Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.21.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Tropical Auto Sales

Episode Date: September 21, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Tropical Auto Sales, a local used car dealer to see if his sales rep will disclose a Takata Airbag Recall on a used 2011 GMC Yukon. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Introducing the group in our studio. We have the full crew here this morning. I got Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Rick Kearney. And we're here for one purpose. That's to help you make your life a little bit easier when you're buying or leasing a car. or maintaining or repairing your car. I'll mention twice. I mentioned in my recorded intro about the mystery shopping report.

This is clearly the most interesting part of the show, exciting, entertaining, or whatever you want to label it, but it's real life. There's nothing better than real life. It's not even a reality show. We actually record the actual events of a mystery shopper going into a South Florida dealership. Undercover, we go in there with a public.

plan it typically is an advertisement or many cases now we're checking for those car dealers that will sell a car with an undisclosed dangerous recall to cut airbags are our favorite target but remember there are a whole lot of dangerous recalls out there and about 25% of these cars are fixed that means about 75% are unfixed so stay tuned for the second half of the show we will be going over that mystery shopping report and and the first part of the show We'd love to hear from you, and that's the name of the game. Last week, we got off to a slow start. Hopefully we'll get the text and the postings and the calls to our regular telephone.

I say regular telephone. We've been doing the show for 15 years. 15 years ago, that's all we had was a regular telephone. That number is 877-960-99-60. And it's been the same number for 15 years. That's right. 877-9-60-99-60. And then we evolved into texting.

We thought that was really cool. And so we got a text number. And that text number is 772, area code, 4976530. 772, 4976530. And we kind of started getting a lot of text. And text kind of overcame the audio, the calls, the regular calls. And then the cyber world hit us in the face, Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, YouTube.

You can reach us anywhere. Facebook and YouTube are our biggest posting information. Kind of like a call in by a post. And Facebook.com forward slash Erl on Cars. Facebook.com forward slash Erl on Cars. Last week, we introduced and talked about two of our staff here, Nancy Stewart and Stu Stewart. and we never got to Rick

and the calls start pouring in and so Rick never got to chit-chat about himself but he's kind of a cool guy he's worked for me for 25 plus years he is the most knowledgeable person I've met in terms of not just mechanics but electronics and computers Rick tell us a little bit about your background

who you are and what kind of ice cream you like best I don't know why that just came from my mind because you're thinking about ice cream Cherry vanilla ice cream is my favorite. That's good. My second favorite. I love that stuff. I'm just an old car nerd.

I've loved cars since I was a kid. I love the old classic cars, the old muscle cars, you know. It's something about the idea of being able to have a car come in with a problem, start working on it, and solve that problem, fix it, find the problem, and solve it. What year did you? I love the excitement of it. What year did you fix your first car? What year did you get your hands dirty and go in there and fix something on the car? That would be about 1982.

The first time I ever helped my father work on his old van. And I got a whole lot of education in foul language and getting dirty and how to get cut and bleeding. And I just kind of fell in love with the idea of being able to fix something with my bare hands. and now it's cars have become so technical that I'm working more with my head than my hands anymore it's uh it's awesome and it the idea of being able to find and solve a problem that just can you know buffalo other people just it you know it's an ego thing it's a big ego trip it's accelerating right you you know you said 1982 for probably 15 of those years after you got started things were kind of frozen in time Nothing really super-duper happened. And also, when did it kick off? When suddenly we're driving computers? When did that kick off?

2000? Actually, somewhere in the late 90s is when it really started getting crazy that everything had to be electronic and everything moved away from mechanical moving pieces. And now almost everything on the car is electronic. Yeah, yeah. And it's confusing. it is to me, and I'm a car dealer. I've been a car dealer since 1968, and if it's confusing to me, it's got to be

confusing to you folks out there. If you have any questions at all about what does this button do, what does this switch do, how do I do this, and I know you do, because I do. I know about 50% of what happens on my car, and the rest I usually have to ask Rick. So ask Rick 877-960-99-60, You can call Rick 877-960 or you can text him at 772-497-6530 at 772-497653. And of course I said earlier, Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, any way you want to go. Rick is monitoring the YouTube.

So you talk to Rick, sending a posting on YouTube. He'll see it right away. Let's talk to Nancy Stewart, my co-host, and she's been on the... the show with me since the get-go. What's going on in your mind? Well, you were talking about going back in time and how long you've been on the air, and I just so happened to have found in my papers the beginning of the show and how you introduced yourself back then as a recovering car dealer and how far we've all traveled in the panel here today, and we've added a few members, and it's been quite exciting, but the most exciting part of the show back then is whenever you quoted, quote, unquote,

it's what you do for a customer when you don't have to. That's the measure of true character, kind of like sticking up for somebody who can't defend themselves. And this, you know, it's a big part of our show still after all these years. So folks, you know, we really enjoy your company, and you are a big part of the show. And we would love to hear from you this morning. And one of the most exciting things about the show is me inviting the ladies to give us a call. And the first two new lady callers, you can win yourself $50 today. So give us a call.

The first two new lady callers. No strings attached. There's no conditions. I add this every time Nancy says it, because when you listen on television or radio or whatever you're watching or listening to, every offer has got a condition. All we want to do, our motivation is we want to balance. We want a fair balance of female callers. And when we started the show, it was like 100% male. It was like cars were all about the male thing.

And it isn't because, obviously, the females buy half the cars. They repair half the cars or bring them in for repair. So we want to have a fair balance. And that's the reason, 50 bucks, no conditions, the first two new female callers. I'd like to add one more thing. Sabrina, if you're listening, give us a call this morning. Sabrina's from Palm Beach Gardens, and she was one of the first female callers. And also, don't forget, youranonymousfeedback.com.

Youranonymousfeedback.com. It is an important part of the show, and you can voice your opinion, ask question, anything at all, and you remain anonymous. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Let's go over us, too. He's our cyber guy, and tell us what's on your mind, and tell us if you have any text yet. Well, we had a few texts, and actually a couple of anonymous feedback that already came in, but Nancy was talking about the early days of the show. And I remember when you guys first went on, and I will confess here live in front of her whole audience, that I was terrified. for you because you guys are not radio professionals. You guys are now. Now you are, you are

professionals. 15 years ago, you are rank amateurs and I feared for a total flop. And so I remember tuning in, tuning in. And we weren't that cyber, I think we had, no, I take that back. I did not have an iPhone at the time. Definitely didn't. It was only half an hour show, of course. Right. And I listened and I'm going to pay the biggest compliment to Nancy. I mean, you did okay. You blew my, you blew my mind. I mean, you were really good. I said, this might work. Thank you. Then I had another, you know, wince of fear when they said they're going to extend you to an hour. I'm like, oh, how are they going to do that? You guys did it. And then I went to two hours. And, you know, I was thinking about, like, how I got involved with the show. And I, you know, I feel like,

who was that guy, Jim Stockdale, who ran for vice president in 92? Like, who am I? How did I get here? Yeah. I can't really remember. I started doing, helping out here and there. And then I didn't have a microphone and then I'd lean over occasionally and speak into your microphone. But anyway, it grew from there. So here we all are a happy radio family doing what we love. What a ride. It's been quite a journey. Yeah, yeah.

And then I also enjoy kind of handling the cyber end of the communications, making sure we get to all the questions for the people who don't want to speak on the phone. And also, like you mentioned, my favorite thing actually is the mystery shopping report and getting that ready because it's always. It's always a surprise week after week. Never get bored of it. There's always something new that we learn. And there's usually something that shocks us. It really shows. You shine right there, you know.

And your creative skills, you know, make it interesting. And that's what keeps the listeners listening for that mystery shopping report. Well, thank you very much. And by the way, we have that mystery shopping report that's coming up from Tropical Auto Sales. So stay tuned for that. Or stay foo for that. We've got some text, too. You want to jump into those?

Yeah, let's jump into the text. All right, the first one is, it's actually from Steve in New Jersey, and he says, Hi, I'll just read an article stating that Mercedes-Benz will no longer devote resources to developing gas engines. Their sole focus will be on electric engines. I'm looking to buy my last retirement car, would you advise waiting a few years to purchase an electric car or buy a gasoline-power car that is quickly becoming obsolete? This will be a second car so I can afford to wait. I wouldn't advise that.

I think there are a lot of other things in play today besides electric versus combustion engine. You've got safety factors that are coming on cars at a greater risk to avoid the risk than anything else I've seen. All the improvements virtually have been safety items. And if you're driving a car that's five years old, by today's standards, it's almost considered an unsafe car. So I would, if you like the idea of electric power, there are a lot of very good hybrids on the road today.

You also have some fairly decent all-electric. I mean, the range is getting up to approaching 400 miles, and how many people need more than 350 miles or 400 miles in a day? Yeah, and Tesla's not the only game in town. I mean, I just saw a commercial last night. There's a Jaguar SUV, all-electric. I can't remember what's called. I saw one of those on the road the other day. That's a sharp-looking vehicle.

Yeah, and I think it's got a pretty impressive range. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's, we're going to see that over the next few years. Yeah, the Volt. Yeah, the Volt and the Leaf, Nissan Leaf. And there's some, there's, I think, a BMW that's all electric out there. So, you know, it's going to creep up on us. You're going to turn around in two years, and there's going to be, there's going to be one next to you. Yeah, and a really good hybrid combines the best of both worlds.

And if you drive a hybrid carefully, Rick Kernney's an expert on how to drive a hybrid to maximize the fuel economy, you can get amazing miles. You can get, you can get 60, 70 miles per gallon if you really know how to drive. And in larger vehicles. It doesn't have to be a little tiny compact car. Also, the plug-in hybrids are pretty cool. I think Volt's one. Isn't Volt technically a plug-in? Yep. Yeah, my son drives a plug-in hybrid and he rarely puts gas in it. I mean, literally he's all electric most of the time. Excuse me, folks. We're going to go to a caller, and he is a regular caller. Howard, thank you for your patience this morning. Good morning.

Hello. Hey, Howard. Oh, okay, nice talk with you guys. Thank you. It's a long time. I have a question about paint. I just received a letter, actually, a letter, not a communication on email, stating that there may be a problem with the 040 or the 070 paint. And if I have a problem, I should bring it into Toyota, and they'll take care of it.

