Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.24.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Wallace Kia of Stuart

Episode Date: September 24, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Kia dealer in Stuart FL. to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Kia K5 GT sport sedan. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back again. And I know I say this every Saturday, but it's truly an exciting, fulfilling time for us in the studio. You know, it's even more so today because we're seeing some results, some changes. We're not seeing some changes. We're seeing a title change in the way automobiles are retailed and how the manufacturers and dealers are treating the consumer. And I think we can take a teeny we need a bit of credit for that.

We've been a little bit of a spark on that, and you have too, because your calls are really what keeps us going. And if you didn't listen, if you didn't watch, you know, we're streaming on Facebook and we're streaming on YouTube. If you didn't listen to the show, then of course we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be able to get this information out to the consumers. And a lot of the people that we've contacted, we have one in particular, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, has been in touch with a victim, with a woman that had been victimized by a car dealer. and because of her advice and this show's advice, she contacted the Attorney General. She's really gone to a lot of very specific, diligent efforts

to resolve her problem. And she is really an educated consumer. So we get these stories that come in, they keep us going. If you have a story, we'd love to hear from you. Anything about whether you've been victimized or have a friend, especially if you took some action, and got results because these add incentive to a lot of people. There's a lot of people they

get taken advantage of and they're embarrassed, they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to take the time, they're too busy in their lives to go through the details of a formal report. And I'll show you what a report to the Attorney General's office looks like in a little while. Take some while, it's tedious. You have to go through. I really believe the system has devised it to discourage complaints to consumer agencies. I really believe that.

So if you are of a mind to be able to go through the process, you can get some results. Call us at 877-9-60-960. And you might want to write this number down because you might not have a comment now. You might not have a question. Again, that call-in number is 877-960. 9060. And you could text us, just Stu Stewart sitting across from here. He keeps the log of all the texts that come in and we get to the text during the show, 99.9.9% of the time. The text number is 772-4976530. Text number then 772-4976530. And fairly popular.

venue to contact us is our your anonymous feedback.com it's a web address it's a website you go there and it's a form you fill out you ask your question you make your accusation you make your whatever you want to say you write it and it goes to us anonymously your while you are anonymous a N-O-N-Y-M-U-S feedback.com and still monitors that we get to them pretty much hundred percent during the show. So we got telephones. Of course, YouTube, YouTube.com forward slash Earl and Cars. If you're a YouTuber, YouTube.com for slash Roll in Cars. Rick Kearney, sitting to my right here, he was our certified diagnostic master technician. He knows all and sees

all. If you're streaming us now, you'll see Rick has a mask on and we don't. In an abundance of caution, his wife was done. diagnosed positive with COVID and he was tested yesterday he's negative but just an abundance of caution he just had it he's protecting us he just had it yeah yeah so uh that's he's really handsome he's uh he doesn't look like uh but that if you have any kind of a problem with your car it was a squeak rattle or roll describe it ask rick and he has got the answers to 99.9% of your questions. I can guarantee you. Highlight of our show, Mystery Shopping Report,

got another good one, and Agent Lightning did a great job. They're all interesting. This one was quite different. It was kind of a laid-back hometown, kind of a homey kind of a thing. It was not a typical, typical South Florida, but we'll see. I don't want to give it away. We won't grade it. And of course, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, is sitting next to me, and she's also my wife.

we started this show about 20 years ago and half an hour on a little radio station called C-view and now here we are in the big time, two hours and we're with a much larger station, much larger listening audience and we think we're doing some good. Nancy is a strong advocate for the ladies in the audience

and she has almost single-handedly built our lady callers up to about 50-50. And our text, callers, callers from the ladies are amazing. We have one, I'll just, I don't want to make anybody else mad, but Anne-Marie, our texter, is absolutely phenomenal. And she has another text for us this morning, and she does every morning. But the ladies in the audience have made fantastic contributions thanks to Nancy Stewart, and she has a special offer for you that will incentivize you to call the show if you're a lady.

And if you haven't called the show before, first two ones, Nancy, I'll explain that to you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Gosh, we enjoy your company. Why? You're a big part of the show. You educate us every Saturday morning, and we look forward to your calls, your texts, your YouTube's at all. Again, thank you for joining us. This morning, I can't say anything until I say, you have to be.

read one of Earl's real important columns and you can go to Earl on cars and you can find it and that is how to know if a Florida car dealer is breaking the law and you can go to www.W Florida law protecting carbuyers.com. Real important. Our voices must be heard and I'll tell you what we are doing fantastic. We're doing fantastic because of you. You have joined us. We connected and um there is power power among us and uh we are going to change the auto industry i know it i believe it and you must give us a call 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 772 4976530 ladies you're a huge part of the show give us a call you can win yourself $50 for the first two new lady callers.

And Lori, if you're listening, at any time you can give us a call. We appreciate you going above and beyond and staying with this ongoing lawsuit. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I'd like to do a little bit of a summary of our mystery shopping reports. And this one here, Stu, just told. or a mystery shopper pick somebody and it turned out to be a pretty good pick still oh we had a we were going to try and do a third mystery a Costco mystery shop and it's so hard now uh really the same few dealers keep showing up over and over again that the dealers are really not participating

because of the Costco pricing restrictions uh they're designed to benefit consumers so they want the prices to be a lot higher than that so we had trouble with that so we told agent lightning go ahead picked something up in an area she was going to be in this week. So she did, and the weird coincidence is, usually I like to tie in a new mystery shopping port with some older ones. You know, we're trying to look at for patterns, changes, and things like that. And I could not find in any of the archives Wallace Kia of Stewart. And I know we shopped a ton of Wallace dealerships.

I went back in my email to see, did this happen when I was on vacation? and then Josh took care of the, my brother did the mystery shopping report, as he does in my absence occasionally. And no emails from Josh from mystery shops from Wallace Kia. So I think it's the first time we shopped them. Unless we went back years and years ago

before we had our sophisticated system. Beth Smith, Kea is close. And they kind of overshadow them and most of the advertising and kind of like... Yeah, and they're up in... Best McKee is up in Fort Pierce. It's a little farther away. And I think Wallace Key, a lot of the dealership share some of the contiguous properties,

so maybe they're all kind of blended together, and the Kia dealership kind of disappeared from you from us, out of sight of mine. But anyway, we had an experience. It wasn't, I'm not going to give it away what it was good about it. I want to tape the jury because I know you're all going to, you're going to grade at the end. But we had a what I consider to be a very old school and not necessarily in a bad way, an old school salesperson. And it reminded me some of the things he did were straight from my sales training, like 25 years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, he was a retired person that decided to go back. Right. Yeah. So. Like me if I started to sell cars again. Yeah. Yeah.

So. So it's a good one. So stay tuned. Oh, thank you. How about, okay. We are going to get to the phones. I'm going to interrupt everyone. And Linda, hang on.

And we're going to go to Howard, who's a regular. caller good morning Howard good morning I hope you're all well and I just want to report something that happened to me I'm still in the Bronx by the way I was driving New Jersey and a cone fell off a truck and I ran over it and so I was told my car was towed up to my mechanic is not a Toyota dealer my mechanic mechanic and Yonkers what happened is that He tried to get, oh, the fuel line was broken all the way up to the fuel pump. So he tried to get this fuel line from Toyota, and they said it's a long wait.

And so I contacted Josh. So Josh tried to get the fuel line for me from a couple of other dealers, but it was a no-go. So now I'm waiting, and I was told that could take up to a month or more. to get this fuel line. So I don't know why it takes so long. What's happening now with the parts coming from Japan? Well, Howard, let me jump in here. You text me or call me, let me a message.

And I asked Josh to call you, and my parts manager, Jeff Doss. So Jeff Doss, our parts manager, checked and found three dealers in Southeast Toyota that reported having that fuel line that you needed in stock. And Jeff Doss called your mechanic in Yonkers and told them that. And also, I suggested that they research for a used fuel line. Jeff Doss said that there might be some issues with a used fuel line. In fact, Rick can jump in here, but Jeff says, all things being

equal, you'd rather not use a used fuel line because there's some issues. And I said, well, that should be up to the owner and the mechanic if it's a possibility. I googled used fuel lines. There are quite a few available. So before I see anything more, Rick, what is the risk factor to a used fuel line? The biggest one is potential contamination in the line itself, rust or bends or kinks when they try to remove it. There's the only way you can, you can examine it carefully and see that it's good or is it, let's try to buy in the pick of the boat. Yes, they can be examined

and if it's good, then you're all set. Okay, there you go. It's just making, you know, making sure that it's in good shape. What do you think about that, Howard? Does that make sense? My mechanic said he won't do it. He doesn't want to take a chance. My question is, how long did it take

before we get this? Could it take all months? No, if we find one in stock, you could have them if you pay extra for the FedEx overnight it. You can have it tomorrow. I'm talking about a new fuel line. Oh, God, we don't know. That's like it's like asking when the car shortage, microchip shortage,

a shortage in exclamation points, we're short of everything. And we're having cars that are being delivered without accessories that two years ago were almost standard on the car. So you can't, second guess, you can guess, but it's a wild guess. I recommend now that you've got the green flag from Rick to carefully examine the used fuel line and make it clear when you order it what you're going to be doing, Rick had another point. Well, if there's three different dealerships, they have an in-stock new part, I would simply contact one of them and say, hey, ship me that part.

They reported to have it. And I'm assuming a mechanic, Howard's mechanic, did call these three. Oh, okay. What we'll do, Poria Howard, is I'll have Jeff Doss, our parts manager, contact those other dealerships, and verify that it's in stock. But I thought your mechanic, we're trying to work through your mechanic and yonkers. So if he didn't call to verify that these were in stock, we should double check. And if you can't get a new one, you get a used one, and have it.

examined carefully by someone that knows how to examine the fuel line. And Rick says you're good to go. No downside as long as you're sure that the fuel line is clean inside and some other things. Okay. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.

You're very welcome. Can you give me that text number again? Sure. It's 772 497-6530. 772 497-697-6-5-30 Okay, thank you very much for all your help. I really appreciate you. Thank you, Arns.

I really did a lot to me. I know that's the reason why I love you guys. Well, we love you too, Howard, so. Well, we are lovable. We are lovable. Okay. All right, thanks, Howard. Have a good day, guys.

