Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.18.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Infiniti of Stuart

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Infiniti of Stuart to see if her shopping experience is still as good as it was a year ago. 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. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “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 LinkedIn's side. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-warded dealership. And now, on with the show. Well, good morning, everybody. Here we are again.

You heard my recorded introduction there. I think they're pretty much as represented. We have the original crew in the studio. and we're prepared to help you any way, shape, or form. We can make your life easier out there in the car dealership land or independent repair land. It's one of the crosses we almost bear in life. Not all of us, I'm a car dealer, so I don't have to bear that cross,

but if you're a consumer and you buy, you used their new cars, you've got to get them repaired, and you've got to buy them. And most people don't enjoy the experience of going into a car dealership. Some do. and the repair process can be similarly painful. We thrive on you. The listeners, the watchers, we're on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. We're all over cyberspace.

We grew from a little old show many, many years ago, half an hour. That's right, Stu was a baby, and we grew. And we're a two-hour show on Saturday. 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time, and you know, we got calls from California, from Bali, from Canada. A lot of calls on Northeast, of course, Florida. We're in South Florida. We're in the Sodom and Gamora of car dealers. We rarely find a market that is quite as, oh gosh, I don't know what the word.

I do know the word, but I can't say it on the radio. The dealers here are very deceptive. their sales and trade practices and advertising. And we've even found some really, really bad ones out of the state. We've got a mystery shopper now, Agent Lightning, who likes to travel. And she gets around, doesn't she? She's been in Pennsylvania. She's been in Tennessee.

Where else she's been? All over four, and, of course. Yeah, I mentioned that, yeah. So anyway, we get to comment. contrast of Florida dealers with other dealers. We found some in Tennessee that were really bad, almost equal or maybe equal to some of the Florida car dealers. Then we found one there that was extraordinarily good.

When I say found, that's the mystery shopping report. And that mystery shopping report is the highlight of the show. Comes in the second half of the show. And we go into a car dealership. They don't know we're coming. You know, I've never figured out why so few. We have been busted. We have been discovered.

And we've had a few mystery shoppers had to flee because they were recognized or identified them some way. But we rarely do. I mean, I'd say, what, you could count on the fingers of one hand, maybe two hands, overall, hundreds and hundreds of mystery shopping reports we've done. But anyway, we get in undetected, and oftentimes, as in this case here, the dealership knows that the mystery shopper was there before. and they record, they have a computer and they still don't get it. Here we are

on the radio talking about their dealership naming names, sales managers, salesmen, owners you know, what they did did they break to law, did they violate the Florida statute on unfair and deceptive trade practices unethical advertising? You'd think that some, and the word would leak back to the dealership, but in many cases

I guess it's difficult to really keep the radar out for mystery shoppers. You probably detract from your focus on business. Anyway, you're going to love the mystery shopping report if you haven't seen one before. And even if you have seen it, this is a good one. Nancy and I were talking about it if we drove into the studio. A little faster than I like to drive, but we got a late start. And I can't find my pencil. So I can't write on my rocket book.

So one of my colleagues here will give me some material with a real pencil that I can write on. So I can make notes. I'd like to write folks' names down when they call so I don't forget them. Rick, Jonathan's trying to get your attention. There you go. So you can see we're very informal here. Is that for a rocket book? That's exactly right.

And I need it. I'll write on the back of a piece of paper here. Is that a rocket book? Pen? No rocket book pen. So, we chit-chat, just like you weren't there, and I hope that's acceptable. I like being natural and normal, and I like you to hear who we really are. We pride ourselves on transparency and honesty, not accuracy, but certainly transparency and honesty.

I just, we had anonymous feedback, and my son, Stu Stewart Bonisters, our anonymous feedbacks, By the way, if you don't know what that is, very popular way to communicate with the show, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. It's a URL, it's a web address, and you go to Y-O-U-R-A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Feedback, F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you can communicate with us one way or two-way. You can just tell us what you want to say, and you don't give your way to be. re-contact it or you can give you can you can say you can re-contact me and I will

re-contact you but I won't know your real email or your real phone number or your real identity it'll go through the website that cleanses and protects your privacy and you're on anonymity anyway I digress we had one of those anonymous feedbacks that said I'd messed up on a blog and I wrote a blog years ago I guess Stu could probably pull it up when we get to that point of the show, when he gets to that anonymous feedback. And I was talking about a very deceptive old school dealership trick called the four square system, four, like the number four is square, like, you know, a square. And it's a system of tricking you into buying a car to pay more money.

And they said that I, they said that I had not explained it properly. but clearly anonymous feedback came from a car dealer. Well, we're not evil enough to really understand how it's used. I thought about that when I read it. I'm like, we probably got it wrong. I think the gist of what we said was it was just a good way to kind of distract and confuse and focus on what the customer's hot button was. It's not an effective way to present.

Well, see, now you're getting defensive. I'm always defensive. You get defensive, and I know a lot of very defensive people. So, what I try, in my, what is it by, what's the word I use? I've come, I'm a recovery car dealer now. The transcendence? Yeah, I'm trying, I'm purified. Right.

Anyway, I'm not as defensive as I used to be. I thrive on mistakes. And I, I want to correct that because it's important. When you ask for constructive criticism and you get criticized and you counterattack or get defensive, it mitigates the effect. It makes the contributor say, well, he didn't like, you know, he didn't like me saying that. But when you like people to give you constructive criticism, the criticism flows. Now, you certainly get some disingenuous and inaccurate criticism,

but you also get real criticism and what better way to get better in life than to change for the better and what better way to find out what changes need to be done by genuine constructive criticism. So keep that constructive criticism coming. Might not agree with you,

but we might agree with you and we hope that you have something can help us get better. Your anonymousfeedback.com or you brave people out of you. there, just look you in the eye and say, hey, this is what you need to change. We got a text number, and that text number is 772-497-6530, 772, 472, 497-6530, and of course, the telephone.

Now, you kiddies out there, born in the 80s and 90s, probably don't know what the telephone was. Today we call them smartphones, but they had numbers. And we still use the numbers. We don't use the phones anymore, but we call them phone numbers anyway. And it's confusing to you millennials, maybe. But that number is 877-960-9960. 877-960. And YouTube is just, I'm not going to go to Rick right now. He monitored. versus YouTube, but he's already got some YouTube's coming in, and I'm sure we have some texts coming in. Nancy Stewart monitors the telephone, and when the telephone numbers come, when that phone rings, they don't ring anymore, they can make different sounds,

but, you know, what I'm saying, when a telephone lights up on Nancy's computer, we stop everything and we go to the call because we prioritize normal phone calls. Why? Yeah, they're a little old-fashioned, but they still have the warmth, the feel, and the personality. And it's just to, is it to you, it is to me kind of more of an enjoyable dialogue, listening and responding in live real-time. Anyway, that's the radio. Yeah, on the radio, yeah, in the real-life. No, I don't like it as a part, yeah, exactly.

It's entertainment. Yeah. That's entertainment. And so this is what the radio show is. It's partly information, partly entertainment. If we didn't entertain, you wouldn't listen. So you've got to have a dash of entertainment, humor, to get the educational process flowing and then get people to listen, grow the audience.

Boy, I'm really on a rant, aren't I? I'm going to shut up and turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart, who is my co-host, and she's a co-founder of the show, and she is a very, very strong... I got the giggles. Yeah, and she's got the giggles, and she's a very strong supporter of our female listeners. And about half of them out there are listening. We want half of them to call or contact us in some way. And Nancy will incentivize you right now.

Definitely. Hey, I have something to say about caffeine, though. Boy, I'll tell you what, you've had some caffeine this morning, but I've been drinking caffeine since 2.30 this morning, and it has an adverse effect on me, just the opposite of what it has on you. As a matter of fact, I'm about to doze off. Okay, ladies and gentlemen,

gentlemen a little humor added to that I was a real new flabber you got that right tooths I remember bringing stew in he he said earlier that he was he was just a baby yeah I remember pushing him into the studio in a stroller pick me up I remember you putting me up and putting in the seat yeah we're kidding guys he's just a just a baby I was in my 40s yeah they're not kidding they did that last week. Okay, folks, you're in for a fantastic show right here for the

next two hours, and I want to thank everybody for joining us, and to repeat that number, it's 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30, and I have something special for the ladies, that's $50 for the first two new

lady callers. I'd like for you to give us a call and share your car purchasing or servicing experience. And let us know if it was, shall we say, worry-free. Share it all with us. And $50 for the first two new lady callers. And today, folks, we can use $50. We are going to go to our first female caller, and her name is Tamara, and she is calling us from Palm Springs.

Good morning, Tamara, and well, You have just won yourself $50. Wow, that's awesome. It is, isn't it? That is awesome. And if you send me, email me your contact information, I'll get that check out to you this afternoon. Well, thanks, guys. That's awesome.

But okay, George's camera, not Camara. It's like Tampa, but with an R instead of a P. All right. And you guys kind of know me from the ISP. And anyway, I bought a car, and I drove it off the lot on a test drive, and I just, I don't know, I just needed a car, you know, because I was an accident. And it was a few months ago, and I'm not super-duper happy with the car I bought. However, I put, you know, a big chunk down. I put $15,000 down on it, and then I refinanced the other half.

um so what are my options since i'm only two months into it can i go back to the deal and say i know i'm past my seven-day grace period it's been a couple months but i'm just not super excited with this vehicle or do i have to take such a big loss um and go find something else or what are my options here because i mean the car's okay it's just you know you know that feeling where you love that car, oh my car, I miss my Audi. I love my Audi. I just, I don't have

that, oh, my God, I love my car. And I'm in my car so much more now than I ever was before. I want to have that feeling. I love my car. You know that feeling? Yes. It's intrinsic.

Yeah, that wild feeling. Yeah, like the Tesla while that you guys are having. I don't want that. Would you like me to answer, Sarah? Tamara. Pamela? Tamara. It's Tamara. Tamla. Tamara. Tamara. Tamara. Tamara. Tamara. Sadly to say, you are stuck with a car, and I'm giving you the cold reality.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but there's nothing worse than buying a newer, even a used car. Use car is a little bit less worse. But there's nothing like buying nothing worse than buying a, nothing worse than buying. car and making a mistake after just a couple of months or even a few weeks. The car depreciates considerably. The dealer probably made a big profit when he sold you the car, bigger than normal, because of the situation with the microchips and the high-demand low supply. Deals are making probably 50% more profit than they ever made before. And to ask them to refund your money is asking too much of a dealer today.