But it doesn't – it's only concerns metal. The bumper is not covered. Now, my question to you is, if I purchase a 2020 vehicle, will that 040 paint still be available, and will it be covered? What's the story with that? Well, I heard about that for the first time the other day, and I still might be able to add to my understanding, but Alan Napier, who was an occasional member of this show,

about once a month, who was our collision body shop manager and an expert on paint and whatnot. Toyota has announced that they have a, what they call it, a delamination problem, which is a peeling of the paint, and it's going to be costly. of Toyota, and there will be a lot of vehicles that will need painting, and you will be notified as you've been notified. My guess is they will be making a change in the paint, whether they're going to recode it from 040 to something else. I'm not sure, but I would think that if it hasn't

already been made, it will be made very shortly. And Stu, you know what about that? Yeah, it was announced recently. We got a heads up, and then the announcements went out to the owners, and it goes back to people owning cars, I mean, I think as far back as 2005, or I'm not sure they, don't quote me on that, but there isn't a fix for it yet. So they're aware, there's two kinds of paint. There's the 0070. That's the code. And that's the, that's the pearlized, you know, the upgraded paint. And that's the one that's delaminating. That means it's actually peeling off from the metal. And I think they figured, there's some moisture issue that got in between the, in the painting process. And then the O-O-4-O, which we've talked,

about on the show a lot and that's just the plain flat white and that oxidizes and gets chalky and kind of wears off. So Toyota finally confessed about, see the 040 when I first heard it, I didn't understand Alan Napier correctly the other day. I thought he was saying delamination on both the 070 and the 040 codes, but he's saying only the 070 has a delamination problem. The 040 has a fading problem because they don't have a clear coat on the paint. And that's something that has been bothering me for years and years. This goes back 10 or 15 years and paint fades because you don't have the clear coat that protects the car against the ultraviolet radiation.

And unless you polish it every month and keep it in the garage, it's going to fade. Now, Howard, to answer your question, I honestly don't know if they've identified what the problem was that caused it in the first place. I'm going to guess that they have, but I don't know. The 040 problem is simply a clear coat. All they have to do is begin clear-coating cars with the O-40. And I think there's another one or two pink codes that don't have the clear-code, too. It's a matter of economics. They didn't clear-cote it because of cost and for also environmental considerations.

But the appealing thing is something, I would imagine, it's something they could identify whatever defect occurred. And it's not a recall. It's a warranty, like, enhancement. And they sent out the notices, and they said, come on in, get them inspected. and I think we anticipate getting guidance on how to go about like doing. I mean, we know what to do. It's the pain in it, but there's a whole bunch of technical stuff that has to be set up, so probably next month.

So bring it by Howard. Allen, we'll take a look at it and tell you what he thinks. That's great. Okay. Yeah, I should wax the car more often then with my 040, correct? Well, yeah, if you have, if the fading hasn't begun yet and you have an 040 paint code, you should wax it more often. And we have been successful in the past almost, I won't say 100% of the time,

of getting goodwill adjustments where we can correct the paint problems in the 040. But it's a good idea, prevention. If you waxed it more often, it would be able. But that's what really irritated us, though, because for a long time, the manufacturer said it was the fault of the owners who didn't wax it enough. And they said, you had to wax it twice a month. And nobody in the planet waxes their car twice a month, except for Rick and maybe Alan.

Ain't going to happen.com. Yeah, ain't going to happen. Howard, thanks for the call. That was, you brought out a problem that a lot of toy owners have. Some of them don't know they have it, and they do have it. Rick had a point he wanted to make.

You know, it just seems to me like this is not just a problem with white cars and just with white Toyota cars. If you look on the road, kind of watch the different cars out there, it seems like any car that's over about five or six years old, The clear-coats peeling off all manufacturers.

You see that delamination on the roof all over the place. My own pickup is a dark blue, and last year we had to get the roof and the hood and the little spoiler piece on the front of the hood re-clear-coated because of the delamination, and it was only five years old at the time. I mean, to me, that's kind of ridiculous. Well, delamination doesn't necessarily have to be clear-coded. to get too technical here, but delamination just means that the paint peels off. It could be clear coat. It can be the base coat. It could be anything.

So, yeah, it's something that is lacking behind the technology. They're putting a lot of Bluetooth and a lot of fancy things on the cars. Fundamentals. Still don't know how to paint them. Right. Well, my first car, 82, Selica, it was red and it oxidized. And every time I, if I walk too close to it and brush my pants against it, I had to get a nice little hinder red on my pants.

Yep. There you go. One of our callers had a big problem with this peeling situation, and she had a red car, and it was a big problem for it because it became more and more. First, it was a hood, and then it was on the back fender. Howard, I hope we answered your question, and keep in touch. Let us know if you get any fading, now that you're going to wax it a little bit more often. okay great and it's a shame Alan can't be on the program but

when is he actually on the program well when we are usually when I'm a hospitalist when one of us is in hospital or on vacation but it's not because we don't beg him I think Alan is a little bit she has a little bit of stage fright and once he gets in front of the mic he does fine but when we ask him to come on the show he gets a little bit edgy Yeah, and we make him work once in a while. Yeah. I don't think he realizes his importance, you know?

He has a lot of knowledge to share with us. He's very self-deprecating. I was sending an email begging us to get Alan back on the show, and that will help me get him back on the show. We promised we would enforce him. Yeah, let's have a movement. Let's have a. I have a YouTube comment here from Mark that says,

Good Morning from Iowa. He says, I have a 2019 camera XSE and Blue Streak Metallic, And he's asking, will I have any trouble with the paint on my new car? So, Mark, our advice is I would try to follow what Toyota says, really, and wax it at least once a month. Well, www. Ain't going to happen.com. You know, Toyota is full of it when it comes to expecting people to wax your cars every 30 days. Yeah.

So my answer would be the two codes now, we have the 070, the 040, and your blue probably is included in that. But you might want to double check. But you'll be notified. And if you have a delamination problem, peeling of the paint or a fading problem, go to your Toyota dealer, raise hell with them, and ask him to contact the factory representative. If the dealer is proactive and if he cares about you as a customer, he will go to bat for you with Toyota or any manufacturer. And more often than not, they can get to action. You'll get some help.

If they don't pay for all of it, they'll pay for part of it. Howard, thanks very much for bringing up a very interesting subject that affects a lot of people. I think Howard is gone bye-bye. Yes, he is. Okay, folks. We beat that one to death. Our number, our number for other folks out there would like to call the show is 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960.

We're having a little bit of problem with being notified of our phone calls now. Our laptop is not reflecting the phone calls, and so we have somebody else texting on that to us. Don't forget, 772-4976530, and we have Tina on hold, and I want to first thank her for her patients. And, you know, earlier, Tina, you probably heard us talking about going down memory lane, and you've become such a big part of the show. You always have so much information, you know, and so many questions. Thank you for that, but I can't truly remember when you began being part of the show. Can you? I, yes.

I had purchased the car that I have now back at the end of 2017, and that's pretty much about the time that I started because my one concern that I had was I had purchased this vehicle after hours. It was during a weeknight, and I had to sign a spot delivery form, and I was really pretty nervous about it. Fortunately, everything worked out okay. But I realized that thought delivery form could really get people into a lot of trouble. So that was, I just wanted to recount my story, and I do believe that's how it all started. And then the week after that, I was talking about a test drive that I took at a used car dealership close to me, and that was

a pretty entertaining story. I don't know if you want me to tell that one again, because maybe our readers haven't heard, I mean, are readers on Facebook reading the comments, the people on Facebook watching the feed, and the listeners. Yeah, absolutely. But I can't count that, you wish, because it was pretty interesting. Well, thank you. We really enjoy your company. Yeah, to go ahead, Tina, we'd like to hear that.

Yeah. Okay. So, there's a, we use card dealership, and it's like right around the corner, and I saw a Mazda 3 that was for sale. I had just bought a used Honda, and I thought, well, you know, maybe I can make a swap because I've always really loved miles and cars. I had a meada for 18 years. So I go to the car dealership, and the guy says,

oh, yeah, you know, this car's been sitting here for a few months, and, you know, nobody wants it because it's sick. I said, well, you know, that's why I like to drive. So anyway, we go to start the car up, and the car would not start. And it seems a little bit embarrassed. He's like, you know, okay, well, I'll have this ready for you tomorrow. Okay, so go to work.

I'm going to test drive this car, and the girls at work are saying, you know, don't even bother doing it. It's not going to leave him anywhere. I said, let me go ahead and just do this. So the next day they go in, and sure enough, he got the car started up, and I was looking under the hood, and I was looking at the fluids, and he was kind of offended that I was doing that. Oh, this car's been inspected. It's fine. I said, well, I need to see for my own to that.

So I get inside the car, I turned on, and the AC wasn't blown as cold as it should have, and the gear should. shift was really weird because it's got the reverse one, two, three, four, five. Well, there was this oily substance that was inside of covering the numbers. It was really kind of strange. Well, I just ignored that. So I go on the test drive and everything's great. And then as soon as I made a really sharp turn, I could feel the brakes kind of pull. I thought, hmm, this isn't good.

So I stopped the car completely. And one of the things you want to do in a fixed car is you want to make sure that the clutch is in good shape. So I put the car, total stop, put it in fifth year, and tried to start the car. And usually any other car is going to stall out and buck. This one didn't. This one kept going. I thought, okay, that's not a good sign.

So I drove the car back, and I drove it around the corner, and I put it in the parking lot, and he's got a big smile on his face thinking he's going to make the sale and get rid of this car. And I knew the guy's name. And I said, Francisco, thank you so much for letting me test drive this car. I said the AC needs to be recharged The clutch is bad and the brakes need to be changed Bye have a nice day And he had the most flabbergasted look on his face

You had ever seen in your entire life I could have knocked him over with a feather He thought for sure he'd be getting rid of that car I was one step ahead of him So I drove home with a Honda Now, Chania they probably have what they call A huge flat commission On that car

You said at the beginning that they've been on the lot for a few months. Car dealers get desperate when a car sits on the month on a lot for more than 30 or 45 days. And if it's been there for 90 days, they will probably have a minimum commission, you know, $500 or maybe even $1,000 when typically they might only make $200 or $300 on the car. So they will go to any means to sell a car with a designated car with a big flat. they'll take a car that absolutely should be wholesaled and should not even be retail and by putting a hard large minimum commission. Now you imagine you come in to buy a car that's really a nice car, that salesperson is only going to make $200 when he sells you the nice car.

If he can sell you the junk car that the boss put the big minimum commission on, he can make $500 or $1,000. So he was pushing you and to buy a problem car, but you were just too smart. They didn't see her coming. No, and he thought for sure, you know, he thought for absolute sure, but you know, it ended up working out because long story short, the Honda, I'll have to tell you when the story is all over with, but I traded in the Honda. And one of the biggest reasons why is because when I bought the Honda, it was stated to have a certain amount of miles and it was way over the mileage. The mileage was not reported. So I ended up having to get legal counsel and I'm still going to that. But anyway, Congratulations. That's a whole other episode. Really appreciate that real, real life. You should offer your services. Just hire yourself out to accompany people.

Yeah, we need more of that. I can't keep a poker face, though. That's the problem. I'd probably start dying, laughing right in the middle of it, especially when they start spouting BS and I can see right to it. No, I would not make a good secret cheaper. Amazing. Oh, thanks, Tina. Thank you very much for the call, Tina.

and you're our favorite lady callers, so please call and call again. Yes. We enjoy your company. I can't, oh, I'm sorry, Nancy. Ladies, I cannot do this by myself. Colin, if you're new, the $50 is a thing. So it's legit.

