Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.27.2022 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Hollywood Kia

Episode Date: August 27, 2022

This is a replay of a previous segment of the Earl Stewart on Cars show. In this epiosde, Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning a large volume South Florida Kia dealer in the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area to see how much over sticker price they will charge for a new 2022 Kia Sportage 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. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “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. are linked to cyberspace 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 self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody.

Here we are again. And we're in the studio here in North Palm Beach, Florida. We're speaking to the world. We reach out with YouTube and Facebook, cyberspace. We're all over. You can stream us. We're on the old-fashioned radio. We're sitting in an old-fashioned, very old-fashioned, as a matter of fact, radio studio.

We're having technical problems here, there, and again. But we overcome. We shall overcome, and our computer's not working again to get the phone calls through, but we're going to do group text, so there's always a way around every problem. And we will take care of phone calls, which are very important. And if you're new to this show, you haven't heard her own cars before, you're in for a treat. If you heard the pre-recorded introduction, that's what it's all about. We're going to tell you how to venture into a car dealership for service, maintenance, or to buy a car, God forbid, in today's market. But if you have to go in and buy a car, we're going to tell you how to get by with the least pain and the least financial damage.

We've been doing this for close to 20 years, and we think we know what we're talking about. There's Rick Kearney, by the way, is sitting in my right. He's a certified diagnostic master technician. And if you've got a problem with your car, he can pretty much figure it out. Even if you call in, better, you send an audio clip or a video clip to our YouTube. Or you could email it to Rick. He monitors our YouTube. That's YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars.

Just go to YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars. And Rick is watching your post. So you can send an attachment video clip, and this is what it looks like, Rick, or this is what it sounds like with an audio clip. Free diagnosis right here on our radio show. This might be the wave of the future. Who knows? Maybe people won't be going into car dealerships.

They'll be just communicating by whatever is the best communication. Rick? Nah, they'll just tell their car, hey, drive over to the dealership and get yourself fixed. you're exactly right I never thought about that you know that is absolutely true I think in probably 25 years or maybe less

that's what happened you'll get a text from your car and they'll say because you will not be needing me between 2 and 4 a.m. I'm running over to the service department and I'll have myself fixed I'll be back by 4 a.m.

If there's a problem please text me within the next 3 minutes I love it I love it Great eye. Anyway, oh, by the way, speaking of service in the cyberspace area in the 21st century, Nancy and I had an impromptu. It was an accidental mystery shopping report. We drove my Tesla to the service department, the dealership is on Okeechobee Boulevard in Westbound Beach for service issues. And Nancy went in because she's interested in buying a Tesla also. And so our experiences were very interesting, I don't want to spoil it, but if we have time during the later part of the show, we still have a regular mystery shopping report, and that's always the highlight of the shows toward the end of the show.

But if we have time, we'll let you know how we were treated at West Palm Beach, Tesla, when we brought the Tesla S, that's the Platt edition in for service, and Nancy wanted to buy a Tesla. We'll tell you all about that. My son, Stu, is on the way, run a little late today, a few back problems. He did 16,000 steps at Universal Studio with my grandchildren about a week ago, and his back hasn't recovered yet, but he's coming back. He'll be back with his back. Let me go around the table here. You heard Rick a minute ago, and he kind of grew up in this era.

He started out actually as a kid, I mean, when it was really basic, and he took apart cars and almost practically built cars. He and his father, he had that aptitude as a child. And then he went through the whole combustion engine thing, and there was no high-tech stuff. He's been with my dealership for over 25 years. It's a long time. And he's seen the change.

He's on top of it. He's ahead of the career, I like to think, and he sees the future and the future. is almost now. So no matter what your car you have, if you got a 10 or 15 year old car, or Rick can answer your questions. If you just bought a new car with all the bells and whistles and the Bluetooth and the rest of it, too high-tech, in my humble opinion, I think the average person, frankly, can't understand his car. I don't understand my Tesla. We can talk about that a little bit later in the show if we get to that mystery shopping report. But as I said before,

please let Rick know if you have an issue. Call in 877 960-9960. That's 877-960-960. And Nancy monitors, Nancy Stewart, my co-host and my wife, she monitors all the incoming calls. We prioritize it because we get calls, they're not calls. We get text. We get YouTube.

We get Facebook. We're on Facebook.com. Ford slasher along cars. We're all over the place. But phone calls are personal. They're interesting. We hear you. We feel your pain.

And we only have five lines or four lines. Something like that coming into the radio studio here. So we don't want to get backed up and have you wait. So Nancy, when she gets to group text as opposed to appearing on the computer, she will put you ahead of everything. She'll stop me yakkin or Rick or Stu when he gets here. And we will take your phone call. 877-960 and by the way Nancy is a very strong female advocate and a lot of change we talk about electronics and high-tech and quantum computing and all that other stuff but the woman's revolution has

has really been front-page news for a long time and women are taking their place beside men maybe a half a step ahead They're taking their place where they should be in the 21st century. And Nancy's leading the charge with respect to automotive. And she is a female advocate. She has built our audience almost to parity. 50-50 women callers. I was in the Dollar Store yesterday, killing some time. And I was approached by two women that said they listen to the radio show.

And they were very, very appreciative of Nancy Stewart. and what she does to include women and encourage women to participate. So Nancy's got a special offer. I'll turn the mic over to her and let her tell you all about it. Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. As I all said, we have a great show ahead, a lot to cover. I'll be quick.

I just want to remind everyone that women, well, they represent a huge opportunity in the buying, leasing, in the car business, a huge opportunity for these dealers to make a heck of a lot of money. I don't think we're allowed to use profanity. So at any rate, ladies, give us a call at 877-960-960, and this morning, $50 for the first two new lady callers. call and say hello or share your experience if you did go into a dealership much appreciated help me build this platform we can do it together 877 960 9960 and for everyone else our text number is 772-4976530 we're going to go straight to the phones where john is holding from palm city good morning john good morning to everyone my wife has also appreciated

of Nancy would have saying that knowledge is power and thanks for Nancy's forum in giving $50 to the first callers I think it's a wonderful thing that the women get more involved. Oh, thank your wife for me. Yes,

absolutely. And Nancy's on there a long time with her altogether. What I want to say was I have a couple of questions on fuel for Rick. My first question is Rick, can aviation automobile use fuel be used in the automobile? Would it do any harm to a catalytic converter?

It used to be back in the day they used avgas or aviation fuel in a lot of the muscle cars, mainly because it had a higher octane rating and would burn slower and produce more power. it's really not recommended in modern cars you're better off stick with a good automotive fuel modern cars or engines are tuned way differently they're designed differently and let's leave the avgas in the airplanes

John you there yes I'm here yeah yeah Rick's advises leave the gas in the airplanes aviation fuel should stay in airplanes that's the best place for it yeah okay the second question we're fortunate enough here in Florida to have rec 90 you can use it in your lawnmowers use it in the boat what that basically is no ethanol and if you we're concentrating today on gas mileage

the math we can get is it worth the difference in price to put it in our modern cars use rec 90, and the difference with the better gas mileage, would it be worth it to spend the extra money to put this rec 90 in our cars? Not really, because unless you find a station that is selling rec 90 that is maybe five or six cents more than the regular 89 octane fuel. I don't think that'll happen. I don't think you're ever going to find it, the 87 octane fuel. Rec 90, most of it, they charge huge money for that.

And it is intended for, like John says, the big lawn equipment, boats and the like that are not designed to have ethanol fuel. Ethanol is basically there. It's kind of as like a fuel stretcher. It's supposed to be trying to help improve the burning of the fuel a little bit. It does cause a small loss in fuel economy, but the fuel economy you might get from using rec 90. is not going to make up for the added cost of it. You're actually better off to just modify your driving habits and work your fuel economy by way of doing that.

Choose slower roads, go real easy on your gas pedal, easy on the braking, coast a lot. There's ways to improve your fuel economy just by changing your driving habits. The reason I mentioned is my friend has a 57 Chrysler, 300C. That's the true Hemey Engine. Has two four-barrel carburetors. He used it in there and he said that car never

performed better. You know, that's a high-performance engine for that era, especially in 57. Right, but that's a... He swears by it on that particular car. Yeah, and that's the exception. It's a complete different animal. Right. John, I'm looking at a picture I took

the other day, Nancy and I had lunch at the Riverhouse restaurant. And the marina next door, is selling rec 90s spelling the gas, you know, for marine use boats and the diesel. The gas is $7.30 a gallon and the diesel is $6.65. So I don't think...

Who can afford that? $7.30 for gas. ethanol, when they first started it, it probably was a good idea. Now the president signed legislature that we can half legally up to 15% ethanol

and use it in our car it's a little bit cheaper but isn't ethanol very corrosive and dangerous I mean I read where 20 it takes 22 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol and if somebody like Earl

would put that 15% in his 37 Pontiac look out I mean all the lines the fuel lines the carbure fuel pump, the rubber parts would deteriorate completely. So what's Rick's opinion of us using this ethanol in the gasoline

in order to stretch the budget of the fuel? First thing you do is look on your fuel cap of your car, and it will tell you what you can run for a percentage of ethanol, up to 10%, up to 15%. And on those very few vehicles that are left that are flex fuel, they can run the 85% ethanol. Well, good luck on those. But myself, 90% of the cars out there are already, if they're less than five years old, they're already designed and rated for the E15 fuel. And it's completely safe in those.

If you do have an older car, you know, just look at the sticker on the pump, make sure it's only 10% ethanol. that's great information I thank you for risk for that information well thanks for the call you always you always got the great questions we really appreciate your calls

yeah we appreciate you John have a great weekend and thanks for being part of the show 877 960 or you can text us at 7772 4976530 and here's a website that

you know I haven't mentioned for a while But here's how you can find out whether or not the car dealer that you're dealing with is breaking the law. Go to www.W. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. It's a great place to go. And Earl wrote a great blog about the breakdown and, well, all the terminology that's used. He broke it down in, well, the kind of, uh, words that we can all understand because you know how difficult it is to read these

what do you call it Earl that these fine print it's more than just fine print yes legalese yes this legal terminology so go to WWW Florida law protecting car buyers we are going to go back to the recovering car dealer well just announced that Stu Stewart is in the studio. Hello, everyone. With a back that is walk 16,000 steps with my grandchildren. 16,000? That was last weekend.

