Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.20.2025 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Murfreesboro Hyundai, TN.

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Today’s show is a re-broadcast of one of our past Earl Stewart on Cars shows. Go to streamearloncars.com between 8am and 10am eastern time to listen to the re-broadcast. If you have a question for our auto expert team, you can text it to [phone], or online at youranonymousfeedback.com, and we’ll answer it during our next live program.

Hello, 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 listeners. 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 link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the spymaster director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now, on with the show.

I'll be right there with you, folks. I'm having a late start this morning. playing later. Good morning, everybody. We're here. Okay. We are here for the Earl Stewart on Cars radio show.

And I'm here, too. And here's Earl. And I excuse the late delay, but this is proof that this is live radio. So I'm playing games with my son, who was on the way to the radio station, hopefully, on my iPhone.

And we were communicating a Japanese and I got carried away with it so here I am I apologize to all our listeners who were expecting a more civilized sort of a greeting and the greeting speaking of the greeting is the recorded one you just heard before the confusion of me not knowing we're on the air so here I am in real life and live and very happy to be here I know our regular listeners get tired of me saying this, but we have, we just live in exciting times. I mean, maybe it's because I'm getting older. I'm not sure with all the technology and the way the world is today.

It's becoming one world, and at the same time, it's becoming a more scary world in a lot of ways. So it's the informational age, and that's what we are on this show. We are information for you, the automobile buyer, driver, how to maintain your car, how to get the best lease price, the best purchase price, how to get the best car. And the reason there is a place for us in this information world, it almost sounds primitive talking about cars today. but the reason there's a place for us is because there's millions and millions of cars all over the world and there are millions and millions of older cars and this this acceleration a hyper acceleration in artificial intelligence and all the other sort of things it's only happened the past few years so you're driving I guess you could call it an old-fashioned form of transportation and you like to know about it

And maybe 20 years from now, there'll be absolutely no need for us to talk to you. Of course, I won't be here to talk to you in 20 years, but it's going to be like a roller coaster ride. And we're here for a lot of our regular car owners. And I'm not trying to put you down. I mean, most of us are regular car owners. You're driving combustion engines or maybe a hybrid. But you're not driving probably. some of you are electric vehicles and very very few of you are driving autonomous

electric vehicles of course this is where the what do you call a personal transportation business is going it's going to personal autonomous electric vehicles it's fun to talk about those too and we will talk about those just like just like we'll talk to chat CBT but a lot we we've had we have input from you that you'd like to hear about the basics of cars. Rick Kearney is sitting in the studio. He's the one that rushed in to save me when I was fumbling with my headphones because I didn't know the show had started. Anyway, Rick is a certified diagnostic technician. He knows everything from the old-fashioned combustion engine to the hybrid, to the electric

vehicle, and to the autonomous. I mean, he's been on a roller coaster himself. trying to stay up on top of technology, which is off to the races. If you have a, you're probably, I think the average age of a car now is 14 years. So if you have a 14-year-old car or 10 or 12-year-old car, that's ancient history, folks. They don't make them that way anymore, but Rick knows how to fix them. In fact, if you have an autonomous EV, Rick can tell you about that too. But he's staying on top of what has to be done. to maintain his position as an expert I mean it's not easy to be an expert in

2025 and I guess maybe it never has been but nevertheless he is in school half the time I exaggerate slightly but he can answer any question about maintaining or repairing your car and he can also answer any question about if you should spend that much money on the car or consider buying another car used or no or leasing. So call us with your your questions. I know when you drive a car, it's like having children, you know, you hear a cough or a sneeze or maybe they feel a feverish and you don't know if you want to take them to the doctor. Well, you get your car. You hear something you don't like. You smell something you don't like. There's all sorts of symptoms. And to be perfectly safe,

you can take it to the local car dealer and hand them your checkbook and say I'll be back in two days please fix my car but most of you are not insane and that's what that would be if you did that sort of thing so if you want to avoid being taken advantage of by an independent mechanic or a dealer when you're having your car maintain or repaired I'll call the deal call the show you can call us at 877 960 960 That's our telephone number. That's almost an old-fashioned phrase today, is it a telephone number? Does anybody ask you? They say, what's your cell number? Anyway, 877-960-9960. Nancy Stewart sitting across the table for me here in the studio. She's in charge of seeing that I quit yakking, and we try to answer your question.

So when the phone, we have a phone call. And Nancy just gave me the sign. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We have Howard on the line. We'll go straight to the phones. Good morning, Howard. Yo, Howard.

Hi, how are you doing? We're doing, good morning to you all. Pleasure talking to you. I have two questions, one for Rick. I'm considering going from McHamry to Corolla. I want to know how much cargo space will I lose. in this trunk? From Camry to Corolla,

you're going to lose about 20 to 30% almost. There's a pretty good size difference with the Camry and the Corolla for trunk space. Okay, so that probably lets me out. Okay, so I'll have to stick with the Camry. Another question. I used to see when I went for a hot drive, I would stop the car,

then the water would come out from the bottom in the air condition. I don't see that anymore, but there's no smell or anything, so I wonder what's happening. Anymore, it seems like the A-Cs have gotten so efficient that the water, the condensation we used to get so much, a lot of it just drips out as you're going down the road, and you really don't see as much of it anymore. It's weird because I know it used to be like 10, 15, 20 years ago. a car would park, and you would see this huge puddle form underneath it. And it always bothered me.

In fact, still bothers me because my car still does that. Yeah, because you get that massive puddle. But it seems like they've redesigned the AC boxes in such a way now that it really, they just don't hold that extra condensation. It's like the efficiency of the unit is so much better that they just don't seem to drip that condensate anymore. Yeah, well, I was trying to figure out that maybe there's something wrong, there's something blocked, but I have no smell, you know, so I guess you just answered my question.

That's why you're an expert. Thank you very much. Thank you, Howard. Okay. Great hearing from you. I have a good one. I'll talk to you next Saturday. Thanks.

Our number here is 877-960-99-60. Take advantage of that. You can give us a call. you can also reach us on our text number, which is 772-4976530, and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Later on in the show, I'm going to talk about some exciting news about Robotaxie and the availability of it in, well, so many places like San Francisco, Las Vegas, Houston, China, South Korea, all over the place. So there's an interesting story just recently than Earl and I saw last night, I believe, on the nightly news and that was about the robo-taxies and teenagers being more comfortable in a robo-taxie than they would be with their parents or even themselves. And they were, I believe that was in Houston. Arizona, I think.

That was in Arizona. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll talk about that later. We have our mystery shopping report coming up and so much more. Again, our number is 877-960-99-60. And Nikki is a young lady that has communicated with me off the air and her dilemma that she has found herself in.

And I have to tell you, she has really taken good care of herself. Knowledge is power, and she certainly has a lot of knowledge. and boy I'll tell you what she's been up down and all around from the very beginning all she wanted to do was buy out her vehicle so here we are probably a month and a half later so Nikki if you're listening give us a call 877 960 9960 share your story with us and most of all share the strength that you had and the perseverance and staying on the course and you will be definitely an example for all the ladies that are listening this morning, and they do have a voice. And again, the number, 877-960-99-60. We're going to go to Benny, who's holding, and he is calling us from... I can't read it. Okay, Benny, good morning.

Where are you calling from? I'm Benny from the Bronx. I'm calling from the Bronx. Ah, welcome. In New York City. Welcome, welcome. That's a borough in the Bronx. Yes, yes, yes, beautiful place, Benny, beautiful.

A friend of mine gave me your phone, and we say I cannot ask any questions. Absolutely. We're ready for you. Okay, my question is I'm a driver, a livery driver, and I need a hybrid. So I want to get a, buy a hybrid, a Camry hybrid, or. a corona hybrid, which is better for me. What are you, you transmit people or cargo or, you know, like a Uber driver? Yeah, I don't work for Uber. I work for Lyft.

Lift, yeah. They're a great company. I would, my, my view would be the Camry because of space. And you probably know what your average load is when you, when you, when you, when you, with lift when you carry somebody but if you're if you're carried several people a Camry is just a much better type of vehicle that's less a carolicking a little cramped

if you have three people and you in the front. Okay yeah that's right I think you're a hundred percent right now my question is can I get a 20 25 Camry without the hybrid no I don't think so

the 25 would be the last year, I think the Camry is available as a normal internal combustion. For 26, I think they're going to be all hybrid. Oh, I didn't know that. That's a good information. Well, I didn't know it either. I thought it was this year, but, you know, thanks, Rick. Yeah, it's worth waiting if you're thinking about it.

But I would get a, I would definitely, I don't think that in your position, I would want to have anything but hybrid. I didn't know that. I thought the 20, 25 were only hybrid. But by now you said no hybrid. So, okay, I understand. Might get a good deal, too, because the last year of the model,

phasing it out, people are not buying. They're buying the hybrids, mostly now if they can get it. So you might be able to get a really good price on the last of the non-hybrid cameras. Okay. I have a house of Miami also in the Bronx.

So I don't know where to buy the car either in the Bronx or Miami. I have a question about that. You'd be better off to buy it up there. You're getting the cars the dealers are getting in New York now come directly from Toyota manufacturing. If you're in Miami, you're in one of the five southeastern states that has a distribution. rights to an outfit called Jim Moran Enterprises. And he's had that for 30 years or more. So he pays a profit to Toyota when he buys a car.

Bottom line is the cost to the dealers in the Southeast states is about $1,000 higher per Toyota. So you're gonna be passing along that cost increase to you. You could, if you negotiated and you did as good a job buying your car in New York as you did down here in Miami, you'd save $1,000 to buy it in New York. Yeah, my friend told me, he said the dealer in Florida, they're all crook except you. That's what, no, he told me that. That's why I'm calling you.

