Earl Stewart on Cars - 09.29.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet

Episode Date: September 29, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet in Coconut Creek to purchase a car with an identified manufacturer recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. And good afternoon and good evening to you folks that listen to us on a podcast. My name is Earl. I'm often referred to as a recovering car dealer. And this show is Earl Stewart on Cars.

To sum it up in a nutshell, it's about how not they get ripped off by your car dealer. There I said it, offending a certain segment of the population, the retail automotive industry, and I say that with confidence, because I'm speaking from experience. I'm speaking from 50 years of experience, and I am a recovering car dealer, and I'm currently a car dealer. I started the business back in 1968, and I've sold a... a lot of different varieties of cars. At one time, I had probably half a dozen car dealerships. And I had an awakening a couple decades ago.

And my awakening was, I'm taking advantage of my customers to sell more cars and sell more service and make more money. I didn't necessarily step across the line of legality, but I definitely crossed the line of ethics. and so here I am in a radio studio in South Florida the same radio studio I've been in for 10 plus years I think it's probably been 11 and start out with a half an hour show

same sort of a theme how to buy a car lease a car maintain or repair your car without being taken advantage of and it's expanded from a half an hour to two hours and we've changed times a couple of times. We're now on, if you're podcasting us, this show is live 8 to 10 on Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern standard time every Saturday. And I'm not alone. I couldn't do this alone, especially for two hours.

So I've got a group here with me. To my right is Rick Kearney. Rick has been an auto technician for many, many years. you know, he's coming up on a quarter century. Does that make you feel low, Rick? It does. Yep.

I know how you feel. Rick, we called him a mechanic many years ago, and then we started calling him an auto technician. Now I call him an auto computer scientist. And there's very little that he doesn't know about the inside of a car. He can tell you just about everything that goes wrong, how to fix it, how to avoid having to fix it. who to see to get it fixed.

So if you're driving the car, late model, an older car, whatever it is, we'd love to hear from you. You're going to be hearing this number over and over again. 877-9-60-9-9-60. That's the dial-in number. I guess we don't dial anymore, do we?

We say dial-in. They do, but the kids don't know what dialing actually means. Dialing, yeah. But you know what I'm talking about. That's a telephone. [phone]. And for a lot of people, I think we're actually getting more text these days on calls. In fact, I'm sure we are.

We have a text number. I keep meaning to get a easily remembered text number, and we will do that. But currently, the text number is code 772-497-3530. That's 772-497-6530. I got those numbers out early because it's important that you write them down. you probably don't have anything to say right now, questions, comments, criticisms. We love to hear it all. But write them down 877-960-9960 if you want to call us in 772-497-497-6-5-30 if you want to text us.

And I was just introducing the panel here. And next to Rick, Rick Kearney, our auto computer scientist, is Nancy Stewart. Nancy Stewart, in full transparency and disclosure. is my wife, but she's more importantly, well, not more importantly, more importantly for the show. She's my co-host. And she is a strong female advocate, women's advocate. Some people don't like saying female. It doesn't sound warm enough.

But you know what I'm talking about. Women, you heard hashtag Me Too movement. I mean, how could you avoid it? I mean, you can't turn on any form of media, social otherwise, without being bombarded. The women are free. They have been freed. And they're out and they're talking about it. And that's what Nancy does.

And she's been talking about it. She's ahead of her time. She's been talking about it for 10 or 15 years. And that's her place on the show, is to try to encourage more females to call to discuss a female point of view on buying, leasing, maintaining a repairing car. Good morning, everyone.

Welcome. Remember, ladies, first tune, new lady callers you can win yourself $50 and I think that I have been marching for the cause for women since I was probably about 25 years old so I have well

I have a lot of talent yes and it's it's a lot of people don't like to talk about these things and I'm so happy that there is an outburst of the female point of view now talking about things that they were afraid to talk about And what Nancy's been talking about for all the years we've been on the show is why are women treated differently when they come into a car dealership to maintain a repair of their car or for that matter to buy or lease a car.

So that's the reason we offer cash incentive for the first two new female callers. We try to hit a 50-50 balance. We'd like to have, we don't want to have all-female. We want to have 50-50 because half of the audience is female. and half is male. So $50 cash, no conditions to the first two new female callers. And to Nancy's right is my son, and he is our cyber guy. He's Earl Stewart III, but we call him Stu, so we can have more clarification, too many earls in the family. And Stu is very important. Nassie reaches a segment of the audience that's sometimes difficult to communicate

with properly. Stu reaches a very large segment. The youth, I guess, because, and I don't mean 25 years old, I'm talking, anybody that's cyber-savvy. And really, what we're doing, radio is almost obsolete. Newspapers are almost obsolete.

And what we're talking about is Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Google, all the cyber forms of communication that have really just soared. it's a new planet it's a new world communication is all new so you can text us

I give the text number out 772 4976530 but we're streaming this live on Facebook video and you can stream this live at just Facebook.com

4 slash Earl on Cars Do we make that change so it's Earl Stewart on Cars and Earl on Cars That involves doing a different page so we're going to leave it the way We'll just leave it, Earl and Cars. Facebook.com.

Forrest slash Earl and Cars. And you can see us live. And here we are. I'm waving at you right down. You've streamed us. And you can communicate by posting because Stu is tracking the post on Earl on Cars. And he's also tracking the text. We're all tracking the phone calls.

And it's just an amazing communicative world we live in. We also have an anonymous form of human beings. communication and there are a lot of folks out there they just don't want for whatever reason privacy is important and we're really having a lot of privacy discussions today especially with social media so do you want to communicate with us in absolute privacy we have a way it's a link and it's just your feedback your anonymous feedback.com your anonymous feedback.com www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you tell us anything you want. I know there's some car dealers out there that like to tell me a few things.

So go ahead. We get those. Not many. One of you car dealers, if you're not a car dealer but you know a car dealer, give them the link. Will you please? It would be informative, possibly amusing. You can't offend us. I mean, the truth is a powerful thing,

and we don't really worry about telling the truth. So if you know a car dealer, give them the anonymous link. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Love to hear from you. And if you've got some words of criticism, constructive or otherwise, for us, let us know. Hey, listen, I know I'm not perfect.

I'm almost perfect, but I'm not quite perfect. So you can tweak what I do or what Nancy does or Rick or Stu. How can we make the show better? Even Colin in the control room. What can Colin do better? And Jonathan, you know, what can Jonathan do better? Jonathan is, he's the master behind all these Facebook, live streaming, YouTube's, I mean, he really does an amazing job.

So, www.com, your anonymousfeedback.com, the most important call the show and uh oh i forgot the only thing i got to say this is an extraordinary long introduction i've got to tell all of you out there why we justify what we do and it's something called the gallop poll on honesty and ethics and professions the gallop organization since 1977 has been doing a poll for all americans thousands and thousands of Americans and they ask what is the most honest and ethical profession you deal with since 1977 40 plus years what's the most honest and ethical business and for all of those 40 plus years all of them car dealers have been at the bottom or near the bottom so are you car dealers

out there that have got your backup about this and saying I'm just spouting out a bunch of nonsense the American population holds you in very low esteem. They don't think that you are doing the right thing by the American car buyer or repair or maintainer. You just don't treat people right.

And it's been consistent. Consistent. Not a fluke. Never, never been in the top ten. Never been in the top half. You've always been at the bottom. Creeped up above Congress people once. That's right.

Lobbyist, maybe. Yeah. Right. Sandwiched right in there between the lobbyist and congressman. I mean, it could be a fluke that you have a bad year. It could have, you know, but it can't be a fluke for 40 years. So all you folks out there in the retail automotive business, yeah, Rick.

Well, the fluke was when we actually got above congressman. That was the fluke. That's true. And mystery shopping report. I'm going to shut up in just a minute, Nancy is waving at me because I am going on. I know that. Mystery shopping report, we usually do in the last. half hour of the show and we're going to move it to the next to the last half hour

at the top you know at 9 o'clock in the middle in the middle yeah do in the middle the middle of the show we want to kind of sandwich it in first of all it's the most popular part of the show where we visit a South Florida car dealership unannounced undercover it's so fun I have so much fun doing this and we go in there we pretend to buy a lease a car and then we just report exactly what happens. And we name the names. We name the dealership. And we have a dozy. A doozy. It was a good one, wasn't it? Arguably the worst we've ever had. Would you say that, too? The names were the best. Yeah. Yeah, we had more names.

Many names. Yes, lots of names and unusual names. I mean, it was really. I'm not going to tell you what it is. But all you car dealers out there. The only name that's made up is Agent X. The rest of them are. But the real names, the real car dealership, and it's one of the worst in 10 years that we've ever seen. So all you folks out there in the business, it might be your dealership. You never know. Stay tuned. Okay.

Okay, I'll remind everyone that you can give us a call at 877960-99-60, or you can text us 772-497-6530. Ladies, again, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. And remember, I know, ladies, that all you want is a buying experience that's straightforward and fair. You aren't asking for any miracles, and you could be the shrewdest negotiator out there. And, well, the odds of striking up a better deal. they get well it's slim and it's very slim so you really have to not only listen to our show

but do your homework so sit back enjoy the show and that mystery shopping report is going to be unbelievable we're going to go to our first caller and that is Tina from Benita Springs Tina is a regular caller good morning Tina for Benita Tina, the ballerina. Good morning, how y'all? Good morning, how you're doing? Yeah, we're well. Morning, thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. You know, I was just reading an article very recently about the used car market being the hottest thing now. Yes. Because new cars are getting more expensive. Buyers don't want to pay that much money, so the used car market is getting to be really, really popular right now. Yes, they are, Tina. But unfortunately, as we know with that comes fraud.

and I'm reading this article here about this gentleman who got arrested in Phoenix, Arizona. Use car dealer accused of bait and switch schemes, and he wasn't just charging people too much for their vehicles or whatever. He wasn't even dabbling an odometer fraud, but he has been withholding titles to cars. Like someone will come to his dealership, they'll pay for a vehicle in cash. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I have the title. And then what he'll do is he'll hold the title back,

and he will relift the car on Craigslist and try to sell it again. So this gentleman finally got arrested. So he's in pretty big trouble. But that's the thing. I mean, when you buy a car, you're not only a used car, you're not only have to do your search, you not only have to pull up the car fax to make sure the mileage is correct, check the odometer and all that.