Right on. Oh, thank you so much, Tina. You're the leader of the PEC. That's true. Give us a call again. 877-960. I'll write this number down. And even if you don't have a question now or comment, you will, I promise you.

You'll hear something that titillates your mind. 877-960-99-60. I've got a text, actually an email that I got last week, and I beg Joe from Texas's pardon. I just missed it last week, and we got too busy. We had kind of a clever idea, and I told them I'd bring it up. So I'm bringing it up now. Joel from Texas said, you know, it would almost be like a mystery shopping report

if you could encourage your listeners to some time when they're actually at a car dealership to call in and describe a situation. It would take somebody that was kind of gutsy that wouldn't mind calling into the show and saying, I'm in ABC Chevrolet, and I'm looking at so-and-so, and I'm talking to Johnny the salesman.

And it would be a problem from ours, too, because we're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. And that would present a problem in this area, in the Eastern Standard Time. Most car dealerships don't open until 9 o'clock. So if we had an early morning car shop route there, it'd be kind of fun. It could happen. It could happen, yeah.

With full disclosure to all parties who are being recorded. Exactly, yeah. Exactly. I mean, there's nothing wrong with recording. And it might be kind of fun. You might even find a car salesman that might get into it. Yeah. And it'd be a commercial for his dealership.

There was a time that you went to. around town with a GoPro strapped to your forehead, and that's a true story, folks. Yeah, a whole lot of ideas could come out of that. Anybody with the sound of my voice, it might be car shopping about this time. It's a little early, depending on your time zone, real early, depending on some time zones. But, you know, at about half an hour, it'll be 9 o'clock Eastern. If you happen to be out and about, see a car dealer, and you might want to go in there and chit-chat. You could call us, and we can give you some advice.

877-960 and the text number is 772-497-6-5-30-7-7-2-4-9-6-5-30 and I think we have some text. Yes, we do. Andreas on Facebook chimed in on the clear-coat issue. He said he had a 2006 black Honda Civic, started to have clear coat damage in 2008. Honda offered to pay 50% to have the car repainted and have the new clear-coat applied. he accepted it, but now in 2019 it started happening again. So he bought a can of clear coat to address it himself this time. So it's a shame that you got it fixed, and a couple of years later, it went bad again.

Oh, actually, it looks like 11 years later it went bad again. Here's a little trick you might try out there, you consumers that have cars that have problems outside of warranty, pain, or otherwise. One of the ways we shame Toyota into helping us is we say to Toyota, we will do the work at our cost. Now, cost is a loaded word, and car dealers will tell you they'll do something at cost. It's not real cost. It's like anything else. There's lots of levels of cost.

Cost means what the dealer for labor actually pays a technician. Rick gets paid for his flat rate time on the job, and if I have to pay Rick $100 for a particular operation, and this is something I'm trying to do courtesy to a customer, I will say I will pay Rick for $100 because it's his time and he's got a family and he's got to make a living and he's not going to, he can't be a charitable foundation. And then I will, the parts that Rick needs to use, I will charge you, meaning the factory, meaning Toyota,

when I pay Toyota for the parts. So true cost is my cost to Toyota of the parts. my cost on the labor to the technician who is Rick and I do that and that's sacrifice on my part because the fact of the matter is it's actually costing me money you got to process things you have other overhead and stuff like that I have general overhead that I'm absorbing and usually if the dealer will make that offer sincerely to the manufacturer it tugs at their heartstrings and they say oh ABC dealer you really care about this customer you really feel like he's

deserving if you're willing to do that for no profit and make maybe actually a small loss then they'll step up to the plate oftentimes and fix the entire car because I believe that Andre has said they only pay that yeah we don't use the term cost we say just up pay us we pay our tech and the parts exactly yeah because cost can mean internal cost which is something you charge lost opportunity cost yeah exactly there are a lot of costs an invoice on a car is a joke it's not the true cost okay more text yeah we have a your anonymous feedback came in.

A couple came in last night. It says, Earl, I have friends and family who swear by the certified pre-owner program cars. It's just a used vehicle with some warranty left on it. Consider this amazing deal. Consider this amazing dealership practice. Dealer takes a late model car and on trade at 7 p.m. The car has a pre-owned sticker on it by 8 a.m. The following morning, boy, I wish we could do it that fast.

Sorry. By 8 a.m. following morning for the customers to ogle at 9 a.m. the star opens. What are your thoughts? My thoughts are you're probably 90% right about that. The certified vehicle inspection is only good as a technician and the honesty and time he puts in. They get paid a certain amount of money and nobody's got a clock watching the technician. And unfortunately, in some dealerships, this job is allocated to the lesser skilled technicians. and if you're going to do an honest check on a car and these inspections can be 125 points

or every manufacturer Braggs, come in and buy our certified car, 175 point inspection. The question is how many of those 175 points actually were inspected and by home? So I agree that the cost of a certified car can be greatly exaggerated if the work wasn't done. Yeah, and like, you know, Rick is a, you know, master diagnostic technician. Typically, those guys, the guys that are highly trained with all the experience,

aren't the ones who are doing these inspections because, you know, they cost too much money. So they go for the least expensive technician. And also the manufacturer is all they do is spot check these things. And I can only speak for Toyota, but they come in occasionally, and they'll look at an inspection sheet and they make sure a line wasn't drawn through all the checkboxes, but they're not re-inspecting the car. they're not looking at more than a handful at any given time. So if the dealer

is not ethical, you can't be 100% sure that they're truly inspected and the manufacturer's interest in certified used cars is a one thing. It's a warranty. They sell the warranty and they make a ton of money on the warranty and the dealer puts it on the car

and calls a certified car and the dealer raises the price of the car to you and if I were going to give you a rule of thumb I would find a car that I wanted to buy, consumer reports recommended used car, and I'd find one on AutoTrader, and I would take that car to the independent mechanic, have them check it out, and I would pay the independent mechanic far less, and I would pay if I had it certified by the dealer,

and I would feel better because I chose the mechanic who was qualified to tell me this is a good car. I think that the warnings and the work is suspect and the warranties are overpriced on certified use cars. They are. All right. Next one, this is also your anonymous feedback. Oh, Nancy's got something coming in here. I'm going to excuse you for a moment. Let's switch gears and take Ken's call.

And Ken is giving us a call from Michigan. Good morning, Ken. Hi, Ken. Ken, did we lose you? Are you still on the line? I apologize. We're back to what you're tired of hearing about is phone problems, and our laptop is not working that satisfies us the calls, and I'm not sure why Ken's call was dropped,

possibly because he was holding for a long, long time. So, Ken, we do apologize. Please try again if you have the time. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you, Ken. I even hate to give the number out, but give it a try. 877-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60-9-60. Far more reliable is our text number.

That's right. 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And you can always use email on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I think we have some text, how we still? Yes, we do on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. This will be a fun one.

Earl, you've mentioned a few times that you don't like attorneys. Aren't attorneys simply working around the court procedures and with the laws that your elected officials put into place? You should seek out two consumer advocates, Steve Leto and Steve Stancroft. I'm sure these two would entertain speaking with you about consumer rights and help you formulate some good tricks and tips for consumers

when going car shopping. Thank you. Well, David, there was a time when I didn't like attorneys and I let myself get into the I hate lawyers kind of a mindset. And I evolved out of that, recovering car dealer. Now I respect attorneys more. I believe attorneys are just like car dealers. They're good ones and they're bad ones. I'm a little suspect of the attorney. attorneys that do the heavy-duty advertising. I think that that's not to say if an attorney advertises they're a bad attorney. I just think that you want an attorney that really cares about you, like a car dealer, that cares about you. As far as Steve Leto, that's the texture or the...

That sounds like the name of the attorney. Yeah, the name of the attorney. I think as I understand he's an expert on the lemon law I think he's an expert on lemon law I don't know anything about him

I think he's probably an honest guy I think I would choose an attorney just as carefully as I would choose a doctor or a dentist or a cardiovascular Justin Lin on the show he's a consumer advocate attorney we do know personally

in one attorney he's in New York licensed in New York and Florida, Justin Lynn, L.I.N., and we can personally endorse him because we know he has a kind heart, an honest heart, and he's a good man, and he's a smart attorney. All right, the next one is on your anonymous feedback. Just came in when we were talking. It says, I'm wondering why you guys don't become a Motor Trend certified dealership. I have never heard of a Motor Trend certified dealership, so you can't answer the question. I would be highly suspect simply because MotorTrent exists from car dealer and auto manufacturer advertising. So this magazine without the support of car dealers and auto manufacturers, mainly auto manufacturers.

I'm not sure to be honest with you, the car dealers advertise in Motor Trend. But if you're beholding to the industry that you're writing about, I question the objectivity of recommendation. So I don't want to be recommended by Motor Trend. I think the automobiles that win the Motor Trend of the Year award are the ones that advertise the most in Motor Trend. And the same thing with car and driver and with Hot Rod. And I'm not up in my car magazines these days. I used to be.

I used to love them when I was a kid. But I think that their test drives are probably pretty honest. but why go for pretty honest when you can have total honesty with the consumer reports? They do a much more thorough job and when's the last time you ever saw car paned badly

in Motor Trend or car and driver? They just don't do it because if they pan the GM product, GM would stop advertising with them. Yeah? And Motor Trend would go out of business. It's like the car dealers. What a great answer.

What a great answer. I'm very impressed. Folks, that's why we're here, transparency, honesty, give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. That's right. We have a text from Brian out in California. He says, hey, guys, this is your West Coast viewer. A quick question for you today.

I know the Costco Auto Program can be a great deal, and I try to put it to the test. I was looking at some Ford Mustang GTs, and there's only one authorized dealership in my immediate area. With this dealership, they have multiple locations. in the area. The car I was interested in was at the dealership that was not on the authorized list. So I sent them an email asking if they would be willing to transfer the car over to their other location that's eligible for the Costco program. And to my surprise, they completely ignored me. Do you think they fear the program enough, yes, to the point where they will just ignore people if they feel they can make more money on it from a non-cosco auto program deal? Or do you think

they're just, just that organized to the point where they just ignore customers? Thank you. forward to the show. I kind of want to jump in. I go, I think it could be both equally because that's two things that we see with our mystery shops is one, disorganization, inconsistency, and sometimes outright deceit. So it could be either. Yeah, the Costco auto buying program, and I tout it all the time, it is the best to get the lowest price, but it's also challenging for the buyer front and challenging for the car dealer. It's too easy for the car dealer. It's too easy for the car dealer. to Mickey Mouse, the prices. I think that when Costco reviewed this,

remember now the Costco other bug program is not Costco. It is a sublet. It's a separate company. And Costco had good intentions when they designed the program, but they kind of let it operate independently. And it makes it, if you go by the rules, and I'll run over them quickly, because I hate to leave this up in the,

If you're a Costco member and you want to buy a car, you can get a great price if you go by the rules. If you're not a Costco member, you should join Costco just for the purpose of buying the car. Just for the chicken. For 65 bucks or 50 or 75 bucks or whatever it is for an annual membership, you'll save $1,000 on the car. Now, here's what you have to do. You're a Costco member. You go online, you put your zip code in there. They tell you where the nearest certified car dealer is for the making you.

want to buy. They give you also the names of the Costco representatives, sometimes they even give you the pictures, and you go online and you go through and you enter your membership number and you get the name of the Costco representative, the name of the dealer. Now, see, this is a lot of stuff you got to remember. Here's what else you got to remember. When you go into the dealership, don't speak to anybody else, don't do business with anybody else except the Costco representative. Costco representative might be on vacation, might not be there.

