Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.24.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of CarMax of Boyton Beach, FL.

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local CarMax used car dealership to see how much over sticker they will charge for a used 2019 Toyota Highlander Limited Platinum on the car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. I think we're going to have a full team here this morning. Stu Stewart will be in shortly. We've got Nancy Stewart, my co-host. We've got Rick Gurney, our certified diagnostic,

master technician, and we're ready to go. Welcome, welcome to the new folks. We have a good base of regular listeners, and God bless all of you. You make the show, and we're bringing in new people every day, and speak of the devil, here's Stu, walking in right now. We are unique. I hate to say good things about what we do, because I'm bragging. And who's that that said? It's not bragging if it's true or somebody said like that. It was a long time ago.

But we really do something that I don't know of anyone else doing, which is a live, I say radio show, but it's really a live streaming show. It's also a Zoom show. So you might as well say we're television by a different name. So we stream, we audio all over the world.

And we've been doing this for 20 years. And we focus on one thing, making your life livable when it comes to buying or leasing a car, also repairing or maintaining that car. And the maintaining and repairing the car is becoming more difficult because the cars are becoming more complex. And that's why we have Rick Kearney here. He's been doing what he's been doing for over a quarter of a century, and that's a long time. And there's nothing about a car that he doesn't know, or we can't find out with a quick check of chat GBT or Google.

And we have the answers for you if you have issues with your car. Today, whether you're having your car repaired in a body shop, I hope that doesn't happen, or you're having your car repaired in a mechanical service department, it's a lot more difficult. These are computers on wheels, especially, with autonomy coming on and electric vehicles, brand new technology coming on.

And it's becoming complex to drive your own car. So a lot of you folks, especially you YouTube followers, you can call in, you can post on YouTube, ask for Rick, you can get a free diagnosis. The numbers that we have, you'll hear them many times because we're on the air for two hours. and we encourage you to call in to 877-960-9960. That's 877-960-9960.

Now, Nancy Stewart, I'm looking at her on the other side of this table here in the studio, and she has a laptop computer right in front of her, and we have Jeremy in the control booth who will flip the calls directly to her laptop, and we prioritize phone calls. We love to hear your voice. There's something about a soul of a person

in a conversation, audio conversation. And you can't beat it. I know Facebook and I know streaming and all that kind of stuff and television and Zoom, but there's something about the human voice. And when we talk, we laugh, it's really what we prioritize. So 877-960-9960, when the calls come in,

Nancy waves at me or throws a paper clip at me or something, I stop talking, or Rick stops talking, or Steve's up talking, and we go right to the cell phones. 877-9-60-9-960. But wait, there's more. We have an anonymous feedback, and I love that channel. We don't talk about it often enough.

We're starting to get a few more people that are using anonymous feedback. That's a link, and it's Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Y-O-U-R-A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, just like it sounds, Anonymous Feedback.com. You go to that link and you can say anything you want. So we've got some anonymous feedbacks that came in this morning, which we suspect are from the enemy.

And I say that tongue-in-cheek. I'm talking about car salespeople, car dealers, managers, who don't want to be identified, but they would like to communicate. So you don't have to use it for that reason. You can use it because you like it. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. So we have a text line to 772-4976530.

That's 772-497-6530. Nice thing about that is as the show goes on, two hours, sounds like a long time, but it goes by in a heartbeat, it seems like, every Saturday morning. But toward the end of the show, we tried to get all of the text that come in. So we have some texters out there that are just, Ann Marie comes

to mind. She texts us every week. She's got a good one this morning. She texts are genius. And I got to congratulate the YouTubers that's YouTube.com forward slash hurlancars. YouTube.com

forward slash roller cars. And Rick Kearney monitors the YouTube channel and we have got the YouTube can have their own radio show. In fact, they could split off. Donovan could lead the revolt, and they could go into competition with this. If they find a radio station, we're in trouble, because they know their stuff, and there's not a week goes by where an amazing contribution comes through,

often from Donovan or from other YouTubers, and correcting us, because we make mistakes. I mean, you know, we shoot from the hip here. I'll admit that. We try to be very careful when we do the mystery child. reports we try not to give any misinformation there because if we do we're going to get sued and I don't want to get sued nobody likes to get sued and for 20 years we've been telling the truth about our mystery shopping reports and we've we haven't been sued I'll knock on wood because maybe we get sued this week I don't know we have a great mystery shopping report by the way and we will read that in the last half or the last 20 minutes of the show last half hour of the show I've been yacking two much. I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy. Oh, Rick's got a comment. Yeah, Donovan says, that's not going to happen, Earl.

Not going to competition with us. Okay, well, that's good. I feel better. Nancy, the mic is all yours, and I know you've got a real special offer that is almost unbelievable to our female listeners. Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

Boy, do we have an exciting show this morning. You know, first I want to mention as far as what Earl mentioned when we opened the show, and, you know, how expensive it's becoming to service your car, and hence, you know, the popularity of service drive financing. Yeah, have you heard of it? Well, it may just be for you if you go into that service department

and you're sitting there and you find out that, well, the service that your vehicle needs is just a little more than you've been, bargained for so you can take advantage of this popular service drive financing so look into that you just need to you know line up your your bank your lender your get three bids a little bit of homework but in the end it's definitely worth it so take advantage of that also we have well a promotion we have it every saturday morning and it is for the league ladies. And we certainly, you know, we certainly appreciate all of the ladies that call and how they've helped me build the platform here at Erwan Cars. I know we don't spend a

whole lot of time talking about how important you are, but I think by now everybody knows. So this morning, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Yes, indeed. And also, if one of those lady callers, if you have a Zoom account and you can give us a call this morning, you'll, you know, we'll give you $100. So that would be $150 on a Saturday morning. Isn't that, well, a sweet deal? That's a great Saturday morning. Yes. It sure is. So let me give out some more information here. and that is the meeting ID that the zoomers can call, and that's 926-589-0-586. For you new zoomer calls this morning, each one of you, the first two, can win yourself $100. So there you are.

We set up the show. You've got almost two hours to take advantage of those deals and be part of the show. 877-960-99-60 or you can text us at 772-497-6530-0. Don't forget your Anonymous Feedback.com. I think, Rick, were you looking to mention something? I saw you making eye contact with me. I notice in the Zoom list right now, we've got Adam Salman is waiting on us for Zoom. Is that right? Wow. That's exciting. I think that we should take advantage of that and take a look and do we have them Jonathan? Can we open with the Zoom caller?

Hi, Earl Ongarz. I see a picture on the screen. Hello from Earl Oncars. I hear a voice. Good morning and welcome. I'm not looking at any screens right now. You just won yourself $100 this morning. Welcome. You're our first new Zoom call.

Zoom caller Where's he at? Earl's got the screen for Zoom I'm looking at Rick right now I know you're not the Zoom caller I'm looking at Rick and Stu you're looking I'm just looking to Amory's text I'm going to read

when I get the chance Hey that must be a doozy I think we have a glitch in the Zoom And she always has a good one We have a picture now Zoom meeting ID and I see a picture of a couple of guys. Oh, he's got to turn his video on.

There's a button on his computer. You've got to click, start video. Oh, it says, I ask to unmute, you know. Oh, you know, and that's what he's muted. Yeah. He's unmuted. He has to turn his video on. Oh, turn your video on.

Okay. This sounds like every meeting at the dealership. Okay, so we have technical problems on those sides of the dealership. Our side and the zoomer. So this is the zoomer side. Oh, boy. Look up. We appreciate all you folks out there.

up with us, but if you're going to be on the cutting edge, oh, that's me. I see a half-naked man. Is that Earl? Again. That's your screensaver on your phone. Hey, how about this? Let's get to something while that's working out. And then if he pops in, we need to stop what we're doing and get to the zoomer.

Makes sense. All right. Let's start, Emery's text that I wanted to get to it. She says, good morning. Toadotid.com lists the base MSRP on a 2024, to be 22,050 bucks. Sounds about right. Edmins.com, let's list the MSRP on the 2024-Squoia TRD Pro to be $80,960. That sounds pretty close to me too. As far as Ameri can determine, these seem to be the lowest and highest MSRPs for 2024 Toyotas.

Okay, that's a fair. Okay, that's close. Yeah. So the question is, if you sell 11 of the Krollas, the total is $242,550 in sales. And if you sell three TRD pros, assuming availability, the total is 242-880. Pretty close

to each other. So, please give me the dealer's viewpoint. Which is better? The extra 300 from selling three Sequoia TRD pros or the fact that 11 Krollos were sold. Well, I can, real quick, I'd rather

sell 11 corollas, but it's not because the Krola, we would make more money. So, yeah, if we sold 11 Krola's for $242,000 in sales, that's not what we keep. That's our sales, but we had to pay for those corollas. But let's say on average, $2,000 per Krola is the profit we would make. So 11 of those is $22,000 in profit and say there's $4,000 in profit on the TRD pros, and they saw 11, that's $4,400.

Wait, is that right? No, 4,000, 44,000. Oh, I'm sorry, I got it right. I'd rather sell the TRD pros. I did the math wrong. It's all about the gross profit, man, Marie. So, but more expensive vehicles have a bigger markup from our cost to what they're sold for. Of course, we would rather sell more vehicles.