But you never know if the seller of the vehicle, the auto dealer, is going to hold back your title or not. You just have no clue. You're kind of stuck in that situation. Yeah, it's a hazardous road out there. But it's true, Tina, that I've always thought that the right used car was a better value than a new car. Today, it's more so than ever. It's the discrepancy.

New car prices are going up, and used car prices are stabilized, they're not going up as fast. And there is a wide difference. You get a late model used car, and you do your homework. And as you say, you have to be extra careful when you buy a used car, but if you deal with a reliable dealer, used or new, independent or franchise, otherwise, and you also do your due diligence, the most important single thing that I can say about buying a used car is to take it to an independent, your man, your woman, your mechanic, and get an independent analysis. You can't buy a car from a used car dealer or otherwise and have one of his people check it out, obviously. So you need to take it to your person and spend $150, 200 bucks. Rick, can you get a decent analysis for $150 to $200 on the car?

Absolutely. Any mechanic worth his title as a mechanic, a technician, would be able to go over that car very well for that price. Yeah, and so obviously you want to do all your shopping first. you want to find the car, you want to check it out on Carfax, you want to road test it, you want to check it out in consumer reports. Do all your other due diligence before you go money out of pocket. But before you sign on the dotted line, take that car to your person. And of course, needless to say, your person needs to be somebody that knows what they're doing.

And you might be able to do it for less than 150, depending on the age of the car and the mileage, as to what has to be checked out. But, boy, I tell you, if I weren't a new car dealer and I didn't get my new cars free, I would buy a used car. If I was out in the market having to write a checkout or finance a car and drive it as a value as an investment, I'd definitely buy a used car of a new car. And also one of the reasons why used cars are being bought off the shelf, one of the reasons, our cars last so much longer. You can put so many miles on these cars.

And unless you're trying to impress someone, the best way to go is a used car. Say you buy a used car with 50,000 miles on it. Do you know how many more miles you can put on that car? Because you can run a car up to 200,000 miles or so. And you're saving so much money by purchasing used. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's amazing how fast the reliability and the maintenance has come down, reliability is going up, safety has gone up.

This is 2018. You buy a 2016 car with 15 or 20,000 miles on it or 30,000 or 40,000 miles on it. What a value of that is compared to the new car. Absolutely. You can save yourself $20,000 or $30,000 by something you can afford, and it's reliable, and it's the best way to go. Tina, you're always good about bringing up topical and important subjects. a lot of people don't think about the difference.

People tend to fall into two categories, new car buyers and used car buyers. I'm talking to you new car buyers out there. Think about a used car. Before you go out there and spend $30,000, $40,000 a new car, you drive it out of the showroom and you've got $2,000, $5,000 in depreciation. You take a used car and you drive it off.

You don't have any depreciation. I mean, nominal, you have the, probably the same depreciation after the first two years that you have in the first two minutes after you buy that new car. So great advice, great information, Tina. Well, the thing is, my point in bringing about this article, of course, was the used car market. It's really becoming very popular for a very good reason, as you guys mentioned. But how does a buyer avoid this kind of fraud with the title? because you could have a great buying experience,

but if you don't get the title in your hand, then you're in a whole lot of trouble, especially after the seller, like this unscrupulous seller, tries to sell your car again on Craigslist. I mean, you just don't know if that's going to happen. That's kind of a backdoor kind of a fraud situation. Yeah.

Well, the first and most important thing, you mentioned Craigslist is don't buy a car on Craigslist. I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, shoot down Craigslist, but you're dealing with a lot of, with anybody. And any time you deal privately with an individual, if you know the person, that's a different story. But when you deal with a stranger selling a used car, you need to have the title in your hand

before you sign on the dotted line. And you have to have the ability to transfer that title to your name. It can't be held by a lien holder. It can't be held by the guy that sold it to you. It's got to be in your hand. It's got to be a free and clear title. So it's a huge responsibility to do that. When you deal with a license motor, now here I am going to be advocating car dealers.

When you deal with a licensed criminal, oh, I'm only kidding. When you deal with a licensed car dealer, the one thing that you can be sure of that if they commit fraud and they sell you a car and one of the most easy demonstrable proofs of fraud is someone that sold you used their new car and didn't give you

the title for ownership. If they don't do that and they didn't have it when they sold it to you, they lose their motor vehicle retail license and they can go to jail. So you've got a licensed

car dealer where you want him if he tries to take advantage of you. It was a John Q. Public guy that sells you the car then you've got a real fight on your hand. So buying the used car, I'd be very careful about buying it from a private individual unless I knew that person. And if you do buy it from an individual, as I say, have that title in your hand. Be sure it's free and clear that you can assign it to yourself, and then you can't get taken advantage of.

Now, there's a wrinkle to this. I've heard from a few other people that some of my clients I take care of in my hair salon, they've told me, oh, yeah, car titles are going digital now. You don't get, after you pay your car off, you don't get a physical title anymore. It's digital. It's in the Florida DMV system. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I've heard. Most have switched to these electronic titles, but you can request a copy if you want to have a paper copy.

Okay. You can get that. You should always request a copy or at least visually see the digital copy. I mean, you can confirm a title if you go about it in the right way. Rick, you had a point? Yeah, when I recently paid off my pickup, I had to actually contact them and request, and I did it online, but I requested a paper title, be sent to me. Yeah, you know, the whole title thing is probably archaic.

I mean, I was having a conversation with somebody the other day about flood cars, and they want to know about it. And so cars come out of North Carolina. How do I know I'm not buying a flood car? Well, the problem is the title laws in all 50 states are different. We don't have a federal title law for automobiles. We have 50 different title laws. And among the most nutty, sloppy title laws are Mississippi, New Jersey.

There are about five states. The worst is Mississippi, and second worst is New Jersey. And I think Florida actually has a very good title law. But you can wash a title. You can buy a flood car. or a total car or a stolen car or any other kind of car, and you can take it and get a fresh title in Mississippi. And you wonder, you know, here's a van on a car.

It's a matter of national record. You say, how can that happen? I wonder how it can happen to, but it happens. And Tina, one last thing, you can check to see if there's a lien recorded on a title, even if you're buying it from a private buyer. And there's a website that it's the word. website name in the world, but it's a Florida Highway, Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and it's actually Services.F-L-H-S-M-V.gov. But if you just Google Florida

title check, you'll find it, and you put it in the VIN, I'll tell you if there's any liens recorded on that vehicle. Yeah, it's bureaucracy in action. Not the best marketing, no marketing geniuses there. Exactly. So, very good point. You hit on the Achilles heel of the auto industry really is titling and verifying titling. If more people realized how easy it was to obtain a phony title, we'd probably have more of it. But all you do is go to Mississippi, wash your title, come to Florida, sell the car. Now you can Google title laws and states probably and find out the worst states for title laws. And any time you see a car with a title from those states,

be very very careful and bottom line everybody that's wanting to buy a used car call Rick on the phone right now and hire him and have him inspect your use car keep him off the street well we'll actually keep him busy on the streets

for a while but you keep them out of trouble I can guarantee there you go I thank you very much wait when was I in trouble absolutely thank you so much for tuning in thank you so much for the phone call All right. Okay, folks, 877-9-60-99-60, and before I get behind our text, we got way behind on text last week.

We have two texts, too, we'll read the first one. The first one that came, and I think Tina already addressed, it's probably the same story. It was in jalapnick.com reported the cartiola had to serve, excuse me, 120 is in prison and wear an ankle bracelet for failing to register the vehicle. So I think we talked about that already. Another text came in with Elon Musk's recent signs of insanity. Does Earl think that Tesla will survive? That's a great question. Well, I wouldn't call it insanity.

I think Elon Musk is having an emotional breakdown, nervous breakdown. And he's got a lot of pressure on him. I think he's a genius, but I just don't think he's qualified to run a large business like Tesla. He's one of these typical entrepreneurs, a genius. is we had one with Truecar named Scott Painter. And extremely brilliant, genius-level entrepreneurs are great for founding and starting a company. Then they have to find a business person to be able to run the company. But I'm afraid for Tesla, to be honest with you.

I wouldn't buy a Tesla today. I've come close a couple times. It's a fantastic car. I just don't know about the survivability of the company. So that's my answer. No tweeting after midnight, especially whenever, excuse me, you break up with your girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah.

Elon, come on, you're smarter than that. We are going to go to our first new female caller from Jupiter. Her name is Vivian. Welcome to the show, Vivian. Hi, good morning, and I want to thank you for the service that you provide for the public. I just started listening last weekend and was very impressed. I know you were having phone problems last week. and so I thought I would try and listen in this morning when I got a chance

and share an experience with you that I had. Oh, great. I have a 2016 key of sportage, and only 39,000 miles on it. And back in May, I started experiencing a problem when I was driving and speeding up, accelerating. I started hearing a pinging noise, ping, ping, ping, ping. So I took it to the dealership, and they were asking what kind of gas I put in it, what kind of oil I put in it, and I'm very good about maintaining my car.

So I gave them all the information. The service technician said, you'll need to leave your car, and we'll call you when we've assessed what's wrong with it. They call me later on that afternoon, and they said they found something, an issue with your engine. We need to change out your engine. Wow. So I was Florida. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. It's a 2016 key at 39,000 mile.

You're talking to an engine, an engine, an engine has to be replaced. Yes. Now, it takes about four to five months because it's on back order. Oh. Well, long story short. I waited almost exactly five months, and I was kind of kept in the loop not only by my service technician, but also by Kia Consumer Affairs that had, you know, my case, they would talk about my case, whether the engine was going to be delayed any longer, whatever, they kept me in the loop.