Now, the problem is they won't tell you that. They might tell you, oh, sure, we can get you another car. But one way or the other, they're going to preserve their profit that they made on the first car. So that means they're going to have to compensate themselves for the depreciation of that car that you now have in your court, that's your depreciation. When they take it back in, it'll become their depreciation. And they also have to compensate themselves for the huge profit. They probably made thousands of dollars when they sold you the car.

And the car could well have depreciated thousands of dollars already because you've, you know, that happens initial depreciation. The best thing economically for you to do would be to keep the car. The longer you keep it, the better your conditions will be when you do trade it in for another car. The value of the car will smooth out. appreciation will not be as sharp. You'll build a little equity. But to trade right now would be a big financial burden. And if you want to go ahead, I can give you some advice on what you might do,

but it's still going to be painfully economically. Does that answer your question? Well, what is your advice that you think I should do then? Well, you could pass, I mean, if you really don't like, you could try selling the car on your own. I mean, use car prices are super high. So now you probably wouldn't be hurt as you were, as much as you were, it would have been if you had the same situation a year ago.

So you could sell it on your own, and you're still probably going to take somewhat of a depreciation hit, or you could sell it to that dealer or another dealer or a car max and see if somebody would give you enough money for it. Did you finance or did you pay cash? You ride my mind. Did you finance it? It was 50-50.

I put 50% of the hard value down. And then I find you have 50%. Okay, so then you could sell the car and you're not going to worry about a big payoff to a bank or anything like that. So if you're willing to take a little... I mean, I could probably even pay the car off right now, but then I'm stuck with the car.

I still don't really care about. Well, if you can sell the car, do you have any other cars to drive? It would be nice if you could sell the car now and then wait a few months to buy the replacement car because prices should be coming down in the near future, but right now they're pretty high. prices coming down on new cars?

Yeah, yeah, and to use all cars, prices will be coming down, you know, in the upcoming months. So if you sold your car, you're going to take, you're going to lose some on depreciation. You've driven it for a couple of months, so you had use of the car. But really the only option is to keep the car or sell the car. Tamara, it'll be easy to get prices. That's the only good news I can give you today. If you want to sell the car, dealers are aggressively buying, as are a lot of independent companies. And if you've got a pencil handy and you can write down, I will give you these that you can contact online.

CarMax.com, CarMax buys cars. You get a price from CarMax. You might have to take your car in, you will, to get a firm price. And they will buy it, pay cash. You don't have to buy another car. There's a company called Carvana, C-A-V-A-N-A-com, online. They buy cars. There's a company called

V-R-R-O-O-O-M-V-A-R-O-M-V-A-R-O-M-V-A-R-O-M. V-A-R-O-M. V-A-R-O-M. No R, just V-R-O-O-M. B-R-A-R-O-M. V-A-R-O-M. D-A-R-O-M. And then you've got

We Buy AnyC-C-C-C-C-com. That's easy to remember. we buy anycar.com. Now there's four right there that you can, in a few minutes, you can get online and they will give you prices on your car. And then you have to maybe spend more time to take it to an Audi dealer, use car department or to advertise it yourself. It'll be great if you've got an acceptable price online.

That way you don't have to go through all the trouble and aggravation. And when you sell a car yourself, you're dealing with a lot of characters, you're dealing with con artists, you're dealing with people that want to buy the car, but they don't have any money, they're going to want you to finance it for them. So if you sell the car one-on-one, unless you have a good contact, a friend, a relative, that you trust and know that will buy the car, you're better off to go to a third party. And the market is an all-time high, as Stu said. So you should be able to get more today for that Audi than you will two or three months from now. Oh, no, I don't have my Audi.

I love my Audi. Oh, okay. You want to feel like you have your Audi. Sorry, there you go. Nancy, you know my heart. Hey, is your name pronounced Tamara? No, it's Tamara. It's just like Tampa, but with an orange set of a P.

Oh, I got you. I got a misspelling on my screen. You know, here's my two cents, you know, in this volatile time that we are in. And it's just best to stay in the car that you're in as the guys shared with you. It's amazing the depreciation that happens when you drive off the lot, first of all. And as I said, you know, in this volatile time that we're in, it's just best for you to hang on to your vehicle. And I wish you a whole lot of luck. And it's an unfortunate time.

And as the guy said, CarMax, Carvano, Varum, those are all great places. to go we buycars.com, another place. So I hope that we helped you this morning. And... You gave me some options so that I'm very grateful for. Excuse me? I said you gave me some options so that I'm very grateful for.

Oh, well, we're grateful to you, and I hope you spread the word. Send me your email. Send me through my email, your contact information, and I'll get you. get the checkout to you. All right.

Well, do you mind tell me what your email is? Not at all. You can go to Rowland Cars and get that email address or if you have a pen, you can jot down Nancy S. at E.S.Toyota.com.

E.S.Tiota.com? That's correct. Nancy S. at E.S.Toyota.com. Yeah, we own a car dealership and this is not an infomercial I hasten to add. We just happened to have a car dealership, but this is purely a consumer advocacy show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I knew that. Good. She's a member of the International Sunrise Club. And, you know, because we have a car dealership, it certainly helps us help all of you. It doesn't matter whether we had a Toyota dealership, a Chevy dealership, whatever, with the experience of every... Overall health education in the cars. Yeah, every day, everyday experience. of people, consumers being taken advantage of.

It certainly helps to educate us every day. And we enjoy your company, and I hope you spread the word to your friends that they too can win themselves $50. Thank you so much and have a wonderful weekend. That's a nice surprise. I didn't know about that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Enjoy that. And I hope eventually maybe October. November, December, you get back that wow feeling. Yeah, and the only way that's going to happen is if I do get another vehicle. Aw. This one here's got stuff I just don't need. I don't need all these bells and whistles.

This is true. I just don't need all that crap. Yeah, yeah. On a smaller level, you can take a look at a microwave oven and you say to yourself, what did I buy all those bells and whistles? I'll never use them. So a perfect example. Go for what you need.

Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for all your help. You're welcome. I really do appreciate it. We hope to hear from you again. Have a wonderful weekend.

All right. Thanks, Nancy. Bye, Earl. Goodbye. Bye, bye. Bye, bye, Tampa. Oh, I mean, Tamara. A77960-9960.

Take advantage of Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you can text us at 772. 497-6530. I think we are going to take a look at some YouTube's. Well, we've got one from Casey, who says, Earl, how come you bought the Tesla? Did you not consider buying the Toyota BZ4? Well, I bought the Tesla because I'm a tech freak. I like fast cars. I like state-of-the-art, anything.

and I have to say that this car, this Tesla plaid, is a quantum leap ahead of any other technology available on the highway. So, you know, I'm an old guy, I love fast cars, and I wanted to see what the fastest car in the world was like. So I never had the opportunity to be able to buy the fastest car in the world. And this is a relatively reasonable price. It sounds crazy that $150,000 would be a reasonable price. But when you consider the Lamborghini's...

The next fastest car is probably a million dollars. Yeah, and they have cars out there that are just crazy money. I'm the king of the road. But I plan on getting BZ when it's available, when it's easily available. So I'm only going to drive this Tesla until the Toyota. Because I'm going to make this a Toyota commercial. The Tesla is no toy. in terms of like, you know, quality, it's no Honda, it's no.

I mean, I think, yeah, there's some issues there, but the technology is just mind-blowing, so that's what we have. You know, like so many other products out there, you forgive the foibles of a product when the product is so thrilling and overwhelmingly positive. Every product you buy has got pluses and minuses, and what's true is referring to, this best for, the paint and finish, we call it in the industry, the paint, the door fit.

Just the little things. Yeah, Nancy's door. on the passenger door two of the doors don't close well you have to close it twice I mean here's a $150,000 car that you have to close the doors slam the door to get it to stay tight

I'll take it to Tesla and they'll probably fix that and there's some pain issues and other little things but it's such an overwhelmingly technically amazing car that you forgive those little things I think I'm going to have to put on 10 pounds to close that door I have a question for you

would you agree or disagree that every second you are in the Tesla, it is, well, in education, you're learning something new. It has that many features. Exactly. Also, when you climb behind the, in front of the yoke, would you say that you're completely comfortable, opposed to the wheel? Yeah, I think we talked about the Tesla enough. I mean, I understand it. Yeah. But, yeah, I love the car, I enjoy the car, very happy with a car.

Okay, enough said. And you did receive your title, your certificate of title for your Tesla, and you're very happy. Yes, I am. I've got, Rick's got a comment. Just to play devil's advocate, I've noticed on a lot of new cars, when they are brand spanking new, you know, up for like the first month or two, when you close the doors, they don't always close easily the first time. And I think it's because the door seals are so new and the vehicle is so airtight that when you close that door, that resulting air pressure doesn't want to let the door close all the way because they're so airtight.

You sound like a car salesman or a service advisor making excuses because I could tell you that in my Lexus 500, L.S. 500 that I had before the Tesla never had a problem. And I've owned a lot of cars of my quality cars that never had the problem. But when you do have the problem, that's what we used to tell them. When I was a Pontiac dealer, they come in and say, the door won't close. Well, that's because it's new and tight. And it's really a positive attribute that you can't close the door, because that means it's really hard. Let me tell you something, you can build a car that's totally airtight,

that you can close the doors easily on. But your Lexus, one door, weighed as much as the Tesla. Well, I'm not The two different types of cars I totally agree with you. The Tesla door closed easily because there's a big hole in it and it didn't have any Can we stop talking about the Tesla?

Please, I'm begging you. Rick, to your car salesmen, we're trying to educate people here. Rick, to your car salesman, you know, spleen or whatever you want to call it. So I ask you, why does Ben Rosenberger have to come in and close my

home? Come into my home. Now we're talking about football. And he has to close my door because I stand from one side of the garage to the other and I give it the old college try okay we have a door closed we have a YouTube over here Rick let's here we're out of control actually just the next one I have is a shout-out we have we have a call oh good okay Marty real thank you so much Marty for holding I hope you continue to listen we've got a whole lot going on here but Marty's

calling us from West Palm Beach welcome hi I I've got a couple points. I think last week a woman called you about car warranties or extended warranty. Mm-hmm. Yep. People don't realize, and I'm just saying people, I mean, some people do some don't, that car dealers and warranty companies make a fortune off a warranty. I sure do.

