Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.25.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of HGreg of Doral

Episode Date: August 25, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits HGreg in Doral Florida, to purchase a car and analyze the shopping experience. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. Normally with Earl and Nancy. Nancy is out with a little bit of cataract surgery pending, and she'll be back hopefully in a week or two.

We're in the studio with Alan Napier, who used to be a regular on this show. He is a collision repair expert, and my son, Stu Stewart, who's a little bit of everything. He's kind of like I am. Cyber, new cars, used cars, and knows a little bit about a lot about cars, and we bring experts in. We're missing Rick Kearney, who is our regular, we call him an auto computer scientist. And before I get off on my auto thing, I have to address the fact that we're, We're on the True Oldies Channel, and it's all about music on True Oldies Channel, except for Earl on Cars. We're a live radio talk show.

I've been doing a show of this type for about 10 years, maybe 11 now. I used to be on the old Seaview Radio years ago, and that was a half an hour show. We moved to an hour, then we moved to two hours, and we went from Tuesdays to Saturdays. So thank you very much for all our regular. listeners that chased us around and actually suffered with the almost two-year hiatus after I got fired. I got fired on C-view because I was too candid about what this show is all about. And this show is all about how to not get ripped off by car dealers. How to not get ripped off by independent service departments, body shops, buying, leasing,

selling, repairing, whatever you might have to do with your automobile. we tell it like it is. We tell the emperor he has no clothes. We tell the emperor that car dealers are ranked at the bottom of the annual Gallup poll on honesty and ethics and professions. Every year since 1977, people don't like to talk about that, particularly the National Automobile Dealers Association or the Florida Automobile Deals Association. What worries me is even the Attorney General doesn't like to talk about it.

Most of the regulators and legislators don't like to talk about it. Car dealers are held in very, very low esteem. As a matter of fact, I don't like to digress, but that's the way I think. I'm a rambler. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, I was honored to be quoted in an article. I'll hold it up because we're streaming this. I've got to find a front page now. Live everything is so exciting because I should have had the page folded.

before but i got it now so if you wall street journal uh folks this is the first page of the business section of the wall street journal that was yesterday's friday's wall street journal and uh articles entire car dealers label labor car dealer's labor to keep young workers now the sense of the article is the fact that card dealers is just such bad places to work Folks don't like to work on them. They have like a 50% turnover rate. Salespeople come in and they really can't take it. So I was called to find out by the Wall Street Journal reporter.

Her name is Adrienne Roberts, by the way, outstanding young lady reporter. She wants to know, well, you've been in the business for 50 years. Why is it so hard for you to keep salespeople? Well, I explained to her why it's not hard for me to keep salespeople, but I explained to her why it is so hard for most car dealers to keep salespeople and why my turnover rate is only about 19%. And the average car dealers is about 50%. It's because people don't like to cheat people.

Car dealers use deceptive advertising, deceptive trade, advertising marketing, bait and switch advertising. They advertise cars below the cost that they'll sell them to you for, and they do it premeditatedly. Then they add dealer fees and they add dealer install accessories. it's just absolutely terrible. They won't cost you a price. The price they advertised

and the price they quote you is haggling and hassling and negotiating game playing. So if you were a young guy or a young gal and you were looking for your first or second job just got out of school, how many young people have said to you, mommy, daddy, when I grow up, I want to sell cars? Nobody. So that was the essence of this article

and I urge you if you can do it online or if you can or if you don't have a subscription you can go to Facebook.com slash earl on cars yeah here it is I got the didn't have the picture in there you can Earl on Cars

Facebook.com Earl on Cars you can read it there you can read it in the Wall Street Journal online and it's a very interesting article and I'd like to see national attention to the dilemma about our problems in the car business because the local

media and one of the reasons you don't see the discussion is because the local media depends heavily on local car dealers. Think about it. There's hundreds of them in South Florida. And if you look at the television, you go online, newspapers, everything is pretty much loaded with advertising. So advertising is power when you're talking media. And the media doesn't like to criticize, you know, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The hand that feeds the media, largely their biggest feeder are car dealers. And the dealer organizations, Ford Automobile Dealers

Association, the National Automobile Dealers Association have millions, maybe billions of dollars to lobby Washington, Tallahassee, etc. So, Earl Sturt on Cars, this show is a beacon in the darkness. And we are here to answer your

questions, speak candidly. We value our calling. mostly, 877-960-99-60. I know Nancy, my partner, my co-host on Earl Stron Cars, as I mentioned earlier, she's out sick today, cataract surgery, but I know she's watching, she's streaming, as a matter of fact, and she's saying, I wish Earl would give that number out more often

because I forget, and I'm sorry. And Nancy Walpole, they remind us. Don't forget that text number either. And the text number, I get off on a rant, I just keep yaking. So our text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. Call-in number is 877-960-90-960, and we do have a caller.

And our caller is one of our best callers. Her name is Tina. She's from Benita Springs. She's an amazing woman, extremely knowledgeable about automobiles, very well-read, right on top of things. and so Tina thank you so much for being our first caller and please tell us what's on your mind this morning. It's always

interesting. Good morning, Tina. Good morning. How are y'all doing? We're doing great. Well, I have two things. One, there was quite a few weeks ago where there was a gentleman that called about an older Honda Civic and he was thinking about

possibly getting the head gasket replaced. Well, okay, if you're a young guy and you have a Honda, you know this already, so just ignore me. But older Honda Civics tend to have a weakness in the head gasket, and if you do plan on keeping the car, it really is worth repairing the head gasket because you're talking about a car that can go 300,000 miles easy. However, there's one other weakness in an older Honda Civic. I'm talking like the floor 2010 right around that area,

and there's a bearing in the transmission, and this is specific to the manual transmission. And what will happen is the bearing will go bad, and when you're shifting in the car, you can get a really bad grinding noise. And if you're so inclined, you can crack open the transmission you try to get at that bearing. But eventually at some point you will need another transmission,

and you can get a rebuilt one pretty inexpensively. And doing rebuilt is actually better than getting a new one because the rebuilt one generally will have a stronger bearing and the inside of it. So those of you who are looking to buy an older manual transmission Honda Civic you're in good shape, but just be aware of those two issues. Well, you picked a bad day to call in on leaky headgaskets and problems with transmissions because Rick Kearney is not in today.

But we have Alan Napier, who is not only a collision repair expert, he's pretty good mechanically too. I'm going to throw the ball to you, Alan, and what are your comments? comments on this? Well, if what we were talking about, I didn't hear that particular show, but if what we were talking about was doing a home repair on a head gasket, unless you are very mechanically inclined, I don't think I would do it at home. I've had some old trucks with straight sixes on them that I had to change the head gasket once or twice a year just because the head's warped. And it was a product defect, but you knew it was there. And so you just filed the head yourself and every time you do that of course you get higher compression

which kind of makes your car a little racier the bearing i i would think it would be either a pilot bearing or a throwout bearing and i'm not even sure that a Honda civic with a hydraulic clutch would have a throwout bearing it's not the pilot bearing it's not the throwout bearing i can't remember what the bearing is but it's deep into the inside of the transmission yeah it's not the easy thing to get you have to crack the transmission open and actually get into it. It's not easy job. Yeah, manual transmissions are fairly easy on a rear-wheel drive car, on a front-wheel drive. Again, that's not something you would want to do at home unless you're a fairly accomplished

mechanic. Let me jump in here while you two gearheads to chat. You know, Tina, there is something, there is such a thing as being too smart. Yeah. And it's amazing. And by the way, I am very impressed with your mechanical knowledge. Let me give a little consumer advice because we've got 20,000 people out there listening that are not going to be tearing down their transmission tomorrow to check that bearing out.

When you have a 2010 Honda and you have a transmission or a head gasket problem, you're talking about repairs that are probably more costly than the value of your car. So rule number one in having your car repaired, don't ever spend more money on the car than the car's worth. you need to get an estimate and let somebody else worry about your bearing and your transmission or your leaky head gasket and buy yourself another car. You don't have to spend a lot of money. You could buy another 2010 if you wanted to. But I see this a lot of times.

People will come into the service drive and they will get an honest estimate on what it's going to cost to repair their car. And they may have a car that has a market value to the dealer of maybe $2,000. and the cost of repairs would be 2,500, and that's just not good arithmetic if you look at it. And another thing is that a 2010 Honda are all those, by the way, Hondas are amazing cars, so they are great high quality. A 2010 automobile period, the quality of these cars has increased immensely in the past eight years. I encourage anybody driving an eight-year-old car. to consider upgrading, maybe not all the way to a new one,

but if you upgrade by five years, you will find that the safety benefits and the quality and the repair cost and the maintenance cost is much lower. The technology has made a quantum leap in automobiles in just the past five years. Yeah, that's true. But, you know, like when I had my Miata for 18 years, sometimes you get an emotional attachment to a car.

And you don't mind putting the money into it because you enjoy driving it so much, which was my old car. I just love driving that thing. To this day, I miss it. But it's been restored. It's in a good home. It went to Pennsylvania to a physician. And he actually keeps me updated on it. He used to drive Austin.

He raised in MGs and got tired of chasing Lucas the Prince of Darkness, which, if you're aware of for Detroit, because you know what that is. and he bought my car on Craigslist, sight unseen, had it delivered. He emailed me one day and said, I think I bought your car. So I gave him 10 years worth of service records. I gave him the expertise. I also gave him a book, and he loved it.

And I'm so glad that it did not end up in the junkyard somewhere. That would have been a tragedy. But all of me, the honors are getting to be worth of money now. Tina, I bet you even named your car, didn't you? Yes, I did. I know. See, I knew it. I knew a lot of people.

that not only named I had a woman one time I had a woman one time that was going to buy a new car from me and she was so emotionally attached to her trade in she almost changed her mind and so I had to promise the new buyer would be a nice person

that would take very good care of her car and I said that I'm going to ask if you can have visiting privileges so you can come and visit your car every now and like on Thanksgiving and Christmas and you'll be able to see your car and be sure that your car is being taken care of. So I respect that, and I think that's very nice.

And you treat your car like you do your doggy, or maybe your husband or your friends. Or better. Or better, yeah. Yeah, my old car, her name was Cinderella slash Workin' Woman's Porsche. That's great. I knew it. It depended upon me again.

Yeah, I actually, there were some of the other people that were insulted. I called it Working Woman's Porsche, but I'm like, hey, I can't afford the real thing, but you know what, I'd rather have a me out of than a Porsche any day to week. No offense to Porsche owners, but I don't have deep pockets like that. Well, you're, it's unusual to have anybody with your technical knowledge, Tina, but for a woman, you know, most women don't get into mechanics and repairs like you do, and it's just such a pleasure. I'd love to, we, I'd love to use you for a mystery shopper and set up a car dealer in South Florida.

Oh, yes. Yeah, have you going on the West Coast. Yeah, go, yeah. Yeah, I'd had a field day. I'd had a field day here. But my bottom line, the whole purpose of it was, I think the gentleman's name is Mike. My message to Mike and leave, I'm sorry if you're getting your name wrong. But in my opinion, if you want to keep that Honda, go ahead and replace a head gasket and keep on rolling.

