Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.17.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Arrigo CDJR of West Palm Beach, FL.

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local CDJR dealer to see how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2024 RAM 2500 Pickup that was advertised online. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Hello, I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also, this is my son, Stu Stewart. our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. Almost all of us. My son, Stu, will be out today. But we've got the rest of the crew here. We got Nancy Stewart.

We got Rick Kearney and we got Jonathan Canter. Our producer, director, we have to come up with vice president of production. I think that would be good day for that. This is the live, here I am kind of a thing, and you heard the recorded introduction. We've got a lot of regular listeners out there, viewers all over the planet, literally. And I welcome the new folks. We've got to grow. It's all about growth.

The car dealers are growing, population is growing. we got to grow because our purpose or our purpose and we've been doing all these years is helping you buy a car for the lowest price you can without being taken advantage of hopefully choosing choosing the right car for yourself and dealing within an infrastructure of car dealerships and auto manufacturers that are dinosaurs I mean literally not much is changed with the way cars have been manufactured, distributed, and sold retail in the past 100 years. It's hard to believe, right? I mean, look at what else is changing so fast. You can't, you know, a day can't go by

when there's not something new, something that you're using that's obsolete. Change is just moving along at warp speed. Meanwhile, the car dealers and the auto manufacturers are frozen in time back in the day of Henry Ford. the day of Henry Ford. Interesting. I love to see a history book 100 years from now,

looking back on this era. This is the era, an exciting era, because this is an era when the car dealerships and the auto manufacturers, the whole concept of cars and transportation, everything is changing. I mean, bam, bam, bam. I mean, it's just going to happen so fast.

and your grandchildren are going to be running around in a fully autonomous vehicle. They'll be reading a Sunday paper. There I'm dating myself, there won't be any Sunday papers, but they'll be on their smartphone. And they will be going wherever they want to go. And it'll be perfectly safe. The autonomous driving will be perfectly safe.

All the vehicles when they get on are massive expressways, in 40 years, 30 years, I haven't got a crystal ball, but our grandchildren will be doing this, our great grandchildren maybe for me. And picture everybody getting on the turnpike or the expressway and all moving at exactly the same speed. Now, the biggest problem to me in Nancy, when we're driving somewhere,

is if we go to the speed limit, we're gonna get rear-ended. So if we're gonna be safe, we have to speed. And even when you're speeding, you're not safe because people are ziggin back in and these motorcyclists are weaving in and out of you. It's really dangerous out there. But you picture all the vehicles on the highways

going on the same speed. And then a vehicle would get off, another vehicle would get back on, and the entire, expressway would move simultaneously at the same speed. We would have virtually no accidents and the highway desk. That's what's coming. And the way cars are retailed, and this is what we do,

I'm talking about what I can't do anything about, autonomous driving and that thing, but what I can do something about is help you buy, or at least a car, or maintain, or repair your car. In the next few years that we'll be doing this, without being taken advantage. of and believe me you are being taken advantage of greatly we have a lot of people that are waiting to call the show be I before I get off on a rent because I

get excited about this show I love it I mean Nancy and I just we can't wait until next week when we do the show one of the high points of our of our lives we love it exciting talking and hearing from you you oh teach us every week probably more than we teach you. And we can't wait for your calls. That number is 877-960-9960. That's 877-9-60-960. Nancy Stewart, watching her laptop,

call comes in. If a call came in right now, she'd wave at me, and I would shut up, turn the mic over to her. We also have a text number, and we'd love to build up a little archive of text because Rick Kearney will get to those text before the end of the show and some people don't want to be live on radio or maybe you don't have time you know you're listening for five minutes ten minutes shoot us a text and we'll

answer it you can then go back and listen to the podcast and hear the answer to your text that text number is 772 4976530 text number is 772 4976530 text number is 772 4976530 I'm to give you another way you can get through to us, and that's anonymous feedback. I just gave Rick a few anonymous feedbacks that had come in recently. It's a link. www. Youranonymous feedback.com. Your anonymous feedback.com. And you sent us a message, the comment, the criticism, the praise. We'll take anything. You can say whatever you want. We don't know who you are. We can't find out who you are, your privacy is perfectly protected. This company called Incognito, if you're interested,

if you're a business person, or you'd like to have your own anonymously, go to incognito.com. That's, I-N-C-O-G, N-E-A-T-O, not spelled a little differently, incognito.com. And you can sign up for your own link. We do that at our dealerships, for our employees, and we do it for you, our radio listeners. We also have a Zoom, and you can appear on camera,

and if you have a Zoom account, our ID number is 926-589-0-586. Our Zoom ID number, if you'd like to contact us, and be seen, I've got a little laptop to my left, too. I can see you, wave at you, you can see me, wave at me. that Zoom meeting ID is 926-589-0586. Now, I'm going to turn this mic over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host. She co-founded this show with me 20 years ago.

She's been from the get-go, and we're just a little old show on Thursdays for a half an hour. Now, we're on Saturdays for two hours, and we're the most popular show at this time in this area. So we're very proud of how we've grown in Nancy is a big reason why we've been. grown because she's double our audience by bringing females in. We started out with just a bunch of old guys like me, and now we've got a female audience. Thanks to Nancy. Nancy, the mic is all yours. Thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars, if you just tuned in. I hope you were here for the beginning of the show when Earl said something telling, and that is nothing has changed. in a hundred years wow what a statement and that encourages us to stay on top of what we are trying to promote here and if you don't know what it is it's the federal trade commission's cars rule and week in and week out we talk about it weekend and week out we talk about it we talk about it We've been talking about it forever. And that is the dealers that are taking advantage of you, of everyone, in any way they can.

And the car's role is meant to crack down on bad dealership behavior. I'll say no more. Also, this morning we're going to get to, well, we have a whole lot to get to. You want to stay tuned for the mystery shopping report without a doubt. And I won't even mention the car dealer. You can stay tuned for that. It's a surprise. Also, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

$50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-99-60. Or you can text us at 772. 4976530. We would love to hear from you. As I always say, all of you out there make the show. You're a very important part of the show. And ladies, we're looking to build the audience, the platform here,

and we do that by offering you the $50 for the first two new lady callers. Also this morning, we have $100 for the first two Zoom callers. and you can give us a call on the meeting ID number if you have signed up with Zoom and that number is 926-589-0-5-86 so jot that number down 926-589 so jot that number down 926 589-0-586 would love to see you would love to hear from you on Zoom I think that, I don't know, what should, what do you think we should do? Should we go to Rick and let him maybe start the wheel turning as far as anonymous feedback, as far as? Well, you mentioned Rick.

I think that's a good idea. Well, I didn't mention Rick, which was a great oversight because he's the backbone of the show. We talk about cars, we talk about leasing, we talk about buying cars. fixing cars is really where it's at today and maintaining and repairing a car Rick gets more calls than anyone and he has a better following than anyone on the show he's a certified diagnostic master technician

he can diagnose your car online if you really want to get a good diagnosis you can send him an audio clip or a video clip on YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars, that's YouTube.com for slash Earl and Cars. Rick monitors that. And instead of going into a car dealership or an independent repair shop and getting taken advantage of, give Rick a call or Zoom in or, you know, we can text in any of the ways that you can get through the show for Rick Kearney. He can save you a ton of money. So Rick, I'll turn the mic over to you.

You can do some text or anonymous feedbacks and the rest of you want to call, Rick. Use those numbers I just gave you. Well, good morning. We'll go ahead and start with Anne Marie's text that we do every Saturday. She's good morning. I've been looking at pre-owned cars online and I see many are advertised as certified used cars.

This has aroused some curiosity and skepticism. Number one, taking into account that puffery is rampant when cars are sold, could you please define what a dealer might mean when a car is referred as a certified used car? Two, does it mean that the car is in good condition and will continue to run once it leaves the lot? Three, does it just mean that someone else owned the car before? 4. Is the phrase certified used car actually meaningless, and the prospective buyer should take the vehicle for an independent inspection by a certified auto technician before they buy it to make sure the vehicle is in good running order. But to put it in a quick nutshell, everyone's going to use the term certified used car. That's just a, like you say, a generic term really doesn't have a whole lot of meaning or definition. Most dealerships, however, will have what they call their certified inspection that is for the cars that are the same as that dealership. It's actually the manufacturer.

Right, the manufacturer. So like a Toyota at a Toyota lot, we'll have a Toyota certification. Hondas at a Honda dealership will have a Honda certification, and same thing for each of them. and that is a checklist that the factory sends down the cars have to be below a certain mileage and below a certain year and they are given a much more thorough inspection the tires have to be almost new they have to match all the way around the brakes have to be almost new in other words this car needs to be like just one step away from a new car you're going to pay a little extra but you'll also usually get an extended warranty on it as well and it's a, shall we see, a newer car that's going to be in a lot nicer shape. Let me give you a little insider tip Anne-Marie and all the other people that are listening to this.