And fewer. When a dealer sells a car, he hopes to have that car back on his used car lot one day. He also hopes to have that car in the service department for, maintenance and repair, and we don't like them to come into the body shop, but if you do have an accident, we like to repair them. So the more vehicles we put on the road. So like Stu said, I'd rather put 10 corollas on the road, the two sequoias, because those 10 corollas will be coming in for service for body repair, maintenance. And they will also be talking to their friends and family and sending us more business. So volume is important. It isn't all about the big profit

you make it on one vehicle. It's a matter of fact, a lot of these vehicles, like the Supra and even the Sequoia, to some extent, are image vehicles. And they bring people in who think they want to buy a Sequoia. They think they want to buy a Supra, but they end up buying a Corolla or a Camry or, you know, a more practical vehicle. So another great question. You should be a toilet dealer. She should be. She's got another question, too.

Second question, does Toyota reward a dealership with more money for selling more vehicles? I summarized that. Yes, indeed. Those are incentives. Most of, yeah, I got to go to, well, I had to cancel it because of my foot, but I got to go to Greece this year for selling a lot of cameras. The, they give its incentives. There's incentives that customers see, and then there's incentives that go right to the dealership. And, yeah, Toyota piles it on.

You have to be careful when we answer. answer that question because a car dealer whether you sell 10 cars a month or a thousand cars a month you pay the same price for the car and and so that a lot of dealers out there they advertise because of our huge volume we buy the cars from Honda Ford Toyota for less money all car dealers pay the same price whether they sell 20 cars a month or 2,000 cars a month so but of course there are advantages to selling more cars. Yes, definitely.

And Anne Marie, great questions this morning. I want to let you know that, you know, during the 35 years that we, Earl and I have been taking trips, it is just because of what the guys were talking about this morning. And they were some beautiful trips that we took. Yeah, they do that. And it's for, like, they have trip programs for everybody in the dealership from, you know, salespeople and sales managers and Rick goes on trips and but yeah they they definitely pile it on it's not like you said affects the pricing of the car but some of it some of the

incentives that we've you know exposed and highlighted on the show the stair step incentives is used like that it effectively gives some dealers advantages based on the incentives per car they get you know throughout the month when they hit certain levels and we've seen a lot less of that since the, whatever we call the inventory crunch, the troubles. That's what I just started calling the troubles. Yeah, kind of missed that. Stu, I'm going to interrupt you

if you're finished with Anne-Marie and we're going to go back to Zoom and that was Adam that we were waiting to speak to. Good morning, Adam. Hello, Adam. I see you. Live and in color. What's on your mind, Adam? can you hear me I see you

Adam can you hear me yeah we're still Adam's fiddling with his adjustments there Adam put your shirt on you're on TV you're being streamed I just announced you as the Zoom caller Adam the half-naked man

I think he heard something yeah do you hear us Adam we see you hello An extra $100 for the shirt off. There we know. Big smile. All right.

Or an extra hundred to put the shirt on. What's up, Adam? Um. Go ahead, Adam. We can hear you. We can see you. You know, you got to admit, this is real live. This is real live Zoom.

we're doing here because you can see yeah let's um let me send you on the chat because okay because i can't i haven't thank i want to i want to i want to type because super sorry there's a lot of people here i'm so sorry that's right yeah i understand well adam thank you very much it was a valiant attempt you were partially successful and i think we can say we did have a zoom call hey adam one quick question where Where are you in the world? He's not on, his video was caught up. Okay.

That's moving. That was the, I think, I'm going to go up there. I'm not trying, I'm just saying that was one of the strangest moments that we've ever had on our own cars. I'm putting that there at the number one spot. And we should do a highlight. I'll think of some really strange things. And Jonathan, you can remember, but that goes, that's number one for me.

I just, okay. That's right. I almost think I detected a bit of a British accent. a British accent. I just wonder if he was in Great Britain. That was a great question. It might have been in Great Britain. That might I explain the lag and the latency.

Could be, yeah. Jonathan, do you have any idea where that call came from? I have, I don't. No. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we still would like to hear from you on our Zoom meeting number, and that number is 926-589-0586. And you can get in touch with us by calling us and speaking to us at 877-960-99-60.

You can text us also at 772-497-6-5-30. So there's lots of ways to get in touch with us, and we are going to have a great show. You know why? Because you make the show. Okay, we're going to either go to Rick or we're going to stay with Stuart. I got a good one. I got to go to this from Robbie and Stewart, a longtime listener. Robbie says, good morning.

My twin daughters both attend the University of Florida. Go Gators. Last December, they went into the Tire Kingdom in Gainesville and put four new tires on their car. While down here for summer break, they got a nail in a rear tire. That was just a week ago, a week before they went back.

So they told the technician at the Tire Kingdom and Stewart that they got a brand new back in December. Tech at Tire Kingdom here says they were five-year-old tires and should not have been sold, should have sold his tires at that age. I've heard six-year-old tires you get rid of them no matter what.

I call them and they are going to do something. That's great. I just don't know what. I'm calling them back today. Should I even worry about this? They were continental tires. And P.S., we are one of your customers and know you would never have sold as old tires as new. And that's true.

We have to be very conscious. It's not just the wear. It's the age. And, you know, Rick can address technically, but you're right and it's a good thing that by the way the Tower Kingdom is going to do something

it's a mystery what that is but hopefully it's a refund or a serious discount it isn't so bad six years is a rule of thumb six years

is an old tire and that's a rule of thumb but of course that means depending on how the tire was driven how it was stored if it wasn't sold and Rick would agree I think that if you have a tire that's four years old you want to expect it

carefully because you'd see cracks you'd see evidence of deterioration and you want to but the best way to do is just don't buy an old tire that way you don't have to worry about and there's a time stamp of the tire and Rick will tell you with that time stamp is a code you know the government cannot do anything simply so they want you to know how old the tire is but they put the how old the tire is in a secret code that would you know it would be kind of like breaking a code so Rick will break the code so you could tell how old your tire is. On both sides of the tire you're gonna see what's called a DOT number but on one of one side only on

one side there'll be a little oval shape afterwards with four digits in it and you want to look at the last two digits and that's the year that that tire was produced. So if it says 22, it was produced in 2022. It says 24, it was produced in 24. Now why would they do that? Why? Why wouldn't they just put a date of manufacture, Best Buy? Best Buy. Best Buy. Best by, Freshest by, you know, best by, freshest by, you know, August 30 of 2027. Yeah. Well, it's actually true that, you know, the government set this up, but it's a worldwide

thing. So these are stamped even on tires that you might buy in Europe, in India, Australia. If you're going to confuse people, you confuse everybody in the world. Right. The entire world did this as a standard thing. Yeah. Yeah, the number on Robbie's girls' tires were it was 19. It's like the metric system, which nobody.

in the United States pays attention to it's right we're working on it it's been about 50 years but we're coming around eventually guys also there's never that I know of a mention of the valves they're really important on the tires and do you know something they deteriorate quickly they're made of rubber and oftentimes they're ignored so that's something else you need to take a look at and the guys were talking about how complicated you know it is to or read the numbers on the tires and the dates and the da, d, d, d, d, all of that stuff. I mean, why? Well, that's what they do.

They have to complicate everything. So take a look at the valve, see if they, you know, need replaced and do it when you get your new tires or when you get your tires rotated. It's very important, you know. I'm not, you know, overly cautious or anything, but tires, they get you where you're going, safely. That's a lot of car. It's where you meet the road.

That's where you meet the road. You've got what's called the contact patch and that little spot on each of those four tires is the only thing that you have for attaching you to the rest. Acceleration, braking and everything. Right. It's holding you down.

And you know, later on in the show, guys, I'm going to share my driving experience with Tesla again. And Earl will also And you know, of course, electric vehicles, they're coming. And there's more and more people on the road that are driving them. And you can't hear them coming. You can't hear them coming. They're just coming.

Good point. We're going to go to the phones because we do have a lady caller, and she's a regular caller from Tequessa. Her name is Denise. Good morning, Denise. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Well, thank you very much for taking my call,

and I just want to let you know that I absolutely love the show. I just discovered a couple of weeks ago, and I'm also known as Granny Tesla, so I'm a big Tesla fan. Rick's buddy. Granny Tesla is on our Earl Stewart Toyota YouTube channel right now. Good to see it. I have a Tesla question. Oh, great. I have a 2021 Tesla Model 3 with 47,000 miles.

At 50,000 miles, I'll lose the limited warranty, though I'll keep the battery and the derived unit warranties for 100,000 miles. Tesla is offering an extended warranty covering the basic vehicle issues for $18,000, two years, or $25,000. Does it make sense to purchase it? You know, that's a good question. My normal knee-jerk response to extended warranties is no. My knee-jerk response to a new technology with a vehicle like Tesla would be yes. And, of course, I'm saying that based on, you need to know the cost, you need to know what it covers, and you need to know what it does not cover.

But because you have a breaking technology that is changing daily, because, as you know, your Tesla and the Tesla Manzi and I have are updated, you know, every couple of weeks with software updates, and there are little glitches of things that happen in the vehicle. And if you have an issue with a Tesla, an unusual issue with the Tesla, you really should go back to Tesla to have it done and fix, and they know what they're doing. So with a caveat of the price, look at the price,

see what it covers and see what it does not cover and then make a decision. But I would say, yes, I would seriously consider that. Rick, do you have a comment? Note in from Donovan here. He says, for the caller, don't buy the warranty. He says, I don't. And I know Donovan's had several Teslas. The most important parts are covered under the drive unit warranty until 120K or 150K.