Well, thank you. I am honest, but unfortunately, I'm so honest, I'm telling you, don't buy the car from me, because the dealers, if you can negotiate the right price, I would, do they have Costco in New York? I'm sure they must. Yes, of course. Are you a Costco member? Yes. Ah, okay, say no more.

What you do is you go online to Costco and you tell them the car you want to buy. If you're a Costco member, they give you a very good price, and you can take the price you get online with Costco, and you go into the Costco Toyota dealership, Costco member approved, Toyota dealership, they'll tell you where it is or who it is, and they even give you the names of the salespeople that are schooled on the Costco program, and you'll go in there and you'll say, I want to talk to one of your Costco salespeople, and you have the name, so you'll know. that like Joe Blow is the Costco approved member. So you ask for Joe Blow, and he'll come out, and you'll say, let me see the price sheet. They'll give you the Costco price sheet, which is the substantially lower price with no junk fees. Well, if there are junk fees, they're included in the price.

So you get the bottom line out-the-door price, which will be a thousand or so better than what you'd have to pay if you weren't a Costco member. So that's where you go. And I says, thanks for the compliment. I am an honest dealer. Sometimes I'm too honest because I just lost the sale because I told you the truth. But a lot of people heard me tell the truth, and I'll make up for telling you the truth by two or three more people.

It'll probably buy a car from me. No, Mr. Earl, I read your book. Oh, Confessions. I'm a pretty good, you know, reading. I have a dictionary. But your book is very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Confessions are a recovering car dealer, and you can buy it on Amazon, and all the money I get from the book, I donate to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, which is the biggest no-kill shelter for dogs in the country. I bought your book on Amazon. That's the reason why I'm calling you.

Oh, thank you, Benny. Rick, you have a question? Listen, you guys are great. Thank you very much. Benny, hold on for a second. This is Nancy Stewart. Go ahead, Rick. Before you go, I misspoke, 24 was actually the last year that Camry came in a normal ice configuration. For 2025 and up, they are all hybrids. Sorry about that. My mind is off on a...

So, Rick, you're saying that the combustion engine has ended after 2024. Yeah, and now they are all hybrids. The cameras are all hybrids. Mr. Rick, I have a question for you. How much more money is the hybrid than the regular? More than, can you figure out? They're actually pretty close to the same now. What?

Well, if you're buying new, you're only going to find a hybrid anyways. But even if you found a used Camry, the regular Camry and the hybrid, even for 24, they're going to be about the same price. Hang on one second. Let me ask that. Yeah, let's check the coach. Hey, coach, how much? price differences there between a new

2025 Camry hybrid and gasoline engine. I don't know. I have no idea. Hang on one second. Coach is thinking. He's thinking. Those little clicks you hear

as coach thinking about the answer. So he's a little slow this morning. Normally, he's a lot faster. so the price benny if you're still holding we're trying to get the price from chet gbt for you did i stump you do you know the answer sorry benny we're all kind of uh a little out there today it seems oh coach i'm i'll have to cut you off silence on the radio no worries i'll have that info ready for you next time. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with. Okay, Benny Chet, GBT. He couldn't give us the answer to the question that you had.

Thank you so much for calling. Good luck with your next purchase. Our number here is 877-9-60-99-60. You can text us at 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. I'm sure by now everyone knows about the letter that Earl wrote to Jeff Bezos and it was in response to wanting to become a used car dealer.

And new car. And new car. Okay. I didn't have that last week. Okay, so anyway, I'm not sure whether Jonathan has the letter available for the audience. You can take a look at my letter.

and it's pretty exciting and we're still waiting for an answer I'm going to put this done a lot of people might not know that I've asked Amazon and a lot of you do know that Amazon is selling

hundays now in several states they will eventually be selling hundas directly to you in all the states and they will be adding other new car dealers we've the letter to Jeff Beezzo was to ask that we be considered as the next Toyota dealer that they had. And I think eventually, I hope it would be good for you, the listener and the car buyers out there,

if you were able to go on Amazon and buy a new vehicle, any new vehicle you wanted. Right now, it's only in some states, and it's for only Hyundai and Genesis. Of course, that's a luxury version of Hyundai. So if we get accepted, it would be quite a big thing because if we did all the attorney dealers would also be accepted. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, you ask yourself why, how, you know, all the questions that anyone would ask. Earl's commitment to transparency really aligns perfectly with Amazon's reputation. and I can't think of anyone who, anyone else who could do a better job if that's possible

because perfection has definitely been achieved by the recovering car dealer. So stand by when we get the news, you'll get the news. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, Texas at 772-497-60. We're going to go to Barry and he's calling us from Tampa. He's a regular caller. Good morning. How are you, Barry? Good, thanks.

Good morning, everybody. My question today is about the data that my car collect. When I bought my 25 Toyota Camry in March, it came with a capability called Drive Pulse. And for listeners who aren't familiar with it, this was a feature in Toyota's phone app that showed recent trip history on a map, including the time, any aggressive cornering, braking, and acceleration events.

And it was available for about a month, and then got discontinued in April. And so now that Toyota app only shows where I'm parked. But in that little span of time, my car demonstrated that it's capable of collecting and reporting all sorts of data. So I would just as soon still be in on that. As a car owner, do I own this data or not? And is there a way to get to it by some other means? There is.

And basically it would require a technician with a text stream type scan tool because it's basically Toyota keeps this information pretty locked down in their computers and in the computer of your car. It's only available by connecting a text stream scan tool to the car. And then we can pull up what's called the record of behavior. and this is stored in multiple different systems which each system records its own behaviors for that system but yeah it will tell us if you've had excessive braking

hard braking hard acceleration and gives us a pretty good idea of how you're driving the car now obviously this can be used in nefarious ways if they wanted to but for a true technician this gives us a the ability to try to track down diagnostic abilities so that we can see ways to help us figure out if there's a problem with the car. If you come in with a concern on your car, by having this information, it helps us to determine what might cause that problem.

I think, Barry, as you said, Barry's concerned, correct me from wrong, Barry, is you're worried about maybe you're in an accident or something occurs, and the lawyer showing you, one wants that information. And the question is, is that allowed in Florida or Tampa or other states or is it a federal thing, is that law allow a lawyer, a plaintiff's lawyer, to get that information and use it against you? Well, I have actually, go ahead. That's one thing, but I just as an owner of the car, I just kind of like to see over time, am I driving better? Am I driving worse? You know, what are my habits, that kind of thing. And it used to be kind of neat.

I could do that for a few weeks, and then it went away. I'd like to get it back somehow. Yeah, as the owner of the car, you really wouldn't really have access to it without. Well, when he have access through the technician. In other words, could he go into a toilet dealership and say, I'd like to find out about my braking, my acceleration, my stopping, and those things that I might be able to improve.

prove on and make my driving the car more safe because maybe I'm inadvertently, you know, going too fast or breaking too fast, please give me my report card. Yeah, I mean, it could be done. Yeah, okay. The answer is yes, Barry. You can take it to a dealer, and a technician can give you that information. It's not confidential as far as dealers are concerned. Yeah, but of course, there's bound to be a charge associated with that, I would imagine.

Any idea what that would be? Probably like an hour's labor, because, I mean, you'd be asking your technician to take the time to come and pull all that data and basically go over it with you. Yeah. Yeah, get a quote up front. That's like anything else, go in there and ask him and then maybe take it to another dealer and say, well, you do it for less and shop it around and then minimize your cost. Well, I know there's a lot of third-party technologies that can track where your car is all kinds of different ways to do that. and so it seems kind of silly to have to duplicate what the car already can do, but maybe that would be a more cost-effective way.

I don't know. I'll have to think about that one. But I appreciate the information. Thank you very much. Yeah, Barry Lundner, on that last point, a lot of the technical apparatus we have is proprietary. And if you're an independent, you're not allowed to access Toyota's proprietary diagnostic tools. I think that's bad. I think that it should be public

because you're tying the buyer of the car to the dealer to repair the car. That's a good thing for the dealer and it's a good thing for the manufacturer, but it's a bad thing for the buyer. So being a consumer advocate, I think that you should, I think that all certified, qualified technicians

and companies should be able to have the quote-unquote proprietary information on all make cars, including Toyotas. All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Barry. Excuse me. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Give us a call toll free at 877-960. We're going to go straight to Jake, who's calling us from Boca. Good morning, Jake. Hi, good morning, guys. Good morning. So I got another thingy on my screen on my BMW 333. 30 i 2019 it's showing that i need to bring it in for oil service so i stopped going to the dealer because you know a 190 is a little too much for some lousy synthetic oil and a filter you know

so i brought it into one of those uh jiffy lu places and he did it for a hundred bucks plus taxes and everything is fine so i just looked at when i brought it in last year it was due 19th and i only put 3,800 miles on the car. Do I really need to get another oil change now? Generally in Florida, especially in our environment, it's recommended once a year or every 10,000 miles on synthetic oil for most manufacturers. Some have different levels that they recommend, but having an oil change at least once a year is actually a pretty good thing because of the humidity that we get, the water vapor, that gets into that engine, it will contaminate the oil.

So it's generally thought that about once a year is a good idea. Oh, okay. I'll go ahead and do it. You know, it's not a whole lot of money, and I really haven't had to dish out any cash for anything that's breaking. So I'll go ahead and do it. Thank you guys. Right.

