Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.26.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Cochran Toyota of N. Huntingdon, PA.

Episode Date: August 26, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Pennsylvania to visit a rural Toyota dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Toyota Highlander SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back, and we're live, and we've got Stu Stewart back, by the way. He's on vacation for a few days. He's back in the studio now. So we're fully staffed. We got Nancy Stewart, Rick Kearney, and myself, Jonathan Canter, the Earl and Cars team. And I say this every week, but so far it's been true. The automotive business is just absolutely, I don't know what the word is.

You can say it was terrible. It was great. It's exciting. It's different. It's changing. It's everything. It's an evolution like I've never seen in all my years in the business. and I've been in this business for, you know, over 50 years.

Everybody I talked to that's been in the business any length of time has never seen anything like the past three years. Just when we think things are going to crash, they get better. We were talking three years ago about electric vehicles. Now electric vehicles I've just taken off like crazy. And it just, I don't know how, is, I feel bad for you, the consumer. feel bad for people out there that are thinking about buying a used car

or new car. I feel bad for people that are thinking about selling their cars. The market is a challenge for the professionals. Us dealers spend more time talking about what do we pay for a used car. If we don't know what we

pay for a used car, how do you know what to pay for a used car? And that's part of the problem and a reason you have to be even more careful. The market very It varies from location to location, depending on what state you're in or part of the state, what type of car. Electric vehicles are a bargain now. Just recently, Tesla cut their price again.

They're saying, you can buy a brand new EV, Tesla electric vehicle, for $19,000. Now, the average price of a new car now is over 50. So it's interesting. And we're here to try to answer your questions. If you've got anything that you are concerned about mechanically, and I use that word loosely because it's really electronically or computerly, if there's such a word, computers and electronics are what have taken over mechanics. So you don't call a guy that can fix a car now a mechanic anymore,

but we've got a guy in the studio, Rick Kearney, that can diagnose anything wrong with your car. and I know that sounds like a granteau statement, but you really, really can get most all your answers from Rick. And Rick is monitoring our YouTube channel. That's YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. We have a huge cadre of extremely knowledgeable people that listen, watch a stream on YouTube.

We'd like you to join that team. Just go to YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. and then anything that you ask or suggest or comment on, Rick sees that immediately. And we got Stu back in the studio. He's monitoring our texting. And if you want to text us, you go into area code 772-497-6530, and you call that, or you text that, I should say, text your question. And we use text to kind of like store up because if we get a bunch of text, we can get to them during the two hours of the show. Now, we're on from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time. 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Eastern time. And during that two hour spread, we will get to all of our text. We'll get to all of our YouTube's because we can go back. Now, the one venue to reach us that we really like because it deals personally, Nancy Stewart, to my left. She's my wife, my co-host, co-founder of the show 20 years ago. She's watching her laptop computer, and Jeremy in the studio will shoot the calls through, so she'll know you just called, and if you're waiting, she'll know you're waiting. And that number, please write this down if you haven't, not driving or can write it down safely. 877-960-99-60 that's 877-9-60-9-9-60 and we will stop what we're doing because we prioritize phone calls. You can text all you want, but I think we have a phone call.

We do. We're going to go to the phones, and if you didn't jot that number down, it is 877-960-90-60. You can also text us at 772-497653. Zero. We're going to go to Dan, who's been holding from Michigan. Good morning, Dan. Hi, how are you doing? Good. What's up? Well, I purchased a vehicle. We were the second owner. It was a Lincoln Aviator 2020 from a dealership. And they said that it was a dealer trade-back, trade-in situation. You know, there were some minor things that, you know, the customer wasn't happy with, and Lincoln was, you know, very

lenient, you know, gracious on return to satisfy customers. So I asked the guy what was wrong with a car. He said, well, there was a cluster. The lights were coming on and went, you after the people bought it like four days, and those lights were coming on and off. You know, they put a new cluster in, problem solved. Then there was a recall, just a basic recall that came in between, you know, the other issue. And each, I guess the deal, when I called the dealer to verify, I verified this, you know, based on what the salesman told me just to make sure it was accurate. The second issue happened about 90 days after the first issue.

And it was just a simple leak, you know, it says here, customer saw spots in their drive, you know eight six to ten spots in the driveway brought it in there was a seal transfer case steel that had to be replaced problem solved now the customer goes to the dealer says hey we've had issues we want a different car and so what do they do um but when i called the deal you know the service department there i asked them was there a main issue was this a lemon callback, and they said, no, the car did not, you know, based on their state laws in New Jersey, this is in New Jersey, he said, nope, did not qualify for a lemon law. And I said, well, then, oh, and at that point, you know, I was satisfied based on what the,

you know, the original salesman was telling me. So, so again, we get the car, you know, at that point. And I asked the salesman again, I said, I'm not going to have any issues down the road when I try to trade the car and sell the car, and am I, no, it should show as a dealer tradeback and you should be all set. So we get the car delivered here. And, and so here we are three and a half years later. We go to, my wife says, I want a different car. We go into the, into the dealership and they said, you know, the first they gave us a price of the, of the vehicle, said okay fine but we're going to have to

they had a car there and then the dealer comes back after we sit down and says we can't give you that price for your trade I said what's the problem

there's some issues on the on the Carfax you know Carfax shows the car's a lemon and I'm like yeah that's a that's a That's very interesting. Dan, as I understand it now, you have your car repaired at this dealership,

and every time you had one of these issues, they did the repairs? Well, the original, again, the original people that own the car, they only owned it for like three months, you know. And the dealership sent me copies of their service issues. So I've got it in writing here, what happened. And again, so what happened is I called, you know, the service department back again and said, when I called back three and a half years ago, you said this car wasn't an issue, you know,

there was no, there was some minor things that happened that were all taken care of. And they said, yes, that it was. And I said, you know, it's showing here at a car fax that this is a lemon law. And they looked back, they looked again and said, no, this. does not qualify for a lemon law based on our state. You know, the car had this issue. The car, they had the car in for two days. Dan, we've got a bunch of calls holding here.

I think I understand your problem. Go ahead. Yeah, I looked on, see, Carfax, you know, there is the, various states have the lemon laws, and that's a federal lemon law. There's, and that's a specific procedure. Carfax considers a lemon if it has a substantial, financial defect, the automatic automaker can't fix. So it's kind of, I don't

think they necessarily have to go through a, uh, this lemon law thing. But it's actually says lemon, it's a lemon, lemon law vehicle on the Carfax report. Yes. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, because usually the customer has to go through a process of there's a mediation between the manufacturer

and the dealer. Dan, did you see the report or did you take their word for it? The original report you're talking about when you went to get it appraised and they showed you the carfax oh i've got a copy hey is there any way you could email uh that to um to to to nancy uh you let me to text it or or text it yeah you can text it to the show number um 877 see a car is not a lemma car is not officially a lemon law car until it has been

arbitrated under the lemon law these are state laws a very michigan would have one lemon law for it would have another lemon law but just because you would participate in that yeah you'd have you would be a part of that you would yeah so you would have known about the no yeah so it's not a lemon law car i mean uh it may be qualified if you had filed it but you'd have to you'd have to actually go against the manufacturer and you'd have to go through arbitration you would know that you'd done that so they're not being honest with you about the car being a lemon law on Farfax. We need more information. Okay, Dan, it's Nancy Stewart.

In order for us to clear this up, if you could send the information to either myself or text it on the text number that we whatever's easiest for you, I'll give you my number. I'll just text it to five. Uh-huh.

5-61, 386, 64998. 4-9-8. Yeah, just one thing, again, the dealers The ownership verified this was, did not qualify, the service department there said this did not qualify for a lemon law. Well, the lemon, see, that, again, that's inaccurate information. They're telling you the wrong thing, either accidentally or on purpose, I'm not sure. But a car qualifies for lemon law.

And the typical format is you, you, in writing, complain about an issue that the dealership was unable to fix. And it varies from state to state. but you return it twice, and if they still are unable to fix it twice, then you have, oftentimes through an attorney, you would file an official Lemon Law complaint, and then you would go to arbitration. The Better Business Bureau does it in Florida. Maybe in Michigan they have a different arbitrator,

but it would be a matter of official record that you would know about. So the fact that they keep telling you, and they say this is not a lemon law they don't know whether it's lemon law or not the lemon law determines that and if they try to fix it three times and they failed by definition it probably qualifies under the lemon law

so I think you're being misled by your dealer you might have to get an attorney but when we get this information let's clear this up then and text me and I did contact car fax and not heard back from them so okay we'll get back to you about we're going to have to jump to the next caller but we'll get back to you with an answer on that I appreciate this thank you very much thanks Dan

have a great weekend thank you for calling 877 960 960 Texas at 7724976530 don't forget your anonymous feedback dot com we're going to Lance one of our favorite calls we have a lot of them, and he is a regular caller, and he's calling us from Tennessee. If we get a Carfax report, and it comes back under the Big Orange

Law, we buy them immediately. Big Orange Law. We're not familiar with that in Florida. First of all, I've got you a little too. I hope so. If you're sitting in jail and can't go far,

listening to Earl Stewart on cars. That's right. We do have a delivery to the county detention center program. Lance, can you get some accompaniment on that? Maybe a guitar or a piano. I'd like to have a little music to my songs. Well, several of them haven't made bond yet. Earl, let me ask you a quick question about truth in advertising.

Okay. I see a lot of low-mileage cars where the dealer says in the ad lease turn in a former lease car is there any way

that you can be sure or be assured that that is true that it is actually a leaf turn in sure you just all you have to do is look at the title

to the car you're buying the car from the dealer and if he's selling you the car he's got the title you should have the title and when you look at the title it's sure the previous owner

and if it's a leasing company like GMC leasing or it could be a bank leasing company it would clearly be stated on the title okay hey Earl thanks a lot I'm coming up with

an album idea best of song from Earl Stewart on cars well do I get a residual on that if it's a hit I mean what Do I get a percentage? Well, I think we can mine it from all our shows. I think Jonathan could put together something.

