Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.09.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Plantation Ford

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to south Florida to visit a local Ford dealer to see how much over sticker price they will charge for a new 2023 Ford F-150 Lariat pickup. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Back again for another session of how you can buy or lease your next car without being taken advantage of. I often say ripped off by car dealers. and also how to repair, maintain your car to get it done right, to get it done at a fair price. And this show will be two hours from right now

until 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're located in North Palm Beach, Florida, but we're reaching quite a ways. I would say it's probably as many calls from out of, or let's say contacts, because we've got YouTube, Facebook, we got text, we got phones, But contacts in general, we probably get more from outside the state of Florida than we do within Florida. Now, Florida is kind of like the, I call it the Sodom and Gamora of car dealers.

It's really one of the toughest places to buy a car, especially South Florida. So you might get a little bit of a, oh, biased by our geography edge, because we deal with so many dealers. in florida but we we stretch out our mystery shopping report which i'll give you some details on just a minute stretches out of florida and we go into a car dealership and pretend to buy at least a car and we report back exactly what happened we named the dealership

we named the salespeople the sales managers everything is just straight out nothing is kept undercover is all uh... it's kind of like a sixty minutes you remember mike walls sixty minutes years ago when they used to do the surprise the businessman bit. They stopped doing that.

I'm not sure why, but maybe they got sued, which brings me to the question of why we haven't been sued. And I always say it's because the truth is a perfect defense against libel and slander. And we tell the truth. That's the reason we can talk about a dealer and say, he did this right or he did this wrong or he broke the law. we just tell it like it is. And that mystery shopping report will arise at the end of the show around 9.30, last quarter of the show, I guess you'd say.

So be sure if you can tune in for anything else. Catch that mystery shopping report. We have a fresh one every week, and we've been doing this for, you know, 20 years. So we have a huge archive of mystery shopping reports that you can access at earluncars.com. so that's www.orgoncars.com now in the studio we have Rick Kearney and that was mentioned

in my recorded introduction Rick is Edo's just about as much about a car as anybody I know and probably more than anybody you know and if you want some free information about your car give us a call 877 960 9960

why would you want to free information because if you go to a car dealership or even independent repair shop, you have to be careful. Prices are high. We talk about inflation every day. There's also deception, and this is true, not just in buying and leasing cars, but it's also in repairing cars. I mean, let's face it, you've got to click, you've got a smell, you got a rattle, something worries you're about the car, you've got some lights coming on, you don't know what's going on. so you take it into a car dealership he knows what's going or at least he should and he has a diagnostic equipment or at least he should but you all you know is what you see and smell and hear and fear and you're going to have to take his word for it that's a dangerous thing to do so why get ripped off for a repair when maybe it's just something that you could fix yourself or not worry about or maybe get some guidance on where you should have it repaired, just check with Rick Kearney right here at Erland Cars.

Now, Rick monitors our YouTube channel, and that is YouTube.com forward slash earlun cars. And because of what I just described, Rick has a huge following on YouTube. YouTube.com for slash Erlon Cars. Posting there goes directly to him. And so he'll, if he sees your post, he lets us know, and we will, defer to your question and help you find out what's wrong with your car. Sometimes it's nothing to worry

about at all. Sometimes it's a whole lot to worry about. And then the question of cost becomes critical and Rick will give you some advice there too. And sending up my left is Nancy Stewart. She's my co-host, also my spouse, and

she's been with us on this show for 20 years and help co-found the show back when we were just a half an hour show I think we're on Thursdays, different radio station, but the same studio. The station was sold and bought about six or seven years ago, I guess it is now. And we're now moved our time slot, and we've quadrupled our time for a half an hour to a two-hour show. We'll be on from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

So if you want to call the show, everything's so excited these days. There's headlines, auto manufacturers, UAW, strikes, electric vehicles. There's so much exciting news. We can all yack about cars for two hours ourselves, and I'm a yacker, and I'm going to have to control myself, because we'd rather listen to you. We'd rather have you call the show. Our number one preference is you call us at 877-960-99-60. that's 877-960-960 the reason I say call is because listeners and we're screaming by the way

the watchers and listeners when you hear the voice you connect better you can feel the pain you can feel the happiness whatever it is with a human voice so 877 960 960 and we'll what we're doing if i'm talking rick's talking mansy's talking snoo's talking uh we'll stop and we'll go to your phone call we only have five lines coming into the radio studio here and so we don't want you to wait a long time and we also don't want you to call and get a busy signal that's embarrassing when that happens so we've decided to high-prioritize telephone calls uh if you don't call you can text us a lot fixed us think most people prefer not to call That's the reason we hit the calls pretty hard

because it's a little scary being on live radio. We felt that way when we started to show. We don't feel that way now, but you might. And if you do, just text us at 772-49765-0. 772-497-6530. My son, Stude, monitors this. He's not here yet, but he'll be here shortly. Must have run into some traffic on the way to the studio.

and then you can text it and still will get the text at every code 772 4976530 I've given you the YouTube we also have a Facebook posting and YouTube's more popular

but hey Facebook is great I'm a Facebook person Nancy is too I know a lot of people have gone to the other stuff but YouTube is more popular than Facebook Facebook.com forward slash whirlwind cars

Facebook.com forward slash Erlon cars. And we've got a whole lot more going on. I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart here. As I said, she's a co-finder. She's also a female advocate and she built our lady listener audience.

Female listeners have grown from virtually zero 20 years ago to about half today. And Nancy can take full credit for that. First of all, she's been on the show and women often like to talk to another woman, and I can see that. And she also has a special offer, something that sounds too good to be true. And remember, you listen to the show and watch it because you know car dealers tell you things that are too good to be true. And I'm a car dealer, so I might be doing the same thing, but we're not.

We have something that sounds too good to be true, and Nancy will tell you about that right now. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. Gee, I'm extra excited today. It has a little to do with the show, but most of all, it is football season, ladies, and gentlemen. And I want to give Jonathan a special thank you. That backdrop, I love it. Recognition for the Steelers. So, moving along, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Give me a call. Give me a call, ladies, $50 just to say hello or. Let me know, or us, how your experience went at the dealership, whether you had your car serviced, whether you purchased, whether you leased. Give us a call at 877960-960, and for everyone else, you can text us at 772-49-6-5-30. You know that weekend week and week out, and forever we have represented Big Dog Ranch. Did you know that Big Dog Ranch is the largest, the largest cage-free, no-kill shelter in the United States? They do so much for those fur babies out there. And believe me, there's a whole lot of them.

I'm sure if you read the Palm Beach Post the other day, these locations are just covered up with dogs. So you can do your part by a dog. or even there you can foster our dog of the of the week is randy or excuse me roxy roxy um is a husky and you'll see a video of her later on in the show and uh it's just a great thing and she's a beautiful dog she's five years old and a beautiful husky and uh she's got those scary smart eyes yeah doesn't she yeah she's a smart dog absolutely and they've got their fees temporarily well let me back up for a second we pay the fees to adopt a dog so that's a that's a huge thing for you because it is expensive

even to adopt a dog and also they have their fees are temporarily reduced and Earl you were saying earlier that it's two hundred dollars Instead of $250 for a fresh dog, and if the dog's been there six months, it's only $100. $100, exactly. So, folks, take advantage of that. And, of course, they have a lot of, you know, specials, if that's what you want to call them, for veterans and so much more. We have some phone calls, and they're backed up, and I'm going to get to them right now. But I'm going to say, again, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Speaking of first-time lady callers, we're going to talk to Trish, who's calling us from Boca, who is a first-time caller. Good morning, Trish. Oh, hi, Nancy. Welcome. Thank you. My husband and I recently retired, and we have, we're like snowbirds now. So we're looking to buy a car down here, but we're kind of struggling. We don't know whether to lease it, like lease a brand new car or maybe buy something off.

but like a three-year lease, we really don't know which way to go with this. Yeah, which way is more conducive to your lifestyle and so many other things. Errol? Tricia, you just asked one of the most, I won't say complicated, but one of the most challenging questions. Part of it is a personal choice, but part of it also has to do with the fact that the lease is a very difficult transaction to analyze. A purchase, if you dot your eyes, cross your teeth, and follow the advice we give you on

the show, you can get a pretty good price on a car. Leasing a car becomes a challenge for a lot of reasons. It's complicated. And the more complicated transaction is the more easier it is for a dealer to deceive you. That's what I Go ahead No that's exactly why we're struggling with this Yeah

It's for example In electric vehicles today Leasing is Generally the preferred way to go Because of the tax credits that you get From the government Because they're trying to encourage people to buy More electric vehicles

And it can make hundreds of dollars per month Difference in your lease payment But again which electric vehicles do qualify and which don't are something that you have to study. And there's a lot of decisions that are in a state of flux with the government right now. For example, the government right now is going to authorize dealers to accept the, to take the tax credit and pass along the customer if they so choose, if it's a commercial transaction.