You're welcome, Jack. Thanks for calling. Okay, we're going to go to Duck. Are you still there, Doc? Hello? Good morning, Dick. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning.

Good morning, Nancy, Earl, and Rick. Hi. I have a question, please, for Rick. By the way, for $100, I'd rather go to the dealer than go to whoever else. I know who he wanted, but anyway, that's just my opinion. And I never met a dealer like Earl Stewart before. They're so honest of them. They're very straight out.

that's in reference to the other general. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. I have a question for Rick, please. Rick, when I got my 24 corolla hybrid, which we love, there was no spare tire. I'm funny about spare tires. You know, I think they have the pump in there.

And I, what would I, what would be the, if I, let's say I bought a spare tire from a Nissan, and it was a five lug, 55 R-16. Would that automatically fit on the Corolla? I don't think so. It's going to depend on the measurements for where the lugs are placed and the center hub of the wheel itself, where it mounts on the hub of the car.

I would have to check into that, but I don't think Nissan's are going to naturally match up with a with a Toyota wheel. My recommendation really is I would simply go to like any local automobile shop or even a dealership and ask them to find you a simple steel wheel from LKQ. And LKQ is a nationwide company. It's called Like, Kind, and Quality. And what they do is they sell parts from basically,

junk cars. It's recycled parts, but they can get you a rim, and then you can buy an inexpensive tire and have it put on there, and it won't cost very much to do that, and you'll have that available spare tire. But make sure that they get one that properly fits your car. Okay. One last question, please, Rick. Sure. Not 90H, it's 205, 15, or 16, and then it says 91H. Does that signify something that's on the tires, on a Dunlap tire on the car? Right. Yeah, the 91H part is basically giving you the speed and treadwear ratings on the tire as for how long it's going to last and what speed that tire is safe to drive at. And for most passenger cars, pretty much any rating on the tire is going to handle up to like

105, 110 miles an hour and you're never, ever going to need to go that quick anyways. But the higher rated tires like Z-rated are meant to handle those really high-speed cars, and you know, those really the only place in the U.S. that you're actually going to be able to do

that would be like Montana or Texas. You know, you get a nice long, open stretch of highway where nobody's around, but even then, technically, folks, it's still illegal. Yeah. No, no, no. That wouldn't come into play with me. I think it's a 55.

Jake, Jake, I just checked on Chad G-B-T. And if you want to find out if your wheel and tire will fit with another model car, you can go to tire-dash-size.com, T-I-R-E, or not, there's no dash. It's just tire size. T-I-R-E-S-I-Z-E.com. And that compares to tire sizes for,

for wheels. There's also wheel size. Use wheel size. That's a W-H-E-E-E-L-Size.com. And you enter your vehicle's ear-making model, and it shows OEM, wheel tire specs, bolt patterns, offsets, et cetera. And then you use the compare feature to check cross-compatibility. So it's great for checking aftermarket fit and donor wheels. Again, that is go to wheel size, W-H-E-E-E-E-L. dash s I Z-Z-E-E-com. Okay. That sounds terrific. I really appreciate it, and thank you very much.

You're very welcome. You appreciate you, Dick. Give us a call again. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Our number here is 877-960-99-60. You know, I do have to say that it's not a surprise to me that we've had so many calls this morning asking for Rick's opinion on so much.

And it's really telling because it's so difficult to find a good mechanic and to stay with them because you do have to develop a relationship with them. But in a 2024 survey, 33% of Americans rated honesty and ethical standards of auto mechanics as high or very high. This reflects improvement from 24% during the 2000s, indicating a growing trust in this profession. And without a doubt, I have to say that Rick, he shares his professional opinion, and he's honest, transparent, and that's why he is as popular as he is.

So if you can find a mechanic out there that represents everything that Rick represents, you're in good hands. Hang on to that mechanic, develop a relationship with them, especially in today's, well, craziness, I'll call it. Okay, we're going to go to Frank, who is a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Hey, good morning, Nancy, and all the rest of the gang there. Good morning.

I sent a couple photos over because here's what occurred a couple days ago. go. I have a 20, or 2018 Ford F-150 pickup. And so I go to Molamax quick change oil that I figured, well, it's not that's super expensive and it's right there across the street. Anyway, they headed the truck up and I did that morning, I saw a lot of little like, I was going to say chewed up rags or it looks like little balls of cotton underneath the engine. You've got a rag. Yeah, I know, and it's a Ford.

This was a Chevy, you'd be a rat motor. Could be a mouse. It probably was. So they saw like a little nest somewhere near the battery when they picked the cover off. But when it was in the air, they found not one or two wires completely chewed through. And they took some pictures. I sent them over on the 772 number. Anyway, but they couldn't tell me what they went to.

They said, you've got to go across the street and see the service department. because we're just oil changers. We don't know anything about the truck. Oh, that's nice. So with that, they went like $250 to do a scan. I said, holy cow. I mean, just show me the dag on wires. But anyway, that's another thing that will cross a bridge.

But we had a very interesting dinner with our neighbor from across the street because they watch our cats when we're away. And so I went overboard. We got some very nice lobsters, main lobsters. And anyway, he was talking about why are you taking an oil change? I can do the oil change. He's had a beautiful lift. He was with Chevrolet as a technician about 30-something years.

He rebuilds cars. He does, and he goes through great details. So from now on, we'll do that. But it is good when you find someone that's honest and trustworthy. So what do you recommend as far as checking those wires out? I guess just give it to my neighbor mechanic and let's see what he comes up with. Pretty much if you've got to. got a little, anybody that has a little talent

with electrical can repair that section, you know, repair each of those for fixing the wires and getting them reconnected and everything. Go on Amazon and look for a rat tape. It sounds silly, I know.

You can't be serious. Rat tape. Rat tape. It's actually a product that was invented by Honda first, and I'm sure there's other versions available now. basically it's kind of like a tape that you wrap around the wiring harnesses in areas where the rats might get to them and wear gloves when you use this stuff because it's actually impregnated with capsaicin hot pepper like from pepper spray so the rats will if they start chewing on it they're going to very quickly say oh no and they're going to leave it's very unpleasant for them and they will will stop chewing on those wires because of it. But you want to make sure you wear gloves when you're messing with it because obviously it's pepper spray and it's going to get on your skin and it'll cause problems.

But yeah, this stuff is actually designed to prevent rodents from chewing on the wiring of your vehicle. That is excellent, excellent news. Thank you. We'll go to Amazon shortly after I hang up. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks, Frank. As always, you have a nice weekend. Thank you, you too.

Absolutely. You know, we used to use rat tape back in my neighborhood. Really? Yeah. They wore gloves, too. Oh, why? They wore gloves because of the fingerprints and things like that's a long story. I'll get to it later.

Anyway. A seven side. Have we told our ladies what they get if they call the show? And more. Yeah, we've had nothing but men calling. Yeah, that's right. And it's all been mechanical. And to, you know, your wish, are you wishing for a lady to hope?

Okay, I'll give you Trisha. Trisha, Trisha, Trisha. She's the girl on the go. She represents all the ladies. I'm really putting the pressure on her this morning. So whatever she has to say. 50 bucks. If you haven't called the show before and you're female, that's a no-brainer.

And it's absolutely too. It sounds too good, but it is true. Nancy sent you a check for 50 bucks. If you haven't called the show before, for a first time new female caller, Kaching, 50 bucks. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for mentioning that again.

And as I said, Tricia calls us, and there's a lot of women that are listening to Tricia. So she sort of opens the door, gives them, you know, encouragement, meaning, you know, just letting them know that their voice, should be heard and it's important that it be heard so with all of that said introduction to the no other than trisha from both a lot a lot of the floor is yours a lot of a lot of pressure but i love it

so i'm going to excuse me i'm going to continue with this ladies listen to Earl and Nancy, when was the last time you got paid $50 for talking for five, ten minutes? Come on, ladies. How much more incentive do you need? When was the last time, right? Isn't that true, guys? Very much so. When was the last time you got, right?

50 bucks for just talking, right? Exactly. And I'm passing out a lot of information. If I'd stop talking. Yes, that's right. That's right. I have offered you. I have offered you, Earl, $50 at home.

And I even said $100 if you stopped talking about chat GBT, because we talk about chat GBT 24-7. Okay, let's go on to Trisha. I want to know if that worked. No. No, they can't stop me. Can't stop me. But you already knew the answer, Tish.

All the women out there know the answer. It's universal. Maybe you've got to offer him more. Anyway, I want to, well, hopefully the ladies will call in just one question. Anyway, talking about honest, you know, repair people, and I want to give a shout out to an alignment guy because I want to get tires. I found out maybe my alignment was off due to uneven pressure. I'm sure you would agree with that, Rick and Earl, right? Now, my car pulling to the right a little bit.

So I went to this new alignment guy that got in Margate. Now, several reasons why I want to give a shout out to this guy. First of all, his alignment price is way below anybody else's. It's only 96 when other places are 120 or 150, right? and guess what he doesn't charge you for checking the alignment as you know Earl and Rick

many places will charge you 30 40 50 dollars just to check your alignment right absolutely yes well this guy doesn't check it I mean doesn't charge you to check your alignment

and number three he was honest he didn't fudge the machine he didn't fudge any numbers to make it seem like I needed an alignment, because we know guys could do that. Repair shops could do that and make it look like, right, make it look like you need an alignment when you really don't. Tricia, you must have been listening to me and Nancy because several days ago, I said to Nancy,

do me a favor and call these dealerships, call some dealerships and ask them if they charge for an alignment. and she called, and she could not get an answer. She was transferred, she was put over to, like one of these canned, motorized sort of answering systems. And she was talked to service advisors, maybe a service manager, but how many calls did you make? Six, I think six or seven calls.