And the battery and drive unit warranty is eight years. Well, Denise, I defer to Donovan, who is not only probably our top caller, but he also knows more about Tesla's than I do, or a lot of people do. So you heard what he says, it would not be a good investment. And you could still go through the process of looking at the price and what it covers and what it does not cover. But Rick, repeat what Donovan just said there. He says the drive unit warranty is either 120K or 150K miles, 150,000, and the eight years is the time span limit. Okay, there you go. That's why we love the YouTube followers, especially Donovan.

So you had your answer, Denise. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you to Donovan. I appreciate it. Well, I'm sure he says you're very welcome because he's part of the show. He's like he's on the show. And we wouldn't have a lot of show without Donovan. Well, good.

I'll ask more Tesla questions. Well, that'd be great, Denise. That would be wonderful. Hey, Denise, was it you who sent me the card? Well, sent it to Earl and I. That was so thoughtful of you. I just want to thank you. Oh, my goodness.

Thank you. And I love your business card. Well, I'm trying to develop my YouTube channel I'll do whatever I can to teach more people how to appreciate Tesla. Oh, really? That's interesting. I'm showing Rick your card right now,

and he's going to put it up to the camera. Granny Tesla. There you go. That's so cool. Our Tesla's name, Miss Nancy. Miss Nancy. You see it? Can you see your card on the screen?

Anyway, that was very thoughtful of you. Are you enjoying? Your Tesla? I love my car. I wanted a Tesla car back when they first came out, and I retired four years ago. And when I retired, I didn't have a car payment in my budget. And I remember saying to my brother that I really wanted Tesla. And he said to me, so what are you going to do with your money if you don't buy a Tesla?

Give it to your nephew, and the first thing that he's going to do is buy the car you always wanted. Great story. So I went out and bought the Tesla and I started my YouTube channel to teach older people like me how not to be intimidated when you first get in the car because it is somewhat intimidated. I got to take a look at that video that you did. I'll tell you, it's quite a learning experience for Earl and I to be on the road. And not only with the Tesla itself, and Earl has a few stories he's going to mention in a little bit. it. But the people around us, you know, that you really have to be focused on because they have no idea that Earl and I are driving autonomously. And they're driving a certain way. And the electric

vehicle, it drives an altogether different way. It obeys rules that nobody obeyed that driving a combustion car. So it's been quite an experience. Do you have autonomous? Yes. And I use it to go to the drugstore, public. I mean, if I'm two miles away, I use autonomous driving for several reasons. I want to experience it. And I have found that the more I drive autonomously, the more I learn how the car drives, which gives me more confidence on letting it drive autonomously. But the other thing is, on a few times, I'm not driving autonomously. I'm stopping at stop. which my Tesla does, which I never did before. I stay within the speed limit, which my Tesla does than I never did before. So I've become a better driver because of autonomous driving. Yes. And, you know, as you drive that and it is in autonomous, you know,

you just accumulate all kind of information that you can share on your YouTube that you're doing. And I think that's fantastic because there's a lot of people out there that don't have an understanding. They just say, we hate electric vehicles. We don't want to drive an electric vehicle. We don't want to understand an electric vehicle. So you're doing a fabulous thing, and I have your card, and I'm going to take a look at your video.

Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I love the technology. I'm a technology person, so this is right up my alley. Oh, what a great story. Denise, thanks for sharing that with us this morning. And please give us a call again. Thank you so much for all your advice, and thank you, Donovan.

Love your show. Take care, everyone. And thank you again for the donation that I use your check for. I noticed that. Thank you so much for donating to, you know, the greatest charity. Have a great weekend. You too. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Okay. Did she just call you Donovan? No, she said. Donovan gave her the great tip on. I gave him with the wrong information, and Donovan corrected me. Isn't he amazing? Yes, yeah.

There's a spot right here on this platform in this studio for Donovan. If you're listening, Donovan. Donovan probably has a whole lot to do, though. Okay, guys, 877-9-60-99-60, give us a call. And ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, give us a call, and we'd love to hear from you and hear any of your stories you'd like to share. with us and for the Zoom Club

I'll call it you can give us a call at the meeting number at 921 589 0586 did you write that done I'll be mentioning it several times during the show we are going to go to John

who is one of our favorite callers from Palm City good morning John Hi John Good morning. He's over on Zerm. Yes, good morning. Oh, there he is. Can you hear me?

Yes. Now, yes. I have some news on Chrysland, which is Stalantis. Yeah. Due to low sales in North America, in the first six months of this year, their profits fell by half. Ooh. And 2,450 workers on October 8th,

and the Warren, Michigan plant will be laid off. they're going from two-shift to one shift, and they have a second plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and few of them will be transferred only to that plant. That's an amazing story, isn't it, John? Yes, it's not good news. No. I just hope it doesn't come down to another bailout for Chrysler, which in the past that we had. Incidentally, General Motors is laying off 1,000 workers, and six of them of them,

in the Detroit area alone. So we don't have good automotive news. And it's frightening because in the past, we build out the automobile manufacturers. Now, I'm not much for pickups, but if I were to buy a pickup truck, it would be Chevrolet, Ford, or Toyota only. I can't see a ram at all.

You had a shopping report on one that was $81,000, a list, and I don't think that their vehicles are worth that price, in my opinion. I think your opinion matches consumer reports as well. I mean, you're right on. It feels like a failing company. Well, there's a huge shake-up going, obviously, as you just described, John. It's the landscape for automotive manufacturers will be totally different in 10 years. Some of the big players, like Chrysler, may not be around.

I mean, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Chrysler disappear. And I think you're going to see some other manufacturers disappear. There are going to be some new companies you never heard of. Because instead of building, assembling cars, putting steel together and on an assembly line, we've evolved into a world of software. And it's a whole different landscape. by a Mazda, who I had the first Mazda franchise in the Southeast United States back in 1970. And it was a weak company then.

It came on strong, and then it almost faltered until Ford bought into them. Right now, they're having to put huge incentives on cars to sell them. So be careful what kind of a car you buy is, You don't want to buy a car that's not going to be around in two years. I mean, you know how a Pontiac or an Oldsmobile buyer felt, you know, two or three years after they stopped making them? And when an entire division or a company goes out, you know, back during the Great Recession, we almost lost General Motors and Ford entirely.

So the big recession was a piece of cake compared to what we're going through right now. And you're very, very wise to point. this out. I appreciate the call, John. Well, if it wasn't for Jeep, Christ, it wouldn't be around at all. Jeep is what does it. Exactly. Incidentally, I have a question for Rick. Jeep is

advertised very heavily on Jeep vehicles, on cable TV, also on the trucks. Can I ask Rick, how do they allow a four-door convertible that doesn't have doors on it? Don't some states have a law

that you must have four doors on your car? I wouldn't know about the laws on that as long as the safety crashes are able to pass but I can tell you that Jeep has done some weird things to get around rules in the past same thing that Chrysler has done so I'm sure they found some loophole to make it legal well I would never ride in a car without four doors on it

well they do actually have a full roll bar built into those you know, with the soft tops on them, they've got a roll bar built into that thing. Yeah, here's the deal. In Florida, it's generally legal to drive without doors as long as the vehicle meets certain safety requirements. And that might be some rollover protection, seatbelts, of course. Specifically, vehicles must have at least one functioning side mirror that provides a clear view of the road behind the driver. Yep. And this is crucial since the door is often housed the side mirrors.

So you still have to have a mirror that goes out. So they're still talking mirrors in Florida law and cameras are what is the name of the game. Yeah, I bet you they have them, though. I mean, the law probably requires the mirror, but like right now, the truck I'm driving, it's mirrors everywhere. It's like the Tesla. You stop, you see everything, and it's, that's timing. Why?

We don't look at. We have eight cameras. I don't look at the mirrors in my Tesla at all. You don't look out the windshield. You just, uh... All I do is I look at the screen. Yeah, we got eight cameras. And we're covered.

You just sit there and look at it. And Donovan says Ford does the same thing for the Bronco. There are certain versions of the new Bronco that you can remove all the doors. Okay, yeah. I've seen those. I've seen all sorts of modified broncos. They're very, very funky looking. What do you think, Earl?

Do you think we should remove the doors on the Tesla? I don't think so. No. Just be careful of Chrysler products. Rick can put in a roller bottle. You better be careful if you'd be buying any Chrysler products. You might have a collector. item.

All right, guys. Thank you. Thank you, John. Stay tuned for that mystery shoppery report, John. Our number here is 877-960. That's 877-960. We're going to go to Roger. He's calling us from Green Acres.

Good morning, Roger. Hey, good morning. How are you today? We're well, thank you. Listen, I have a question for Rick. Okay, he's right here and he's ready. I own a 2017 Nissan Quest. A couple of years ago, my wife and I decided to buy a camper.