The engine finally came in, it took about 10 days to get it installed, and I got the call one day, your car is ready. This is back in August. I said, okay, I went to ticket my car, drove off, signed all the paperwork, the invoice, drove off, no gas in my car. And I thought, well, boy, that's terrible. You know, they washed it and everything, but no gas. So I made it to the nearest gas station and filled up.

And then I drove home. The next morning, I get my car to go to work, and I start my car, and the engine doesn't start. So I'm like, I can't believe this. So I'm thinking, assuming it's a bad battery. I called up Kia, and the technician that took care of me wasn't there that day. She was off, but the other gal promised me that she would talk to the office man or the service manager. The service manager was on another call, and that they would get back with me. never got back with me

I had to have somebody jumped my car took it to a place where I live local got a brand new battery I ended up calling the following morning and my service advisor was there and I said you know no one called me back

my car didn't start the following day so she didn't know anything about it obviously she was off the day before and nobody had told her so I said I want to be reimbursed for my battery because I'm assuming my battery was not charged the four

over four months that it sat in your dealership lot waiting for a backboarded engine to come in. Yes. Anyways, she said, you know, she would have to talk to the service manager about that, and I said, somebody was already supposed to to talk to the service manager about that, and they never

call me back. She says, don't worry about it, Ms. Griggs, I will definitely get back with you on that. Give me about four or five days, but I will get back. Nobody got back with me on that, and about ten days later, I called, the dealership again and spoke with my service technician, and she said, oh, let me speak with her now, one moment.

She got back on the line and she goes, I'm sorry they do not cover that. The battery is not covered under the automobile award. He said he will not reimburse you. So I just want you to know I am one very unhappy customer. Very disappointed over this, but I appreciate you giving me this information. Vivian, I ended up calling Kia Consumer Affairs and reported the complaint. And the gentleman said, go to kia.com, go to contact, and you'll see where you can file a complaint. You can also attach invoices, whatever, to submit.

And I did that. The notification that I got after submitting that information was, give us 24 hours and you will hear back. So I did get a call the following day, and it was a gentleman calling from Kia Consumer Affairs, and he said, I apologize, but Kia does not cover. that battery under, you know, the warranty, the manufacturer's warranty. I said, I need to talk to your manager. I need to go, I need to talk to the manager because this was out of my control. Obviously it was the battery, and they did not keep my battery charged and charged it periodically

or whatever. Needless to say, they called the manager and another person called me back a couple of days later and said, we will reimburse you for the battery. so what an experience yeah Vivian would you mention the name of the dealership you don't have to if you don't want to but I think Napleton Kia, Kea Napleton

North Lake Boulevard I think you know your experience is so typical of the poor service that's so many car dealerships we focus too much on buying and leasing cars but this type of thing goes on most car dealers focus

mainly on just selling cars they don't realize how important the maintenance and repair of the car is and this sort of thing is not unusual you did all the right things it's terribly sad to think that you went through all this and you know

why should you have to spend the time just to get the battery replaced not to mention the fact the engine had to be replaced but what you've done now is you've told a whole lot of people out there that Naples and Kia is not the Kia dealership you want to buy your Kia from. You should try another Kia dealership.

And we're talking to 20,000 plus people on the radio right now. I might suggest a couple more things for you if you feel like investing any more time in this fiasco that they put you through. Have you put a Google review down on their page, the Napleton Kia Google page? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Do a Google review. Do a Google review. Better Business Bureau. You need to file a complaint with a Better Business Bureau. And the other one, of course, is Yelp. You know, online reviews are very important to car dealers today. And you need to alert other folks that can avoid Napleton Kia by reading your experience. And it's terrible, which you went through, absolutely terrible.

And if I was selling a car that was catching on fire like these Kia's are, I'd want to get extremely good service to prove that there was something different about me. Stu has a point. We only have one Kia dealer on our recommended list, 100 or so. That's Gunther Kia. Gunther Kia in Del Rey. That's right.

So you folks thinking about buying a car from Naples and Kia, don't. Go to Gunther Kia and Del Rey, and they have a good rating. Nancy has a point. Vivian, I have to take a moment and congratulating you for your standing your ground. there isn't a lot of consumers out there

that would do just that and you must be very proud of yourself even though it was an ordeal for you to go through and again congratulations and I want to tell you you know you can really hit them where it hurts whenever you start

placing you know a review on Yelp or go to the Better Business Bureau or Google I'll tell you that internet is so powerful and you can reach, pardon me? Get their Facebook page too. Oh, Stu, did you hear Stu? Hit the Facebook page too.

I did. I definitely will do that, yes. Yeah, and I'll tell you, you can really hit them where it hurts because what happened to you was so unfair, very unfair, and again, congratulations. Also, congratulations, you just won yourself $50 for being a first female caller. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate the service that you do and the platform that you have for others to reach out and share their experiences with. Thank you so much. Thank you. Stay on the line and

give out that telephone number where I can reach you. Thank you. Thanks, Vivian. Have a great day. Keep listening. 877960 9960 or you can text us. We've been getting a whole lot of text at 772 4976530.

And we're going to go to another... Do we have a text? We can get John. John on? Okay. John's one of our regular callers from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. It's ironic that the text mentioned Tesla. Here is my prediction. Tesla will be totally and completely out of business unless one of the big companies, like when Fiat bought Christ. Toyota. And let me give you, there's many reasons why. But the big reason is yesterday, the SEC, which has been investigating him, on this going private deal that he did last.

month and plus other items issued a subpoena now the stock has been dropping unbelievably since August the 7th it's the market cap of the stock is down by 22 billion okay in one day last this month he appeared at a video a broadcast by Joe Rogan's show he was smoking weed yes he was incoherent drinking whiskey He said that robots will take over the world, and that video went vile. Now, in one day alone, the stock dropped like $3.2 billion alone. He's just acting very, he has to take, by the way, he admitted Ambien to fall asleep, so this doesn't really look like a well-qualified man to be head and CEO of his company.

By the way, SEC is going after him. And they're going to issue that he will not be allowed to be a CEO or any board of directors of any corporation. They're really going for the throat. And they have many reasons why there's other problems for six months' people's $1,000 deposits on the $35,000 model was being held so that they can concentrate on the more expensive $78,000 version of Model 3. and it doesn't look very good for financially and for the future of this company. It's probably a good time for him to go to Mars, don't you think? Well, let me tell you something.

It gets worse. In California, and consumers report early this year made the Chevy Volt, okay, a number one rating of green cars, if you remember that article. Oh, yeah. Now, Mercedes is going after I'm hot and heavy. Mercedes has it available in 2022, a fully electric luxury SUV. It's called EQC. It doesn't have the total mileage that the Tesla has, just a little under that. But it will be a winner.

And not only Toyota, BMW, and other companies, Volvo will also be. coming out competition-wise and of course Nissan and Toyota Toyota which be very proud of Toyota is going crazy

they just spent $2.8 billion in investing in new automated driving that's going to employ a thousand people so

I mean I don't have stocks but if I think if I had that stock I would dump that real fast and the idea that he came out last month without paperwork involved that he's going to take the stock and go private

is illegal because no paperwork was submitted to the SEC and no reason or background that he could handle it, which you probably no way could. So there's a big problem, big rogue blockage ahead for the Tesla motor car company. Well, that's one of the best things about Twitter

it allows nuts to say whatever they want to say and then they expose their true feelings and then you have a situation people get up at 2 o'clock in the morning or they're drunk or they're smoking weed and they speak their innermost thoughts and they tweet them out to a few hundred thousand people and I think I still stand by the fact

that Elon Musk is one of the smartest men in the world but he's also emotionally got some serious problems and it's just a shame I hate to see it happen Tesla did this you talk about Mercedes and Porsche and Volkswagen and Toyota and all the other manufacturers

not to mention Waymo and the other manufacturers that are going to be building these cars Tesla really got them interested I mean Tesla started out when electric cars were a joke and he went pretty far before he crashed and burned so sorry to see him crash

and burned, but I agree with you, John. You don't want to buy any Tesla stock. I'll agree with you also about him being a very smart man, but he can go back to 1948 and look what Preston Tucker had to him with the Tucker Motor Corps company. Good point. So history can repeat itself very easily. Exactly.

Hey, John, do you think that, do you think Elon's brother is ready to take over him and his hat? I couldn't really say that because the knowledge that he has is great. The car that he has is fantastic. Earl said himself, he drove one, and it takes a brain like he has, you know, with engineering-wise, to really continue and take over the company. But SEC is going to make sure that he's going to be out of the picture.

So what will happen after that? It may be a prediction I would make that one of the big corporations, foreign companies, will take them over. That's what I think. Yeah. To be continued. And that's happening in the history, the biggest example, have is Fiat.

Chrysler would be underwater if Fiat didn't take them over. Absolutely. John, thanks so much for the call. We always appreciate hearing from you. You guys have a good morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Stay tuned for that mystery shopping report at just about

between 915 and 930. And don't forget, you can give us a call at 877-960 with your comments, with your questions, anything at all. Or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. I see we're backed up a bit with our texts.

So we're going to go over to Stu. That's right. We have a text from Don and LaBelle, one of our longtime callers and textors. He points out that the easiest and safest way to avoid problems in buying or selling a used car is to go to the courthouse or a title transfer agency and do the transaction there. That's a safe. Great advice, Don. Thanks, Don.

You're not one of our longest texterers callers. you're one of the smartest, and I love to hear from smart guys like you. Thank you very much. Courthouse to the title check when you're buying a car. Yeah, that's right, because it's impossible to remember that website that I just named. Exactly. But I will put it on Arloncars.com, so. Yeah, that is important.

