Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.14.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Wallace Chevrolet Volkswagen

Episode Date: September 14, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Wallace Chevrolet Volkswagen to see if the salesman will disclose the Takata Airbag Recall on a Mercedes Benz E350. 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. “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 linked to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership.

And now, on with the Hi folks. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer in total transparency. I want you to know that I'm still a car dealer. And I know what you might think of me. But if you know me and if you listen to the show for a while, I think you might think I'm an okay guy. I've been a car dealer for over 50 years. And I call myself a recovering car dealer for the first part of my career. I did some things I'm kind of ashamed. of. And it's kind of fun being open and honest and transparent after so many years back in the day when I was just like all the other car dealers. I came up with the idea for this show 15, 16 years ago with kind of like a way for me to set things right and almost like a model for me to follow myself in my dealership, which I currently operate. And I want you to please believe me that this show is not an infomercial. I will not mention my dealership or the cars I sell or anything like that. I have no desire to use this show to try to sell you a Toyota.

That's what my problem is. Nancy says we have no sound over there. Is everybody else got sound? We might have the adjustments on Nancy's counsel. We'll take care of that. Thanks for your comment. We do have sound. Check your wherever you have a string. me on. So what I'd like to do today is ask you to be a part of our show. You're a very important part. I often refer to the Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. And we know that you have a difficult time when you're buying or leasing a car, for that matter, maintaining or repairing your car. The car dealers exist in the 20th century. The rest of us are living in the 21st century. cars have been sold, retailed, since the early part of the 20th century.

And very little has changed in the process and the policies of car dealers. Kind of 19th century. Yeah, 19th century actually did, yeah. And it's an interesting anachronism why all other retail gets it. You go into an apple store, you go into Nordstroms, you go into Targets, you go into Macy's. You're treated with respect and courtesy. See, I'm not saying that they don't try to sell you things, but you pick out a product, there's the price, you pay the price plus sales tax, and you walk out of the store. The car dealership doesn't work that way.

Gallup annual poll says that it is at least respected in terms of honesty and ethics of any other business. They have ranked at the bottom of the poll since 1977, so that's 40-some-odd years that the car dealers have been, and before that, the poll didn't circle. 177. So they were even worse before 1977. I got in the business in 1968. So we'd love to hear from you. 877 9609960. I've got a laptop computer right here in front of me and Nancy. And when you call, the call will appear on our text message on our screen on our computer. And we'd love to get to you. 877 9609960. You don't have to ask a question. You don't have to ask a question. You can make comments, criticisms, suggestions. Just love to hear from you. We're international.

We're streaming. We're going all over the world. And we have calls from Bali. Can you believe that? Stephen Shemilda from Bali calls two or three weeks ago. We have calls from Canada regularly all over the United States. We stream on Facebook. Facebook.com.

Fort slash Erlon Cars. Facebook.com. Forward slash Erlon Cars. We stream to YouTube. We stream to Twitter. We streamed a periscope. So we're out there in cyberspace. And as I said earlier in the introduction, that's what my son, Stu Stewart, does.

One of his many duties on the show is to let us know what's going on in the cyber world. The show last week, I think, was between cyber post and YouTube post and text. So I've got to give you the text number. That's one of our most popular ways of communication. Our text number is 772-497. 6530. That's 772-4976530. So with that said, bring the calls. Oh, I forgot one more.

Boy, we've got an infinite number of ways to communicate with us. Youranonymousfeedback.com. Youranonymousfeedback.com. This has really taken on a whole new dimension and communication. Anonymous, anonymity. People like to talk to us.

Sometimes it isn't anything controversial or nasty or anything. People prefer, people like privacy. You are W-Y-O-U-R-Y-O-U-R, you're anonymous A-N-Y-M-U-S Feedback.com. Your anonymous Feedback.com. And we've got a bunch of them, by the way. I checked earlier just before I came to the show, we've got about a half a dozen anonymous feedbacks. Before we get into that... Before we get into that, I want to thank you for, you know,

turning all of us on, including our audience to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. What an invention. What an idea. Thank you, Earl Stewart. Well, we used it in the business to start out with because we wanted to hear from all of our employees and our customers, and we know a lot of employees of businesses don't like to tell the truth about what they think about their boss or about the owner of the business.

and employees sometimes or customers sometimes people don't like to be nasty a lot of people don't like to be critical but they'd like to help a company get better in this case we'd like you to help our show get better I think I'd like to go around the table and let you hear the voices of the folks in the studio sounds like I'm doing a show all by myself

Nancy Stewart my co-host and my wife and partner She is our very, very strong female advocate. And Nancy, tell us some of the stuff that you do. Okay, so this morning, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes we all feel, well, at the mercy of car dealers. And sometimes women, you know, get into some problems that they can't get out of. So with that said, we're here for you, all of us. And as a female advocate, I'd like to offer you. you $50 for the first two new lady callers. You could give us a call, whether you had a new

transaction of purchasing a vehicle or you'd just like to share your opinion, whatever. Call and say hello. But that $50 is unconditional. I know when I hear offers anytime direct mail, TV, radio, or whatever, nobody gives away money without a string. Well, we're giving away money without a string. The string is, you have to call and you have to be female, and it has to be the first time you call. We're trying to build a female audience. I get some comments from men

saying, why do you do that? Why don't you give us $50 too? Well, we're trying to get a balance here. We'd love to have about half the callers be female because the obvious reason. They buy half the cars, pure and simple. So, 50 bucks, no conditions if you're the first time female caller. Yes, and you can

call us at 877. 960, 9960, and you can also text us at 772-4976530, and Linda, I will get to your question later on in the show. And, Stu, Mr. Cyberspace, also my son, also the general manager of my dealership, which we are not going to talk about. I don't even want to tell you the name of it, because this is not an infomercial. Okie-tokey Motors. Stu, okie-dokey, right. What are you doing over there in that chair? I want to remind everybody that there's a whole lot of ways to get in touch with us,

and it's not just the text number or the phone number, which we just went over. But we are streaming live video right now on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. We want to get on Instagram, but it's kind of hard technically to do that. But if you go to Facebook oncom forward slash Erlon Cars, or if you go to at Erlon Cars on Twitter, you'll find us on Periscope and Twitter there. So you can communicate with us there. You can watch the show, hear the show, and type your questions or comments or observations, fawning adulation, whatever you want to give us.

And we welcome criticism. We will not censor you. We will not mute you out. You can attack. The only thing that we have to be careful of is profanity. And I think we have somebody in the control room with a, where we got a 20-second delay or something like that, we can probably stop most of the profanity. But I love to hear from you.

No holes barred. Yeah. So, Stu, that's Facebook, YouTube, Periscope. Yeah, so we have Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Twitter. Working on Instagram, don't go there yet, even though we do have an Earl on Cars' Instagram page. But Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars.

That's probably the best way to... And your other job, your spy master, tell us a little bit about the mystery shopping report. I have an entire stable of intelligence agents that work for me. Every week we do extensive amounts of research on car dealers in our area. We dispatched them surreptitiously incognita. A stable. A stable.

We call it the stable. And, you know, we have some mystery shoppers that are better than others. And currently we're working with one of the greatest mystery shoppers of all time. That's Agent Thunder. We do let the agents name themselves. Obviously, we can't give away their name. Prior to Agent Thunder, I think the Hall of Fame, Agent X, yeah, he was definitely the top mystery shopper we ever had, fearless. Totally fearless, absolutely.

Yeah, I worried he was going to get us in trouble a few times because he really took the roles to heart. He played different personas when he'd go to different dealerships. Sometimes it was called Larry Laydown, where he'd act like a meek, unsuspecting, unprepared shopper who would be taken advantage of. But then there was another one he called Hardcore Harry, where he'd go in there and just abuse the salesperson of the manager. Well, the amazing thing is we've never been sued.

We name names, we name dealerships. the managers, the salespeople, and we do everything you do when you go in to buy our lease a car. And we report it candidly. We don't pull any punches, and I've never been sued. The radio station has never been sued. We may have a caller. We do, and I don't want to lose him. It's Warren, who's calling.

Good morning, Warren. How can we help you? Yes, so thank you, Will. I have a question for you. I have a friend who has a lease on a car, and the leases do up in about six months, and he's hardly driven it, maybe less than 10,000 miles. And I asked him what he's going to do it, and he says, he's just going to turn it in. And I said, can I buy it?

He goes, sure, I don't care. He says, is it a buyout of $16,000. Now, here's the question I have for you. I have two residents, one here in northern New Jersey and one in Florida. And I have my car registered in Florida. I don't want to pay two sales taxes. And if he buys the car from the leasing company, of course, they're going to charge the sales tax. But if I buy it then from him, I'm going to register it in Florida, and they're going to charge resales tax.

How do I get around that, where I end up paying two sales taxes for the same car? Well, Warren, this is a fairly common problem, particularly in our area, because we have snowbirds in Florida. They live up north, and they spend four or five, six months down here, and sometimes they'll buy the car up north and spend half the year in Florida. All 50 states have reciprocity agreements on sales tax. They're different in each state, and sometimes they're a little complex, but you can buy a car and only pay sales tax once, but you have to declare that state your residence, and sometimes it's a close call, but that's your call.

I think some states say you have to spend at least four months or six months in the state to call at your residence, but you do not have to pay double sales tax, If your friend has difficulty navigating with the Department of Motor Vehicles in New Jersey and in Florida, check with a title clerk. As a matter of fact, you could text me or call me. I could have my title clerk in my dealership or any title clerk in an automobile dealership could help you with that. Or you can go to the Department of Motor Vehicles yourself. Okay.

The other part of the question, so let's say he's. going to buy the car from whoever owns the leasing company in the dealership, I don't know. And I give him a check for $16,000 and he goes and buys it. Can he put it in my name or it's got to go first in his name and transfer it to me? How would that work? In other words, there's some way to do that? I would have no way of knowing how to do that. That would be part of the question you would want to ask a knowledgeable title clerk,

knowledgeable with the rules of the state. the fewer times that you change names, the easier it's going to be, and the less likely you'll get messed up and have to penny sales tax. By the way, you didn't ask this question, and maybe you have already taken care of it, but be sure it's a fair price. The option to purchase on a lease oftentimes is higher than the wholesale market value of that car in your area. So what you and your friends should do is take the car and get an accurate read on

the true wholesale market value. You might go to, I'm not sure what model car, but let's say it's a Mercedes. You could go to a Mercedes dealer, used car department, and say, what would you pay me for this car? Now, granted, it's not your car, it's a lease car, but the used car manager doesn't need to know that. You're just doing this for information purposes and get a real read. I check maybe three bids at least on your Mercedes. and you can also check with some wholesale auction sources if you have a friend of the deal chip.