The odds of buying a warranty and using it are remote. Exactly. So when I go into the finance guy, I've been buying cars now for, I'm going to say 50 years. I don't buy Teslas. But when I go in, I tell the finance guy, don't even bother giving me all the extras. Because I don't buy the tire extra. I don't buy the extended warranty.

I don't buy that if you lease a car and you get a scratch on it. You're a smart guy. You're a smart guy, Marty. Well, I'm a tough buyer. Uh-huh. But I get out of there as fast as I can. And I feel most people to buy a warranty, no, I don't keep a car 20 years or 10 years. And maybe if I did, maybe they would work out for me.

Yeah. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that's a huge profit center. Extensive service contracts, dealers call them in warranties. they are a focal point. I won't say most, but I would certainly say most larger car dealers own their own warranty companies.

We own our own warranty company. And there's nothing more profitable than selling insurance, and that's all a warranty is. Extended contract, service contract, a rose is a rose, extended service contracts is an insurance policy. And just ask Warren Buffett

if there's a lot of money in insurance. insurance. You'll always take in a whole lot more in premium than you pay out in claims. And my philosophy, and I think this is a good sound philosophy, is if you can afford to pay something out of pocket yourself, you're crazy, if you can afford to pay something out of pocket yourself, you're crazy to buy a warranty that's going to pay it for you. I mean, if you're paying the dealer $100 a month on that warranty policy you bought, take $100 a month and put it in the bank or the stock market or buy bonds or save the money. And then if you have a repair, take it out of your account and sell the stock. Right. You come out ahead of the game.

Yeah, I don't know if people can multiply, but $1,200 a year for three years is $3,600. That would be an extraordinary amount for a warranty, by the way, just said. It is an extraordinary amount, and dealers do charge extraordinary amounts for it. There are some states, remember we're national, international, there's some states that have no cap on what you can charge. In fact, they don't even require you to publish, to use a published figure. I haven't checked recently, but I used to be in California when you went to one, the finance department in California.

the finance manager could sell you a warranty and he can sell you the same warranty for $1,000, $2,000, or $5,000, whatever he could get away with. Or $500, if they're trying to make a deal. Now, you know that that company that advertises a lot

for warranty on TV, they charge at least the minimum is $100 a month. Really? So people, I mean, if you look at their reviews, I don't know if you've had anybody coming into your dealership and try to use their warranty.

But a lot of people have complained that when they have a problem, they can't even use it. Exactly, yeah. A lot of times they buy a power train warranty was essentially worthless, and they think they have a real warranty. They probably told them it was a bumper-to-buffer, which a power trade warranty is something you practically never have to use. In fact, a lot of deals give them only free, because it sounds good. But yeah.

Now, you're an educated consumer, Marty, and I appreciate to coach. and I appreciate the call because, you know, we... Are you on our vigilante list? We need vigilantes. I'm not, but I guess I could be one of these days I'll decide to do it. I got a hat for you. I'll hold it up for the camera. I don't think you're streaming us,

but if you'll sign up for a vigilante, I'll send you one of these hats. It's a free hat that we use to encourage educated consumers like yourself, Marty, and anybody else out there listening. See how good I look at that hat? Yeah, Marty. Yeah, I'm watching you on YouTube. Oh, okay.

Great, great. Hey, Marty, you know, not only is it a benefit to us because we can't reach everybody, but it's a benefit to you, and you can help us, you know, round up these dealers that are so dishonest, and you can help people in your community. And it's, like I said, a win-win situation. and if you have a moment, if you have the time, really, we need your help. And it is vigilantes, earlsvigilandies.com. And it's real easy to sign up.

And as well said, he can give you a hat. It's a really good looking hat, right, Stu? That's beautiful. I had a little something to design. Yeah, he's a designer. If you got a second. Absolutely, Marty. One more point.

I just wanted to tell Earl, my son-in-law, bought a Tesla, well. and he said that the finish and everything is that good either. Yeah, yeah, it's a, you know, Elon Musk is a genius, and he's a technological quantum leap to have everybody else, but he hasn't figured out how to get that right, and he will, I mean, eventually he will, but it's amazing what you can forgive when you have a product that's just so cool. Right, right, yeah, my son-in-in-in-next week,

to have them fix a few problems. Yeah, good. Stay in touch with us, Marty. We'd love to hear from you for a number of reasons, whether you joined Earlsvigilandes.com and what little information about the Tesla. Okay. I'll keep calling you.

Thank you. Thank you, Martin. All right. Have a good week. You too, my friend. Thank you. Have a great weekend. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-49-30-30.

Okay, which way? we're going guys. You guys broke in protocol because Anne-Marie is supposed to get the first question of the show and we stopped doing that last two weeks, so sorry, Amory. Yeah, very sorry, Anne-Marie. We welcome you this morning and every Saturday morning. Well, I don't know if you're going to be crazy about Emory's question, but I got to read it anyway. Emory says, good morning.

Now that you've had a few weeks to get acquainted with your new Tesla, what are your favorite features on it so far? What are the features that you like the least? and I've had the hardest time adjusting to. Thanks. You know, interestingly enough, and this is something I know I will adjust to, and Nancy has the same problem. I have a problem of driving my Tesla lid in the garage and getting out and going to the house without anything else.

In other words, the car turns itself off. It locks itself. The lights go out, the doors lock, everything. All you do is you pull in, you get out of the car and walk in the house. So I'm fumbling for my key until I leave my key, and it even has a charger. I always forget my iPhone and leave it in the car, but

nothing serious. Nothing serious about it, really. I've even gotten used to not using the brake. I used the accelerator and take my foot off the accelerator and access a brake. You know, my brakes, a Rick will appreciate this. I don't think you'll ever have to do a

break job. I mean, I just don't ever use the brakes. And, Marie, it is a learning experience with out of doubt. And it's an amazing vehicle. And there's so many things to educate yourself with so that you can be safe on the road. Because if you don't stay focused, yikes. Okay. The next one comes to us from Robbie and Stewart, and it's for Rick. This is good morning. We have a 2011 BMWX-5 diesel. They're a big SUV. We bought it new, and it's just sat in our garage for about two years.

I know the battery is dead. What else do we need to get it back running? What about the fuel? And like I said, that's from Robbie and Stewart. A BMW diesel, I wouldn't even try to crank it. I would have it towed either to a BMW dealer or I would find a highly qualified diesel shop. I would have the vehicle towed there, explained to them that it has sat for two years, so that they know what's going on because diesel fuel is very thick fuel and it can have a tendency to

not quite separate but actually almost gel up and that can plug up the diesel injectors that can plug up the filters and the diesel pump i didn't know what definitely what would happen if they did try to crank it what would happen if they tried to crank it uh worst case scenario is that The fuel system basically would just plug right up, and they would have a very hard time getting that cleaned out. It could be very expensive. Very interesting. I would have never guessed. I'm really glad.

I hope he listened to that before he tries too hard. You can actually make it worse by trying to start it. Yes, because you're pumping. It's going to try to pump that fuel. Hopefully the fuel that's in the lines has not deteriorated to the point of plugging things up. It could have already caused that as well. That wouldn't apply to any diesel, but just a diesel that has sat for a long time. Yes.

As a matter of fact, any vehicle that has sat for two years, the fuel system is going to be so degraded because of that, as well as the engine itself. I got you. The oil that has sat in there that has all drained down now, it's going to have a hard time building compression back. It's going to have hard time getting its oil pressure back. and there are things that mechanics can do like actually some cars we can even mechanically spin the engine to get

oil pressure up without letting it start so that it gets a chance to get some oil pressure back before you start getting the abusive combustion in there that can cause damage I remember you heard here first from a certified diagnostic

master technician Rick Kearney I mean I've been in the business for over 50 years I did not know that I wasn't expecting that I learn from this guy every week. I mean, it's like, you know, I'm listening to the show because his stuff is gold. Right, you're almost like an apprentice diagnostic master technician.

Well, it's like, you know, we're in South Florida, so you have a lot of people with boats, when you have boats with two cycle engines where you have the gas and oil mixed together, the fuel on those, if it sits too long, can literally become the consistency of jelly. It turns to jello, it's napalm, basically. Oh, cool. So, oh, it can be fun to play with, but it's not very good for the engine. Rick, I think I hear or see a book coming from you, and it would be Rick's Repair Handbook. Okay.

All right. Let's go over. We have actually a really good question from Bob. Bob says, good morning. Since extended warranties are not worth the extra cost, then why pay more for a certified vehicle? That's a very interesting question. You know, I tell you, that's a great question. Here's the reason I like that question so much.

What I recommend you do is you find a vehicle that's certifiable, and it hasn't been certified yet. Meaning, by the way, it's within the miles and the year restriction allows it to be certified. Yeah, exactly. So, and then you'll find that this car, can go through the certified check, which certified cars have to go through. The part about the certified car that you don't want to have to pay for is the warranty that is baked into the certification. Yeah, actually, that's a brilliant concept. People like the certified cars

because the impression that they go through, theoretically they're going through a more rigorous inspection. You could offer to pay a little bit more for the enhanced inspection, but typically it's about $500. They say it comes with a warranty, it's applied to the cost of the car. So it's around $500 for that power train warranty that gets everybody excited about the certified cars. When you see these advertised, one of the reasons people love certified cars is the manufacturers will even advertise them. Yeah. Because that warranty comes from the manufacturer.

And you would wonder, why would a manufacturer of new cars want you to buy used cars? Because they sell the warranties to the dealer to allow the dealer to use their name. So when you see Honda's certified used car, Honda's making a profit when you buy that on the warranty. If you don't buy the warranty, they don't make a profit, but you can still buy the car, just don't buy the warranty. To give you an example, we pay the service department roughly about $90 to check out a car, unless there's anything wrong with it, just inspecting the car. It's double that for the certification. So you could spend, say, $180 to get a certified car that's checked out extensively, but don't pay the extra $5.5. $500 for the warranty. Bob, that's a great question. Rick's got a point.

Well, some of the differences also between the two inspections, and these are things that you can have, if you get just a regular lower level inspection, you can have these things addressed at the time. The tires have to have a minimum tread depth of five to six 30 seconds of an inch, which is about half their life, plus the brand and model of the tire. In other words, all four tires have to be exactly the same brand of model. Well, that's the point. So you could, as a customer, you could say, I want this car to meet certification specifications.