My advice to you is generally, rule of thumb is to buy versus lease. For the simple reason, there's less a chance of you being tricked in any way. Also, a good used car, in my opinion, if you buy a car, you can't lease a used car. You get a late model used car and buy it would be, to me, the idea. way to go. But go through the process to choose the car. That's equally important. You want to be sure you get the right car. Check with consumer reports. Use your own. You have friends that drive cars. You read about cars. Find the car that is right for you. And then once you have that, narrow it down to the specific options equipment and color. And then shop that cars if you're

going to buy it. Go through that procedure and mentally, you know, you've bought the car. Now that you've mentally bought the car, then it's the time to explore the lease options. And that way, worst case scenario, you can fall back on the lease if you are able to get a break, for example, the tax credit. And I know I didn't give you a clear answer, but there isn't a clear answer in today's world about leasing versus buying, especially with the electric vehicle thing happening right now.

Why don't you go through step one and get the exact car you want to buy, and then maybe you can call me or you can call the show back at another time, and you could have shopped around and gotten purchase bids from your dealers, and then the question of lease versus buy, we could help you with that. at that time. I will definitely do that. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Trish for the call.

Trish, this is Nancy. Also, as Earl mentioned, about consumer report, boy, I can't say enough about them. Earl and I truly believe in them. But as Earl said, narrowing down what you need, what is conducive, you know, to you and your family. Right. I'm not sure whether you have children or, you know, so there's a lot of variables to take into consideration. And for some, leasing is a great way to go. And for some, it isn't. You have to take into consideration, you know, what you're going to pay per mile and in so many other things.

But in the October edition of Consumer Report, you'll find the safest cars. And in the previous consumer reports, there's a, you can go to the used, are you looking for used or new? we were laying it out we are open to both okay great so there's a lot of information you can look up you can take a look at consumer reports use car and the most reliable for 2023 but the new cars there's more information in the consumer report also I'll end this conversation with thanking you for helping us build this platform for the female out there She is, you know, we're big. We're huge in the auto industry.

We really carry the auto industry financially. Thank you for helping me build this platform. And if you stay on the line, you can talk to Jeremy in our control room and you can win yourself. Or you can give him your information. He'll give it to me and I'll get that check out to you. Oh, thank you so much, Nancy. Have a great weekend. All right, you too.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Bob in Lake Park. For everyone else, please hold on. I'll get right with you. Good morning, Bob. Good morning, good morning. Looks like we dodged a bullet with Mr. Lee.

Yes. And the one behind it. Yes, there used to be a song. Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee. I remember. Well, it looks like your competitor, Terry Tyler, his business model must be awful successful. He just bought a $76 million mansion in Aspen.

Wow. So I imagine the way he's doing business, even though he really rips everybody off. He's making a lot of money, that guy. Well, you know, did you know where he got his nest egg, He got started. He sued Mercedes about 30 or 40 years ago and got punitive damages here in Florida,

treble damages, and it was a couple hundred million dollars. So he started out with a nice little nest egg and built it. I have to agree with it. He's the largest privately owned dealership group in the United States. Probably the world. Oh. So I see BNW. is no longer going to charge their customers to heat their seats.

Oh. They decided to drop that. Well, great. They're not going to charge them. So you can get your seat heated and you don't have to pay for it. Even though you already paid for it when you bought the car. What's next? I don't know.

But I did see something about Big Dog Ranch. You know, I had called you a couple weeks ago and told you about the situation at the county animal shelter. Yeah, terrible. And they're starting to put dogs down because they're just overcapacity by a big number. And I think they just decided for some retribution against Big Dog Ranch because they found out the Big Dog Ranch went out of state and purchased hundreds of dogs from some puppy mill. And they are very angry because their feeling is, the county's feeling, is that Big Dog Ranch, if they're going to, you know, do what they do. they do a wonderful job, that they should be helping doing more for the dogs that are in the county and not be going out of state to bring dogs back in.

This is the county's perspective. They hit them with a big number of a fine. Bob, did you see the article that was in the Palm Beach Post about what you're talking about? I saw it somewhere. I don't really read the post anymore, but I did see it. I think it was on TV. They might have had it on the local news. Yeah, Bob, I'm going to ask you this question.

You know, we were out of Big Dog Ranch recently, and I mentioned you because you had called and you were talking about the veterans, were you not? Not really. No, it was somebody else. It was someone else, okay. I wanted to try to narrow it down because I'm trying to find the past show for Big Dog Ranch. Okay, sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Bob, I was just, Bob, let me just say one thing on behalf of a big dog.

dog ranch. I don't like it when politics and regional preferences creep into something like a dog's life. And Big Dog Ranch has been criticized before for bringing dogs in from out of state. In fact, out of the country. They bring dogs in from China and Puerto Rico. You know, Puerto Rico is part of the United States, but it's out of the country, out of the continental United States. In any place, there's a situation where dog's lives are being threatened, Big Dog Ranch considers that their duty and their privilege to be able to save dogs' lives. And for me to say, for the Palm Beach County people to be saying that we should, Big Dog Ranch should favor the life of a dog in Palm Beach County over the

life of the dog in Alabama or Puerto Rico or North Carolina or any other place, it just doesn't make sense. Big Dog Ranch will take any dog anywhere in the world. And they have a huge number of dogs as a consequence. They've saved, I think, probably millions of dogs' lives because they have the wherewithal and they have the contributions from people like you and everybody else that contributes that they can save dogs. But it's small-minded political pettiness

for the Palm Beach County people to be criticizing Big Dog Ranch because they will save a dog's life in North Carolina, they also saved the dog's lives in Florida. Anybody that brings a dog in to Big Dog Ranch, they accept. I mean, if they have to have a reason. They just can't say, take my dog, but they're doing a wonderful job. So I'm glad you mentioned that. I'd forgotten about that issue, but it's bad on the Palm Beach County folks

for trying to pick a fight with Big Dog Ranch. well i think you know i had mentioned to you before about that facility down there on belvedere yeah and i couldn't understand why the county hasn't really made any you know with all the money they take in in this county how much money they take in on taxes why they never you know upgraded that location or got another location opened up another another place somewhere to take in to increase their capacity and i and i expressed you before you know i don't have the juice you have juice maybe you should call your county commissioner up here i think it's maria marino and have a talk with her and find out why they haven't put any money into the animal

care and control in the county bob you're absolutely right i'm going to do it was above we got a bunch of people bob we got a bunch of people waiting and this is earl on cars not ear on dogs although we love dogs so thank you and i will call yeah bob we're going to look into that thanks so much for calling us. We do appreciate you. Give us a call again. Thank you. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com.

We're going to go to Lance, and Lance gives us a call every week from Tennessee. Good morning, Lance. What do you have for us today? Good morning, friends. I'm happy to report. I'm happy to report. We've got just a little. bit of rain up here in the land of milk and honey.

But I do have a little tune for you. Oh, boy. And I was hoping. Well, I wouldn't disappoint you for all the tea in China. If you're walking around and afraid you've been followed and don't know where to go, It could be a UFO, but chances are you might miss Earl Stewart on cars on the radio. Lance, I'll tell you what, I needed a laugh because the previous caller got me off on a subject that got me angry at the Palm Beach County government here, and I was getting ready to get my blood pressure up, and now I feel happy again, thanks to your song.

Well, you know, my family and friends chastised me about calling. They say, how can those folks say in that? I said, well, you know, they're music affectionato. Well, we need that levity every morning. And please promise you keep on calling because we love to have you lighten the show up and give us a little smile. Have a great day. You too, my friend. Thanks, Lance.

Let's go to Simon. He's giving us a call from Colorado. Simon. Oh, Simon. Good morning, Simon. Good morning. What's up? I think this would be a question for Rick Ernie.

Okay. And the question I have is I have a 2003 RAM, 2,500 4x4, 5.7 liter V8. And recently I went out of town with it, and I did a lot of previous maintenance on it. to make sure everything went well, but I told the trailer, and everything was fine until on the way back, I was coming into Wyoming, and I was noticing that my vehicle was like, it was like shut off and a red light with like a zigzag or, like, I don't know what it was, came on and I don't have to do something with a throttle body or something, but once it shut off and I coasted off to the side, I restarted it and it was fine, but once I hit like 60, 65,

it would do it again. It was, you know, it was almost like, short-circuiting. Do you know what that problem might be? Without being able to know for sure what that light is, I would almost guess maybe you've got a wiring issue. Maybe the generator, your alternator, is starting to get a little weak and not producing enough power to be able to run the trailer brakes and the lighting and all that for the trailer.

It's a little hard to say without knowing for sure what that warning light was, though. Yeah, it was a red light that looks almost like a lightning bolt, you know. Okay. Yeah, that's usually going to be a charge light on the charging system. I would get somewhere and get the battery tested and not only the battery in your truck, but the alternator as well and the battery for your trailer as well. Because if that trailer battery is starting to short out, then you could be drawing too much power to the trailer and could leave your truck's electrical system

wanting it's not getting enough power left in it to be able to run everything properly right it wasn't it wasn't like a regular big trailer it was an open trailer basically oh okay so you don't have you don't have uh trailer brakes on it no electric brakes okay yeah no all right now the way you were talking i was immediately thinking that you had uh trailer brakes that you were looking at also no um yeah i'd still definitely be looking at that alternator though okay yeah yeah because I noticed I started to make a little noise. It was kind of like a rattling noise and that made me think it might be the alternator.