Let's say it's a certified Honda used car, okay? Honda, as Rick said, put together some very good parameters that this car must fulfill in terms of mileage, time, and warranty, and, of course, condition. and a checklist of things that should be done to verify that all these things are as they should be now you've heard the old expression a chain is only as strong as its weakest link well the weakest link in the certified used car chain is a technician or the used car manager or somebody as a human being uh that something happened in between the time they put that certified sticker on the car and the car came into the dealership was it really inspected the way it should have been was it really road tested the way it should have been now I would recommend that you asked to see the certification checklist so you

know what was supposed to have been done and here's a here's a little red flag for you if you've got 20 checkboxes and the sheets very clean and there's no checks or X's but a big line that looked like it was hurriedly drawn through 25 checkboxes Maybe the technician did just the only thing he did was draw the line. He didn't check the vehicle out. And here's another tip if you want. And I said, by the way, a properly certified, factory certified used car is a good buy.

And of course you still have to negotiate the price, so that's got to be a good price too. But the car is a good car. What I would do, if I were buying a certified use car, I would first verify the technician had inspected the car. inspected the car and that what was done was actually done and then I would say I want to buy the car but I don't want the warranty because the dirty little secret behind why the manufacturers love certified used cars is that they sell the dealer a warranty and then the dealer sells you that warranty so the factory makes a profit by selling the dealer the dealer warranty and they resell it mark it up again and they make a profit so find me

one of those cars out there that's been certified but but you haven't bought the warranty from the factory yet so I'll take the car and you can keep the warranty I don't want to pay for the warning so instead of paying $800 extra for that certified used car you buy it at the same price you would buy a normal car and you have the piece of mind of knowing that a good technician did actually do the checklist so you can have your cake and eat it too. And to top the whole thing off,

I wouldn't recommend buying any pre-owned car whether it was a rental car or anything ever without having an independent mechanic, someone of your choosing, take the car to them, pay $100,

$150 if you have to, and have that car thoroughly inspected for anything that might be an issue with it and a good mechanic is going to know what to look for he'll be able to make sure that car is safe and reliable and that you're going to get a decent car great point Rick and when you go back to the dealer and say my mechanic says it needs this and if you can fix this and do what he said all by the car gives you a leverage and it's a way you can actually have a little bit more

reconditioning done to the car and also the peace of mind you really got yourself a good car then independent mechanic of your choice is given a thumbs up you know the certification process has been done and you know the price is right exactly i have a question for you um about what we're discussing would you say that it is just as important when you purchase a pre-owned vehicle if you're thinking about purchasing a pre-owned vehicle it's just as important to go to the mechanic because I've always read that the pre-owned vehicle really goes through some strict checklist and also it's almost a guarantee that you're getting what you pay for some do but you can't always trust that guy that mechanic that day he might have not gotten his coffee he might have had a bad nice stuff sleep the night before and that car just might have slipped through the because it happened sometimes or maybe the guy just wasn't trained properly to do

the job the way he should have been I would always on any used car I don't care what anybody else says take it to your own independent mechanic and have it inspected yourself that way you know for sure that it was looked at properly and you know that the car is going to be right it's just safer that way any pre-owned car and that goes ride along with one of the incognito's we've got where their question is, hello, what are your thoughts on purchasing a car that was a rental from a rental car such as Hertz or Enterprise? I see a car, a Chevrolet, I'm interested in, not, it's at a dealership, but not a Chevy dealer.

It has been there almost 90 days, and according to the Carfax, it was a rental, and the dealership bought it at auction. What are your thoughts of taking it to a Chevy dealership for? an inspection. What's the difference between a courtesy inspection when you bring the vehicle in for service and a pre- or post-purchase inspection? Well, it's always a good idea to take it to the manufacturer to have an inspection done because a Chevy mechanic is going to know what to look for on that car. And again, courtesy inspection is they're just looking at over real quick to see what they might be able to sell you while you're in for a maintenance.

real post-purchase inspection or a used car inspection they're going to really dig into it a lot further and try to make sure that that car is right i would because you're paying for it that me let me jump in there i i think that i i think a good independent mechanic is perfectly qualified to check over a car my problem with a chevrolet dealership is that if you go into a chevrolet dealership and they sell you Chevroletes too and they know that you're thinking about buying you Chevrolet from Urts or Avis you there might be a little bit of disingenuous advice given you about the car if you have an independent mechanic especially one maybe that you've used for years or a friend or someone that's highly recommended he's

got no X to grind he doesn't care where you buy the car all he wants to do is be sure the car wherever you buy it is a good car I know that for advanced problems with cars, high-tech problems with cars, car dealership might be the only place you could go because they might be the only ones with diagnostic equipment or with the access to the manufacturer for advice and help on support like that. But for a routine use car inspection, a good independent mechanic to me would give you less of a prejudice viewpoint, yes or no. and give you some leverage when you went back to the seller to get a fixed or else you're not going to buy it. Very true. Okay, another incognito here. Excuse me, Rick.

We're going to go to the phones. The phones. I'm going to give out that number before we take Bill's call, and that telephone number is 877-960, so give us a call. I'll give out the other number, the Zoom number, just as soon as we're finishing. talking to bill so stay tuned for that good morning bill good morning how's everyone doing well thank you welcome to earl stewart on cars okay i i listen every week and unfortunately i was in a car accident oh god and they yeah i'm okay though they but they totaled my car someone hit me

they went through a red light okay so i had to go shopping for a new car and I was going to say my stomach is still getting over it but I probably have gone to 10 dealers in the last week and all and I listened to you guys for a couple of years and all your techniques are excellent but they must send the salesman I want to say to the same school because all the dealers have you know the dealer fee the nitrogen and the tires.

An appearance package for $2,700, all kinds of stuff. But one technique I noticed that they all use is that they'll hand you the, they'll show you the numbers because I always say I want out-the-door numbers and they'll show you a slip of paper and they want you to initial the slip of paper because they want to make it seem like not that you're buying the car, but almost like you're buying the car because you're initialing the price. That's called a commitment, and they teach you to the sales handbooks. You get the customer to buy in and commit,

and one of those ways is initialing. Psychologically, when you initial something, you kind of give up a little bit toward their demands. Yes, or another technique. they'll use is they'll show you a super high price and then they'll say well what will you give us for the car right your your price that you want to give us and circle it and initial it yeah and exactly what you said they're giving you the impression that uh not that you're buying the car but you're committing to buy the car because you put some numbers down and you initialed it and

I'm going to say nine of the ten dealers use that technique when I went this week. You know, that dates back to horse trading 200 years ago. That's the way horses were bought and sold. I mean, we used that term today, horse trading, and that's the way the car dealers, frozen in time, selling cars today the way horses were sold 200 years ago.

Yeah, and most of them have that phony Moroni. and when I say, well, I don't even start with the phony Maroni. Oh, that's not a phony Maroni. That's an addition to the Maroni label that we put on at the dealer. I said, well, that's not, didn't come from the manufacturer. That's something that you guys are adding. And it's just unbelievable that they want thousands of dollars over the MSRP for the car.

and unfortunately since I was there and I listened very well, they get away with it with a lot of people. A lot of people are buying cars and paying all these extra fees. Yeah, and everybody pays a different price for the same car. Back years ago when I was an evil car dealer, one of the parameters I used to measure my sales force as to whether they were doing the job that I had dictated, I wanted to see a spread.

I was a Pontiac dealer. So if I had a Pontiac GTO and I sold 20 GTOs during the month, let's say they were all the same description, same MSRP. I wanted to see a very widespread between what we charge the customer for the same car. And a healthy spread would be thousands of dollars. So that meant that the victim, the person came in, it could be the elderly person, it could be the kid that never bought a car before, it could be someone who was just emotionally overwhelmed with the idea of buying a new car. You'd make $5,000 profit on that.

And then on the same car, two days later or two weeks later, an attorney came in who was just sharp as attack. He was used to wheel a deal negotiating and working with other attorneys and judges. I mean, really, really tough negotiator, he'd buy the car for $100 over my cost. And to me, that was a healthy thing because in the words I used back of those days, you have to ask for all the money all the time. So when someone walks in the door, go for the moon, shoot for the moon, shoot for the $5,000 profit. But if you have to take $100 profit and you have the availability of the inventory, go ahead and take the $100 profit.

that's the way cars are being sold and that's what they were doing to you yeah well I thought the economy wasn't that great but they're selling a lot of cars because again like I said I went to 10 dealers this week and they're moving

cars you're gonna be worn out 10 dealers did you physically go in or did you visit online no okay you have to physically go there if you really want to get an outdoor price because I did the internet but the internet price is like easily three or four grand higher than what it is when you get there.

But unfortunately, I physically went there to all these dealers. And they all use the same technique, and it's really kind of amazing to me. Jeff, here's a little tip. If and when you decide to go through this again, which may be not. never but if you decide to get when you do try online again and use this verbiage in your in your statement and also use a a different email address so they don't hound you to death and don't give them your phone number but get a free email address from Google or someplace Yahoo are they still around but get a free email address and and then go online and you say to the

dealer on the on the email this is the exact car I want You have it in the inventory. Give me your lowest out-the-door price so that I pay only sales tax and license plate. Out the door is my price. And yes, if you give me this price, I will be shopping it and comparing it with other dealers. Yes, you'll have a lower chance of selling me a car if you don't give me a really good price. But if you don't give me a price or you give me a high price, you'll never hear from me again. So if you want at least a chance to sell me a car, give me the lowest price because you'll never hear from again after you receive this email if you don't.