And thanks again to Tina for pointing out that that is truly a loophole. You know, something has to be done. They need to standardize title laws. It needs to be federally standardized, and there needs to be an easily simple way to verify title on the car. Because right now it is a real nest.

It's just almost you have to check where a car was titled to find out if it's got a good title. And even then, if it's got a good title, it might not be a legitimate title. So great advice. We've got some more text. That's right. We have one from an anonymous texter.

The question is, what happened to the promised of hydrogen power cars. Zero emissions and faster Phillips versus slow charging batteries sounded so appealing have the manufacturer shelved the idea. Well, I can tell you that I looked this up, I googled, I didn't know this, about 6,500 have been sold worldwide since their inception. That's not a whole lot. And Toyota sold about half of those with their Marai in California.

Yeah, Toyota usually does the right thing. They just kind of drop the ball on the hydrogen cell, fuel cell. Rick, you got a point? One of the big things that they've had for the issues with hydrogen is the lack of infrastructure. Electricity is available worldwide, pretty much everywhere, and you can always find a way to charge a car somewhere versus finding a place to refill with hydrogen, incredibly limited, extremely limited. And the other big thing that we found is that the hydrogen that was supposed to help us get away from hydrogen. fossil fuels or at least reduce the use of fossil fuels and the impact of them was being obtained

from hydrocarbons, the fossil fuels themselves. So we would still have that major reliance on fossil fuels and our other big issue is what are we doing with the left over the remnants and the carbon footprint created by the creation of that hydrogen, having to split it away from those hydrocarbons. Sure. So I guess we answer that. And we have another text. Wait, one more.

This is from our live Facebook feed, and it's from Joe. And it's a follow-up to something we talked about last week. He says, good morning. Just following up on the question last week, which Rick was going to research regarding the headlights, when said an auto going on automatically when the wipers are in use. Thanks. And also, he says, by the way, Kathy, who asked the question about her new Toyota Highlander, had a baby girl this week.

Congratulations, Kathy. Oh, congratulations. Congratulations, Kathy. Okay. I basically went to the owner's manual on the 19 Highlander and compared it with the 19 Avalon. The 19 Avalon I was able to find in the owner's manual has the feature that when you turn the wipers on or the wipers are in auto mode, it will automatically turn on the headlights when rain is detected. However, the Highlander does not have this feature listed in the owner's manual.

therefore I do not think that feature's available on that vehicle strange it's a drop on Toyota's part because it's a simple programming thing that if you have automatic wipers you should be able to link it right to the headlights to turn it on just with a simple

bit of programming let's check it out on the islanders to be sure they just did no minute from the owner well I mean to Rick's point this has been a frustrating thing for me I can only address Toyota's but you get different cars and there's different options and equipment for the same trim levels So you have a limited Camry versus a limited Highlander,

but you never know what you're going to get. It's kind of a mishmosh. You're opening up a can and digging through that treasure chest to see what's there on yours. And your neighbor may have almost the identical vehicle, one small change in trim level, and his vehicle is completely different. Okay, give us a call.

877-960-99-60. Don't have any calls yet. I think we scared off a lot of people last week when the whole phone system went down. So I don't know how we tell you that the phone system is up, or if you believe us, but it is up. We can just find 877-9-60-99-60 in a text. We are gone through the backlog, so we can take text now, and that's... We're ready for you. 772-497-6530-7-7-2-497-6530.

I heard from so many of our callers last Saturday that took advantage of the texting part of our show and losing the phones. It didn't move them at all. They were quite satisfied that you were able to get back to all their texts. Ladies and gentlemen, I have some breaking news that I want to announce about Consumer Report.

Guess what? Starting October the 6th, Consumer Report, will have their own show on Saturday mornings and Jack Rico, who was raised in Queens, New York, is the frequent contributor of NBC Today Show. Well, they put him in charge and he is going to be alive and alive and well and informing you about anything and everything. And it's Consumer 101, so stay tuned.

October 6th, Saturday morning, check your local listings so that you can tune in. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I just ran across a little scrap of paper I threw in my briefcase when I came to studio this morning. I'll hold it up to the camera. just keep you current on phony and ronis and addendum labels and you know they come they go by various names but car dealers for those of you that have been on Mars they have a extra sticker that they put on their windows and it boost the sticker price you know the sticker price is always real real high

but that's not high enough so they have something called addendum labor and I'll hold this up This is Grico Mazda addendum label and they've got about $1,100 worth of garbage on here and when you get the buyer's order written up when they're selling of the car

instead of using the MSRP they tack on an extra $11,200 and they show a total of this particular Mazda 3, 2018 Mazda 3 of $24,440 but you can look at all the nonsense

since they have on there, which is basically worthless additions that cost them nothing. I'll read the list. Reinstall protection package. Reinstall. I haven't heard of that one. $495. And they have the crystal fusion glass protection. I haven't heard of that.

It sounds like a sign. Crystal. No, that's crystal blue persuasion. That's right. It's the old age channel. I'm sorry. That's also $495. They have all-weather floor mats for 189 and a window tent for 116.

That's about $1,100 worth of worthless accessories that you have no choice. And when they advertise their cars, they forget to put that in the advertised price. So when you go in to buy it, not only do they hit you with a dealer fee, but they hit you with this worthless dealer-installed options that you have no choice about because it's already installed on the car. So I love to hear from you. 877-9-6-099-60 or the text number 772-49-7-2-497-35-3-0 Rick I saw one of those phony Monroney years ago and this was back before everyone started

doing the first couple years of service for free and the sticker added in their first third and seventh oil change is free only if you did all the others in between at that dealership. And I looked at that and I thought, well, now isn't that genius? Because in order to get those three free oil changes, you have to keep coming back to that dealership so they can tack you up and say,

hey, yeah, oh, it's time for tires, it's time for brakes, it's time for filters. They created a captive audience and locked a chain on you by giving you three oil changes. I never said car dealerships aren't smart. They are smart in a very devious way. and usually there's not a week goes by that I don't find a new trick

and I haven't heard that trick I think we have do we have another caller Nancy We do We have a caller and he's from Palm Beach Gardens Welcome to the show Rod Yes good morning all Good morning, Earl

I've known you for quite a few years And I'm also on your Facebook Great Your Your Your situation of this would with Elon Musk, I believe

his name is. Yes. To me, to me, when you get somebody who's like that and getting out in left field, they call them what they call eccentric, don't they? What is that again? They call a person like

Elon an eccentric Oh, eccentric, absolutely, yeah. I say a double eccentric. He's really eccentric squared. You're right. Well, It's unfortunate, but, you know, time will tell, and with a lot of things out there, this whole week's been snafu, and, you know, we'll still be the same people, I don't know,

a month from now that we pretty much were before, but right now it's, you know, a little scarring from everybody. May we all heal, may we all get better here shortly? appreciate the channel that you've got going there and appreciate, you know, a lot of things you do and what the callers call in. I've been listening for quite a while. Well, thank you, Ron. And I really appreciate it.

All right. Appreciate your call. Thanks so much, Rod. I feel like you do about Elon Musk. I feel sorry for the guy. He's got a lot of talent, and he's under a huge amount of pressure, and who knows what you or I would do under the amount of pressure he's under. So I wish him the best, and I wish Tesla the best.

I just don't think the history of the company has much time. I think they're just about ready to go down. But Elon Musk is an amazingly smart man. Rod, thanks for the call. Please call again, will you? All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you.

Keep listening, Rod, 87960, 9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6. 3-0. Elon is such an intelligent person, but even intelligent people make, well, stupid mistakes. And I think that there wasn't a payoff in that interview of him smoking marijuana and drinking whiskey and sharing it with the public. That was really a silly move on his part. Back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, I'd like to share a little. I get calls every day, and we get columns from people from the blog column from the radio show and newspaper columns we do speaking engagements and and one of the most one of the saddest things I hear is the exploitation of the elderly

and I'm not going to mention any names now but a woman call me the other day I'll say she's in the Martin County area and she's dealing with a car dealership her husband sadly has dementia And not to the stage where he can't drive or function, but dimension, a very, very sad thing is goes in stages, different types. And he has an inability to say no. He's very, very, very passive, and she tries to give him as much freedom as she can. And one of the things that he does is take his car to get service, get the oil change. And this one dealership, he went in for an oil change and came out with a billed in dearly $1,000. And doesn't understand what happened.

And, of course, he's embarrassed and she's outraged. And we're working with her. We're talking to the service manager and even the parts manager of this dealership. I'll be calling the owner of the dealership. she's talked to try to stop the charge on her charge card and it was too late went through but the moral to the story is just you have to be very careful in service departments if you have a loved one that has a debaitya or any sort of problem like that you have to be accompanying them if you possibly can't and I know how difficult that can be too

because I can remember when my father should have stopped driving, I didn't have the courage to tell him not to drive. And me neither. Yeah, and Stu feels the same way about me. He's afraid to tell me. But we digress. Runs in the family. So that's the way life is.

You just have to deal with it. And now a man has been taking advantage of legally, they dotted their eyes and they crossed their teeth. You can call the county office to Consumer Affairs. You can call the Attorney General's Office. You can call the manufacturer, and they'll tell you legally, there's nothing we can do. But it's just sad. You know, it's sad because a lot of car dealers operate that way.

If they can get by with it legally, they'll do it. If it's ethical or moral, they don't care. And that's the way life is. They hire people, and when you go to a car dealership, remember this, everybody's on commission. Rick Kearney's on commission. I am. But he happens to be an honorable man, and he doesn't take advantage of our customers. Car sales people are on commission in most dealerships.

The service advisors or the assistant service managers, the guy you see when you drive into the service drive, they're all in commission. So if they're legal, they can't go to jail, they will sell you anything they can, whether you need it or not. There's no law that says that they can't sell you a new set of tires, even though you came in with a new set of tires. You can have your oil change yesterday, and they can sell you another oil change. That's perfectly legal. They can sell you a new transmission. We could sell you every light bulb on the car saying these bulbs are all three years old.