Ah, yes, very, very, very possible then. Okay, all right, I'll have a check-down. I just kind of wanted to get a, you know, second opinion and take it. Like you said, some shops, you know, they tell you there's a bunch of stuff wrong with it, and I wanted to make sure not I'm pretty good about kind of have an idea what it might be, you know? Yep.

Usually places like the local auto zone, they can check that also, but if you have a volt meter, you can put that on as well check your battery with the engine off and then check it with the engine running and we'll say your high beams and your wipers on okay

yeah we have a local shop here that's been around for a long time that they check alternators and batteries pretty well and they only charge like five bucks and they're really nice guys and they also rebuilt alternators they'll rebuild original one oh that's a great deal yeah so I'll probably go check with them to make sure

Yep. Okay. Well, I thank you guys very much. I listen to you guys every week, and I enjoy your show. Thanks, Simon. Yeah, thanks so much, Simon. It was great hearing from you. All right, thank you.

Give us a call again. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We are going to go to Lake Worth where Paul has been waited. Good morning, Paul. Hey, good morning, guys. Happy Saturday. I don't know if you saw the story. And I think it was Thursday in the Sun Sentinel, where the local car company called off-lease only, no longer is off-lease only.

They no longer exist. They filed for bankruptcy, and over 400 people laid off in Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and a couple of other stores that they had. So off-lease only, no longer. We were talking about that this morning. Yeah, Paul, you hit on the big, big story of... the morning, as Nancy just said. It shocked everybody. Shocked me.

I had a call from a Facebook friend, actually a posting from a Facebook friend who I had two friends that worked at Offleys Only locally, and they were let loose on Wednesday morning. They closed the store at noon. So it's a big story for us for one reason, one big reason, is they were one of the good guys. They actually had found a model for selling used cars. It was a market niche that they had. Yeah, yeah. And prices were good.

And we also had the... I mean, they sold a lot of accident cars, yes. Yeah, they did. But they disclosed it. There was no secret. They gave a Carfax report, and the prices were good. We had them on the recommended list, and I was really shocked. Yeah, I was, too.

And according to the article, they said that the shortage of used cars, there was too much competition for the used cars that they bought, including rental fleets and the inventory issue killed them. Yeah, it's a tough time in the used car business period. And for a relatively young firm, they've been around for a long time, but they were private, a man named Mark Fisher and his wife owned it, and then he sold out to a group that tried to expand maybe a little bit too quickly. And then you combine that with the COVID issue and then with a huge car crisis.

I mean, they probably had a liquidity issue. They were trying to grow too fast. But I hate to see him go out. They were a good choice for the car buyer looking for a bargain, a used car buyer. Yeah, absolutely. So I just wanted to pass that along. Thanks. Thank you, Paul.

Thank you. That's breaking news, and it's a great topic to be aware of. You folks out there who bought cars from off-lease only, it's a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, so the court will be controlling the disbursement of the funds. So if you're owed money, you might be a supplier, you might be an employee, you might be a customer, but if off-lease only owes you money, there is hope, I think, good hope, that you'll get something back. It isn't a chapter seven bankruptcy. It's a chapter 11.

That's good news for the debtors. So you'll hopefully get some of your money back. Yeah. Hopefully. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530. If you wish, you can go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Earl will be collecting those this morning and reading those over the air. Also for the lady out there who's listening, I have $50 for one more new female caller. Give us a call at 877-960 and say hello or just share your experience in the, if you went into the dealership service, if you looked at leasing, whatever the topic would be glad to speak with you, $50 for that female new caller. We're going to go to Jersey, Mike, who gives us a call from West Palm Beach. Welcome. Welcome, Mike.

Thank you, my call. A few things. I want to talk about Big Dog Ranch. First of all, I did adopt a dog there. I am a veteran, and they give you a special price, even on a veteran. And one thing that people don't know is they'll give you a dog that has been totally taken, everything is they've done properly. They get chipped, they get manicured, they get deflead. I mean, they do a perfect preference.

job. And I've made donated there because I think the veterans group over there, his name is Evan Nader who takes care of the veterans, a court is there. It does a great job for those dogs. That's very true. If I was a dog, I wouldn't want to leave there. It's a pretty nice place, but maybe it's getting a little crowded now. You're absolutely right. A couple of questions on cars. I've got a 1995 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.

And it was broken into, and they didn't know how to hot wire, so they broke the exterior column, and it costs me a lot of money to get a new whole steering column put in. The total of the column itself and shipping a lot was a few hundred dollars, but then

they charged me $950 to install it. And now, listen to this. They had different programs come in there to override was called the VATS system, which is the security system that will not allow you to put the car in a different gear other than park, which is sitting in.

And so this car is non-mobile. I finally got it towed back to my house via AAA, which is a great company. And my problem is when I go to Cadillac in the Auto Nation here in West Palm Beach, on Congress, they tell me the car's too old. They don't know how to fix it. That doesn't surprise me.

We have the same problem. I mean, incredible. I mean, they sold this car, okay? I'm the second owner. This car has only got 83,000 miles on it. It originally has the original tickets in the trunk for the manufacturer from GM. I mean, come on, you can't fix a car?

Rick can identify with that. I mean, Rick actually can fix older cars because he's been doing this for 25 years, but he knows some young people in our dealership service department that have no idea what's under the hood of a car that's in 1995. They wouldn't know what they were looking at. Rick sitting here shaking his head. Do you have any solution to my problem? Otherwise, the car is going to sit here in my driveway and rot.

It won't get stolen. act because you're not going anywhere. I'm going to give you one of my standard answers. I would go online for Cadillac clubs in your area, Cadillac forums, and I guarantee you that there are Cadillac owner car clubs in this area. I guarantee it. And somebody out there has got a mechanic that knows how to do that and knows how to side-sidevent those systems that they can circumvent them and make it work or even get it back to factory original without any problems.

The car clubs are the best way because you've got people that are so fanatical about loving those cars. I just blow into the car because I got a Corvette too. But anyway, let me say this here. How come the dealership doesn't know how to fix their car that they sell?

That's ridiculous. That's so insane because the older cars, yeah, the systems were a little different, but they were much simpler, too. He said they sent three different people to the place. This is a muffler shop. I'm not going to name the name of the company, but they're an independent agent, so they're supposed to have, they have ASE mechanics there, which are certified.

They couldn't fix it, and they brought three different people in there to spend hours trying to override this fat system, and they couldn't figure it out. Wow. Is there a way to just take it out of the frigging car and get it, throw it away? They try to jump it, they try to jump it, and everything else he tells me, and they couldn't achieve, you know, making it work. Hey, Mike, I just Googled your issue, and it's amazing the number of sources that you could contact. And Rick gave you one, the Catholic clubs.

I had no idea, but Firestone, Firestone, repairs, older cars, and you could contact. Yeah, they're right down the street for me. Yeah, and check with them. I'm reading off of right now. It says Firestone Complete Auto Care, 1995 Cadillac DeFill Repairs, and they tell you to contact Firestone. How about that?

Thank you for that information. Boy, that makes my life a simpler and better today. Yes. Google. Jersey, Mike, thanks. Thanks for giving us a call, as you always do every week. And I hope we were able to. Yeah, one last thing I want to say about the car.

I bought a car from his dealership on North Lake Boulevard one time. I think I already mentioned this one time when I called. You want to know something? He was so good. He said he went over the whole thing with me personally himself. He was there. Not as a representative, but he was there, and he gave me the car fax on it. And that car was a 19, sorry, 20, 21, no, 2018.

That's what it was, a 2018 Hyundai. And I gave it as a wedding present to my daughter's husband. Wow. And do you know that that car, when I got it with 18,000 miles on it, was one owner, never leased, okay? So I paid top dollar at the time, but I was willing to do that. I never had a problem with that car at all ever, and they still running it now and it's got over 50,000, 60,000 miles on it. And with no repairs at all. I mean, it's amazing.

I mean, you know, the Japanese took away the car market back in the 50s. That's because they just started building better cars. And, of course, Hyundai is not Japanese. The Korean are just as good. I mean, the Ki and Hyundai, and they caught up. They didn't used to be, but they caught up with Japanese very quickly. Yes, they did. And I just want to say, Earl, thank you because you really helped me out in my life there.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I put a lot of miles on it. I had a problem with it, not one. You know, the air conditioning system was so, so good. You could get frostbite. You couldn't put it all the way up. I mean, you know.