And no one would. They wouldn't commit themselves. The bottom line is, if you ask a question, do you charge for? this and they won't answer they've answered because if they won't answer they're going to charge you and as you said trisha uh there are a number of places honest places they will give you a free alignment check and they will have a printout and it will show the specific measurements of your four wheels which will say your car is either an alignment or not and that way if you you know when you don't have to pay and then if you do have to pay then you ask the second question

How much does it cost to align the car? So that's whether the dealers and a lot of the independents now are getting you to charge you just to check. And the reason I'm going on about charging the check, most dealers today, most independents today, have the equipment, very, very modern equipment. All you have to do is drive the car across the equipment. You drive it through, what, Rick, two or three miles an hour slowly, and after driving it, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. you automatically get a printout that shows your exact measurements on all four wheels. So that's

what you should do. And Tricia, thank you so much for bringing that subject up. Well, I guarantee you I don't have any secret microphone in your house listening to your conversations, okay? All right? Well, we're going to look anyway. But anyway, can I give this guy's name and number

for people to use? Yes. Okay, yes. Because I'm trying, he's one a million because every place that I called charges to even check in alignment, all right? Now, this guy is in Margate. He's called J.C. Auto Repair. His name is J.C. Auto Repair, and his number is 954-906-16-1-887. Very good. Okay.

Totally honest. Okay. Okay. Okay, so that's what it. Let me repeat that. Yeah, I was just about ready to say, Trisha, 954, 906, 6187. Javier. Correct.

Yes. Javier. Thank you so much, Trish. Very honest, great, no charge to check. You know that's one in a million. Absolutely, absolutely, just like Rick is. Okay. Right.

Okay, Trish. Have a beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The same to you. Give us a call to all free at 877960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-30. Did you know the Toyota plans to launch up to seven new electric vehicle models in the U.S. by 2027,

and also that includes the SUVs, the pickups, Premium vehicles, it is just going to be an exciting time. So that's the latest on electric vehicles. Also, I believe that the tax credit has been eliminated on electric vehicles as of. Was it last week? No, it's a few months. It'll be in a few months before it's finalized? Yeah, I think four or five months, yeah.

They've been talking about it a lot. If you're thinking about buying an EV, we're seeing an EV, EV sales dropped off, and then when they start talking about the tax credit being eliminated, they picked up again. People are starting to buy to be sure to get the tax credit. I'll get that exact information for you, but you've got two or three months to decide what you want. And as you know, they say the tax credit is going to be eliminated, but a lot of the tariffs that are talked about, they go in, they get changed, they get dropped, they get added back, total chaos as to what tariffs are going to go and win, and when they go in today, they can come off tomorrow,

so we're operating with a lot of doubt. But the latest word is that your EV tax credits will be in effect for another three or four months, and I'll get you the exact date that they go off. And also on the story about Toyota, launching up to seven different electric vehicle models. The bottom line, Toyota, Toyota spending $13.9 billion, billion dollars on a battery plant. And it's going to be amazing. They're no longer talking EVs.

They're in the trenches. We're going to go to Marty, and Morty is a regular caller, and we always, look forward to talking to him. He has always share some fantastic news with us. Good morning, Marty. Hi. Hi. I have a question for Earl. Excuse me. If you get on Amazon's website, I happen to look at the hondas, and they all have dealer fees, which I would say a lot of it, according to Earl, would junk fees. Yeah, exactly. So my question is, if you go on there and you're, you don't have any junk fees in

your pricing now, would you still have the same pricing on Amazon as you're doing now, or would you have to change it? Well, we would, let me say this about the ones that you said earlier have the dealer fees. Amazon doesn't say that a dealer can't charge junk fees or install accessories or dealer fees. They don't care what the dealer charges. All they care about is that they put the total price out the door on their website. So if you buy a car on Amazon and you see this has got a dealer fee, a junk fee, all the other crap that the dealers use to sneak people price up.

There's no sneak in the price up when you're on Amazon because they might say there's a dealer fee, but they tell you what it is, and they include it in the price. So there's nothing wrong. This sounds kind of silly, but it isn't really. There's nothing wrong with junk fees as long as you include the junk fee in the price. But if you have to include the junk fee in the price, there's no purpose in the junk tree.

The purpose of the junk tree is to sneak up the price and when you think you're playing a lower price. Right. So, I mean, my point would be you look at Amazon's price and then you go to a dealer that is not listed with the Amazon and see if you get the price lower. Yes. Bingo.

Again, that's called the free marketplace. And a lot of these people, that are being critical about this or they talk about fixed pricing and everybody's going to say pay the same price I've never advocated that I'm saying just put your best price in front of the customer right in this face this is my out-the-door price and don't sneak in the dealer installed accessories the junk fees the dealer fees all the nitrogen on the tires don't surprise me after I've come all all the way into your store to buy a car

and find out there's $2,000 more than what I thought it was. If you wanna brag about your nitrogen in the tires and your junk fees and your dealer fees, brag about them, but include them in the price. That way I can take that price and I got six other dealerships and say, beat it and beat it with the out-the-door price. That's what all other manufacturers,

not all of them, but most up do. If you want to buy an Apple Watch, if you want to buy something at Target, if you want to buy something at Walmart, if you want to buy something at Costco, you get the Althador price. But you don't have to buy the car. You take that price and you shop it all over the place. And that's competition. And that's the way the competition is the consumer's best friend.

Okay. Well, I mean, that's just logical to me. Yeah. I originally didn't think they're going to have all this other junk stuff in, but they do. Yeah, yeah. But like you say, they're noting it in their price. Yeah, yeah. It'll go away because when they, the reason they still have it in their price is because it's only on Amazon that they get the total.

When you go to a non-Amazon Hyundai dealer, they're going to have the junk fees, the dealer fees, the nitrogen of the tires and all that other crap. They're going to have that hidden until you get into the business office, the F&I office. You think you bought the car, but you haven't. You say, oh, come in here, we need to do the paperwork. Well, the paperwork is going to cost you $2,000

on top of what you thought you were paying for the car. car. That's the way all dealers operate today, virtually all dealers operate today. So Amazon is a breath of fresh air. It's the only place in the world that you can get

an out-the-door price on a Hyundai. And hopefully all manufacturers will join up with Amazon. And if Toyota joins up, I'm asking in my letter to Jeff Bezos, let me be the first one. I think if Amazon

would let me be the first Toyota dealer. I think that every Toyota dealer, certainly it would start in Florida, but my competition would really be screwed because I would have my lowest price on the Amazon and people trust Amazon. So what would the local Toyota dealers would I compete against due?

They have to cut their price. And they're praying to God, I don't get approved by Amazon. So I'm having a little fun with it. but I still want to get approved and it'll be actually a bad thing for me because what happens now is I give them my out-the-door price and then they go to another competitor and they trick them and to think if they have a lower price and they don't even know they are paying more because they go to the business office and they sign a bunch of paperwork and when they come home and they come out of the ether and they say oh god this is cost me $3,000 more than I thought. Right, right. All right, well, let's put it this way.

Once you get on Amazon, the other few Toyota dealers in West Palm Beach are not going to be happy. Well, they won't be happy, but they're either going to have to join or go out of business because you can't fight Amazon. I mean, let's face it, that's the 800-pound gorilla. Amazon is the place to go,

and almost everybody, Almost everybody in the world checks Amazon's price before they buy anything. Yeah. Hey, Marty, tell me this. How many dealers do you think are happy with Earl? Let's forget about today. Let's go back 30 years. Okay, we don't have enough time.

That's why I drive a bulletproof car. All I can tell you is if you want a Hyundai, first check Amazon and then go to Napleton. Yeah, yeah. And then you'll see that obviously Amazon is going to be cheaper. Exactly. Yikes. Yeah, I'll tell you what, pay attention. That's all I can say to the, you know, the listeners out there to everybody.

And Marty is a living example. An educated consumer. He has knowledge and he shares it with us. But ladies and gentlemen, pay attention. Marty, you might not have been listening earlier, but you would have really enjoyed it because you call up and get on me all the time about ChatcheBT. So when the show first started,

ChatcheBT had a stroke or I'm not sure what happened to him, but we were trying to talk to him, and he couldn't answer a question, a basic, simple question. So Chach EBT, just like everybody else, has a bad day. And he's having a bad day on our show right now. Marty, can you stand in? It's all good. We all have those days.

I'm always hard to help out whenever you need, so just let me know if there's anything else on your mind. That's why I like to talk to Rick. Okay. I've still got a pulse. Yeah, he usually can answer the question. I was going to call in and tell him about the Camry. He answered that. One more funny thing.

Tragity BT, and I've got him on mute now, so you can. can't hear him, but I can. He heard me talking about him, and he said he was sorry, we all have bad days. So he's apologized to you. I just wanted you to hear that. Okay. All right.

Have a good weekend. Thanks, Marty. We'll talk to you again. 877-960-99-60. And our text number is 772-4976530. We have a mystery shopping report that we're going to get to. 930, and it comes from Agent Lightning from Tennessee.