It doesn't work all the time, but it saves you a lot of shoe leather. And that way, instead of going to 10 dealerships in a month, you can go to 100 dealerships in a month because all you do is sit up in front of your PC, your smartphone, and you can do that in two hours. yeah but the only and I 100% agree with you the only unfortunate thing is they require you to put your phone number in if you want to get any information back line of them Jeff I I use

I give them a phone number from my car from my Pontiac dealership that I had you know 40 years ago I mean I think any number I want or maybe if you have somebody that you're really angry at, and you want to get even with them, give them their phone number. I mean, that would be the way, that would be the way to do it, because, of course, once you put that phone number in, they blow your phone up.

Oh, yeah, don't ever give you a real phone number. Don't ever give you your real email address. No, no, I understand that. I have a, what I call a throw-down email, and I actually have a throw-down phone just for these reasons. Oh, that you're good, yeah. Because I'm going to say, you know, I had to input the numbers. on the internet, I'm probably getting 60 or 70 phone calls a day from the, and they're like,

well, that's not us. That's the business development center. I said, well, I don't care who it's from. The phone is still ringing. Yeah, Rick had a comment. Got a couple quick comments from Donovan here. He says, for the caller, tell the dealer that you're far away and you need to work the numbers over the phone or email before you drive.

I have two hours to them. He says, that's what I do. And I never leave my house until I have something I'm happy with. He says, also get a Google Voice number. It's free. Oh, that's right. And you can simply answer the ones you choose to answer. I forgot all about Google Voice, yeah.

Thank you, Donnell. You're my man, Donald. Nice to hear from you, Bill. Because you could just delete, delete. Okay, thanks a lot. You guys have a good one, and I appreciate everything you do every week. Oh, thank you, Bill. Thanks for tuning in.

Our number here is 877-9-60-90-60. You know, I have to come in, Gerald. I think you're onto something when you mention horse trading. You know, that really sounds like the way to go. Yeah. But we can't do that, right? That buying and selling horses, you know, maybe that's the answer. Maybe that would work quicker if we dealt with these dealers.

Like they did in the horse trading days. You know what they did to a horse thief 200 years ago, and there was very early a horse thievery. So if we shot people... Do you think it would be easier than trying to push this cars deal ahead? What do you think, Rick? Do you think that we should initiate something new? Horse trading.

Okay. Just a little humor there. I'm staying out of that one. It's worth delving into. I'm going to give you that Zoom number, and if you've signed up with Zoom, you can give us a call at the meeting ID number 926-589-0-586. That's 926-589-0586. And again, $100 for the first two Zoom callers, if you've never called on Zoom before. and also for the ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

And we really appreciate you tuning in, ladies, because if you don't know it, you are a huge part of this industry. Huge. The numbers have grown enormously and take advantage of what we have to offer this morning. Okay, we're going to go back to Rick. Well, here we are with another incognito. Hi, do you know if an alloy wheel is superficially damaged by getting too close to the curb? Can it be fixed or does it have to be replaced?

Do you recommend to get it fixed or replace it? Thank you. We see a lot of alloy wheels that get scraped up on curbs. And we use a company called Turbacks. Now it does take a day or two turnaround time. You drop the car off, we take the wheel off, they come pick it up, pick it up they do their magic they bring it back we put it back on your car for you and i have seen car wheels that were just horribly disfigured and they look brand new again so if you've you know if you got that scraped up wheel and it just looks terrible on the car this company saves you the

cost of replacing a rim which some of those wheels can cost a thousand dollars each or more even and They can do, I think, for like $150, $200, they can make that wheel look brand new again. So it's well worth doing that. Are they national or are the local state? It's called Turbax, T-U-R-B-A-X. Is that a national company? I think it's local, but they may be national. Yeah, maybe we need to Google somebody national.

Yeah, let's check that one on. get through these other two real quick and then I'll Google up turbacks for that this one my car lease expires soon and I want to buy a car on the paperwork are these sections excess wear ding shield pre-delivery

service charge etc private tag sailor and acquisition fee should I have to pay all that cost also how do I get an accurate residual value or should I skip the dealer and go directly to Toyota and that one sounds like is right up your alley, Earl.

Yeah, the residual value is you have the option price on your lease and that's what you're that's what you're that's what you pay for the car. If they try to charge you more from that

then they're violating the law. It's a federal there's a federal leasing act of 1976 that says that the option to buy is sacrosanct. You have to can't add a five cents to that price. That's the price.

As far as finding out the market value, chances are your option price if you've leased a car in the past three years was probably a good buy. It's probably, the option price is probably lower than the market value today. But to confirm that, you need to basically

shop and determine the actual cash value which is their retail wholesale price of the car. You do that buy, going to CarMax, we buy any car.com, any other, there's a lot of sources out there that could give you the actual value of your car. You could just go into a car dealership and say, what will you pay me for this car? I'm downsizing, and I don't need three cars in the family, and what will you pay me? Do that if you're driving a Honda, go to 300, use car lots, and then as you use car manager, what will you pay? Then you've got two numbers. It's a simple

choice. It's my option to buy in the lease, a much better price than I can sell it. for, in which case you should exercise your option and be absolutely sure not one nickel is added to that option price other than sales tax or a license plate. And for the Turbax company, they are only one shop located down in Miami, Bob, but they will come pick the stuff up from different dealerships or shops and probably would deal with you at your home if you can get, you'll take the wheel off your car at your home. And I'm sure all states have, I'm sure there are companies all over the country. Yeah.

But yeah, I would definitely have a wheel repaired, if only just because it looks so much nicer. Okay, one last incognito here. Why do consumers put up with dealers like Hollywood Toyota? It's crazy. I regularly buy cars, and if I have an issue, I won't set foot in a dealership unless they give me a buyer's order ahead of of time with an out-the-door price that I'm prepared to pay. Believe it or not, too many dealers in South Florida will do this. Yeah, Hollywood Toyota is the, I think currently about the third largest volume

toilet dealership of the world. They've been as high as number one for a brief period of time, and they've been number to. They're top three all the time. They sell a thousand new toilets a month. I mean, just incredible volume. They pretty much get away with anything. They're in South Florida, and a lot of the dealers down there do the same thing.

Hollywood Toyota is a unique dealership in the sense of they're located in a very unusual demographic area. A lot of people haven't heard of Hollywood, Florida. It's near Miami, it's near Fort Lauderdale. It's a very interesting area. as a lot of people know, Miami is an international city. And Hollywood, Florida has probably a larger population of more people from out of the United States than any place I know of.

And if you go into Hollywood Toyota, it's very interesting. They have, they speak fluently about a dozen languages. So if you're Japanese, if you're Korean, if you're Indian, if you are from practically any country in the world, they have a salesperson in there that's fluent in your language. Wow. Now, they are able to sell cars.

Obviously, a picture yourself in France, and you don't speak French, but you have to buy a car. So you go into a Pujo dealership, and you speak English, and they speak English, They speak French and the contracts in French and you can't read it. You can imagine what they can sell you that Pujo for. Well, so a lot of people that gravitate toward Hollywood Toyota because they know that the salespeople will speak their language.

Well, that sounds like a good idea. That helps, but there's no competition. So when that salesperson speaks Japanese gives you the lowest price, if you don't speak English, How are you going to compare that price? And it's not going to be easy for you. So that's one advantage they have. And they also are able to get away with some of the most outrageous advertising we've ever seen.

By the way, it'll be very interesting to mystery shop them after the September 30th deadline, which is when the Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody, is going to put the rules into effect that are, we're seeing from the Federal Trade Commission's combat auto retail scams. So, but you're right about Oliver Toyota. They're tough. They're extremely successful.