I'm not interested in the warranty. Does it cost me a little extra to pay for the enhanced inspection? And you might pay more because they have to replace tires to make sure they're the right brand and the right tread depth. Exactly. The brakes also have to be a higher level remaining of the brakes. And there can be no aftermarket add-ons to the car, such as like a tow hitch, unless it's a factory-installed tow hitch.

Toppers on trucks are generally removed. Yeah, right. In the aftermarket lights and radios, everything like that. Yeah, the point Bob's trying to get is we could, you could probably, you could build a certified vehicle without paying for the warranty. Absolutely. Just meet all the specs that you just described. Now, let me wrap that up with something that might be even more important than anything

we talked about. I, in my experience in all these years, my guess is that in many cases the certified cars that you buy, that the technician that went over the checklist did not really even check the car very well. And these are paid on commission. And remember, everybody in a car dealership is paid on commission. So Rick gets a commission when he certifies the car. Honda dealers technician or Audi dealer technician, they get a certification. They have

a long checklist. When they check the, when they check the squares on the list and they turn it in, they get paid. How thoroughly do they check the car? You have to ask yourself that question. That means when you're dealing with a dealer that you don't know, be very skeptical. Still take that car to your own independent mechanic. I would rather pay it independent mechanic, 150 bucks, then take the word of the guy that's selling me the car's mechanic, and he says the car's certified. It might be certified, but what if he didn't really check it? What if he didn't check the brakes? What if he didn't check the tire tread? Do you know that he did?

If you ask to see... Well, they do have a one year, they do have it for the certified, it's a one year, and it comes from Toyota and Honda and all that. They do, for anything they've missed, it's 100%. It is a bumper-to-bumper warranty for a year. If you know about it. know about it. Yeah, and certain things, how would you ever know? So after a year, I mean, anyway, there you go. I would, I've never thought about this. I know we're beating this certified thing to death, but here's something that just came to me. I would ask to see the certified checklist on a car, and I would do my best to identify those items that were checked

and be specific about it. I would then even consider taking that, checklist to my own mechanic and saying can you verify this and is a tire tread right are all these things that were supposed to be checked can you tell me if they were checked absolutely and that way you have the security of a certified car without paying all the money okay let's move on I'm going to add something to that ladies and gentlemen knowledge is power certified vehicle can be very misleading and my favorite question about warranties is what does it it cover We're going to go back to the phones, and thank you so much for your patience, John.

John's a regular caller from Palm City. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. If you own the car, and it was flood car, it was totally totaled by your insurance company. Quite common with the storms that we've had recently. Your insurance company hopefully paid you the right amount of money, but it was completely totaled, and it's no longer usable. People, ask the question, where did that car go? Well, if it's, if you owned it, if you had a liberty insurance or all state exclusively, it went to a firm called Copa. That's a public corporation traded on the stock exchange. I have no idea how the stock is doing, but they own nationwide 160 junkyards, 203, 203 auction facilities, and you can bid on the cars. They get

Pictures are on that Copart website. And if you bid on it, it gets sold to the highest bidder, and you run your own, you get full title, and 80% of them are actually wrecks. The others are abandoned cars or cars that's pulled the total from the floods. John, spell that, would you spell the name of that company? Copart, C-O-P-A-R-T. Okay.

And it's traded on the stock exchange. I think it's NASDAQ. I think it's around $150 a share now. They tell me it's doing, I don't follow the stock, so they tell me it's doing pretty well. But they are exclusive carriers. It goes to them from Blibity and Allstate and many other insurance companies,

body shops included, cause it were wrecked, and they're nationwide, and they have 203 auction facilities, and you get the full-time. when you bid on them, but here's the danger. Now with the shortage of used cars, I'm sure many of dealers, not dealers, are people buying

and fixing them up and reselling them. So again, as Rick says, if you're buying any automobile that's used, you do your homework, pay a guy extra to go over the car with a fine-tooth comb, whatever they charge, it's well worth it because of what's going on with the shortage of cars,

your cars and people buying some of these cars and fixing them up and reselling them. Wow. So that's just a caution. Great information. I did not know that. I did not know that. Well, Rick will probably tell you if there's a car in your shop

that gets total, you know, from an accident, chances are that this copart company will buy that car from the insurance company. Well, and I could buy that car by being a high bidder, and then I could take it. I could take it to Mississippi or New Jersey and get a fresh title, and then I could take it

to Florida and put it on my used car lot and sell somebody. It was a beautiful car, and he's going to love on it and charge him all the money. Interesting. It's amazing how these glitches in our system exist like this. Thank you so much for that information, John. Well, Rick's the good word. Do your homework before. Get somebody to check your car out. Absolutely. Wow. Great information. One other fast thing, too. I don't know what everybody was sleeping. One of the most quality cars that people have owned in the past,

old time is like myself, the doors didn't close. What was the car? The Volkswagen Beetle was made so good and so tight that unless you had a window partially opened to something, when you close the door, it was like a safe door. It was built so good that it was so tight that sometime you had to slim the door a couple of times. And it was nothing to do with anything being misaligned.

It was just because that car was so good and so tight. Do you remember those days? Yeah, the airside was that if you had a beetle, if you drove it into the water, it would float. Yes. They were literally watertight. At least that's what the Volkswagen Salesman told us, right? Right, exactly.

Don't try it. All right, guys, I'm looking for the cheap chopping report. Thanks, John. John's absolutely correct on that. When Alan Napier was still coming around on the show with us, he spoke of Copart many times that you could go on there and I even looked on a few times to look and see if there's any cars that I might be interested in getting hold of,

but they just looked like they were way too far messed up. Well, why would you want to buy one of those? I mean, if you got a car that's been totaled, other than parts, what would you do with it? I was looking for parts. Oh, parts. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Rick. Unless you're a crook. Nope. Not me. Have you spoken to a lot of your friends or customers, whatever, about flood cars? Does that topic come up with the conditions that have prevailed recently? Yeah, we talked about it all the time. You know, I had a question asked of me this past week, and I really didn't know how to answer it,

but I'm thinking now that you do. And the young lady wanted to know how she could get rid of it. a musty smell from her air conditioner and she'll give you heads up. She's from New York. Best advice is start right off with dampred in the car. Get a couple of big containers of dampred. Just put them in the car and close the windows up and it will get all the moisture out of the car. Dampard is actually a product designed to absorb moisture. It's a calcium citrate that its whole intent is to absorb moisture in moist areas of your house. So it works beautiful in the car.

If your cell phone gets dropped in a puddle, put it in a container with some dampret in there and seal it airtight. It's the best stuff in the world for absorbing moisture. Do you have a lot of usage? Do you have the dampret inside of the package, or could you get the granules themselves? You can get the granules. You can get the granules. It comes in so many forms.

now and it's an unbelievable product that I believe in we've been subjected to a flood in our home recently and I have damper it well I had a couple of cases of it anyway so I'm using it everywhere it's inexpensive it works perfectly and it just does the job but keep that in the car for a while with the windows up you know anytime you park the car so that it gets a chance to get the moisture out of there first and without moisture that will kill any mold or mildew that's in there. Then you can worry about evaluating from there to see if you need to go any further.

Great, great advice, Rick. Jennifer, I hope you're listening. Our number here is 877960-9960, and you can text us, of course, at 772-497-3-0. I think we're going to stick with Rick. He's got some more information to share with us. We've got a post from Donovan. Oh, hi, Donovan. Let's see.

He starts here with, I don't think the BZ4 will ever be released. Toyota is so far behind in the EV space, they're fighting it at every step, fighting in Congress to get the government to not pass laws pushing EVs. Their announced EV investment from two weeks ago is one-third of what others are investing and taking twice as long. Personally, I think they're waiting too long, and they know. know it, so an option for them is to fight it. Evs are all about the batteries and securing supply now. Look at Honda. They are so far behind they had to partner with GM and use their

entire underpinning because they have no ability to do this. Well, I don't disagree with that. I know that, I mean, Toyota is asking us to lobby on their behalf against there's a provision in the infrastructure bill that would give a big tax credit for EV buyers. But only for vehicles made at plants with, they have union representation. And Toyota's plants don't have that. So they're arguing it puts them at a disadvantage. That's a valid reason to argue. I mean, why?

That sounds political. I mean, you've got a, you've got politicians that want to cater to the union. And therefore, they penalize someone that's not unionized. People, a business is not unionized because the workers choose. not to be unionized. And what's wrong about that? Right. So, but to the other point is, yeah, they

TOTA took a very cautious approach and they were developing and they still are the hydrogen fuel cell and, but they really pushed, they became the king of hybrids with the Prius and maybe that went to their head but yeah, they're not doing the effort the other manufacturers are

and I think they're scramming to catch up. They probably will catch up, but like you said, or we talked last week. They're very well capitalized. I've got a ton of money and they can get back into the game. I'm just disappointed because I'm a geek. So as Earl, we're nerds. We like, you know, we like high-tech things. And it's disappointing that, you know, the one we're associated with is a little bit slow to get to it. But, yeah, he's right on the money. Donovan's, yeah, he's very, very, very observant. Yeah, Donovan, thank you so much for joining us every Saturday

morning with all your input. I'm going to interrupt Rick and we're going to go back to the phones. Don is calling us from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Don. Good morning. I was going to ask, Earl, you had your car now, what, three weeks? Yes. How do you like it? Well, I hear, people ask me how I feel. I like it when they ask me how I feel when I feel when I was 17 years old. And I was driving my father's, 1957. Bonneville Pontiac fuel-injected convertible and I could still I still get

heart palpitations when I think about that car I was 17 years old and the girls love me because I had that car when on the weekends my father let me borrow it and it was it was the fastest car on the road at the time fuel injected that was the first fuel-injected car general motors or I think just about anybody built and there was only one per dealer one one offer per pinnacular. So it's a collector's item today, but when I get in that Tesla plaid, I feel like I'm 17 again. Yeah, and it's about twice, three times as fast as that car you just...

Exactly. Other reason I call is how spoiled this generation is. I mean, what's the normal floor plan interest rate for a dealer nowadays? We talk about that. I've got my company controller is the only one that's been around. as long as I have actually been around longer than I have. And we talk about our interest rates today. We're paying about 2%.