Go home, come back when he is there. Hopefully there'll be two or three members. Verify that you're speaking to the Costco member. Next rule. Ask to see the Costco price sheet. A lot of things to remember. You must see it

and you must be sure it is the Costco price sheet, so look at it to see if it appears to be official. And that will have the price of the car and Stu is based on under invoice, right? Well, I don't want to confuse it further but ask to see

both Costco price sheets. There's a customer facing one and there's a dealer facing one. The customer facing one just shows you your price and some other language. The dealer facing one actually shows the Costco price in relationship to the dealer invoice. It'll say it's 400

under, a thousand under, 100 over whatever it is. And there's also I'm starting to laugh at my now because I realize how complex it is and how nearly impossible it is for the average consumer to navigate this, but the dealer-installed accessories and the dealer fee, the hidden fee, the, you know what I'm talking about, the dealer fees are mentioned in a memo at the top of the sheet. Yeah.

They're not included in the Costco price. So you have to do the arithmetic. Yes. You have to do the arithmetic. And then on the dealer-installed options, we've seen variations of this, but typically we see it states on the Costco member-only sheet that says dealer-installed options shouldn't be, you shouldn't be charged for that at all. And we've seen other ones where they say you only pay their cost. So with all that said, if you can do that and go through that rigorous process, you will get a price that is so good that the car dealers don't even want to be Costco members for that reason, which is maybe. the reason why in California.

I've had mixed feelings. Yeah. Yeah, well, we're a Costco dealer, and we have a price that's lower than we will sell the car. Another Costco rule. The price that they sell the car, Costco dealer, has to be lower

than the price they sell anybody else a car for. Now, that's a pretty, pretty tough standard to meet. So dealers rationalize when I sell a car to a Costco member, I'm actually losing a little bit of money. And they don't want to do it. and if they do do it, they'll Mickey Mouse it and flimplam it. So there you are.

It's worth it if you're smart and rigorous and join the Costco Club. Okay, give us a, well, I'm going to go ahead and give us a call toll free at 877-9-60. The reason for my hesitation is that I got word from a few callers that the lines have been busy. So try again, and we certainly appreciate your patience. This text is for Rick, and it's about air filters, and Anthony would like to know how often he has to change his air filter inside the car, and if it affects the AC in any way when it is dirty. And also he wanted your opinion about something that he read about the Chevrolet. And they say that the filter should be changed at 45,000 miles, but he read as far as Ford vehicles, it's only 30,000.

Can you elaborate on that? Right now, and I'll start right off with saying that Toyota in our factory recommended maintenance, requires it every 30,000 miles. That's when they recommend it. Each manufacturer is going to be a little bit different. For me, I look at it as being, it's a peace of mind thing because this is actually the filter that's filtering the air that's blowing into your face.

And for a personal thing, for me, my wife is very sensitive. She odors and fragrances can affect her asthma very easily. So I step up a little extra and I get the activated charcoal filters They're a bit more expensive And I change them more often But it filters that air that's coming into the car

And it's being circulated through the car for you Not changing the filter is really not going to have a big effect On your air conditioning Unless you let it go for a long time And it really plugs up It can reduce the airflow But you know there's a lot of dirt and stuff That gets in that

And the air that's going through that dirt, you know, some of it's eventually going to make its way through and come right into you. So I look at it as just being a personal preference type thing. I would, at the minimum, go with what the manufacturer recommends. And if you're someone that you feel that, you know, for health reasons or something like that, you think it should be done more often for you personally, then I'm all for it. That's a great answer, Rick. and the charcoal filter certainly is something to consider. I think we're going to go over to Stu, and do you have some texts for us?

They just keep coming in. I guess it might be because of the phone issue. Well, thank God they're coming in because we're out of business again on our world-class phone system. That's right. Well, here we go. This is from Stan in West Palm Beach. This is a great question. What happened to the local annual auto show?

Why did they stop? Were the displayed cars supplied by the manufacturer or the dealers? and how were sales leads generated from the shows distributed to the local dealers? And we were just talking about this recently back at our old Pontiac dealership in West Palm Beach. That was an annual event. It was a big deal.

Everybody came out to see the cars and that happened in small towns and big towns all across America. Now, is he talking about the auto shows? The local ones. The ones that happened at the dealerships. Like when the new models came out and they don't bail them. The new car showing.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's because now the cars are introduced over a period of time. It used to be all the new models came out at once. All your models for a particular make would come out at once. You'd hide the cars, you'd paper the windows in the showroom, and you'd have a big party, and it was exciting. And also back in those days, they made these massive styling changes that were usually cosmetic,

and there wasn't much of an engineering or quality increase, but it was just flashy. They'd send models from the factory. It was exciting, but now new cars come out in July and 7th. September and November and maybe June of the following year. It's no rhyme nor reason anymore. Well, we have our controller at the dealership, Janet Gatz, who actually worked with our company longer than you did, started in 63.

And she was talking about it. She said it was just an exciting thing. It was something for a family to do on a Saturday to come by. They might not be buying the car. It was just kind of an event. And it was a throwback to an older time. We have a breaking news from the control room that our phone system has.

down. That's not exactly breaking news. That's old news because our phone system has been up and down for a long, long time. We're just kind of having to adapt to it, evolve, and we apologize profusely to those people that like to call, and we'll just give our text number out a lot more, 772-4976530, 772-4976530, and we're also on Facebook, Facebook.com, on cars, we're on Periscope, we're on YouTube, we're on Twitter. And we'd love to hear from you. You might try calling again. Definitely.

Never know when they go up. When the phone system go up for a while, you might be able to get through. Let's pay $50 for anybody can get through on the phones. I might as well make it $5,000. I withdraw the $5,000. $50 for anybody that can get through True Oldies phone system and control room. $50, anybody, male, female, or anything. We will accept the call.

Let's pull. 877-960-99-60. 877-960-960. Hey, let's pull ourselves together. For a minute, let me take a minute and thank Ollie. His paws must be very, very tired by now because he... Ollie's been calling the show. Ollie, if you get through, a free case of cat food for Ali.

We'll throw on a bag of... catnip. His little pausers are really worn up. Exactly. Little pads on his... Okay, we got some text, I think. This is a good one. Good morning.

This is Lee from Alabama. A couple of months ago, we went to our local Toyota dealer to look at the remaining 2019 Sienna X-LEs. After a test drive, we went inside to talk about price. The first thing the salesman asked me to do was to write down what I was willing to pay for the car and initial it. This has never happened before. I told her, I would not do that.

She said that if I didn't initial a price, the sales manager would think that she wrote the figures down. So I wrote down a very low price and simply put an X on the paper. She said she did not think the sales manager would accept that low an offer. I then asked her to give me the out-the-door price and that I was ready to buy. She said, when she returned, she said that the best the sales manager could do would offer me, could do is offer me $1.9% financing or $1,500 off of

MSRP, which happens to have a 1,900 of dealers add-ons plus a $487 dealer fee. No out-the-door price was offered. I mentioned that we had dealt with this dealership for the past 12 years and both car purchases and servicing and asked if this

mattered to the sales manager. She apologized and said that was the best that he would offer. We shook hands and left the dealership. Is that the current way that auto dealerships are conducting business by asking you to make an offer up front. How should I have handled this question? Make an offer? The next closest dealership is over 50 miles away. Thanks for addressing the issue. And, you know, listen, Lee, that's been the process for like as long as I can remember. I was trained to do it that way. Yeah, that's old school. That's classic. And most

dealers have evolved slightly from that format. But the old format, apparently in rural towns and Alabama and Mississippi and the Deep South, I think, and maybe even in other areas. Some of them cling to the old rules. They actually used to hide the trade-ins and throw the keys up on the roof. But classic is you come in and you always get an offer from the customer. And in a real classic old school, you also have to show good faith by putting a deposit down. Like a watch? A watch.

Yeah, we used to take watches and rings. deeds yeah and then and then you would make an offer and then the sales manager would pretend to play the game it's all designed to get control because like okay here you have a car with a MSRP on it and it's to get the customer talking so just even if they offer this is how they're trained even if the customer offers one dollar for the car and now you got them talking and then they go for the next step is called the bump so they sign I commit to buy this car for X number of dollars and then they go to the manager they pretend to talk and they come out for the bump and they go well we can't can't do it for that much, we can do it for this much. Lee, the best thing you can do for that dealer is expose him. And one way you can expose them is Texas back and give us the name of the dealership and the location. We'll be glad to broadcast it. Somewhere in Alabama.

Somewhere in Alabama, which doesn't surprise me, that area, Georgia, Alabama. What I suspect, Lee said he's been buying cars for 12 years, never experienced of that, they got new management. That's my guess. Exactly, yeah. And it could be just a salesperson. It has to be the manager because they're playing the game. Love to hear the name.

If you embarrass the dealership and somebody, maybe somebody, as Sue said, this is a new manager, maybe the dealer doesn't know what's going on. And you just have to embarrass people sometimes to make them do the right thing. Okay, well, my laptop has been taken to the laptop hospital, and I hope that we're all able to use that number now at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30, and we do have Ollie on the phone. All right. And Doug.

Meow. Good morning, Doug. Good morning. Doug, you win 50 bucks you got through to Minefield. Give it to the cap. Congratulations. Wow. 50 bucks, do we send that, make that check out to Ollie or Doug?

And poor Ollie had swathed. We're going to make it out to all. Holy, his paws are worn out. So I went to Honda yesterday, Delray, and they said the car is ready, so I said, really? So I went into the car, started, it, drove it, and it seemed, you know, fine. But I want to ask you a question as far as. The AM radio doesn't work. Yeah, the AM radio part doesn't work.