This weekend, it's more like 16 steps with my. Oh, yes. Well, I mean, yeah. Last weekend I was. Yeah, that's what caused the background. So, you know, Stu's in charge of our mystery shopping report. And if we don't have any phone calls waiting, I'm just going to mention impromptu.

mystery shopping, and Port Nancy and I had. My Tesla, I had a little problem. I was back in out of the driveway about a week ago, and suddenly everything went black, not with my eyes, but with the dash and all the lights of any kind on my Tesla. With a Tesla, to go forward, you had to reach up and touch the screen

and move up for forward and back for down. I couldn't see where it was on the screen, so I kept backing up when I wanted to go forward. I ended up in my neighbor's yard, across the street. That disturbed me very much and probably almost as much to my neighbor. I finally got lucky and I hit the black screen and moved it forward and I started to drive to the dealership and then I said to myself, this is crazy. Why am I doing this? Because I couldn't see turn signals. I couldn't see odometer. I couldn't see any of the warning lights passing. So I was

flying blind in my Tesla. So I called Stu and Stu says, I said if everything went black back then you should call your doctor. Doctor, right. But I did. He said, have you rebooted it yet? I think Stu said, and please get Nancy out of the car. Yes. Get her to safety immediately.

So that's what I did. A computer, Desolay is a computer, and so I rebooted it. And sure enough, all the lights came back on. But it scared me, so I decided we should take it in. I tried to make an appointment, and I had to make it for next week. They checked my computer, they checked my computer, my computer and my Tesla, and said, everything's okay. Whatever happened was a glitch. Somehow I didn't feel totally comfortable, but it probably won't happen again. And we see nothing wrong. But I had some safety campaigns,

recalls that I had to get fixed, so that was for the following week. So that's where the mystery, impromptu mystery shopping report, Comston and I were, drove to the dealer, Tesla dealership on Okeechobee Boulevard, and we pulled in. And it was very few cars, very few people anywhere. The service department looked like it was closed, so I had to pull up in my park, and then the young man walked out and said, are you Earl Stewart? I said, yes. He says, I saw your car pull in. I was expecting you.

I said, great. I said, how long is this going to take? He says, well, unfortunately, we don't have the parts for both recalls. I said, oh, when will you get them? He said, well, we're not sure it'll probably be weeks. So I said, well, would you like to do the one? I said, do you have a loaner car? They said, no.

And I said, well, I think what I'll do? I'll wait and I'll come back when you have the parts and you can do both. So I got back in the car and then I're now going to go to lunch. I looked at my iPhone and I couldn't bring up my Tesla app because it was locked in service mode. It was telling me I was in the service mode. They said, tell me I was in the service department, but I wasn't. I was on my way to lunch. So we went to lunch, and Tesla owners know this,

but if you're not a Tesla owner, you can't do anything in your car without your iPhone or your smartphone because your app controls everything. And opens the door, closes the door. If you don't have your iPhone, you can't even open the car. So I look at my iPhone again while I run the Tesla store, I mean in the restaurant, and it's still in the restaurant mode. So I panic.

we had to call. Earl, let me intervene. Yeah. But on my telephone, I looked at my Tesla app, and they were telling me, they were giving me information, and it was in reference to military time. Yeah, that's true. So anyway. And that's not hard to figure out.

Anyway, the good news is we did get in the car, and we found, after contacting Tesla, which was a project, they said, oh, we're sorry, we left you in the service mode. So on the way home, our apps flipped over, and we lived happily ever after. So that's an impromptu mystery shopping report. But you got a taste of what people go through. Yeah, what people go through. And Nancy has a few words. I know she was quite upset about it, and I was too.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say what I want on the air. No obscenity or profanity, just. You know, I'll just break it down to, you know, I'll, I love. live my life like this, I want to treat you like you would treat me and vice versa. And I'm not going to ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do. And that's basically how I live my life. And I really found that, you know, there's no bashing of Elon Musk, no matter anyone who's listening right now. Elon Musk, he's pretty smart. He's very smart. He's very rich. And he's very arrogant. and he's very pompous.

All those things set aside, he has a great product. But goodness gracious, what happened after you purchase the vehicle? After you purchase the vehicle, you know, we have to treat each other like human beings, and I didn't feel that when I sat in front of the Tesla dealership. I certainly didn't feel that with all of the text messages that came across Earl's telephone, up until a half hour that we pulled up at Tesla, and by the way, we came quite a distance. There was no indication that parts didn't come in. There was no software updates for anything that was going to happen that afternoon.

And it really wasn't that important to anyone that we came such a distance and found out that we were left holding the bag. and then to leave the dealership and to think to ourselves that the car would shut down because it was in a service mode, who was in charge of all these texts because they were so frigging inaccurate, and it just didn't have to happen. Okay. We'll keep you posted on the Testa Saga and the next appointment, and we'll check what you're. I want to say there was another moral to the story is folks if you're listening rebooting anything works like 90% of the time I was in not in a Tesla but I was in a gas

powered Toyota forerunner with my daughter and she couldn't get her phone to make the Apple car play go on so he went through the troubleshooting thing finally said hey listen at the next light I'll reboot the car because you don't have a Tesla anymore I'm like well I'm going to reboot this car. So we got the light, turned it off, turned it on, and then Apple CarPlay started working miraculously. So that's the little helpful. And you know, there's a lot of stories like that, but there's also a lot of people that don't even realize that. I learned that myself, because of Earl, a long time ago, pulled the plug, put it back in, or what you just explained. It's kind of like a joke, but it's, it works. You know, a joke years ago, you know, Microsoft,

off. The whole thing on computers were new. The joke was, you know, everybody knew you reboot a PC, but then the joke was, you know, maybe if you were driving a car, if you just turn it off and turn it back on it would fix it. Well, now it does, exactly. That's true. Because they're rolling computers, as you've pointed out. Let's jump into some text. We have one from Anne-Marie, if you guys are ready. Yeah. Amory says, good morning. I got a couple of questions about hybrids and EVs today. One, please correct me if I'm wrong. I understand and the hybrids use the electric motor for in-town where the stop-and-go driving helps recharge the battery, regenerative braking, and that they use little to no gas with stop-and-go driving.

I heard a guy say that he could go a year with just one fill-up because he only uses his hybrid in town. If this is true, wouldn't the gas go stale by the time he refueled? Let's address these one at a time. So this is interesting real quick because Rick is, I think, the holder of some record. And our listeners probably don't know this, but Rick drove a hybrid, modified hybrid. But go ahead, Rick. We basically took a Prius, modified it to a plug-in hybrid battery system. All right.

And drove it from Lake Park, West Palm Beach, Florida, to Washington, D.C. with less than a tank of fuel. Yeah. That's a little over 1100 pounds in the left one we filled up, yeah. Yep. Actually, plug-in hybrids, which there's quite a few of them on the road now, where you can plug the car in. You could do this. It costs a dollar maybe to charge up that battery overnight, and it's charging a slow charge at times when peak electricity is off. So you're using very little cost to charge it.

And if you're driving less than 15 or 20 miles to get to work, you're not using the gasoline engine at all. And that was my experience. with the Prius Prime. Right. And so a plug-in hybrid, you can drive that car quite a bit without using any gasoline at all. And yeah, over time, that gas in the tank actually can start to lose its effectiveness.

And it's recommended, therefore, that every so often, you need to get the car out and really drive it on the road to get the gas engine to run. But on a regular hybrid, you can exercise it a bit. And really get on. But on a regular hybrid, you're not going to make it last a year. No. But so you won't run into that problem unless you park it for a long time and then you might want to do a gas additive. Her second question is CNN business reports. I knew

Amory was going to call us on this one. CNN business reports that Toyota is recalling the 260 BZ4X electric vehicles that have been delivered so far. I don't know if they've all been delivered, but they are all in dealer inventories and all that. No. Huh? One in dealer inventory. One inventory. Okay. One in the inventory. Oh, great. Okay. Anyway, so 260 of them were called because they asked, Toyota, stop driving the cars right now because the bolts could loosen,

the wheels could fall off, even after a short number of miles. Toyota has asked the owner is to bring the cars into the dealer. So you're a super high-tech. I mean, your head's going the same thing. And Amariz is also going in the same direction. She says, please correct me of nuts and bolts holding the wheels and old technology dating back down. decades. I mean, it's not decades. It literally goes back millennia to chariots and wheels and wagons.

But I was relieved, hold on a second, I was relieved because not that we had a recall, this is a terrible rollout, and it's embarrassing. It's their entrance into the EV market. But thankfully, it's not a problem with the EV technology because that would cause, I mean, that would be a very damaging thing. You know, Toyota obviously knows how to make wheels. Something screwed up, but it's very embarrassing. And dangerous. Very dangerous. Here's another embarrassing thing that's not in that article, is that our, the Toyota, a new hybrid is a clone of the Subaru. Subaru, yeah. Subaru still has the incentive money from the U.S. government, the subsidy money.

$7,000 is something like that. So the same car as the Subaru, if you're going to buy, if you're going to buy the Toyota, don't buy the Toyota, buy the Subaru, because you're going to give the $7,000 credit from the government. And you won't get that from Toyota. See unfair pricing And the thing I see about it that for some reason is Somebody just went stupid The technology of attaching a wheel onto a hub of the car

90% of the car is on the road today Use studs You put the wheel on the stud and put lug nuts on and tighten it down They went with the Volkswagen and European idea of put the wheel onto a little tiny rim of the hub and put bolts in through the wheel into the hub using lug bolts instead of lug studs and lug nuts and it's ridiculous and now they can't seem to keep them tight

okay all right so amory that's uh great questions let me make sure i don't want to miss anything else think we got everything so that's awesome i love amory's text amory should put out a blog the highlights of all all the news in the week because she has an eye for the important things and interesting things. If she did that, it would make my life easier because in all of our lives, because I know that we all scour the web looking for, you know, stories in the car industry, and you can do that. You can search by topic and things like that.

We all are people who say, let me tell you what happened to me yesterday and you yawn and you fall asleep. When Anne Marie texts, everybody gets alert because we know it's going to be dynamite and she's betting a thousand. Yeah. Henry, you know, I want to take a moment and thank you. Week in, week in, week out. You send in a, you know, informative text, and you enlighten us, and you enlighten our audience.

And I just want to thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's see. Let me find some anonymous feedback for us. Here we go. Hello, is it worth the price difference to buy a hybrid instead of a regular gasoline or diesel engine? if I plan on keeping the vehicle for about 15 to 20 years.

I say absolutely. I think everybody would concur with that. Hybrid, you know, hybrid arguably could be the thing that delays the all-electric vehicle because it is such a, it takes the anxiety, the range anxiety away. You know, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but the idea of driving a car that can also use gas makes me feel a little bit better. There's a whole lot of gas stations out there. Gas might be overpriced, but still,

if I'm going cross-country, I would feel more comfortable in a hybrid, and I think it'll be that way for a while. Always have a contingency plan. Yeah, backup. It's a backup, yeah. And then the second part of the question is, are the hybrid battery still dropping the price to replace? I have a gasoline engine,

and my car is almost 14 years old. Thank you. They have come down, but what's occurring? I don't think anything's dropping now. They might have gone back up. historically a little but actually the the other side of it is the quality of those batteries has started coming up while the price of replacing it has come down some the quality and the lifespan of those batteries has actually increased quite a bit but the cost of the metals must have been be going up with this that's that's one big factor yes

all right okay um we're going to go back to the phones marty's holding good morning marty Good morning. How can we help you this morning? I got a question for Rick. Okay. On RAV-4s, on all of them, do they have the auto stop-start feature? And if they do, is there any way to permanently disable that? No and no.

I know my wife's 19 RAV. It's an ex-o-eat does not have that feature, which is why I'm still. still married and not divorced, because if it had, she'd have either divorced me or hidden my body somewhere. And the ones that do have it, unfortunately, every time you get in the car, you would have to push the button to turn it off. However, if you just kind of get in the habit, push the button, turn it off, you won't have to deal with that incredibly annoying, practically useless feature. Yeah, because my son-in-law just ordered one from you, and when I was looking up a lot of stuff, my wife has a CRV, which has it, which is very, very annoying. So we're always pushing the A button to get it off.

Yep. But I didn't know that every RAF4 has it also, the new ones anyways. The newest 22s, for some reason, I just said, oh, yeah, we're going to put it in a whole lot. more of them. The executives at Toyota for some reason, somebody needs to get hold of them and tell them they've got to get back in touch with the real world because they're losing contact.

They don't understand what people really want and don't want. And I was going to also tell Earl on my wife's CRV one day we're driving it and the screen itself went black and you couldn't press the radio. You couldn't do anything with the screen. Luckily, I mean, the car, as far as the deed, that was it. I had to stop the car,

started it again, and then the screen, everything started up again. And it's, it's, I don't know why, but you think for Tesla, I mean, it's so high tech that they would have, you know, that there would be something that they fixed, but I guess because it's so high-tech, it's all electronics. That's right. Well, I just, you know, on those auto stop start, the fact that the manufacturers

have designed them so they cannot be disabled is absolutely a sin. And if somebody comes up with a way to permanently disable, there's thousands of thousands of people out there with that

stupid idea that hasn't worked to probably say they'll make a fortune if you could just simply without going through too much trouble permanently disable that feature and one other question for Rick does that stop start do harm to your starting buttons or your starter or whatever your alternators and everything too well the unfortunate part is that the the battery and the actual starter motor are much more expensive and they actually have if you read through the your maintenance guide they actually have a predicted lifespan of when it is recommended to replace them because that that battery

is getting so much more abuse for having to be cranking the engine over and the starter having to start the engine up over and over and over again so they actually put a lifespan on them and they said just like an air filter, it is recommended at such and such a mileage that you replace both the starter and the battery, and they're quite expensive as compared to the normal standard issue type starter and battery. That's why I highly recommend it for most folks actually ignore that part, replace them when needed, but turn that feature off as often as possible and expand the lifespan of those two units. Okay.

Yeah. So I'd say push the A immediately. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, Mark. Call again. Okay.

Have a good day. You too. Talk with you again, Marty. 877-960-9960, and you can text us 772-497-4-9-30. I think we're going to go back to Stu. Sure. We have a text from Old. Ola, this is for Earl.

From your experience, do you really think EVs will take over in the next few years? This is a question a lot of independent dealers are asking. Many dealers are very hesitant to look into this business line. I think they will, and I think that it's interesting. The senior editor of the Automotive News, that's our inside train journal, every auto dealer, every manufacturer, reads this weekly. and here's the I'll hold it up for those who are streaming. The headline is, I was going to wait to get an EV, but the time to switch is now.

Now here's the editor of the automotive news saying, today is the time to buy an electric vehicle. Now whether you agree with that or not, it's a significant thing for this guy, the person that is most read by the manufacturers and the car dealers, he thinks today you should go out and buy an EV, don't wait. So I think so. I don't think today, you heard me earlier, if you were listening, saying that I think a transition vehicle, like the hybrids that we have now available, if I'm, from practicality, I would buy a hybrid today as opposed to an all-electric or to an all-gas.

I think that's the car of choice for at least the next five years. Yeah, that's a good point. And to your point, consumer report had some great information positive. I mean, with the price of everything going up, they talked about the electric vehicles and that they're more affordable right now. And the prices are coming down with some of those brands. So it's something to think about, whether you would, you know, go with what Earl said, or you would just really be ready to jump in and get yourself an electric vehicle if you so desire and if you can afford it. You know, it was an interesting statement from Justin Fisher from YAA, and if you haven't joined, you really should.

They've got a lot of great information over there, and we are hand in hand with them. They said that in this breaking point that we're in, in this breaking point that we're in, with high interest rates, with car payments, with the price of a vehicle, whether it's used, whether it's new, right now, a new car, a new car costs more than many Americans make a year. Wow. What a statement. What are your thoughts? 877-960-960 or Texas, 772-497-6-530, and if you're a little shy, your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to Stu. Okay, doke. Let's see. Anonymous feedback. This is for Rick, on the topic of hybrid still. Good morning, Rick. I think gas prices must be high. We're having a lot of questions about this. morning, Rick, on a hybrid, once the hybrid battery dies, may I continue using the vehicle with the gas engine only, no, and not replace the hybrid battery, no.

Will I cause any major damage to the vehicle? No, must I replace the hybrid battery? Thank you. I'm sorry, I hope everyone is well. I love the show. Yeah, most hybrids, the car will shut down within a short time after the hybrid battery finally reaches its quitting phase. they don't unlike a gasoline engine though we've seen that they don't suddenly just fail completely

and leave you stranded alongside the road it's like the battery starts failing and it gives you a few warning gas some warning signs saying hey the lights will come on and you'll get the hybrid alert on the dash and it gives you a chance to okay i got to make an appointment get into the dealer in the next couple days and get it checked out and then you've got a chance to get it repaired without being stuck alongside the road in the rain in the dark suddenly not a tow truck right i got a question so when they fail i mean there's individual cells in the battery right like yes as a if a if a cell in the battery fails or is failing is that necessarily in the battery is going to is it going to indicate to you in the car you got one going or can one go bad and your car still run it will still run but

The only indication you'll have is just a warning light. Okay. It's just a generic warning light, says hybrid issue. When you have an issue like this, is it possible that you're just having an issue with a couple of cells and it's an inexpensive repair or is it once you have a cell going, the whole thing has got to be replaced? Now, the original intention was to be able to replace individual cells, but that never came about. It went to replace the entire battery as a unit, and that's just been the way that it's been done. I just checked a hybrid battery on a Prius cost of a replacement on Amazon. Oh.

And you can buy one on Amazon for $2,169.99. Wow. So that's about in line with a Toyota factory price, yeah. That's not bad. They've come down. It's very heavy. Get somebody to help you lift it. Yeah.

And now bear in mind. Use your back. Use your back. And find a qualified technician to do that job to replace. And what did they originally call us new back of the day? Oh, when they first came out in 2001, when the Prius first hit the shores here, and everybody was wondering, how much would that battery cost? It was over $10,000 for the battery.

Okay, there you are, folks. That's a huge reduction, 80% reduction. There's a deflation. You know, the Prius battery dropped in price. That was 20 years ago. 80%. That was 20 years ago. It was $10,000.

Now, 20 years later, it's $2,000. Exactly. That's more good news. So the caller, you can replace the battery, and you will save enough on gas to pay for the battery by running on hybrid. Of course, you have no choice anyway, but you should replace the battery. That's the reason I said you won't hurt the car by doing it because the car won't do anything. Right. And as a matter of fact, in 2001, when Preas was first hit here, it was still a learning experience.

we actually had a customer after a couple of years that his gas engine wouldn't fire up. He'd run it out of fuel, and he kept restarting the car trying to make it run on the hybrid system until he actually depleted the hybrid battery. The safeguards weren't there to prevent it, and so I'll, you know, just to brag a little bit, I'm one of the first people in southeast Toyota, the whole southern United States, to have manually recharged a hybrid battery and saved this customer the cost of replacing the battery because he had drained it right down to nothing.

Oh, I'm macro. But since then, now there are safeguards built into the software. It will not let you deplete it that far anymore. There we go. They learned something. All right, I got some more anonymous feedback here. This is a great question. I wish it wasn't anonymous because I want to praise the person.

A few years ago, I read that the highest paid employee at the dealer's is the finance manager? Is that still true? And does that help explain the shady reputation of the car dealer business? Well, I would say they're the highest paid employee at the car dealership, but they are amongst the highest paid people and certainly of the whole dealership, not just the sales department. And the reason for that, gosh, I guess it's because a good F and I person, someone who's very, very skilled at taking advantage of people. I shouldn't say that. There's honest ones too, but they're highly in demand and they're highly paid individuals. They're paid a percentage of the profit of the things that they can sell you and

sneak in on you in the finance department. Let me hold up an article in the current automotive news. The headline is five of six public's top two thousand. in per car F&I profit. Now, the public's or they publicly owned automobile dealers. They include AutoNation, Sonic Automotive, Group One Automotive, Asbury Automotive, Lethia Motors, and Penske. Now, you probably haven't heard a lot of those names. I know you've heard AutoNation. That's because the other publicly owned, these are traded on the stock exchange.

They own 10, 20, 30, 40, hundreds of dealerships and they changed the name. So they don't say Sonic Mazda. They don't say Group 1 Toyota. It's another name. But the basic thing is, if you take the top six publics, you're talking about almost half of the cars that are sold in the United States. Now these dealerships, this is a slice. The reason we know this is because they're public corporations, they have to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission where the money comes from. And so, car dealers keep their financial statements extremely secret. You really don't know.

The manufacturers see them, but they keep that secret too. Even our association, National Automobile Dealers, keeps all the numbers secret. Well, the publicly companies have to disclose. So, Auto Nation, in the first quarter of this year, on every car they sold, and that's Chevroletes, Fords, Buicks, Toyotas, they own about every type of franchise, Cadillac, Lexus, they're huge all

over the United States. They made on the average $2,691 on every car they sold, new and used. Whether they financed it or not. Now remember, some people pay cash, so they make zero.

You know, a guy comes in, he writes out of check for his Lexus, and his chauffeur drives them home. You know, they don't finance the car. But that still is counted in to the denominator when you're actually measuring the per car finance profit. $2,691. And the, every one of these groups, except for Penske, Penske is only $1932. Now, when you consider that the car dealers are making probably on average, I'm going to throw a number out, Stu probably knows better than I, but $4,000 a car on new, new

profit. Just on the front part. On the front part. Add another 2,000 of that. So, because they're getting the $2,000 on the back end. So they're making... I think you're light. You're light by a couple of thousands. Well, some dealers are I might buy a lot. Some dealers, I'm not. But on the average, you're probably right.

Six or seven maybe instead of four, I don't know. The point is the finance department has always been, except during the shortage of supply. Now, suddenly the front end has become more important, but be careful when you finance your car especially now yeah there's a lot of factors that are not apparent to like for example um you got the the anonymous uh question uh came in want to know like why are they the highest paid well there anytime you got a situation where you're paying somebody a percentage of

the profit and especially in a situation where there is like really no limits on that you have a very dangerous situation a finance guy is he's got a lot of temptation right there people are financing more than they've ever financed. So just the profit he's making on rate. So when you finance a car and they mark up the rate several points, part of that's going in his pocket. So he's very tempted to not give you the rate

the bank gives them. He wants to mark that up even more. When they're trying to sell you warranties, the pressure is coming out really, really hard. There's a good F&I person. Remember, this is not a college graduate. He doesn't have a master's a Ph.D. He has no specialized training

other than six weeks maybe in F&I school, these guys are making a really good one. We'll make anywhere from a quarter million dollars a year to a half a million. And some make more. So, you know, a good FNA guy is good for a quarter million dollars a year. That's a lot of money. And that's true in almost every dealership. There's a whole different psychological situation in the finance office.

Now you've got somebody who waited six months for a car. They're not walking away from that deal. So on a typical back in normal times, somebody walks into a showroom on a Saturday. do they come in the guy in the finance department puts it on too thick they go all right let's go down the street and they leave people aren't leaving now they got too much in the line i didn't even think about that if they lost uh and they think they got a decent price on the car they might never find that car or they might never find that price right so you say i'm sorry this is the lowest interest rate i can get you take it or leave it and they take it and they take it to leave right and also the the

the psychology is different on the sales end of it too because there's no fear because they don't care if you away from that car there's a guy who's going to pay more money literally that day or within hours so folks don't buy a car exactly don't buy a car today do not buy a car today unless you absolutely have to uh it's a seller's market the dealers are getting rich the finance managers are getting rich the sales manager everybody uh the dealers uh the manufacturers so is stay out of the market for a few months anyway if you can sounds like a good idea um just as a sidebar i just got a alert from Tesla. Our car may be gone.

I'm not sure. Do they just, the car just leave and go to the service department without you? Possibly. You need a ride home? I got room. Ladies, please. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call.

Say hello. 877-960-9960. We are going to go back to the phones where Sarah Lynn is holding from Boynton Beach. and Phil, we'll be right with you. Good morning, Sarah, Lynn. Good morning, Nancy. I am actually calling to thank you all for your time and knowledge. You guys are excellent, beautiful people.

Aw. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all. And I wish you all a great day. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. Sarah, before you go, I believe this is the first time that you've called the show.

no it isn't it isn't no ma'am maybe the second thanks for calling again i'm planning a seed i'm encouraging you to call more often i do thank you call my name sarah instead of sarah lynn okay thank you so much thank you all so much have a great day thanks for the compliment sarah lynn have a great weekend you too bye bye bye bye okay we are going to go to Phil who's holding in West Palm Beach good morning Phil

hey how you all doing this morning I was really taken by your story about your Tesla because I've got one ordered I've had it ordered since October and I'm really tenuous about do I really want to buy this car because I've got a I've got a Prius Hybrid I've had for 2017, and I absolutely love it.

In fact, I've also got a hybrid ordered from an NX Lexus from J&M, thinking maybe I would take the hybrid over getting the Tesla. So after y'all just went through, with yours, I am really tenuous about taking this car. Well, we were very angry, Phil, and still are to a little, to some extent. and I think we've cooled off a little bit. In reflection, and Nancy's got her opinion too, in reflection, I have never, I've had that Tesla for over a year, and I haven't taken it into service.

There hasn't been a service required. Now, there's not too many cars you can say that up. With combustion engine cars, you can't do that. You've got to bring it in every six months or 5,000 miles, whichever comes first. You've got to have the oil change. I don't have to have the oil change. So I think the electric car, the all-electric car will require fireless maintenance.

I think that the Tesla anticipated this a bit in their service departments. I think the problem that we're seeing with Tesla, Nancy and I are that one thing it's almost impossible to get them on the telephone. When I bought the car, I could not get people on the phone. If I did get them on the phone, it was a chore. It was a chore, and they didn't have the answers. They're set up 21st century for strictly electronic communications, and it's efficient. The same thing with the car. So it will be a culture change for you, Phil.

But I would not not get the Tesla because of the service department treatment. They need to work on that. And I think they will improve it. I'm with you on that. Phil, don't let it not let you get the car, but I had a similar experience with a service issue, and I found it frustrating, too. There's not a lot of human contact, a lot of messaging on the app, and it's impersonal. It's efficient, like Earl said, but if you're confused about something, you need to speak to somebody, it's not that easy. It definitely isn't that easy.

And, you know, my point is the fact that there was a lot of money spent on this plaid, a whole lot of money, And I don't know, maybe I had my Pollyanna attended glasses on or something, but I thought that all of the texts that Earl received in that couple of weeks, and up until the moment we pulled in, I thought they were all accurate, you know, and I kind of dropped the ball because I usually check on things, but it is that Tesla reputation and Elon Musk, And I thought that that thought and that journey would follow me all the way through to the dealership and the software update and everything in between, including the gentleman who was standing there with the clipboard who just didn't inform us prior to us arriving, which, like I said, you know, we came a long way. But would I buy a Tesla?

absolutely did I want to buy a Tesla that day no Earl said come on he said let's go in I says you really don't want to take me in there because Earl knows that well I can put the crazy hat on real quick so like I said and back pain had a lot to do with it too I was in a terrible amount of pain and I drove all the way to Okotobie Boulevard and I just expected better but as I I always say. I say it all the time. Knowledge is power. And like I said, maybe I dropped the ball. So that's my take. Well, and the thing is, too, I agree with you because I've been trying to get information about the status of the car and everything. And you've got to call people on the phone. And half the time, you can't get them. And they don't even return calls when I call the service center down there in Okeechobee. So I'm not really sure that this is what I want to do at this point. in time.

Yeah, I don't buy her. I mean, it's kind of cost in the business. I don't, I don't, Nancy says she's still going to buy the car. I'm not so sure. I mean, it's just,

it's something that you have to, I, I'm a first, I'm one of these people, I've got to have the first iPhone, the first this, the first, I like high tech. And I know the pain I go through.

I'm wearing something called an aura ring. I'll hold it up. It's really cool. I won't go into the technical benefits. It's a health, health thing. There aren't a human being.

that work for this company, I'm convinced. Everything is strictly computerized, high-tech, texting back and forth. And you have to get into that mode if you're going to get a Tesla. And I'm not completely in that mode. And, you know, I was born in 1940. I think if you were born in 1975, it would be a different story. You know, speaking of being, you know, born in 1940, you know, Earl pointed out to me yesterday several times.

Earl and I are in our 80s. And guess what? You know, we are really a tech savvy. Earl, he's a genius. And he does so many things to update our technology, you know, in the house. It's just incredible. So I don't know. Does it have anything to do with us being in our 80s?

You just want, you spend that much money on a car and you just expect better. But I'm just pleading to the audience out there, the Tesla audience, that you still have to do your homework. Knowledge is power. And am I going, again, to buy the S, I probably will. It's a great car. Elon Musk has got a great product. Thanks for calling, Phil. Keep us posted on your decision.

I appreciate it, thanks. Yes, please do. I think that Rick has got some YouTube backed up. from my sources. Actually, I got a couple interesting ones here. Our buddy Donovan. He says, when it comes to EVs, all you have to do is look at Europe. They're about 24 months ahead of us when it comes to this.

We are about 6% of cars sold EV. They are 25% of cars sold being EV. They will be at 50% in 2025. We'll be there a short time after. It should be said that hybrid batteries last a really long time, and they have, the lifespan has increased. So this should not be a worry for someone buying one. The same goes for a full EV. They will last a really long time.

And I've got one other here from our buddy Negan one who says, good morning, Rick. Learned an important lesson about changing cabin air filters. My AC, now bear in mind, Negan lives out in Arizona. probably some very dry, dusty conditions where he is quite often. He says, my AC had been acting up the last few weeks in Arizona hot weather. Some days, 42 degrees out of the vent, other days 50 plus. I had to drive to Phoenix, and in the afternoon, the AC would not get below 55 degrees out and 110 degrees ambient temperature, was going to head to the dealer and said,

well, let me check the cabin air filter. It was the original three-year-old cabin air filter. Now, they're generally recommended, I know, to hit a recommend, because that's a helpful not to do it on the radio. Yeah, every $30,000, you should replace your cab and air filter. It was very, very dirty. He changed it out, and it's now getting back down at 42 degrees where it should be. And he said it was also causing high refrigerant pressures.

The compressor was making a noise in higher RPMs. and with the new filter, that noise is gone, which because of that restricted airflow through that filter, it's causing issues. The danger is that changing an air filter is on the checklist every service salesman has when you come in. And they go by the book, and what Rick is saying and what the caller is saying,

you ought to check the filter. I mean, you really should check it. And if you look at the filter, you can tell if it needs to be changed. But sometimes the book will say, it's time to change your filter, but it might be perfectly clean. And it's good for another 5,000 miles. So tell them, physically inspect the filter and show it to you. Exactly.

And bear in mind also, a lot of folks I know have allergy issues. I've got some. And there are available activated charcoal filters. They're a much higher quality material. They are more expensive. But if you do. want to consider this for health issues replacing your cabin air filter with one of these activated charcoal filters helps reduce that pollen and stuff that might get by the normal paper

filter and could help improve your quality of life a little bit so just something to consider yeah absolutely Rick that is a great point and all of us have these crazy allergies and some of us don't some of us don't even realize how serious they can be did Did you say you don't? No, I said not all of us. Yeah, well, Earl, you're, Earl's an Android. You all know that, right? He's actually not.

He's, he's an Android. Who are we talking about? I mean, here's it mean. He sneezes. Surprise. Oh, that's just in his programming. One last quick one here. A question came in from Ernesto.

He says, do hybrids have the same auto start, stop feature like a regular ice or internal combustion engine vehicle? And they actually do, but bear in mind that a hybrid car has no starter motor and does, and the 12-volt battery only turns on the electric systems. It's the hybrid battery and the big electric motors that start and stop the gas engine. So those units, it's like comparing a fly to an eagle. I mean, it used almost no power to start that gas engine from the hybrid system. I had a flashback on the Prius when they first came out and I was at the dealership.

I went up to a floor garage where we had a bunch of Priuses parked and I was just wandering around and I kept hearing these cars start up and by the time I got over there it was off again and it was the Priuses that were starting up as I was up on the floor all by myself. It was like a ghost pilot was getting in these cars and starting them up but it was just the automatic They keep them going after a while. Well, the, actually, a lot of them have, or had at one point, a solar roof that the roof panel was a solar cell. Yeah. And it would actually start the blower fans to help circulate the air and keep the inside of the car much cooler.

Why didn't they drop that? I don't know. I guess the expense of the solar roof, a lot of people didn't want to pay the extra money for it. That's what it was. But it was, it was one of the features that although. was a little bit expensive. It worked. We got any more YouTube, sir? We're caught up at the moment now.

How about text? We have anonymous feedback and text. This is Rick. This is for you. It's anonymous feedback. This channel is hard to put a value on. I hope they're struggling to put a good value. I mean, hard to put a value. All of us learn as you host, share knowledge, as career professionals. I want to respond to something Rick said during your show on June 4th about the

sequence of making connections when jumping. a battery. Rick said to connect the positive side first and then the negative side because the negative is less likely to throw a spark and start a fire due to the potential for hydrogen gas to escape. My knowledge as an electronic tech says that there is no difference in spark at either polarity. The voltage potential is there unrelated to which side the load is on. The car electronics are merely a load. Imagine you are connecting a different load like a 12-volt headlamp to a battery via jumper cables. You will still get the same spark no matter which terminal connects last.

What do you say, Rick? Actually, that is partially true, but remember that what I recommend it was hook the negative cable on the weak car, the weak battery last because it's going to be turned off and not drawing as much current across those cables at that moment. And once you have it connected, that's when you're going to start it up, and it will draw the current. So that weaker battery has a lot less voltage potential available to it and therefore less chance of a spark.

Okay, I didn't understand that. Oh, it was a spark was the issue. Right. Yeah. Because when you're making that, that final connection, yeah. Creating a spark, if there's any hydrogen gas has collected near that battery, there is that small potential of a fire. And so you just, it's, you're really, you're really, you're really,

burn the hair off your knuckles or one that's going to explode the hood off the car yeah the smaller one did you say small a small there's a very small potential for a small potential small potential small flash yes a small explosion and we're talking something happens once in a million chances did it ever happen to you no never your father must have told you from the get-go well there's there's a lot of the old wives tales uh but just yeah even as you look in your repair manual, it will describe to you how to hook it up, and it always says, connect that, last negative, last.

Okay. Earl, you want to share with the audience your small potential for a fire while using the grill? I digress. Ladies and gentlemen, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-3530.

Don't forget, ladies, I still have $100 right here, $50 for the first two new lady callers give us a call give us a shout give us an experience it doesn't matter we just want to hear from you 877 960 960 we're going to go back to the phones and thank you frank for holding good morning and how are you oh boy hey frank Hello. Hey, Frank.

We hear you. I called last week. I got another question. My dashboard said that the battery is getting weak in my top, so I changed it, went out to car, and it wouldn't work. So I took the key out, opened the door, went in the car, and the dashboard said, hold the key near the start button, put your foot on the brake. but the car wouldn't start. So I went back in the house, I got another battery,

apparently that one was no good to begin with, put it in, and it worked. Why didn't the car start when I followed the direction? Now that's a difficult one, because normally the immobilizer chip that's in your fob, if you hold it up directly against the power button, that's where the one of the rings is, that will detect that chip you need to hold it with the emblem side against the power switch

though if you actually had it backwards sometimes that creates just enough gap that the signal won't travel far enough um so they always say hold the emblem side i'm sorry i didn't do it that way i just held it up and i was in the hurry because i had a doctor appointment so i just went in to change the battery and okay so i'll know if that ever happens Yep, if... I changed the batteries as soon as I saw the warning there, but I was getting low. Right. Yeah, you might have got a...the battery you got was...

Might have been dead for some reason. But yeah, in case even if the fob gets wet, you know, say it gets... You accidentally go in the pool or in the water with it and it does kill that fob to where it doesn't work, that chip will still work. You just hold the emblem side directly against the power switch, step on the brake, and then press that powers button and it will start up. Let me ask this question, Rick, you magnify, you amplify the signal when you hold it up against your head or your chin. And would, if you held the symbol side up against your forward, would that be better than holding it up against the... No, because you don't actually, you're not actually transmitting a signal at that point.

You're actually using the chip itself that has a range really of only. about a half an inch. Yeah, very good. Okay, another little trick, Phil. That'll, Frank, I mean, if comes up again, you know what to do. Thanks for the call. Yeah, all right, thank you.

Have a great weekend. 877-960. Earl, you know, I forgot all about mentioning you earlier about being a genius. Here you are. You're sitting in the Tesla just kind of tinkering around,

probably doing something more productive than they did down on Okeechobee Boulevard. And so your map, your screen is out. It's what, what was it, black and white or whatever? And over and over and over again, you know, I mean, we had to use the car in that condition. So explain what you did to reactivate that beautiful, colored map. It wasn't my genius at all.

It was Colonel Google. And actually, it was YouTube. I can't stress enough folks, especially the older people out there, If you don't use Google and YouTube regularly, I dare you to think of any question that you can come up with if they can't answer. I played with that dashboard and all the controls, and I went through the thing over and over again, and I was totally frustrated. Finally, I just went to Google and I said, why did my navigation map change the gray scale from color, and how can I change it back? back. I just put it in in English. I didn't try to be fancy. I just spoke the way I would normally speak. Number one on the list was a YouTube and it said that it repeated exactly

what my question was Rick. Could have been Rick. Yeah. What to do? Google Rick. But basically I watched the YouTube. I'm sitting in the Tesla and I watched it and I said do this, do that, hit this button, hit that. Bam, I got the color back. So did you comment on the video? and thank them for saving your life? I should have. I didn't do that. I'll go back and do that. I will do that, yeah.

But there is not an answer. Google doesn't have. You can get trapped by going down too far to find something. It sounds better. Take the first answer. The first answer is usually the best answer and simplest. And folks, when you do that on a YouTube channel for someone like that, take a moment, hit the like button and subscribe.

Yeah, exactly. Believe it or not, a lot of these folks, make a living or make a good side. They supplement their income very well. And the more subscribers that they have on their channels, the more advertising they get it. The higher up the list. And you know what?

I'm going to start doing some YouTube's. You know why? Earl told a great story right now, but he didn't start from the very beginning where I had to take the hammer out of his hand. And he was like, la la, he charged the Tesla with the hammer.

He started out. He started. His story at a very calm YouTube. He came in Chapter 3. Went to YouTube. I want that sound as a sound effect for everything. He goes through that to come up with the answer, then the listeners don't have to go through that. Well, a millennial doesn't have the fit.

And I have to overcome my 20th century mentality, and then I can enter briefly the world of the millennial. This is a conversation that we have. often yes hey stew sorry sorry to bug you um this is going wrong i don't know had you google it and you're like damn it all right yeah let me google it yeah exactly exactly and i can credit stew and my other sons were telling me too uh because i would calm down i would call you know i called i called Travis jones right and said can you tell me i know you don't work on desla and fortunately he was busy right i should have never called him so i had time to uh to fiddle with Google and I fiddle with Google I text them back and said never mind well it's kind of funny

because that's what everybody's doing like so people call the show we don't know the answer we're Googling it you call Travis yeah he's going to Google it you call Josh he Googles it we just got to Google you got to Google you got to remember Google is probably they're going to be the AI monster that they already are a little funny all hail Lambda is that I believe it was Google fired an employee because the employee the employee was absolutely convinced

that the their AI yeah their AI a bot their AI robot Lambda was human Lambda completely sentient yeah I read the conversation I know they're saying it's not

it's a pretty smart bot there that sounds it sounds real this guy he worked for Google he hired a lawyer Yeah, you're right. No, he did. The Ba asked him, the AI said he wants a lawyer, so he hired him a lawyer. Yeah, okay. That's true. I know. So it's amazing. It's, you all folks like me that can put one foot into the 21st century, it's a lot of fun. You'll still be frustrated, and only the millennials will fully appreciate it. But we got our one foot in there. The millennials don't know anything, Dad. It's not the millennials. It's not the millennials. It's Gen. It's Gen Z. Okay, kids. We're really backed up now. I lost track.

Hey, Jonathan, is that Dick that's holding right now? Okay, Dick, thank you so much. I know you've been holding for a while. We got carried away here. Good morning. Hello, Dick. Hello, in Radio Land. Thank you. Yeah, there you are. Oh, here. Yeah, good morning, Earl. How you doing? Doing great, thank you. I called before and talk tovester with you.

a year ago or so before you bought yours and I got one I bought in 2018 I saw that call the morning and sort of give the opposite side about the service department

I have had a several locations since the late 2018 to have my car done it which you'll be and the previous location the laws been positive

I've had such things done as just recently my big battery went out and they replaced that. Wow. Totally moved, totally kept me on track on the battery. This was like 35,000 miles, but they paid for the whole thing. They gave me a almost new, a loner S to drive two weeks

while they got the battery in and all that. And the communication was good. I agree, you can't call them. They don't know how to use it or whatever, but I've had good luck with texting them, quick response, and whatever. Prior to that service thing, I've had it in for one. I had mice get into my wiring and destroy my airbag system. They fixed that, and I'm, well, I call the minimal cost.

The harness had been chewed out. I think it was $400, but that was all on me and my insurance company for comprehensive. also had some body damage on a bumper to the inadvertent accident and the body shop was great I didn't even know they had a body shop. They didn't even know they had a body shop. Wow.

Working on wonderful. Well, that's good, you know. I just thought I was listening to you. Yeah, I'm glad you called. Yeah. Nancy and I were talking on the car about this and as a car dealer, I hear people that called me up

and tell them, me I have the worst service department and the people were rude and abusive and they didn't have the part and I hear this and they get me all upset and I call Stu and get him all upset and then I have to remember that 99 times out of 100 people are happy and I know that so we had a bad experience I'm so glad to hear that you have a good experience out there It happens, right? I mean, wrong time, wrong day, wrong person. Those things happen.

Human beings are human beings. And now I can anticipate a happier experience next time I go out there. Thanks very much. Yeah, well, I just, and we talked before, I'm into the cars for a long time. I'm a senior judge for AACA for years. and a retired engineer from Brad Whitney and all that stuff. Yeah. And I've had my Tesla, and I've got to agree, I'm a Tesla fan,

and it will always be because the car is just great. But the service is not as bad as some people are describing and thought it was worth of coal. How often do you bring it in for routine maintenance? I'm a shame to tell you, I haven't read the online owner's manual, but how often do you go in, and what do they do for routine maintenance? Well, it changed the air filter. That's it.

That's it, yeah. So very little maintenance. There's no maintenance to it. I mean, I probably could have done that myself. I'm kind of happily to be some mechanic. But I just thought the services. They're trying to make it better, too. Well, thank you very much.

Hey, Dick, I have a question for you. Dick, are you talking about the Tesla dealership? on okechobee boulevard right okay dick did you go inside the garage with your tesla yeah yeah what was your feeling dick how did you like the atmosphere how did you like the conditions was it any different from it sounds like you've been buying cars for a long time not teslas yeah but was it any different from any of the other garages that you had been in i quite a bit different I'm 85. I bought a lot of cars. So you bought a lot of cars, Dick.

So what's your opinion? The opinion was the garage was all but spotless. So it is meticulous. And mechanics are sitting right there. The guy that handles you sitting in the garage. Okay, that's all I wanted to hear. Thanks for your phone call. Yeah.

Anytime you want to talk Tesla or I got a question, I'm a halfway decent engineer on Tesla's and a fair amount of experience. travel and charging and all that. Boy, that's great, Dick. I can't wait to hear from you again. Please give us a call. We'll follow up on the air about our service and how it went. Give us a call again.

I would send Earl, I'm not Earl, send the Elon tweet. He's apparently listening to those. Yeah. Okay, take care. I don't think of that. Okay, we... I really enjoy your show. Thank you so much.

Bye now. Bye-bye. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to full. Felicia, who's the first time, no, no Felicia. Okay. Bye, Felicia. How about Mary?

Okay. Mary, we haven't heard from you for a while. Mary calls us from LaBelle. Good morning. Hello. We've got Phil in, Mary. Again with another problem. I have a 2011 Honda CRV with about 120,000 miles on it.

And I've had no, no, issues with it until this week when on two occasions on the same morning it shut down and the steering locked while I was coasting once at about 25 miles an hour coming into a roundabout and one and once at about five miles an hour going into a parking space oh that's scary no yes very scary no check engine light came on no sputtering no rough idle. What was unusual was I normally don't go below a half a tank. I was down somewhere between a quarter and a third of a tank of fuel. There's been no recurrence since I filled the tank. And when I put it in park and restarted, you know, there was no problem. But I'm really

concerned about it happening in the future, especially since I oftentimes am driving And at, you know, interstate. Were you out of gas? Was it, I mean, did it like? No. Oh, okay. No, no, because it started right up, you know, on both occasions. There was no sputtering.

But it was pretty scary. Is this a push-to-start car, has push-button start? No, it's your old-fashioned key. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, it's a 2011. Because the thing that's getting me is the steering wheel locking, normally steering wheel locks will not engage unless the key is turned back to the off position.

That's actually a mechanical system versus an electronic solenoid, because push button cars use the solenoid. So for that steering wheel to lock, that sounds like something's failing in that ignition key cylinder area that would allow that steering to actually lock. Yeah, my friend Don Brown cautioned me about did it actually lock or was it just hard to turn? In my recollect, which, you know, I appreciate those are two different things. And in my recollection, it locked.

Like it would, you know, I was highly energized at the time and I could not turn the wheel. Oh, that, because my first thought would be you have an electrical issue that caused it to shut off, a loss of power, loss of ground somewhere that caused the computer to shut the engine off. But that steering wheel locking is very concerning to me because of the issue that, like I say, when a normal, on a key-type system where you have to turn the key to start the engine,

the steering wheel lock, like I see, it's mechanical, not electrical. I would get that to a dealer and have them check it out very thoroughly to make sure if there's something going on, because that is extremely dangerous if that steering wheel locked. Terrible. Because a loss of steering, that's definitely not something to take lightly. And if it was an electrical problem, wouldn't the check engine light have come on? possibly, but if it lost power to the computer for some reason, say a main relay were to shut

off for some reason, the computer wouldn't have had power to even illuminate the light. Mary, this is Nancy Stewart. You know, because this has happened to me, you know, here we are, could have been this, could it have been that, you know, it could have been anything. but the main thing here is that it is extremely dangerous for something like that to happen depending upon where you are right now fortunately in both cases i was not on the interstate i was just going to say you know at least honestly so so a dealer go to a dealer not to a standard garage right i i would yeah i would yeah i would we go to the dealer simply because of the more experience that they would have and the potential that they may have seen this condition before and be familiar with it.

Call us next week and let us know how it went, but do take it to your dealer, Mary, and we'd love to hear from you and see what happened if they gave you the right scoop and we're able to get it fixed for you. But please take it to the dealer right away and call us next week. Thanks very much for the call. You, Mary, it was great hearing from you again. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Earl. Thank you, Rick. I will be back with you next week.

Oh, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Okay. Thank you, you, too. We are going to take one last call. Boy, where did the time go? We've got so many things to get to amongst one of the things, our mystery shopping report.

And Jonathan, I believe that's Paul who's holding. Okay, we're going to go to Paul. Paul, thanks for your patience, Paul. Hi there, good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning. I have a question. Hi there. I have a question.

I ordered a new Toyota from you guys, like back in February. Still hasn't come in yet. But a couple of weeks ago, a car came my way, which was a 14-year-old Lexus RX-350. when I went to look at the car it was in such incredible unbelievable condition it was one of those things that I couldn't not buy because it only had

27,000 miles on it a recommendation what preventive maintenance services would you recommend I do on this 27,000 mile car now? Exactly what's in the owner's manual and if you don't have one you can buy one

online or you can buy one at the would probably be cheaper online. Oh, don't buy one, just go online and they're available as a PDF file. No, no, no, I have the owner's manual. I looked at it, but the question that I had was because the car is

so old, should I have some, any additional preventive maintenance things that I could do now, such as change the transmission fluid? Chase doesn't require it yet. Should I do it now because the car is so old? Here's what I would look at.

I would have the brakes inspected for how thick the pads are and whether there's any sign of heavy corrosion on the rotors. Basically, just take your car to a mechanic that you trust and have him go over it with a fine tooth comb and tell, recommend you what should be done when you take it in for your first maintenance. And after that, just go by your owner's manual. Oh, yeah, okay, because, you know, I was just thinking that it might be a good idea.

And it's hard to describe this car. It, you know, it had a clean car fact. The condition was so unbelievable. The car even still smells new inside. Okay? And I was just wondering what, you know, maybe to change the tranny fluid, change the brake fluid. You know, and I've already had the car looked at by my mechanic.

And, you know. Well, if he didn't recommend any problems, and he's a good mechanic, then you're good. then if he says you're good to go you're good to go and now get your owner's manual recommendation and you're going to be coming

at least every six months to get the owner at least to get check the tire pressure and maybe an oil change yeah okay that's it wow yeah that's because it you know

it still drives like a new car unfortunately I'm going to have to cancel the Toyota I ordered from you guys in February well normally we would be sad thank you You made people happy. Yeah, we'll have to, because we've got a lot of people. Yeah, there won't be a problem.

But thanks for the original idea, and congratulations on a great buy. And Lexus is the best car in the world, and you've got a real doozy with extremely little mileage. Enjoy it. And give it a nice wash and wax. The car was garage kept since new, had two owners, had regular, you know, the Lexus maintenance services were all done. I flipped out. For $19,000, I couldn't not buy the car. Absolutely.

Paul, thanks so much for the call. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Okay, folks, the phone lines are closed, and we are going to go back to Stu, I believe. It was clean up the remaining text. Here's one for Rick. I'm not sure if I should ask.

This is from Ola. I'm not sure if I should ask, but I'd really love to know how Rick developed all these knowledge-packed information. He's extremely brilliantly intelligent. It's okay if he doesn't want to share his background. And I said, I'll give him a chance to brag a little bit. I do know that we were in the same advanced placement physics class in 1986 together. I am a nerd. I read things.

And I have a little bit of a gift of a relatively good memory. He drinks wine and knows things. Yep And he's really good with Google He's really good with Google That too Yep That memory is really

Really important It just I have good retention On a lot of knowledge And Yeah Cars interest to me I love the technology

So I I read a lot about it I learn a lot about it And I've got good retention He likes to talk to people He's a very people-friendly person And unlike a lot of mechanics

that are, you know, they don't want to get involved with customers. Rick likes to talk to the customer. And you can find out more from asking the right questions of a customer than you can with your diagnostic machinery. I mean, you really need to hear the fact. When you come into a car dealership today, you talk to a service salesman, he listens to you. This guy probably never worked on a car in his life,

and he's going to come up with some ideas. He's going to send to a technician who you never see. He can rely a lot on the service salesman said that he wrote down on your repair order. If you could talk to a guy like Rick Kearney when you go into a service department directly to the technicians that are going to work on your car, and he knows the right questions to ask, you'll get a lot better repair. So that's the reason Rick is such a great mechanic. You know, that's a really good point that you point out about Rick.

And anyone who has listened to the show probably picks up the first. fact that he is a people person. And to my point, automotive news, automotive news, they point out exactly that is something that they don't always find in a mechanic or anyone who works in that field. And guess what? As far as looking for mechanics, they have really switched over to another pool talent they call it and that is someone who communicates with people like Rick and they're few and far between but it is an important talent and you can't go to school to learn that talent thank you for all you do so we got any more our text huh yeah the last one came in it's from Fiona and uh she needs our help and buying a new car she said her she says

my manager is a diehard fan of the show and encourage me to listen in. Yesterday, I read almost every blog you have ever posted, literally. Wow, that's a lot of blogs. I was counting them. There's a lot, yeah. I'm a woman, however, I am shy, embarrassed, and rather emotional at this moment considering my debacle. That's the only reason I haven't called in this morning, but I'm willing to share my experience. Not just today, I'd rather not be so emotional.

I'm hoping that someone there will help my car buying in her process. This week, she's made, I've made several attempts to purchase a vehicle most recently by utilizing Costco's auto program. However, the authorized dealer contact will not email me the member-only price sheet. That's the question. Call Costco Auto. They have to, the rules are they have to show it to you, whether they, you know, emailing it, they're okay with that. So there's no reason they shouldn't do that. Maybe you have somebody who's not trained, but they need to give you that sheet.

Yeah, go to the Costco Autobuying.com. There's an 800 number of free toll. Call that number. Tell them who you are, tell them who the dealer are, who the dealer is and what the problem is. And they will call the dealer and they will admonish him. And dealers have to follow the rules if they want to be Costco recommended. Now, Fiona, if you don't have to get a car, put this off because even through the Costco program, it's still not a good deal. And dealers are not going to be willing to, they feel right now that they're entitled to these huge profits that they're getting.

So even the Costco auto buying program is not nothing. And when you buy the car, if you do buy it from the Costco auto dealer, put on your buyer's order, your sales contract that the dealer agrees to sell you that car at the Costco recommended price at the time you take delivery. Because that can change. It's not going to go up. It's probably going to go down. It might not go down, but it's a safety factor. You don't want to sign a contract at a price today and have prices $1,000 cheaper in six months when your car comes in.

So be sure the dealer agrees to sell you at the Costco member price at the time you take delivery. All right. All right. I think we are all caught up. Okay. I'm going to get into the mystery shopping report in just a second, but there's a very important issue that we talked about three, four weeks ago.

haven't talked about it much since then, and it has to do with the purchase option price and the lawsuits out there because the dealers are trying to take cars from customers, leasing customers, and buying them below the market value is so high, the purchase option price is a huge bargain, and if you're a leasing customer now, you should always exercise that option price. Whether you want to keep the car or resell it, there's a lot of equity. Mosher Katzberg is going through a class action shoot. I remiss. I should have called him. I didn't. He's involved in a class action suit for dealers that are doing just this. They are refusing to honor their lease contract. And that's a violation of the law. Automotive News this week. Lawsuit,

BMW kept equity after cars totaled. BMW is being sued in California. The lessor driving the car totaled the car. The car is totaled, it goes, of course, back to the leasing company. The glitch is that the value of the car, the replacement value of the car, is thousands of dollars higher than the residual value. If it had not been totaled, he could exercise the purchase the purchase option price and had a car at thousands of dollars below market value.

In this case here, it was total. So BMW would have had the profit that you have taken, they stole from that leasing from that lessor. So if you're leasing a car today, just remember this, if you don't remember anything else, You have a purchase option price on that car, at least the car three years ago, it's coming up real quick, and that purchase option price is thousands of dollars below, which you can sell it for. So you have to buy the car at that price.

The law requires. You can buy that car from the leasing company through the dealer maybe, but from the leasing company as the purchase option price. Turn around and sell it to the dealer or somebody else for thousands of dollars more. So don't forget that. I promise to get a hold of Mosher, Katsberg, before next Saturday, see how the class action suits going along. Very, very important, because a third of cars on the road right now are lease cars.

You've got one chance out of three. You're driving a lease car, and you have a gold mine hidden in that residual value. You may not know about it. So we'll talk about that next week. Now, I will get to the mystery shopping report. The mystery shopping report. Before you get to the mystery shopping report, let me tell our listeners you too can vote on our mystery shopping report and we do enjoy hearing from you

because you guys make the show as I say every week so give us a text let us know how you feel about the mystery shopping report the mystery shopping report comes from Hollywood Kia this week and our text number is 772-4976530 so take advantage of that we would love to see and hear how you feel about the mystery shopping report because there's so much that goes into this mystery shopping report and we're here to help you thank you Hollywood Kia for a lot of you folks that are all over the world streaming this this is a Hollywood in Florida not the Hollywood in California a lot of confusion there a year ago we shopped Hollywood Kia in Hollywood Florida If the South Florida retail car market is the beast, I love this, too, wrote this, this is a beautiful paragraph.

I mean, you could get a Pulitzer on this right here. Thank you. If the South Florida retail car market is the beast, Hollywood, Florida is the belly of the beast. I love that. Located to the southern end of Broward County, right near Miami-Dade, Hollywood is nestled in one of the most densely populated areas in the United States. Amazing. I mean, I won't go into the detail of how we know that, but just for the wall people. It's the fourth most densely in the United States.

It's a cultural melting pot, a retirement destination, a tourist mecca, a playground for the wealthy and effectively unregulated competitive environment for car dealers. That's all true. It sounds like it's embellished. It's not. Babylon. Yeah. It is truly from another planet. Hollywood Toyota, one of the reasons we know so much about this, Hollywood Toyota is the number two or number three, largest volume dealers.

as of last month they're number three it is Longo by a wide margin Al Hendrickson Toyota right near Hollywood and then Hollywood So that tells you something about that market Hollywood Florida is a little

small town but it's packed with people For people towns in Florida are meaningless It's not like you drive for a town They're matched together They have a huge Asian population They have South American

Central American And they benefit the Hollywood dealers, you know, a smart dealer in Florida will have a Hispanic-speaking salespeople. Some will have Creole, Haitian-speaking. Hollywood dealers have Chinese. Vietnamese. Vietnamese. They have virtually every. The Croatian, all the Slavic languages.

Yeah, and that's who buys. So it's an amazing market. Anyway, Hollywood, Florida, Hollywood, Kia. Whenever we mystery shop down there, we get a hell of a show. that's an understatement. We were drawn to Hollywood Kia last year because their website proclaimed them to be, and I choke when I, I mean, I choke.

They're hard to say this. The home of no dealership fees. That's the big lie. The big lie. Forget about Trump. If you go to Webster's and you look it up, the big lie, it says, Hollywood Kia statement, home of no dealership fees.

The goal that they have to say that. What Agent Lightning discovered, that's our undercover agent, was that Hollywood Kia was a home of a big fat addendum and nearly $1,000 in what they called government fees, but you can't have that many government fees. So they re-labeled their dealer fees, something else, and they're saying, well, we don't call the dealer fee, so we don't have any dealer fees. I can only speculate, but I think what they have is they have the tag registration fee, which would be a government fee, mixed into that with other things, right? Electronic filing fee. But there's no way I've never seen a $1,000 attack fee. Ain't going to happen.com.

This dishonesty was galling us to us and despite the kind of treatment by the salesperson, we gave them a big fat F last time we shot them and they're on the good dealer, bad dealer list. We give very few F folks. We grade on the curve. I mean, when they're bad, we give them a D. They've got to be really bad to fail, so they were really bad. We called on the owner, Jonathan Levy, to take down the no-dealship fee.

We said, Jonathan, take it down. You probably don't even know about it. We gave him the benefit of the doubt. Well, you should talk to a son. He should talk to a son. On the lighter side last year, we know that Levy's son, Josh, the general counsel of the dealership, he should know too. Josh is not doing his job. Yeah.

It was elected mayor of Hollywood. The mayor of the belly of the beast. His son is a lawyer, you can't make this stuff up. On last year's report, Hollywood. I know you missed the second part of that same. Oh, yeah, he was re-elected. Yeah, Josh Levy was re-elected and will serve as mayor in 20204. I'd love to see the election system.

in Hollywood. I'd like to see how easy it is for Hollywood to get a sign put up in Hollywood. Yeah. On last year's report, Hollywood Kia priced their car about $1,000 over MSRP with a crazy $953 government fee. Today, this sounds like a great deal. But remember, in June 2021, the inventory crunch were just beginning. Things are different, huh? And Agent Lightning knows is better than anyone. Here's our report. on speaking as if I were Agent Lightning. My initial experience was strange. I walked to the front door and I approached a customer service desk.

A man was sitting there and before I could speak, he stood up and walked away without a knowledge in me. I mean, this is something you don't see in car dealerships. Then I heard a shout coming from my right. A salesperson wanted to know if I needed help with anything. He was leaning way back in his chair very informally. I turned to the guy in the chair and said, I was hoping to buy a new car today.

He remained seated and waved at me. He waved me over. I walked over and sat down in front of his desk and said, I was interested in an economical hatchback or small SUV. I said, I doubted if they had one in stock. The sale up and said, oh, we do. In fact, we got one out there. He said that a new 2022 sportage in white was

just becoming available. According to him, a customer had ordered it a while back, and it arrived three days ago, but the customer had to respond to their phone calls or text. He offered to show me his unanswered text messages. I declined, and he said, why would you tell his word? I swear to God. I declined, and I said, I believed him. I said, I was very interested in seeing the white one, the only one. He had me follow him while he got his keys, and then he led me outside. I asked him if he had a name, and he said, this is all so strange. He said, uh, a kill. Yeah.

A kill. It's spelled H-H-I-L-E. But his name is Achille. That would worry me right there. A killer would worry me. It's like Achilles. Yeah. Without the S.

Yeah, exactly. And mispronounced. A kill. I wonder what nationality was. Anyway, we found the car, a new 2002 Kia Sportage X-Line. all wheel drive. The MSRP was $34,905. There was no addendum on the car. Hmm.

But there was on the Manila envelope that the kill left on the front seat. On the front seat. So, of course, the addendums, obviously, for disclosure, and they're supposed to be on the window for the customer to see. You don't put it on the deal envelope. He was carrying it around. And carry it around with you. But that's where, that's how Agent Lighting.

eagle eye lightning saw it she misses nothing nothing in fact she snapped a picture of it and I have a picture of it here on the manila envelope the deal envelope that he carried around the addendum was added I added

940 foot dollars for a resist all what's resist all it's probably the version of like a paint and fabric protector I bet sounds like it resists all that's funny because I thought resist all was a type of cowboy hat resist all is it

$350 for nitrophil and $295 regional market adjustment. Akil asked me if I'd like to take it for a test drive. It's hard to say that. Akil. Yeah, it doesn't kind of roll. Scary. A kill. Asked me if I like to take it for a test drive.

I didn't answer. Instead, I pointed to the Mononi label and asked him what kind of pricing I could expect. Akeel didn't bet a nine, told me that they were marking their car up $7,000 over MSRP. Right. That's a whopper. I applied that when I saw there no dealer fee sign, I'd assume they were selling their cars for MSRP or less. I mean, when you stop to think about it, who cares about dealer peace?

If you really argue me, $10,000, we've heard, $40,000. I mean, how can you keep a straight face? No dealer fees, but it's $40,000 over sticker price. That's great. Yeah. Right. Akele said that everyone was marking the cars up over MSRP and much more than Hollywood Kia was. That's not true.

The same lame explanation I got every week. Everyone says, they say, we're marking up, but not as much as everybody else. No matter how much it is, everybody else is market marching. And the sales manager tells them, maybe the dealer tells the sale, you don't know who the liars are and who the misinformed are. I didn't say anything about the end of my salon with a much smaller markup. I killed tried justifying their huge premium by telling me I would get a lifetime power tree warranty, which is absolutely worthless. They're free. I mean, they should be free because that doesn't mean anything.

No dealer fees. That's not true. You can't have $1,000 of government fees on a Kia. free car washes for life. That's a joke. Three years of free maintenance. It's probably no maintenance for three years anyway. Probably from Kia. I'm not sure. I don't know what it is on IKEA, but if it is, it's normal. Three years of, in a five year, 60,000 mile bumper to bumper, and that's the Kia factory orders. It's got a nice long warranty. Yeah, they're not giving you anything. But they're charged you $7,000 over. I told him I wanted to pay cash

and my father was providing my funds I said there was no way he was going to agree my father $7,000 over MSRP Akil ignored me, suggested we go drive the car. I told him I didn't want to drive the car in the crazy Hollywood traffic

had endured on the way over Akil then asked me if I wanted to go ahead and buy it I said he would answer the I said I'd answer the question after I saw the out-to-door price out the door price please remember the definition of an out-the-door price

that's the price you pay you're right to checkout you hand it at the salesman you get in the car and you drive it home that's what disappears from your bank account definition exactly okay out the door Achille had led me back inside

we sat down at the same desk he spent several minutes typing in his computer without saying anything I finally spoke up and asked if he needed anything for me He said, not yet. He was having problems. Logging in his computer.

I mean, your normal person would say, I got a problem on the computer. He just kept typing. I want to tell you something. When I was writing this thing up in Agent Lightning's notes, she timed it, and she sat there for 12 minutes as he typed on his computer. And I didn't think he never said anything. And I didn't think he would believe that. So I just said he's several minutes. But it was 12 minutes.

He couldn't log into his computer. And then she finally says, you need something from me. A kill is a strange person. Akele gave up, picked up a pen, asked me for my name, address, and phone number. Then he left to see the sales manager. He's back in a few minutes with a worksheet. Top line, $43,295, $8,390 over MSRP. Not $7,000, folks.

$8,390 over MSRP. There was $9.959.50 in government fees. And as well, I said, it just can't happen on IKEA. You can't have government, legitimate government fees that high on KIA. Just like that, and what's not government is dealer fee. And they say there will have any dealer fee. They do. They don't call it that.

Again, there is no $9.59 government fee in Florida. There could be several hundred dollars in registration title fees, but these are far less than that. Immediately he objected and pointed out that he marked it up much more than the $7,000. He told me when I came in. Akeel looked puzzled Puzzled That's the only thing I could understand He's obviously a puzzled gentleman

And asked what I was talking about I was getting mad So I did match for him He said I have the MSRP wrong So I showed him the picture I took the MROA label Yeah, you must be wrong I'm asking you must be wrong with that

We have to get We have to get Stu's expression It really fits the mystery shopper. We missed it. It was great. So, Akil finally looked remorseful after all that. I mean, you're caught with your pants down. You look remorseful.

You promised to make it right and then left to see his manager again. He came back a couple of minutes with a new worksheet. This one was much better, only $4,309 over a full sticker. I asked to Kill. This was the best they could do, and he said it was. At this point, I didn't have the energy to start. or another argument. So I told him I would text a pick of the picture of the worksheet to my father,

and I'd get back to him. So this is all documented. I didn't show you all the pictures. She's got them all, including the Manila. I think Jonathan puts them up on the, yeah, so on the live stream so people can see. So they saw the sign that said home of no dealership fees. So there you have it. I mean, I don't like to taint the thought of the voters, so I won't say how I feel.

I will say that my heart rate is 135 and I'm feeling faint because of this report, but I won't tell you why. We'll go around and as the votes come in and see what our listeners, remember, we're great on the curve on this show, and with the average dealers, not very good. And so you can have someone that's not very good, sometimes we'll give them a C. And if they're bad, sometimes we'll just give them D. you've got to be really bad I mean really really bad

to fail so keep that in mind let's hear what you have they're coming in I hear the grades I think we hit a nerve here Jonathan Willington lying about fees

what else would they lie about an automatic F no appeal required they are the epitome of the do not shop list Mark says lock the front doors in Hollywood Kia triple F Bob says F for no dealer fee

Hollywood Kia and yeah I we failed them last year last week for that reason last year actually the salesperson did a very good job and and Agent Lightning really liked them but we still failed them because the the claim of no dealer fees and then adding something that's clearly a dealer fee well I forgot we did it off last we got two in a row highly yeah so this is both on the year anniversary they failed two years in a row for me give them an F okay got Neegis one, D for Day of Reckoning is coming. Ah, let's see here. Mark from St. Louis, I would keel over for a more enjoyable experience,

grade D. Let's see, a Guy Larrabee, a big fat F for me too, right off the beginning. Mark Smith, a phony-manroney label is a red flag for me. Tom Steckle, resist all Hollywood, resist all Hollywood car dealers. I like that. Mark Smith, D-minus, Scott Hunter, F. Brian Siddlato, home of no dealership fees. My Kia, Hollywood-Kia dealership deserves an F.

Wayne Vite, huge F. Tom Stuckel, F. They are rivaling Napleton for the bottom of the barrel. I say the D-minus because they just are playing those games. Very charitable. I want to make sure that Martha and Andrew know that they also submitted Fs for Hollywood. at Kia on Facebook, so thank you for the grades. Nancy.

Nancy's nonverbal right now. That's very unusual. You know, I got asked, did somebody at that dealership fall and hit their head on a blunt object? And what's up with the guy who's waving his hands and, you know, was his previous job at the PBI. Yeah, he was getting the plans in. Yeah, he was at the on the tarmac. What the heck, what the heck is going on?

I mean, my goodness, gracious. F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F. Yeah, I'm going to give him an F too. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to send a copy of our written mystery shopper report to Josh Levy. And I'll send him one to Josh Levy, senior and junior. Yeah. And just say, please break down.

what the government fees are, explain how is, if we will retract this on the air, if we don't understand something, but I cannot see anything other than what we... And I know we're almost all the time. I have one other revelation here. The belly of the beast, all the ethnic, all the different nationalities,

all the different language speaking, the melting pot. I found out, I didn't know this. You do not have to furnish a land contract, a vehicle buyer's order, or anything else. in the language of the buyer. Not in Florida. I'm not in Florida.

In California, you do. Yeah. So, I think one of the problems we have down there, people are signing things they can't read or understand. And I think maybe that's one of the reasons where the Hollywood dealers do extraordinarily well. That's not, you're not being hyperbolic. I mean, a well-educated person has a difficulty understanding everything

and will not read in the contract. So the language issue. Okay, we're out of time. We are. I hope you were enjoying the show as much as we do. I wish we would have been able to get Stu's expression, as they're always reading that. Jonathan might have, I don't know. It was priceless.

Jonathan did. John's shaking it. Yeah, see, I keep forgetting just like eight cameras in here. Hi, everybody. Hey, folks, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We certainly enjoy your company. Thank you to all of our callers and to Felicia. Give us a call next week.

I apologize for not being able to get to you. Again, thank you. We'll see you right back here next Saturday morning, 8 a.m.