replace the cabin filter. So you're spot out. Well, that's good to know because every time I take my car in for an oil change,

they always find something to add the bill. And I just thought maybe this is another time. But if you're saying that it's a good idea, then okay. Well, Diane, we just paid for your caton filter because you're a first-time female caller. and we're going to send you a check. Nancy, we'll send you check for 50 bucks. Yeah, you know, that's... Oh, thank you so much.

That's great, Diane, that you called and shared that experience because there is probably about 50% of women who, you know, take their vehicles in to be serviced. And, you know, someone else probably wouldn't even have questioned that. And it's really great, you know, that you share that information with us in all the lady listeners right now. so congratulations well thank you

and thank you for taking my call oh you're welcome and if you stay on the line you can give Rudy your information contact information and I'll get the checkout to you okay thank you so much you have a good day

give us a call again Diane she's doing the right thing I will I definitely will thank you sir question everything and folks worse comes to worry if they want to sell you a filter like that say take me out to my car and show me that filter

and if it's dirty and nasty looking then say yeah and if not hey but don't ask them to bring it to you because they'll bring you an old dirty one that they've had sitting on a shelf for the past two years showing it to everybody ask them to show you the filter in your car they might somebody get me the filter

that really is a great point on you know a serious note we're getting near the mystery shopping report are we clean on text? I got two more I'll handle this one so when can I get a super this not $10,000 or $20,000 over a sticker price. Wait. That's all I can say is just wait.

It's going to cool off next year, maybe a few months. Next thing you know, they're going to be trying to give these things. And let me add that our used car person at our dealership sent me a photo snapshot of the Mannheim auction where 2020 new supers are going through wholesale dealers selling them to other dealers. and the spread on these cars over MSRP was about $20,000. $50,000 they were selling for, you know, as much as $20,000 and more over MSRP. So the dealers are actually buying and selling these cars. You can imagine if they buy a car at the auction for $20,000 over MSRP,

how much are they going to sell it to you for? So as Stu said, this will cool off two years from now. You're going to have a huge depreciation if they socked it to you on $20,000 over MSRP. I can tell you there's a dealer in Baltimore, Maryland, that's selling it just for MSRP because they try to sell it for $100,000 over, and then they got in trouble, so they reduced the price by $100,000. And we know that dealer. Yeah.

Okay. The last one is from our other YouTube channel, and it says it's from M Ave says, Hi, Hi, Team. A few months ago, I purchased a used car from Hertz, and I just realized that the bumper cover was repainted. The paint job is horrible, and it's peeling. but doesn't have any structure damage. I suspect they did the paint jobs themselves to cover up minor damage.

The question is, do car dealers perform their own horrible paint jobs to pull a fast one on their customers, and do I have a case against Hearst? And the answer to that is, yes, they do. Inferior of touch-up jobs are common on used car lots to properly paint a car. There's a lot of prep work. There's a lot of work involved,

and typically it's pretty expensive. Dealers on the used car lots will actually have vendors come out, and right there on the lot with a well it's not really spray paint but it's an air gun and they'll do touch up on bumpers and doors and things like that and it will wear off in a few

months to a couple of years. Yeah they do it as cheaply as possible and they don't even use their own body shops if they're dealers many times they use outside vendors because their own body shops do quality work and they charge too much money that's right and that catches us up with all our messages

on text and I've actually got one more less of if we can squeeze it in. Max is asking, when is the best time to do a trade in? After how many miles of years does the value go down on your car so much that it's not a good idea to trade? In other words, what is the optimum age of a car that you would want to use as a trade in? The optimum age on a car is as long as you can drive it.

The more mileage you can eat out of a car, and the more time you can use it, and be happy and safe with the car, you're economizing. The sooner you trade a car in, the more depreciation you're going to experience versus the usage you have out of the car. Typically, four or five years is about an average cycle. If you trade sooner than that, you're paying more depreciation. But buy a good car, maintain it according to the factory recommended schedules.

schedules. If you take care of the car and get a lot of use out of it, keep it for 10 years, 20 years, as long as you can. The only thing, only caveat there is there are a lot of safety factors and features that are relatively new over the past five years that you will not be able to enjoy with an older car. You're absolutely correct. The longer you drive it over time, the less your per year per month cost to own that vehicle was. But if you've got to get out of your car and you want to trade it. Take a look at when the next model redesign is going to come out because that will dramatically lower the value. So if you're ready to get out of your car, you might want to do it before the brand new one comes out. Well, if you've got a 20-year-old car, doesn't make it

different. Okay. How are we doing on text? We're caught up here on YouTube. Okay, I'm going to read. Let me mention real quick, and then we'll get to the mystery shopping report about an article that came out in the USA today. No, it was on Monday, August the 12th, and that's about ownership and purchasing new or used. And gosh, it has so much information on not only the cost of purchasing your vehicle, but maintaining it and what the advantage is in purchasing use, because when you drive your new car off the lot, it depreciates 20%. That is amazing.