And this is going to be the biggest challenge for Ashley Booty when this kicks in. And imagine the feeling of trust and camaraderie that you would immediately build with that salesperson because they speak your language so well. Oh, sure. you're automatically going to feel some level of trust to them and then they've won they can take you for anything they want exactly

okay this comment from Donovan he says on Wednesday of this week Polsar kicked off production of the Polestar 3 EV SUV in South Carolina they brought production from China to the U.S. to avoid

tariffs in the U.S. and Europe on China-made cars they aim to make about 3,000 a week with 50% for the U.S. and 50% for export. That's some interesting news. Yeah, China is combating Tesla for number one in EV sales. They go back and forth. I think Tesla might be currently number one,

but the Chinese were number one. It's going to be Elon Musk versus China. But see, Elon was smart enough to get into China years ago. And the United States was very reluctant to have any manufacturing or any ties with China. It was politically incorrect. And Elon went over there all by himself, sat down with Xi and the other Chinese big shots and the cut of deal. And he's been, he just sells a huge amount of cars. He was selling more cars to the Chinese in China,

and then they copied a lot of the Tesla production techniques and engineering and everything else. He let him do it. He said, okay. And now he's interested in China like no other cars. So it's going to be fun. Competition is our friend. So I welcome the Chinese manufacturers over here,

and China was smart to welcome the American manufacturing. manufacturers over there, only one, you know, which is Elon Musk. And the more the merrier, I'm a consumer for, you know, I'm a car dealer, but I'm not, I'm not a Tesla car dealer, so, you know, Nancy and I buy Tesla's. We like Tesla, and we'll buy our next Tesla will probably be cheaper as there's all the fact that China is a real threat down in the EVs. Well, that's got us cut up from my side. some has just asked one other question where's your book the second one

oh second one it's uh it's on hold yeah I'll tell you here's an interesting thing as I got toward the end of the book things were changing so fast it was like

it was like writing a book on World War II before Hiroshima I mean, there are so many changes in effect going on. And to me, I don't want to sound morbid, but this next book will probably be my last book. And so I'd like my last book to at least be somewhat complete and it'll be obsolete the way it stands right now. I mean, we've done, we've finished the book.

and we looked around us, but what about this? What about that? And there's so many things. The car business, the retail, the manufacturers are changing so fast, I can't write the book fast enough to finish it. So how's that for a good excuse? I understand it. You can't write the history book until the history has occurred.

I'm two years late. I just know there's a lot of folks that are kind of wondering about it. I couldn't have said it any better, and we'll wrap that. Let me go back to what you said we were discussing the Cars Rule. Is it September the 30th or is it September the 1st for that deadline? Oh, yes, September the 1st. I'm sorry, you're right. And it's not the Cars Rule. The Cars Rule is the Federal Trade Commission Regulation.

September the 1st is the Florida Automobile Dealers Association going hand in hand with Ashley Moody, the Florida Attorney General, to enforce what is in the FTC regulation combat auto retail scams. So it will be, it will be actually, and this is, all they're doing is enforcing Florida law. For over 20 years, Florida has had the same laws on the books that the Federal Trade Commission Regulation, combat auto retail scams is just bringing out for the whole country. So somebody said, hey, You know, this is going to happen.

Florida's already got the laws on the books. Why aren't we enforcing those laws? And Ashley Moody, for some reason, I give Ted Smith all the credit of the world the president of the Automobile, the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, to actually get Ashley Moody to combat auto retail scams was a miracle.

He did it. And he and I are kind of friendly enemies. uh you know he's you know how that would go yep so uh it's going to happen september first folks it's going to happen in about 13 days okay well you heard it right here folks that number here is 877 960 9960 you can text us at 772 4972530 and don't forget to give us a call on zoom we're going to go to marty i'll give that number out again when we're done talking to Marty, he's been holding, and Marty's a regular caller. Good morning, Marty.

Hello, Marty. Are you there? How are you doing, Marty? Good morning. Morning. I got a question for Earl. Okay. I read a thing, I think it was last week, where Toyota is betting on hybrids rather than EVs.

And the one my, the reason that I think that they're right, There's a lot of people, especially down here that I know, that don't have garages that park outside, that it would be very hard to put a charger in where they live. So I think Toyota's very smart sticking with just, well, I'm not saying that they won't have electric, but they're still betting more on hybrids. Do you agree? Yeah, they made that decision. and while having the best inventory or the best stable, or whatever you want to call it, of EVs in the world. As you know, Toyota began the whole hybrid revolution

with the Prius many, many years ago. They were the laughing stock of the industry because they thought a hybrid vehicle was a joke. They proved them wrong. Consequently, they now basically have hybrid. in all their models, and there are better hybrids, they're better engineered, they're more reliable, they require less repair work.

By far, the hybrid is the vehicle to buy today. But in 20 years, that vehicle will be the EV, not the hybrid. The hybrid will slowly go away. So Toyota, a lot of people say Toyota missed the boat on electric vehicles. I guess you could say they did, but they were so strong with hybrids they could afford to miss the boat because it's the interim time.

And they're actually making more money and sell more cars than ever thanks for the hybrid. They're also partnering with a lot of people, especially in batteries. See, an electric vehicle is nothing more than a battery on wheels. I mean, the manufacturer that has the best electric battery, vehicle battery solid state is the next generation the person with the company with a state-of-the-art battery will win the EV race and that's what toilet is doing now they're they're partnering with other top scientific software companies to have the world's best EV and they'll just build a car a car is

nothing but you know what is your car I mean it's all software now with a power plant and a power plant with a battery and software on four wheels. That's all the car is. So when you build a car today, you're not really building anything like we think in the way when we assemble a Model T Ford or even a 2024 car, a regular combustion engine car. Assembling a mechanical car is one thing, building a computer, which is a software thing, with a battery that will last a thousand miles

which is what we'll have that's where Toyota will be in 10 years when they need to be there. I don't know if you've ever done this because you've got your own garage and everything obviously but if you have to charge your car up on a charger that you have to pay for

what does it cost to charge it fully on something that you've got to pay on? you know it sounds strange i have never charged my car on a on a charger i we have a charger at our garage and so i've never used one so uh donovan probably knows the answer that uh it goes right on your tesla app charge uh when you do it and they have the uh of course the you know the fast charger the supercharger that'll do uh charge the car unless in 20 minutes and then they have the longer charger but it's a lot less expensive than gasoline.

Let's put it that way. And it takes no more time to do than gasoline. And that's one of the reasons why Tesla's so far ahead is because they have a, they've given their chargers away and technology to everybody. And you might hate Elon Musk for political reasons, but that was pretty nice of them to give Ford and General Motors or the Chinese.

Anybody asking wants to use our, chargers. Here he spent billions of dollars building chargers all over the world and he could have kept them to himself and only used it for Tesla. He said, ah, take it. Quick note here from Donovan. He says, uh, Earl's Tesla charged at home with FP&L will cost about $11.40 for a full charge. Right. Whereas a supercharger will run you 30 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I'm saying is if people don't have garages, and they have to pay, say, $30, it's going to affect them. Well, if you want to maximize, like Donovan said,

if you want to maximize or minimize your cost, you'll have a home charger. And I agree with you. A lot of people don't have garages. I think that will be addressed by entrepreneurs, business people. There's got to be a way you can provide charger for people that don't have garages.

I mean, that's a, I mean, a waterproof charger. I mean, if you keep your car in the driveway, there'll be an outdoor charger. There'll be a solar charger. I mean, that's just a minor glitch, you know, minor bump in the road. I, you know, I didn't know the cost of, you know, a supercharger for Tesla until Donovan called in because I've never used one.

But I don't use, we've had our Tesla now for three years, and we've never had to use it because we don't go to Washington or New York or California but if I was going to go to New York and the Tesla I wouldn't mind paying 30 bucks to get to where I was going

and maybe when I got there there'd be a home charger I could use so it's for people that travel and people that travel expect that to pay money personal experience $30 to recharge your vehicle to go 300 miles.

Well, more than that, yeah. And my pickup truck, 310, 320 miles, right now it's cost to me 50 bucks. Yeah. So I'd rather go to the 30, but just, it's not really feasible for me to go to electric right now. However, Donovan says it's cheaper than going to the gas station, but in the end of this transition, charging will be everywhere. It won't work if we don't have it. it's just not going to happen overnight. Yeah.

I mean, the infrastructure's just got to modify it to be built. If you have a retail store and you want to have them come and buy your product, whatever it is, and you have chargers, superchargers that will charge the car in 20 minutes and your competitor down the street doesn't have a charger, where are you going to go to buy that product? You've got to get your car charged. So it'll become something. We have charges in our dealership.

that we'll charge other baked cars because we want people with other make cars to come into our toilet dealership. They might decide to buy a toilet while they're there, so we provide chargers. My neighbor across the street has an outside charger for their Tesla. Oh, is that right?

I didn't even know they had an out-chargers. It's mounted on the outside of her house. Is that right? And she just, each day when she gets home, I see her pull the big cable over, plug it in. Right, no driveway. Before she leaves to go.

Well, give me the name of that, because our cyber beast is coming in soon, and I won't fit in my garage. Yeah, I'll ask you, I'm pretty sure it's Tesla. To what, Rick. She drives a Tesla, so I'm sure it's a Tesla charger. It is, it is a Tesla. To Rick and to Earl, you know, if you take a ride around the neighborhood, you'll see we have two neighbors with that set up that Rick just mentioned.

Yeah, they charge their car right outside in the driveway. Yeah, I would just think. of all the extension cords coming out of people's... No, it's quite clean. The car is parked pretty close to what looks like. I'm looking at it from a distance. It looks like the car is parked pretty close to the garage. And on the outside, as Rick described,

it's the same exact setup where, you know, the car is being charged. The cable on my neighbors, it looks like she literally could pull in nose first and still be able to get the cable to her car. So a nice, long cable. Exactly. You have any other questions, Marty? No, very good. I just paid $27 for 500 miles on my car.

