Earl Stewart on Cars - 08.31.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Gunther VW of Coconut Creek, FL.

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a South Florida Volkswagen dealer as a follow up to a TV investigative report, to find out how much they will lease for a new 2024 VW Taos SE SUV 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. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Hello, I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female listeners. We also have Rick Carney, 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 car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back. This is Earl Stewart Live, right here in the studio in North Palm Beach, Florida. And as you heard, if you listen to the recorded introduction, We're here to help you buy or lease a car without being taken advantage of by car dealers.

We're located in South Florida, but we reach all over the globe. Never thought that would happen. We started this show over 20 years ago, and now we're talking to Australia, we're talking to Europe, we're talking to India. We're all over, and all the states, all 50 states. So we think that this is a unique show. If you haven't, if you just tuned in and you don't know who we are, Earl Stewart on Cars,

what's that all about? Give us a couple of minutes. I think you'll really be appreciative of the fact that we do something different. I mean, there's too much television and radio and digital product competing for attention now, but so much of it is repetitive. I don't think there's another show anywhere that is as brutally honest. and transparent and open about exposing an industry that has been exploiting the public for a hundred years. We're talking about what's going on with auto manufacturers and auto dealers to take advantage of you, the consumer.

And we tell it like it is. I mean, some of you can remember Mike Walls back on 60 Minutes when 60 Minutes was really seriously 60 Minutes. and he would go into a business unannounced and approach the CEO or the head guy of the business and just in no uncertain terms totally candidly talk about what that business is doing to take advantage of customers. Now we do that on Earl Stewart on Cars

and toward the end of the show, we're on from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. this morning, Eastern Standard Time. 8 to 10, Eastern Standard Time. every Saturday. And we send out an undercover agent, a secret agent, we call this secret agent Agent Lightning. We can't, of course, use the agent's real name. And we go into a car dealership, mainly Florida, but we go out of state also. We've been to Michigan and Pennsylvania, and we cover Florida like a rug. I mean, we go from North Florida to South Florida. And as you know,

We're in South Florida, which is, I call it, the Sodom and Gamora of the car dealerships in the world. Because the unfair, deceptive trade practices that are going on in car dealerships all over the world are in a fever pitch in South Florida. And most of our shopping reports are from Florida. So we've got a particularly interesting shopping report that we're going to be talking about at the end of this show. to be around a half hour before the show's over about 9.30-ish a.m. Eastern Standard Time. And we went into a car dealership that is, we're on the cusp in South Florida. In fact, the whole state of Florida is on the cusp of having severe enforcement of the law that has been on the books in Florida for over 20 years.

And, of course, we have the Federal Trade Commission Combat Auto Retail Scams. That's coming to fruition pretty quickly, too. So we have a lot of forces coming in to reach out to the car deals and say, hey, you treat the consumer properly, honestly, transparently, or it's going to cost you a lot of money, or you might even lose your license to retail cars. So that's why we get excited about this show. We prioritize you, the callers,

and I use that term generally speaking, because you can text us. You can zoom us. We're on Zoom. We have a Zoom ID number for you. You can reach us in a variety of fashions on YouTube.com ford slash your long cars. Facebook.com forward slash your long cars.

You can stream us live. We're in the studio here, and you can look at the team. A team being Rick Kearney, our certified diagnostic master technician, can answer anything about the mechanics or electronics If you have a problem with your car, Rick has got the answer for you. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, she's sitting across the table from me.

She is a female advocate of the first degree. She is the ultimate and liberated females. She understands your, and I'm speaking to the female audience now, your position and your difficulties in dealing in the free market now, especially with car dealers. And when we started the show 20 years ago, we had no female callers. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, who wound up to the show with me, has built that audience up to parity.

We now have about a 50-50 female callers, and we value you female callers. And just about a minute, and I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy. But I want to give you some numbers. And the first number I give you is our telephone number, because Nancy Stewart monitors the phones when your call comes in, she sees your call on her laptop and she stops me or Rick or my son, Stu Stewart,

who will be coming in any minute now, we stop talking, we turn it over to Nancy so you can get prioritized when you call in to 877-9-60-99-60. That's 877-9-60-99-60. And I suggest that you write the number down. I know you're not going to listen for two hours. Very few people would listen for two hours.

That's a long time. But you're in the car. You're on the way somewhere. You tune this in or whatever you may be doing. But if you write the number down, you might think of something and say, hey, I'll bet you Rick Kearney could answer that. I've got this strange odor in my car. I've got this squeak, rattle, and roll in the rear end.

I wonder what that is. The car dealership told me it's going to cost $2,000 to fix it. Who knows what questions you might have? So write this number down, please. 877-960-9960. 877-960-99-60. Now, we also have a unique number that no other show that I know offers. It's a total anonymity.

You can use this link. It's a web link. Your Anonymous Feedback.com while you are, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Your Anonymous Feedback, just the way it sounds, dot com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you can communicate with us. We open the link. We don't know who you are, where you are. You can say anything you want to.

You can, you know, slander, libel, cuss me out, anything you want to. But we find it's used actually by some very serious people. that for privacy reasons just don't want to be hounded. You need to let your email address get out or your phone number get out and you're worried about being harassed and you know how that happens

especially when you visit a car dealership. So if you use your anonymousfeedback.com you can say anything you want, have total privacy and we will read your comments on the air. So I mentioned Zoom and we have

a Zoom number. I'm going to let Nancy Stewart take over now, give her the mic, and she'll give you the information on how to reach us in a very, very special offer. If you're female, and you're listening right now, you're not going to believe this, but she's got a very special offer for you. Thank you, Earl. Good morning, everyone, and what is great about this show is the advice is free. Everybody wins, and I don't know of one time that Rick has been wrong, and that is saying something. He, can answer all of your questions. Knows all, sees all.

That's right, exactly. And we're going to get to our mystery shopping report later on in the show, and that's going to be from Gunther. And, well, we've got a few things going on that will connect with the mystery shopping report, and it's going to be quite interesting. And we continue, you know, just hollering and, you know, just hollering, and telling everyone all about cracking down on junk fees and lowering costs for the consumer. And we'll continue that March, I call it.

Give us a call toll free at 877960, 960, especially you ladies. I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. So give us a call. We've got two hours to spend with everyone. and I couldn't think of anyone better than Rick because I have nothing. Uh-huh. Well, let's see.

So far, we're a little quiet on the YouTube. Let me get over and we will check the text messages because I'm willing to bet that Anne-Marie has got a new and in for us. I bet. Good morning, Anne-Marie. And she does. Good morning. There's been a couple of news stories.

about tire blowouts killing people lately. So that prompts the following questions. Wow. What causes a tire blowout? Is there anything to indicate ahead of time that a tire might blow? And what's the best way to deal with a blowout? Okay, well, first off,

I'm assuming we're talking at highway speeds. This was in a warehouse, Rick. These were tires that were stored. and it was people walking around the warehouse when the tire blew up that's that's really yeah okay that's um i've never heard of that because a tire in a warehouse isn't going to be mounted on a rim therefore wouldn't be inflated i i wouldn't see how it could blow up uh let me i tell you what why don't we why don't we go on if we have another um if we have another um if we have another text

I think this was let's see here I can't find that now I'm going to talk about Jeff wines here now while Rick juggles that but that was two people were killed

last week and it wasn't with a tire mounted on the car it was a tire explosion and we'll get to the bottom of that Ann Marie is always on top of the news while Rick is looking for that information Let me talk about Jeff Weinseer.

Now, if you're not from South Florida, you might not know who he is, but he's the investigative reporter, Jeff Weinseer, W-E-I-N-S-I-E-R, Weinseer. And Channel 10 is a Miami television station, W-P-L-G, and Jeff has been with him for quite a while. The thing that says W-P-L-G apart from a lot of the television stations anywhere is they have the courage to go out and call a spade a spade if they see deception

or they see cheating or lying with a commercial whether it's car dealerships or you know nurseries I mean anybody that's breaking the law they're not afraid to do the investigative reporter thing and tell the truth

so Jeff Wineshare did that just exactly that last week and he started he initiated the Attorney General of the state of Florida going in to the Gunther Auto Group, and that's about a dozen dealerships, a very, very large group of dealers in Florida

in other states as well. And because they were violating the Truth in Leasing Act, going back 1976, and that Leasing Act protects the consumer against dealers adding onto the purchase option price in their lease. Now, the law says, black and white, very simple, the purchase option price on a lease is the price that you pay. You can't add anything to that price.

They can't charge you for dock fees. They can't charge you for preparing the car for delivery. They can't charge you for washing the car. And that was going on fraudulently and still is, unfortunately, I'm sure, in a lot of dealerships. But the Gunther Group was one of the first to really get caught. and Jeff Weinshear exposed that last week. It was all over the news nationally, and of course Florida, it really shook things up.

So just for your edification, we are going to be reading and recovering a mystery shopping report of Gunther Volkswagen after this thing, so to speak, hit the fan. And he was exposed. It cost the Gunther Group, $600,000 which is jump change

for the Gunther Auto Group that's a slap on the wrist and so we did that. You'll find out how Agent Lightning fared when she went into Gunther Volkswagen here in South Florida and

discussed leasing. I don't want to give it away because the whole fun of the Mr. Chopper report is to get you engaged and listen and comment and vote, by the way. We'll ask you to vote on Mr. Schibert. Rick has a smile on his face.