But once you know that the price your friend's selling of the car for is at least close to the actual wholesale market value, or, you know, he's selling at retail, so he makes $500 or $1,000, if that's okay with you. Just be sure you know exactly. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, because the car, he's hardly driven, and a car has less than $10,000.

Yeah, it sounds like it. You know, on the services, it sounds like a great. Oftentimes, the residual value doesn't have. anticipate a super low mileage like that, so that is a good indication of the value may be higher than the residual. Okay, and I got one more question for you. Sure. You don't mind.

The other question is, I've heard of these things, but I'm not sure if this deal doesn't work out. Like, leasing a car that's already been, like, 30,000 miles on, like, you have a dealership attorney, like somebody brought in an Avalon that's been leased and had 30,000 miles, and you lease it again for, like, two years. not buy it, but lease it? Is that a good deal, or you recommend that, or you wouldn't touch that? What would be your, you know, what would you think about something like that? That idea has been bouncing around for many years. It never has taken hold. There are a few

small companies that have attempted to make leasing of used cars work on the surface. It sounds like a real smart idea. A used car has this big portion of the depreciation gone. So when you lease a used car, it should be a real bargain. Just like buying a used car is a real bargain. But the lenders, the leasing companies are afraid of it. With a new car, they know what they're getting. They know it has a new car warranty. Their collateral is pretty well protected. A used car is kind of an unknown thing. You're buying somebody else's problems. You can check your Carfax report and do a lot of things. But the lenders, the leasing companies are afraid to get into the used car leasing business, it's a problem with polluted collateral. I just made

up a new term. Your collateral isn't what it's purported to be. And if you have to take that lease car back and you find out it's not what it was represented to be in the first place, sometimes dealers will actually lie about accessories and mileage and accidents and things that can affect the value of the lender or the less source collateral. Okay, see, what you're just saying is that you're really taking a chance if you do something like that. I wouldn't mind doing it, Warren. I think you're going to have a hard time finding a leasing company that will lease you that used car. If you find a leasing company that will accept the risk and lease you a used car

and you do your due diligence in your homework and shop and compare the price, I mean, take the vehicle that you want to lease and see what the lease price is on a lot. a brand new car of the same make, everything being the same. And if you can save substantially by leasing the used car, it's a leasing company that takes a chance. I don't know any leasing companies, and I am a car dealer right now that lease used cars. We've talked to a few, and it's never worked out. Okay.

I will thank you very much. I appreciate your help. Great call, Warren. Thank you. Please call again sometime. Yes, please do. Our number is 877-960-99-60, and our time. Text number is 772-497-6530, and we didn't get a chance to introduce Rick, but he definitely

is here, and he is a genius and can answer all of your questions. We have some ladies holding, and we're going to go to Tina from Benita Springs and Susan. I hope that you have the patience to hang on. Good morning, Tina. I think we'd... Hi, Tina, are you still there? Yes. hear me?

We do, loud and clear. How are you doing? Okay, I'm doing great. How are you? Pretty good. Well, I was just reading sort of a little bit of a disturbing vehicle. I mean,

I can't talk this morning. I was reading a little bit of a disturbing article yesterday. We know that electric vehicles are becoming a little bit more popular. There's still not a big, huge percentage of the overall driving.

public, there's still, like, the minority as far as cars along the road. Sure. But states in the last year or two have been getting wise to this, and they're saying, hey, you know, these electric vehicles are not paying the gas taxes, and we need these gas taxes in order to keep our infrastructures going. We need these gas taxes in order to repair and maintain roadways. And as a result, many states, I think it's about 17 states now, we're going to be charging electric car owners more

for their registrations that way it can offset the gas taxes and in some cases it's not really all that expensive I was looking at the list and I think the most expensive state was maybe $200 for a registration but you know for some people that's a lot of money and one

of the biggest reasons why people get into the electric car thing anyway is for ethical reasons they feel but there's some people that are getting electric cars because it's a cost thing and some people People are saying, you know, why are we penalizing some of these people that probably have an electric car because that's what they can afford? And is this fair or is this not fair?

Is there a workaround for this? That's a very interesting problem. And I've heard about this. I'm not one for having the federal government involve themselves in our daily lives or even state issues. But there are certain issues that the federal government has a responsibility. for it. I see the state side of it. The revenue that they get from gasoline taxes is substantial. And when the day comes, when electric vehicles dominate, certainly something has to be done. You have to take care of your roads and whatever other expenses that you allocate gasoline taxes toward.

So I think it's something that needs a meeting of the minds of the state governments and the federal governments. You should incentivize people to buy an electric vehicle because it helps. the state, it helps this country, it helps the world until in terms of emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. At the same time, you have to maintain your infrastructure and your roads. So it's not a black and white issue. I think the federal government should work with the states to help offset the cost. And the state should also realize that you've only got a small percentage of cars, electric vehicles. I think electric vehicles are like 3%.

I pull that number out of the area, but there are maybe three. percent of all the cars on the road are electric, and that probably includes hybrid. So, therefore, it isn't a huge problem for the state now. I would encourage states to hold off on taxing electric vehicles, and I encourage them to start talks with the federal government, but it's a big, huge problem that's going to have to be addressed by the national issues and the state issues. Well, one of the solutions that was kind of talked about was taxing larger gross weight vehicles higher, you know, and most of those vehicles that have a very high gross weight,

those are commercial vehicles, and those businesses and those corporations, you know, they're going to fight it and say, hey, listen, you know, we're being taxed enough. We don't need to be taxed on our fleets any higher, so there's going to be definite pushback for that. Yeah. Well, I see that. Other people are saying, too, in the article that a lot of these electric vehicles are a little bit on the heavier side, but they're nowhere near as heavy as a commercial

vehicle. No, the batteries are getting smaller. Electric vehicles used to be heavier, but they've got the size and the weight of the batteries down considerably. Yeah, so I wonder what the state of Florida's position is on taxing electric vehicles.

I know that the federal tax credit, I think, is gone now. I think the federal tax credit used to be $7,500, but I think it's gone away already. So there's no real federal tax exemption for electric vehicles. vehicles anymore as far as I think you're right Tina and I think that Florida is not taxing

electric vehicles now they may be contemplating I'm not sure but it's an interesting topic we should follow that and if you dig up anything new on that I know a lot of our radio listeners are are interested really appreciate the call thank you very much and please call again next week Tina oh I certainly will you all have a great morning always nice hearing from you Tina. There is still some tax credit left on some vehicles, but it's all based on, they get a certain amount that you can get it on. I remember years ago when Prius first came out, it ran out pretty quickly. I don't know which one's still qualified, but there's still some money out there. Exactly right. Yeah, it's based on the total number of vehicles sold.

They allow them, and the less popular electric vehicles are probably still getting the subsidies. Susan, I'm sorry we couldn't get to you. Please give us a call back. As a first-time caller, you do win $50, but you do have to call back. Our number is 877-9-60-99-60, and our text number is 772-497-6530. I think we're going to move over to Stu. He's probably got quite a few text pack. Yeah, we're going to knock down some of these anonymous feedback responses that came in.

Actually, we got one that came in on Tuesday, which was after the last show, so I'll get to that one first. It says, good morning, Earl and Crew. I was trying to show my friend a list of good Toyota dealers to check out. We went to your good dealers list and found that you'd remove Toyota dealers off the good dealer list. I know you did this for ethical reasons, but we here in South Florida need to have a list of good Toyota dealers to visit. You can, you can, oh, asterisk, your dealership with a comment that you own this dealership and you're not listing for sales or financial gain and the list the other Toyota dealerships that are good, if they are good. but we need a good, but we need

good Toyota dealerships, fair Toyota dealerships to visit and to purchase a car. I can address it. We do have one Toyota dealer that's currently on the recommended list and that's Palm Beach Toyota, and that's on Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach right near the airport. And they did a great job

the last time we mystery shopped them. In our full disclosure, they are probably our chief competitor. If that doesn't tell you that we're just calling balls and strikes, I don't know what else would, Yeah, there are dealerships nemesis, but we recommend them. The other dealers, there's three on the do not recommend list, and without getting in too much detail, they deserve to be there. Your thoughts, Rick?

I just want to mention they're actually on Congress right by Southern. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly, right, yeah, right off Southern. I kind of did a sneak mission to wander in and look around that place. I got to say, it's beautiful, and it's awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they had been on military trail for years. Oh, yeah. And they had a brand new gorgeous Taj Mahal near the airport right now.

So, but yeah, we call balls and strikes. We don't, we don't let any of our personal or business bias to come in to play. One thing we might rather consider is instead of just having a black or white issue with recommend or don't recommend, start assigning scores and maybe a numerical score. Because we say we grade on the curve on our do not recommend. And our recommend list, our recommend list, there's no perfect dealers. And therefore, maybe if you had three Chevrolet dealers and one of them had a score of 80 and one of them a score of 70, it would give you something more to go on. We'll work on that. Yeah, and something else just to keep in mind is that dealers will move back and forth between the recommended and do not recommend the list.

And that might not be the best way to do it. But it is always based on the last mystery shop we did. So we've seen the deals have gone back and forth. Next one is also on a your anonymous feedback response. It says, what do you do with the shopping reports submitted by listeners? I'm afraid that the efforts of a report would be in vain since you mentioned that the others submitted shopping reports, but you didn't share anything from them on the air, and we could glean information from the shop reports from your comments. And, well, you've addressed this before, and the trick there is that when we do our mission,

shopping report, we certify it as completely 100% honest, 100% accurate. While we do trust our listeners, it kind of puts us in a position if there was any inaccuracies whatsoever. We don't want to put ourselves out there publicly, you know, critiquing somebody if we can't verify it ourselves. A third party would not be something we want to endorse personally. Yeah, we'll talk about these other shopping reports, but to read it as a narrative and with facts and details, it's probably not a good idea because we do, we stand by what we say on the air and we just got to make

sure that it's something we have to verify. We'd love to have you call in about your experiences with dealers in a sense as a shopping report and that is probably one of the most interesting things and we can pretty well divine when people call us what's legitimate, what's not legitimate, and what's typical with the dealer and so on

and so forth. Plus the fact they know it's a third party source talking about that dealer and you can take her or leave it. that's right next one uh thank you for answering my last my question last week my follow-up question on the third party aka best buy radios for my 2014 and a half camry will my reverse camera and steering wheel controls still work thank you love the show keep up the great work Rick yes okay simple question it will still work there's actually there's actually a

control box that they'll install that will let all those function very good you almost had it that's all right i'm kidding i kid i kid okay the next one your anonymous feedback i apologize oh my goodness i apologize on the following dark question i know which one you're talking about yeah i'm wondering will the show still go on when earl is no longer with us are you moving somewhere okay i enjoy the show and find a very informative and useful well i got great news um we are preserving earl's head um and uploading his consciousness into this laptop right here It will freeze my brain. It's never going to end.