I guarantee you there's been singing. Not just Lance. You sang. We've all sang. You can do it. I'll trade you some bottle caps. Oh, there you go. Okay.

We'll do that. Oh, thanks you. You're an important part of the show. Please call again, Lance. We love you. Have a great weekend. I missed you, Lance. Okay, folks.

I'm going to offer that $50 for the first two. new lady callers, first two new lady callers. You can win yourself $50 this morning. And ladies, I have to tell you that, you know, we have more equal footing today. That's one way of putting it. And we've become a whole lot more knowledgeable. And for sure, we definitely are the financial foundation, financial foundation for these dealers. And we have a big representation from women. So please give us a call, toll free at 877-960-99-60, and you can win yourself $50 this morning for the first two female, new female callers. Also, in the news, you know, there's a whole lot of ways to save money.

And what I mean by that, take a look at your insurance recently if you haven't. And you can check out Consumer Report, and you can find out the ratings that they have given these insurance companies. And did you know that USAA is rated 92%. 92% they are at the top of the list for overall satisfaction they're much better number two is not anywhere near 92 exactly and I've never heard of number two

number two is the NJM Insurance Group and you know they could be in any part of the country but they're rated 86 so if you want to update yourself on these insurance companies

and the ones that are around that nobody has really ever heard of. You can do that by going to Consumer Report. That's consumer report.org, I believe. Can anybody back me up on that? That's it. Okay. And also, you know, what's really interesting is I have to share this before I go on. You know, there's all-state, state, farm, all of these companies that you know of,

that are rated so low now so you need to do a little homework on that end of it you mean i'm not in good hands with allstate that's right oh god uh the world is changing uh also there's another way of saving money and don't forget incentives are back they are back in full swing take advantage of it you have to take control when you walk into the dealership find out what incentives are available and what you're entitled to 877-960-960 Texas at 772-4976530 and take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com and don't forget we've got Layla coming in she's the dog of the week she is the dog of the week well she won't be coming in it's via video and don't forget that we pay all of the adoption fees all of the adoption fees it makes

it's so easy for you we all work together so you can stay tuned for that video uh just about uh i'd say 920 right jonathan okay we'll get back to uh the phones and we're going to talk to uh another caller from tennessee and his name is casey good morning casey well good morning how you all doing great good i've got a question for rick so um My question is, we have a 23 Toyota Crown and got 5,500 miles on it. And in the steering wheel, when making turns, we just started hearing a click. And I don't know if it's a piece of plastic. That's what it sounds like.

Or if it is a relay or something like that. I wondered what Rick's thoughts were on that. As soon as Rick catches his breath, he'll let you know. Well, I'll sing you a song like the other guy from Penn and Pete. Well, we're waiting. My first thought is probably the plastic trim of what's called the clamshell. That's the plastic that's around the steering column itself. I've seen a lot of those, even on the crowns, unfortunately, they don't sit properly in place, and it needs to be adjusted.

and when you're turning the steering wheel that actually catches on it and you'll hear that little clicking sound if you stop in any dealership let them show them the noise that's the best thing you know have the service rider

right there turn the wheel so they can hear it and they should be able to get that handled for you in a very short amount of time that's all warranty of course yes oh yes okay all right so there's nothing I can look at

It's something that they have to look at and adjust. Yeah, I would just clear like a couple hours of time and, you know, call ahead and get an appointment is the easiest way for whatever dealer you need to deal with and just go in and say, hey, I'm getting this noise. Here it is. Please take care of this for me. And it's under warranty.

There's no reason you should even have to mess with it. And they should make that right for you. You might even get a baloney of your car if they're going to tie it up for a long time. But Rick says it'll only take a couple hours. Okay, very good. I appreciate the answer, and you guys have a great day. Thank you, Casey.

We appreciate you. Hey, 77-960. Let's go to Joanna. She has called before, and she's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Joanna. Yes, good morning. I have called in one other time before. I appreciate your show.

What I was wondering is that the mystery shopping that you all do regarding the dealerships, do you have like a website on that? Do you keep a list of it for the public? Yes, we do. If you go to Earl on Cars.com, we have the list is right there on the right side of the page. There's a bunch of links, and it's there. You could also go to, but this is harder to remember. good dealer bad dealer list.com it lists all the grades that we give to the dealers that we mystery

shop but there's also the archive is there as well but it's easier to remember earl on cars okay so it's earlon cars dot com dot com yeah correct that's all i really appreciate that i didn't i didn't know if you were legally able to do that or yeah and oh and also uh jonathan just pointed out that All of our shows are all archived on YouTube. So if you go to YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars, or if you just go to YouTube and search Earl on Cars, you can watch all the episodes, and each one has a mystery shopping report,

so you can listen to it all over again or for the first time. Wow. And, Joanna, at Earl on Cars, you can take a look at a lot of stuff, Earl's column, that he writes every single week. it's most beneficial for anyone who is looking to purchase a car, lease a car, everything and anything. So Erlon cars, that's where I would go.

Okay, great. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for the call. 877-960-9960, and we are going to go to Dave in Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. first of all

I'd like to say you've got to really be on your toes to buy a used car from Earl Stewart. I tried to buy a Highlander the person before me bought it a couple of weeks ago went in last week I think there were two RAV-4s. Somebody just bought

both of those. So anyway I had a question, but I don't know if this is for Earl or Rick, but there's a RAV-4 and it's 20-22 and it's got 15 service calls in 14 months. And only one of those services are registered as an oil change. The rest just say service, service, service for 15 times.

And I'm wondering, doesn't that seem a little lot? I mean, it was like every other month. You know, it just seemed very strange that a car would be brought in that many times if there wasn't maybe something that was an issue. And this is while it was, you'd have to see the details, because a lot of times if it doesn't say what it is, anytime anything's done to a car, there's a repair order, so it could be a detail, it could be, you know, a car wash,

it could be something in the body shop as well. To see, actually get the VIN number, we can actually look at it. Was it at our dealership or another dealership? Yeah, it's your dealership on the lot right now. Oh, okay. It's only got $13. miles on. Oh, so anytime. We'd have the complete detail on it. Like Stu said, you would want to look at that. I'd want to look at it if I were buying that car. And as Stu says, it could be minor stuff, but it could be a chronic problem. During the reconditioning process before it goes on a lot for sale, various departments deal with it. The body shot might fix a scratch. The detail department will wash and clean it. The service department might do some mechanical stuff. And so it could be a combination of those things. Or it could be a chronic problem.

that we try to fix. Rick? If that happened to be one of our rental cars, then it probably was sent to the detail department about once a week to have to be washed up. And they you'll you'll see a service call over and over and over and over and over. And all it is they were simply setting it's a detail to be washed. And all that means is that it's it's going to be really clean and shiny. Yeah. But I would definitely Definitely, what you can do is to hop into service, and they can pull up that service record and tell you exactly what was done each time. Yep. Okay, so I notice you guys are, you know, hugely busy in service, and it seems like there's cars backed up everywhere.

So how would I get access to that information without, you know. Okay. Once you, on the website, just text us the stock number or the full VIN number, copy and paste, and then we can find out. I don't have my computer with me on the show, because, but Rick, could you get in and access it? I don't know how fast Carfax gets that information up, but Carfax also records the information on our cars mechanically. Anything done to the car, Carfax does. So you could try going to Carfax. They might already have the information.

or you can get it from us. Send us the VIN. Rick and look it up right here on the show. Yeah, the VIN number. Okay, send it to you. Okay, I won't take up your time now. But, yeah, it's online. It's the 2022 RAB4 White.

It's only got 13,000 miles. And it just seemed like, well, why would someone trade in a car with only 13,000 miles at the 2022? Real quick. And then you see. Those are all good questions, Dave. What's the stock number?

Real quick. I'll tell you right in a second. What's the stock number? The stock number is right here. I've got it right here. Mileage, $13,022. Where's the stock number at here? Boy, it's a good-looking car here, too.

Good-looking route for white one here. Stock vehicle info, model, VIN, stock. I'm going to find it before you. you, man. Yeah, we don't want to hold up too long. We've got other calls holding it. We'll get that information. We've got the information.

That's the answer. It's a rental car. We purchased it from our rental department, so it was not a trade-in. So it was a vehicle that started with us, and we're selling it. But I'll look it up, and we'll read it later on the show. Keep listening, and we'll say what was going on with it. Thanks a lot, Rick. I really appreciate it.

That was too. All right. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-650-6-5-3-0, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Ladies and gentlemen, heads up. Flood cars everywhere. Beware. If you've got a mechanic that is faithful to you, you can take that vehicle to them to check it out, because, like I said, warning, flood cars. are everywhere and there's some you know there's some telltale signs that you yourself can pick up on and one of the biggest ones is that musty odor and and water marks and rust marks and mud and debris electrical problems just your your headlights could be discolored or foggy so make sure that you are aware of all of that before you purchase anything to

today. 877-960 and text number is 772-497-6-530 ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, we've got a lot of stuff to cover. There's something of the automotive news I got to share with you. You've heard me say on the show many times that the F&I department, the finance department, sometimes called the business office, is the most profitable department in the car dealership. You think they made a big profit when they sold you the car. You ain't seen nothing yet because the biggest profit is in finance. And you need to be very careful. The standard information I give on this show over and over is use your own bank or your credit union. Get your own financing.

Try to avoid dealer financing. Now, there are exceptions to that, especially when it comes to financing by the lender for the dealer. They sometimes have finance specials that are quite good. But rule of thumb, use your credit union first, and then your bank, you get a better finance rate. Here's something from the trade journal of the car dealer. Every car dealer reads the automotive news. Every manufacturer reads the automotive news. And here's an article in there from a company that is talking about how dealers should hand off sales to F&I.