I think he found the exploding tire issue. Yeah, actually, I found two stories. One of them was apparently it's an aircraft tire in a warehouse where Delta employees were working on it, and they haven't released a cause as to why that tire exploded, maybe a defect in the tire or something. something well an airline tire they're huge so yeah I wouldn't want to be anywhere in the neighborhood when the airline tire exploded that would that would absolutely

terrify me but as you put out but yeah that was it's not automobile tires don't have any air in them when they're being stored so right and and this was a case where apparently the tire the wheel was removed from the aircraft and something happened and it exploded while the plane was being worked on for other parts of the plane. Yeah. And that caused this to occur. The other one I found, though, the other story was apparently a large piece of heavy construction equipment

that had caught fire and a seven-foot-tall wheel on it exploded, even while a firefighter was spraying water on it, and the explosion actually killed the firefighter, unfortunately. God, I don't know. So, yeah, we're talking industrial equipment. and these wheels are massive and when they go it's a horrible thing and obviously there's videos

all over the internet repairmen who are filling large truck tires which they normally run around 95 to 110 pounds of pressure in that tire and if that tire explodes

oh the results from that are horrifying well let me ask you a question about an automotive tire as long as Ann Marie brought the subject up let's say that let's say that for whatever reason I want to put some air in one of my tires and so I pull into a gas station and I put the air thing on there and I pop an air in there and I don't pay any attention or maybe the gauges are off or something without what would happen if I just kept putting air and never stopped into that tire would would it explode or

would it would it would that happen I mean would it be dangerous would there be It wouldn't be like shrapnel from the wheel, but it would be shrapnel from the rubber, which can be just as bad because, remember, there are steel belts in that wheel. Okay, let's get back to that because we have a caller. Yeah, we're going to interrupt for a second, and we are going to take a Zoom caller this morning. His name is Jonathan. He's got a couple of questions for us. Good morning, Jonathan.

Good morning. Welcome. Thank you. There are a couple questions. One, I've been looking at some of the new cars, like a 20-25 Camry, the Rufford. Do you know the average wait time for kind of the newer Toyotas of coming into the next year? And then kind of a double question is, I've been new to hybrid vehicles. And I know battery replacement can be pretty expensive.

In Florida, at least my normal car battery dies fairly fast for the extreme. heat, but does the temperatures in Florida kind of impact the lifespan of hybrid batteries? Well, I'll take the question about the wait time for the new vehicles. There's really not much of a wait time. It depends on which, like for example, for the Camry, which trim level. I got one for my daughter recently, and I had to wait several weeks. I think it was about four weeks, but that was for an excessy. with some particular stuff on it.

But for the most part, you're not waiting long at all, if at all. On the hybrid battery, I'll turn that over to Rick because he's an expert on hybrid batteries. Yeah, the temperature in Florida is not going to affect those at all. Toyota's had so much experience now with building and designing these batteries that the quality level has gone up exponentially. uh we used to replace quite a few of them back years ago with the second generation Prius you know because they were the most common on the road but now it's like very rare do we replace batteries it's they just have become incredible things and I don't think you're going to have a problem with them the cost of the replacement batteries has come down also I believe yes it was so high that it was literally more than the cost of the car almost at some point yeah now like a second-gen Prius you can buy a battery from Toyota for like

$2,000 and they're going to get lower even than that simply because they're you know the demand is getting less and generally speaking you're going to see that I mean it's a pretty long warranty period so 10 years 150,000 miles very few people uh well I'll say very few people but not a ton of people keep their cars that long. Jonathan, can I ask you a question? We've been accepting Zoom calls and have the technology to do that for

several weeks there. It's really been a struggle. We've had all sorts of excitement. So yours is one of the most intelligent and successful Zoom calls we've had. I want to thank you very much. May I ask where you're calling from?

Yeah, I live in Orlando. Orlando, great. How did you find out about the Zoom availability. Yeah, I actually would follow a Toyota group on Facebook and they kind of

bragged on Earl Stewart as a grader dealership until I kind of followed the rabbit trail down to club your live streams and then I saw that you posted the Zoom ID. Oh, cool. I think last week I saw a little bit about it, so that's what made me happen.

Well, thank you very much for the call. I hope you will join our family of, because it was a very intelligent and very good question. And the fact that you are now on the Zoom technology, you might be helping other people consider using Zoom because I think it adds something to be able to talk face to face like we just did.

And I'd love to have you spread the word in Orlando and tell your friends that are Zoom conscious and aware and capable to give us a call if they have any questions. We love to have callers you. And Jonathan, this is Nancy Stewart. As an incentive, you just won yourself $100 this morning for being our first Zoom caller. If you leave your information, contact information with the control room, Jeremy will jot that all down and pass it along to me and I'll get the checkout to you.

Where Jonathan can do that. And Jonathan, again, you know, as Earl said, pass it along that we are on Zoom this is a unique feature all right I'm good I have a great day Jonathan thanks again thank you Jonathan okay we're gonna get back to Ann Marie that was a really cool and I was I was worried at first because it was like oh there's a Zoom guy excellent job Jonathan loud and clear as long as we're talking about Zoom Jonathan told me before you came in we had some excitement last week for you folks and it was it was oh I was yeah I was here I know you were talking about the 8 million people listening to me right now.

I left, but it was before I left. We had some X-rated Zoom callers, and we found out, Jonathan found out, that by reporting that to Zoom, they lose their Zoom credentials. That's right. And, of course, they had you on record of what you did, so we had a couple snucked by the sensor. And I don't think that's going to happen again. That's good. But we didn't report the kid without the shirt, right? No.

Okay, that was, yeah. Yeah, that wasn't bad. Yeah, well, it was a girl without a shirt. We would report that. Yeah, there is definitely a dichotomy there between how we view those various things that we're alluding to. All right, let's move on all.

Ladies, if you didn't hear me when we opened the show, $50 for the first two new lady callers, $50, give us a call and share an experience with us as far as leasing, purchasing, new, used, or if you just want to say

hello, 877-9-60, 960. Are we going to finish Ann Marys? Well, we can go a little into tire blocks if you like, or tire safety? Yeah, I think the question, I left it

and the fact, what happens if I try to convince the roadside and continue to putting air in a tire until it blows up? going to happen to me yeah it it basically that tire the weakest point which would course be some point in the rubber it would burst and it can be deadly as a matter of fact mechanics are told when we're inflating tires we have metal cages and we can actually put them in so that if that tire were to explode you know we've got some safety factor around us but normally we're it's on the

wheel and on the car and we're just adding air to it So if you have a defective gauge on your inflator or whatever and you inadvertently go over the red line, you could kill yourself blowing up a tire. There is a very real potential, yes. It's something that the general public needs to be aware of. Because as a mechanic, you know, we've done it so many times you develop a feel for it. You know, hey, if something's going on, this is taking way too long. I'm going to ask you guys on a question. before the tire explodes and kills you

what warning signs what sounds behavior appearance changes before it kills you maybe nothing nothing you might you might suddenly see a bubble appear but odds are it'd be more like in that submersible when it just went exactly but it goes the other direction

that's scary yeah and it would be it would be bad yeah so I had Marie inadvertently brought up an extremely interesting subject that none of us here other than Rick was aware of. Somehow, I'm surprised that it doesn't happen more often because, well, maybe I guess a lot of people don't inflate their own tires. I don't know.

I mean, I'll be honest with you, I thought with the modern tires that it's sealed to the rim and there's no tubes that it would just like pop off the rim. I know that would be sudden and violent, but it would do that? But the tire in the tread would rip apart? The bead seals so well to the rim, really is effective that it would burst out the side wall it's basically

becomes part of the wheel now on the other hand bear in mind it would take a lot of pressure to burst a tire that size who's going to do that yeah i mean i've actually seen cars come into the shop i personally had a car come into the shop one day that had over 90 pounds of air in all four tires they literally kept pumping the tires up until the tire didn't have any more side bulge you know when you look at a tire you'll see the sidewall appears to bulge a little on the bottom and they thought that meant the tires were low it bounced into the shop it literally did and it actually it turned on the tire lights the warning light was on because the pressures were too high it was out of tolerance in a way you never see did uh did they have a did they have a license

i believe they did but what kind of license nancy for me it first It terrified me. Okay, I have an interesting anonymous feedback. Either way, it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. No. No, I think we're all there. We have anonymous feedback here. This is a good one for you, Mr. Stewart.

Incognito, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. So we still get those. What's wrong with saying, it sounds like it's from a dealer or somebody in the business. What's wrong with saying we want to make 750 profit per car and being up front, knowing we can collect on holdback financing and fair service prices. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Well, except for the fact that you're lying about the $750 per car

because holdback is profit and there are a lot of holdbacks and I call this a conspiracy between the auto manufacturers and the auto dealers. The auto dealers purposely put cost into the invoice of the car. One of these is the commonly referred to holdback, which is nothing more than a 1% or 2% of the MSRP, kickback under the table to the dealer after he buys the car. There's also advertising expenses. There are also incentive bonuses and things of this nature that at one point, I haven't checked this recently, the average extra money kickback through the, The supposed invoice for the car was around $4,000. So the dealer could take the invoice, which the last time I checked,

the invoice is a piece of paper that tells you what it costs you to buy a product. So when the dealer shows you his car invoice, he's telling you that he paid the manufacturer that price to buy that vehicle, and then he marked it up and sold it to you. But what he didn't tell you is he didn't pay that price. There's $4,000 secret profit kickback under the table to the car dealer. And they lull you by showing you the invoice, say, hey, I only paid $18,000 for this car.

I'm going to sell it to you for $18,500, and I'm only making $500 on this car. Meanwhile, he's making $4,500 bucks on the car. I can tell you that I don't know who, because it's anonymous. We'll never know. What position they hold in the dealership. But the, everybody knows what a DMS now. Everybody heard about the big ADP outage that shut down the car business across the country a few weeks ago. A big DMS computer system for the whole dealership is called Reynolds.