So go to Consumer Report. You can get the rest of the information on that article. Okay, recovering car dealers. Mystery Shopping Report time Mystery Shop of Florida Fine Cars Before I get into the report I want to say something about Our shop before on CarMax

We took CarMax off the recommended list right Stu That's correct Let's put them back on Okay I think I got emotional And we all got emotional When CarMax I had a salesperson for CarMax That was deliberately misrepresenting

a sale of a car that had a Tocata Airbag recall without a fix available. And we all got so mad at CarMax, we took them off. As I speak, what I just spoke, I'm starting to get mad again about it, and I'm saying, I'm glad I took them off. But I had a call the other day from a customer that was, not a customer, from a listener that was going to buy a used car

and want to know where she should buy a used car and what's the best place. and I found myself saying CarMax and it is a good place because it's one price they have their lowest price on the vehicle their dealer fees are relatively low

they have honest their advertisers not deceptive there's not bait and switch involved there's so many good things about CarMax is a good place to buy a used car I just hate it that they're allowing their salespeople to misrepresent

dangerous recalls So with that said, we will jump into our mystery shopping report, which is about dangerous recalls. And it is for Florida Fine Cars in West Palm Beach. They're a high-volume independent, used car dealership that opens the stores in Hollywood, Florida, back in 1993. The West Palm Beach location on military trail began operating just a few years ago in the late 2015. Florida Fine Cars offers a similar business model to off-lease-owned. selling inexpensive used cars purchased on the cheap at auto auctions. They buy everything that goes across the block.

Many of their vehicles have accidents or other issues which lower their value. Fortifying cars passes along the savings of the customer. So in that sense, it's not a bad thing. A quick look at their online inventory revealed typical issues, accidents, branded titles, etc. What's the branded title? if a car has been a police car if the car has been totaled buyback lemon law

lemon law cars that have something in their history that you must know the government feels you must know when you buy the car they put it on the title that's called a brand

you should look at the title of any car you buy and that's on the car fax report too it's on the carfax report the very first one we looked at in their inventory had a branded title a lemon law buyback yeah

awfully only is very clear about how they're able to offer late model used cars in super low prices. In our previous mystery shops of fluorifying cars, we did not feel they were upfront about it. This will actually be our third investigation of fluorifying cars. The last time back in July 2017, they failed our Takata test on an unfixable airbag recall in a 2014 port Mustang. Now when we say they failed it, they didn't. they didn't reveal that fact. Can you imagine buying a car with a dangerous recall that can't be fixed?

I mean, if you buy a car with a dangerous recall and you know about it, you can take it to the dealership, manufacture of that car, and they'll fix it for no charge. Not a big deal. Well, it is somewhat of a deal because the seller should have done it for you, but you have the right to do that. The only danger you have is driving it from where you bought it to the manufacturer that

dealer that sold the car and had a fixed. But selling you a car that's unfixable, that's unconscionable, it should be illegal. And that's what happened with Florida fine cars. Last time we went there, it also happened with CarMax. A lot of car dealers are doing it, folks. It's very scary.

This time around, we quickly found a 2016 Mercedes E-400 with a no-fix to got to hear back. Rico. The inflator to fix this car is not available. We sent Agent Thunder in to check it out. I'll speak in the first person like I'm Agent Thunder. After verifying the Mercedes was available, I drove down to Florida to find cars to begin my mission. It's a pretty big place with almost

500 cars on a lot for sale. That's a lot of cars. It's a lot of used cars. Great selection. They have a huge modern showroom. You don't see that very much. with used car dealerships. It looks more like a franchise new car dealer so in a new car showroom than an independent used car lot. Very impressive. I was greeted immediately by Lewis.