On a serious note, I hope the show continues. Nancy and Stu and Rick. And we got a lot of stewards around. We got two other brothers of Stu's of the dealership, Jason and Josh. And we got Stu's son, my grandson, Jake, who is almost ready to go to college. I don't think he wants to be a car dealer. But he might change his mind. But I think the legacy should continue.

Yeah. That's happened. But I feel real good. I feel good. My health is good. I work out. Nancy and I each do circuit training, weightlifting three times a week. And we're lean, mean machines. Earl could kick my ass. Oh, I don't know about that. Probably. They beyond, seriously, your brand is so strong that your legacy will definitely move. You know, it will be here. It will be forever. And my names are Earl also, so maybe we can fool you. There you go. We might just not tell anybody. Well, he'll have to change the name of the show.

Right. Yeah. Okay. Next. Okay. Next one. You're a very good show. Why haven't you expanded to a second Toyota dealership in the nearby area? We need more true no-dealer fee dealerships in Florida. I second that. That's very flattering, and I appreciate that.

I have asked, other people have asked me why we didn't open dealerships. It has to do with the franchise laws in the 50 states. I'm sorry everything seems to be so complicated these days, but the franchises are awarded by the manufacturers. And the manufacturers, when they add a new dealership, it's a political thing oftentimes. And we tried to get a car dealership in Georgia, as a matter of fact. And it was in Cummings. Cummings, Georgia. Outside of Atlanta.

Outside of Atlanta. And we were considered by Toyota for that dealership. Yeah, we made it to the final two. We made it to the final two, they told us. And they awarded it to a dealer named Beaver. Beaver happened to have multiple other dealerships in Texas. And St. Augustine. And St. Augustine.

And I don't have the exact facts on this, but I have a very reliable anonymous source. as it told me that he agreed to buy out the St. Augustine dealership from a Toyota dealer in St. Augustine that was doing a very poor job, wasn't selling enough Toyotas, but he was an older guy like me that just loved what he did, and he's been there for many, many years. So Beaver offered to pay an obscene amount of money, a huge millions and millions and millions of dollars for the dealership and took it over. and that article one of the facts is I saw the sales price in the automotive news

it was a record blue sky amount paid by a Toyota ship so to thank Mr. Beaver for spending too much money to get rid of the old guy that wasn't selling enough Toyotas that gave them the dealership in Cummings, Georgia and we didn't get it. We were very unhappy about that. But that's a long way to say

why we don't have other dealerships. We'd like to have them and we would welcome any manufacturer that would want us to be in to have a dealership that we would operate clean, pristine, honest, and transparently. Yeah. All right. The next one, a little bit more critical on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I'd like to suggest that you incorporate anecdotes into the show to educate us on pitfalls when going shopping, paperwork to refuse to sign, prep work to do before visiting a dealer, and signs to look out for when we should walk out of the dealership. The show has been lacking lately, and I want to keep coming back. I'd also like to suggest you watch Steve Leto's videos.

I find his topics on car shopping extremely informative. Don't copy his style. Just take note of the personal nature in which he explains and educates. I feel more drawn into his discussions than I do when you talk about true car, stupid CarMax, stupid Costco, and even safety recalls. Lastly, you don't reply to feedback on your anonymous feedback.com. It's missing a closing handshake. Thank you, a semi-loyal listener.

Oh, I don't want to attack the... We're replying right now. Well, let me make a couple observations. Steve Lotto, I believe, is the attorney in Michigan, who is the Lemon Law expert. And I believe that he probably has some good information on people as to how to buy a car. I'd be glad to listen to his...

read his blog or his... YouTube's or whatever Steve Leto do is, we'll Google it and take a look at it. I hesitate to get into too much detail with how you buy a car and what forms you sign and you don't sign and what demands you make of car dealerships. I try to keep it as simple as possible. And what we try to get you to do is to get a competitive price, a low price on the vehicle you want. And that's a lot easier to do than attack one dealer who is out to get you. If you go into a car dealership and you say,

I'm bound to determined by hook or crook to be able to outsmart this car dealer and be able to buy a car at a good, low price, you're in a poker game when you don't know who the sucker is. You're the sucker. Although this information is really very important, I'd like to get back to this subject, But Susan was kind enough to call back, and she's not only a first-time caller, but she's calling us from New Jersey. Oh, great.

Good morning, Susan. Thank you for your patience. Oh, you're welcome. Good morning, and yes, I am actually a first-time caller. Well, you've just won yourself $50 as a first-time caller, and if you would, you could send me your contact information. Sure, thank you very much. Can you? Great. My husband, I absolutely will. My husband always listens to you, and I've been out many times, and I've listened and said to him, well, we should call and ask about our son's car.

So our son has actually recently leased the 2019 Chevy Equinox, and he's had the vehicle back maybe three times, and finally, recently they're telling him that there's actually a bulletin out in regard to the backup camera on the car. and the bulletin states that they are defective because we kept asking the dealership, you know, what's happening? Because every time, you know, it works for a couple days and then all of a sudden the backup camera is not working, which obviously was an important feature that he wanted the car for. So I don't, you know, I was just kind of wondering, is there any options that we have because they've tried different parts but they keep

finding out that it still doesn't work consistently. We didn't know if we could actually get the deal and to actually put a brand new camera in if that's an option or maybe just what our options are because like I said that really was one of the main reasons

that he had purchased this particular or I should say lease this particular type of car. Susan, has your as your son been given a loaner something to drive, or are they asking him to drive this vehicle? Oh, no, they're asking him to drive it. Well, that's totally unreasonable, and I think that they are very wrong about this.

I think someone needs to contact the owner of that dealership, and I would go directly to the leasing company. I'd also go to the manufacturer. A backup camera is a safety device, and, you know, it's an incredibly, you know, it's an incredibly good safety device is so important to many people they wouldn't drive a car without a backup camera so i would um if i were your son i would go to the owner of the dealership and say look i don't you may not be aware of this and just explain the situation it could be something that's being handled on a lower level in a service department with an asm assistant service manager

a service salesperson or maybe even a salesperson could be involved if i own that dealership but someone told me that I was making someone drive a car that was unsafe and not offering a free loaner, I'd be very unhappy because they're subject to a very big lawsuit. You don't mess around with safety. Right, well, that's what I was thinking. He even bought the high-end one, or at least the high-end car just for that reason. So that's kind of what I was thinking.

But, okay, well, that's definitely good advice, and we will definitely try that, where we can go with that, but it did seem like there should have been some type of explanation. I mean, I understand that in some ways they're at a loss because there's not a replacement part. Sometimes dealers don't think in terms of safety when they should, and there are certain items that you don't think of your brakes, obviously, a safety item and other things that are just clearer. but a backup camera tells you what's behind the car when you're backing up. Exactly. And you have to extrapolate that to, gosh, something terrible could happen.

You could run over a dog or, God forbid, a child. You could back into another car. There's a lot of things that could really hurt you or someone else. So I think someone in authority, preferably the owner of that dealership, needs to have this call to his attention. Okay. We'll definitely do that. Thank you, Susan.

But you know how that works out. Okay, Susan. Okay, well, thank you so much. Susan, if you stay on the line, you can leave your contact information with the studio, and we'll get that out to you. Okay, I will. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Have a great day. Thanks for helping us build a platform here for females. You'd like to call us. You can do so at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us. If you're a little shy, we have a few. few listeners this morning that are very shy, so you can take advantage of our text number at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

We're responding to the anonymous feedback that we were not giving out enough detailed information about forms and the technical process of buying a car. And I was saying that what you need to do is use competition. It's your best friend when you buy a vehicle. shopping and compare. Costco. You might not like the Costco program, but it's a good program. Consumer Reports also has a good program. True car has a good program. And these tools you can use are a lot better than trying to go head-to-head with a car dealer. You need to involve three car dealers and get the best price from one and take it to two others, and that will get you the

lowest price you can possibly get. Next? The next one is also on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. and it says Do you want to feel terror in a modern vehicle? Drive on the interstate at 77 miles per hour in a Jeep Wrangler and stomp on the brakes. Hard. It will have you in a sudden session

with your favorite deity confessing all your sins. The good news is that Wrangler's interior is easy to clean up with the hose. I'll report on the ease of the interior cleaning after I buy mine later today. Thanks. You know, those jeeps are like one of your

like Bet Noirs, you know, it's like, it's a great looking car, but with a lot of problems, right? Yeah, it's, you know, I feel the, I feel the pain, I feel the beauty of the Jeep, I read the consumer reports, and I see that it's a, it's a terrible car in terms of safety, maintenance, reliability, cost, but it's a beautiful, sexy car. I hesitate to use the woman reference, but there are a lot of beautiful women out there that you don't. want to hang out with too. Just a lot of beautiful men. Beautiful men that you don't want to hang out with.

So our emotions are very powerful. And our emotions, like it or not, lead us to make good decisions and bad decisions. And it's part of being a human being. We're human. And I respect the Jeep buyers because a lot of them I talk to, they're very smart people. They say, I know it's not a very reliable car, but I just, I have so much fun. when I drive it. It's like I would never go skydiving, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun. It is. Good analogy. The Jeep is unsafe. You know, it's dangerous, unsafe, and so many other

things, but there's a culture out there that enjoys the Jeep. Exactly. Counterintuitively, they do have high resale values. And people are looking, because they love Jeep so much, they look for used jeeps, and we sell used jeeps. We're not proud of the fact that we're selling unreliable cars. But they're, you know, We don't sell anything that's designated unsafe. Anything that's illegal to sell. But we can't get enough used jeeps because they're too popular. That's right.

They're an American icon. And if there is a terrible accident, you know, you can't hose out the interior without damaging it. True. All right, that was a little gruesome. Sorry. This is on our text line, 772-4976530. Hi, Earl. I'm looking to buy a unique car, a 2019 private sale by owner,

an E-class estate wagon with 9,000 miles. The private sales price, based on KB, seems reasonable. The car has an extended warranty that now covers seven years, 100,000 miles versus the factory's four-year 50,000 miles. Carfax is clean, maintenance is up to date. I plan to have a mechanic review the car. Do you have any additional questions, suggestions, or concerns that I should be aware of? That should be pretty easy to establish a value on this vehicle,

because you can see what the new one cost. And I would just pretend like I was buying a new one. I would go through the things that hopefully you've listened to on this show, True Car, Costco, Consumer Reports, shop and compare competitively. Go through the process and find out the very best price you can buy that 2019 exact same vehicle, new. And then the private owner is selling a used car, and you should have several thousand dollars in depreciation

because that's what its car has depreciated. just by virtue of the fact that it's a used car. That's right. All right. The next text, it's from Frank and Jupiter. He's a longtime listener and texter and sometimes caller. He is just chiming in on our earlier conversation about tax on vehicles on the roads. He lets us know that tractor trailers with the gross weight of 80,000 pounds pay over $10,000 a year in road tax in Florida.