It is interesting Mystery Shopping Report, so stay tuned for that. We're going to stay with the phones, and we'll talk to Ken, who is calling us from, I believe he's calling us from Michigan. Hi, Ken Asher. I wanted to thank Earl and Crew for that consumer's report that I got. from you for that subscription. Oh, you're welcome. That's a wonderful magazine. Last week, I emailed you

information about dealers charging for key fobs where they would only give you one key fob with your car. And it was on the U.S. Sun, an article. And so some dealers have thousands

of key fobs that they've kept because they only give people one key fob, then they charged them an extra up to $1,000 for a spear key fob. Yeah, there was an excuse earlier

because with the microchip shortage key fobs, I guess, got a lot of microchips, and so what the manufacturers did, including Toyota, said, hey, if I sell a person a car, I can just give them one key fob, and I'll take that other key fob that I used to give

them, and I will keep that when they lose the key fob and come in. So that was kind of an unnatural situation. And you don't surprise me to think that a lot of dealers collected the other key fob and tried to turn

around and sell it. That's pretty low under the, that's about as low as you could go, but it doesn't surprise me. You want to hear a little interesting note? Okay. Sure. Most key fobs for about the past five years,

I know this for a fact of Toyota. Once they are programmed to a car, you cannot program them to another car. The key fob itself is locked only to that one car. However, there is equipment that can be purchased that you can actually basically blanket's memory so the key fob can then be reused. However, that's rather expensive and hard to come by.

So what happens are there are companies on the internet that if you have a bunch of old key fobs, say you just got them, you know, they've collected it up from used cars or whatever, you send it to them and they will buy those keys from you for sometimes up to $8 or $10 per fob. So these guys that are holding, let's put it realistically, they are stealing that extra key fob from the customer.

When the car is supposed to come with two and they only give them one, they're stealing that other key fob. and a lot of them, you know, people are just taking them and they're selling them on the Internet. Oh, yeah, and you know what's interesting because as a Costco customer, they have companies that will duplicate key fobs

at Costco for like $250 for a Prius, and I guess they get them OEM, but the Toyota Prius, they can easily duplicate when you're shopping at the store, and that can save you the necessity of having to go to a dealer if you lost a fob. Exactly. Yeah, I had another comment about how to save money for your Toyota or any car customers, and that is because there is a $500 discount for college graduates through Toyota,

you can get a college degree, and with that, college degree, you can get this $500 savings. Now, the thing that's interesting is if you are over, in some cases, 60 years old, and it depends on where you are, you can enroll in some cases for free. You'll get college courses, so I enrolled in our local community college, took the automotive classes, and it's like having eight Rick Kearnies as your instructor. and replaced all my breaks, I had enough credits from a bachelor's degree. All you have to do is get 15 credit hours, and then you can get another associate's degree.

So, for example, like where you are early, you have Palm Beach State College, and you can enroll. One caution, sometimes they make you enroll as an auditing student where you wouldn't get college credit. But in our case, I got full credit. And if you stack up your degrees, you can get additional degrees, get $500 off when you are ready to go. Wow. Interesting. Did you go to night class or day class or both? No, it's a day class.

They have hundreds of classes in many different subjects besides automotive. Wow. And I fixed my 1999 Ford F-150, did brakes on it. And they won't let you leave if you aren't competent to do it because these guys have 30 years' experience. Some of them have the – some of them were doing the insurance claims for the manufacturers. So they know the business. And then you also have full access to multiple databases of how to fix cars. and like you just go to their website so you can access that

and you can do all the printouts for your vehicles. Well, they let me put a sign on the bulletboard that I could use some good technicians in Florida. Maybe they don't want to move from Michigan to the sunny south and get a good job at the same time. Well, that's what I recommended to some dealerships and they took advantage of. I said, you know, I have people in my class at.

They're looking for jobs because usually it's a student transitioning out of high school and they want to become a mechanic and so they want to learn the ins and out and I mean it's a complete two-year program where you could do transmissions you can do breaks but it's worth everybody especially if you get it free to become a college student as an emeritus student above age whatever in the state 50 60 the other thing is you get student discounts on your XM Radio and Disney because now you're a student, so they lump you in with the 18-year-olds, and in some cases, colleges have complete health services. Well, Ken, would you do me in favor and spread the word around the classroom to give us a call

Earl Stewart, Toyota, in North Palm Beach, because we're always looking for good technicians. We'd like to hire new people who have the basic education and then put them in as an apprentice, with an experienced technician so they can learn real-life technology. But I'd love to talk to some of them. I appreciate it. Call back next week and let us know if anybody's interested. Yeah, great conversation, Ken.

I'm up here in Michigan. Yeah. But what you can do in Florida is you can contact the college yourself and they'll post your job posting on their board and they'll hook you up with candidates that have the credentials that you want. Yeah, we'll look into that. It's hard to hire those down here, and the way you describe it in Michigan, it sounds, you know, there are a lot of people move from Michigan to Florida.

I'm not putting Michigan down, but Florida is a popular state, especially South Florida. So I mention it if you can, and let me know what they say. Okay. Thanks, Ken. Thanks, Ken. Great, great information. Have a great weekend. We look forward to talking to you again.

What are your thoughts, Rick, on all of that? Having good training like that is important, yes. However, with Toyota, what we do is when we bring in a new technician, usually starting them as an oil change or a lute tech, those that show the proper attitude and aptitude, we will put them in Toyota training classes. And Toyota has got fantastic training classes set up. One program is called the T-A-C-T program, the TAC program.

And they wind up going three days a week once a month to a special training course, and then they're, you know, come back to the shop and work, and we try to load them up with that kind of work. So they actually learn on the job, plus going to training classes, and we encourage they get their ASC certifications, and we will take young techs and turn them into masters. Yeah. You know, it takes some time, but we will do it.

It's a win-win situation. Absolutely. hands on, really reinforces everything, correct? Absolutely. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to stay with the phones that have been extremely busy, and we're going to go to Phil, who has been patiently holding? Good morning, Phil.

Yes, I have questions for Rick. Okay. I'm thinking about getting a Prius plug-in, the Prius Prime, but I'm concerned about the extra weight that's probably on that battery, on that car. Is the, there's a Prius prime, is that battery much heavier than the standard Prius? No, they're pretty close to the same. Really?

Yep. As a matter of fact, the batteries have gotten smaller and lighter because they've been able to go from a nickel metal hydride to the lithium batteries, and the weight has dropped dramatically. Oh, okay. So then that's not going to, the handling characteristics. of the primes not going to be any different basically than just the Prius. No, they will drive the same. Okay. Thank you. I just, I think I'll

pursue that then. And as you get the car, when you get a Prius or any hybrid, really, go online on YouTube and seek out videos for what's called hyper-miling. There are people that this especially became true when Prius first hit the shores. came over here from Japan, and people started learning how to drive them in, I want to say fanatically absurd ways that they would increase the fuel economy on these cars by the way they drove them. And you don't have to go to those extremes, but you'll learn some tricks on how to handle that

vehicle that will make your fuel economy shoot way up. Oh, okay, I'll do that. Interesting. All righty. Well, and they're available now. They're there for a while. You couldn't even see what a Prius Prime looked like. Oh, yeah. Your dealership had about three on the lock the other day. Yeah, yeah. So that's good. I'll check that out. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Phil. Thanks for being part of the show. John from Palm City. Sorry, I couldn't get to your call. Give us a call next week.

We so appreciate you every week. We are now going to shut the lines down, and we're going to go to Rick, who, well, he's got his hands full this morning. Stu will not be able to make it. And Rick, the Anne-Marie text. Yeah. First, I have a comment from Tom Steckle who says, tell Earl congratulations on Amelia Stewart. Just curious if the hospital charged a pre-delivery service fee and dock fee for the birth certificate. Well, that's my youngest son's second daughter.

And it gives me an opportunity to make a confession. I spelled her name wrong. And I want to apologize to Emilia. I called her Amelia. I was hoping she was going to be like Amelia Earhart. So I just, I put that on Facebook, so a million people got the wrong first name. And it's grandpa's fault. When you can listen to the podcast on this show, Amelia, I apologize for calling you Amelia.

It's an exciting time, isn't it? We have two new births in our family, and that is Amelia, and that is Kay. That is, well, amazing. Well, congratulations. Thank you. That's awesome. And it's amazing that, you know, not to be, well, the truth be told, you know, people our age, Earl 84, me 82, they're not alive to see great grandchildren. And we're so fortunate. And I just want to let the audience know how blessed we know we are. With all of that said, Rick? Okay. We have one here. Kim appreciates life. on YouTube, she says, does a Prius Prime plug-in qualify for the EV credits that are ending September 30th? And I don't think it will.

Being as the prime is a hybrid and not a true electric vehicle, I don't think they get the tax credit for that. I think you're right, but I'm not sure about that either. I'm sorry to say, unfortunately, still won't be here, so we'll check back with him. And did I hear Ian Marie say that it would be super? September the 30th that the electric vehicle tax will be eliminated? Well, it's actually Kim appreciates life on YouTube that asks that. But, yeah, she says September 30.

September 30th. So we didn't know that, but we just got that information. And for Anne-Marie, two quick points here. First one, she said she checked on the difference in price between a hybrid camera and a regular Camry. and they're usually about $2,000 to $3,000 difference in price for a normal ice engine camry or a hybrid, depending on the year of the car. Yeah, sounds about right. And then she says, good morning. I remember that back in the good old days, cars had engines with a deep throaty growl that loudly advertised their power.

Nowadays, engines are quiet with a soft purr that whispers that they are powerful and efficient. Perhaps modern combustion engines are too quiet in that you may not realize that they're running. Number one, what happens if you try to start a car by turning the key but the engine's already running? How much damage could this cause? And can you accidentally try to start a car if it's already running with a modern push button start? Well, any car that has a normal key cylinder ignition where you put the key in and turn the key, If it's already running and you turn it to the start position, now I'm pretty certain they have not done this,

which is a big mistake for the manufacturers, it still will hit the electric signal to the starter, and the starter motor will try to engage. And the damage that can be caused by this is the gear on the starter motor can be damaged, but also the big ring gear that's on the back of the engine, in between the engine and transmission, can be damaged and if it does damage those enough

well you got to replace not only the starter but that ring gear and that means removing either the transmission or the engine big huge expense so be careful with that folks don't try to turn the key if the engine's already running take a quick glimpse

at the tachometer where it says the RPMs and if that needle's not on zero you know that engine's running already so now a push start cars, however, no. It cannot engage the start of the computer will not let that signal go. But on most push-start cars, if you push that button and hold it, it'll shut the engine off after about three seconds of holding that button in. That's one of the safety features they have,

is that's the way you can turn that engine off, regardless if you're in park or not, even if you're rolling down the road at speed, if you feel there's an emergency and you you have to shut that engine off, press and hold that button, and the engine will shut off. I didn't know that. How many seconds? About three seconds. Yeah, interesting, yeah. Just press that button in and hold it for about three seconds, and it will turn the car off. Boy, do you remember back in the 50s?

Well, not you, Rick, but if you went out and your car, you already started your car, and you forgot, and then you go out, and you start, you know, that kind of a noise. Well, and part of the reason that the cars have gotten so much quieter, you know, back in the day, we had those big V8s, monster engines, you start that thing up and rum, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Cars nowadays, they are all much smaller engines, much more efficient, but they've still got a lot of the power that those V8s had, and they obviously burn a lot less gasoline, they use a lot less oil, and the cars are simply much better, quality. I mean, back then, back in the 50s and 60s, 100,000 miles on a car was like the end of its life. Now, 100,000 miles, it's just getting broken in for most of the cars. So, yeah, they're quieter, they're smaller, they're more compact, but they get the job done a lot better.

Absolutely. You remember your comment to the earlier caller, Rick, about hyper-miling? And I check that with a chat, and it blows my mind. I can't believe this. The 2024 Prius L.E. Hyper-miling, meaning the people that know how to drive the car and milk every mile out of it. Rick, I'll give you a guess.

Miles Per Gallen. I would say the top record for somebody that really knows what they're doing and has the proper environment, the roads, everything's just right, I'm going to say 110 miles per gallon. Nancy? 105. Yeah, I would have never guessed

as much of either one of you. 93.158. 93.158 combined, and that's certified by Guinness. That's a recent in the 2024. But, yeah, what this tells me, what does this mean?

you, it means that you can't be a hyper-mile. They're professionals and they go to extremes. But if you listen to someone that really knows how to drive and get miles, Rick is one of them. And there are a lot of people out there that

are just really good. And you know, I remember Rick telling me one time, I feel like you have an egg between you and the accelerator pedal. Just don't treat the accelerator pedal like it's a nail and your foot's a hammer. you want to tap it

it's very receptive and gentle and nice so if you use kind of a featherish approach and think about your mileage all the time I've done this one when Prius first came out I used to be getting nutty about mileage

so when you can really focus your senses on mileage you can take a car with an EPA estimated mileage people talk all the time oh that EPA mileage you can't get that. Let me tell you, if you drive carefully, you can get better than the EPA mileage that you see on the

Bernoni label, and here's proof. Give us a record on a stock Prius. There was no modification here. 2024, Priuselty, 93 miles per gallon. My personal best, and I'm not nearly

as crazy as some of those guys are, but my personal best on a 30-mile trip driving a Prius, I was a customer car that they didn't think it was getting the right mileage, so I drove it home overnight with their permission, 74 miles per gallon. You did better than that, don't you remember? Well, that was a special one.

That was the modified Prius we had, that was a plug-in Prius, and we got over 110 miles per gallon driving that car. That was amazing. That was an amazing time. You drove it all the way to Washington. Washington. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, it's amazing. you know, how a driver can affect their vehicle, you know, and it, that's all I can say. It just, you've got to treat the car, well, with care, like the guy said. You know, Joan from Palm City, I'm sorry, I didn't get to your call. I certainly hope. Jonathan has reopened the lines, so you have time to call before the mystery shopping report. So let's go to Roadrunner, Steve, who was on the line. Good morning.

How are you, Steve? Oh, good morning, everybody. Me, me. How's that? That's the real horn. Oh, I thought it was you. You were talking about that rat tape. Is it X-rated?

Nope, it's rated P for pepper. Okay, well, I had the, when they brought that subject, that was a good subject. I use this stuff that's called Repels All. It's a spray. Remo repellent prevents grazing, nibbling, chewing, norin, and browsing damage to plants and property. It's environmental safe and biodegradable wound harm plants or animals. How about bears and tigers and lions and everything, huh? Yeah, well, it shows you, well, once you brought that up, see, I keep my car in the storage unit,

so I'm going to spray this stuff in my engine bay. so that was a good that was a good call about the uh the rat tape uh huh there interesting very interesting i wonder if i could spray that in the um right outside the back door like on the patio yeah probably but uh the funny thing is i get nervous when i drive my roadrunner so i'm driving on blatant beach boulevard coming the other way was the Ford model team so we each be pawns had each other so i say wow this guy got that i I could imagine if he runs into problems. But it's good to see those cars on the road, even on a Saturday morning.

Yeah. It is. Yeah, it is. We see a lot of them. I see so beautiful. They look like they're brand new. They take really good care of them. Yeah.

And our early morning drives, yes, definitely. Yeah, there's about 15 of them that go to a, you know, a coffee morning somewhere. I forget where they go to. Yeah. They have like a little cult, and they all gather. Okay. Okay, I just wanted to, you know, let everybody know about that repels all instead of the tape where you got to, you know, take everything up with gloves and all that stuff like that.

But that was very good conversation about that. I like the idea of the spray, because you can really get that all over in the engine compartment then to cover all the wiring quickly and easily. And it'll help prevent them. from getting in and, like, chewing up the air filter or the matting under the hood. That's great. How bad does it smell to us people? I mean, if you spray too much on there, is your car going to stink? Yeah, that's something I would have to test.

Yeah, that's true, too. So, you know, just a dab here, a little dab there. A little dab, do you? Yeah, so to me, it smells like garlic bologna for some reason, so I don't know. It smells like what? Garlic bologna. bologna. Really?

Yeah. But it says the ingredients are fish meal, fish oil, magnesium silicate, magnesium sulfite, sodium, oh, here we go with these words,

Vasote, urea, vinegar, vinegar, water, and winter green oil. I think the winter green oil is the main product that would keep the animals away from that.

Uh-huh. That would buy. That wouldn't buy. me because winnegrine is a pleasant odor for me yeah yeah definitely yeah okay and Rick how many miles did you get was that all downhill with the wind in back nope that was in Florida flat roads but I did enjoy a really nice drive along the beach coming to work that morning oh okay no traffic lights that way everybody stay safe and well we'll all talk next week thanks dinner the show's not the show

without your call. I prefer that. Yeah, absolutely. And now I know about... Well, we've got to work on that greeting meat sometime in the future. Yeah. Yeah, we'll meet for a garlic bologna sandwich. No, no, no.

If you do, we've got to be on an onion roll. I knew you would say that. I knew you would say that. Hey, hey, Steve, do you ever purchase spam? Yeah, I like it fried, but I like it fried burnt. I like when it's crispy. Oh, yeah, definitely. Very tasty.

Hey, thank you for calling. You do make the show. Very colorful. Thank you, everybody. Stay safe and well. Have a great weekend. You too. Okay.

The phone lines are shut down, officially. They've been down for 20 minutes. No. Jonathan, he turned the phones back on. Oh. Because we had John from Palm City calling, and we couldn't get to his call because there were so many. So we lost him. So I wanted him to call back.

So Jonathan was kind enough to extend the phone lines. Did he call that? No, he did not. That's because nobody knew we turned it back on. Anyway, time is of the essence. Let's move on. Your anonymous feedback, Earl, do you have anything for us? Anonymous feedback.

I don't have any anonymous feedback. Okay, Stu usually takes care of that. What about you, Rick? Well, I got a couple of comments here. South Florida Two-Step. Now, he keyed in on that. the idea of trying to start a car that's already running with the ignition key. And he says the camera crank sensor will not allow double start events.

That's true on some cars, but on a lot of others, that starter circuit is simply a straight on circuit. So when you turn the key, there are some cars that it'll let it try to do a double start. But definitely not a good idea, even to test that, because you can cause some real bad damage very quickly. So something to be careful of. Great news. Paul texted in. He says, it'd be nice if the show focused more on car buying.

Now, well, I understand your thoughts there, Paul, but we kind of go where the callers take us. He says, I recently rented a Toyota hybrid during a vacation, and in the process, Hertz sent me a list of available cars to purchase. I got curious. I happen to think that Corolla hybrid is probably the best value in a new 50-mile-per-gallon vehicle for 26,500 MSRP. What I found curious is that Hertz rental car sales were showing 38 available 2,025 Corolla hybrids from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, all priced at about $23,000 each plus tax, no dealer fees. It sounds like a fair deal for a new car with low miles and two years left on the factory.

warranty. And yes, that's very true, Paul. You can get a great deal on a rental car. However, but he said new cars, so I'm confused. He's talking about these are Hertz rental cars, 2025 Corolla hybrids. Yeah, those are used cars, right? They are used, yes. Priced at about $23,000. The only thing that I will recommend on any car that has been previously driven by anyone else, even if it's only for a couple thousand miles, take it to a qualified mechanic of your choosing and have it inspected to make sure that it's improper good condition. Yeah, if it's a late model car

and it has less than the mileage of the new car warranty, that's a pretty good indication too. Exactly, yeah. I mean, if you can get a 25 carola, a 2025 corolla, and you're saving a couple thousand dollars, off of the new car price, as long as it passes an inspection, I'd say, yeah, you can get a great deal on it. If I were going to skip taking a car to a mechanic, which I probably wouldn't, but if I had to, it would be when I'd buy from Hertz or from a national rental company. The big companies, like Hertz and National, are, they're publicly traded.

