Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.24.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Greenway Kia

Episode Date: August 24, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Greenway Kia, to see if their salesperson will disclose the Takata Airbag Recall on a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Hi, everybody. That was me just introducing myself. And as I said last week, that sounds a little silly doesn't. But I am Earl Stewart. I am what a lot of folks call me is a recovering car dealer. I've been in the business since 1968. This is a show, if you haven't heard it before, I promise. If you'll just listen for a little while, I think you'll enjoy it.

If you have anything to do with automobiles, which most people do, you ride of it, even if you don't own one. But car dealerships are a special branch of the retail world. They kind of lag behind the rest of the world in terms of how retail is accomplished. They haven't jumped into the 21st century. still doing business back in the 20th century. In fact, the mid-20th century or earlier, it's very difficult to buy a new car, lease a new car. Most people consider it an experience comparable to having a root canal. They just postpone. I think if car dealers ever joined the 21st century and treated consumers with respect, courtesy, dignity, I think the whole

economy would be boosted, possibly worldwide. I think people actually delay buying and leasing cars because of the fact that's just unpleasant. The Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. I don't know if you've heard about that, but if you Google it, Gallup poll, honesty and ethics and professions, they've been doing this annual, annually since 1977, and every year, check it out. Don't pick my word for it. Every year, car dealers have been at the bottom. I say the bottom. Sometimes they're next to last. Last year they were dead last. I think at the highest we've ever placed, and I say we, because I'm a car dealer, the highest we've ever placed is maybe third from last. People just don't like the experience. And speaking of

buying or leasing, they also don't like the experience of maintaining and repairing cars. And they have to bring their car in for routine maintenance, factory recommend maintenance at the very least. And that's an exciting experience, too, because too many car dealers, and I won't say all, there's some good car dealers out there, don't get me wrong. but too many car dealers exploit and take advantage of their customers in the service drive and when they come in to buy or lease a car so that's why we're here and we're having a little technical difficulty I feel like I say that every week we moved into a new studio seems like it was a long time ago at least a month and little things have been going wrong it's a beautiful studio by the way we love it much more comfortable what went wrong today appears to be our streaming of Facebook Facebook and Periscope and YouTube. So what we're going to ask you to do is rely more heavily on the telephones, and I'll be giving that number out more frequently perhaps than normal.

Our call-in number is 877-960-9960. That's 877-960. For you folks out there on Facebook, I apologize, or YouTube, I apologize. possible we could have a miraculous fix sometime during the show but meanwhile you can stream us if you like to stream and see what's going on just by going to stream earl on cars.com that be w-w-w-stream earl-on-cars.com S-T-R-E-A-M-E-R-L-C-R-S dot com and it'll be kind of like Facebook text number

And I'm giving a lot of data now. I apologize. The text number is area code 772-4976530. That's 772-497-6530. So that's communication links. And I say it's important because we really believe that you make the show. We learn, I think, oftentimes as much during a show from you, our callers, as you learn from us. and we have some very, very smart callers out there.

Some people that really, really follow the automotive world. We have one female caller out there that reads the automotive news, the trade periodical for manufacturers and car dealers. So anything that you have in the way of a question, a comment, a criticism, or if you have an idea how we can fix our Facebook link or YouTube link, we'd love to have you call us 877. 960-9960. That's 877-960-99-60. And text us, Eric of 772-497-6530. Again, that text number is 772-4976530. Now, I introduced everyone at the introduction,

and sitting to my left is Nancy Stewart. Nancy, as I said, in the introduction, is my Colos, also my wife. And Nancy, I would appreciate it. If you left the female callers out there know how much we love them and how much we want them to call. And a little special thing we offer our female callers. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And I'll make an announcement from Linda. She's right on Facebook and she sees us live and clear. Wow. Yeah. Can we communicate with Linda? She can hear us or see us? She sees us. Oh, hi. Sees us.

Okay, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and as Earl had introduced me, women have certainly become, well, a more powerful and influential segment of the car buying world. And with all of that said, we have moved forward. Things have gotten so much better for us, and I'd like to offer the ladies. first two new female callers, $50 this morning. Yes, $50. And that is a nice reward for you to give me a call, give us a call with your questions, comments, anything at all. And also, what's real important is that you can go to your anonymous feedback.com. Don't forget that.

And you can tell us how we can improve the show, anything at all. and you do remain anonymous. Back to the recovering car dealer. Jonathan Canter, our guy in the technical corner of the studio, says we are back in business on Facebook. And Linda says she can hear us. So, hey, Linda. Fantastic.

Wow. Good job, Jonathan. Thank you, John. I just got done posting these or sorry pictures all over the internet. Anybody got an AED? I think I need paddles on his chest. I think Jonathan almost keeled over there. Get him a fan.

Yeah. Get water over there? We had to give him smelling salts earlier. You know, I say this in a lot, live radio. That's part of it, right? It's beautiful. You just don't know. I mean, it gets the adrenaline going.

I mean, anybody who has a pulse under 72 now, I would be surprised. Mine's more like 92. And it's exciting. We did a show years ago. This show's been on the air for 15 plus years. We did a show years ago, and we were dead air. There was nobody out there, and we wondered why nobody called. That was back during the door.

The whole show, right? The whole show is it? And when they finally told us in the studio, you know, the show did not go out. But we had fun. You know, we talked to each other. No calls. And Jonathan's been in the studio since, what time do you get here? Two o'clock this morning?

He said four. So Facebook is working. YouTube is working. Twitter's working. Parascope is working. And all you're going to do is go to Facebook.com forward slash Erlon Gars. And Ann Marie, who we met in person just this past week on Wednesday. she's watching us on YouTube

can hear us and see us so we're all good Ann Marie Anne Marie Delgado one of the most amazing callers and we were floored when she walked in absolutely we really were

it was just amazing I was so happy to meet her yeah very smart lady and you just heard Stu's voice and he's our cyber guy and we will not have Stu in the studio next week he's having a little bit

of minor outpatient surgery taking a few days off and we will have Alan Napier, who is our collision repair guy in the studio next Saturday. And so be saving up your questions on paint and waxing and how do I deal with my insurance company. And what will happen if I wreck my car and they don't agree to use factory parts and they want to use cheap parts? All those questions, Alan Napier will be here next week. And while I'm talking about next week, something very exciting. We've never had this happen before.

We have a national reporter that will be sitting in the studio. And this national reporter is from automotive news, and she will not participate in the show. But actually, she'll be embedded at our dealership for three or four days. And she'll be kind of living in key-to-key, as she said. She'll be observing the retail automobile business in South Florida. And the most exciting part is she'll watch Rolls Road on Cars. We are unique.

There just aren't any other car shows like that out there. The mystery shopping report is truly the thing that makes the show unique. And if you haven't heard the show, man, you will never see anything like this. We actually send an undercover agent, our current undercover guy, We call him Agent Thunder. We don't talk about his name because to be identified, he wouldn't be able to... Security and safety is paramount. Absolutely, yeah.

And so we visit a car dealership. We've been as far south, probably as Miami, as far north as where... Pensacola. Pensacola. Man, that's north. That's almost... And west. Yeah.

And we pretend to buy a car. And we go in and go through the whole procedure. We have it recently, and we've had a recommendation we do this, actually buy the car, we will do that, I promise. We will go all the way through the process because sometimes when we stop the procedure before we go through the financing process, we miss some of the stuff that can happen.

The finance department is one of the most dangerous departments when you buy a car. So can you imagine that? We're going to report that this morning. It will be in the second half of the show, and we will tell you about our visit to a car dealership and how we pretended to buy a car, came in on an advertisement, and we named the name of the dealership,

we named the name of the sales managers and the salespeople and everything, and then we score them, we give them a score. And if they pass, they go on our recommended list. And if they don't, they go on, do not buy a car from this dealer list. Everybody's involved in scoring on the mystery shopper report. I'm going to interrupt you because, as always, we always interrupt ourselves for our callers. And speaking of exciting and exciting part of our show,

So I'm going to tell you, Tina brings a lot of that excitement to the table, and we enjoy her company. She is certainly amazing, intelligent, she's informed, and she brings something new every Saturday. Good morning, Tina, and welcome. Good morning. How y'all doing this morning. Good morning, Tina. Good morning. I was just reading an article in the auto news about Honda,

and they are going to be putting a new kind of airbag in their car that is supposed to be safer, and I do believe it is being made by a Swedish company, but this is basically Honda's answer to the whole Takata debacle, so hopefully this will usher in a new generation of safer airbags. Wow, that is very interesting. And I just, I didn't mention earlier, I don't know if you heard me, but we have an auto news reporter that will be on this show. She won't be participating.

She'll be in the studio observing Earl Stewart on cars next Saturday between 8 and 10. And I was just thinking, do you subscribe to automotive news, Dana, or do you, how do you always seem up on the other news information? Well, what I do is like a couple days before I call you guys. I do my homework, and I try to find something relevant. So I look at at Jalapnik is the one site I look at, and then Auto News is the other site that I look at, too. I think it's called something other than Auto News, but it's Automotive News, and I look at their website.

Yeah, that's a trade publication for all the manufacturers, really, I think, of the world, every auto manufacturer, all the managers, certainly the CEOs and executives, religiously read automotive news. It's a weekly. And all car dealers. It's kind of exciting. It's a trade journal, but a lot of national news outside that trade,

you know, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, all the big papers, Washington Post, would watch that. And the television and online media watches it, too, because most of the trade journals get the information first. So it'll be kind of exciting. I love to have you, too. Now, you tune in almost every week, Tina, but tune in next week because I know that you'll enjoy.

We'll be talking about this reporter, but we can't ever participate on the air. Well, it'll be interesting to see how that transpires. It'll be nice. Yeah. Very nice. Tina, do you have any other questions? Do you have any more information for us? Well, maybe not info, but I have sort of a question, I guess.

A lot of people, especially in Florida, we have unique needs for tires in Florida because we don't get snow, we don't get ice, and if we do, it makes national news and everybody stays off the road. But if you had an SUV, which is the most popular vehicle in Florida, obviously, and is becoming more popular throughout the country, which tire would you buy for Florida weather and why? I say the old weather tire, wouldn't you, Rick? I mean, the type of tire you'd want for Florida? I really prefer all-weather tires because the amount of rain that we get, something with a good aggressive tread that can channel water away is probably the absolute best option to me.