They could go out at any time. So the folks out there dealing in these conditions do a little bit of homework. check the Google ratings, the Yelp ratings, check the Better Business Bureau rating, County Officer Consumer Affairs, check with your friends, get some references. I mean, you're going into a den of iniquity. You know, like, remember the cartoon Tom and Jerry? When Tom gets really hungry and it looks at Jerry and Jerry turns into a pork shop, you're the pork shop.

Yeah, you're the pork shop. Don't be afraid to get a second opinion. Yeah. Well, for the expensive repair. But when you have a person that's mentally incapacitated that goes in for an oil change and you sell them $1,000 worth of service, that is unconscionable. And it is so sad. It's a moral crime. I get one of those phone calls at least once a week, usually more often I get emails.

And I don't know what to do about it. I even had a direct dealing with the dealer of one of these. And he said to me, was the customer declared? declared incompetent by the court. And I said, no. Actually, this particular customer was declared incompetent a week after this occurred, but it was too late. So it's legality, it's not morals or ethics.

And that's the reason car dealers are at the bottom of the gallop, pull in honesty and ethics. Absolutely. They have no ethics. Most of them, a few other do, but most of them do not. 877-960-960 and 772-497-9-7-9-7-9-7-6-5-30. We do have two texts. Well, the first one is just a picture somebody sent in from Greenville, South Carolina.

I'll put it in front of the camera. It's an addendum sticker. You must have spurred that thought for them. An addendum sticker adding another $2,595 to a Kia. Wow. And that's the additional dealer markup. And there are some itemized things that make that up, but it's a little too blurry. I do see mudguards.

I see nitrogen. So for $3,000, I'm sorry, $2,500. Do we have the name of the dealership? It is. It is Kia of Greenville. Kea of Greenville. Greenville, South Carolina. And did I just see a bottom line price on a Kia?

$57,179. Oh. It's for a Stinger, which is the sports car. Oh, okay. What is that? I don't even know what Stinger is. And we had Vivian call in about a Kia problem. Here's a little interesting perspective on Kia.

You wonder, we seem to think. we seem to see Kia dealerships at the bottom of the barrel of the bottom of the bottom of the barrel because most car dealers will give you problems. Kia dealerships in particular seem to have a lot of problems. We have one Kia dealership on a recommended list, and that's Gunther in Delaware. Most key dealerships have a lot of problems. And partly because when Kia first came here from Korea, what, 20 years ago? Something like that.

Something like that. It was very difficult to find dealers. There's Kia, the Korean car, didn't have much of a reputation. The quality wasn't very good back then. The quality is way up today, but at that time. So they had to kind of go around and beg for people to sign up. So they had the dregs out there of the car dealers and they signed up franchises. Once you sign up a car dealer, the way the state franchise laws work, you're in for life.

And then your kids are probably in for life after that because it's almost impossible to get out of a car dealer. So the base Kia population, Kia dealer population, is pretty corrupt. And that's the reason you see so much of this. But $2,595. West Palm Beach, Kia, by the way, holds the record

for addendums. When we shopped them a few years back, they had an addendum label of over $10,000. $10,000 addendum label, West Palm Beach Kia. It's much less than that now. We haven't shopped them recently. I believe we have another text.

don't we still? Yes, we have another text. Don't the Takata recalls in Florida pose a more severe danger due to the heat and humidity? What is, what isn't, there must be a type of, why isn't

there a more serious effort down here in the danger zone? Great question. Great question. They talk about it. The manufacturers, I understand, are targeting the sunbelt states with a high heat and humidity in terms of sending the inflators

that is defective of the Ticcata airbags, they're directing those in the high-demand states. And Florida is number one, by the way. There are more deaths, injuries, and Takata Airbag, defective bags in the state of Florida than any other state. So it is a problem. I suppose in Minneapolis, you don't have nearly as many as you do in a lot of other areas. So it is a temperature humidity thing.

Just a little hint. I'm not going to tell you the name of the car dealership we shop, but I will tell you it didn't involve a Takata Airbag. It did involve an older car. And older cars, when you get up there five, six years old, seven, eight years old, it is really serious. That car is a time bomb, and it's ticked down to the explosive level. You buy an older car, and sadly, the people that buy the older cars are not listening to me now. But the people that buy the older cars, typically because they can't afford a newer car,

they're the ones that are being taken advantage of. And there are millions of people like that driving cars with defective-to-cott airbags that are near the point of bowling up. Amazing. Give us a call toll free at 877-960 or you can text us at 772-4976530. I have a text from Bloomington, Indiana. And it is from Margaret. Margaret went out to purchase a vehicle and she went to three or four different different. dealerships, and as her anxiety rose, she decided to go home and get on her computer.

So, Elizabeth went to buy her car online. She said that negotiating was fun, and she said that after soliciting all these local dealerships, she just couldn't do it any other way. She was a little fearful that she might pay more. She wasn't privy to the information that we have given out every week that you pay less for a car when going to the Internet. So at any rate, Margaret says that she solicited quotes from six different local dealerships via Edmonds.com

and KKK, or excuse me, KKB.com. That's Kelly. You don't want to go to KKKK. No, I don't want to do that. Or KKKB. KB. There's a mistypeer here. Kelly of Bluebook.com.

That's KBB. Although the Ku Kluk fan may sell cars. I don't know. Who knows? Okay. Now listen up. Now, this is very serious. She didn't get an invitation to bring in her husband.

There was no pressure while haggling. She said she wasn't in that dominated all male environment and that stomach churning feeling when after you test drive and the salesman asks what would it take for you to buy your car today and start scratching out those numbers on a pad by buying on the internet it eliminates landmines and haggling margaret congratulations on purchasing your Mazda. I think you said it was a black Mazda 5.

So a great way to purchase a vehicle. And there are more and more women that are doing it this way. Exactly. The internet is a powerful place. Exactly. I mean, think about it. When you're online, you can be anonymous. You can use a phony email address. I strongly encourage that.

You don't have to give them the number, your telephone number. If they insist, you can put in a phony number. And you can be totally anonymous. If they get one shot at you, Whereas if you walk in the door, then they got the games. You know, Charlie turns you over to Sam. Sam turns you over to Bill, and you go through the ringer, and it's just three hours later they throw your body out in the street,

and you wish you had never gone in the car dealers. You get online, you can sit there in your pajamas, you're going to have a cup of coffee with you, and you're going to have some fun. They can't come back at you. They got one shot. You can stay online, this is your last chance. Give me your best out-the-door price, including all your fees, out the door is your last chance and they have to give it to you it's amazing what you can do

when you shop online do we have another text too we do uh texture says i believe car buyers have a three-day right of rescission in florida so if you think you got taken advantage of they have to take the car back if you're in the three-day period no that is not correct that is not correct no it's a three-day right of rescission is only on for a um if a come to your home. In other words, if you buy anything in the place of business, there is no three-day rather rescission. But if someone comes to your front door, and back in the day, I used to say to sell you encyclopedias, we don't have encyclopedias. It's all online. We have vacuum cleaners. We have Google. Yeah. We don't sell vacuum clean. But if someone sells you

something at your home, you do have three days. Correct. But to buy a car, you buy it in the dealership, no deal. Exactly. They don't have to take it back for any reason. Yeah, car salesman may have started that rumor. I mean, they'll say anything. And I say, well, I'm worried about this. Don't worry. You've got three days right of rescission. No, you don't.

Okay, it's a good text. Very valuable text. A lot of people believe that. Okay, we're caught up. Thanks, gentlemen, remember that text number. We love hearing from you by text, and don't forget that, excuse me, that you can text us with your grade on our mystery shopping report, which will be coming up in about, I would say, about 25,

minutes. We got a lot of response last week, and we want you to be part of that mystery shopping report. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget about Consumer Report. They've got a new show coming up October the 6th on Saturday morning, and you're really going to enjoy that. Wait a minute. What time is that show on? Does it conflict with our show? you have to check your local listings I suggest you DVR the consumer reports

and watch it after Earl on cars You just took the words right out of my mouth That's what I suggested to your dad The other day that we should record that So remember what Stu said Record it set that DVR And tune in to Earl Stewart on cars From 8 until 10 o'clock

And be part of our show We appreciate all of you You're all very, very important to the show Now back to the recovering card dealer. And back to our text. We have another text. They are flowing in. Textor says, Good morning. When you sell a car and the title is signed and handed off to a new owner, does the liability pass at that time or when the title is transferred into the new owner's name at the tag office? If the new owner does not apply for a new title, the car will forever

remain in the previous owner's name. How do you protect yourself? Thanks. Well, you pretty well described it. You have to have that title, and you have to have it signed over to you and you transfer it into your name. I hear horror stories about people buying cars and suddenly they realize that the title is not in their name and this whole time that they've been driving that car the liability was with them because the previous owner is the owner of record. So we talked about that earlier in the show and Don from LaBelle came up with a really cool idea is to just go to

the courthouse and verify the transfer of title anytime you buy a car. Car titles are electronic. We talked about that too. Rick recently sold his truck and he used online source. I didn't sell it. I paid it off.