So I installed a trailer hitch. And when I measured everything up, the bumper and everything was 11 to 12 inches off the ground, which is fine. Once I started driving with the trailer. it seems to drop down about five or six inches. So I want to know what I should focus on to get that five or six inches back up. And I've been to quite a few different mechanics in Palm Beach County. And none of them seem to know what to do. Basically, you'd be looking at needing some like airbags or helper springs in the back

to bring the back end up to get your suspension stiffer in the back. Shock absorbers? Well, it's not really shock absorbers. It's, you're wanting to increase the springs in the back. They have airbags that can be installed that keep the vehicle from sinking as low. Yeah, the newer trucks, they come with a suspension where you can actually, it's a hydraulic that raises that. The place I would talk to myself, I think it's race-side truck and trailer on military trail. used to be the real go-to

I know truck and trailer you at truck and trailer unlimited out of Southern they've gone out of business but the last one I knew of was Rayside I would stop in and talk with them and see what they can tell you about it because they're probably one of the last good experts on

modifying your vehicle to handle the heavier tongue weight on that trailer okay I know where Rayside is so I can just try right over there and talk to them yeah that that'd be my go-to on it and of course online if you if you phrase it and go on go to Google and phrase it the way you did when you made the call you might find that there are a lot of people that

have a similar problem in fact it's likely that you will find that we should have done that while we were talking to you because it is a difficult problem Rick you can work on that later and we might be able to come up with an answer for you you might want to check if we find an answer for you later as we Google around you can check the podcast on the show later

instead I have to sit here and wait to see if we figured it out okay well thank you very much for the call that was a challenge and we will get the great minds and work on that and we'll get a solution for you.

All right. Thank you so much. Great hearing from you, Roger. All right, have a good day. Thank you. Hey, guys, that Zoom call that we had earlier, guess where that was from? New Zealand.

London. London. I recognize the West End's accent. I couldn't hear the audio part of it. Thanks for that information, Jonathan. And it is 145 p.m. in London. via Jonathan. And the people aren't wearing their shirts right now.

Well, that kid wasn't. That kid wasn't. You know, has anyone paid any attention to CarShield? I know everyone has seen their commercials. They've been airing forever. But recently there's not much on any venue that you can see from CarShield. And the reason for that, they've been ordered to pay 10. Hello.

$10 million. It's a federal settlement over deceptive. Hello. We have, I'm simply saying a hello with my. It's a little voice. Yes, we have a Zoom caller that is. Oh, they can just come in and start talking? Oh, I've got to shut their sound on.

Continue. Continue, Ms. Nancy. We'll get to Zoom Scholar when you're done. Okay. I was speaking about CarShield and that they were ordered to pay. $10 million federal settlement over deceptive

repair coverage ads. Boy, oh, boy. Well, they're shameful, but that makes me feel good that something happened there. Yeah. Something somewhat significant happened. I don't think $10 million is going to make or break them

one way or another. We have no more calls. Who's up? Oh, we get the guy on Zoom. Right? Oh, is that what that was? I'm holding right now on my camera seeing the cart that Rick was holding up. That's so much of a delay I'm on. Oh, boy.

I got a nice anonymous feedback that we can get to, a few that came in recently. Your comment about car salespersons not wanting to ask the customer if they are Costco members because they'll learn less commission due to a lower price is BS. The commission is the same. the dealership is reimbursed for that money. Allow me to take this. No, that is BS. No, first of all, the dealership isn't reversed anything from Costco or anybody to pay a commission.

And at most dealerships, not our dealership, we don't do it this way. Most dealerships pay their salespeople a percent of the profit. So that means if you sell a car at a Costco approved price, the profit is much, much lower. and the percentage for the salesperson is less. Okay, there's some guy talking in here. We have a Zoom caller that is making noises. Okay, he should be in the lobby. Then, anyway, so, but no, it's also true that some dealerships will pay a, what they call,

a flat commission that is irrespective of the percentage, and they might do that. So it's possible a dealership might say, on a Costco deal, we'll pay you a flat, whatever it is. Well, there's anonymous feedback is reacting to the fact that I say that when people go into car dealerships and they're Costco members, if they go in without going through the process that Costco recommends, and you walk up to a car salesman, a regular salesperson, and you ask them, I'm a Costco member, will I get the Costco price? The salesperson could be lying to you and say, yes, you will get to Costco a price. But his manager doesn't know anything about this,

or maybe the manager's in cahoots, maybe the dealer doesn't know about it, but I can tell you, Costco doesn't know about it. So the point is, until you go through the process with Costco, and you look at your price sheet that Costco has worked out in cooperation with the dealer and compare it with the price that you were quoted,

the car salesman could be telling you anything. Now, this is an honest feedback that came from a car salesman, maybe in your dealership I'm guessing it came from a car salesman maybe in your dealership they are doing things right and you do get the same commission because they automatically do this honestly when they say I'm a Costco customer I guarantee you walk into any car dealership in South Florida the chances are 90% if you say you are a Costco member you will not get the Costco price because you will not go through the process to verify the price with Costco.

And that's the whole point. That's the whole point, yeah. This is for Rick. Hi, is it okay to leave the fan and AC on when you turn off the car? This way it will turn on when you turn the car on. If this is not okay, if this is not okay, what type of damage would you do? For any car built in the last 10 years, it's totally fine. Older cars, when you left them on, it could put a little bit of an extra.

drag on the electrical system when you're trying to start it up. Yeah. But newer cars, when you start the car, it keeps them off for a second or two and then brings them in slowly. So, yeah, you notice that when you turn it on. No damage whatsoever. Right. Totally fine to leave those on. Yeah, don't turn anything off. Leave everything on. Um, Nancy. Nancy. Okay. We are going to go to John. He's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Hey, good morning Welcome back

Thanks Thanks Just a couple things One of the new On the update I don't know if it's new or not But I found out last night on the Teslas That when you drive by the charging stations

Like for instance At the outlet malls In the Tesla Your mirrors automatically fold so that you can pull in. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, at the superchargers?

Amazing. Yeah, it's superchargers. So when you pull up, they automatically fold it because it happened to me last time, and I was driving past them to pick up my wife, and my mirrors folded, and I said, I didn't do that. What speed were you going? How fast were you going? It's five miles an hour. Oh, okay.

Okay, in the parking. What happened was, so I tested it, and I drove around, it went two lengths. over they unfolded so they unfolded so I went past the chargers again and they fold back up again so it's a new feature that they put in cool um yeah and the other one was uh I was Denise from Dequesta she had that warranty information about the $18,900 I was calling in I didn't know what your answer was but I went ahead and I purchased that warranty He does the right thing. And they fix it.

And the third thing is, I had to see that at the 1 of 3 of the cell. I was a battery. Finally went dead, right? So I was going to replace it. But I had read before I went in, or before I replaced it, Uh, they said, just go to the, uh, I think we've lost.

Yeah, John, we're losing. We're, you're cutting up pretty bad there. Your audio's cutting in and out, uh, John. Oh, all right. Well, we're on our to Tampa. We'll have a good trip. Drive safe. You go, it sounds like you're going through a dead zone.

Maybe try to call it back in a little bit. Yeah, it was right hearing from you, John. Thanks for all the information. I wonder if Donovan has that information. Probably does, yeah. I guarantee. Mears are big with us because when we come into the garage, automatically, you know, that's what we alert the Tesla to do for safety reasons.

I think that Earl is better at it than I am. I'm determined to prove that you can get into the garage without any harm to the So there's plenty of room, but it's something that we're supposed to do. Donovan says that feature came a few months ago in an over-the-air update. Is that right? So, yep. Interesting. So tell me again when it's supposed to automatically go down when you're...

You go to a supercharging, a supercharger station, so you pull in and it folds in so it makes it easier to get close to the charger. But he was just driving past it, and his things went just folded in. Cool. Well, we've never been to a charging station because we use a garage. That's right. Yeah, you don't need to. You should go to, I mean, I don't know. They're probably all over the place, but I went to the one. Oh, they are, yeah. But there's a Wawa. Well, actually, you know what? There's one on Blue Heron that has the chargers.

Yeah, it shows you anytime you get low on charge, they get, that pops up on the map and shows you the nearest supercharger. Right, and if you're not paying attention, they'll just take you there without asking you. You're going to love this one, Earl. Okay. Donovan says, there's an update coming in a few weeks for Tesla's that will tell you when your tires are worn. Oh, wow. It uses the electric motors to detect the difference in distance traveled per wheel to calculate the wear pattern on the tires. Boy, that's great.

I'm not sure I want to know that. That's great. Rick, I want to tell you something. That hits home. I'm driving the Tesla, and on the screen, it tells me, now I'm in route. the road and it says you're dangerously low on air on all four tires pull over pull over at the nearest air pump fill them up and of course what did we do we kept going okay we uh we uh according to jonathan have a zoom caller okay is that an accurate statement jonathan uh well he's uh he's muted and His video is not on, so... No?

Is that... What is his name? His name is Sheed Massar, and I don't know where he's from. Massar? Hang on. One second here. Maybe we have another call from London. No, I don't know, but continue on, and I'll let you know when he's back on.

Okay. We should have a rule, though. You have to be fully closed, closed when you call him to the show. What the heck? Wait, okay. We're lucky on that one. one we got very lucky there okay guys we got some dead air here what are we going to do with it oh i got plenty of all sorts of stuff there is i hear someone yeah we hear you okay we got a

welcome we got porn on the screen porn on the screen get rid of get rid of this guy we're the Zoom until we can figure out. There's something we haven't anticipated is perverts. Oh, boy. That way it's Earl Stewart on cars and perversion. Yeah, I say let's just keep this thing under control.

I'm glad that popped up on Earl's screen. I didn't have to see it. You know, I want to know if Adam's still watching us out there from London. They probably know each other. Send us a, exactly. Send us a text, Adam.