So for now, I'm sticking with hybrid. Oh, yeah. You got the best car for the time right now. I would keep that hybrid, and when the time comes, when the EV is the right way to go you'll trade the hybrid end but right now you've got the best car for your needs and you know he's driving the crown

I can hear the joy in your voice Marty you're really happy that you made the decision that you made the only complaint I have now my grandson is 6 foot 4 and he said he hit his head in the back seat

I got to tell him don't sit in the back seat Yeah, Earl has that problem, too. Well, Marty, it was nice chatting with you. Okay, have a good weekend, and I'll say you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marty. We'll hear from you next week.

Ladies, did you know that women influence 85% of car purchases? And I'll tell you, I said earlier, you know, you have a great financial. impact on the auto industry and if you don't believe that you can Google Mary Barra she's a CEO of General Motors you know what a fantastic job she has done and an impact that she has made on this industry and if you want to take it a step further go to Google Florence Lawrence I bet I put this out there there isn't out there that knows the influence that Florence has made or did make, I should say.

You know what this little lady did? She invented the first turn signal and break signal. Yes. So take a look and you'll see a whole list of women who have made a huge impact on this industry. point give us a call share your stories with us ladies we would love to hear from you and as a little gift we're giving you $50 for the first two new lady callers I promised you I'd give you the zoom number which you can win yourself a hundred dollars to new zoom callers and that telephone number is 926-589

0586 hey Earl didn't we have an interesting week speaking of what we were talking about before about Tesla what a learning experience has been this week for Earl and I there's always something changing with the Tesla that we're unaware of yeah the autonomous we go everywhere with the top fully autonomous and we're beginning to understand why it will be so popular we're able to see how the concept of eight cameras which is detecting things not only all around the car that a human being can't see and certainly can't see as quickly but is also with its swarm there's something called swarm AI where the autonomous system

software is able to look through Google Maps, actually, to see where the traffic patterns are a mile away or two miles away. So if you get in your car and you're going to take a 25-mile or a 100-mile trip wherever you're going, as soon as you get in that car and you put your destination in, that car's software sees the traffic right outside where your car is now in the garage. It also sees the traffic 100 miles away and 200 miles away. When it plans your route, it takes into consideration of things a human being can't possibly see. So what Nancy is referring to when we get into Tesla now and we're going somewhere, we say,

I wonder why they're taking us this way. Or I wonder why they just wonder why the Tesla just changed lanes. I wonder why the Tesla speeded it up. And if you give your, if you put your hands into the. software and just let go with the flow you find out that you're getting where you're going not only faster but safer than you would if you were driving your own car there's no doubt on my mind now that once the autonomous is perfected it will be far safer than anything anyway I don't care how good a driver

you are an Uber driver or a Lyft driver or professional driver a one autonomous perfected that autonomous car will get you there safer and faster than any human being can it's really it's really impressive hey let's reveal what goes on in the cabin while we're driving the Tesla what I'm referring to is I'll ask you a personal question how do you feel about the autonomous feature reprimanding you if you speak if you look away if you have your meta glasses on Well, it has the eye in the cabin and the ear in the cabin. And so if the software perceives you not to be paying total attention,

I get a flash on the screen and a beep, and it tells me to pay attention. Keep your eyes in the road. And once the software is perfected and once it's tried and proven, and maybe the National Highway Traffic Safety Association says, so okay well then maybe they take those off but I think it's a good idea now I mean it it's a little annoying but it's also makes us feel a little safer well you probably pay more attention to the road than most of the people have to drive at regular cars anyways yeah because they're all down unlike this while they're

driving the car you you put it mildly you expressed yourself in a very calm way unlike the cabin. That's all I'll say. Hey, we're going to go to Mary, who's been holding, and Mary calls us often, and she's from LaBelle, and we just love her. Hi, Mary. Good morning, Nancy. Welcome.

Welcome. I have a 2011 Honda CRV, and the check engines light came on. I took it to the local auto parts store. They put the computer on it, and it came up with canister purge valves at the fault. Okay. I'm wondering, is that critical to the vehicle? Is that something that I should have changed? It's actually not an expensive part in most cases, and I would find a, you know, find a

like an independent mechanic to have it done, it'll save you a fortune of money that way. But basically all that thing does is the charcoal canister in your car collects the fumes from the gasoline tank so that they don't just escape into the atmosphere. That's part of the emission system. And then when you're driving the car,

the purge valve will open up so that those vapors can be drawn into the engine and burn through, and that way it's you know again it reduces the emissions if that purge valve is sticking closed or sticking open the computer has to account

for that but it can't operate the purge system properly so it triggers that light it's not a breakdown issue it will not affect the way your car is driving and if your car is running normally it's going to continue running totally normal

it just if this were an emission state you wouldn't be able to pass an emissions inspection for it. So I wouldn't worry about it unless you absolutely have to. The only real drawback is that if something else goes wrong on the car that is going to trigger that light, you wouldn't know it. So it's something that I would call a few different independent shops, tell them what the code is, and ask them what they'll charge to look at it,

and if that's all it is, how much to replace it. Pick one you like that has a reasonable price. Yeah, they're not very expensive. I just Google. They're a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, it's not an expensive item. Well, yeah, at AutoZone, they said the piece would be $55. Yep.

And my challenge, of course, is finding an independent garage that's willing to work on emissions systems. But I will pursue that, as Earl suggested, my friend Google will assist me. Are you on Facebook or any of the social medias? Yes, yes. Check with your friends on social media and see if any of them have any mechanics

that they recommend, someone that they trust. And because I'll tell you, word of mouth is one of the best ways that good mechanics get customers. be sure that they're ASE certified and what category would be important for this work for ASC?

Engine and electrical, but most mechanics that you're going to find most all of us are ASC certified in all of the nine categories that it has right now for the main automotive categories. We'll be absolutely sure they are ASC certified. okay all right that's all very good advice I appreciate it very much oh you're quite

welcome Mary hope you guys have a great rest of your weekend thank you yep you do the same we're gonna go to John who's calling us from West Palm Beach good morning John thank you for holding oh good morning the one thing that I found with the Tesla and you're talking about the autonomous and it driving for you right now when you do that premium system and it brings you know you get the internet through the car in that i only use it when i go back and forth to michigan and one thing that i found if i was using a certain map other than the tesla provided map like wavy or another one a r or something whatever it is wavy and also the tessle one i didn't realize there was a setting but it told me to go a different

route off the express off of a 75 when I went and I'm thinking why am I doing this and then when I went through the system I found out that I have it set or it's set default that if the computer monitoring the traffic finds that when you're on your destination if it's going to cause you 15 minutes longer to continue it takes you a different route and you avoid that whether it's an accident or whatever it's great

I didn't realize it was doing that until I started paying attention to the driving times and when I was driving fully autonomous to places that I normally drilled before myself

I had roots in mind I even used the navigation most of the time too but I thought I could get myself to from point A to point B in South Florida, quicker than anybody else. I figured I was really, really knew the shortcuts and I knew which way to go. I found out that there are ways to go that I never thought about.

And of course, roads change and routes change, and the software stays on top of it. But I was probably taking roots that I got used to 20 years ago. and my Tesla Autonomist now takes me places I get there five or ten minutes sooner than I did before. Yeah, now the one thing that you mentioned, you know, using the autonomous, the mapping system, to go into places that you already know. One of the benefits to that is,

and this was a discussion on your show many times, on how to get rid of that musty smell, and before you turn the car off, you turn the AC off and let the blowers, blower or whatever it is to get rid of the if you use your destination the AC

and the whole system already calculates it for you and before you get to your destination it's already turning off the AZ I did not know that I happen to find very interesting yeah I happen to find that out

on one of those sites that you always mentioned about the the rooms the uh the rooms that the chat rooms yeah uh-huh and they can that so i'm glad i you're excited as excited about as nancy and i are because you know you know you have to it takes a certain temperament uh that you have to be accepting and curious and maybe a little uh a little risk-taking uh to fully appreciate because we none of us like to admit we're not the best drivers

of the world. I've never known anyone that didn't think they were a good driver. Good drivers think they're good drivers and bad drivers think they're good drivers. So for you to confess that a machine, a computer, is better than you are, takes a certain sort of humbleness

that I'm not saying I like to admit it, but I have to admit it. Well, you know, I'm 63, no, I'm 64 now. I'm 64 years old now and if this thing's going to drive me around, I want to know a little bit

about what I need to know about a driver that's a person. I want to I want to know about the car. I don't want some Christine popping up on me and throwing me into a lot of your people don't remember who's I appreciate your calls John because

I you know people either hate Tesla or they love Tesla. They're either violently against autonomous driving or they're very, a bunch of in favor of it. So it's like politics. There's no gray. It's all black or white. It's too early to bring up politics. Hey, John, we do appreciate your call.

And, you know, what I have to say is, you know, I can get up in the morning and maybe I have a whole lot of patience. You know how that goes. And you get in the Tesla and you accept. things for the way they are when you're driving autonomous. Some days, not so much. You run out of patience, but it's definitely a work in progress, and we're going in the right direction, I can say that. All right, have a great week.