Thanks for staying with us all these years, Howard. We appreciate your company. We're going to go to Linda, who's calling us from Hope, out. Good morning, Linda. Good morning. Thank you very much. Welcome. I'm calling for an opinion about what to do. I have a 2016 under HRV. And for the first time since I've had it, I have an intermittent air conditioning issue. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I have none. Right now I happen to have some, so I feel I'm buying myself a little time. I've called two places, and one is the dealership, which that's the only place I've taken the car since it's been new, which is the Honda here in

Stewart. The do the diagnostic on that is $155. I got a recommendation for a private shop, which is supposed to be good. And I called about the same thing, and their diagnostic was $80. It's a big difference. And I don't know whether to take a chance of going to a place other than Honda. I just kind of like an opinion about this.

Well, my comment and all that, Rick comment, because he probably has some ideas of what should be checked for an intermittent AC problem. That kind of narrows it down a little bit. But diagnostic charges can be fair and they can be unfair. It's certainly easy to make money fast if you're a car dealer by charging a high diagnostic fee. We don't charge a diagnostic fee for a relatively simple diagnosis, but if we have something that could involve tearing down an engine or transmission,

we can't ask a technician to work for six hours taking a part of a train. transmission to diagnose a problem, and then the customer says, well, we don't want it fix, so put it back together again. So at some point, diagnostic charges are fair. I'd suggest you shop around to where you get the best diagnostic charge and go there. But Rick, what do you think it might be? Maybe something you could diagnose. Well, my first question, when you say the AC stops, is it the temperature suddenly starts

getting warmer from the air, or is it the airflow itself, actually? actually stops blowing. No, it's blowing fine. It may start out in the morning if I go out early, which I usually do, and it'd be great. It'll, you know, be cool and very, very nice. And maybe half an hour later, sometimes it'll start to get warmer and warmer, and then you have nothing. So as the day heats up, the air starts blowing warmer? Yes.

That sounds like it's a low on charge, which means you probably have a leak in the AC system. So a proper diagnostic in that case is they would need to actually recharge the system and they'll add an ultraviolet dye into the system. And at the same time, the mechanics should be looking at all the outside components to see if there are any signs of a small leak. It sounds like a pretty small leak. on a 2016 6-year-old car

pushing 7 years now my recommendation to start out would be to find a local independent shop the $80 one would probably be a good choice have them recharge the system and then see how long that lasts

how long it takes before it starts acting up again how about asking to recharge the system and include the die right well that should be included automatically okay good yes yeah then you've got a You got half of a diagnosis, so you're going in and relying on Rick's diagnosis and say, please do this for me, and then you drive it, and who knows, you maybe drive it for two years

and it stays cold. Right. You can stay cold for up to a year or longer. Yeah. And then consider, you know, do, because most cases, it's the evaporator core that has got the tiny leak in it. How much would it cost to parks, and I know you don't get into the charges? But you've got a better idea than I do. How much, what should it cost or charge a C, depending on how much free in, I think.

So I guess, at our shop, it would be about one-hour diagnostic, which most shops are going to be $80 to $100 on the outside shops. And they're going to charge you probably about, I'm going to say, $75 maybe for the R134 gas that they'll need to put in. And the dye, of course, would be included in that. and they'll recharge the entire system to get it blowing cold, plus they'll inspect to look for any visible, obvious signs of leaks. Why the diagnostic charge if they're not asking for a diagnosis? Well, the diagnostic charge in that case is actually the labor of hooking up the machine, basically sucking out all the old Freon that's in there,

bringing it into a vacuum and then recharging the system. Strange. So it's the whole recharge feature. that's the cost of it and then a visual inspection on it and then you know they will probably give you an estimate saying that your evaporator core or something else is leaking and if it's a low enough price then go ahead and have it done go with the 85 buck and and you might get lucky and as Rick said you might be able to drive for a year or two without without a problem so that's our

recommendation and I have a question for Rick The ultraviolet dye that allows for a clear, more detailed diagnosis of the system? Yes, because once that dye starts to, once it finds the spot that is leaking out of, then we'll put on these real high-fashioned yellow glasses and shine a special light on it, and that dye will literally glow to show us where the leak is. Interesting. Lori, this is amazing, isn't it? I mean, here you call the show, and everything here is free.

It's free advice. So I'm sorry, I meant to say Linda. So at any rate, are you a first time caller? No, I'm not. I've called before, and you've been helpful. Very good. Two other times in the past. Be sure to give us a call back and let us know how that went for you as far as getting the system recharged.

Thank you very much. much. It explained a lot that I didn't understand. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's pretty clear. That's how we make the information. Thank you so much and have a great weekend. Thank you very much, Nancy. Bye. You're welcome. Hey, 77-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget, you can go to www.com and you can voice your views.

We're going to go to Sarah, who's giving us a call from Boynton. Good morning, Sarah. Good morning, Nancy. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you so much. This is a difficult call for me because I did something that was kind of stupid, very stupid. And I got tires from a small-time place that had changed owners, and the guy talked me into these tires. I don't even know if they're for my car.

I was wondering if I could ask Rick that. My car is a, it's a Lincoln hybrid 2012, and there are certain tires that go for it, and this man gave me bridge stone tires. That doesn't even say bridge stone on a tire. And I don't think that they're right for my car. I think Rick can answer that? I think you'd want to get to a reputable shop and have them inspect those tires. being a Lincoln hybrid

I'm going to guess that your car most likely should be running run flat tires it may be required on that car and if so if they put wrong tires but I have never seen

a company say that oh these are bridge stone tires even though they don't say bridgestone that's somebody's they say douler H.R. Yeah, Dooler

H.R. is a bridge stone. That's a model, but yeah, that is a Bridgestone tire. Sherry, you've got Costco's in your area, several, and Costco is having a... I do. I messed up, Earl. You did? I really did.

Yeah, we all do that. Costco, Costco's having a tire sale. I know. I know. I know. I know. I'm just... I don't even know what to do. I'll go back to It doesn't feel like it's balanced or something, and they didn't do an alignment. It's the worst thing.

I might have to go to my dealer and just deal with it. Deal with the dealer. Deal with the dealer. Yeah. Yeah, deal with the dealer. Thank you guys so much. You really are awesome. Oh, you're welcome, Sarah.

And don't feel so bad. You know, we all, you know, at one time or another, you know, just make decisions that, you know, we just didn't want to. but you sound like as if that you could move on and you'll move forward, take care of this, and that Lincoln hybrid will be in great condition. Thank you too much. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Sarah. You all have a great day, and I love your show.

Oh, thank you so much. Spread the word. Tell your lady, friends. Always. Thank you. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. No, back to the recovering car dealer. I know you think I'm a broken record on Costco. Nancy and I both shout their praises to the highest every week.

The fact is, it's just a really good place to buy something. I'm sorry if you live in an area where you don't have a Costco warehouse near you, but I'm thinking about, you know, this situation with Sarah, not only do they have the lowest prices on really quality tires, but they have a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee on anything you buy. I mean, every time Nancy and I go to Costco, we see a line of people a mile long return and stuff, and there's no questions. They don't give you a hard time. You buy something and you use it and you don't like it.

You bring it back. They get in your money back. And their markup is incredibly low. By corporate law, by Costco order, no product Costco sells is marked up more than 15%. car dealers mark their parts up 40% almost three times what Costco does

and the products you buy in there if you buy a television you can buy anything in Costco if you buy whatever you buy it it's marked up only 15% in fact there's some of the products that are marked below cost and those are the chickens

and the hot dogs they've kept you can buy a hot dog and a drink and something else huge hot dog for a buck and a half and you can buy a chicken for $4.99 and they'd be doing that for about 30 years and they haven't adjusted for inflation. You know, as many people who just love Costco, there are at times that maybe Earl and I are their poster couple for Costco. And we give reprimanded. Uh-huh. Reprimanded. Not, there are some people out there who do not believe in Costco and they have a different opinion and they're entitled to it.

for my buck Costco. Rick? My only problem I think I have to buy a second freezer or refrigerator it fills up too quick because everything's big Yeah, that can happen quickly. 877-960 9960, Texas

at 772-497-6-5-30 I'll tell you what, you just don't want to miss this show. We have got so much that's going to be going on between Channel 10 and you talk about voices being heard. There's an uprising. Miami, Fort Lauderdale. PLG Channel 10.

Yeah, absolutely. As I said, there's an uprising. And it is what I call a coup d'etat. And gosh, I love coup d'etat. Rick? I got an interesting question here from Guy Larrabee. He says, I've been a Toyota owner for 40 years. I'm worried that Toyota may have been just a little too late

to the electric vehicle party, and their first effort has not been reassuring. I'm looking at a mid-sized Tesla or a Kia for an electric vehicle. Your opinion? Well, I'd stay away from the Kia, but Tesla is a great buy. Model 3. The Model 3, as a mid-size, it's not as expensive as the Model S. When I was up in the northeast this summer,

every Uber I got into in Philadelphia was a Model 3, Tesla. Is that right? Yeah, it was, I don't know if Uber. Are you serious? How many Uber's did you take? Four or five. Wow. And also in, same thing in New York, I took a Uber from LaGuardia to a hotel.

That'll tell you something right there. The fact that the Tesla is so reliable that a taxi company, and I think rental companies, are also buying electric vehicles. They're buying a lot. Yeah, when you're a rental company or an Uber or a taxi company, you buy a product, you want something to hold up, stay out of the repair shop, get good fuel. of them. Of course, EVs, I'll get a huge. Oh, yeah. I also read that, I know, I forgot what rental company committed to buy a ton from General Motors in the coming years.