Lewis asked me what brought me in and I told him I'd seen a 2016 E-400 Mercedes online for 24,999. That's a very good price for a Mercedes, right? I said if I liked it, I'd buy it today. Lewis asked me if I'd been shopping around anywhere else. And how I decided to try

Florida fine cars. I said I just come from off-lease only, and they had the same model, but it was about $600 more. Did we really do that? Yeah, and also, just a correction on there, that was a typo. It was $25.99. $25.99? Okay. Okay, so, and we actually checked off-lease, and theirs was $800 more. Interesting. They have a lot of Mercedes. Rick? Incidentally, their location

actually used to be the old Saturn dealership on military trail. That's why they have such a cool, nice looking to show. That's why they got such a big building, and I'm sure they just cleaned it up and really decorated inside and made it nice. We went outside and searched for the car. I gave him the stock number,

but he seemed to have trouble locating it anyway. Eventually, we found it. Lewis asked me to wait until they could get the keys. He wasn't going on for long. We went for a test drive. I never asked me for my driver's lessons, a little thing. That's a no-no.

for car dealers. You can get in trouble doing that. On the ride, Lewis told me about the Florida fine cars process. He called the place FFC. He said it was at one price, no haggle, no hassle dealership. He stressed that their prices were non-negotiable, but they were the lowest available. That's very good. This is a trend. It's a very slow trend, but it will happen eventually.

And most car dealers still the old-fashioned horse-rester. We drove back to Lott, talked about the car, walked around as Lewis pointed out of the styling and wheels. I opened the truck and the hood giving us a real good look over of everything. Lewis asked if I really wanted to buy it today? I said, absolutely I did. I was paying cash outright. I'd have to go run by my bank, pick out my check, come back, do the paperwork. Lewis suggested we go inside and write it up.

I said I wanted to see a full detail of the numbers, and to look at a Carfax report, Lewis said, no problem. I hope all of you know, if you're kind of bling buying a used car, two things you absolutely must do. Carfax report, carefully study it, carefully because the car dealer, going over the report, sometimes seems to forget about the recalls, also take it to an independent mechanic. Two things a must when you buy a used car. We went over the Carfax report. Lou showed me that it was a one owner. That's good. Then he pointed out that an accident had been reported,

but he stressed there was merely a side swipe that did not cause the airbags to deploy. I'll mention that sometimes the airbags don't deploy in pretty good hits. And you can have a $4,000, $6,000 hit, and the airbags will not deploy because of the angle of the hit. I'm surprised myself.

I'll see cars in my body shop that looked like they had a heck of a whack and the airbags don't deploy. So just because the airbags don't deploy and it doesn't mean it wasn't dangerous. And the Carfax report didn't indicate that it was minor. It did say a sideswhip airbags did not deploy but it didn't give any more information.

Yeah. You know, side swipes can be serious. He said it just needed a little paintwork and the car was saved. Needed a little paintwork. He tried to move on to the sill. figures, but I brought his attention back to the Carfax report. I asked him if the only issue was a minor accident. Lewis replied, yes, sir. Now, we know that there's a tecotta airbag because we checked it out. But Lewis, the salesperson at Florida fine guards, said that the only issue was the accident. Then I pointed to the recall and asked what the deal was with that. Lula said he missed it.

Kind of hard. We have a copy of the Carfax Report. It's pretty clear. In fact, it's even in red print when it's talking about the airbag recall. It's just not a pleasant thing to talk about. It's not a pleasant thing to talk about. He picked up the report to study it closer, then showed me an 800 number, and said that I just needed to call it to make arrangements to have the number repaired.

And I said, okay, seems easy enough. But what I knew, because I'd seen the Carfax Report, and I read it, it had it to cut airbag recall, and there was no fix available. You can call that number all you want. I just want to quote what it says here. It says, click here or call 1-800-da-da-da-da to locate an authorized Mercedes-Benz dealer near you to obtain more information about this recall. It doesn't say a word about having a fix. It says to get more information. Okay, Lewis returned to the buyer's order.

The price on the online price, added to the online price of $25,499. He added $899 for dealer prep and $597. That's huge. That's big for a use car dealer. That's a big one, yeah. I've only seen one bigger. That's Al Hendrickson with $999, I think. Yeah, down in Coconut Creek.

Coconut Creek. So if you add the $899 to the $5.99,000. you have $1,496 in hidden fees. I say hidden because it was not in the online price. That's the advertised price. Florida law says that you must include the dealer fee in the advertised price. So Florida fine cars broke the law.

I told them everything looked good because I'm, you know, this is what I know. I haven't really exposed him. I said everything looked fine and I'll be back with a bank check after I run by my bank. Here we are, folks. We're at voting time, and this is a huge failure. It's a failure that CarMax made before.