We used it for years. And I remember when I first got into the business, you had certain access and you would log in. So I could see the deal, the car deal. But I didn't see that the hidden profit that Earl's. talking about. I saw what the salespeople, the sales managers saw. It was only later as I rose in the ranks and I had more access. I saw that there was another screen that was the real deal. And it all describes as a kickback. No one's showing up in a parking garage and sliding a briefcase full of cash. It's all transferred, wired transferred into the dealer's accounts.

It's just part of the system. But that's effectively what it is. So let's just say the salesperson doesn't this guy's a salesperson or a sales manager. It might even be a general sales manager, and he thinks profit is what he sees on that screen. It's up to the dealer whether they want to be that transparent. At the time, when I started, Earl, was not that transparent. Now everybody can see exactly what everything is now. And the conspiracy is between the dealer owner.

And remember, the dealer not only screws the public, it takes advantage of his customers, he also takes advantage of his employees. So the salesman, the salesman think they're getting 25% of the profit that they make on the car. They don't know that the dealer is putting a couple thousand dollars in his pocket for the kickbacks on the invoice. Before anybody touches. And the salesperson doesn't contribute that. There were a lot of lawsuits around the country.

There were at one time. Maybe after listening to this show, the car salesman will be filing other lawsuits against the dealers. But if you're a car salesman and you have a payment. plan that says you're entitled to 25% of the profit, which is a standard pay plan, by the way, 25% of the profit on that car. And the dealer is pocketing profit and not paying you on that. You've got yourself a heck of a class action lawsuit against that dealer because every salesman that worked for him was underpaid and misled.

Probably not going to happen if you work at a publicly owned company like Auto Nation. Probably, yeah. Because they're pretty careful. Well, even we, back in those old days, had on the pay plans, on the back page, you know, it had a follow an asterisk. It was kind of like a car ad. It says gross profit is defined as. And it did to protect our CYA, so avoid a lawsuit.

Well, I was an evil dealer, but I was a smart evil dealer. Right, right. You made sure that you covered your duty. Okay, where are we here? I've got an interesting one from Donovan. So I'm going to read this one out. in its entirety here. He says,

last Saturday. Donovan, by the way, Donovan is our premium, the best caller we've got on, he's on YouTube.com for it slash Erlan Cars. Donovan could, he could take this show over, and we really appreciate his calls. Guest host. And he may have found a new calling here.

When did you hear this one? As a mystery shopper. Last Saturday, I leased a Kia EV-9 after about two months of on-off research and talking to dealers. The vehicle is awesome. It's the only affordable three-row electric vehicle SUV with a 300-plus mile range. The experience of buying a Kia in South Florida is a horrible experience. But I have good news.

If you're willing to drive to Melbourne, Florida, Boniface hires Kia. It's Boniface, B-O-N-I-F-A-C-E. H-I-E-R-S. H-I-E-R-S. Kia is an honest, fair dealer. Yes, they have a dealer fee, but they honored the out-the-door-slash-monthly price I worked out over the phone when I got to the dealership.

There was no upsell. The process was quick and easy. I highly recommend them over any Kia dealer in South Florida, and if you go, get with Nick Joseph. He was a great salesperson at the dealership. Kia has around 15,000 in incentives on EV-9 right now, and I believe many dealers are keeping some of those incentives for themselves. But they have the federal tax.

That's probably made up part of those incentives, I would think. Usually, I mean, most manufacturers will advertise like that. Even Tesla. He believes they're keeping those sentences due to the insane prices that he was getting from dealers in our area. Okay. Well, you know what? Boniface hires, we mystery shopped one of their dealerships. Agent Lightning did, and I think it was up in Northern Florida or something, and I got to look it up, but I think they did a good job.

It's kind of encouraging to hear that they've got some stores in South Florida. If they are, we've got to do our own mystery shop. Yeah, we need to do. We need to put them on the recommended list, but like you say, we have to mystery shop them. Ourselves, yeah. Yeah, ourselves. But Donovan, I really appreciate that. And you folks listening, you know, a lot of people think this is a all-negative show about bashing car dealers and bashing auto manufacturers.

Believe me, we really would love to have more calls like from Donovan. If you find an honest, transparent dealer, and we know they're out there somewhere, please call. and we will give them a boost and a recommendation and help encourage other people to follow suit. I think a better way to describe our mystery shop, the whole thing we'd be doing is a search for an honest dealer. I mean, that's what we're doing. When it happens, we get very excited and the studio erupts. Very excited. With celebration. And I've got to tell you, interrupting, sorry to interrupt your stupid, when Donovan speaks, everybody listens. He's just an amazing asset for the show, and we definitely look forward to his text every week.

That's true. I was shopping on Amazon, and then he started sending us messages, and I stopped. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. I have a text from Bob. He says, good morning. Can you please explain the process starting tomorrow? This is for you, Dad, for reporting when an ad shows a price but sells it for more. What is the process that they have to go through? Well, the best thing you could do would be to contact the Attorney General directly, and that's what we'll be doing on this show. You can, let me see, I wrote down here where you can reach that. Oh, reportfraud.FTC is the website that you can report that to the Federal Trade Commission. No screen. Ashley Moody, let's get Ashley Moody's contact information. Yeah, I'm going to just basic, it's probably going to be the Office of Attorney General for Florida, and I will get that website.

Yeah. And we can tell everybody, because I'm sure there's that same line. And while Stu's doing that, Jonathan, I just want to let everyone know we are going to be taking your calls. We had a slight problem there. notice where we have five calls backed up right explains that okay but real quick her website for the florida attorney general's office is my florida legal.com so that's why i got to type in my florida legal dot com that sounds like a injury attorney's website doesn't it it does but it's not it goes it's a official state of florida and you can connect there and you can report uh things

there's a contact us there's also phone number and i'm going to give you that phone number because this is probably going to be easier to do. It's a good phone number. 1-8669, no scam. That's easy to remember, isn't it? Kind of. 1-866-9, no scam. I don't know what the numbers are.

I didn't look it up, but that's the number. No scam, and that is how you report by phone. And that goes to where the Attorney General's office? Yeah, this is the state Florida. Attorney General's office with a big old picture of Ashley Moody and a number that says no scam. Well, that's great. Yeah, well, we need to continue to give this out because the enforcement starts tomorrow. All right. Well, hey, well, let's repeat this number multiple times. I'll leave my window over. September 1st is the first day where Ashley Moody has publicly announced she will be enforcing the Florida statute against unfair dissenting trade practices.

is the scams, the car dealers have been perpetrating on Florida car buyers for over 20 years, and she will enforce it beginning tomorrow, September the 1st. And you know, it's refreshing thanks to Stu to bring that to our attention. She has certainly updated that profile because the number that I was giving out, there was no attention brought to it,

but this, I think, is a good move, very good move. Okay. Jonathan, where are we going? Trisha. Okay. Tricia has been holding. Good morning, Tricia. Good morning.

Okay, you know, long-time listener-caller, and I know I want to continue the tire talk. We've talked about this many months ago about tire pressure. Well, of course, I was due for my oil change and tire rate. rotation at 107,000 miles. And my local guy who did the work for me refused to put 40 pounds of pressure in my tire, which was recommended to me from my other mechanic in the business for 40 years. For 40 years, he says he's been putting his tires at 40 to 45, but But my local guy refused to do that. So I want to settle this once and for all.

I have a 2016 Honda-Fed. Okay. There's going to be two numbers that you're going to want to look for. The first one is going to be on the door jam of your driver's door, and that is the lowest number that you want to run, that pressure. The second one is. is on the side wall of the tire, and this will be on both sides, that is the maximum safe pressure that those tires can handle. Now, you can buy tires that will have a higher pressure

rating for a safety pressure, you know, for that maximum number. I've seen them on for light truck tires as high as 50 pounds for most cars. But most cars, it's capped off. at either 40 or even 35 pounds of air. And so if your tires are recommended for 35 is the maximum, then, yeah, your local guy is correct. You should not run 40 pounds of air if the tire is rated only for 35. I know. We've discussed this before.

I think it says 44 on my tire wall. Okay, well, then they are safe to run. up to 44. I don't know why he would refuse to do that. Because that's, it's totally safe to run him at 40. Okay. I just wanted the final opinion from you guys, the experts, because I was tired.

I knew I'd get pushback. I even told him I wanted it at 40 pounds and I don't want pushback. Patricia, the only thing that he may have been thinking is it would give you a rougher ride, but it shouldn't be his decision as to how rough a ride you want your car. But if you have them inflated to the maximum stated by the tire manufacturer, then it'll be a lot bumpier than if you dropped it off four or five pounds. But safety is not an issue.

Obviously, the manufacturer would never put a recommended inflation that would cause the tires to explode. So the man advised you incorrectly. Okay. All right. So I guess I've got to go someplace else to get them up to 40. Yeah. If there's more than my mind, I'd ask for the manager to explain to whoever it was at work there. I can't believe everybody in that dealership would have supported a technician or a service advisor telling you they won't put the manufacturer recommended and inflated into your tire. That's just really stupid. I mean, it would be okay to explain why you. might not like it that high inflation, but it is not dangerous, and you just might want to get

the maximum amount of mileage out of your tires, and when you inflate them higher to the manufacturer's highest recommended level, you'll get a lot more tire wear than if you have them underinflated. Yes, I know, and he was the manager, my local guy, so, yeah, and Trish, I just want to thank you for calling and, excuse me, sharing that story with us, because what you did was, The conversation is very familiar that we were listening to the last time you called, so you took that information, and you shared it with the technician, and he declined, correct? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, well, give us a call again and let us know how all of it went,

because you're going to go to somebody else now, right? Yes, just to inflate it. No, he's great for, you know, oil change and all that things. But I guess I'll go, you know, across the street and get them inflated to 40. But I wanted, you know, you guys, you know, opinion here. Thank you so much for staying in touch. Have a great Labor Day weekend. We look forward to hearing from you again.