Yeah. And it's really neat General Motors plan with EVs. I read an article that they, they too seem to be behind the game, but they're working on a battery system that they call Ultia or something like that. And it's a modular battery, and it will form the base of their vehicles, but that fits together like Lego blocks. so the same system will be used for the Hummer as it will be for the small subcombacks they just take it apart so it's pretty revolutionary

so they're going to come in flooding in the next couple of years nice we get some of the text yeah got one from Anne-Marie here good morning Anne-Marie she's got a good one she says good morning W-E-S-H-TV out of Orlando reported that a Flagler County family bought a used Ford F-350

from a dealer in Fruitland Florida what makes this newsworthy or the following facts. A month later, they brought the truck to another dealer closer to home for an oil change. The mechanics found discrepancies. It came up stolen. The technicians ran the truck's VIN and found it was not a Ford manufactured VIN. Then they tapped into the truck's software and found that the VIN didn't match the tags on the door or the dashboard. The VIN tag on the door was coming off. The family called the sheriff. Turns out, the truck was stolen from a dealership in Colorado. Not only that, the truck was not even the type that the family

thought they'd bought. They'd contracted for a 2019 Ford F-350 Super Duty, but investigators found that the truck was actually a 2017 Ford F-350 Super Duty, a model two years older. The family sued the dealership with minimal response until they contacted the TV station. So the publicity gave the dealership some incentive to come to a resolution with the family. The Better Business Bureau of Central Florida says the VIN cloning is a method of concealing a vehicle's true identity by copying the VIN information of one vehicle onto the stolen vehicle. Check to see if the VIN tag has been tampered with. Also, the BBB suggests that people should look up the VIN

on every state on the state database if possible. If the Carfax report is missing key information, be very careful. Experts say that VIN cloning could happen to anyone. So here are Anne-Marie's questions. One, has your dealership ever encountered any instance of VIN cloning? I don't know. I mean, we've had... We've had cars that should turn of stolen.

We've had stolen cars. We've actually... Actually, we actually have accidentally sold the car that was stolen. And that was many years ago. I wish I'd known about this before she really got in the weeds, the victim here, because it's pure and simple, a violation of law for a dealer. If a dealer gets a stolen car and he resells it, he has to take it back by law and refund 100% of the money. And in this case here, unbelievably, the dealer's refusing to do that.

So if this complainant, she's going to get results now because she went to the Orlando television station and they really blasted it out, so now she's going to get everything taken care. but the Department of Motor Vehicles would have come to that dealership with a machete and said, you cannot sell a stolen car. And once when they found out it was stolen, it was also a sloppy job. It was a Ford dealer, Bill Bryan Ford. Did she mention the location of the... Central Florida?

Fruitland. Yeah, Fruitland. Bill Bryan. Now, they were two years off. There's a Ford dealer selling a used Ford, and they thought it was the 2019, and it was 2017. Now, I could almost make a case that that couldn't be a mistake that it was premeditated. And I would, you know, how's a Ford dealer? It'd be very hard.

Amory's next question was, does your dealership verify that each vehicle is what the VIN says it is? And the answer to that is, we're supposed to, particularly on use cars, you can't do an appraisal. You put the VIN number in, and then it pulls up the information. And if that doesn't match, then that's. If you're suspect, there is a place where the VIN is hidden on the car, and you can check that to be sure. I'm sure that's what the... Yeah, that BBB advised. But, yeah, it can be.

And if a dealership is sloppy, dealerships get lucky all the time because this, here's a typical thing that can happen. If somebody brings a car into trade-in, a salesperson. person who gets the car, writes down a VIN number off an insurance card or another document and then puts that on the paperwork. No one goes out and looks at the car. The used car manager doesn't actually appraise the car. He sits at his desk, puts a number on it, and nobody actually inspects it until it winds up in the used car lot and gets stolen, and it's a stolen car. But how can you miss the year of a Ford if you're a Ford dealer? That's what I'm saying. Anybody who's engaged and who is trained and educated would not do that, but people who don't

want to get above their desk and sit around and things can follow through a lazy sloppy system and that's how that can happen if you buy a car from somebody that you're not 100% trusting in and you think maybe it might be not quite right you can always take it to a dealership and they can they can check the hidden then where where they hide them on toyotas rick uh there's actually several locations you can find it um usually the fin is printed on the transmission case yeah um believe it or not The tag that's on the dash, although it can be a little difficult to read sometimes, that one is extremely difficult to remove and change because you've got to read the remove the dash or remove the windshield to drill out the little rivets to hold it in place.

So they usually ignore that one and change just the sticker on the door jam. I think that's what they did in this case. Which is the easy thing to read. So how, you know, how careful could the dealer have been? He had the vent, he could have looked at it. All you had to do is look through the windshield and read that number compared to the Or look at the truck because it was two years older than the VIN said. And I don't know if there were many body changes between 17 and 19.

Well, no. But I'm sure there would have been some changes. Average citizen wouldn't know, but a Ford dealer. I mean, he had technicians looking at it. You had managers and salesmen. Yeah, and it took the other dealership about two seconds to figure it out. It wasn't the right year because they looked at it. And, Ian Marie, I got to thank you.

I'll tell you what, what a great asset you are. to the show, always every single Saturday right here was something new, something to, you know, enlighten us. And in this situation, I'll tell you, whether, first let me say in the auto industry, anything is possible. And you really have to watch your back. And as I always say, knowledge is power, whether it was sloppy, whether it was, you know, just premeditated. It's, roll the dice so I thank you for the information and all the questions Rick has a question I just wanted to say we had a customer that bought a car on internet basically sight unseen a Camry hybrid brought it to us because the hybrid lights

were on when he bought the car and the odometer was reading something in the neighborhood like 60,000 miles and it turned out as soon as I looked at it I knew there was something wrong because the car had obvious signs that had been used as a taxi cab and converted back and it turned out that the mileage on the odometer although it read 60,000

a car fact showed that it had actually over 200,000 miles on the car somebody had simply changed the combination meter with one from a junkyard that showed a lot less miles and this poor guy was way out of luck. It's done before okay so we have finished

up with Emery? We're finished with Amray's text we're going to go to Marty We're going back to the phones, and Marty is a regular caller. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How's everybody doing? Great. I have a question that you may or may not know the answer, and I'm a Costco member, so I'm not knocking Costco, but how come the gas price on North Lake is $3.7 a gallon, and the Costco on Southern Boulevard is $3.25 a gallon.

I would assume they get the gas. It's not like they got a hundred different gas stations here. I would assume the same thing. I assume they get the gas from the same supplier. I think gas prices are kind of, they're affected by the immediate facing competition. Like if you have, you know, on a corner and there's four gas stations and I think maybe the individual locations.

Well, I don't think Costco does that. We talked earlier about Costco. They claim, and it's in their charter or something, that they don't mark up anything over 15%. So I'm assuming you're not marking their gas up over 15%. And as Marty said, I'm sure the source where they fill up the big tanks on Southern Boulevard, are the same as the ones on North Lake. So that's a great question.

I'd follow up with Costco and ask them the question. Rick has a comment. By comparison, the rocket fuel that is right next to our dealership at US1 and North Lake Boulevard, yesterday was 309 a gallon the shell station here at Northlake and military where our radio station is is 439 a gallon Yeah well we know Costco has a good price

So the prices are all over the place Why was it different between two stores Right that's one thing I've wondered for a long time It was also a good price at North Lake But why different? Excellent question Marty Yeah definitely Marty And it's been asked often I don't know if they'll give me an answer

but, and obviously it's not thousands of dollars, but all their products inside are the same price, no matter whether you're on North Lake or whether you're on Southern. Marty, give me the prices again. The Southern Boulevard was how much? All right. Southern Boulevard, it's 325 a gallon, and North Lake it's 307. Okay, I've got a friend in Costco management,

and I will call him and see if he can have. answer it and we'll try to get an answer to it. It could be the old somebody just screwed up. I mean, Costco was not perfect and maybe somebody didn't get the memo that they were either raising or lowering the price and one warehouse was just out of step.

We'll find out. I'll let you know. And I can just tell you, Earl, this has been going on. I mean, this is not new. This is, for months, whatever it is, North Lake has always been cheaper. Interesting. Well, you're breaking news. I agree with you, Marty.

Costco is not perfect I've had the experience All right I mean I know eggs are the same no matter where they're North Lake or Southern so the gas should be the same

Thanks Marty Okay Have a great weekend I'd be interested to hear your answer Thanks Earl Thank you Martin And it's due to what you said You know about the gas stations

You can take four of them One on each corner And you know Location location location And there's a lot of variables whether you're going north, south, east, west, which is convenient, what isn't, and they put the price of their gas,

what they want to charge you. 877-9-99-60, Texas at 772-497-6-5-30. We'd love to hear from you on some of the topics that we have already covered. Back to Stu. Sure. I got a text from Negan.

Hi, Nagan switched over to the text side. It says it seems Ford was catching up on production with chip supplies, the microchips, but now they're delaying delivery because of the shortage of Blue Oval Ford badges. Oh, my favorite topic. Yes, so he sent the article to I hadn't read that and clicked over. And yeah, there's something like 45,000 vehicles that are sitting on lots that can't ship because the badge is not there. Is that amazing, you know? I think I could do it without a Ford Oval in my Ford.

I'd say I'll just take it. Well, because the manufacturers are shipping cars without heated seats and all sorts of stuff. Let me talk about some serious here for a minute. I tried to jump in a minute ago, but I got cut off. Costco, and I think this might be their Achilles heel, as you know, sublets certain areas that are outside their normal skill. They're a retailer of food and canned goods and home goods or whatever you want to call it, and they're the best. Now, if you want to buy hearing aids or eyeglasses, they sub that out. If you want to buy a car, they sub it out, and it's the Costco auto buying program.

And we on this show have had problems with Costco with the Alliance Group, which is the subgroup company for the Costco Auto Buying Program. But I use Costco's name, which is troubling, because if Costco's going to lend their name to a company selling products under their name, they should police it just as carefully as they do their own warehouses. So I'm guessing that maybe the gasoline comes under a different, you know, ownership. I don't know. Or at least, I'm looking stuff up on this, and they're saying that they typically lose money on gas.

They said it's the same thing as the chicken and the hot dogs. They're hoping you go there to fill up. I thought it was a, yeah, I did too. Yeah, that's what they're saying in this article. I don't know how authoritative it is, but they're losing money on the gas. If they sell it at their cost, they're still losing money because they've got the overhead to cover. They said they're on average across the country, 20 cents per gallon cheaper than anywhere else. 20% cheaper than anywhere else.

So anyway, like everything else, there's no some absolute right, absolutely wrong. Costco's our favorite retailer, but they have their flaws, and when we find them, we talk about them. Yeah, no more chickens at Costco for us. No. I have found that the cost, the savings that I get by buying my gas at Costco more than pays for my membership each year. Oh, God, yeah. Exactly. Just the gas savings.