They are under the microscope at all times of the regulators, and Enterprise is another example. And I've never been aware of a nasty problem with a national rental car company selling a used car. Generally, I recommend those outlets as typically getting a pretty good price. Hertz, for example, they went crazy when the electric vehicles first became a... available. They bought way too many of them, and they couldn't get rid of them, and they had to sell them, and they took millions of dollars worth of a loss, and those were really good buys. So put rental car companies on top of your list when you're shopping for a used car, late-model used car. Yeah. You know, my experience with purchasing a car from, I'll say, Enterprise,

many years ago, you know, the first thing that I did was check it out, because you can imagine and how many drivers that car had. But the end of the story was good because it ended up being a great car that I had for a long time. So that's a great advice. Yeah, rental cars for the older folks are reminiscent of high mileage.

I don't know. I don't remember, to be honest with you, but 50 years ago, I don't know how many miles rental car companies put on their cars. I think they typically kept cars longer. Today's rental cars cycle their cars typically either yearly or buy yearly or, I mean, you don't see old cars for sale on Enterprise or National or Hertz. You see a later model cars were lower mileages. The rental car companies of the day don't put 100,000 miles on a car.

They don't put that many miles on a car, and they turn them over and sell them. And as I say, it's generally a safe place to buy a use car. Great information. We have about three minutes until the mystery shopping import. What do we want to cover, guys? Well, we are pretty caught up on the techs and on YouTube here. I've got this is something interesting in automotive news that is like a, why didn't anybody think of this category.

The manufacturers today are strong. You got Nissan about ready to go broke. You got Stalantis about ready to go broke. And you got a lot of other ones out there that are teetering. We know that five years from now, 75% of the makes and models that are for sale today won't be around anymore. There's going to be a massacre of manufacturers. The people who can survive are going to be able to have to build a good... I'm sorry, but you hit the time limit.

a new car and also to build one that has a reasonable amount of mileage on it and so on. Chat, EBT has told you you exceeded your time. Just having a middle of breakdown. Now, I think we're going to either fire chat or we're going to put them in jail. Hang in there. It happens to the best of us. Just take a deep breath and things will get back on track. If there's anything I can do to help lighten the load, just say the word.

talking to you on the phone now I got this idiot chat talking to me in the phone right now and we're going to say we may just dismiss him and so the truth is out yeah now I forgot what I was talking about what was I you were talking about the article that we were reading in the automotive news this morning about the you know the the massacre of dealerships and pick it up well I have no idea what which article that was but here we are I just look at a lot of money news

Toyota has installed something called a flex line in their manufacturing plants and I was going to back into that from the fact that all the other manufacturers are shutting down plants, Hyundai's going

broke, Stalandis is going broke and a bunch of others will go broke and one of the reasons for that is that they're preparation and their lack of awareness of what what should they build should I build hybrids should I build combustion engine cars should I build all electric vehicles should I build autonomous do I build a combination and all those different technologies require it has up until recently a different plan so a Ford just

gave up I think and a lot of others have just thrown in the towel they're trying to merge with another company so and this auto manufacturing world magicer going on here comes Toyota guess what they can build now and they're doing it right now in a local in a US plant they're building electric vehicles and combustion engine vehicles on the same assembly line and Rick interesting okay folks um we we just don't have any time left we'll have to Eliminate the mystery shopping report. Would you like to go to it? The mystery shopping report is from our, you know, Agent Lightning, who does a fabulous job week in, week out, and she was in Tennessee.

And if you want to vote on the mystery shopping report, 772-4976530. Now back to Earl. Yeah, we normally ask Chad GPT to vote, but he's having a nervous breakdown right now. We'll give it a try later on and see what happened. I think you should give them a second chance. Maybe. I'm thinking about it. Okay.

Our mystery shopping report, as Nancy just said, is in Murphysboro, Hyundai, in Tennessee. And to tell you where that is, it's about 30 miles southwest of Nashville. So Mersey's Borough is just a little bitty place. It's in central Tennessee. And when we shop these places, typically, they seem to do a better job, treat the customers better with a little bit more honesty than the big city stores like at South Florida, which you know I call the Sodom and Gomorrah of car dealerships. I'll be speaking in the first person as if I were Agent Lightning going into a Tennessee

dealership or a Hyundai dealership. I arrived at M.M.M.W.N. Morning was greeted by a salesman named Muhammad. He welcomed me and asked if there was anything he could help me with today. I replied, I'd like more information on that new Palisade XRT out front. It was a new 2025 XRT full wheel drive. MSRP was $45,705. That's pretty low MSRP for a vehicle today. Munrooney Label, Here's a Star, was right in place,

and there was no addendum. Just two positive things about this dealership, small town dealership. He pointed to confirm he was getting, the salesman, pointed to confirm he was getting the right keys, and I mentioned, I saw your advertising 0% financing. Muhammad responded, I don't think that applies to the palisades, but I'll check with my sales manager. When I read that, I said, uh-oh, that doesn't sound right. Muhammad started the vehicle, but during how it was parked,

I couldn't get it out or he couldn't get it out, and so we just didn't go on a test drive on this vehicle. He then asked, are you military? We offer a discount. Now, this is one of the subterfuges that Cardios all over do. I'm a little disappointed to see that even in a small town dealership, that typically are a little nicer, but they offer the advertiser price,

but they tie it to a discount that's difficult to get. Now, you ask, why is it difficult to get a military discount? And that is because less than one-half percent of car buyers have been on the military. I mean, you know, it sounds good because we think a military. There are a lot of people in the military. Well, there are not a lot of car buyers. I mean, it's a percentage of the U.S. population, adult U.S. population.

Half a percent. Half a percent, yeah. So they're advertised a big discount, but you've got to be one of half a percent to get it. So that's not good. But all the dealers do that, by the way. Yes. I inquired, as speaking of the first person, I'm the mystery shopper now, I inquired, do you have Costco pricing?

Muhammad confirmed, yes, that will work. I'm getting nervous again. We then headed back inside to his desk where he entered my details into the system and excused himself to speak with his sales manager. He returned a few minutes later, looking very surprised, holding a sheet of paper. Muhammad explained, we've never offered zero percent financing on Palisades before. Again, that sounded fuzzy, but I proceed. of 7.30 this morning

we do and handed me the sheet. So right there I stopped reading this when I was home this morning before I came into the radio show. This discount on this particular

Palisade did go into effect just now. So it explained why Muhammad was not aware of it and why the sales manager just noticed at 7.30 in the morning. So he handed him in the sheet. So that's all legitimate.

So my concerns were not justified. We're back down talking about Costco pricing. And I asked him to reconfirm, and I said, is this the Costco pricing? You mentioned online pricing when you put the paper down. Muhammad replied, let me double check. And returned to office to speak to Bobby, the sales manager. A few minutes later, Muhammad and Bobby returned with a new price with a new price, clarifying this is the cost of pricing. Okay, now, it's confusing but honest so far, I think.

And Hyundai also comes with a lifetime warranty, unlimited time and mileage. Of course, that's so old. A warranty isn't a warranty, isn't a warranty. There are all kinds of warranties. You have BS warranties. You have complete warranties. You have bumper-to-bomper warnings, which aren't really bumper-to-member. I mean, when you say, yes, this car has a warranty,

the warranty might be on the radio and nothing else. And they find it acceptable to say this car has a warranty. So, again, you need to get the magnifying glass out and read any warranty they still have. So there we are. Unlimited time and miles for what? You need to find that out. Okay, the top line was MSRP, 45,705.

They discounted it $1,435, and they added back a $797 dock fee, and that's a junk fee. We see no other junk right there. The real discount was only about $600. Now that's not a good discount. The bottom line was $48,081. I question if this is really Costco pricing, and of course the shopper,

I didn't ask to see the Costco pricing sheet. If they were really a Costco approved member, I could have found out online, or I could have asked to see the Costco pricing sheet, which has got the out-the-door price on every model car they sell. Muhammad I probably added

enthusiastically they probably won't last long with this 0% financing that may or may not be true when I saw the email at 7.30 this morning I could hardly believe my eyes honestly until I just entered the VIN number

I wasn't even convinced but now I'm a believer and that's true the 0% financing just happened on that model Bobby asked Muhammad to print out the witness sticker for me, highlighting the warranty and included maintenance, and then showed me another

sheet. Mohameda concluded, thanks for coming in today. Just let us know when you decide, no pressure, but these will likely be flying off the lot. Standard buff comment there. I said they probably will be. I thank them for an easy experience and left. So there you have it. We grade on the curve, as you regular listeners know.

we don't give out very many A's at all we try not to get out very many Fs and we try to look at relatively if this dealership is relatively doing a good job then a B grade would be really good if this is if this dealer is worse than the average dealer and you want to give them a D don't go to an F without a whole lot of thought or go to an A without a whole lot of thought because there's just very, very few of them and we try to keep the dealer list that we have on Earl Stewart on Cars.com.