Okay, Jonathan, what do we do with our mysterious? The show will continue. Yeah, all right. So we got one anonymous feedback here. Hello, this is for Earl. Hello, are you against all dealer fees? Are just big ones? No.

hundred dollar max you know where some states have a max and some dealers even in florida charge a very small dealer we're not see this is a this is a this is a confusion that people try to use car dealers try to use about what what do you got against me if i if i have a reasonable dealer fee i need to make a profit uh you know why should you tell me how much i can charge for a dealer fee. I don't care if you charge a dealer fee to answer the question. I don't care what size your dealer fee is, but your dealer fee is part of the price of the car. Put your damn dealer fee in the advertised price and the Althodore price. If you want to have something you call orange juice or a dock fee or a delivery fee or come up with any other name, a junk

fee, and you call it a dealer fee, go ahead. Put it on your paperwork. But when you put your ad online, and you put your ad on television or the radio or wherever you advertise, I want that price to be the price that I can write you out of check for and take the car. I don't want to have an advertised price where then you pop in something called a dealer fee for an extra $500, $100,000 or $1,000. It's the deception, not the fact that you have a dealer fee. You can have dock fees, electronic filing fees. administrative fees, call it anything you want to. Put it in your advertised price.

And don't trick me into coming in and putting it in later after I've already signed on the dotted line and you got me in the F&I office. So that's what they used to say about you. And they say Earl hides his dealer fee in the price. And we didn't like that. But in a way, it was true. We didn't hide anything.

But what we were saying was like, yeah, the price you see, There includes everything. You're going to put all your expenses. If you're selling a product, the product, you buy the product, and then you might have to have a commission for someone that has to sell the product for you, and then you have a light bill, and you have a phone bill, you might have a lease payment on your building, and all these are expenses.

And you want some stuff, and you want some leftover for yourself. And you put it on top of what you pay for the product, and that's called the ultimate out-the-door price. And that's what you advertise. that's all we're saying advertise the price that you'll sell your product for it's mainly with cars but don't you just hate that

even when you see it in other things you know you want to rent a car buy a plane ticket yeah all these things you get excited and it's not when you get there it's oh wait there's this fee the activation fee that yeah the resorts hotels are going crazy

I mean it's absolutely do you remember when they were charging for a Wi-Fi? Yeah There was some hotel somewhere So much still recently they haven't seen that They put their expenses on top of their advertised price Airlines do it Hotels do it

Rental car companies do it But car dealers are the king Car dealers invented the junk fee And they really, really pile it on Shamlessly You guys out there that are on Zoom Gosh Clean it up

Let me tell you, this was supposed to be a good thing. And I know you guys can hear me out there, but we're not looking for anything but some, hello, and me saying, you just won yourself $100. We're not looking for anything pornographic. So let's move on. And let's educate ourselves on Erlon Cars. Hey, here's a good anonymity back. Good morning. If you bought or opened another dealership, would it be Toyota or would you be willing to go with a different manufacturer? I would be careful. I'd be a lot more careful today than I would have been 10 years ago.

What the franchise, Honda Strong, Tesla, of course, they don't have dealers. and a few other franchises I would consider. But it's a great question because just like I warned the people out there now that are listening, what car you buy, car dealers are thinking twice before they, there's this huge surge of buying dealerships. And a lot of these people that went out and bought 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 dealerships are starting to wonder, some of these. these dealerships are not going to survive because the manufacturers won't survive.

But I would be very careful before. If I were to buy a Honda or another toilet dealership or what else would we buy, Stu, I mean, I'd feel better about another Toyota dealership. You want Palm Beach Lexus. Oh, Lexus dealership. Absolutely. That's Toyota. You want somebody that was very strong financially, and it's going to be a different landscape in 10 years.

you're going to be amazed to people that are not around today that are there's obvious ones but then there's not obvious ones it'd be very very careful yes absolutely we're going to go back to the phones we're going to talk to bob he's calling us from lakeworth and marty uh hang on we'll be right with you good morning bob oh good morning good morning how's it morning uh i had a uh i had a 1982 ricardo tramsam and i just heard that ricaro is going bankrupt which is very disappointing and they're great sports seats a lot of the manufacturers use them and i'd also like to know what is your thought on what's going to happen with the twin city mall thank you at the twin city they're doing a big residential um project there um multi-story like condos a twin city mall is the old old

And now, yeah, you're going way back. Nobody calls it the Twin City Mall anymore, but I remember that was my mall when I was a kid, you know, and it was now it's a public, there's a plaza there, there's some restaurants. It's the only place to get caramel corn. Oh, yeah, you walk in there and can I reminisce for a second? You smell the caramel corn, the orange bowl pizza. And the orange Julius. Well, his question is what's going to happen now? You know, there's a massive development going in.

There are going to be apartments, there are going to be shops. Yeah, retail restaurants. It'll be a massive building thing. I think John Stalupi is involved in that project there, yeah. It's involved in that project there. But it's going to be a huge economic, a positive economic impact for that whole area in Lake Park and North Carolina Beach. Do you think it's appropriate what they're proposing for that area there? I don't think the infrastructure can handle it.

Well, that's the age-old question. I haven't seen the numbers. I'm not involved in it in any way. All we've seen is the median expansion, which, I mean, to your point, that's going to create congestion, just the construction of it, but also they're eliminating the, I don't know if you're familiar with the area. There is no median south on US 1, south of the North Lake Boulevard. you can freely cross. They're going to kind of restrict that, so it's going to make things

interesting. And I would hope that they're going to do something on North Lake to accommodate it. And also the bridge that went out, which is under DOT, has it partially fixed, is narrow and hasn't been completed. So I think you might be anticipating a little bit of a cluster fluff in the coming months. What do you think about Ricardo going bankrupt? I don't know much about it. They make seats for sports cars. I had an 1982 Ricardo Tran-Am, which is a Pontiac product. I had it for 15 years before it got stolen, but they were great seats.

That wasn't the smoking the bandit car, was it? No, this was 82. 82. Smoky of the bandit was in the 70s. 76, 77. Yeah. Yeah. I remember those in the Pontiac dealership showroom with the bird decal on the front.

That big old thunder chicken on the hood. Thunder chicken. It was such an exciting car for a kid. Yeah, we delivered one of those black transams to Bert Reynolds' father. And he bought that car for his dad who lives locally. Yeah. Well, I just thought what they're proposing over there was a little bit out of character for the area. Well, it wouldn't surprise me.

You know, I just, it's amazing. I keep moving north. I started out in Palm Beach County. He started in Fort Lauderdale. I keep moving north. I'll probably be up in Ops Town or Stewart before longer, much longer. But you're right, the population growth is insane. But that comes with the territory.

And up the road a little bit, not to bore the non-locals who might be listening, but up there by P.J. Boulevard and where they're doing the, there's a bunch of construction. new housing, those Rich Carlton, but they're big towers they're putting up there. And the roads right there, they can't handle it with the bridge right there. It is a, yeah, it's a big traffic snarl multiple times a day. So I hope they're doing something. I hope the powers that be.

The Twin City Mall, there used to be a driving range back in the 50s. Where? Where the Twin City Mall was. Oh, was it really? Yeah, I was here in the 50s, but I didn't get it. In the 50s, I look back in West Palm Beach, so I, I didn't get up there, but you're an old-timer like I am. You've been around a long time.

I did my 20-mile hike when I was a Boy Scout from downtown West Palm Beach to Jupiter. And once I, when I got to North Palm Beach, there was only one building. And that was the, that was an estate of somebody that had a lot of money, which is now the North Palm Beach Country Club. But outside of that, it was all woods. And that's where I hike. back in you've been able to see how things didn't solve here now all right Bob we've got to get back to cars now so listen now thanks for the call I appreciate it thanks for the update Bob thank you we're going to go to Marty and he has been holding thank you Marty good morning good morning I've got a question for

I guess Earl and or Sue with this new pricing policy that's supposed to take place September 1st, is the dealership still can add in all their junk fees and electronic fees and everything as long as they tell you up front that that's the price? No, they have to include it in the price, Marty, and it remains to be seen whether they were going to comply, but you're right. September 1st is when Ashley Moody has said you know there's going to be a new sheriff in town and it's going to be me and I'm going to enforce the rules of this 20 year old law which has been on the books all this time and they just ignored it so actually moody will be enforcing it but yeah the dealer fee of the junk fees and all the rest of this stuff dealer install accessories and all the other garbage that we talk about on the show that'll disappear because there'll be no point in it There's only one reason for junk fees and dealer install accessories. And that is to surprise, deceive your potential customer when they come in on the advertisement.