Because the head gasket goes bad after about like 150,000 miles. So just go ahead, go ahead, put one on there and just enjoy your car. Good advice. Well, that's good advice. you've never given bad advice and I think it's just amazing you could do your own radio show

you know that you'd be competition but we have connections for you regular gentleman caller I do believe his name is John and he always has really great information about older vehicles and he always

from LaBelle yeah really interesting I do believe he was Stewart as me John from Stewart Oh, John from Stewart. Don's from LeBowell. Don's from, yeah. Yeah, Palm City.

Palm City, yeah. Okay. Well, Tina's the one, and he'll probably call today. She is the one that could definitely have his own video show. She is the most fascinating person I've heard on this channel. John and Tina. Sorry, my 10-year-old truck is The Beast. Oh, you call it?

That's the name. The Beast. Oh, I love it. Now is your truck, male or female? Male. Male. Yeah. It's funny, I think the men like to have male.

You know, you like it male dogs and male trucks and male cars. And Tina has a female Cinderella. Yeah, of course. It's only natural. I name my guitar, Walter. Well, now, I have to caveat that. Now, my car that I have now, which is a 2015 Toyota, R.S. Black, its name is Viking. Ah.

Viking. A little Viking. I don't see it, but okay. Yeah, it's just kind of staying out to me when I saw it. And I have a custom-made gear shift knob on it, and it's a Yoda cloak. And it says, Roland may see me, make me be. Perfect. Well, Tina, thank you so much.

I know Nancy's smiling. She's at home because she's a little out of the weather with her cataract surgery. She's streaming us live at Facebook, Facebook, 4-slash-Earl on Cars. And she's very happy we have our first female caller being Tina, which is your Nancy's favorite caller, of course. And you also motivate other women to call in. And that's really what Nancy would love to say. see, more and more women callers. So you female callers, remember that Nancy's listening,

and she's expecting more calls, and Tina has fulfilled her wish as a first caller. Thank you so much, Tina. Thank you. And you know what? Now that Nancy has had that eye surgery, she's very intelligent, and she was never the type of person who missed anything before. Now with her new eagle eyes, she's not going to miss anything for early better life. That is true.

Very, that's very good. Well, again, I always ask you, promise to call in next week because there wouldn't be Erlon Cars without Tina from Benita Springs. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great morning. Fantastic.

You too, Tina. Hi, Tina. 877-960-9960. All you listeners out there, we love the calls. Calls are what make the show. 877-960-99-60, and text us. Sometimes we get more texts than we do calls. We've got two texts, and we've got two texts,

and we've got a caller holding. John from Palm City. John, I'll be right with you. The text number is 772-497-6530. Again, that's 772-497-6530, and you can call us at 877-960-90-60. John from Palm City. Hey, John, what's going on?

Good morning to everyone. Congratulations, Earl, making the article in Wall Street Journal. Thank you, John. for the compliment. Today I'd like to talk. It's a Bronic that Tina mentioned to Honda. I'm going to talk about one. This is involving auto negligence, okay?

What do I mean by that? Earlier in this year, I have a good mechanic, all ASC certified. There were two cars in his shop. One was a 2010 Honda Accord, okay? Second one was a Chevy Malibu. I don't know the year. Both of them were inoperative. The Honda, a family member, ran it through a heavy puddle and completely wiped out the engine.

Both of these cars, by the way, are under $60,000. The Chevy blew a radiator holes, and they overheated and cooked the engine completely. So my mechanic determined both engines were not worth fixing. It was shot. So here's the choice that people needed these cars for work. They didn't have much money even to buy a used car, and both, as they say, were under $60,000. So the decision was made, the people with the Honda,

they decided to get a complete rebuilt engine from up. There's many people that do this, but my mechanic recommended a place called Jasper Rebuilt Engines. Spell that first family. Okay, that's www. www. jasperengines.com. Okay, with that, they give him a three-year, 100,000-mile nationwide transfer warranty. Okay, so it worked out real good because the engine, when it was put in, it gets delivered by this outfit, the old engine gets picked up, very reliable from what I heard.

The other one, the Chevy people, wouldn't go that route, so my mechanic decided he can put a use, it's a junkyard engine basically from the center part of Florida I was there when it got to live it. I was getting an oil change from Wrecking Yard and it's a used engine but the guarantee would be for my

mechanic that it's good and if it's not good he will put another one in from the same wrecking yard in Florida okay when it came in I saw it it was beautiful I mean the far as steam clean to look real good but my first thought was maybe it just came from

car that was in a rollover or maybe another car that had an accident and didn't get shut off right away and overheated. It could be a flood car. It did work out good. It was the least expensive way to go outside of this job that I mentioned that was done on the Honda.

But I just want to point out to people, there are other alternate routes that they can go, especially if they have a good car that's been serviced regularly and a warning to people, if any red lights or any type of light on a dashboard comes on, it has to be shut off immediately.

For instance, the Chevy that was overheated, a Honda, there was no lights that were on. It was negligence of a family member. You never, never. We had a heavy rainstorm here in Stewart, Palm City on Thursday, over two inches of rain in less than an hour. People forget, they think of the old cars with the carburetor all the way high up and the air cleaner. The highest thing on the engine, no more like that. on engines. With fuel injection, the engine air intake is probably the lowest thing on the engine

on the car underneath. It sucks in water and in no time it's all over. Exactly. So it's a warning to people when we have these heavy Florida floods and rains do not attempt in any size puddle to try and dry through it because that low part where the engine intake is in no time. You can wipe out that engine. Some cars are worse than others. The interesting part, I thought I'd mention this. There were all other people that do these engines, rebuild them nationwide, with guarantees, and I thought it was a pretty good thing. It did cost more on the Honda than the Chevy people, you know, the Chevy with the used engines. But I'm skeptical on the used engines, just like Earl says about used parts. By the way, the outfit that delivered the

engine, they, they were every day they're in the area in South. Florida. They deliver with complete fenders, front end parts, transmissions and all. But, you know, it's taken a chance, and I don't think I would want to go that route with a used engine. It's all about

the warranty on used engines or rebuild engines, and it's also about the reputation of the company. There are a lot of very good out there that sell used engines, but you're going to find out which ones they are. If you have somebody like your mechanic, your dealer, or wherever you take your car that's dealt with a particular supplier of used engines over a number of years,

and they have a decent warranty. It should be at least for a year. Used engine can really be a good buy. Rebuild engines is a better buy. You pay more for it. The same thing applies. Warranty is everything, an experience with the company is everything. You don't want to go in and have a mechanic tell you you need this, this or this replaced,

and he's going to work on your car and put in 60 hours of labor when you could do the whole thing just by putting in a brand new. transmission or a brand new, not brand new, but a replacement used or rebuilt. Alan's got a comment too. Jasper, I know they've been around at least 25, 30 years, and they are an excellent outfit. Oh, okay. When I started my career in the car business, it was in parts, and Jasper was around then, and they were a great alternative to a used engine, and the warranty is so much better. When you buy a used engine, it's not just the gamble of what was a maintenance on that engine prior.

It's usually you only get like a 30-day guarantee on the engine. And the salvage yard will guarantee, they'll guarantee to replace the engine if it's bad. But they don't pay the labor. So either the shop has to eat the labor or the customer has to pony up for the labor again. So there's a lot to consider when you roll the dice on a use engine. Yeah, I said a year on use. You don't get a year on a use. You get 30 days is a good warranty on use.

But you get a year on a rebuild, I imagine. Yeah, at least. And John, now you mentioned running through. water at high speeds, how many people that we see do that, South Florida, and you're slowed down to a crawl and some nut goes by, you have 40 miles an hour, sprays, water

all over your car. It's fun to run through a puddle. I mean, a lot of fun, but as you said, you scoop that water up. Some cars are better than others. Some cars have a protection device that blocks the water. Some don't. Consumer reports.

Some cars will be fairly safe to run through water, but you should never run through. There's just no point in it, no matter how good the protective device, high enough water at a high enough speed, you're going to burn out your engine. So great call, John, something in South Florida, especially we need to be careful of. All right, that's the purpose of my call was the, be careful. It's all negligence, and it could have all been avoided, including when the radiator hose blew.

If it was shut off immediately, it wouldn't have overheated and cooked, especially in this hot Florida sun. And your point about the red warning light, you know, we've got so many lights, you know, if you don't look at what lights on and why, you can hurt yourself badly. I had a customer recently at my dealership who burned his engine up,

and we found out that the red light had come on before, and he just hadn't noticed it. Yep, kept driving. You know, you get your check engine light on, your maintenance light on, no big deal. But if you have a heat warning light, meaning your gauge is overheated, your engine's overheated. Pull over immediately.

Get out your cell phone, have a friend come and pick you up and have your car towed immediately to your technician. But if you drive just for a couple of minutes with that red light on, you're going to cook your engine, you're looking at thousands of dollars in repairs. John, thanks again. Good advice. Be careful. Thank you, John. Have a good one.

Yeah, they're looking at spending $4,500, I think, on a rebilt. Yeah, is that right? Yeah. How much would a new one cost? What, twice that? It was like $7 or $8,000 or something. Yeah, I think. And with labor and everything, it was over $10,000.

Yeah. 877-960. That's our call-in number, 877-960, 960. I'd like to hear from anybody. You just don't have to have a question. And the text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-4-9-6-5-30.

7653. We have three texts, and Stu, what's our first text? The first one is a two-part question. We don't have a name. It's anonymous, but the first part is Hello, Earl, I'm pondering, buying a three-year-old vehicle from a dealer in Florida, about 200 miles from where I live

in South Florida. I'm searching for a reliable mobile inspection company to inspect and test drive the car. Are there any mobile auto inspection companies that your experts can recommend? I've looked at AIMcertify.com and Automobile Inspections.com. Never heard one.

I don't know a thing about that, and I love the idea of mobile inspection in today's online cyper age we're living in where you buy so much stuff online. I love it. I'm going to make a point of researching that. I think you could certainly arrange to have a trusted... Of course, you're out of the area.

You could hire a mechanic and you look for an ASC certified mechanic at a dealership. I'd recommend you might pay a little bit more, but if the car you're looking for is a Honda, it's a Chevrolet, take it to a Chevrolete dealer, or a Honda take it to a Honda dealer and have somebody, have the dealer technician inspected, explain what you're doing,

you're thinking about buying the car, and the cost might be $100 or $150 to check it over, and it would be worth that money. But I think it's a great idea. You might even negotiate with the seller if you're serious to ask him to help you with the cost on it or at least help you take the car to the technician that wants to inspect it. But never ever buy a used car until you had a technician check it over. You want to do the Carfax check and you also want to do the automotive technician check.