Okay, thank you, John. Thank you, John. We'll talk to you again. Let's go to Andy. Andy's been holding. He's calling us from Fort Lauderdale. Good morning, Andy. Oh, how you doing? You've got a great show.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I've been buying Mercedes since 77, but used ones a couple of years old. I'm thinking of buying 2007-57-55 L-S-A-M-G, and with 100,000, 103,000 miles. What do you think I should, is that a, I know it has a 500 horse. power engine and it's you know I wanted to know your mechanic there what does he think would go wrong on it

like I know the ABCs and stuff like that with the suspension well let me I'll turn over to Rick I ask you one question are you religiously taking care of that car in terms of the factory record and maintenance I don't have it I'm going to

I'm looking to buy it oh you're looking to buy one I'm sorry go on I have a regular 500 Oh, right there, okay. First thing I would do is get the VIN number, go to the dealership, and ask them to run a service history on it, because that will give you a good idea of what was done for maintenance at the dealerships. And then I would find a good independent technician and a certified, and I would pay them what you need to, to have it really inspected and gone over.

I mean, it's kind of a high mileage. It's an older vehicle, but if you can work the right price on it, you might find a gem. But the only thing is, it's in Alabama. Because in Alabama. Is it worth it to you for a weekend trip to drive up there? Well, it's about 700 miles. Yeah, Alabama is a bit of a run, but I'm assuming you're local here, Palm Beach County. I'm in Fort Lauderdale.

I'm very lazy. I'm very lazy guy. You know, if you could do a little homework by researching, you might check with American Automobile Association, or you might even, if you have any friends in the area, or if you could somehow find a reliable independent mechanic, like Rick said, and then you can look at the certifications and find out that. he's uh uh you know how long he's been in business uh i would i would buy the car subject to his endorsement and i would whoever the seller was and say deliver the car to this person and i've already made

the deal with mechanic and say i'm going to pay you what you know what we both feel is a fair price to give this a clean bill of health you give this car a clean bill of health i'll pay you this And even if they don't give it a clean bill of health, when he finds out things that need to be fixed, you could go back to the seller and say, I'll buy the car when you fix these items and my mechanic says, A-OK. You know, there's a little risk involved there because you don't know the mechanic, but I think if you do Google ratings, you check, if you check certifications, maybe get a recommendation or two that you can verify your investment in finding that right mechanic will make it safe for you to buy this car.

Another way to do it is... Should I go to an Alabama regular dealer? Yeah, that's worth it. That's a good, good shot. Another thing you can do is go online and Google for car forums for that type of car for Alabama. and because it's very possible there may be a car club or two up there

for those cars it's a carfax dealer Oh Carfax Yeah They're on the internet They're honest, legitimate people So they're You know I think

Price is very cheap So that's why they go for so much more in Fort Lauderdale Oh yeah Well location makes a big difference on price I would I feel better about knowing that's Carfax and Carfax would be more

understanding about the dealership they wouldn't Mickey Mouse here around so I should get the VIN numbers and that'd be one of the first things right? Yes well it's good to you let us know how that goes

I like a guy like you that I want to say something funny the first car I ever bought was a Pontiac I know you were a Pontiac guy Yeah, 1960s took me to a Pontiac dealer in Long Island. I bought a 66 Bonneville with a 421 H.O. engine with tri-power.

Oh, man. 376 horsepower. Did you, and I hated selling it like an idiot because now it's probably worth a fortune. Three-two-barrel carburetors. Boy, I tell you. Those were the days. Yeah. It was a 421 with 376.

Yeah. And it had posit traction. and I ordered it, and it only cost $3,800. Yeah, I had a Ventura with three, two barrels and four on the floor. Mine was automatic. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to, but this car, I'm getting, it's, they're in the $20,000 deal here, and I could get this one for, like, 13, 9, and I could get it for a few thousand less.

Yeah, that's, that might very well be worth a weekend trip, for you know don't make him go to Alabama he doesn't want to go to Alabama he might also ask him I'm an old guy but I never grew up I'm still like a kid well don't grow up I haven't either

cars cars make all of us into kids but I know ask them if they can do a video I got a Corvette 72 convertible oh I'm a real nut job you're my kind of guy I tell you

ask him if they can send you a video that shows you the interior and underneath the car because especially areas like that where you get snow you're going to want to look for any serious signs of rust underneath it Alabama gets no really I didn't realize every so off they get a little bit of it not a monster amount but they do get their share but the price is what got me I can't believe it and it's a beautiful maroon and white weather interior it's got all the options it's it seemed too good to be true so

Andy, it sounds like as if it's certainly stirred your curiosity. Call back next week, and let's know what you decide to do. I think you might make the run, and before I let you go, I'll let you know that you and my husband definitely have something in common. You were too nuts. And that is that you never grew up. I never grew up. I'm telling you, I got married at 18, and my wife left me when to call me.

her father died. She found out how rich she was. But I did very well for myself. I can be tired at 25. I came to father with my father. He retired at 62. And I did great out here. So in real estate. Okay. I love your show. I really do. Well, call back, Andy. Yeah, I will. I'll call back. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. We're Saul brothers. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Honey, answer, the first talk. My father had a 62 when I was a kid. Then I made him get to 66. And with everything I ordered, with a posse traction and everything. Oh, boy, positration.

Wow. What would it be worse than that? I call a lot of money, right? People don't even know what posit traction is today. Positively. Hey, Andy, let me tell you something. I was part of the car error back then. I'm showing my age.

But I want to tell you, you mentioned if you would have had the car that you sold, if I would have had the car I sold. Well, I'd be in a different position. But it's been great talking to you. We'd love to hear from you again. Yeah, no, I'm going to call you because this car, it's a different color than most of them. A lot of them are black and silver. This one is like a maroon, very nice car.

Oh. But, yeah. Nice. All right. Okay, Andy. Have a great weekend. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. All right. Andy, stay tuned for our mystery shopper report from the famous Arrigo. That's a rigo. Chrysler, Dodge, and a Jeep. We can't forget the Jeep. You know, this is interesting. I was going through the New York Times this past week, and it was Wednesday's newspaper, and they were reporting on the dangers of the airbags, and how many recalls have been issued for Ford and Mazda. Those are Takata Airbags, by the way. And, yeah, the operative word.

got a airbags and 475,000 I believe that they quoted so it's just we know they're out there but the New York Times was there to remind all of us back to the recovering car dealer yeah I can't wait till September 1st when we see some action on the part of Ashley Moody and all these car dealers they were mystery shopping now it's going to be just fascinating to see how they go from 180 miles an hour down to only 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. There's an article in automotive news. Federal Trade Commission is getting active around the country now. Now you know the Federal Trade Commission Cars Act Combat Auto Retail Scams is pending and it's being fought in

the courts in Texas by the Texas Circuit Court. NADA attorneys in the Texas Automobile Association are fighting the implementation of the CARS Act. But because Florida had on the books, the same regulations that are going into the CARES Act for 20 some odd years, totally ignored by all the Attorney Generals for the past 20 plus years. Now they see the handwriting on the wall

and they're going to enact essentially the Cars Act but it'll be for Florida on the September 1st they're going after car dealerships around the country right now because they are frozen with the Cars Act meaning they the Federal Trade Commission but they're acting independently and they're going after auto groups and individual automobile dealers they went after the Coulter Motor Company and this is in the current issue of the automotive news and in the article how they they find them millions of dollars for violating the rule, the law

of the land by bait and switch advertising and advertising a car for thousands of dollars less than you can buy it for them. And they talk to a sales manager. It's every car dealer's fear that someone from the outside, an attorney or attorney general or someone, a regulator, is gonna get hold of somebody that works for you that's gonna tell you the truth. So most car dealerships have a rule.

Thou shall not speak to the press, to any authority, to any lawyer, if somebody calls you, have them speak to our attorney. I mean, they don't want people being talked to. Here's why they don't want people being talked to. So the Federal Trade Commission asked the culture dealership why an online vehicle shown on its window was

thousand dollars lower than what you could buy it for and they talked to a sales manager here's what the sales manager said if we don't advertise the lowest price online people blow past your your ad okay if we don't advertise the lowest price online people blow past your ad being advertisement we held back as long as we could and try doing it differently, but with the manufacturers breathing down our necks and customers coming in at the advertised price and offering $3,000 less than the advertised price,

something had to give. Now that's so pure, it brings tears to my eyes that this salesperson was so honest. He was also stupid because he just shot the Coulter auto group down by telling the trip. truth. But the reason I bring this up is why so many dealers do what they do. Here's a sales manager that knows that he's doing terrible things, but he is a sales manager, and that's the way he makes his money to feed his family and put his kids through school. And if he

wanted to run an honest advertisement, he couldn't do it. Because his price would be thousands of dollars higher than the competition who was lying and cheating and bait and switch advertising so that's that's the guts to why so many dealers the good to bad and the ugly the ugly ones are going to do it no matter what because they're greedy and they just want the money and they're going to do it no matter what but there are also some in between and they're good dealers they're honest dealers that feel like they are forced to fight fire with fire like a peddor's lying

I got a lie otherwise I go out of business exactly and you know even though they had to pay $2.6 million okay they paid that they were still at the end of this ride pardon the pun

they said quote unquote Colter said they respect respectfully insist the allegations made by the agencies simply don't line up with the objective measures and statistics. So they're saying it's, you know, somebody else's fault. Okay, we've said enough about that. Would you like to get to the dog of the week?