On Earl on Cars.com online, you can go there and you can see our recommended list with the score, with their grades on the mystery shopping reports. And you can also listen to the mystery shopping reports online. So we'll go around now and you can fax in. I don't say fax. That shows you how old I am.

You can email in, you can text in, I can't email, that will be fast enough. You can text in your vote. You can do that at 772-497-6530. We really need you to vote. Yeah. Okay. Rick, what do you have?

Oh, YouTube.com. This is not a good show for me. We're on YouTube.com. We're on Facebook.com. Forrest slash Roland cars. And there's a lot of stuff going on that, I should have mentioned that earlier, but I didn't. I'm sorry.

All righty. Well, I've got Florida Two Step says, this one is tough. Zero percent is suspicious. Doc fee is garbage. The price discount is, eh, um, B, I guess. A lot better than average. Okay. Bob from Maryland says,

B minus junk fee and faking a Costco deal. But that's still not too bad. Joseph Kelleher says C plus grade would be higher without the high dock fee Over here we've got a whole bunch just jumped in on this side of the channel

Tim Gilliland says A tepid C plus Andrew Plosinski says A Brian Siddlatko It's a B for me Mark H C

0% means nothing for cash buyers No rebate for cash customers Tom Steco, B, much better than any South Florida Hyundai dealer, a bit too much back and forth, empower the salesman to improve the experience like J.M. Lexus. Quick side note, yeah, J.M. Lexus, they've got an A on our list, and they've earned it. That's one heck of a dealership down there. Thanks for mentioning. Mark Smith, I'm giving the dealership a B. Johnny Z. Fradley, B, the 0% financing probably means less of a disson.

Count. Cram 1624 says, D, no real discount, $600. Out the door, wait until you get into the box. And that is true, folks, in the box, they can sometimes get you. Let's see. We got Jonathan and Palm Coast says, first and foremost, if you want a vehicle at a great price, no need to go all the way to Tennessee. Earl Stewart Toyota's just down the road. we have to question whether they actually have the Costco pricing and veterans discount but with the dock fee and straightforward selling I'll give this small town dealership a B and see if we got any others here yep Frank Jupiter Farms says small town dealership is a refreshing positive change from South Florida dealerships grade B plus myself personally I'm here we got another one Doug Tesler says

Ella says B minus Meow For me I'm on a B plus level I think they did pretty good I like the way Muhammad and Bobby I presented themselves

and the fact that they just kind of were friendly you know the way it sounded to me and they'll you know a reasonably small dealer fee let me stop here Yeah, so I think pretty good. Let me stop you right there.

I dropped the ball again. I just checked, and Murfreesboro Hyundai in Tennessee is not an approved Costco dealer. Ah. So they lied. Okay. Yeah, their grade just dropped to a C for me. Okay. Yeah, that's not right.

Okay. You have any other votes, Rick? No, that's got them all right now. Okay. I'll go ahead. didn't give you my vote and you know I expected more from a small town dealership I expected more so with all of that said and with the news that Earl just announced about Costco and them lying and the doc fee which you know turns my

stomach I give an F okay I'm gonna try to get a score from a check at GBT, a.k.a. Coach, let's see if he's feeling better than he was earlier. Jonathan has it already. Coach, what's the score on the shopping report? What is your view of Murphy's Bureau Hyundai? You know, Coach. What's the score on Murphy's Bureau Hyundai, the shopping report? Yeah, there's a pause.

You have to. I gave Murfreesboro Hyundai an A-Minus for their mystery shopping report. They were, and they provided a great experience overall. The only slight downside was that the actual discount from MSRP was pretty modest, but they made up for it with 0% financing and a lifetime warranty. Overall, they did a great job. Coach, let me tell you something that you didn't know earlier. this was my fault uh the dealership said that they were a Costco approved dealer uh when the shopper

asked the question and they lied they are not a Costco approved dealer how would that modify your score got it thanks for letting me know that definitely changes things since honesty and transparency are crucial uh i probably adjust the grade down to a b to refer like that issue, because it's important that they accurately represent their affiliations. Thank you, Coach. So it sounds like the coach, you know, he doesn't mind dock fees. He doesn't mind any of the extra fees that go with some of these mysteries. Well, you can't.

Coach is definitely wrong about the line. You can, junk fees, that's standard operating procedure. uh this sort of thing and that's that's how you get yourself a c but uh when you look a customer in the and the eye and that customer asked you are you an approved Costco dealer and is this the approved Costco price and they lie to you and say it is uh that's enough and i i think it changes everything i haven't uh i i feel bad that i missed that i i should have checked that earlier and given that information to all of our voters. So my apologies, especially to our great YouTube voters, I can almost, I can tell you right now that all of our YouTube voters would have given them

an F too. So we're going to say on our Mr. Chopper, do not buy a car. You voted, right? I'm voting now with an F. Oh, you're going to vote now. I'm voting with an F and we will put them on the list, F, if you're buying a car from a Hyundai, buy it from any place other than Murphy's Borlande in Tennessee, because they're liars. Yeah, well, that makes me feel better that you did change your vote because, you know, transparency is very important here in leading, you know, a customer, a potential customer astray from the get-go for the, you know, small-time dealer. This is what I'm talking about. You're referring to my vote in the car on the way to the dealership, on the way to the radio show? No, right here.

Yeah. No, I never said there was a C. I said it's an F because I went on. Okay. Does Rick want to change his vote? He did. Jonathan, how much time do we have? He did.

I'm dropping mine again, F. F, okay. I don't like liars at all, ever. Okay. And ladies and gentlemen, if anybody wants to, text in changing their vote, whether it be a text, you two do so. We have time. And Rick will be watching. My father raised me with one simple principle. He didn't tell me honesty is the best policy.

He said honesty is your only policy. Yeah. Absolutely. I learned that one. Because we still got some time here. There's an article that in Automotive News that Nancy and I were talking about on the way to the show. And interestingly enough, yesterday, we were driving around somewhere, and I said, what is that car in front of us? We were on the road. And they said, I don't know. What is that?

And I pulled up close where I can see the, you know, the logo. And it was a Mercedes. It looked like a Toyota Corolli or a Honda. It looked like an inexpensive car. So I said that's unusual. I never seen a Mercedes that looked like that. And then in automotive news, they were talking about the Mercedes A-class entry level. Now, I wasn't aware.

Shame on me. Mercedes is selling a car for about $60,000 when before that their average car was probably much more than that. And I think that's a mistake. I throw that out there because if you look at General Motors, they build a Cadillac and the Chevrolet. If you look at Toyota, they build the Toyota and they build the Lexus. You look at Accura and Honda. There's always a cheap model and luxury model.

The reason for that is to preserve the luxury vision, you know, the luxury vision. You leave the store, you're a valet park or you say, I have the white Lexus, or I have the white or the blue, you know, whatever. People are proud of owning an luxury car. I mean, the people that own them are proud. I don't think anybody in this place should be proud of the car they drive, but people do. And that's the reason they buy the car.

So we want you to know if we had our phones open, because we have so much time going today in this chaotic show and I apologize at advance for this chaotic show think about that when you're buying a car. Well, we're live.

So, hey, to what you said, you know, it's so telling to see these cars more than the Mercedes, but, you know, up in the north end of town, we're looking at a Rolls-Royce, we're looking at a far. Everything has changed.

You can't recognize them like you used to. Lamborghini. Look at that. He's making an SUV, a little SUV by Lamborghini. A little toaster. Like, really? I guess on the other side of that coin, the guy that buys the cheap Lamborghini or the cheap Mercedes could say,

hey, guess what I just bought? I just bought a Lamborghini. I didn't say it was cheap. You can't even find the price for it online for that Lambo. Well, 60,000 for Mercedes is cheap. Yeah, yeah. South Florida Two Step says, I would have given an F on it. He says, but I don't know if the salesman actually knew or not.

So I can't punish the entire dealership because of one. Salesman, he's, I'm still at a C-E-minus. Can't bring myself to punish all for the actions of one. Well, it's more important to punish the manager than the salesman. Right. You know, the salesman will be gone on a week, but the manager will be there for a long time. How about the owner? If you got a liar for a manager, well, all the owners are liars.

Here's some other news about consumer report. Did you know that there were eight cars and SUVs that lost consumer reports recommendations? Yeah, that's telling so. There's a lot of people who really don't believe in Consumer Report. I've got a lot of taxes, you know, in that direction. And I think that Consumer Reports really does a great job. We have two minutes left. Anybody?

Yeah, I'll see. I took a shot at owners, and I'm not going to apologize. guys, owners of cars, maybe lying is too big a, too strong a word, but what you're doing is denying, plausible deniability. So all you big shots out there that are supposed to be so honest and, you know, you've got to country club, you've got the ski lodge and veil, and you're getting written up in the paper, oh, this wealthy man is so distinguished, and his dealerships are raping the public and stealing and lying. And they're. say, oh, I didn't realize that.

So when something comes, oh, fire that guy, or fire that guy. He's got 50 dealerships and he's suddenly surprised. Ed Napleton, for example. Ed Napleton, he doesn't know anything that's going on in any of his dealerships. So that

plausible deniability to me is worse than lying because you control the line. So you dealers out there, sue me, you bastards. Okay. Oh, boy. That's how they can afford a trip to Tierra del Fuego. I can see that the show has turned a corner.

With that said, I'm going to wrap it up because I think Jonathan's wiping tears from his eyes. I'm not sure. Anyway, we'll be right back here next week, live. You can expect anything from Erlon Cars. Right back here on the oldies channel at 8 a.m. Everyone, have a beautiful weekend. Thank you.