Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.08.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Wallace Hyundai

Episode Date: September 8, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Wallace Hyundai to purchase a car identified as having a Takata Airbag Recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. Well, that week sure went fast. I cannot believe another Saturday is a bonus. And my name is Earl, and I'm a recovering car dealer, and you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars.

We're a radio show that helps you make your decision when it comes to buying or leasing a car, maintaining or repairing your car. We're a very unique show. We are candid live talk radio. And you call us and we respond and you can text us and email us. Really an interactive show. And I'm not in the studio alone. We're going out on a live Facebook video right now.

So if you're watching, you can see some other people in the show in the studio with me. We've got Rick Kearney to my right. He's just putting on his headphones or checking Nancy's headphones. And next is Nancy Stewart. Rick Kearney is our, we call him a certified diagnostic technician. Sometimes 20 years ago we used to call him a mechanic. I call him an auto computer scientist. He knows everything there is to know about how to fix a car, maintain a car.

We have lots of folks from all over who call in with problems with their cars. a Rick can diagnose you right online. He is truly an amazing, amazingly talented, intelligent guy. He's been in the business for 20 plus years. I've known him for 20 plus years. He was learning about cars before I ever even met him. Nancy Stewart is my co-host, and she is our female advocate. And why do I say that?

We have found, through a lot of experience and a lot of input study, that the females don't get the same sort of treatment that males do in automobile showrooms. When they buy or release a car, maintain their car, there's a certain amount of discrimination going on me. I mean, hashtag Me Too, there's a whole movement going on now recognizing the fact that females just don't get a fair shake

in comparison to males in the world. And I say the world because we probably do a better job of it here in America than anyplace else. But we still aren't there. yet. And we're especially not they're treating females with courtesy and respect that they deserve in the automobile showrooms.

Thank you for that introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining your Saturday morning with us. No. I was just... I'm going to go ahead and give you that telephone number. 877960 or you can text us at 772

497-6530. Now back to the recovering card. And then Nancy's right. Stu Stewart, also known as Earl Stewart III. I'm Earl Stewart, Jr., by the way. And Stu is, I'm not sure how to describe him. He knows almost as much about the car business as I do, and he'll know more shortly, but I've been in it a lot longer.

He knows a whole more about computers than I do, and he knows a whole more about the social media. So he sits there with his Mac and his flying fingers on that keyboard. inviting people to watch your live video. Exactly. And we're doing Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook and Google, and we're Googling stuff. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. We are just like a minute organism.

And Tina from Benita Springs is on the line. Hang on, Tina. Let me finish with this introduction. And we'll get right to you. Tina, by the way, is a female caller who is one of the best of the best. and we'll be speaking with Tina in just a couple minutes. We have learned that we just don't know a whole lot, we human beings, but we're plugged into something that is phenomenal,

and it's like infinite knowledge. Rick has got a laptop in front of him, Stu's got a laptop in front of him. I've got an iPhone, Nancy's got an iPhone, and when we don't know something, what do we do? We Google it, or we go other places we started with Google. We can find out about anything. So the data explosion is amazing.

And that's part of what Stu helps us with right now. On the way to the show this morning, on 9.95, I saw a billboard, a company advertising how they pay more for your used car trade in. And so we're going to do a shop. And the only way we're going to do a shop is by computer and by taking that information. And it'll be here real time for you to shop this company that we saw a billboard sign on 995. Hopefully.

Hopefully, yes. We think we will. And we encourage you to call in because as Nancy will tell you and I will tell you, Rick and Stu will tell you, you truly make the show. And we have callers like Tina. We have so many callers sometimes.

We just can't really spend a fair amount of time with each caller. So please call the show. That's what makes it exciting. Live talk radio. We never know what anyone's going to Sorry. I don't want to keep Tina waiting much more. You are an important part of the show, ladies and gentlemen, and I want to remind the ladies this morning that we do give away $50 for each first two new lady callers.

You make the show 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60, and we are going to go to Tina, who is a regular caller. Good morning, Tina. Hi, guys. How are you doing this morning? Good morning, Tina. We're well, thank you. Okay, we got three big recalls. Well, actually a class action lawsuit settlement and then two big recalls. The big recall that came out yesterday was the Ford F-250 truck.

Two million trucks recalled for seatbelt issue that could cause a fire. And then about one million Priuses also have wiring problems that could cause a fire eventually. Most of these cars are in Europe, but there's about 200,000 that are in the United States. So people that have those Priuses, we'd be getting recall notices in the mail. And if you are a second owner of a Prius, I would suggest calling your local dealership to get the straight skinny on that one. But the big one I wanted to talk about was one of my favorite cars, a car I've wanted for a long time but never got because it was a little bit too expensive. was the Subaru R-R-X and the Subaru

W-R-X-S-T-I. I would love to have a W-R-X at 60. I would. But unfortunately, there's a major defect in the engine, especially in the turbo-charge models. The bottom end of the engine just is not strong enough. The interns

are not strong enough to deal with the turbo booth. So for 2012 to 2017 models, there's been a class action lawsuit, and Subaru is in the of settling that lawsuit. So if you have a Subaru WRRX or Subaru WRRX and it's between the years 2012 and 2017, I would sit tight and then wait for notification from the dealer or call your dealer for more information. Well, Tina, thank you. Nancy and I were talking about recalls

coming to the studio this morning. And one of the frustrating things to both of us is that when When we have these massive recalls, all the focus is put on the new cars. And we wonder, what's happening to all the used car buyers out there? There's a stop sale put on Priuses. There's probably a stop sale put on the Ford F-250s, probably the Subaru's on the new cars. But what about the used cars? Every time a new car gets sold, 10 used cars are being sold. Far more people obviously drive used cars than new cars, but there's no legislation.

to stop a dealer from selling any one of these cars, a Subaru or an F-250 or a Prius without, you don't even have to disclose it. And as we speak, these cars are being sold to use car buyers, and the legislators are doing nothing about it. We've got its political season right now. Neither party, the Democrats nor the Republicans, want to talk about it, or the independents, for that matter.

heard no one talk about the fact that we have massive numbers of dangerous recalls and automobiles, and yet you can only regulate the new car sale. You do not regulate the used car sale. It makes absolutely no sense. And I think I know why, because of the power of big auto, the power of big dealers, the money that they can pour into the lobbying groups in Washington and the state legislators to frighten the politicians from doing something that would hurt them. It would hurt the manufacturers immensely if they made it illegal to sell cars, use cars, that had defective danger of safety recalls because the manufacturers would then have to furnish free loaner cars, and that would probably double the expense of the recall to the

manufacturer that built the car. That's just my opinion, but Tina, thanks for calling those. recalls to our attention and then last thing I want to say is if you haven't already done this go to safercar.gov, www.safercar.gov. S-F-E-R-C-A-R-C-R-G-G-O-V. www.W-W-W-W-W-TafERF, that is the National Highway Traffic Safety Safety Association website. All you have to do is put your VIN number in. It's very user-friendly. They've improved it over the past couple of years, I guess, because there have been so many recalls. You put your Venn number in.

It'll tell you if your current car has been recalled, if it has, if it's been fixed, and it'll even tell you if it's been recalled, but there's not a fix available. And for gosh sakes, don't buy a car until you do that. I'd even check a new car just to be on the safe side, but if you're buying a used car, you have to do that. Safercar.gov, check out that Venn number. If it flashes up unfixed or recall, be sure it's fixed before you buy the car. Tina, thank you very much for another great call. Oh, thank you.

And don't forget, carcomplaints.com for repair advice and for repair complaints about vehicles, too. But the two biggest tools you have before you buy a car, listen to the radio show every weekend from 8 o'clock Eastern Standard Town. to 10 o'clock eastern standard time right here into oldies.com and also go on the internet and do your homework before you buy a car if you've got your heart fit on the car do your homework join a forum of people that own these vehicles ask questions do your research because if you do that you're like 95% ahead of the used car salesman or the new car salesman well thank you Tina I bet you that's one of the ways you got so smart I mean we have this huge amount of

out there on the internet. Unfortunately, not everybody is, you know, it depends on the generation. I mean, folks in my generation, I have a lot of friends that just don't have a clue about Google or Facebook and the rest of these things. But if you have a grandchild or a son or a daughter that can help you with this, you get on the internet, and as Tina just said, car complaints.com, find a chat room for Subaru owners or Honda owners or Ford owners. you can do something just like saying, I have a 19, or I have a two, there's my age, a 19, I'm talking about 2012, 2012, 2016, Ford Fusion that has a squeak in the back.

You can put that in Google, and suddenly you will find hundreds of people that have the same problem with the same car, and there'll be a lot of information exchange, and there'll be some knowledgeable people on these chat rooms that will give you tips how to fix your car. you can actually get a car diagnosis right online without having to go into a car dealer. So, Tina, you're extremely knowledgeable, and the best thing you told us was get online and find some answers without having to take your car into a car dealership or a mechanic. You know, we obviously have to take it through to get it fixed, but better to identify the problem before you let them identify the problem. Oh, exactly.

And again, one more plug for your show, true oldies. on the west coast of Florida, 8 a.m. 8 a.m., I can't even say it. 8 a.m. Eastern Standard time 10 a.m. Eastern Standard time every Saturday morning. That's great advice. Bless your heart, Tina. We're going to put you on the payroll. Priceless. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tina. Thank you so much, Tina. Have a great weekend. That recent Prius recall over a million cars, I believe that is from 2016 to 2018 with the wire harness that's connected in the car catching fire.

Yeah, and they might catch fire, yeah. Yeah, so, wow, I'll tell you what, as Earl said, we have reached a time in our lives where there's so much information, right at your fingertips. Ladies and gentlemen, you are an important part of the show. So give us a call to all free at 877-960-99-6. or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And remember our new Your Anonymous Feedback.com, a website that Earl came up with, and it's been phenomenal.