But as far as car facts, would that be? on car packs that it had an electrical problem struck by lightning? It could, Doug. And before we get into it, let me remind people that hadn't tuned in before. Doug's problem has to do with lightning striking his car. And that's really a terrible thing. It was a scary thing for Doug. But lightning just can do a huge amount of damage. And he's doing battle with State Farm Insurance. And the dealer is trying to help him out saying

that you've got some serious damage here. And State Farm isn't stepping up the plate and paying what they should be. So, I just caught everybody up to speed, Doug, in case they hadn't heard from your call before. Yeah, so anyhow, save farm wound up paying the whole thing. Wow, congratulations. That was a long fight. It's obviously over $12,000 in damage. Wow, wow.

And the thing that I, it was weird because I said to the dealership, what are you going to do? And they said, we'll put you in a new car, same payment, same everything. and you just pay the first payment and $80 for the, you know, the tags or whatever, registration. Right. And then I said, well, what if I just wanted to turn the car in, even though I've only made 17 payments, would you just take the car? And they said to me, yeah, they will even take the car off of me. And they said that they would never sell it on the lot. they would send it to an auction.

And I said to myself, I don't know if I believe that part. Yeah, I'd be skeptical because a person that the company that's going to get hurt is a finance company, not the dealer. And for the dealer to take the car back, he still have the problem of returning to the bank. And the bank is not going to be Mr. Nice Guy.

That's their collateral. and they want to be sure they have equity and they break even at least on the deal if they're nice enough to forego the profit that they would make if you kept it for the entire term of the purchase. So I'd be sure that they're not hiding the negative equity in that

and putting it in the next car that they want you to buy. Yeah, well, they aren't because it's a three-year leave, right? And that's what this was. This was a three-year lease. I was 17 payments into it. Basically, they told me that I can get out of that lease and get into a new lease.

Okay. Which you have 13 payments left, and that money is owed the leasing company, which is a separate company from the dealership. So who's going to pay the leasing company those 13 payments? I don't know, but I did look at the paperwork and they did not hide it in there. They might be getting assistance. Yeah. You know, in which case, that's great that you're, because then you have the leasing company participating.

You might want to talk to the leasing company just to be sure. Doug, is it Honda Credit? Yes, absolutely. I would speak to Honda Credit, speak to a manager there, and just say you want to verify that Honda Credit is forgiving 13 payments. on this lease or getting it from Honda you know we're getting it from Honda motor company what whichever one is the you know same thing well this is what this is why this is what's weird okay my car at this point is worth more money now on the buyout so what I think it is they want to buy my car and sell it on their used car

lot oh okay well did you put a down payment a big down payment down No. No, nothing. Zero. That's a lease, though. Yeah, it's interesting that they would be able to take a car with 13 months remaining and put it on the used car lot. Somebody has offered assistance on this, either the leasing company Honda Credit or Honda Motor Corporation. Somebody, I don't believe the dealer's doing that for you.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's similar to, you know, we can speak for Toyota. Toyota has a customer experience department and what they call it trade assistance sometimes if you have a big problem like say you have an ongoing problem. It's short, you're not going through the whole Lemon Law process but there's an issue and they'll give you

Toyota will give trade assistance to help you get out of a car that somebody's unhappy with. So it kind of looks, it sounds like you made enough noise and it had a big enough problem to get them to Well congratulations if you if you accomplish that you are really an unusual

lucky guy or smart guy I may be both. Well, I think it was because of always. Yeah, right. That's right. Congratulations. They looked at those claws and said, uh-uh. Hey, but by the way, you know, even if they sell it at the auction, I hear what you're saying.

I mean, I'd feel uncomfortable, you know, watching this, you know, probably permanently damaged car getting passed off to somebody else. But if it goes to West Palm Beach and to the auto auction, a dealer is going to buy it probably locally. And, I mean, it can be sold anywhere, but it's going to be sold and resold. So it's kind of, there's nothing you can really. do they're not going to crush it and it's weird because they did replace most of the airpack too which i think was because i i think i told you that a lot of them deployed yeah well don't keep us keep us posted on this this one of the most interesting stories we ever had at earl stewart on cars and uh we can't wait till the final chapter you ought to do a book on this but uh it's really amazing you are you're an amazing guy to

have worked through this minefield most people would have given up and now you're going to actually win the battle so calls next week and let us know the final chapter yeah this has been going on for a while you're quite welcome kind of like a war in peace you know boy this is going to be thick thank you very much for the phone call we're going to go to michigan and i want to thank ken for calling back we appreciate you calling back what can we do for you this morning Well, good morning. I am the person that has the 2016 Toyota Prius that I saw at the Detroit Auto Show. When I bought it, the speedometer does not convert two kilometers.

And that affects the Navajo. Toyota just washes their hands of it and tries to cover it up. So the reason I'm calling today, oh, two things. you were mentioning talking to a regional person, and when I complained to Toyota regarding this defect, they said they didn't want to discuss it. They weren't going to refer to any regional person. How do I get a hold of the regional person? I've never talked to them.

The dealer said, well, we're told that we can't do anything, so you're out of luck. Just buy a new Toyota to replace your new Toyota. How do I get a hold of the regional person? I've never talked to a regional person. I don't know. I think sometimes with Jim Lynch, is that the right name, the top? Oh, at Toyota? At Toyota.

No, it's not Jim Lynch. You had Jack Hollis. No, no, I'm talking about North America, the top guy. Who's the top guy? It's not Lynch. You're thinking of an old SET guy. I thought he was still in charge. Jim Lentz?

Yeah. L-A-N-Z? Yeah. Okay, yeah, Jim Lentz, L-N-C-Z. He's an interesting guy. He used to be involved in Toyota and as far as the United States goes. And now he's been promoted to the top Toyota person in all of North America. He's really a top dog now.

And he's actually on the board directors. But he's one of these guys that has really cares for the customer. And he's a Facebook friend of mine and other dealers. And when people have gone to Lince on email, it says Jim Lince, J-I-M-L-E-N-T-Z at Toyota.com, Jim dot, lynce. And just tell him, you know me, and what happened, and you've been unable to get a hold of anybody. In the past, this has been successful. He knows everybody. And, of course, he's the top dog.

true um so what what region are you in europe in the uh you're in west region i believe okay that would include michigan let me see if i can see here i have a series of phone numbers because google is a wonderful thing uh am i am i am i where is this uh denver region portland gulf states kansas chicago i think you're no you're not in chicago oh gosh darn it uh i have every regional phone number midwest uh okay okay let's see chicago well i know that They called it Chicago, Kansas City. No. All right, this is getting boring for radio.

I just Googled get in touch with Toyota Regional Management. And there is a website called TacomaHQ.com. It's spelled like the truck. T-A-C-O-M-A-H-Q.com. And it says the right way to get your issue resolved. And it does exactly what you're trying to do, get in touch with the regional headquarters, and they've list all the phone numbers here. And if you go to the website, and I believe this is current.

I'd still go to Jim Lentz, and that's going to get you, that'll get you a pretty quick action. He'll refer it to the person that we're searching for, but it will have his signature on the email, and that we'll get their attention. I got the regional. It's the Cincinnati region, and it's area code 513-745-750. Okay, 513-745, 7500. That's it. All right, well, thanks for that. The reason I was calling today is yesterday, WX-Y-Z.

TV or local ABC affiliate, ran a story with seven automakers named in class action suit over the airbag control unit, and that's the device that controls the airbags deploying when you have an accident. So in July, NHTSA reached out to seven major automakers, which was Kia Honda, Accura, Toyota, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Chrysler, asking for more information on the cars that they sold, because they're concerned that the airbag control unit, manufactured by ZFTRW, might not work. And in that report that they issued, and this could be millions of cars, the assessments indicated that five of the vehicles that are covered in the report had vehicle electrical electrical system damage that caused electrical overstress damage to the internal control unit. And that caused the failure of the restraint systems to deploy.

So I sent a link on the Facebook side to the story. And they said that in the NHTSA report, the 2019 report, they had two substantial frontal crash events, one deadly, involving some Toyota models. and this report did reach out to Toyota, but neither Toyota or Mitsubishi responded to the news article's request. So do you know if we have the ZF, TRW, airbag control units in, for example, my Toyota, or the other Toyotas that are currently sold? I guess we have to look at that. I'm looking at the article right now. Can't answer right now, but that's something you could probably look into, Rick.

Real quick. Unfortunately, we don't really have a way of knowing what the manufacturer is of any of the modules that we have in our cars. It's something that Toyota does not share with technicians, really. But we could definitely try and look into this. Let me interrupt briefly here. Ken, I gave you a Jim Lynch's email address, and I just looked it up. I've got a slight change. I think they might both work, but Jim underline Lynn.

It's L-E-N-T-Z at Toyota.com. The dot probably works, but just send it to both addresses. Jim, underline, L-E-N-T-Z at Toyota.com, and also try jim dot L-E-N-T-Z at Toyota.com. And I promise you, you'll get an answer. Oh, perfect. Yeah. And also, Ken, what we're going to do also,

but we'll have this done by the next show. We're going to look and see if we can find out which vehicles will we have the Z-F-T-R-W control module. in any of the vehicles. Okay, because I realize it's a breaking story because it was just posted yesterday, but apparently it's starting to get some national feed on it because I see that the top headline says it's KNXV's story, but then it was rerun by WXYZ and posted on their website.

Yeah, that's really interesting. So we'll look into this and report on it next Saturday. Okay. It might be a bigger story than the cat of airbags. You never know. You never know. Thanks, Ken. Thanks, Ken.

You heard it here first, folks. Thanks, Ken. Thank you so much, Ken. I don't know what Ken was calling on or what's going on here, but he was loud and clear. Yeah. Very much so. Good connection to Michigan. Okay, how are we doing on text and everything?

Oh, we got a whole bunch. Good. Let's see here. This is from Anne-Marie. Thank you, Anne-Marie. She's a longtime texter. says, good morning. A common new car warranty is three years or 36,000 miles. I was wondering about a hypothetical situation. If I buy a two-year-old used car with 25,000 miles from a private

owner, would the standard warranty still apply if some problem pops up? Does it even matter who sold the vehicle? Could you please explain how such a standard warranty works if you buy a used car from a private person rather than a dealer? Thank you very much. Yeah, the warranty goes with a car, so it'll be yours to use until it's up. Yep, the only thing I'd look out for is if there are any extended warranties on it. Most of them do transfer, some do not. So if they're telling you, make sure you're talking about the manufacturer's warranties. That's a good question to ask, if you're kind of playing buying a used car,

if there's any of the manufacturer's warranty left, it enhances the value considerably. Yep, and she also added, I also got a letter from Toyota about the paint problem we talked about earlier, and she wanted to thank you for taking care of it before she was even notified. So you're welcome. next one text it says I have a 2019 Raff 4 that I purchased last November

it has 3,500 miles on it as we don't drive it much should I get the oil changed yes not to beat this to death but it's one of the most common misunderstandings by people that own cars and they can't understand and I understand why you can't understand

why a car with low mileage has to have the oil change every six months and if you don't drive the car at all you still need to change oil every six months it has to do with a lot of things like condensation and salt in the air and just sitting still for a long time always change your oil every six months

even if you don't drive the car on your anonymous feedback.com hello I had a dealership tell me that if they don't have a dealer fee they wouldn't make money they said there is no profit at MSRP any truth to this you guys said there is profit in the MSRP. Yes, there is.