Paid it off and he verified the fact that it was in his name because he did pay it off was no longer with a lien on it and he verified that online. So you got to do it. You have to see it and with your eyes because the title laws are so loosey-goosey depending on the state that you buy the car in that you have to see it to believe it and then you can be nervous about it yeah definitely something needs

to be shored up by the federal government we need a federal title law but i like the idea of the courthouse i can't imagine rick selling his truck it's he is so emotionally attached to this truck it's incredible and a lot of consumers feel that way it's only five years old i i can't get i can't get rid of a vehicle until it's a voting age yes when my vehicles hit voting age then i can consider letting them go into the world you hear that ladies and gentlemen until that it's my child that is from our computer scientists who's sitting right here in the studio give us a call toll free at 877 960 9060 or you can Texas at 772-497-6-5-0. Speaking of Texas, Stu is ready to go. They're piling up. They're flowing in. Okay, first question, now that we have 100,000 mile coolant and transaxal fluid,

does Rick think we'll ever have 100,000 mile motor oil? As a follow-up, how badly would this affect service departments? That one I think is going to be a lot tougher because motor oil has to be put to such a greater abuse than any other fluid in the vehicle. I think there is a possibility that we will see an increased lifespan for motor oil by having better filtration and maybe some way of helping clean the oil more before it goes, you know, as it's worked in the engine. But I truly think that we're going to see internal combustion engines go away before we will see anything close to a

I'll say a 25 or 30,000 mile oil. You don't need oil. You don't need oil an electric motor. Maybe a little WD. Forder. Yeah. It'd be like saying back in the 1800s, wow, do you think we're going to have a permanent horseshoe? Well,

it reached a point where, you know, they never really needed it. Right. That's good analogy. Another text, this is just a follow up on what we were talking about about the title transfer on private sales. This is from our or Texter in South Carolina, who also suggest going to the courthouse or the

DMV with the buyer to make sure the title is transferred correctly. And then we also have a commenter on our live Facebook feed. So there's a tactic that dealers are teaching. It's a clever sales tool. They say, bring the car

back to exchange it if you don't like it or if your dog doesn't like it. For any reason at all, just bring it back. The operative word here is exchange, not return. And that's a very good point. make sure it's return policy, not an exchange policy. Yeah, exchange means that you have to take another car that they have on the lot at the price they have on the lot.

So when you have a right to exchange your car, you have no rights at all. They got you, they captured you, you're going to buy a car from them. As a matter of fact, they may prefer that you exchange your car because they can exchange it to a car that has a higher profit markup. So remember, they didn't say you could negotiate the price on the exchange, They said they will exchange it for another car of the same price, except they set the price of the car that you're exchanging. So that means absolutely nothing.

And I think we have a voice caller. Yes, we do. We have a caller from Lake Worth. Good morning, Dennis. Good morning, everyone. I know you guys talk about consumer reports all the time, and I love it as much as you guys do. And I don't know a lot of people, I don't think, may not know that if you live in Palm Beach County

and have a library card, you can go online and access the, Consumer Reports online, and their car reviews are much more in-depth. They had videos. They have a lot of information on their online website that you can edit to for free, as long as you have a library card. I did not know that. So it's like a membership, Consumer Reports, Online membership with a library card. That is fantastic.

Yeah, if the library has it and you put in your number and you get on there for free, yeah, I don't know. They sent me, I got my script, scripture, you know, yesterday, and I think they want like $50 a year to go online if you subscribe to Consumer Report and you can get it for free through the library. That is cool. Now that's a Lake Worth Public Library. I wonder.

Well, no, the Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County Library. If you have a Palm Beach County Library card, you go to the Palm Beach County Library website, and it has a thing about online research, and you click on that, and it'll ask you for your library card, and Consumer Reports is right there on the page, and you click on it, and you can access all. all their information, everything they review is on that site. Dennis, that is great information.

That's the reason I love callers, because we learn more from the college, I think, than we learn, they learn from us. Very valuable information. You know, we talk about consumer reports. I think it drives people crazy, but it's so hard to find a source that's unbiased out there. A lot of these supposedly authorities that are recommending things, even Kelly Blue Book, even Edmonds, even J.D. Power. A lot of these respectable names out there still have a dog in the race with the automotive manufacturers and sometimes even the car dealers.

Kelly Blue Book and Edmonds makes a lot of money dealing with car dealers. And we buy merchandise from Kelly Blue Book and from Edmonds. And so how can they be totally unbiased? Consumer Reports is squeaky clean. they do not take a nickel in advertising or any other way, all their money from donations. They've been around a long time, and they're not afraid to attack the giants.

They go after the insurance industry, the automotive manufacturers, and I've got a lot of respect for them. So for the price of a library card, you've got an online subscription. And by the way, Denise... The library card's free. So it's all free.

Yeah, it's all free. I didn't even know that. I thought there was a charge. Wow. No, you get your library card. You just go sign up as long as you have your driver's license and prove you to live in Palm Beach County. You can go to any Palm Beach County library card or library and get yourself a library card. Amazing.

That will be driving people crazy, not just about consumer reports, but what you told us about library cards. So we're going to be talking about. Absolutely. Right. Thank you so much for that. It's all good. Information. Thanks, sir.

I'm sure that you saw the 2018 auto issue of Consumer Report. that's an amazing subscription. Did you see that? Yes, yeah, I saw that. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, the best and worst. One thing, like I say, it's a big thing, especially on the most popular cars. They post videos of the test drives they do, and, I mean, the in-depth information is so much more

than what you get out of the printed, you know, the printed copy. And it's just unbelievable how much more information is there. Yeah. That show that they're going to be. doing on they started consumer report starts on october the sixth you know they go they'll go live on uh cbs i think it is uh is that amazing oh yeah i can't wait to see how that is that should yeah that'll be great consumer show i would think yes absolutely rod thanks so much for the call keep listening okay all right thank you bye bye bye have a great day eight seven seven nine six oh

you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And remember, we would like to hear from you, text us, and rate our mystery shopping report that is coming up right now. Yep. Okay, we're at 919, so we're going to go to that mystery shopping report. Now back to the recovering car dealer. We're cut up on text, aren't we still? We're all cut up.

Okay. Mystery shop, I can announce the name now. All you car dealers out there gather around the radio, or the iPhone or whatever you're doing here it is mystery shop of Lou Bachrod Chevrolet and Coconut Creek

now Bachrod that's B-H R-O-D-T old dealer, been there for a long time I know Lou going back 40 years and I don't know if he's still active but this is Lou Bachrod Chevrolet

Coconut Creek is just this side of Fort Lauderdale little town kind of a evil little town out there that's a lovely town it's right off

the sawgrass expressway lots of shopping it seems to have very evil car dealers you are thinking of somebody I am a particular toy dealer

it seems to the further away from if we're if we're the dead center the further out the radius we're in northbound beach the further south you go

the more evil it gets the further north you go the more evil it is and we really got into some evil today this is about a little bit west of deerfield right yeah yeah yeah there seems to be a correlation between how far our dealer is from our listing area and how likely we are to find a decad of a recall affected use car on his or a lot week after a week we search for used cars being offered for sale that are simply too dangerous to drive because of defective airbag inflators and week after week for the most part we discover the car dealers are more than willing to put profit ahead of their customer safety.

However, the world does seem to be getting, the word does seem to be getting out, and dealers who have learned about our campaign seem to be cleaning up their acts. It makes me feel good in a way, makes me feel sad in a way. I mean, there's a safety zone, like a 25, 30-mile radius, maybe a little greater. But outside of that radius, Takata car, airbag cars are being sold without second thoughts. Not only as finding a Takata car become more difficult in our listing area, we've actually had a couple of dealers stop the sale and make arrangements to have the affected cars fixed.

When we look just a little further away from our studios, however, it gets a little easier. This week we had to go all the way to Coconut Creek, and we already said that's south of Deerfield Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale. Just west of Deerfield. West of Deerfield, yeah. We found a double Takata car, passenger. and driver's side in a while since we had one of those both both airbags in the front seat at lu bachrot chevillet it's the 2011 honda c rv 2011 that's a seven eight-year-old car

that's a old car that airbag is ready to blow and it is said that this thing is being sold uh it's uh on the website advertised for 11 000 419 dollars at loubock Crut Chevrolet, we check Carfax, NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Safety Association, and Honda Manufacturer, and all three confirmed that both the driver's side and the passenger side airbags are defective, afflicted with faulty decadentilators. The fact that the CRV is seven years old really raises the stakes for anyone riding in that vehicle. The aging ammonium nitrate accelerant is just reaching its most unstable point. Very dangerous. Carfax revealed some other interesting information. This vehicle was serviced by Lou Baccarat at least six times.

Since the first airbag recall, that's interesting. A Honda and this is a Chevrolet dealer. Yeah, I was looking at the report. So somebody else owned it and was servicing it there and probably traded it in there and then they offered it for sale. So six times they've had a chance to look at this car. All they had to do, was run the VIN. It came in there six times, and the VIN would have said, you know, if they checked it, this is a recall. So apparently, if you extrapolate, that means that they just don't check the vans.

Yeah, it's a simple process to put in. Every car dealership should check the vehicle identification number of every car that goes to the service drive. If they did that, we wouldn't have an airbag problem or we wouldn't have a recall problem because the car dealers would be responsible. Just as an aside, even if they don't believe. that they should protect the consumers from these cars

just from the greed side some consumers are not going to buy the car when they run the car fax it helps you sell a car exactly anyway with all that information

Agent X was selected he's number one the only time we won't use Agent X is when he's too close to home and of course there is a bounty on Agent X there's a risk of

There's a bounty on Agent X within about a 30-mile radius. Big target on his back. Yeah. And he does wear a Kevlar vest, but, you know, he could still be wounded, and we love Agent X. I call, and I'm speaking as if I were Agent X right now, I called Lou Bachrot, Chevrolet, to make sure they actually have the CRV listed on their website. I've been burned too many times. You go down there, the car, I'm sorry, we sold the car. I spoke with a Shemal

who verified it was there and asked me when I could come and see it. I said I could make it by 6.30 that afternoon we exchanged some information and I got off the phone. As I entered in my car to head down to Coconut Creek, I got a call from Warren. You might want to write these names down

because there are a lot of them. I will. Shamal and Warren who was reaching out to me to confirm my 630 appointment. I made about four minutes earlier. He said to be sure to ask for him. I asked him what happened to Shemal.

He said, Shemal was his assistant. I said, I'm on my way, and Warren promised to have the car ready for me. There was a gaggle of salespeople, as a gaggle of geese. It was actually salespeople. Or peacocks. Yes. Up front where I parked, two of them broke from their circle, and broached me as I got out of the car.