As long as we're on a Costco kid. Love it. Here's an interesting financial information. Costco's full profit, annual profit, which is huge. I mean, Wall Street's getting hammered. Now, one of the few stocks that's held up is Costco. but Costco's full profit in the billions of dollars is from their membership dues. So what that means is for $65 bucks a month, a year.

A year, 65 bucks a year, and I can get an executive membership for $95 or something like that. Anyway, their membership dues are responsible for all their profit. They're selling their goods basically at cost. That's why they call themselves Costco. I have some information directly from Costco. Oh, great. We might explain the difference in the gas prices. Great.

Because they have a special in their customer service section on their website that says, why do prices vary between Costco warehouse locations? Many factors plan why there can be price differences on the same items at different Costco warehouse locations. Our location managers and buying teams keep a close watch on inventory and pricing. At times, our suppliers may adjust item prices and additional shipments. sometimes local competition might affect the price of each item

so something there could be like the gas thing might they might have like really low gas at one place and they might have to lower their gas to match and down in another part of town they didn't have to do that if everybody else is doing it why can't Costco do it so the 15% is probably an average yeah they're changing

based on what they're consuming what the customers need you know the story of Costco story that is I know this is not Earl and Costco in case you just but we love it all of us in the studio do. A few years ago, Costco ordered some incredibly fine

hot sales shirts. They were Italian design shirts, and they were like 15 bucks a piece. They were just absolutely, you know, a steal. So they sold out, and they ordered some more, and they sold out. And they never would raise the price of the shirts, even though they knew like they had a shortage.

So unlike car dealers, when Costco would order from Italy and from Italy, they'd get like 2,000 shirts in a particular warehouse, they'd sell them all for the old price when they could have double the price, which is what the dealers do with cars today. So they have a morality and a conscience, which is refreshing. Yeah, it reminds me of something. We have a phone call. Okay. Okay, thanks too.

We're going to go to Frank, who's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning. Good morning, Frank, from Jupiter Farms. Hey. Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Yes.

Yeah, I'm in my car. I made a mistake to go to Sam's down the street for you guys to get some cat food. And the line stretches from military trail on 45th Street. The line for cat food? I thought they opened at rate for plus my food. memberships. I guess everyone in the world has a plus membership, so I'm back on the highway going on. Anyway, my question, since we're talking about gas and fuel, I have two cars that require premium high-test gas, and I have a truck that can still get by on regular. My neighbor, who had worked at GM for like 30 years,

that putting premium gas in a car is like just wasting money because the computer will, you know, balance for it. And I've been putting premium, I figured that's what they call for. I better do it. What is a real story on that? Premium breaker. We know a lot about this. Yes. By running the 87 octane fuel, basically your computer is going to retard the ignition timing to avoid any ignition knock.

the spark knock that would occur by running a lower octane fuel. The only drawback that you're going to see is you might lose a little bit of fuel economy and you might lose a little bit of performance. With Florida traffic, you're never going to notice that change in performance because you're never going to have the opportunity to make use of that acceleration and high speed. With Florida economy, well, you might notice a little hurt with the fuel price, your fuel economy but it's really not going to be that big a difference

and if your car runs good on the 87 octane I would stick with it and go with it especially with the huge difference in price between premium and 87. This is one of the most common questions we get Frank and it's almost a secret that you can burn regular 87 an octane in almost any car and it can slightly, as Rick said, it can affect the performance

a little bit, but not much and the savings is usually huge. The manufacturers, when they design it, they have to have those cars tested by the EPA. So when they decide the fuel they recommend, they want to recommend in their car, they want to fuel that will get by the EPA recommendations. very important. They give them 100 cars to test, and if they say there's too much emissions, then they're going to have to spend a ton of money modifying the emissions on those cars, and they don't want that to happen. So one way to minimize the pollution and maximize your score on the EPA test is to burn the high test fuels. So there'll be two things that Rick knows.

A recommendation and required, I say ignore either one of them, but Rick says ignore the recommendation but go with the required and even if you go with the if you use 87 and everything it's not going to blow your engine up if it affects the performance and you don't like it then you can always go up an octane okay well thank you I just

figure it's better to ask for permission and look for forgiveness later down the road thank you so much Frank have a great have a great weekend hey 77 960 9960 or you can text us at 772 4976530. We have Lori calling from Hope Sound.

Let me bring everyone up to speed. I believe that... Good morning, Lori. Good morning to everyone. Okay. Hey, this is about the Attorney General's office, correct? And your complaint against Edmour's Cadillac? Yes, that's right.

Very good. I am so glad that you called. I was a little bit worried whenever you... sent me that text message last night at, I think it was like 9-57 or something, so I was hoping that you would make the show. Because there are so many of our

listeners, our texters, YouTube, everybody in the, and I'm not using this word loosely, the world is listening to you because your voice has been heard and I know there's, you know, miles to go, but you're doing a

fantastic job. Well, I just wanted some advice from you. It looks like they probably didn't pay much attention to the 30 to 45 day, whatever they gave the dealership to response. So when I, when I inquired it, they then sent me that email I forwarded to you saying, now I have a number to call and I actually have a name, which is important. I will call them on Monday. But my issue is, I wonder if if anyone out there knows what happens, does the Attorney General just send a letter? Or in this case, I think they just forwarding an email to Ed Morris.

You don't think that they'd want to follow up with a phone call. Lord, let me jump in there. We haven't told our listening audience yet, what's your problem? And your problem, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you were promised an accessory on your car by the Ed Morris Cadillac. and they put it in writing, and they said they would install this after you purchased the car. And then when you try to get it honored, they refuse them. Is that right? Correct.

Okay. Not returning calls. The salesman left the firm. Yeah. A service employee who had been there for a few years said, well, maybe let me talk to corporate, quote, unquote, see if they'll give you some money towards servicing. Exactly. He never came back to me. He never came back to me when I did call.

And he said, oh, the corporate said no. And I tried on three occasions to see the general manager who refused to see me. Yeah. And, Lori, what we're talking about here is a USB plug and a CD player, correct? No. Originally, it was built in. It's a long story. The original one I had was a Cadillac.

I had purchased one from Cadillac. Cadillac put it in a 216, 2016 model. When I then traded that in for a 2018 model, I had to go to a shop, and they put in a CD DVD player. It wasn't ideal, but at least I could play CDs on it. This 20, the Cadillac 2020 version, they kept saying, well, Cadillac's coming out with the software. They haven't come out with the software.

LORG, LORG, let me say something. What you have here is a clear-cut case of violation. It's black and white, and the reason we love your contact against is because the route you've taken with the Attorney General, who has ignored you, and any other consumer agencies have not helped you. So what I'm saying is you have a written document signed. by that dealer. Now that's a contract.

And you could certainly go to the, you could certainly go to a lawyer and we would see what would happen if you could get a lawyer to take the case. They're violating the law here by refusing you. So it's a great story about what the average consumer has available to them when they have a problem with a dealer. The Attorney General, Ashley Moody, she probably doesn't even know this happened. I've read your correspondence and somebody named Beverly is communicating with you and she probably talks to hundreds of people a day that are having problems with car dealers and she never passes them along because Ashley Moody says don't bother me with this. Beverly Bailey is the Office of Citizen Services I see on your email so you have not to worry because I guarantee you that you're going to get this

you should be able to find a lawyer that would take it on contingency because the dealer is dead wrong and what he did. And that's a big target to the Morris Auto Group is huge. So if you sued them, you'd be suing probably 25 dealerships. And Teddy Morris is the guy that also won't return your phone call. Laura called the show a long time ago. I gave her Teddy Morris. That's the grandson of Ed Morris. I gave Lord Teddy Mars' cell phone number.

She's called Teddy three or four times, and he just won't return the calls. The general manager of the dealership won't return her calls. And Ashley Moody won't return her calls. They are stalling her. So here is a black-and-white case of fraud, and you're being ignored as a consumer. And what a great story to put on the airwaves, and we really appreciate your call. Okay, thanks, Cheryl. Thanks for all your help. Thank you.

Thank you, Larry. We appreciate you calling in this morning. You know, and if that's not enough, you know, whenever the audience gets a hold of this video that Jonathan's going to air later, can you imagine there's been an ongoing investigation by Channel 10, an ongoing investigation, news. It's out there. Car dealerships. They're hitting, customers. It's just an amazing story, so stay tuned for that. But my point, at the end of the interview, Jeff said, and he is the newscaster, who is the investigator for this story, Ashley Moody wasn't available. She wasn't available for comment. She wasn't available, period. Ashley Moody, we're asking you to get involved. We're asking you to wrap your

head around the ongoing taking advantage of the consumer. I'm holding up the contract that has signed by Ed Morris Cadillac. And it's real simple. It's a promise. It says here a CD swap promised. It's called a Wii O. It's a common contract that all car dealers do. Somebody buys a car.

And they say, well, I always wanted a CD player. I always wanted a nav system. I always wanted a backup camera and the dealer's anxious to get the car delivered. So they fill out this form and sign it and promises the customer that they're going to perform this after the delivery. So it's a legal contract. And the salesperson that signed the contract is no longer working there, but that doesn't make any difference. And the manager that approved the contract, approved the WEO, is still there, but he just won't return phone calls. So here's a case of just absolutely obvious violation of the law,

consumers' rights, and our Attorney General ignoring it. Lori, I should have told you while you're on the line, but I'll email your Nancy will. You should file a complaint with the Department of Motor Vehicles too because they're far less likely to stall. They will go out and take action. Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. And also, Lori, you know, I have to commend.

commend you for your patience. It's just unbelievable. I mean, you only got in touch with us, I think, in June. And this all happened prior to that. So your patience and your knowledge and everything you're doing, stay at it. We are going to get Attorney General Ashley Moody's attention. I promise you, we will. We're going to go to Gary, who has been holding, and Gary is calling us from Naples. Good morning, Gary. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you.

I have a quick question. Maybe someone can help me. I had my lower control arm on the right side replaced on my Hyundai, and I had to put one new tire on because it blew out. Everything is fine, but it is a little bit of a choppy ride, because I had to drive the car with a bad control arm for about 400 miles. Would you guys recommend me, would you recommend to replace all four tires now? I'd have them inspected.

Just visual inspection on a tire would show any sort of odd wear patterns. You can even do this yourself. Just run your hand over the surface of the tire and see if you feel anything that feels wavy or choppy or if it feels like if you go one direction everything is smooth and then you run your hand back the other direction if it feels like you're feeling sharp edges on the tread that's called feathering um if you feel anything odd like that i would have it looked at further but i would definitely have someone look at your tires uh just to see if there's any odd wear patterns going on and have them check the the bearings and everything for tightness and

the front end. Okay, and when you replace the lower control arm, your car should run straight again, correct? Well, they should have done an alignment as well just to make sure that the toe is correct, but yes, replacing that control arm should have made the car run pretty straight down the road. Yep, okay, and another quick question. We use this as a commuter car. The turbo went and I had it replaced, but I have a warranty with Hyundai on the end. engine, because this is one of our commuter cars. They told me the turbo wasn't covered.

Is it only internal engine parts, or a turbo's not covered? You wouldn't know that. Most factory warranties they will, they go with their lettering as internally lubricated

engine components. Google it. Meaning anything that is lubricated by the engine, but internal in the engine, turbochargers are sometimes specifically excluded sometimes they're allowed in it because they are lubricated by the engine oil but it would depend upon the terms of their warranty you'd have to read the fine terms in their warranty

and Stu is Googling it now you if he can't find it you might try it too just to say ask Google is a turbo in my year make Hyundai covered under the one year was it what year was it? 15 16 2016 15 15 15 15

Hang on Google is thinking This is boring for other listeners Like you guys talk about it I like Google Stay tuned And Stu will have the answer for you In a couple of minutes

So thanks very much for your call And thanks very much for a very interesting question Yeah Gary we'll get that information to you ASAP Thank you very much guys do a great job and be safe thank you thank you so much for that 877 960 960 I got it we have George holding hold on George we'll let Stu go ahead and get Gary his information the warranty coverage for turbos for all the Hyundai is fall under the power train limited warranty of 10 years

or 100,000 miles there you go it's covered all right how do you like that okay I feel Gary jumping up He's jumping up and down. He's happy. He's clapping, I hope. Okay, we're going to go to George from West Palm Beach. Good morning, George. Good morning, gentlemen, and beautiful young lady. How are you this morning?

I'll take that. I'm great. Good morning. All right. Well, I have basically kind of like a statement. In regards to ordering a car, I ordered a Toyota Camry. It actually took. It actually took about six to eight weeks to get it.

I know that most people can't wait six to eight weeks to get a car. But I was able to do that. Now, the thing is, when I ordered the car, it came with something, I think it was Toyota Care or Toyota Guard. Toyota. Well, all of them have, all of them, all Toytos come with Toyota Care, which is a two-year maintenance, roadside assistance, and then a lot of dealers stock all of their Toytas in southeastern United States,

so down here with Toyota Care, which is an additional bunch of stuff, but it's highly priced $700 for about $200 worth of stuff. Correct. Now, when I ordered my vehicle, I ordered it without that, and it reduced the price by that $700, because as I think I was informed, You guys, it's called from the port. I don't know what the port is, if it's a shipping port or what. Jacksonville.

That's added on it at the port. Yeah, it's the big distribution center that they do a lot of vehicle preparation and accessorizing. Because Southeastwood distributors sells a lot of accessories. Right. So if anybody's going to order a car and you go to a dealership and you have the time to wait for the car, I just want them to know. you can always order it and save yourself $700 plus tax if you don't really want it.

And like you said, it's only like maybe $200 wheel locks and little things. If the dealer will cooperate with you on that, some dealers put that it's a hard part of their business model. And especially now with cars being priced well over MSRP, actually it doesn't even matter if there's toy guard on it because they're going $5,000 over. George, the dealers are almost coerced, or some of them are unaware, because they incentivize everybody, the salespeople, the managers, the dealer, and not only does it have a low cost, the Toya Guard have a low cost, but they have kickbacks on top of that, and some of the kickbacks are based on the percentage of cars you order. So if you're 50%, you get one kickback, if 75% of your cars have Toyo Guard, you get a higher kickback, I'm not sure how much.

if it goes up to 100 or not, but if you're the customer that comes in and says, I don't want Toyogard on my car, and they're struggling that month to hit their volume that they have to for get their big cash kickback that goes to the general manager, they might really give you a hard time about canceling it. Okay. All right. Well, that was good to know. I guess I got really lucky. And I have met you, I've met you, Earl. I've met both of your sons. I know quite a few guys in your service department that have been there long term. I've met you, Rick, and I have the highest regards for your dealership. I didn't buy the car from you, but I do have the highest regards for your dealership.

You guys run a class act. Thank you. Can we send George $50? I think we should. Hey, George, we certainly have an amazing team, and every once in a while, you know, everybody needs a little recognition. thank you for that they are amazing uh your service manager is great josh scott goes above over and above for everybody yeah above and beyond yeah your tires for life uh is great and i can't say more about them a hundred make it a hundred and you know what george some of the people that

you've mentioned they've been uh with us out a very very long time and they're very dedicated you know it's important just to get out there just just but what george brings up a good point anybody out there is considering a toota just know that toyo guard not toy to care toa guard is optional and and raise the issue you might save 700 dollars just say you don't want it because you don't need it well you know what they'll do if they're smart uh they will well they won't do it they're smart but they're also well they can't take it off the car no but what they could do is agree to sell it cost we did this way a couple of years ago One of my sons talked to me into buying cars with Toyogard.

So we tried it based on the fact that we would pass along the customer at our true cost. And that didn't work because even our true cost, it wasn't worth it. So the true cost on Toyagard is about $250 for $700. And the dealer would be highly unlikely to admit what it was because he wouldn't want you to know about the holdbacks and kickbacks that everybody doesn't know about the salesman probably doesn't know about it. A lot of salespeople think it is like standard equipment. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

But excuse me, excuse me. The main point is I ordered my car prior to it getting to the port. You told me about it. It was never on the addendum side of the car, if that's what it's called. Right. On the, yeah, so it was never put on at the port. and I did have to wait almost two months for the car

so I guess they were building it or whatever so you can't get it off if it's already on the car right exactly so you let them and they agreed it to not they just didn't put it on so they agreed to you I specifically

ordered the car without it I didn't want to some I got an excess E I didn't want a sunroof I heard XSEs come with Sunroof I ordered it without a sunroof, and I did not get a sunroof. So, I don't know if they built the card just for me. All right, guys.

Thanks, George. Thanks, George. And thank you for everything you do. Thank you, George. Stay with us. Have a great weekend. 877-960, 96, Texas at 772-497-3-0. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com.

And I can't repeat this website enough. www. Florida Law Protecting Carbuyers.com. Now back to Stu. Yeah, if I ask Jonathan to cue up that video, how long will that take you to do that, Jonathan? I got it ready now. Okay, this is a video that Nancy's talked about earlier,

WPLG Channel 10 of Miami, and it's an amazingly candid, good coverage of some of the shenanigans and desecanagan and deceptions and lying, cheat, and stealing that are going on in South Florida, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale Market, and there's class action suits going on, there's losses, there's settlements, is one of the biggest retail automotive scandals ever to hit down here. This is big news.

Channel 10, WPLG, I salute them for their courage, and I will play a video clip, and you can see for yourself, and if you're listening, you can hear. And let me add to this that at the end of this, video. Listen carefully. Ashley Moody, the Attorney General, was unavailable to make a comment. Jonathan? An update tonight on a Local 10 News investigation into car dealerships hitting customers with unexpected fees when they go to buy out their current lease. Since our stories, several lawsuits have been filed. Some South Florida dealerships have settled and a class action lawsuit is now pending.

to get a Jeff Feinzee or it's back on the case. I wanted to buy my lease out. I figured it would be an easy thing to do. Dr. Barry Resnick was wrong. Despite the fact his purchase price at the end of the lease was all spelled out in a contract. When he originally leased a 2019 Buick Encore three years ago, Lehman Buick wanted to charge him a $250 inspection fee and a $999 dealer fee. I said, why are you giving me all these fees?

Well, this is the way we have to do it. The finance company wants us to do that. He referenced our prior stories where an attorney said under the Consumer Leasing Act of 1976, you can't charge fees not disclosed in the original lease. And that's when they stopped talking to me. Every Buick dealership you called had a fee. Yes, up until Vera. After leases, but some were finding themselves knocked out of the driver's seat.

Since our first stories hit the air back in March, consumers have taken legal action. According to federal court records, Midway Ford charged one of its customers over $2,200 in fees to buy out a lease. He sued. They settled. Coral Springs Kia charged one of its customers over $1,000 in undisclosed fees in a lease buy. out. He too sued. They settled. World Omni Southeast Toyota Finance also settling a lawsuit after South Day Toyota not only charged their customer $2,200 more than the agreed buyout value in a contract, but then hit him with another $1,494 in undisclosed fees. That's $3,706 more to buy out his Toyota forerunner.

Palmetto 57 Nissan settling a case after overcharging a customer, $800 more than the agreed price for a Nissan Rogue, and then tacking on $1,200 in fees? That's $2,000 extra as part of the settlement those consumers can't talk to us. Right now, federal lawsuits are pending against Deerfield Automotive, operating as King Hyundai, Doral Lincoln, Sheehan, Sheean Buick GMC. Sources tell Local 10 News several cases against Gunther Automotive have been settled through arbitration.

Those terms are also confidential. Additionally, this class action lawsuit has also been filed against Hyundai Capital doing business as Genesis Finance over these fees. But a federal judge has yet to certify the suit as class action. As we reported back in March due to a lack of inventory on the lots and high prices, more consumers than ever are buying out their current leases. In Florida, if you sell three or more vehicles a year, you need a dealer's license. So the banks and the financial institutions we make payments to monthly send us to the dealer to facilitate the buyouts at the end of the lease.

But the dealers make no money facilitating the transactions, so many create these fees. It's a flawed system and the uneducated consumer winds up getting screwed. It was really taken aback. As far as Dr. Resnick's experience at Lehman Buick? Will you remember this experience with that dealer the next time you buy a car? Of course. No one at any of the dealerships just mentioned nor their attorneys would actually talk to us on camera.