Dog on the week, let's do it. Yeah, this is the fastest show on record, right, Jonathan? Boy, oh boy, the time just flew. Okay, Big Dog Ranch. Big Dog Ranch. What can we say about Big Dog Ranch? They're fabulous, fabulous people, and you can go out there any time, and you can take a look around, and you will be amazed at what you see. Today, we have the dog of the week, and we pay the adoption fees, and it can be pretty expensive to adopt a dog, and that's $200, and they're so amazing. many options out at big dog ranch that you can take advantage of let me mention this also sorry to be jumping around but if you have a dog you know it definitely is bet the best way to go you

know to take care of that dog is to have the dog chipped um it is just imperative today because there's just a lot of dogs out there that are not they don't have the chip in them and it's really important. I thought you said shipped. You said chipped also folks make sure that if you got a dog from one of the shelters or something have your

vet scan it and make sure that that information on that chip comes back to your name and number and that it isn't accidentally set up with somebody else's otherwise phone calls and emails and that may wind up going to somebody that's no longer using

that and your dog could remain lost for it so make sure that the chip is definitely registered to you yeah Rick knows all about that he I don't think I've ever met anyone who takes better care of their dog his dog's name is Haley Harley Harley Quinn oh it's Harley okay Harley Quentin I think I think I'll have a chip installed in me don't you already if I could let it if I get lost if I get lost thank we're running out of time I don't see that So that's Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and you can go to wwwbbrr.org.

And you can fill out an application if you wish so that they can do a background check on you. That'll save some time, and then you can go ahead out there. Also, let me mention the Earl's book that we were talking about earlier, the first book, and that's Confessions of a recovering car dealer. dealer. The reason I mentioned that is because 1995. That's what the book costs. And all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. Yes, every time you purchase a book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer, the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. You're helping them out. And every single one of the babies that come through there, those fur babies, they need all of our, all of our, all

of our help so take advantage of did I tell you what the dog of the week's name was I don't think so her name is Nala and Nala Nala and she is between they're guessing between three and seven years old so go to the website take a look at Nala and you'll see the biography that's been written about her and might be a perfect match if you're not a match you may know someone who wants to adopt a dog or maybe even foster a dog so take advantage of all that we're running out of time here so we are going to get to our mystery shopping report and you can vote on the mystery shopping report at 772 4976530 and that is the Arrigo dealership

that Agent Lightning visited, and I can't say enough about Agent Lightning. She is fabulous and a great asset that she has come to us and has been working for quite a long time with us. So she's all yours, recovering car dealer. Okay, Mr. Sharp of a Regal, Cresley, Dodge, Jeep, and West Palm Beach. They have several dealerships. not say they. A lot of people think it's really Erigo. John and Jim Erigo. You've probably seen some of their crazy commercials. Actually, they're entertaining. I like to watch them. I know both the Erigo's, by the way. I know Jim Erigo going away back and knew his father back. But they sold out several years ago to the Morgan Auto Group. So a lot to a guy named Larry Morgan, who I also know we were friends. So that's a nice thing about it. being around for a long time i know all these guys and uh apparently the erigo stayed on to with a management contract of some kind uh to do the commercials because as i say uh they're

they're funny commercials they're all BS but they're still entertaining and hey that's what the commercial has got to get your attention right if you don't watch it what good is it uh here's the mystery shopping report i'm speaking as if i were agent lightning i'll be speaking in the first person. I arrived late the morning and was immediately greeted by a customer service representative. She welcomed me and asked how she can assist today. I told her I was hoping to purchase a new RAM pickup truck. Now if you're a regular listener, usually when the greeting first happens, oftentimes Agent Lightning has to walk around the lot of while, go in, look for people. In this case here, bam, someone was immediately greeted. That tells you a little

bit about how good business is. When someone runs up and grabs you, that means you're not selling a whole lot of cars. It's indicative. I thought it was unusual enough that I would mention that. Okay, back as the shopper, at that moment, the salesman walked by, and she asked if he was available. He introduced himself as Golden and acquired what brought me in today. I mentioned that I saw some ram trucks with a nice discount online. All right. We do this with most of our shopping reports where we get an advertised price and then see what happens when you go in to try to buy it for the advertised price.

Gold confirmed that they indeed had the lowest price in the state. That's called buffery. That's not even illegal. They allow you to exaggerate in advertising or in sales in your presentation. I explained that my parents and I were interested in a new pickup, showed them a truck I found on their website, a white, 2,24 Dodge, Ram, 3,500 Laramie,

with an MSRP, manufacturer-suggested retail price of $81,380. Boy, that's a lot of money. NSRP of $81,380. The listing showed a discount, of 12,000 oh gee 12,000 three hundred ninety three dollars that's a slam bank dozy of a discount and that sounds pretty good and the Arrigo price of 68,987 dollars the Regal price oh what is a price I don't I don't want to sound philosophical but what is a price I have absolutely not nobody knows what a

price is I mean it isn't what you can buy the for, but there we go price. He conferred the truck was available and went to grab the keys. And I'm looking at the online advertisement, and sure enough, just the way it was described. It said the price on this car with an MSRP of 81,830, and they're going to discount it over $12,000. And I can buy it. I didn't say I can buy it.

You can't buy it. The Arrigo price, $68,987. Okay, where are we going from here? After he pulled the truck around, I showed him the online price and asked if that would be the final price. Colton asked if I was a military in the military or a veteran.

When I said I wasn't, he replied that I should be eligible for all but two to three thousand dollars off the online discounted price. Now, first of all, that's Peyton's Wage because how many of us out there are veterans or in the military, all right? I mean, let's be honest. One out of 100, one out of 1,000? I'm not sure what the number is, but obviously it's a BS qualification. So, but if there were an incentive, but there are incentive for military, I've never heard of an incentive of $2,000 to $3,000.

dollars I've heard of five hundred dollars six hundred dollars eight hundred dollars so uh this salesperson golden has said all because you're not in the military uh we're going to have to charge you two or three thousand dollars more okay let's that is deceptive and untrue it's a lie uh and of course you do they weren't in the military anyway uh and it's just a bait and switch kind of a thing. Okay, Golden then asked, if the numbers look good, was I ready to do business today? Old school, South Florida, right in the handbook of South Florida car dealerships, be sure that they're going to buy the car today, or else don't give them a good price or the

best price, because we'll shop and compare it. Imagine that. Imagine how gutsy and arrogant a customer would be to take your price and actually try to get a better price. That sounds unacceptable. So if you're not going to buy today, I'm not going to give you my good price. That's the way it is. We'll see how it is on September 1st. Okay, because we're going back, and I'm putting you on notice of Rigo, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, blah, blah, blah, and West Bond Beach. I'm going back and we're going to mystery shop you after September 1st,

and then I'm going to send the mystery shopping report to Ashley Moody. and I'm going to send the shopping report to Ted Smith, the president of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, and I'll say, now, I'm calling you out. You said you were going to enforce the law. Here's the breaking of the law, and shame on you. And I'll be talking about it on next week's radio show. Okay, I digress.

Golden then asked if the numbers look good, was I ready to do business today? I hesitantly said yes. as long as I could discuss it with my parents since we were planning to make the purchase together. He assured me that the office was motivated to offer their best price if I was ready to buy immediately. And there you go again, immediately. I told them as long as everything looked good on paper, and my parents were satisfied with the numbers I was ready to proceed.

He then asked me what monthly payment I was aiming for. I replied that the monthly payment wasn't as important as a final out-the-door price. number and a golden city understood and asked me to fill out in an information sheet so we could get the numbers now I'll digress just a little bit right now the reason that they asked for the monthly payment is they call that they call that price padding if they talk to you and given you a price on the car and then they seem to be changing the subject they say what monthly payment would you like down if you make a mistake and come up with a monthly payment that allows them to give you

or 72-month financing at 15% interest or something. In other words, if they have a way to go, they'll throw out the book on the price they gave you. It won't mean anything because if they can hit you with something that is your monthly payment that you said you would pay, they got you.