I love this. I hate to read things, but I'm going to read this to you. This is what the finance company, who is working with the dealer to make an average of typically $2,000 on every new car they sell, how to do that. You greet the customer. Mr. Smith, I'd like you to meet Natalie Davis, these are made-up names, our business manager, that's the F&I manager. She'll be completing the rest of the process with you today, Natalie. this is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They just purchased a new Honda Civic. They go on to say,

you'll be in great hands with Natalie because she does an excellent job and is very efficient. Natalie is going to share with you some valuable ways to protect your vehicle. And then it says, if the salesperson has a service contract, they would add,

I actually have a vehicle service contract myself to end the speech. So that's called the setup. And that way, you think you just bought the car, you think you've paid your money, you think it's all done and you know the price, well, the biggest money is about the edge of the face in the F&I office. So I just want to warn you again, use your credit union, use your own bank, and if you want to shop and compare a price

of finance costs and interest rates with the dealer, that's fine. But as I say, if you've got reasonable credits, you're going to do just fine with your own bank. Yeah, go in there, not naive. Rick has looked up the service history on the vehicle we just talked about, the one that was the Ravre 4 that we're offering for sale, and our suspicions have been confirmed. A bunch of car washes about every other week or so every 10 days. We have a description when our detail says wash, fact, windows, Earl Sturt, rental car. And that occurs about one, two, three, four, five, five times on this screen.

That was only some of them. That was some of them, yeah. It was a whole bunch of them. So, yeah, that's good to know. I wish more people would ask about that because I wonder how many people see that and go, uh-oh. Yeah, it makes me wonder if there's not a better way to deal with that. In other words, there should be a separate category for that. So that, you know, if you have a car that's been in for 25 times for the same problem,

chronic serious problem, or you had 25 car washes, I mean, there's a big difference. So there should be categories when you're looking at that list. Is there any danger of washing off the paint with that many car washes? but you got to wax it and that's what we do before we put it on the lot so there you go hey I have a text from Ammarie

and I missed her a lot when I was gone you ready Emory says good morning I've read conflicting viewpoints on the internet so I'd appreciate your expert opinion on if or when

and this is probably for Rick if or when it's appropriate to get an injector cleaning Let's take, for example, a 10-year-old four-cylinder camry with 94,000 miles on it that has always received its routine maintenance and uses top-tier gas. Let's compare it to a three-year-old four-cylinder camry with 30,000 miles on it that also uses top-tier gas. Let's assume that neither car is exhibiting any decline in performance or mileage.

When is an injector cleaning needed in, or when is it, as the Internet calls it, just a wallet flush? All the time. All the time? It's a wallet flush. Oh, okay. So I like that, I like that wallet flush. Hungry. Because you have transmission flush, radiator flush, wallet flush.

All under the category of wallet flesh, of course. The only one of those that is a Toyota factory recommended maintenance is the coolant renewal. which is recommended at usually some cars are 100,000, newer cars are 150,000 I think. Isn't there a difference between a flush and a renewal? I mean, if you're going to replace the fluid. Actually, a flush is actually meant to be a complete fluid renewal. All the fluid gets drained out and all the fluid gets replaced.

You put pressure in it in the air and sort of it out. This came from way back when transmissions, we used. used to do just a drain and refill, and you were only replacing about four quarts when the transmission actually held 12 to 16 quarts of fluid. A full transmission flush replaces all the fluid in one shot. But the factory recommended maintenance only calls for a coolant renewal or a coolant flush, and then it's only at 100,000, and then every 50,000 after that. The only good flush is when you're playing poker. Just remember that. That's right.

Wording is everything, isn't it? 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. We sure are glad Stu is back. Boy, I'll tell you, it's just a party when he's here. So he is going to continue. In fact, he has his party hat on. I do. You do.

They look what you're in. He's going to continue with the text, and then Rick is going to give us a little open into YouTube. This is from anonymous feedback. I haven't heard this is pretty cool. Good news is that two states have passed laws and a third state has plans to require GPS trackers on all electric vehicles so they can tax by miles driven to replace gas taxes.

Polyana is having a good laugh, he says, or she says. Huh. That's kind of interesting because that was a discussion. What are you going to tax kilowatt hours? How are you going to make up for the lost gas tax revenues? Yeah, Miles, you're using the road. I guess that's fair. I know there's going to be a lot of people don't want the government tracking them by GPS, though.

So good luck with that. That was probably Oregon. Is it a name the states? No, I'm going to guess. It was Oregon and Washington. Yeah, probably right. And California's working on this. I'm guessing.

Yeah. Not making any comments, but. This is, oh yeah, this is, we haven't read this one, I don't think. Let me know if you did it last week. They're talking about floor plans. We put a video on YouTube while back. This is during when the inventory has just crashed to nothing during the supply chain issues back in the beginning. So you're explaining about floor plans becoming obsolete.

He says the video seemed to end abruptly, this is Jonathan's fault then, just kidding, without elaborating why they're obsolete. Just in a In a nutshell We've Dealers don't buy the cars directly From the manufacturer They have a loan It's kind of like a standing loan

And they basically They buy them But they borrow the money Yeah, they borrow the money To buy the cars from the manufacturer And they pay Hopefully if they're If they work very hard

Trying to get it as low a rate as possible And we had it for a long time We have an extremely low rate Well the whole world had load rates But our low rate was really low. But even back then, with the inventories that we carried, 500 cars, we would pay $50,000 a month just in interest just to have these cars sitting there.

When we went down to having no cars, or three cars, you could now imagine that that expense evaporated completely. And so that was another benefit that dealers aren't telling you. They're making a lot of money selling the cars, but a lot of their expenses came down by having not carrying so many vehicles. So that's the answer to that. Great information. Oh, great.

Before we go to Rick, we're going to go back to the phones, but I am going to remind the ladies this morning to please give us a call first to new lady callers. You can win yourself $50. And remember, ladies, as I said earlier, we're a big part of the auto industry. And from a Harvard business review, I shared this with you last week.

The market, it represents an opportunity, bigger, bigger than China and India combined. This market is filled with women and their power, their financial power. And for the dealers not to recognize this, it is a financial disaster for them. Okay, we are going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to our favorite person, Marty. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How's everybody doing? Great.

All right. One thing when Nancy said earlier, she said that dealerships are now discounting cars, I got an email from J.M. Lexus, and they said this was only good yesterday, so I missed the boat. They were taking $500 off if you bought a Lexus yesterday. At J.M. Lexus. So I missed it because I was eating lunch. And I wouldn't go over there for $500. So instead of them making $5,000 in a car, they were only willing to make sense. Yeah, I can't believe that $500 bucks over Lexus is like a drop in the water. I'm also, like, confused, because that doesn't really sound like some, like, gimmicky, like something that they would do.

So I'm trying to think it was legit. It was only good yesterday. Well, they might have a good reason. I don't know. Yeah. Secondly, some lady I was looking at the chat, she said she ordered a RAV-4 Prime in July. I assume she meant July of last year. Yes, July of 22.

Oh, that was the text. That was Regina. Yeah, okay. So that was, yeah, I want to say to that, that is literally the hardest vehicle to get, if you're trying to get a Toyota. They are, the plug-ins. I just ordered a 24-4. RAF4 Limited. Yeah.

I was told I have to wait at least a year. Luckily, it doesn't phase me. But this lady has got to wait. Yeah. And as far as the VIN number, like, Rick probably let you know. You don't. Right. Until they build that vehicle or are just about to build the vehicle,

and that's, you know, less than a couple of months before you're, they'll actually get it, so. Right. And then the third item, I just want to go quickly is when you go into the finance, office. What I do wherever I ever bought a car, I tell him no, no, no, no. I initial all the paperwork you need and leave as quickly as possible because, as Earl said, you can pay a lot, you can really get screwed a lot in the finance office if you're not careful. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And when you say no, no, no, you need to check to be sure

that the guy wasn't checking yes, yes, yes, because there's so many documents that you sign that literally you just don't have the time to read anything. I mean, let's be honest, the whole world economy is based on the fact that people don't read what they sign. If it went in mandatory that everybody had to read everything they signed, the world would collapse economically.

So none of them would sign or read what we sign. I don't, and, you know, it's very rare. And that's the reason lawyers exist. And then, of course, you've got to pay the money to the lawyer, and so you don't want to pay the lawyers. They just sign it. And that's what a lot of these car dealers do is they will slip things in that you absolutely have no idea you signed until it's too late.

How about those people that we spoke to that didn't even get the paperwork? So they didn't know what they signed, and then they were handed a little flash drive to put in their pocket. Oh, yeah. And that's legal now. That is, you can take a flash drive, a thumb drive, whatever you want to call it. You can email them something and email it to the wrong email address. And you take it home and you don't know what to do with it.

So it's just, it's a shame. I mean, if you can stay out of that F&I office and get your own financing done, you're way ahead of the game. All right. Well, it's good. I love talking to you and you got the greatest show going. What's your heart. Thanks, man. What's your heart.

Thank you. Thank you for continuing to listen. and it's certainly been a journey for you, hasn't it? Up and down, in and out, with waiting for your vehicle. Okay, we hope to hear from you again next Saturday. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to John and West Palm Beach. Good morning, John.