You see an online price for, I'll make a round number, for $40,000 for this new car. And you end up paying $45,000 for the new car. Why? because they add the junk fees they add the dealer installed accessories and and the advertised price is not the price you pay so by by definition nobody nothing in the law says you can't have junk fees and you can't have dealer install accessories you know you can you can you can you can put a charge on there for your membership in the country club and for your ski chalet in

Vale, Colorado. You can put all these prices anywhere you want as long as it is in the advertised price. But they're not going to be doing that because it would be inflate the advertised price and hopefully on

September 1st when you see a price on an advertisement from a car dealer, it'll be the price you can buy the car for. Okay, I got one more question for you or Stu. Okay. And at least vehicle right now they say oh you can lease this car for 399 a month and then in the small print they got $6,000 down shouldn't they if i was running the show i'd say the 6,000 should be divided

by 36 and the real price should be put up that at the 560 dollar lease price. Does that law include that? That will include that. The equivalent on the lease price is the capitalized cost and the capitalized cost should have all the costs in there. And when you sell a car, it's just the advertised price and leases the capitalized cost and the law going into effect September 1st should affect both leasing and purchase size here's what's going to happen I mean that's what's supposed to happen Marty but what's what's going to happen is only the most egregious crazy advertisers will go down at least for the first year or two

You'll see the Hollywood Toyotas, you'll see the Napleton dealerships, you'll see the dealerships in South Florida that are just absolutely flaunting the law. You'll see them go on after first. But the medium people that get away with the medium stuff, it'll take a while before they get to them. But we're going to be shopping like crazy on September 1st. We're going to hit every dealership we possibly can in South Florida. And we know the ones. And we're going to go and we're going to send those shopping reports directly to Ashley Moody. We'll see how serious she was.

But I believe she is serious. And Ted Smith, the president of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, has assured me. And we're friends. I mean, we're friends and we're enemies. You know, he doesn't like what I say about car dealers, but he knows that I'm an honest person. and I know he's an honest person so he's endorsed this he thinks Ashley Moody will enforce this now is this Earl does this affect the national ads like the Toyota national ads that are on TV are the same thing they've got in a small print how

much down that's right that's a that's a great question technically she should be going after the manufacturers also I think for a practical standpoint she won't but I think I I think that the Federal Trade Commission you know we're talking about we're not talking about the Cars Act now which is also a very important thing that's going on we're focusing on the Ashley Booty commitment on September the 1st but the combat auto retail scams cars the Federal Trade Commission regulation which is hung up now frozen in the Circuit Court in Texas because of the lawsuit by the National Automobile Dealers Association,

this thing is going to bust open pretty quick. This thing is going to happen. Smarter people than I am are saying that this regulation is going to go into effect. And the car dealers and the National Automobile Dealers Association know that this will happen. So when that happens, the manufacturers are going to have to abide by it. I think the manufacturers, deep in their hearts, want honesty in advertising, both for themselves and for their dealers. And I think they'll jump on that. It'll be easier to get the national advertiser to go honest once the car dealers go on us. So maybe that's wishful thinking, but that's my opinion.

All right. I just want to tell Rick, I went out in the garage and looked at my wife's 21 CRV, and the tires are all, say, 40, 20. So I'm good for another couple years. Yeah, for you. So what that actually means is the 40th week of 2020. So they were almost at the, they were pretty much the end of no. November is when they were produced.

Or wait, I beg your pardon. No, 12 weeks before, so about September. About the September was when they were produced. Yeah, I'm sure the tread will wear out before 26. Very likely. It's very likely, yeah. Yeah. All right, have a good weekend.

Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Martin. You know, I was just thinking after what Marty said, I'd love to find somebody check their tires we know the code the way you do it now I wonder how old a tire

is on a car right now technically somebody could be driving with a tire that was 20 years old right if the tire was stored properly you could be driving on a 30-year-old tire and it's still a good safe tire there's no long as

selling a 30-year-old tire do you believe that folks Well, and like I say, if it was stored properly, say you had a warehouse, cool, dry warehouse. Yeah, put it in the refrigerator. You know, properly stored. That time could last a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, especially if you get certain cars that have an oddball size, you know, those sizes don't get sold often, so there's not a lot of inventory turnover. Yeah. Yeah, it's something, it's a, it's a hidden fact from a consumer that shouldn't be. that way. I wouldn't be at all surprised when you go into a tire seller if even the seller knows what the age of the tires are. The person that bought the tire, you know, put them on the shelf and who knows how long it's had on the shelf. Exactly. And they're looking

to push the tires. We're going to get to Andy who's calling us from Fort Lauderdale because I see about the clock that we have to start speeding things up if we're We're going to get to everything that we want to cover. Andy, good morning. Yeah, how are you doing? Great. I called you last week. I was buying SL 55 from Alabama.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You remember me. Oh, so I want to ask you, do you know about SL-55s? They were only made. They were only made from 03 to 08. And then they came back in 22. Oh.

But the reason I'm, I've been looking for this for a year. But they're all like in the 20s, 20,000 for the 03s. I got an 07. But here's what happened with the deal. When I called them, I asked them about the ABC, because I have a mother Mercedes and the ABC went on it. So he said ABC was good and everything. Then he went out to the car and he came back to me

and he said the roof, it has a hot top convertible. And he said, it's not working now. And it was there for 60 days and it's worked every day. So he said, I'm going to send it to the Mercedes and see what's going to be. and he came back to me like a week later and he said he's going to sell the car as it is because he it probably cost a fortune to fix that he wanted like yeah he he he wanted 14 9 and i said i have cash money what will you do for me you know how much you shouldn't believe this price

$9,500. Oh, jeez. And I got, I got, it's getting shipped right now for $300. So, and I'm a gambler. I'm a gambler. I own race forces, so I'm not worried about the roof. It's 110 degrees here. I never put the roof down on my other one.

Uh-huh. But what would it cost to fix that? Uh, without knowing what the problem is, that could be anywhere from, $500 to $5,000. That's why I think I got it cheap like that. Yeah, I would check there's a place on US 1 called Prestige Auto

that... Oh, I know it. Yeah, they... I just know that place because they are fully loaded with high-end luxury cars all the time. And there's no way a shop can be that busy with that

many cars if they're not doing something right. otherwise I check around for you know look in your local forum groups and find who they recommend for Mercedes guys to check that out and find out what's going on with that roof I really don't care because I'm getting older and I don't put it's so hot here I never put the roof up

I have my other Mercedes for seven years I put it down twice I just you know you get a sunburn you get sick there So, what a, it's like so cheap. You've got to look at the SL-55s, and you can't. See, I read stuff.

You know how many of these cars were sent to the United States in 07? No. 583. Wow. That's why I want the car. Wow. I understand, yeah. That'll probably be a better investment than the stock market.

That car is going to do. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. I know you. That's why I buy crazy cars. I got a 72 convertible sting rate that I had for 30 years. I used to sell cars, but not really sell them. I would give the deal as my money. And then they would rob me. Hey, Andy, that's pretty interesting what you said about not putting your roof down. Does the same thing apply to the, did you say you had a stinger? 72 Stingray The Stingray?

A 72. Yeah, and you don't put the roof done on that vehicle? I'm telling you one thing. It has no air conditioning, so I don't even drive it. It has 54,000 miles. I might be selling it this week. I don't know. I'm getting old, and I have no one to leave it to

because nobody loves me in my family. Oh, geez. I have two nephews that have two nephews that think they're going to get all my money. They're dreaming. I think that's a universal problem. You're my kind of guy. I have no wife.

But I got lucky because I got married when I was 18. And at 25, my father retired, he was 62. And I came down here, and I bought real estate in Los Solis. And I made a lot of money for an idiot. Well, you're a happy guy I can just tell by the tone of your voice You're a happy man So you're a success

You're a success I know I didn't work since 25 Interesting Hey do you take your dog with you Andy I had a poodle That just died on me And I'm sick after 17 years Oh I'm so sorry

A black and white A little toy 9 pounds Oh That's what I used to out I'm gonna get you another dog from Big Dog Ranch rescue. You let me know what kind of dog you like, and I'll put in a special request for you. I still have

the dog. I sent the dog to California, and it got a priest dried. Is that right? I'll be darned. Wow. And it's in my house, the dog, and when I dropped out, I'm going to put it in the casket with me. And my mother and father.

Oh, sweet. Well, Andy, we're going to have to wrap it up. We're getting close to. to go, your real. Call us back, Andy. Calls back next week. We love you. When the call comes, I'll tell you all about it. Okay. It's going to be here Monday. I can't wait. Thanks, thanks, Andy. Okay. Thanks, Andy. Give us a call again. We love your call. Okay. Folks,

Earl, did you want to mention, say, one more thing before we get to the Big Dog Ranch video? I've got to tell you, I got some more good news about cleaning out Dodge and in South Florida. And I had a call from Jeff Weinseyer. He is the investigative reporter for WPLG, that's Channel 10 in Fort Lauderdale. They're one of the most popular TV stations. So Jeff Weinstein said calling me about the fact that the department actually of Attorney General's office of Florida has nailed the Gunther Volkswagen Group for their charging over the, lease purchase option prices, which we talked

about on this show for a long time and warned people, Jeff Weinsherer, I believe, proceeded as results of some of the things we exposed on the show. So now the entire Gunther group, thanks to Channel 10, WPLG

in South Florida, and Jeff Weinseer, specifically the investigative reporter. So we've got Gunther Volkswagen, Kia, We got about a dozen Gunther dealerships down here. He's got a lot of franchises all over South Florida. And he was fined $600,000, which is a slap on the wrist, I know, but it's still embarrassing. And I have the paperwork here from the Office of the Attorney General State of Florida in my hand.

This will be, he will have to, from now on, If you go into a Guthrie dealership in South Florida and you have a lease and you want to exercise your option, he cannot add all the crap that he was adding to these leases like delivery fees and inspection fees and thousands of dollars in some cases on top of the purchase option price. So I want to thank Jeff Wines here. It's a gutsy thing for him to do. Needless to say that Channel 10 is being born. by a lot of car dealers now in South Florida.