Off-lease only has made. These are large used car dealers. Florida fine cars is pretty large. Not as big as Off-Lease or Carfax. So how do we vote? The moral issue here is scary. Here we are talking about a car dealership like CarMax, like off-lease, that has salespeople telling customers that there is no issue with the dangerous recall,

to cut airbags typically. And they're saying that if they notice, and they usually don't mention it, but when our mystery shopper mentions the recall, they say, well you can get it fixed but you can't get it fixed because there's no fix available I just a few minutes I just a few minutes

excuse me Siri is talking to me Hi Siri is weighing with a grade Siri says I give them an F Yes Am I really activating every Siri unit in the studio We apologize

At any rate We have to give this a grade Text 8 you can call 777 what's my text number, 772, 497-6-5-30 for a vote. So we got them coming in. And I truly, I just reversed myself on CarMax and said, we're going to prove them. But CarMax last week lied to our shopper and said that they could buy the car with a recall to cut airbag and get it fixed. But if we take CarMax off the recommended list, where are you going to go to buy a used car?

Easy-pay cars and Stuart Or easy-own So here we are with that moral dilemma That's the word for it, a moral dilemma Let's hear some votes Okay, well we have a lot that came in On Facebook and on our text line Here we go

Aaron, a text gives them an F Olga is a text, gives them an F Linda on Facebook gives them a huge fat F, Bobby gives them an F, Sandy gives him an F. Rich gives him a big fail F. Sue on Facebook gives him an F. Ollie,

the cat, gives him an F, and Steve gives him an F. So that's it. That's the opinion from our listeners. Wow. I'm concurring. How about you, Ricky?

Any bunch? I've got Kit Kat with an F. Ernesto with an F. Mark with an F. And I agree. Failed. Overwhelming. We have a better grade here.

This is on YouTube. Mark and St. Louis gives him a D-minus with the Earl Stewart Curve, and Angel gives him an F. M. Avenue gives him an F-minus. So, wow, yeah, this is a... A lot of us. Thank you very much for all those votes. Rick's already given his personal vote.

Nancy, what do you say? Well, Lewis, Lewis. I just... I don't know what to say. Well, then again, maybe I do. Louis, www.W., it ain't going to happen.com. Stu? I'm giving them an F.

Also, Dusty just chimed in on the text line. It gives them an F. So I'm going with the popular opinion. How much time do we have? We have four minutes. Yeah, let me say something. I was talking to Rick earlier before the show started. When you pay people on commission, you are really baiting the tiger there.

And I think that a lot of restructuring needs to take place. You know, the regulators aren't going to help us. The legislators aren't going to help us. And we have car dealers out there paying their salespeople on commission. 25% of the profit. If they sell the car, they make money. If they don't sell the car, sometimes they just don't make enough money to live on or to take care of their family. So I think there's a huge blame on the owners of these companies

and the management of these companies by the way they incentivize the people that are selling these cars. That doesn't make it right for Lewis to lie to the mystery shopper, but I think it's a shared guilt, don't you? Don't you think that the dealers and the managers share the guilt with the salespeople because of the way they're paying their people? Absolutely.

I say that to all the dealers. listing and to the everybody out there whether and Rick and I were talking about mechanics and technicians they get paid on commission too so we sit here and we shout and scream and blame people for charging for radiator flushes and transmission flushes when they don't need it and the manufacturer I mean the dealer and the people that designed the bay plans are to blame just like the technicians that make something up to get paid off. So it's a lot of guilt going around.

I agree. I got to fail them. I might reverse myself next week like I did with CarMax. But CarMax is so widespread. Yeah. CarMax is really the best game in town to buy a used car. Yeah. I mean, we hate saying buyer beware, but you got to do, you have to be vigilant.

You got to check it out. So I think I agree with the Carmex, the good outweighs the bad. But you check that vent, make sure there's no recall on it, and then make sure you get accurate information on whether it's fixable or not. It's such a shame, too, because a good used car, a late-model-used car is a far better buy than a new car. And yet now, with a recall issue, it's getting scary to buy a used car. New car dealers cannot sell by law a car with a recall,

but used-car dealers can. It's absolutely stupid that that's the case, because most of the cars with recalls are used cars. And they're being sold like they're going out of style. So that's the way it is. That's your mystery shopping report from Florida Fine Cars. And ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank all of you, we all do here at Earl Stewart on Cars. Thank you for tuning in.

You are an important part of the show. And to Jonathan and Rudy, thank you so much for all your help. Everyone have a wonderful and safe weekend. We'll be right back here next Saturday. Vennon. Vendom. And go to. And go to.

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