Hey, good morning. With the information that was just given about GPS tracking and charging us by the mile, is that going to do away with the gas tax then? Well, that was the intention. And we heard that we don't know what states that is. I don't know if Rick's over there Googling. have my computer but um yeah that was the intention i think i suggest early he buys another lot

and start stocking up on cars that are non-gps because when that hits those are gonna those are going to go awfully quick we'll call it uh tax holiday motors oh no money yeah you know and uh because uh you know like i guess i think it's 2010 where you had to have the uh the computer system on the cars and all the cars have to do anything maybe pre 2010 you know maybe not have the capability for the GPS tracking so you won't have to pay that dollar of while or whatever it's going to cost yeah I'm curious to see how that would be uh and enforced I mean if it's uh you know if it's Iowa then I don't think any manufacturer is going to pay attention to it if it's California what's up Rick Oregon and Utah that's two very different

states Oregon and Utah I wouldn't expect that from Utah So is there a beginning time? What does it say? I'm finding this on the Axeladdock.com website. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. Let's see. I say nobody said they actually have done it.

They're considering it. Okay, it's under consideration. It's considered in an effort to fairly fund road maintenance. States are introducing GPS trackers for EVs, aiming to track miles driven, and impose a per-mile tax. There you have it. I mean, you know, trying to figure out what to do with it, but interesting to see how that plays out. However, I do know that some states have an increased registration fee for electrical vehicles. Right. I saw that was in California.

To cover those lost gas taxes. Right. I think that seems to be more of a less intrusive way. And I'm not one of those privacy nuts. I know you're not either, but... I'll tell you one of the things that's going to work against this attack on electric vehicles is the fact that... electric vehicles are already dead. I mean, I don't mean that literally, but they're backing up on dealer lots. Electric vehicles,

and they have a huge supply of unsold cars on dealer lots. A hundred-day supply, and automobile business, that's a huge supply. That means over three months, it'll take you over three months to sell the average car that you sit on the lot, and you can't afford to do that. There goes, but then prices go down. Yeah, and prices.

they're going down and the cars are stacking up and there's no question electric vehicles will be the name of the game in a few years but it's like everything else it goes in cycles and yeah right now it's scary to these the the public companies the big auto dealers that have hundreds of dealerships out there they're really dying because they have way too many electric vehicles in stock they can't get rid of them I'm kind of glad Toyota Slow Walk this thing now. Yeah, exactly. Maybe they knew. I should have known they knew all along.

And according to this one website, Utah has actually mandated GPS trackers for every electric vehicle. So Utah actually said, we've done it. We're doing it. Well, there's only three people in Utah, so that's not a big thing. No manufacturer is going to start worrying about it. Do we have any calls from Utah? Oh, did we before I said that? We had some very conservative dealers that we knew in Utah.

Hey, folks, talking about electric cars. You know, they're in the news. You know how much, you know, Elon has reduced prices on his Tesla's. But back in San Francisco, if you've kept up on the news, Cruz has really reduced driverless car fleet in San Francisco. They're having probably as much problems. on the road as Earl and I did when we first began our journey trying to drive autonomous. So it's a nice read.

It's in the New York Times if you want to check it out. Let's go to John, who is waiting in West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. That's me. I've already spoke to my piece. Oh, you're still holding. John's been on the line the whole time. I was waiting to get back to him.

John, hang up. John, I'm glad you're staying so close to us. You're listening to every single word. Okay, I'm going to spread this word, John, and tell all the ladies that you know, because by your voice, it sounds like you know a lot of ladies. Tell them the first two new lady callers this morning. They can win themselves $50. They can give us a call, say hello, or share a experience with us in purchasing,

leasing, service, anything at all. And you can give them the number, too. 877-960-99-60. Have a great weekend, John. John sounds cute, Nancy, thanks. Okay, what about Rick? Do you have anything? I'm sorry, Rick.

We're going to put you on hold. We're going to talk to Bob in Lake Park. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back, Stu. Thank you. I got a question for you, Sue. All right. What color has depreciation,

The least depreciation. Well, I would guess I don't have any real resources up in front of me right now, but I'm going to guess silver. No. White. No, it's, no. No, that's probably the most. It's yellow.

The best resale value? They depreciates, right? The least depreciation. The creation is yellow. That's probably because there's only one yellow car in existence and it's some expensive Corvette that you can't get. Absolutely. Bob, I'm going to challenge you on that.

I don't believe it. Because I know that that was, Earl used to stock yellow cars in the lot because nobody wanted them. And so he would have a special on it, take the air conditioning out, and call it the Earl, the Stort Special or something. Oh, boy. And that was like 100 years ago, though. Well, it's because they don't produce that many yellow cars. Yeah, and so I was thinking if they are, it's usually going to be on, like, it's going to be on, like, on a McLaren or a Corvette. Well, wait a second.

You sell a yellow car, right? Do we now? Yeah, Super. Super. Oh, the Yellow Super. That's right. Solar Yellow. I apologize, Bob.

I just Google it. You're right. Really? Yeah, I had no idea. Boy, there I go. I learned something new every show. Thank you for that information. That is great.

I mean, that came out of the complete left field because I was really expecting it to be something between those boring colors. The top four colors are orange, green, and red. Of course, yellow is the best. Yellow, red, and... Right. Now, could you...

We do an analysis that takes out, like, supercars and, like, you know, there's a $200 million vehicles because that's probably... Because those go up of value. Definitely. I was, you know, you had a call last week where you were telling the woman she wanted a blue

Venza, and you kept trying to sell her a white one. And I was telling myself, I said, yeah, but in five years if she walked into trade that car in, another person was there with the same exact car and the same mileage, and they had a white one.

She had a blue one. She's probably going to get more money on her trade-in because there aren't any blue venzas. They're all white. Yeah, that's something to, I mean, it really has something to consider. I know that, like, in like, the South Florida market, and this is just from interaction with customers, and whether this is true or not, and Rick would know or we could look it up, you know, the idea that a darker color in South Florida is just something that people don't want. I don't want a dark blue car, I don't want a black car, I'm going to be too hot, so they picked a lighter color cars.

So maybe it varies by market. It could. Yeah. And you know what? Excuse me, Bob, Stu. Consumer Report did an interesting study on what you just said about black cars. and, you know, these hot states and this myth that we used to think

that it's not true. Exactly. There's really not much of a difference heat-wise, and whether or not it's inside or outside, black interior, black exterior, and it's just amazing. It's an interesting report, the consumer report did just recently. Yeah, I was suspected that to a degree.

And I thought if there was a difference, it would be not, you couldn't feel it. You know, it would be like the nitrogen thing. Yeah, it's, absolutely. I have another question. Whatever happened to the $2,500 last week on that mystery shopping report that disappeared? I don't know. I wouldn't hear.

I know. You weren't here. What was the, there was a $500 that disappeared? $2,500. Oh, $2,500. Something disappeared. Yeah. I don't remember.

Oh, I thought you said before, I thought you said you were going to check on that. There was a $2,500 rebate on the paperwork, and then when they got down to... Oh, that's right, yeah, on the Greco Ford... Wallet. No, Wallis. Volvo. Wallis Volvo. Yeah.

Yeah, I will do that, definitely. I think I can do it retroactively, but, yeah, I'll go back a check. I was going to check to see if they were being legitimate or it was a actual factory. $25.00. Okay, to see if there's a Volvo. Volvo rebate, okay. Yeah, because she only got $7.50. Oh, we'll find that.

Maybe it was some sort of like you have to be a real estate agent or a farmer. Oh, oh. That doesn't sound like a Volvo sort of. I think the question was whether it was a factory or if Wallace actually took it off the price of the car. I said I thought it was probably a factory incentive. Right. Okay. And I just wanted to mention one more time about the Palm Beach County animals.

shelters being overfilled anybody needs a pet that they're still in diet diastrates here yeah yeah for everybody listening big dog ranch rescue or any any of the other ones it's hot out there too it's a it's a hot summer and these dogs don't have eric here's a here's a sad part uh really is that is if the other shelters most shelters not we're not competing uh we love all dog shelters but big dog ranch rescue is our shelter that's the one that we we back and we think they're the best But the other shelters, I'm sure, are good too. The other shelters oftentimes have to euthanize the dogs. They only have so much space.

All the public shelters have a time limit. So Big Dog Grants Rescue takes dogs from the shelters before they're euthanized. Now, the dog we're going to have on the show this afternoon has been there 521 days. Now, that's almost, you know, two years. And that dog can live there the rest of his life if we want to, but we need to find homes. If they stack up, all we could do is be a storage place for doggies. We want them to have a nice home. So that's the reason that our heart is with Big Dog Ranch.

The only place where you can live it, if you have to give your dog up, don't take them to the county shelter. Take them to the Big Dog Ranch because this dog will live a long life and hopefully find a happy home. Right. Well, I heard furry friends is no longer taking any animals because they're fault. And they said that adoption. have dropped off severely and I think I spoke to Nancy about this last week you did I

think another reason is a lot of people are getting evicted from their apartments because the rents have gone up so high and when they get evicted they surrender their pets well not only that Bob but you know there are some pet owners that have gotten older and they simply can't care for their pet any longer and it's really sad for them to part with their pet, really sad and they really want to put this pet. It's like their child.

They want to put it somewhere where they know it's really going to be taken care of. And as you said, you know, I think it was last week, you know, what does it cost to feed an animal today? The price tag on that is much different than it used to be

and so many other things to have a pet. It's costly. Right. Well, you know, Peggy Adams has a program for people that are senior citizens, that they, it's not inexpensive. I think it's something like 24,000 or 25,000. And they'll, you can, you get older if you pass away and you have pets, they are, they will take the pets and they will do all the medical care on them and find them new homes. It's a, it's a good thing, man, yeah.

Yeah, they have a program for that. All these places are really trying to help out, you know, the public so that they can, you know, get some of these dogs out of these shelters. And you made a lot of good points last week. I do recall, you know, your phone call. Yes, and I did do one other thing. I'm still shopping around for auto body work on my car. I've been to a number of places, and I'm going to give you a report on it soon. I appreciate that.