We're going to get to our next callers. And, excuse me, I'm having a little difficulty with my screen. So Jonathan's helping me out. And I believe the next caller is Doug. Okay, Doug. Thanks for holding. Good morning. Good morning. How are you guys? We're good. Hope you're feeling better. Yes, I'm all better. And since I perform every week, I need to be healthy. So I have a question. So when I got my car from your dealership, the tire pressure was 37 and 38 on the tires.

And now it's like 35, but it seems to drive a little smoother. I just wanted to know, do I need to keep that at 37 or they're recommended? That's what I was asking. What car do you have? I have the circuit, GR, Toyota. The circuit. He's got the Corolla GR. Oh, the Corolla G.

Okay, yeah. I think the door jam recommendation on those is 35 PSI. So you're in that safe zone. So it's up to you because modern cars now that get a good feel for the road, especially the GRs, even changing a couple of PSI and the tire can change the feel of that ride quite a bit. but you're totally safe to keep it at 35 if you feel like that's good for you. Okay, one more thing about the GR, I really love it, and I think I'm going to take it to Homestead to do a little, you know,

track thing because they offer that for free. Ah, cool. Free one-year membership. So I was going to do that. Then I read an article saying that Toyota is looking at black boxes now of the GRs, and if you go to like 100 is what it says that you could void the warranty is that you could void the warranty if something happens to the car or is that I can't go 100 in my race car on a racetrack if something were to break in the car and you know it's obviously under warranty and if Toyota suddenly for some weird reason, wanted to come and investigate,

and they pulled up the data from the data recorders in the car, then they might have something to say out. But I don't think that would void a warranty. I would say no, because odds are they're never even going to come to investigate. You'll wind up at a dealership saying, hey, this transmission is doing something weird, and we'll pull the codes. it'll save something in there. Okay, the transmission's got a problem.

Replace it. We'll swap it out. And it goes back to the transmission people. They do their repairs, and it just goes right on through. And Doug, let me jump in there and say this, too. Rick's absolutely right. I'd like to get a copy of that article or whatever where you read that because if an auto manufacturer builds a car, that'll go 100 miles an hour.

and you drive the car 100 miles an hour and something breaks on the car, I can't see them defending themselves in court as to why they built the car in the first place so that would go 100 miles an hour. So I've never heard of that thing before, and as Rick said, usually if you've got a dealer that will cooperate with you

and cooperate with the manufacturer, I see Toyota generally will go beyond what they normally would be expected to do to honor a warranty rather than be less than. And I can't imagine them denying you because they thought you were going too fast. One more thing. So there's a couple of these GRs that have caught on fire. You can find them on YouTube and pretty scary-looking thing. But supposedly two of these were denied by Toyota. And one of them, they didn't have any aftermarket, you know,

photons or anything. They just suddenly caught on fire. And it's like, because Sim said to me, you need to have a fire extinguisher in your car. Like I go, Sim, I don't even go 70 miles an hour. So anyhow, you can look that up. But Trayana has denied fixing that for these two. People, cars burst into flame.

And, you know, I doubt it's probably an overheating thing, obviously, but one of them said there was a hole in the engine somehow near the oil filter, and that's what it created that. So. Well, that sounds like it threw a rod. Right. That's what I was going to say. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyhow, everything is good. Ella says meow. Okay, meow right back at you. Hello. Thanks very much, Doc. I appreciate to call. Always great to hear from you. Have a great Labor Day weekend. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. I think we're going to go to Stu. Yeah, I got a great texture from DEC. He's a long-time listener. I'm sorry. I have to interrupt you. Bernie is holding from Home Beach Gardens. All right, Bernie.

I'm on, Bernie. I remember you, Bernie. Hello. Hey, Bernie. Hi, Bernie. Good morning. Good morning. You've already alluded to this a little bit earlier in your show, but I've been reading about a new requirement identifying offering price from the side of a car.

And you may have already covered this a couple of weeks ago. But if you could just go over that one more time where there's the requirement to have an offering price written on the car now. Okay, I think you're, are you talking about the change in terminology from MSRP to total cell TSRP? Yes. Okay.

Toyota is doing that. I have seen other websites where we just, we're doing our mystery shop. I did not see it called that, for example. You know, we mystery shopped this. I'm not going to give anything away, but they called it MSRP on their label. They are calling the MSRP.

They're trying to do it. Earl and I have a disagreement on why they're doing it. I think it's more for transparency because they see problems coming down the road with the dealers putting things on cars. So the MSRP is as the car comes without anything put on the vehicle. The TSRP, which is the total, includes options or accessories put on by a distributor. The MSRP never was intended to be the selling price of the car.

The MSRP was started in 1958 by Senator Maroney, and that gives you a basis for comparison. The only value of the MSRP, hopefully, now that we're getting back to normal, you'll be able to buy your cars below MSRP. But the nice thing about MSRP is if you want to buy a Chevrolet and you see a particular model Chevrolet with an MSRP of $48,200, you could go to five different Chevrolet dealers and compare their prices by how it varies with respect to the $42,700 and intelligently choose the lowest price. But it was never intended to be the total selling price. So I'm like, I don't see why Toyota would change it to the total selling price.

I think the manufacturer's suggestion is more accurate. Yeah. So now it injects some confusion to the shopping process. I think eventually everybody will get used to it. But I recommend now you look on a Monroney label. It's the biggest number that's the – actually, be careful because you might not be looking at a Monroney label. Phony Monroney. There could be phony monorony.

or any addendums stuck there. Anyway, if you can ascertain the legitimate sticker from the factory, it's the largest number on there would be the MSRP. So I was reading, again, a little bit new to this, but they were talking about starting one September, the offering price has to be displayed on the car. That includes all these. Oh, yes, okay, yes.

federal. That's on a separate, this is going along with the Office of Attorney General in Florida enforcing the existing laws on the books, and that includes when you're advertising a price, it has to include all of the fees, anything that is part of that selling price, all the junk fees. Except for government fees. And the vehicle price on a car is considered an advertisement. So if you have the price on the car, you better include all of those things. I do know that, like, Del Rey, Edmores, Del Rey, Toyota, I don't know about the other Edmourst stores,

have done that a long time. It goes back to the Scion days, but they have their $995 dealer fee on all their cars, saying that there's going to be another fee. They have other fees. That's Florida law, by the way. Right, yeah. So they started to adhere to a portion of the law, you know,

a long time ago, like 20 years ago, go, incompletely, of course. So now the AG is saying, hey, it's time to follow the law. So, yeah, you're right. We're going to start seeing this, hopefully, when we do our mystery shops. So bottom line is starting tomorrow. Yeah. If I go to a car dealership, I should see, you know, bottom line, theoretically,

I should see something that says offering price. Yeah. Everything except for taxes, the government required taxes, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And I just want to reiterate, this is only in Florida, because we've got listeners all over the place. So if you're in Michigan, you're not going to see this. But tomorrow, you're probably not going to see anything down here either. I think that the response is going to be slow.

I think that I bet you the rank and file don't even know what's going on with this thing. And the dealers may or may not. I mean, there was this big call that we were on with all the dealers in the Florida Automo Dealers Association. And they had a very stern warning. They're like, hey, clean up your act. September is coming, and you're going to have to print your forms, redo your advertising, do everything. So we're going to have a lot of fun.

It's going to be like shooting fish in the barrel, because we might even double down on our mystery shopping reports. We'll just keep on shopping. And we could be, we could turn around Dodge City overnight just by now. I think that's a great idea. I think that we're starting to get a whole lot of attention. and Ashley Moody is right there. We got a lot of things to look at.

We have advertisements on TV, online, and then we also have their websites going on the lot. There's going to have to be a lot of changes. So, yeah, thanks for calling and asking us about that. We did find the number. It's on the Florida Attorney General's website for anybody to report tomorrow, starting tomorrow, So if they don't have that stuff all squared away.

So it's 1-8669, no scam. Real easy. 1866-9. Let's get the numbers to that too. Everybody out there is listening. That number is to get Ashley Moody's attention, real easy. 866-9, no scam. Oh, I can do it now.

No scam is, you're welcome. Thanks for calling. No scam is 6, 6, 6, 7, 2, 6. 6. 6. 6.6, 7226. Pretty easy. Oh, 3-6 is at the beginning? Yeah, it would be 1-866. Oh, yeah, 866, yeah. 9666-7-2.

Two, two, six. Okay. We are going, I believe we're going to go to Bob in Lake Park. Bob, you there? Oh, happy lady this weekend, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for holding. What can we do for you this morning?

Well, Stu. Yeah. Yes. I'm still waiting for you to shop the swamp. I'm Bill Glee. Oh, wow. I know. There's such a long list. I'm sorry. I read that the GR-80-6, they're making something called Herang Edition.

They're going to produce 860 of these vehicles. Are you going to get one at your dealership or not? Probably not. Probably not. I mean, it's possible. I mean, I don't know where they're going to, wherever they think they're going to sell the best, that area will get. get more of them and then they'll try to be as fair as possible to the dealers in that area. You know, if it was a hydrogen car, it's going to go to California. I know, it could be, the southeast Toyota might get some. There's 178, 78 odd dealers.

So that's, I mean, they could get one each possibly, but we won't really, one person, you know, it's effectively no. We'll ask for one. Yeah, we could, yeah. Oh, we'll definitely ask for one because they will. hot cakes. It's a beautiful looking call, but you're only going to do it's 860, so

you know, I think it's a lot. There are more Toyota dealers in the country than there are those next gen. So we can tell Toyota that we are the only deal that will not exceed MSRP when we sell a car. So if Toyota has a conscience, if you're listening

now, Akio, Akio, Toyota. Talk to Bob Carter. No, he's gone. Well, Akio's a tie. He's still the top dog. He's, uh, uh, we're the only Toyota dealer you got that'll sell that GR 86 at MSRP. And the dealer that finally that you sell it to besides us is probably going to get several thousand dollars over that. Yeah.