Our floor plan bill is about $10,000 a month. Typically 60. Yeah, and it could be as high as... Back in the day when we had real interest rates, I was paying GMAC, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, to a floor plan to finance my Pontiacs on my lot. I was paying them 21%. I was going to say exactly that because I had a small used car lot by 30 cars in 84.

Yeah. And I was paying 21% to my local bank. Wow. And I still managed to make some money. I don't know how what I did. But my mortgage on my house was 17%. And they're whining today about four. Right.

Yeah. Good point. Just a little bit of humor there. How lucky we are today. That's going good. Anyway, nice talking to you. Thank you, I was good. I love the call on because you know, all guys like you and me remember those days.

If you talked to a kid today, they just, they have no idea how things have changed. And one of the good things is what you described. I love these little interest rates. And people don't know what high ones are unless they were there and had to pay that $100,000 for plan check to the bank every month. Call again, please, Don. Thank you so much, Don. Give us a call again.

Stu? What trouble call, by? All right, we get. Okay, go ahead, Rick. I was just going to say, people talk about the kids today and their issues with cars, and one of the things we hear a lot about are that kids today don't drive stick shift. Believe it or not, the new Ford Bronco that has been wildly popular,

something in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 percent of those are coming right out of the factory with stick shifts, and they're selling like hotcakes. I didn't know that. 30% or 40%. A lot of them. So it's amazing. The stick shift, Ford, may bring it back. That's because the old people are driving it, but kids don't know how to drive a stick ship.

And it also makes no sense because a good automatic transmission is much faster than any stick ship. You can't shift a car for the quarter mile of 0 to 60 as fast as an automatic. And with electric car, you've got the ultimate transmission. You've got the ultimate, there is no transmission, so you have a continuous acceleration. So not only are normal automatic transmissions obsolete with the electric car, but stick shifts are dinosaurs. Yeah.

That's amazing. I just thought it was interesting, though, to hear that. Well, good luck to Ford. Let's see how they sell. I don't know. Yeah. You know, and what's amazing is that I find it interesting that it really interests the ladies.

I mean, I was on a website this past week, and you can actually buy a shirt. It says, for ladies, yes, I can drive a stick shift. And it's just something that has come back. Yep. And there's an attraction. I don't know why, where, how, but it is. Brings out the caveman and the guys. What about the women?

I mean, the women who are so attracted to, I mean, that's how I grew up, a stick shift. Okay, I'll digress. We're going to go back to the phones where we're going to talk to Bill from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bill. Hey, guys. Good morning. Well, two quick things.

The car part is one on Belvedere by the fairgrounds. Yes, there is. Yep. has the laws changed regarding buy-heer pay-heer lots? I don't think so. Are you aware of any changes in the laws that affect buy-heer payers? I don't think so.

This is probably not related, but the thing is taking off big time for companies now with buy-now pay later and it's enabling companies to get around the truth and lending laws on the interest rate restrictions by saying we're not charged you're any interest so you buy this product and you pay me back later that's the whole essence of

buy here pay here low payments so maybe some some guy came up with a devious idea of the buy your pay here and he stopped saying buy here pay here he just said buy me

buy now pay later and then he just raises the price of the car and pretends like it's not interest but I don't know whether that's happening or not I'm not aware of anything else. Okay. Back in the day, I ran one for a buddy of mine. And come Friday night, you missed the payment, out came the hook, and we sold it back to you

again. Yeah. I had one, too, called Stewart Select Cars. Buy here, pay here, and we repoed our cars and holds everybody on the interest. You were doing that before they came out with the GPS, Car Mobilizer, is that by here? is that you'll pay her use later, where they can actually disable your car if you don't make your payment. We had a great big guy. He's about 6'4 foot 6 and wore a suit and... Cabo hat.

And he would go out and repow the cars. We never knew how he was able to do so well. Get a big nickel-plated 44 Magnum on his hip. We don't want to talk about that. Back of the day, yeah. Yep. Not that's full back. No.

When you sold the Pontiac dealer to Schumacher? Yes. I sold the front. I was part of the crew that disassembled your shop. Is that right? Wow. I'll be darned. Yeah, I sold.

Actually, I sold the building to a real estate guy who turned them into townhomes or tore it down and then built townhomes there. And I sold the franchise to Chuck Schumacher. He wasn't very happy about that because Pontiac folders a few years later, and I kid him about it every now, and the timing is everything. Oh, exactly. But the 09 Sion that we bought from you guys at the beginning of 2011 was it had two stickers on it. One was certified, which they did at the time that we were buying it. Uh-huh. And there was another sticker on it.

I guess it was just one of the... that you checked it out, you used car stickers. Yeah, yeah. We, uh, we certain, well, in our dealership, we have a certified, uh, that we do on all of our cars too. cars too. And you can either buy, you don't have to buy the warranty. We have the certified check called, we call it the gold check. Yeah. Yeah. We still have it. We love it. The only issue that we have with that car is that when it rains and my life turns the wipers on, the inside of the wind shield gets foggy. that happens on a lot of cars it bothers me what cars what's that Rick

I've had it happen on and off with cars it seems to vent on the atmospheric conditions or something it's the temperature of the windshield getting the moisture on the inside you can try anti-fog

sprays cleaners with anti-fog capabilities and clean the windshield well with it but you got to reapply it about every couple months So it's on the inside, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. So you do the inside with anti-fog.

I'll give that a try. It happens to me right now in my test. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting. I'll give it a try, too. Well, yours, these guys, are a wealth of information, and it's good talking about the old times, and have a good day.

Thank you, Bill. Call again. Yeah, Bill. Thanks. Us old guys got to stick together. Thanks so much, Bill. We look forward to hearing from you. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. Don't forget about Earl's Vigilantes.

If you consider yourself somewhat of a car expert, you don't have to be able to take an engine apart, but you'd be helping us to help your community and so many others, girls holding up his famous Earl's Vigilante. Free hat, free hat. And it's free whenever you join Earl's Vigilantes, the design by Stu Stewart. And it is quite nice. Also, with as many seniors we have going to the Internet, they too need a little bit of help to maneuver their way around, and you can join that cause also and become a volunteer

here and help them and help us. That's earl-oncars.com where you can get all that information. And ladies, I have $50 for one more female caller, and you still have time to get that call in. So $50 for the second new female caller. 877-960. And ladies, let me ask you this with this. With prices, I'm going to say, expected to sort of stabilize, say, in the fall because of this computer chip shortage and so many other things that are going on right now with limited inventory.

Is that a choice for you? Can you wait? If you can answer that question, give us a call and let us know. And at the same time, you can win yourself $50.877-960. And I think we're going to take it back to Stu. Yeah, we've got a bunch of text here. Well, I found the pen to my rocket book. Oh, I'm sorry.

But where's your rocket? That was, is that without the Honda? Is that without your hand dog? Yes, it is. We have a text from Joe in Cleveland. Joe says, can you trickle charge a hybrid automobile? Or is there a special trickle charger to charge the main battery system? Looking at you, Rick.

You can trickle charge the 12-volt battery, but not the hybrid. battery. Well, you don't exactly, but you can charge a hybrid battery. You do it one cell all the time. That's not in the factory recommended list of work, but is, am I correct? There is actually equipment now at dealerships, most of them, to recharge the hybrid battery if it need be. However, it's a very time-consuming and expensive process.

And if you were trying to do it, the shade tree method, which I actually had to do that once about 10 years ago, it took a whole lot longer, and it was an extremely expensive thing because I had to disassemble it and literally charge each individual cell manually. You used to do that for some customers back in the day when the Prius first came out, the hybrids first came out. Yeah, we had to do it once. Oh, once? That was only the one time.

Yeah. And then they've actually now come out with a, it's an extremely large toolbox with all the equipment in it to charge up each of the different systems. But so far, we haven't actually had to use that. Oh, interesting. Okay. All right. Next text comes to us from, I don't have a name on it,

but we're going to get it to it after this call it. Sorry, Sue. We have a lot of callers today. We have Wendy calling, and she's calling us from Wellington. And she's called before, but she enjoys the show. So here she is. Good morning, Wendy. Welcome back.

Good morning, Nancy. Thank you. Thank you. enjoy your show my husband and i listen to it every saturday morning thank you my question nancy is i i don't wash my own car anymore i take it to a machine car wash and as much as i try to line up the tires uh properly sometimes they get bumped a little bit does that affect the alignment of the car at all there is a potential that it could uh affect the alignment if you get in there really twisted and when the car is trying to drive against those metal rails, if the wheels are

twisted too much. So it's something you'd want to be careful to try to get them as straight as possible before you go into that car wash. If they're at a little bit of an angle, the rails will straighten the wheels, but if it's just a small amount, like just a few degrees here and there, it's not going to really hurt the alignment. Trust me, I know, because every time I try and drive a vehicle through our car wash, I panic because I think I'm going to ruin the car. And so I have the same feeling you do. I get up there, I'm like, I feel it rubbing on the rails. But so far, I haven't messed it up.

But just trying to go there, like Rick said, as straight as possible. Yeah, and go slow, slow and easy. So if you start to feel it binding a whole lot, stop and back up. Great good advice. I can be a real profit center for a car dealership. You take the customer cars, you go to the car wash, knock it out of the linemen. They tell them they need alignment and sell them in alignment. You still got any to work on that recovery.

Exactly. See? Look how his mind goes. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. Did we answer your question, Wendy? Yeah, yeah, that's very reassuring. Thank you.

Oh, you're quite welcome. It was great hearing from you. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. Have a great weekend. So we could use that idea in our 20 group if we were still active. Just for you folks out there, car dealers are almost everybody, and the car dealers, new car dealers, belong to something called a 20 group.

There are a group of dealers from all over the country. You can play a financial savings. You get together every three. three months or four months and you can bear ideas and they have something called super idea time and the car dealers come up with ways to screw the customer and make a lot of money and the guy that has the most devious profitable idea a win so like 10 grand 5 000 big money i mean yeah personally yeah super idea time so if i were still leaving in the 20 group i'd probably use that idea I say, you all got a car wash, take your car, take the customer's car, run it through the car wash in an incorrect manner, and knock it out of alignment, then you can go ahead and charge it for an alignment.