But I did try that, Charlie. Somebody had called in and talked about Charlie on Blue Heron, and that was not a good experience. Yeah, we can't vet these, these, the recommendations. Yeah, there was a couple of different places at numbers that we gave you last week. But we also have, on the Volvo rebate, there is a legit $2,500 rebate from Volvo on the 2024 XC90 in the rechargeable in the plug-in and also just the 2024 Volvo XC-90

regular vehicle right but this was not that the one she shopped was the 60 I believe V-60 there's a $1,200 rebate on that XC-60 it was a 20-24 that she shopped

Oh X-C-60 is yeah as a $1,200 $1,200 rebate So they It sounds like maybe they teased her with the with the big rebate gotten and she ended up getting a smaller one yeah well they gave her seven they gave her 750 yeah Bob I'm glad that we could help you out you could help us out it was great hearing from you get back with us on your findings for the different shops you're

gonna head to okay thank you very much you guys have a great weekend thank you you do the same 877 960 9960 and you can text us at 772 497 650 6 530 ladies Give us a call, toll-free. Please, you can win yourself $50 this morning. First to new lady callers. We're going to go to John in Stewart. Good morning, John. Good morning, everyone.

Welcome. I have a, thank you. I have a question. Well, I got a good thing to say first. My brother-in-law just, I just drove down with him to pick up his RAB4 hybrid. And he, from you guys, and he loves it. and then he had a 2012 Nissan Altona 2.5 and you guys were going to give him a thousand dollars for something so he thought that was too low so he so he wanted me to buy it

so I bought it I drove it for one week in the air conditioner is not working so yeah I know and it was driving my wife to the airport it was like 90 some degrees it was terrible but anyway so I'm going to ask Rick my brother-in-law I think you're kind of magnetic thing that when you push the you turn on the air conditioner the thing hits over in the belt fully it's going because the compressor is not running you know the magnetic clutch on the compressor yes sir right that's exactly what he thought it was and I was wondering what would be a ball I got it right here at Firestone right now and Stewart and they're going to look it over what would be a ballpark price that would be within

reasonable and not do you have any idea on that if it's just the clutch it itself that has gone out, you'd probably be looking at somewhere around 5 to 600. If it's the compressor, double that. Between 500 and probably $1,000. Well, 5 to 600 if it's just the clutch itself, but if it's actually the compressor itself has quit, it'd be double that. And John, get a couple of bids. I mean, you know, I don't care if you take it to us or somebody else.

When you're spending, what you might be spending over $1,000 on your car, don't ever just take the first bid. You go to three different sources. I've included an independent shop and dealership shop and, you know, but you get three bids and let them know you're going to be getting the bids because it makes them sharpen their pencil every time they gave you the quote. If you just say, okay, fix it, then you better get it. it's your hide your wallet because they're going to be after a lot of money but say listen

there's a lot of money for me uh to give me your best price to repair this and i'm going to take it to two other shops and compare their prices that way you'll get the best price yeah yeah okay good yeah that's what i that's what i usually do yeah but does he think it if it's like a compressor does you think i had to spend a thousand dollars on a thousand dollar car i mean No. No, you don't want to do that. That's what I'm saying to. Okay, all right, guys.

If it was a fall, it'd be okay. I mean, because I don't have to have it every day, but now I do. So, okay, guys, have a great day. I really enjoy your show. Thank you, John. Have a great weekend. Okay, Rick, do you have anything for us from YouTube? Earl, do you have ants in your Tesla?

Ants in my Tesla? Oh, I don't think so. This is coming from me and one. I got ants in my dance, but I don't have ants in my kids. As long as Earl and I are driving to Tesla, they're are nothing, nothing of the sort. Never, ever. This one is coming from Megan I'm sorry to interrupt you.

There are ants in so many people's cars right now. It's incredible. And I've been asked that over and over again. Apparently, especially in the southeast, there is a certain type of ant called a black raspberry ant. That's it. Never even heard of it myself until now. Sounds pretty good. They like the charging port.

And they will literally collect thousands of them right in the charging ports, especially on Tesla's. Apparently, it's something to do with the high voltage electricity, creating a magnetic field that these ants are drawn to it. Are they electrocuted? I don't think so. They become more powerful. They literally, yeah, it causes them to grow faster and to multiply quicker. So, yeah, apparently there is an issue that this is rather well known for at least a year. I saw reports going back where these ants are collecting in the power.

Well, next time I bring my test land, I'll tell them to check it for ants. Yeah, double check. But, yeah, that was an interesting little thought. I mean, it happens that way, I guess. Giant electrified ants. You know, do you remember that movie, Empire of the Ants? Oh, I remember that one. They shot that locally here in Palm Beach County.

Yes. It was a cheesy B movie, a C movie, monster movie. Like I said, nothing's going to collect in our Tesla. Nothing. I'm meticulous. Okay. And now we'll get back. Let's see.

We've got, oh boy, my page froze here. Come on. There we go. Okay. This in from Donovan. He says, what does Earl think about the UAW voting to strike at the Big Three Auto Manufacturers this week

if they don't get a new deal. That's going to be big. He read my mind. We printed this out from automotive news I was just announced yesterday. It's probably a bluff. I think there'll probably be a settlement. This is the way they play the game. You got management against the union

and so 97% of the UAW workers for the Big Three Ford, Stalantis and GM voted to strike. unless GM 4 and Stalantis come around and sign on the dotted line. And they're asked for some big numbers. They're asking for a lot of stuff.

And this is all the way the poker game has played. Although, should it hit the fan and we just don't absolutely get a settlement, then it would mean a serious shortage of vehicles and prices would skyrocket. And it's not a good thing for the economy. It'd be a terrible thing for Ford GM and Stalantis because they, They can't sell any cars. But for dealers. Yeah.

And it would be a mess. But I think it's just a big poker game. My prediction is there will not be a strike. And again from Donovan, he says, every manufacturer who has EV inventory increasing has announced that they are switching to the Tesla connector in 2025. People are going to wait because they keep hearing about poor charging with these other manufacturers dedicated charging systems. Yeah, there was just a report out that the complaint about charging, electric vehicle charging

availability and reliability is hit an all-time eye. They're just, you know, it's like, it's like shooting crap when you pull up to a charger now, will it work or won't it work, and who's going to buy an electric vehicle when they don't know if they run out of juice, they can't, you know, plug in. So it's a serious problem. And he says also, plus, we are getting close to the $7,500 tax credit being at the time of sale on January 1, 2024. That's going to be a big help to a lot of people on affordability. I guess maybe it resets.

And that's the reason that leasing is the only way to go on a car that qualifies because the lease is a loophole really for you. And you get it no matter what You get it no matter what So if you don't lease the car You buy the car you might not qualify So there are some exceptions To that rule But the rule of thumb is

You can save a huge amount of money By leasing an electric vehicle The average Can be like a $4 or $500 a month I mean a huge number So always try to lease The bad news is You got to have higher credit rate

to lease and buy, but it's something you should at least endeavor to try to do. Yeah. So we have all kind of free information here, folks. So take advantage of it. You know, like I said earlier, you know, you can save so much money by doing your homework. Knowledge is power, and there's a lot of deals out there, and incentives is one of them. And just as Earl just mentioned, leasing is at the top of the list. interest rates are

they're off the wall it's just incredible time we are going to go back to Stu let me mention one more time to the ladies just in case you didn't hear me the last five times give us a call toll free give us a call toll free at 877

960 9060 and ladies the first two ladies you can win yourself $50 this morning now back to Stu got a text from Bob It says, who would be interested in GPS tracking of car mileage, insurance companies, law enforcement, state tax departments, on and on. Also, since a lot of GPS units gives you speed of the vehicle, mix that with local law enforcement, and you might get automatic tickets for speeding.

It's endless, just saying, Bob. Yeah, I think it was easy to predict that the idea of the state of Utah or the state of Oregon or the state of Florida tracking you with GPS, knowing where you're going, I'm sure they don't care, but they can do it if you live in Utah. I mean, that's kind of crazy. I mean, I guess you can say it's don't break any loss. Don't speed. I forecast this whole privacy thing is going to crash and burn because it's going to be literally impossible to maintain your privacy.

Right now, I mean, I can track Jonathan's car. all I have to do is slip a what do they call them the air tag slip an air tag you know underneath his wheel well and I know wherever he goes it's so easy to track people that I think you just just relax and assume you're being tracked except Jonathan would know that you're tracking him because yeah he was his system he'd pick that up at an instant he got a text here from John pick another victim John says, this is for you, Earl. Good morning.

Been watching the show on YouTube. Heard about the insurance part of the show. My question is, why is my insurance giving me a quote on aftermarket parts instead of original parts from my car? I was involved in an accident. Is it due to original parts being more expensive than the aftermarket parts? Bingo. It's one of the most disgusting, disappointing things that happen. is that our government, who is supposed to protect us,

National Highway Traffic Safety Association, you name it, the aftermarket parts are not crash tested. So if you have a car and you wreck your car and you need a new hood, a new bumper, any of the parts that come in contact when you have an accident, the insurance company will insist on aftermarket parts. They'll buy them in Taiwan or some other place. They save a huge amount of money over what the manufacturer of that car's parts would be.

They call them OEM parts. Now, you might go to the manufacturer and say, why are you hosing people by charging so much for your original equipment parts? Well, that's another discussion. But the fact of the matter is, I want to repair my car with a hood that has been passed the safety test by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. And if the front end or side test, if it's a door or it's a rear bumper, if it hasn't passed a credit, why do you allow, I'm speaking to our government now, why do you allow insurance companies to put on cheap parts?

They might be, they might look good. In fact, they brag about their parts. They say all of our aftermarket parts have been tested by so-and-so. But you'll never see them say they were tested by the government for safety, for impact, for rollover for front-end they're not tested for those they're tested for i guess they don't rust or maybe they're you know there's certain other criteria but they are not safety tested that's been going on for a long time we brought that up uh yeah we used to have our body shop manager on the show and that would come up often because it would we we would have to fight in our collision

repair shop we would have to fight the insurance company uh to and we'd have to we'd have to cut our prices and argue and stick up for our customer to get an original equipment part because they push to push. And a lot of insurance companies wouldn't do business with us because we insisted. I think didn't some insurance companies offer that it's an upgrade? Yeah. You pay more.