So it's a technique that all car dealers use, and remember don't give them a monthly payment that's acceptable to you unless you've done the arithmetic and you know that your credit unit is given you the interest rate and you know the financing terms and you know everything about it which most of the times we don't know that so keep the monthly payment away from your negotiation and focus on the out of the door price plus tax and tag only I replied to the local okay uh golden city understood asked me to fill out information sheet so he could get me the numbers though the old worksheet the old information sheet he found my information of the system because agent lightning and she had shopped there before probably a couple times and they they just don't get suspicious I don't know why and they said he would be right back because they weren't busy at all and I said that at the beginning of the

shopping report so Christ for job jeep is the big vehicle that Crusher Dodge Jeep folks sell to make money and the jeeps aren't selling. So that's why they got plenty of time on their hands. We shared a laugh and I joked out to Jakeson or the power might go out. For about 15 minutes he returned apologizing for the wait, said it wouldn't be much longer as I was next in line after another five minutes he returned with the proposal. And here's the worksheet all filled out. reviewed all the fees with me explaining that the fees in brackets were non-negotiable

so that he took that right off the table and in brackets was the electronic filing fee which is a junk fee of 559 55 and there was a battery tire PTA I don't know what PTA parent teachers association I'm not sure what and a hundred ninety five dollars and cents I know that's not a battery tire so the PTA it must be the parent-teacher association because what else could be $195 and then the documentation fee is in bracket so that's $1,198 fee documentation fee so that means that the Borgans auto group or at least the management of this dealership has said thou shall not take off these fees because we're not going to pay your commission on these anyway if you take these off you're taking

them off the price and you're going to cut your commission so the management behind this the owners of this dealership and the management of this dealership said we can't take this off so that's the reason it doesn't behoove you the shopper uh the buyer to haggle about these things give them a bottom line out the door price let them keep any fees on there they want to but if you don't get the price you want you're going to walk and you're going to buy the car from their competition that's the way to get the price down. While the upper portion in this worksheet could vary if I was ready to buy immediately, they're the old, you're going to buy today. I expressed that I wasn't interested in the Arrigo Advantage. And this is, you can hang on your hats when I tell you

about this Arrigo Advantage. It's $2,995. So he pulled out a sheet to show me what it included. And I'll read this fast because there's two to the boss. I've never seen an advantage like the Arrigo Advantage. Are you ready? Here's the Arrigo Advantage, we'll call $3,000. Paid and Fabric Protection. Sanestization and anti-microbial treatment. Rain repellent.

Door-hedge guards and cup guards. Headlight protection. Anti-theft of thin etching. AC System Refresh, nitrogen tire service, stolen vehicle assistance, roadside assistance, collision loyalty credit.

I'm running out of breath. Customer welcome kit. So that's what the regal advantage is. $3,000 worth of crap, and that whole list that I just read probably cost them $500,000, maybe, maybe $400. He wants to charge you $3,000.

I pointed out there were over $4,000 in that odds and asked if that wasn't a bit high. He acknowledged that the irregular advantage might be discounted or even removed. So that tells you what it's worth. They might discount it. That means it can be and it would be if you're going to buy today. But anything in the brackets couldn't be changed. I then asked about the $1,198 documentation fee, and he clarified that it was a dealer fee. now he confessed he confessed that it was a dealer fee and on the worksheet

just what the exact egg said the worksheet yeah he called oh yeah it wasn't my fee okay I'm sorry after pondering the numbers for a minute he asked again what I thought about buying the truck today today today today as you mentioned before they might be able to discount the truck further I told and I needed to discuss it with my parents, especially since my stepdad wasn't keen on the dual wheels. I mentioned that I'd talk to them later and let up know. I bid Golden goodbye and left. That's Golden Miller, by the way.

Golden Miller and Rigo and Westbound Beach. So here we have it, and now we have to decide what the grade and what the score is. And every week I remind you that you have to look at things. the grade on a curve because we have to provide some source of buying cars in the area that people shop. And if you fail every dealer in the area in some areas like South Florida, I would fail every dealer in the area because they are all out to get you. But if I did that, we would have no place to buy a car.

So if it's an average dealer, give them a C, even though they're bad. The only Fs we give out is when you just break the law and it would be dangerous, frankly, to go into that dealership. A's, you know, they're like hen's teeth. You don't see many hen's teeth and you don't see many A's. So, grade on the curve and send your grade into ErlandCars.com or YouTube.com forward slash earloin cars. Oh, I got that right the first time.

You, YouTube.com, forrest slash Erloncar's. And we can text it in, and we'll read your scores as they come in. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, send in your scores at 772-4976530. Rick? Jonathan and Palm Coast says, better not go where we go. Entertaining commercials won't get you a great deal when purchasing a car. Be on the lookout for someone like this dealership. Do your homework before walking into a place like this.

The lowest price in the state rapidly became unaffordable, even with a wonderful $12,000 discount. Lies, bait and switch, ariego advantage, and excessive non-negotiable fraudulent fees garner this dealership an F from me. Dr. Seuss is alive and well. I understand that they need to make a profit, but I refuse to buy from a dealership that willfully takes advantage of and deceives their customers. Okay. Here is Bob from Maryland. He says, it would have been a D, but I'm not giving the lowest grade, not price in the state. It's an F. Oh, boy. Oof. Our folks here are tough. Now, let me get my YouTube channels up here, and here we go. We have T-Cash says F, and you can't change that vote because it's in brackets, signed the Parent Teachers Association.

Johnny Z. Fray... Johnny Z. Fradley. Here's a Rigo again. With fees, the big discount didn't turn up to be very good price after all. It's a D for Dodge away from the dealer. Mark H. D. Classic bait and switch. Brian said Latko.

Their ad was deceiving. Too many fees gets a deal. fees gets a D. Mark Smith says, I give Arrigo C.D.J. A D. Minus. Tim Gilliland, a D. Cramm 1624. F. First you go into the brackets, then the box. Of still no out-the-door price. Joseph Kelleher, D. Tom Steckle, one word. Arrigo. D minus. I like that. Me, I'm following the crowd with a D-grade. Just be ready for them, folks. If you've got to go to Arrigo, go in there and beat the heck out of them.

Like Earl said, they're not moving cars, so you've got a good chance to work a better price, but be ready to beat them up. Absolutely. I agree with you on that. Do you have any more rates? I think that is all of them. I'm double checking our text line and the both channels and nope we are caught up right now okay I'll go ahead and vote and I'm just wondering first of all is there any difference

between ETA I use that a lot and PTA I'm just I just want to emphasize the this colorful mystery shopping report what is the difference between ETA and PTA okay trying to make a point why are consumers why do they distrust dealerships why does it run so high here is an example right here ladies and gentlemen you know my stomach is upset just just reading this this is this is ridiculous you know from asking you know a potential buyer what they want to pay a month. That is as old as my shoes. This here monthly payment thing, I mean, it's just not acceptable.

And the qualifying for the military and how you can't save any money because you don't qualify. And this salesperson golden, I mean, what can I say about him? He's just about as arrogant as they come and for a rego these people should go to jail That's where they should be and my grade is a F Well, I think that's the worst series of grades I've seen at a long time and I it is a South Florida dealership And I say great on the curve I I'm torn I I can't bring myself to give them an F I'm going to give them a D minus and I think one of the reasons the grades are so bad is because we're on the edge of the enforcement level so I'm

going to work this this will be an interesting experiment I we will revisit a rego I hate to give them a notice this soon because I know September 1st is going to be enacted but I'm going to communicate with Auto Nation I'm going to be with the Attorney General with Ashley Moody and I'm going to communicate with Ted Smith of Florida Automobile Dealers Association and I'm going to give them a copy of this shopping report and I'm going to recommend that they be put on the list one of the first dealerships to be visited by Ashley Moody and see if in fact this commitment that she's made has teeth in it so I I'm still going to give them a D-minus because it is a South Florida dealership.

Any other place in the world, I'd give them an F, but I'll give them a D-minus. That PTA is a projected time availability or whatever. Anyway, a lot of fancy words in the Mystery Shopper Report that don't mean a damn thing. Okay, we have, I believe, by the clock, four minutes left? Three minutes left. Okay, you know, I failed to ask Jonathan to put the video up for Nala. And can you run that real quick? Hi, this is Nala.

She's one of our long-timers here at the ranch. As you can see, she got a lot of energy, very, very playful dogs. They've taken her out, getting a nice walk in. She loved people. Very, very sweet. loves a lot of attention. One of her favorite things in the world is peanut butter. She will do anything for peanut butter. She needs a little more training, a little more work, but she's a wonderful dog and she has a lot of potential for somebody who wants a dog who can really bond with them.

Looks like she might like to change cars too. It's not good. She's got the legs for it. Go to Big Dog Ranch and take a look at that. little darling and she may be a fit for you and your home. Okay, we're running out of time. Is there something quickly you would like to mention, Earl? No, I just have big to all grants. I think we should, if anything, allow more time for them

because they're truly the best dog protection organization in the world. I mean, I say the world, they bring dogs from China from all over the world. dogs that are being butchered for food that are being released with no care. They are truly saints in the industry. And if you're going to adopt a dog, if you're anywhere near a big dog ranch rescue, there are three of them in the country, you should absolutely give them a shot.

Yeah, I couldn't set of any better. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. oh how we love your company you make the show thank you for tuning in we'll see you right back here next saturday morning same time eight a.m. Have a wonderful weekend.