And we appreciate all of you responding to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Bill who's been holding. He's calling from Lakeland. Good morning, Bill. Good morning. How are you? Well, thank you. How are you? Well, I've been watching your stuff on YouTube, and I really enjoy your podcast on YouTube. Unfortunately, I don't have a television.

Here's my situation. Okay, I was put out of service. I can't work anymore, so I've been put into, I'm on Social Security disability. And during the time that I was out of work and didn't have any money coming in, The cart that I had finance got repossessed because I couldn't make the payment, obviously. Okay. So I'm in the position where I only get $1,645 a month, and that's got to pay everything, okay, for me to do what I got to do. And I need a car desperately because I don't have a car, okay? And I don't have a big downslide to put down, and I don't like you buy here, pay her lots like you were talking about.

What the hell can, what the hell can a guy like me do with? I mean, what exactly can I do? Because I know my credit's in the tank. I know that already. Okay. Well, Bill, let me say this. You know, I don't know how much personal information you want to talk about on the air, but we find that a lot of people think that their credit is a lot worse than it really is.

Over the past, say, 10 or 15 years, maybe 20, the lending institutions have learned that people are prone to make their car payments before they'll make any other payment. So car buyers are better credit risk than even home buyers. People will actually allow their home to be foreclosed upon before they'll let their car be repossessed. And that's because their car is more important to them. Think about it.

You know, you can't drive your car to work or to the hospital of the pharmacy, but you can sleep in your car. I mean, a car becomes a home for some people. So the lenders have loosened up on their criteria for affording credit to people that think they have bad credit. But we see people with beacon scores, FICA scores, at 500, maybe even below 500, that they will finance. Now, the caveat is that you pay a very high interest rate. But oftentimes you can go to a conventional lending institution without having to go to one of these buy-here pay-here lots

in one of these companies that specializes in bad credit. because typically they're going to give you the maximum legal credit or interest rate that you have that you can pay you'll be paying 30% or more sometimes to finance a car so my first advice to you is check with a local bank you can also check with a credit union i know you're not employed but you can still join a credit union there's a nominal fee and individuals that are not even employed can actually be members of the credit unions the credit union typically has better rates than even the banks. So check with a conventional lender before you have to go to what we call secondary subprime financing. If you have to go to secondary subprime, you're probably better off to work through a dealership that is a conventional dealer rather than a buy here pay here. Now, they're exceptions. There's some really legitimate buy here pay here, secondary lender-type dealerships out there. One of them is, was it easy buy?

Easy pay cars. Easy pay cars in Stewart, Florida. I know you're in Lakeland, so I don't have information on Lakeland. But check with the conventional dealership is telling me you want to try to be conventionally financed. And then find out what your beacon score is and just take it from there. have you tried yet, Bill, have you made an effort, have you been turned down by a lender? Oh, yeah, I've tried several. I've tried several of these buyer-payer lots over-the-in-the-internet thing.

You know, you tell all the credit that and send it in, and they say, well, we can get your finance, but you're going to have to have $2,000 dollars in. And the car is only $4,000. That's half the part. Look at the car. I mean, I don't have that kind of money down. I'll also check with my bank, and my bank said no-go, because of the, the credit. Now, I have talked

to one dealership. It's called OK cars up here. They've got several around the state, but this guy owns like a gazillion dealership. She's got a BMW dealership, Harley Davis & a dealership, Dodge dealership, a Jeep dealership,

you know, Toyota dealership and all this stuff. And they told me that, you know, if you buy a car through us, I've always been approved for the financing there, okay. But I've seen all a really a lot of bad markups on the internet when I talk about, you know, people call it and do what they say,

I forget what they call it, a review, I guess it is, a bad reviews on there. But the way this dealership works is what they said is that if you make your payments for 12 months, on time for 12 months, that, you know, you can go to Toyota, their Toyota dealership and finance through Toyota, you know, I just think that's something worked out. I don't know how that level. Well, you can't establish credit for a conventional lender at a lower rate if you make your payments on time to these buy-year payer lots. You should always be sure that they do report to the credit bureau. A lot of these don't report to the credit bureau.

They just want to keep you on the pay to keep coming back to them over and over again. But if they do, be sure they do report to the credit bureau, you make your payments on time. I'm not sure 12 months is enough time. South East Toyota Finance has a program if you make. 12 payments on an existing car loan that greatly improves your chances. If you have something really awful on there, then maybe that they might

not give you the loan, but yeah, that's true. But you could do that. Also, off to that pay a period. I'm sorry. No, the other thing is to save up a little bit and buy a really inexpensive car. It's a gamble.

But, you know, there are cars out there that have terrible cosmetic, you know, they need a paint job, they've been direct, but not too seriously. There are safe cars out there that no one wants to buy. And we have, I remember during Cash for Clunkers years ago, we were selling cars for scrap onto the Cash for Clunkers program for $750 and $1,000 that were perfectly good cars

that you could drive. So if you look hard enough and have the car checked out by a mechanic because you wouldn't want to just take a dealer's word for it, you might find a car for $1,000. that it would look terrible, and you wouldn't be proud of it, but it would get you to work and back or get you to the doctor and back or get you the pharmacy in back. And there are a few cars out there. You can search on AutoTrader.com.

They got just about every car available. How many cheap cars do they have on AutoTrader, Stu? Oh, gosh. Every car that's for sale in the world is on there from $100 to $100,000. Exactly. And that's what I would do. These are wholesale cars. They're typically brought to the office.

auction. Every dealer has them. So what we do is we take all the cars that we think would be very difficult to sell, and we take them to the auction and we sell them. But as I say, a few of these cars would be better than not having a car at all and might actually be reliable. So that's the best advice I can give you, Bill. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, that's no problem. I have one more question for you, though, if you don't mind. Sure. I get these things in the mail about your car, uh, warrant. he's about to expire, blah, blah, blah, you know, to hire to go through them.

I think all those things are legit just out of curiosity. They're all scams. They're manufacturers. Anybody that sends, manufacturers don't do this. And it's usually to scare you into thinking that you have to have a warranty on your car. Throw them the trash can.

Everything that gets soliciting a warranty in the mail or online is a scam. That's what I think we're just pretty much junk. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. I enjoy your podcast, unfortunately, you know. Well, good luck. Good luck to you, Bill.

And keep in touch, to text us if you still strike out, text us, and maybe I can give you some advice and maybe make a few specific suggestions for you. But good luck on flying the car. I know how important it is. Before you go. Any horse and buggy? Bill, before you go, this might be an avenue you might want to explore. And this Consumer Report, the 2018 auto edition.

is filled with so much information. It's unbelievable. And there's some real deals that you can look for as far as a used car is concerned. But it is definitely worth your while to take a look into the auto issue of Consumer Report. That's the 2018, where they have everything from the best used cars to the recalls and safety updates and used cars, the best used cars, the best used cars. cars and for you know under 20,000 under 10,000 so it's worth picking that issue up and taking a look at it so good luck with your well investigation on finding a used car that would be conducive to your financial situation okay well I I know my beacons was I already know what they are I mean if I on 566 the other one's fights 545 and one of those four or something, because they, and all three of the credit bureaus, you know, because I've got somebody working on my credit trying to pick it up.

Uh-huh. Very good. But, I mean, I know what that stuff is, but I'm just saying I'm just having a hell of the time to find anybody that's willing to begin to the amount with a low-down payment, you know what I'm saying? You've got a few restrictions there, and I understand completely, uh, living on a fixed income right now, uh, in your situation. You know, it poses a, uh, a bit of a problem, but it is solvable.

All I can do is wish you a lot of luck and keep on looking. But pick up that consumer report. Thank you. You're welcome. You're a very important part of the show, ladies and gentlemen. A lot of ways you can spend your Saturday morning, we thank you for joining us right here at the True Oldies Channel, 877960, where you can text us at 772-4976530.

And that text number again is 772-497-6-5-30. You know, we're getting as many texts now, sometimes more text than we do calls, 772-497-6530, and we have a text. I think Stu can read that to us. We do. The text says, Earl, I've heard you many times refer to auto-tag agency fee as just another dealer fee. This one probably throws even the most skeptical and educated buyer off because dealers do not appear to calculate sales tax.

them. Therefore, not appearing to be another dealer fee. Additionally, most buyers might think this is legit because auto tag agencies do actually charge a fee for their services. What is the actual cost to dealers for transferring a title and registering a vehicle? How can a consumer find out for themselves what this cost should be to them ahead of time to avoid getting ripped off? A great question, and again, never underestimate the ingenuity of a car dealer to come up with something that sounds legitimate that's not a fee is the key word everything is a fee fee seems to indicate government and legitimacy but fee is strictly when it comes to car dealers profit to the dealer and pure profit auto tag agencies exist and they

are companies that do a service for the dealer car dealers used to have in their own accounting department a title clerk that did all the work which was the preparation of the registration and the license plate. So these tag agency companies sprouted up, oh, 15, 20 years ago, and now they're totally commonplace with the advent of the computer so that these tag agency companies can do the work of the title clerk and car dealerships. So the car dealerships were able to save themselves a lot of money by not having to have the title work, title clerk do the work of paperwork.

preparation. They subbed it out to somebody called the ABC Tag Agency or South Florida Tag Agency or whatever tag agency company. There are a lot of them out there that are all making profits. And the fee they charge the dealers somewhere between $10 and $15. Probably cost them five times that to have their title court to it. So they saved a lot of money by going to the outside tag agency fees. And then one dealer said, hey, I got a great idea. Saving money isn't enough. Let's make money. We will lie to our customers, tell them this is an official fee, and we will charge them, which will not only cover the cost of the auto tag agency, but it'll make a more profit for us. So now preparing the title work for the sale of a car is a profitable operation. So that

goes into the profit on the car. It's a game that we've uncovered maybe the last five years. It's like a shell game with the name of the dealer fees. Last week, we saw one that had a line item on the buyer's order said dealer fee is zero but then like so it looked like they weren't charging a dealer fee very good

they just changed the name and put them somewhere else electronic filing fee is another name e filing fee and they twist it around but the only thing that you will always see

is fee they love fee on our mystery shopping report and I'm not going to reveal the name of the mystery shop that we did this afternoon we'll try to keep you listening until the last half hour.