You can get this or anything. I got a text from Roy in Denver. It's an article. Texas, well, on September 1st this year, so next week, Texas will be among 33 states that are taxing EV drivers. So Texas is going to pay

$200 a year. I mean, citizens or purchasers in Texas of electric vehicles have to pay $200 a year to drive it. And when you buy a new one, you have to pay $400 up front. And that goes with the registration fees and additional to the usual fees.

So there's 33, so the majority of the states are taxing EV owners. You know, and it seems like a reasonable, I think that's a more reasonable way than the mileage thing, but we shall see. Yeah, it bothers to be in a way because, you know, they're screaming and holler about clean air and the carbon footprint and all this stuff and to penalize a person because you decided to take that step to lower the carbon footprint.

And I don't think anybody's arguing about global warming anymore. It's 110 degrees outside as we speak. That's right. So why would you want to penalize a car for buying, penalize a person for buying electric vehicle? I don't know. Maybe it's legit. Maybe it's political.

We will never know. Could be political. Everything's political. Are you? I'm all caught up. How about you, Rick? Let me see here if we have any other interesting ones. We did have a little, kind of a couple of them come in here.

I'm going to put them together. The first one is from Roy Van Nuoy. He says, when buying a used car, what percentage of commission is reasonable profit to pay the dealer in the purchase? And Tom Steckle actually had come up to help him out with this one and said, don't worry about commission. Always seek the most competitive out-the-door price for any car. And at the same time, Prashantal-Ladou said, I have a question about out-the-door pricing. Once we get the best out-the-door price from multiple dealers, should we then try to get them to remove the ridiculous junk fees

or is the best OTD price going to include all those fees? No, that purpose of getting the out-the-door price and compare it against several dealerships is so you don't have to get an argument about the add-ons. If a dealer wants to say he's got paint sealant and pen stripes and dealer fees, I don't care if that's the lowest out-the-door price. Once you start playing their game, which is arguing about junk fees and all the other garbage addendum labels, once you get there, you're playing on their turf.

They'll outsmartier. But if you just hold on your one thing, the exact same car with the same MSRP and the best out-the-door price from 5, 6, 7, 10 dealers. The best out-the-door price, you're the winner, and you don't care what he calls the profit that he took out. If he wants to take his profit in, his junk fees, take it in his dealer addendums or dealer-installed accessories,

that's up to him. You just want to write the check for the lowest amount of money. Do you think it would be worthwhile to try going back to other dealers and say, hey, dealer B just gave me this price, can you beat it? If you've got a lot of time on your hands, baby, I would say no. I think your strongest way to do that is guarantee them you're not coming back. You know, they don't want to give you an out-the-door price because they know you're going to shop and compare that price with other dealers. Well, that's your God-given right in the marketplace, the free marketplace, to shop and compare.

Obviously. That's why Amazon exists. because you've got eight million prices to choose from, and you choose the best product at the lowest price you can find. That's the way you're supposed to buy. So you say to the dealer, I know you don't want to give me the out-the-door price because you're afraid that I'm going to shop it with another dealer.

Well, you're absolutely right. I am going to. If you don't give me that out-the-door price, then there's zero chance of you selling me a car because you'll never see me again. So you have to be true to your word. and if you do give me the outdoor price and I can't get a beat

I'll come back to buy maybe the odds are only 20% I'll come back but would you rather have a 20% chance of selling me a car or zero and that way any intelligent dealer is going to give you the out-the-door price

and also Rick to your YouTuber 20% is better enough and that's a car buyer's guaranteed an out-to-door price and they can go right to Erlan cars and it's a great read, and it's a big help on how to get out without paying all these fees. Excellent.

And then one last comment from Mrs. Thomas here. She says, electrics only go for short trips, terrible. And there is that factor, but if you figure that you've got an electric car, say like the Tesla Model 3, I just happened to look at that earlier today, and the extended range on that one is about, about 330 miles. So figure if you're going on a trip, you're going to drive about 300 miles in that car and it's going to need to be charged.

At that point, you're kind of ready for a break, and how long do you think it would take to get that car at a supercharger? 20 minutes. 20, 30 minutes? Plus, the fact, this 300-mile thing, that barrier has already been broken. And Lucid and some other ones are up to 400.

I have a... Nancy and I ordered. about Sessler Roadster. And that car is going to... What? What did this happen? You're on vacation. Okay. And that car has a 700-mile.

Wow. So it will be standard operating procedure now to... I mean, a year from now, we'll be talking 700 miles instead of 300 miles. Who's going to get Miss Nancy? Who's going to get Miss Nancy, no less? Miss Nancy. We might keep her out of sentiment. Okay.

I'm up for an electric car. I was going to say my wedding anniversary is coming up. Who? Rick's got present time coming up. That's right. Well, we're coming up on, if you can believe, at two years that we've had the Tesla. Wow. Two years.

Yeah. Yeah. We celebrated over the weekend. A 700-mile range on the roadster. It's considerably lighter. It's a smaller car. Yeah, and it's faster than the black head. Does it fly?

A quick note here from Donovan. He says, short trips, tell that to me as I'm driving to New York City from South Florida multiple times a year. That's happening. Donovan's all about the electric, so he knows what he's doing. Then the Toyota announced the big, the solid state battery thing that they're going to hopefully have on the road. They said by 2025 or 26, and that has a 900 mile range, right? You know, one thing that I've never understood why I took over, took on, caught on, is in Israel, when EVs were first around, they had, they came up with a really cool system is that you just swap out batteries. When you buy the car, you don't, you don't own the car, you don't own the battery, you're leasing it, so you swap.

So every time you want to, you just pull into a battery station and they flop it out, it's like five minutes. And you drive over something, it's probably automatic. It just drops in on the thing. To me, that's the way to go. I mean, it'll work with longer range or shorter range. I mean, but there is no limit on, you know, just swap it out. Wow. Okay, folks.

Well, first of all, Stu, Rick, do you have anything for me? I'm all caught up. I'm kind of excited to see the dog video. I want to see Layla. Okay. What were, you said yes? Just Johnny Fraudley saying, Earl pimping in a roadster. Well, I thought about that.

I know I can get in. My problem is getting out. Well, yeah. No, he said pimping, not limping. When you get out, you're going to take a few moments just to stretch. I mean, I think the quarter of mile time is like eight seconds. I mean, some crazy thing is just. You'll never be late.

We'll put springs in your shoes. Folks, we are going to be taking. a look via video of Layla. Layla is our dog of the week and as Earl said earlier Layla's been out of Big Dog Ranch for 520 days so when you see this video you're going to just see how cute she is and wonder why she's been out there for so long and most importantly all of the fees all of the fees are paid by Earl Stewart, Toyota. And also, Earl's book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer, I might mention also that all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. That book is going to cost

you about $18, or excuse me, about almost $20, I think is $1999. But all proceeds, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. We don't get one nickel. You buy this book, it all goes to Big Dog Ranch. rescue. And Layla was rescued with a badly injured leg from I think she came in. Rick, do you know where she came in from? I don't. Miami

Date, I think. Okay. Yeah, I think she came in from Miami Dade. And let's give her a second chance in. Elsa is the young lady in the video that you'll see. And she's a volunteer and we need more volunteers, so you can go to big dog ranch rescue.org. And you can not only take a look at all the dogs that are up for adoption, but you can find out how you can volunteer. So with all of that said, we'll go to Jonathan, who run the video.

Meet Layla. She is a three-year-old retriever mix who has the sweetest disposition. As you can see, she loves giving kisses. and getting belly rubs and snuggles. She actually came to us a little over 500 days ago with some injuries to her back leg. But she's gotten all the medical attention she needs here and she is good to go and find her forever home

where she can run around and get the zoomies and stretch and crawl in this sweet little way. As you can see, she is a beautiful girl with those light brown eyes. and cute little white belly and she is just such a sweetheart. She's super dog friendly, super

human friendly. You see us to? Wow. We are watching this video and she is so sweet-looking. Look at those beautiful legs. And anyone would be so lucky to have this silly little girl. She is just stretching out for those

belly rubs. She wants that belly rubs. We'll miss her, but we know she's going to make the perfect pet, the best companion, and she's got so much love to give. That is one, happy dog. She's spluting, you know what that is? Stretching right out, legs spread wide. She got the rear legs spread out on the grass.

Oh, she likes her ears, enough. That tail is just going a mile a minute. You'd have to be careful about the tail. I think she could break bones whipping that tail. She's wagging it so hard. How does the dog stay there for 520 days? Well, that's a good question. I mean, that's a perfect dog in my book.

I think she just must have been hiding. I think she liked it so much out there that when the doctors come by, she hides. She loves the dog ranch. I think part of it has that they look so happy out there, you know? I mean, of course they're happy at the ranch because there's 800 dogs out there. It's a great place.

How many dogs are out there? Great place. We have 500, as many as 500. How, I mean, the dogs, maybe the dogs don't want to leave, but they don't let that fool you. Yeah, they could. I mean, I think literally, if I was a dog, I'd hide, because I got a swimming pool. Yeah. They got maternity ward. They got doctors.

They got nurses. They got spas. They got masseuses and pedicurists. Isn't that nice? And we'll be out there on Wednesday, folks. So we'll answer your questions, too. So, Layla, real quick, I just want to say that, you know, we keep the videos up here. So if you're listening in the car, something like that, you know, when you get home, or just look on your phone when you stop the car, go to YouTube, you know, find a roll on cars and watch the video.