There you go. And now I got a Cadillac here. We talked about this last time, and you said there's probably an actuator problems. This car is so ridiculous. It's a 2014 AST Cadillac. Yeah, AST. And it originally had cold air coming out of the dry. side, hot air coming, really hot air coming out of the right-hand side, and then now it's switched,

and it's got hot air coming out of the driver's side and cold air coming out of, and I'll have to take it to the mechanic, they don't know what to do with it. Mama-meal. Keep us informed. Let us know what happens, and we look forward to hearing from your next week. Do you have any ideas about, do you have any suggestions as to what I can do about the air conditioning? I'll get off the phone. again i i would check for a key attack but um first i verify to make sure that the AC was charged

at the proper level because if that yeah if it's off too high or too low even by a little bit that can cause the system to goof up and if not that then usually it's the AC controller free on the computer for it okay the AC controller meaning that's a module itself that it can be replaced or you have to well it's it's a module but what it does is it tells the blend doors where to move to. Oh okay so what I'm asking

is do you have to replace the whole computer system in the car or do you just replace that module system and that's my life. Usually just that module. Mike we've got to jump off here we've got a bunch of calls. Thanks for a million guys thank you. Thank you. Thanks Mike. We'll look forward to hearing from you again. 877-960 you can text us at 772

4976530. We're going to go to another, well, all-time caller, John, who is our favorite. He calls us from Palm City, always informing us and re-informing us. Good morning. I want to discuss the number one topic of today. This is the United Auto Workers' Strike, which is scheduled for Thursday to 14th. They're so far off, it's not funny, and I'm going to have a question for Earl after I say, what's involved. The company is offering 16%. The union wants 40% increase in benefits and wages. This is all three companies, Chrysler, Ford, and GM, and that's over 150,000 workers involved. No matter what happens, whether it's settled or not, you can see an increase in all three prices of the automobiles that they build. So it's a crisis as far as I'm

concerned. And I want to, my friend was smart enough last Wednesday. He's a Ford man. He went down to his Ford deal. He lives in New Hampshire. And he ordered a brand new F-150 Ford with all the goodies on it. He's a truck man. And he figured I'm not waiting because it's only going to go up in price. And he was fortunate enough. The call wasn't there, but he has the serial number. So he knows it's legitimate. It's coming within the last next two weeks. But Earl, what do you think at this strike is going to affect prices of not only the all three general motors

but all automobiles in general would this be a time next week to go out and order a brand new 2024 car John I know a lot of people are worried and it's it's smart

to be worried but I wouldn't make that purchase based on that a lot of what we read and you know what you just said it's got to scare people the union wants a 46% increase and the and the

manufacturers want to give a 16% increase now that sounds like impossible but a lot of this stuff is game playing and it's like a poker game it's I don't know if you're a poker player but bluffing is the best bluffer

is the one that wins the games and UAW and the auto and the auto workers on the auto workers and the manufacturers it's a poker game and the politicians are in there too it's everybody is saying what they what's what their constituents want to hear the the the Union leaders are telling the workers what they want to hear and the auto manufacturers are telling your stockholders and then and it's a game no what really is going to happen is going on behind

closed doors with the people that will make the decision and you'll never know what that is. It's behind closed doors. And what you read, and what you see on TV or on social media about the strike is all BS. So my guess

having been through a lot of strikes and a lot of non-strikes, I don't think there's going to be a strike. I wouldn't buy a car based on the strike. I've been wrong before. I might be wrong about this. But I'd say the odds of a strike are or less than 20%.

I just don't think there will be a strike. A strike would hurt the workers really bad. It would hurt the, it would be fatal to some of the manufacturers. And that would also be bad for the workers. So if General Motors goes broke or Ford goes broke because of this UAW strike, what are the workers going to do then? Where are they going to find a job? They're not going to find a job with Tesla.

So everybody's game playing and playing poker, and so no, do not buy a car because you think there should be a strike. Well, one fast thing why he's playing the pickup truck now, the government, again, is interfering, and they want to raise the standards, the cafe standards, that's the gas mileage, on light-duty pickup trucks. It's a proposal in, and it'll probably go through, and his answer, and I don't drive it,

our pickup truck, but I wish I did because it's numbers, it's a number one vehicle. You don't mess around in America with people's pickup trucks. And this is an unbelievable proposal that's in, and it's just on light duty pickup trucks to raise

the cafe standards, so it'll be naturally raised the prices of them, and it'll be different gas mileage standards that the manufacturers are not even going to be able to meet. Well, it's all going to push manufacturers there. move quicker to electric and a lot of those people are that are buying these pickup trucks

they don't want electric vehicle so it's i agree with you i just about it i could come up with a standard answer if the government does it is wrong i mean it's the the government is uh you know a they say it's the government for the people buy the people and so on and so forth but the government seems like a separate animal and they do some of the dumbest things and Their decisions are all, as I said earlier, they are designed to tell their constituents what they want to hear. I mean, let's face it, that's our system. John, you've been through a lot of elections, and you know this, that when a politician is talking on television, on social media, on radio, newspaper, he's not telling you what he believes. He's not telling you the truth.

He's telling you what the people that are considering him for office, the voters, want to hear. If you don't do that, you don't get elected, so it's a catch-22. If you tell the truth, you don't get elected, so therefore they have to lie. I agree with you. Thanks for taking my goal. Thank you, John. Thanks for bringing all that to the table. 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-497-39-0.

Ladies, I need one more female caller or 10 female callers, but the first one has to be new one, and she can win herself $50 this morning. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60. And just like I mentioned last week about the flood cars, boy, they are everywhere. So buyer, beware. Beware. Take a look at that car meticulously inside and out. 877-960. Where you can text us at 772-9-6-5-3-0. I think we're going to go to Rick. He's probably covered up with a few things because Stu won't be in this morning. So he's taking care of Facebook and YouTube. And we're going to start right off with Anne-Marie's morning text.

She says, good morning. It's been sweltering in most parts of the country this summer. That prompts the following questions. What's the fastest way to cool off your car in hot weather? The temptation would be to open all windows in the sunroof, then crank the AC down to deep freeze. Is there a best way to cool the car down, and is it different from the fastest way? As silly as this sounds, open your back windows, put your AC on ice cube cold, and stand outside of the car, and open and close the driver's door quickly several times.

You're actually, it's going to create a huge amount of wind pressure that will force that hot air, hopefully, out through those back windows. And you have to be sure you don't get arrested in case someone thinks either you're ready for the loony bin or you're trying to break into the car. Yeah, it sounds crazy. So creating that vacuum, it just. If you do have a sunroof, obviously. Because you know if a cop saw you doing that, he would walk up and say, what are you doing, sir? and obviously that cop cooling off my car

if that cop has been to South Florida he's going to know what you're doing before you even get there because he's been through it okay well I didn't know that so you you have to get in the car to start it up to the air conditioner

and so then you get out you open the rear windows and then you stand and you open and close the front door a couple of times yeah okay and it creates air pressure that pushes that hot air out now if you have a

sunroof open the sunroof and try it through there first and it pushes the hot air up which obviously hot air is going to go up i'm going to try that and it'll give you a little advantage i'm going to try anybody that anybody that heard rick say that i like that i like a testimonial give it a try and call the show see if it really works i mean i don't mean to question you rick you know what you're talking about but it sounds a little bizarre and the other easier method if you don't want to sit and flap the car doors, drop the back windows or the sunroof, and both if you have it, and put your AC on full cold, high fan, and just start driving. That air will actually suction that hot air out, and the cold air is going to be coming in through the AC vents,

so you've got a better chance of lowering the temperature. So your car will cool off faster if you get in the car, turn the AC on high, and actually open the windows? Yep, the back windows are the best. And then the sunroof, if you have one. Wow. That is really cool. I had no idea. You only need it for about three or four minutes.

Just even two to three minutes will be enough to move that hot air out and get some airflow going. And then once that cooler air starts hitting, then you just pop those windows closed. And obviously, South Florida, you might be able to take off your gloves at that point. You know, there's a temperature, the steering wheel might have cooled down a little bit. I hope you're listening because that is one hell of an answer. And I know Anne-Marie is going to try it, and we'll have another text, and we'll find out if it worked. Okay. And by the way, those folks that have the heated and cooled seats where it's got a little fan that blows just blows some air underneath the seat, those are fantastic.

They make a big deal. difference. Okay, we're going to go to the next Facebook. Well, we got a few more here. Let's see. We have from Tom, he says, question for the team, several Orlando dealers offer a free lifetime warranty with no mileage or time restrictions. These appear to be underwritten by forever warranty. I smell a rat. Why would a dealer offer a free warranty and undermine their f-and-eye salesmen from selling their overpriced extended warranties what's to catch the consumers should be aware of a wise man yeah that's one of the most common that's one of the most common tactics it's not just a Orlando everybody does it

all card out it's a power train warranty and they don't tell you it's a power train warranty if they do it's in the fine print and you can't see it a power train warranty is worthless if you take care of your car, of course. I mean, a power train warranty simply refers to the lubricated portions of your car, you know, your crankshaft and your engine, lubricated parts of the car. The lubricated parts of the car, if you change your oil according to the manufacturer's recommendation, will never fail. I mean, they just last almost forever.

I mean, I say never. You can't say, I'll say virtually never. I mean, every now and then you get a defective crankshaft or a defective, you know, transmission of some kind. But it doesn't cost anything. And they free, it's free to the dealer, and they don't tell you what it is. They just say a free lifetime warranty,

and people flock in. So it's, when you, anytime you see free, you should get your magnifying glass out and really look and see what you're getting for, because sometimes what you get for free is actually going to cost your money. Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly on that one. Now, this one is from Norm.

He says, Good Morning. Great show. I'd like to know your opinion on Subaru, both new and used or certified pre-owns. We love Subaru. Nancy and I, I mean, every time we see a Subaru, we turn our head to look because they're just amazing cars. They're small manufacturers. Subaru is not a big Japanese manufacturer, but they don't choose to be big. I think the one problem, and I think they're going to fix that one,

Subaru hasn't taken the tack toward electric vehicles yet, but they just decided to do that, so they're in the process. But everything about them is good. Consumer Reports ranks them number one in just about everything. The dealers that sell Subaru seem to deal honestly and more transparently than most other dealers. I can't say a bad thing about Subaru. And you've got to love their commercials. I'm going to break this up guys and go back to the phones.

We're going to talk to Carol, who's calling. She's the first time a female caller. She's calling us from Del Rey. Good morning, Carol. Good morning. Welcome. You just won yourself $50. And after we're done talking, if you could stay on the line,

you can give Jeremy your contact information, and I'll get that $50 out to you. Thank you. You're welcome. What can we do? for you? Well, my question is, is that I bought a new Hyundai last year.

It was a 2021. And I asked the dealership, okay, can I go to Costco and get gas? Oh, sure. But I've had a lot of friends that say, no, you do not want to use cheap gas in your car. It doesn't have anything to do.

Gas is gas. It's the additives that are in the gas to clean your car parts or whatever. Is it a good idea? to go to Costco or is it better to go to the like Chevron and mobile? Well, here's my opinion on it. I've been an auto mechanic for almost 30 years now. And I drive right past the Costco on North Lake Boulevard every morning on my way to work,

usually it bounced around 6 or 615. So that's my spot to go to because I can get in and out in five minutes and it saves me a fortune. on the cost of gas, the price that Costco that I pay for fuel saves me the cost of the membership just on the gasoline because it's convenient for me and easy, and I see nothing wrong with air fuel. It runs perfectly in my truck, and I've been running that for two years now in my Toyota Tacoma, and it runs perfectly on it. Carol, one other thing, I would not only recommend the gasoline, but anything that Costco sells. They're the only retailer that I know that has a company policy on markup.

They have huge purchasing power. They're not quite as big as Walmart, but there are so many Costco stores, warehouses, they call them, that their purchasing per hour is great, and they can buy the products if they retail to you very cheaply. They don't mark up anything over 15%. Now, a typical markup, a typical markup, car dealers mark their parts up at least 40%, and usually more. So 15% is a very near margin.

So when Costco buys their gasoline in great volume from the gas distributors, they are only marking that gasoline up 15%. That's why they can sell it really cheap for it to you. And Costco is also what's known as a top-tier fuel, which means it's the exact same fuel that they're selling to Exxon, to Amco, to Chevron, to... Okay. It's the same gas.

A lot of reasons, Carol, to go to Costco. Save yourself some money, as we all know, how much it... Sometimes it just costs so much to keep your car on the road. So saving on the fuel is definitely a good idea. Okay. All right. Because I'm not one of these people that's going to trade in my car in two years. I keep my cars for 11, 12 years.

you saw like an educated consumer okay over the period of time you know is it better to use a better gas or you're saying that Costco is just fine so I'll go back to going to Costco yes I go there there's a lot of advantages my car's running fine okay all right thanks Carol stay on the line and give Jeremy your contact information okay thank you thanks Carol give us a call again and spread the word that the ladies do have a place here and their voices, we love to hear from them. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We do have Your Anonymous Feedback.com that you can also take advantage of, or we'll get to those in a couple of minutes.

We're going to go back to Rick. And I've got to say the YouTube channel is literally blowing up right now with comments about the strike. I'll read through just a couple of these here. We've got like, let's see, get back to the right part of here because, boy, it's been going for a little bit here. Let's see. Donovan Lewis, our buddy Donovan, which I respect his opinion on everything. I got to tell you, he's very intelligent. The UAW president laughed at the latest offer from GM and said it was insulting.

I think they're running right to a strike with GM and Stalantus. So that one could get happening. Tom Steckle says, I worry that workers distracted by the strike talk are not 100% focused on their job, meaning possible quality issues coming up in the next several years because of this issue. Donovan says also,

this is much bigger than workers at the big three this time. the contracts for Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers also expire soon, which are the parts suppliers to the auto manufacturers. See, Johnny Z. Freidly says, in 77, 1947, Ford went on strike. My mother worked at the Avon Lake, Ohio plant, building the Econnellined vans. It was devastating financially as our house was facing, foreclosure. She was barely able to sell at the last minute. Steve Maggs says, I'm all for auto workers getting more pay and benefits. However, the reality is that the operating

profits of the big three are single digit, could cash in by bank CDs and get the same return. So there is a real situation going with this. If they strike, this could have an effect on our economy all the way around, I think. They know that. Like I say, it's a big poker game. Listen, the union officials, the union hierarchy, the union bosses, they're there for one reason, themselves. I know this sounds cynical, but the union leaders don't care about the workers.

They care about themselves. True. They make huge money. If you ever check to see what the union bosses earn, they're like car dealers. They make way too much money. the heads of the manufacturers also make too much money so it's a it's a game of what the number one earning CEO of an auto company was what was it Nancy you showed me that in the automotive news yeah is that what you said yeah anyway it was

like 54 million dollars you know made 54 million dollars last year wow you're when you see when you see what the top dogs whether the union leaders or the CEOs of them this this stirs up the workers and and the whole thing makes for great press makes for a lot of conversation just like we're having right now and it scares everybody so the nice thing about it's almost like the cold war used to be in fact we almost have a Cold War today. Right now, I've heard more conversation about world war with China or Russia than ever before. The reason we haven't had a world war in so long is because everybody's scared to death. And this is the same thing with the unions and their auto manufacturers.

The other manufacturers think a strike could be fatal to them. The workers know that a strike could be fatal to them. And the politicians don't. don't want the strike because it could be fatal to them too. So everybody is talking, but no one, I, my prediction is the strike will not happen. I hope I'm right. I mean, otherwise. And what you were, what you mentioned, Earl, was the article from the automotive news and Maria Barra for GM, $34.1 million.

And Rawlinson for Lucid is $379 million. And then we've got the guy. up here, the CEO for Navidia, and he's making $506.3 million. We're talking big money here. Yeah, 500 million for one year's work. And comment in from Donovan, he says, it's true that the union leadership is for themselves,

but the workers apparently have voted 97% to strike, and it was the highest union vote turnout in two decades. Yeah, but again, the workers, they're smart, and the leaders are smart. And remember when you say workers, you're talking about there's a small group of workers who really are the leaders of a union, and they're very smart people. And so they know that the very high worker vote for a strike gives the power to the leaders when they go into the smoky room with the auto manufacturers, they say, hey, listen, you guys,

I got 97% of my workers that want to strike. We're going to have to go to the strike, even if I don't want to go to strike. The workers want to strike, and then that scares the hell out of the manufacturers. So it's a great poker game. I'd love to be a fly on the wall to see what's really going on, Because they might even be a real closed room where the union leaders and the auto manufacturer leaders really tell the truth.

But, hey, you know, you know we're not going to strike. The sad part here is that the representatives who are going into that room making $500 million a year, if that money were actually being put in the union properly for the workers where it was supposed to have gone in the first place, and they were making a reasonable salary of like 500,000. The union leaders are also making millions of dollars a year. So not 500, but that's an anomaly. But the top union leaders are making millions of dollars. Everybody's making millions of dollars except the workers.

And if that money from those salaries were put back in the union for the workers where it's supposed to have been, we wouldn't have half of these issues. And would be taking care of the consumer also. we could go into another show on that topic we're going to go back to the phones rick and we're going to talk to brian who's calling us from lake park welcome brian good morning how are you guys doing today i i like the show oh thank you i have a question about my vehicle to start with uh basically i have a 2010 Cion T.C.

And I am trying to find out, can I change my windows to operate like if it was an automatic window back in the 70s? Because a stupid switch doesn't kind of work trying to stop it midway. Is that a possibility? not really because the switch itself is actually a microcomputer inside that has all of its circuitry built into the switch and the motor itself has an amperage draw that excuse me a moment sorry about that the motor detects how much amperage is being drawn as it's going up and down so it determines

if there's a problem and we'll stop the window but usually what you're looking at if it's having troubles where it's like stopping partway it may be the motor no no no no I want to stop it like halfway up okay and okay so your switch contacts are getting

an issue then yeah it just either goes all the way up or all the way down and you can't you know the switch you know it's an older car and it's got its issue It's never been garage kept. I love it. It's five speed, something that's not around it very much anymore.

Sions were a great car. I mean, they were amazing. But unfortunately, even Toyota's do sometimes break. Yeah, your best answer would be to replace that switch itself. And if you go on YouTube, it's actually, it's literally about a five-minute job on a Sion to replace that window. switch. It's really not difficult. It's just the cost of the switch itself. But even through the dealership, I'm going to go out on the limb and say that it's probably going to be less than $200 for that switch. Okay. Well, I'm going to be down at the dealership, possibly for the next

question. I like to have my windows down as often as possible. The wiper that's on the windows, the exterior one, just failed royally on the driver's side, where half of it's gone. Now I'm going to start getting water hitting the window and running down into the car. Do I come to you to get that? The dealer order a new wiper blade because I'm sure it's easy. enough to replace just slides in that not the wiper blade but the window exterior window wiper blade whatever the heck it would be called seal I guess it would be called do you mean on on the on your door itself on the physical door

itself okay yeah that's that's actually not meant as a as a wiper that's called a door channel you you may have to get that from the dealers usually the belt moldings like that are not available aftermarket they just just really places don't make them they shouldn't be very expensive even through the dealership but the belt molding isn't really there to wipe the window or or to clean it because like if you've ever run your windshield wipers when your window is dry and they make that horrible screeching noise imagine that every time your window went up and down so the belt moldings

actually there, just to try to keep dust and dirt and leaves from getting down inside the door as much. It's just a debris protection. All right. So basically, I'm going to have to go to your place because obviously you're the closest to me. We bought the car from you guys in 2010, you know, and it's been a wonderful vehicle. Yeah, and that belt molding is very, it's relatively an extent. expensive. And even to have our shop put it in, you'd be looking like $75 to $80 labor.

Not a big deal. Fixing cars is fixing stuff is what I like to do. Okay. Again, a little time on YouTube and it would show you how to replace that. We're looking for good technicians, Brian. You want to come to work? No, thank you.

I'll train you. No, thank you. Believe it or not, out of all the things I've repaired in my life. Automobiles was never my fondest thing, though I do take care of my own vehicle. Sounds like it. Oh, that's fantastic. I've made a career out of.

Yeah. That's Zion has taken you a long way. Yes, it has. It's only got 130, maybe 140,000 on it. And right now I'm going to change to the full probably 20 because I'm starting to burn oil. just try to just try to thicken it up a little bit yeah yeah how many miles you got on it about 130 yeah it's it's getting up there a little bit yeah yeah yeah well it's all right it gets me to from where I want to go when I want to go yeah there you go give it a little love

okay Brian it was great talking to you give us a call again let us know how that all turned out One more thing, I was listening to your bit about the union. In my personal opinion and my personal experience, I agree with Earl most likely that this deal has already been solved long before they set down. And if there's a strike, you can almost guarantee they want the people out for a while. because that's happened to me in my career, and I was never supposed to know that there was going to be a strike, but it was already rectified six months before it was even spoke in an union atmosphere. Thank you for your time, and that's the reason I came to Florida.

Thank you, Brian. You're a great caller, Brian. Please call again next week. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Mark, who's holding from Lake Worth. Good morning, Mark.

Welcome. Good morning, all. I have a question for Rick, if I may. A few months ago, I had a front break job done at a shop that I've been using for several years. They've always done good work for me, and this break job seemed to work fine. I've had no problems with it. Last week, I had an alignment done at another shop, and that tech. took me aside and said,

your brake pads are on backwards. I said, what? And he said, yeah, they're marked by the manufacturer, and the word inner is clearly visible from the outside. They should be reversed. Wow. That can happen, yeah. That can happen, okay.

So my question is, I have not had any problems at all with the brakes. No shaking or rattling or anything like that. I hope I have not done any damage to the rotors. After the visit to the store that did the alignment, I immediately went back to the shop that did the break job. Very nice manager there, and he said, oh, that's not possible. They don't know what they're talking about.

Those only go on one way. They cannot be put on backwards. So apparently you're telling me, yeah, they can. And I double-checked, and yes, you can clearly see the word inner from the outside. So I assume, so I'm going to arrange to go back to the shop and have them put the pads on properly. In your opinion, if I haven't had any issues with the brakes, have I done any damage? No. Now, first thing I do is take pictures, if you can, of that, where it shows.

that pad showing inner is on the outside. Get some pictures of that. But no, the whole reason that manufacturers will do an inboard and outboard pad and design them slightly different is to avoid noise over time, that annoying squeak that you'll get first thing in the morning. Those little squeaks and just the sound of the pad rubbing on the rotor. getting them switch to the proper position shouldn't cause any damage

and you shouldn't hurt anything at all but I definitely should have them reversed I would just to make sure that it would reduce noise and keep the pads wearing properly you'll get the longest life out of them are the pad sides interchangeable is it the same surface material on either side yes generally it's just the

inboard and outboard pad they just they accidentally put them on the wrong side okay well i will just uh i will have them have them corrected and assume it was just a uh a one-off yeah it does happen they've been a really good shop and you know i i don't i don't want to stop being a customer and i they've given no indication that they wouldn't correct the problem the only response i got was no that's that other guy doesn't know what he's talking about I would just say, hey, I've got a photo here. I think it was just, they were accidentally mixed up,

and could you please just check them and swap them? Yeah. And it should be less than an hour, really, to do that. I'd be reluctant to burn my bridges. You just got through saying, Mark, that, you know, it's a good place, good place to go to. Yes, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Sure. Once.

Sure. Sometimes more than. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad I called. Oh, thank you, Mark. We're glad you called to 877-960-99-60, and our text number is 772-497-6530. Can I ask a rick a question? Do you have a call? You can. Go ahead. I just, on that subject, I learn something new on the show every week.

I mean, I can't believe the great questions and your ability to answer these things. I've got to ask you this. So I just learned that you can put a brake pad on backwards, in other words, inside out, and then you can reverse it, and the only reason it was done was to avoid the squeak, their noise when it starts. Would there be any advantage to when you had your brakes checked to have the pads reversed just because you've used them for a while and maybe flip them to the other side? Not really, no. What would make a difference, okay?

And because once the pads are seated to the rotor, it's better to leave them there really because then they're going to wear better. You get a cleaner wear out of them and reversing them, you could actually create a noise. So, okay, but why would you, why would, did you recommend to Mark? Because his were actually designed to be put in that proper situation. So, and they've only been there for a couple weeks, I would get a reverse very quickly. It's kind of like a tire. A lot of tires have inside and outside tread. How do you know if your brake pad was designed to be put in a particular position?

I know it said inner and outer on the side of the pad. Does that mean it was designed that way? Yes. Like RAV force have a specific design on some of them that they want to have an inboard and outboard pad. Yeah. Well, why did you, why did you tell Mark to reverse the pad? Because his was designed to be put in a specific position. Well, they all are, if they say inner and outer, right?

No. Oh, wow. Some are, can go either one. Oh, okay. Okay. Boy, I love this show. I'm going to start listening and not talk anymore. And Rick, they're stamped inside, outside for a reason.

Yes, it'll say right on the pad. It'll have it stamped on there, inboard or outboard. And if it doesn't have it, then they can go to either side. But if it does, you want them where they're supposed to be. And some makes do that, and some makes don't do that. And so the guy that advised Mark doesn't make any difference didn't know what a sign did. So it's a Toyota apparently does have that.

Okay, very interesting. Yes, very interesting. Folks, we have the mystery shopping report coming up. So stay with us. We also have a Big Dog Ranch video to share with you. You're going to see Roxy this morning, and she is a beautiful husky, and we are going to go back to Rick. Well, here is probably the most important question of the show.

From Kirk in West By God, Virginia. Earl, is your new book going to be out in time for Christmas? Oh, gosh, I sure hope so. I mean, Nancy and I are both working on that right now. She's doing the introduction. You know, the funny thing about the book is that here we are in the most, the auto industry in the world is on fast forward now. Think about what's happened to the auto industry in the past three years.

Topsy-turvy. So when I wrote the book, That's when we entered, I wrote most of the book, and suddenly we had fast forward. And every time we talk about winding up the book, there's something else that happens. And to go to press with a book, you can imagine somebody that wrote a book just before World War II. And he went to press, and then suddenly World War II started. And his book was, it's one of those situations. The auto industry is just, it's like watching a videotape on fast forward,

and I don't know when to stop the book. It's like writing a story and ending it right before the big climactic scene. Yeah, yeah. My ghost writer, I'm not, I'm dictating the book, and then my ghost writer, a guy named John Van Tile, is writing it from my dictation. He keeps asking for a current blog or a current thing, and my blogs are just going like, you know, everything is crazy. Look at what we talk about on this show.

And then next week, there will be a lot of new stuff that we had no idea we're going to happen last week. So the answer is I hope by Christmas, yes. Okay, and this from Donovan, he was asking, what does Earl think about awfully solely filing for bankruptcy and closing all their dealerships? They blame high rates and a changing used car market. I read that, and that's the easiest explanation, and it certainly is a factor.

Nobody, when they declare bankruptcy, likes to admit personal fault. As I say, Mark Fisher, the founder, Mark Fisher and his wife founded the Offleash Only about 20 years ago. were extremely successful. They were actually my model for the way used cars should be sold. I tried to copy off lease only in my dealership. They did so many things right. And then Mark sold out to a group of people that had a lot of money. And they expanded very rapidly. They went from, I believe, two locations to six. Now that doesn't sound huge by national standards, but they have a lot of office only has a lot of locations

in Florida and Texas and at the height of their expansion then COVID came around and the shortages came around. The used car shortage came around so yeah yeah but I still say

the underlying cause is probably they went too fast too far and just got caught but CarMax is doing fine most car dealerships are doing okay they're not doing great but they're doing okay so you got to blame car i mean car off lease only uh it was management you know something happened something went wrong it was management you know when the place was sold and you know someone else came in excuse me um i

see by the clock that we are going to have to go to uh the big dog ranch uh dog of the week and we're going to talk about Roxy and she is five years old and she is a husky and she's up for adoption and you can go to Big Dog Ranch you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue.com and you can take a look at her and all the other dogs

and don't forget we pay the adoption fees going to say the dealer flees and we've got a lot going on here. So at any rate, you can go ahead and roll that, Jonathan. Meet Roxy. She's a five-year-old Husky Mix, and she is a very, very sweet and gentle little girl. She's also one of the fluffiest dogs we have here at the ranch, which says a lot.

Miss Roxy has a very striking appearance. got these beautiful yellow orange eyes and an incredible coat and aside from her looks she is just the most gentle kind sweet dog but she also has her playful side which we love um she's a water bug obviously you know it helps her cool off on these hot florida days so she would love her future home to maybe have a pool or a nice hose she can play in she also does great on a leash she's great with other dogs and would really make a perfect addition to anyone's home. She doesn't need much other than all the love and attention. You could give her. Despite her big size, she makes a good little cuddlebug and couch potato. As you can see, she was so gentle taking that treat right

there. But yes, Roxy is just as sweet as can be and would love, love, love, love. to find her forever home and she will give you all the love and she hopes to find all the love in return so if you're interested in the meeting this beautiful husky mix please come see her at the ranch give her some love and snuggles and pets and she'll fall right in love with you what beautiful eyes you look into those eyes and that dog is smart honestly now that we have all sorts of for the dog of the week and that is one of the most beautiful dogs I've ever seen I'm telling you she's not gonna last long so if you're thinking about adopting dog Roxy's going fast and but you know we talked about the fees we're gonna pay the

fee the fee is dropped down from $250 it used to be to adopt a dog but because of the surplus we have of abandoned dogs in this economy situations or all the other things that are happening. The shelters are overflowing and big dog ranch is taking dogs that were going to be euthanized onto their amazing facilities there in Loxahatchie, Florida. And they have about 500 dogs right now. It's busting the seams of accommodation. So they've cut the adoption fees.

A current dog instead of 250, if you adopt, it's 200. Of course, we pay the fee for Roxy. and if it's a dog that's been there for six months or longer, and we have dogs that have been there for five years. So if you pick a dog that's been there six months or longer and you pay the fee, it's only $100. So it's a bargain just because of the surplus of dogs and for Roxy is free because we're going to pay the fee for Roxy,

and I guarantee you she's going fast. She's a beautiful dog. Absolutely. And some of her specifications is that she is dog-friendly. She has energy. It's moderate. She is good on a leash, and she loves to cuddle. She loves toys, and her size is medium size.

But, boy, those beautiful eyes, Rick, I'm telling you. So go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. That's www.bdr.org. And take a look at Roxy and all the other dogs that are on that website. Earl and I were out there. I want to tell you, when the weather gets a little cooler, if that's necessary, if that's possible, pardon me, you can go out there and just explore the 33 acres that they have out there. It's just an amazing place with so much to take in. And remember, it is the largest cage-free, no-kill shelter in the United States. And also, you can go to Earl's

book or Amazon and purchase his latest book, Confessions of a Recovery Car Dealer, and as I always say, as we always say, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. That $19.99 for the book goes straight to Big Dog Ranch. Okay. Just one word because we had a caller earlier in the show that was echoing the comments of the Palm Beach County shelters that were being critical of Big Dog Ranch for taking too many dogs in.

It's almost laughable. Politics, saving a dog's life has no place in politics. This is about saving a dog. Why does Big Dog Ranch take dogs from outside the Palm Beach County? Because they can

and they should. They're saving dogs lives. They have another shelter in Alabama. They take dogs from all over the world because they try to save dogs' lives and they have the wherewithal. You go to a shelter and take a visit out to Loxahajee Groves. It's a

long drive out, Okachovia Boulevard if you're local, but a drive out to Big Dog Ranch Rescue and you will see the investment and the caring that Big Dog Ranch has Lori Simmons, the founder, she's got a one way past

to heaven when she passes away because she is an angel when it comes to taking care of dogs. But you go out there, they actually have a puppy town. They have a town of homes just for puppies. They have a maternity word for when they take a dog in that's pregnant. They put the mama dog into the maternity room. The mama dog has the puppies, and they move the puppies into puppy town. They have a complete, a beautiful home.

It's got to be four or five bedrooms, a home that they put the dogs in to accommodate them in their transition from being abandoned by their owners or whatever reason and how to learn to, you know, scratch at the door when they have to go out and how to learn to behave inside of a home. They have a quarantine center. So when dogs come in for two weeks, they observe them to see if there's any problem. before they put them into their veterinarian thing. They have two vets that take care of the dogs. They get their shots, all their different shots of vaccinations. These dogs are absolutely, they have a lake, they have a runway. As I said earlier in the show, if I was a dog, I wouldn't want to leave Big Dog Rent.

So even if you don't want to adopt a dog, if you can get out to Big Dog Ranchers, check out the facility. It's worth the price of the gasoline to go and come out there just to see what you're. a wonderful job they do for dogs. Yeah, absolutely, and their veterans program is remarkable. It just definitely is, you know, it takes a lot to pair the veteran and the dog, you know, the two of them together to see if it's a perfect match. And these dogs, you know, it takes a lot of time, almost a year for them to, you know, get these dogs ready for the veteran and it's a huge process it's a training process and uh everything's

provided for the training uh the equipment uh both for the veteran and the dog at no cost to the veteran so i could go on and on here but we've got to get to the mystery shopping report rick do you have something to say no well actually one one quick note anne marie texted back in to say that she went out to see if the one of those methods would work and it's the first time in months her neighborhood it rained for a couple hours and her car's not hot at all but she says she's going to test out each of those things yeah and let us know next week as to how they worked out so yeah that's it thank you and mary boy you're a fantastic text or caller Anne Murray, thank you.

Okay, folks, you know that you can grade our mystery shopping report by texting us at 772-497-6-5-30. And Agent Lightning did another great job, and so did Stu with, you know, writing this mystery shopping report up. He does a fantastic job week in and week out. And we mystery shop Plantation Ford. That's Plantation Ford. and they were, where were they located? They're near Fort Lauderdale, like a greater suburb of Fort Lauderdale's or everything. Is that what it is?

Okay, great. Plantation Fort. So, Earl, take it away. Okay, speaking, and the first person is, if I were, Agent Lightning, I arrived around dinner time, got in there late this time. Upon I under the dealership, an older lady greeted me with a smile. What can I do for you today, she asked. Well, I'm here about a new Ford F-150 I saw online, I replied. She responded, all my salesmen are a bit distracted out front right now with that car out there.

And if she meant a truck, I found out after I read further. All the salesmen were out front looking at a truck for some reason. After making a quick phone call, she informed me, COA, will be right with you, the salesman. COA, K-O-A. In less than a minute, a young salesman approached me. Hi, I'm COA. He introduced himself, extending his hand. May I know your name?

He was very polite. I apologize, saying, sorry for being a bit distracted earlier. There's a Rivian truck. So it wasn't a car. It was a truck. A Rivian truck out front that's garnered a lot of attention. And for you folks in the know, that's the electric vehicle. It's one of the very interesting, popular, successful so far electric vehicle.

So I thought it was kind of interesting. Here is a Ford dealership. The number one selling vehicle in the world is the Ford F-150. I mean, that out-sells cars. That out-sells everything. So the number one vehicle is the 150 Ford. And here's the Ford dealership. And here is kind of the threat to Ford, an electric vehicle.

They have one, and it's coming out, I think, very shortly. I think the Ford... The Ford Lightning. Ford Lightning, yeah. It's been out. It's been out, okay. And so here's the competition staring at, I guess, one of the reasons I didn't, are they, are, what's the volume of those?

Do you know, Rick? I haven't heard much about anyone buying one. Sales on the Rivians, yeah. There's a lot of them out there. Are there? They're very distinctive looking trucks. Yeah. So when you see them.

You know them. You realize this is something different. Maybe that's why the Ford sales were. looking at it because it's a strange looking truck. They are. At any rate, Koah asked me, I'm speaking as if I'm agent lightning,

Coe asked me, is there a specific vehicle? She said, I saw a few F-150s online. And there's no conversation about electric vehicle versus standards, so. Yeah, that's a tough competition because the F-150 is just

your, it's always been that blue-collar work man's truck yeah and it just everybody knows when you say truck the first thing pops in your head is a Ford F-150 yeah they had several versions oh yeah yeah anyway the Coa the salesman says why don't we head out on the lot and you can see what we have in stock as we walked outside call it led me to a locked area accessing it with a key card from his wallet upon seeing a particular vehicle I remarked I really like the looks of this one with the doors open Coa briefed me

about the lariat, L-A-R-I-A-T, like a rope. Is that a good one? That's one of their higher trim levels. Lots of bells and whistles, really nice, fit and finish, good trim. Yeah. I like hardly mentioned, looks like I have expensive taste. The MSRP was $75,390. Now, in case there's any question about things moving fast,

I mean, I think of an F-150 is a basic work truck. This isn't a work truck. $75,390 for a truck, and that's with no addendum. So a positive plus for Plantation Ford, just the MSRP, it was on the window, which is a good sign. We see too many dealers that don't put the MSRP on the windows. That's a federal law violation. And there's no addendum sticker. So here we go.

Coa blurted out, it's almost the same truck I own. Oh, sales must be good for Coa. Larry, just informed by Rick, it's an upscale F-150, and he says this is one trim level down from the one that COA has. Ooh. So $75,000 truck. Sales are good. We embarked on a short test drive around Plantation, that's near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as it said earlier. entered slightly by the rush hour traffic.

Once we returned, he inquired, do you have any other questions? What do you think about the truck? I really like it, I admit it. I'd like to know more about the incentives and financing available. Inside the dealership, COA looked down, wrote down by information entered it into their system.

He then questioned, will you be financing or leasing? Well, that's a smart way to find out. You ask a question that can't be answered by yes or no. they want to know for obvious reasons if you're financing a car dealer will maybe take it a little bit easier for you on the price why because if they know they're financing your car they can make a lot of money on the financing they actually make typically not today but typically before COVID they're going to make over $2,000 on the financing on every vehicle so that that's that's in their pocket so they know they have that they might cut your little slack and

negotiating on so it's a qualifying question that he asked very cleverly and I replied I'm gonna find I'm financing preferably the longest term available with $10,000 to $20,000 down so in negotiation terms that puts Agent Lightning in a better position go on now that's saying perfect a better position because she knows what she's doing and the salesman's going to loosen up a little on the pricing going on the same perfect excuse himself to consult the salesman now we're getting to the back and forth the old school upon returning he presented me with the sales worksheet our top line was MSRP sticker

price Barone label price 75,390 dollars then a thousand dollar four rebate came off Doesn't sound too big, does it, when you're talking $75,000 sticker, but $1,000 is $1,000, making the price $74,390. All the fees were conveniently totaled up. That was $1955, included in that $899 pre-delivery service. That's a junk fee, and we use the term junk fee because dealer fee is confusing, and a junk fee is profit to the dealer. So $899.99, they don't say profits and they do, they say pre-delivery service, hopefully to confuse you. And there's a $4.99 license fee that may or may not be legitimate.

Sounds about legitimate to me. And here's a phony baloney. Here's a junk fee. $299 electronic filing fee. And here's another one, another phony baloney junk fee. $248 dock stamps. Well, you have doc stamps on a financing of a car, but the dock stamps don't go to the dealer, they go to the lender. So he's charging you the $2408 in dock stamps without really knowing exactly how much you're going to finance, and that's profit.

It's not dock stamps. So when you finance the car, the dock stamps included in the financing price, so that's a double dip. Doc stamps really, it makes me mad when they use the term. Electronic filing fee, that's BS, but it's still, you know, it's a name they made up. Doc fee is a real name, it's a real charge, and it's not the charge that they're charging you. It's a profit, so. And, of course, then there's $18 and $50 in additional fees. That may or may not be legitimate, adds that to be $1,346 in extra fees.

After taxes were added, my out-the-door price was $80,000. $990,000. $80,000, call it $81,000 for Ford F-150. Wow. Doa asked me, how soon are you going to buy? To be honest, no sooner than this weekend, if I could give this my husband, I replied with a small. He's not with me today, and that means nothing's happening. He continued, do you have a specific price in mind? I missed the prices, I said, I miss the prices when prices were a bit closer to MSRP out the door. He laughed, here we go, setting me up for a return, he laughed reassuring me. When you're ready, I'm confident my manager can offer a better deal. I'm sure you and your husband will get on the same page. I thanked him, promising to be in touch.

As I left, go ahead and be his business card expressing his gratitude for my visit. It's just like I always say, only in card dealerships will you not get a price unless you buy that day. Think about it. Everything you buy, any store you go into, you'll always get a price that you can shop and compare. Card dealers will not give you a shop, a price that you can shop and compare. You have to come back if you want to get the bottom line price. And that's just barbaric. So we're going to vote.

And remember we score on the curve. We have to have a list of recommended dealers, and if we scored straight out, we might not have that list. So we're not going to say these are real good dealers in absolute terms. We'll say these are the preferred dealers. So a dealer that you wouldn't be afraid to buy from, in spite of a few flaws, it was an average dealer. We give them a C.

With that in mind, we'd love to have your votes. And as the votes come in, we will announce them. Yes, absolutely. And don't forget, if you didn't jot the number, number down. You can text us with your vote at 772-497-6530 at 772-497-6530. That is the mystery shop of plantation for it. Okay. Jonathan and Del Rey says, due to the pleasant salesperson, the Monroney sticker posed visibly on the vehicle and the lack of pressure during the visit, Plantation Ford gets a B for me. It would receive an A, but they lost points on multiple

junk fees, and that particular F-150 is way out of my price range. I've got to agree that that was up their own price, but yeah. Let's see, all right. Mark Anderson, not very impressive car deal, grade D. Negan 1, D, too many junk fees. Kirk and West Buy God, Virginia, Plantation Ford, excessive junk feasts equals a D. Coming over to my other YouTube channel here? Let's see. Johnny Z. Freedly.

The first letter of fees is F for me. It's tough this week. Let's see. Tim Gilliland, lose the typical junk feast, please. C. Joseph Kelleher, with the nearly 1,500. in chunk fees, I give a D minus. Tom

Steckle, D minus. No addendum, the fraudulent dock stamp fee. Brian said, LATCO, D, unnecessary fees. Mark Smith, I give him a C. Okay, let me have any others coming in here.

And pardon me, that looks like all of them for right now, so for me, I'm going to go with See, I think the junk fees were a little rough there, $2,000, but I think the co was very pleasant, a very nice guy. Yeah, the price is high on the truck, but a lot of vehicles, the prices are way up there now. So, C. Yeah.

What do you say, Nancy? You go first. I'm going to go see. I think that's about an average Ford dealership. I think that might even, I'm tempted to give them, I'm going to change it to a C plus, I'm going to give them a C plus. They're a little bit above average. Well, for Plantation Ford, so many fees, you know, it's just,

and, you know, are we complacent? Is that what it is? Oh, everybody else is doing it or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's a tough economy. You know, the consumer wants to, you know, get a fair deal, and you just don't need all of that. those junk fees and everything else in between

the dealers making enough money manufacturers making enough money so for that I give them a F oh the Black Widow strikes well I think we're going to put them on the record business anyway I know we're running short of time

I have to mention one thing here there's an article in automotive news about a Volkswagen dealership in Sunrise, Sunrise Works Wagon at Fort Pierce at South Florida that has been cited for charging extra on top of the purchase option

on a lease. And we've been talking about this scam on this show for over a year, probably two years. There was a class action suit on it. There were some action in South Florida on this. All the dealers are still doing this. and the Attorney General's office,

they only talk about this when the lawyers go and do the lawsuits. So Sunrise Ford was doing the same hole, same old in Fort Pierce, Florida. When you have a lease, you have an option to buy. That option to buy is sacred and protected by the 1976 Consumer Leasing Act. It is illegal to charge one penny

over that option purchase price. If you have a lease, you've got yourself a real bargain today to buy that car when it comes off because those lease residuals were set up before the whole used car market went in a turmoil. So the lease purchase options on most leases today are bargains. You can buy it at that price plus tax and tag only to the state of Florida. The dealer cannot add one nickel.

And now Sunrise Ford totally ignored that and was doing it in Fort Pierce. And they were finally, because of the attorneys, were nailed, and the Attorney General finally paid attention to it. And when they were quoted by the press, they said, we're investigating some other dealers that are doing it. Hey, if the Attorney General's listening, all the dealers are doing it, virtually. Virtually. Every dealer in Florida is doing it right now,

charging extra fees on your purchase option. Well, that's great information. Folks, we have come to, we have three minutes left. Earl, do you have one more thing to mention? No, I mentioned this earlier in the show. Again, it was an automotive news, is that the leasing incentive from the tax credit is very complicated. And a person called in earlier the show, I had to tell her that it was just too complicated. that I recommend she buy rather than lease.

Electric vehicles should be leased in most cases. And now that could be expanded because there is some legislation going on now that would allow the dealer to call a lease, a commercial lease, which would also qualify for the tax credit. If you're going to lease a car, be sure you consider the tax. credit and get all the information. You might even want to ask an attorney about it because it's too complicated

for the average purchaser to figure out. Great information. Folks, we hope that you enjoyed the show as much as we did. Thank you, everyone. I always say you are an important part of the show.

Also, thanks again to Jonathan for the backdrop. I love it. Go Steelers. Everyone, have a great weekend, and thank you for joining us. Stay tuned next week, same time, 8 a.m. Saturday morning.