Yeah, I was feeling sympathetic up until that last comment because there's a huge amount of profit when you sell a car for the MSRP manufacturers to just a retail price. It's profit when you sold an invoice. A lot of dealers feel that they can't make money in the normal run of the way they price their cars without the dealer fee.

And they've kind of gotten themselves into that position where they feel their competition's doing it, and if they don't do it, they can't compete. And there's a lot of truth to that. It takes a lot of nerve for a car dealer to do the right thing and not have hidden fees and sell cars. The only way a car dealer can make a profit that way is to be so honest that people believe him,

and he's so transparent that people will buy cars from him at a higher volume so they can make more money. You can't make a lot of money on a car without hidden fees. You have to make a smaller amount of money, and therefore you have to sell more cars. So the public, the consumers, have to believe you, as being honest, flock to your dealership, buy a lot of cars, enhance your volume, and therefore your overall profit. But the sad truth is, and I have to have some feelings for this dealer, he probably believes it. And I think there are a lot of honest dealers out there, let's call them semi-honest, because they're not totally honest. They wouldn't have charged hidden fees.

But if they're going to be in the business today, a lot of dealers feel that they have to fight fire with fire. And in the nearest competition across town, you know, eight miles away, he's advertising a car for a thousand dollars less than this dealer can afford to advertise the car for because that dealer, eight miles away, is going to add a thousand-dollar dealer fee. to the advertised price, what's the dealer going to do? He's going to fight fire with fire. He's going to have a $1,500 hidden dealer fee so he can fight fire with fire and you, the consumer, caught in the crossfire,

and you're the one that gets screwed. It's a terrible situation. That's a really good explanation. Very good. Next one, your anonymous feedback.com. My mother-in-law recently bought a RAV4 sport three months ago and just doesn't like anything about it now. How long will she have to keep it?

before she can trade it in without a huge loss. I can't stand the complaining anymore. Well, you just had on one of the most common problems in buying cars. Cars are bought on a motion. Cars are bought because they own that model before, and they think they know exactly everything about that car. And one thing that you should always do is give every car you buy a serious test drive.

I'm not talking about around the block. I'm not talking about 20 minutes. I'm talking about three or four hours and hopefully a whole day. You need to drive every vehicle, newer use that you buy. Day and night. Day and night, a good point. Same conditions. You do a lot of highway, 95, 4 to Turnpike or whatever turnpike.

Drive it on the turnpike, drive it around the city, park it where you normally park, parallel park it, go to the mall. Do all the things that you normally do. You will find things that you didn't think about. blind spots. One of the most common complaints we get. They change in the design of a car and people suddenly can't see where they used to be able to see and they feel uncomfortable. But once you sign on the

dotted line for a lease or a purchase, you're trapped, especially in a lease. If you get the chance to take that car home overnight, what a great advantage that is. You're really going to be able to make a decision during that time and when you get back to the dealership.

if you have that luxury. I'm not sure whether all dealerships allow you to take your car home overnight. The ones are done, and you want to do it, don't buy the car from that dealer. There you go. I'm going somewhere else. I want to drive the car home overnight. The one I hear the most is seat comfort. Your butt will tell you if you should buy the car.

And sometimes after a 15-minute test drive, it's comfortable, but after an hour in that seat, it can get pretty uncomfortable for a lot of people. So listen to your butt. All butts are created differently. That's right. That's one of the biggest complaints that I get is about the comfort of the seat and somebody having back problems. And there they are.

They're signed on the dotted line and they don't know what to do. Seats are also, they adjust different ways too. So sometimes they're not used to the last car and it's just it's undrivable. All right, incognito, your anonymous feedback.com. What do car dealer ads and Ms. Clio TV ads have in common? If you guys don't remember Miss Cleo, she's a TV psychic, she runs these commercials. What do the car dealer ads and Ms. Cleo TV ads have in common? They both have fine print that nullify the seemingly good deal or service provided.

Ms. Cleo services are, quote, for entertainment only. Car dealer advertises super affordable cars, but the fine print immediately hikes up the price by way of money to do it signing. And also, car dealers do another thing, illustrations are for pictures, photos for illustration purposes only. It's not really what the car looks like, which is kind of insane. that's a reality. And I have a, from that text, I have a question for all you lawyers out there. Can someone explain to me, or anybody explain to me, how we have most of the commercials, not just car dealers,

but auto manufacturers and other products that are concealing something in the fine print that increases the price that they're advertising. The Federal Trade Commission says that anything that modifies the advertised price has to be displayed, clearly and conspicuously near the purchase price that's being advertised. And nobody does it. General Motors, Toyota, Honda, all the ad associations, all the car dealers. Every ad you see has something in the fine print that you cannot read any way, shape, or form that increases the price of the car.

You lawyers tell me. Airlines do it too. Why is that possible? Sell plans. who violate the Federal Trade Commission, why aren't the regulators pouncing on this? I don't know. Regulators. Rhetorical question.

Okay, that's an important question, and as you said, rhetorical. But my apologies to Nicolette, who has been on hold for quite a long time. Thank you for your patience. Good morning, Nicolet. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Oh, thank you. I have a question.

I have a 2015 Lexus RX-350. And it's my first car that has the key fobs, which has this, quote-unquote, feature that opens your windows and your sunroof to let hot air out should you need it. My problem is that I recently, and I only have had the car a year and a half, and it only had 18,000 miles on it when I got it. When I went to lock the car and press the lock on the key fob, my windows and Sunroos would just automatically open up, and I could not close it. What I eventually did was change out the batteries in both key fobs, and this seemed to rectify the issue. But what I wanted to know is, is this a standard feature on predominantly all cars with key fobs? fobs now and can this be disabled I believe it's not a standard feature on most cars with key fobs matter of fact I have a Lexus that does not have that feature on the key fob yes it does

sure that's actually a what's called a programmable feature and it can be disabled in your owner's manual or you're just swing by your local dealer and they should be able to turn that off for you. Oh, okay, great. Because I did, my husband and I both read the book and, you know, and we're looking for that because my car has, my, I love you. That's why you didn't know you had it because you didn't read the book. Did you hear, did you hear Rick's comment? I love you. We, you should have seen Earl's face. Nicolette, you got to help me here because they're all laughing on me. Please, tell you. tell everybody how big that owner's manual and Alexis is.

How big is it? Oh, it's close to at least two and a half three inches. It wins about seven pounds. And the fact that you read that, I am so impressed. And Rick said, I love you, Nicolette. You're the first. Well, thank you. If everybody was like, Nicolette, his job would be a lot of here.

Oh, gosh. Well, thank you. I will head over to the dealer and see you about. I can't wait to go put my sunroof down or up or whatever. Nicolette, are you a first-time caller? I am. Oh, Nicolette. It doesn't matter.

Everybody's getting $50. I work from the area. $50 for everybody. Hey, listen, Nicolette, stay on the line and give your contact information to Nick in our control room. Would you do that? Okay. I'll get that check out to you. Thanks for making Earl Stewart on cars.

just a fun show. Thanks for the laughs. And Rick really meant that. He loves you. Give us a call, toll free. Well, never mind. Don't give us a call. Give us a call.

Give us a call. We can't afford it. I thought those pigeons with messages tied to their legs. That would work. I'll go check the roof. We've got a few more text over there, don't we? We do on your anonymous feedback.com.

Oh, boy. Dear Lord, stop with the damn cat. Signed Snoopy. Signed Scooby-Doo. All right, come on. We love the cat. Okay, there's more than one comedian. I reject that one.

Okay, we have a text here. It says, okay, so here is the story. Del Rey Honda fixed my car now and said they will exchange me. Oh, I'm sorry, this is from Doug. He's already reported this on the phone, so we can skip this one. And we have another text that came in here. It says, ooh boy. picture what it looks like a

worksheet from a dealership. Good morning. The dealership was offering my niece. I can't show it on the screen right now, but it looks like a whole lot of dealer fees. Oh boy, yeah. It looks like a $999

dealer fee, a 200 registration fee. Oh my gosh, a T&M value pack for 99.50. We're well over 2,000 now. Anyway, the texter says, I told her to run away when she saw the fees, and I hope she did that, because exactly that's what you should do. Well, I just gave me an idea. Maybe we should have a contest with a nice prize for the person that can send us a copy of a vehicle buyer's order or a worksheet, texts us or email us, with the greatest number of hidden fees. I think I know I won't reveal it, although I've revealed in the past, which dealer might be the winner.

and this if you get us a company. Yeah, we know. But this just gave me an idea. This is a pretty good dealer here. He's really creative with a total. What's that total when you had them all up? Well, I lost count after $2,000. $2,000, yeah.

Yeah, come up with a vehicle buyer's order or even a worksheet of a dealer, and I'll come up with a prize. It'll be, I'll say at least $500. Yeah. Might be more. Maybe we can make it interesting, have like the most creative names for the fees,

the total amounts, the number of fees. Yeah. And we will reveal the name of the dealer, so you have to be appraiserate of that. Oh, we have to validate it. In case you dealers are trying to pick up $500, you have to identify yourself before you send me your barns order. Always a string attached. Oh, your string. Okay.

The next one, Error, Earl, I love your show. I wanted to ask. I'm looking for a certified pre-owned car. I want to know if I can get the out-the-door price on used cars as well, and I'm going to turn this question over to Nancy because Nancy has a way you can get an out-the-door price. It doesn't matter of new, use, lease, or anything like that. What do they got to do? Okay. What you have to do is you have to download this affidavit that I came up with and it's a tool for an honest price from a car dealer and you can download that and you can have the salesman, you can have the manager sign this

certification that you're going to get the out-the-door price. No strings attached. You're not going to pay for advertised or quoted prices. You're not going to... Yeah, there's not going to be any advertised prices that you're, that you made me nervous there. What I was getting ready to say is the dealer installed accessories, would you say? No, go ahead. What you said? I said, you're making me nervous. At any rate, you can go to Erlon Cars, and you can download that affidavit, and, you know, you can fax it over to that dealer and have them sign it. You can email it, whichever. And when you get there, and they don't want to cooperate with you, you simply leave. That's right. Plain and simple. You can also go out-the-door price affidavit.com,

out the door price affidavit.com or Earl on Cars. Earl on Cars.com. As I mentioned. We have some funny stuff going on Facebook real quick before we get to the Mystery Shopping Report. Well, Atina on Facebook alerts us to Rick Case Auto, high dealer fees with the hashtag Never Again. I like that. And then also, Linda suggests, Earl, to bring your Lexus owner's manual into the bathroom and read it in the bathroom. I'm going to say that's bad medical advice.