Plus, the fact, we have so many seasonal residents here. It's a perfect tire if you have to go back and forth between the frozen wastelands of the north and sunny South Florida. Exactly. yeah all wither tires and what about the heat cycling down here we get a lot more heat cycling than a lot of the rest of the country though with tires correct

we do but it's more just that we see it for a longer time throughout the year believe it not a lot of those northern states they can get some pretty serious amounts of heat up there as well so and their areas you know

you've got other places that actually see much higher temperatures but just not as much humidity. Well, Tina, thank you. One more quick thing. Especially down here with wet weather traction being number one priority since we have dry season and when wet season starts, we have oil on the road and that kind of thing. Do you think it's best to replace your tires before the tread hits the wear bars just to allow yourself a little extra safety?

Yeah, I would say so, Tita. The recommendation by the Department of Highway Traffic Safety is replaced at 2.30 seconds. I think that once that wear bar goes below 3.30 seconds, you should replace your tires. That's a good thing. And, Tina, we've got three callers holding right now, and we thank you very much for your call. You are our best caller. Maybe you're in a tie with Anne-Marie Delgado. Both of our best callers are females, and we really appreciate your calling every week.

And just to wrap this up, Tina, maintenance on tires is so important. People just don't realize it. Thank you so much, Tina. And we definitely want to hear from you next week. Have a great weekend. See you all later. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Doug, who's holding, and he is calling us from Boca.

Good morning, Doug. All right, good morning. Ollie says meow. Meow. Right back, yeah, Ollie. Yeah. Miao. He's a kiddie.

in case you don't know who all he is. That's his buddies. He brought them all. So, update on my car that was struck by lightning. On the service guy, he's really nice. He's on my side, not on the insurance side. And he told me, basically, he tried to total out the car because he replaced already three computers.

And now he says, it's still not working. And so he said he needs to replace the fuse box. And State Farm refuses to total out the car. They said, well, we'll just try something else. So we have to get a lawyer? Yeah, I was going to ask you, what do we do in this case? Yeah, I think what you have to do is if you have an attorney and if you don't, I can give you the name of one just to write a letter for you,

I think state farm, all state, all the insurance companies drag their feet sometimes on totaling cars, particularly later model cars. But any expert will tell you when lightning hits a computer, and that's what your car is, it's a computer on wheels, there's nothing that can create more problems than a lightning strike near or at anything electronic. And the problem is it's almost like a flood car. Sometimes the problems don't materialize for weeks or months later. and so they can get off with repairing it and then six months from now you have a problem

and they say oh we fixed that six months ago that must be something else so a letter from an attorney if you're fighting an insurance company is always a good idea okay I'll have my attorney do that and then secondly I was involved in a three car accident

just two days ago and you okay I was okay yeah I'm okay I was in the rental car making a left turn an intersection and two car accident and happened behind me

and I got tapped. Oh, wow. Nothing terrible. But speaking of airbag, I go there to help out this young lady who just got hit by the airbag and she's in so much pain she says to me, I think my ribs are

broken. Oh, my God. She says, can you please help me call 911? And you know, here I am, you know, trying to help her and there smoke coming from the car from the airbag exploding and it's like what a frightening experience that's terrible um did we lose Doug okay Doug still there and we're getting a lot of sign language here I think we uh I think we lost Doug no no no

there was another another unrelated issue where we're all good oh good I come Doug's not not talking anymore. Well, that's not what I was signaling about. Oh, okay. I think we had a coincidence. Doug's phone might have dropped or something. Oh, okay. Well, let's go to the next caller then. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, give us a call toll free. 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go to Tampa where Sydney has been holding. Thank you for your patient, Sydney. Good morning. And thank you for calling. Harold Stewart on cars. Good morning. Good morning, Sydney. What's on your mind?

I'm trying to buy me a car, but getting frustrated this day because when you go to the dealership, you start talking to them and they give you the price, then you ask them, let me give me the best out the door twice, and I can go to another dealer to, to, to, shop out, they don't want to give it to me. They say, no, I'm not going to give you my price, and you go to one of the

dealership, and they give it to pass it. If you give me the best out there are price, why are you scared of giving me your price to go to somewhere else? You know, certainly that's so typical, and I'm embarrassed when I hear comments like this because I'm an automobile

dealer too. Too many dealers play the game. They don't want to give you their lowest price because they're afraid that she'll take it to their competitor, and the competitor will give you an even lower price. I recommend that you use a third part. Are you a member of Costco? I know they have a Costco scores in the Tampa area.

Are you a member of Costco by any chance? No. Okay. You might consider joining as the annual membership is very inexpensive around 50 bucks for the basic membership. And they have an auto buying program, which will give you an excellent price as a Costco member, there's another third-party buying source out there called TrueC-A-R-U-E-C-A-R, T-R-U-E-C-A-R, T-R-U-E-C-A-R-T-R-C-R. And they also will offer up

car dealerships that are certified dealers for True Car, and True Car will give you a price on a car that excludes the hidden fees that typically all dealers in Florida charge, also excludes dealer-installed accessories, which is overpriced, you know, overvalued accessories that inflate the profit on the car to the dealer. So that way, either True Car or Costco, now, consumer reports, I'm sure you've heard of Consumer Reports, they have an auto buying program too. If you want to avoid the Hagelin hassle and the game playing that most car dealers put you through, those three sources, consumer reports,

truecar.com, and Costco Auto Buying Program are excellent. I have another question. Why the used car dealership don't negotiate the price of the car? I wonder why. Why they don't... On the used car dealerships.

Yeah. That seems to be a trend going around pretty much everywhere we see now. It's a one-price selling model. I think it's because it's easier. to do one price on a used car because each car is its unique, it's its own thing. You know, new cars are almost like a commodity. You can get the exact same car anywhere, but a used car, you know, with the condition and the miles,

it's a unique thing. So they will set a price, advertise it online, and typically, well, at least they'll say it'll hold to the price. I mean, if you really want to do some work, you might be able to get them to discount it. Certainly, what you can do is go to AutoTrader. I know I'm giving you a lot of websites and names. But AutoTrader, just A-U-T-O-O-T-L-T-L-T-R-T-R-T-R-T-R, Autotrater.com is a website that essentially has virtually every used car available and new car for all car dealerships. You put your zip code in or any zip code you want, and you'll find vehicles offered.

You can also sort by price and other means. But take the used car that you're looking for, go to AutoTrader and put your zip code in. you will find all the cars of that description and the prices. The thing you have to be careful of is the dealer fees. But if you get a dealer that gives you a used car price and won't negotiate, take the price, go to AutoTrader and compare that price with other car dealers that have that particular car advertised on AutoTrader. Just be sure you call the dealership or go in however you want to do

and find out what the out of the door price is because most dealers will add dealer fees, I call them hidden fees, to the price that they advertise on the other trader. You guys don't charge dealers fee. Why everybody don't do that? Why everybody tried to whip people

off and they let you believe the dealer fee, if they don't pay it, they will be out of business. Well, you're right. They don't tell the truth. Yeah. They do it because they want to increase the profit over what it's advertised.

Hidden fees are not exclusive to car dealers. When you travel, the airlines are charging hidden fees. They hide the fees on baggage. A rental car companies are famous for hidden fees. There are a lot of retailers out there besides car dealers. Car dealers are the worst because the average hidden fee in South Florida is well over $1,000. I know car dealers in South Florida, they charge as much as $3,000 in hidden fees. So it's something that should be made illegal.

I've tried, I've worked with the legislator in Tallahassee, I've talked to the governor to try to make it illegal, but it's just something you have, if you're aware of a hidden fee, then it's no longer dangerous. Once you're aware of it, you can protect your jobs too. You have a point? Yeah, it also makes it really easy for dealers to advertise a price much lower than they're actually willing to sell the car for. So if they have that hidden down in the fine print, it's really easy to say, I got a great low price, come see me, and then it sprung on. you when you get there. So it's all of, it's, it's deception and hidden profit. It's just a bad thing. And Sydney, to protect yourself from all of this, I created an affidavit for a final out-the-door price. And you can go to Erlon Cars and you can download it. And what it does is it protects you for the out-the-door price that they quoted. It can also protect you against dealer fees, all of the deception that these car dealers are going to subject you to. And it is an affidavit, and you download that, and you can take that to the dealership, and you can ask

the salesman to sign it, the manager, and you can get your out-the-door final price with this affidavit. If they won't sign it, don't buy the car from that dealership. And I'm going to put it up on the screen here for you to take a look at. And it's a, I'll tell you what, it's a win-win situation for you, Sydney, to protect yourself. Yeah, because it's getting frustrated. Like, I went to a Subaru and Orlando, and the car has 112 mileage. And I tell the car, this is not a, when you car, you say, yes, they drive it from one dealer to another. I say, why you accept them to drive the car? Then when I go out, they look in for the MS. It says $27,000.

And they add $4,000 on the MSOP, and they tried to let me know they give me a discount of $2,000. Well, Sidney, listen, we appreciate the call. I'd love to have your call back. Try some of the suggestions we've given you, the lowest price affidavit and also the True Car, Costco Auto Buying Program and Consumer Reports. If you go back and try some of these suggestions, we'd love to get it. hear from you next Saturday. Thank you, sir. I like this program.

I like it a lot. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Sidney. I look forward to hearing from you next week. Give us a call tool-free. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Okay, do we have any text coming in so far? We do.

We do have several that have come in. I'll start with the earliest one. It was actually a follow-up to something we talked about a couple of weeks ago. It says on the 17th of August, well, that was one week ago, on the 17th of August, you mentioned that cars could use a quart of oil for every thousand miles, so checking the oil is a must. My thought is, isn't there a sensor to warn you of low oil, and that's from Jim? There is, but the problem is in most cars,

by the time that oil light comes on, you're already doing damage. So I wouldn't rely on that oil pressure light. I would get that oil checked at least once a month. You know, that's interesting. I learned something on the show every week from callers and also from Rick and Nancy and Stu. So you're saying that the manufacturer's warning light that says little oil actually comes on too late.

We've actually had cars that have damaged to their engines because of little oil when the warning sensor light did not come on. Well, what actually is the light doesn't show the level of oil. It's for the oil pressure. So if your car loses that oil pressure, a lot of the components nowadays are so sensitive to oil pressure, which is used for such things as the variable valve timing, that a loss of oil pressure, even for a few moments while the car's running at speed, can cause damage very quickly. Wow. Just for a few moments. Even just for a few moments. Did not know that. Okay, some more text?