But this particular dealer had something interesting. He had something that said fees that we paid sales tax on. What was it? Taxable fees. So it's an interesting term, taxable fees.

And if it's taxable and it's a fee, it's not a dealer fee. I mean, it is a dealer fee. Anything that is taxable that's a fee is a dealer fee. so a dealer fee is a generic term a lot of dealers most dealers don't call it a dealer fee something else it'll be kind of an obvious dealer fee and then the little ones like e-filing

face do yeah i just i just thought of something specifically for this this text question because it's not taxed on the buyer's order that doesn't mean the dealer isn't paying the sales tax to the state for the fee it's hiding it from you so if they're market if it costs them $10 and they market it up to $199, they can still pay sales tax on the $10 and not pass it on the you and still make money. Yeah, they could and it's very serious not to pay sales tax on profit. So what Stu is saying is they're still paying sales tax on it, but they may not show it to you.

They may absorb the sales tax rather than clue you in to the fact that they are paying sales tax. Unfortunately, 99 out of 100 buyers don't know. that if you pay sales tax on a fee, that it's a dealer fee. So I think we beat that one to death, but it was a good question. It's a subtle kind of a nuance that a lot of people don't understand about dealer fees. And I think we have a couple more texts. Nancy, let's get the information out there. You've got a comment.

Yeah, that information that you need to reach us, first of all, first two new lady callers, you win yourself $50. So the lines are open, and we're waiting for your call. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and ladies remember you have to give us a call at 877 960 9960 in order to win that $50. Earl do you have a text? I have one. I'll let you go first. Okay, well you go first. Okay. This here is a two-part question and it is from a young lady named Madeline and she asks about her sensors on her vehicle, you know, the cameras and radar and all the equipment that help your car work correctly. She wants to know how she can keep them clean.

And the second part of the question is that she wants to know if there are any companies that are developing ways to let them clean themselves. and it's not part of my job description, Madeline, so I can't explain that to you. I believe that Rick could answer this question or Earl could answer the question. I can't answer it. I've never cleaned my sensors. Rick?

Really, cleaning the sensors is going to be part of having your car washed and detailed, and there's really not a whole lot that can be done for them. The higher quality cameras and sensors, Most of these now are cameras, and thankfully, the most important ones, like for pre-collision, are inside the car, so they're protected. But something I've actually noticed on a lot of cars with backup cameras, as they're getting older, just like the headlights on the cars, they're getting cloudy because it's a polycarbon lens. I'm getting a vision. Car dealers are going to start selling sensor cleaning in the future.

If you're listening, there you go. with a headlight restoration. Now, bear in mind, folks, I foolishly, I went ahead and tried this one time. Toothpaste does not clean up cloudy headlights, and it won't work on those camera lenses either. If you're a do-it-yourself or type, or you've got to, say, a young person, a teenager in your house, looking to make a few extra dollars on their allowance or something, go down to the auto parts store and get a professional headlight cleaning. kit by one of the better companies, 3M, of course, one of the best companies for any of these

products, and have them use that, and obviously in a much smaller scale on that camera lens. But test it first on the headlights to make sure that it's going to clean up well, and that's pretty much the best thing if they're starting to fade out and get cloudy. Okay, Rick, can you answer the second part of that question? What companies are developing a way to have the sensors clean themselves? Not many because, unfortunately, well, I won't even say unfortunately, it's, remember, there were some of luxury cars that came out with the ideas of self-cleaning headlights. They would actually have little washer fluid sprayers and even little wiper arms, actual like little windshield wipers, on the headlights. Yeah, they were horrible.

They didn't work. It was very expensive for those little blades because you could only get them usually from that dealer because they were such a, niche market that nobody made them after market so there's really no real option to try to clean have a self-cleaning device for a camera lens that's about the size of a dime so unfortunately it's not something that they're normally going to have but by regular maintenance of your car having it cleaned in detailed every so often and of course the best option especially here in Florida. If you can, park your car in a garage. Great advice. Keep it out of the sun for the times when you're not using it, and that

will make those things last probably for the life of the car than some. Madeline, I hope that Rick answered your question, and thank you so much for the text. A text number again, it is 772-497-6530, and you certainly can give us a call. As I always say, you do make the show. 877-960 9960 and I believe the recovering car dealer has a few texts I think we've got a couple texts

or still read another one we do we have Steve in New Jersey asks he says many cars now state the transmission oil never has to be replaced and the transmission is sealed even if the transmission oil is long lasting should the internal transmission filters be changed to remove the metal particles

that inevitably accumulate over time that's a right question And again, no, because believe it or not, most of these cars now don't have an actual filter per se that can be replaced. They have a metal screen that will catch 90% of that stuff and also magnets down in the oil pan that will catch those metal particles and prevent them from traveling. Oh, yes. Simple little magnets. Science. Well, it's such a simple answer.

You've got metal. Put a magnet in there. Metal goes to the magnet, never comes off. Brilliant. But on these cars with what they call the lifetime fluid, bear in mind that even with that lifetime fluid, in conditions of what manufacturers will call harsh use, or those that tow, say if you have a pickup like myself, and if you do tow a trailer or something quite often, carry heavy loads often, you still should consider having that fluid changed out.

say it around every 100,000 miles and again for a lot of people 100,000 miles may be the life of how long they keep that car so it may be that is the lifespan for your car and if you have an older car that you're keeping at 100,000 and go to a good reputable shop that you know will do the job properly and will stand behind their work

because a lot of these modern cars that fluid level has to be exact within a few ounces. If it isn't, it causes those transmissions to act very, very odd and can damage them. All right, good information. All right, Steve, I hope that answers your question. We've got one more text. This is anonymous.

Preparing the title work for the car, is that something the car dealer must do? I guess I am confused over what is required when purchasing a car. Can I just pay for the car and do the paperwork with the DMV on my own? Well, you certainly, I don't think it can. It's a problem. The state of Florida, and I'm speaking for Florida, I've got to remember now we're talking to a lot of folks out there in all 50 states. In Florida, they close down a lot of the motor vehicle departments.

And I'm thinking that it is a very difficult task to actually have. have your own paperwork done. As far as you having to pay for it, you have to pay the Department of Motor Vehicles for the registration and license plate that you can't get away from. Paying the dealership for preparing your paperwork is another story because that comes under the category of dealer fees. So I think what you're probably referring to are tag agency fees, electronic filing fees. These are taxable fees, which I said earlier in the show, means.

dealer fee. The only fees that you should pay when you buy a car with respect to your paperwork are the ones that are paid to the state, whatever state you live in. If it goes directly to the state, it's a legitimate government fee. It's accepted that you should pay that, and that is not an overhead expense allowable for the dealer. But everything else the dealer does pays commissions. He pays his telephone bill. He pays his title clerk. He pays his tag agency fee. He pays a e-filing fee. You have to pay sales tax on that. The state of Florida defines that as profit to the dealer.

And it's supposed to be disclosed when you sell a car, I mean advertise a car. It's supposed to be included in the advertised price. Unfortunately, dealers don't do that. But, yeah, you have to absorb the government fees, and it is not going to save you time or money, really, to seek out the Department of Vehicles and have the work done yourself. because you'd have to pay the same P that the dealer pays. I think that answers the question.

I forgot it was a texter. I thought it was a guy on the line. That's it for the text. We're caught up. Do you have another? No, we're all caught up. Okay, great. Ladies and gentlemen, is this amazing?

This information that we have here within us in the studio is priceless. But guess what is more priceless? you being part of the show and helping us along there's a lot that we don't know and we depend on you so give us a call 877-960

or you can text us at 772-4976530 and we do have another caller and it is our most favorite caller John from Palm City good morning John Good morning to everyone

I have a real good one about not paying fees and dealers and additional expenses that they didn't do. One of the largest dealers in the New York City area, right in Queens, they have three franchise. One that's the most famous is Major Chevalet, right on Northern Boulevard, a stone throw from Manhattan by the 59th Street Bridge. Well, in 2017, the Department of Consumer Affairs fined them, that's the executive. of it, Harold and Bruce Bendell, over $2 million in fines, inflating prices, deceptive ads, targeting low-income buyers, et cetera, et cetera, including fees, added, and then it gets worse. They had a $2 million fine. Now, in August of 2018, for their 2009, form 1120, gross receipt taxes of $1,000,000,000,

$417,800, and they're now in deep trouble again because payroll taxes of over $2 million, which they all plead, the executives are no longer with them now. They pleaded guilty to this. This is a criminal organization. The client hasn't been coming out yet. So, I mean, it just shows you some of the dealers, how they operated. This is a large dealer in New York City, been around for a long time, and it's been going on for years

and now they go back as far as on their taxes, the gross receipt tax form 1120 and check them out and there's further digging in that they're going to do. But no longer those executives, the owners actually of that dealership

are there. I think it's probably in a process major, if you can Google it, major automotive group in New York City. So I mean this gets worse I've seen this, 56 years living in New York

City. I mean, I mentioned some other things in the past. Vic Potamkin from Miami, he totally lost his Cadillac franchise for games that he played, setting O'Donemeter's back,

and then Earl knows about McNamara Pontiac on Long Island, almost completely bankrupt GMAC. Yeah, huge. And there was other incidents as a caddy dealer in the Bronx,

the kid Ron, they actually didn't take it away from them, but they swapped them from a dealer in Westchester County. So it goes on and on and on. And that's why the dealers are on the bottom, as they're all said, with the politicians, who some of them proved where they are this week on the hearings. But it's unbelievable, and you can see why their ratings are down in the gutter the way they are on the bottom of the list.

Well, I salute the regulators and the legislators in New York for having the courage to go after car dealers. Car dealers are like insurance companies. They're big, big, well-financed because they team with the auto manufacturers. The auto manufacturers to protect the dealers, and the dealers themselves control a whole lot of politicians. The National Automobile Dealers Association is a giant lobbying organization, and Florida the Florida Automobile Dealers Association is giant lobbying.

And there are blatant crimes being committed by cars. car dealers in Florida right now. And Pam Bondi does not have the courage to go after them. Why? Because the Florida Automobile Dealers Association helped get her elected. And there's very few politicians in Florida that have the nerve to go after car dealers. They realize that without their support financially, they can't get elected. The same thing with the Takata Airbag problem. But the regulators in New York, they have the courage. And the legislators have the courage also to call a spade a spade. They see a crooked dealer. and they punish him.

So it's a terrible statement about the dealer, but it's a positive statement about the government of New York. Well, Earl, you're on the button right away. The consumer affairs is on top of a lot of this. It started years ago with a woman called Best Meissen, and many of the attorney generals who have to be credited to going after these dealers. One of them actually was known as the sheriff of Wall Street,

but they don't take this nonsense. and if we had that in Florida, it would be a lot better, and these dealers wouldn't get away with the actual fanatics and maneuvering that they do. So kudos to New York City for getting after these people, and it's shutting them down. Yes. Thank you, John.

Really appreciate your call. You're one of our most informative callers. Great call. We learn something every week. Thank you. Thank you, John. We look forward to hearing from you next week to John's point about the car dealers being forth from the bottom here we are we fall between the politicians uh excuse me the

congressman and the lobbyist and this is where we've been rated uh and on honesty and ethics and it's it's really a shame but here we are at earl stewart on cars you know we're fighting this one dealer at a time and a part of the work that we do is the mystery shopping report and you want to stay tuned for that. That is going to come up

the, I would say maybe the last 45 minutes of the show hopefully. Give us a call tool free at 877-960 or you can text us. Texas at 772-497653 Zero. You make the show. We're going to take a call from Stewart. Welcome to the show.

Eldico. Yes, good morning. Good morning. Aldico? Beautiful name. Beautiful name. Lovely. What can we, you're a new caller, correct? Yes, I just accidentally came across your show and I'm very happy to hear it. I have an important question. We too are very happy to hear from you. Kia, that only had 64,000 miles, and after a long-distance drive, it shuddered and shaped and just completely stopped.

So it took them quite a while to diagnose it at the Kia dealership, and they said that the engine had seized, and it's under warranty, and it says it's going to take two to three months to replace the engine. Now, the question is, once they replace the engine, how good is this car going to be? Let me say this before I turn it over to Rick Ildico Two to three months to replace an engine sounds Ridiculous It does, it's on back order they say

You mind telling me which Kia dealer you're dealing with Oh, it's a horrible one I was down in Hollywood I wasn't in my area It's a Hollywood Kia dealership They don't even answer the phone half the time I would recommend that you try another Kia dealership maybe a couple. I mean, a simple question.

Describe your ear-make model car the problem and ask them how long it will take them to get you an engine under warranty. And then I would also call the Kia manufacturer directly. They have an 800 number. Yes, I've dealt with them, yes. Have you? But it's absolutely crazy to take two to three months. I mean, apparently they're having to get the engine from Korea. And I guess.

When I asked if I could have a toast. to my fellowship up here where I've always had the maintenance for six years. I bought it new. And they said then we'd have to start a whole new ticket and, you know, it'd take longer and blah, blah, blah. And the other suggestion I would have is to demand a free loaner car while they are waiting. I have that. Okay. Well, that takes some of the pressure off. But I think you can expedite that if you try to check with other Kia dealers and you've already done the manufacturer. But try another couple of Kia dealers and see what they can do for you. It's not something it would normally carry in stock in their parts department,

so they should order it, but there should be warehouses around the country that would stock those. Rick Kearney is our auto computer scientist here. Rick, can you shed any further line on that? Yeah, I haven't really heard anything big about Kia having engine issues. However. There is a recall. There is a recall, but they said my VIN number is not on there. Yeah. Well, what I would pretty much assume that what's happening is this may be something similar to like to our Camry dashboard situation where they wound up with so many cars needing these parts and a lot of manufacturers now do what they call just in time manufacturing.

In other words, they don't build a huge number of engines and have them sitting in a warehouse waiting to go to. these cars on the assembly line, they're producing the engines at about the same rate as producing the cars. So as an engine arrives at the factory, it's dropped right into a car. So it's hard sometimes for them to be able to come up with extra engines. Yeah, but that's still ridiculous two to three months. Yeah, well, that's why I wonder if they have so many going bad, so fast, if there were that many, we would have a hard time. Yeah. We would have heard about it. Here's another thought, Ildico is the Hyundai and

the Kia share sometimes parts and they even share model cars. This is a real long shot but you might ask the question if there's a Hyundai engine, it's the same owner of the manufacturers

that might possibly... They may not be able to do that because if it's a warranty situation we couldn't be able to get a Lexus motor. Yeah, I said it was a long time. To put into a Toyota, even under warranty. Yeah, I said it was a long time.

Yeah. Well, it's a tough one. If she has to wait two or three months, that's something to do while you're waiting. And keep us posted, Delta, go. I'm glad you have a loaner car. That's the key. But one important question, sir, please. Yeah.

Well, when they replace the engine, how, I mean, how safe will it be? Oh, it should be totally reliable. An engine problem is contained within the engine. You get a new engine, which you ought to be concerned about. is if they were going to repair it instead of replace it, if they're replace it with a brand new engine, you'll have the complete warranty that you had before, and it will be as good, or it'll be a better engine going to be brand new. You don't have anything to worry about on that score. Right. Especially since the fact that whatever issue they had with those engines,

they will have fixed that problem now on the new engines coming out because they don't, obviously they don't want to put an engine in your car, then have to replace it again. So they're going to have it updated and it's going to be an even better engine and being brand new, it'll even be a lot better for your car. So there's, there's, that's a, that's not a, that's a win situation all the way around for you. Oh, good. Thank you very much, gentlemen. I appreciate your input. If you'd like to stay on the line, you're a first time female caller. Yes, I am, yes. I have $50 for you. If you could leave your information with John. Thank you. I can mail that out to you.

Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go straight to Connie, who's calling from Tequesta. Hi, Connie. Hi, good morning. I have a crazy situation. I don't know if it pertains to anything that you're dealing with right now on the radio.

So I would like to know why is it so easy for a woman to get suck and punched when she comes in to purchase a car? I've been put into a very, very disgusting situation that I cannot trade in my car because of falling for the salesman who, I guess obviously they all lie to you and I went along with it like an idiot and I tried to reach out to an attorney. I try to reach out to this one, that one, and the other one. Bottom line, I'm stuck with the deal that I made and I was just over at Toyota the other day. I'm so upside down on this car that I'm going to take this car to my grave. And right now I'm like 68 years old, and I'm not a very happy campus.

I'm sorry. I heard your radio station this morning, and I was like, let me see if I could put it out there, and maybe, I don't know, I don't know. It's such a shame when a woman walked into a showroom all by herself and she trusts in the salesmen to hear her the right way and all they're looking for is for profit Connie I know Nancy is chomping the bit here she's turned bright red and she just she's going to have to give her uh give you some advice and now here it comes Connie you know if you really want to hit this dealership where it hurts uh filing a complaint against the dealership or the repair shop making it known letting your voice be heard knowledge is power and putting that out there you would be helping other women you know

all dealerships are not bad these things do happen they happen a little less now than they did before but as i always say not every car dealership has gotten the memo this is the 21st century, things are done differently. We're not living in the 50s. No one should be asking you to look at a makeup mirror. So with that said, I just continue to fight the fight and get what you want. And if you don't, there are certain measures that you can take to let this dealership know that you're very unhappy. And that's by filing the... What kind of measures can I take? I already sent them certified letters. I try to get in touch with an attorney who was very helpful, but I cannot hire him.

He's like $350 an hour. He advised me on what to do. He advised me at the federal act law in Florida, 501, 201, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And bottom line, I keep hitting a brick wall because a legal aid won't pick it up. I just want them to write the room that they did. And I haven't heard from the manager over at the Nissan dealer. I'm going to say who it is because I don't think anyone should buy from them ever again. I traded in my Toyota Corolla of nine years to those people over there.

And boy, oh boy, that I get swirled around. So I don't know what other measures to take. I really don't. I called the Better Business Bureau. I don't know what other measures you take. What Nissan dealer was it? Connie, give us the name of the Nissan dealer. That's one thing you can do is tell 20,000 people listening to this radio show the name of the dealer and where it's located.

It's the Nissan dealer over on Blue Herring Boulevard. I'm going to tell you exactly the story, okay? Do you have time to hear my story? Sure. Sure. Okay. I leased the Nissan Center for the Tuesday. years. And my concern was that when my lease was going to be up at the third year, that I would

have nothing to actually trade back in. So one day when I was over at the dealership, getting an oil change, I wandered into the showroom, you know, you know how you wander around. And the salesman who originally was the person who leased me the car, I wanted to know I went from a $230 a month payment to a $310 a month payment. He says, me out he says if you buy the car out right now he says you can buy the car out he says and then after a year he says you'll have something to trade in for a new car i was like really so i can buy it out after two years he goes yeah yeah yeah yeah well stupid me got stuck it into it and before you know in my payments three hundred and ten dollars one year to date i try to

trade my car in over at the jeep dealer only to find out that my car is not worth What my loan is, I was devastated, devastated that I have all this negative equity in my car until today. Like I said, Earl, I was just overwrite your dealership the other day, talking to one of your salesmen, and he came up with the same story. Yeah. I don't know why. I allowed this to happen. I feel like an idiot, a total fool, but I allowed it to happen because I took his advice. and i'm stuck Connie

Connie you're not alone I have to stress to you please don't feel you know like you were an idiot you know the shrewdest smartest person can be taken advantage of in the dealership and there is power in numbers but as I before I turn this question over to Earl I can't emphasize to you enough

how you can hurt these dealerships I'm saying dealerships, plural, because it happens in more than just Nissan. And filing a complaint against the dealership or the repair shop that you dealt with, I'll tell you what, it puts these guys on notice, and that is a mark against them. I mean, I can't wipe away exactly what happened to you. What happened, yeah. But you can do something about the future. I even want to the CEO of Nissan.

I try to get in touch with the finance company, the CEO of Nissan. I sent the certified letter to the manager over at West Palm Beach Nissan, and I still... I understand. I understand. You've dotted your eyes and you've crossed your T's definitely. Completing that consumer complaint form is worth its weight in gold. I'll turn the call over to Earl now. Yeah.

Thank you. Connie, you could do this also. You can file a complaint with the Attorney General's Office. I'm not proud of the job Pam Bondi is doing up there, but they're required to respond to complaints. Too few people actually go through the complaint process. It's a little tedious, frankly. And if you want to write this website down,

it's Florida Car Dealer Complaints.com. from www. www. Florida Car Dealer Complaints.com. On that website, I posted complaint forms

you can download for the Attorney General's Office, also for the Florida Office of Consumer Affairs. And there's a third one on there that I have. Did you pull it up,

Stu? Well, if you go to Erloncars.com, there's a link that says file a car dealer complaint, and there's several things, and you listed a few,

I'm pulling it up right now. So you will have three complaints that you can fill out, download and fill out. And I know you've already called the manufacturer. Unfortunately, the manufacturers don't do much. They will notify the dealers directly. By the way, that dealership has changed hands. It used to be owned by Ed Napleton. And you said you bought this car several years ago recently.

2014, exactly. That was Napleton, Nissan, right? And now it's West Palm Beach, Nissan. I guess, and there's a whole different manager. A man by the name of... He told me there's nothing he can do when I first went back to him like a year ago in March. He said because he wasn't, you know, he was under different management. The new owner of that is a man named Terry Taylor.

He owns that dealership and many other dealerships. If there's any way you could get a letter through to him, it's always good to go to the guy at the top. How do you pronounce that name? Taylor, T-A-I-L-R, first name Terry. Oh, Taylor. Terry, T-E-R-R-R-Y, Terry Taylor. And he's not, I don't believe he has a home in Palm Beach County. He may, but you can Google him.

He owns, he's the largest owner of card dealerships in the United States. It's not a public company. He privately owns as many car dealerships is AutoNation. And he's been in the business a long, long time. It would be almost impossible to get through to him directly. But sometimes when you go to the top guy, somebody up there will take a little. look at it. You did the right thing with Nissan Finance. You can do Google complaint, Google reviews, are always a good way to get

their attention. And there's also a complaint avenue called dealer-rater, D-E-A-L-E-R-E-R-A-R-T-E-R-A-R-T-E-R-A-R-T-R-E-R-A-R, okay. And there's also Yelp. you're familiar with that, YELP, YELP. You can go to all of those websites, tell the story exactly as you told us on the air. You've already spoken to 20,000 people. Now you can speak to another 200,000 people by putting up these ratings, and you've told me you've already done better to business bureau.

You'll file the complaint with the Attorney General, the Florida County Office of Consumer Affairs, and you will be able to really spread the word. I mean, you're not going to remedy your personal problem. problem, but you're going to save a lot of people from being fooled the same way they took advantage of you, and I'm terribly sorry what happened. Thank you so much for calling the show. Connie, as a first time caller, I'd like to offer you $50. I was hesitant about calling because I figured I asked this is, you know, something different than talking about dealers fees, but thank you. Connie, if you'd like, I can talk to you after the show, and we can discuss this on a more personal level. I'd have a whole lot more time. $50 for calling.

And give John your contact information, and I'll get you that $50, and we'll move forward. Thank you so very, very much. You don't know what this means to me. You're welcome. You're very welcome, Connie. I appreciate your phone call. Spread the word on us. We're going to go to Stephen.

who's calling from Jupiter. Hi, Stephen. Hi. How were you today? Good. How are you? Great. What can we do for you? Yeah, I'm the first time calling. I listened to the show a couple times. And I'm actually, I own a moving company in Jupiter, and I bought my first truck a year ago from Ford.

and I went brand new, so I spent $100,000 on this truck down at AutoNation in Fort Lauderdale, which has now turned over to Greco. And I've been running into a problem where I purchased the extended warranty. I paid a lot extra for warranty up to 250,000 miles in five years, and I've had to have some work done on the truck, And Ford's telling me only Ford can work on the truck. And I've been to 10 different dealers that they've sent me to. And when I get there, I'm too big for them to work on.

And so kind of stuck in a predicament here where Ford's telling me that only Ford will work on it. But when I get there, they won't work on it. So how do I get these problems resolved? As of yesterday, I called corporate. I've been dealing with a four-dealer and Stewart, which has been a nightmare. He was the old warranty guy where I bought the truck. And so I took it upon myself to call corporate. And from what it sounds like, they're approving a local shop here in Dequesto to do the work as an authorized warranty shop for me.

Great. We'll see if that actually happened on Thursday. Right. But if that doesn't, I'm kind of just kind of trying to see what are my options at that point if that doesn't happen. Well, I'll tell you, the reason I love callers is this is a call we've never had. It's extremely interesting. And you just alerted a lot of folks out there that are, you know, commercial, have companies that buy unusual vehicles. I mean, $100,000 truck is a pretty big truck.

And you never think about it until the time comes. the size of a vehicle directly affects the ability for a dealer to repair. A lot of dealers don't have the lifts big enough to lift that truck. They don't have a ceiling high enough to accommodate the lift if it could lift the truck. So it's a question that heads up to all you folks out there buying big trucks. Be sure you know where you can have them repaired if something happens. But I'm glad you had the intelligence to call Ford and get that information. And how lucky can you be to get accompanied.

company in Tickwesta. Stu? I'm just letting our caller know that I am, Stephen, that I'm texting a Ford dealer I know to see if he has any input, and we'll let you know if he gets back to me on the show. If not, we'll bring it up next week. Yeah.

Hey, Stephen, what model, did you say that was your truck? It's an F what? It's an F750. The 750, yeah, okay. I'm about 40, I'm 40 foot long, and I need 13 feet of clearance. Now, this place in DeQuesta, They have already done the warranty work once.

It literally took eight months to get them reimbursed. They're actually still waiting on one more check. Wow. And they have been so accommodating and understanding, and they still want to work with me, which is embarrassing to even ask them to do an oil change when they haven't gotten paid by Ford yet. But apparently that payment has been approved.

and as of yesterday the person I spoke from corporate forward said they are now going they couldn't find a dealer anywhere in the state of Florida that would work on my truck so they're going to make this place in the quest of which is five minutes from my house to be able to work on my truck and I'm blessed if that's actually going to be the case on Thursday if not I'm kind of just reaching out for some feelers on what's my next step Well, you keep us posted, Stephen, because this is a sad statement on the Ford Motor Company, and you've gone all the way to the top. I thought that you would, I thought you'd finally reach an intelligent Ford manufacturing person when they referred you to the Tequesta dealership, I mean, repair facility, and then they won't pay them.

So it's just a sad statement on the organization of the Ford Motor Company. the fact that they would allow a car to be sold, and where did you buy it in Hollywood, did you say? Yeah, I bought that Auto Nation Fort Lauderdale. I actually spoke to someone at Ford. He called me yesterday. I guess he runs, he's in charge of all four dealerships from Florida to Georgia. He runs them all.

And he told me that AutoNation should have never sold me that truck that they didn't have the ability to sell that truck. Well, that's a bunch of nonsense because Ford should have never shipped them the drug. Automation can't sell something unless Ford ships it. And I assure you they knew they were shipping it to Florida, and they should have known that they didn't have any repair facilities in Florida. So I believe that Ford has violated a franchise law. And I believe that there are restrictions against manufacturers selling vehicles that cannot be repaired in the state that they sold the vehicle.

We can't sell a hydrogen fuel cell Toyota. because we don't have the ability to repair it. This might even be a violation of federal law. So you might want to have a little fun and write a certified letter to Ford and telling them that they are in violation. You can check maybe with an attorney. I hate to tell you to do that because they'll charge you. But I might do a little research for you on that

and see if I can't get back to you and let you know. I believe it's a violation, at least the state law, maybe federal law, for manufacturers to sell vehicles that can't be repaired. Stephen, we have your cell phone number, right? You texted Earl during the show a few minutes ago? Yes, sir. Okay, good. We'll get back with you, and we'll have a little fun with this.

I'd like to see Ford Tap Dancing in Detroit because they're breaking federal laws, and then they're lying to their customers telling you that the Auto Nation, Ford dealer, and Fort Lauderdale, should have never sold the truck. What's he going to do with the truck? He bought it from Ford. He's got it, and now they're telling him he can't sell the truck. They should have never sold the truck. They sold it to him.

So thanks for a very interesting question. Stephen, keep us posted, and you're a very well-informed consumer. I love the way you handle this, and you're a real gentleman, too, because if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be as polite as you being so far. It's been frustrating, to say the least, but yesterday's phone call with corporate made me feel a little better. We'll see what happens Thursday if they actually allow the work to be done. Thank you, Stephen. Great call, and we'll keep you posted.

We'll help you out as much as we can. Thank you. Stephen, thank you for the phone call. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, I can't stress this enough, but to ignore the female market or any potential customer is business suicide. I mean, I can't say it any plainer than that. Be part of the show and help us put the truth out there and open up a few of the auto dealers Eyes 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

We're going to go to another female caller, and that's Gloria that's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Gloria. Morning, everyone. How's everyone doing? Very well. How can we help you? Well, what I've got is we've got, and I know this is an old car. It is a 2000 Ford escape, and it does have a lot of miles on over 100,000, and we did take it to the Ford dealership.

It's been cutting off. We put, we went up one grade, which is, I believe it's 89 to put into the car. It's a good running car. Ford did repair it, but it just cuts off. All of a sudden it just cuts off. We could go down the road and it's just cutting it, cutting off. We put it in neutral, of course, it catches up and it goes again. My question to you is, I know that earlier a caller, there was a website or a phone number that I could call, perhaps somebody else has had this problem with this Ford Escape 2005.

Is there a, one of our callers, Tina, recommends that you just do a Google search, and you'll find out. find a forum pretty much for any car that's ever been made. So there would be a forum for people that own the same model and they will discuss problems that they've had and it's a good source of finding out if there's a common, if there's a pattern with a vehicle. Yeah, Gloria, just go to Google and type in just what you told us. Type in to the Google browser or Google, whatever you want to call it,

2000 Ford Escape, Stick Shift, or Manual Transmission, cuts off suddenly when driving. That's all you'd have to do. Just give the exact ear, make, model vehicle, and the fact it's a manual transmission, and just say, engine cuts off when driving. And you will be amazed

that there will probably be dozens of people that have the similar problem. It might give you some insight. But while we're here, and you've got Rick, who has probably already done this, as we speak,

Rick, did you find anything about that particular symptom? Well, the first thing that I'm looking at right now is the safercar.gov. I just wanted to see if there were any recalls listed, and they do not show any recalls for 2004 to escape. The next site I'm going to be checking here is carcomplaints.com, which is a wonderful site because they have huge amounts of information. Give me just a quick second here to pull this up. but they're another one that kind of like the forum sites but they they don't get excuse me they don't

get as far into um shall we sell sorts of oddball things they're more here are what people have seen as direct problems so you'll you'll see less in the way of conversation there and a whole lot more information just based on this is what we've had for what we've seen for problems let me just get this to pull up here. Rick, just pretend like you were diagnosing this with knowing nothing more. What are some of the things briefly that you would identify as something that she might want to check out? The first thing I'd be looking at are electrical issues.

Anything to do with the electronics for the engine, the computer controls. A car stalling out like that suddenly while it's been driving. I'd try to get as much information as I could about when it occurs. what the vehicle temperature was, the outside temperature, things like that will have a big effect. And obviously one of the first things I'm looking for are conditions like is there maybe water leaking into the car getting into the electronics?

So you go through a rainstorm, and then suddenly that's when it starts occurring most often, that would be a real big indicator for me. Glory, after the car cuts off, does it restart after a certain period of time? How long does it take before you can start it again? Well, the thing of it is, when it does cut off, it cuts right back on. You just go on down the road. Okay, so it's like a, I don't know, fuel injection thing, it cuts off.

You could be driving in, and with the Ford, of course, you know, you could just put it in neutral and cut it on and keep going. I see. And we can't even pinpoint it. It just happens all of a sudden. Sometimes first thing in the morning, sometimes when it's driving already warmed up, it just cuts off. Well, I think if you Google that, see what you can find, Rick is going to, Rick will work on that. And if you'll leave, you're going to leave your number with us because we're going to give you 50 bucks as a female caller. We stretched it to three because we love female callers.

We'll have your contact information. And Rick Kearney will get back to you and we will tell you what we find out. We'll give you our best diagnosis and advice, but we can't spend a whole lot of time right now. We've got to get to our mystery shopping report coming up. But I promise you, we'll send you a check for $50, and Rick Kearney will call you with his diagnosis of your problem. Okay, thank you so much. I enjoy your show. Thank you, Gloria.

And by leaving your number, I can give you a call this afternoon. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. Remember, we do have a mystery shopping report coming on. coming up shortly. You can also still text us at 772-497-6530. And thank you, Frank, for holding. And Frank's one of our regular callers from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. How are you? Morning, Frank. Okay, well, we're trying to connect with Frank. I have a text. Do you have any?

No, go ahead. Okay. This concerns a smell. a young lady's a young lady's car and I will get back to that question Mary and we're going to stop for a moment because we have Frank back on the line from Jupiter Farms. Good morning Frank

Well good morning Mr. Mrs. Stewart It's always a pleasure speaking to you guys. Thank you. I don't think I reach the status of Tina yet but I'm far behind me We've got two things for you. One, earlier in your show, one of your callers called about the vehicle service department vehicle notification alert for personal confidential immediate response requested because your coverage may not be still good on your car.

And it's amazing. This just came in yesterday's mail, so we had just opened last night. And it's for that 2018 Ford pickup truck we bought one week ago up at Palm Bay. Frank, we get calls from customers all the time. It was just like that. They bought a car one or two months ago, and they called screaming that we sold a car with a bad warranty. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

That's a scam. Relax. So, yeah, it's crazy. This must be the record, less than one week. Yeah. It is. But on a more personal note and one of your really hot buttons, yesterday we did stop by up in San Luis where my son lives.

And I told them, look, we have another one of these, N-H-T-S, recalls about your 2008 Honda record about the top, the car to airbag inflator. And so my daughter-in-law said, oh, no, we took it as a Honda dealer months ago, months ago. In fact, it was your show that got us involved. And they had like three Hondas that were all bad, supposedly. And they tell, yeah, no, no problem. So I said, let me go online. Thanks again to your show, safergov.

Safercar.gov. I typed in their bin number. I just haven't to have that. I have their bin number here. And it shows, yeah, two recalls are still incomplete. Now, my question to you, sent Safercove, would that be something that maybe the dealer just decided to shuffle it

or maybe she'd misunderstood or they really didn't do anything? How's the best way to find out? We really do have an open thing on this Honda, 2008 Honda Corrid. That's possible, Frank, of course. I think what's probably more likely is dealers sometimes are really sloppy about their paperwork and the repair is actually done

and the paperwork is called a repair order and there's several copies and there has to be input into a computer when it gets input to the computer then the manufacturer has it in their computer and that's where NHTSA gathers their information so if the dealer isn't prompt on his paperwork He can fix the car, do the actual recall work, and the car is safe and it's been done,

but nobody knows about it because the repair order is hidden in a service manager's desk or a service advisor's desk, or maybe it just got thrown in the trash can. A lot of times manufacturers will audit dealers because of various reasons. They'll find missing repair orders. So that's one of the things that makes this whole recall thing so dangerous to the buyer. there isn't a totally accurate way of being absolutely certain that a car is safe. If the dealer repaired the car, it's absolutely safe, but if the manufacturer didn't tell NHTSA, you'll never know about it.

And of course, CarMax and Auto Check, they don't know about it either. So it's kind of a crapshoot for the buyer, and it's a sad situation. I would go back to the dealer, and I would say, listen, you're telling me you repaired the car, and it doesn't show up at NHDSA. What's the deal? Alerted them to the fact that they probably forgot to submit the repair order to the manufacturer. Of course, that means they're not getting paid for the repair, which is silly.

It's costing them money, and it's got to be real aggravating to you. But I would call the dealer back just to be sure Rick has his hand up. We've actually seen a couple instances now that this has occurred where when the dealership, the service department, was filing the paperwork. on a recall, they put in the wrong number for the operation code or put some wrong information in on the paperwork, transposed a number or something.

And that recall never got closed out. And we've had to really jump through some hoops to get some of those straightened out on that. For VIN numbers are 17 digits. You can imagine you have a human being. All this should be scanned or digitalized, but it's not. It involves human beings that are writing out VIN numbers sometimes.

and a transposition or some little thing can completely kick a repair, with a record of a repair, out of the system. But Frank, that's another great call because it's something we hadn't thought about. It clearly is happening probably thousands of times where repairs are completed and nobody knows about it. Very interesting, and thanks for that information. Yeah, one other thing when I was on that typing in the bin number, I couldn't tell if it was a zero or an O. Yeah. And so I tried the O, and it came out, said incorrect.

As soon as I got rid of the O to a zero. So it was a pretty cool computer when you type the stuff. And like you said, there's a lot of digits. It is. There ought to be a better way. The VIN number itself, to me, is a dinosaur. There's got to be a better way to identify vehicles. Rick has a point.

VIN numbers, by federal law, they don't use O. It's always zero. So O is, you will never see. see an O, the letter O, on a VIN number. You know that, but nobody else does is a problem. So to me, to me an O is zero. Matter of fact, when I give it out a phone number, I say, you know, 357-O-O-O-O-O.

I mean, it's just O and zero, and it's a fallacy in the system. As a matter of fact, the way to solve that is to have the computer a step an O or a zero, and that way it would solve a huge number of problems. Okay, Frank. Well, again, thank you guys so very much for many things, including the Big Dog Rescue Ranch.

Oh, you're so welcome. And, Frank, thanks for being a big part of the show and an important part of the show. We look forward to hearing from you again. That number is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-60. Matthew has been holding from North Palm Beach. Good morning, Matthew.

Hey, good morning. Hi. How can we help you? Hi there. I am the owner of a 2011 Toyota Prius, and I've noticed I'm burning some oil. It's got high mileage. I'm at about $185,000, and just was looking for some advice about how to proceed with service. How much your oil is it burning, Matthew?

Have you measured it? Yeah, you know, I just stopped in. to the service place and you know about every thousand i'm going about a court okay that'll give rick something to go on rick what do you say i'm actually rather familiar with this situation um this is something that our service department has actually kind of begun a shall we call it a grassroots battle uh there's been a few different toyota models that have gone under what's called an extended warranty by the factory because they've been burning excessive oil.

Prius was not included in that. However, we've come to find out that the factory recommended service maintenance on it is a synthetic oil change every 10,000 miles. The problem is these cars only hold four and a half quarts of oil, and Toyota says they're allowed, by their definition of using oil, they're allowed to burn up to a quart of oil per thousand miles and that's not considered excessive by Toyota. I consider that very excessive,

especially on what should be a very quality car. I do too. And so we're actually battling that. Every time we see a car come in that's using oil like that, we're using the same test that they have us do on those other cars and we're sending this information to Toyota and we're screaming and yelling at them saying, hey, these cars have an issue, you need to do something and get this extended warranty out to cover of the Priuses.

So the best thing I can recommend is do an oil change, have an oil change done, check the level of the oil on the dipstick, and then after a thousand miles, check it again. And if it's used more than one quart of oil, I would be on that 800 Toyota number, and I would be at a dealership saying, help me. Let me interrupt. Better than that, do it with the dealership because they're going to have to measure it again because they're not going to take your word for it. So unfortunately, the factory requires us to do that, Toyota. So bringing in to our dealership or to another Toyota dealership, tell them what you want to do.

And as Rick said, do the oil change, put in the prescribed amount of oil, and then they will make a notation of that. And then 1,000 miles from the time you're there, come back in again. and get the amount of oil that it burned. That way it will be on record with a dealer, which will be on record with Toyota. And we'll kind of be sure that it burns a little bit more than one quart in a thousand miles. Well, we're going to be honest about it.

That's one thing we have to do. Everything has to be above board and honest on it. However. If it was close to burning a quart in a thousand miles, I have a hunch. It's going to burn a little bit more than a cord. And, of course, the other thing is we'll be doing, what's called a dealer product report,

which is an official report that we send that goes straight to the factory to say, there's an issue here. We need to get this solved. The reason I'm saying what I'm saying, which sounds kind of outrageous for a car dealer, a Toyota dealer, to say with manufacturer folks listening

that we're going to be sure it burns a little more than a court, if it's close to a court, is because it's absolutely ludicrous that Toyota should build a product or any manufacturer should build a product that burns a court. of oil every thousand miles. That is way too much oil to burn.

And the tolerances they set for that engine, we have other Toyotas or Priuses that will go, what, 5,000, 10,000 miles and not burn a cork? I think they ought to be able to go 10,000 miles without burning a drop. Okay, so we have, my opinion. There are other Priuses out there, and it's just a question of 10 Priests has come off the same assembly line. One of them burns a cord every thousand.

the other one burns a cord every 10,000. If that doesn't make sense, there's something wrong with the manufacturer. It should be corrected. So I don't think, I think you, you have got a legitimate gripe, and we're going to take care of it for you. Yeah, you know, honestly, I bring my car to guys every 5,000 to change the oil. Yeah. But, you're right.

Should not be burning. One time I was driving, made a hard break and the low oil light came on and I checked it and it was it was down there pretty far and that's when I started checking every morning now but on that's what makes it so outrageous I wouldn't be able to make it 10,000 let me tell you yeah yeah no it's a lot of people don't notice that oil light and that's the recommendation by the manufacturer is to change your oil every 10,000 miles the crankcase will only hold four quarts and you're driving, and you're burning a cord every thousand miles,

that's a recipe for disaster. That's a recipe for burning your engine out. And Toyota's putting those cars out on the road. They should not be doing it. And if they do do it, they need to step up to the plate and accept full responsibility for doing it. So a great call. I hope Toyota manufacturing folks are listening,

and I hope they get the message. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much, Matthew. Stay in touch. 7-7-960-960-772-497-9-7-9-7-9-6-5-30 is a text number. Do you have text or do you want to go to the mystery shopping report? I think we've got a text. Let's try to get to a text before we get to the mystery shopping report.

Stu's pulling it up on the line now. We got it. This is from Johnny and Riviera Beach. He says, I found out that you can get a really good used car. If you go to a senior citizens community, like Century Village, and look on their community bulletin board, you'll see cars for sale because the owners can no longer drive for health reasons. Some of these cars have very low miles, and the prices can be reasonable because the owner just wants to get rid of the car. They can no longer drive.

I suggest someone check that out before they go to the crooks at those buy-here pay-her lots. That's a fantastic idea. I love these calls. The problem is all the car dealers heard that, and so they're going to be trying to buy these cars and put them on their used car lot. But that's a great suggestion. Century Village, Bulletin Board or

website? Yeah, like any retirement community, maybe Paseos or if you're allowed to get on the property, some of these are gated. I don't know if you're able to get it. I would say most of them are gated. You may have to find someone that lives there and make friends with them. Say, hey, you know, can I come in and get to your bulletin board

to look for a car? Yeah, and it is a good idea, but I do want to caution that, you know, senior citizens are routinely taking the advantage of and abused. So let's be careful there before you go buying the cars from senior citizens. Great advice, too. Well, a senior citizen, buy it from another senior citizen. Exactly.

We have one more text that just came in as we were reading that one. Great. Okay, this is from John. He says, hi, folks, I own a 2010 Infinity G-37. My owner's manual calls for 5.3 quarts of oil. I recently had the oil change, and the shop added the standard 5 quarts of oil. Now my warning, my warning light stays on saying oil levels are low. Is it okay to disregard the warning, or should I add the additional one-third quart?

Do you know why manufacturers don't just make it easy by making an even number of oil? Thanks. It doesn't make sense to me that the oral warning light would go off because you only put in five quarts instead of 5.3. Rick? The first thing I'd be doing is pulling the dipstick to make sure that the oil level is in that safe range. that I know those sensors on the cars hey maybe it's got a bad sensor or starting to go a little funny little resistance in the wiring

that good old mechanical dipstick is the best way to tell what your oil level is and I totally agree with them it's insane that oil the fluid capacities of these cars instead of being a simple four quarts four and a half five five and a half whatever it's four point

3, 4.4, 5.7, 7.9. Come on, folks. What if you don't have a bulk oil dispenser? What if you have to do a cord? So now you have to take one quart and just put in three-tenths. You can't do it. It's insane trying to calculate that. I have one more text. It's really important. Maria has been waiting for an answer. Unfortunately, her trunk smells musty. It was left open. Tell her to stay out of the trunk. rainstorm and she has tried the anti-solution, the mildew solution and several other things. Maria, I'm not sure whether in your text you didn't tell me whether you emptied the trunk or not, but that would be the first thing that I would do. Whatever was in that trunk whenever it rained and the trunk was open, get rid of everything in that trunk, replace the carpet.

And Rick, do you have something to add to that? She said it's really unpleasant. Yeah, you're going to have to just scrub everything out, get some damp rid in there, and febrize, because that musty smell is going to get into all the fabric sections in there. Fibrease is some great stuff for it, and damp red to get rid of all that moisture. You've got to get the moisture out of there. Great advice, Maria. We are going to go to the mystery shopping report, and that is coming up right now.

Okay, we have three mystery shopping reports. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to do justice to two of those, but I'm going to talk about them because we have a whole new avenue of mystery shopping reports. Very exciting. We have an anonymous feedback commentator from North Carolina, South Carolina, I'm sorry. South Carolina anonymous, he calls himself a remote mystery shopper. He sent me two shopping reports, one from a Honda dealer and one from a toilet dealer. They're very detailed, very informed. He's obviously very familiar with the automobile retail business, might even be in the business.

We know he listens to the show. So the thought has occurred to me. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had remote agents all over the United States? And why limit that that? Why, maybe all over the world? So, anonymous feedback, if you will write this down, youranonymousfeedback.com. If you go to that website, you can speak to us anonymously, and it goes through a high-secure, high-tech, your anonymity. Enerypted.

That's the word I was looking for. I mean, this is like spy stuff. Nobody can never find out your identity. Big blue chip companies like Adobe and Tesla all use this for information from the customers and employees. So www. Your Y-O-U-R-N-O-U-R anonymous, A-N-O-N-Y-M-U-S, Anonymous Feedback.com. Not easy to spell anonymous quickly. I can spell it very slowly.

Youranonymous Feedback.com. So shop some car dealership. in your neck of the world, wherever it may be, you can do a telephone shop or a walk-in shop. If you listen to our mystery shopping report, you know how we do it, and let us have it. Now, we'll have to be a little bit careful about these because these are anonymous reports, and we could possibly be victimized because, let's say, Toyota salesman wants to attack his competitor. He could do a phony shop and say some incorrect things about his competition. And we would be forced into realizing it.

So we're going to use a little bit of... In our mystery shops, we certified. These are 100% accurate. We can't vouch for the accuracy of our call-ins. Yeah, exactly. Our mystery shopping reports are done by us. We name ourselves. We name the shopping target.

And if we do something wrong, we're subject to lawsuit, liable slander. We're guilty if we say a bad thing that's not correct, not the truth. They can come after us in 10 years. We've never had a lawsuit. These anonymous mystery shopping reports, and we encourage you to do it. We're not saying we don't want to do it. I can tell you from looking at these two,

they appear to be legitimate. They're on a South Carolina, breakaway Honda in Greenville, South Carolina. And the other one is on the Toyota of Greer. Now, to summarize, these were done by phone and actually going in the dealership. Both of these shopping reports of Breakaway Honda and Toyota Greer in South Carolina were good. They were good shopping reports.

They weren't perfect. There was a little bit of non-imperfections, but as we do on our own mystery shopping reports, we grade on the curve. We don't have perfect reports. We have good reports and we have less good. We put the less good on our due-don buy and our better on police buy. from this dealer or recommended that you buy from this dealer. So thank you, Anonymous Caller, for sending them these two.

Sorry, I can't go into it in detail. Keep the reports coming. When we have more time, we will do more detail. But I thank you very much for the two mystery shopping reports now. Your AnonymousFeedback.com. Remember that. You can help us solve a lot of problems and share your ideas with us. Your AnonymousFeedback.com.

A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, we mystery shopped Wallace Hyundai. Mystery shop of Wallace Hyundai. You know, we've had twice as many car dealers on the good dealer list as bad. I didn't know that, and Stu wrote this report, and I thank him for putting that in there. I had no idea. Twice as many.

So we're not out there to assassinate car dealers. Yeah, 40 recommended, 20, not recommended. Exactly. So we're trying to find dealers that you can do business with. It's encouraging to me. I think it used to be a much poorer ratio. I think our dealers are getting a little better. Of course, though I said many times on this show, we do great on the curve.

So you might say that the dealers on the recommended list are the best of the worst. And the ones on the do not buy are the worst of the best, however you want to put it. It's the worst. Yeah, worst of the worst. We have remarked that the Napleton group of dealerships appear on the do not recommend list more frequently than any other dealership. Six Napleton stores are on the bad dealer list. For shame. Yeah.

They're bad. But we haven't acknowledged the dealer who appears most often on the recommended list. The Wallace Auto Group. That's right. Every, it's really impressive. Every Wallace dealership, and we shopped all of them, have earned their place. on the recommended deal list, all of them.

Hopefully Bill Wallace is listening. We invited them to listen. And in full disclosure, I won't say I'm friends with Bill Wallace. I'm Facebook friends with Bill Wallace. I've known them for many years. I respect him. He's a very honest,

a good business person, a great car dealer. But he's got a lot of car dealerships and they're not all perfect. I've only got one car dealership and it's not perfect either. Even, this is an impressive. party bill also owns a buy here pay here a lot and steward easy pay letter

e and z easy pay cars buy here pay here they passed with flying colors they got onto the recommended list when agent X tried to buy a 2009 Honda CRV with a passenger side to cut airbag recall when the Carfax report was reviewed with a salesman manager of the finance guy the one guy on the lot were many has. He did it all. He kind of ran the whole store there. The sale was stopped immediately at Easy Pay cars owned by Bill Wallace, and the

vehicle was sent to a Honda dealer to have the vehicle fixed before they would proceed. They wouldn't sell the car until they fixed it. Many hats off to them. Amazing. Many hats off. That's impressive. Another fact that made this feel good about the Walls Group back of July was that we couldn't find

any Taka cars with a recall in any of his inventories. Speaks highly. That means he's, you know, he's purging these, getting rid of them, auctioning them off. They were clean, and the one to cut a car we found on their biopoeia, as I said, when they discovered that they wouldn't sell the car. We said we would return, and we did this week. We searched all of Wallace Oil Group's used cars and inventories,

and we eventually found one to caught affected car, 2013, Toyota Corolla, 79,000 miles listed for sale at Wallace Hyundai for 9,000, $749. Carfax, N. HTSA, and Toyota all confirm the existence of a Toyota side Takata airbag. Rick's got his hand up. Just one quick note, I can say from experience and with 100% certainty that that airbag is readily available at all Toyota dealerships, and it can be done within a couple hours' time. Thank you. A fix is available for this defect, but Wallace hasn't taken care of it yet, according to our three trustworthy sources. We sent Agent X to investigate.

Speaking of the first person, is this why I were Agent X? I called ahead to make sure the 2013 Corolla was available. I spoke to a salesperson named Jimmy, who was very friendly, but wasn't sure if the car was even there. He said it may have just come in. I said it was listed on their website, but they had only a stock photo, not an actual picture of the car. Jimmy said that probably meant it just came in. It was likely in the service department getting prepped for sale. He said the service department was closed, but he'd check in the morning and call me.

I was disappointed, but agreed, hung up the phone. Just after 9 the next morning, Jimmy called, the Corolla was in the service department, and it would be ready to show at 1230. I asked him if he could hold it for me until 1.30, said, sure. I was a little late, 1.45, pulled in. I was greeted by a woman in a red shirt holding a clipboard. I said, I was there to see Jimmy and asked her if she was a salesperson. She said, no, they just pay me to set the salespeople up.

Need to improve that introduction, Bill, if you're listening. The delivery needs to be. Listen, we're just kidding. That's just a minor issue. And I only said it because I think Bill Wallace is probably listening. The woman walked in into the small showroom to find Jimmy in an office speaking with someone on the phone. I waited at the door for a few seconds before he put his phone down and jumped up to greet me. He had the keys ready and led me out.

Jimmy talked and opened the doors, hood and trunk as I walked around, inspecting the Corolla. The vehicle was in good shape with new tires, but there was an area of paint on the hood that looked worn from sun and age. Jimmy was very nice, did a great job describing the features of the car. I asked him about what they addressed this morning in the shop. I asked if they had any mechanical problems were uncovered during the inspection. He said it passed with flying colors. how about any accidents I asked Jimmy said he already looked over the Carfax report

and there were no accident reports on it this is a little worrisome because the Carfax report had the information about the recall but these Carfax reports to be fair can be multiple pages you can have a 510 page Carfax report and that's a lot of text plus they have a big summary at the top

and kind of like the accidents jump jump out at you more than anything else. So you have to read the report carefully if you're going to get all the information. Jimmy asked me if I want to drive it. I said, let's go. On the right, I ask him about the patch of bad pain on the hood. I want to know if they would fix that for me. Jimmy said the price was actually $11,999, but they discounted it to $9.7.49 in consideration of that.

He had no room at that price for any cosmetic repair. He said, if I really wanted it fixed, he would arrange to have it done for me at their cost, but I'd have to pay for it. I said, I'll consider that. We returned to the dealerships out of the desk. Right away, Jimmy asked me for a deposit, asked me to sign a document committing to buy it for $9,749. I pulled up Kelly Blue Book on my phone, showed them the fair market value was only $7,246. He said all markets were different, all used cars were unique, Kelly Blue Book was just a guide, blah, blah, blah, I moved on. Those were Stu's exact words.

I got tired of writing the same. The same response we always get. And to some extent, Jimmy was right. The Kelly Blue Book is only a guide. And they're just an approximation. But he may have been exaggerating in either direction. You don't know. I picked up the worksheet, reviewed the numbers.

The sale price was $9,7.49. They added $129 in taxable fees. That's interesting. We haven't seen that before. It's a disclosure, as we talked about earlier on the show, taxable fees are not government fees, and if they're non-government fees, they are dealer fees. So there's a $129 fee known as taxable fees, which by any other name would be a dealer fee. And that's what it is.

He also has a $699 duck fee, and that's also a dealer fee. So the dealer fee at Bill Wall Sunday is $828. I picked up the worksheet, reviewed the numbers. The sale price was $9,7.49. They added $129 in taxable fees, plus the $699 dock fee. And as I said, that added $8.28, the dealer fee total. It made the total $11, $6.99. Jimmy asked if I was ready to sign.

I brought up the paint again. I didn't want to pay the paint to the hood. I reminded him about the Kelly value. He said he'd check and left. He was back soon. and said they would take care of the hood if I bought it right now. Typical sales tactic.

Not uncommon. Not unethical. Just sales. I said I can't buy it right now because I have to have my wife's blessings. Jimmy immediately replied that he could extend the paint deal until Tuesday.

Right, right now. Jimmy's fast on his feet. I like that. I said that would be enough time thanked him and left. Bottom line, epilogue, win some, you lose some, and so does the Wallace other group. Like dealerships, we've shopped inconsistency in the defining character is the defining characteristic.

Every car dealership is different for a lot of reasons, different dealership, different salespeople, different managers, different general managers, different time of day, no consistency. They're not McDonald's. You go into one McDonald's, a big neck, you go to another one, it's still a big Mac. You go into car dealerships. Starbucks, they're all there. Yeah, exactly. We're going to vote on this, and let's see what the votes are, Stu.

I kind of want to taint everybody else's influence everybody else's vote because I like Wallace Auto Group and I like Bill Wallace. And you mentioned this earlier. If a repair order that shows that the repair was done in that car is sitting in the service manager's desk, no one knows about it. So they very well could have done the repair, and it didn't show up on the Carfax report. And to further taint it, and I'm not sucking up to Bill Wallace. Trust me.

He paid us well this morning. No. This is the current automotive news. And this fine-looking gentleman here is Bill Wallace. And Bill Wallace was featured in the automotive news is one of a group of very competent, very, very positive, good dealers that were able to go through the worst of the Great Recession. And Bill Wallace did in flying colors.

And so in many cases we have dealers that are really good men, that are honest men, ethical men, but they have dealerships that don't do a good job, and we put them on the do not recommend list. So just because Bill Walls is a fine man does not mean that we have to put Walls Hyundai and Stewart on the recommendalists.

We'll be objective about it. My grade is a B-minus, and I'm considering this a fluke. Okay. B-minus. B-minus. Nancy, we'll let you go next. As you said, they have moved over to the dark side of the good dealer, bad dealer list. And the mystery shopping report, I would grade it as a C.

C. Rick, what do you think? I'm going to go with a C as well, only because it is such an important recall. But again, I agree with Stu. I think it was a fluke. It just came out of the shop. I say we keep them on the good list. but now this particular dealership is this a bill wallace toyota dealership no but they would have

had to send it over to right they would have had to find it and send it over to another spot to have it done but i'm going to call it a fluke i'm going to give them a c a little low just because of that but i'm going to say keep them on the good list because i i think wallace has got a good reputation and one little one minor little issue should not destroy a reputation yeah I'm going to give them a B. And I was going to give them a lower grade until Stu reminded me of the fact that the repairage has been done. And so that's why the repair wasn't on the Carfax, Auto Check, NHTSA. It takes some time.

Yeah, I take it. So anyway, the fact, and the other thing is the fact that we chopped easy pay, buy here, pay here, which are the lots are typically the worst and victimize the buyers. They're making an effort, for sure. And they were so honest. And we look all the time at all the dealer inventories, and we virtually never see a tuckeye airbag in the inventory of a Wallace dealership. I did it be minus, I detected a little flam-flam in the salesman thing. Nothing too bad, but a little too.

So we recommend them. We go on the wrist. And I want to remind everybody, it's quite an honor for Bill Wallace. He has eight dealerships. Something like that, yeah. And all of them are on the recommended. list. They're all in the Stuart Martin County area. I'm

going to say to all you folks in Martin County, and for that matter of St. Lucie County, and in northern Palm Beach County, check out Bill Wallace. If he has one of your franchises, help me a little bit on this. He's got Hyundai, Nissan, he's got Chrysler,

he's got... Easy pay. Easy pay, buy your bear. He doesn't have a Honda or Toyota. He's got... Does he have a four? Chrysler Dodge Jeep, I believe. Yes, it's forward, doesn't he? You're putting me on the spot, I don't know. We'll look on this later, but if the Wallace dealerships,

and the reason I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to push Bill Wallace and recommend it so much as I'm trying to give some place for you to look for cars if you can't find it on the Steeler. And Wallace, just remember the name Wallace if you live in Northern Palm Beach County, morning county. I think we've run out of time. That's our mystery shop report from Wallace Hyundai. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at Earl's Door,

on cars. Have a wonderful Saturday, and we will talk next week.