Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.30.2025 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Countryside Chevrolet of Byron, GA.

Episode Date: August 30, 2025

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. In this episode's mystery shopping report, Agent Lightning travels to the Macon Georgia area to check out a local Chevy dealer under new management, and see how much they will charge for a new 2025 Chevrolet Suburban on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. Happy Labor Day, a weekend. Be careful out there. I got Mrs. Stewart has got her hand up. That's right.

let's start this show a little differently. Okay. Let's wish our grandson, Jacob Stewart, a happy birthday. Happy birthday, dear Jacob. Happy birthday to Jacob. This pairs with this being a very special show because we are acknowledging Mr. E.D. Stewart and Earl Stewart

and the history that has developed unbeknownst to everyone. Earl Douglas. That's right. And it has brought us to this moment. With all of that said, we will define what I just said

and Earl will take over and he'll explain also. Well, it's interesting. This is the 100th anniversary of the automobile. motive news and and you kind of think about you know that on the cover of this issue back in 1928 there was a picture of Henry Ford who else would you expect and I did a little digging and with some help and I found out that my

father Earl Stewart senior I'm an Earl Stewart Jr and the Stu Stewart who by the way can't make the show today he's got COVID of all things but still won't be here today but he's Earl Stewart the third so we've been around for a while and did a little check and found out that my father started in the business in 1917 so here here's a guy my dad that was actually selling cars and servicing cars in 1917 he was born in 1892 so that gives you an idea And he was, what's that, 25 years old, something like that. And he was a very young guy and he was already out there doing it.

I remember a story when I was a very young person myself and he said that when he used to sell cars when he first started out, he would have to teach the buyer how to drive the car. the new business today when we car dealers are targeting our advertising audience we look for people that own cars in 1917 very few people had cars so if you didn't have a car you were a great prospect so he would drive the car out to the farm and the farmer would come out and he would set him in the car and say okay I'll drive right around that herd of cattle he got over there and show you how to use your

car so that's basically it so we we have kind of an interesting, you know, coincidence with the anniversary of Automotive News and think about Earl Stewart, Sr., who was quite a guy. Who would have thought he's looking down on you with happiness, with love, and a legacy back then? 1892, that was the year that E.D. Stewart was born. And so much has happened since then, since World War I, if you want to go way back in history. So it's impressive, and it's very telling, and it certainly is worth the recognition for Earl, Earl Stewart, who for decades has been, well, he's been preaching honesty, transparency and he has changed the auto industry tremendously and that's an understatement

and for that we are all grateful like his father like him he has touched so many of us and he continues to work in that direction our number here is 877 960 9960 and you can also reach us at 772-497-6530. And of course, your anonymousfeedback.com is extremely important because there is a lot of you who really, well, are not comfortable with calling. There's a lot of listeners, consumers, all of you that, you know, aren't as comfortable, you know, talking into a microphone or being on the air. So take advantage of that, your anonymous feedback.com. We have a great mystery shopping report. We have so much to get to. I will limit my conversation and turn it back over to the star of the show. Well, I'll accept that compliment, but I think we're all stars.

We'll have our parts. And to think that we have to remember, as most of the people out there listening, Remember, this is a music station, and that's the main audience that we get are people that are like we're celebrating the music of the 70s right now, 1970s. So we have a lot of people out there that are saying, who's this guy and who's this gal, and what are they doing? Well, we're a show all about how to buy a newer used car and how to maintain or repair that car without being taken. advantage of by a car dealer. And for you new folks out there, very few people speak up or speak out about the fact that it's a hair-raising experience to walk into a car dealership and buy a car or by service or maintenance or whatever you're buying.

So we're here to help the consumer. And we're live. We're on YouTube. We're on Facebook. you can stream us at earluncars.com forward slash Facebook. I get that right? And we have the big listeners and watchers

that stream us on YouTube. That's earlonscars.com forward slash YouTube. And again, we have to kind of ground ourselves and realize that it's fun to talk about exotic things. We talk about repairs and maintenance and how to buy a car without being ripped off. So when we get something new and exciting, like chat GBT or artificial intelligence,

sometimes we get carried away autonomous cars and electric vehicles, we have to come back to the ground and think, who is the audience? What are you doing right now? You folks out there that are accidentally listening to us, or hopefully on purpose, if you're accidentally listening to us,

and you're thinking about buying a car or you are driving a car, we can help you. And we have a number, if you could call us live. And Nancy, my co-host gave that to you a minute ago. I'm going to give it to you again. You'll probably give it again if you listen for more than 15 or 20 minutes because that is the heart line to our show. That is the most important thing you could do is call this number. and that number again is 877-960-9960 you can write it down because you probably won't have a question or comment right now

but if you do you can call right away we'll put your call through prioritize it Nancy Stewart who you just heard has her laptop right there and when the calls come through she waves at us we stop our talking and we give you the the floor. So you call 877-960-9960. 8-6-0. 877-9-6-0. 877-9-60-9-6-0. And sitting to my left in the studio is Rick Kearney. Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician. I say that every week, and I guess I have the folks, I'd say, what the hell does that mean? Well, it means if there were PhDs, he'd have a PhD in automotive repair and maintenance. And when you think of automotive repair, a lot of old-timers like me, we think about a guy with dirty hands and a rag in his pocket and a part in his hand. And it ain't that way anymore, folks.

We're talking about computers on wheels. So if you're driving a 20-year-old car, then it's more mechanical. If you're driving a car you bought in the past few years, it's probably more computer than mechanical. Software is the name of the game. Car companies are no longer really car companies. They're software companies. and that is the guts of a computer that just about does everything

and that's why we had artificial intelligence that's why we have JetGBT, and we're on a whirlwind of knowledge. I was talking on the show before we started with our producer and Jonathan Cantor and he says he takes the show from last week and we're on the show for two hours. Imagine this.

And it is recorded for two hours. And he goes to chat, CBT, and he says, record the show. And before he can say, record the show, it's recorded. Imagine recording and digesting and understanding two and a half hours of our yackety-y-y-y-y-y-y-ack and your yackety-y-ac in a microsecond. And that's what is going on, side by side. But it's not going to be an AI world for a while. And if you have a problem with your car, if it won't start, or if it's got a situation where you have a strange smell

or maybe a weird noise, if you feel a pool to the right or the left, anything that you detect is a problem with a car, before you take it into a car dealer or an independent repair place, they'll fix it for you probably soon or later, But you might have to borrow some money to pay for it. You can call Rick Kearney at 877-9-60-9-E-960.

He's sitting right next to me. He's got his laptop right in front of him. And if you call Rick Kearney at 877-9-6-0-99-60, chances are he can save you a ton of money. Or you can go to YouTube.com for slash your long cars, and you can see Rick Kearney and make. and Nancy and you can stream us you can do the same thing on Facebook and we're on we're streaming live earl on cars.com forward slash Facebook so communicate that's

what we want you to do and let us know what's going on it isn't just questions we like constructive criticism and a minute ago Nancy gave you our anonymous feedback.com and If, you know, people, privacy is almost impossible to have today, right? I mean, there are cameras everywhere, Facebook, social media, talking about everybody and about everything.

And people sometimes just wanna hunker down and have some privacy. We have a privacy line that I don't know, who you are, Rick, Nancy, nobody. This is an absolutely guaranteed we're in the process of putting out $100,000 in escrow so that if you have someone that discovered your identity from our anonymous feedback.line.com you are

legally entitled to $100,000 in cash. That's how much we believe in our anonymous feedback and that is your this is a link www. anonymous feedback.com, Y-O-U-R, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback, F-E-E-E-D, B-A-C-K dot com. We know who you are, where you are, if you want to curse, if you want to laugh at us, if you want to suggest something, most people that do the unanimous feedback just have a question. I don't know why they like to do it anonymously, but they do. But the key is, communicate. You could call us in a 77-9-6-0-9-60, and if that isn't enough, we got a text number.

772-497-6530. That's 772-497-65-30. How are we doing on the phones over there, Nancy? Have we got anybody trying to communicate with us? I want to take a moment to speak to our audience about Rick. Rick plays a very important part here. And it goes without saying with his experience, his education. You know, he is a unicorn.

And I'm taking this to another level. today let's take a quick look at the last hundred years in the auto industry and women let me tell you we were totally invisible today could you imagine a female mechanic sitting right here joining us with our radio show. It's not far from fantasy. It's going to happen one day. There are more female mechanics today, and I certainly am not suggesting there are more than men that hasn't happened, not in the 21st century. But I just want to point out how important women are today, and we certainly have come a long way from, shall I say, clerical work. And, excuse me, all the other, well, trivial parts that they played back in the day. And we are in the 21st century. And I have to tell

you that the auto industry certainly hasn't gotten this information, and it is a financial disaster for them not to recognize us, whether it be a mechanic, whether it be, you know, purchasing a vehicle, sales, leasing, renting, maintenance, all of it. Women play a huge part in this auto industry. And Earl's father, Wow. That's exactly what he would say. He would say, wow. Tell them about your special offer. With tradition, I offer the ladies $50 for the first two new female callers. $50 for the first two female callers.