And then it's really easy to share from that point. You just hit the little share button. You can send, you can text it to people. And so we can get everybody seeing Lela, like 528 days is, I mean, it's a long time. But still, but like, I like Stu said, share. And remember that you can go to Earl. book.com or you can go to Amazon and you can take a look at Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. There, you can purchase this book and it's definitely filled with a lot of

information. They can put it on the shelf and share it with your kids, share it with everyone. It's 1999 and all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch, all proceeds. So you not only have all proceeds He's going to Big Dog Ranch. Or he's to adopt Rick. You adopt Rick. We don't pay the adoption fees with Rick. You're on your own with that. Exactly.

But if you adopt Layla, we pay the adoption. Yeah, Rick's on his own. So Layla is, you're lucky enough to have all the fees paid. That's a real important part of it because it is so expensive to adopt a dog and take care of a dog today. So go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue and take a look. at big dog ranch rescue.org and take a look at Layla. We are going to be going to the mystery shopping report and you're a big part of it. We want you to vote

and you can do so at 772-4976530. And I believe that we mystery shopped Cochran Toyota. Cochran Toyota. Yeah, before I read this report that's due put together for us from Agent Lightning's. I think Josh did this one. Oh, Josh did, okay. I know I'm beating this.

Big Dog Ranch does not euthanize dogs to death, and it's very important because, and Stu asks how many dogs do we have out there? We have a huge number of dogs. One of the reasons we have a huge number of dogs

is because we don't euthanize our dogs. You just heard Layla been there 521 days. So it's important that we get them adopted because there's no other point nothing else we can do we have to keep them at big dog ranch rescue the other shelters that

euthanize dogs they have a heart too but they don't have the financing to keep their dogs so the county shelters bring us the dogs and thanks to Big Dog Ranch Rescue and the huge investment they have

they keep and maintain these dogs in style It costs a lot of money. And Lori Simmons is a founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue. She spends hundreds and hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars herself out of her own pocket. And then we have contributions. So to help us make room at Big Dog Ranch Rescue, we ask you consider fostering a dog. And fostering a dog is just taking a dog for a couple of weeks until make space so we can bring other dogs in.

But every day we're getting calls from Miami for a lot of times. Palm Beach County, Broward County, with dogs that are going to be euthanized, and we take them into Big Dog Ranch. So we don't have the room. So please consider fostering a dog. Even if you can't keep a dog, foster a dog for a couple of weeks makes room for another dog to come in. Okay. Now I'll get to my mystery shopping report of Cochran Toyota. North Huntington is where they're located.

That's near about 20 miles from Pittsburgh. I googled it. Asia Lightning was up in the Keystone State for this week's mystery shop. Her target was Cochran, Toyota, North Huntington, Pennsylvania. They have a respectable 4.6 Google rating, that's quite good. And their website promises that you will enjoy

car buying your way with Expressway. A streamlined online line process where you can complete all of your purchases from your home. That's good. That's the way buying is going. everything's going to be online. Here's a report.

I'm speaking as if I were Agent Lightning or extremely talented mystery shopper. I arrived at Cochran Buick. Cochran Buick. I knew that would happen. That's the old Earl speaking. There was a Cochran-Dookewarm speaking. There was a Cochran.

There was a Cochran here. Down here? 50 years ago. And Liz Cochran was Ed Cochran's on. I arrived at a Cochran Buick. I did it again, Toyota, around mid-morning, and entered through the side door. As I walked to the showroom, I noticed a gentleman

was glued to his computer screen, stood up, approached me, introducing himself as Chad, asking me if there was anything he could assist me with, I inquired about a Toyota Highlander XLE ad sheet online and showed him the ad on my phone. It displayed an MSRP of $44,077 with savings of 3,042, leaving a clear-cut price of 41,035. Now, that's a pretty definite ad. First, it's got the MSRP,

and that way allows you to shop and compare that vehicle with other Toyota dealers. And then it says a savings of 3,042, and the clear-cut price is 41,035. Now, we're not sure if clear-cut is out the door, but we're going to find out what you want is the out-the-door price. Chad pointed out to the lot and confirmed that they did indeed have the Highlander in stock.

Okay, they passed the first test. It wasn't bait and switch. The car advertised was there. He kindly asked if I could wait for three minutes while he finished up his computer work. He was very friendly, so I agreed and took a seat. After a brief wait, Chad returned. So I agreed. Okay.

He requested my driver's license and retrieved the keys. We headed outside where Chad commented on the humidity. of the day. I mentioned that I was accustomed to way higher temperatures in Florida. There was nothing compared to my home. We shared a friendly chuckle and continued to the Highlander. While we walked around the vehicle, I checked out the winter sticker and matched the MSRP. So far, so good. No addendum. And the online ad of 4407, and to my pleasant surprise, there was no addendum sticker. Chad went into his presentation. It was very knowledgeable. explained that this particular highlighter was a discount,

was on discount due to being a front-wheel drive model, not all-wheel-drive, so remember we're in Pennsylvania. These models were less popular in area due to snowy conditions. I told him this obviously did not concern me being a Floridian. So we proceeded with a test drive. Upon our return, Chad asked me for my thoughts on the vehicle. I expressed my interest and asked to see what my bottom line would be. Chad assured me he would provide those details.

He then asked whether I was considering buying or leasing. You're going to hear that all the time, folks. Standard operating procedure at card dealerships. I explained my flexibility with either cash or financing, depending on the terms. It's a good answer. Chad then handed me a sheet outlining financing and lease interest rates based on the different credit tiers.

Well, lease are they call them lease factors. And it's the same thing as an interest rate. Curious about paying cash, I asked if there were any cash discounts available. A lot of people think there are, and there aren't. Chas if the price you would be same regardless of the payment method. Now, interestingly, we had a mystery shopping report very recently. It might have been Greco, where they charged, they said right out front, if you finance, we're going to charge you less.

If you pay cash, we're going to charge you more. You really hear that. that. It's like a gas station. Yeah, right. They would need to work out the sales tax, the registration states, due to my out of state status. He then printed out of a sheet displaying my total alpha door. And again, just very simple, and the only thing they added to the clear-cut price was sales tax, and then that's where they stuck in a little bit here, estimated registration

and fees, 692, total purchase price, 44190. On the second page of the printout, it explained that the registration fees were comprised of a $238 DM fee, which is low unusual terminology, and then a confession of a $449 doc fee, which is a junk fee, and $5, which is hardly worth mentioning. That is a government fee, this entire fee. before we concluded Chad encouraged me to reach out if I had any questions that said you look forward to seeing me

again soon so did it batch was the clear price was it the was it off the door it was not it was not no the clear cut price had sales tax estimated registration and fees

400 on it yeah and they got a $449 dock fee I'm just hoping the 238 DMV fee was legit. But that discount was legit, though. Yeah, the discount was legit. So it was a low-scale junk fee is my, you know, not a lot of junk fees, 449. And every time I go over one of these Mr. Schapper reports, I always remember that

the salespeople oftentimes don't know the truth either. They don't know what a dock fee is. I mean, they don't explain to new salesmen and their training procedures that this is a hidden profit to the dealer. They only find out when they get promoted. They find out when they have to be managers. All right. We'll let you in on a few things here. That's because they get paid.

They say it's very interesting comment because a lot of people don't realize that the junk fees are not part of the salesman's commission. So a salesman gets paid typically 25% of what the dealer says. as the profit is. Now, the dealer is not telling the salesman the truth either because they put these dealers to all accessories, junk fees, and other garbage into the selling price. And they're screwing the customer and they're screwing the salesman. So if there's $1,000 of junk in the advertised price that they pay, it's costing the salesman $250 because he's supposed to get $250, he's supposed to get 25% on the profit. they're not telling them about all the profit.

They hate it. The salespeople hate it because it's a difficult thing to overcome. It creates a conflict between them, and they're doing it for nothing. And even the sales managers, you've got to go up pretty high to find an employee at the dealership that actually gets paid on the junk fees. Usually it's just the dealer himself, the owner, and it's kind of money to swim from the sale. Or somebody who's in the upper upper management, and that just gets, set off to the side and everybody gets paid on what remains yeah so uh there there you have it

is uh you know i every time we go out of state or go into a different region i always marvel at the difference and and i i think about the fact that if if you're an honest dealer and somebody gives you a dealership in the middle of south florida and says okay go sell cars you become a lying, cheating thief, you have to survive. Because if you try to be honest in South Florida and you put your out-the-door price and you're advertising,

nobody will come in because they will go to the deal that will advertise $1,000 less than your price, and you never see that customer and he doesn't care because he's adding the junk fees and raising the price and the customer

doesn't know it. If you had only not moved to northern Palm County when you were still a young man, you might never have recovered. Probably, yeah. You were, you were just far enough away from the fray to insulate. When I started business with my father back in 1968, we had a, I think it was a $6.50 cent dealer fee. Ooh.

Yeah. Well, that was in fact that, that's probably like $100 today. It was like $868, yeah. Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. So it's still pretty low. Okay, we've got to vote. Okay, you heard it?

Cochran Buick in Pennsylvania. It's 772. Talker Toyota, I'm sorry. 497-6530. Okay, let me see if I have any coming in right now. But I can tell you where I'm going right now. It's pretty good to me. And not all of the dealers up there that we've shopped up in Pennsylvania

because now we've done quite a few in central Pennsylvania. And we had a couple of months ago, we had a few that were pretty nasty. Yeah, really good, yeah. I don't know. Most of them are good, but we had a couple of them. couple of that were nasty um but we don't have a special curve for pennsylvania no because we don't we don't know the area that much so we have the well on its face then um i don't my my phone is taking a long time so my my grade is going to be i'm going to give them a b plus i think that

they uh were they they advertised the car the car was there um nothing nothing scary happens uh they have the the little dealer fee um but it was really easy uh you know i B-plus. If they didn't have a dealer fee, they get a NIC. That is a small dealer fee. I mean, or junk fee. Mm-hmm.

What was it for? 400 and something. Yeah. When we got rid of our dealer fee, how many years it goes to? 2004. Yeah. So, 20 years ago.

20 years ago, our dealer fee, when we had one, was $4.95. $495. So Cochran, Toyota, is actually charging lists, and we did all of the, years ago, almost 20 years ago. Yeah. And not to mention, I forgot to mention a big discount. I mean, that's,

and it's not on a quarrel. Usually you're seeing the discounts on on like the kind of the bread and butter cars from Toyota. Hirelander is still a pretty desired car. They do produce a lot of them, but to see a big discount on that cars, it was nice to see.

I mean, in this market, that's not happened yet, so we shall see. I do have text coming, and my phone is going crazy. Rick, let's jump over to you and get some grades. Okay. I've got Guy Larrabee, a solid A because of the small junk fees. One cash says C for cheap junk fee.

And Negan 1, B, junk fee. They don't like those junk fees here. Tom Steckle, B, $400 dock fee is above average from what we're used to, otherwise a very good experience. Joseph Kelleher, B, would have been an A, except for the high dock fee. Tim Gilliland, the small junk fee drops them from an A to a B plus. Johnny Z. Fradley, A-minus sounds like a good deal with the discount, even with the $4.99 junk fee.

Brian said Latko, it's a B for me. And for myself, I think I'm going with A-minus. Sounds better than a B-plus. A pretty good dealership there. Yeah, I got some coming to John. Jonathan Del Rey, dealership gives them a B, I'm sorry, B plus, I remember, no nonsense. We had another B plus. Now my phone's going crazy again.

We got three B pluses from my voters. All right. Okay. Remember, folks, this is Cochran Toyota. They're in, I believe, Westmoreland County. That's not too far from Allegheny County where I used to live and like Stu. said there's been a, you know, a few mystery shopping reports that have really been great out there, but the ones that are bad are real bad. So my grade this morning is going to be

in A for Cochran Toyota. I really like the idea that the car was right there on the lot. I like the discounts and, you know, a few other things that made my grade in A. I agree You look like a rapper If we had a separate curve for Pennsylvania But we don't And I think I'm going to go with a B plus I almost want to

You know it's just a good That's a good place to buy a car Oh you took them dad We were all doing what our dear leader was doing Yeah my right ears start bake Okay Oh no And also just if you're listening

And you're not in the greater Picksburg area I've been up there a few times It's not hard to drive across the state If you're in Philadelphia or you're like Somewhere in another metro area Where they're still doing that There's crazy markups

A drive over to the excerpts of Pittsburgh Might save you a lot of money Certainly saved our shopper Or being shot by something I think you're creating feedback Yeah, you can travel It's not that far You can make it over to what's the name of the town

They're pretty close if you're, if, for Cochran? Yeah, Cochran was North Huntington in Westmoreland County. Yeah, heck, if you're in a... And it's, there's, I think the population there is like 4,000 people or less, you know,

and it's not that very far from Pittsburgh. There you go. Okay, so there you have it. Rick, do you have anything for us? We're caught up here. Let me remind you here because we do these Mr. Shopping reports, we always

with the dealership our recommendation is shave your shoe leather and your gas gas driving around town online is the only way to go and and if you're not an online kind of a person find a son or a daughter or a friend or somebody that's online because you're really wasting your time it's just you get yourself all upset going head-to-head with these car dealers and you can do it all online and the nice thing about that is you can do instead of shopping And three dealers, like we say, never buy, for that matter, we get a major repair without at least three prices. When you're online buying, you could get 20 prices.

I mean, you could go to a dealer in a hundred mile radius, and you might say, I'm not going to drive 100 miles to buy a car. Well, you might drive 100 miles if you could save $1,000. So just think about it. You want to buy a Chevrolet, you go out to 25 Chevrolet dealers online. And you hone your email expertise, your telephone expertise, you get yourself a special email address so they can't hounds you to death when you deal with an email. You don't give them your real phone number. And, you know, you can sit back and just get a hell of a price on a car.

Here's a cool little feature. I don't know if everybody knows about it. If you have an iPhone, iPhone will, when you fill out a forum, anytime there's a forum on a website, ask for your email address you have the option you can put your email address in or you can use a function that's called hide my email and it pops up on those forums and it happens it works on card dealers websites too so you don't have to go and create a free email account which does take some time and it's not that easy to do but you hit hide my email Apple will make up an email address for you on the

spot and forward it to you and then the moment that you get tired of getting emails from these people you just you just hit a button and it will never be forwarded It's called Hide My Email, and it happens automatic. Go to a website, and any website that calls for email, it'll give you that option. It's pretty cool. I use it all the time. The only downside is you'll forget what his email addresses are, but they're stored on the phone. You can find them, so you don't have to write them down or anything.

Well, you make it clear when you go out for bid that you want an out-the-door price, and if you don't get the out-the-door price, then you'll never hear from me again. if you give me the outdoor price I will shop and compare it and if you have the lowest price I will buy the card from you I'm a ghost or not it's up to you you know just the thought mentioning right now earlier this week friend sent that email over oh that was USA today on this very subject that he shared with you what's that the fees that he had shared with you that you said you wanted to discuss you know everybody's on to it now you You know when USA today comes out, and the more publicity.

I mean, we've been the voice in the wilderness shouting about junk fees for 20 years. And it's good that, you know, some of the major publications and even TV are talking about it now. Everybody's on junk fees. Unfortunately, they're attacking hotel chains. They're attacking rental car companies, and they're not going directly after dealers yet. But junk fee, the reason we changed our name, our reference to dealer fees, because junk fee is perfect. And that's what dealer fees are. They're junk fees.

So I think it's only a matter of time before people will be aware of it. Yeah, absolutely. So many. Credit cards, airlines. Yeah, everybody doesn't. It makes car dealers look practically, you know, not greedy. Yeah, and the reason they exist is because the lobbying, I tell you. talk about the National Automobobiles Association, the state associations, even local

association. They have a Miami Association, a Tampa Association of Florida. So all these associations are just fund gatherers from dealers, and they are putting the money to get the people elected that will let them continue to do what they're doing. So that's the reason the travel companies are getting away with it, and the reason the rental car companies are getting away with it is because they're not prosecuted. They're not, the regulators leave them alone. But I'm feeling a change coming.

Okay, folks, I want to thank everyone for tuning in. A special thank you to Agent Lightning for the great work that she does week in and week out on our mystery shopping reports. And again, we

want to, you know, welcome Stu back to the show. And also, don't forget Layla, Layla is waiting for you to take a look at her and you can do that at Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org. You could take a look at all the dogs out there and most importantly as Stu mentioned earlier all the fees are paid and that makes it more affordable to you to rescue these beautiful dogs that are out there and you can even when you adopt or you can what's what was a foster

Oh, yeah. It's a speechless there for a second. And I see by the clock that we have just about five minutes left. So I'm going to switch the mic over to the recovering car dealer. We collected a lot of information this morning, and maybe you want to share that with the audience. Well, I don't know how many folks out there are in the market for an electric vehicle, and I hate to, because Nancy and I have a Tesla.

just told me we've had it for two years now. It doesn't seem that long. But if you haven't considered an electric vehicle, right now, Tesla, and I'm not doing a commercial for Tesla, but we happen to love the vehicle. A lot of people love the vehicle, and they're dominating the market. It's become a political thing, and a lot of people, you know, either hate or love Elon Musk and talk about that.

But the fact of the matter is they have cars in a full range of pricing, right now. If you're going to buy a new vehicle, at least drive one. Go to a Tesla dealership. They're not dealerships, as we know dealerships. They're owned by the manufacturer. You're treated royally in a Tesla dealership. There's no pressure. The salespeople are not on commission. There's no rush to buy. You're going to have to probably order the car, although they do have some available in stock. And test drive the car. They were really great out there, and it wasn't, we didn't even get home, and I had already received an email from them, and they were very informed, there was no pressure, and I could take whatever Tesla they had available, you know, down in, I believe the location was West Palm Beach. I don't think it was Riviera Beach, but I could test drive the vehicle if I wanted. Yeah, I just got through telling people

or advising people, don't go into a dealership. If you're going to buy an electric vehicle, and it isn't just Tesla, but the electric vehicles are sold directly by the manufacturers. In our experience, shopping Tesla and Lucid, and who else have we tested electric vehicles? I think

another... Rivian. Oh, yeah, Rillian. And you're treated like... You should be treated. It's like you go into an Apple store or you go into Target or you go into Costco. They treat you with respect and courtesy, there's no pressure. And they give you the out-the-door price, and they encourage you to shop and compare it.

Even if you don't want an EV, go into an EV dealer just to find out how you should be treated when you go into a car dealership. Yeah, it's altogether a different approach in purchasing, you know, a Tesla. Or if you want to lease, which is the best way to go? Rick? I thought you had your hand up. I just thought, you know, for a dealership in Pennsylvania, though, wouldn't it almost make sense if you could fly there for a reasonably low price, get a ride over to the dealership, you pick up your car. They'd probably pick you up. And turn it into a little vacation there with, you got Hershey, Pennsylvania, you got the Lancaster County area that's a beautiful area to visit.

And then take a nice leisurely drive back home, getting used to your new car. Yeah, even in North Huntington, in Westmoreland County, there's so much to see there, even though it is a small town. The museums are beautiful, and you always take an event and turn it into a vacation when you're on the road. Why not, you know? You do that a lot. Live life and enjoy it. You make it sound like a whole lot of fun. Folks, I hope you had a whole lot of fun.

We enjoy your company. You're a big part of the show, and without you, we wouldn't be here. I want to thank you. All of us want to thank you and to wish you a very nice weekend. We'll be right back here next week. Same time, 8 a.m. Enjoy your weekend.