Advertising is the lifeblood of television and, you know, the media. It's just a, you have to have advertisers. And now the car dealers, the entire Gunther organization and the Volkswagen manufacturer is boycotting WPLG, Channel 10 in Miami, on advertising. So you see the capitalist system there, folks. the capitalist system, they got power too. That by pushing the media not to expose their skullduggery, they can get hurt and by losing their advertisers. So there's a war being fought in South Florida right now. I'm rooting for Jeff Weinstein and Channel 10, WPLG.

Congratulations on exposing this. Absolutely. What a great story. And we're going to get this done, folks. we're definitely going to get this done okay we are going to go to our video and we for big dog ranch that is and we're going to talk about Hollywood that's our dog of the week Hollywood and he comes to Big Dog Ranch because he was just wandering the streets and he found a home with Big Dog Ranch and they have treated him marvelously and he's a home.

He is about eight years old, I believe, and he's a shepherd German. And we pay the adoption fees, folks, and it can be pretty expensive to adopt a dog. And they have a great program out there for everyone. So, Jonathan, would you roll the video for Hollywood? I'm Paula, a big dog ranch rescue. This is Hollywood. He's a seven-year-old. He's been here a long time.

He's a gentleman. He's my favorite dog here. He does sit. Does paw. Oh, look at that. He came in with Maine so bad he didn't have a hair on his body, but now he's all better. He's the perfect dog, and I love him. We are big, big supporters of Big Dog Grants Rescue, and they are the largest no-kill.

Aw. of dogs, and they keep them until they find a loving home. When you adopt our sponsored dog through us, we take care of the adoption fees. There's a lot of expenses that goes into getting the dogs ready for adopting and housing them, some indefinitely. And you get charged a few hundred dollars based on the breed, age of the dog, and how long they've been at the ranch. But we take care with that for you.

You get a dog that's ready to go with all its shots, neutered, spade, bath, cleaned. And we highlight these dogs, but we also hope that it just kind of brings exposure to big dog ranch rescue in general so if you're thinking about a dog big dog ranch rescue in loxahatchee florida that's www.bdbdr as in big dog ranch rescue dot org also folks um you know earl has a book confessions of a recovering car dealer uh this just gets better and better if you purchase that book all proceeds go to big dog ranch All proceeds go for the purchase of that book. Confessions of a recovering car dealer go to Big Dog Ranch.

They have so many great things out there at Big Dog Ranch. I'm speaking about programs and also the way they treat their dogs out there and everything that they subject the dogs to. It could be anything from seeing, you know, of it near and it could be anything from, you know, going out to the pool, they just have an assortment of entertainment for the dogs and they know how to treat them until you go out to Big Dog Ranch and decide to adopt a dog. And you can go to big dog ranch.org and you can fill out an application for a background check and because they just don't give dogs to anybody. They want to know that this dog is going to a good home.

take advantage of all that big dog ranch rescue a great place to visit okay earl we're going to go to the mystery shop if you're ready okay and uh ladies and gentlemen please uh vote on this mystery shop it's real important to us and you can do that at 772 4976530 and we mystery shop carmax in Boynton Beach. You know, we talk a lot about South Florida being the Sodom and Gomorrah. So I think we do CarMax a disservice because we also look at CarMax, which is a national used car outlet, and they're publicly traded over on the New York Stock Exchange.

They're a class act within the automotive retail community. So every car dealership in South Florida, I think sometimes. we overdo it because most of them are really rough places to have to buy a car. I don't want to give away anything here, but we go back to the good dealers and the bad dealers because you never know. One little change in management can change to way a car dealer sells cars. So we're at CarMax in Boynton Beach. I'll be speaking in the first person as if I were our Ace undercover agent,

Agent Lightning, and I will read this report that's put together by my son, Stu, and Agent Lightning. I was greeted as soon as I walked in by two salesmen who were very friendly. Mike introduced himself and asked, what brings you in today? I showed him a picture of an advertisement. I saved on my phone of a 2019 Toyota Highlander Platinum, 2019 Toyota Highlander Platinum. They had indicated it had a recent $3,000 price drop and that'll get your attention, right? One nice thing about CarMax when they say they have a price drop. It is a price drop. They're advertising from all of our experience in our mystery shops over the years. They are ethical, honest people, and if they say they discount something they do.

The car I'm looking for, I asked if it was in this location. Now, CarMax is all over the country, so that's another advantage. And the nice thing about that is, if you're looking for a model that might not be on a particular CarMax lot, they have the wherewithal to be able to trade for that car from another CarMax location. And of course, transportation fees would be a factor they'd had to take into consideration. But this car, this Toyota Highland or Platinum, 2019, happened to be at this location, and usually they are, the local advertiser, they would be at that location. He said, he said it was at this location, and he says, let's take a walk outside to see it before the storm comes in. We're having some stormy weather here in South Florida.

I agreed, said, yes, of course, can you grab the keys? He smiled and said, I have them in my pocket. pocket I must have looked a little bit confused so we explained I have a master key to the boxes on all our cars which hold each vehicle's keys now this might sound like a little thing but if you're a regular listener to the show and you hear about sometimes we're looking for a particular car you can't find the car you can't find the keys CarMax is a very professional efficient organization and they value the customers time and

This is one way they do it. They don't have to look for the keys. The keys are on every car, and they have another key, which is a master key that unlocks the lockbox, which is a pretty smart way to go about it. The Highlander was in very nice condition. We looked through it, and it started up. The air conditioning was cold, and the interior was very clean.

The tires weren't horrible, but I asked, do the tires need to be replaced soon? They looked like they might. and that's something you always want to look at when you're buying a used car. Mike explained, we go by the National Highway Measurements, that's the National Highway Traffic Safety Association measurements for tires, and we double it. Now that's pretty conservative, and that speaks well for Carmex. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association, a standard is 2.30 seconds,

and that's pretty slick, and Rick would agree, 2.30 seconds, I think, I don't think it should be that low, but that's what they say. That is the NHDSA standard. So they double that to 4.30 seconds. In our dealership, we draw the line at 3.30 seconds. So actually, car max. Our used cars, all have to be minimum of 5.30 seconds. It's tires for life. We replaced them at 3.30 seconds. Okay. Okay. Very good. Thank you. 5.30 seconds. These tires are usually good for about 36,000 miles, so they're likely the original one since it was only, it only has 25,000 miles on. The weather turned, started to rain, so we hurried back inside and went to his computer, Mike's computer. We barely avoided getting drenched just as we got inside.

Mike gathered all my information into the computer and pulled up the car. mention this looks like it was one of those I don't care for this reference neither will Nancy old lady cars I've used it and as I look back on it it's not a nice thing to say it was bought and serviced here in Boynton Beach but the fact the matter is older people including myself and Nancy we don't drive as many miles and from a practical standpoint if you're buying a used car and you can find a used car that is five or six years old it only has 12 or 14,000 miles on it that's pretty damn good buy so the fact is people that are retired they don't have to commute

they don't have to go to work and come home and so we see a lot of cars because we have an elderly population in South Florida that only have sometimes two or three thousand miles a year or maybe five or six thousand I mean the average driver but it's about 15,000 miles a year on a car. So that's something if you're shopping for use car, you might think about. I mean, it's hard to put a value on a car that only has half the mileage that normally would have had. That's a valuable attribute to a car to be looking for. Where am I here?

Oh, yeah. He then clicked on to the warranty page of CarMax's website and showed, me their warranty program he said I don't push the warranty but I just show the benefits of it having since this vehicle it's out of warranty period with Toyota I like that I don't push the warranty it kind of goes with my philosophy in our at my dealers I personally don't believe in extended warranties if you can afford to do the repair or they fix the car yourself, you're better off because people that sell warranties make money, insurance

companies make money, and you're subsidizing them if you don't actually need to have that backup in case you have a problem with the car. So this Carmack salesperson was quite honest about that. But they have the warranty available. In my dealership, we have the warranty available, but I don't recommend it for myself. If it gives you peace of mind and you read the warranty carefully and you see what it does cover and what it does not cover, then

so be it. If it makes you feel better, buy the warranty. Torres are very well-made cars, the salesman said, so it's totally up to you. If you bring it in there for work, we offer $50 off each

level of deductible. That's a good thing. And if more of the one, they comes up you're only charged one deductible which the way it should be if you decide to have a service at a Toyota dealership it's a deductible as shown so they give you a little edge there and they're trying they're trying to get your service business that's another good thing a lot of used car lots are not a place you want to take a car to get fixed car max has a very good mechanical facility and they do the repair the cars and maintain the cars that they sell you It then went on to go over the pricing on the screen.

The sale price was $34,998, same as online. Bingo. I mean, that's all we ask. We want the sale price to be what the advertised price is. And it was. They added, here's the negative. This is not a perfect, CarMax is not perfect. And they added a $599 CarMax processing fee.

that fee has come up slowly over the years with shop them before so here we are almost six hundred dollars for a junk fee that's what it is as a dealer fee and then $34 for an optional electronic filing fee again I don't know why CarMax does that but hey you know we got $633 in junk fees on top of the advertised price September 1st, by the way, Ashley Moody will say, and the Attorney General State of Florida will say, even CarMax have to take that extra $599 plus $34

and put it in the advertised price. That should happen on September 1st. And we'll be shopping CarMax and other car dealerships in South Florida to see if they are. And if they are not, that shopping report will go directly to Ashley Moody. and we're going to help her clean up Dodge. Interestingly, they broke out the amount of the sales tax

for both junk fees. I thought that was interesting too. It's less deception. You have to pay sales tax on a junk fee. That's the way when the dealer's trying to put one over on you and say this is a tax, you don't tax a tax. So if there's four to sales tax, imputed on a particular item.