You know how many people that information reached just know? Yeah, you're right. Okay. I just, I remember when we tried to use, when we dropped the dealer fee, we tried to use that as our super idea time. And we lost. Well, we presented the numbers that said that, you know, we did lose immediately some profitability in the first few months, but then we recouped it in volume and then our business was never better and we thought it we had found the holy grail and they basically left us out of the competition of course you can't get rid of

a dealer fee boy i'll tell you what when i think back at the dealer fee and getting rid of it wow coup d'etat i'm telling you boy oh boy nobody agreed uh but the big guy here knew what he was doing i digress back to stew that's me um we have a text here and there's no name on it says Good morning. Very pleased with the Highlander that I bought, Errol Stewart. Having a stop-start battery that is two and a half years old, I wish to know how long do they normally last before replacing. That's the stop-start battery. If you check in your owner's manual for the factory recommended maintenance,

there is actually a lifespan when the factory recommends that battery must be replaced and one for the starter as well. I didn't know that. Yes, there is. What is the recommended for a typical battery? A normal 12-volt battery on a normal car that does not have stop-start. There is no recommended replacement. It's replaced what needed.

And that would be just, you know, when the battery does fail. Well, I missed that in the first part of your comment. Okay. Now, for the other one, I'll have to look that up real quick. That's okay. No, because I've never understood why batteries don't last longer than they do. To me, you know, I think the answer is about three years. You should be starting worrying about your battery.

Yeah. And it doesn't make any sense to me that in the 21st century we should have to have replaced. You know, a car battery should last longer than that, but that's another show. And excuse me, Rick, can you tell me this as far as the battery is concerned? Is it still, shall we say, SOV? for you to maintain your battery. That's the consumer that they would bring the car in and have some maintenance done on it,

excuse me, every two years, every four years, and it has a whole lot to do with the climate that you're in, and, et cetera. So what do you say? Well, most batteries now are maintenance-free. A few of them still have the caps where we can add some water to it. And other than that, it's just cleaning the terminals once in a while to make sure they're kept clean.

but there's really almost no maintenance for the batteries. Thanks. That's one of these things that the dealers are supposed to do, but often they don't do, and it's on their free check for, you know, 25 points, 8 points, 185 points. They always give you a free inspection, and the free inspection is just something they can use to find something wrong

so they can charge you for something. But one of those is usually check the battery, and they don't check the battery, but they should check the battery. they should do a load check, right, Rick? A load check to be sure you're bad. And if you've got some crud and corrosion going on, they should wipe it off. Yeah, that happens, depending upon what climate you're in, humidity.

I just keep a simple spray bottle of water. So when I see that little bit of corrosion on the terminals, I blast it with the water. That removes that corrosion quick and simple. And then hit it with some air to dry it and spray it down with a simple sticky spray, that prevents the air from getting to it, and therefore prevents the oxidation,

who causes that corrosion. That's something you could do at home. I had no idea that the proper material to clean the battery is water. I didn't know. Best chemical in the world. The universal solvent. Isn't it? Most dangerous chemical in the world, but one of the best.

Yeah, well, that takes you back to the flood in our home. We're going to go to Henry, and he's calling him from Jupiter. Good morning, Henry. Good morning. You're talking about batteries. I'd like you to expound a little bit on these electric vehicles and batteries. We buy a used car that has 80,000 miles on it. We know what to expect driving that used car. But when you buy a used electric vehicle, I mean, I understand the batteries could represent a third of the price of the car. That's correct. Yeah. But again, like some of the other.

things, they're getting better and better and better. Battery technology is proceeding at warp speed. They just, Tesla's investing billions of dollars in battery technology and just about everybody else is. So battery life in an electric vehicle will be a no-brainer, no problem. They're doing a lot better job in the hybrids and the all-electric vehicle battery research than they are on the old-fashioned. As long as I can remember, the basic battery and the internal combustion engine lasts about two or three years.

And they lasted two or three years, 50 years ago, and they last two or three years today. To me, there's something wrong with this picture. Technology is failing us in the normal car battery, but not the electric batteries. But there will come a time that it has to be changed, won't it? Well, like you say, when that happens, you're going to want another car because you might as well pay for another car. Like, Tesla's working on a million mile battery. It doesn't it'll last for a million miles. Yeah, they're working on, yeah.

So that's, you know, something like that, it's going to be, you know, a regular internal combustion engine car would die probably around the same time. And my Tesla Plaid has three batteries, believe it or not, three electric batteries to power. Now, on your Prius, you've preys has been out for a few years. the dealership had to change batteries on any of those. So what might the cost be? Yeah, they're warranted up to 200,000 miles or six years or is it eight years? Eight years, 100,000 miles. And the newest ones now are 10 years, 100,000 miles.

Oh, I don't know. I thought it was 200,000. Nope, 100,000. And we have changed conservatively in our dealership a couple hundred. Is that all? Oh, that's right, because, you know, they trade a man, don't they? Yeah, oh, sure. Yeah.

If the consumer was putting the bill, give me an idea of what it would cost. About $2,500. Yep. Oh, okay. Well, that's not the end of the world. Okay. It's less than a new engine.

Okay, well, thank you. You got it. You're welcome, Henry. Give us a call again. 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. I'll tell you, I have to talk about the consumer reports and October's edition that Earl and I just received. And there's some interesting articles in here, especially the car repair handbook.

And it even goes into detail of how you yourself can fix, well, what's going on with your vehicle? Yeah, there's still some things that you can take care of. Well, that was a surprise to me because everything has become so fix-it-yourself kind of will play on words there. The maintenance on everything is just amazing. So pick up October's edition of the Consumer Reports, and you'll find some information that may help you get through the day. And there it is right there. Or go online, consumerreports.com. ConsumerReport.com or dot fork?

Dot org. CR.org. Yeah. CR, too. What happens if you put on dot com? I don't know. Try it. You go to a pornography site.

ConsumerReport.org, ladies and gentlemen, and I have $50 right here. Please, I'm begging you. Give me a call. Ladies, $50. Just call to say hello. 877-960-99-60. Now back to Stu.

Before I get to the next text from Joe, he has a follow-up question about the trickle charger. So I want to correct the hybrid battery warranty, it's 10 years, 150,000 miles. That's for 2020 vehicles in Newer. All right, so Joe followed up again. He says he just texts about the trickle charging. He says he goes to Florida for eight months, so he's not going to drive the car for eight months. Well, the main battery system discharge or will he be okay sitting for eight months? that one's pushing it a little bit

I'd say trickle charger on that one well the trickle charger will charge the 12 volt battery but remember the hybrid battery still could have an issue I would really recommend if you can find a neighbor or someone nearby that can come over and actually even just start the car and let us sit and run

that will recharge the hybrid battery but taking it out for a short drive is best because that gives the chance to exercise everything So it actually, I mean, so the damage could occur to the hybrid battery for sitting idle for so on. Yes. Okay. All right, Joe. So, yeah, if you could do that because you can't trickle charge the hybrid, so maybe have a trusted person with a good driving record and insurance drive your car.

All right. Next one. This question is for Rick. What is your opinion of the Optima battery? This is the battery show today. What is your opinion of the Optima battery? Are they worth the extra expense? Love your show.

Everett? Optima is an aftermarket battery that has that really colorful plastic case that... Ooh, I like that. They did like these curves on it so it looks like it's an eight pack of sodas or something, and they're bright, colorful, bright yellow usually.

And they're supposedly rated for extremely high, cold cranking amps. And in my opinion, I think they're kind of you're paying a whole lot for a lot of flash and pomp and circumstance. That looks cool in the... Oh, they look awesome in the car, but I don't think you're really going to see as much of a, shall we say, an improvement for the extra cost, because they are quite expensive.

Rick's trying to be nice. Don't buy the optimum battery. Okay, the next one. This is for Earl. You'll like this one. Earl, please help settle a debate between my husband and I. It concerns your blue shirt. My husband says you're a busy man who doesn't have time to think about pulling.

putting an outfit together every morning. You like blue, so you wear blue. My theory is that you wear the blue shirt as a part of a well-thought-out marketing strategy. You use the concept of a consistent, repetitive reinforcement to help establish your brand. Who's right? As usual, the woman.

There you go. I mean, you know, the old saying, the lady is always right, well, they are. I love it. You're right, Stu's, I love the question because it has an interesting genesis. When television, when we, I first started doing television commercials many, many years ago, television was in its infancy, and there were certain colors that people wore on television

that were better if you had certain kind of shirts and things you couldn't wear because the TV cameras were not advanced enough. You couldn't wear patterns because it would look strange. So the best pattern, the best color, was blue. and so I did my first TV commercial with a blue shirt and then I kept doing them with blue shirts and then pretty soon I began identified with my blue shirt and now I have a closet full of blue shirts

because it's become as you say a brand identification not having to think about putting together an outfit is just a nice side effect of you having a closet full actually a living room now full of blue shirts I only wear the blue shirt I only wear the blue shirt when I'm doing the radio show or when I'm doing a public speaking or a TV commercial. What we did, Earl and I were doing, we were doing events and we were doing speaking events

and we were doing new owners events and it got to be to the point where this was a brand that it just evolved. It happened so for a whole lot of reasons. And then I had a blue dress, a blue sweater, and so here we are. And then we had some marketing people talk to us, and they thought, what a great idea. I don't know how it happened, but it did, and it's good. Stick with it. So that's your answer.

All right. This is from Pat and Dak. We have a call? We do. Hand went up. We're going to go to Marty and Boynton. Thank you so much for your patience, Marty. It's been a busy morning.

Yeah, good morning. I had a quite a couple questions for Rick. Can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. Okay. Okay, great. One of the questions is I could find it in a book where I thought maybe Rick will give me a better answer.

We've got a 2021 Islander that we bought from you guys, and it's a front-wheel drive, and we're going up to Pennsylvania in the end of November for Thanksgiving, and it's got a snow button on it. What does that do? Does that do anything for traction? It's going to change the shift points of the transmission a little bit to try to give you a little more torque, and it'll basically try to help you improve traction in the snow. All right, all right.

So it might be helpful somewhat. Yes, it kind of gives the computer a heads up that you know you're going to be in slippery conditions, so it's going to change the shift points and it's going to watch the torque control a little better. All right, all right, great. And the other question is, we have a strong roof and at highway speeds,

we can hear air noise coming in. And I put my hand up there. We can't feel it at all. When I brought it in for our first service, I talked to the service tech, and he said, well, I have a highlander too and does the same thing at the nature of the beast. Is that right?