Yeah, another follow-up from an earlier show. It says, hi, you never commented on my text last week about a new Venza model for the late 20 or 21. And the answer to that is, as far as I know, there are no plans for Toyota to reintroduce the Venza. And that's kind of a shame. It wasn't a very, you know, super popular model, but the folks who got it loved it. And it was a crossover SUV, kind of like a station wagon. And I actually drove one for a while. It was a pretty nice car.

it just didn't do that well in sales and they discontinued it so it doesn't look like it's it's going to be back and then there's some more the same texture has had a problem with the entune head unit in their car and wasn't able to get their contacts in there and they said they tried to delete the items from the phone in entomb and i'm sorry that rick did answer that answer that question last week and then there was just another comment here from the same texture It says in Maryland, where they just got a Subaru Cross Tech up in Maryland from CarMax. They said the state law in Maryland allows dealer fees up to $299, but CarMax only charges $99 up there, which he considers fair. And then he said, considering the games that the Baltimore area dealers play.

So nice play on words right there. Well, it's nice to know that. We probably ought to do a state survey, and we probably ought to start accumulating. Dealer fee charges by dealer and also by state. Because I think every time I talked to a reporter, I spoke to a lawyer the other day was asking my advice. He was a lawsuit involving insurance companies and dealer fees. And when I told him that there was no cap on dealer fees in Florida,

he wouldn't believe me at first. And a lot of people don't realize that. Maryland, as you just said, from Texas just said, 299. California, I think is $75 or something like that. Yeah, it's minimal. 85. So there are, it just seems unbelievable that in the state of Florida, you can charge a million dollar dealer fee.

I mean, it just boggles my mind. There is a website. We talked about it on the air a few weeks ago. There's a website. It's called realcartips.com, and they keep a running total of dealer fees by state. A problem is, it is, and by the way, true car is the one who put that together. It's not up to date. It looks like it's from about eight years ago.

So, I guarantee you, just double everything you see. Exactly. Except for California. Okay. Any more text, yeah. Just one from, it was from Stephen, New Jersey, who's a longtime listener and texter and occasional caller. We talked to him last week about applying a plastic lens protector film to a new car headlight.

And we said we'd consider it. He sent us a link to it, and I can't show it on the air, but we'll post it, Jonathan. Then we'll post it on our YouTube channel, and we'll refer you to it. Can't vouch for it yet, but we will check it out. And that brings us up to speed with our texts. Very good. Rick, you have a point? Yes, we do.

Comas from the YouTube channel is asking, is gap insurance a good idea. He's in the market for a new Subaru, and he's having a little trouble deciding between the outback and the forester. Many opinions on those and the idea of the gap insurance? Well, the gap insurance is something that can be very good if you're inclined to insure things, because remember, no matter what you insure, the insurance company, when the end of the day is there, takes in far more premiums and they pay out in claims, and that's included in gap insurance too. I would recommend, depending on what states you're in, that you check prices on gap insurance. There's some states that are less regulated than other states, but you should shop and compare prices

and coverage on Gap insurance. What really is Gap insurance? Gap insurance is... Guaranteed asset protection. That's what stands for. Yeah, asset protection. Because if you have an accident, you buy a car and you owe the bank or the credit union, X number of dollars, no matter what happens, you are still going to have to pay that off to the bank or the credit union.

Now, if you should be in an accident where you have, oh, Stu, you can explain about it, negative equity. Yes, let's say you bought a car for $20,000, and you drove it for a year or two, and you made payment, you owed $18,000. And you get an accident, the insurance company says it's totaled out, but they say the value of the car is $15,000. So you get a check for $15,000, but you still owe the bank, $18,000. Gap comes in and pays it extra $3,000. Exactly. And it usually costs about, well, there's a problem with it because dealers are getting crazy what they're charging, but typically you'll see it charge. or anywhere from maybe $5.95 to $8.95, depending on the length of the term of your loan.

Where you get in trouble is when the finance and insurance manager and the dealership sells your gab insurance, and you really don't need it. It could be a situation where you traded the car in, where you made a large down payment, and your chances of having to pay the bank more than would be in the value of the total is zero. In the same example, let's say you bought a car for $20,000, but you put $10,000 down. And the finance manager says, you really need to protect that asset here, we should buy Gap. You pay him $700 for the Gap. Same situation happens. You get an accident.

You owe $18,000 on the car, and the insurance comes to pay you $15, but it doesn't matter. You only have $10. Now you've wasted $700. The dealers made some money, and it was a complete rip-off. Yeah. And sometimes car dealers can charge you pretty much anything they want for Gap Insurance. They'll have their own Gap insurance or they'll have. but if you shop and compare insurance

and you should do that with any insurance policy by the way collision whatever you buy and always shop and compare you would be amazed at the difference that you will find between several insurance companies on any insurance that's good to know good knowledge any more YouTube over there we do we have

Ernesto asking he says is there any truth to when a dealership says they need used cars and will pay up to $4,000 over Kelly Blue Book value even if you didn't buy a car from them. www.

It ain't going to happen.com. I love that one. And that's a real website, by the way, folks. We really have that website. We'll talk about that later. You were waiting to use that, weren't you? The way, this is probably the most

prevalent and unscrupulous, deceptive, and it's the scam of the year. Car dealers stumbled under the just, oh, what, 10 years it goes to? And suddenly somebody said,

hey, you know, it's so hard to sell cars, people are onto us. And they know we're lying about our advertising the prices to sell a car. Let's tell them we want to buy their car. And everybody says, ooh, that's good. I can't get a herd. I need some money.

I need the money. They want to buy my car. All that is nine times out of ten, a ruse to get you in the door, to sell you another car, or as they say, say in the dealership vernacular, steal your trade. And they will offer you either far less than it's worth or they might even offer you more

than it's worth. And then Mickey Mouse the price for the car you want to buy to make you feel like you're getting a good price for your trade in. Typically, in an ad like that, you need a big, powerful magnifying glass. And then you go down into the fine print. And it's going to say $4,000 over Kelly Blue Book, but it's 50 cents per mile or $1 per mile depending on condition depending on market conditions and they completely negate the promise in the headline and with that said there are some sources

out there that will buy your car there's a company in South Florida the advertising is driving me nuts it's we buy any car.com and there's a guy that they dance around and jump and then he says we buy anycar.com it's a legitimate company you still have to be careful but they really do buy your car and we have seen cases where they actually paid a fair price. There's also, let's see other company. We buy any car. Carvana.

Carvana, what I was trying to think of. Carvana sells cars and they buy cars. CarMax will buy your car. But with all these, even though they're legitimate, you have to be careful. Never sell your car to any source without comparing prices. If you go to CarMax, you're driving a Honda Civic. CarMax will give you a price, guaranteed for five days, by the way. And then you should go to two other Honda dealers,

talk to the used car manager, and get their best price. Get three bids on your trade-in before you sell it. Yep. Hey, Comas just came up with another comment. He says, can I use your affidavit in Texas? Oh, sure. Yeah. The affidavit, by the way, you can either go to Hurl on Cars and download it there,

or you can go to www. Out the Door Price Affidavit.com. Lowest Price affidavit. A lowest price. And if folks I have it up on the screen right now. I recommend just going to Earlongars.com

unless you're, we'll write it down. We'll make sure it goes on the screen. You can do that, Jonathan. Well, someone changed that because it was originally out the door price, affidavit.com. So we now, it's the lowest price, affidavit.com, but the best way is to go to Erloncars and you will see it right of the top.

of the list on the home page and it will be lowest price affidavit.com. Take that to Texas or Hawaii or any place. It's just basically saying the price that I quoted you includes everything except government fees

and a government fee, pretty obvious, it's a fee that the dealer must pay the government. The other fees, the hidden fees, the dealer fees, he pays himself. He doesn't pay it to the government. He puts it in his pocket and that's the way they increase the price.

Definitely protects you from these dealer installed accessories, dealer fees, everything. Like I said earlier, win-win situation. Very good. Okay. Are we caught up on text? We are not. We have a comment and a question from Steve on Facebook. Excuse me, Stu.

Yes. We are going to go to Frank, who's been holding, and Frank joins us from West Palm Beach. He's a regular caller. Good morning, Frank. Good morning. How's everybody? Great. Doing great.

Good. I have a problem with Toyota, not with you guys. I called yesterday to, my six months are up on my free, what do you call, Connect and destination, all that stuff. So I called it. So I called up to renew it. And they said it's $8 a month or $80 a year. I said, I'll take $8. $80. I just want to connect. I don't want the destination thing. Okay, they asked me a lot of questions for about three minutes to make sure it's me. And you know, what's the password for Toyota? What's this? What's the bin number? And so on. So I went through all that. And it's $80 plus the sales pack. I said, okay. But now. they're reading me a contract. My credit card will be automatically renewed every year. I said, I don't want that. I'm paying for one year. I'll call you up next year.

Now, that's silly. Frank, Frank, do you have your radio on? I'm having difficulty hearing it. It sounds like there's something in the background. Yeah, my radio's on. I'll shut it up. Yeah, please.

I'll make it easier to understand. Hello. Yeah, we hear you now. yeah okay things have changed from the old studio if i turned the radio off i got cut off oh boy well anyway anyway i was so annoyed this i said i need a lawyer to read this contract that you're telling me on the phone it went on and on so i said you know just forget the whole because tomorrow is the six months, I think, for the week's day. I got the car march first.

So I said, you know, this one, I'm paying you money. I just want to renew it. So I said, maybe I'll call you guys for help. So I called up my answer. He's off today. And I said, I've got to talk to somebody important for this question I have. and then I got connected with the ring, but he wasn't there. So I left a message.