And what about our state attorney general? A spokesperson for Ashley Moody's office says she wasn't available to be interviewed on this issue. Frankly, we couldn't find any state agency currently protecting consumers on this issue at all. Jeff Weinstein here, Local 10 News. That's great. That's dynamite, folks. If you can Google it and replay that, or if you'd like a copy of it, let us know. But you attorneys out there, I mean, I'm not going to appeal to your morality or ethics, appeal to your pocketbooks. You want to make some serious money.

I've got to get in on this. We're not talking just one dealer or two dealers. There's a couple dozen dealers already settling. And you're also talking manufacturing lending arms. Southeast Toyota Finance settled. Well, you settle a lawsuit because you think you're going to lose. They settled. Now, Hyundai captive auto finance company called Jenna's,

as this finance is being sued. So you lawyers out there in the audience, and I know a few of you are listening, think about this. You can go after a lending arm of General Motors or Honda or a Mazda or whatever you want to do.

The conspiracy is this. The manufacturer requires the dealer to take the lease car back, but there's nothing in the franchise agreement that he has, his contract, with that manufacturer that says you should do that. So common sense, by the way, says

I do it as a dealer because I like to see the lease cars when they come back. I like to treat customers nicely and you take a lease car back in, you have an opportunity to buy it at a favorable price, you can sell it and make a profit. But they still should tell the dealers

this is what your compensation is. When a dealer takes a new car and prepares it for delivery, we get reimbursed for it. When you take a lease car and inspect it and check it out and return it to the leasing company, the dealer should be reimbursed. So the captive lending companies of the manufacturers are at fault, but the dealers are really at the big fault because they're the ones charging thousands of dollars for something

that should be a couple hundred bucks for an inspection, and it should be paid for by the lending, by either the leasing company or the dealer anyway. So this is big, and as Nancy said earlier, if there's any doubt in your mind, you know, mind that Ashley Moody is in the tank for the Florida automobile dealers and the auto manufacturers that sell here, if there's any doubt that she's afraid to take action against car dealers in Florida because she won't get reelected, I think that should clear it up. I mean, how embarrassing to be, this isn't just one little complaint, this is multiple dozens of Floridians being victimized by dealers, not just South Florida, but all over the state.

And with virtually every dealer, if you return a lease car, they're going to charge you, they're going to charge you many fees, and it's illegal. It's a violation of the Consumer Leasing Act of 1976. And Ashley Moody is an attorney, she should know that. and for her to ignore these crimes that are going on, it's just shameful. Absolutely. And, you know, I have to say that not only does Ashley Moody need to get involved in this, do you want to get, let's make a political, do you want to get reelected?

You want a big name for yourself? This is huge, Ashley Moody. And guess what? Any state agency, any state agency, there's nobody. There's nobody looking. There's nobody talking. There's nobody available for comment. Let our voices be heard.

Remember the website I gave you earlier, and also remember that you can go to Earl Stewart Toyota's Facebook page, and you can take a look at that video again. One more comment I have. Jeff Weinseer is the investigative reporter for Channel 10, WPLG, Jeff Weinseer, W-E-I-N-S-I-E-R, an amazing guy. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to go in and confront these dealers and confront the lending companies and write a story like that.

When he interviewed me for this story two months ago, the beginning of the story, I told him, I said, good luck getting this by your editor. Why? Because WPLG take a huge amount of money from car dealers in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. and I said you tell your editor before you waste your time and waste my time and you spend three days

writing this story tell your editor what's about and will he run it and the reason I told him that is because about 10 years ago a reporter Jeff Weinseer's predecessor

at WPLG in Miami contacted me spent the entire day with me Nancy and I were speaking at the Rotary Club in Palm Beach She attended the Rotary Club meeting. She came into the dealership, spent the day at the dealership, wrote this amazing story about dealer deception,

and his editor killed it because they were afraid the dealers would boycott them on advertising. So Jeff Weinseer, WPLG, Channel 10, you are journalists in the truest sense of the word. Congratulations. Yeah, we can't say enough about you. Before Rick says anything, I'm going to remind you. Jonathan just reminded me,

you can go to Earl Stewart on Cars Facebook page and you can also go to Earl Stewart on Cars YouTube channel and you can view this video. So take a second look at it, take a third look at it and just listen. It is mind-boggling. Ashley Moody is not available for comment. Rick?

This question may have been answered by all that you've said but it came in right before we started the video. John Bells asked, are auto dealers allowed by law to donate to candidates in auditor general elections? Could you explain the lack of interest in going after car dealers who ignore the law? I wasn't aware there was a law. I do know this, that there are a lot of car dealers out there that are multi-millionaires. Car dealers in Florida, this is the promised land for car dealers.

It's a good place to do business, and car dealers make a lot of money. individually, they're very wealthy and they make contributions. In addition to that, they have their political action committees and you're required, the dealers are basically required, and I put that in quotes, you give them your credit card number and they hit it every year and they're like trial attorneys. They have a huge fund with political action committees. Then they have associations. They start with, there's a Miami Dealers Association, a Tampa Dealers Association, a Jackson

invent dealers associations and there's the big one the Florida automobile dealers associate and there's a huge one the national and all their sole purpose of the associations is to raise money to get candidates elected to attorney general and state senator and state congressman and any other regulatory area so Ashley Moody if she decided that she wanted to go after the car dealers she would know she would not get re-elected because they'd cut her off and they would choose another stooge and say you want to get elected you want to play ball then we'll get you elected attorney general that's the way it goes and folks um here we have again i'm reiterating

i can't say this enough she is the chief state legal officer you know um i hear this the buck stops with you and you have to make a stand you have to let your voice be heard Ashley Moody, join the people. They elected you. Please, recognize the corruption that is going on. Recognize that the consumer is being taken advantage of. This is the 21st century. It's time to move on.

It's time to do things the right way. Rick? Donovan is actually just asking, how much does it really cost the dealership to file for registration electronically? on a car. $10. That's what we pay. We use an outside sublet service.

It's cheaper for us to send it to the sublet service than to hire somebody in the accounting department to do that work. So they take a $10 item, they market it up to $999 or $1,000 or $500 or whatever they want to call it. He says, many dealers are now charging a $500 electronic filing fee. Exactly. There you go. There's Florida law again.

Florida law allows dealers to add fees to the advertised price of a car, and they don't put a limit in California. The maximum fee, I think, is $100 or $125. It used to be $75. Other states have limits, and they have to call it a dealer fee or a dock fee. They have a name. I mean, if you're going to try to regulate something, it's got to have a name. in Florida, there's no limit on what car dealers can charge for fees

legally, and there's no limit on what they can name it. They can name it Rick Kearney or Earl Stewart. They can name it Salvation Army. I mean, they come up with clever names. Typically, the way they name these phony fees is they try to allude as part of the registration process.

Electronic filing fee. Oh, tag agency fee. Those are two good ones. And administrative fee, dealer preparation fee, They try to make it sound legitimate, and none of it's legitimate, and there's no law saying they have to tell you what it really is. Okay, folks, I hope you hear us lot and clear. We've been pretty clear.

877-960-9960. We are going to go back to the phones where Mike has been waiting patiently from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, guys. I love the show, and I just wanted to say I'm so glad you guys are talking about this. I wanted to call in a year ago because this happened to me even worse than what I'm hearing right now

and it was with I-95 Nissan they tried to charge I had a Toyota paid them to the penny what the buyout was same thing with my mother's Subaru my wife's Nissan Roll we went to take it in

they added $8,000 in to the trade end there was a $2,000 fee they said from Nissan they said Nissan charges us $2,000 to do this there was a $1,200 inspection fee

$800 cleaning fee I'm like you're not cleaning the car. It's in my driveway. I want to give you the money. So I ended up starting to walk out and the salesperson chased me down and said, what if I knock off this fee, this fee, and this fee? And that's when I got really mad. Like, well, now you're just adding a bunch of arbitrary BS to this to try to get money out of me. And I walked out. And I will say that I did call Nissan finance directly. And they said that this is not our practice. They wanted to know the name of the dealership, the name of the salesperson and all that. And they rectified

it and points us to a dealer that wouldn't do this, but it's crazy how people are trying to take advantage these days. That's crazy. Thank you, Mike. That's a horrible experience. It's probably painful you just to relate it to us. You're kind of reliving it. No, it was.

It was a year ago, and it's still bothering me. I guess you were. Thank you guys for bringing this to light. I can imagine, Mike, and, you know, we really appreciate your phone call. It doesn't matter if it's a year old, two years old. It's been going on much too long. and there's plenty of money out there to be made by the auto industry. It's quite a wealthy, as you well know, and they're not in the soup line.

They don't need to take advantage of consumers. And, you know, fees are fine. But these laundry list of fees that you have to have a dictionary to be able to define all of the fees that they charge. they're all illegal. So, Mike, I thank you for your phone call. Well, thank you guys for doing what you do. You're welcome.

Have a great weekend. 877960-9960, or you can text, Stu, at 772-4976530. Don't forget you, too. Rick is waiting patiently. Stu? All right. I got a text from Bob. We're back in Costco.

Bob says, good morning. My question is if buying a set of tires from Costco, they don't do wheel alignments. is one needed, and what is the average cost to have one performed? We charge $124 or four-wheel alignment. $120. Does he say Costco does not do alignment? Yes. When they install the wheels, they don't...

I don't know. He says, I'll read it again. My question is if buying a set of tires from Costco, they don't do wheel alignment. So I don't know if that's an accurate statement, but it might be. I'll check it out. Does it make... I mean, if you install wheels, are you supposed to check your... alignment when you install new wheels it's a very good idea to have your alignment checked when you're

putting new tires on to protect them that's a great god's good but if they don't have the machine to do it yeah i i would find i find that hard to believe well let's check on that i got a couple questions for gosco so um i i do know this that alignments uh should be alignment check should be free and uh with the machine it's a piece of cake to measure it is there something else to have to bring it back into conformity, but somebody should check your car free for alignment. And I, if Costco didn't get it, didn't do it, I would bring it over to somebody that would do it and check it free. And then if it needs an alignment, then you have to pay, depending on how much it needs to be aligned.