Well, I tell you what, I hear that and it just makes me madder than hell. You know, I don't like it when we give customers that kind of an answer. And maybe this Highlander does make the noise, but they're not supposed to. And maybe they all do that, but they're not supposed to. So, Rick, you give the real answer.

Well, do you have one of the vents on the top of it? The little half-vent? No. Okay. The quickest way that I determine if I feel that there is an issue that may be causing an air leak, is I do what's called the dollar bill test. You take a dollar bill, you set it to where it's. you know against the the rubber seal let the sunroof close and same thing like with the windows

and just gently pull on it you should feel a reasonable amount of tension when it comes out and if it if it slips out real easy then yeah you have potential for an air leak there if it comes out with a reasonable amount of tension then it's sealing the way it should now unfortunately you know with a with a hole cut in the roof and a the piece put back in with rubber gas there are times that when you're driving you will hear the wind going over it and it's a noise created by the wind flow changing that is normal but if it's actually air like air leaking in the car you hear a whistling noise of air coming into the car now you've got a concern that that is not normal and that's

why I do that dollar bill test I'll check it in a whole bunch of areas around the the sunroof to make sure that I'm feeling a about equal tension on that bill all the way around as I pull it out. And if it feels normal, then, you know, we'll drive it and try to make sure, okay, is this just airflow going over the top of it, or is this actually an air leak into the car? Marty, what does it sound like to you? Does it sound like an air leak, or does it just sound like the normal? No, it's not whistling of anything.

It's kind of an air noise, you know, that I can hear that's kind of urgent. If it might open the window and close it again, then it's not as loud. Well, to me, that says it, that's a leak. I mean, if the window is tight and it's not as loud, then it's a leak. If it's just the sound of the wind on all the windows all the time, it's an air noise outside, and you're always going to have that, but not, not the leak. But, yeah, you know, I guess nobody smokes anymore, if you've got any brains, but. No, no.

But to me, a great test would be some sort of, a vapor smoke kind of a thing that you could put near the window and see if it became, you know, in motion, like it got sucked out of the car, but bring it back and we'll have somebody, well, I'll have Rick check it for you, but that's, if it's an air leak, it's not normal. If it's an air noise, I guess all cars have some air noise. My Tesla has an air noise, Yeah, actually, the best way that we have to determine that is simply to have you drive a similar vehicle to see if the noise is the same. Oh, okay. Or maybe they both have an air leak, so.

That's one of my pet peeves, Marty, by the way, you can tell, because it's too easy to say they all do this. Right. I'm kind of surprising the answer. Yeah, if they all do what they shouldn't do it. bought from you. We're very thrilled with your dealership and very happy. We'll be back. Thank you. But I just wasn't too much. But after 10,000 miles service, we'll bring it back and mention it to them. And with that question, we'll be in Pennsylvania. If we're over 10,000 miles a little bit, does that affect our free oil exchange and...

No, you don't have to observe the exact recommendation by the factory owners. manual as long as you're within a couple months a few thousand miles the important things you have you have all done so if you have three inspections you should have got and they were done all or four whatever they are I think he's talking about the Toyota care maintenance so you get you have this coming to you whether not use them timely or not so yeah just get them all done they don't have to be that timely wonderful all right well thank you very much I appreciate it thank you Marty, look forward to hearing from you again. Ladies and gentlemen, we are shutting down the

phone lines, but you still have a chance to use our text line, and we are going to be coming up with our mystery shop of Infinity in Stewart, and we would like you to vote on that mystery shopping report. There's a lot of time and effort and talent put into this mystery shopping Report. Agent Lightning does a phenomenal job weekend and week out, and Stu does a, there's no words to define what he does. He has the Midas touch, you might say. When he sees that mystery shopping report, he just puts together a talented array of words that describe each and every mystery shopping report. So stay tuned for that. And remember 772, 4976530. That's where you can rate the Mystery Shopping Report.

All right. We've got some more text here before we get to that. Okay, this is from Pat and Dacula, Georgia. If you get into an accident and the frame is damaged to the point it affects the driveability of the car, can an alignment check show the wheels are in alignment, but the frame still causes the car to veer off center? Well, a quick answer. that you refer to doesn't exist in the manner that you a lot of people think we have a unibody construction now and certainly an accident can knock your car

out of alignment frame damage is a dinosaur term it's a it isn't really what it used to be frame damage when you have the what was it the X frame Rick or the the ladder frame rods that frame damage is when you had a separate steel frame that the body was then bolted onto. Like a truck still has that. And you see these cars go down the road like, you know, like goopsided. Dog tracking.

Yeah. But the unit body is a different sort of thing. But basically any time a car gets into an accident, you should always check the alignment. And there can be a lot of reasons for it, but not the, you know, frame damage isn't the kiss of death. It used to be 50 years ago when you really damage the frame. It became a real serious problem. problem. And depending upon the severity of the damage, it may be possible to adjust the alignment

of the car to still have the wheels be in proper alignment, even if the unibody or the frame of the vehicle is actually bent a little bit. Yeah. But it's only a very rare case, and it would be only a small amount you'd be able to compensate for it. Okay. All right, the last question. Last text. Can you put plain water in the windshield fluid tank? What about windex or other cleaners? Plain water works just fine. If you're

going to use windex or anything like that, I would cut it about 50-50 with some with water. There we go. So we're all caught up. There's a couple of anonymous feedbacks we can get to next week because they're timeless. Okay. I'm going to get into the Mr. Shopping report now.

Before I do, I want to mention And I'm going to refer to the mystery shopping report because I'm to say there was a violation of Florida law. And so I downloaded this 2021 Florida law statute. It's 501.976. And it's online. You can go to Florida law Unfair Deceptive Trade Practices Act. And I read it. It's worth ready.

It's not that long. It's, I think, two pages, and it shows all the things that car dealers are supposed to adhere to. It was written many, many years ago, and it's updated occasionally from time to time. But it's worth reading 501.976, and it's called Actionable, Unfair, or Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and it tells all the violations that a dealer does commit, which is against the law, which is pretty serious. And my point in reading this before the mystery shopping report is many, many of our mystery shopping reports violate this law.

And I'm just wondering why our regulators and legislators put up with this. It's against the law. I got a good answer for you. Everybody does it, and it's just too overwhelming to regulate, and I can relate to that, because have you driven on 995 lately? I drove on 995 with Nancy coming to work, and I was a little bit late to the show, and I was doing 83 miles an hour, and everybody was passing me.

And I didn't see a cop anywhere, which is good, because I was late getting into the radio job. the Florida Turnpike when everybody violates the law they don't get enforced anymore because it's overwhelming and that's a terrible situation to find ourselves in and that's where we are with the Florida unfair

and Disceptive Trade Tractors Act 501.976 Download it, read it is fun. I'll tell you one thing if you're familiar with it and you're buying a car you pull this out and you show the dealer it'll strike the fear of God into them

because he will realize a lot of dealers don't even realize they're breaking the law. For sure. Anyway, I'm really glad that you brought that up. You and I were reading that, and I'll tell you what, your salesperson is going to run in the other direction. And there's a whole lot of consumers that we don't know. And that's the reason why we're here every Saturday morning to share our knowledge with you. And I'll take a moment and thank all of you for joining us this Saturday morning. and we hope to see you or hear you right back here next Saturday morning.

So with all of that said, we're going to go to Infinity of Stewart. So there you go, Earl Stewart. Our mystery shop last week was one of the nicest experiences we've ever had in our long history of mystery shopping. Nelson Masta and Murphysboro, Tennessee, defied all expectations and treated Agent Lightning, or female shopper, to an honest shopping experience. experience in a price that wasn't over MSRP. Now, normal times that wouldn't be a big deal, but today, let me tell you, if you don't pay over MSRP for a car, a new car, you're getting a pretty good price in today's market.

And I say, don't buy a car today, wait a couple months. Nelson Mazda wrapped up our four-part series of Mazda mystery shopping. After three horrible experiences at three South Florida Mazda dealerships, Southern Palm's Mazda, Mazda of Palm Beach and Wallace Mazda, Stewart We got out of town and headed north to Tennessee Agent Lightning Fult expected to face another frustrating grind

No different than all the other Mazda doers Instead she found a true blue one-price dealer Real one-price Not a lot of one-priced dealers BS one-price This was a true blue One-price with non-commissioned salespeople almost impossible to find

and no F&I department, the box the infamous box where you get raped after you buy the car. The car dealers make more money in the finance department they do in the sales department and most people don't understand that. In this particular case here, no finance department, no box.

Agent Lightning was given a price and reflected the inventory shortage but did not go over MSRP. Well, almost. Also, Mazda has a small dealer fee of $3.97. Nobody's perfect, and that was their little Achilles heel. As if all of that wasn't enough, everyone in the dealership showed respect to the customers, employees, and community, by wearing face masks. Hard to believe that, yeah, that so many dealers don't do that. And especially in Florida, where we are the epicenter of this damn COVID situation, and it's mind-blowing to see that happen. The Evans Mazda was the first good Mazda mystery shop we've had.

It was also the best mystery shop of all three, Murfreesboro, mystery shops. The more we thought about it, we realized it was one of the very best mystery shops of the whole pandemic, and fairly of the whole time we've done mystery shops. We searched the recent archive of mystery shops and found the most recent, really good mystery shop we could find. It was from November 20th, 2020, courtesy of infinity. of Stewart. So here we are, going back, and it was a good shot, and we're going back. We couldn't believe it had been nearly a year since we had a good measure of, and now

has some infinity of shirt held up over all this time. Okay. How have they weathered in the inventory crisis, and how have they managed to keep things honest and ethical? Well, we're going to find out. Agent Lightning went in for round two yesterday. Here's the report, is if I'm Agent Lightning. I entered the show. showroom early afternoon, immediately greeted by a woman named Kelly, see a lot of women in all these mystery shops. That's good. She was extremely friendly and asked how she could assist. I told her, I was looking at Q50s.

I said I had narrowed my search down to the Q50 and the Lexus, is it the IS 500, IS 500, 300. Kelly told me that a salesperson named Laura would be helping me. Oh, not a female. She said, I would love Laura. She was wonderful. On Q, Laura walked up, introduced herself. She was well-dressed and very professional.

We talked about the car. I wanted again. I said I knew I wanted the Q-50, but I wasn't sure which trim level or what options I wanted. Laura said that helping her clients figure out exactly what they wanted, it was her favorite part of the job. After discussing it for a few minutes, we walked over to a gray Q-50 in the showroom.

It was the Lux trim level with MSRP 44-860. It was an addendum label fixed to the window. Here we go. Next to the Monroney label, it added $699 for one application of auto butler, a BS wax. Nitrogen filled tires, the ultimate BS, nitrogen in the tires. Wheel locks. Adela list now was 45. 549, up from 44, 860.

Laura said this one was the best fit based on the conversation. I told her I loved the color and agreed that it was the one-on-wanted. She asked for my driver's license and left to get the keys. When she returned, I asked her not to go through all the trouble of getting the car out of the showroom. But she said not to worry about it and that the, and that Al was already moving the car. Sure enough, an older gentleman was maneuvering the car toward the guy. I still used old or gentleman instead of old guy, which is good. I prefer an older gentleman to old guys.

Okay. You're an older gentleman. I'm not a gentleman. I used to be. Al pulled the Q50 up front. Laura went over for all the features and benefits. We took a test drive along the way Laura asked me where I was looking to be price-wise. You can see she'd been through trading.

I said I understood the prices were high because inventories were low, but I did not intend to pay over a sticker. Now that's a very reasonable statement that even you can make today. If you're going to be, ignore my advice to buy a car today, a new car, just be sure you don't pay over a sticker. If you're persistent, you won't have to.

Laura says she would do what she could do to get me the best price possible. But you have to be persistent, by the way. And I try to lick my fingers because I'm moving faster, and I can't, uh, finger-lick pause. Laura really knew their stuff and impressed me with her knowledge of the specifications.

I told her so, and she told me that she had been selling cars only for eight days. Oh! I said my mind was blown, she seemed very, extremely experienced. We returned to the dealership, went back to Laura's desk. She turned into my, she entered into my info, or my info, into her computer. Then explained she saw I had been there before. had been there before, uh-huh. So they had records, but they didn't know that she was in mystery shopper. I said I was there about a year ago with my husband, but we never ended up

doing anything. A young woman popped her head in to say that the sales manager want me know that this was going to be Laura's first sale. Nice touch. And he's going to make sure that they take really good care of me. Taking advantage of the newbies, that that's something that is considered a sales strategy because you have mercy and you feel sorry for people new on the job. I was

trained to say that I was new for about the first two years I was selling cars. I always tell them your brand now. Yeah, that's right. A young one popped her head into... Sorry. Okay, yeah. Laura seemed embarrassed by this. I can see why.

I assured her that she was doing fine, then she had to excuse herself to speak with the sales manager, Mike. Name, names, folks. These are the real names. I waited a very long time, 30 minutes. It is a long time. I walked over to the reception desk for help. The receptionist pointed to an office where I could see Laura speaking with Mike. I walked back to the desk, and after a few minutes, after that, Laura returned with a worksheet. Okay. She apologized for taking so long. I told her not to worry about it.

then she reviewed the sales figures. The top line labeled the market value selling price was MSRP 4040, $44,860. Okay, if that's a selling price, then what is this? Market value selling price. That's the price, right? No. A $1,000 rebate came off that, well, that's good,

which made the adjusted price, $43.860. Then they added, get ready for this. You've got to sit down for this one. $9.95 market adjustment. $695 auto butler slash nitrolux and locks. $9.95 dealer prep. Now remember that dealer prep. And remember what I said about the Florida statutes.

$669.95 in taxable fees and $899 dock fee. Holy mackerel, $3253 over MSRP for a lot of garbage. lot of BS. I asked for the details of each fee and jotted down her answers on the worksheet. The market adjustments was for the chip shortage. The dealer prep was to make, in fact, that's legitimate. I mean, you could, it's honest anyway. You can say, I'm charged you more money because of the chip shorts, okay? That's not. I'll buy that. The dealer prep was to make sure it checks out in service and it's working probably. Now that's illegal. And I'm going to stop right there. I hope I have time. Yeah, I do.

I'm going to reach of the statute that I just said. This is the law in Florida. Okay? Now listen carefully. It is an unfair or deceptive act or practice actionable under the Florida

Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practice Act for a dealer to charge a customer for any pre-delivery service required by the manufacturer-distributor or importer for which the dealer is reimbursed

by the manufacturer, distributor, or importer. Now, infinity reimburses Infinity of Stewart for exactly that. And now they're charging the mystery shopper, me

allegedly, for what they've already been reimbursed for, and they're breaking the law. Okay. If I'm lion sue me because you know I'm right and the reason I've never been sued

at 20 years is I tell the truth so here we are they're charging $995 at dealer prep and it ain't it ain't dealer prep it's profit to the dealer but here's a selling price now $48,11313

$3,253 over MSRP anyway we got up here to the and the The stock fee was just a dealer fee, and you know, dealer fee is not strictly illegal unless you advertise it. Anyway, I told her that I didn't feel as ripe for them to charge me all these fees.

I took issue with a dealer prep charge, and that's why it's illegal to charge me for that. It was ridiculous. They're double charging her. I had to pay $1,000 so the dealer could make sure a brand new infinity was working properly, which the manufacturer wants me to do. to do and pays me for. So obviously, they got paid twice. I can see why that's illegal. Laura asked me where I needed to be. I remained patience and I needed to be at MSRP or less, which she said, which she walked in the door, which I said. She said she needed

to get her sales manager. I told her she needed to be fast. I had already been there for two hours. She returned with Alan. No, not Mike. Alan cut right to the chase. Alan used to work for us. Is that right? As a salesperson. I'll be darned. Okay. I'm glad Alan's gone.

Alan got right to the chase, asked me how much I was willing to pay. I responded by telling him how impressed I was with Laura. Alan Smugly said that she was trained by the best, applying that he trained her. Is he a manager or is he? He's a manager at Infinity Store on the website, but he was a salesperson in our used car department several years ago. I told Alan that I explained to the Lord early on what I did not want to pay over MSRP Allen then took me through the whole ringer again

probing me about car payments, etc. I stopped him and said I'd been there too long he said he could wrap this up and get me into finance quickly get him in the box I was firm I said unless we could take off the extra fees and get me to MSRP I wasn't taking the car I said that meant I need to be around 47,000 out the door

Alan had me his business card and had me sign a handwritten piece of paper. I love this. Signed a handwritten piece of paper that said I'd buy the car if I could be at 47,000 out the door. Alan said the scrap of paper I just signed was non-binding

but he needed it to show the boss. Old school. I mean what you're doing is trying to intimidate the customer into buying the car today. And then you're thinking gosh, I signed the paper. If I don't buy it today, maybe they can sue me, maybe arrest me.

I don't know, but total pure intimidation. Alan came back a minute later with a new worksheet, this one with an additional $3,661 discount. Bam! And the vernacular and the car business, car dealers say, you drop your pants. As a vulgar, crude expression, I apologize for offending people. I'm just telling you, that's car dealer vernacular. when you drop the price too fast. They always tell you, if you're being smart, come down a little bit of the time,

which is hard to do when the customers run in for the door. So they dropped their pants, $361 discount. The out-the-door price was now 47, 327, almost where we want to be, right? Both Alan and Laura seemed very pleased that they were able to get such a low price for me. I didn't share their getting this, and I told them that I was just what happened. was everything I hated about buying the car. I mean, you really worked me over. Alan said, it's just part of the process.

Sadly, it is. It's just part of the process. And everybody gets worked over, and that's the reason people hate to buy cars at car dealership. I do want to say something just, this did not sound like the Allen network for us. Alan was a mensch. He was just like a laid-back nice guy.

He wasn't an aggressive salesperson. Maybe Infinity trained him to be a little tougher. Well, you know, you make a lot of money lying, cheating and stealing. I mean, high pressure, tactics work. If you need the money, you've got to feed your family. I'm not making excuses, but I'm just saying that that's the reason people steal because, you know, who said the bank robber? Why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is. Okay. I told them that I needed to go home and discuss things with my family. Alan said the price was good until the end of the day. More intimidation. I mean, this is super old school. I said to Nancy in the car driving. I don't think the owner of Infinity of Stewart is the same that I used to know. I think when they had the good report, I believe the owner has sold. I'm guessing, I don't know.

We'll research that for you. I didn't have time this morning. So anyway, there's the mystery shop. We got a vote, and you are the jury. You're the judge and jury. Well, we have our listeners are chiming in now. We have Mark gives him a flat F, dishonesty at its worst. And over on Facebook, Linda gives him a big fat F today.

My gosh. And then Andrew gives him an F. I don't know what to say. I'm going to give him an F. It's one thing to have a market adjustment appear on a addendum label. that Leifie gives you a heads up. That thing didn't appear until they wrote up the deal and put it on the worksheet.

And then I don't know what this business is. You've got a dock fee and a dealer prep fee and $669 in taxable fees. What's going on? I don't know what's happening here. So I just don't like it. Excess. Definitely excess.

Give them an F. Okay. I got Mark from St. Louis. After talking to my sales manager, grade F. Let's see. Tim Gilliland, market adjustment, dealer prep,

nitro-filled tires, auto, butler, all reasons to walk away. D. Mark Smith, D-minus, old-school tactics. Bro, scientist, I would offer them a twinky and a glass of buttermilk while their pants were dropped. That sounds pretty good. Brian Sedlako D-plus. Oh, Brian, being a nice guy today. Mark Ryan, D-minus, Wayne, old-school, F. And for myself, I agree with Stu's assessment on it.

I'm going with the F. It's been a while since we've done that. Yeah. For sure. I've got to go more hard-nosed on this one. Yeah, there you go. You know, remember earlier that Earl shared with you the Florida statue, and that is 501-976, take a read, take a look at it before you go out and purchase your next vehicle.

And it's real important. It's real important that you present your salesperson with that kind of information. because, like I said earlier, they're going to run in the other direction. Knowledge is power. I give them an F. I'm going to give them a D-minus. I really, really want badly to give them an F, but we do grade on the curve. If we'd had an advertisement on there, I might have flipped them to an F.

But I feel guilty about giving them a D-minus. No, I understand your point. There was nothing that drew Agent Lightning in. she went there. Pretty much everything was in front of her, but not those extra fees. Those came at the very end. That was the classic.

Extreme. Extreme. You're right about that. Okay, folks. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Stay tuned. We'll be right back here next week. Saturday morning at 8 a.m.

I don't know. Wow. I don't know.