And I wish I could come up with the name of a mobile and we will research that and announce it next week or maybe even before. if we can do it online. Okay, part two of the question is also, if all is okay, the dealer may ask for a deposit to hold the vehicle until I pick it up. How should I handle the deposit? Would a credit card payment do? I would like to be able to easily get my deposit back in case I am dissatisfied with the vehicle

when I arrive to pick it up and close the deal. That's an easy question. When you put a deposit down on the car, and I was picking for Florida, if you're in Florida, if you're not texting from Florida, then you want to check with your state law. In Florida, if the receipt that you get for your deposit says refundable, then you can get it back. If it doesn't say anything, you can't get it back. You're going to have to argue about it.

So I would ask, because you're not, if you're buying online, you're not going to see the receipt until you put the money down. I'd ask for an email saying this is refundable deposit for any reason. And then you've got to give them a certain amount of time, you know, the first three days or a week or until I've seen the car, something like that. but never put a deposit down in Florida until you know that it is refundable. In writing. In writing. Okay, we got a text from Don and LaBelle. We were talking about Don earlier.

Earl, interesting comment about salespeople turnover because of not wanting to cheat customers. Also, for my years of experience, they don't want to be cheated out of commissions and bonuses by dishonest employers and managers, too. Very true. Yeah, I just, you know, think about this, folks. You got grandkids, you get kids, maybe you're a young person yourself, and you get hired to a car dealer. And the salesman, the car dealer says, okay, we're advertising this Jeep Renegade here for $18,912. We can't sell it for that. This is our ad car.

We want to sell that for over $20,000. If you sell it below the advertised price or at the advertised price, we pay no commission. in some cases they fire you We'll give you a gift card If you sell it So imagine being in a position Where the first thing you find out From the employer is you have to lie to the customers

A lot of salespeople don't like that And I know I'm going to attract a lot of anger From other car people about this But the fact is that every car dealership ad That you've seen You cannot buy the car for that price If you're in Florida The advertised price of the car

Is not the price you can buy it for I feel completely confident with that statement. Yeah, I'll say another thing about people not coming into the automotive business is it seems like America's love affair with the automobile is kind of over. Now it's a tool that you use. It's, there aren't car enthusiasts like Tina. I would consider her an enthusiast. She's like the last of her kind. Right.

But, you know, we grew up, or I grew up with always wanting a hot rod. You know, I want this exhaust, these wheels and tires. and kids now are there's more of a love affair with technology and computers and media so from my perspective managing a body shop nobody in my shop that is doing the metal work on cars is under 50 years old and that concerns me because the love affair is over i can't i can't bring young people in as apprentices you remember in school an elective machine shop you'd go on there and you'll learn how to use tools and grind metal and all that. Make a pizza pan. Very few schools offer that anymore. I did not even know that. It went the way at cursive rating.

Yeah, exactly. Huh. Which is a good thing. Yeah, it's frightening for the future, not just in car sales, but for car repairs. And on the same subject, Don, if you're listening, another reason the turnover is so high is because of the working conditions. It's still common in the car business to work people on these extremely long schedules, 70, 80 hours a week, like you're an attorney just out of law school.

And it's very difficult to have a life and have a family. And so, and also the treatment of salespeople is typically. And commission. The millennials don't like commission. They want a salary. It's unstable. They want a weekly or guaranteed amount of money. And they don't want to have to get 25% of the profit.

And 25% of the profit was the average commission that car dealers pay. And that means that the higher the price to car, they can make it. Remember, the prices are negotiable. The higher they negotiate the price, the more money they make. Young people don't like that. I don't like it. A lot of older people don't like it. You don't like to lie.

You don't like commission. You don't like to work 80 hours a week. And you don't like to be bullied. And that's the reason the turnover is 50%. Car dealer hires 20 salesmen in the year, 10 out of them leave in the first year. The Wall Street Journal reporter who interviewed you, and she wanted some information from people who had left dealerships because they didn't like the working conditions.

we spoke to a few, and we were talking to one recently that said that when it looked like they weren't going to meet their sales quota, they canceled the sales schedules as everybody is here open to close every day for the rest of the month until we hit it. That's no good. We got Nancy on the line. Nancy's on the line. Hey, Nancy. Mrs. Sunrise, also, my co-host, how you doing? Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning, Nancy. How are you? We miss you. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. If you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. Yes, Earl Stewart on Cars, and any question is important.

So give us a call at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-7-9-7-9-6-5-30. And don't forget that you can stream us. Remember, you can listen to Earl Stewart on Cars anywhere anytime, listening to our podcast. You can listen to Earl Sturrovan cars from Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, just about anywhere. So take advantage of that. I have a question. Well, before you do that, can you see me online, honey? Oh, I can see your lovely face.

Do I look good? And, Alan, I have a question for you. I'm awake. Nancy's streaming us. Nancy was concerned I wasn't going to wake up. You look great. You ready, Alan? I'm ready.

I'm all ears. There's a C to sit in that chair. Oh, I like this. I appreciate you doing this. This is nice. You mean you didn't have permission to use Nancy's chair? Uh-oh. I was sitting here.

You guys are sitting on these uncomfortable bar schools. I see this chair sitting here. I'm like, speaking of the emperor. I like it. You do look taller today. I feel taller. Okay, on a more serious note, I have a young lady, her name, she doesn't mind that I use her full name, Joni LaBarbara, and she was curious as to whether she should apply with multiple lenders.

And my answer to her is that I think that three is plenty. you can contact your bank, you can contact your credit union, the local banks, and it's really important that you do that ahead of time. And you probably only need three sources. That's a good answer. They're not going to vary too widely. Yeah, I just want to let Bob from Lake Worth know that we know you're holding and we'll be with you. and a flash so please hang on and we'll be with you in just a second now uh nancy i think you

gave excellent advice i think uh uh uh you uh always check with your bank the bank that you deal with they will typically give you a preferential rate and you also have a check with your credit union uh if you don't have a credit union you know you can join a credit union uh credit unions have lower rates than banks and you can join a credit union for a nominal fee uh you could call a credit union, find out what is it, your rate for financing new or used cars, and if it's a really good rate, and you have to pay them $100 a month to be a member, I think the Gold Coast Credit Union, I'm trying to think of some credit unions, do you know any off top of your head that you can join as an outsider? You don't have to be employed by a particular

company. Yeah, there's some Velocity Credit Union, I think. No, I think Space Coast, you have to be in the aerospace industry, but I'm not sure, but yeah, there are a few out there that you can join. Excellent. Velocity is a lot of people are joining that credit union. Can I ask your credit question? Sure. I'm a credit moron. When you're applying for credit and if you're going to go to multiple lenders like that,

is each application you put in, is that what they call a hard hit on your credit? Yes. And so if, say, I went to Bank of America, who doesn't exist anymore, first, and then three days later I tried Chase, would the Bank of America hard? hard-hit effect what Chase sees? No, no. It's all simultaneous, and gosh, I hope Bank of America still exists because... Oh, I thought they got...

Oh, that was Washington Mutual. We got a lot of business with Bank of America. So, yeah, it's called shotgunning. So an irresponsible finance manager will simultaneously with the computer program submit applications to multiple banks. When you do that, all the inquiries negatively impact your credit report. If they know what they're doing, they know which bank. matches your particular profile, so they'll try and keep it to one or maybe two.

But since it happens at the same time, it's not in succession, so it's not going to keep lowering your credit. But it's still not a good idea. Like Nancy said, three max. If they're doing more than that, they're throwing stuff at the wall and see to see what sticks. Yeah. Great question, Alan. Great question. I get asked that often. Another little tidbit for Joni LaBarra is that she should really go over the financing very, very carefully. And you must focus on the interest rate, not the car loan term. Because these guys got you, they got you going left and right here. So that's my advice for Johnny.

Good voice. Thanks for letting me tune in, guys. Well, call back in again. We miss you. We miss your lovely voice, your musical voice. Thank you. And you need to call in again. You're calling again today.

Okay. I will indefinitely. Okay, we're going to go to Bob and Lake Worth. Bye, Nancy. Bob, you there? Bob and Lake Worth. Bob, Bob, Bob. Are you going to start singing?

I thought you were going to do Bob or Ann. Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, we may have lost you. If we did, please call back in. Our number is 877. Okay, we got Bob. Good job. How are you doing this morning? Doing great, Bob.

What's going on? I was wondering if you had read about what Jaguar Land Rover was doing. No? No. Well, for the first time ever, they're opening up a facility in Georgia. I believe it's probably in the Atlanta area, where if you have an old jag, an old land rover, you can bring it to them directly, and they will do a frame-offer. restoration for you.

I did see that headline, but I didn't read the article. I hope you read the whole article. Wow, that is really cool. It's very interesting. You know, Nissan was doing something similar about 10 or 12 years ago with the Dotson in 240 or 260 Z, but the only thing there, you had to ship that car back to Japan, and what they would do, it was very expensive, and they would rebuild that car just like it was came out of the factory.

and ship it back to you. But this is the first time I've ever seen a manufacturer get into that business and have a facility located in the United States. I've got to believe the cost of the complete restoration would exceed what you could buy a new car for. Of course, of course. But a 1962 X-K-E Jaguar Red Convertible,

what's it worth today? Probably $250,000. honest. I mean, I would have died for a 1962 or three Red X-K-E Jaguar. Hey, does Ford still own Jaguar, Bob? I believe

Jaguar and its own, I think they were owned, I'm not quite sure. That might have been sold to Tata. That's possible. I think you might be right. They changed Tata in India. They're an amazing company. They have a car. Tata builds a car

in India for something like $1,500, a brand new car. You can pick it up with your own hands. I was wondering if, did you know that Indiana has banned subscription services? Yes, I heard something about that. We're in a group of 20. I was wondering, what do you, what to take on this new trend to go to a subscription service?

I understand the dealers are extremely upset about the situation. because they feel like their margins are going to be squeezed. They're putting in a lot of political and monetary pressure on legislatures. Still explain what the subscription service is. A lot of people don't know what the subscription service is. Well, some manufacturers, General Motors, is one of them, are piloting a program where you pay a monthly fee, and $300 a month, say.

And then you can drive, you can exchange the vehicle you drive as many times as you want. and so you show up you say you want to drive a Cadillac XTS and you drive that for a month or two and you said you know what I want to drive an escalate so you come and you swap it out the dealers don't like it because they're not quite sure how they factor into the equation is this something that right right yeah you know on those subscription services that includes everything including the insurance I mean you don't pay anything except the whatever the fee is and I guess you have to put gas in the car But that would be it.

Yeah. To say that they're upset is an understatement. I know some dealers that are absolutely hysterical. One in Indiana, by the way, and their dealer association lobbied the legislature in Indiana very heavily, and they got legislation passed to ban the practice in Indiana. They don't want the public to have what they want. I don't know what they want it.

I can see the utility in it. Let's say you want to go on vacation, so you get yourself a nice fancy convertible and you drive it on vacation, you come back. Now, you want a truck because you've got to do some work around. You've got to carry some stuff in the back of your truck. Later on, you're going to take another, you want to go somewhere else. You get yourself a van because it will carry nine passengers.