So, we'll do that that. Yeah, on a serious note, I don't blame people for not reading them. I mean, it literally, I'm going to say, and I'll tell you, next week I'll bring my owner's manual and I'll show it to you. You can see it on Facebook or YouTube, but it's got to be two inches thick. Yeah. And there are multiple manuals. There's a separate manual just for the navigation package. and I have so many, so much paper that who is going to read it?

Yeah. You know, like some of the most, well, our phones aren't that, they're very easy to use, but most of them don't even come with an owner's manual. And the phones have like built-in things, and I would like to see the manufacturers have almost like a tutorial on their screens. I think Rick's got some YouTube's over here. We actually have a couple of them here. Ernesto's asking, he says, good morning.

I saw an ad of a dealership offering to match a, up to $3,000 on trade-in and up to $1,000 on down payment. How is this possible, if at all? Well, it's just typical dealer lie. They raise the price of the car by whatever they choose. New car, they'll tack a dealer addendum on, used car. They just raise the price. And whatever they raise the price, they can afford to give you extra for your trade-in.

And it's a flim-flam. There's no free lunch. and rule of thumb don't believe any car dealer's advertising I mean that almost literally and I say the same thing for manufacturers advertising every car dealer lies

and is advertising and I haven't been sued and I've been on the air for 15 years so if I'm lying sue me but I'm not lying and shame on the regulators for not enforcing the rules because that's the reason the car dealers get away with it

That is correct. Got another one, Rick? And the other one I have here is from Richard. He's asking, how far can you negotiate on sticker price? Depends on the vehicle. That's what makes it so complicated for the consumer. Some vehicles have a MSRP with a markup of maybe 10 or 11%. Some of them have an MSRP with a markup of 40%.

And if you get into dealer incentives and customer incentives, you're going to have an MSRP that has a markup of, what, 75%. I mean, huge markups. So you can't say what a percent discount is. It depends on the vehicle. A guideline, the more expense of the vehicle, you're probably going to see a bigger markup. So if you see a small, like a Honda Fit,

might have from invoice, which we know is not the true cost, maybe an $800 markup, like the total Land Cruiser has a $10,000 markup. A Chevrolet Silverado has a monumental 40%. 50% depending on the time of year. So don't ever buy a car based on the discount. Only buy, you can buy car only one way. Competity pricing.

Take three dealers, same make, and take the exact same year-make model vehicle and get the best price for dealer A, and that's dealer B to beat it, and dealer C to beat it. That's a good point. I mean, because if you're looking at just discounts on the face that you're playing the dealer's game.

Yeah, because there's also incentives that you might not even know about. There's something called, you know, everybody's familiar with the term rebate. There's another incentive called dealer cash, which the dealer doesn't even have to tell you about. So competitive bids is the only way to go. We have two more texts. Okay. All right.

So this is from Jim. He says, Jim, didn't say that. Jim just says, I listened to your programming. I'm a little confused. We have two cars, a Prius, and a CHR, which we have service done every six months. I was told the oil change was once a year. I just heard Earl say that we should have the oil change every six months. Shame on me.

Forget about synthetic. Yeah, synthetic, but you still need to get your vehicle checked every six months because you need to check your tires, rotate and balance, and things of this nature have to be a lot. You should get your check. But if you have synthetic oil, it's once a year or 10,000 miles. If you have a fossil, regular oil, it's every six months or 5,000 miles. Okay.

And this is, no name on this one. Oh, it's Scott from North Carolina. I just bought a new car three weeks ago, and I found a bad spot in the paint when I watched. it you can only see it in a direct sunlight I'm worried about it getting worse later on should the dealership fix it or are they going or are they going to I should have found it when I took delivery of the car thanks well you should take it back to the dealer and ask that it'd be taken care of under warranty you have to

be careful because if it's in the middle of a panel somewhere it's going to be awfully difficult to spot that repair with having it blend in with the whole hood so you might have to paint a whole hood or fender roof or whatever and it's going to be costly. You might get into an argument with a dealer, but put your foot down. One of the claims they can make is environmental fallout, you know, like bird poop or, you know, glove bugs, or they'll come up with something to make an excuse, a sap from a tree. Be prepared for an argument when you go in and talk about an expensive paint repair.

But if you stick by your guns, oftentimes you can prevail. That's right. Real quick, this is from Andreas on Facebook. I'm fixing my car with a buddy. My neighbor comes over as we are flabbergasted with my infotainment dilemma. My neighbor, in a matter of fact, tone asks, have you consulted your owner's manual? I retort, what the heck, Jim? I'm the owner, and I point to my friend, and this is manual.

That's pretty good. You know, it is funny because we all, I don't ever read an owner's manual. Whatever I got, I just start. And then sometimes I realize I'm being a fool, and I actually get. the owner's manual and if it has a short little thing I will read it yeah we've read that together most definitely well I'll give you the dirty little secret that a lot of us mechanics and technicians use when a car comes in the customer says I can't get my phone to pair properly how do I make this feature work how do I do this I

pull the car in the back and the first thing I do is whip out my phone and I Google it and I look for a YouTube video that's less than a minute or two minutes long. That shows me how to do it because somebody out there has posted a video. Great idea. And it walks you right through, especially with pairing cell phones to the cars because there are so many different versions of Android phones. iPhones pretty much, they all work the same way, but Android's can have 30 different versions.

Great suggestion. And Google and YouTube. That's the idea. I'm always amazed that they have YouTubes on everything. I mean something obscure that you wouldn't think everything and and it's just a great big beautiful world we live in you've got millions and tens of hundreds of millions of people and they all have the same problems we think we have only the only one of the problem and there's nuts out there all over doing these YouTube I don't want to

know why they do it I guess to be famous I'm my ice maker and they're wonderful because they make me look really really smart yeah we should all tattoo Google it and YouTube it on our hands and then we'll be geniuses. I use YouTube a lot, but I use it for other reasons. Open heart surgery, hip replacements. And that's true.

Yeah, that kind of, you know, knee replacement is very interesting. And I'm wondering if that would be just as interesting, what you mentioned. I used it last night on how to open a jar of peanut butter. Really? I would have loved to see you. Okay, we have another text here.

No, we're getting silly. Okay, real quick, I want to mention this. Last week we talked briefly about texting and Rick had some information for us and recently in the Palm Beach Post there was a article texting while driving draws 1,000 citations in 10 weeks. Is that great or what? So right now what they're working on is to the FHAP also has a put it down campaign underway to put it on billboards. they have TV to inform you and they just want to put the word out there

and as of October 1st an additional part of the law kicks in and the wireless device you cannot be using it it can't be in your hand during the time that you're going through a school zone one other thing before Rick chimes in did you know?

Rick is going to chime in because I got the mystery shopping report here about this is real important texting and driving kills more teens annually than drinking and driving. Thank you very much. Okay, mystery shopping report of tropical auto sales in North Palm Beach. This week's mystery shop takes us to an independent used car dealer that we mystery shop just once, about three years ago, tropical auto sales.

Did you know, Stu, that they're a spinoff from a used car salesman that worked for me back in the 70s? I am aware of that. You are? And so they're right around the corner. It's small, as we say. Been in business since the 1980s. It's a long time for a used car lot.

They're low-key. You won't find Tropical Auto Sales running infotainment-type commercials like TV on Prime Auto's Dealman. We love that. One of our favorite. If you haven't seen that, you can probably Google it and YouTube it, because he's famous. He's on YouTube. One of the funniest used car commercials of all time.

deal man, prime mottos. But Tropical doesn't do that. They're low-key, the dealership is off the beaten path. They're on the waterfront property. I forget about that. Beautiful view. A little canal there far away from the other non-franchised

independent lots on North Lake Boulevard. It's understood in local industry circles that Tropical enjoys a healthy repeat and referral business. They also spend a respectable amount of their ad budget on AutoTrader, auto trader, I say, is

the best single source for finding used cars. They're all car dealers but all their used cars on AutoTrader.com. They're scared not to. In any case, the fact they've operated in the same location for 36 years is a testament to the fact that they're doing

something right. Industry reports indicates they sell about 40 used cars every month. That's a small amount of cars. And they've been there and they make money and... Maybe it's rent control. Yeah. We stressed before on the program that the vast majority of used cars in our area are sold by independent dealers and private sellers. People don't think about that, but it's a huge amount more. Use cars are sold by the little guys. And here's a real little guy, 40 cars a month. You go to these big dealers, they're selling 100 cars, 200 cars a month. The little guys sold 15, 20, 30, 40 cars a month. And they sell, I don't know, ratio but probably twice as many as the dealers do. So it's important that we think

about independent use cardio is when we're talking about dangerous recalls. And this is what we did here. We're talking about Takata Airbags. It was the Takana Airbag recall that led us to tropical auto sales back in 2016. Our records indicate that although they failed the Takata test, they handled it better than most. Dealers did. The recall was disclosed on a Carfax report and the correct information about repairs was given. But Tropical Auto Sales was still willing to sell the car. And we, I don't think we found, we only found one dealer who was actually not going to sell the car. That's correct. And they got easy pay cars and Stewart owned by

Bill Wallace. This week we found a 2011 GMC Yukon with a no fix, I repeat, can't be fixed take out of airbag recall on tropical auto sales lot, list for $16,200, 2011 GMC, Yukon. Here's a report as if I were Agent Thunder. After confirming the availability of my target vehicle, I drove over to Tropical Auto Sales right around the corner. I pulled into the crowded lot on North Lloyd Boulevard, but had to park at the pawn shop next door because you couldn't find a place to park. that's highly unusual we rarely ever see a dealership that busy i don't think it was busy i think it was just it's a tiny lot and all their inventory cars took up the space oh it is it's hard to navigate in there yeah i got you okay i feel better now i thought they were outselling us

they might sell 45 cars as i walked up and uh to the front door of the dealership dropped a lot of sales an older gentleman named jim greeted me he asked me how my day was going and if you could be of help. I introduced myself, told him I wanted to see the 2011 Yukon that he had. Jim said he'd go inside and got the keys, and I waited outside. He was back in a flash, led me to the big white SUV. Jim unlocked the car and opened all doors butterflying in car parlance. I didn't even know that. My son's

too, who writes these reports up, put that in there. Well, you haven't personally sold a car since like 71, probably. Yeah, probably, yeah. Butterflying, that's what you do with shrimp. Exactly. You devane the car first, and then you butterfly it. Better it and fry it. Or someone you know.