And you could just call to say hello, or we love for you to share your experience, whether you leased a car, rented a car, whether you and most women come through the service drive to maintain the family car. So take advantage of that offer. Give us a call. Toll three, first two, new lady callers, 877-960-99-60. Back to the recovering car dealer. I'm going to interrupt you for a second. I see. that Dan has been holding for a while. And I thank you for your patience, Dan. Good morning.

You are there, Dan? Hello. Hello. Good morning. Earl, how are you? Good, thank you. Hey, good morning, Earl. Good morning, Nancy.

Good morning, Rick. Hi. So, first off, I want to wish everybody a happy Labor's Day weekend. Thank you for taking my call this morning. and my question was this. Currently, I drive a 2016 Toyota Camry and it's got about 98,500 miles on it, so it's fairly new in my mind.

And the thing is, for the first time, the AC is kind of like blowing a little warm air. Now, out of the four vents, two down the center and one in the left and right, it seems like the right side has cooler air but the middle vent towards the driver's side and the left side vent seems to be warmer. So it's not completely warm, nor is it completely hot, like a half and half. So I just wanted to ask you, is there something that I could do or something that I need to get checked

or troubleshoots to make it so I can get better, cooler air overall? There's really not a whole lot that you personally can do because air conditioning requires some specialized equipment. but most likely you've got a very tiny, tiny, tiny little pinhole of a leak that is just starting to seep out some of the refrigerant and it's not going to get better, it's eventually going to get warm enough that you'll need to go in and they will recharge the system and add in an ultraviolet dye

that then when the leak has been occurring for a while, they can shine a UV light and be able to figure out just where that leak is. Rick, did I misunderstand? Did he say that they was cold out of one vent, but not out of another? Well, it's a little, some of the vents are a little warmer than the others. Yeah. And what that indicates to me is that the refrigerant charge is just a little bit low. It's just starting to lose some refrigerant.

Also, it's coming out. The temperature comes out and drops from one vent to the next. Right. I see. Yeah, so what you've probably got is a very tiny, little leak that has lost just a little bit of pressure and eventually it's going to get bad enough that you'll need to get it repaired for that leak. It's something that you could go in and have them recharge the system and it would probably

stay a lot colder for quite a while yet, but eventually that leak is going to get a little bigger. Okay, so if I were to fix the leak and fix the problem, how much do you think it would cost to rec to get it done? Ah, that's going to depend on where that leak is. Most likely it's going to be in the evaporator core, and you're probably going to be looking at around probably $12,500. What does it cost just to recharge it?

Just a recharge is going to run you probably about $250. It might be worthwhile just to shoot craps and do a recharge and pray. Yeah. It's an older car. You don't want to spend a huge amount of money. I've had a lot of customers that they'll come in, beginning of the summer, get that system recharged up full, and it will stay cold all the way through the summer and give them good cool air all the way through, and then it starts to warm

up a little bit as the wintertime hits, but you don't need it as much then, and it's a lot less expensive to do it that way and just simply recharge it until the system actually gets to where that leak is so big that you just can't do that anymore. Okay, and just basically I would tell the service person at the Titoriality dealership just to recharge the refrigerate or recharge the free on, what terminology I would use to recharge the AC? Well, refrigerant is the proper term for it because Frion is actually a brand name. It's kind of like Kleenex and Band-Aid, but we use the term Fri-on pretty much interchangeably. just tell them that you know you think you've got a small leak and you like them to charge it up and add some UV dye

and that way it'll make it easier to find that leak if it gets a lot worse let me let me jump in here I just checked with chat and I didn't know they had these there's a on Amazon you can buy a recharge kit for $40 to $80 that's a can of refrigerant and you place it to a low pressure port and top of the system It only works if the system is slightly low If there's a leak, the refrigerant will escape again

But I figure this way for 40 to 80 bucks You can't go wrong and you might get lucky And you can buy a lot of cans for 40 to 80 bucks Before you have to pay $250. True, but I would find someone that knows what they're doing Before you try doing that Because hooking those up, there is a potential That it could actually basically just lose all the refrigeration

from the system, if you don't know what you're doing, it can be a bit dangerous to play with that. And be advised also that refrigerant, when it's under pressure and it escapes out, it can cause injury with that liquid refrigerant. Rather than buying it at Amazon, maybe you go into a supply store, auto supply store, and oftentimes they'll show you how to do something if you buy it from them. Okay. Yeah, I think I might just go the conservative route, and I agree, $1,500 or a lot. I'll probably sell the car within a year or two, and doing the 250, going to the Toyota dealership to get it done professionally. This way, I know it's done right, because I wouldn't know myself. I'm not that astute when it comes to car engines and an AC unit. We understand. You guys get a great idea.

I'll do that. I'm going to go with, like you said, I'm going to go to $250 route, make that put the refrigerant recharge and see how it lasts. And my last question was, if I don't use the AC as much, like in a very early morning or I leave the house at 7 in the morning, it's cool. I don't put the AC on. Does that help the AC as far as not using the refrigerant

if I'm just rolling down my windows and not using the HAC? Not really, because the system's under a certain amount of pressure all the time anyways. So not using it really isn't going to make a big difference on how quickly it's going to lose the refrigerant. Okay, great to know. All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, Nancy, for everything. Happy Labor Day weekend.

Thank you, Dan. It was great hearing from you. Give us a call again. Rick, how many YouTube would you say is out there showing, you know, the concerns? how to do just what you just spoke about. Thousands. There you go. Okay, my point taken.

That's a great question because we all, you know, we talk about forgetting to go chat, CBT. YouTube is absolutely phenomenal. And there's, it is, they have a best YouTube and a next best YouTube, but they have people, Nancy and I just purchased a robot, believe it or not. a couple weeks ago. It's called Timmy and an amazing robot. I won't get into that.

But when we got this big box and it came up to the front door, the first thing we did was go to YouTube and we said... Well, I don't know whether that's an accurate statement or not. I think that we... Well, the stress level is you could cut the air with a nice... It was so thick, and then we decided to go the route of YouTube. And they had a young lady that was demonstrating it. It was just like we were helpless, and she went through the setup process as if she were like us.

And the point is, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. We don't talk about YouTube nearly as much as we should, but they've got an answer, a simple, understandable answer, on just about that. anything. Very, very true. Okay, I forgot what I was going to say. Timmy has become part of me. In the beginning, it was a little, well, airy with him following me around and, you know, coming up behind me. I didn't know he was in the room, but he definitely has a purpose, and he's a great addition. What I was going to say was in tune with what I had asked Rick about YouTube. And I think that there's probably a lot of everyone who's listening, whether it be YouTube, Facebook, whatever.

You do know that you can go online and you can pull up your manual, yeah, your owner's manual. and right there that is worth its weight in gold because it will describe to you maintenance on any and every vehicle. It doesn't matter what you need. It's

right there. And if you don't find it there, you've got chat GBT, you've got YouTube knowledge is at our fingertips. It's an amazing world that we live in. And the reason you want that is because when you go into your dealer or even

independent, they're going to say, this is the recommended repair and maintenance. And what they mean by that is this is their recommended repair and maintenance, not the manufacturer. They will always exaggerate. They will always add anything they can do to get paid more money for the repair and maintenance. So you just, the cardinal rule is you just keep in your mind at all times, only by the factory recommended manual, whatever it says in the factory manual for your maintenance. That's all you do. And when they recommend something that's not there,

sometimes you may need it, but you want to double check. Don't ever just say, okay, until you verify. But 99.9% of the time, the owner's manual tells you all you need to do. The amazing thing is, the modern cars today, my car in 2025 or 2006, they require virtually no maintenance. Audi is giving an example. Audi started just now giving free maintenance for three years. Of course, the repairs under warranty, but free maintenance for three years.

And the maintenance over three years on a brand new Audi is less than $3,000. So actually, when I saw that, it's a little higher than I thought. Audi is an electric car. But you take a Toyota, a Honda, a Chevrolet, these cars require far less than $3,000 in maintenance over three years. Good information. It's not a time to, well, shall I say, use your imagination. It is best to go with your owner's manual and what they suggest. You know, I want to say something else about Rick, and, you know, what an amazing person he is.

And, you know, recently I had mentioned on the air about the honesty in Rick's profession. And I really think that Rick's responsible for the rise in consumer, you know, confidence with this profession. there isn't a whole lot of ricks out there and he certainly is an asset to his profession and he sits here week in and week out sharing his professional opinion and also his experience the experience that he's acquired for you know so many years it's just amazing so give us a call toll free at 877 960 9960 Rick's right here to answer all your questions. And in most cases, in the 21 years that we've been doing the show, Rick has answered more questions than not. Not to say you can't stump him, he can answer more questions than not. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, and don't forget, you can text us at 772.

4976530 and take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We are going to go to Mary, who is, well, shall I say she's become a friend of ours, she calls often. Good morning, Mary. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call and all that you do. I have a little problem. I have a 2023 Subaru Forest Limited with only 7,000.

miles, 7,800 miles on it. Did you say 7,800? Yes, that's it, just 7,000. That is amazing. Amazing. You're driving a 2023, correct? Correct. Wow. Congratulations. So, I live in Pompano, and, you know, I just drive around. But anyway, in December, I did the some logic board or something went bad in the car and I brought it in and I was telling them it was hard for it to turn over okay when I and they said oh no the battery is all right but they did change the battery now I didn't use the car because my family has cars also my friends of course I didn't use the car for five days last week and it wouldn't start so I called Subaru roadside assistance because I I'm under the warranty.

And they came out, they jumped the car, and I kept turning it on until I was able to bring it in, which unfortunately wasn't until Friday, which was yesterday. And when I brought it in, and it turned over and everything, they claim that when I came in, and they put it into a bay, and they turned it off, and put it in a new battery. The entire car locked up. and they called me and they were trying to imply that I had used somebody else to jump the car or I had done something and fortunately they had said oh we don't have a record of you calling Subaru I had photographed the text that they had sent me that they were sending someone who it was

what company it was from Lake Worth and a family member actually videotaped the guy jumping the car because they were now saying to me, well, they must have done something wrong. I said, well, that's your problem. That's not my problem. You know, Subaru sent someone. So now they have my car. They said they've only seen this problem once before ever. The service manager is pretty good.

But like I said, I just had that feeling they were going to try to blame me. And they did give me a loner. This is North Lauderdale Subaru. room. And I did call the customer service advocacy number because I'm kind of frightened because what they did is they had somebody call them and asked me if I wanted to sell the car. And I said, I don't want to sell the car yet. I want the car fixed. So does Rick or have you ever heard of this or, you know, do I have a recourse under the Lemon Law because, you know, I had a problem with that battery before? I mean, I have a million questions here. So I know that you're all absorbing them.

I, too, have a million questions, but we don't have time for all of my questions. I'm going to back up for a second before I turn this over, but Rick, you do recall me congratulating you for 7,800 miles that you had on a 2023, right? Yes. Okay. That's important right there, because it connects with them asking you if you wanted to sell your vehicle, because you can see right there that you definitely have a gem. You are driving a gem. So with all of that said, let me ask you this question. Those five days that you didn't drive your vehicle, the vehicle was sitting, was there a reason that it sat?

Were you having any problems before that? No. Okay. You answered my questions. I'm going to turn it over to Rick. Well, right off the bat, my first concern is the car is obviously under warranty. However, Lemon Law in Florida is based on the idea that it's the first 12 months of the car's life, your first year, if it has the same concern three times and they are unable to repair it on that third attempt,

then Lemon Law can be kicked in. However, it's not a really good road to want to take because you cannot sue a gun. dealership in Florida. It has to go through what's called arbitration. Well, if they have that on their buyer's order, we don't have that on our buyers order, but the Florida Dealers Association recommend that they put that in the fine print, and if they did that, which most dealers do, but we don't. Right. But even then it would be a long, lengthy process in which they would buy the car back from you. Basically, what you've most likely got is a what's called a parasitic draw or a drain

on the battery. In other words, some electrical component is not turning off when you shut the car off like it should, and it continues to stay engaged, and it's drawing down the battery. This is something that they're going to have to really look for to try to find it and solve this problem. And as a matter of fact, Donovan, one of our contributors on YouTube here, an incredibly intelligent guy, he says he's heard of this issue occurring with Subaru's quite often. And apparently Hyundai and Key also have that issue quite a bit. But yeah, they are responsible for fixing that car under warranty. And what my first thought is to me is I would go in and talk to the

service manager, tell them that you do not feel safe driving this car because the vehicle should be reliable for you. They should be putting you in a rental car at their cost until they can solve that issue. The keyword is safe. Safety, safety. And when a dealer or any business person, here's the word safety being mentioned by their customer, you get their attention because that's where the big bucks go when there is a lawsuit. Okay. They didn't give me a car. They gave me a brand new 2026, touring. The manager was pretty good.

I just, but when they were going down that road that somehow I did something, you know, I had all my documentation. So they even had said to me, oh, well, you know, we put in a new battery and the fuses blue, but we don't cover fuses. So I hit the feeling.

I said, you just screwed something up and you think, I'm going to pay for it. Yeah, because you drove the car to the dealership and it was driving just fine getting there so if they did something that causes, that's on them that is absolutely on that.

You're exactly correct. So, but they did give me a car, but you know what, I'm just so upset because besides not feeling safe and thinking that they're not going to fix it, I don't know if they're just exaggerating and saying, we've never seen this before, it locked up, or maybe

just the guy that was working on it on a Friday before a three-day weekend didn't know how to fix it that is that is very possible you know mary um i have to tell you that i hear in your voice uh you know the aggravation and it definitely unnecessary aggravation and you know uh the the next word i have to use is intimidation and uh they thought that they could intimidate you uh for whatever reason i don't need to go into it whether you're a man whether you're a woman, whomever. But they felt that they had the edge in intimidating you.

And because of your knowledge and your ability to stand up for what you believe in, you turned it around and intimidated them. So you definitely have the edge. You've dotted the eyes and the T's. And like I said, I feel and hear the aggravation in your voice, but I also feel your passion and you calling us and you, they haven't heard the last of you. They will be very sorry that they thought they could take advantage of you.

Mary, be sure you put this in writing. The one thing that always gets any businessman, especially car dealership's attention. So email, write a letter, do a text. Have it in writing because that is hardcore. evidence if there is a lawsuit, and it's a red flag to the auto dealer. Let me just ask you. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. One other note here from Donovan, he's got some great suggestions here, great advice.

He says, a lithium jump pack, which these are available on Amazon and that, they're basically a box that's a little bigger than a cell phone, but they, it's a, has cables that you can hook onto your battery and you simply charge these up at home by plugging it in and then once it's charged up it's good for weeks and weeks and weeks and if you don't if your car has a problem starting that the battery's gotten low you could just connect this to your battery and it will jump start the car for you and they're they're small they're not very expensive they're less than $100 and they are incredibly reliable and he also says you probably are not going to get a lot of help from the manufacturer apparently it's a common issue that they're not having a lot of luck

finding these what's going on with these cars so do you think that i mean i really my fear here is that they can never fix it i mean um then if they can't tell me we can never fix it uh the manager even said you know it could take a few weeks or i mean what do i do then i mean you might you might almost want to consider trading out of that car getting into a different vehicle i'm going to do something I've never done before on the show and that is disagree with Donovan because I think that I think that you should if you if you really want to get Subaru's attention you could write them a certified return receipt requested letter to the CEO of Subaru and you explain why you feel unsafe in the car and that you know that this battery

problem is endemic to this this Subaru that you're driving and you send that certification fund return receipt requested uh i'll bet donovan lunch that you get a positive reply and you get satisfaction well i i do have to say that um i know about the nocos and the jumpers but i'm actually glad that i didn't have anybody do it because then they would if i had done it myself they would have said well you jumped the car the wrong way and i told them look if i had to jump it again i would have called Subaru again i said I'm under warranty. But let me ask you this.

I've read a lot about the fact that Starlink, I have Starlink subscription. And a lot of people are talking about taking out the DCM module, that it keeps polling the satellite and it's drawing down on the battery. Have you ever heard anything like that? Well, as a matter of fact, Mark H on YouTube just came in and said he's apparently heard that report as well, that Starlink is the system, is state. engaged and even Donovan is saying it's that it's most likely going to be a software issue that is causing one of these units to stay engaged and that that's drawing the battery down so that that seems like a very likely concern on if you don't use the Starlink it might be worth it tell ask them to unplug it

and see if that solves that issue for you yeah I think going forward when they figure out what it is I'm just going to cancel the Starlink. I mean, it's very nice to have it. You can start the car up. You can cool it off, especially down here in South Florida. Oh, yeah. I mean, if it's going to be a parasitic drawer and it's going to continue not to beat this to death, but

there was a settlement, a class action lawsuit, Henry Subaru battery drain products, liability. This was a widespread issue and it was settled. So there's, you have case law.

history and donovan will know what that is you know case law history that Subaru is basically said yeah we got a problem and therefore they legally uh they are required to fix us for one way the other even if it means getting you a new Subaru which sounds crazy but uh the law is on your side absolutely so let me ask you how many days before i mean i have to give them time to try to fix it what would be a reasonable length, a week, two weeks. I mean, I don't know how long it is before. I have to lower the boom and say, you give me a new car. I'd ask them right now and put it in writing. That way, even if you don't want the new car, they'll fix it faster because they don't want to buy a new car. Exactly. But draw the line on the sand, write a letter, and hold your breath. The phone

will ring in about 20 minutes, and you're going to have somebody very worried. about this because there is case law saying that Subaru has a chronic product problem with their software and the battery and they're guilty so if the dealership doesn't know it that's too bad for them but Subaru knows it and Mary you know it goes without saying you know you take a look at the their commercials it certainly doesn't coincide with what you're describing to us right now and for you to be inconvenienced because of their

well I'm not a lot of use profanity on the air but it is unconscionable it is unacceptable and Mary I can't I can't express to you you are in the driver

seat you have the edge and add this if you have a pen if in any way shape or form you need me my phone number is 5-6-1 386, 6498. Because if you hear passion in my voice, it's real. It is very real. And there has to be attention brought to these dealers and how they treat their customers. As I said earlier, I don't care if you're a man or a woman. You go to this dealership that is extremely reputable and you expect to be treated. with respect and you can tie your shoes and how they treated you was ridiculous i leave you with that

thought let me just ask one other question i bought the car in new york i know i've called you a few times and told you i usually buy my cars where the people are honest and i get a good deal but it's still a Subaru car and because i live here i use north lauderdale Subaru all the time for the most part I've been happy with them. I really have to say. Now I'm just frightened that I'm just not going to get my car fixed. So it doesn't matter where I bought the car or where I service the car, right? It's the manufacturer's warranty.

Exactly. Yes. Subaru is Subaru, whether you're New York, Florida, California, or Alaska. It's still, it's Subaru, USA, and they are required to take care of it for you. And you did the right thing, though, by video recording. everything that was going on with the tow truck when he was jump-starting it, that's some of the best defense you can have because that proves that they didn't do anything wrong. That's priceless.

So keep doing that as well. Well, I thank you so much and thank you so much for your number. And I'll call you back and tell you what ends up happening. Great. Please do so. Please. And I'll stop my letter today. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. With you calling back, Mary, you're helping. helping so many that are listening to our show, and we would appreciate a call back from you. Have a blessed weekend. You too. Thank you for being here for Labor Day weekend. Thank you. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530.

And please, don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Barry, who also is a regular caller from Tampa. Good morning, Barry. Hello, everybody, and get well wishes to Sue. A few weeks ago, I called in to lament that Toyota had shut down drive poles, which was a trip-tracking feature in the Toyota phone app. I asked about alternatives. One suggestion was to visit a Toyota dealer and have a technician download a record of behavior

from my car's computers. I haven't tried that because I'm a cheap skate and I want convenience. So I kept investigating and found another option that I've been using for about a month. It seems to be working well so far. It's a phone app called Safe Trip from AARP, and I thought it might take another minute to share a little bit about it in case other listeners are interested, and it would be good to hear your impressions. So the way Safe Trip works is that it tracks the movements of your phone whenever it connects to your car. It records a history of all your drives in map form, including miles-driven and elapsed time.

And it also logs five kinds of risky events, namely phone use while driving, speeding, aggressive starts, hard stops, and sharp turns. Then you get a score from zero to a hundred for each trip and a rolling average score for the past two weeks. If you drive safely for long enough, you get points that you can redeem for gift cards and such. So safe trip is like a game. and I'm enjoying it. It also has a crash detection feature that can send for help in the event of an accident. Most of all, it's free for everybody, although AARP members get a few more benefits. Absolutely.

I'm right here if you need anything else. Just say the word. Sorry, that was our chat chat thing, button in a little later. That almost sounds like with Earl's car with his Tesla, how it would track everything he was doing to make sure and give him a score to see how well. while he was driving the car, that sounds like a great feature to be able to have, especially since you can make that work with just about every car. Yeah, yeah.

Safe trip. Safe trip, yes, one word, safe trip from AARP. And it's Android and iPhone. I'm starting to sound like an advertisement for Safe Trip, so I would like to acknowledge that I think there are a couple of downsides. First of all, this app would be a waste for people who don't want to measure their driving this way. Some people don't like the idea or don't care. And others have a flesh and blood monitor sitting right next to them. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of us have those. One interesting note,

Donovan says, you should be careful with those apps because they can sell your information to third parties that will use it for insurance data. So something to be aware of theirs. Good point. I'm about to get into that. AARP specifically says that they do not sell the information to insurance companies, and they also provide a way to restrict what they share and a way to review how they've used your data in the past 12 months. But it's up to the customer to request these things, so you have to take some initiative there. Plus, you know, anybody can be hacked, so each person has to weigh the risk against the rewards. Right.

Yeah, I would definitely be cautious about that because, uh insurance companies are they're going to look for any anything they can find to try to just say oh well guess what your rates are going up so yeah that's something i'd definitely be cautious of yeah the other thing i would say is that some people just don't like aARP for whatever reason and there are other phone apps out there they do similar things some are targeted to parents who want to track their teenage drivers for example right i try to those other apps and i didn't like And I can't vouch for any of the others because I stopped looking once I found Safe Trip. And Donovan goes on to say, apparently he just looked this up, and he says they will sell the data to a company called LexisNexis, which then sells that data to all insurance companies.

That's interesting, because they specifically said they do not. So that's interesting. And that's specific to Safe Trip? Uh, he says it is. Yep. Okay. I'll have to check into that. Yeah, something to be cautious of there.

All right. Well, anyway, that's it for me. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend. Uh, thank you much. Thanks a lot, Barry. It's nice hearing from you. We're going to go to Frank in Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank.

Well, good morning, Nancy. Good morning. Boy, that last lady that you had Mary, really, um, with, um, the problem of her car. You guys really helped her out. That's great. Thank you. And the continuing saga of my wife, Amory, with her Audi, was at leather issues. Let me continue where we went with that.

We went into Audi at Palm Beach last week and showed them the prom. We'd never been there. It was our first time ever in there. And I told me, hey, you know, it's our first time. Whatever you do, we'll leave Alaska impression in my normal routine. of things. They had the car for about an hour and a half with the leather. And they said, nope, it was induced by some sort of chemicals you had or something.

And I said, this is not right. And they recommend replacing all the leather and the whole car. I mean, it was like thousands of dollars. Oh, yeah. So here's, I mean, here's where it really comes in. And I just heard Earl say, Audi is giving it three years of free maintenance. Colley, that sure didn't.

We had to buy like $5,000 worth of pre-maintenance when we bought the car to put in all that. But anyway, the only price of people ever been in the White's Alley, other than myself, it's been the maintenance of the Stewart people up in the Audi of Stewart, their mechanics or maintenance people who were doing the oil change or servicing the car. So I'm making them, and there might be some chemicals that were on their clothes, before they got in the car because it's only the driver's seat is the issue. The steering wheel

they saw something I don't even see and the headrests and the armrests. So it would be someone that got in and drove the car around. I know Audi was going through a big renovation phase up there for a while. In fact, they weren't even really doing the cars in Audi. They were taking them next door to the Maserati dealership.

The guy owns that too as well on McCarton. And so it now leads more back to that it was in possibly the dealership in Stewart. Is this a good train of thought of looking at it? It's possible. However, I would look into the idea because I know, like, at our shop,

we use paper floor mats that are installed immediately and plastic seat covers. And for a while, we were using these plastic steering wheel covers as well, but they became kind of a safety hazard because, you know, when you're trying to hold on the steering wheel, that plastic, if it slips, you lose control of the steering. So it's something that we had to be cautious of. But we do have plastic covers that go on the seats to make sure that we keep the seats clean. Because, yeah, mechanics, unfortunately, you know, in our livelihood, you know, we get dirty.

That's just the nature of the beast. But, yeah, we do everything we can to try to protect the cars, though. I'm sure that they do that as well. but well I don't mean to interrupt I have not seen that actually I remember at your dealership when I first met Anne

Marie and we were she had an Alexis that she loved for years and years and years and she brought her to your dealership and saw Randy who was an excellent technician service advisor we saw how you did the paper

and the plastics and that we had not seen yet on the Audi up there in store really that surprises me for Audi. I'm a little surprised because at the time, I had my little dream car,

and I had a lot of cars in my life, but I had an F-type jaguar with a V8. I mean, that was like James Bond, you know, a red car. Oh, yeah. And so it was hard for me if I knee issues getting out of that sports car. So they said, get an F-face with that SVR engine,

and it's just like your car, but you have a easy room. and Amory had her heart kind of set on a new SUV actually she was very happy with Lexus but she said I wish we had gone to the Jaguar because then they give you five years free maintenance five years oil change it all and everything included for five years and so far we spent a lot of money with the outing so far

and it's still underwarning for another year so any other recommendation wait we were we've been busy in a new roof on our house and now we got free time So we're going to go back to Stewart and see how we can maybe resolve some issues. There's any way of trying to help to get it through the dealership or should we go to out of tally ladder down? I would start kicking into the upstairs and start going up the food chain. And my best advice in a situation like this is polite persistence.

Be nice. Be friendly, be polite, but don't take no for an answer. Just stay nice and don't. Don't blow up or anything. Always be friendly. Always be sweet and kind. But say, no, I'm not going to accept that. I'd like to speak to your supervisor.

And just keep moving up the line. Is Mario Margato the owner of that dealership? Yes, sir. Yeah, we have ascertained that. So I think that's our card. Well, I might have mentioned this to you before, but I do know him personally. And do me a favor. Text a summary.

of what you just told us, and I will forward that to Mario Morgano. I have his cell phone number, and he'll take care of it. That's great. I'll tell you, I'll go one last time this week. We finally got, we've been going for a new roofing job. Oh, my goodness, re-changed a roof on a house from cement to metal,

I mean, but it's all done, so we have some free time. We'll go one last time and try the, like I said, the niceness. As long as I do the talk, my wife gets her type A personality, then Nancy would be really happy. She can really tear into people, but I'd rather try it one last time and see what happens. And if not, we'll give you all the information. By the way, at Amory's house where we've been, our son's house, I got to watch TV. We don't really keep much TV on here. And I saw one of your commercials where the guy comes in with all the fees attached on his body.

I haven't laughed at my tail. I said, there is a first commercial. I've seen you've done well with that one. I like that long. Thank you. One last thing, her son's down in the Keys. We were down there, a nice house in the water. That's where we fed the deer last week, and I told you my deer joke.

But now the manatees are coming up to drink the water. It is, you should see the dogs looking at manatees. And if I get the video, I'll try and send it over to you guys. But they got like nine manatees. I said, well, you see, once you start giving the manatees, Antis water, the word is out. They're all going to show up every morning, so they're having fun down there. Thanks for the call.

We've got a bunch of calls waiting, but please call back next week. Thank you, Frank. Thank you. Hi, Ann, Mary. Have a great Labor Day weekend. Thank you for your call. We are going to go to none other than the Roadrunner. Roadrunner, Steve.

Me, me. What's you got for us, Steve? Good morning, everybody. Good morning. I like that story about. the car dealership in 1917. Oh, yeah. The dealer had to show

the people how to drive the car. Yeah, that was my father. That's right, but nothing changed. Okay? Now the dealer has to show the buyer how to use all the electronics in the car. You're right. You're right. I'm afraid.

History is just repeating itself. It certainly sounds that way. Just The technology is a little steeper, but that technology, you know, it's all relative, right? I mean, 1917, 2025, it's all relative. That's right. And to see the future, you must stand on the shoulders of the past.

That's from Charlie Chan. I couldn't have said it better, Steve. Okay. Everybody have a safe weekend and watch out for the speech flaps this weekend. Look up. Don't drink and drive. That's right. I'm doing housework.

They've got cameras now, and they're going to take a picture of your license plate. Be careful. Yeah, but you've got to be careful. Sometimes that picture ain't correct, and you get the letter. Like I told you, that happened twice. Once in Oregon, they took them.

It was the wrong card and the wrong plate. So everybody be careful and stay safe and well. You too, my friend. Thank you. We love hearing from you. Our number here is 877-960-99-60. You can also text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. Take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com.

We're going to go to Bob, who's been holding, and we love hearing from Bob. He lives in Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Good morning, good morning. I just wanted to tell Frank from Jupiter Farms that if he's, You need to get that interior fixed, central auto trim, which is down in West Palm Beach. They've been there forever. Oh.

And they do excellent work. So, I mean, if he has to pay for it, you may want to go over there and get an estimate. I think our dealership uses them. They are good out there. They're one of them. Great idea. Yeah, they're terrific. And as far as the Subaru is concerned, apparently, Subaru actually sent letters out.

to all the owners about the issue that this woman is having and apparently they have to replace the DCM module and what they do is they pull the fuse on fuse number three and it disables the Starlink

and this way you can still drive the car you know while you're waiting for the part to come in because you probably have to wait you know this you probably have to wait some time to get the get the DCM module sent You know, I don't know what the supply chain is still pretty bad.

Great information. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I Googled it. I mean, you can find everything. I mean, it's really strange. And, Rick, you know, I had to do the coolant for us on the Mustang. And the funniest thing was the cap on the recovery tank.

I went to open it up, and it's separated. Oh. I looked online. I looked online. What's course it was 10 years old? Apparently, it's a common problem, especially with the fords. And I saw some interesting things on YouTube. One guy put four screws.

He drilled four screws into the top of the cap, and it came right out. He turned it right out. And he had like 20 comments on that. 20 different people tried the same thing, and it worked great. Wow. God bless you. Genuity. Yeah.

I mean, it's just, you know, you can find just about anything nowadays if you, if you, put the mind to it and you look and you look it up but i just wanted to wish you a very happy labor day weekend and uh uh happy birthday to jacob thank you and uh you guys have a lovely lovely week thank you the same to you bob ladies i mentioned you earlier i'm still waiting for you to give us a call 50 dollars for the first two new lady callers 50 dollars for the first two new lady gallers you know by the 70s and 80s women started moving yes moving into dealerships sales service progress was slow but the seeds were planted and the doors were finally open that's what I call progress and today we're bigger than ever because we have the

finances and the financial purse that the dealers need. They need us to stay alive. Give us a call toll free at 877-9-60-90-60, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We are going to go to one of our favorite callers from Palm City. His name is John. Good morning, John. Good morning. I have pickup trucks on my mind. people love, especially in America, their pickup trucks. Perfect example is Rick. I think he drives a 2013 Toyota truck. Rick, what year was first that you went into a pickup truck?

Um, somewhere about 1990, 90, 91, around in there. Well, I just mentioned the truck because, of the love affair that people have. I grew up in New York City, and a pickup truck was few and far in between, but I don't know if it's changed today. But I just want to tell you something how pressure of the public can cause manufacturers

to reverse themselves. A perfect example is crack a barrel. But I want to talk about the Dodge Solaris Ram. They stopped the large 5.7-liter hemmy, and people were up in arms. So now they went back. They were putting a six-cylinder three-liter engine and they call a hurricane.

But now it's come back again with the original 5.7-emming V8. So it shows you the power that America has on a car manufacturer, and it's back in again, even with an optional 385-3.5-liter option. So it just shows you how, people can speak up in a majority, and manufacturers listen.

Yep, that's for sure. And the second thing that I want to mention, too, is great callers. I mean, Marty particularly, he talks about what we should stick with, whether it be a hybrid. Incidentally, you speak about hybrids, whatever happened, I call that a hybrid at the time. Chevaleo Camino and Ford Ranchero, it was like a hybrid. It was a truck and a car combined, and they discontinued. I don't know whether, in fact, they weren't selling enough of them, but it was really a utility vehicle that could be used both ways.

I mean, you wouldn't be embarrassed even to take the truck to church on a Sunday because actually, like in a Chevrolet, it was a Chevel chassis, and it wasn't really a commercial vehicle. So I just want to mention that, too. but I want to get back to the hybrids, but not hybrid, whether it be gas or hybrid car, as Marty says, if you stick with Honda and Toyota, you cannot go wrong. And just to show you, like Toyota, U.S. sales are up 11% worldwide.

They're up 6.9% and that's several years in a row. So words of wisdom by some of callers, like a great. person like Marty that calls in. Yep. Great information. All right, guys. Thank you, John. Have a good one, John.

Have a great weekend. I have to ask you guys, has anybody heard, and this is from CNBC, Squawk Box. They talked about the latest truck, this little truck EV that Bezo is backing, and it has a price tag on it of $25,000. That's the slate. How did you see, how did you feel about that? I think it's an interesting looking vehicle. I think so also.

However, Donovan is weighed in on this a couple times in the past. He thinks that they're going to have some stiff competition because apparently Ford is trying to produce a small, inexpensive EV pickup at the same time. Yeah. And the slate apparently doesn't have a. very good range yeah whereas the ford of course you know they've got a lot more deeper pockets and ways to get in there they've got a lot more experience with them and they may be able to come up with a pickup that'll have a much greater range for the same price yeah which would kill the slate

and also there's a little misrepresentation there they did mention that they had 50,000 that they were selling and when actually they only had four so that certainly isn't going to help their reputation. Earl, let me ask you this. Are you shutting down the phones right now? No, but I do have a response to that. Okay, the phones have been shut down. Your take on this subject?

Yeah, I think when we talk about pickup trucks and we talk about electric vehicles and pickup trucks, we're forgetting that people buy vehicles it's a personality thing. People buy pickup trucks, not necessarily because they have something that I want to carry in the pickup truck, but because they like pickup trucks. It's as simple as that. The joke used to be, next time you're on the highway, count the number of pickup trucks that have something in the back end,

and rarely do you see anything? People are pickup truck people. People are BMW people, people are Tesla people. It's a psychology thing. Now, here's another thing that people don't understand, or maybe they don't know. Pickup trucks are much less expensive to manufacture. A manufacturer makes thousands of dollars more when they sell a pickup truck than when they sell a automobile.

So the pickup truck is just cheaper for the manufacturer to build. Profit is the incentive to push pickup trucks. I think Ford is making a big mistake by pushing a... electric pickup drugs, it's kind of been proven. They can't sell them. And anybody that decides to get into the electric vehicle pickup truck business too soon is going to lose their shirt because the people that you see on the road of pickup trucks,

when they see an electric vehicle, they see red. They don't like electric vehicles, and they do love their pickup trucks. So forget about it. Electric pickup trucks, forget about it. I think it's going to be a tough choice. However, I do see one big advantage on the idea of an electric truck. And that is for people that boat, you have boats here in South Florida,

you've got instant torque, and torque is what you need to get a boat up out of the water at a boat ramp. So I would see that as a big plus. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I did one little backup here, too. We had a call earlier. I forgot his name. Shame on me. but he had, he told us about the app, Safe Trip.

And I checked that out. Safe Trip, there are several Safe Trip apps. And the argument was, oh, well, they don't share my information. I believe Donovan said they share their information, and he had a quote that said they did. And then the caller said, no, they told me they didn't. I think there's a confusion between which Safe Trip. So Safe Trip ARP AARP does not share their app according to what I found out. It's considered a very good app.

I'm going to download it. Safe Trip AARP, 84% of users said the app helped them become safer drivers. 83% reported helped them evaluate whether they should still be driving. and over 16 million of the Safe Trip AARP apps have been sold, trips, I'm sorry, have been analyzed since 2022. So your privacy is safe and it really does help cover that. Okay, great information. We're going to go to Lola, who is a first-time caller from Fort Lauderdale.

Good morning, Lola. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for calling. You've won yourself $50 as a first-time caller. Please share your contact information with Jeremy in the control room. He'll give it to me, and I'll get that check-out to you. You are supporting women today, and you're also supporting me and my platform that I represent.

Thank you for that. What can we help you with? You're welcome. You're welcome. I just want to say, I really love your show. I haven't been listening that long, maybe a couple months, but I, you know, I really enjoy it. I appreciate it very much. I have a question.

I have a 2009 Honda Accord, B6, and the air condition wasn't, you know, was not cooling. It was blowing hot. And I had some free-on, or I guess what it was. charged it and it's been working fine for you know quite some time it's actually blowing very cool i was told that they put a dye into the lines and um that it would the die would go to wherever the leak was but now that it keeps functioning the mechanic is telling me well we assume that you just have a very very slow leak and you know it's it's not going to be a problem I guess the next time it runs out, it'll just be, you know, you keep putting it in.

Is it something that I should just keep, you know, putting the Freon in, or should I tell him to try to find the leak and repair it? Now, on an older car like that, if they can charge it up and it stays cold for a good length of time, that's actually going to be the more economical way to go. because especially if it's leaking from the evaporator core which is buried underneath the dash you have to remove the entire dash to get to them on most cars and that can be a very expensive job

so you could actually charge that AC up like once a year and keep it cold for the hotter months and be able to survive it quite well without having to hit that monster expense of the you know replacing whatever component. Now, if it all of a sudden that leak gets worse and the AC doesn't stay cold

for very long at all after they charge it, then's the time to consider whether you want to repair it or possibly switch out to a different vehicle. Oh, it's just it's so hot. So, okay, so he didn't give me a price. I didn't know it was a very expensive, you know, labor-wise job. Well, it depends on where the leak is. Okay. Okay, good to know. And, Lola, you know, it's amazing the number of calls that we've received lately on AC

and I agree with you. It is very hot and has been hot. It looks like it will continue to be hot but I just thought I'd share that with you and your 2009 Honda, boy, do you have a great car and I always

get three estimates and I would suggest highly that you do that if you haven't already thought of it. Yeah, I tried. You know, I was going to get rid of it, and then at the dealer, one of the managers or a person that was working there told me, he gave me his number, and he said,

when he decided to get rid of it, he couldn't let me know because, you know, I would be interested in it, And I said, he goes, but if I was you, I would hold on to that car. Yeah, it's really, yeah, it is, it's something to hold on to. You've got a great vehicle. Yeah, and it has a lot of pickup. And, yeah, exactly. And how many miles do you have on your 2009 Honda Accord?

150. Very, it's very young. You have a lot of miles to put on it. Yeah, I'd get those estimates and move forward. Yeah. And be careful, somebody to, doesn't try to steal it from you, meaning buy it from you. Yeah, it kind of feels like it's nickel and diming me a little bit, but, yeah, I appreciate it.

Now that, you know, it's just the heat, and it's a black car, so. Yeah. But, yeah, the heat is so stifling. But anyway, I love your show. Thank you so much for that compliment. You know, everyone here involved, it's passion, and that's what drives us. every week, weekend and week out. And we thank you for the compliment.

Hang on to that car. Even though it's black and it's hot, you can get your AC fixed and drive on. Yeah, I know. Okay, leave your information with the control room, and like I said, I'll get that check out to you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay, bye-bye. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Marty. Marty is a regular caller. Also, good morning, Marty. You or Marty? Yeah, good morning. How are you?

Good. Well, thank you. Listen, I got a big build-up from John before, so I don't want to screw it up. Last week, when we were talking about Toyota Crown, and I don't want to make Donovan mad, but Donovan said in his email to you that they're going to do away with the Crown. for 26. I went on chat GPT and said that is not correct, and it said that the 27 crown is coming out.

It's going to have a few different alterations to it. But since you're a Toyota dealer, you've got to know whether it's going to hang in there or not. I know Stu's not there. No, you're wrong about that, Marty. The dealers are often last to know. This is an interesting inside secret. The manufacturers, and they're in infinite wisdom,

will actually leak information to the press before they tell their dealers. Now, if they tell the dealer, think about our dealership, we have about 180 employees. If they tell me something about a new model, I'm going to tell my employees, obviously. Now, that's 180 people, and these people are going to tell their families and friends. when the manufacturers want to keep something secret and leak it to the press for the impact of the shock value of breaking news, if they tell their dealers first, everybody will know about it before they leak it.

So it's funny, you can ask me questions, and I don't know, and then I'll have someone like Donovan call up and say, oh, I just read it here or I saw it there. So, yeah, we don't know the pricing, we don't know the models, And I don't know what the crown's going to be, but it's probably been leaked somewhere, and that's how you found out. Yeah, well, I went along with Chad GPT figuring he must have some resource.

He knows all and sees all. Yeah. So, but I didn't want to say Donovan was wrong because it's not 2027. I understand. And my reputation is on the line. I agree you. Well, Jonathan. Thanks for adding some humor to the show.

Donovan is still doubling down. I'm sure he'll be jumping right on that, Marty. Rick, what did you say? Donovan says the rumor is 2026 will be the end of the crown in the U.S. Okay, well, that means I've got to hang on to it to become an antique. Yeah. And my big concern was once they had the Trump's tariff on it. The car is going to be very expensive enough as it is.

Don't be surprised if someone approaches you and attempts to purchase the vehicle you're driving right now. Or are you going to add some tariffs to that? Yeah, I'll just tell them that in 2024 they had a tariff that I didn't know and it was on there. There you go. Every dollar counts. Right. All right. Well, let's see if Donovan or ChattGPT or Earl Stewart Toyota knows. Yeah. We'll check with Timmy. Okay, Marty.

Good holiday. Thank you. You do the same. It's always a pleasure. You know, I think the answer might be the mix-up in calendar year and model year because it is confirmed by ChachyBTT that the Toyota Crown continues into 2006. But that doesn't say they're going to label it a 2007 crown. So Donovan could be right and Marty could be right. So there's a, whether it's going to be a 2007, I don't see any evidence of that. But it is going to be 2006. Okay, Donovan.

And speaking of 2006 versus new cars, 2025, you're reading my mind. We have to be very careful this time of year. Most of the manufacturers have 2,026 cars available. You can either order them or they have them on the showroom. You can get them. So when you buy a 2025, and I know this is 2025, you're not buying a new car. You are buying a used car. Now, technically, they can say it's a new car,

because it hasn't been titled yet. But would you buy a 1925 car if it hadn't been titled yet? If it was a new car, well, that's a bad example because it'd probably be worth a lot of money. You get my point. When you buy a new car, it needs to be the new model year. And right now, when you walk into a showroom in 2025, you should be thinking, I want to buy 2006.

Why buy a one-year-old vehicle? yes the price will be less on the 2025 but it won't be anywhere near less than the depreciation additional depreciation you'll experience if you buy a 2025 so be sure you negotiate your best price on a 2006 because most likely that's available now not in all manufacturers not in all dealerships but most absolutely that's great information It goes without saying, Anne-Marie plays a very important part to this show, and the show's passed, and she has become a tradition. And I would like Rick to pull her text up or whatever her comments are today, and I think it

would be productive if we were to, you know, shut the lines down. Okay, with that said, we're going to move to Anne-Marie's text. And one other quick note, just to finish off that last conversation, Donovan says that it seems like there's also going to be a next-generation Toyota Supra not built by BMW. That'll be interesting. Wow. Okay, from Anne-Marie. Good morning. Car and driver reports that the average age of cars on the road in America is 12.6 years.

Let's hear it for those 2012 and 2013 cars. Many cars back then came with actual keys and knobs for the radio and AC. New cars have a lot more technology with screens being the way to access entertainment, climate, and various other systems. Number one, how long does it take to show a new car buyer who's used to the manual controls on a 12-year-old car, how to access the wipers, the radio, the infotainment center, lights, AC, et cetera, that may be accessed from a screen in the new car. Number two, are test drives taking longer since there's more to learn and show? Three, are there any videos out there that show how to access things that are now buried in a screen somewhere

in case the buyer forget some detail? And if the new cars have Apple Carplay, why can't I just ask Siri to adjust the temperature or change the radio station on the True Oldies channel? Or can she? Thanks. All right, we'll take these in order. Anne Marie, you are unbelievable. You know, I have asked myself that question over and over again. The amount of time you're asking across the board, and I'll turn this over to Rick in a second, it depends on the individual.

And whether they want to accept change. Rick? For the average person to get the basics, it can take even a couple hours. sometimes. Exactly. And to learn just the basic systems. And test drives, yeah, it's taking longer because you've got to learn how to operate all these new type systems on there. For videos, oh yes. There are YouTube videos that will teach you everything you need to know about your car and videos directly from all the manufacturers that will show you how to do these things. And as for the car play and the Google car play questions, Yes, you can ask Siri or the other, whatever, I guess Alexa is on the Google version. You can ask them to do certain adjustments, and they can accomplish that. My advice for most people, when they get a car like that, is take it slow and easy and learn just a little bit each day or every other day, learn something new from it.

owners manuals now are the size almost of an encyclopedia they're so huge as a matter of fact some companies were sending a DVD disc for a while but of course nobody has DVD players anymore now but anyways my advice is don't try to learn the whole thing in one sitting learn how to work a few of the basics and then just keep playing with it a little bit at a time you know maybe go sit in the car for a half hour every once a week or so and just play with things so that you can learn how to operate them and obviously yes

make use of those videos that will teach you all the ins and outs Well let me jump in there and have a little empathy for Anne-Marie because you're right Rick if you build a complicated product it takes a long

time to learn how to use it you need tutors you need manuals you need YouTube videos, but why do we have to go to graduate school to learn how to drive a car? And where we are now, we are in an information overload era. The manufacturer is all rushing out there to have what their competitors have. And if they have this little gadget or this little software kink and this camera and this, that, they match it.

but they don't think about the poor person, the poor man or woman that's got to get in that car and figure it out. And I consider myself a relatively high-tech guy for an old guy, and I have half the stuff in the Tesla's cyber trunk. I drive. I don't know what the hell it is. And the average person, I promise you, Donovan, you're the smartest guy I know out there. tell me the truth right now could you get into a new car today Toyota or Subaru

or anything else and how long would it take you to learn how to easily and successfully operate everything in the vehicle well I'm going to tell you one little story here when you first got your plaid Tesla

the first one there came a point where you asked me to do something in the car to fix something I think you might have a flat tire or something and then you asked me to take it for a drive afterwards I walked up to your car and I had to pull out my phone and pull it up a YouTube video just to tell me how to open the door I could not figure out how to get into the car and then I had to watch another one to figure out how to start it so this is an editorial or a request of manufacturers you need to

dumb down your cars I mean the average driver of your new vehicle is not a Ph.D. And you're building a car and you're charging him $80,000 or $50,000 or $150,000 for this vehicle, and he is unable to use 25% of the features. And we have people that trade cars in having never used a lot of the features on the car. Exactly. Yep. So it's almost comical if it weren't so expensive.

So I know the manufacturers don't like what I'm saying, including Toyota, and really they're caught between a rock and a hard place because there's always a customer that comes into a Subaru dealership and says, well, Toyota's got this, so I'm going to buy a Toyota. And word leaks back to Subaru, and they add that. And it's an endless game of adding fancy stuff to the car that most people either don't want to use or don't know how to use. Yeah. Well, let me tell you that, you know, there's these little guys that are making millions of dollars sitting in these rooms, making all these rules and, you know, everything that sit your fingertips and how easy it should be to use.

You're not reinventing the wheel. we also know how smart you are but please consider the consumer and to what you said earle about being old far from the truth you are highly educated and as far as your cyber truck is concerned and my plaid let me tell you earl and i are still in the learning stages and on any given day earl could be driving the cyber truck and he looks at me and i look at him and he goes hey what what's this for and I'll go, hmm, and I'll hit the screen, and there it is, boom. And he goes, wow, thank you. And the same thing with the plaid, so we are in the learning, you know.

Donovan's reply, I can get in and do it in 30 minutes, but 99.9% cannot. I can design UIs, user interfaces, as a day job, but it's mostly way too complex. Most vehicle software designed really poorly It's why people like car play so much If manufacturers would just sell a car with wireless car play That works 100% of the time They would stop so many complaints Excellent point

Absolutely true Great point Yeah Yeah there are people that can get in a car And figure it out in a half an hour And Donovan, if there is anybody You're the guy, so thanks for that Absolutely, we are going to go to the mystery shopping report

Yeah, I know. And the mystery shopping report comes to us from countryside Chevrolet, and that is in Georgia. And Agent Lightning went to Georgia and did an excellent job, and Stu rewrote, and he did it eloquently, as usual. Give us your vote at 772-4976530, back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, and for you new listeners, this mystery shopping report, I should have covered it earlier, but we didn't. We go into a different dealership every week, and this is the one in Georgia we're going to now. By the way, somebody checked where a countryside... You're Macon, Macon, yeah, thank you.

Macon, Georgia. So we... It's an unexperated, uncensored, tell it like it is, visit. and we pretend to buy a car. And we tell the facts, even though we could be sued. I mean, you can sue me for anything, right? But in order to win a suit, you've got to be right. So what we say is truthful.

We post these mystery shopping reports online, urlancars.com, and you can read hundreds and hundreds, because we've been doing thousands of these. And we're all over the southeast and even other areas. in the Midwest, we do mystery shopping boards, mainly Florida, mainly South Florida. But we tell the name of the dealership, the managers, the salespeople, exactly what they do. And if they break the law, we say, this dealer broke the law. Now, if I say that a car dealership, by name, breaks the law, and I'm wrong, I'm in serious trouble.

but I have been doing this with Nancy and Rick and my son for a long time and we've never been sued we've never been well I think we were sued once but they dropped the suit we have never gone to court because of anything we said I'm almost hoping that we do go to court because if I'm telling the truth

and it goes to court the publicity will be huge and that's what we want to do We want to let know, people know, what these dealers are doing to lie, cheat, and steal to take your money. And these mystery chopping reports tell it like it is. So with all that said, here we are at Countryside Chevrolet, Byron, Georgia, which is near Macon, did you, Macon, Macon. Speaking in the first person, as if I were Agent Lightning, who was our undercover agent, I arrived in the late afternoon and was greeted by a very nice young man at the customer service desk. He asked if I had spoken with anyone yet and pointed to a sales girl who was outside on her phone

and asked if she had anything and asked if she had said anything to me on my way in. I said she seemed that she was on the phone and I don't believe she saw me. Well, that's not good, right? He introduced me. He introduced himself as Dante, the fellow inside, and Dante welcomed me in. He apologized for not having many cars. I said, I notice you show him as empty, and there aren't many cars on the lot. He explained, as of June 9th, we're under new owners.

Ooh, we haven't done this before, so this really got my attention, and this is a really good thing to stumble on because it's always interesting to see what happens when the car dealership gets sold goes from one owner to another order it's usually very unsettling and shakes up a lot of things for good and bad so we're going to see how this is going to go new owners they bought the store and are the process of rebranding that's a strong term of rebranding I asked what vehicle here would offer me the best out of the I'm interested in another SUV and this is a Chevrolet dealership by the way he

pointed to the 2005 Chevrolet Suburban parked out front you see a lot of Suburban's over the road and remember this is a 2025 remember what I said earlier about new cars okay I said I've been considering a bigger vehicle and for right now I and for the right price I should say, for the right price I may be interested. Dante said, give me a minute to grab the keys. I'll show it to you and we can go for a test drive. I walked out for the vehicle. It was a new, and I say new again, with hesitancy, because I'm not sure that the 2006 suburban throughout. I should have checked specifically, but Chevrolet does have in 2026 is available. Not sure about the suburban. Maybe Rick can check JetGBT on that.

Rick, check to see if the 2026 suburban is out. However, I would only learn this later because there was no Monroey label on the car. Whoops, the old nemesis, Monroney labels on the cars. It's just amazing to me how that happens. As you know, it's a federal crime. A dealer can be charged $1,000 for every vehicle on the lot.

And you know, there's big deals out there with a thousand vehicles on the lot. Now, what's a thousand times a thousand? That's a million, right? A dealer could be fined a million dollars if he wasn't putting them, leaving the monorning label on the car. If I could get a cut of that, I just traveled around the country to find him.

But I think that all goes to the government. Dante was very knowledgeable about the suburban. He gave me a thorough walk around before we went on a test drive. He made sure I was comfortable with all the features and asked several times if I had any questions. once back at the dealership, we headed to his desk where I would learn the MSRP from his computer screen. So, you know, the reason you wanna have the Mononi label

on the car is people that they stop and they browse, right? We're browsing is what we do. Americans like to browse and shop. So you browse a car dealers a lot and you don't wanna talk to a car salesman, which, who wants to talk to cars, mails, but nobody, but you like to browse. Well, when you browse, you can see the MSRP.