It is a junk fee. It's not a real government fee. Mike offered, I could print this all out for you, and I accepted. Mike thanked me for coming in and said, let me know if you want to drive it, and I'll have it all ready for us to go. So there you have it.

CarMax in Boynton Beach, Florida. That's South Florida. And it wasn't a perfect report. We grade on the curb. We'd like you to get your votes in. to us via either text, 772, 4976530. And we get most of our votes in on YouTube, YouTube.com, forward slash, for a lung cars.

And we grade on the curve, as I say, we try to go for the average dealer being a C, no matter whether that's a good or a bad dealer. And for the top dealer, if they are perfect, We give them an A. If they're so bad, they ought to be in jail, we give them an F. So needless to say, we don't like to see a lot of A's or a lot of Fs, and we grade in between. So we're looking at a B to a D, and a lot of Cs is the way the curb is supposed to work. So if you get those grades in for us, we'll announce them on the air.

Rick? And we're looking so far. Hi, here we go. We got some coming in now. Tim Gilliland says, well, that was weird. Excuse me. Well, that was weird. Treating prospective buyers with respect certainly isn't the norm.

A minus. Very good. Let's see. Andrew Placinski says B plus. Brenda Wise says B. Still some junk fees. Johnny Z. Fradley says B. The fee used to be $2.99.

The little old lady from Pasadena drove her superstock dodge pretty fast. That was the old Jan and Dean song from the 60s. Joseph Kelleher, the C. Junk fees are the reason for the C grade. Brian Siddlato says CarMax gets a B plus. Tom Steckle says B plus, no addendums, but still have the junk fees. Automania, I grade a B. T-cash says,

C, just give the outdoor, pardon me, outdoor price. And for me, I'm torn between the B plus or the A minus. I'm going to the A minus. I think even though they have the junk fee, it's clearly stated right there. They're not playing games. I agree. A-minus. I agree.

Yeah, I agree with you, Rick. I'm going to go ahead and vote, and I agree with Rick. Even though, you know, I just feel I don't like fees at all. But this is a pretty good report. And for that, I'm going to give them a B-plus. Can you have a B-plus and an A-minus? Got a couple more if we can read them off real quick. Okay.

Anne-Marie says, by South Florida standards, I'd give them a B-plus. Respect is rare, but junk fees brought them down to the B-plus. And we have one other here. Bob in Maryland says, B for CarMax. I would have an A, but my wife is an old lady and made me go to a B. I don't know. I'm vacillating. I'm going to say B-plus.

I'd love to give them an A minus, but I think a B plus. One of the reasons I do the B plus instead of the A minus is because they're creeping up on their junk fees. And the motive of a junk fee is to deceive. We talked earlier about we had one caller, I think, that said, am I just speaking about me being against dealer fees and junk fees? And I say, I'm not against the fees. I'm against the including them, not including them in the advertised price.

So here's CarMax. You know, they've got $600 in change that they add on to the price that they advertise. And, you know, I'd love to give you an A plus, CarMax, but give you a B minus. But you're still the best game in town. And anybody within the sound of my voice, if you buy a car at CarMax, you're probably going to do better than you can at just about any other location. You also, by the way, can sell your cars to CarMax. I don't want to do an advertisement for them now, but my dealership uses CarMax to sell cars sometimes. When we're trying to determine the market value of a trade-in or a used car, we'll call CarMax.

because they're pretty much on top of the market. Now, the caveat to that is if they have a lot of cars of the description that you're selling, they won't give you as much as if they don't have a lot of cars but would like to have that car, but they're always worth getting a quote from a Carmec store. Anywhere in the United States, you get a quote.

And the quote's good for, I think, five days or maybe a week. I can't remember exactly. So if you have a used car, even if you're trading in a used car, you're buying a car, it always helps to get an idea of what that car is truly worth. We call it the actual cash value, and that as CarMax is a great way to do it. And you can also do it at we buy any car.com,

and we can also do it at Vroom. There's a number of sources out there. Carvana, all these places can give you a price of the car. Rick? Automania is asking, Can you negotiate the junk fee down? with CarMax okay no you can and and that is the bad thing about a junk fee is the it's a car they're calling it a cost and they're not putting it

in their advertised price it's all a matter of deception oftentimes the car the car salespeople I'm not I'm not sure there this applies to CarMax, but at most car dealerships, the junk fees, the salespeople don't get paid on it. So if the management, or the owner of the dealership will say to the salespeople, you cannot remove this from the price of the car. You can lower the price of the car, but when they lower the price of the car, they're lowering their commission. they get 25% of the profit that they make on the car. So that's the reason they won't let them enhance their commission, it hurts their commission if they take it off the price of the car.

So that's, that way, you're not only screwing the customer, but you're screwing your salespeople too, because you're using the dealer fee, and I say you, the dealer is making all the money. CarMax is making all that money, the $4.99 plus the other thing, the electronic fire. $34. Yeah, $34.

So it's petty larceny. You know, another dealership that I normally recommend highly is the largest Lexus dealership of the United States, and that is J.M. Lexus. J.M. is in Jim Moran. And they're the best place to buy Alexis, even today. But they have a dealer fee. They have a junk fee. And they advertise, we don't have a dealer fee.

And the dealer fee is only like 300 bucks. I mean, you're buying a Lexus, probably you're paying $50,000, $70,000. So why do they have $300? I mean, if you're going to be clean, you're going to be honest, why do it? I say the same thing to Carmex. So here I am beating up on two good dealerships, and I don't mean to be, because the rest of the dealerships, are so rotten that if I live in, I do live in South Florida.

If I were buying a car because I live in South Florida, I'd drive 200 miles north to buy a car. I'd go out of the state to buy a car because of how bad South Florida is with the way they deceive car buyers. So there we are. And a week from Sunday, that's tomorrow, will be the beginning

of Ashley Moody's enforcement of Florida's 20-year-old law. So when that happens, it's going to be really exciting. I think it'll be not only exciting, but there'll be some clarity. Because there's so much money to be made

in this business, and we don't have to deceive the consumer. It just isn't necessary. And by the way, I was reading some of these states that have a cap on the fees that they charge. And there is as small as $30. And that's what they've been charging from the beginning of time, and it's never changed. So like I said, there's, you know,

room for some clarity here. Well, there's two wrongs when the dealers resort to this junk fee thing. The dealer that's doing it, and this is probably CarMax would be a good example. They feel like they have to do it because the other dealers are doing it so much worse, so they just do it somewhat. And CarMax probably would like not to have the dealer fee, because I think when you're a nationally recognized company and you're traded on the New York Stock Exchange, I mean, you've got a lot of exposure. You want to be ethical and honest. But when your competition forces you sometimes to get a little bit off the straight and narrow path, then it's like a cancer. It spreads. All the other dealerships in the market say,

well, if the other dealers are able to get away with the junk fees, and I don't have a junk fee, I can't be advertising competitively because my advertised price will be higher than what the other dealers are forcing me to do. It's complicated. I'm a cock-eyed optimist, and I believe that if we can just get a significant number, some number of car dealerships in South Florida to go the straight and the narrow, and maybe the threat by Ashley Moody is the only way this could happen, And if we could get the maybe 20 or 25% of them to do it,

then the other dealers that were afraid to do it will gradually fall suit, especially if Ashley Moody keeps the pressure on. So a week from Sunday, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, good things are coming. And right here at Erlon Cars, there's going to be a whole lot of mystery shopping reports that are going to be done by Agent Lightning.

And we are going to provide these mystery shopping reports with, we're going to give them all to Ashley Moody just so that she can see exactly what's going on. You know, we're going to get upfront and personal. Do we have time for one more? We do. I've got, for you folks who like Mazda, Mazda is a good car.

It's a better car today that has been. for a long time, they've approved their technology. They really pushed the incentives when the COVID issue came over and the supply chain issue was cured, and they started getting some cars in. They started getting a lot of cars in, and to get rid of the cars, they put some very, very strong incentives on cars.

So if you're in the market for a Mazda, I would suggest that you check with your Mazda dealer they have some very, very strong incentives, thousands of dollars on certain models. And if you, be sure that when you go to the Mazda website, the Mazda factory website, where you will see the incentives advertise. Because if you go to the Mazda dealership,

you might not know that those incentives are available. But there's some good buys out there on Mazda's. In fact, they're such good buys, and the incentives were so strong that Mazda had a little bit of a financial issue in the last quarter, and they're not making the money they thought they were going to make. So they're going to be pulling these incentives off because they over did it, but that's an opportunity for you if you're in the market for Mazda. Check consumer reports. Find a model that they recommend, and they do recommend quite a few Mazda's, and check with your Mazda dealer and know the incentive that's available to you. and negotiate with two or three other Mazda dealerships and do what you learn to do on this show

to be sure you get the Althodore price. And you could get a heck of a deal on a very good car. Great information for everyone out there that's looking for a Mazda. Okay, folks, it's time for us to wrap it up. And we certainly enjoy your company. And we look forward to being right here next week at the same time.

on the oldies channel and that is at 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend.