Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.16.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Schumacher Volkswagen of North Palm Beach

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Volkswagen dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2024 VW Atlas Cross Sport SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is 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 show. Good morning, everybody.

Well, we're back. All of us are back. We got Stu, and we got the whole crew here. Rick Kearney, Nancy Stewart, Jonathan Canter. We're in the studio here in North Palm Beach, Florida, and we're raring to go. I've been in this business a long time, as most of you regular listeners know, and I have never been through an era like this, a relatively short era of revolution in the automotive business. It's going crazy.

This is even a minor event, UAW strike. I missed that. I didn't think it was going to happen, but it did the big three. And we can talk about that this morning. It's going to affect some people, not as much as you might think, in my opinion. This whole electric vehicle revolution is just absolutely, I know a lot of you folks out there are still of the mind that it just ain't going to happen. I mean, cars are cars and combustion engines are really good things, and they've been around a long time, and they do a great job. And you're right about all that.

But I'm telling you, electric vehicles are coming, and we have got a lot of evidence to prove that. So we'd love to hear from you. We can sit here and talk, and we do talk too much. I do. I know that. And we prefer to hear from you. It's important that you have your views be told. You can either do it by calling the show, or you can text the show, or you can do it online, Facebook, YouTube.

We've got a lot of ways that you can contact us. And that's what makes the show. It's very tempting for us, because we love to talk. And there's all sorts of good new things to talk about. But really, your questions are what the reason the show exists. If you didn't have questions, we wouldn't have a show. And we have some extremely articulate, intelligent folks out there that are regulars. We'd love to hear some new folks, too, because we get into a rut.

think I had a tap on my shoulder. If it wasn't accidental, we probably have a caller. Is that true? No, it was accidental. Stop talking. Nothing like live talk. Everything is just off the cuff here. And I thought Nancy had tapped me because what we do, if we have a call, is we stop.

And if we're talking about something else, we go to the call, the audio telephone call. Let me make that clear. And that telephone number, you might want to make a number. another of this, that telephone number to call the show is 877-960-99-60. 877-9-60-9-6-0. We like those calls. They're just more interesting, and they're more human. They're more, I don't know what the word is, but live radio is exciting. Then we have the text number, which is 772-4976530 at 772-4976530. I'm a texter.

I actually get a lot of live phone calls personally and business-wise, and because I get so many, I prefer text because with text, you cut to the chase, you express your view, and, you know, you can play with a little bit. be sure you get it exactly right. That's my mentality. I like text. So if you're like me and you just want to get your thought into the show and answered, it will be likely answered.

Stu Stewart accumulates those during the show. And if we're talking on the phone or doing something else, we can archive that during the show. And we get to almost all of our texts. I'll say all of our texts usually during the show. With two-hour show, we're on from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. Eastern standard time right here in North Palm Beach, Florida. So, Texas is 772 4976530 and YouTube. I mentioned that. YouTube.com slash Erwin Cars. Check that out.

Rick Kearney, who is our certified diagnostic master technician, he watches that. So he sees the post right away. And he can, oops, just got a real cap on the shoulder, not accidental. Hey, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to go right to the phones as we have several calls backed up. I want to thank you for joining us. We're going to go straight to Lance, and he calls us from Tennessee Weekly. Good morning, Lance. What's your song this morning?

Well, it's a good song. It may be a big head, I'm not sure. But all we're talking about texting. You know, up here in the hill, if we text one day, We're having a little problem hearing you. It sounds like you're going in and out, Lance. Oh, I'm sorry, can you hear me do you now? Yeah, that's a little better.

Yeah, you're kind of a, are you on a regular phone or a car phone? Car phone. Can you hear me, can you hear me better? now yeah very well thank you coming through all right I'm sorry and I just saying you were talking about texting you know up here we if you text one day you will get in about two weeks still don't he said when you text one day you'll receive it two weeks later wow how'd you hear that I thought you said texting well I listen to engines

Okay. I tuned in just a little bit late. Has anybody talked about the auto worker's drive? Not yet. It just came up, just briefly, Azaral was kind of touching on how crazy the car business has been and actually describing the UAW strike as a minor thing compared to some of the size week. Let me clarify that. Obviously, it's the news of the day. Everybody's excited about it.

First of all, the General Motors Ford and Stalandis, aka Chrysler Jeep, dealers have a lot of cars the average big three dealership has over a 60 day supply of cars so my guess is they anticipated the possibility of this and they built their inventory up

so right now the question last week that I missed I said there won't be a strike should I buy a car right away before the strike happens and I said no I'm right that you shouldn't I bought a car right away because there are plenty of cars in the big three inventories now

If you want to buy Japanese, Asian car, Korean, Japanese, you've got a different problem there. So they did strike, fortunately, for the buyer, they struck the manufacturers that have the most cars in dealer stock. Well, I can't let the morning pass away this morning without a little quick pendulum. Okay, we're ready. Well, if you want to talk to cars, buy ourselves. Me call on Earl And he gets up early Just to get the news

Oh, lots of friends You bet Good advice You'll get Earl Stewart on cars You know, Lance I would like to ask your permission To take the podcast And use that in our marketing

I think we need a better quality audio Well yeah, we'd have to clean it up a little a little bit, but, yeah, we can do that. Yeah, yeah, I can do that. So is it okay if we run that as like Oral on Cars advertisement? Oh, you can run it at any place, but please make sure you run it in some real good,

popular beer, good lunch. Okay. Thank you, Lance. I'll have a great day, thanks. You too, my friend. Thanks, Lance. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497.

6530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. I have a whole lot more to share with you, but we're going to stay with the phones. We have several calls backed up. We're going to go to Bob in Lake Worth. Good morning, Bob. Welcome. Hey, good morning. I think Mr. Earl kind of hit on my subject also. I've been in the market for a used car. I've been waiting to the prices to come down. So now I've got $192,000. I'm in 192,000. I'm in 192. thousand miles on my 2010 genesis. Should I keep waiting or is time to pull the trigger? I'm hoping I'm getting a sticker shock on used cars. Well, you know, they're coming down much slower than new car prices are. And the reason is a real shortage of used cars because of the lease situation. The lease has dropped way off and they're not a lot of lease comebacks, which were a major source of cars for dealers. So I wouldn't recommend, I think, you just got to shop,

you have to look at buying a car costs from two standpoint. One is you're depriving yourself of something you want and need. So I would say shop around carefully, and you can find yourself a good buy-on-a-use car. I'd look at consumer reports. I'd find a good car based on safety and reliability, economy, and shop around, and I think it gets yourself a good buy. Use cars depreciate anyway less than new cars. And normal times, if you can remember back when times were normal, I always recommended that a used car is a much better value than a new car.

So I would say yes, I would say shop around carefully and find a car that not only you like, but consumer reports like and go ahead and make the purchase and take your time two or three weeks serious shopping you can probably find a good buy what do you think about was it off lease going out do you think that's going to change the market any with those cars coming on or not we talk about them a lot on this show but you know we're got to remember we're international now there's only i think six or seven off lease only locations or they're only in florida in Texas. They were a big factor in Florida. I would say they're

second biggest to CarMax, but only of the state they're in is Texas. So if you're in Florida, it'll have a temporary effect, but... Remains to be seen. Yeah, not much. We'll see, because we'll know that every used car manager in South Florida used off lease only as

an excuse for why business was so bad. So if business gets better, you know, we'll let you know. Thank you so much. Hey, have a great day, guys. Thanks for help. Bye. Thank you, Bob. 877-960. And ladies, you can win yourself $50 this morning by giving me a call. First, two new lady callers, $50. Maybe you could share with me how you negotiated for your vehicle, whether you went with used, lease, whether you went with new by purchasing it. But it's a, it can be a whirlwind experience out there. So give us a call at 877-9-66. 9960, and we're going to go to Bob in Lake Park. Good morning, Bob.

Good morning, good morning, good morning, everyone. How's everyone this morning? Good morning, Bob. Yeah, welcome back, Stu. Thank you very much. I see our friend Terry Tyler just purchased the Nissan dealership on Blue Heron and I-95, and now he has three of them in all the same general vicinity. And I was wondering, I was wondering, the manufacturers don't have a problem with that?

I think if dealers do a pretty decent job, meaning volume, the dealers, you know, the manufacturers don't care about how dealers sell cars. Now, I know I'm upsetting a lot of people because, especially in the manufacturing division, probably in the distribution division, but they pay lip service to we want honest, transparent dealers. The name of the game with manufacturers is how many cars does a dealer sell. Terry Taylor's dealerships saw a lot of cars. In fact, I'm going to show up for people that are streaming. It's like I copied this out of automotive news. Terry Taylor just bought a ski cottage in Aspen, Colorado, $76 million. So that's how good Terry Taylor's business is.

It looks like the palace at Versailles. Yeah. But I mentioned that last week. You said that he won a big lawsuit against Mercedes. Yeah, that's how he got his first $200 million. No, I don't know what he's worth. He's very secretive guy. He's like, you remember Howard Hughes, you know, billionaire.

He's kind of like an automotive version of Howard Hughes. Nobody knows where he is, what he does, what he looks like. What he looks like. And he names all his dealership, something else. and Stu has done a lot of research because we mystery shops and dealerships a lot as you know and a lot of times we know who owns it

and we get a Terry Taylor dealership we can't find out who owns it I'm always trying to find out who the owner is and it's like usually it's like a day-long process to find out if it's still out. So it's very unusual for billionaires and multi-millionaires to be so secretive but he is

some people are just like that and matter of fact for those who have and heard the story. Terry Taylor, I got a few hundred million from Mercedes many, many years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, and because he got punitive damages on Florida because they refused to allow him have a Mercedes open point. The reason I know the story so well is my attorney, his name is Jim Adams. He also retired to Lake Tahoe because he got 40 percent of the judgment.

So it created two multi-millionaires, my lawyer, and Terry Taylor. And they both retreated to like ski resort parents and bought mansions. So he remains a mystery man, Bob. Do you have anything else to share with us?

Yes. On your website where you have the grades, has been any thought on putting the dates in on when these dealerships were shocked? Yeah, you're right. We talked about something similar to that because that's the most recent shop.

That's the greater of the most recent shop. And you're right, it's not dated. We were thinking about going back, but this would be a very difficult process and like calculating a grade point average because it changes. You know, that each mystery shop is just a snapshot in time. And we could have probably gone back the next day and maybe been better or worse. So it would be an undertaking. But what you can do is.

on the same page when you link over to read the actual mystery shops, they're all dated. Oh, okay. So if you, you know, it's easy to you can do like a little command, you know, control F or command F search function.

Once you get to, then you can find them instantly if you just type in the dealer's name. And I just, I happen to see one of the new Toyota crowns. Yeah. Believe it or not. And it was not too far from your dealership

down on North Lake and US 1. And it actually looked pretty nice from behind. Yeah. I don't know it was a pretty nice looking vehicle. I didn't really care for the profile on it. They did something on the side there. They put some of this black gloss

trim on the sign, which to me, I never really care for that on any part. There's a few, yeah, I saw some of them have that and then some look a little bit more ordinary. I like the ones that are a little bit more ordinary. Is that hybrid that car? Yes. It is.

Yeah, all of them are. Was that yesterday you saw it, Bob? geez you got not could have been yesterday might have been Earl and I driving the crown which I was pretty impressed with I lost another tire my Tesla

oh so that we put you in a crown yeah Jason lady thought it would be a good idea because of my Avalon and wanting to maybe test drive the crown but Bob it's pretty impressive they're all hybrids and then

Toyota is coming out with one next fall spring called the Crownsignia which is yet another SUV but it's a very it's a luxury SUV so oh all right because I saw Toyota said they were going to build something for

$170,000 dollars doesn't sound like a Toyota that might have been a century did you read about that in the newspaper I saw it somewhere 170 thousand a Toyota yeah this past week

yeah that's the Sentry is for the royalties, and they're making it available for us. Bob, it was great talking to you. I've got some calls backed up. Is it for the emperor? Enjoy the show. Thank you very much. Have a great day, and happy New Year to all my Jewish friends.

Happy New Year. Happy New Year's all. Happy New York, Shana. 5,022, right? I think so. You sure it's not 23? Okay, ladies, we have $50 for the first two new lady callers. $50.

Share your experience with us, or just get you. Give us a call to say hello. I believe that I lost a female caller, and if you'll give me a call back, I'll take your call right away. We're really backed up. We're going to go to New Jersey for a first time caller, and that is Eileen, I believe. Did I pronounce your name correctly? Yes, hi, you did. Good morning.

Welcome. Good morning. You won yourself $50 this morning if you'll stay on the line when we're finished talking. You can speak to Jeremy, and he'll get your contact information and give it to me, and I'll get you that check for $50. Congratulations. Thank you. What can we do for you this morning? I was recently in Florida, which is how I got to the radio show.

I was purchasing a condo with my husband, and we're trying to figure out whether we should have a car down there or not. Like, I'm worried about leaving it for a stretch of time. what are your opinions on that well it's a good idea if you if you do have your purchase a vehicle and it's a second car down here in Florida you know there's a lot of precautions that you can take to protect it so it'll start when you get

in it if you've left it for a certain amount of time and Rick probably has some good advice the really difficult thing is if it's possible is finding someone that can drive the car for you just a short distance while it's kind of sitting a lot and if not the best device is a battery tender that can either plug in the wall or use like the solar charger style that will help keep that 12 volt battery charged up and uh aline i know from experience uh as a matter of fact just recently uh i had to have my avalon to

My battery was dead, and I live here all year round, but it's really important what Rick said. That's probably the most important aspect of the whole, you know, plan that you have, and that's getting someone to take the car out and drive it and give it that exercise. Okay, and that the battery tender, is that just at, like, a normal automotive parts store? Yes. You can get them on Amazon, Walmart, just about everywhere. Why do they cost it, Rick? They can go anywhere from $30 to $35 up to $80, $90.

Oh, not a bad investment, then. No, not at all. It's a good thing to have, and it's even better if you use it, which I didn't. So thank you for helping us build this platform here for the ladies. We're an important part of this industry. Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Ely. Stay on the line.

The call didn't come back. So I'm going to go ahead and let everyone know that we do have a dog this morning. And later on in the show, you know, you'll see the video. His name is Max, and he comes to us via video from Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And you can go to Big Dog Ranch, W. W.W. Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org and you can take a look at Max, who is a yellow Labrador, and he's seven years old, I think. Yes, he's seven years old. And you can view all of the dogs that are up for adoption. And she's, what a great organization they are out there at Big Dog Ranch.

if you haven't had a chance to go out and take a look around geez it's really worth your while and then we have our mystery shopping coming up from Schumacher so my young lady didn't call back so we're going to go back to we're going to go to Stu or Rick if you have anything for us well we always have

Anne Marie's text waiting as soon as I log in and the first one I always see is Amory because it's an alphabetical order actually no she said the first text I was kidding. Amory says, good morning. I'm hoping you can solve a mystery for me, or at least give a good guess, an explanation. I was driving down the interstate the other day when four brand new pickup trucks passed by me. None of them had tags. Not a temporary tag, not a transporter tag, not a dealer plate, nothing. These were showroom fresh vehicles, identical make and model, just different colors. I have no idea what brand they were. Waze did not indicate. that there were any police in the area, so presumably the trucks are not stolen or undercover. Number one, do you have any idea of what was going on? Number two, do dealers or distributors ever drive brand new vehicles from place to place without any tags or license plates?

Just wondering. I have two hypotheses, the only ones I can think about, because I read this about five minutes ago. One, they were taking a chance and risking it because it was a short drive, or, you know, Two, it was an oversight, and then somebody screwed up and didn't put plates on it. Because I cannot think of any situation from a manufacturer, fleet transfer, anything, where you were driving a vehicle on the roads without a license plate. I think what happens is the cops in the vicinity of car dealerships are so used to seeing salespeople and customers having demonstration drives

that it's not worth their time. And the problem is there's such a high turnover in car dealerships that once they explain it to one salesman, the next one is going to do the same thing. So it's kind of bad for the dealers because if you are a thief, you can hop in a car and be driving as long as you don't get too hard from automotive road. Do we have a delay here or I'll just hold all the car thieves

and how to do it? It sounds more like a dealer trade. having, you know, three brand new cars on an interstate driving together. So it sounds like somebody was, you know, ground stock trading between dealerships and they forgot to put the plates on. That's my guess. Okay, we're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Connie, who is calling us from Central Florida.

She's a first-time caller. Welcome to the show, Connie. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Good morning, Connie. You won yourself $50 this morning, and, When we're finished speaking, if you would stay on the line and give Jeremy in the control room your contact information, he can pass it along to me, and I'll get that check out to you. I want to thank you for helping us build the female audience, and it's off to a great start this morning.

Thank you, Connie. What can we do for you? Thank you very much. Yes, I have a question for Rick. I just bought a 2023 Toyota Rathmore hybrid and it now has

almost 6,000 miles and I've read that the first oil change is at 10,000 miles now. Isn't it supposed to be 5,000? Nope. What should I do? Your first tire rotation is due at 5,000 miles

and first oil change at 10. Okay, so what happened to the whole, five, every 5,000 or six months, oil changes. Well, synthetic oil happened. With synthetic oil, it's every 10,000 miles. So you still come in every 5,000 miles for a tire rotation. And then every other tire rotation, you're getting an oil change as well.

I see. So it doesn't in any way reduce the longevity of the car. I plan to keep it until the wheels fall off. Not at all. probably last longer now well actually remember with a hybrid the gasoline engine doesn't run all the time so it's actually getting less than 10,000 miles

but they still keep it and change it every 10,000 I see interesting okay is there anything else I need to do especially because it's a hybrid? Enjoy it? You know Connie that's a really great question Is there anything else you have to do? You know, it's amazing how the vehicles are being built today.

And because you decided to spend a little more for a hybrid in the long run, the cost of maintenance is going to be, well, you're definitely going to see a great savings. And you made a great choice. And there's, you know, in the consumer report, you know, there's more talked about hybrids, EVs, and the cost initially you're going to spend on a vehicle, but applying your negotiating skills will also help in that aspect, but the money that you're going to save yearly. So congratulations.

Thank you. It was actually serendipitous because we were waiting before, we had to replace our very old van, which we love, but we were waiting for a raft, and it took forever. as you know. Yes. And this was last year, and one came in, but we couldn't pull the trigger because we were in the middle of a big decision.

And so then we had to wait for another one, which was several months later. And then a hybrid came up as an option, and I never even thought about it. And the hybrid was going to come in maybe a little bit sooner or something. So I thought, okay, why not? And it's been the best. Oh, my goodness. It drives amazing. it's just a great car yeah well it's it's great isn't it whenever you make a decision and you realize

how happy you are that you made that decision and you made a good one yeah yeah thank you well thanks for the advice appreciate it you're welcome connie spread the word we want to build a platform here for the ladies 877 960 9960 and you can text us at 772-4976530 and you can text us at 772 4976530 and you can get in touch with us also at Your Anonymous Feedback.com. You know, I've tried to mention this every week Saturday in, Saturday out, about Big Dog Ranch. And if you don't know it, you know that Big Dog Ranch is the largest, the largest cage-free, no-kill shelter in the United States. And what a job that they do out there. You know, they take in dogs that are.

abused, abandon, anything that you can think of neglected, and, you know, the shelters are overwhelmed right now with so many dogs, so you could do your part by, you know, adopting or fostering, but I'll get back to that later on. We're going to go back to Stu. Okay. We have another similar question, and this is from Bob. Can a hybrid car sit for three weeks without a trickle charger? Three weeks would be pushing it a little, but I think it still

be safe. I'm going to say yes, and I have a real world experience on this. It will go into sleep mode, the smart key system, and all the computers, after they've sat for several days, they will go into a sleep mode, and it'll basically stop

automatically looking for the keys. So sleep mode is good. Right, because then When you come up to the car, if you use the remote and actively press the button, it'll wake it up almost immediately. But when you come up and grab the door handle and try to use the smart entry like that, it may not activate the first couple times. You may have to grab it a couple times to get it to wake up. Well, that happens sometimes anyway. Yeah.

I guess, I don't know. No, my real world experience is my daughter has a Camry hybrid, and she's off at college, and her car sits in the driveway. and it had been definitely over three weeks and I had to use it and so I went in there and opened up, started, and drove it. I didn't listen to your advice, Rick. You're supposed to have somebody exercise the car, but it got some exercise.

I have a hybrid question for Rick, too. I hadn't driven, Nancy and I hadn't been in the Crown, the new Toyota Hybrid, and when I got my flat tire and my Tesla yesterday, I had to drive another car home, so I drove the Crown. we hadn't driven the crown. And I didn't notice the automatic braking from the accelerator that I get in the Tesla. Of course, the Tesla is all EV, but it's not the same.

It's not the same. It's still kind of designed to feel like a regular gas car. You take it off and you'll coast. Yeah. It doesn't happen. You don't feel the braking on the hybrid? Not nearly as much on the crowd, especially. I've driven one a little bit.

I'd take one out for a test drive that I kind of extended into like a three to five mile drive because I got to tell you, that's a nice car. Well, I was driving it, and I said, Nancy says, is this a hybrid? I said, I don't think so. And then I said, oh, yes, it is. It's so quiet. Yeah. But it was the automatic braking was totally undetectable.

You know, even on your Tesla, there's a mode you can go in. There's a braking mode, if you want. want to like get down into the thing. And you can adjust it so it doesn't have that as intense of that automatic braking. Oh, I like it. Oh, yeah. I played around with it and I went back to just the way it comes because you use it as a break and I think it's more efficient a way to drive a car.

So, Rick, to your answer about the hybrid and how long you can leave it set. So here's another aspect, another plus. If you compare the hybrid to the combustion car, there again, less maintenance with my Avalon. It has to be exercised. It has to be driven. I certainly can't wait three weeks because my car will be dead. But with the hybrid, as you pointed out, it's a good thing. It falls asleep.

Okay. Excuse me, Stu. We're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Jess. who's calling us from Pompano Beach, and she is a third first-time caller, and she has won herself $50 this morning, and I'm going to break the rules this morning, and we usually only have two female, new female callers. So if you stay on the line, Jess, after we're done talking,

you can give Jeremy your contact information, and I'll get that $50 out to you. Welcome, Jess, and congratulations. Okay, I don't know if I got the name right. My name's Ellen, but I am from Pompano. Pardon me? I am Ellen from Pompano B. Erin from Pompano.

Okay. No, maybe. Okay, I just bought a new 2023, Pliota Camry, and I have the most horrible experience I have ever had at a dealership. Oh, my. I mean, basically, I'm densing, but I'm, I don't know if there was anything I could have done. I had done all my homework with the MSRP.

I did it for a couple of days. French had offered them, you know, offered their brothers or husbands to go with me. And I said, no, I got it. I'm okay. And I went there, and first of all, they put them, I had a 2008 cholera convertible. They put that down.

They said, oh, that's like a piece of junk. It's only worth $100. Then they had options on there over $2,000, and they were nothing as negotiable. and they told me to leave at one point if I didn't like it and I didn't have it on the car I would have had an Uber

it to go you know I could have done that and then they had this $5,000 market thing on there for the market so I mean I felt like I got eaten up I mean I'm just very upset

over it you know Ellen would you care to share who you dealt with was it in Fort Lauderdale or up here no it was

Coconut Creek. Coconut Creek? Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, that's not terribly surprising. Okay, well, I didn't know. I was dealing with a dealer in Pompano, and they didn't have the car, and they kept saying it's coming in, it's coming in, you know?

And I just had 10 days without a car, and I guess when I went on the computer, other dealers saw that I was looking, and they contacted me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered. Ellen, were you in the dealership with a friend for a loan? No, no, I went by myself. I was there six hours. I didn't want to do that to a friend, you know, to hang around. Right.

I understand. And I really thought that I'd put cards before by myself, you know, and I thought I could do it. Yeah. At what point did they ask you to leave, Ellen? For four hours? Sure. Excuse me? At what point did they ask you to leave?

Halfway through when I was, when I was asking about, you know, that I was wanting in negotiate, like, the options and the different places. You know, like I said, I was okay with the MSRP, you know, like if I had an idea of what that should be. When does this happen? It sounds like as if that they were intimidated by your knowledge. Well, whatever it was, and then, now in retrospect, because they kept saying the salesperson, I have to check with my board,

and they would probably go off, and they said, oh, no, he won't go a dollar left. Now I'm thinking there probably was no other person he was tracking with. I mean, not. When did this happen? What was this? About a week ago. Out of a week ago? Yeah, the cars, you know, brand new.

You know, that dealership changed hands. When was that? A couple months ago. A couple months ago? I guess they're going to keep the same business model going. It was Al Hendrickson Toyota. They kept the name, but it's now owned by the Morgan Group. And they, just like a Rigo.

group car dealerships in Palm Beach County and I guess in Broward too. Morgan Group. It's a large group. They're like 10th or 12th biggest in the country now. But the operation apparently hasn't changed because Al Hendrickson was pretty

rough with their customers too. And yet supposedly they're one of the biggest. They are like number two or three in the country. USA, they're huge. They're a thousand cars a month. They don't do it by, you know, they're not known for, like, you know, great customer service.

They're known for having a huge inventory and a lot of advertising. Yeah, that's a tough area down there, Ellen, and I want to tell you, I'm terribly sorry for what you had to go through. But it sounds like as if that, as I said earlier, you're pretty knowledgeable, and they were intimidated by the fact that you were a woman and that you were knowledgeable. So I guess you could, you know, run with that. It's just unfortunate that this just still happens in the 21st century. Yeah, I really thought, you know, that I'd be able to do it. I mean, you know, you should be able to go into a place and, you know, and I had my paperwork, and they put down everything I said,

you know, that's not true and that's not true. Whatever it was, you know, they marked it down. And I guess if I had had my car, another car there, I probably would have left. We recommend that you don't go into dealerships these days. It's too bad an experience as you found out the hard way online. If you're not comfortable with online shopping, you might have a relative of son or daughter, grandson that could help you with that. But you can do now more quickly, more safely, and purchase a new vehicle online. When you go into the dealership today, it's the seller's market, especially with Toyota.

and they have customers lined up. So in this case here, they're just rude to a customer. Why? Because they can afford to be. Because if they frighten one customer away through rudeness or lack of transparency, there's another customer right behind wanting to buy the same car.

So it's a really rough time to go into a car dealership, whether it's Al Hendrickson, Toyota, or any dealership, online buying is the best way to go. Right. But shouldn't everything basically be negotiable? Everything, absolutely negotiable. And I'd be curious. I already know the answer, but I'd like to do a little test drive down there

at that particular dealership with a gentleman walking in and see if, you know, the same technique, which is deplorable, would be applied to him. I mean, they were very nice on the phone trying to get me there. Yeah. Yeah, that's how the game's played, you know. We've got to get them in the door. Ellen, thank you so much for the call.

I appreciate you sharing your story with us, and there's a lot of ladies listening, and you've done a whole lot this morning for the ladies, and I thank you for that. Stay with Jeremy, get your information to him, and I'll get the check out to you. Thank you very much. I appreciate being able to at least...

Thank you, Ellen. We're going to go to Rick. I've got a heads up that you've got some YouTube's. Well, we did have one comment quick from Donovan. He said he called it on that strike. He said he knew that that one was coming. I believe that. Well, I was right.

Donovan knows it all. I was wrong. Donovan was right. That's correct. Morning, Donovan. I didn't think it was going to happen. And after the fact, it occurred to me that, well, I didn't occur to me because I read it in automotive news that they felt that the Big Three had anticipated the strike and build up inventories. I was thinking the inventories were building up in the Big Three simply because supply and demand were catching up.

Apparently, according to automotive news, they think that they actually pushed the overtime, pushed the overtime, push the supply. production because they were anticipating the strike. And the reason you anticipate a strike if you're a manufacturer is you know that you're going to stick to your gun. So General Motors Ford and Stalanda said, hey, we're going to dig in our heels and our dealers have got enough cars and we can get by a few weeks, call the union's bluff, and now it's a Mexican standoff to see who's going to blink. Like Earl said, boy, there's a huge gap, a huge gap between the union demands and the contract talks. And unbelievable, over 13,000 went on strike.

Is that accurate? That'd be a good number. 13,000. Okay, we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to John in Palm City. Here's a regular caller. Good morning, John, and welcome. Good morning. The batteries came up today with the trickle charges, and I have a question to Rick.

Like Florida law, when it's raining, you have to keep your lights on. So many people, I see it, not many, but some of them, they go to work or they leave the car after it's parked, and they leave the lights on. So naturally, the battery, you need a jumper, all right? Either AA or your insurance company, whatever. But after it's jumped and it gets running again, is it wise to put a slow charge in the battery or, A fast charge? I mean, is one better than the other for the battery? That's a question for Rick.

Actually, my best recommendation is take the car out for a good long drive. When a battery's been depleted, it really just needs a good, steady charge to build it back up. I tell people the picture of battery is like a big barrel of water. and when you start the engine you're taking a big scoop of water out of it and the alternator has to put that back in just by trickling it in and most people don't have any way of charging a battery at home anyways they don't most people don't have a battery charger or trickle charger so take the car out and just find a nice country drive

and get a good hours driving time in to really give that battery a chance to recharge Okay, second part of the question I've only heard of it once in my life And the people When they jumped it They had the cables reversed So it not only did damage But they said the actually battery blew up

And all your years as a mechanic Have you ever heard of a battery blowing up I've seen it happen many times Okay Connecting the cables backwards usually you'll spot it within an instant because just as you start to touch it'll throw some big sparks and most people it's that accidental one quick touch and it usually blows a bunch of fuses and sometimes can actually even damage computers in the car so you

have to be very very careful not to hook those cables up backwards because you can damage not only your car, but also the other person's car that you're connected to. Okay. One fast thing, too, about batteries. With the warm weather now, people, when they get it serviced or do it on their own, make sure that the connection, both positive and negative, especially with this heat and humidity, that there's no corrosion or nothing forming around the contact cables. Very, very important. It should even get a lubricant on it or a spray or something to prevent the build-up from the corrosion around the terminals. Yeah, that's to prevent.

Any recommendation, what you would say to put on it, gasoline or some compound? I use a simple battery protector spray or just plain old axle grease with a brush will help protect it. But the important thing is to make sure that you keep the battery clean the top of the battery. There's an old wives tale that if you put a battery on a concrete floor, it'll discharge. Well, it's a plastic case. Plastic does not conduct electricity. What happens actually is the dirt and grease on the top of the battery actually gets a small connection between the two terminals. And when a car is just sitting, if that battery is all covered in dirt and grease on top,

it actually will have a small current going through that. and that will actually drain the battery. So if you keep it nice and clean, you won't have that condition, and, of course, keep something on the terminals to keep the air away from them so they don't oxidize, and you don't get that corrosion. Well, thank you for your tips. Very important. Very welcome.

Thank you, John. Thanks a lot, John. We'll talk to you next week. I have a question for a record on that subject. When you, oh, is there an instrument on any car you know of? that will give you the amount of a charge on the battery. You have a check battery or thing like that if it's low. And, of course, if it won't start, it's real low.

Why don't they have some sort of a gauge that says you have a full charge? Well, they don't really have an actual gauge that can determine how much charge is in the battery because that requires what's known as, in the old school, it used to be a carbon pile tester, and now it requires a special, rather, expensive battery tester. So the answer is no, no car has a... Right. You might have a...

The reason I ask, we get a lot of calls and we say, you know, should I slow charge it? Should I drive the car? Should I do a quick charge? And, you know, sometimes you do a charge, but you didn't put enough charge on, so the next day your car is dead. So I think it would be nice. I'm speaking to the manufacturers that are paying absolutely no attention to me, but I'll say it anyway.

Why not come up with a gauge of some kind that's a fully charged, 90% charge, 75% charge? And that way when you ask your neighbor to drive the car, you don't say drive it about 20 miles, say drive it until it's fully charged and put it back in my garage. That would be a great idea. One other thing. You used an expression when you're talking to John from Palm City that I have to ask, is this politically correct today? You said an old wives tale. Now, is that a chauvinist kind of a thing? I think so.

I never thought of it before, but you putting it on the table. Yeah. I think it conjures, you know, stereotypical images and that are offensive. Why, I use the expression, and I... Who said it? I used it. I used it all the time. I apologize for that. No, no, no, no, no.

I probably should have found a better expression for that. Urban legend. Sitting next to Nancy, I have to be careful. Well, I think it's good. Yeah. I think we should all be careful of her language because it's very impactful. Okay. Well, see, she can't reach me.

She can reach you, Earl. She can throw things, though. Well, that's true, Joe. And I know she can't. I have to say that, you know, it's, everybody's just a little too thin-skinned, so I'm not yet any right. We're going to go to enough set, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-3530, or you can text us at 772-497-3530. They're Anonymous Feedback.com. Take advantage of it.

We're going to go to Jersey Mike, who is a regular caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Jersey Mike. Good morning. First of all, I'll say that I went to Peggy Adams, and I did adopt the dog. Hey. It's a beautiful dog. Congratulations. Oh, thank you very much.

I have a dog myself, but I got it for a roommate who was heartbroken when he lost this dog. So I picked up a small dog, and I have another dog here. That's my dog. This two get together, they just have a ball together. I got a nice yard. They run around, you know. That's going to pick him up real soon. Yeah, really, really great play.

You know, it's nice over there? I'm a veteran, and I didn't get the show to sponsor it, but I got a 50% deduction. So if you're a veteran, just let him know. You'll give you 50% off of anything you buy there. That's great. We should have mentioned that. I'm so glad you brought that up. We saw the whole production.

they've got for providing dogs for wounded veterans. And they beef that up now where they're, I think they're turning out like 40 or 50 dogs a year. Very intensive. They have a lot of trainers now, but I forgot about the veterans discount. So you say 50%? Yes, it is. Great. And, you know.

Usually veterans discounts are 10% if you go to Dunk and Donuts, but they give you 50% when you go to the... Dogs are better than donuts. says even better deal. You can find all kind of discounts, and it's amazing. I don't know what they do, where Peggy Adams, but out at Big Dog Ranch, you know, they really have a program. It's very lengthy. It takes a year to train and to get this human-animal bond

while providing a second chance for both for the veteran and the dog. And my dog is to serve. dog, but what I adopted for my friend, of course, is not, but mine, he gets a free airplane seat when I go flying, you know? Uh-huh. But he can go anywhere, as long as he's not causing a commotion, they can't deny his entrance. Very good. That's a federal law.

Excellent. But you have to be with him, right? Yes, of course. He can't send him out for groceries or anything. No, no, no, I got to be with him, but he gets his own seat. But you better let him know that. he might try to take off without, and say, I've got to be with you. I know your time's precious, as everyone's is, because it's the one commodity that nobody can buy,

no matter how rich you are. You can't buy time. So let me ask you this question. I have a 95 Cadillac Cook-de-Ville, and it ran five for many, many years. It's a second owner. I bought it from a close friend. It even has the manufacturer's tags in the trunk, believe it or not. It's got 83,000 miles on it.

And it ran fine. Now, what happened was it was an attempted break, and they didn't know how to handle this car, the people who broke into it. They just screwed up the steering column, and I had to put a whole steering column in there. I got a steering column. You guys recommended Cadillac Heaven.

I went there, and I'm sorry, you didn't recommend it. The insurance company recommended Cadillac Heaven for old car stuff, for Cadillacs in South Carolina, got it, got it here, had a mechanic put it in here in a private shop, a good shop. Once it got put in there, here's where the problem started. He had three different people come there to program the keys, so they have a chip in the key, these old Cadillac keys. They're not a key, Bob, it's a regular key with a chip in it.

And, of course, the other column that I got, it came out of a used car place, okay? It wasn't new, of course. And because you can't get a new one. You can't even get it from Rock Auto. It's just too old, all right? And initially, when I sent it to the Cadillight dealer over here in West Palm Beach, they'll be nameless, but there's only one that people know about.

They said, it's too old. We can't work on it. How about that one? Okay. Well, anyway, make a long story to show if I can. I had three guys go and try to program that key, and they said they can't do it. I ended up having to give that private repair shop, $950.

Oh, man. For that work that didn't succeed. So I had the car towed back over here via AAA, and I even had to pay $100 for that because I was beyond my three freebies, okay, even though I give them 150 bucks a year, you know. I've been doing that for 20 years anyway, and I never used AAA all the years. So, anyway, my point simply is, how do you shut out this V-H-A-T-S system? I haven't had experience with it.

I'm a motorhead, so I can do that. I've been doing this as I was 17 in Jersey. As I recall, a couple weeks when you called in Donovan or somebody else had come up with some info for it, let me see what my YouTube guys popped back up, but I'm pretty sure that that system can be bypassed. I was told to go to some Cadillac clubs, which I did. You know, that's what you told me last time we talked, and they don't know how to do what I need to do. So I'm really at a lot. The car is a precious vehicle.

I'd like to take it to car shows and what I can't do it because it doesn't go out of my driveway. That was last Saturday that you called, right? And you were inquiring about that, and Rick had told you to go to the Cadillac clubs. Yep. What do you think, Rick? I'm going to have to do some research.

That we're going to have to Google on. I'm hoping that one of my One of my YouTube guys will pop up with something, but... Yeah, if that happens later on in the show... I mean, there's three circuit boards, either three fuse circuit boards in that car. Two in the trunk and one in the engine... No, sorry, one in the passenger side underneath the dashboard there.

One inside the engine compartment and one in the trunk. Can I find the right fuses? The ones in the trunk are marked what fruises they are. But I have looked, I don't see anything that says that's on it. So maybe it goes by a different name. Well, Negan 1 says if you talk to a stereo install place, remote start can get around that system. Go to a stereo place? Right.

You know, places that install custom stereos and alarm systems. and they have the remote start. Going right over here on Pubby Slates Boulevard. Yeah, because if they've got that, if they can install it like a remote start system, they should, he says that we'll get around the VAT system. So they know how to get around the VAT system in order to install a remote control system, I take it.

Exactly. Oh. Okay. I knew one of my guys here would have it, but yeah, That's coming from Negan 1. He's out in Arizona, and he is a, he's a motorhead, all right, because he loves the Ford Raptors and the RAM TRX trucks. He's got several of them that he owns.

Funny is you should say Arizona. I sent my three children who have grown people now, you know, and there are 40s and 50s, to the University of Arizona, one of the greatest schools in the entire United States. Is that right? Yeah, U of A has 7,000 students. and 28 different colleges on campus. Wow.

And they all graduated. Yep. Ah. And they're set for life. That was a long time ago because I'm 77. Now, Earl's got a YouTube video up for 2013 to 16 Cadillacs, how to program the remote key fob. But what year is yours? 95.

95. Okay. Yeah. So yours is a much older system. It's a key with a chip in it. Yeah. Yeah. I'd go back and search YouTube on it, but that VAT system, I guarantee there's a way around that.

I didn't know YouTube. It does automobile stuff. I thought that was just music and... Oh, no, no, no. Just a general advice for life. It's everything. Yes. Anything you want to ask a question.

There's a video... It sounds like it might be better than Google then now. It is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. It's owned by Google. Oh, is it? Oh, there you go. Well, you know what a Google is, because I'm a math major, all right? A Google is something that's a big, big number, quite, not quite infinitely big, but it is that big. I think it spells G-O-O-G-O-L.

Yeah, but it's a one with 100 zeros after it. No, no, more than that, trillions of zeros after that, but not quite infinite. Okay, anyway. Well, we're getting into the stratosphere here. Yeah, I understand. Thank you for your help. Go ahead and pursue it. Oh, you're welcome, Jersey, Mike.

Johnny Z. Fradley says that Tint World can possibly help because they install alarms. Okay, there you go. There's a Tint World within five minutes from my house. There you go. There you go. Oh, okay. You wouldn't think that somebody puts tint on a windows. Well, if they do alarm systems.

Yeah, they got to change the name. Oh, I see. Okay. Thank you very much for you. Hey, it's always a pleasure talking to you, Jersey. Mike. Okay. Stay tuned for our mystery shopping report. We shopped Schumacher Volkswagen.

Okay. We're going to go back to Rick and we're going to go back to Stu so he can finish up some of this. Well, because I have a good anonymous feedback that came in and it's not too long, but I want to get it before the phones blow up again. I got a good one for you. My buddy has been leasing a Kia Sportage and at the end of the term decided to purchase it.

I told him all of what you said in the video, talking about our Erlon Car's videos on YouTube, but he still got taken for over $2,000 above the lease contract purchase price. They told him they couldn't let the car go without a safety inspection. That turned into four new tires, front-end work, which I suspect didn't need to be done. Then they got them for a dealer fee and dock fee because all their car purchase have these fees, which is required by the government, they told him. By the way, this was Bev Smith, Kia, and Fort Pierce. I tried to talk him into getting a copy of the law you referenced here

and try to get that money back. He said he didn't want any trouble and the stuff they charged him for seemed legitimate. This is why dealers can get away with this stuff. You're doing your part, but people have to put away their subservient ways and get tough because dealers sure are getting tough and mean. They are not your friend. Unfortunately, purchasing an automobile is an adversary relationship no matter how nice

the dealership employees seem to be. This might be one you can mention on the radio show and there you go. It was just mentioned and we did identify the dealer and that was Bev Smith, Kia in Fort Pierce Florida. Yeah, that's a slam dunk lawsuit.

You can probably talk to a lawyer in your area. If not, we can get sure the name of a couple lawyers in Fort Lutterdale. They're the ones that really jump onto this thing. and got the attention, believe it or not, of the Attorney General, Ashley Moody. I mean, she kind of ignores anything bad that car dealers do,

but these lawyers, and their names right now slip by mind, but I can get that information for you. There is a federal law, it's a Consumer Leasing Act of 1976. It's real simple to understand, and lawyers like simple stuff. It basically says if you lease a car and you have an option to purchase, you cannot be charged one penny more than that option purchase price. So in your lease contract, that was your price that you would have to pay. And everything that Bev Smith-Kia charged you on top of that,

which sounds like thousands of dollars, they owe you back. Now, the good news for you and the bad news for Bev Smith-Kia is that they also have to pay attorney's fees. So what you might want to do is I get hold of, what's his name at Best Smith? Frank Gonzalez. Frank Gonzalez. I contact Frank Gonzalez at Best Smith Kia. He's a general manager.

And explained to him that you spoke to me, Erlon Cars, and what I had said, and that you think that he probably should give you all your money back, over and above the option purchase price that you paid. If not, you're going to have to hire an attorney, in which case, then Beth Smith-Keele will have to pay the same thing they could have to pay you, plus the attorney's fees. So I believe if you can get through to Frank Gonzalez, he will write you out of check pretty quick.

He doesn't want any trouble. That's exactly right. We have a phone call. We do. And our number here is 877-960-9-9-8.5. 960. And also you can text us at 772-4976530. Jot that text down. You'll need it. That text number down. You'll need it later when we do the mystery shopping report because it's so important that we hear from you and that you grade the mystery shopping report. That Agent Lightning, wow, she is amazing. And of course we have Stu. So there's two geniuses here that put this all together.

772-497-676530 we're going to go to frank who's a regular caller from jupiter farms good morning frank well good morning nancy and all the rest of the gang there in the radio station today hey just want to say hi one of the things i noticed i i went away on a cruise up in alaska for a few weeks but on the way to the airport i just sent it to the cell number was an interesting tag i saw waiting in line and the car it takes about 45 minutes ago from 8 or I 95 to the airport it says drive Tesla you recall seeing that little license plate come through the um text no interesting I'm about you guys it's I'll resend if I have to drive Tesla you'll see it I'll resend it again okay but I thought of you guys immediately when I saw that tag I said it would have been a great one for you

guys yeah I just saw the oh wait a minute okay I did I'm sorry I just Okay, I saw the forklift. There's a picture before that. DRV Tesla. No, I haven't seen that tag driving around. Yeah, I thought of you immediately. And anyway, I... No, Earl, he doesn't have a...

He doesn't have a fanity plate. But he does on the front, because it identifies the car as Miss Nancy. That's the name of the car. Yes, it is. Oh, nice. Well, that's cool. But anyway, yeah. And the other one was the forklift.

We have one, the exact same for our parts department and for deliveries. Yeah, it's propane powered, right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah, in fact, I guess some of they use more often have actually two propane tanks where they don't have to stop and change them out. I probably need more propane at that port than we do at our little parts department. Yeah.

But, yeah, it was a great cruise. I missed your podcast, but I'm back in town and just want to say hi. and if you guys I know that one lady I heard had her problem with going to a dealership by herself I'm still one of your what do you call it oh you're vigilante vigilante yeah so I mean well she didn't buy a car if she if that was Eileen right I think it was Eileen yeah if Eileen if you're still listening we do have help out there so you didn't go and buy that car so if you're still looking Frank is willing and ready and willing And then real quick, and I'll leave it because I was down the street, seeing a Dr. Kamenester for dermatology, an excellent guy, but he's, anyway, the nice thing being down the street, I sometimes stop and just see how things are at your dealership and get maybe a cup of coffee, but it's nice seeing cars on the showroom once again, mostly electric cars, but it's a fabulous dealership, and it's always a pleasure of thought by there.

Thank you. With that, I'll be quick and easy, no other comments. You have a wonderful weekend. so much, Frank. Thank you for the dog. Thank you, guys. Bye-bye. All right. Okay, we're going to go back to Stu. Oh, okay. We have, okay. This is from Roy in Denver, and he asked for snowbirds traveling to and from Florida for the winter and summer. There used to be a car train option where customers could load their vehicles onto a train and the customer rise in coach cars in the same train from the north-east of Florida. Is there still an existence, and does anyone

have experience with this it is I don't know if it changed but it's Amtrak and it goes auto train but it's run by Antrack isn't it? It goes from Orlando to D.C. isn't it? Yep. Yep. So

I don't know if it went further before but I don't know for some reason I thought that it did go to New York but maybe people drive down and this take the bulk of the trip off the car but yeah if you

just go I googled it and it was just it's Amtrak Autotrug. They still do that. And let's see. By the way, you know who else drives a Tesla plaid? And has a vanity plate. Who?

The vanity plate reads law team Jeffrey Federman. Oh, really? I saw me the other day. They're right down the street from the dealership. I thought you were going to say Willie Gary or something like that. It's the nice dark gray one.

Nice looking. car but had a little plaid sticker on the back of it there and like oh okay they used to have a super iridescent painted supra like so when you drove past it you remember the thing it changed it depends on the angle it just changed colors it was very bizarre 95 or 96 yeah is that he had I worked on it quite a few times oh did you I got a anonymous feedback here I guess inspired by the one I read about the Kia Sportage, Beth Smith, Kea says, I had a horrible shopping experience at a Morgan-owned Honda dealership. Horrible.

I came in alone, single female, had a salesman who could be my son, walked me through several cars, and then got me to sit at his desk to work a deal. I told him prices were out of my budget, and I'm looking at other brands. He scoffed at me and said, where are you going to get a car you want in the price that you want?

He was extremely condescending. his manager. Manager kept me waiting in the lobby while he and his friends were chatting around the computers. It was horrible. I was completely traumatized, treated like trash, accused of lying to them for wasting their time. Here's a quote, you lied to me when you said you were here to buy a car. That's the quote they told her. Absolutely terrible. Thing is, my then car was always serviced at another Morgan owned dealership. After this experience, I decided to take my service business elsewhere. beware Morgan wow that was escaping you get too big you just that's a problem you know we badmouthed dealers a lot on this show and when you have a dealer that's got 12 14 25

dealerships you know your his crime is trying to get too big he probably doesn't know 10% of the things that happen I mean how can you it's difficult with one it's difficult to be good with one. And so that's, I mean, just to be real, I mean, it's easier for us to do the things that we preach because we don't have 140 dealers. And we also have a seller's market.

So you have the perfect storm of abuse in car dealerships. First of all, it's a seller's market. Now that means that most of the dealerships, not all of them, but most of them now, used to be all of them, but especially your Asian, you're Asian, and

Japanese Chinese Korean dealerships are understocked, overpriced, and they add thousands to MSRP. And the salespeople are making a fortune, the managers are making a fortune, and all they have to do is come to work and sit around and drink coffee and check off on the list of the sold orders, and they get thousands of dollars over for every car, because if this customer doesn't take it. The one behind that customer will take it. And so people are inclined

to be nasty. They'll be really nasty when it isn't going to affect their paycheck. And it's just a sad situation. And it's the worst I've seen it. A reason I really encourage people go online. If you go into a dealership today, you're probably

going to be abused even more than you ever were before. The salespeople are just... Stu, did you say that with Morgan? Independently wealthy. Morgan. Morgan Auto sales, and they have several different locations.

They are huge. Yeah, which one was this young lady? I don't know if they identified the location. They just said it was just a Morgan owned dealership. It's unusual that she would know that because Morgan does not put their names on dealers. So she had to investigate a little bit. And we'd love to hear from you again. That was a good move, though.

I mean, just to make a statement. I mean, dealers need to hear this. that they do lose business and other aspects of their operation. You can have a bad experience in a service department and have a great sales department, and they stop buying cars from you and vice versa. Word of mouth is just amazing. It travels. It definitely travels.

Especially on the radio and streaming live all over the world. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, we're sorry for your experience, that's for sure. Okay. We're all cut up on this side of the desk. Okay. I was going to go to Rick, but we'll hold on.

We're going to go to Jay, who's been holding from Hope Sound. Good morning, Jay. Good morning. I'd like to know what your opinion of Toyota of Hollywood is. Well, it's an interesting dealership. It's been there a long, long time. It's owned by a man then Greg Zinn, who was Craig, I mean, Craig Zinn, who was one of the earliest Toyota dealers.

And they're also, I think, either, either, they vie for Al Hendricks and Toyota at being either number two or number three in volume and the whole United States make that the whole world for a Toyota dealership. In fact, because Toyota outsells all the other dealerships, it's probably the number one car dealership or the number two or three. They are in a very interesting demographic area. and I know the Zen family. I knew his father and his brother,

and I've known him for many, many years. They have an international clientele. They have salespeople that speak everything from Swahili to Chinese to Japanese. Literally, they have an international sales force. And they pick up a huge amount of business from Miami, which, as you know, is an international city. Now, as far as do I recommend them or not recommend them, they're down in the heart of the worst rockem-sockham, lie sheet, steel, car dealership market in the world. They're not the worst, but they hold their own.

And it's tough. they do a huge amount of advertising and think of the control you have if you're Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese if you are

someone whose native language is not English and maybe you don't even speak English well there's one place you can go and that's Hollywood Toyota and there'll be somebody that will speak Vietnamese for you or speak whatever your language they have a huge sales force

sell a huge number of cars probably a thousand a month new and then another who knows how many use so my advice if you can if you can speak

English it would be to go somewhere else if you can't if you can't speak English I stopped in there about two years ago and it is a huge massive dealership but I'm always hearing their advertisements and last night they advertise Toyota of Hollywood is having a massive sell-off of

2022 Toyotas. I'm wondering how many 22-22 Toyotas they have. What's BS? See, that's that's Hollywood style. What they do is they title their cars and put them in their rental company and they do it on purpose. They don't even rent the cars, but they will title a current year model car and put it on the lot and now they legally can say this is a used car so they do that to trick you to come in thinking you're getting

a really good buy on a used car you're buying a new car and they're going to charge all the money for it and also I think they said they're advertising in a 2023 coroller for 16990 yeah

their advertisements are amazing they've been running those for so long they really really catch your, they really catch your, your ear. I mean, it's just amazing. Read the fine print. That they would have that many vehicles and you know for sure they don't. They're experts. Get them in the door. Nancy's exactly right. But they are also careful in terms of legality.

And when you find the fine print, which is not easy to find, would you find it if you read it carefully, they cover themselves in the fine print. Now, if you listen to the show, I know you have, you know that the Federal Trade Commission says that you cannot modify the price of the car in the fine print that's a federal violation but who cares I mean right it's hard enough to get local enforcement of laws

state enforcement laws you don't get that to expect the Federal Trade Commission to be able to see a car dealership ad in Hollywood Florida ain't going to happen so it's a rough tough place to buy a car and I would imagine that the 2023 Corolla they're saying is for 16990

is probably a used car well they title the car see in Florida the definition of a used car is one that's already been sold so they sell the car to themselves I mean how do they get away with it why does Ashley Moody the Attorney General allow these things to happen in Florida

but they create to you car. It's still a new car for all intents of purposes because it's got no miles on it. It's brand new. Might even have the Maroni label still sink it on the window if they didn't take it off. And so it's a totally artificial deception to get somebody to come in. They say, oh, here's the car here. Oh, it looks new. Well, we put it into our rental company. Well, how come there's no miles on it? Well, we just haven't rid of it out yet. And then they hit you with all the hidden fees. Lewis F on the...

I'd probably be wasting my time going down there expecting to pay $16,990 for a $20. Exactly. Do it online, either or by phone. You'll get double talk by the phone. They will give you any information on the phone. But if you go online,

you might be able to text or email and say that you want the specifics, and if you don't get the specifics, you're going to buy the Toyota somewhere else. that might elicit some kind of a dialogue where you can find out what's really going on. But to go in there is just you don't want to treat yourself that badly. That would be you might be under mental care for a week after you go into all over the other than it.

I don't know. Jay sounds pretty strong. Hey, Jay, round up your posse. Go ahead down. Have a little fun if you have some time on a Saturday afternoon. Play with the boys. Show them how you can dance. I've been shopping around different dealerships probably for the last two years, and I'm quick to walk away, so I'm thinking they'd probably have a poster of me.

You know, beware of this guy. You don't waste your time with them. Yeah. Exactly. I will thank you very much. Thank you, Jay. Have a great weekend. We are going to go to Rick.

I had a comment that came in from Lewis F. I'm guessing about Hollywood Toyota he says, I passed by a few weeks ago, all their cars had a $20,000 markup plus add-ons and would not negotiate. 20,000, wow.

That's insane. Market adjustment. Yeah. Hard to blue. Yes, it's crazy. You know, when you add all that to the fact that they're number two volume or number three volume in toilet cells and the whole world,

That tells you something about a corrupt retail system. I mean, they're successful. Beyond the wildest stretches, Craig Zinn makes more money than, I don't know who. I mean, you know, he's got to be worth a billion dollars or more. And with one dealership, and he probably has more I don't know about it. And he treats his customers the way we're discussing here. And I don't mean him. I mean, he doesn't even know what's going on there.

He's in, you know, Bangladesh or someplace. I don't know where you're... But he doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't care. Maybe he's up in Aspen next to Terry Taylor. Yeah, right, man. He's probably right, yeah. That's a good point.

Okay, what do we have, guys? You have some YouTube's? No, all caught up over here. Okay. We're relatively clear here. Okay. All right. Well, you know what that means.

We're going to go to our... Dog of the Week. Oh, yeah, the Dog of the Week, sure. Yeah, we have to, we'll talk about Big Dog Ranch and Max. Max is at the ranch, and he was rescued by owners who were moving and could not take me. They could not take me with him, with them. Oh, this is his story that I'm reading. And I'm very happy and a playful boy, and my most favorite thing is to play in the water.

I would love to have a family with a pool. Oh, excuse me. Oh, he's in good hands out of Big Dog Ranch because, boy, do they have some amenities out there for the dogs. So he's a high-energy level dog, and as I said, he is a yellow Labador. He's a retriever, yellow Labador, and he's 77.6 pounds, and his name is Max. that's a big dog that yep that's that's a big dog and he's waiting uh that big dog with a lot of love a whole lot of love for a fur family and uh he's looking for you um also let me mention uh confessions of a recovering car dealer and uh if you go to earl's book or go to um amazon you can

purchase the book for 1999 and all proceeds go to big dog ranch that's all proceeds go to big dog ranch and the book it's been out for a long time but it's something you want to put on your shelf and you can always refer to it it's got so much information in it and it applies to yesterday and today so big dog ranch rescue you can go to www big dog ranch rescue.org and you can see max in all the other dogs see max in all his glory yes in his natural habitat yeah i'm looking at i'm looking at a picture of him and he's in the pool out there do we have a video video's coming oh good and we have a

sorry about that we have a video coming up uh from uh jonathan let it roll roll it this is max max is a seven-year-old yellow lab he's a really wonderful dog as you know labs have great positions. He came to us as an owner surrender. His family had moved away and he's not looking for a forever family. Something interesting about Max is that like most labs, he loves the water. He would make a great beach dog. He would love to run around someone with a backyard. Probably someone that could, you know, have enough room to handle up. That's nice. Good boy. A yellow lab that could run around. He's great with simple commands. Can you sit, Max? He's sitting already. Good boy! Good boy! Yeah! He's very loving, and he's just an absolute gem, and we really hope that we can find him a forever home.

You can see he's still very playful, seven years old. He's still, you know, has got a little bit of happy in him, but he really is an all-around family dog and would make a great addition to anyone. I wish I was a dog. I know. You've said that since I was a little kid. Max's face, he's got a human face, and a smile. he's got that big old dog I've read Nancy you read this does he all golden retriever he's a retriever

yellow labador okay yeah he looks he's just a classic dog you guys listening in your car or something right now just don't close your eyes but imagine imagine just your classic yellow lab

just sitting there with a big old smile and a pink tongue hanging out he looks like he might have a bit of golden retriever in him too well that's what I thought yeah the tail and his fur looks very soft that's what i was going to say and he doesn't look like he's 77.6 pounds oh he's that's all muscle packed in there that's a big dog yeah did um and how old is is max

max is seven years old he's seven years eight months you know a nice thing is about a seven year old dog is they're chill they're not jumping all over your couch all the time they'll get the zoomies once in a while but they're not going to be like they're not he doesn't like cats doesn't like cats like cats. Yeah, they're sophisticated. They've accumulated seven-year worth of wisdom, which is something like 60 years of human wisdom. So if you're looking, folks,

if you're looking for a beautiful golden retriever, Labrador, you can take a look at the video and just see how pretty Max is, and he has quite a personality. And how happy he is. That rubs off. Yeah, he's so happy, and he's like as if that he's maybe, you know, four years old.

He's very energetic. Every time you turn around, they're trying to sell you a book on how to be happy. It's much easier. Don't buy the book. Just buy a dog. And we'll give you a dog. Adoption fee is free for Max. Yeah, we do.

And even if you don't get Max, they're running a sale out. Big Dog Ranch, half price. That's right. 50% off all dogs. Yeah. And we do pay the adoption fee. As Stu usually tells us every week, he reminds me, because it's so important, it can be expensive, purchasing, adopting a dog. Yeah.

And also you can adopt and you can foster. And remember the confessions of a recovering car dealer and the fact that it is 1999 and all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch, Big Dog Ranch. Thank you. little thing I'd like to remind everybody is that you can watch the show. Well, if you're not listening now, I'll tell somebody. The point is, if you didn't catch the show, or if you want to go back

and hear something again, we got this thing, is on YouTube. We just search Earl on Cars, also on Facebook, Earl on Cars, and so you can go back, but you can also share it with somebody. So you can send a video to someone who you might be susceptible

to falling in love with Max. Yeah, that's a great suggestion, you know, just to share, you know, share the video. You never know. I think that it's time by the clock for us to go to the Mystery Shopping Report. As I told everyone earlier, you're a big part of the Mystery Shopping Report. We really, you know, love hearing from the audience, whether it's through Rick or Stu or myself, and you can text us at 772-497653. zero and you can you know

judge or rate whatever way you want to put it Schumacher Volkswagen Schumacher Volkswagen sits in judgment today so back to the recovering car dealer Before I get to the mystery shopping report for all you Elon Musk fans

out there are Tesla fans and that the fan club is growing and growing there's a new book out and it's Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, and there's a cover. And the reason I'm showing you this is I downloaded the book audio a couple days ago and about halfway through it. It is really an amazing book.

Walter Isaacson has done a lot of great biographies. If you've read, you know, he did Steve Jobs. You know, he's done, you know, he gets all the way back to Benjamin Franklin. He does Jeff Bezos, and this is just a great, accurate biography. And he took him two and a half years to do this, spoke to just about everybody that was influential in Elon Musk's life. And if you think you know Elon Musk, when you get into this book, it's really, really interesting. I mean, I'm one of these people that I buy five books and I read one, or I read 10% of one. I'm going to read this whole book

because I can't put it down. It is really a great book. Okay, mystery shop of Schumacher at Volkswagen and they're in North Palm Beach. I'm going to speak in the first person if I were Agent Lightning, our all-star

mystery shopper. The morning sun was blazing at 11.20 a.m. When I walked into Schumacher Volkswagen showroom. It was unusually quiet. I spent a few minutes soaking in the ambiance, but spotting anyone I decided to check out the cars outside just five minutes in the sun I felt like I had a mini sauna session and for you folks that are not in South

Florida and I guess it's hot everywhere but man let me tell you it's not down here in South Florida and humid yeah oh yeah so I saw I was relieved to be a back inside on my return a salesman David stepped out of his office he was holding a large red bow which I assume was for some lucky buyer's car. That's a little trick, just about all car dealers do. It's a giant bowes. Yeah, giant red bows.

Whoever sells those is making a fortune. Spotting me, the salesman offered, hello there, has anyone attended to you yet? No, not yet. I've been scouting for the new Atlas Cross SportSE. I tell you, the names are proliferating,

and I'm way behind on me. No, it's like that. Everything's like that now. Yeah. Stapenames for stadiums. Yeah. Names for cars. Yeah. Anyway, this Atlas Cross, Florida, I see,

particularly interested in the tech package. I responded, hoping he'd guide me. He flashed an understanding, smile in just a moment. He said, let me put this bowl aside, and I'll be right with you. David's desk was a hub of organized chaos. Papers here, computers there, inviting chair for me, scroll through a system, and soon have the inventory details up. Good news. We have a variety of colors.

This is, you know, good news for you potential buyers, Volkswagen buyers. To walk into a car dealership today and have the salesman for the car you're looking for say, we have a variety of colors. That's very unusual. I'm not sure why that is, but here it is. He's got blue, silver, white, and red. Fancy the blue one, it's quite the vibrant shade. So actually a selection of the car our mystery shopper went in for. term. Test drive was interesting. I noticed the Barroni label sitting with dignity on one of the

back seats. There's expertise in writing. I love that. You're not supposed to take a barony label off. You regular listeners know that. It's federal law to keep it affixed to the window. And by law, only the owner can remove the Monroeney label. Well, that's not the case that the Volkswagen dealership owned by Schumacher in North Palm Beach. They take them off and put them on the backseat. There was a noticeable absence of an addendum label, that's good news, an indication of transparency perhaps. When we return, David, the salesperson's demeanor, shifted to business. Lying out a worksheet, he started to break down the cost. The listed MSRP was $44,946.

That's about an average price car, MSRP, which was already catching my eye, but then came the cascade of charges initial discount of 1825 dollars now that makes you feel real good doesn't an 1825 dollar discount and you don't even have to argue she is it's all designed to get you um after the discount followed a $39 private attack agency fee let me do this i'm going to pull this up on the actual thing because i think somehow i edit like i dropped a sentence or two, so I don't have all the charges listed. Okay. So let me zoom in here on my actual, on the actual buyers order.

So, yeah, they gave, okay, they took a $1,825 discount off of MSRP. Yeah. And then they added, the first one was little. It was a little $39 private tag agency fee. All right. Then they added, this is what I, I just left. I have that, Bumper Dillo? Bumper Dillo.

Yeah. Yeah, Bumper Dillow for $3.99. Bumper Dillo. It's like an armadillo. Window tent for $399. SunShield, you have that for $99.95. Yeah, yeah. Electronic filing agency fee for $379. Yeah, I got that. Okay. Then a $995 dealer dock fee.

$999. Okay, yeah, that's what I must have accidentally deleted that last sentence. So they added, yeah, $995 dock fee, dealer fee, and then $550 for the license tag and title. Okay. And that, so I didn't total it all up, but it's six, $400, $800, $1,700, about $1,800 in fees, the discount. Erase the discount, yeah. You feel good about the discount, and then I sneak it back in on you on BS. Oh, my guess.

Running some quick math, David, concluded that the total out-the-door price would be approximately $49,277. Of course, that's $5,000 over MSRP. But that includes the tax and tag, to be fair. But that's only about $5 or $600. Harvey hinted that the finance department might tweak this a bit. That's unusual.

I wonder, do you recall what Agent Lightning actually said about that? Why would a salesman do? You would think that he would not allude to that. But in this case here, he must have said something. I'm going back to the original field notes. He says, okay, it'll change a little, but once you go to finance, I thank him for his time. So I have to leave my husband.

Oh, it's, we'll have to ask her directly about that. Anyway, it's true. If you go into the finance department, two things are going to happen. They're going to try to sell or sneak onto your contract, unwanted, they call them products like gap insurance and maintenance and extended service contracts. And you name it. They've got it in the finance department, and they slip it in sometimes without even telling you. And sometimes they mislead you into buying it. So David wasn't on being dishonest.

They might tweak it, but not in your favor. Yeah, that's, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's unusual. We have a little wiggle room, but we're going to wiggle a little bit higher on that price. Yeah. I thank David for his efforts that began to rise from my seat. I appreciate your help. I said stretch out my hand. My husband's currently in a meeting, but I'll discuss everything with him once he's available this afternoon.

Uh-oh, David's eyes held it to Glenal Hope. Would you mind waiting in just a moment? Our sales manager would love to meet you before you go. Now, that's the rule. And, you know, actually, it's not a bad rule. You know, if you do meet a manager, you can use that introduction to clear up some things that the salesperson may have left off or may have exaggerated or may have just told you an untruth about.

But that's not the reason the dealers do it. the dealers do it because it's a second shot at trying to close you. You had to, the first close was a salesman, and the second close is the sales manager. And that could go back and forth, back and forth. You regulars out there know what I'm talking about. Curiosity peaked, I agreed, and settled back into the cubicle's chair. After what felt like a few minutes of leafing through a brochure, I decided to make my way out the exit. This happens often.

Asian lightning tries to slip out the door. However, as I approached the door, David intercepted me, flanked by a tall man and a crispy iron shirt. That's kind of like the Schumacher image. And the Schumacher image, I would say, the Schumacher dealerships are probably among the best-dressed salespeople and managers. And that goes all the way back to Dick Schumacher, which is Chuck Schumacher's father.

It was required to wear suits for a while, and then it became white shirts. ties. But they were impeccably dressed. I mean, cufflinks and, I mean, really, really good-looking outfits. Very dated approach, though, I think, these days. Crisply iron shirt. I like crisply ironed. It's true. Oh, there you are, Dave explained. He caught you. A note of relief of his voice. A man with him extended a confidant hand. Hi, I'm Terry. Terry and and David. These are kind of names you'd expect in a Schumacher dealership.

I wonder if that was Terry Chapin. He introduced himself a warm smile, playing on his lips. Thank you for visiting us today. I was hoping to catch you before you left. Is there anything I could do to help you make a decision right now? Tulting my head slightly, I replied, I truly need to discuss it with my husband first. He's tied up in a meeting at the moment.

Terry, not one to give up, easily probed. Could you possibly try giving him a quick call? It could be worth it. It's always interesting to me. when I read these Mr. Shopping reports, when you really get a dedicated, compulsive type of managers, they will not only recommend calling you,

they'll leave and go, I'll drive you to his house. I'll find him. You don't know where it is. We'll help you find him. We'll crash the meeting together. By the way, when you read that, you have a good way where you're,

if somebody said that to me, like in your voice, I would call my husband. It was very compelling. I was shaking my head, but I know he's occupied until late this afternoon. but I will mention that I was hoping to get the out-to-door price, get the outdoor price would be closer to MSRP.

I'm also not thrilled about those add-ons for the Sun Shield and the window tent. Terry's eyebrows. And the bumper dillo. Bumperdillo, which, by the way, we didn't read that. It's a piece of tape that they apply to the door edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw it on the one of the attachments.

Terry's eyebrows rules lately, how about this? if I can offer an additional $2,000 off, bam. So there's two lessons to be learned here. First of all, you don't want to go in the dealership and have to play the game. But if you are going in the dealership, you absolutely have to play the game hard because when that manager comes out, bam,

that's where the discounts happen. And then if the manager doesn't give you a good enough discount the first time, then you've got to go the second time. And it's exhausting, and it's mentally and physically. goal in that question when Terry says, how about this? If I could offer an additional $2,000 off, he'd steal the deal. He doesn't really care if she says yes or no. He wants to get a number from her. She goes, well, make it $4,000. We can talk. Okay. Then he says, so if I take $4,000 off, we'd buy it today. I learned that from Terry Chapman. It's like

it's like these bought and sold whole horses 200 years ago. That's what it is. The automobile business in classic form right here. Chuckling, I replied, it's a tempting offer, but I really must discuss it with my husband first. Thanks for understanding. I begin to turn away when David, his face, a tad red, hurried over to me. Ma'am, I'm so sorry, Stamber, extending my driver's license to me. I almost forgot to return this.

Please do take it. Now, we don't know. I mean, at a Schumacher dealership, this would not be obvious. But because it is a Schumacher dealership, it could. be subtle, meaning that as long as you have that driver's license, you know they're not going to get away. In other words, Agent Lightning was saundering toward the car. Supposing he wasn't looking, I think that having the driver's license in your shirt pocket

enhances the possibility that you'll say, oops, I don't have my driver's license, I better go back. And that way you can't sneak out as readily. Now, maybe I'm being cynical, maybe that was truly an accident, but I just suggest it would not be something that Schumacher would openly do, but subtly do, I don't know. I took a deep breath, accepting the license for the non. Thank you, David. I'll be in touch. And there we have another Mr. Schroding report from Schumacher Volkswagen, North Palm Beach, Flora.

and that's a rough tough area of town for uh of the state whole south florida is rough tough so uh the bernoni label is in the back seat um i can't see any uh you know terribly bad abnormal treatment but i don't want to prejudice you voters out there come up with your votes and see what you think you can do that at 772-4976530 you can avoid vote for the mystery shopper report and mystery shop was from Schumacher Volkswagen.

All right. Jonathan and Del Rey. No Munrooney sticker? Schumacher Volkswagen gets an automatic F for me. That's a definite sign that there are shenanigans going on. Since this is Volkswagen, I'll say

that they're Farfagnugan. I give him an F.F.F.E.N. If you remember that old marketing, campaign from Volkswagen I'm not going to argue with you Jonathan

there can be shenanigans but sometimes I think it's just out of ignorance I think that like sometimes they clean up a car the detailed apartment pulls it off we see it happening too often it's not premeditative it's kind of like turn signals

you know it's the law you're supposed to put on the turn signal but like what 5% of them do it now It says something about our system, our federal system, that has a federal law that everybody knows about, certainly if you listen to this show, and nobody pays anything to it to. Down in the south, we don't care what the feds say. All right, this is from Mark. Mark says too many BS fees, grade as a D. Those are the only two I have in. I was thinking about this last night, how I would grade it.

And like you just said, wow, there's not a lot of, like, things that stand out. It seems to be kind of typical. But, you know, with all this, the focus, like with these proposed FTC rules and the Napleton, you know, fine, and the focus on junk fees and the dealer installed options, I don't know if we should be giving it such an automatic slide. You know, especially if it does turn out in the next couple of years that there is some enforcement, you know, if things actually did change. I think what did it for me was Bumper Dillow. I mean, this guy, somebody, somebody is actually charging $399 for something called Bumper Dillo.

It's so absurd, you know, it's just, it's clear plastic tape. Yeah, it's. What everybody's doing. Well, I, I, sorry, I'm, I'm feeling more like Nancy now. You just think Bumper Dillo is a silly name. I think it's insulting. It's, it's like. I was thinking about, you know, when they're adding the things on and when they make the decisions,

if it was a clever name like Simon Eyes, because I think that's very clever. A lot of older people remember Simonize, and we had a mystery shop the other day that had Simonize. It actually called it Simonize? Yeah, I was thinking it's prime for a comeback. It should be. I can't give them that. By the way, we have another text, a C-minus, slightly below average for the area that someone grading on the curve. I'm hitting them with a D

coming in with a D Well, I've got Negan 1 Says, I say C I'm hard to impress after all the games I've listened to the dealers pull on this show And over here we have Tom Steckle, grade

D minus. If they use a private tag agency to handle the details, why do they need all the other processing fees? Total deception. Mark Smith Too much deception for their add-ons, D-minus. Tim Gilliland, she said her husband was in a meeting.

Honor that, C-minus. Joseph Kelleher, Too Much Deception, F. Brian Sidlato, Old Style Sales Tactics, C. Rocky Blockatiel, I'll give a C for the crisp shirt. Johnny Z. Fradley, D-minus, same old Wives Tales tricks. And Mark Smith says, agree, Johnny Z. For myself, I can't get past the bumper diller. That's...

Yeah, it's obscene. I call it a D because especially $400 for basically, it's just clear plastic tape that in about two years, it's all going to peel off or the Florida sun is going to turn it into little cracked pieces that you're can't get off and it's going to look horrible. $400 for it's tough on stuff like that. So I say a D for me. A D minus just popped in just to see you know. Rick, what would you say that would cost on Amazon?

That tape should be $40 for the whole set. I already knew the answer, but I just wanted to put that out there. What did you find? What you said. Wow, that was just a guess on my part. and figure maybe it would take about 20, 30 minutes to install that. It's associated with Volkswagen, not just... Definitely.

Yeah, not just Schumacher. I was going to express the fact before I grade this Schumacher Volkswagen, that's exactly what they go with, Stu, and that is the Volkswagen Bumperdillo. It saves you from the, protects you from the hustle and the bustle. and they want to be there for you for $400. It has a folks wagon parts number. I'm not kidding. I'm looking at it.

Well, folks, you know, maybe you already know how I'm going to vote. I don't know. I wasn't impressed by David's crispy iron shirt. I'm there to purchase a vehicle, and this is definitely old school. Monroney label, the lack of it, so many fees. it just doesn't reflect the Schumacher family way. And for that, and David, why did David have to wait so long to come out and to introduce himself to the customer?

I think that should have done. He was tying that big bow into a beautiful, into a big beautiful bow. I can tell him what to do with his bow. But at any rate, they get an F for me. Well, I'll tell you what. It must be something in the ear. I rarely go higher than everybody, but I'm going to give them a C-plus. If someone said to me, where would I buy a vehicle in Palm Beach County, Schumacher would be right up their own list.

I mean, you know, people do ask me about that. I say, well, you go to Schumacher, just be careful. and you have to be careful at Schumacher I'm glad to hear you say that because I would just not expect that from Schumacher or anyone to say to me hey listen you better be really careful when you go into Schumacher

I would hear that from Napleton Arrigo you got people like Arrigo even worse you got people like Napleton you got people like Beth Smith Toyota or Best Smith Kia you know, we see some horrible stories out there.

So the average South Florida story you have to remember is bad. That's a C. So you're basing your grade on that opinion. The curve. The curve, yeah, yeah. You know, it's kind of funny. They wound up basically selling the car for MSRP. But they had the little dog and pony show in between.

Yeah, yeah. If you shopped that and said, I don't even want to know how the sausage is made, just give me the out-the-door price, it would get a better grade for me. Yeah, when a dealership will come down, that's good. But the fact that they require the dog and pony show to come down, what happens, the real sin in the whole game is, excuse me, Mel Chauvin's comment, the little old lady comes in to buy a car.

And the little old lady is real because people, women that were born in the 40s and 50s grew up in a different culture with a man making all the decisions. And so her husband passes away and an 80-year-old widow or an 85-year-old widow goes into a car dealership.

She doesn't know how to play the dog and pony show and so she pays thousands of dollars over sticker. That's a real sin. but the average person that knows to play the game can go into a Schumacher store and get a... Well, for the little old lady, let me make a correction here for some of them, I agree with you

and how they walked behind the man or wherever they walked and he was fully in charge and then there are the women from the 40s and 50s like me who walked in front of the man and if he didn't get out of my way I knocked him down So I could go into a dealership. Somebody a necessized, Nancy.

I could go into a dealership, and I could definitely, my negotiating skills have definitely been sharpened through the years, and I used that term loosely sharpened. Okay, what else do we have, Mr. Car Dealer? You want to go, a couple minutes to. You don't have anything. We'll just have to have dead air. No, I think you should share the fact that Tesla was coming out with all of those parts

and how they were, you know, just putting everything together and would be almost sitting on another battery kind of thing. That's an interesting story. He doesn't have any shortage. I hate to do too much Tesla stuff, but there's another major breakthrough that Tesla came up with automotive news. They have a machine. that they have designed. They can make one piece of the undercarriage of their electric vehicles

that will condense into one piece over 400 parts that would otherwise have to be bought elsewhere. And so when they build a Tesla, they are going to consolidate. It's like a big cookie cutter. This is a copy of the press that they're making. And this is just an example of the Elon. Musk genius, that will also reduce the price of the vehicle tremendously. It will speed up the cost of the time of production.

And another amazing breakthrough for Tesla. So that's what we use to fill in the extra time. Yeah, that's a great story. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. We love your company. You make the show. Have a wonderful weekend. And don't forget about Big Dog Ranch.

go to WWW Big Dog Ranch Org, and you can take a look at all the dogs there and consider adopting or fostering. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll be right back here next week at 8 a.m. Saturday morning.