Is there any problem with this that he'd heard before? Yeah. Hey, Frank, this is Stu. Hey, Frank's talking about Toyota Connected Services, and it's a new thing, well, relatively new on the Toyota vehicles, and it's got some cool features, and it's complementary for the first six months. And it involves things like, well, it depends on what your vehicle

house. You can remote start. It communicates the health of the engine. And there's some various other features depending on the car that you get. And I will tell Frank that he is completely right. It is confusing. It's not an easy, intuitive thing. I personally have never tried to renew one. Right now, I'm using the free service on my car right now. But the whole thing is a convoluted mess. So, Frank, I think the simplest thing is, and not to end our conversation early, but Give me a call on Monday. You know, the number is 844-561-844-34-6-1. You already know the number and ask for me, and I will get Toyota on the phone,

and I will shepherd you through this confusing morass of technology. And, Frank, we will also issue a complaint to Toyota on behalf of you and all the customers, including Stu, who has had, you know, it's a convoluted mess, and Toyota needs to sharpen that pencil and make it easier. Yeah, so my last vehicle, I gave up. I tried to set it up, and I just stopped. I said, I don't even care anymore. This one, I was able to get it working, and I'm in the free period right now,

but I'm not looking forward to going through what you went through in a few months. Yeah, it's crazy. You know, I said I almost wish I didn't buy this car, you know, because, you want to, you know, I had my own business. people want to give me money. I was very happy. I did whatever I could to please them. And here just, I mean, it's only $80, but

the contract. Yeah. Well, Frank, I totally agree. And thank you for pointing this out. And we will point it out to Toyota. And Toyota's cost themselves a lot of business because you're a good customer. You might buy another Toyota. There are people out there that you get a negative experience

like this. They go buy something else. manufacturers need to learn how to make things easy for the customers you make something difficult for a customer they just buy somewhere else and we will send that message to Toyota for you and thank you very much for your call all right thank you for your help guys take care thanks Frank give us a call next week we're going to have an exciting show as always some pretty special guests also our telephone number here is 877 960 9960 and you can text us at

772-497-6-5-30. I'd like to get to a text from Jessica in Orlando, and she's out looking for a car, and she wants to know if it's really important to ask about the warranty. And my answer to her, before we get to the rest of the panel, is you want your car to be an investment that's going to go pretty far. That's number one. and you don't want to get drowned in repair costs.

So warranty is the most important question to ask when you're buying a car. It shows you really how much you can trust the manufacturer and the quality of that vehicle that you're looking at. Now I'll turn it over to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, warranty is important. I think that you have to be careful. Sometimes when cars come into this country, and they start to sell them.

Ugo comes to mind. And they're no longer here because it was a piece of junk. And they had the best warranty in the industry. They had to have a high warranty because it was not a good car. So there's two ways of looking at warranties. Sometimes the manufacturers with the more sparse warranties actually have pretty high quality. You can't rely entirely on the warranty, but you should know what the warranty is. Honda is a very high-quality car, and they have a three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.

Hyundai has a five-year, 50,000-mile warranty, I believe. So the warranties do vary, and the most important thing you need to know when you're analyzing a warranty is what does it cover, but more importantly, what does it not cover? I would rely more heavily on the actual quality of the car, and you can get that information from our favorite magazine they say that is consumer reports. Highest reliability, lowest maintenance cost, lowest insurance cost, most safe car. That's number one. Warrity is number two. Great information. Jessica, stay in touch with us. Let us know, you know how things turned out for you. And if there's a warranty that seems too good to be true, be careful. Knowledge is power. good luck to you.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Now back to Stu. Steve on Facebook Live has a comment and a question. He says, Consumer Reports, has a fee for its car buying service. I don't know anyone who's used them. Can you comment upon the value of their pay service? Good question. They copy TrueCar, and you can get the same information.

and pricing information on Truecar.com that you get from Consumer Reports. The reason I recommend Consumer Reports, even though you pay a fee, and it's a nominal fee, $20 or $30, is that Consumer Reports is such a prestigious company, and you just don't want to mess with Consumer Reports. If a car dealer were to try to flimpleam you with the Consumer Reports price, and you got back to Consumer Reports, I think you would really get, everybody's attention and I think it's a it's worth the money although as I say if you if you're careful with true car and you verify with the dealer you're

dealing with that they are adhering to the true car price you get it free there you go we have a comment on our anonymous feedback feed which is your anonymous feedback.com it says good morning I'm not sure if you're all aware that Auto Trader, Mannheim, KB, V Auto, Dealer Track, and other companies are all owned by Cox Automotive. And Cox Automotive is owned by Cox Enterprises. And this might come from an industry insider because some of these services are available to dealers only. That's like V Auto and dealer track. But that's true.

Cox Enterprises, which owns a ton of newspapers and other media things, have for the last maybe decade or longer, have gotten into the car business and they are buying up all sorts of services and I don't know if that's good or bad but they're there. Well, it's probably bad but then again, newspapers are dying and you can't blame them for trying

to survive. But it does make me nervous when one entity controls what is supposed to be consumer-friendly, honest, ethical information sources. So it's something that you should be aware of and thank you very much. I didn't know that they own all of those.

I knew they owned some of them. I knew that because in our dealership role, dealing with some of these services, they're selling it as an advantage. They say, well, you know, this service links up with this. It's all integrated. Maybe not so much. It hasn't really helped out, but that's a selling point that they're trying to make. Exactly.

Rick, do you have a YouTube over there? Actually, we're caught up right now on YouTube. Okay. If we're caught up on text, let me mention you. Go ahead, Nancy. Okay. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned. We're going to have that mystery shopping report that's going to be coming up.

And we have so much more to share with you. And as I always say, gosh, you are an important part of the show. Our callers, our listeners. So I'll give you that number, 877. If you haven't jotted it down, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I'm going to give that text out again because actually I think sometimes texts are easier for you and easier for us because we can get to them. And when you have to hold for a long time on the phone, it can be convenient.

So you can text us at 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And, of course, we're back up on Facebook, Periscope, and YouTube, Facebook.com, or slash Erlon Cars. I had a point I wanted to make about my conversation. I had an attorney from Tampa called me. His name is Kassim Neff, N-E-F. And he's an insurance attorney. And he had Googled me and found out that I was kind of an enemy of the dealer fee, the hidden fee.

and he saw specifically about the fact that I testified before the Florida Senate Commerce Committee a few years back trying to make the dealer fee illegal in Florida. And he's having some problems with insurance companies. His clients are coming to him and saying, look, I was supposed to be reimbursed for my car. I totaled it or whatever happened, and the insurance company owed me for a car. and they gave me this much money and then I went into the car dealership and the car dealership said

you have to pay me a $1,000 dealer fee or a $1,500 or three dealer fees and the question of the Casim Neff, the attorney, asked me is, is this legitimate? And of course I said, no, it's not legitimate. I said, and then we had a long, long conversation but it'll give you an idea of what insurance companies think about dealer fees and hidden fees

they look at your cars worth a certain amount of money and they have data that tells them if you wreck a 2016 Subaru Forrester they go online and they have data that will tell them the value of the car and nowhere in that value does it say $500 dealer fee or a $2,000 dealer fee

but the fact of the matter is if you're insured when you buy a replacement car you're screwed on the facts you're not going to get reimbursed for the dealer fee and the dealers will not stop will not charge the dealer fee this attorney I spoke to

it's hard to believe an attorney is being taken advantage of but he bought a car recently himself and he said he argued he argued he argued and they would not take the dealer fee off so interesting information about how ludicrous it is that you have to pay a dealer fee

but the insurance company won't reimburse you right shocking 877 960 or text us at 77272 49630 and we have some text yes we do from memory emery says last week Rick was starting to talk about getting out of a car that's gone into a canal

he mentioned that little hammer that many people have won't help unfortunately the audio was lost just at that point could Rick please repeat what is the best way to get out of a car that's in the drink Thank you very much. Well, it can be an extremely scary situation, but what you've got to do is just hold your head, keep your panic down, and basically if you have a higher-end car with new laminated windows, that hammer, and any big hammer even, is not going to break that window.

It's made like the windshield now. They're meant to break, but not shatter and fall apart. So the problem is to get that door open, you've literally got to wait until the water fills up the inside of the car enough that the pressures will equalize so that you can open the door. And I know it's a scary thing to do sitting and waiting for water to fill a car while you're, you know, you could be completely underwater, but that's really going to be about the only solution you have. because even a good-sized handheld sledgehammer cannot break a laminated window. That's terrifying. That whole scenario is totally terrifying. There should be something.

Manufacturers should think about these things. A door release thing. Well, actually, that's not going to help the pressure. Right, because it's the water pressure that's holding the door shut. Now, at the moment of impact, and before the electrical system starts shorting, out. If you can hit those window switches and get the window down, get the windows down as quick as possible, and don't forget a lot of cars, you've got another window above your head. And quite often that sunroof will still operate until the water gets up to where the controls for it

are. So try that sunroof as well. If it'll open, that's your way out. Good point, Rick. I mean, And that's almost something that is, I'd be afraid to do it. I mean, when I'm in the water and I'm starting to sink and there's no water in the car and I'm thinking to myself, I need to open the windows so all that water can pour in. You're listening to a man who suffers from severe claustrophobia. Yes. And acrophobia, by the way. Well, at least if you get the window open, you can try to climb out through the window.

It's irrational. And that's great advice. I think you're absolutely right, especially the sun moves from moon, type of thing. That sounds way more appealing to me. That sounds way more appealing, yeah. Yeah, the end result is you're saving your life. And, you know, I know it's really hard to stay focused at that moment, but keep that in

mind, and that is you're saving your life, and be sharp. Make sure you know where that water level is before you go to the moon roof. Well, I do have one actually on YouTube now. Roger is asking, hi, my daughter has a 2016 high. Islander and is now underwater on the loan, upside down. She's wanting to reduce her monthly payment. Do you have any advice for her on how she could accomplish this? Boy, that's one of the most common problems people have.

Car dealers will do anything they can to sell a car, including loading up the lease payoff or the previous car payoff into the purchase so that you start out with a heavy, heavy negative equity and sometimes you never get out of these things. I don't know. I mean the cash is the only way to lower payment and most people don't have the cash. You can try refinancing. You can go to a credit union or lender that might be able to offer better terms. But once you're upside down in a car, it's almost impossible without cash to get out. And be careful when the dealer says no problem because when you go to a dealership that is telling you that the negative equity is not a problem all they're saying is they're going to take that negative equity and load it into the

next vehicle you purchase and you could be even worse shape yeah okay uh we have a question on facebook live from ed in new york city i believe actually ed lives in brooklyn he says um you mentioned earlier that consume uh that a rental car companies charge hidden fees and he rents a lot of cars up in New York City. Specifically, what kind of fees should he watch out for? You know, the rental insurance, there's so many of them. There's extra extra insurance that you don't need because typically your homeowner's insurance covers you in a rental car. I would recommend that you check with your credit cards. I know the American Express cards will cover your insurance in a rental car. Other, I think, Visa Master Guard may also. Your

homeowners insurance oftentimes cover you. The insurance company will, the rental company, will try to sell you almost any kind of insurance they can come up with. And they will tell you that if you don't buy it and you wreck the car is going to cost you. You know, the deductible waiver is one of the big ones. Yes, the collision damage waiver. It usually runs around $20 a day. And that's the main thing I think they sneak in there on you. It's overpriced and rarely used. And it's very compelling, by the way, when they present it to you. You're worried about coming out of the pocket thousands of dollars if somebody hit you in a parking lot. Sure. And sometimes you just don't see it. You just sign here and okay this. You know, you get this contract, a lot of fine print.