He gave me an excellent presentation of all the features of the vehicle. Jim asked if I had kids, and I told him I had a toddler and a new baby on the way. Jim Taylor dispatched his pitch to emphasize the benefits. The Yukon was offering me for growing a family. He was a good salesman, and I found I was enjoying my time with him. A nice thing about Agent Thunder is he's from out of the business and he is really

closer to being a typical consumer a young guy with kids and a young wife and you know he looks the part of a car buyer. My favorite part, he can assume the role of like he tried to buy a Mercedes

once. He's a very well-off customer he can look average. He's a chameleon. Yeah. Jim asked if I'd like to take it for a spin. I said I did took my license, went inside for a minute, came out, we went on a test drive. We headed east on US One. I asked them the first of the three questions. You know, the three questions you should ask, and write these down, you really should ask them if you're buying a used car.

First question, are there any mechanical issues with this vehicle? It puts you in a more secure legal position when you, especially if you car shop with a friend, which you should. Agent Thunder does not, but you should always car shop with a friend. Sometimes he does, yes. Brought his wife, I think. Yeah, and his kid. And his kid. Kid is not going to be able to be a witness.

It would not be sworn in. Only two years old. Correct. So the first question you should ask, are there any mechanical issues with this vehicle? Jim replied, sir, I do not believe so, but I will confirm this when we get back. Jim talked about the Yukon, the whole ride, but he sounded well informed, and he said, and the information he gave me would be useful for a real customer. On the way back, I hit him up with question number two.

Question number two, has it ever been in an accident? Jim replied, sir, I bet he's ex-military. He might be, but he's very polite. Sir, I'm not aware of any, but I promise that we'll go over the Carfax report when we get back. We pulled back in the lot, returned the Yukon where he found it, and went inside. Jim led me to his office, offered me a seat. I asked if we would start with the Carfax report, Jim left to go get it. We'd turn it with two copies.

You know, the Carfax report is so important. One thing I like about Off Lease Only, and CarMax, I believe, is CarMax use Auto Check, but they both go right to the CarMax Auto Check Report on their websites. A lot do. I mean, even manufacturing, manufacturer dealers, we see the same thing. And it's a, I mean, it is a good thing. It's a starting point for a conversation. Good thing for you, the consumer, the educated consumer,

and I think students are a little hesitant because people don't read it, and they have it there. You know, you can disclose the heck out of anything like owner's manuals. I confess, I don't read owners' manuals. You put a lot of stuff in print, people don't read it. And I'm an example. I plead guilty. We all have ADD.

Yeah, yeah. We pulled, okay, here we're here. He returned with two copies, and we reviewed them together. He pointed to the summary with his pen and stated that it looked like a two-owner car that had been in one accident and has a recall. Wipped right through that. No cover up there. He flipped over to the detail, accident report, and showed me that it was a minor accident

with minor damage, less than $500. And Carfax will tell you that. It showed the location on the car. It looked like it was on the side of the vehicle. Yeah, yeah. He talked about how common these things were and how it wouldn't affect the drivability. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I needed to get him back on track, so I asked him to tell me more about the recall.

He said it looked like it had to do with a passenger airbag. I paraphrased the third question, is this a safety issue that should concern me? Here we are. We should have a drum roll. He replied, no, you just need to take it to. a GMC dealer to get it taken care of, they won't charge you for it. Yeah. That's a no fix.

It's a no fix. It's a no fix. Cannot be fixed. The inflator is not available. Not available. You buy the car and you bought a car that's got a dangerous airbag that could explode in your face and kill you and you can't get a fixed and you bought the car. It would be interesting.

As I say this, I'm thinking we will do this. I'm not sure we can. What I was going to say is we buy a car. Crash it into a tree. No. No. We buy a car. Well, we could try that.

We could buy a car with a dangerous airbag, recall. They cannot be fixed. And then call back the next day and say, I just found out that you misinformed me. You told me this could be fixed. And it can't be. I want all my money back. Yeah. Let's see what happens.

I wonder what the law is. The law doesn't require. And you lawyers out there, listen to this carefully, the law, federal or state, does not require you disclose dangerous recalls. So if the law doesn't require you to disclose it and you buy a car and you find out it's got a dangerous recall that cannot be fixed, does the law require that you give the money back? I'm not a guess. No. Unbelievable.

Rick? I would suggest if we try that, that Agent Thunder have another person with him as a big. back up a witness to hear them say, oh, all you have to do is take it over there. Good point. Very good point. Sounds like a great idea. Very good point. Okay.

Moving right along, he just said that I can get an unfixable airbag, a recall fixed that can't be fixed. So he lied to me, okay? I told him I wanted to take the SUV later that afternoon. I said, I'd be back with my wife, but I need to get the paperwork first. I said I was financing and had $8,000 to put down. and my credit was excellent. Remember, I told him my credit was excellent. Jim seen surprise, and I was moving so fast.

He said, wow, that sounds great. New tag or transfer. I said, I need a new tag. He replied, great, let me get my manager. He returned in 10 minutes with Anthony, his manager. Anthony asked me to go with him and led me to another office. He was very courteous to ask, he asked how I liked the Yukon, Jim, and my overall experience.

I complimented everybody. everything. Anthony made small talk, printed a worksheet for me. The price of the vehicle was the online price of 16,200, which is significant because lots of times the online price is different than the quoted price. Like last week's. Exactly. He added $400 for a new tag, a $699 dealer services fee. Okay, there's the hidden fee, not in the advertised price, which Florida law requires.

Did you hear that? Attorney General's State Office of Consumer Affairs, Better Business Bureau, all your regulators out there, did you hear this? Car dealers, including tropical auto sales on North Lake Boulevard and North Palm Beach, are advertising cars online with prices that do not include the dealer fee. And the Florida law says you have to. They're breaking the law. Yep.

Disclosure won't do it. So in addition to the $699 dealers services, hidden fee, there's a $36.40. Dock stamp. And remember, this is a cash deal. No, no, this is finance. Oh, we're going to be a finance deal. But, but, but, but the dock stamps are usually taken care of in the retail installment contract. It's not usually a separate final. You're exactly right. They're paid for by the lender. Correct. And they are charged by the lender in the installment sales contract, not in the vehicle buyer's order or a worksheet.

There was also an array of payment options. And my payment was $8,000 with $2,000 down. It was $210 a month for 60 months. He said he hoped to see me in a few hours. I thanked him and let him walk me outside. Remember, I said earlier, excellent credit. Tropical auto sales failed the Takata test again, big time. This time, egregious just lying through your teeth, kind of a failure. Although, disclosed recall, he incorrectly informed Agent Thunder that he could take the Yukon to a GMC dealer to get it fixed. And it can't be done because the part isn't available. On another note, the payment of $210 for 60 months with $8,000 down wasn't so great for someone with professed

excellent credit. That payment would represent an interest rate of approximately 10%. what would be interest rate on a 2000 was it 2011 yeah man you're going to get a little bit of higher rate yeah I'm just thinking 10% I don't think it was crazy less than 10 less than 10 with excellent I'd say 7 maybe 6 if you have excellent credit you get a signature loan and you just borrow the money out right so you should be able something with excellent credit should get a signature loan today

with for what 5% 6% yeah and I'm I don't want to be it up too bad I mean Once he gets down there, he didn't run credit, so it was all talk at that point. Well, the main thing is a Ticcata airbag failure, which is a terrible situation. And once again, it focuses on the fact that we need a law and we don't have a law. Yep. And we have grades coming in on Tropical Auto Sales in North Palm Beach. Linda gives him a big fat F. I knew that was coming.

Ed gives him an F. Michael gives him an F. Deney gives him an F. Axel gives him an F. and Mary gives him an F, so I'm going with the flow. I've got to fail him. All that's so far, Rick. And Mark from YouTube gives him an F, and I got to follow that.

I mean, F. Yeah, I don't say an answer. What do you think? You know, it's unfortunate that, you know, Tropical Auto is sort of a homespun kind of a neighborhood kind of a dealership, if you've ever driven by there. and at one time Pizza Hut was right there on the water and I'm sure that they had a lot more traffic at that point but there's a lot of hocus pocus here

and it's rather unfortunate because they are given a chance to take advantage of a lot of people with that come on of being honest and for me too much hocus pocus than I give them an F. Well I'm going to give them an F too and we're going to put them on the do not buy list and I just want to say I hope the owners and

Peter senior managers I hope you're listening I don't know why this happened educate your people educate your people explain and also be careful when you're purchasing I don't think anyone needs to buy

unless they're purchasing Tropical buys their vehicles and of course they do trade some in too they're not a new car deal they don't receive vehicles from the manufacturer so when you see a vehicle that you trade in or that you buy, find out it has an unfixable to cut airbag.

Simplest thing to do is don't buy it in the first place, and if you make a mistake, then take it back to the auction. Don't put it on your lot. I don't think anybody with any goodness in them would sell another human being, a car that could seriously hurt them and cannot be fixed. I can almost understand how a car dealer could say, This car has a Takata airbag recall. Parts are available.

You can take it to the Honda dealer, and he can fix it at no charge. I don't like that solution, but it's a whole lot better. It's better, yeah. And we know, like you said, we know Peter is the owner, and he is a good person, and I believe he does care about his customers. I just think that no one's paying attention to this. Yeah. And real quick, I just want to leave anybody else.

Sandy gives him an F. She grades every week, and Dusty grades every week gives him an F too. And we're going to reach off Tropical again quickly to get them back on the list. I think they should be on the list, recommended list. And the message will be gotten through, I'm sure, to the owner, and I'm sure he will abide by it. And all you other car deals out there listening, think about it. Just check your inventory.

You can do it right now. It would take you, assign it to use car manager. It'll take you 10 minutes, 15 minutes to check your inventory. If you've got dangerous recalls, be sure that they can be fixed. then go get them fixed, Rick. And Wayne and Give Me Five Bucks also say F, both of them. Yeah, you can't. Much as I'd like to pass tropical, we can't do it in good conscience in view of that.

We'll give him a chance later. Hey, real quick, time for another text. Yeah. It's really short. It says, hello, Earl, after finance, $8,000 down for a 2019 corolla. I mean, Toyota Prius XLE after, I can't forget about that. They wanted 19% interest due to my poor credit. Do you think I'd receive a better APR with the credit union?

Oh, absolutely. And I think, I don't know what your credit is, but I know you can do better than that. And they just shop it and go to a, they're printing you through a subprime lender. You should go to a conventional lender and get quotes. Okay. Okay, folks. I want to thank you for your patience, first of all. And thank you for joining us.

You're a huge part of the show. and we always appreciate your company. Don't forget that you can read Earle's latest column in the hometown news, and that is how and why dealers sell you things. Please stay tuned next week. We'll be right back here at 8 o'clock, and for now, have a wonderful weekend. Go! Go!

Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Two! Oh!

Oh! Go! Go! Let's go. Oh, go away. Oh, more away. Oh. And go.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And go. Uh-huh. And go, too. Uh-huh. Let's go. Let's go.

Thank you.