And that doesn't make you look good as Toyota. So maybe you ought to send us four or five of them. Well, the markups on those will be astronomical, I'm sure. They will be, unfortunately. I thought the, uh, G.R. Corolla is concerned. I understand they're going to make it in an automatic transmission. also, and I was wondering Yeah, the

G.R. Corolla is going to be offered in both manual and automatic. Will they increase the production numbers on these vehicles in that case? Because you can't find that many of them around when they were just making them with the sticks.

Do you think the production numbers will go up? I mean, that's a good question. I mean, there are definitely more potential consumers that would consider it at that. That's why they're doing it, I would think. But it's also, you know, as part of this whole GR, you know, true to, you know, this racing. The Gazoo racing. All the manufacturers, Bob, they, the cars, they want to build a lot of are the ones that they make the most money on.

And oftentimes they come up with these, I Got Your Attention cars, like the GR 86, and they really don't make that much money on the car. They've got new design, new parts. when you first come out with a new model the profit margin is not that good once you have a model in place and it's been successful and also manufacturers make more money on trucks

than anything else so they make more money on Tundra or Tacoma than any car they sell so it's the bottom line when you want to see a lot of a particular model car it's that car that's a manufacturer can make the most money on.

Okay. I got a couple questions for Rick. Rick, if I have one of those little punches in my car and I run my car into a canal and I want to punch the window, if I have limousine tint on my windows, can I still punch that window and get out of the car? Yeah, you're just going to have to hit a little extra hard, but it will break it. The advantage slash disadvantage is the, you know, normal. window glass is meant to break apart into pebbles, whereas like the windshield in the back screen

have laminated glass that even if it breaks, it'll try to stay in place, and the tint would actually do the same thing as the front windscreen would, so you'd actually have to break it, then push it out of the way, because the tint is going to keep all the pebbles of glass glued together. Bob, I, you know, not to get morbid about this, but I read an art. the other day about cars going in the water. We had that horrible situation in South Florida where several people died in the car that went into a canal. And the instructions for safety, if you are unfortunate enough to be in a car that goes into a canal or a lake, is to get out of the

front seat, get in the back seat, and get your head as top as close to the top of the car as possible. Because when the car sinks, the air bubble will be where the nose of the car probably down the air bubble will be in the back seat so uh get your seat belt off get in the back seat and uh start trying to break windows once you get there i didn't know that thanks i have one of those punches and then the other thing i read also is not to keep it in the glove box i always thought you would keep that in the glove box but they said not to put it in the glove box how are you going to reach it that's right i got i've got i've thought of that put up the back succeed. Well, I guess. I mean, you're trying to break the front window, though. No, you don't want to break the front window because the front window will be underwater. The back of the car will be, the car will float for a while, and the last part of the car to go under will be the back, the back of the car, the trunk, actually, but the back window, I would, I would, I would keep the glass, I'd have two of them. I have one by the back, back rear window.

the front tape one each one actually I would put one in the pocket of the seat on the back of your front seats one each and possibly even a third attached to the back of the center console so that you could grab any one of those three even if they you know in case they flew around in the collision you'd have a chance to get hold of it and the big advantage also with the back seat is you can lay on your back and kick with your feet because your legs have got so much more force to be able to shatter that window out. Great question, Bob. That was really, we appreciate that.

We got some other callers here, but you might have saved some lines with this discussion. Thank you very much. Definitely. Please give us a call back again. Great information, wasn't it? Wow. Okay, we're going to go to Barry in Tampa. Good morning, Barry, and thank you for your patience.

Yes, good morning. In harmony with your theme music, I'd like to ask about the good, the bad and the ugly of the dreaded auto start stop engine and how that maybe compares with the behavior of an engine in a hybrid car. Two totally different systems. The hybrid system, the gasoline engine actually is what will be started and stopped by the electric motors that drive the car. So the advantage is you have no alternator and no starter motor. But on a regular start stop technology, you're actually using your 12 volt battery and the starter to start and stop that engine, or to start it actually, the computer just turns the engine off. And every time that it's

doing that, it's just like restarting your car normally. So you're putting a big strain on the starter and on the battery many, many times a day that don't need to be there. So both of those then have a lifespan at what point they're supposed to be replaced, you'll actually find that in your maintenance manual, it'll tell you when those are recommended to be replaced, and they're about 50 to 75% more expensive than a counterpart for, say, a car that does not have start-stop technology. So I don't like it. I think it's, it may save a little bit of gasoline. in the long run, but it's not going to make up for the cost of that battery and that starter when you have to start replacing them.

And not to mention the annoyance, we've had so many people calling since they've introduced that. Nobody likes it. Yeah. Nobody likes. I mean, they could possibly come up with, I mean, the concept seems like it's a nice idea if it works smoothly and people didn't notice it. I don't think the battery issue, people even care about that.

I think it's the annoyance and the strange sensation and then the little lurches when the car kicks back. Within the first couple of years, Toyota had to put a button on the dash easily accessible that you could simply cancel that feature when you get in the car. But you have to do it.

It's not a switch. It's a button. So when you get in the car and start it up, you have to cancel it each ride. That's a pain in the butt. I'll tell you one thing. I found one way to... See, you're so far beyond this, Nancy, and Earl.

You've left the earth. You're on your Tesla. You don't have to worry about... internal combustion engines but this is a way I've learned to deal with it. It times the amount of time I've been off the engine with the implication

the longer that you do this on a trip from the time you start the car to stop it that I try to accumulate as much time so when I get to the light I'm activating it and I'm seeing how long I can keep it on. It also times the light which is interesting and so I've gotten to a competitive

thing with myself something I'm cursed with from him but now I make it a little game. You try that. Okay, can I make an announcement? Yes. I want to thank Travis Jones for letting me know that we are actually being broadcast, telecast,

and the dealership now. Oh, wonderful. We're spreading the word of Earl on cars even to our own dealership, and Travis Jones was instrumental in setting up the TV monitors at Earl Stewart Toyota. Thank you, Travis. a huge leap for us. A long time ago, we used to have it

just the audio playing in there. This is nice. Oh, thank you, Travis. Success. I really appreciate your helping us out on it. There you are. There you are. Can't see that far.

You're on the screen there. Okay. That's great. Thanks, Travis. We are going to go back to the phones, and then we're going to get back with Rick and Stu. But for now, we're going to talk to Kenny, who's calling us from. Pompano. Good morning, Kenny. How are you? Good morning. How are you guys doing? I've been listening for a long time. Finally got a call. So a question I want to ask about tires. My question is, I have a continental tires on a 2009-2013. The tires report December 2019. I did about 10,000 miles.

in those four and a half years. But one guy told me I have to get new tires because after five years, you have to replace them. But they're in great shape. I drive their car almost every other day, just sometimes highway, sometimes regular. What's your opinion on doing to replace all those tires?

No. Somebody gave you bad information. If those tires... The tire guy. Yeah, of course, he wants to sell you tires. You don't need them. If your tread is still above 3.30 seconds of an inch and you don't see any visible dry rock cracks anywhere,

and I mean large cracks, those little spider-web-looking things, don't even worry about that. And, you know, you don't have any damage on the tires. Keep going. There's no reason to replace tires just because they're five years old. if they were 15, I might have a different opinion on that. But, I appreciate that. No, they're trying to scam you.

They're trying to sell me. The other question is, when you put the shine on the car with the different, you know, the black stuff to make it shiny, is that tires in any way? I recommend against it. And two reasons. Number one is. that that then collects all the road dirt. And that dirt just gets all over the tires, and they're just going to look nasty after a very short time. The other reason is

you're spraying a lubricating type chemical on the tires, and you've got to remember that there's a little patch about eight inches by eight inches on each tire, and that's your contact patch where the tire is actually meeting the road, and that's all you have. have to control that massive missile that's flying down the road at 50, 60, 70 miles an hour are four little contact patches. So I wouldn't want to put any extra chance of putting any sort of lubrication. I know it's going to wear away quick, but there's always that tiny chance. I wouldn't do. I don't see the need for it. You know, okay, yeah, they look shiny for about a day, but then they pick up that road dirt

and they're just going to look nasty after that. Great. One other quick question about gas. Obviously, gas prices are a lot higher than they were when I bought these cars. I've got 2013 out that they recommend premium. I also have a jet of 2019. I use regular. What would happen if I start using regular in that 2004?

You would begin to notice a slight drive. drop in performance, because what would happen is you would start getting what's known as spark knock or ping. This is when the gas actually burns a little too quickly. Higher octane fuel will burn slower so you don't get the pre-ignition or spark knock or ping. However, the moment the computer detects that spark knock, it's going to retard the timing, So you're going to feel a loss of performance, but the computer will do whatever it can to prevent that, that pinging because it knows that that can damage the engine.

So it would rather make the engine less efficient and not drive quite as well to save itself and let it last longer and survive. It's not worth it to leave it the same, I agree. Another quick question, as far as buying a car, when you do see that price of, let's say, $42,000, $300. is that going to be negotiable to bring you down? Oh, sure. Everything's negotiable. And we're coming off a period now where MSRP was a good price two years ago.

If you could buy a car for MSRP, it was a really good deal. No longer is that the case. There are very few cars today that will demand on a fair transaction MSRP. But no matter what the car dealer asks, you, no matter what it says on the window, you can always negotiate a better price. If the dealer you're talking to knows that you'll walk or you'll go to a different dealer to get a better price, that will bring the price down immediately. But we will.