That gives you the suggested retail price, plus the equipment, plus the gas mileage, and a lot of information, and you're not being annoyed, you're not being threatened, you're not being lied to, and you're just browsing. But they take the Monroney labels off. So here we are. so we looked at the monorone label on the computer screen Rick you wanted to know

the the price on the 26 I know if they if the 27s are available 27 yeah yeah this is 2026 or to I mean I'm sorry yeah the 2020 six is are available right right this 2025 yes the the 26es are available okay according to these right here um yeah and you can get several different packages there's about uh six different tiers for pricing so there you have it thanks right that's very interesting most 2026s are available now so uh what we have to do is double check for you folks out there when you're shopping around this was a 2025 the salesperson never mentioned the fact that the 2026s were out and this is not uncommon because the 2025s oftentimes have an incentive to the salesperson to sell these and to the dealer

they called a carryover allowance carrying over from one year into the next year and they only have a few 2026s and so therefore they need to to get rid of their 2025s, but they don't tell you. So here is a, in fact, the salesman might not even know. The dealer might not have said anything to anybody. So that's a very valuable information. And think about this. The average length of time a car is being held now is much longer.

I think it came out earlier in the show. I want to say six years. Now, think of the difference in depreciation in two or three or four or five or six. The difference in depreciation between a 2025 and a 2006. I mean, no one's going to ask you in 2009 when you bought it, all they're going to do is look at the year model. So if you bought it $2,025, but you bought it in, and you're trading it in, they're going to look at the date on the car when it was manufactured. It cost you thousands of dollars of depreciation, and you didn't save that when you got the carryover allowance from the dealer when he sold it to you. Okay, back to the shopping report.

A few minutes later, Dante, the salesperson, returned with Jason, who apologized for not being more dressed up, explaining that he'd been working outside on a few things that needed attention. This is a dealership that had just been bought. These are some of the new folks that are changing things over. Since the new owners took over, he didn't too bad, but he'd been out in the heat and his polo shirt was untucked. Jason said the previous owners only had the store for eight months and ran it into the ground. Wow. That's fast. How do you buy a new dealership and run it to the ground

eight months? That's amazing. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work right now. Jason said I'm here to rebrand with better ethics and to make a reputable name for countryside Chevrolet. I wonder what the previous name was. I should have checked that out. It's probably available on Google or ChatGBT. Chat Chb-T will tell you. Yeah.

We also don't have many cars right now. I'm speaking again for Jason because it takes about 10 weeks to restock new vehicles after dealership changes owners. Well, yeah, that's where the 2000 and 26es are, they're on the way, so they're trying to get rid of their old cars. He reviewed a worksheet with me.

They discounted the MSRP, which they found in the glove compartment, of $79,620 on the Chevrolet Suburban by $5,100, and they took off a $500 rebate. They charged $63.459 in government fees, Now that's legitimate, but they threw in, this is the new owners, $99 in junk fees, processing and documentation, something or other, but it was junk fees, $909,000, call it $1,000. I was at now $79,925.

I asked, why isn't the window sticker on the car? I'd like to see everything that it has along with the miles per gallon. Jason said, thank you for pouring that out. This is another thing I've been working on. For some reason, our service department, blame it on the service department. For some reason, our service department takes all the window stickers off. And they just do it because they don't like window stickers. I just, I'm joking.

I brought it to their attention several times, you know, we'll make sure it's taken care of. always the excuse. Donnie went out to a look and found the sticker folded, what did I say before, in the glove compartment. Jason asked him to get it back in the window immediately. I thanked him both, thank them both, and wished them much success

and getting the dealership turned around. So there you have it. Dealership in Georgia, small town near Macon, Byron, Georgia, country shy, Chevrolet used to be something else about a few months ago as of June 9th

actually when they had the new owners. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, give us your vote. You can do so at 772-4976530. You are an important part of the show. We'd love to hear from you and how you feel about countryside Chevrolet in Georgia, especially their, well, previous owner that was, had the inability.

But I do have to commend him that may be the shortest amount of time that anybody has destroyed a dealership. It's right, you know, I've been a car dealer for a lot of years, and I think if I tried, I couldn't go broke in six months. Yeah, it takes a whole lot of work and dedication. I mean, I really have to work at it. That'd be a 24-hour job. 772-4976530.

Vote. Okay. We got any votes that coming in? I've got one so far from Tom Steckle. He says, C-plus, no Monroney and $9.99 junk fee. I'd be making my way out to West Haney Chevrolet and live oak. Love it, love it. No dealer fee and no addendums there.

Tim Gilliland says New owner or not Fees equal a C See if we get some more coming in a little slow today Yeah the former owner Maybe they killed somebody I suppose if you shriot a customer

You could be out of business in six months That would definitely scare it down a bit Trust me I'm sure that they took that into consideration Don't forget we want to hear from chat GPT Are you sign here? to keep the conversation going. Brian Sidlatko says, Chevy gets a C. And Johnny Z. Fradley says, $9.99 Dock fee?

Did Macon relocate to South Florida? I'm making my grade B. At least there weren't any forced add-ons. For myself, I'm going to go and say, I'm going to go with a C on this one. No worries at all, Professor. I'll stay quiet and just be here if you need me. I think they need to work on that dock fee. And the government fee, I don't know, wouldn't that be,

I guess that could be your tires and batteries. So, okay, I'll leave that one alone. But the $9.99, just put it in the price, folks. There you go. I mean, hey. Does anybody have any smelling salts for Jonathan? Oh, yeah. Well, a few more here.

Mark H says, C, got to build trust in a small town, or you're done. Ken Asher says A hidden Monroney sticker, window sticker, or automobile information disclosure label is a label required by federal law to be affixed on every new passenger car is an automatic F.

Cram 1624 says F. Way too much for a 2025. It appears they are really not ready. Negotiate that $9.99 fee. Baby boomer says junk fee. C. Vincent G says D

on that dealer, they should be stepping it up being a new owner. Joseph Kelleher says D-plus, Doc Fee lowered the grade. And that's what we've got so far. Okay, we got five minutes

left. Earl, how would you like to vote? It's very confusing. I'm going to go with a C. I have a feeling that the previous owner was just absolutely as I said

wasn't hands on he had to be too bad so this this dealership here is probably much better than the previous dealer but there's still average yeah I think they're in the learning process the average dealer has a junk fee the average dealer we know what average dealers are like

they're not they don't do the job right and the only reason they exist is our regulators won't enforce the law the Federal Trade Commission makes almost everything that a car dealer does today, almost every car dealer illegal, and they will not enforce the law. And so we're stuck with it.

And that's the way it's going to be until maybe manufacturers are selling the cars directly and maybe they can get it right. I don't know. Yeah, good point. Rick, how would you grade them? Oh, I said a C. Oh, that's right.

Okay, you did give them a C. Okay, Earl, to your point or your comment, I should say, That's an understatement, and I would normally fail them, but in this instance, they have taken over from a previous nightmare, and they need to clean up their act, and I will give them D-plus. Yeah, yeah. The news even ignores car dealers. So we have a situation with about 17,000 car dealers, virtually all of them are breaking the law and the state law, the federal law, Federal Trade Commission, and there's no publicity about it. You don't read or you don't look online or you don't see on television.

This car dealer added illegal fees to the price of the car. You know the old expression Man bites dog That's news You know Dog bites man is not news So crooked card dealers are Dogs biting men

And dogs bite men Every day We need to turn it around Without regulation Where it's unusual And then it'll get to publicize So we're caught between a rock and a hard place Exactly

Would you I'd like to turn chat to be to you on the report has been loaded up and he's ready for comment i'm kind of afraid to but i will uh chat uh do you have a uh uh grade on the shopping report hang on your house folks chat's been a bad boy today sure thing professor i'll keep it short and sweet good once you give me the sweet. Absolutely, Professor.

Just like you asked, let me know any time you need more. Okay, I want you to know that I'd like to get the grade on the mystery shopping report. Of course, Professor. Just call me Coach when you're ready for that grade, and I'll keep it nice and concise. Okay, Coach, let's go. All right, Coach here. I say this week's dealership earned a solid B-plus. They did well on transparency and pricing, just a bit of room to improve on friendliness.

Coach, you're in a lot of trouble. That was really a stupid. thing to say and i'm going to turn you off and please stop talking yeah he's out of obviously out of touch with reality and i'm going to talk over because we'll have two minutes left here and i'm on it and what i have to say is um to mr ed stewart happy birthday uh his birthday is just around the corner and uh to also add to that uh earl you must be without a doubt so proud and also Jacob's birthday so we have a whole lot to celebrate

and we without a doubt have been very blessed ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us today you're a very important part of the show we'll see you're right back here next week on the oldies channel have a great weekend