They say just an initial by the box. And when you initial by the box, you just bought yourself a bunch of insurance. My philosophy, and this is just me, I don't believe in insurance unless it's for something that I can't afford to pay. should the event I'm insuring against happens. I have fire insurance. Eventually, I have fire insurance on our home. If the home burns down, it would be a little painful for us to have to buy another home.

But if I have a deductible on my collision insurance, I'm not going to have zero deductible. I might not even be afraid of $500. I might want a $1,000 deductible, and it probably won't happen. But if it did happen, I can come up with $1,000. Yeah. I've also heard of extra driver fees, which is kind of BS. If you have an extra driver, don't tell them. There's no camera in the car.

And also on fuel. By the way, you can ask them if you want to pay for the fuel. They'll ask you if you want to fill up the car or have them do it. Fill it up yourself. They're going to overcharge you for the gas. So that's another way to sneak an extra fee in there. And rule of thumb, when you're renting a car, don't buy anything except the cost of the rental car. One thing that I've noticed, if you're in a rental car and say you're out of town, you've gone to Orlando or Fort Lauderdale for a cruise or something, when you're getting ready to return that rental car, don't wait for the last gas station because believe it or not, the gas stations in Orlando, closest to the airport, can be up to double the price of fuel. Yeah. Same thing for the ones down by the port and Fort Lauderdale Airport, places like that, where you go to return a car, they know you're bringing that rental car in low, and they know they're going to charge you right up the wallet. That's a great tip. What's that app that you told us about?

It was the fuel finder. It was something you can find the cheapest gas price. It's either a website or an app. Yeah. We've got to look that up. Gas buddy. I have gas buddy. I have an app on my phone.

cold gas buddy but not everybody knows what Rick just shared with our audience and I think you have another text oh yeah we have a few coming in mainly on Facebook live Linda on Facebook asks how do you sell a car that still has a loan on it well we have to pay the loan off and that's something it's sometimes it doesn't get doesn't happen with some dealers and you have a problem with it yeah car dealers will often advertise the they'll pay your car off for you. Well, of course, they'll pay your car off for you, but then they add that payoff into the price of the car that you just bought, and that's how you end up with negative equity.

Yeah, and by the way, that reminds me of a car dealer scam ad. A lot of times they'll advertise, we'll pay off your car no matter what you owe. Of course they will. They'll put the check in the mail, but you're paying for it, so don't fall for that one. No free lunch. Yeah. We have a text says, there's no name on it, it just says, is there really any advantage in terms of saving money and getting the prepaid maintenance from a dealer in the finance office.

They say that you'll spend more money if you pay every time. How true is this? It's something that can be good. You have to be careful. The prepaid maintenance is a simple decision. You just have to take what you pay for the prepaid maintenance and then you go to the owner's manual of the dealership and you ask the service department at the dealership or wherever you decide to take your car for your maintenance and you price it out. So over, let's say you buy a three-year prepaid maintenance, you take that, add it up, all the oil changes and the tire rotations and everything else that you have to pay for, and you see it's a prepaid lower than if you pay individually. If it's lower, it's a good buy. But even with that said, it's only a good buy if you have all the maintenance done, and you should have all your prepaid maintenance done.

Dealers count on the fact that not everybody's going to come back for all the maintenance, and when they do, it doesn't. work out for them. So if you use every single thing that's in that package, you're going to come out ahead possibly. But also watch out for things that aren't really that, in other words, that there might be a rental car coverage. You're not always going to be renting a car, so they'll fact that in. So they'll add everything up and show you what you're getting by buying it in the finance office. But if you don't use everything, it's probably not a good deal. Exactly, right? And don't forget that most manufacturers now right from the factory offer the first two or even three years of maintenance

included in the car anyways. Exactly, yeah. The modern car has so little maintenance that this whole idea of prepaid maintenance is becoming an issue for car dealers. And so they're coming up with creative solutions, as Stu was describing, to make it sound appealing. But really, truly, folks, you buy a new car today,

your cost of maintenance is very low. Yeah, especially with manufacturers paying for for the first couple of years. Exactly. Yep. We have one more. This is from John in California. John says, I saw your post on YouTube on extended warranties.

If they're worth the cost or not, and it seems they are not. Now that I've seen a video by Kevin Hunter on YouTube, is it true that I would be able to go back to the dealer and cancel my extended warranty? Kevin says, I would be able to do this even after a year or two after the purchase of my car. So the question is, how true is this? And it is true. It varies by state.

In Florida, I believe you have 90 days. days to cancel a warranty, but the warranties in Florida are regulated by the state insurance commissions. Well, to get 100 percent of your money back, but you can cancel it after that, but it's a prorated amount. And well, again, it depends on the state law and the contract. There's something called a pro rata cancellation, which is the better part, meaning that if you have not used your warranty, then you get, and you have half of the warranty left, pro rata

would give you half your money back. Now you wouldn't get your cash back because if you finance your car, it would go to the lender and it would essentially lower your total number of payments, but you will not get cash in your fist for that. If it's a what they call a Rule 78 rebate, then you're going to get only a small percentage of that back.

Rule 78 does a calculation that after use half your warranty, you only get something like 25% of your money back. It's not a good deal. That's right. And we have one more that's on our other YouTube channel. That's from Sabinito, and he says, or he says, I have an 05 infinity G35, and when it gets hot, it sounds louder. That's a Rick question. So the engine gets louder when it heats up?

Well, I don't know. That's all I read what's there. I would first be. Maybe he means when the air temperature gets higher. Now, that could be. I would actually be looking at something possibly wrong with the exhaust system, though, because if something's heating up and, say, a joint's expanding and opening up a small crack, that could cause an increase in noise. And exhaust manifolds or the like are obviously subject to that heat.

So if you've got an issue like that, you could have not only an emissions issue, but also a performance issue showing up. And it might be something you want to try to catch. and get a handle before it becomes a bigger problem. Yeah, exactly. And if you can give us a little, any more information, go ahead and post that, and I'll read that to Rick. Yeah. Okay, well, we have a moment on I am going to share Phillips' text, and it's about nitrogen.

He paid $499 for nitrogen when he purchased a vehicle, and he wants to know if nitrogen is very important to have in your tires. Philip, I will start off by saying that the recovering car dealer has written a lot of columns on nitrogen and what a scam it is. So I don't know what my suggestion would be for you. The nitrogen is already in the tires. It's a learning experience and I'll turn it over to the recovering car dealer. Just don't do that again. Well, it's so prevalent.

I can't believe that people continue. to fall for the nitrogen and the tire scam. As Nancy says, I've been writing blogs and talking about it in public speaking engagements for a long time. The most proof I can give you is consumer reports who did a one-year-long test of every tire sold in the United States, and they filled one set of tires with nitrogen, the other set of tires with regular air. And by the way, regular air is 78% nitrogen.

So you've got nitrogen your tires pretty much anyway. Car dealers got a big, they love to push it because they say NASCAR cars use nitrogen in their tires, which is true. But NASCAR tires running at 200 miles, 220 miles an hour. Airline tires at 30,000 feet, they use the nitrogen because the pressure differential and even the space shuttle had nitrogen the tires. but your car on the road derives no benefit whatsoever consumer reports prove that it's a waste of money and by the way i just got another text philip said that the rationale uh in talking him into the nitrogen was the example of NASCAR yes yeah NASCAR because first of all if you want to win a race a NASCAR can be by a half a second uh your tire inflation is very important and nitrogen pure nitrogen

Remember, you have 78% nitrogen right now. So you take it up 22%. And it could maybe make a hundredths of a second difference in the speed. I'm a big NASCAR fan, and I've seen races won by a couple hundredths of a second. So that minor thing makes a big difference there. But my favorite thing that I actually heard a person say about nitrogen in the tires was it prevents your tires from wearing out on the inside. And in 25 years of being a mechanic, I've never, ever, ever seen a tire with wear on the inside. They're saying because oxygen is corrosive, right?

I guess because it just, I've never seen that. You cardiff was out there. There's a great scam for you. You can sell insurance against your tire wearing out on the inside. If your tire wears on the inside, I will guarantee you I'll give you a brand new set of tires. That comment probably came from a car person, salesperson, a dealer, and encouraged them to fill her tires with nitrogen. I wish I could be in the office when they try and sell that to a chemistry teacher. Let's have some calls in here.

877 960-9960. We've got, you know, we're so on Facebook and Periscope and YouTube. There is a telephone, 877-9-60-99-60. And I do have to mention again, ladies, it's 913. I'd like to hear from you. I got $50 right here. Actually, I have $100. $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Give us a call. 877-960-9960. And for the others, you can text us at 772-497-6530. Ernesto on YouTube has made a comment, though. He says, double check on those gas prices with the rental companies. When you're renting the car, though, he says he actually has had a very few times when their gas price was lower than what he saw in town. For example, the rental company was going to offer him to refuel the tank at the end for $2.50 a gallon. And when he got into town, he found prices of $2.70 and more.

You know, I love Ernesto. If you're listening, I love to know the name of that rental company. because we'll give them a plug. I'd say so. That's an honest rental company because I've never seen that. I don't rent that many cars, to be honest with you. But when I do rent, usually the price that they charge is off the chart. It's nuts.

We've got text from someone that we're texting in real time says, why does Costco sell nitrogen if it's fake? Well, I tell you, well, that's one of the things that make me uncomfortable. I love Costco. It's my favorite store. Nancy and I probably go to Costco after the show. today. Nancy's got her hand up.

Yeah, but I do have to answer that question. This is my theory. Costco wants you to come back and spend some money inside the store. So that's true. That could be a ploy. Well, that's true, but it's still a little hidden below the belt there to do it that way. I mean, if you want someone to come back, treat them nice, selling the product at a fair price,

offer 100% unconditional returns, which Costco does. But it's always made me a little nervous to the fact that they give you the free nitrogen in the tires when you buy tires from, Rick. Yeah, because their game, I think, is they'll say, come back any time and we'll top your tires up for free with nitrogen. And when you arrive there, they're like, well, park your car here, and we'll have it done in about an hour. Meanwhile, would you like to wander through the store and buy a hot dog or something, and you're in there spending money? If you want to get even with them, take it back, let them put the nitrogen in the tires, go to. and get a chicken for $4.99 because they lose money on the chickens. And that way, you're getting even with it. There you go. And it's getting really silly in here because we have a text coming in

that says, I remember talking about this on the show years ago. Would helium and tires light in the car and give you better fuel economy? Well, actually, it would, but you couldn't measure it. It would be so small. Just like nitrogen. And you have to be careful because you might float up in air. Yeah, on those little cars. If you're driving an IQ or a, what's that? smart car be careful hey I have a I have a new website www. a earl loves Costcochikins.com absolutely you know I was speaking of funny websites we alluded to it earlier I actually bought this website and it's still being formed

now is www.w it ain't gonna no ain't gonna happen.com ain't gonna happen www. ain't gonna happen.com now there's no apostrophe between the end and the T and ain't. Correct. www. ain't going to happen.com.

One of the people that works for us used that phrase, and I laughed so hard, I cried, and I can't get, it's like an earworm, I can't get it out of my mind. Ain't going to happen.com. So now the whole family, and we're saying, I'm getting into a whole lot of trouble using that

when I'm out and I'm talking to people. But this website, we're going to build it, and when you see a lutherable, car dealer ad. There's one on there now by Roger Dean Chevrolet. But if you do a video, an online, do a screenshot, print ad, anything that is an absolutely bogus, crazy, stupid ad, we're going to post it on Ain't Gonna Happen.com. And we'll have a little fun with that.

Yep. Okay, talking about fun just for a second. So I'm pricing a dress. This is for the ladies that are listening that haven't called. I have $50 for you. First two new lady callers. Okay, back to my funny story. All right, there's a dress.

A woman salesperson tells me the price of the dress because I can't turn the price ticket over. And I looked at her and I said, www. It ain't going to happen.com. And she just like stepped back and looked at me. And I said, you're supposed to laugh. But she didn't think it was funny.

That's a real nice slipper. Right. Ernesto came back. He says, Enterprise Rental Car was that company. Really? And they said, each time he's used them, they tell him when their price is less than in the city and when it was more. Well, that's amazing. So that sounds like an honest company.

So if you're going to run a car, consider Enterprise rent a car. And we deal with them, too. And ask for Ernesto when you're there. Just kidding. No, but a lot of car dealers use Enterprise. And we do. We have our rental company in our dealership. But if we're out of cars, we refer to.

people to Enterprise and I would say they are by far head and shoulders above all the other rental car companies but they still charge those hidden fees so I don't like that you know nobody's perfect Costco we just talked about them with the nitrogen and the tires they don't charge you for it but they have a you know a deceptive reason for doing it and a great chicken yeah yeah on Facebook as Steve made a comment he says well yeah 499 is the worst he's ever heard about nitrogen, but he does remind us that Costco doesn't charge for it. And also, he said, the Costco and Teterboro, and that's in Carolina, right? Teeterboro?

It's in New York. Oh, what do I know? New Jersey. Okay. Oh, sorry. Steve's up in New Jersey. He says, let's use their air hose for no charge, and they don't advertise it, though. And then Linda comment, she said, she heard that a man had left his child in a car and

died because he forgot the child was in the car and went to work. he was looking for a car at a dealer and was checking out the car and he sat in the back seat and it has a very loud alarm it lets you know when a person is in the back seat I guess are those things coming out onto market now alarms for the back seat I haven't seen we've talked about it before there's a lot of talk manufacturers are aware of it now it's getting so much press and it's such a horrible thing dogs and children and it's just so sad that, you know, with the great minds we have, with all the auto manufacturers and the technology, there should be a way that would be impossible to happen.

Just last night, I was reading an article to Earl that appeared in the USA Today, and in light of the fact that a 22-month-old child died on Friday, I believe that was in New Jersey. The rate that children are dying in the back seat of a car. They're left there. The article was huge. It's worth taking a look at the article. And I think I told you, what was it, General Motors that had come out with some sort of an alarm?

I think you're right, yeah. Some of the manufacturers are jumping on that, and it's good PR. You know, if you have a car that's safe, especially in southern climates for your children, I'd buy that car over another car. I mean, this is August 2019, and just this year, I believe the number of deaths for children is up to 20. Yeah, I don't have a scientific reason for saying this, but my suspicion, I think it's all the technology smartphones, we're more distracted than ever, and that could be the culprit. But I understand what you're saying, Stu, and I don't want to go on and on about this, but for someone to leave their child in a couple. car for eight hours they've already dropped off one child at a daycare and the other child was left

behind and at the end of the day that's when the father is a tragic story he remembers eight hours later yeah i'm i'm wondering if he was playing on a cell phone i don't know um anne marie texted us again by the way and she says she's encountered car rental companies that do have lower price for for gas but they charge for the entire tank of fuel so even if you don't have and Marie, I love you. You're amazing. That just went right over my head, but you're absolutely right. And that might be a way to lure you in.

And Ernesto, if you're listening, that $2.50, that might have been the lowest price around, but if you only needed 10 gallons and they charge you for 22, they got you. Yeah, she said she's never brought a car back totally empty. Anne-Marie Delgado. And Anne-Marie Delgado, I have a message for you. text me your contact information my number 561 386-6-6-4-98 we need to talk yeah and ambray reminds us she she never brings a car back unless the tank is completely full yeah very wise you know I've got a interesting we're talking about websites and I talked about

ain't gonna happen dot com Stu called this to my attention a year ago was I think And there's an interesting website It's called Indeed.com I-N-D-E-D, you know, Indeed, Indeed.com Kind of a strange name for a website And what it is, it has, I guess, about almost all businesses on there And it's for employees to rate their employer And I never even knew this existed

But, you know, whether you're talking about McDonald's or Costco or any company, local stores, national stores, the employees actually go to Indeed.com and you say, how do you like working here? And why? And you could give them five stars. So this is an automotive show, Earl on cars, if you're thinking about buying a car. I always think that the way business treats their employees is probably indication how they'll treat you when you're a customer.

You know, you walk into stores, and there's a friendly atmosphere, the employees are happy, the managers are happy, everybody's happy. You get happy, you smile, and you're a little bit more relaxed. Sometimes you walk into a store, retail store, and it's kind of tense. You know, Costco's a great example. You go into Costco, everybody's happy. You go to the Apple store, everybody's happy, meaning the employees. So if you're thinking about buying, whatever you're buying, go to Indeed.com and put in the name of it. the store and the location, and they'll tell you what the employees think about it.

What a happy experience when we went to Apple. Yeah. And Josh, he was wonderful. Yeah, the salesperson. It made us feel so at home, so comfortable, he knew his product. It's like a party. And the same thing with Costco. I mean, it's just a happy retail stores.

I think we have a text. We do. We have a comment on Facebook. A really neat idea. Sam on Facebook says, we're talking about leaving the kids in the car. He says, make a tether to attach. to you and your child, so when you get out of the car, the tether will tug you back. He says, just make it.

Two alligator clips on a string will work. And that's a pretty nifty idea. It is. It's a shame we have to come up with these kind of things when it should be such a simple automatic thing. If somebody's sitting in the back seat of the car, it would be technologically a piece of cake to make it impossible to leave without an action on your part. And when that signal, be it audio or light or vibration or any number of things,

a message to your smartphone, there could be so many things that would just say, I got something in my back seat. It might be your golf bag, but at least the action would cause you to look and save a light maybe. Let's all slow down. Yeah, Linda, on Facebook, I wanted to know if any Toyotas have any equipment like that, and the answer is no, no Toyotas have any alarms that alert you that you'll have. your kid in the back of the car thank you so much too uh Sabrina's calling us from Palm Beach Gardens good morning Sabrina welcome to Earl Stewart on cars okay but let me

hi Sabrina can you hear us hi hi are you a first time caller I am but my my family listens to you all the time thank you do you have some information for us because because you just won 50 bucks, you're a first-time female caller. And if you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear it. Do we lose you, Sabrina? We did. And Sabrina, if you'd be so kind to give us a call back, we certainly would appreciate it, 877-960-99-60.

And if you're still listening, you won yourself $50, so I need your contact information. The lines have been very quiet this morning. But the text haven't. And Facebook and YouTube. And also Your Anonymous Feedback.com, which we just got a question on that, our comment. It says, Hi, Earl, love the show. Recently purchased a demo car with 2,000 miles on it. MSRP was 26,500, and they sold it for a little over 20,000.

It qualified for all the factory incentives, but do dealers really pay full price for demo cars or cars used by dealership employees? I have a feeling I may have paid more than I should have, and that's from Gino on your anonymous feedback, do you know, don't tell us your name. No, that's kidding. That's not his real name. Okay, there you go. Thanks, Bob.

Yeah, Stu talked about that last week, and it's a very important subject. When you buy a demo, you assume you're getting a good deal, right? Because the car's got miles on, 2,000 miles in this case. Car dealers oftentimes make as much or more on demos as they do on brand new cars. Because the perception is there. Think about it. Car dealers won't give you a firm price, so you don't know what they'll sell you the new car for. How are you going to know what they'll sell you the demo for? So they might, you might be looking at a new car and they say, hey, I'm going to save you a lot of money. I got a demo over here that's only got 2,000 miles on it. I'll save you thousands of dollars. The fact is, if you're shopped and compared and gotten the best price of the new car, you've got to bought it for less than he sold you the demo for. Can I get really into the weeds here for a second? Please do.

And if it's boring, just cut me off. You will. I know you will anyway. I will, of course. Okay, so when there is a car that's in demo status, as long as they have it in demo status, they're going to depreciate it. In other words, every month they're going to lower the cost of it, and it's an expense to the dealer. Now, most sales managers and all salespeople are just paid on what's called gross profit.

The dealer is going to be seeing that as an expense. As the cost goes down, when a sales manager sells it, he artificially make, I'm boring you right now. In other words, it's a big incentive for salespeople and sales managers to sell a demo. But the dealer doesn't make out, but the sales manager does. So they're going to push you towards a demo whenever they can. Well, that's very true. And there's something on that, I'm glad you mentioned that, because there's something even more scult-degress. Is that a word?

Yeah, why not. and that is what we call the flat commission and when you have an older car in stock that has been sitting there gathering dust and you can't sell it you raise the commission that you'll pay the salesman and you can have what they call a flat typical commission might be $250 they might put a flat $500 if you sell or $1,000

so when you have a car that you might not want to buy for a lot of reasons too many miles ugly interior doesn't match the exterior and that car sat on the lot for a year and the dealer says get rid of that car I don't care how you do it they'll put a big flat commission on there

a thousand dollars so when you walk into the dealership the salesman will say boy do I have a great car for you it's a great value and it's a beautiful car and he'll lie through his teeth to sell you that car because he can make a huge amount of commission yeah on an undesirable car. Yeah.

Funny story, years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to really put a lot of accessories on its little tiny Yaris car. Excuse me just for a minute, Karen, Karen,'s calling from Boynton Beach, and Sabrina's trying to get in touch with us also. So I over-accessorized a little tiny Yaris with alloy wheels, leather, and a whole bunch of stripes on it. I remember that one. Yeah, and my brother made a comment, because what do you call that one? the future flat 500. That's a inside joke. Okay, we're going to go to Karen, who's calling us from Boynton Beach.

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. Morning. I'm definitely thinking about getting my Toyota Yaris 2014 over to you for my maintenance in about another four months. I'm going to switch dealerships because I have a feeling I shouldn't have done, let them do something on the car here.

I went a couple months ago. thousand miles essentially and they talked me into a brake system fluid fluid exchange and also a throttle body service and the car I mean the brakes break fluid probably was pretty pretty dirty but I just wanted to run that past you and see if that throttle body service could have affected my gas mileage in any way Rick can answer that before Rick answers that I want to let Sabrina know that we do know you're holding and we'll be right with you hey Karen can I ask how much did you pay for the

throttle body service and the break flush okay that throttle I've got it here the brake system fluid thing was 10250 oh no I think it was more than that 10250 for the brake service kit and 68 99 on something oh throttle is 8125 Okay, they kind of got you a little high on the price, but cleaning the throttle body actually is not that bad of an idea, especially in cars with lower miles. It gets the carbon off of the valve and it's the car run a little better. What about the brake fluid fresh? A 2014 is a little young for a brake fluid flush. It wouldn't be in the factory recommended maintenance.

No, no. Yeah, the problem comes when they vary from the factory record maintenance. And your Toyota manual, owner's manual, they tell you what that your car at that mileage should have, and they sold you something with the brick fluid flush that you didn't need. And it's common practice. Almost our car dealers do the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, I think they kind of took you a little bit on that one.

Does that answer your question? I think we may have lost another caller. I hope we didn't lose. We've lost Sabrina. And Sabrina. Well, just when we thought the phones were working. Wow. How embarrassing.

Just when you thought it was safe to get on the telephone. Exactly, yeah. But we have texts. Well, Sabrina and Karen, I do have $50 for you. Hopefully you were able to at least share your contact information with with Rudy because we stand behind our offer. And try this, try texting us your contact information to 772-497-6530. That's 772-4976530.

Our phones aren't working, but I think our text number is working. It is, it is. And we will get you that $50 out as a first-time female caller. Thank you. Our number is 877-960-99-60. We are getting ready to shut our lines down because we are going to be going to the mystery shopping report. And it's a good one from Greenway Kia in West Palm Beach. And Stu has some text to finish up.

We have a couple on deck. This is from Bob and Jupiter. He says, and it's about the maintenance plans we talked about. He says, I bought a three-year plan on my 2017 Honda pilot and was done under duress in the box. It included oil change and tire rotation. After listening to this show, I checked my maintenance schedule and found oil change recommendation is every 10,000 miles. The dealer in the vehicle prompts me every 5,000 miles. I did that every time into the last visit.

The last time the service advisor said they recommended a vent filter change and a duct cleaning. I thought it was a manufacturer recommendation that the way it was phrased, it was $239 in a scam. I checked the maintenance schedule and it wasn't there. I'm only going back to the 10,000 mile intervals to avoid these upsets. and that's from Bob and Jupiter. Yeah, it's a common practice. It is just a shame. The owner's manual is probably the less read document in the world about, I think people read

dictionaries more than they read owners' manuals. And part of it is a manufacturer's problem because they make these thick, thick manuals. They should have very simple, easy to look at recommended maintenance, and they should hold that in the front of the book so you can't miss it. They have like smaller versions, but it's equally thick and hard to read. Even if you go to the manufacturer's website and look at the maintenance schedule, it's usually a PDF of the same thing you get in your car, so it's not helpful. Then we have one here.

It's just a question, no name. The text says, what is a car called that was in an accident on a test drive when they repair and sell it? What is that considered? That's considered a wrecked car, and technically the dealers don't have to disclose it until, I think it's 1% or 2% of the vehicle's MS. 1% of MSRP. Correctly. So if there's a $500 scratch on the door and they fix it and paint it,

you might not ever know until you trade their car in. And that's a Florida law. So we're international now. So check with your state law on that. But typically all states have some requirement. That's right. And we are caught up. But Linda wanted to tell us on Facebook, fun show, y'all.

And it is a fun show today. Thanks, Linda. Thank you very much. Bistry Shopping Report time. Yes, it is. And this is, I always say this. This is interesting for another reason, though. We mystery shopped Greenway Kia, formerly West Palm Beach Kia, and we did a Takata test.

Sometime in the last year, West Palm Beach Kia was acquired by a low-profile auto dealer group Greenway Automotive. Greenway Automotive headquartered in Orlando, Florida, operates 39 stores in the United States, and six, Listen to this. Six stores, dealerships, and Shanghai. Nehau. Is that right? I can't believe it. Six stores in Shanghai, China.

I mean, unbelievable. They currently represent Ford, Dodge, Kraschler, Jeep Ram, Fiat, Alpha Renault, Toyota, Nissan, Angra. They got them all. Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Kia, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Hyundai. And here I am a car dealer for 50-plus years. consider myself very knowledgeable, I have never heard of Greenway. My jaw just dropped. Greenway.

And they snuck into town and bought this dealership we did not know about. So we're going to look real closely into this. I wonder if we should send Agent Thunder to Shanghai. Let's do it. I did, you know, obviously, I googled him. Just kidding. Agent Thunder, he's kidding. No, I knew that there was a Toyota dealership called Greenway Toyota up in Alabama.

and that's part of this group. Anyway, these guys are big and getting bigger. Stu says he thought I'd heard of them when he did the report because he is the spymaster. I'd never heard of him. Jonathan, have you ever heard of him? Rick, Nancy, nobody's ever heard of him. I'd be interested.

Text us if you've heard of the Greenway Automotive Group. They keep it on the DL. That's the down low. Very low. Very low. We also didn't know exactly when West Palm Beach, Kea was sold to Greenway, although we did know that we missed your shop West Palm Beach Kia in August of 2018.

It was owned by the Terry Taylor Group. Now, Terry Taylor is an interesting phenomenon in itself. They are, Terry Taylor is a real guy. I know Terry Taylor. I've met Terry Taylor, but that was many, many years ago. You are no Terry Taylor. Yeah. And I won't go through the whole story.

sorry, but he is now the largest individual owner of the most dealerships in the United States. He's very low profile, and he never calls the dealership Terry Taylor. He calls it something else, and he's very, you know, unusual for a car dealer. They don't like publicity, and like for this car dealer, everybody, you know, I'm always yakking. I mean, I'm always getting publicity. No one ever complains to him. Terry Taylor is super low profile. So anyway, Very interesting situation. West Palm Beach Kia sold to Terry Taylor, sold to the Greenway, who have never heard of.

Anyway, moving along with the mystery shopping report. West Palm Beach Kia was put on the Do Not Recommended list the first time we mystery shopped them almost a decade ago when they were known as the shack on the track. Sue tells me that. I never heard that. That wasn't their ads. They advertised the show.

on the track. Oh, they do? Okay. They used to. I mean, yeah. They've remained on the do not recommend list ever since putting shopper after shopper through the ringer with a combination of questionable and outright illegal ads and old school tactics. My recollection of West Palm Beach Kia is they had the highest dealer addendum I've ever seen. They would, they had a $10,000 marked up the MSRP on all their kias by $10,000. Then they would advertise on television You know, a $10,000 discount. Woo-hoo! Yeah.

So you were able to buy it at full sticker with a $10,000 discount. Boo-ya. That's how bad they were. When we investigated them for selling used cars with Takata Airbag recalls last August, they failed big time. Now that the dealership is under new ownership and presumably new management, we want to learn if they've changed their tune. And because we're focusing on the Takata airbag issue again, we specifically want to learn if they've come around on how they handle the sale of used cars with these deadly safety defects. We found the full spectrum. The left end of the spectrum of the first part is very low where they actually say, oh, this car has a Takata airbag recall, and it can't be fixed, and we won't sell to the car.

This is the way it should be, and it only happened once. That's how you passed the test. And that was the Bill Wallace store and Stewart. Easy-owned cars. Easy-owned cars.com or easy-owned cars. I got dot-com on the mind. That only happened once. That's the way it should be, and it should be the law that that happened.

And then they can have, sometimes they say there is no recall. Sometimes they say... We'll sell it, but we'll fix it first. Exactly. That's a good one. And sometimes they just lie about it. So we're going to find out about the new key. store, Greenway Kia. We sent Agent Thunder to Greenway Kia to try to buy a used 2011 Chevrolet Silverado.

With an unfixable, I repeat, unfixable to cut airbag recall, it's unfixable because the inflator, which is the part that blows up the airbag, I don't mean, it actually does blow up here. It's supposed to inflate the airbag. They're not available. So this Silverado cannot not be fixed, no inflator available. It was listed on sale on the website for $7,975. Remember that price? Pretty cheap. Very cheap for a Silverado.

Here's the report, as if I were Agent Thunder. After confirming the availability of the Silverado by phone, I drove to the newly dubbed Greenway Kia on Military Trail in West Palm Beach. As I exited my vehicle and made my way to the entrance, I saw a female salesperson saying goodbye to a customer. just outside the front door. As soon as the man passed by me,

the salesperson stepped right up, extended her hand, and I was upped. That sounds like a lot lizard to me. That vernacular, by the way, is an up. Car dealers say when a customer comes on, there's an up on the lot. You're not human. You're an up.

You're an up, yeah. That's my up. She introduced herself as Lisa, asked how I was. I gave her my name, told her I was doing great. Lisa asked, what brought me in? and I told her I had called about the 2011 Chevy Silverado I'd seen on their website. Lisa led me inside, sat me down, took out a sheet of paper that she used to record my responses

to a series of questions issued in rapid succession. Sounds like, you know, a real system they have, and she was trained by Greenway. It's the Greenway Way way. The Greenwaywayway. The information gathering lasts only a couple of minutes. then Lisa asked for my driver's license, standard operating procedure, told me to wait and run off across the showroom.

She was back in about a minute with a dealer tag and a set of keys. Lisa wasted no time. Let's go for a test drive, Lisa said, with a big smile. We walked together, across the lot, found the Silverado. Lisa opened the door and let me explore the truck. The truck had seen better days. I showed a lot of wear and tear, but for $8,000,

it wasn't bad. I should have complained, but I shouldn't have claimed, but I did it anyway. I said, look rough and should be priced below $8,000. I said this should go for $5,000. So I started to negotiate a little bit. Lisa said that he priced them fairly, and she probably couldn't come off the price very much. But she left a little wiggle room, probably. Lisa got behind the wheel. I sat in the passenger seat. she drove off the property when we pulled into a Walgreens parking lot we switched and I was the driver I was making a right turn

onto Summit Boulevard when the truck died Lisa got out of the truck waved off traffic around us that was nice and she tried to get through to the dealership on her phone I was really feeling sorry for her I tried a few times to start the engine it turned over on my third attempt.

Really embarrassing when this happens. Yeah, I feel bad for this time. Lisa climbed back inside, apologized all the way back to the dealership. I assured her that I was okay and understood that these things happened. We took the truck right to the service department. The service advisor took the truck into the shop and Lisa and I headed into the showroom. I told Lisa that I was still interested in my silver arm. assuming the issue was minor and could be repaired.

She seemed relieved and said she checked with a service advisor in a few minutes. In the meantime, we went over the Carfax report. It wasn't a very good one. The car had been in an accident that resulted in the side airbag deploying, and the structural damage was noted. That's pretty serious. A airbag, structural damage, two bad things. It indicated it was on the, it was a side impact, so it looked like a T-bone type of crash.

T-bone type of thing, yeah. Six months after crash report, the T-Qaeda airbag recall was issued. There was no available remedy. Now, I had the thoughts, too, that I hadn't even mentioned to you before, but would it be possible for a car to have a good airbag put in before the recall happened? Well, in this case, the airbags that were deployed were the side airbags, and I don't think there's any Takata issues on the side airbags, so the front ones didn't go off. Good point. But something we should probably have to do a little research on. I don't know if the manufacturers are on top of the fact that a car has been damaged and the airbag has been replaced.

So they might think it's possible that a good airbag could be put in a car and they wouldn't know it. Possibly. But in this case, the accident happened before the Takata airbag issue was even issued. So likely, you know, it was probably a Takata. Rick has some. It would be my belief that even in that rare case, which that would be a very rare thing, the airbag should be replaced anyways just to make sure that it wasn't an old stock piece that got sent out that could still be dangerous. Good point, yeah. and error on the side of safety anyway. So even if it was safe, you ought to still go through the recommendation. Just an interesting note, every single inflator has an actual barcode or a QR code

that is scanned into the computer, so the manufacturer has a record of what inflator was installed in every car during this recall. But the inflators themselves aren't identified as the brand, are they? It doesn't tell us to brand. No, although that information may be encoded in that digital signature, the barcode or the QR code. I would hope so. I'm sure it is. But that way they can track them.

Lisa didn't have much to say about either issue. She suggested we go check on the truck back in the service department. We waited for the service advisor to meet us, and I asked Lisa about the recall. She said she didn't understand exactly what it was, so we asked the service advisor when he arrived. The advisor's explanation was brief and incomplete. He said it was a recall that hadn't been fixed yet. That was it. I asked when it would be fixed, and he said it would be as soon as parts became available.

So that's kind of an around-the-way. Well, it's true. The parts aren't available, but it was still not really put in an urgent manner. It's not very helpful, yeah. No. We asked about the problem. We asked about the problem with the truck, and he had nothing to report yet. In other words, why it stalled and wouldn't start. We went back to Lisa's desk. We talked about the truck some more. She seemed reluctant to go over the number with me. She said we ought to wait and see if the mechanical issue was something that could be fixed for a reasonable price. She said that if the repairs were expensive, she may not be able to honor the $7,995 price. She also said they may have to wholesale it. However, you know, car price under $8,000 is pretty sketchy. I mean, you just don't find good cars that cheap.

And sometimes they're not safe. Sometimes they're not reliable. It's almost like a paid-and-switch ad. Yeah. Everybody wants to buy a car under $10,000, and there are very few good, reliable, safe cars under $10,000 today. However, she said she would be optimistic because the issue may be minor. She went back to check and left me for about 20 minutes.

When she returned, she had no news. She said the technician hadn't determined the problem yet, which is understandable. That's a short time. I asked if I should leave and come back later. Lisa said it wouldn't be much longer, and that's what you'd expect the salesperson to say, and went back again to check. She was gone for a long time. Finally, I walked over to where the sales managers were stationed and told him I had to, I got to leave.

The manager left me there, talking for another 10 minutes, I was getting very frustrated, felt trapped. I told him, I have to have Lisa call me. The manager pleaded it with me to stay, but it had been an hour, and a half hour since the truck went to the shop. I couldn't stay. Lisa called me as if I was driving back north, as I was driving back north, she said the Silverado had a minor transmission issue and would be repaired. I asked her if it would affect the price of the car, the truck, and she said the price would remain the same.

I said I felt the price should be lowered because the mechanical problem devaluated it for me, which it would naturally. Lisa said she could go maybe $200 lower. I asked her about the recall, and she repeated what the service advisor said, that it could be repaired as soon as the parts were available. It's almost like you have to order the part or maybe temporarily out of the stock. The sense of urgency... It didn't convey what the real issue was.

No, it did not convey. She asked me to come back and do the paperwork, and the truck would be ready when I was done, signing in. I asked if she could email me a purchase order to look at it before I came back, and she agreed. Within a few minutes, I received a worksheet with a price breakdown. Sale price was now $8,9900. Isn't that amazing? I mean, because I said to her the price, and she said to me the price is $79.95, and that's the price I saw. That's on the website and the website. And they bought me almost $1,000. Anyway, they added, in addition, $801,000.

and $0.45.25. And taxable fees. That's the definition, a new way of saying, hidden fees, dealer fees. And another $218.55 fee. Well, docs fee is also a taxable fee, but it was apart from the... I thought it was a medical thing. Yeah. Anyway, $1,0.40 when you add the 80145 to the $2.1855, $1.25, $1,020 and $1. hidden fees, dealer fees, I called the dealership and asked for Lisa. The call went to a voicemail box, I haven't heard back yet. So Lisa, I guess she gave up on the deal. They failed the Takata test because despite identifying the recall, they were fully willing to sell the truck to Agent Thunder. They also failed the consumer experience test.

And I've got a picture of the worksheet, and the recall information and it's all very clear that this car should never have been offered for sale advertise or sold and here we are at how do we grade these people now I'll say this

I put Carfax Carfax I got CarMax back on the recommended list last week after taking them off the week before because they did not reveal the fact that a Dakota Airbag car was dangerous and would have sold it. And I said to realize that just about every dealer that we ever shop does the same thing.

So we have to have a place where you can buy cars, use cars, and I put CarMax on because they're huge. They're the biggest used car dealer in the world. Now here we have another large dealer, Greenway Kia, and we have to make a decision. So we have to score Greenway Kia. Let's see what our listeners are saying. First, now we'll do the in-house.

You've got something? So far, I've got Mr. Hand. He says, I got their $1,000 bump, and would love to advise them where to place it. Fail. And Kit Kat, Grade F. Well, so? We have on Facebook, we have Ed gives him an F.

Linda gives him a big fat F. Steve said, oh, I'm on the right, wrong page, and Steve says just as bad as the decade old mystery shop. So I'll say that means an F. And then in text, we have John gives them an F and Susan gives them an F. I get Fs all around online. Do we have any Kia dealers on a recommended list? I will check shortly.

Go around and get some more grades. I'll pull up the do not recommend lists. Okay. Nancy? Okay. I'm going to give them an F for a lot of reasons. The vehicle isn't safe enough to be for sale. It shouldn't be on the road. Dealer fees, dock fees, call it whatever you want.

Very disappointing. Very disappointing. Greenway Kia, I give you an F. Yeah, we have Gunther Kia in Fort Lauderdale on the recommended list. Also, Gunther Mazda and Gunther VW. So all the Gunther dealerships down there are recommended. Rick, what are you going to score these folks? Well, we've also got Mark saying a D-minus.

Ernesto and Chris, both agreeing F, and for myself, I say an F. You know, I hate to overrule the majority, and I just, I want you to hear my rationale here. I'm going to give them a minimum passing score because we only have one Kia dealer in South Florida on the recommended list. And what this Kia dealer did was the same thing every dealer we shop does, and all. offered a car for sale. They did disclose the fact that there was a recall, and they did disclose the fact that the part was not available.

The dealer fee and bumping the price, that's standard operating procedure. Dealers just don't treat people, right? And virtually every dealer does. So I'm gonna put them, keep them on the recommended list. You gotta have- We'll have to move them to the recommended list. Move them to the recommended list.

Yeah, exactly. move the recommended list. I hate to do it, but we do score on the curve. And we just can't have excluding a car dealer so people can't buy kids. Just to weigh in on one other thing, their excuse of a minor transmission issue causing the vehicle to stall while it's driving, and Summit Boulevard is a 35-mile-hour zone in that area. So the vehicle wasn't moving very fast.

That just sounds suspicious to me. I think there's more problems, and that truck's not going to be reliable. Yeah, we have to, for the benefit of our listeners and our recommended list and do not buy a list, we have to have car dealerships available to buy cars. Otherwise, everybody has to fly to Georgia or Alabama to buy a car, and that probably would be a bad deal, too. I understand your rationale, but I truly feel comfortable, uncomfortable with that. I really do. Well, if you wanted to buy IKEA, would you rather drive to Fort Lauderdale?

and buy it from Gunther? I'd rather drive a safe Kia. I agree with you. Okay. And there's the Internet. I understand. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of another show, and I do have to take a moment and thank all of you for tuning in

and spending the two hours that you spent with us. You're a very important part of the show. And have a wonderful weekend, and we will talk again. again next Saturday morning. Vendon. Vendon. Vend go. Vend go to.

Red Come! Oh! No, no. Oh, wow.