I don't know yet. Let's continue, but I'll find it. Okay. Got another text. Okay, Rick. Kirk in West Buy God, Virginia, is asking Earl, do you? you have an update on the publication of your second book? Nancy has been interviewed for the book, and we're adding a little input.

We're right at the edge of going to press. So I would confidently say, before the end of the year, they'll be on the shelves, or on Kindle or on I-book. Redemptions of a recovering car dealer. I'm also debating whether or not I should do an audio version. and no so we're close no i'm saying no costco does not costco does not do will alignments oh costco does not oh well my boy what a great question now wait no i'm getting conflicting information on the internet's right i spoke too soon um i'm getting uh somebody saying that costco does do wheel

alignments they range between 80 and 250 dollars i don't see it on casca's website though so uh i'm about 60% confident that they do. I am too. About 60 is a good number. We're really, we're telling the good, the bad and the ugly, right?

Costco's got some great things going for it, and they have some foibles too. Well, more text. By the way, Amri chimed in when we were talking about the fin cloning at the Ford dealer and they couldn't figure out

they had a two-year-old Carter. It was a Dodge dealer that figured it out in two minutes. There you go. If you're paying attention, and you can figure these things out. That's amazing how incompetent

certain people and certain dealerships can be. I mean, here's an inside story is that some dealerships, when you bring your car in for an appraisal, the appraiser doesn't even get in the car, doesn't open the hood. He might not even, he might just stay in his air conditioner all.

Yeah, he'll look at it out there, and he'll get the book out and he'll put a number on. So there's trickery, chicanery, and a lot of going on, but there's also stupidity and laziness that goes on. So when you're dealing with a dealer, you've got a lot of things to protect yourselves against. A lot of arrogance. I forgot to mention that. Also, Craig texted us and said he'd been seeing the news reports about all the extra fees being added when people purchased their lease vehicles,

and they wanted to know our opinion on that. I think we covered that, Craig. We got to it before we got to your question. I went on an incredible ramp. It was a great rant, and we heard the news report, which I hadn't heard yet, and that was just astonishing. So I think we covered that for him. So you didn't know that Southeast Toyota finances are in trouble. They quietly settled with a non-disclosure agreement.

Yeah, that was in the report, and also one of our fellow dealers down there down in Miami. Dade. Yeah. Or Dural, or was it South Dade? I think it was South Dade, yeah. Oh, boy. Okay. We have some anonymous feedback if we can get to it.

Oh, great. All right. Oops, I'm sorry. I'm on the wrong page. Here we go. I just walked Lexus of Winter Park's lot, and they are still putting adjusted market value or bump stickers. That's a good name for them, bump stickers.

They're new Lexuses. I also believe dealers are making straw purchases, new cars, paying a few monthly payments, and then selling the CPO cars and inflated prices. You're partially right. Yeah, they are buying cars. from their own inventory, they're not making payments on them, but they are purchasing them and selling them as certified pre-owned.

And that is actually a violation. If we're talking about, well, Lexus, I don't know if they have the same restrictions. That's a violation of the Toyota Ad Covenant, and that's actually, it gets violated all the time. Now, the dealers take advantage to consumers. They also take advantage of the manufacturers. And the allocation system, to be fair, they're supposed to send cars to dealers. dealers as quickly as he sells them or as close to that as they can.

Right now during this shortage, it's extremely important to be able to get some cars because they're so short supply. So when the dealers cheat the manufacturer, they're also cheating their fellow dealers. They pretend to sell a car and tell them the manufacturer they sold the car when they didn't really, and that earns them another car. Right. Here's another one from anonymous feedback. Ford Motor leader is cracking down on, leaders are cracking down on.

on dealers. Tesla is having major quality issues. Ford pickup trucks that cannot be shipped are being stored at a major racetrack due to the lack of chips in Kentucky. Seems like each day there are more stories regarding ethics in the car business. Perhaps karma is coming for a visit and they like to say karma is a, I don't know if I can say it on the radio, it was a bee in it. It is, but you know, the thing is the woes everybody's bringing up with the car business is resulting in record profits. So the car dealers, the four dealers that can't get the blue ovals because they don't, they don't want the blue ovals because it's jacking up the prices for them.

So maybe on the other side of this karma is going to come. And I think that's going to be when people remember the behavior that occurred between 2021 and 2024, wherever long this is going to last. Yes, Rick. When the CHR first came out, they actually were shipping them without a little red reflector that went on the back bumper. And we had a special campaign that all these cars that came in, several thousand of them, had to come back in just first to install this little reflector on the back bumper.

It was silly, but it's like, but I'm hard to imagine. They can't send them out without the Ford emblem on it. Yeah, I know. Well, you know, maybe they confuse them with a GM car or something. I don't know. Could be. This is from a Bloomberg article published earlier this month. This comes in on anonymous feedback.

A London firm is creating a box to attach behind the wheels of vehicles to capture particles. Okay. I think I read this one earlier. To capture particles coming off the tires. This is about the rubber. Well, no, the non-rubber. It's just the oil products. This might be because we've got a bunch of them last week.

People are just telling us how electric vehicles are going to destroy the environment. So in this case, I'll summarize it, the vehicles are heavier, electric vehicles, because the batteries are heavy. so there is more rubber particles coming off the tires into the atmosphere. It's not actually a rubber. Or whatever it is. Very little rubbers using my, they're petrochemicals. Yeah, petrochemicals are what tires are mainly made up. I thought they were mainly rubber, but they're not.

And to Stu's comment, ladies and gentlemen, you know, knowledge, knowledge, we're talking about the environment, we're talking about electric vehicles. You know, whether anyone likes it or not, they're here, and it's now. and it's going to get bigger than ever. And if you haven't read anything from Consumer Report, from the automotive news, they talk about California. They talk about the heat wave. They talk about the meltdown

and what caused the power to just disappear. So take a look at all that. Consumer Report, it'll straighten out your head. Got another quick text from Emory wanted to make a correction. It was a, sorry, I read that wrong. It was a Dodge dealer that messed up and sold the truck, the Ford. And it was the Ford dealer that got the mistake.

So I apologize to the Ford Corporation. Oh, boy. And the dealer. Okay. We're going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report. Certainly has been an exciting show. And I hope all of you were taking notes and that you'll, you know, take our lead. Your voice must be heard.

don't let anyone silence you. Your opinion is very, very important. And hopefully it will get to Ashley Moody. Hopefully it will get to Governor DeSantis. There are so many people here that can help this shenanigans stop. We're going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report of Wallace Kia, and we're hoping that you will vote on this mystery shop at 772-4976530. Your vote is important.

Is it possible we've never mystery shop Wallace, Kia, and Stuart? I can't believe it either. It's hard to believe, given the number of times, we've shoped Wallace dealerships over the years. Stu checked the archives, no Wallace Kia mystery shop. Unbelievable. I think it's because the Bev Smith Kia and Fort Pierce north of them make so much noise, they do a whole lot of advertising,

and they kind of drown out the fact that Wallace Kia has a store in Stewart, Florida. They shine so brightly, you can't even see poor Wallace Key. Yeah, Frank Hernandez. TV star. Benzales, Frank Arnandez. Barring a filing era, this may be the first time

we've ever mystery shop at Wall's Kia. So it's kind of extraordinary that Agent Lightning picked them as the target, because Stu said, pick one in Stewart, she would be driving north, and she picked Wallis Kia. Until this week, we thought we'd hit the Walls dealerships. In recent years,

we've documented a downslide in the mystery shop grades. The last shop we did, now these are in the Wallace dealerships, we had one that was perfect almost. We gave somebody in A, one of us used carless. Yeah, the easy pay.

The last shop we did back in February of the year shined a light on one of the bigger premiums over MSRP, which was $16,300. Which dealership was that? That was Wallace Volkswagen. Volkswagen, yeah. Well, that is a big one. 16,300 over MSRP.

Prior to the inventory crunch, we investigated some questionable direct mail offers from Wallace Volkswagen, just more evidence of what appears to be a broader and longer pattern of ethical decay. At Wall's Cadillac, we discovered addendum with nitrophil and auto butler at Wallace Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep,

Dodge Jeep Ram. Why? John's Cramm, Jeep, Jam. What do they do? That's what I want to say. They got to come. Oh, they do. Stalantis.

Isn't that what it is now? Yeah, it's called Stalantis. No, no. Welles Stalantus. Yeah. Is that Pig Latin? The adons included the same pinstripes and a Wall's protection package. But if you go back three or four years, the shops are much better, mild and pleasant.

We don't know why things change. We've only been able to speculate about things like changeovers in management or Bill loss being spread too thin. you know Bill Wallace is about my age he's probably hanging it up he's probably relaxed and he loves to fish and you know you can't

go with a name on a dealership I mean just because it's Schumacher or Wallace or Earl Stewart for that matter you know they have people with names on them or dealerships with names

on them where the people are dead so you know just because a guy had a reputation and I'd say this Bill Wallace I've known him for years he's an honorable guy, he's a moral guy and if his dealerships aren't doing rights because either he's not around

or he's retired and he doesn't know what's going on. Let's see here. Okay. But if you go back three or four years and I did that too, the hope that we had this week was that we would find the Good Walls dealership, one that made it

through the last few crazy years. That would really be an accomplishment. but spared from the temptations that almost all other car dealers have succumbed to. Okay, here's a report on Agent Lightning speaking in the first person. I was greeted by an older salesman named Michael. As soon as I exited my car, he shook my hand, led me inside, out of the heat. We sat at a table and Michael began a rounded questioning. The usual soft name, rank, serial number.

He wrote all of my answers down. I told him I was interested in the Kia Forte. Forte. Yeah. You know Forte? What a terrible name. We'll call a fort. Yeah, well, that's, you know why they don't call it a fort.

So they probably did call it a fort. They said, we better call this a Forte. Michael seemed catchy to let me know that he actually had one in stock and available. He offered to pull it up front for me and asked me to wait for him. Michael was back in a few minutes to say he did not have any new Forteys in stock. He thought they should have one available any day now. day now. I asked him if he could look around the lot for something. Michael told me they have their way of doing things here, and the dealership frowned on customers wandering around a lot.

I mean, that's... Gotta love it. It's funny. I mean, well, dealers do frown. I mean, I'm a dealer, and when I see a customer wandering around a lot by themselves, I get upset because we want someone to be able to answer the customer's questions, identify them as a prospective customer and try to sell them a car. So if Bill Wallace was a block away with his binoculars and he saw Agent Lightning wandering a lot without a salesman, he would get upset. But I think she was going to go with him. Maybe he was tired and it was hot and he's an old guy. Maybe somebody got run over a few years ago and he got sued and he didn't want anybody walking around anymore. Maybe he was a control freak.

Then Michael told me he believed they had a new 2003 Kia K-5, sporty sedan, about the size of a Toyota Camry available. I agreed to consider it. Once again, he asked me to wait. I asked to go with him, but Michael did not seem to want company. He told me it was too hot outside, but I kept

pressuring him. We went outside together and found three identical Kia K-5s parked together. I told him I liked the car. Asked to see more of it. Michael said he needed to pull it up front from me and here we go again. They have their way of doing things around here.

Okay. So we're gathered now. Okay, that maybe he sees what's got to be done. He might not like it, but that's the way we do things around here. I walk back to the front dealership. Michael pulled it up right away, right after

I got there. He popped the hood, showed me the breakaway engine mounts and the excellent welding. This is why I laugh when I read it because back, that was supposed to be something used to get customers excited. And you say, you know, if you has breakaway engine mounts. So if you run into something, the engine will drop out and go under the vehicle and not intrude into the pasture cabin, keeping you and your family safe.

How do you like that, Mr. customer? He told me that breakaway engine mounts where it was saved Tiger was life. I mean, I like that. Well, we don't know if that's actually. I googled it. It's true. Is it really? Yeah.

How do you like that? Yeah. So, in fact, I didn't even, I guess maybe if I scratched my head, I knew they had breakaway engine amounts, but you shouldn't mention these things. You never know. Right. Because you know it? People don't know about these things, but to me, it just sounds like, and this has seatbelts. You put this across your belt. Well, I used to say that. Okay. We went all over the features of the car, and then we took it for a test drive. Along the way,

Michael shared that he was retired, see? He's just coming back into the workforce, but quickly bored with it. He said he returned to selling cars. He was a bank robber He retired You missed a little section arrow You missed the MSRP Was 28985 section Oh yeah, go back one little paragraph

Oh, thank you The MSRP was 28985 There was an addendum It was the 3995 addendum And called market Limited limited market availability And they had the auto butler The Nitrofil first oil change

That's strange The first oil change isn't free on Keyes? I'd be surprised if it wasn't, but I don't know. So Wallace's list price was 32-984. Okay. We came back to the dealership, went inside, found the same table. I asked for pricing

breakdown. He printed a purchase agreement that gave them to handwrite the figures. Michael wrote the MSRP incorrectly. 29-895 and I corrected him. He asked if I was sure, and I tried to show him the picture I took. He wouldn't look.

Tisks, chisks. They have their way of doing things. Yeah, right. To check the car anyway. And I saw Michael walk back inside and head over to the counter where all the sales managers were. Then he had it back my way. He sat down and formed me. He had asked his manager if he could go ahead and split the market adjustment with me and the boss approved.

She didn't even ask. Maybe she wanted to pay the whole thing. Yeah, right. Michael continued a hand right on the sheet. He corrected the MSRP. Evidently, Agent Lightning was right, I was right. Then he added $2,000, half of the market adjustment. Then he wrote, plus taxes and fees.

Then he wrote $849. I asked him if I could get something printed out that detailed the things that would be paying for him. He should know, this is how they do it here. I wonder if he really kept saying that over and over again. I write every time he said it that she wrote it down, I put it in the report. To write again, ask me to use a calculator on my phone,

do some math for him. He wrote I thought that was funny too. Approximately 34,000 350 plates and 3410. The gist was a bunch of like just notes that they weren't very clear. I asked Michael to help me figure out

the front door, out the door number and he replied the only way to get an exact number is to go through financing and that was it. I was out of there. And of course this is that last comment is one to think about. Because you never know until you get out of the finance office, what you really paid for the car.

There's too much time taking in the negotiation and time with the salesman, too much time for you to look at things, to check things. So a lot of dealers save the big stuff, the big screwing for the finance department. Because if the finance department, you're defeated. You're in a state of euphoria. You've bought that new car you've been thinking about and dreaming about. You're thinking about parked in your driveway, telling your family and friends. And so you walk into that finance department almost like in a daze. And that's where they hit you with a lot of extra fees and products that you didn't approve.

And we talk too much about the sales process really here at Erlon Car's because it's impractical. first to go through the finance department. And still, I say this every couple of months. We probably need to do it, even if we only did it once every six months, to go through and actually buy a car and we can turn around,

shall it, get rid of it somehow or other, and the cost will be worth the true experience of what happens in the finance department. Because they're spitting out reams of paper from that high-speed printer and that computer, and you sign your name so many times

it would be impossible, even if you were an attorney, to read everything you signed. And they know that. And the dealers call it the box, as our regular listeners know, because there's so much deception goes there. Every time we do a shopping report like we just did here, think there may have been something waiting for Agent Lightning in the box that we don't know about. Time to vote. Well, I don't have any coming in yet.

Actually, I've got ones, Bob. It should have been a B, but it's a C. C. This is pretty straightforward South Florida Fair. There wasn't anything extraordinary. Curve, curve, curve. Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I thought the salesperson was interesting.

And I also think it's interesting the differences between the addendums at the different Wallace dealerships. This was $39.95. We were at the other place last year with almost $13,000. MSRP. Jonathan in Wellington says, I have my way of doing things, too. And they don't include being rude to customers and adding fraudulent fees. He's giving them a D. There you go. I've got Kirk in West by God, Virginia. Wait a minute while I pull my grade up front, my way of doing things.

Well, with all the junk fees, my way of doing things earns you a solid F. Not even worth going to the box. Guy Larrabee, a C for me. Tim Gilliland, D-minus, because that's the way we do things here. Donovan Lewis, giving them an F. Hate that, need to finance to get the outdoor-door price. I agree with him on that one. Brian Siddletco, F.

Mark Smith, D-minus, Mark Ryan, a D-minus. And for me, I'm going to say D because the whole, we're not giving you the outdoor-door price until you get in finance. I think that one's a little pushy. rude. It's funny how many votes we get on YouTube and we don't get many texts. I got another one. My text gang is slower than Rex. We have another, a D-minus. I don't have a name on this one. So I have three grades. And Joseph Kelleher with an F. All right. What do you say, Mrs. Sunrise? Okay, folks. I don't know. This is the way I do it. F.

between the out-the-door price that you can't get because you had to get into the box or the auto butler or the nitro fill the whole shabang this is the way i do it if and you can go to irwan cars dot com and you can read hundreds of mystery shopper reports most of which reveal unfair and deceptive car excuse me deceptive acts deceptive acts or practices on car dealers anyway one last one from Ron Siegel says I just don't understand why people just don't get up and walk out whenever these addems and add-ons come up if they would do it all if they would all do it the practices would cease well this is true and Nancy makes important why don't you complain to the Attorney General's office, and we all say you should complain to your local state senators and the Federal Trade Commission, but the Federal Trade Commission won't do anything. By the way, just for your edification, the Flora Automobile Dealers Association

is going after that FTC regulations that they're trying to put in big time. They're lobbying in Tallahassee now to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from having anything to say, and It's like a, it's like a, it's like a, huge effort going on. So, uh, this, uh, we're getting close on time. Yeah, you've got to vote. Huh? You have to vote. Oh, I'm going to go.

I'm going to go. I'm going to see it. That's an average report. Uh, I want to say one thing about Michael, the salesperson. Remember, when you go into these dealerships, here's a guy. For all I know, he's an okay guy. And he, maybe he needed the money. He says he, he said he got bored, but maybe he was bored and also needed the money. And you have a week for a car dealership and they tell you, uh, if you do exactly what

I say, you can make $10,000 a month, but you have to do exactly what I say. And some of this is people that need money working hard to feed their families following orders, kind of like a Nuremberg thing. Nuremberg defense. Yeah. Well, I noticed that. Some of his behavior like bringing the car, insisting on bringing the car up, is that they do that because so the manager can see that you're doing a demonstration. So that's for control of the customer. So the managers, we're in view of it. And so that's the reason he had to make her walk so his

manager would see he was following the rules. So you're absolutely right. That's what you do. You know, control, arrogance and Michael is the old school. But Mike, I guess what? This is the 21st century now. We've got to do things right. And as I said

earlier, you can go to earl-oncars.com and you can read hundreds of mystery shopping reports that reveal, reveal, unful, fair and deceptive acts and practices by these car dealers. We can put this to

an end. We really can't. I believe that. So, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for tuning in to Earl on cars and we have I think three minutes. Okay, guys. What do you want to I'm going to do a big dog ranch. I'm going to do a big dog

ranch commercial. Okay. Big dog ranch, can you wolf with your mask on? Very good. Wow. That was the best when you ever did that. There's the little dog. My second book is coming along shortly, but this is a good one too. It's a handbook on how not to get it ripped off by a car dealer.

Go to Amazon, buy this book, and 100% of the proceeds, go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, which is the largest no-kill shelter in the southeast. We have hundreds of dogs out there, and we vaccinate them, we deworm them. We have a vet, a full-time vet. We need to have a maternity ward And pregnant dogs that come in We take the puppies And we find homes for the puppies

And the mothers And it's right out Okachobi Road And locks a hatchie But it's huge We're also opening a new facility In South Carolina So consider adopting a dog Or fostering a dog

And if you don't adopt the dog You can buy the book And the money that you would have paid For the book Well you still pay it But it goes to Big Dog Ranch not to me. I get zero on this. Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Yeah, what do you think? Fostering a dog? Would you consider?

Yeah, we talk about it all the time. Yeah, most people don't know. Go to Earl. He needs a great day. On cars on Facebook page, and you can see our dog of the week, that's Little Muffin. She just gave birth to seven puppies, and she's waiting to be adopted. She's very tired. And she is just a beautiful little girl. Muffin.

Okay, folks. Thank you for tuning in. We'll be right back here next week, 8 a.m. until 10 with another fabulous show. Have a great weekend.