We refer to these gaggles as wolfbacks. And when you go to an aggressive dealership, particularly in the far south of Florida, they typically congregate outside of the dealership. Kind of a frightening sight. So one of them broke from the circle, approached me as I got out of the car. The first one to reach me, tried to shake my hand, and asked how he could help me.

The other one stood back, hands on hips. I said I was there to see Warren. The first guy, we don't even have names for these. We have salesman one and salesman two. The first guy said he'd get Warren for me. The second guy asked if I wanted to get my car braised. I said I wasn't trading it, and he told me to let him know if I changed my mind because he was a car manager, or so he said.

He left and I followed the guy into the showroom. Once inside, my escort asked me to stay put while he went to get worn. We turned a few months later with a man who introduced himself, it was Joel. So we now have Jamal, Warren, Salesman 1, Salesman 2, and Joel. Yes.

Okay. They explained that Warren was with another client and Joel would be my guy. Joel said the CRFE was ready for a test drive. He had a dealer parade ready to go and asked for my driver's license to make a copy.

It was for insurance purposes. We walked out the car who was up front near where I parked it looked like it had just been detailed. We popped the hood, opened the doors in the rear hatch. Joel started the engine. I asked him what they did to my car before putting them up for sale.

He said they had 110 point inspection. I think there's a little competition out there because some dealers have a 127 point. Some have 163 point. You know, they don't, you know, one thing you do if you want to laugh, ask to see the check sheet. Now if the check sheet is clean and there's a long line drawn through all 120, 7 check boxes. You know that they didn't look at it too closely. And they say they fix anything that they find needs fixing. I asked him at this one passed the inspection. He said yes. For emphasis, I asked again. So there are no mechanical issues. Joel said no. We drove the car, returned as we walked to the showroom from the parking lot. I asked him of the vehicle had ever been in an accident. Joel wasn't sure. But he was. check the Carfax. Now that sounds too familiar. Every time. Yeah, I just don't know why. And we, every mistake shop, we always ask the same

question. Has the car been in an accident? And they never know. You would think that they would read the Carfax report before they showed the car. But almost without fail, they don't. Joel sat me down a desk, began a series of qualifying questions. How is I paying for it? How is my credit? How much money was I putting down, etc. I told him this would be a cash deal. I wanted the best price. He could get me. I wanted to confirm the price I saw online and asked him $11,419, right?

Now just let me repeat. This is Lou Bachrott, Chevrolet, and Coconut Creek. That's the best part. Joel said, yes, well, no. Not exactly. He asked me to give him a minute, and he went to his. keyboard pulled up a screen on his computer monitor he showed me a disclosure of some kind that said that the internet price was only valid I know

you're not going to believe me but trust me he said the internet price was only valid if I traded the car in with them and financed it with them both conditions had to be made both conditions now here's something I'm not even sure that still is aware of But it is illegal to require a car buyer to finance the car to get the price you advertise. If you advertise a price with a car, they should be able to pay cash, finance, credit union. They should be able to get the price of the car without having to use your financing. I mean, think about it.

I can sell you a car for a dollar. And if I charge high enough interest rate, I can make a fortune. Yes. So if you tie the financing to the sale price of the car, that is a violation of the truth in lending law. So, Lou Bacharad, unless it's a choice of manufacturing sets. Yes, yeah. But that's not what he said.

He said you have to. There's a use car anyway. It had to be financed with them. That means we control the financing. I asked him if he was kidding. Joel was nervous. Joel probably didn't realize he was breaking the law. And I guarantee you, Lou Bacrott doesn't realize he's breaking the law.

Joel was nervous that he'd get the manager to explain further. He ran off and left me sitting at the desk for 13 minutes, came back with his manager who was introduced as Mr. White. Okay. Sounds like reservoir dogs. Yes. Let's start all over again. You got the list here, too?

Yeah, we have Shemal, Warren, who we never met, salesman one, salesman two, who said he was the use court manager, Joel and now we're at Mr. White. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, we're on the sixth person. Okay. Mr. White presented the first pencil. Now that's vernacular.

vernacular card talk for the first write-up. That's when you take a pencil in the old days and you're scratched through this and you circle this. A lot of times you use colored pencils and it's... Sharpies. Sharpies, yeah.

So it went back for the first pencil. That's a game. Saying the price would be $13,419, and of course the advertised price was $11,419, since I was handling my own financing, which is against the law to do. I told him this was preposterous and that I clearly seen the price of $11,419, and there was no mention of trading in my car or financing with him. Now, there wasn't. There wasn't.

They were lying. So here's the other reason. You can't tie buying a car to the train-in because, let's say you've got a train that's worth $20,000. You can sell them the new car for a dollar and give them $1 for the train-in. So it's bait and switch. This has got to be. We'd have to go back in the books because we get so many mystery shops. I'm thinking it's the worst mystery shop we ever had, and I'm not even through yet.

13,000. I told him this was preposterous that I clearly seen the online price of 11,419 and there was no mention of trading in my car or financing it with them. And Stu just confirmed on the ad, he's looking at it right now. I searched the

webpage. It's not on there. No. Mr. White turned the computer monitor toward me and pointed to the same disclosure. Joel had shown me. I sighed, told him to keep going. He glossed over the itemized charges and pointed his pen at the figure of $17,992.

$4,500 jump. My out-the-door price, he said, and he could get me into F&I right away. $17,992. So they're not through with me, and they're already going to give me a $4,500 market. I said, wait a minute, I need to go over this with you.

What the hell did you do to add that to the price? Mr. White sat down and reviewed the buyer's order. To the now inflated sale price of $13,419, he added a $1,15 accessory package. Phony Monroney, you just saw one on camera a minute ago. But added on a used car. Yes. Yeah, used car. $1650, $1,615 accessory package, $1,000 in dealer fees,

and that included a $799 fee and $199. tag agency fee and $500 in government fees. I exploded. That's the reason I love Agent X. He really explodes. He does. He's good. He's good.

Very aggressive. Loudly, I asked him if he thought I was an idiot. Mr. White put his hands up defensively and asked me to settle down. He said, I wasn't an idiot, and he would see what he could do. You're not an idiot. I told him I'd appreciate that. I also asked him to check on the Carfax report. I mean, we haven't even got in Takata yet.

We're already in jail. Spoiler alert. He never sees one. They're breaking a law. I mean, he said he would. I also asked him if you could tell me if there were any safety issues I should concern myself with. I mean, we're really rubbing that in their face. Mr. White said, no, this was a safe car.

Here's a car with a Takata airbag we call on the, passenger and the driver's side. And it's ready to blow. And it's ready to go. It's ready to go and it's ready to blow. It's a seven, eight-year-old car. It may have blown up in the lot while I'm talking to the guy. It's a whole new twist on where they're blowing this one out.

This is scary. This is scary. What if we send Agent X out there and he gets hurt in a Takata airbag explosion? I would really feel bad about that. We should write up like a little disclosure, a little indemnification. I think we need to put a key man insurance policy. You're probably right. Well, he wears Kevlar, so that'll protect.

That's true. Hopefully. Bobby Z was a hammer. Oh, no, no. Okay, we've got another name here. We're moving off of Mr. White. He came back with Bobby Z. Bobby Z.

Introduced him as his boss. I thought Mr. White was a boss. He says, no, Bobby Z, I'm the boss. I'm glad there wasn't a fight between Bobby Z. Mr. White. Bobby Zee was a hammer. He went into full-pressure, high-pressure mode. Hammer is another car dealer vernacular.

You call a real strong closer, bring in the hammer. And sometimes you're bringing the hammer into the box. Yeah. The box is EF and I. Just relentless. Exactly. He wanted to know what my problem was with the deal.

Hey, what's your problem? I'm the hammer. This question lost a 20-minute argument with bait and switch. He tried to defend this online. online ad said that their online disclosure said that the internet price are subject to change and that's what happened yeah it says that subject change hey that's exactly what happened i changed the price on you exactly we warned you and then it was basically my fault oh i'm sorry maybe i should have apologized it was my fault because i wasn't trading or financing i talked to

agent x is it too late to change my mind he kept coming back to that he goes hey you're the one who's not traded in a car no we went on to argue about the $6,150 accessory package. He explained that it covered oil changes, some details and a towing service. That is laughable. I said that wasn't worth the money, and he agreed

saying it was primarily Bobby Z. confessed. The one point of honesty in the entire deal. 1650 dollar excessive price. He says yeah, you're right. It's a rip-off. It's just profit. He offered to take that

off the price. So, after conference, presentation and threats and blood pressure is going up. Bobby Z. He agreed to take off the accessory package. We went on. He really wanted to convince me there was nothing wrong with his listing. I tried to explain that it was misleading. We were getting nowhere, so I got up and I said I was leaving,

and that he just wasted two hours of my life. And Bobby Z jumped up and pleaded. We got Mr. Z and Mr. White and Bobby C. I'm getting him. Let's do all the names again. We got Shammal, salesman. Salesman 1, Salesman 2, Warren, Joel, Mr. White, and Bobby Z. And a partridge.

Yeah. Bear tree. Anyway. I hear they appear at the comedy corner. He does. He returned with a new buyer's order. He told me to sit down. This time with the original online price of 11-419, he had $500 in government fees on $99, $998.

Proctoc. Procdoch. Processing document. Procdoch. Or proctology, possibly. Don't go there. Don't do it. $998 proct fee and sales tax.

Out of the door this time was $13,692. Are we good, he asked. You aren't very good. And you're very evil. I said that was a lot better, but I still wasn't sure. Bobby Z. Juan knew why I was still hesitant. I said I was concerned about getting a lemon or an unsafe car.

Bobby Z. said the car was safe. Very sad. And he had the Carfax Report. He knew it wasn't safe. I asked if he was sure there were no safety issues. He said, absolutely not. This car is safe, says Bobby Z. Bobby Z was in closing mode.

Let's do this, he said. I can get your finance right now. I said I needed to take the buyer's order to my credit union first. This initiated a 10,000. 10 minute debate about me leaving a deposit or risk having

the vehicles sold out They started back up again I finally left obviously Mr. White and Joel and the rest of the choir and take my chances I don't know what's say I'm speechless

I don't even know if we want to take a vote on this It's so obvious We have votes coming in We have votes coming in But I just want to say I know Lou Baccarat I don't even know if he's still alive

I've known them a long time ago I believe it's still a family store I knew him to be a fairly good car salesman of course when I knew him I was evil too so maybe that's a relative to be speaking he was okay but I hope someone gets word to him I don't think he knows what's going on in the store

I know he doesn't know what's going on in his store his dealership in Coconut Creek because he's not alive well no no because he's breaking the law and car dealers will not knowingly break the law. You can't advertise like that. You cannot say you will buy my car at this price,

only if you finance it with me, and only if you trade in the car. Now, the tecotta airbag is pretty bad, too. But, you know, that's not against the law. You can knowingly sell the car with a defective takata airbag, and you can lie to the customer, and there's no law against it. But you can't lie about having to have the car finance to get that price. we have a caller

with a vote what do you want to do first well let's do the vote from the female caller okay Felicia if you're still on the line welcome yes this is Felicia

thank you for hanging on thanks for your patience did you hear our mystery shopping report I heard some of it yes okay welcome to the show Felicia what can we do for you? Well, I just started my search for replacing a 2004 vehicle. I thought I would get in with the 21st century and get the rear view backup camera and the Bluetooth phone and everything

like that. And I actually have two vehicles to trade. They're both 2004 vehicles. And I understand that's old. And I just had a question because I went to my first local dealership in North Palm Beach a few days ago, and one of my vehicles only has 32,000 miles on it, and the other one is a luxury car with 79,000 miles on it, and it's a convertible. So I was told by the dealership that when somebody comes into a dealership to buy a used car, they want to get financing, and they also want to get a warranty. And they told me that the luxury car that's a convertible, the mechanism for the replacement of the convertible could be $10,000. And even though it works fine today, it could break tomorrow, and they would not be able to give a warranty to a person coming in to buy my car.

And then on the other vehicle, which only has 32,000 miles, they basically said the same thing. Even though it has 32,000 miles, it's been in this Florida heat for the last 15 years. So they sort of discouraged me from trading in my two vehicles. And then, of course, they ended up giving me a really low, low, low, low, low, low price. so I was just wondering if that's true if they can't warranty or finance vehicles of that age and if that's the case then maybe I should just go to Carmack I don't really know what to do

well Felicia what they told you is not true and I'm not sure why they told you that frankly you sound like both vehicles sound like good merchandise when to use car a lot and they should have given you appraisals on your cars but you don't want to accept their appraisal. You want to shop your car, and I would take it to two other car dealerships. What make trade-ins do you have?

How old were they? 15 years? 2004? Yeah. Maybe not. That's kind of tough to find a one two-free. The fact that you can't finance it doesn't mean you can't sell it. I mean, there's a huge market for older cars, and if you have a nice older car, it's very

valuable, relatively speaking. If the bank doesn't want to finance a car, isn't going to kill the sale because older cars are lower price and a lot of people will pay cash and you can also get a loan from a bank oftentimes a signature loan from a bank to buy a used car but what you need to do is you need to get bids on your two cars what make cars are they felicia um i have a bmw 330 c i it's in mint condition that's the one with 79,000 miles. And it's always been

garage kept. But like I said, he told me that convertible could break and the mechanism would be $10,000 to replace it and the car was not worth anything. What's the other make of the other car? The other one is also a 2004 GMC

Savannah, $2,500 cargo van. Okay. With the 32,000 miles. I take them both to CarMax and get a price and then I would take your B and to a BMW dealer on the used car lot and ask them how much they pay for it. And I'd take my GMC, the Schumacher, GMC on North Lake Boulevard, because you said you went to another dealer on North Lake and see if they want to buy the car.

You can take it to another couple of dealerships. Usually when a car is older, a lot of dealers are looking for nice older cars, because there's a large market for cars under $10,000. or under $12,000, and there's not too many amounts there. So if you have a nice, the mileage on your cars is low for the age. And if they run and they're not in bad condition, which I don't sound, doesn't sound like they are, I would definitely get three bids on each car.

Then take one of the bids. If the dealer you want to buy the vehicle from doesn't want to bid on the car, that's fine. You can sell your car outright to the other dealers. Okay. And I also wanted to know if it would be worth it to, I mean, the BMW has been in the garage that's in tip-top shape. The cargo van is always parked outside, so is it worth it for me to do like a wash, wax and all that kind of stuff? Definitely.

Definitely, Felicia, get that detailed. Get it looking really nice inside and out, take care of all of it. Yeah, absolutely, that's important. You do, if you had to spend little money on the detail inside and out, before you take it to the used car manager. Use car managers are just people like anybody else. They see a shiny car clean on the inside and outside. It'll be worth several hundred dollars more.

And with that low mileage, you know, you're going to get yourself a much better deal, you know, by shopping those two vehicles. The mileage is very low on both of them. Thanks for the call, Felicia. And Belicia, you won yourself $50 for being a new caller. Well, that's great. Thank you. Leave your phone number and I'll get back with you. It's 561.

You can give it to our, yeah, thanks. You can give it to Colin in our control room. Thanks. All right. Keep listening and give us a call again. Yeah, we're on the mystery shopping report. We've got grades coming in left to know. I'll just summarize it briefly for those who didn't catch it or just tuned in.

The worst mystery shopping report we've ever had. They lied about the Tocati Airbag. They did illegal bait-and-switch advertising, tying the financial. tying the financing of the car to the price, tying the fact that you had to trade the car to the price, had some very ingenious dealer fees, and just flat lied about the fact the car had no safety recalls. I failed them, deception all the way.

Outside of that, they did fine. And that was Lou Baccarat, Chevrolet, and Coconut Creek. They admitted the accessory package was worthless. Yeah, they confessed. The accessory package was pure profit to the dealer. They probably didn't put any accessories on the car. So this is the crookedest card dealership that we have checked in a long, long time. Blue Baccarat, Chevrolet, and coconut.

And we got grades from our textures. Lots of them. Here we go. So John Neal, long-time listener, a friend of yours on Facebook. Yes. He was feeling very generous. And gives him an F-plus. We have done that yet.

We have a listener, actually a live Facebook viewer in Brooklyn, New York City. Ed gives him a Z. I guess that's as far right in the alphabet as you can get. Thanks, Ed. Linda, also on Facebook, gives them an F. Jeff didn't grade them, has a question, how is this place still open? They want to know.

And then, on the text, we just have an F. No name on that one. Another one without a name, they deserve an F. Danny and Fort Pierce gives them a D minus, minus, minus. Another one says, Barbara in Ocala says, expel them from school, no grade. Must be a teacher. Pedro and Marathon gives him an F

and that's it That's fantastic Thank you for those votes I always felt a little guilty Being the voter And I you know We don't mean have to vote do we Is anybody who doesn't want to fail that dealership?

Oh, I want to fail them I want to fail them Let me say something I was going to do this about to cut airbags anyway And we're on You know we're in the political midterms And we're coming up and I don't even watch

television now because the negative ads politicians are driving as crazy yeah we got five minutes and any of that or they're waving at me in the control room or maybe they want to high-five me I don't know what it means at any rate

the governor candidates people are the governor we've got we've got on the Democrats are all these still in the race to Europe? Yep Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis Okay, so...

These guys are out. That's the primary. It's down between... So Jeff Green and Gwen Graham are gone. Andrew Gillum or Ron DeSantis. Okay. Let's talk to Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis. He was running for governor.

Now, we would like a law in Florida that says it's illegal to do what Lubacherele is doing. They're selling cars knowingly with very dangerous recalls to Florida citizens. Now, Andrew Gillum or Ron DeSantis, do you have an opinion on this? If you don't have an opinion, will you state that you don't have an opinion?

Why do you want to remain silent? The Democrat and the Republican. This isn't political folks. This is both sides of the political spectrum. You Democrats out there that want to elect Andrew Gillum, support Andrew Gillum, support Andrew Gillum, how about someone who can actually speak to Andrew Gillum? Because sometimes, you know, these governmental candidates are hard to get hold of. Ron DeSantis, supporters, if you know him, if you can communicate with him, ask them why Florida doesn't have a law. Now, you can do an

executive order as governor. I've asked Rick Scott multiple times for an executive order making it illegal to sell a used car with a dangerous safety recall. Can someone tell me why there shouldn't be such a law? And I'll say the same thing to Andrew Gillum and to Ron DeSantis. If there's a reason that I shouldn't ask you as governor, if one of you gets elected, it looks like one of you will, it'll either be Andrew Gillum or Ron DeSantis. If one of you gets elected,

tell me why you shouldn't have an executive order to make it illegal to sell a car in Florida with a dangerous recall. It's easy. It's no burden on the car dealer. Car dealer has a computer. The car dealer can pull up on the computer the vent and tell whether they're dangerous recalls.

If there's a dangerous recall, he can have it fix free. What is the burden on the dealership? Why are you remaining, silent. And I'm not just talking about Takata Airbags. I'm talking about any safety recall. Make the car dealer, fix the safety recall

before he sells the car. We've just tweeted to the two gubernatorial candidates asking their position. Wonderful. I would love to see what sort of a response do you think we'll get? This is a contest here. You Democrats, let's see what Andrew

Gillum responds to our tweet. And you Republicans, let's see what Rhonda Sannis responds to our tweet. Let's hear it. Great idea. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in Earl Stewart on Cars. We enjoy your company, and we

thank you for joining us, and I want to thank Jonathan and Colin for doing such a fantastic job. As always, every single week. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll be right back here next Saturday.