Wow. That's a lot. Yeah, that whole trucking thing is interesting because truckers are being, replaced by autonomous vehicles. It would be the first to go because it'll be easier to do it in terms of large vehicles that are autonomous and do a lot of direct line, you know, cross-country cap itself is easier to do autonomously than a taxi cab in New York City.

And so there's actually a shortage of truck drivers now. I think a lot of people are seeing the handwriting on the wall, but this whole trucking business industry is changing radically. They're going to be as affected by autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, as anybody else, probably more so. Yeah. Yeah, I know Tesla is working on a big giant semi-tractor trailer. Yeah. Drives itself.

Right. I hear one of the first places that they're testing those is Australia, because they have a lot of truck, what they call road trains, where there will be a dozen trucks or more in one long line traveling across that continent. And so they're looking at these autonomous trucks. and basically maybe one truck would have a driver and all the rest would simply link up behind them autonomously and just follow it. Can I digress on something to irrelevant? Yes, yeah. I went to school with a man named Bruce Coutman who was a veterinarian in Australia and he was getting his doctorate degree and they were paying his way to school at Purdue and we talked a lot and he was a very interesting guy. and when he was a veterinarian in Australia

he had an airplane to go from customer to customer because the ranches and the livestock and the cattle from Ranch A to Ranch B would be like a thousand miles apart so he had to fly from rancher to rancher to take care of the cows and I thought that was kind of cool which goes to what you're saying

Australia is a big place yeah big big empty spaces and the digression back there is spread out All right, here's a good one. It says, Earl, I bought a 2016 Kia Rio and new in 2015. Within two years, I had rust appearing under the paint on both the passenger side and driver's door.

Took it to the Kia dealer and expected to have it fixed under warranty, and I was told it wouldn't be covered because there was no perforation. They also suggested that I was to blame for not properly maintaining my vehicle. What can I do? Well, you've done one thing.

You've let the world know that the Kia Rio has a terrible paint. and when you have bubbling from underneath the paint, you can't blame it on environmental issues, fallout, and all the other nonsense. So clearly there was a problem, and when they painted the car, but the only thing you could have done was hire a lawyer. Or try a different Kia dealer, maybe. Different Kia dealer, but the key, did he say that he took it within three?

I'm not sure what the Kia warranty is. With Toyota has a three-year, 36,000-mile warranty, and if the paint fails after three years or 36,000, miles they won't warranty it unless you go for a goodwill adjustment and so that's what your rights to they could have gone to a different Kia dealer contacted Kia directly and kept their fingers crossed yeah you might have run into somebody with just who's just going by the book and to it in the factory line you might find a more more radical uh or more a dealer that's willing to challenge the way we reason with manufacturers is to if you get hold of somebody that is intelligent

You say, listen, this is clearly a product defect, and it might have been six months after the warning ran out or 6,000 miles after the warranty ran out. But clearly, the car was built incorrectly. It's a defect. So you should step up to the plate and take care of it and pay for it or at least pay for part of it. And that's the approach you should take when you have a car that has a problem out of warranty. Yeah, and it looks like the texter did bring it in within two years. I find it hard to believe if the rust warranty was. less than two years. I would too. I don't know

the key arrest warning. We can Google it, but if it is, that's a pretty bad warrant. Okay, here's the next one says. Female callers should have a little incentive to call in for the very reason men are criticizing your decision to offer $50 to women.

Arrogant, entitled men think that they own this space and want to intimidate women from participating. Relax dudes, it won't hurt to have some ladies on the line. And I agree, a thousand percent. Yeah, how true it is. You know, it's interesting the way our culture has changed. I love the fact. There's only one good thing about being old guy is I've spanned so much time. And I was probably the greatest male chauvinist pig of all time

when I was a young man. And my father was a male chauvinist pig, and everybody I knew were male chauvinist pigs. And I used that comically and loosely. We were just adhering to our culture, and that's the way we were. And some of us evolved and change, and some of us don't. And And the men out there to think that women are someone that's supposed to scrub the floor and cook your food and clean the house. I mean, wake up. You know, it's just those days are gone. They used to exist. And that's the way everybody did it.

A little bit analogous to cartilers today. They're doing it today the way it's always been done. But it's changed. The consumer's changed. And speaking of the female audience, I have $50 for one more female, excuse me, caller. Give us a call to-free at 877-960-99-60. I can't build the platform alone. If you've called before, you're welcome to call again.

Any question is worth answering. Again, that number is 877-960-99-60, and I have a text from a young lady. and she has some bad credit and she wants to purchase a vehicle and she wants to know how she could protect herself and i'll start the conversation off by telling you that you really um you really have to be informed to protect yourself um that's number one and uh don't fall prey to the buy your pay here or any other dealership because you do have bad credit there are things that you can do to protect yourself and oh you can purchase a vehicle i'll turn it over to the recovering car dealer now well the first thing i would wonder is how bad is your credit

too often people think they have bad credit and it is as bad as they think it is her credit is 500 even on a 500 even they can score there are still ways she can buy a car it would involve higher interest and it would involve more of a down payment that she's you would probably like to pay. And I still think that I would explore, even though it might be not very fruitful to go to a conventional lender. I'd still start with a conventional lender

before I went to a subprime lender or to a car dealership. And you mentioned a buy here, pay here. I would still try to go through and see what I could afford with a down payment and accept the fact that you'd have higher interest it really is so very helpful if you you know try to clean up your credit before you apply you know for a loan cleaning up your your credit report and things

that you haven't paid off and that would certainly you know help you in a great way i think rick's got some uh text over here the back of them we've got one we have a caller and we're going to go to Greg, who's calling from California. Good morning, Greg. Oh, good morning. Yes, I'm actually in Florida, but I'm from California. Yes. Yeah, I was listening to the radio and the car, so I stopped and then I come home.

And then my question was about when you refinance your car to the same dealership that you bought it originally from a year later, you go for a newer car. and that they usually draw out a contract where, you know, they put down what you owe as a part of the contact and you don't notice it, but, and then you do, it's an over, whatever, and that carries over, it's a carry over. So, and then they have this thing where they, they have the dealers, uh, starts or something, dealers prep charts and something and somehow they, You talked about it before where they have a name for it, and they put that as a dealer. You know, they charge it for preparation, and it repeats itself as a different in the contract. And it's like a double-dipping, you know? Oh, exactly. But I want to recognize.

Yeah, that's a good word for it, double-dipping. Yeah, you're talking about when you have negative equity in the car, the first car you bought from the dealer, and you've been making payments on it, but you haven't made a good word for it. enough payments to reach a break-even or even a positive equity situation in the car. So you owe the lender at that point more than the car is actually worth. Oftentimes, the dealer won't even mention that to you. The advertisement will say, we'll pay any car off. We'll pay your car off, no problem.

They pay your car off to the lender with your money because they take the money from you, added into the price of the second car, they're selling you. And, of course, as far as hidden fees, you're absolutely right. The generic term is dealer fees, but they go by notary fee, electronic filing fee, administration fee, tag agency fee. And in Florida, there's not even a limit to what they can charge you. So to walk into a car dealership and not being very careful of taking your time and studying the contracts, you can really be taken advantage of.

Yeah, and I want to be able to recognize when I see that, yeah, because they offer you, oh, yeah, we're going to pay over whatever. Say, I owe right now a car. Okay, I owe, actually, I owe $15,000. I took it over, you know, and like I said, it was a carrier from the one before that, and I pay up to $29,000. But now I got $15,000 in change. So I'm paying it, and if they, I accept that if I go there,

they offer me the gold, like $3,000 over the Blue Book. And so you carry that over, but somehow when they write it, the language that they write it, it's like they don't really give it that much credit at $3,000, is it? They always take it right in the back end of the contract that you don't see, they'll recognize. That's what I was saying to understand. Well, Greg, the contracts are complicated, and it's very difficult, unless you're a professional, unless you take it to a professional to really interpret every item on these contracts.

best weapon, and I talked about this little earlier on the show, is to use competition as your best friend. Don't get hung up on one dealer. You might like this dealer, you bought your last car from him, maybe they treat you nice, that's fine. But you still have to use competition to be sure you get the lowest price.

So whatever make car you're making, if you're buying a Honda, you should go to at least three Honda dealerships and focus on one thing. I see. The exact car you want to buy, and then look the bottom line price and compare the bottom line price

with three dealers. That way it will neutralize all the other variables. We had a text earlier that's saying we should go through the details of the contract and all the other forms you're asked to sign. As long as you know, the Althador price

that you have from dealer A and you take it to dealer B and then take the dealer C and compare and go with the best lowest price, the fine print doesn't make any difference you've got the best price oh i see yeah okay that yeah that answers my question thank you great appreciate the call give us a call again greg 877 960 990 or you can text us at 772 4976530 we're going to go to Sharon who's been holding uh from palm city welcome to the show

Sharon hi how are you today are you a first-time caller Yes, I am, actually. You just won yourself $50 as a first-time caller. Oh, thank you very much. You're welcome. Stay on the line after your question, and you can share your contact information with the control room. Okay, do-dokey. All righty.

What can we do for you this morning? I just have a question about tires on. We purchased a car from Earl Stewart about seven months ago, and we've been very, very happy, very happy. the car it has nitrogen tires on it but my question was do nitrogen tires last longer as far as the wear and care on the tire or do the ones with the air last longer that's always my question to my husband and he can never answer me well Sharon you've got me you've got me stump if you bought the car from my dealership we do not put nitrogen in our tires you don't mean a make tire you mean gas inside the tire? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. That's what I mean. You know, maybe it's possible it came in on a dealer trade. I mean, we do trade with other dealers. Maybe it was put in there at the other dealership. Possibly. Yeah, well, I'm very pleased with them, though. I mean, I'm very happy.

It rides much easier. Rides nicer. But yeah, that's, we bought it. Yeah, we didn't buy it on a trade. We just, it was a, it was a used vehicle. Okay. Well, the car probably was traded in by somebody that purchased it with nitrogen in the tires.

And they put little, does it have different colors? A green. A green little caps. Yeah, okay. I'm sorry to inform you that the nitrogen is worthless in the tires and it might seem like it rides better but I promise you that if you just put regular air in your tires

it will run exactly the same. The air that you put in tires is 78% nitrogen. I don't know if you knew that. The air we breathe is 78% percent nitrogen. Well, I'd personally rather have the air in the tires. I really do it. It's easier when you go to get tires for your car. Exactly. Yeah, just go ahead and fill your tires with regular air, and the nitrogen is something that the previous owner of that car paid a dealer

somewhere just so he could make some money, and it's worthless. And you ended up with the nitrogen that he paid for, and you can just keep on putting air in your tires. and it's going to be just fine, and you save all that money. And Sharon, I always say that unless you're going to Daytona, you really don't need nitrogen in your tires. All right. So stay on the line. I hope my husband's listening.

Okay. Now he'll believe me. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Don't forget to leave us or contact. Stay on the line. okay all right all right i think rick's got uh unless we got any any callers rick's got somebody

well we actually had one on on the other channel from m av and he was asking about the a corolla that he's looking at potentially to buy that has an open campaign for the jSD campaign from toyota and he was concerned that this might cause excessive wear on the engine if it hasn't been done uh in actuality the j s d campaign from toyota and he was concerned that this might cause excessive wear on the engine if it hasn't been done In actuality, the JSD campaign is the computer that controls the transmission needs to be reprogrammed and it takes about an hour total for the technician to do it and then do a specific test drive to check and make sure that everything's operating properly. And if there are any issues with the transmission caused by the concern by that reflash not operating properly before you get it, Toyota will step up and cover all the repairs on it but it's all part of that campaign

but I truthfully would not be too concerned about buying a car with that open campaign myself because it's a very easy one to stop in at any dealership and have that one taken care of or even use it as a bargaining chip to get them to knock the price down a little bit and say hey you guys didn't take care of this campaign I should get a lower price on this car

worth asking I love that word reflash That's the new lingo, you know, the new, there's stuff floating around. You old guys out there, reflash. Yeah, I drop that phrase all the time. That's the way all cars will eventually be fixed because it just means you plug in the car and the computer somewhere in Japan or wherever, Korea, across cyberspace, shoots that new software tweak into the computer.

Actually, in a very short time, you won't even have to go to a mechanic and have it plugged in. because they'll actually be able to transmit that reprogramming to your car over the air and it'll reprogram itself while you're sleeping wireless isn't that amazing your car is going on the highway and all of a sudden it gets reflashed and you never see it happen and it fixes your car did you reflash your iPhone lately uh yeah i think I have it's always important to do that absolutely you remember ladies and gentlemen we have the mystery shopping report coming up shortly and that's from Wallace Chevrolet, and you can still give us a call at 877-960-99-60,

or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And Rick, even though you have so many interesting things to talk about and share it with us, we do have to go to our next caller, Jay, who's been holding from Riviera Beach. Good morning, Jay. Yeah, good morning. I had a question about the extended warranties when you purchase the new vehicles. I wanted to know, is the price negotiable or is it fixed by Florida law? Florida law requires that the price be posted with the State Insurance Commission's office,

and the price is the price. It sounds like it might be a bad deal, but it's better than the other states. where the dealer charges anything he wants for an extended warranty. Now, if a dealer wants to post a high price for an extended warranty, he can post a high price. He just can't lower it, but he also can't post a low price and raise it. So it's a protection, but it's still something you need to be leery of, and you need to be sure whatever the price is,

even though he can't come down or go up, just be sure it's a fair price. You read the warranty carefully. You ask what is not covered, perhaps the most important question, You can ask about an extended warranty. What does it not cover? Usually, it's the important things that it does not cover. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome, Jay.

877-960-99-60. We're getting some calls finally. We were slowed down there for a while, but we get them come in, and we get some texts and anonymous feedbacks. Great show. I want to take a moment and thank all of you that have tuned in this morning. to Earl Stewart and Cars. We really appreciate your company.

I'd like to get to Linda's text. She asked about Yeti Cups, and this is for Rick, and she wants to know what she can do to stop the wobbling in her cup holder. I think they sell accessories, like little inserts, like rubber things that go into a cup holder. Yeah, that would probably be, if your cup doesn't fit in your cup holder too well,

I would look to see if they make an insert that would simply tighten it up a little bit. Otherwise, just the old caveman attitude, wrap a paper towel around it. Linda, that's what I do. I wrap a paper cup around mine because I have so many different sized paper cups. But you can go to your favorite auto store, and you can pick up that insert that the guys just mentioned. Yeah, I'll check Amazon first, then maybe Pep Boys AutoZone or something like that. Or ear plugs when you can't hear it rental. Exactly.

That's your solution. I think we have some text over there. Yeah, we have a couple that came in. Earl and Crew, you should talk about your efforts to help the Bahamas who are suffering terribly from the devastating hit they got from Category 5 Hurricane Dorian. I find it very admirable that you have stepped forward to collect supplies to help these poor people. Well, thank you. We are collecting food, and we're matching contributions from our employees.

And we also just donated a Highlander, an old, 2003 Highlander that runs well, and we're shipping it over the Bihonda's going to be the Big Dog Ranch Rescue, pick up the doggy van, and it'll be running around to the devastated areas and gathering up the doggies, and then we bring

them back to Big Dog Ranch, and you can adopt a dog, a big dog ranch rescue. We have a whole bunch of dogs. A lot of Bahamians, I think about three days after the hurricane, they brought in 60 dogs. People are focusing on the Bahamians themselves, the

humans, but the dogs have some problems too. Well, we had a couple of thousand, I think Bahamians have already made it to South Florida, and we got a sweet story. There was dogs that were rescued. They were displaced in the storm, picked it by Big Dog Ranch Rescue, brought over here, and then the people from the Bahamas came over who were missing their dog were reunited with their dogs once they were over here in South Florida. So that was a heartwarming story, but it was true.

And, yeah, we are collecting supplies, you know, water, American Red Cross lists the things that they need and that's where we're partnered with Big Dog, I'm sorry, with American Red Cross so we have a someone's picking up on Monday, but I'm sure we're going to be doing more pickups after that. So many great stories. So many great, great stories.

God bless those people. We're so tightly connected with the Bahamas and we want to do so much. So thank you to everyone that's donated. Jay is giving us a call from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Jay.

Hey, everyone. I got a question. I have a 2009 ES350, about 120,000 miles. Engines in good condition. My mechanic has told me I've got brand new tires, a fairly brand new air conditioning system. At this point, I'm kind of undecided whether I want to continue and pay it off and then just run it into the ground or eventually sell it. I've got a bunch of little scratches on the paint. Is it worth it for me for a possible resale to, invest in either a low level or a mid-level paint job, or is that really just going to be for my own benefit? I think it's a bad idea. If you're really going to try to retail it, it might be something you think about, but generally the cost of a paint job is prohibitive, certainly the cost of a good paint job. Now, you can get a cheap paint job done, but then again, you risk having it worse than the car that had the scratches. You know, you can get an El Chippo paint job that looks okay from 200 yards. But when you walk up and look at it, you realize somebody with a brush is painted your card.

With a dirty mop. Yeah. We always, and if you're doing it, and if you're talking wholesale, it's definitely not something you want to do. I check, it's so easy, Jay, to check the price of a used car today. It's really become almost a science. It used to be purely an art, but you can get prices so easily. from online prices. We buy any car.com and Carvana

and there are a couple of other places out there. AutoNation has gotten into buying the car business. CarMax is in the buying the used car business. So you can very easily, in the comfort of your home and your computer, the smartphone, describe your vehicle online to four or five reliable, honest sources and get a real good handle on what that car's worth.

And that way you can make your decision. And, of course, this is a wholesale price, but it'll give you an idea of what you might want to retail it for. Okay. All right. I appreciate the advice. Thank you. Sure, thank you.

All right. We have one more text that came in. It's directed at me. So, Stu, how you feeling? I'm feeling good. I assume this is referencing my procedure. I don't know if you revealed what it was, but this has nothing to do with cars,

but I had surgery for hemorrhoids. Yes. And I am making it my mission to destigmatize that because at first it was a little bit embarrassing, and then I realized that's really childish. I mean, it was a real thing. Her hurt, it was uncomfortable, something I dealt with, and I went to my doctor,

and if you're suffering from hemorrhoids, I recommend you find a good colorectrial surgeon. I recommend Dr. Al-A-Zawi in Jupiter, Florida. He did a great job, and I feel great. Zahui. Al-Zawi. Great advice, too. It really is, just to take that stigma.

Don't be embarrassed. Don't suffer silently. No. You know, just shout it from the rooftops. I have hemorrhoids. Not anymore, though. Let's change this object See, you're re-stigmatizing it Yeah, you feel uncomfortable

But we're all cut up with text, all the car stuff We're ready to move on Well, Rick's got a text Yeah, I have a couple more But we're going to go to Rick Because he has been trying to get back to his From YouTube Waggle 90

Is asking When a manufacturer offers zero percent financing Is this for the term of the loan Or just a certain amount of months? It's the term of the loan and it's legitimate if it's offered by the manufacturer. And oftentimes when they offer the low interest or zero percent financing, there's an alternative in terms of a cash rebate.

But if the cash rebate, you look at the amount of the cash rebate and you weigh the amount of the cost of the car and you can just make it's an arithmetical decision is which one's better for you. You look at how much you're saving in finance interest at zero and how much the rebate is and how long you're going to. finance it and make a decision that way. If you fight them a bit, can you sometimes get both of those? No, the dealer will negotiate with you.

The factory won't. And if it's 0% offered by the dealer, it's a flim plan because the dealer would just be paying a lender somewhere to buy the rate down, they call it, to zero. So he might buy the rate down for $3,000. And he's going to take that $3,000. He paid the lender so he could tell you you're paying 0%, added to the price of the car. So don't believe dealers when they say 0%,

but you can believe the manufacturers. 877-960-99-60. I love to have you call us or text us at 772-497-3530. Okay, Jennifer asked, how can women, well, protect themselves from being ripped off by the mechanic, being ripped off in service. And before I turn this over to Rick, who can answer this question, I'd like to share with you, Jennifer.

I'm not sure whether you know it or not, but 50% of women come through service, and they take the responsibility of having their vehicle, the family's vehicle, repaired. And, you know, even though you weren't the, you know, chosen person to take care of all the repairs in your family, you can still do a few things to protect your from being ripped off, you know, in the service department. And I'll give that, send that over to Rick. I'll let him finish answering the question. The best way is ask questions, take notes on the answers, and if it seems a little odd, do a lot of research. Go Google it and find out because truth be told, even the men nowadays don't really have a great grasp of cars, their technology and the terminology. I always get three estimates from, you know, several different mechanics, find someone

you can trust for mechanics, but especially if there's something you don't quite understand or they say something that sounds like they're just throwing the terminology to try to confuse you, ask questions about it and ask them to show you what they're talking about and why it needs to be done on your car. Jennifer is, she's confused over the computer modules and all that sophistication that she's not up to date on and, you know, whether she would pay for something that she didn't need. Most folks can be very easily confused on that. And I would say if your car is running reasonably well, if it's running pretty decent and they're not talking about a safety issue, unless you've got a check engine light on

and it's something that they say could become a bigger problem and again I would research this and make sure that you know what they're talking about and get a couple different estimates and if it sounds like they're just being too pushy walk away take it somewhere else great advice Rick hope we helped you Jennifer

give us a call toll free at 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 772 4976530. I have something. I'll get over some texts too just got, but I have something I want to hold up for the viewers.

I know a lot of you are just listening. But I was so thrilled in automotive news, the current issue, headline, A Corvette dealer, Thou, I will not mark up. And there's a picture in the automotive news. And he's talking about

the new Corvette that's coming out. It's a mid-engine Corvette. probably one of the most highly sought lowest supply vehicles on the planet. And the Chevrolet dealers are marking this up tens of thousands of dollars, probably even more. There's one Chevrolet dealer who has made the position that I'm going to sell these Chevrolet Corvettes at MSRP. And I'm going to give you the name of this dealer. He's Les Stanford Chevrolet in Dearborn, Michigan. Less Stanford, S-T-A-N-F-O-R-D,

less Stanford Chevrolet in Dearborn, Michigan. Now, you might say, well, I'm in Miami, I want to buy a Corvette. Let me tell you, when you check with the Miami dealer, and you find out he just marked that Chevrolet up $50,000, you can fly to Dearborn and pick up the car or have a truck down. But if you want to buy a Chevrolet, he's probably the only Chevrolet dealer, not marking them up.

and you can use that maybe to negotiate with a closer dealer, West Stanford, Chevrolet, and Dearborn, Michigan. There you go. We're going to go to Fred. Nancy just got pulled over. We're going to go to Fred and Jupiter. I don't know if Fred heard that or not. Good morning, Fred.

Good morning, guys. How are you? Well, thank you. Quick question. I'm trying to give a friend of mine some advice. He has a Honda cord, 2011, with about 100,000 miles on it, and I've been telling his front ends making weird noises. So he went to a mechanic, and he's totally new front wheel bearings, both sides, for about $1,100. Is that about right?

Rick? Yeah, that actually is going to be about an average cost for both sides. uh by normally front wheel bearings what you'll hear is uh once the vehicle starts getting up to around 10 to 12 miles an hour you'll start hearing like a growling sound and it'll get louder and faster the faster you go yep yeah that's that's very likely going to be the bearings and 1100 unfortunately that's uh that's pretty much about the cost because of the the expense of the bearing themselves and the labor to get the bearing replaced. On the extended warranty or even a manufacturer's warranty, what would be the normal

coverage on the front wheel bearings, typically? Wouldn't cover it, I don't believe. Well, factory warranty on front wheel bearings on a front wheel drive car, Honda, I believe their factory warranty is five years, 60,000, same as Toyota, and because that's part of the drive line, those would be under the five-year $60,000. And you're right. We've got about $110,000.

It's got hard miles on it. Yeah. I guess he's stuck. There's no alternative. You've got to fix it, right? It's going to get worse. It could freeze up and cause a serious problem. Yeah, you might tell your friend that for an eight-year-old car, $1,100 is getting up

to the red line on how much money you want to spend. 1100 is probably okay. But if something comes up and things can have a kind of run together. You don't want to spend too much money on an eight-year-old car. Right. Yeah, and that could become a safety issue. I'll send them over to you. You give them a good trade-in, okay? Okay, thank you very much. Call again. Appreciate the call.

Thanks for it. Yes, sir. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-7-6-5-3. Now back to the recovering car dealer. No new text? Oh, we have one more. Okay. Earl, Nancy, and Crewe, is it true that auto accidents have declined in the state since the law on texting while driving went to effect?

It's from Mary and Ocala. I don't think so. I think it's too soon to say. And I doubt that it's going to have a significant effect, and that's just because I think it's a hard rule to enforce. and the police have got so many other things to worry about. You know, it's almost like speeding. You get a 9.95, and 99 out of 100 people are speeding. They're exceeding the speed limit.

You don't even have to get on 95. So there's so many things for the police to enforce. They don't enforce much of anything. They have to focus on crazy stuff. Like, you know, if you're doing 130, they'll pull you over. If you wreck your car or plow into somebody, they'll pull you over. If you're weaving noticeably and you're drunk, they'll pull you over. But you can get away with all sorts of stuff, and that's just the fact of life.

Yeah, and I think the law just went in effect in July, so it's only been three months. I did Google it just to make sure we had our fax rate. Can report that in 2018 accidents in Florida did decline. Obviously, it had nothing to do with the anti-texting law. The good news is they're projecting insurance rates to actually come down as a result of the lower amount of accidents in Florida so that's it's positive news but we got to give it time but i'm 100% with you earl uh i don't think it's going to do much because you got to enforce it yeah i think too that the drivers are becoming more educated you know and you know more concerned and

more aware rick well the the major difficulty that i saw on that law is enforcing it because the drivers are still allowed to use such things as uh maps apps are pardon of the uh unintentional rhyming there but an application for using a map such as Google Maps or Apple Maps and if someone simply says I was putting an address checking my map to find out where

I'm going there's still so many distractions is not allowed to ask to search their phone to see whether they were texting or using a map so what state was that that's Florida they were allowed

what state I read about that that's Florida the law in Florida I only really researched the one here in Florida the one that just came out it only applies to actually texting so if someone's using their phone for a map application then they're legal

so it makes the law almost unenforceable the police their hands are tied let's be more responsible on the road that's what I say 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We are going to go to Laurie, and she's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Hi, Lori.

Good morning. How are you today? We're doing great. What do you got on your mind? Okay. First of all, I want to say I really enjoy listening to your show, so women should definitely be calling, and I've encouraged a lot of my friends and tell them all about your show. Well, thank you. Very much, Laura. Okay. You're welcome.

Okay, so my question is about refinancing. I have a 2016 car paid a very high financing rate because my credit was not good at the time that I took out the loan. My credit has increased much better, and I've had a lot of offers about refinancing. So my question really is when I look at these terms of finance, you know, I'm going to be terms of financing, yes, the finance rate is lower, but it seems that the amount of time paying is longer. Is refinancing a good option? It can be, Lori, and I would, rather than follow the solicitations of refinancing, I would be proactive. If you bank or have a credit union,

I'd approach them. You could shop two or three banks. Are you affiliated with a credit union? I'm not affiliated with the credit. You can join credit unions. There's two or three if you Google that, that you can join for a nominal annual fee. And credit unions typically have lower interest rates than banks. But I'd go to two or three banks. I mean, you can go to Wells Fargo, Bank America, and another bank,

or the one that you personally deal with. But it does make sense to refinance. And congratulations on getting your credit up better, and you should take advantage of that. You mentioned the longer terms. The main thing that you need to focus on is the interest rate. The term is something, as long as you've got a good interest rate, sometimes a longer term is better. If you can get a really good interest rate, it's good to have a longer term. Because the cost of money, you can take the money that you're saving by not having to put it

a down payment or stretch the payments out longer, invest it, and oftentimes get a better return than the cost of financing the car. That's very true. I just need to hear it from another source. Well, thank you very much for the call, and we wish you the best of luck. Thank you, Lori. Thank you for being out there. 877-960-99-60.

That's 877-9-60. We're getting close to mystery shopping report time, but we do have a couple more text over there. Stu? Yes, we do. Jay from Jupiter, and she is a lady. I have a 2015 Jeep Wrangler Sahara with 36,000 miles, completely maintained by Jeep, cool rims, and an 85,000 mile extended warranty transferable, and it's never had a problem. Tell me what you think it's worth as I'm going to trade it in.

Well, I looked this up while we were waiting. But in good shape, it's worth probably around $25,000, but get three bids. Go around in Tulsa, trussing. Wholesale or retail? That's trade in value, yeah, wholesale. Wholesale. Yeah. So if retail on the vehicles around $28,000, but in good shape, you should probably get around $25,000.

And that's just, I'm looking at a computer program that we use. It's best to have an actual appraiser looking at it, and then after that, get a couple of more appraisals. That's what I said before. Jeep has a good resale value, and that sounds very strong, and, you know, it's hard to put the vehicle down if you can live with the cost of maintenance and repairs, and you're not worried about the safety. In her case, there were no issues. Yeah, very good.

Yep. Next one, this is from Don in Louisiana, and Don says, good morning, I'm watching you on YouTube. I learned a lot watching your YouTube show. It was instrumental in buying a 2016 accord for my son attending college. My question concerns rustproofing under the car. Actually, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. The area code is Louisiana, but he lives in Utah.

Okay. I thought it was clever. I live in Utah where they put salt on the road. How long does the factory last, and what is the best place to renew the undercoating? Thank you, Don. Then he adds, thank you. Your show is a national treasurer. And let's go on to the question.

That's so nice. You know, my feeling, and jump in here, Rick or Stu or Nancy. see if you don't agree. I think undercoding is a thing of the past that the manufacturers now treat their vehicles undercarriage to the point where you don't need to rustproof your...

I don't think there's anything additional that like a dealer or a distributor has to do to add to that. I think there's some measure of protection that's put on at the point of manufacturer. Maybe he's referring to that. Rick could probably address that. Generally, the vehicles are treated from the factory.

However, as an owner, If you're in an area that has a lot of road salt or if you live near the ocean where you get a lot of ocean salt getting under your car, one of the best things you can do is find a car wash that does an underbody wash. And even in the wintertime, go there often and get that road salt washed off. Because if you get it off the metal, you're not going to have that corrosion issues. Dumb question, Rick. If I'm doing what you recommend and I have an underbody wash,

What about the danger of shooting water up into the vehicle? As we say, don't speed through a puddle because you can hurt your engine. Is it possible the wash could go up to the wrong place? No, because they're designed to spray. It's not a super high pressure and not a great volume of water. And there aim more at the suspension components to try to get the spots where the rust would build up, where that salt might collect. I got sure.

Yeah, Don also added that he had a trade at his tooth out. to trade in his 2001 Honda cord because it was too rusted to repair. He gave it to his son and it lasted only a year before he traded in for the 2016. That's interesting, yeah. We're so lucky down here. We don't have the sold on the highways like that.

We do have, as Rick said, the salt in the air. I don't remember seeing any of our vehicles rusting underneath to the point where it would have been a problem, do you? Oh, yes. Tacomas and Tundras, but especially Tacomas, have had issues in the northern states where the frames are actually rusting. I'm talking about in Florida.

My point was... The big one we see here is salt from the ocean. And I have seen cars. As a matter of fact, I remember a Prius one time that came in, and the passenger side brake rotor and brake drum were so solid with the rust that the car almost couldn't move. Yeah, brakes. And the driver's side was clean as a whistle because one side of the car was always facing

towards the salt water. on it, yeah. Excuse me, we're going to go to Doug and Oli who are calling us from Boca. Is Olly on or is it Doug? Ollie's on, he has a... They're always together. Ollie has a question for us this morning. Good morning, Olly.

What's going on, Doug? How are you? We're doing fine. I just wanted to give you an update on my car that was struck by lightning. Oh, yeah. The service manager at Honda said he called me Thursday.

He said, Doug, I'm sorry to tell you, but State Farm just approved another $252.3.52. He says, let me tell you the status of the car. It'll start up, but it won't run. We can't get it to run yet. And it's been 30 days. So I said, do you guys really think that when this car is fixed and I'm going to want to take it back as a lease that's insane he says no

he says no if I were you I would refuse to take the car back but I mean I might have to right how do you get out of a lease when it's only been a year and a half two years

and it's a three year lease well I think that you know you also have State Farm to consider here I think you have a better bet by going after State Farm, you've got a witness now. We have the dealership who's saying that the car is damaged beyond the point that State Farm will reimburse you. And that violates the provisions of your insurance policy. It's protected against lightning, and that's one of the things in the policy.

And the expert, the Honda dealer, said we have to spend this much more money to get it fixed, and we might not be able to fix it. I think it's worth hiring an attorney. could fire an attorney that would do this on contingency because it seems to me like a slam-dunk case. Now, you're speaking to a person who has sued State Farm and won, and we sue them on behalf of our customers. The big thing that Farms got going for them is time, and they can drag their feet and drag their feet, which is eventually they're going to have to step up and do something. If we outweigh them and wait long enough, they've usually stepped.

up the plate and paid with the money we sued him for. So I would get a statement from the dealer. I have a lawyer. Okay. I do have a lawyer. There you go. The lawyer has called the claims adjuster. Actually, they call him the appraiser.

It's not a claim. They call the guy that's handling is called the appraiser. He's called him three times and he won't return the call. So what does he do now? You know, Well, I think you just have to put them on notice, and I think they're playing poker, and when they realize the best thing you could do, this would really be good,

if you could get the media involved, you've got the media involved right now. And we're talking about State Farm, and they're stonewalling, a claim that they should pay. Simple case, your vehicle was hit by lightning. Your policy covers the vehicle against being hit by lightning. The Honda dealer has said that you need more money to repair it, and it's possible it can't be repaired, and they should total the car. Now, State Farm says no. So right now, State Farm, if you're listening, there are thousands of people out there listening to this radio show, and State Farm is getting a black eye. I suggest that you step up to the plate and you help this man and do the right thing.

and if you can call channel 5 and channel 12 and channel 25 put it on Facebook and make a lot of noise but I tell my lawyer to go ahead and file suit against State Farm call in next week and we'll keep talking about it until we shame them into doing the right thing there you go okay I appreciate it all right Doug thanks thanks I'm sorry you're going through this it's got to be maddening well you know that I produce videos for a living so maybe there you go do something there too There you go. Come up with a doozy. That's great.

Thank you very much, Doug. Thanks, Doug. Stay in touch. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go into our mystery shopping mode, so to speak. Therefore, the 877960-9960 will be shut down, and you can get in touch with us at the 772-497-60 to vote on the mystery shop that we have from Wallace. Chevrolet. By the way, I sent you a picture. Don sent a picture of the Rust under his 2001 Corolla.

If you want to hold it up to the camera, I just text. It's pretty nasty. I've never seen anything that bad. You got the picture? Yeah, I'm trying to make it bigger. Oh, goodness. Just one touch. You better refresh that iPhone.

All right, we'll give up. We'll try. There's right here. Look at that. Wow. That's Dogg's vehicle. and I was hit by lightning. No, no, no, that's Don's

Rusty Corolla in Utah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. So many vehicles. So little time. Mr. Shopping Report. Wallace Chevrolet. They're in the Stewart, right, Mark Denley? Yep. The Takata problem is not going away.

We're three years into this awareness campaign and we still find week after week used cars for sale with deadly airbag safety defects. You know, we're never going to stop talking about this, folks. The regulators, the legislators, the car dealers, the auto manufacturers, a giant, and I hate using the word conspiracy. And I guess there's sometimes unaware conspiracies. The lobbyist, this is just such a terrible thing, three years.

When I say it, I gulp. I can't believe we've been doing this for three years. Our goal's been twofold to help alert. consumers to the dangers presented by the Takata Airbag inflator recall and to push our politicians and regulators to take stronger action to protect the public. Over these three years, I would say 99%

of the dozens of car dealers we mystery shop failed the Takata test. These failures presented themselves in varying degrees of severity. Some dealers outright lied and covered up the effect. Now, I say dealers, I'm talking about individuals within the dealership, car salesmen, sales managers.

Oftentimes, the owners of the dealerships may not be unaware or aware. I'm not sure. Maybe the general managers, the higher-ups aren't aware. But I do believe in this. The old, the buck stops here. The owners, the people who control businesses should be responsible. So when we go into a dealership and a salesperson, or does other things to deceive someone

into buying a car, they can kill them. I hold the owner responsible. I feel responsible in my dealership. I hold my managers responsible. They hold the salespeople responsible. But the buck stops with a guy that runs a place. These failures presented themselves in varying degrees. I said some dealers had a lot ride,

and they covered up. Some dealers disclosed the recall. but misled the shoppers about how to fix the problem. But all of them were willing to sell a dangerous car to the customer. It should be illegal to sell a car that is dangerous. It should be illegal. In fact, it is illegal to sell any product that's dangerous. How this is happening, I don't know.

Secondhand. That's the catch. Of the tiny minority who actually passed, this is my phone here. you all take care of that of the tiny minority who actually passed the decadot test and refused to sell the effective vehicle it's got to be Jim Powell

I was just going to say that one easy pay cars that's the only one easy the easy pay cars was the only one that passed the decadest and they passed it it brought tears to my eyes the salesperson

It was a Christmas miracle yeah the salesperson when he realized the car had a defective to cut airbag would not sell the car to our mystery shopper. I mean, it just gave a glimmer of hope that something was happening, that the tide was turning, but it's the only time it happened.

And that wasn't the Wallace Automotive Group. So Wallace, I'm not going to give Bill Wallace credit. I did at the time. I give this guy credit, the salesman. He had a soul, he had ethics, he had morality, he was a good person. He put the brakes on.

Yeah. Who in this, who do you know that would voluntarily sell a dangerous product to a buyer? A lot of people, folks. The Walls Group has had inconsistent results in our various messy shops of them. We've had some good sales experiences at their dealerships and some disasters. They have also done poorly with our Takata test. The one exception being they're buy here, pay here a lot, easy pay cars. I need to get the name.

We'll go back to the shopping report of this salesperson at ECP. When we located a used... There's Maurice. Maurice. Maurice, call me. Okay. Maurice, I'll be with you after the show. When we located a used 2013 Mercedes-Benz E-350 with a carter-air bag recall listed for sale at Wallace, Chevrolete-Seword, we knew it was time to go back.

The car listed online for $16,442. And doing our background preparation for this report, we ran into a second series issue that all consumers should be aware of, inconsistent reporting safety recalls. This is scary. Yeah. I mean...

Especially because we've been, well, continue. Yeah, I actually had a text the other day on my personal phone and they said, You know, you're saying over and over again to go to safercar.org, over and over again. Gov. Yeah, safercar.gov. Over and over again, people should know that. And this is interesting. If you're the texter, listen to this. Earl Steront Cars checks three sources every time we investigate a Takada vehicle.

Carfax or Auto Check. NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Safer Car. go, safercar.gov. And the manufacturer's website, so it could be Honda.com, Toyota.com, you know. In the past, we've discovered recalls that were reported on some sources, but not all. Man, oh man.

In this case, the Takata Airbag recall appeared on Mercedes-Benz's site and Carfax, but not. Correct. Safercar.com. You'd think the government would be Mr. reliable but in this case here safer card did not go did not have it isn't it incumbent on the manufacturer to report these to to the government like it doesn't originate with the manufacturer and then they report the the problem to the government you know I don't know that's interesting

maybe the manufacturers allow the government to access their database yeah and just like true car can access database government could access by demand say we require And I'm not sure. I think the ultimate authority, I mean, the most reliable source is the manufacturer's site. Yeah. I would say so. But even then, I'm nervous about that. Remember, the manufacturer doesn't know that the recall has been performed until the dealer reports it.

So you could perform it and not report it correctly or not reported at all. Yeah. And knowing this, we really have to emphasize the need for everyone who should, checks their VIN for recalls to check the manufacturer site in addition to safercar. Go. Stu, you got another point? No, no, I made my point. Okay.

We gave Agent Thunder. Our current number one man was given the assignment. And speaking of number one men, I know Nancy's thinking this, even though she's not saying this. When are we going to have a female, Mr. Chopper? We had a couple this year already, Agent N. And we'll get her back in the field again. Yeah, we need a woman for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it's just the right thing to do. And secondly, I do believe that women are treated a little differently. It used to be they were treated a lot differently. And there's some car dealers out there that still would treat them a lot differently. And if we could get to 50-50 on mystery shopping reports, female and male, and we could... I think it would go a long way. It would go a long way, yeah. Okay.

Here's the report, speaking, is if I were Agent Thunder. I called Wallace Chevrolet prior to my departure to make sure the Mercedes E350 would be there when I showed up. I was put through to the sales manager who put me on hold to check. He was back on the line quickly with good news. The car was there. I said I'd be there within one hour. I walked into the showroom around 3 p.m. I found a couple of men sitting at a desk near the entrance.

I assumed they were salespeople, but they were actually sales managers. One of them was a guy I spoke to on the phone. He asked me to wait until he found a salesperson. The manager came back, introduced me to J.B., a neat young man wearing a crisp white shirt and a very loud and very brightly colored tie. J.B. pointed across the lot and said, the car's over there. He said he needed my driver's license before we got started. I handed it over, and he led.

Jeff, J.B. returned in a few minutes, asked me to go with him. We found the car. He asked if I wanted to drive, I said, sure. As I got in, I noticed that the sticker price was $22,995, $6,000 higher than the online price. $6,400 higher. Yeah, quite a bit. 6400. Now listen carefully to this. Very interesting. As we headed down U.S. 1, I complimented the car and the how well it drove I mentioned that I was concerned about it I'm talking about the part where we oh that comes later I comes later okay well stay tuned because I'm talking about remember the way J.B rationalized the price because $6,400 difference between the online price and the price on the car so this is really interesting when J.B. explains that so I start with the three questions that we always ask on the Ticada airbag shops. Number one, were there any mechanical issues that I asked J.B. if he could tell me about.

J.B. didn't think so, but he said he'd find out when we get back to the dealership. I waited until we returned to ask the second question. Has this car been in an accident? Question number two. J.B. didn't know and reiterated. I'll tell you when we get back to the dealership. We found a desk, sat down. I asked him why the Here it is. Listen, this is really interesting. I asked him why the price on the window sticker was so much higher than the price I saw online on the web.

On the website, J.B. laughed and said, they have to price them lower online. But if they have the chance to make more money on someone who doesn't go online, that's just how it works. He was honest, I guess. Now, this so nicely sums up the whole problem with car dealers today.

And here's J.B., a young salesman, and he's not even ashamed of this. Yeah, so it's the way it works. It's the way... It is what it is. It is the way we do business. So car dealers put prices online, and they have different prices on the cars on their lots,

and they have different prices that they give to the salespeople to tell you what the price is. is and that's just the way it is and they put much higher prices on the cars that are in the dealership and the salespeople for salesmen quote you you know what they do this this actually happens I've heard this before somebody comes in pays the the window sticker price the you know the 6,000 plus premium over the online price and then they scramble to remove the listing off the website so they don't go home and check it online yeah that happens yeah so so if you forget and you go

go into the sales dealership asked to speak to an internet salesperson, you're better off just to go online and look at the prices or caught to an internet salesperson. You got your phone right there. If you go to the dealership, stand by the car, pull it up online, you'll see the difference. Two-tier pricing. You're absolutely crazy to ask a salesman what's the price of the cars, and you're absolutely crazy to look at the prices on the used cars, and most dealers don't have the prices on the cars so you just have to go online and get the online price and then look for the fine print

because even the online price is going to have hidden fees and sometimes you can find them in the fine print sometimes you can't typical in the fine print they'll say plus dealer fees but they don't tell you how much it is so online is the only way to go but even then caveat mTOR i still said i needed to get the answers to the questions i had about the car i told my I want to know if there are any safety issues that should concern me. And that's question three. J.B. said he'd get the Carfax report. He returned with some papers, announced that it was a clean Carfax report, which was good news.

Clean Carfax is a slang, is an expression, and it is meaningless. That's because it means nothing. Yeah. Clean Carfax just means that there's something okay with a car, but it doesn't tell you what's not okay with a car. Clean Carfax may be it hasn't been an accident. Clean Carfax might be it hasn't been an accident where the airbag deployed. Clean Carfax might be. No branded title.

No branded title. Clean Carfax is meaningless. Read the Carfax report. He has it. The salesperson has it in his hand. Ask him for it and then read the whole thing. Looks good. Yeah, yeah.

He handed it to me, the Carfax, and began to tell me about how all their used cars go through a rigorous inspection. He was going into detail. I mean, the inspection is 123 checkpoints, 147 checkpoints. Everybody's got a whole bunch of checkpoints. The question is, did somebody really look at it? They don't. Trust me, they don't.

I interrupted him and asked him about the recall of the report. I interrupted him. and he just told me it was a clean car fax. This probably never really happens. And no one actually goes, hey, tell me about this. Yeah, people don't do that. J.B. said it was a pretty common thing and not to worry about it. He said all I had to do was take it to a Mercedes dealer for a quick repair.

He said they would have it done, but it has to be done by the manufacturer's dealership. It doesn't have to be. You take the car to the Mercedes dealership from the Chevrolet to the, and you have it. done. Car dealers sublet use cars all the time. Anytime they have warranty work, they take it to the manufacturer and they do it. Because they don't want to pay for it.

Exactly. And the fact that they don't take it for safety campaign tells you two things. They're so anxious to sell the car fast. They don't want to waste their time. They'd rather risk your life than waste their time. And the other

reason, they just don't care. So, no excuse here. I accepted that, nevertheless, and we moved on to numbers. I asked if he could drop the price to $16,000, even, rounded off to $16,000. J.B. said he didn't know. You have to ask his manager. Just then the manager walked by. I shouted to him, hey, would you take 16 even if I take it today? Asia Thunder's really getting into the swing of things, isn't he? He feels like a car guy now.

Right. Yeah. The manager stopped, looked over to me and said, deal, plus, plus, plus, I love it. That's great lingo right there. Yeah, sling. We go out of slang. You should be writing this down.

I should do a book, another book, a car vernacular. I think we have a glossary. Don't we have a glossary in confessions of recovering car dealer? Yeah, but I need to expand. We need up to it. Yeah, plus plus means, no, that's not really going to be the price because we're going to add a bunch of stuff to it.

Actually, it's more meaningful than it. Plus plus plus plus means tax tag and fees. Plus tax tag and fees. Fees. That's a. And then there's a, you can further break down fees into other pluses. Yeah, right. Plus plus plus plus. Exactly.

Okay. I waited for a buyer's order and J.B. produced a semi-itomized worksheet. Uh, sale price was 16,000. They added a $699 dock fee, a $579 in non-eatimized. Tax fees, non-tax, that is hidden fee. More fee, yeah, more hidden fees. If it's non-tax, it's profit to the dealer. But when I asked him, he said it was for a new plate.

Yeah, he wrote it down on there. Which, by the way, when they lump them together into non-tax fees, that is the classic hidden fee. Because it's one sum, but that's further broken down to it a bunch of other BS. And that totals, if you're interested, $1,278. $699 plus $1,279 is 1278 in hidden fees. And by the way, this is a worksheet. And another common, almost standard procedure now is never have the buyer sign a legal document.

The vehicle buyer's order is a legal document. And that's in the accounting administrative, F&I, business, whatever they want to call it, where you go in that little room, and you're in there alone with a guy with a computer and that's when the real legal documents are spit out by the computer and that's

where extra fees and hidden fees even more hidden fees are shown but you don't see them. They're invisible because they're in the fine print. I would demand to see an illegal document before I and read it

carefully before I signed anything. I put my wife on the speaker phone to aid in my escape, speaking as Agent Thunder. I told her I found her perfect car, got a great deal. She feigned delight, said I need to come pick her up so she could sign in with me. J.B. looked happy when I left. So here we are.

Classic Takata test failure, little to no disclosure, and to me almost obvious deception, because he had it in his hand, and when I asked him about the Takata Airbag, he immediately acknowledged it, which means he'd seen it, but he hadn't mentioned it. So that is deliberate deception. And now we're to the vote time.

We've got to decide how we want to rank Wallace, Chevrolet, and Martin County, Stuart Florida. All right. Well, we have some grades coming in online, texted in already. We have Barry gives him an F. D. Neenie gives him an F. Ed gives him a D minus, minus. Wanda G. G. Gizm. F. Josh gives him an F.

Wonder if that's my brother. And Sandy W. Gizum and F. And I'm waiting for Linda, and here she is. A huge F. What a bunch of bull. Well, I'm not surprised, frankly. Do we have any online here? Not at the moment, but we're watching for them. Okay, let's poll the control room staff.

Nancy? Another disappointing mystery shopping report from Wallace Chevrolet. I give them an F. Yeah, I'm kind of concurring with that. They hand them the Carfax report, so they could claim it was disclosed, but it wasn't. And Agent Thunder had it pointed out. So F. Rick?

Let's see. We've got Mark giving a D-minus, and Frank giving an F. And myself, I'm going with F because he basically just threw that Carfax and to the side, he ignored it. Yeah, I didn't like that one. I've got to fail it, too. And I hate to do it from a personal standpoint because Bill Wallace, I've known him for many years. I'm not saying he's a personal friend,

but I consider him an honest man. He had a Ford dealership many years ago. His father had a Ford dealership in Del Rey. And he sold out to Auto Nation a long time ago. He was out of the business for a long while because he had a non-compete. And then the non-compet expired, and he opened up a whole bunch of dealerships.

he has a lot of dealships, I'm going to say 7 or 8, and mainly in Martin County. But he's a good man. And I think it's a common tale where people expand to a point where it's difficult to keep your hand

on the pulse of things. And Bill, I hope you're listening because I think you need to take tighter controls on the people that are selling your vehicles, especially for these to cut airbags. And it would be very easy for you to screen these cars.

If you want to sell a car with the car with the kind of airbag, get it fixed first. Send it to the dealer and have the work done. If the car doesn't have a fix available, wholesale it. I know this is something that you would do, and I respect you for what you do. I feel bad about having to fail Wallace Chevrolet, but we're taking them off the list of recommended dealers. Your salespeople need to be trained. Remember, they're on commission. Your managers are on commission.

It has to be a tight penalty to someone that openly makes a mistake. I think the bulk of the blame here goes with your used car manager because he put that vehicle on the lot in the first place. The car should be noted that it has a Ticada airbag that's been fixed and the salespeople should be informed. Yeah, and we have a few more grades that came in that are just all concurring. We have an F from J, we have an F minus from Rich, and then we have another F. And here's this from, no name on it, but another F just came in.

And also just incidentally, we also have a lo-ho from Hawaii. And we'll get to the question next week because we're getting close to running out of time, I think. Okay. Well, go ahead. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, you can download my affidavit, finally a tool for an honest price from a car dealer. And you can do so at www.w.W.W. Out the Door affidavit.com. It will serve you well. Erl on Cars has got that for download, too.

So do you have anything to add? Yeah, as long as we got a minute I'll hold up. I know Roger Dean Chevrolet thinks I'm picking on him, but I love picking up his newspaper. He's the only cartil that advertises in the Palm Beach Post anymore. And it's always fun to look at his fine print, and his fine print always says must qualify for all rebates and assign a dealer, and it says dealer fee, but it doesn't tell how much, and all the old tricks,

at least here with only 10,000 miles per year added. So I'm not picking on you, Roger Dean Chevrolet, but your fine print is much easier to read, and that's the reason I read it. Buy or beware. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars. We'll be right back here next Saturday morning.

Same time, have a wonderful weekend. Oh! Oh! .