So I think it is an interesting concept. But it's something that very, earlier Alan was talking about the psychology of car buying. is the psychology of car buying changes the feeling about cars you know we just heard from Tina LeBelle she fell in love with her car she wouldn't want to rent a car that would almost be like prostitution

I mean you would be so superficial she'd be unfaithful to the car that she own you own a car she wouldn't even lease exactly so very interesting and I don't know the dealers will find it you heard it from Stu Bob that dealers don't like the idea

because it's going to cut it to their profits their profits would definitely be limited and the way they're like it now is you come in the car dealership they got a chance to make a slam dunk they could make $4,000 or $5,000 $10,000 selling or leasing a person in a car if the person isn't careful

with the subscription service their time is limited because the subscriptions are limited and it's 30 days at a time I guess 60, 90 days, something like that Yeah, the terms each manufacturer has a different term but it's basically as many times as you want It's almost like a car cooperative. And I would question, each time you decide to go in and exchange your car, do you get a brand new one or do you get one that another guy just drove 30 days?

I'm going to guess it's a fleet, like you have a rental fleet at a dealership, and they're going to be somewhat used. But they'll be current model, you know. Bob, great call. Two interesting things. You told us two things we didn't know much about, but they're very interesting. Good. You know, I saw the other day one other thing, I was over at the public, so I was. over there on the A1A

and in the parking lot was Toyota MR2 spider convertible, blue with a black top a two-seater and it was it was in really good shape and I was wondering

what year of those vehicles they stopped making those in I think 2000 or 2001 or something like that I couldn't even fit them they're very small little bitty cool looking you know it's a for a small person

yeah very difficult I'm sick 6 foot 4, I weigh 210 pounds. It took me a half an hour to get in and get out of an MR2. We had Allen's team pry you out of the car. Yes, right. And I think in a lot of Townsend municipalities, they actually make you put one of those fiberglass flag poles on with the orange flag on it so people don't trip over them in parking lines. That's right, yeah, exactly.

They were very small. Our trucks don't. When is the super going to be? I saw the BMW, which is supposed to. to be a similar base car. It was introduced at the Pebble Beach Concours, and I was wondering the Super, when are they going to unveil that thing?

Summer of 2019. You'll see it before that, but it's going to be available for sale next summer. And NASCAR, that'll be, Toyo's interest in that entrance in NASCAR will be the Super, so you'll probably see it racing before they're in the showrooms. Right, so will you think they'll have it at the Miami Auto Show?

I don't know. I would guarantee it's going to be at New York and Detroit. It'll probably be in Miami. Miami's third largest show in the country. Yeah. And the other thing, did you know the Detroit show now has been moved? No, I did none. Yeah. They moved it because everybody was pulling out. So they haven't moved. I don't mean the location. I mean the timing of it. Oh, I see, yeah. No, those auto shows are huge.

I rarely go to them myself, but they are attracted a whole lot of publicity and media, and you've got to make a statement in the auto show or it can hurt you, marketing-wise. Bob, great call. Sure. As always, please call again. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Take care.

877-960-9960. That's our call-in number, and we'd like to have as many female callers as we can. We've had two. We've had Nancy Stewart, my co-host, who is out with a cataract surgery, and we had Tina from Bonita Springs, one of our most informed callers. But the first new female caller, if you haven't called the show before, we pay you $50. I mean, I'm not proud. We bribe you. Yeah, cash, no conditions, no strings. I'm sending Nancy 50 bucks. Yeah, well, that's right. That's the first time she's... Well, no, no, no. She had any surgery. Exactly. Sorry, you're out, Nancy.

Okay, but any news. new female caller, 50 bucks, first two. So you don't have to be first, you can be second. Love to hear from you females. Your perspectives are always interesting and very different many times from the male observations. Yes. And you buy half the cars, let's face it. You got a lot of power.

I think actually women control more wealth in America than men. More than we know about. They're doing my house. Exactly. 877-960-99-60 877-9-60-9-90-60 and you can text us at 772-497-2-497-6-5-30. If you just tuned in,

in fact, I don't think I've mentioned the mystery shopping report. This is the highlight of the show. We usually do it in the last half hour. And I probably overstated. I say every week, this is really a good one. It's a good one. And you think I'm hyping it because we want you to stay on the line.

But this really is a very good one. I won't say it's the best one, but it is a really good one. And it's a company that we have never shop before. It's a company, a dealership that we never knew existed. And they're big. They got, I think, a dozen, 18. 19 stores. 19 stores.

But they're just coming into Florida. A very unique concept. And we were put on to it by a caller last week, who went in, the buy a car and had a very positive impression, although it raised some suspicions about that. It is H. H. Greg. I shouldn't have said that.

I like to keep the viewers. The next text is going to come real. Cats out of the bag. Hey, speaking of cats, and I know we don't accept commercials, but I want to do one. Okay. Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Everybody. We don't have any cats. Yeah. They're well, I was trying

to roll from the cat. It's the worst transition. Speaking of cats. Let's talk about. Speaking a cat. If you have a cat, you really want to scare. Just bring it on over to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Yeah.

What an amazing place, man. What an amazing place that is. But their new facility is fully functional out in Loxahatchie on Okiechobie Road. We encourage anybody to go out there. Even if you can't, you love dogs and you can't get a dog, you can volunteer to be a dogwalker, caregiver for the dogs. It's really important. And the True Old East Channel, 95.9 FM and 106.9 FM are advocates for big dog ranch rescue. And we really encourage you to support them or visit or volunteer there.

Well, thank you. Alan is one of the greatest dog lovers of all time. I lose count of his dogs at any given time. How many dogs you have right now? Right now we have three. Some of our dogs got 15, 16 years old. and moved on over the last year. I know you've been up to five, I think.

Yeah, yeah. In fact, this morning, you got me up so early. I think I might have slipped a little tongue to the dog and patted my wife on the head. When I left, I'm not sure I'll check in with the wife. Well, I'll transition to David, who was holding on the phone from North by Beach. David. My breath was a little doggy this morning.

You got me out of that one, David. It's like kissing a dragon or something this morning. Thanks for going, David. What's up? good morning I bought a used Toyota convertible Ucellara convertible

how do I find out if the dash is covered under the warranties they had there for a while well you're talking to the right guy it is they don't like to talk about it but it is covered

and you need to call and probably order the dash because there is a weight sometimes and depending on the color and the year Solera that you have

but yeah Yes. It's an 04. Is that still covered that far back? Well, it's not actually a warranty. It's a recall. Warranty extension, I think they called it, or something. A warranty enhancement program. Yeah, it was a, I could probably do two hours on that because I was personally involved in it. They were not fixing them for a long time. I screamed and, you know, got everybody interested in it.

The media included. The media came in, photographed the dash, found out. Hondas were cracking and Nissan's were cracking. Apparently, the dash supplier, kind of like Takata and airbags, this dash supplier had dashes all over and all different makes and model cars. And they cracked during high humidity, high heat conditions like the Takata airbags. So high heat, high humidity cause these things to get melted and crack. So they finally confessed, and you have to call and push it. But if you have a problem, you can call me, but call your nearest Toyota dealer. See, I have a 2004 Honda Solarra.

Dash looks like Eck, he'll ask you to bring it in. He'll take a picture of it. He'll send it to Toyota. They'll approve it. They will order you a dash, and they will install it for you. So I'm glad you call the show, and I'm glad we could help you, David. Do we do this through the service department? You do, absolutely, the service department.

Call the service department. You can have your VIN number handy, maybe. That might help, and then you're going to have to have a picture taken of it, because they have to see, to validate the claim that it is a defective dash. And it's pretty expensive, you know. It's the dash, between the dash and labor, you're looking at around $1,000. So Toyota has to look carefully and approve these things one by one. They're not too happy about it.

Let's put it that way. So you do have to be diligent in pursuing it. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Well, David, you're very welcome. And any of you other folks out there with defective dashes, cracked dashes on your solar, remember to push it. Be a little pushy.

He had to be pushing because I think officially they stopped it last May. Yeah. We've had a number of lingering people come in late and we've been successful. So, David, if you're still listening, if the dealer tells you, they said no, then call us and we'll get it done for you. 877-960 and text is at 772-497-30. And the text are starting to back up. So 772-497-6-5-3-0, we've got four texts.

Yep. First one, we have Jeff in West Palm Beach saying, is it true sometimes? I've heard this before, that it's called a dummy lights come on your dashboard. It's meant for people who don't know too much about cars to take it to a dealership or an auto repair place to make sure the car is up to date.

Well, dummy is a lot nicer than an idiot. Yeah. I used to call it idiot lights, but that's really demeaning. Dummy is kind of funny. Yeah. I think what's happening now, and I hope this is the direction they're going in. It used to just be a light comes on. You've got to, what does that mean?

And you've got to rely on the dealership. Now, with technology, it's getting a little bit more descriptive. And with the connected technologies, you can actually use a phone. It's a little bit more descriptive. But still, to this day, yeah, you've got to deal with dummy lights. Even with the gauges, you stop seeing the gauges, basically. I don't even think they put oil pressure gauges in cars anymore. I loved having an oil pressure gauge.

I have a tack that I never look at. Why do I need a tachometer with an automatic transmission? It makes you feel like a race car driver. Yeah, but I'd rather have that oil gauge. I'd like seeing the oil gauge move and know where it was. You know the idiots to go screaming by it with the loud mufflers. They all have tachomulators. They like red line.

I red line that one. That's true. I hate those guys. Okay, the next one, since you already spilled the beans on the mystery. shop, we have a text. The texter asks, have you done a mystery shopping review of H. Greg and Miami? They had a car advertised for 10,798,

which is a pretty good price on that car. Now the catch. I asked them for a buyer's order through email and they provided it. To the sales price, they added an $8.99 pre-delivery service fee, a $2.99 electronic filing fee, then calculated sales tax on that. Then

they added an $89-tag agency fee. I figure the $899 and the $299 or dealer fee is disguise, what about the $89 tag agency fee? Apparently they bill themselves as a no-haggle dealer. What can I do, if anything, to get them to get rid of all or any of these

fees? Tag agency fee is another lie. And they come up with creative names and sound like government fees. Tag agency fee is a really good one. Electronic filing fee really works well. You can deceive a lot of customers with electronic filing fee. And it's only

limited to the dealer's imagination. We've seen dealers with four or five dealer fees. Dealer fees can total up to over $2,000 or even $3,000. So the acid test to a government fee was sales tax calculated on that. So when you get your print out of the buyer's order before you give them your money, find out if the 6% Florida sales tax, if you're in Florida, was calculated on what they said was a fee. If it was calculated, it ain't a fee. the dealer? Since it's out of the bag, I'm looking at the buyer's order from H. Greg, and as the

texter said, they applied the $89 private tag agency fee after sales tax, which is a no-no. Yep. Okay, that's a federal offense. And this is a big company. So Pam Bondi, our state attorney, or this is a federal offense. I guess we call the FBI. Well, they're in multiple states, so we've got to call all the agencies. That's big. That's going to be a big number. They are not paying sales tax on their tag agency fee? Correct. They might be paying it and they're not collecting it. Right. Oh, wow.

That's right. Maybe they're paying. That would be very clever. Okay, that's a whole new show. We have a caller. It's a new caller, first time lady caller, Nancy from Jupiter. I think that's your wife. I was trying to be funny. My son has no sense of you. I have a dry sense of you.

Hi, Nancy. Hi, how are you doing? That's not you're nice. Oh, my God. Who's laughing now, Earl? That is funny. If you want to know why I'm laughing, Nancy, is because my wife's name is Nancy. She's my co-host on the show.

She's home. She lives in Jupiter, and I told her to call back. So I saw the board up here, said Nancy from Jupiter, I thought Nancy was calling back in. Well, Nancy is calling back in, but I don't think I'm married to you. No, I don't think so. No. I'm sorry for being silly, but I'm sure you call.

for a real reason. And by the way, you won 50 bucks. Good morning. 50 bucks. And we're going to give you to the control room guy, Colin, when we hang up with you, and you're going to get 50 bucks in. We'll get the contact information. And please tell us what's on your mind. My girlfriend had a car that she had gotten a thing called fixed F-I-X-D put in her car. And that is supposed to tell you if there's something. wrong with the car on your phone or your smartphone and she said that it I know you can go in

and you can have your car tested but it costs quite a bit of money to have your car tested what's wrong but she says it really works does it work yeah I'm not familiar with that I got both my partners here frantically searching well I've heard about things that basically it's a little transmitter, it goes into the data port, and it communicates to your phone. And the program will analyze the codes that normally the dealer would have to plug in into their scanning tool to tell you what's wrong when you have a check engine like. And after market device that you buy online or something. I know they're becoming more popular. I can't speak to how effective they are or how accurate they are, but it's something I'd like to have. Yeah, I mean, if you're a

techie, it sounds like a really cool thing. How accurate. Boy, I miss Alan. I miss Alan. I miss Rick Kearney when he's not here because he's our auto computer scientist and that's what we're talking about here is computer science on cars. It's a brilliant idea. Cars today Nancy, the newer ones now will be

maybe the ones coming out 2019, 2020 will communicate not only directly to you but to the dealer. So if you have a problem with your car, your dealer will know about it. You'll know about it. You will get a text or a phone call saying your engines are going to over

heat next week or you know you're leaking oil or your whatever diagnose a problem and let you know about it before the fact so you know we're really here in the twilight zone technology is moving so fast and i think this is a type of device that your friend has this particular company and i have heard of these companies and they they people like them because basically you're bringing your car to your mechanic with with it already diagnosed so you get rid of that figure of they're going to sell me things I don't need. But fixed, F-I-X-D. I'm looking at the app here.

They've got almost 3,000 scores with a 4.7 rating. Google? Yeah. Wow. And it's over four years old, so there's a good history there to draw on. And 4.7 for something like that, it's pretty dark. 4.7 for anything automotive is good. You know what, Nancy, what you should do, what you should do,

because we talked about Google scores a couple of weeks ago, and Stu pointed out the fact that when you're looking at Google ratings, a lot of companies can manipulate the Google rating. The best thing for you to do, and they've got 3,000 scores, you'll have a lot of them look at, throw out the 4.7s and the 5s and the 1s, and look at the 3s. The people that score 3 have given some thought, and then read the comments.

The comments will tell you specifically what their experience was. Look for trends. too. You see the same complaint over and over again. Yeah, but it sounds really good, and that's something we're going to investigate, and I just want to say one of the reasons we love female callers is because, like

Tina, Nancy, you had a very intelligent call, and something new we didn't even know about, and we would love to have you to continue calling the show, because we need more women. You just make more interesting calls. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And don't forget, stay on the line. and the control room will get your contact information and you're going to get 50 bucks and you'll get it this week and there will be no strings attached okay thank you very thank you nancy you know when somebody calls in with something like you're nancy now when somebody calls in with something like this and and you think man that's a great idea yeah why didn't i think of that yeah somebody's on our way to being a billionaire from a freaking app you do think you just don't write them down you've already had a thousand billion dollars ideas you're probably right we learn things on the show from our callers i know it

sounds like a cliche but the callers make the show and we've learned three things today i mean well h gregg we never heard about this our caller last week told us about a a big big cardio show we never heard of and then we found out about uh jaguar and a land rover restoring cars at a plant in orlando take your 62 x k e jag and have them restore it for you and now we just got Nancy from Jupiter, an app that diagnoses the problems with your car. We also learned about mobile repair. And mobile repair. I mean, it's almost like we're the ones who are learning.

We're benefiting. Yeah, we're. That's why we come here. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. We got a couple more texts that Stu's going to read. Yeah, we got a text from Percy.

Percy. Percy. Percy. In Miami Lakes. I have a 2015 Honda pilot with about 66,000 miles. Since new, we've taken it to get oil changes to Rick. case, Honda, and Davy. My wife would take the car in. At

29,000 miles, they recommended transmission service, and they replaced the transmission fluid. At 38,000 miles, they replaced the coolant. At 44,000 miles, they replaced the brake fluid. Power steering and performed a fuel treatment. What do you guys think about that?

Were any of these necessary? I looked at the owner's manual, and it appears that all of this stuff is controlled by Honda's maintenance minder, and we couldn't find an official schedule for this stuff. Maybe that's why they try to get away with it. I'm surprised. I know that most cars don't replace the transmission fluid.

Not the newer ones, yeah. Yeah. What year was this Honda pilot? It's 2015. 2015? I'm not sure. We'll have to research that, but I'm also surprised that Honda does not have specificity. Did I say that right?

Sounded good to me. Specificity. That's pretty close. Yeah. In their owner's manual. And you should only have what is specificity. and your manufacturer's owner's manual done when you go into a car dealership. That's the maintenance the factory requires.

It's right. It's good for the car. You should do it. You shouldn't do any more. You shouldn't do any less. And you should do it timely. So I would ask you, Texter, to reread that Honda owner's manual. We will try to do some research on this.

They should tell you when the transmission fluid should be replaced. And I don't think it should be replaced. I suspect this is unnecessary services. That's my guess. And we will do a little further research we might even do. We haven't done a service shop in a long time. Maybe we'll send Tina to Rick K. Sonda and see what happens. But we need to do a service shop.

And Nancy Stewart is holding. Nancy, Mrs. Sunrise, we'll be right with you. So we have... I think Alan's got a point to make. All these flood flushes, the break flood flushes, all that it's a huge profit center for the service departments it's uh anytime you go for a specific service at a at a car dealer or or your mechanic and they upsell you on anything yeah and they and they portray it as being a part of your scheduled maintenance just take out your

owner's manual and ask them to show you where where it's required because 90% of all that flush crap is crap yeah it's it's huge profit and you you got upsold I live in the Toyota world, but 2015 Honda is not that much different than 2015 Toyota, and none of this stuff is required with Toyota. Yeah, car dealers make more money by far in what they call the back end. They take the parts department, the service department, which are really one on the same because they furnish the parts to the service department. And then the collision repair, if they have one of those, you add them all together.

They make more money in those departments than they do in what they call the front end, which is used car and new car department. So it's a huge profit center to car dealers, and you've really got to be careful. And as Alan said, factory recommended maintenance only if they quote you a big number on a repair, get other bids from other garages, other independents or other dealerships. Okay, we've got Nancy Holding from Jupiter Inlet Colony, and she's also the co-host. Hi, Nancy, how you doing? Doing well.

Good. I have a two-part question. Is this the right, Nancy? Yeah. Okay. What's up? Fuel light has come on. How much gas do you have left?

Second part of that question? And will driving up to the point of, say, running out of gas negatively affect my car? Who would like to answer that? I would say if your lights on, you can just keep on going. Push it as far as you can. Don't do that. Well, that's what I do. No, don't do that.

Nancy, I think. I always do that. Ask your dad. It reminds me a Seinfeld. Well, it's a psychology test. When you do that, my psychology, I'll admit it, I'm a chicken. When I see the low-fueled warning light, I start to sweat, I start looking for gas stations. I start imagining running out of gas on 9-95. And other people get a thrill.

It's an exhilaration, almost like a drug high, and they push it, and they push it, and they push it. I love the thrill. Yes. when I was a young man I would push it more now usually it comes on and then my navigation directs me to a gas station uh-huh that's for real and what was the second question the second question was if you do run it until it runs out of gas or are you going to negatively affect your vehicle used to um if you ran one out you run the risk of scoring the cylinder walls and uh i don't i think now the computer what about sediment sediment and the gas tank settles to the

I think everything's cleaner now and it's filtered better. I think the fuel at the station that you're putting in your car is controlled and cleaned and filtered better. I think the fuel filters in the cars are far superior because almost everything's fuel injection, so you get a little chunk of... But that's really interesting. So the computer knows that you're getting to that point and it will shut down the engine. Yeah, I don't think that you're dry running the cylinders like you used to when you ran out of gas. And most cars are automatics now. So when the engine shuts off, it's not like you're in a standard shift where the, as the wheels turn, the transmission's turning, and your pistons are still going.

They stop. Even a transmission pretty much stops turning. Can you show me what the pistons do again? Nancy, when you're mowing the lawn with our power more, have you ever run out of gas with your power more? Because I don't think it has its sophistication. Nancy mows along with a lawnmower home. Really? Got a Dixie Chopper.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Are you still there, Nancy? I am. She's mad at me. She's medicated. She fell asleep. Did we answer your questions?

You did. But my comment, I love the thrill of seeing that gas gauge on empty. And I always take it as far as I can go. Not with me in the car. I have never found out how far I have. can go. I've never run out of gas. Every time I fill up with gas, I reset my trip meter, and the most I've gone in my Tacoma is 323 miles, but I am below an eighth of a tank when I get to 280 miles on my trip meter,

and I start getting real nervous then. But your original question about how much gas do you have when the warning light comes on, I think the minimum's two gallons. I think, depending on the car, It's two to four gallons, by the way. So it's not like you can't make it around the block. It does depend on the vehicle. I agree with you. Well, Nancy, thank you very much for that call. It's certainly something that people think about.

Hey, don't forget. To all of you out there, 877-960, or you can text us, 772-497-9-7-6-5-0. And don't forget, fantastic. Mystery Shopping report coming up. It's a doozy. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Thank you very much. And also, Nancy would remind you if she were here, the second female caller,

we've already had the first. The second female caller, 50 bucks cash, if you haven't called the show before. If you have not called Earl Sturton Cars and you're a female, all you've got to just pick the phone up, call 877-960-9-90-60. I know there are a lot of women out there. Haven't called the show. Caching, 50 bucks. Hadn't called the show, 877-9-60, 960, 90-60.

50 bucks, unconditional, we just sent you a check. And our text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-4976530. We've got one text left we haven't responded to. Yep, we have a text from Anne-Marie. She says, good morning, no questions, just a couple of comments. Congratulations on being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. I just wanted to let you know that your comments on younger people not wanting to sell cars was also mentioned on jelopnik.com.

I found under their morning shift heading, written by Michael Balaban. And then she says she hopes Nancy has a speedy recovery. Well, thank you very much, Anne Marie. That was very kind. I'm so proud of this Wall Street Journal quote to be quoted in a national publication. And the reason I like being quoted in the Wall Street Journal, other than the fact that ego, I got a big ego, and who doesn't like to be called by a Wall Street Journal reporter. I know that all the car manufacturers and most of the car dealers read the Wall Street Journal.

Their political leanings are in that direction, and they read that type of newspaper. It's a very widely circulated paper. And so I'm going to read my quote, just to rub it in a little bit. The headline, as I said before, and I'll hold it up. I keep forgetting we're videoed. Car dealers labor to keep young workers. car dealers labor to keep young workers

and the Adrian Roberts the reporter asked me I said quote many millennials say car dealers have an outdated approach to selling that doesn't always fit their values

even if the jobs have the potential to pay well younger workers aren't interested in haggling with customers and are far less tolerant of the old boys club atmosphere still common at many dealerships said Earl Stewart owner

of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida. By the way, that Old Boys Club, I copied that from Nancy, my co-host, old boys club. She got a very negative posting on our anonymous tip line or anonymous call-in line on that. Yeah, I remember a chauvinist must have commented on that. And then I went on to say, in my quote in the Wall Street Journal, I know the Toyota executives are reading this, all the auto executives, all my buddies in the cartilesship, all my friends in the car dealership, all my enemies, Ted Smith, the president of the Ford Automobile Dealers Association.

He's not your enemy. No, but he's, he is the head of a lot of adversaries that I have. He represents. He likes me. I like Ted. He just doesn't like what I do. And I also said, quote in the Wall Street Journal, car dealers are selling cars like it is in 1960s, Mr. Stewart said. Anyway, that's true.

Oh, we have a, we have a caller. We have a caller. We have Lawrence Smith from Jensen Beach. Hi, Lawrence. Hey, good morning, Earl. How are you? Great. Who is Carvana?

Carvana. When you purchase a car from them, whose services if you find something wrong with them? I think you have to find the car dealer. You got to find your own, yeah. Yeah. All used. It's a great interesting phenomena there.

They claim, we haven't dealt with them, but they claim to be an up, right use car operation, one price. They do a lot of things. They claim to do a lot of things right. I don't even know if they charge dealer fees or ad dealer installed accessories. Do you used to?

I don't believe they install accessories, but I can't answer you about the dealer. Yeah. But they are a phenomenon. Online car buying is a huge phenomenon. And we're seeing even car dealers, essentially, are in the online car buying business. Corvano was one of the first and one of the biggest

and one of the most renowned. Have you seen the commercial for Carvano where they say or pick up your car at one of our vending machines and they show this lady putting us big coin in this. Is that real? Those are real. Yeah. I want to buy a car just to do that.

Yeah, these vending machines were invented in Germany. And they've had them as parking lots. You go into a parking lot in Hamburg or Berlin. And instead of getting a tenant to get your car, you go up there and you pay your bill. the elevator brings your car now the manufacturer is Hanel and we actually bought a product

a different kind of product for them we use in our parts department our handel parts machine is a handle that's what Corvana uses to inventory their cars but they make all different sizes even big enough for cars

that's really cool looking Lawrence where did you hear about Corvana television commercial yeah that's right yeah it is an amazing company I'd love to hear from somebody out there that's had experience with Corvana How do you spell it?

C-A-R-V-A-N-A. It's like Nirvana, but it's Carvana. Carvana. Carvana. Has anybody dealt with Carvana bought a car or tried to deal with Carvana? They're a nationwide online car buying company, and they had this really cool commercial that shows like a high-rise parking lot. All their inventory is in this high-rise,

and you don't really put coins in and buy a car, but if you pick a car out, you like the red car. You like the red Toyota convertible, and they'll bring it down, the solar, and I guess it'll roll out or something, and you look at it, and they put it back in the machine, it goes back up like a Coca-Cola. So, Lawrence, thanks for ringing that up. I wish I knew more about it. I'll put it on our to-do list. We'll research them and maybe even try to mystery shop them. Yeah.

Okay, thank you, Earl. Thank you, Lawrence. Appreciate the call. 877 960 9960 and the next female caller if you haven't called the show before gets 50 bucks

and we have a text waiting to be read. We do have a text by it. I wanted to address something with the millennials, younger salespeople. Something else that came up was we deal with a lot of different dealers so we know the attitudes. And I'm telling you right now

a lot of dealers have a very negative attitude towards younger people. And it creates a self-ful They think they don't want to work. They can't see, because they don't fit with the old model that car dealers stick with, they're just basically creating a situation where they're not going to attract any talent. Yeah, it's not just car dealers. A lot of people in my generation, I'm 77, you should see my Facebook page because when I put,

I posted the Wall Street Journal on the Facebook page, and a lot of my friends who are a lot of are my age saying, well, them millennials, they just don't like to work. You know, when I was a young man, I walked 20 miles to work. in the snow in my bare feet, and I worked 80 hours a week, and I appreciated the value or hard work. And then kids today, they just don't appreciate it. And so that's the attitude. A lot of people have to millennials, and I think we have a caller, but the reflection is such.

Ah, Gail, from Hyperlexo, hi, Gail, thank you very much. Are you a first-time caller? Yes, sir. Ah, ka-ching. Pleasure talking to you. Fifty bucks. Thank you so much, Gail. No, listen, I'm not calling for the money.

I have a question. Okay. I have a 2013 Infinity, the coop, which I absolutely love. But the dashboard is more or less melting, and there's debris on it that I can't get off. It drives me crazy because it looks dusty. I've tried calling the dealership and the home office, and they both have more or less blown me off about it. Any suggestions? Schumacher Infinity.

If you'd rather not mention it, that's okay. The manufacturers, as we said earlier, we're more familiar with Toyota because I have a Toyota dealership, and Toyota is reluctant to fix these. You really have to push. No, I was agreeing with you. I'm going to give you an idea. When the dash melts, you probably experience this, the sun reflects off the dash into your eyes. Am I right?

Yes. Okay. That's a safety factor. Cardinals get real nervous about safety factors. I don't believe the dash has ever turned into a safety recall, but it should have been a safety recall. And one of the reasons I believe that the manufacturers have voluntarily fixed the dashes is because they don't want NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to call it a safety recall. That would cost them millions and millions of dollars. So call Schumacher, Infinity, and a Stu just pulled up a, he's going to hold it up for the camera, a great picture of posted online of somebody saying, shame on you, my dash. Nissan. Nissan was one of the most reluctant manufacturers to fix these things, and there's a class action lawsuit. And I don't know if it's settled yet, but they had to get to that point before they agreed to start fixing these things.

You can call Chuck Schumacher. he's the owner of Infinity, Schumacher, Infinity, a real nice guy. We have him on our recommended dealers list, Stu and I and Alan. Alan used to work for Chuck. Yeah. And he's an honest person. This is a safety issue. Try to get hold to him or someone high up the letter.

And then I would put it in writing, email, certainly a text, email or a letter, that this is causing you concerns for your safety because of some. reflects off the melted dash into your eyes and you think they should fix it and if all that fails and I don't think it will because I think Chuck Schumacher will listen to you but if for some

reason it doesn't work I would call WPTV Channel 5 they did an excellent piece on this and they did Honda they did I believe they did Nissan too and they were on the air all the time about this and I give Channel 5

have WPTV credit for getting the manufacturers excited about it. And that's when they finally stepped up to the bar and started paying for these dashes. So Chuck Schumacher, put it in writing, focus on the safety issue, and when all fails, called WPTV. And, Gail, we'd love to have you call the show again next week and let us know how you did. And by the way, I know you don't want the 50, I know you don't want the 50 bucks. but we'd like to send it to you anyway, and if you don't want... Well, donate it. I'd rather you donate.

Well, you contribute to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Okay, I appreciate the advice, and I will follow through and let you know. Okay, thank you, Gail. Great call. We'll donate to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. We will. We'll give the $50 to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And we have two more texts. Boy, we're setting a new text record this afternoon this morning. I think we are. We have a text from Steve up in New Jersey. Wow. It is Earl. Some manufacturers like BMW state that the transmission fluid is a lifetime and does not need replacement.

My Lexus doesn't have a transdipstick anyway and there's no easy way to check the fluid level. In your opinion, how often should the oil and internal filter be changed and the transmission and what do you think of the manufacturer's approach? So I think he's referring to the transmission fluid. It's a good question for Alan. Well, you have to follow the manufacturer's recommendations and they don't put a dipstick in there for a reason because you don't have to, have to check it. It's bulletproof. The only way that you're going to lose automatic transmission fluid in a vehicle of that type is if you have a leak, and you're going to know if you have a leak. One drop of transmission fluid is like a 50-cent piece size that you're going to see, and you just

don't see cars leaking fluids anymore. And I think that back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, when all transmissions and all engines eventually leaked fluids, I think that the short service intervals were the manufacturer's way of making it your responsibility to bring them in, change the filter, the dealer's making money, they're making money selling a filter, but it's also hiding the fact that every one of these darn things were leaking all the time.

So if they got you to come in for 12,000-mile transmission services, you never got low enough to create that transmission. failure. Well, the biggest profit rip-off in car dealership service departments is a transmission flush. Yeah. So, the fact that you can't flush the transmissions anymore or you shouldn't, and you can't change the fluid

and you can't pretend to check the transmission little because there's no stick, it's really got to put a hole in the dealer's profits. The dealers are hurting in service departments all over the country, and independent mechanics are hurting too, mainly because the

maintenance is so minimal. In fact, In most car dealerships, or manufacturers, I should say, they give free maintenance for two or three years. And after that, it's minimal. So dealers have built this huge service departments, but all this expensive machinery, and they have all these high-priced mechanics, and they're standing around twiddling their thumbs, playing solitaire on their poker on their iPhones. And so they have to come up with something to fix. So they can't do it with manufacturers recommend maintenance, so they make up their own maintenance.

When you go into an independent mechanic or a car dealership, he will say, the recommended service is this. You always have to ask, is that your recommendation, or is that BMW's recommendation? Or is that Honda's recommendation? Manufacture's recommendation is all you do. And that's the name of the game. Yeah, I would even be cautious because if BMW tells you this is a lifetime transmission fluid and you get suckered into a winds transmission flush or whatever.

Have you, and then you have a failure later, have you, because you didn't follow manufacturer's recommendations and you went ahead and flushed it, would you be risking not being covered under warranty? I would say so. Because they told you not to tamper with it. It's like the back of the computer that has a little sticker that says if you remove this, you voided your warranty. Is it the same with the transmission?

I don't know. Don't take your iPhone apart. I wouldn't flip a coin on it. I think we've got some more text. Boy, they're pouring in a little. We've got 15 texts or something. I'll count them later, but we've got two of these are comments or questions on our live Facebook video. Facebook.com slash Earl on Cars.

So Steve asked, or comment, says, Honda slash Accura is telling me to change the rear differential fluid in the all-wheel drive RDX. Honda makes their own fluid that tells you nothing about what it is. question is should I use their fluids or are there better synthetic products that will be better for the car? Alan probably knows more about this than I but I recall this question

before I think Rick commented. My recollection is that you don't have to use the manufacturer's name brand fluid but you have to use the same specifications. Now if Honda won't tell you the specs I would be amazed

to be honest with you because I think Honda should But if you have a Toyota, Toyota has oil. But Toyota tells you what the specifications are on the Toyota oil. Honda should tell you the specs on their differential fluids that they said. And you should be able to use that. Alan, you knew more than I do about that. I would suggest that it probably is already a synthetic because the synthetics are cheaper for the manufacturers, but they're also more efficient, and they dissipate heat.

And any time you're lubricating gears, what you're trying to do is dissipate the heat. And synthetics do that better than fossil lubricants. But my question would be is why would you want to deviate from the manufacturers' floods, especially... Costs. Well, how much could you save? I don't know. Some things, you know, it's not worth it.

And if you're under warranty, you know, I definitely would stick with the manufacturer. It's a consumerism in me. It angers me. I don't like to see manufacturers branding everything on the car. They brand the oil, they ban the differential fluid, they brand this, they brand that. There are such things as good aftermarket parts. And Alan trembles when I say that, and I do too, because they're also terrible aftermarket parts. but just because Toyota or Honda or BMW didn't make it.

And by the way, they didn't make this fluid. They bought it from somebody that sells another fluid. That's the exact same thing, and they put their name on it. So the specs, the answer to this question to sum it up, if you want to try to save some money, get the specifications on that differential fluid, and then buy that if it's a lot less expensive and you cannot get in trouble. Another text. Yep. This is also on our live Facebook video. It's from Joseph. Question.

A friend went to a dealer to purchase a Hyundai Allantra. Dealer offered a deal for a pre-owned 2.0 liter with 16,500 miles plus 750 bucks because she didn't own a Hyundai. Then said the price would be $16,000 only if she leased it from them. What's with that? A new Hyundai? I think it was a used one. Used. That's interesting.

Another second time. Another loyalty. Yeah. Our mystery shop last week, somebody invented a new scam, and car dealers are very clever. Not stupid. Car dealers are not stupid. They come up with some of the great devious tricks of all time. And one of the devious tricks is to advertise a new car that the manufacturer has a loyalty incentive on.

A loyalty incentive means if you're driving a Hyundai, a new Hyundai now, or a Hyundai now, and you buy a new Hyundai, the manufacturer could give you a $750 discount for a Revenue. repeating with that car. Now, the dealer said, hey, that's a pretty good idea. We put that in the fine print. We can advertise a lower price. Guy comes in driving a Chevy, and he says, you can say to him, I'm sorry, you can't buy it for that price. You have to pay $750 more because he had presumed that you were driving a Hyundai.

Now, they branched out. They do it on used car. There is no loyalty. The dealer makes it up. It's a figment of his imagination. And he says, that's what we're. we're going to do. We're going to have an arbitrary price on this car, and then we're going to have an

arbitrary rebate that we made up, and you're going to feel good about it. And we could have, so that dealer, he's so creative, he could have a $10,000 loyalty. And then if you are driving a use on day, he just won't tell you about it. He'll price the car for $500 a lot. Oh, you don't get the $15,000 rebate. So congratulations, whoever those dealers are out there. Ingenious line, you really are getting clever. Congratulations, guys.

So the loyalty is if you're in a Chevy and you come and you're in a Chevy and you come and you buy a Chevy from us and trade yours in, you're going to get your 750 loyalty discount. Now, a Conquest, so does that same dealer, if I'm driving a Ford and I come buy a Chevy, and he offers me a $750 Conquest discount because they took me out of another brand. Man, we've seen them offer both, which makes no sense. Yeah, so everybody gets a discount. If you know about it. If you saw it.

Well, they've monetized the price, and they factor in both a loyalty and a conquest. But I'm not kidding. We've done this on mystery shops, and it obviously, it doesn't make sense. So they wash out. That's why they do it. See, it's a Chevrolet. It's a Chevy. Mind-blown.

I even thought of it that way. It's a Chevy, but I put a Ford Motor in it. I'm sorry, sir. These are canceling out rebates. Okay, where I hope you're having fun out there in Radio Land, 877-960, because we're having a lot of fun here in the studio. And I think we have another text. Yeah, this one's from your Facebook friend, John.

It's for Rick. but I think Alan might be able to answer. It says, are you familiar with a junkyard called LKQ? Yes. They're huge junkyard up in La Canto. Well, they're all over the place. They've bought out most of the mom-and-pop junkyards across the country. They're not just a Florida outfit.

They're nationwide. They also deal in aftermarket parts, recondition parts. I'd have to Google it, but I got to say, they're a multi-billion dollar company. They're no small outfit. And they're not junkyards. I mean, the junkyard is... They're very sophisticated. This is one of the most

profitable, sophisticated, ethical, honest. It's a huge business. Whoever, what is the name of this place again? LKQ Corporation. LKQ. I've heard it before. They are the biggest in the world. They are amazing. And you can

deal with them online directly or dealers, everybody deals with them. It's just somebody really got smart and they just buy up all these cars. And they actually help the whole economy because they make a market for wrecked cars. Because they see, you know, dollar signs. When they see that total car being pulled in to be auctioned off by the insurance company, they see dollar signs. They pay more, which, of course, make the insurance companies more money,

but they also lower your premiums. Yeah. Sue's got a picture of an LKQ warehouse. It looks like a Home Depot in there. And when they go in and they buy a mom and pop, they go in and totally revamp it and make it look like that. They're very professional. There's still some mom and pops out there. There's Jim's imports up in Sebring.

They're pretty huge. I don't know how they've managed not to be bought out. But they're a reputable company, and do I like the used collision parts business? Not really. but if I was going to buy anything used structurally, it would be from a reputable company. I would recommend to anybody having an expensive repair on your vehicle. Always get a comparison of what a user rebuilt part would be. If they have to start repairing your transmission or your engine or something expensive on your vehicle,

find out if there's available a used part. Because we think, like I always think, the word is John Neal, who sent a, that text. John's a guy about my age. We think of junkyards. And when you think about getting apart, and collision repair also, by the way, you get parts from junkards. You think of a junkyard. You think of a, you know, a junkyard. I mean, you know, junkyard dogs. I mean, just a ratty place with rats and dogs. I think a fat Albert one. I think of junkyards. No longer like this. These are huge, modern, clean, air condition, computerized. These parts are pristine. They may even be tested. I don't.

I got a junkyard story for you. When I was in my early 20s, I had a 74 C-Bring plus with a 400 engine in it. I needed a crank shaft. I went to a junkyard, go in. There's seven or eight bikers sitting around. I said, yeah, I called about the 400 crank shaft. He says, yeah, come on. He goes out there.

He says, follow me. He gets on this great big tractor forklift thing. He goes out and he flips this car upside down, which was actually in baseball. better shape than the car I needed to part for. He flips his car upside down. He says, there you go. It was one of them you pull it places. I pull the oil pan off.

I start to pull the main caps off, had the wrong-sized socket. I go walking back up, the quarter mile back up to the little metal building that was the office. The guys were all sitting around in there. And I said, hey, man, I brought the wrong socket. You got a three-quarter inch socket I can borrow? I says, well, go over and buy me a soda, boy. I'll see what I can find for you.

So I go over there, and the sodas were like 75 cents, and they're usually like 35 cents back then. This was a while back, I'd go ahead and I'd buy the guy's soda. Anything you'd pick, whether it was Coke, root beer, 7-Up, whatever, it was all Coors beer. So I had to pay 75 cents for a Coors beer to borrow a socket. But those junkyards are gone, I think. It's a different world. Hey, we've got to get to the mystery shopping report because we only got a few minutes left. If we have some time after that, we'll take...

Oh, we have Don calling from Palm Beach Garden. Hey, Don, what's on your mind? I got an update for you on that van, that lemon van with a bump chuggle fish bite. Uh-huh. Remember that, the one for the, they had that mess in it, and they called it bump chuggle fish bite? Yeah, sure. What happened? All right.

Well, I talked to two attorneys, and they said, well, one didn't apply it to the last, Lemon law because it was a commercial vehicle. Yeah. And the other one said it didn't apply to the Lemon Law because it was in my company's name. Oh, commercial vehicle. I found another attorney that said that was all bullet does qualify for the Lemon Law. However, this isn't an easy deal, I'll tell you that. Because the first hearing you have was a better business deal, and that's about 30 days out yet.

Well, good. And apparently that's paid for by GM. Yes. Uh-huh. Well, that's great, Don. That's the arbitrator, so. Don, may I ask you a question? Don, what was the name of the attorney that gave you the right advice?

I'd like to give him an add-a-boy and maybe mention his name again, but you got bad advice from two attorneys, and you finally got good advice, right advice from the third one. Would you mind giving us his name? Yeah, Mike Schiff. I spell the last name? S-H-I-F-F. Very good.

Mike Schiff. All right. He's slinging with these. He's done several lemons before, so he knows what's the score. But it takes a while. It's two, three months before anything will get settled on it. Excellent. Well, Don, for the people that didn't know about this,

you had a van that was a conversion van, and there was a chronic problem with it. Took it back. They couldn't fix it. He had a nightmare. Finally, they admitted it was a chronic problem in all the vans, and then the dealer refused to, do anything about it and

manufacturer refused to do anything about it and you were left out there hanging yeah pretty much they just called it a characteristic of the van but I was not told that when I took the demo right because the one of the demo they had over and did the same thing

they just said it was an isolated problem was this a Mullinix or Schumacher who was the dealer Shoemaker? Shoemaker Yeah, North Lake. Schumacher North Lake so So congratulations, and I really appreciate you call on the show. We love to follow things through from the genesis to the conclusion and all the frustration

because you're going to have a lot of people listening out there avoid it. But you fought a good fight, Don, and you went all the way you could to the dealer, to the manufacturer, and now you've got yourself a lawyer, which is your last, you know, the last thing you had to do, the least tasteful, and then you went through two lawyers and do you finally got a good one. You're a real pit bull. Well, I'm going to take one, but it's going to be a while. I'll keep you updated.

All right. You're my hero, Mike. I'm telling you. When we win this one, I'm going to invite you on the show because you really took it all the way. And let this be a lesson to you. You've got to stick in there. Mike, thank you so much. All right, thank you.

Take care. Wow. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I mean, I just, he's called the show two or three times. He fought it out with Schumacher. They gave him a hard time. He talked to the manufacturer.

This was a GM, yeah, General Motors' van, and they turned him down. And then two lawyers said, Lemon Law didn't comply, and they didn't know what they're talking about. So it's going to arbitration with a better business bureau, and we'll see how he makes out. Excellent. I've got to get to this mystery shopping report here. This week we investigated H. Gregg. Now that's the letter H.G-R-E-G. H. Gregg, a used car deal that we learned about from one of our regular callers and texters, Frank and Jupiter.

H. Gregg is actually a chain of used car stores with 19 locations across North America. They focused exclusively on online marketing, promoting their one-price selling. H. Gregg has been in business for more than 20 years, and we're surprised we've only heard about them. I was really amazed. In our area, Nancy Stewart's on the line. Okay, I'll interrupt myself here. Nancy, we're doing the mystery shopping report. What's going on?

Hey, I want to remind our listeners that they can always go to your anonymous feedback.com. Well, thank you very much. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Thanks very much for reminding of that. I've got to run on with this mystery shopping report. Thank you very much. I'll be listening.

Sounds good. Anyway, H. Greg, we found in Dural and West Park and Broward County. They have a Miami location opening soon. Amazing. We never heard of this place. They also have an H. Greg Lux in Pomona. Was that the one that Frank went to? I don't think.

I think he mentioned Miami. Anyway, they're really starting to jump all into Florida. So H. Greg is coming big time because they've got 18 or 19 locations nationwide. Their website is impressive, modern, sophisticated, and it says all the right things. Very consumer-friendly. They boast a seven-day exchange policy, underline exchange, not a return, big difference. And with mileage and condition restrictions, exchange means, well, we'll give you this car instead of that car,

but who's to say what they priced the exchange car for? So exchange policy is pretty much worthless. They do have a separate return policy with seven days, but they require. a 7% restocking fee. Now you buy a car for 20 grand, you're talking $1,400, re-stocking fee. That's pretty rough.

Okay, so maybe they're not as consumer-friendly as we first thought, but that website sure does look good. And let me tell you, I was jealous. Stu Stewart, he's a cyber guy, he designed our website, he really knows. When Stu Stewart says, that's a good

website, that's a good website. They also go on to promise that the pre-owned vehicles we purchase are safe, reliable, economically friendly, and are all-around good-quality cars. We thoroughly check our vehicles for speedometer inconsistencies, blood damage, total damage, rebuild titles, and much more. Bottom line, if it's not good enough for our family, then it's not good enough to sell you. Remember those words. after seeing this we knew we had to search their eminatory for a car with a dakata recall right away we found a 2012 Chrysler 300 with a no-fix passenger side decada recall for sale at the Doral location so we sent agent X all the way to Doral report speaking of the first person as usual before driving to the dealership I called to make the large the target vehicle to be sure that Target vehicle was on the lot and available for sale. I spoke with Raul, who told me the Chrysler 300 was there and ready to be taken home tonight.

Raul told me to ask for him when I got there. When I arrived, I was overwhelmed by the chaos I encountered. There was a lot of cars parked into a tiny lot with no obvious spots for customer parking. It's amazing how this incredible website deteriorated into kind of a scramble. But websites are important. It's the first thing you see. You make up your mind about companies now from websites. I slowly drove down the front aisle until a man waving, a signal flag approached me

and directed me to park behind one of the inventory cars they had on display. I went inside the showroom. Would it better describe it as a corral showdown at the OK Corral. I just picture Agent X walking in there with his pistols at his side. There were no typical desk workstations that you normally. find in the card dealership instead they had set up would look like a bar very unusual we've never heard or seen anything like that dozens envision this dozens of tall desks arranged in a long elliptical shape with the salespeople

on the inside of the ellipse and bar stools customers on the exterior of the of the ellipse I've got a picture but you really can't you can't see it online It's not a very good picture, but very interesting. I bellied up to the bar and was quickly greeted by Kamani, Raul, and then Kamani. He asked me how he could help me, and I told him I was there to see Raul. He asked me what car I wanted to see, and I said, I discussed the 2012 Chrysler 300 with Raoul, and asked again if he could get Raoul for me. Kamani said Roel was a BDC guy.

Okay. BDC is an acronym for business development company. It's a telemarketing company, essentially the car dealerships have within the dealership, and they call customers and customers call them. They take that burden off of the salespeople. Some salespeople are really good face-to-face, but they're really bad on telephones. So the BDC, the business development group, they're really good on the phones, silver tongue, as it were. and they can get you in and when you call them they sound really good and it's just it's a new thing. Everybody has got the BDC now, all car dealers. After a few minutes of Q&A, Kamani said he'd go get

the keys. He was gone for about 10 minutes before returning with disappointing news. The car had just been sold early in the day. We hear that a lot. Cars just been sold. Kamani apologized and offered to find a similar vehicle. I asked

him why ruled and he had both told me it was available. Kamani even checked his computer before verifying its availability. Kamani said it takes time for the system to update and sometimes cars get sold before other salespeople can find out about it. I let him contend to you. You know, it strikes me, we might try doing this. I don't think I'm warning in too many people. We call, we'll verify the car on a Mr. Shopping Report, and then we'll say I'll give you

my credit card number. You hold the car for me. You can always stop payment under your credit card. And that way, they really won't have an excuse for having a car. Right. Well, he'll say the same thing. They'll say the same thing probably. We both looked at the computer screen while I simultaneously scroll through their inventory on my phone.

I found a white one and asked me what I thought. I pulled it up on the phone and clicked the Carfax link. This was also one that had a Ticada recall. Wow. I'm excited now. I got another car with a recall. I told Kamani that one would work, this one would work. He left to get the keys.

He came back with a grim look on his face. This one had also been sold. Yep. I mean, they're selling a lot of cars, right? Oh, gone on it, man. Specifically the ones that I want to buy. Business is good. He said he was sorry.

We went back to the computer. Kamani found another one. But it was located at the Broward location. Unfortunately, Kamani advised he could not sell that one to me. By the way, CarMax, who has multiple locations, we'll sell you the car, no matter where it is but h gregg won't i would have to drive there and start all over i said i just had driven over an hour to get to darrell which was true i wanted to get something there i referred to nissa's recall spotlight that's national highway traffic safety association

web page that's wwwd safer car dot gov referred to that web cage searching for cars that are most likely to be under recall for defective Takata airbags. I would suggest a model to Kamani. He'd find it. I'd secretly check the Carfax. H&X is the best. Thinks on his feet. Good with a smartphone. But I

couldn't find another Takata car. I decided to go with the one they had without the recall. We returned to Chrysler 300 and I settled on a current model year, 2018 300. No recalls. Kamani went to get the keys and returned to tell me that it was still available, but

that was at their warehouse about three miles away. Come on. He got the keys to another car and drove us to the warehouse. Got a good picture of the warehouse, by the way. By the way, I wasn't clear on that. He missed the, well, we'll get to that. He did. I know what you're going to say. The warehouse was huge and well organized with hundreds of cars.

There was a row of recent models, model Chrysler 300s, and we found mine quickly. It was white with 23,000 miles. No haggle price on the window was 19,980. But the price I saw on my phone, that's the online price, was 18,498, I decided to wait until later to bring it up. Now, that's a $1,490 price difference. The online price was $1,490 lower than the one on the window of the car, but H. Griggs claims to be one price. Well, I've already counted two prices, so we know they're not one price. on the right i asked if it was

we test drove it on the right i asked if it was mechanically sound he said they only sell great cars and that they all checked out he said this one was a current model year so i get boasted of the factory warranty i replied that i was wondering why someone would get rid of a 2018 model wonder why they would salesman without hesitating he said people get rid of cars for all sorts of reasons maybe he couldn't make the payments it was too expensive for him. I asked if the car had been in the accident,

so he said we'd go over the Carfax report when we got back. We drove back to H. Craig's lot, went inside. I asked Kamani if the price of the 1998 was firm. He said their internet prices list. So he fessed up, that was honest. I asked him which price I would begin.

He laughed. He said the internet price. Interesting. He didn't have to do that, but he did that. So that's a plus. Before we could discuss anything else, a woman named Amy. So we've had Raul, Kamani, and now we have Amy appeared. She introduced herself

to me and said, she was there to help Kamani learn. Amy then asked me, when I wanted to drive the classroom home, I said, we had yet to go over the numbers. Amy acknowledged this, excuse herself. It was a little awkward. I asked Kamani, what was that all about?

Kamani said, she was a floor supervisor. So we've had a floor supervisor. We've had a BDC person, and we've had a salesperson. He returned to his computer, typed some things, and then announced the internet prices, 18,000 498. He says

it was as is with no warning. Kind of unusual to sell a 2018, virtually new car as is with no warning. That's over the curb. You buy it, you own it. You break it, you own it. Deal with the manufacturer if you got a problem. That's exactly right.

Combani Bribi, remember the Carfax and printed out one, and immediately in my eyes were on to the red warning sign. Severe damage reported. I said, severe damage reported. There was also an open recall for an engine control module which could result in the vehicle

to accelerate out of control while using cruise control. That's not terrifying. That's not terrifying. So we asked why the 2018, why would he suddenly trade in a 2018? He's probably because he couldn't afford it. Well, he might not have been able to afford it, but he also

wrecked it. Maybe he couldn't afford the deductible for the crash. He also wrecked it also had a dangerous safety recall. Kamani looked uncomfortable. He had little to say than and okay. You did that well. That's how I pictured it.

I see that to do better on the price. Kamani hopped up to get some help. And we turned with the numbers. I was written up at $18,498, the internet price, plus there we go. 899. 899 is the dealer fee and then 299 e-filing fee electronic filing fee that's also a dealer fee

and then $89 tag agency fee that's also a dealer fee you add them all up it spells $1,287 in dealer fees that they are adding to the advertised price of the car which is illegal in Florida it is illegal to you have to include the dealer fee fees to the

advertised price so H. Craig broke the law and of course tax and tag you had that and you're up to $21,416 I told me

had to be kidding the car was wrecked and it was wrecked bad Carfax said terrible wreck I told him Kelly Blue Book says fair condition

is 15,077474 I should be paying $15,000 If it's in fair condition, this car has been nearly totaled. I told him to get me out the door at 17,500, and I drive it home. I added that I wasn't paying all those fees anyway. Kamani was pretty cool, considering my directness. He said they don't negotiate the price and couldn't do anything about that.

He went to get his manager and returned with Frank. Now we got Frank, Raul, Amy, and Kamani. Kamani ran down the situation, told Frank, confirmed what I told him. The price was a price. Of course, he didn't bring up the fees. He got up, shook my hand, asked me to keep him in touch with the salesperson, and then walked away. Come out and he handed me the Carfax report and the buyer's order, and I left. So, there we are.

Very interesting. Didn't know H. Greg existed. They got a great website. They're proliferating like rabbits in Florida. I got 18, 19 stores nationwide. They've got three or four. They're building them all over the place. you're going to have an H. Greg near you soon, and right now, you saw what happened.

I think we need to score this. Nancy Stewart will score from home. We'll have Stu Allen and I score here. You can text us with a score. Alan, you want to go first on the scoring? I don't like their business model. I'm going to give the company an F, and I'm going to give the multitude of contacts that he had a C-minus. I'm going to be kinder. The whole thing gets a C-minus for me. C-minus?

Yeah. We score for you folks out there that might be incredulous and say, and including Nancy Stewart, because she's a hard grader. The Blackwell. I'm going to give him a C-minus. We're going to pass them. I hear the theme music, and we're going to pass H. Gregg reluctantly.

Thank you for joining Earl Stoen-Garge. But we'll be back. And we'll be back. And we'll be here next Saturday. right here on this station, Goldie Oldies, from 8 to 10 on Saturday. Thanks for tuning in. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye.

Thanks, guys.