Great. Can I ask one more quick question about the car purchasing? If you're going to be buying a new car and you're trading in a car that you have, Is it better to leave that trade until the very end or tell them up front? I know where you're going with that. That's a good idea. I mean, you could do that. It probably makes life simpler. You should also have shopped that car that you're going to trade it in.

I've taken it gotten prices from two or three other sources. We recommend CarMax, Carvana. We buy any car.com, vroom. There are a number of places out there that are in business and they make their money by buying and selling used cars. So you can also go to another dealership than the one that you plan to buy the new vehicle from, the same make. If you're going to buy a Honda, go to another Honda dealer, talk to the used car manager and say, what will you buy my car from me? I don't want to buy another Chevrolet from you. I just want to sell my car.

that way you establish their market value price of your car. So as you say, you hold back that information that you are trading in a car and then they negotiate the best price of the new car. All focuses on getting the best price of the new car. Then you spring the trade on them and say, but look, I decided I want to trade my car in. That's when they'll try to steal it from you and give you a price less to the true value. You say, I have a buying offer at your competitor on the other side of town

the used car manager will pay me this for the car. If you'll meet that price, you can have my trade in. And then when you do that, you also say the sales tax that you're exempt on when you trade that car in. Fantastic. You guys are great. Thanks for answering all my questions. You're welcome. Give us a call again, John.

Keeping that trade in separate is really puts you in the driver's seat. Absolutely. We are going to go to John. Uh, and, uh, where's John from West Palm. Hello, I'm at West Palmby. Good morning, John, and welcome. What can we do for you? Good morning.

I'm going to keep it to two comments for you. Okay. The, uh, I know you're too nice to say anything to the callers. Um, but anyways, all right, the first one was, probably the most important one. The gentleman with the, uh, the little hammer for, uh, breaking out the windows. Mm-hmm. you're going to keep that hammer opposite of the engine. If your car goes in the thing, the engine sinks first.

So put the little hammer opposite of the engine. If you got a Porsche, the back end's going to sink first. So you want that little hammer up front. So keep that little hammer thing opposite of the engine. If that makes sense. No, a smart way to think about it. I like that. That's where I keep mine.

And not in your Tesla. I didn't know you had an hammer. I do. She's talking about her, Avalon. Be careful. Well, that goes in the back. And the last thing is the gentleman with the GR with the warranty. I got a feeling that when he comes back or if you look it up,

I'm thinking that maybe it's those third-party warranty people that you buy the extra warranty, they're the ones putting it out there saying, hey, listen, If you're taking this thing 100 miles, we're not going to cover anything that breaks. You know, the manufacturer will cover it, but maybe it's possible that what he saw in red was from one of those third, I don't even know the terminology. Extended warranting companies, yeah, you're right. Good point. So, that's it. All right, I'll let someone else go.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Have a great weekend. Okay, we're going to go to Mara, who has been holding. holding from West Palm. Good morning, Maura. Hello, how are you? We're well, thank you. Good. I have a question. I have a 2006 Highlander hybrid with 236,000 miles.

It's like the first one. And I love it. And last year, or two years ago, my husband had it painted, new tires, new brakes, new everything. So it was like brand new. The only issue I have And it rarely happens, maybe like once every other month, if I'm on I-95 going fast between 70 and 80, I'll get, it'll, I'll feel a little jerk, and I'll get the message that says check hybrid system. And the car basically stops. I have to coast over to the side of the road. I stop. I turn everything off.

I wait a few minutes. I turn it back on, and it's fine for the next month. And I've had my, go ahead. That sounds dangerous. I know. It is. I don't travel I-95 much. But my mechanic thought that maybe I just needed a really good tune-up, that that was messing with the indicator or something.

No. And so it seemed to work for a while. But what could it be? Is it the batteries going? That's a new one on me. I've seen a lot of cars that get an intermittent problem, but never one that sounds so odd that it's only once a month. Now, does it occur every time that you do the trip to Miami

or the extended highway driving, or is it just randomly? Randomly, randomly. Wow. Like in the last year, it maybe happened four times. Okay. My first thought is, do you have anything in the back seat of the car on the floorboards near where the, like, I believe it's more just to the passenger side of center? No, I do have, now that you say that, but it's in the trunk or in the back part, I have some laminate flooring. No, that wouldn't do it because on the vent control.

So the air vents that actually cool the battery, the air intake is underneath that rear seat right in the center. Like you've ever heard that noise just to scare me. Yeah. So Rick has got something. Earles looks something up on chat, GBT, which scours the world's information. Yeah. How fast do you going when this happens? Like I said, it's usually if I'm going fast, I'm in the fast lane, and I'm going 70 or 80.

70 or 80 And it literally I can feel it It'll be like a little jerk And then I realize If I step on the gas It's not getting any gas So I just pull over

Into the lane Or into the side road And Like I said Wait five minutes Turn everything off Put my emergency That's basically

You're rebooting the computer My recommendation First thing, the next time it occurs, get to a dealership as soon as you can, and have them run a diagnostic scan to pull the codes and find out if there's any codes that are stored from when it occurs. Because what happens is on a hybrid. Let me interrupt on that point. According to this chat room I opened up here, the codes that you will get, if you're not fast enough, are C-1241 and C-1-2-5-9. And that's what the codes that pop up

when this thing happens on a 2006 Highlander hybrid. Okay. So if you got something to write on, you could tell the dealer to check codes C-1-2-4-1 and C, as in Charlie, 1259. And that'll give them something to work on. And let me ask you this. When my mechanic, who I've gone to for decades or not, when he runs a diagnostic,

is the diagnostic check from the dealership going to be different from his diagnostic check? Yes, because our scan tools are going to be able to go more in depth than the hybrid system. They actually connect to Toyota. Yeah, I mean, we actually communicate directly through Toyota with them, whereas the aftermarket scan tools cannot get all the information that a factory scan tool can. Okay. Yeah, because the way that system works is the electric motors are actually what drives the car.

And when you're stepping on the accelerator pedal, it's telling the computer to spin those motors faster. And when it needs more electricity, that's when the gas engine runs to spin the electric motor to create more, or actually it spins the generator at that point to create more electricity to drive the car. So if the gas engine really is not anything to do with what makes the car move, except providing the electricity at that point. And if the car is suddenly losing all power like that, it's because the computer is shutting it down for some reason. And I would worry that maybe the air vents were making the battery get too hot.

But if that's not the case, again, my first thought is immediately get to a dealership, and have them pull the codes to find out what's going on. It should have that information stored in the memory in the system and give you a chance to get a good diagnosis. Okay. And it may be a moot point in that I'm going to go car shopping next month, and I'll probably get another Highlander because I love it. Yours is pretty old now.

Yeah, but it's been great. I'm not kidding. I think that was the first year that the Highlander. there came out. The 06, yes. So you have the first one that's, I mean, the first one, but among the first, yeah. Yeah. You're driving a great vehicle, Mara.

But, oh, it's been wonderful. I just had very few, very few problems with it. Good choice. One last word of advice on that. Price around for them to get an idea of what that car is worth and seriously consider, you know, check several places on what they'll offer you to buy that car from you. because that car is still worth a lot of money right now, and a dealership is going to try to steal your trade. They're going to do everything they can to get as little money to you for it as they can,

and then they'll double that amount selling it on their lot. Go out there and get three prices. You're in the driver's seat, Mara. Absolutely. Good. Good. Okay. Well, that's good to know. And I won't tell them when I go in that I'm going to trade it in, right? Absolutely not. And don't tell them that it might have an issue either.

Right. See where it all takes you. Give us a call, let us know how it went. Have a great weekend. I appreciate that. Bye-bye. Okay. If we don't have any texts or YouTube, we were going to spend some time with the investigative reporter.

What do you have, guys? Anything? Yeah, something went real quick, and then also I just want to let you know that Roadrunner, Steve, did say Hammer Time. He just texted me that. Hamma time. Because he must be getting excited for the mystery shopping report that's coming. Now, this is kind of an interesting thing.

It's from DEC. He's got a question, but he also wanted to point out that acknowledge your forethought and your prescience. You're talking about the huge mistake that the rental car companies were doing buying up all those electric cars. And this is not exactly super new news, but it's just a story about how the

CEO of Hertz had to step down after being hit with expensive EV repairs and low reseal prices following the purchase of 100,000 Teslas. And it sank, maybe not his career, but it sank his position at Hertz.

But his question, Dex's question is many thanks to Rickett and Earl for so-called dropping a problem regarding the RPM dropping hesitation, cleaning throttle body and mass sensor in disconnecting battery it solved the problems many thanks deck so that was he's wanted to thank you with it oh cool um all right that's it we're caught up on this side of the desk

okay and mrick uh we're actually in pretty good shape here as well because i've got uh kim appreciates life and donovan have been having a great discussion back and forth about their their own opinions on uh evs and leasing and buying as where donovan just leased that new kea you know a lot of of folks are asking him, you know, hey, why did you lease? Don't you own a Tesla? And he's got some great comments here, but he basically, he did his homework. And I got to tell you, if I was looking for somebody to be, what's your team there, the negotiators to help you get a car? The vigilantes? I'd want Donovan in there to help me get a car. He'd be this lead vigilante.

Oh, man. I've been trying to recruit him for quite a long time. I suppose he's a busy person. I could walk in, get a brand new TRD Pro, and they would pay me. Well, you know, just on that subject of Donovan's insight, ally finance is for you, car bus. You probably knew they were GMAC, and then they became ally, and then they divorced for being entirely General Motors financing,

and they finance all cars now. Actually, they're the largest financing of cars now. They finance any car. They're focusing in now on electric vehicle leasing. And they found a partner. They didn't mention the name of the partner, but Ally Finance as a partner that will guarantee the residuals on electric vehicle to 50% of the value of the car.

And 50% is not a shabby residual on a 36-month lease. So they're stepping up. They're also totally familiar with the tax credits that are available. So by combining a floor residual along with the tax credits, they're leasing the hell out of electric vehicles. The tax credit is what makes it sense. It can be used immediately at the point of sale. The leasing company does it, but it results in an incredibly low payment.

When you add those things up, you're going to see a little preview in the mystery shopping report. They're going to try and sell a lease. In this case, when you have that much money coming from the federal government, and then I didn't even know that they're doing a residual floor, it's going to make a lot of sense to lease an EV. No, there was Donovan that actually put me on to this fact, that I didn't realize until last week's show when he did a YouTube

that you can bring that a Tesla battery you can bring it right back to almost as good as new and you're, I always thought the battery would just go kaput one day because it represents such a high percentage that cost of the car

that all EVs would eventually be worth almost nothing because you'd have to buy a battery if you wanted. But apparently, you can now bring back these batteries to almost full capacity. Well, does it matter? Just to take one quick thing out of his conversation here, he says he's got a friend of his who just got the Ionek 5.

It's a Hyundai. That's a small SUV about the size of a RAV4. Leased it now for $2.59 a month. Amazing. Amazing. That is amazing. I'm not much of one for leasing, but that's a heck of a price. Well, we've always felt that if you're going to drive an EV, you should lease it.

And now that you see the benefits is an absolute must. You buy, if you don't buy the EV, go ahead and lease it, and you'll find out you'll get a better deal, which is counterintuitive because I'm always fearful of cars being marked up too high on leases. Well, that's like you've got to negotiate a good lease price. You just can't take the price the dealer gives you. Good point. Sorry to step on you. We got a roll.

We have to leave time for the investigative reporter. We have to get to the mystery shop in Coconut Creek. That's Gunther. Nobody wants to miss that. And we really want to talk about cracking down on junk fees to lower cost for you, the consumer. Where do we go? Okay, they got... Roll the investigator.

Okay. If you pay dealer fees you shouldn't have when buying out your leased vehicle and you may now be entitled to money back. All following a Local 10 News investigation. Investigator Jeff Wines here first exposed this story in 2022 and he is back on the case with what's happened. Our reports back in 2022 focused on dealerships that were charging you undisclosed fees

when you bought out your vehicle lease. Those stories got the attention of the state attorney general's office, and now you may be eligible for money back. But I also know that an agreement is an agreement. It was back in 2022 during COVID when dealers had few cars to sell, and consumers were buying out their vehicle leases in record numbers. You thought, here's the residual, here are the taxes, that's all I'm going to have to pay. That was your assumption. That's it. He was wrong.

In story after story consumers told us they were hit with fee after fee, not disclosed in their original lease contract. Dealer prep fees, filing fees, pre-delivery service fees, dock fees. The State Attorney General's office launched an official investigation. Lexus of Clearwater and Gunther Motor Company have now settled with the State Attorney General's office. Lexus of Clearwater agreeing to pay a total of $73,000 in fines. Gunther settling for $600,000. They were being investigated for charging fees, not disclosed in the original lease agreement, telling customers cars needed to be inspected, repaired, and certified at an additional cost,

charging a higher purchase price than the buyout price disclosed in the original lease. Gunther must now refrain from imposing any fees, not disclosed in the original lease, during the lease buyout process. Gunther reached an agreement without admitting wrongdoing. In a statement to Local 10 News, Gunther's attorney said, quote, Gunther Motors is glad to have collaborated with our state regulators and its customers to work through these issues.

A resolution was reached that ensures all necessary parties were taken care of, and the matter is now resolved. Insiders say the AG's office rarely takes cases against dealers this far. In fact, in June, the Florida automobile dealer, The Dealers Association sent this letter to its members, warning them that the Attorney General's office will take enforcement action against dealers in connection with advertising, quote, for 20 years. The OAG has taken a predominantly hands-off approach with respect to advertising. That is about to change. The law clearly states advertise prices must include all fees and charges.

If you bought out your lease from a Gunther dealership from November 2018 until now, you should be getting a form in the mail from the state attorney general's office that you need to fill out to see if you're eligible for any money back. If you haven't gotten that, we will have a link to that form on our website at local10.com. In the control room, Jeff White's here. Local 10 News. I invited I invited Jeff Wantsair to call the show and I think he's taking a long Labor Day weekend but I feel sure we'll have we'll hear more from Jeff Wines here he ought to get a medal of honor for what he's done

to go out there and go after these dealers in South Florida this is a copy of the settlement agreement that you saw on the TV screen I have this copy here and you can see how many dealerships Gunther has. $600,000 is a slap on the wrist. These dealerships cumulatively probably make $6 billion every month, and he got tapped for $600,000 just chump change. But it got his attention and embarrassed him.

Here he is on television, and here he is on Earl Stewart on cars. And we have mystery shopped, Gunther. We went out a few days ago, and we have our mystery shopping report, which I'll cover in just a second on Gunther. And Agent Lightning went in there and deliberately bought up the subject of leasing and purchase options and some of the information. So we figured he would probably be warned, pre-warned about this sort of thing happening, and the mystery shopping report will answer that question whether or not he was pre-warned. I remind you that if you are buying a car

or leasing a car at South Florida and you have a problem, you need to call Ashley Moody's office, the Attorney General of the state of Florida, and that number is 866-966-7-2-26. Is that right, Stu? 866 966 7226 which is also what was the 1-8669 no scam 9 no scam yeah 1866 9 66 9 no scam 1 866 966 7226 and if the complaints go into

Ashley Moody's office and she's put her reputation on the line that starting tomorrow tomorrow September 1st the law will be in forest in Florida. So if you're within the sound of my voice, hear that, and if you have a problem, call this number. Let your voices be heard, folks, without you know, we really can't do anything. That number, again, is 1-866-966-7-2-26. I'm going to give you another number because we need you to vote on the mystery shopping report. There's a whole lot of effort put in. into this. You can text us at 772-497-6530. That's Gunther of Volkswagen, Coconut Creek. Okay, here's Mr. Shopping where I'll be speaking in the first person, as if I were Agent Lightning.

I arrived in the late afternoon and decided to go with the cover story that I recently got a new work-from-home job, and I'm considering leasing a vehicle to secure a lower monthly payment. I've never leased before, and I'm quite nervous and have lots of questions. I walked into the new car showroom and was greeted by a salesman who asked if I was here to see anyone in particular. I said no, but I am interested in buying a new car. So I started out by saying I was going to buy. I didn't want to be too obvious.

Salesman said, perfect. I mentioned that I really liked the blue 2024 towels out front that I went with my new job story and I had never leased a car before, but could possibly consider it since I wouldn't be driving many miles. Salesman smiled really big and said leasing is a great option. Many people don't consider. There is a money factor involved that will save on interest financing versus buying.

It's sort of like a loophole, if you will, when you lease. You don't pay interest or finance charges. Now, that is a deception, a clever, clever deception. obviously there is an interest factor in a lease that's the least that's the interest that the leasing company is paying and they're passing that along to you but they don't call it interest they call it the money factor so he's playing with words and he's deceiving at this point so you you don't pay literally a finance charge but you do you do pay the same amount of money or

maybe more in matter of fact car dealers are allowed to mark up the money factor if they choose and then they get that kickback from the leasing company okay the salesman also added also don't tell anyone this you know they're lying when they say that also don't tell anyone this but Labor Day is the best time to buy a car not the end of the month or even the end of the year but Labor Day that's absolute nonsense so you're in luck let's go back to my office for refrigerators not cars my name is David He asked for my license and said he'd been in sales for 10 years. He mentioned that 85% of people, along with himself, leased instead of buying, to save thousands of interest and fees.

I mean, that's not even a clever line. Maybe in Coconut Creek exclusively. 85%. This salesman tells Agent Lightning that 85% of people, including himself, lease instead of buying, to save thousands of dollars on interest. I mean, that's just this stupid line. Right. Does he mean 85% of humans? Not even 85% of lease or his lease.

He goes on to say, you'll also get a five-year phone app, three years of maintenance and roadside assistance, and a four-year, 50,000-mile bumper-to-bumper premium warranty. That's just their standard factory warranty, I believe. Yeah, push-in-push on the warranty. That's nice. He then suggested getting the keys, so we can. you take it for a spin.

I followed him off and we went, off we went. We found the towels of blue 2,024 SE model with an MSRP of $33,536. During the nice test drive, David shared with me the safety features and we talked about how familiar or different they were to those in my older Volkswagen Atlas. Once again at the dealership,

we returned to his desk. He asked me how many miles I would want I said, I'm quite new to this and know nothing about leasing. What would you suggest? He said, 30,000 miles, 10,000 miles per year, or even 36,000 miles over three years is usually standard for most people. The fact of the matter is the average driver drives 15,000 miles a year. So the lower he can get you to say your mileage is, the lower his cost will be, it would be your cost, too, if he passed that savings. along to you, which you would not have done.

In this case, she's saying she's going to work from home, so little miles would be okay. He said most people drive a lot more than that. So he says, however, I would go with 40,000 miles, and you'll likely buy it at the end of the lease. So he's setting that up. If you see you're going to go over the mileage and don't, this is a dozy,

if you see you're going to go over a mileage and don't want to keep it, just give me a call. And I can have our dealership buy it from you instead of returning it to the bank to save you the money. That's another loophole. This guy has created. He's got a vivid imagination. Yeah, and that's such an incomplete statement to make.

There's so many caveats to that. So we can work it out. Don't be nervous. I got your back. I got you. I got you. I got you. I asked if he could show me in writing.

Here we go. Agent Lightning. I ask if he could show me in writing what this would look like. what I'd owe at the end of the to buy the car and keep it. He sure me he would. So she got it right up front says, what can I buy the car for? And he said, I'll get that for you in writing.

I sat and waited for about 15 minutes for him to come back. He apologized saying they were quite busy and showed me some numbers he'd written on a post-it note. With $5,000 down on a lease, where'd that come from? $5,000 down a lease, my payment was $365,000. versus a $500 payment on a purchase. Of course, at the end of the lease, you don't own the car. At the end of the end of a purchase, you own the car.

So obviously, you're going to have a better deal there. He said he was guessing on these numbers, covering himself, C-Y-A. He pulled out his calculator to prove that leasing would be the way for me to go. I told him, this isn't going to work for me. My husband is a numbers man. And he's going to want to know the exact number for three years of leasing. Plus, one, it will cost me to buy it out in the end and then also to finance it for 60 months.

He mentioned again that even with special financing in the end, I would pay about $5,000 more to buy versus lease. And he's got a gift for gab, throwing out these half-truths and untruths faster than you can approach each one of them. Excuse himself again. I sat for 25 minutes before David came back and asked me to follow him. I'm going to introduce you to the man, the myth, the legend, himself. And this is a great comeback by Agent Lightning.

I interrupted. Mr. Gunther is here today. He laughed and said, no, I wish, but my sales manager, Eduardo. He's the myth. The man, the myth, the legend. We went to Edwardo's office, and he opened a seat while we waited for him. I said after 15 minutes before Eduardo finally came in. That's a lot of time.

Shirk my hand, introduced himself. He asked, what are you hoping to accomplish today? I said, well, I'd like to explain to David here. I'm here to possibly lease a new tows. He said, okay, great. David spoke up and shared that I was waiting for some numbers on leasing versus buying so my husband and I could make the best decision. Edwardo said, well, if you're looking to lease, we have two options.

Now, this blew me away. We have two options. One through Volkswagen, and these would be the numbers David wrote down on the trusted post-it note, he chuckled. And the other way is through our sister company. Now, that's very interesting. Who's gone through sister, Heidi? I don't know who's sister. Now, actually, this is before even Stu's time, I had my own leave.

company at one time many years ago and but today that's unheard of I don't know of any dealer that has their own leasing company but I store an acceptance corporation and but it's highly unusual it's the first deal I've heard mention having their own leasing company but he says this is by far the best deal if you use our sister company but if you have to have at least but you have to have at least a 740 a credit score which is pretty strong put five $5,000 down and have nothing derogatory said on your credit and no other outstanding loans or leases in your name.

If you do, you'll either need to pay those off or not qualify and your monthly payment will be $2.99, so they're dropping it down if they go through their sister leasing company from, what was that, $3.50 to $2.99. I asked, how much you're, well, now we're getting out of the ditty-gritty, how much will it be to buy out at the end of the lease. He said, I can't tell you that until you're ready to go to finance. But wait a minute. The salesman said, visibly annoyed, I said, well, David told me, he said you could get me up and out of numbers showing leasing versus buying. This is where we hope to nail them. Technically, he said writing and he wrote it on

the postage. The sales manager responded, you don't have to get so frustrated. I said, well, I've been here for over an hour and now you're wasting my time telling me, you You can't give me anything in writing. He scoffed at me in challenge. I said, I said hi to you as you were walking in the door. It hasn't been an hour. Adrian Lightning came right back. I know it's been exactly an hour because I took this selfie to send my kids that mom's excited and buying a new car today.

Well, at times, that time's not a time of 7. And she sent that selfie to us. I didn't include this because we can't out Agent Lightning. You're not going to get over Agent Lightning. She's sharp as a tank. Busted, okay, but he didn't even apologize. He shrugged it off, grabbed a sheet of paper from his printer, handed it to me with a pen, told me to write it down.

I'll give you the numbers. He said, you know, you don't pay taxes on a lease up front. What does that mean? You do. You pay it every month. You do. If that $5,000 is a down payment, you'd absolutely do pay sales tax. I said, no, I already told them that I know nothing about leasing,

and you aren't being very helpful. He then started dictating numbers as I wrote. them down. He said, inception fees would total $2,300 for things like title registration, acquisition fee, and first month's payment, and a tag. I push further and ask him to share what it would cost to buy their car when the lease is up. He said, you'll get that when you're finalizing the deal. Wow, he's really, and real quick, back on the acquisition, the inception fees, that's $2,300. If you add up a registration and acquisition fee, which can be like a thousand, but let's say it's probably closer to 6.

You're not close to $2,300. He's not mentioning the other fees they have. There's junk fees built. So as you can see, the bottom line, not fulfilling the promise to give her the information. One other thing. I can promise you that the $2,300 in inception fees is not part of the $5,000.

He says you have to put down. So that's just the incidentals, and the $5,000 down payment is going to come in finance. That's when you get to the finance office, yeah. I said, I just can't believe there's no way for you to show me exactly what I'm going to be paying. He replied, no, not until you're ready to buy. I said, I am, but until you give me hard numbers to show me and my husband, I can't do that.

I was shuming at this point and told him, forget it. Just show me numbers on paying cash. He said, tell me when you're ready to write it down, just let me know. So rude. I wrote down as he spoke. Okay, here we go. 33,536 MSRP, 27,495 selling price. $1,933 taxes, $989, $9.89 dealer fee, $395 processing filing fee, and $448 for a new tag, $31,268 out the door.

I said, you know what, I just, I don't know why anyone would ever do business with you, and I just stood up and walked out. David followed me like a puppy dog with his tail between his legs apologizing I'm so sorry I snap back you should be you shouldn't have told me up front that you're going to be able to print anything for me and save us both time and energy

he said no I had no idea he was going to be able to print anything for you today I said no you knew damn well what my expectations were that I needed to have it in writing and you took me in there without even talking to me shame on you

Good for you, good for you. She got head to head. I promised, I continued to my car. My husband was waiting. David kept following me until he realized my husband was in the car. My husband knew I had already been in there for an hour and a half and that they were playing nice. They weren't playing nice.

He was just opening the door to step out when David turned around and walked away. He's lucky he did that. I was shaking. He had made me so bad, and she was. She was emailing us as this thing went by, but they really, really push hard and, well, we'll see. The vote is yours at this point. This is a day when the laws are not being enforced in South Florida.

Days will be, according to Ashley Moody, be enforced in South Florida starting tomorrow. So we will be back to Gunther. He has 10 dealerships down here, so we'll hit one of his 10 dealerships, and we hope that you will let us know what your experience was if you go into a Guthrie dealership because we have the Attorney General's direct telephone number 1-866-966-7-226

if you have a bad time with Gunther or any other dealership after tomorrow. Don't forget that other number you can take advantage of also 866-9-no-scam. And if you want to vote on this mystery shopping report, and I encourage you.

Texas at 772-4976530. Okay. All right, Jonathan and Palm Coast. Labor Day is the best time to avoid this dealership. The lies about leasing factory warranty taxes, the attempt to cost you more money at the end of the lease, and the overall obfuscation of truth and general sleaziness of the salesman, not to mention the fraudulent fees garnered this dealership a D-minus.

Honesty, decency, a fair deal, and treating the customer with respect does exist at cardiovascular ships, but not at this one. Anne-Marie says, F, for half-truths, lies, evasions, refusal to give the numbers she asked for and the disrespect for wasting customers' time.

Yeah, I'm going to go for an F. It was a flashback to an earlier time of high pressure and just outlight just lying or just half-truths to the face. A lot of deception. That's from me. Okay, I've got Doug Tesler says Ellis is an F for failure. Gunther is dishonest. And over here we've got Tom Steckle says D-minus for deception, fees, and manipulating the money factor.

Gunther is really the car fleecing business. And, oh, here we go. A bunch of them just popped up. oh boy they really did pop up here okay you got a lot uh t cash f minus probably not even brand name post it notepad wow tim gilleland run don't walk out the door f no trip mark smith says a for agent lightning d minus for the dealership joseph kelleher says f brian said latko definitely an f let's see here we Baby Boomer, is there a score lower than F-minus? Oh, boy.

Ooh, no, but that, oh, I think they might deserve that one. That's okay. I think they're having influenced Jonathan and Palm Coast changed his grade to an F from a D-minus. Thank you, John. For me, I'm, it's rare, but I'm saying total F failure. I don't normal, I try normally not to say F, but in this case, wow. You're a gentle man. Well, when somebody can accurately aggravate Agent Lightning that much,

I've met her several times, she is an incredibly stable person. Unflappable. Exactly. This is egregious. That's what Jonathan Poppkissi says. Agent Lightning is the only one that's fuming, so it pissed him off too. Okay, I'm going to get my vote in, guys. We've got two minutes left.

First of all, I want to commend Agent Lightning. My hat is off to you. and I am so happy that our listeners, our listeners, our callers, everyone saw through a Gunther Volkswagen, Coconut Creek, because you know it sounded like as if that they were reading from a script. It is called the Gunther script, and hopefully Ashley Moody is going to be on them more now than she's ever been, and she's going to be able to do a whole lot. for us. And my grade, I don't even think that there is a grade that I can, well, verbalize on the air. Give them a poop emoji. So I give them a F, F, F, F, F. I almost never give an F. I can't remember my last F. I got to give Gunther the big F. Yeah. And ladies and gentlemen, If you didn't jot that number down, that number, according to Stua, I believe he said it was 866-966-7-2-26.

Yep. Yeah. So take advantage at Let Your Voice Be heard, ladies and gentlemen, give Ashley Moody a call. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right here at 8 a.m. or on cars. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend.