Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.02.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Wallace Volkswagen of Stuart

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

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

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

Well, good morning, everybody. This is Alive. You were listening to a recorded introduction of this show. And I'm hoping that we have a bunch of new folks out there that maybe have not heard the show. That's the way you grow. We try to get better and bigger, and we try to help more people with this car buying experience, this car leasing, maintaining, repairing experience.

And you old listeners, I don't mean chronologically, but the ones that have been with us faithfully for a long time. How many of you've been, I just will ask this question of our older listeners, is anybody listened to us back in the day when we had a half-hour show on Seaview Radio. That was when we started. Nancy and I founded this show and that's a long time to be

listening. I'd love to, we probably don't have anybody. That's a long time. But anyway, we had no shenanigans Jonathan. Oh, of course. Exactly. But anyway, here we are two hours now, a different owner, different station,

but we've pretty much been continue. We were off the air for about a year and a half. That's another story. That's another show and we won't get into that now. But new listeners, you found something I think you're going to like. You older listeners, the ones have been

with us for a while. We look for you to spread the word because you are really the essence of the show. You're kind of like the spice, the incentive. You get us feeling what's the word? Worthy?

maybe even important we know that when we help people it's a good feeling you feel that way don't you when you help somebody out and that's why we're here Rick Kearney sitting in my right here in the studio

you know Rick he's a you regulars one of the most informed articulate people on automotive computers I mean I used to say mechanics

I used to call him a mechanic and now he's a computer scientist. He really knows his stuff. And cars are better today by far than they ever were, but they're also far more complicated. I mean, it's getting to a point now where it's going to be the layperson won't be able to understand anything about a car.

Back in the day when Rick got started and I got started, you could pop a hood, look underneath the hood, and pretty much figure out what was going on. I mean, it was pretty basic. You had a gasoline making an explosion and driving the pistons that were driving the drive shaft and pretty simple. And even you could, if you wanted to get a little study, figure everything out.

Today, you open the hood if it's got a hood. If it has an engine, you know, might have a battery. And basically you're riding around in the computer if you're in a really modern car. So, I don't blame you for being confused. As I say, you make the show, you folks out there have cars that are, you have questions about. You know, it might be just about some of the bills and whistles. When you buy a car today, I'm going to take a wild guess, at least a third of the bills

and whistles, you're not sure where they are or what they do. So if you have questions about that, you can call Rick Kearney. And our number here is 877-960-99-60. Again, the dial-in number, I call it old-fashioned. I don't think of it that way, but it is. 877-9-60-90-960. You got a squeak, rattle, or roll? Call Rick.

You think you may have something serious, but you're not sure. You're afraid to go into the shop because they're going to say it's going to cost you $1,000 or a lot of money. If you have these fears, safety especially, give Rick a call at 8,000. 77-960. Now, we have a text number, and if you're driving, you don't want to be writing any of the stuff down. If not, make a note of it. Our text number is 772-497-6530. Now, my son, Stu Stewart, is running a little late this morning. And I love live radio. I'll be honest with you. Where the hell are you, Stu? I mean, you know, we're on the air. and Stu monitors our text and are anonymous feedbacks so I'm getting to anonymous feedback so if you're saying of the anonymous feedback

we'll get to it when Stu comes comes into the studio and that address is your anonymous feedback.com Y-O-U-R-A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S you know anonymous feedback.com And the cool thing about that is

is you just, we don't know who you are. You know who we are, obviously. And you go to that URL, that website, and you type in your question, comment, criticism, you know, insult. I got an insult recently, and someone was mad at me because I'm wearing a mask and said that I was a socialist. You know, I'm not a socialist.

I'm kind of a capitalist. I'm kind of a, you know, I guess anything I'm more into a free enterprise and I'm not into socialism but that's okay that's the nice thing about anonymous feedback

call me anything you like now if it's if it's you know obscene or profane I might have to edit it a little bit but not the meaning Rick you got a comment yeah to me right now masks are kind of like

if you go back to the 50s the 40s and 50s when every man wore a hat think about it I hope you're wrong about that but everybody wore a hat yeah but we like hats because it made this look good I mean a mask we know

I hate this mask you hate the mask but you're wearing it out of respect yeah yeah or just like wearing shoes if you walk into a store barefoot they're going to tell you no I'm sorry you have to go put shoes on for health and safety reasons well right now because of this

situation these are a health or safety We have to be careful about getting into these types of issues because there are certain things to divide our country. And you've got to respect the fact that there are people that are politically different, and there are people that are socially different, they're culturally different. Diversity is what makes America great. So you've got to appreciate and respect the diversity and the difference of opinion. You don't have to agree with it, but I think you should respect it.

And I think part of the problem we have now with trying to get people to come over our way of doing things is because we don't respect the rights of those who choose to do something else. And let's face it, whether you're, let's just talk politics. I don't want to talk politics, but it's an example. If you're a Democrat, you think the Republicans are nuts. If you're a Republican, you think the Democrats are nuts. And that's what makes America great. Just respect the Democrats if you're Republican and respect the Republicans if you're a Democrat. But I'm off on a tangent.

So we want to talk about cars. If you have an issue with your automobile, any questions about repairing, maintaining your vehicle. It's Rick Kearney, 877-9-60-960. Now, to my left is Nancy Stewart. If there is anybody out there in the audience that was with us from the very beginning of C-Vue Radio when we were on and around for 30 minutes, 20 years ago. this lady sitting to my left here, who was also my wife, she's a co-founder, and she was there. Half an hour.

You know, half an hour seemed like a long time, didn't it? I mean, sometimes we would sit in there and weren't even sure that anybody was out there when we started out. In fact, one week you're not going to believe this, it just popped into my mind. One week we're doing a half-hour show, and we found out after the show, there was no show. we've been up there babbling into a dead mic and there was the technical difficulty and it was probably one of our better shows oh here's two okay

so anyway Nancy Stewart she is a stalwart feature of this show and she has been almost single-handedly responsible for building the female constituents

of the show from zero I don't think we ever a female caller at the beginning. And now we've got a lot of them. In fact, some of her very best callers or textors, Anne Marie Delgado pops into my mind, and she'll be probably on our text sheet when we get to that part of the show. But anyway, let me introduce Nancy Stewart, who is, as I say, the co-founder, and she's the woman advocate, and she has something very special for your new listeners, if you're female, listen to this. This is no BS. This is real. An offer to encourage you. Nancy, it's all your. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome

to Earl Stewart on cars this morning. Thank you for joining us, and I am here to remind the ladies that we do have $50 for the first two new lady callers. So take advantage of that. It's a win-win situation. We'd love to hear from you. opinion, your voice, and what you might have as far as a question is concerned, and that question being about leasing, buying everything, everything on earth. Well, just say hello, right? I mean, we want to know you're out there. That's like a priming the pump.

When a woman calls a show, other women hear you, and you inspire others to call. Yeah, exactly. you know, a chain reaction, so to speak. We're also here to remind you that you don't need to let the car dealer dictate the game plan. Your voice must be heard and you must be in control and you must, well, hopefully encourage. I'll use the word encourage that car dealer to play by your rules, not his. so there's a lot of reasons I sit in this chair and I certainly hope I can answer some questions

and of course Rick and Stu and Earl they have a lot of answers and I just appreciate everyone being here I'm not going to ramble we got to get to a show we've got a mystery shopping report and we've got a lot of questions and we got YouTube we got Facebook we got it all 877 960 9960

or you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. There you can let loose, as I call it, and that is, excuse me, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. And by the way, we prioritize our phone calls, the H77 number 877, 960-9960 Nancy monitors that on our computer screen and we do text, we do anonymous feedbacks

we do YouTube and Rick Kearney monitors our YouTube channel and we're on Facebook Stu monitors Facebook he also monitors our regular text number 772 4976530

and your anonymous feedback so we got people watching all the sorts of of input from you, and we try to get it to as quickly as possible, but because we like the human voice and we like the personality that comes across in the audio that you can't get in a text or anonymous feedback, and we have some regular callers that we just feel like we know personally. In fact, we do know them personally. Interesting thing about the digital age. This sort of thing is, you know, you make friends by video and audio. So we've made a lot of friends on this show. through our 877-960-90-960. We have only three or four lines, so sometimes people call,

and we get jammed up, and you get a busy signal, or you don't get a busy signal. That's a problem. We've had problems with a busy signal. So if it rings and rings and rings, it's not because we're ignoring you. We're really trying to get to you, but we have other calls.

We're going to go to our first female caller from Sunrise. Thank you for your patience. Welcome. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning. Hi. Hey, I had a question about leasing or buying. I have my car and I haven't had a car payment in ages and I'm thinking of either leasing or buying and I'm not sure what your thoughts are on what's the best thing to do nowadays.

Is it better to lease? Is it better to buy? What are you going? Before Earl chimes in or Stu or Rick, my advice is so important for you to do your homework and depending upon the circumstances that's the decision that is major right there your circumstances whether you would lease it

or whether you would buy the vehicle I'm going to turn the mic over to Earl Stewart yeah what is your name again please I missed it Yvonne Yvonne Yvonne that is one of the most common questions and it's a very good question. I get asked that more than any other single

thing that comes up. It's an important question. Leasing can be the better way to go and or buying can be the better way to go. There's no simplistic answer. Oftentimes I say rule of thumb you should buy the car because you're less likely to be taken advantage of by an unscrupulous car dealer. Buying a car is more transparent. Leasing is very complicated, and there are a lot of variables, and variables and complication works to dealers' advantage. But if you, as Nancy says, do your homework,

and you are understanding the various components of a lease, you can get a better deal a better price when you lease manufacturers and dealers will sometimes incentivize leasing they like to lease cars

one reason because they make a lot more money and that's what you don't want to have happen to you but another reason is you come back to a dealership that you lease a car from because you have to. You have to return the car where you have to come back to the manufacturer's dealer it could be a different dealer

but of the same make. And that gives the manufacturer and the dealer, another chance to lease or buy, I saw you another car. And, Yvonne, there was, there's such a list that, you know, pertains to this leasing and this purchasing, and something that's really overlooked an awful lot. You know, that's the amount of miles that you are going to drive in a lease car and which are going to be charged for those miles, and especially if you go over those miles. So that's just like a little snippet. And like I said, there's a list.

So knowledge is definitely power, your circumstances, whether you drive long distance, short distance, your work, whatever it might be. And it's definitely worth sitting and doing your homework to make an executive decision. I believe that Stu has something to add to that. Yeah. Right now, during these crazy times, I don't know if you're aware of the inventory shortages. with car dealerships. So most manufacturers are pulling back and reducing cash incentives by quite a bit. We had some cash incentives lowered for Toyota that's coming up this month. But the leasing and finance

programs have tended to stay roughly constant. And so the incentives are better. So the trick is, and here's my advice, negotiate an out-the-door purchase price and then let the dealer or the salesperson know that you'd like to use that price and apply it to the lease with zero money out of pocket just to get a baseline. So they have pretty good programs. The problem is most dealers, and you're going to find out if you listen to the whole show today, are overcharging now. They're right to charge for higher prices because you kind of have to, where there's not enough cars, they have to maintain their business, but a lot of them are getting very greedy. So if you can negotiate a cash price and then ask them to run a lease using those numbers, you should be pretty good.

Yvonne, here's something if we write this down, our blog, our earloancars.com. I'd probably written more articles on lease or buy than any other single subject, and there's all the information that you could possibly need, and you're not going to be able to remember everything we talked about today. But if you go to erloncars.com and just use search and go to leasing, you will find a dozen or more articles on that subject. with the specifics that you need to cope with the dealers. And also, Yvonne.

Earl E-A-R-L, Earle-on-Cars.com. Perfect. And also, Yvonne, there's a tool that you can print out. You can go to Earl on Cars. And it's an affidavit that I decided to put on. Is that on Earl Stewart, Toyota, or just a little? Rolong Cars. Rolongcar.com.

And it's an affidavit that I came up with, and it is more or less how to seal the deal, how to get a final out-the-door price. And if you go there, you'll see my affidavit, and it certainly is worthy of printing out, putting in your back pocket, and going out there and, well, slaying the dragon. So I hope that we've been helpful and added to that. You won yourself $50. Is this that great? Awesome.

Awesome. No, you've been more than informative. And thank you very much. I truly appreciate all the information. Okay. I hope to hear from you by email. And then I will get that checkout. That is your contact information.

Have a wonderful weekend. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Thank you. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976. 6530 now back to the recovering car dealer.

How do we do it on text accumulations, Sue? Well, we can kick it off with Anne-Marie, as usual. Oh, good. Amory says, good morning. Autoblog has a story about a red squirrel that stashed 42 gallons of black walnuts in every nook and cranny of a North Dakota man's Chevrolet avalanche. We don't have black walnut trees here in Florida,

so we don't have to worry about walnuts in our engine apartments and fenders. But we do have critters out there that can make modifications to a vehicle. I like how she put that, modifications, electrical modifications. I was wondering, have you ever encountered anything similar? Animals hiding stuff or making other modifications and any vehicles coming through the service department? If so, what was it? And how can you keep the critters out of your vehicle? I'm going to turn it over to Rick because he has probably

more war stories just off the top of my head. It's not a common, but a regular issue with rodent intrusion into vehicles because they like to chew wires. But I'm going to... Rick could write a book, but I'm not going to let him write the book now. Just give us a couple of the highlights. One of the funniest ones, I opened up the air cleaner box on a car just to check the air filter, and it was full of dog food. Where, in what part of it, in the air connection? The air cleaner box under the hood for the air filter for the engine, it was full of dog food.

A squirrel had been, I don't know, I didn't taste it. I wasn't hungry at the time. It was just after lunch. But a squirrel had been stealing dry dog food from this poor dog's bowl, and it would run up through the air intake tube and hide them in the air cleaner box. Now, you obviously did some research on that, but when you saw it, what was the first thing that went through your mind? I mean, when you see dog food inside of an air cleaner, what could possibly cause that?

I stood there with a blank look on my face for about a minute, just staring at, I had no clue. But you knew it was dark food. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was very obvious, just dry kibble. Big chunks, too, and it was just like, huh? Did you call any colleagues over? Oh, yeah, a couple of, yep. And nobody had...

And we all just laughed about it when we realized what had happened. It was hilarious. I never, you never told me about that. That was so good. Tell me another one. Well, I have found palm tree nuts. You know how palm trees, a lot of them, the different varieties around here, we'll have those little nuts about the size of a big grape.

We'll find those stacked up inside cars. Not coconuts, but a little bit of berry. Just the little seeds, palm seeds. Same thing. Yep. So they find the car is a hiding spot for critters that are keeping a food stash, which means the critter is visiting the food stash. from time to time.

Yep. Maybe when the car is moving, maybe not. The best one, this happened, what, about two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, opened up the hood of a car, pulled it in the shop, opened the hood,

saw something moving, and I had to get a pair of gloves on and grab a very young opossum and carry him outside to let him go because he had crawled up in on the engine and was hiding in that, He was terrified. Luckily, he didn't try to nip me or anything. You've got to do a YouTube on this.

I was in, I said a book, kiddingly, but I think if you could just put together some of these things and do a, what, a three-minute YouTube, but it just, this is incredible. What else? We've got possums, we've had at least. Keith Hamill and the cat. Actually, we've had like two or three now of kittens that got, one of them was up in the grill area up by the radiator. They had to take apart everything, right?

We took apart, got the front of the car pulled apart, and finally rescued this little kitten. And he was quickly adopted by one of our team members there at the dealership. I remember that. I think we had the news came out and did a story. We've actually had that happen a couple times. And as a matter of fact, we just had another one about a month and a half ago. And I believe it was a Cion XB. and the kitten had gotten up on the rear axle housing

and was hiding up there and we're able to get them down and he got adopted by one of our employees there about the ship snakes any snakes oh yeah we have found snakes all right what's the funniest most embarrassing thing you found in someone's car dog food all right that you can mention on the air rick's blushing right now nope personal effects are sometimes left in cars all right well here's here's one that actually threw me for a loop

I opened the trunk of this car I'm going to check the pressure in the spare tire and I look and here is a clear plastic Ziploc bag with a stack of cash that I kid you not was four or five inches thick

okay you're digressing now so we Ann Murray's question was about critters well that was my fault this one was just sort of weird but it turned out it was fake movie money. Oh, okay. Now, you mentioned, to me, I would have guessed, the first thing out of your mouth,

I thought we're going to be rats, because I hear more about rats and mice. Well, we hear about them more. And rats and mice actually will get into the car too because one of their favorite entrances is where the fresh air intake is for the air conditioning. And as soon as they crawl in through that space, the first thing they find is

the nice white filter for the cabin filter. And it's this soft, fibrous material, so they chew it all up and make it into a nice little nest. Yeah, what's not the like about that? Yeah, except then it goes right down into your blower motor, and

quite often they'll make a nest in that blower motor, and I've even found nests of babies in there. Anna Murray, I hope you're listening out here, because as usual, she's not only one of the most amazing women callers we have, she's was an amazing caller, period.

And I can't remember the last time she didn't have an entreating interesting subject to everybody, including us here in the studio. In fact, I think she just opened up a whole new category of questions for discussion. Your listeners out there all over the, from Bali to North Dakota, to we have people all over the world listening to the show. tell us about the most unusual critter of any kind that has ever interrupted your usage of your car in some way, shape, or form.

Love to hear from you on that thing. Thanks, Rick. I'm serious about the YouTube. You've got to do a YouTube one of those. Absolutely. And Ann Marie, please let us know whenever your book, your latest book, and no one knows that, do you think? Anne Marie's writing a book.

Oh, cool. We're going to get a text back from her, and this is one of the most. interesting questions and as you said Anne Marie has one every single week so I hope you didn't mind me well being facetious we'll give your book of a good plug but that'd be it that'd be a great that'd be a great book for you yeah and now speaking of books you know all about earl's book and I'm going to reach for it right here and put it up to the camera and let you know that it's confessions of a recovering car dealer and this here has a you know a lot of information in it

and not only does it have a whole lot of information in it but all the proceeds go to big dog ranch and 100% of the proceeds so this here is an investment that would go on your bookshelf for anyone down to your grandchildren great-grandchildren everyone, your children and it's just an amazing book and he's worked, Earl's working on his new book that will be coming out

well, it'll be coming out. I'm halfway through it. I have a ghost writer and he's interviewing me and we're doing the he can put things together and edit and control things better and I'm just babbling

so I've been babbling enough now for about half the book. This book's heavy. Should I put it Jonathan? Okay. Okay, the audience obviously saw it. I think about calling a redemption of recovering car dealer. Yeah. Are you? Yeah. Redemption of recovering car dealer. It'll be, that'll be, oh, I got it now, Jonathan. That'll be an interesting time. I remember sitting on the couch and like all of us here and just proofreading that over and over again. I have it memorized. Ladies and gentlemen, 877-960-99-60, or you can text us. 772-4976530, where Stu will be picking up those texts, and of course, Rick will be taking

care of the YouTube's. I want to remind everyone about Earl's vigilantes. You definitely don't have to be able to take a... That's my cue. You don't have to take a... Well, you don't have to be an auto expert, but you can definitely help us at, and Earl has that beautiful hat, that stew designed, and it's a nice hat. By Stu Stewart. Yeah, exactly. And you can get, you'll have that sent to you. We're working on shirts.

And not only can you help us out, we can't reach everyone, but you can help out the people in your community. And go to Earl's Vigilantes, and as we all know, we're tired of car dealer dishonesty. So help us out. go to Earlsvigilantes.com. That's what I look like in the picture. I'm looking myself on the iPhone here, and I look like...

A vigilante. A vigilante. This is a stick-up. And just see if folks now... It's time for you to say it. Hands up. We don't know. Well, anyway, folks, it's a French bulldog

with a cowboy hat talking on the phone. She's talking about... We're watching House of Cards again. And she's talking about Francis and House of Car... as you want me to say now who's your daddy that's one of our favorite lines who's your daddy now you're right okay enough of this we are going to go back to the phones where Buck is been holding from Hope Sound good morning Buck good morning how we doing well thank you well I just you know I'm not calling about that extra car today this is more

The mechanical thing I need to talk about. Uh-huh. You usually talk about. That's what I usually talk about, getting that extra car that you guys might need, you know? That's funny, but... I need to speak to that world mechanic, the number one mechanic there, about something.

He's listening. Rick, is his name. I'm right here. Okay, Rick, I'm sorry. I have a situation yesterday that I went to start of my truck and it went turnover for a couple times and then eventually it looked like it was going to run out and so I stopped. So I got, I jumped started my truck

at the Ford F 150 and so I went to work and then eight hours later my truck started up, went to the gym my truck started up, you know a couple stops and then overnight I went to get out this morning, and it sounded like it wasn't even going to start or started going to tick-tick, you know, clicking noise. So then I just got to jump the game. Okay. I went to the automotive battery place, and they checked it out. They said the battery is good.

So I'm just trying to find out what I need to check on. You got one of two things going on. Either their tester was incorrect and your battery is starting to fail, which, depending on the age of it, that's a pretty common thing. Or you might have what's known as a parasitic draw, which... Oh, God, that sounds scary. Yeah, it does. It sounds like a medical conundation. I would get palpitation.

The service advisor says, I'm sorry, Mr. Stewart, but you've got a parasitic draw. You have a parasite. I'd be worried if it was a doctor. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a perinic. a gray toe bilateral. If anybody can tell me what I just said, please call in. 877-960-99-60. I'm going to have a bunch of doctors calling now. Back to the question, right? Okay. What happens is modern vehicles with all the computers, they always are using a little bit of electrical

power from the battery, tiny little bit, but sometimes one of them won't shut off properly or some other part of the truck will actually be drawing electricity from the battery when it shouldn't and it's getting too much draw it's like a light being left on but what'll happen is for a mechanic to diagnose it we'll hook up an am meter in connection in the battery to see how much amperage is being drawn and if it's above a certain amount then we start trying to figure out what is staying on that's drawing that power well obviously it's at 2009 so it doesn't make any difference uh not really Because there, you know, the electronics have been, there's been so many electronics that for like the past 20 years now on vehicles that parasitic draw can come up almost any time.

The first thing I would do is I would have another, a different place test the battery and make sure it's not just the battery itself. And if you come up and it says, yes, it's still good and you charge the battery up real well, then I would find a shop and have them check for paracitic draw. Parasitic draw. Okay, I'm actually just pulled into an auto center right now that I was getting ready to go in, but I'm glad I got to talk to you with that. Yeah, they'll think you're really smart anyway, even if it's not a parasitic draw, if you just look them there and just say, you know, I've been thinking about this. I've got a hunch this might be a parasitic draw. And that way, you know, they'll look at you and say, this guy knows what he's talking about. We better not try to stir around with him. Yeah.

Yeah. Unless they start having a conversation, like, what do you think is causing the parasitic draw? Well, then he explains what Rick just explained to him. If Buck remembers it. Yeah, Buck, tell us what happened. Call back maybe today or next week, and let us know. I want to see the reaction when you hit him with parasitic draw. Knowing this guy at the counter, he'll probably say the same thing.

You probably should see a doctor about that. Thanks for the call, Buck. Thank you very much. I appreciate you guys. I really do. Thank you. We appreciate you, too, but quite a sense of humor. Okay, folks, give us call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-65-30. I mentioned girls vigilantes earlier and how you could help us up, but I didn't mention the digital age and choosing to buy a car, anything at all,

lease a car in this digital age. There are some of us that really, you know, can't maneuver our way around the Internet, and you can be a huge help by volunteering to help others in your community. So there, too, you can go to Erlon Cars and get all the information in order to help everyone in this digital age. Now back to Stu. I'm sorry. I think Rick has...

Oh, we got a couple quick YouTubes. Okay. First one, well, let me do this. one first from Negan 1, in reference to our critters in cars, he says, I had a scorpion drop on me while changing oil on my Ford Raptor. Talk about sliding out from under the truck and standing up in less than two seconds. This wasn't Florida, right? This ought to have been like Mexico.

He lives in Arizona. I was going to say Southwest, yeah. Yeah, so I can only imagine he's slid up under the truck. Not like in the Southwest. I think they're more common. I mean, I think I've seen one scorpion growing up as a kid in my entire life, so. Yeah, we get them, but they're small. They're half an inch at the most.

Yeah, the big aliens, like from a science fiction movies, that's how well. Out there where he's from in Arizona, they four, five, six inches, they're big. Starship's trooper size. I never realized how large these spiders get, but while our grandson was in the Air Force serving in Qatar, He would send me pictures of spiders. Spiders that were the size of... Camels. I can't even put it into context, but they could carry, and this is, I can back this up.

They could carry a human body from out under a tent because they were in, all the guys were in tents and women. How many spiders to drag them out? Oh, just one spider. Oh, God. Okay, I'm not going there. So those are big spiders. Yeah. Okay, Charles Reeves is asking, good morning all. First-time car buyer, please help me solidify my car-bearing, car-buying strategy in this fourth-quarter climate. Do I wait until the end of this fourth quarter, or is it better to wait until the first quarter of 2022? Godspeed.

That is very particular. I can advise on that. The first quarter of 2022 is going to look very much like the last quarter of, 2021 but it is improving we're at right now at the nadir we're at the bottom in the basement of the situation we're going to slowly climb out of it so we've gotten projections so we get projections from Toyota on production and we were told that October was going to be very similar to September maybe a little bit better modern improvement the next month and some more the following month but then literally two hours later we got an email from Toyota saying that they are pulling back vehicles from the allocation.

So it remains a very fluid situation, and we've made various predictions. I think Earl's prediction still stands. The end of year is going to be much better than it is right now. But December and January are going to be very similar, and then we'll slowly climb out of it. Do you have basically the same take? Well, it's all relative, but it's going to get, when this microchip shortage ends, and when it ends, it's going to end big time. in, it'll be a whiplash reversal.

There'll be too many microchips. Just the way economies go. This is a worldwide issue. And everybody, China, India, the United States, everybody is hustling to build a hell out of microchips because there's high demand, low supply, prices are up, and it always overreacts. And the longer you can wait, the better the situation is going to be in availability. and the low weather price is going to be.

But the fourth quarter of this year, as I predicted from the get-go, is going to be hugely better. At the end of the year, it's going to be a really good time. And there's two things about the end of the year. Not only do you have the new models, the 2022s readily available, but you also have more availability. And you can plan your purchase. Now, you're a first-time car buyer.

I'm going to give you when I was doing my book interview the other day my new book we were talking with my ghostwriter about he asked me what was a what I advised him is the very best way to buy a car

I said real simple I said are you a Costco member he said no I said join Costco 65 bucks the best bargain you can ever have even if the nearest Costco is 50 miles away trust me on this. Now, use a Costco auto buying program and then go online and find the vehicle you want. Your make model

and also find the valuation. Is it a good car or a bad car? Consumer course. Do all this online. You've got plenty of time. And then go to a dealer who was Costco certified and say, look, I'm not going to buy the car today. This is the car I want. I'd like to test drive the one. If you're have one. If you don't have, that's okay, because I've done my research. If he doesn't have one, you look around until you find somebody, because you do want to drive the car sometimes between

now in December when you hopefully will be able to buy it. Say, order the car for me. And here, I'm going to agree to buy that car from you when it comes in at the Costco member price. Now, he'll say yes, because it's no skin off his nose. I mean, he doesn't have to take a precious car out of inventory and he's selling a car that you're not going to be taken delivery on until December or whenever you say you want to you say I don't want until January say whenever you want it but I want when it comes in whatever that Costco prices I want to buy it Costco contracts with all their members and the dealers and the dealers on are if you're a Costco certified dealer you must sell that car a Costco dealer less

than you sell to anybody else so if you're talking about up to a Honda dealer and he's selling Honda cords, if he sold the Honda cord, it's the best bargain price to Charlie that just came in last week, you're a Costco member, you have to buy less than Charlie paid. So, Stu, you have the point?

Just one word of warning during this climate with Costco is, so Costco requires the dealers to submit their pricing, and if the prices don't seem to fit within, they determine to be the right market value and being the lowest one, they won't post it. So if you, right now, there's a lot of vehicles that aren't even posted because Costco,

In some cases, hasn't caught up to real market conditions. In other cases, their Costco prices are higher than they were back at normal times. Of course. And it's still lower than what you're going to pay to any... I'm not saying buying it today. I'm trying to buy it. Making your plan for later on. Exactly.

And then later on, when the availability becomes, then all the cars will be listed like they normally are. And you don't have to buy from any one dealer. You can make a deal with one dealer. and if he doesn't have a car on his Costco list, you go to another data that does have the car of the Costco list. So it's the simplest, if you're not in a hurry,

you'll save thousands of dollars, and it's a simplest approach, and the caller is a first-time car buyer, and that's my advice. And if you detect the slightest bit of any malfeasance or shenanigans, you call a Costco auto buying program, and you tell them what's going on

because they will get involved on your behalf. Exactly. And you go to Earlongcars.com, I've written the columns on this very subject. The specifics are there, earluncars.com. The column will be there. We've got step-by-step instructions. Exactly.

And ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to add something that just came to me during the week. I was looking this up. And I found that, guess what, if you're sitting on two cars, if you're a two-car family, and you can part with the other car, the used car, go to we buycars.com. wow, they are paying more than anyone else. We buy any car.com. We buy anycar.com

and they're paying much much more than we're if you went to a car dealer or anywhere else, so check that out. And Carvana is another good one. Carvana, we can't say enough about Carvana. 877960 or you can text us at

772-4976530. Don't forget, I have 50, for the next new lady caller. $50. Don't forget, ladies, you're a majority out there. Take advantage, $50. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Frank. Good morning, Frank.

Well, good morning to you all there. Thank you. Your show triggers so many different memories. I've got to share a couple of them. Oh, wonderful. You remember back in the old gasoline crisis when you could actually start following a tanker truck to some gas station, to get gas. Yeah.

Yeah. I thought that the other day when I saw the tractor trailer coming down with all Toyota's probably from Jacksonville, down 95. I said, I wonder if anyone's following that

to Earl Stewart's car car. If they did, maybe one would be available. I know. Well, here's a Rick Gurney question. And I think I hopefully will have a good reply. I had an outboard motor

I'm trying to sell. And a guy came over and we weren't really sure where the gas cans were. and we got some fuel. And once we started the motor up, it ran for a few seconds, but it really smoked a lot. And then started again, and it wouldn't idle, wouldn't something. And I mean, the Alport has 10 hours on it.

And the guy said, well, I'm not going to take it and left. But the fuel he put in by mistake was diesel. Oh, no. Oh, boy. Is there any permanent damage done to that motor? No. No, not permanent. you're going to want to replace the spark plug and you're going to want to flush out the

carburetor to fuel system on it flush it with good clean gasoline diesel fuel really the only big difference that it's going to have is it's got a lot more oil content to it than gasoline it's a lot thicker it leaves more oil residue so that's why you're going to want to flush it out with gasoline a couple times get it running make sure you have some water hooked up to the motor so you because you don't want to over you know get it in some water so it can keep itself cool and just run it for a while on the regular gasoline and I think it'll be fine but the only thing I really would replace right off the bat is get a new spark plug in there because that

diesel can coat the spark plug and you won't get a good firing across it and it really has a hard time burning off so just a new plug for about you know ten twelve dollars and flush some gas through it you should be all right well that's great great advice thank you no problem i learned that when my daughter put diesel in her in her rap four so yep okay well we haven't done anything like that and since we're in jupiter farms i got a couple of critter deals for the vehicles oh i bet you probably got all sorts of bobcats well well the funny thing when my mom passed away her Cadillac kind of set around for a while and so I popped the hood oh my goodness you couldn't hardly see the motor

the rats had brought in so many leaves and so much stuff it was just incredible and they actually somehow meandered back to the trunk and there was little droppings all over I don't know how they get from one end of the car the other but obviously they did and so the term rat motor was very appropriate for that General Motors car oh okay I see what you did there yeah and one other critter well actually there's two but another time I come home I noticed on my pickup truck the windshield wiper is like pulled away and like the event that it was someone was messing around and I go wow and then I notice all the plastic around the trim of the windshield was chewed away the wipers were were semi-destroyed a

what went on in the middle of the day. And so when we played back to security cameras, the butters came down and were attacking the pickup truck for one reason. Wow. I'm picking it at the windshield. Oh, boy. But yeah, between the hood and the windshield, that plastic was chewed away around the window itself.

I don't know what made them go crazy about plastics in that pickup truck. Maybe it was a reflector, you know, how you had that sunshade in there to, you know, They saw themselves in it and they were attacking other buzzards, but anyway, that was a costly animal thing. Oh, yeah. Well, your question about the rats getting into places, remember, even your trunk is going to have different little air vents. But if you could imagine a gap that you could put your finger just, if your finger could literally fit just a little bit into a gap, a rat could get through it. their bodies are so flexible they can squish through openings

that just the tiniest little space they'll squeeze through it like a cockroach like a what? Like a cockroach well one other old story from way back when I was in Miami we lived down in Kendall and my mom worked at Baptist Hospital

and she had a 68 Cougar I was born there but anyway that particular day I found this big snake on the street. I think it was a coach whip or southern indigo, whatever. And I just threw them in the trunk, and I forgot to take him out. Oh, that must be all nice.

So here she is driving to work, and in her rearview mirror, she sees a snake coming out over the back seat. Uh-huh. That's your fault, Frank. I know. You did that. People would squeeze things through. Great stories.

Did you go home that evening, Frank? I'm going to send you a cute little thing on. a cartoon you're going to love about dogs. It's going to be so appropriate. Okay, perfect. Thanks, Frank. All right, bye-bye. Thanks, Frank.

I think I see my third book taking shape. Critters and Cars. Stories from listeners about critters and cars. Yeah, we'll have the contest. But I got a question before we get off Frank's subject. I always get questions for them and learn from our callers. Rick, are all-out board mothers carbureated? No.

They can be fuel-injected now? Okay, because you mentioned clean out the carburetor. It might be, could have the fuel-injecture. Yeah, they could be fuel-injected, but clean out the fuel system. Yeah, exactly. And bear in mind also, a lot of them still are two-stroke, two-cycle. Yeah. So you've actually had gasoline and oil mixed together.

Exactly. Okay. Okay, I want to mention I do have $50 for the next new female caller. and take advantage of that and give us a call 877 before we run out of time 877 960 9960

and I don't know whether anyone knows this or not but you're probably wondering what kind of big secrets that I'm sharing with the female audience and when they call me during the week

but guess what the tips that I give the ladies, surprise. It's the same tips I give men. It's just that when they walk into a dealership, they must, must let their voice be heard. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We're going to go to Bennett, who's in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bennett. Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. My daughter is very interested in a forerunner.

I'm not very familiar with the vehicle. Can we talk about it? And I notice that they're very expensive. Is it because of the shortage of chips again or shortage of used cars? Does it take premium gas? Is it a good vehicle? Can you talk about that? Yeah, I can tell you a little bit about it.

They're expensive, and they're always expensive. I mean, they typically, the MSRP is up there in the 40, 50, 60,000 range, and depending on the grade that you get. But, yeah, now everything is a lot more expensive. So most Toyota dealers are selling forerunners for over MSRP plus a lot of dealer fees. It is a great car. It's been around of Toyota forever. It's, I'm just, I only have about three seconds to say this before I turn into a Toyota commercial, but it was my favorite and still is my favorite Toyota vehicle.

And when they make an electric one, I'm going to go back. to it. But they're highly reliable. They get great reseal value and a lot of different options. And, yeah, it's a, it's a great SUV. Is it worth it to just, should put up to wait until the end of the year? Will they go down? Yeah. Are they expensive? We expect things, the prices to come down towards the end of the year. You'll save thousands of dollars, Ben and my name. If you can wait, wait, you'll save a whole lot of money. Yeah. I wish my daughter was here so you could tell her that, you know. Well, I mean, she, like, has a situation where she desperately needs a vehicle now, or she doesn't have a car, or because if she has a car that's...

No, she does have, she has a good car now, but she has a thing for the forerunner, you know? Yeah, well, the forerunners will be here in January and in December. So that's, yeah, try and lean on her. You will save her. I'm going to guarantee at least 1,000, but probably a lot more than that. It seems that the used forerunners are just as much as the new ones, unless it's just the different models that I was looking at. Well, now that's not a surprising thing to encounter. We were seeing that.

We use cars that are priced more than new, but in normal times, that's not the case. Maybe a current model year used one might be a thousand or two less than a new one, but usually it's a much better deal to get a late model used one because you will save a lot of money. And they do great. I mean, they do. They just, they hold up really well, and we just don't have problems with them. So there's no particular year that was better than the other. They're just very consistent vehicle. Yeah, I think the current body style has been around for a while.

I don't remember how many years. So you'd have to go back pretty far to find it when that was a different design. I think we're like in the six-year. Does it run on premium gas or it depends on the model? No, just regular 87 plus octaves. Okay, very good Yeah And Bennett

You know Whenever you're in a situation I'm not I don't know how old your daughter is Or how long she can wait for a vehicle But we can advise them And hopefully they'll make the right decision But I feel pretty safe

In the vehicles that we've mentioned Yeah Both my brothers drive them And good good luck I'm sorry Nancy She was looking at one at Palm Beach Toyota, and then you want to stop by your place. So maybe we'll just stop by your place, so you can tell, you know, the real deal.

Yeah, sometimes, you know, I mean, daddies and mummies and all that jazz, I've been there, done that, still in that position, and I give advice, and they, you know, basically make their own decision. But what were you looking at? again I missed that part at Palm Beach Toyota Fourrunner Oh the four runner

A four runner Yeah she was looking at a used one 2018 that had one I believe And you know that's a four year old car It's had a warranty already So I don't know

Yeah and in this climate Boy I'll tell you what I'd be I'd be waiting if I had If I was driving a you know whatever right now I'll be holding off on making a decision. It may seem like a lifetime for her to wait, you know, a few months,

but, boy, I'll tell you what, she'll be, or you, will be saving a whole lot of money. Very good. I'll let her know, pass it along, and hopefully one day we'll come by and see you guys. Thanks so much. Thanks, Bennett. Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of the show. Have a great weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen, I take a moment to thank all of you for being part of the show. appreciate you. We enjoy your company and please give us a call at 877-960 and we're going to go back to Stu. Okay, we had a couple of follow-up texts that came in. The first one came from Buck, who was at the dealership to check out his car with the parasitic draw. And his text said, just so you know, the guy that I went to the counter to talk to about it actually told me I probably needed penicillin. Well, pelicillin, penicillin does not work on parasites. You need an ivermectin.

All right. And then Anne-Marie followed up with this a correction for Earl. You know another Anne-Marie that's Amory Delgado. Oh, I'm sorry. This is Anne-Marie Delgado, and she's not writing a book. But she wants to write it. Oh, she's not? Okay.

Right. So I'm hoping that your writing your second book will inspire Anne-Marie to get off your butt and write your book. If you want to write a book, do it. You only live once. That's what I'd tell Earl and he finally started reading this book. Isn't it amazing, you know, for you to get that kind of advice? Let me ask you a question. On the air, wouldn't it be great if it was that easy? Wouldn't it be great if we, at our age, let me remind you, our age, if we were just sitting around and just doing nothing. God, I would entertain that. I'd entertain that one day a week. But that's,

That's not the, and for you to take Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and delve into this new book, who, wow, it's a, it's a big job. You need to write a book about you on the mean streets of Pittsburgh. That's what, I'll write a book about you living on the mean streets of Pittsburgh. That's what I want to learn about. Your book. Mean? Yeah, get started, Nancy.

Mean? I'm looking at you. Yeah, you. Mean? The mean streets. Mean? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I don't say, I'm sorry.

I had to repeat that adjective over and over again. Me, did you say mean? I thought you're saying, I can't tell with the mask on. Okay. Did you say mean streets? Yes, the mean streets. I, honest to God, I wasn't with them all to you. But my grandfather was.

Okay, I digress. 877-960, 9960, and I have entertained that idea several times, too, about writing a book, but I'm afraid that, like my grandfather, I'd have to leave town. So, at any rate, a little humor there. You can use your, you can use a pen name. Yeah. And Amory also went on and said, by the way, Earl, in his new book, please add a chapter or a checklist on the ways to have a successful test drive,

such as bringing a second person to test out all the seats, take notes, listen for squeaks, et cetera. Thanks. That's a great idea. Yeah, it does, yeah. I mean, a great blog, too. I think that'd be a good blogger, you know, just to wet their whistle before the book's ready. Exactly. You're getting a lot of advice. That's hilarious.

Okay, I'm going to interrupt Stu, and we're going to go to one of our favorites. favorite callers. And he has been with us for a long time. And that's John from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I call it the last hurrah. Manufacturers are going crazy. They figured it's all the end of the line for the gas powered cars. And they're coming out with all special models for 2022. Corvette is a collective edition coming out. BMW, a new model. a Porsche, a 9-11 target, Nissan is coming out again, reviving the 240Z. But the most interesting of all is Cadillac. For 2022, it's called the TTV-5.

It's a sedan. It's 688 horsepower. It goes over 200 miles per hour. Turbo charge V-16, B6, and it starts at 8. 85,000, but there's many assessments available, including carbon brakes. And this is nothing new for Cadillac. Believe it or not, Earl and myself were in high school, and in 1957, a Cadillac came out with a beautiful model of four-door Eldorado Brougham.

It was a pillarless four-door. It had a brush, stainless steel roof. It sold for $13,100. at that time. It had every possible accessory, 15 exterior colors, 45 interior combinations. It had inside a

perfume atomizer, silver tumblers for drinks that were magnetized tissue dispenser. You name it. I'm looking at this picture of this thing. This is beautiful. Everything but there's kitchen sink in it. And it had all the Cadillac accessories, including

a memory seat. And it had the suicide doors. If Earl can remember the car. It opened like the Lincoln Continental, like the car that Kennedy was assassinated in. And Cadillac is unbelievable to come out with a vehicle, 688 horsepower now for 2022 and turbocharged V6 engine. So it's quite shocking. And it seems to me like the rest, the last hurrah for the manufacturers of the gasoline engines. The problem is the Tesla I'm driving right now has got more horsepower than the Cadillac. I think that's what they're doing.

I think these guys are starting to feel emasculated. I know, seriously, when I was driving that Super, everybody tried to try me on and wanted to race me. I didn't race. But no one messes me. I get these muscle cars pull up in the Tesla, and they look at it, and they don't even try. Hey, John, is that, was that the Cadillac that Elvis Presley bought? I remember, I mean, when he bought that Cadillac, it was the talk of the town. I think it was red.

Was that the model? Yes, that was one of them. He used to buy a lot of Cadillacs, if you remember, and he gave him away to people. But this was the one, and you could distinguish it with the stainless steel, brush stainless steel roof on it, and also on the side it had a combination of polished chrome,

including even when you open up the doors, but it was the top, top of the line, and people just forget about it. And at the price of 13,000, 100, supposedly Cadillac, they lost $10,000 on that car, but they wanted to get a publicity car out there. I forget how many were made. That windshield is really cool. And they were an electrical nightmare, too, with all the accessories.

It actually had to have two 12-volt batteries in it. But this new Cadillac that's coming out sounds very interesting. 688 horsepower. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. And, John, you said that this is going to, this one. come out in

2022? Yes, 2020. You've started my interest. The rush already for some of these cars that I mentioned including, you know,

the collector edition, a new collector edition of the mid-engine corvette. We all remember what happened to that. When the first one came out in 2019,

it sold for $3 million, body number one. So they're trying to simulate the public and get sales from top

collector people. Did John Sloopy by that? When he bought the first Super, you remember that $2.1 million for the number one Super in January 2019. Yeah.

John, what's the price tag on that vehicle, the Cadillac that we're talking about? 85,000. That's the base. How much? 85,000 at all. 85,000.

That's starting on it. But there's other accessories that you can buy, including the carbon steel brakes in it and other accessories. on top of that, so well over 100,000 on it. Wow. Well.

Is that the XT5, where they're calling it? No, what did not? The CTV-5. It's a sedan. C-T, okay, I got it, yeah. Yeah, well, don't rush out and order one. Well, I'm not. Earl is the one that ordered the right car.

I'm off fossil fuel now. I'm off fossil fuel now. That's the future. I was thinking, yesterday I passed by the Tesla, and there's not one of them on the floor. the minute they put it on the floor bingo he gets sold. This is down in Palm Beach Gardens. Unbelievable. Oh, you were at the mall.

No, let's see. Not one. Absolutely not one. Interesting. Yep. A hot number. Unbelievable. As fast, he said, as they show one, as fast as they sell it. That fast. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And don't forget, again, that car is only made in one plant. It's made in California.

But in Europe, it's made in China. and they've been shipping it to other countries. Mm-hmm. That's a good time to be a cardier. So just a little history on Cadillac, which I've followed, actually, like Earl, since I've been in school. I was always following him. And Cadillac was the first in many things like automatic, hydromatic,

and 21, first climate control in 1964. I could go on and on, synchromesh transmission. Yeah. The original high-tech car. The leader of the pact now with the... with the horsepower. Amazing. Yep.

Thank you, John. I tell you all right. I love talking to you because we're the same age and we remember the same stuff and it's a lot of fun to go back to those years. Thank you. And John... They all had the right taste in a 57 Pontiac Bonneville. And John, I come from a Cadillac family, so when I think a Cadillac, I think of my dad, and I'll tell you, he took great pride in his car.

car and when I sit here now sometimes all these past memories just so they just come to me just out of the blue Earl and I were talking about this the other day but I think about my mom she didn't drive she didn't have a car wow and here I am preaching to ladies wow what a time it was and Cadillac wow You couldn't have anything better. And like I said, my dad took great pride in his Cadillac. Rick? Yeah, Donovan had kind of came in with a quick comment there. He says, that's the CTV, or CT5V blackwing.

And I'm looking at it right now. Really? I got to take a look at that. Blackwing, that's the one. Yep. I'm going to have to take a look at that. Well, John, thank you very much. you are

you're the caller I like best because I remember things that nobody else remembers except you and me so call again call again please thank you John have a great weekend

877 960 99060 you're in Texas at 772 4976530 I hope I'm not saying those numbers so fast or too fast and also ladies are going to run out of time

it's by the clock I think about 910 $50 for the next second new female caller. I think we're going to go to Rick, I see his card up. As a matter of fact, I just mentioned Donovan. And I actually have a couple here. Donovan and Guy Larrabee both have very similar questions. So I'm going to read Guys first, then I'll read Donovan's. Guy says, China, through many joint ventures,

is now the biggest EV manufacturer in the world. They are poised to repeat the Japanese invasion of the 70s. What do you think will happen in the U.S.? And Donovan says, Last week, Earl said he thinks moving to EVs at the consumer level is going to take 10 to 15 years. I was wondering why he thinks it's going to take so long and who's going to drag it out for so long.

Personally, I think if it takes this long, There won't be much of a U.S. auto industry left. We need to be over 50% by 2030, and that might not be enough. The U.S. is so far behind, Europe has crossed the 10% mark. Some countries, it's already over 15%, and Norway is almost an 80% new car sales being EVs. Every month, the percentage is going up a lot in Europe. We know how far China is on this.

We need to get moving on it faster. than we are. Evy sales are booming everywhere but the U.S. You notice there are two comments are different in this respect. I believe the front of Donovan said that China's building more EVs than anybody else

and then Guy Laramie said that one, but yeah. Yeah, or then it was vice versa. But the fact is, I don't know how many EVs they're building, but the Chinese are buying Tesla's and the vehicle choice

for the Chinese car buyer and the Chinese car buyer are a lot of them now because they're very affluent a lot of middle class, upper middle class and billionaire Chinese now and they're buying the hell out of Tesla's because it's a better car

so the Chinese might be building a lot of EVs 1.2 million in 2018. Yeah. So three years ago so it's up going up quite a bit. Now the other thing is we get hung up on EV, electric vehicle. you know electric vehicles have been around for you know i think gentle motors had an all electric vehicle 20 years ago so uh you know just because the car runs entirely on electricity does

it went about 20 miles yeah yeah uh what we're really talking about is is autonomous electric vehicles that's where uh the future is now uh you're your uh people that are worried about contamination of the planet and a clean planet are thinking electricity. But in reality, what's going to power the sale of electric vehicles is the autonomy. And right now, Tesla has a totally autonomous vehicle. This is interesting, and Stu is currently being evaluated with his Tesla. And you have to, you have to give Tesla permission to monitor your vehicle and you when you drive it. So every time Stu gets in his car,

and I just signed up, every time I get in my Tesla, they see how do you drive? If you drive safely in two weeks. And after two weeks, you get a passing score from Tesla. They turn on total autonomy. And that's a very smart thing to do because, you know, what they're doing is if you're a wacko and you're going to be in your back seat playing chess with your brother, and letting the car drive by itself, they don't want you to end the car, having an accident, giving bad publicity and possible liability to Tesla. So they want conscientious, careful drivers. I just, it's a stroke of genius doing that.

And so back on the main point here is that total autonomy is at least 10 years off. Electric vehicles, you know, almost anybody can do all electric vehicles today. but you want an electric vehicle that has the tremendous advantage of autonomy because autonomy means safety, convenience, a whole lot of things. Human beings are unsafe drivers. Computers are safe drivers. Now, you can have a lot of accidents with computers, but far less than you're ever going to have with a human being.

Computers don't get drunk. They don't play with their iPhone. They don't put their makeup on when they're driving. They don't eat their lunch while they're driving computers focus on the road at all time. So that is what the future holds. So that's where Tesla is head and shoulders above China or anybody else. They're by far the number one. They call them the EV maker, but they're really the number one autonomous EV maker.

Well, just for argument's sake, I'm just saying, in the state of Ohio, when the first two cars got on the roads in the state of Ohio back a hundred and some years ago the entire state, only two cars and what did they do? They crashed together. They ran into each other. They were the only

two cars in the entire state and they ran into each other. There's a message there somewhere, Rick, but we'll because people were behind the wheels. I'll remember that one. That was the message. That'll be a question I'll ask you in a moment. Human operated vehicles They couldn't.

Okay, excuse me, Stu. I have a question for the recovering car dealer. In the 21st century, would you say, let's see, I'm going to be careful how I phrase this, would you say that there is a whole lot of that, well, participation with the driver and the mirror? Also be careful what I classify that mirror as, that there's a make-up application going on,

or do you think that things have changed a bit? I think that people do just about everything at a car now. Part of the problem with not focusing on the road is there's so many instruments that you have to focus on. So whatever your distraction may be, it's available to you in a car. You can watch the blinking light. You can play video games in your television. You can play video games.

So, you know, anything that is tempting a human being, let's face it, if you're on a long trip, it's boring. I mean, if you're on the turnpike and there's not a whole lot of traffic, it's boring. Thank you, Rick, to your answer. And, you know, we're all entitled to our own opinion. But the whole makeup thing, I really think, excuse me, let me rephrase this. I know that the main distraction on the road for women and men is a cell phone. And we're in a society now where it's, and this isn't just a loose term, it's mandatory. It doesn't matter whether you're in a bathroom, you're in a car, you're in a bathtub, you're on a tightrope.

the telephone is major and until society decides what's important and what's not important well there's going to be a whole lot of whatever's going on on the road but to my you know point earlier i i just somebody call and correct me i don't think makeup is a major factor well i'm sorry that i didn't mean to offend the female audience out there i don't know what you did or not somebody call. And there are a lot of men that wear makeup. So it's a matter of, it's a matter of, there is, society has answered the question, autonomy, because you can do anything you want in a car that's totally autonomous.

I mean, you can play chess, you can play video games, you can put your makeup on, you can eat your lunch, you can use your cell phone, you can text. That's what human beings want to do. They want to do what they want to do. And they don't want to have to have to focus on getting from point A to point B. You want to get in your car and say, take me to Walgreens. Get in your car and say, take me to the drugstore, take me to the Publix. And it takes you there and you can do whatever you want.

I'd rather just send the car for me. Yeah, yeah, you could do that. You go to the Publix and get my groceries. I'm going to stay here. Exactly. I'm staying focused. Exactly. What we need to do is pick and choose.

and there's a time and a place for everything. You want to create a danger zone? Go ahead. You want to create a safety zone? Go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think about the conversation? 877-960-99-60. Speaking of women, let's go straight to Zoe,

who's a first-time caller from St. George Island. Good morning, Zoe, and welcome. Hi, can you hear me? Yep, we hear you. Hi. First of all, I've never put on my makeup in the car, but I've definitely seen other women do it. But that's not why I called. I actually had a question.

We put in an order for a 2021 Ford Mustang Mock E. And we know that the 2022 is coming out now. And I don't know if you think it would be worth it to cancel the order for the 2021 based on like whatever new features, the 2020 has and then also if we would maybe be able to jump the line a little bit if they're making the 22 years in like a different facility and if we get our order in quickly Zoe I don't know much about Ford's and I don't know when the 2022 will come out or what the equipment is my my general answer would be yes it would make a lot of difference all things being equal, you're probably

economically much better off in the 2022, this late in the year. I see Stu Googling something over there. Zoe, while Stu's Googling, or looking, whatever, Zoe, Zoe, my point

here is between the 2021 and the 22 I would definitely take a look at the features that were in that 21 versus the 22. And also, in this climate right now, the cost of a vehicle is, you've got a mortgage the house. So that's my take.

I'll ask Stu to give us his point of view and what he thinks. I was looking up something for a texter that just came in, so I kind of missed some of that. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I think that appreciation on the 2021 when you would have the 22 available would pretty much offset any advantage to buying the 2021. I think you're better to stick with the 2022. Okay, okay. Thank you.

And Zoe, you did give the control room your contact information for me to send that checkout to you? Oh, yes, I got your email so I can send it to you. right away. Okay, great. Soie, I have a question for you before you go. In the beginning of your conversation, you commented on the makeup mirror. Would you say that there are more people that are on their cell phones on the road or putting makeup on? Oh, I would definitely say cell phones. Thank you. I have seen it. I've seen the lipstick in like my rear beam mirror or someone putting out lipstick but not like a full I don't think that they do their full makeup

in the car very often I think cell phones are definitely a bigger problem we're all learning from our mistakes and I you know I hope that you know there are people out there that are on the road realize what they're driving and how much

it weighs and how they have to stay focused and stay off of their cell phones and it doesn't matter to me whether you're on a Bluetooth or or where the hell you are. You're on a road. There's people all around you,

and they can predict what move you're going to make, nor can you predict their next move. So it's best to say focused. That's my take on driving on the road. Not to say I haven't made some mistakes. So thank you, Zoe. And have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the $50. All right.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay, we're going to get back to Stu. He's got some information. Well, actually, I've got a pretty funny story speaking of, reminded me is when John brought up the last hurrah, the last death throes of the gas car manufacturers putting out these like super powerful cars. The new Corvette that came out, I think, in 2021. What is it? What's the model of it?

It's like, CX6. Yeah, it's super fast, awesome Corvette. Everybody wants a big wait time to order one and all that. Well, Agent Lightning's brother put an order. order in for a new Corvette earlier this year, and he's been waiting patiently for months. Like everything else, everything's in order, especially like a high-demand vehicle like this. He's going to pay all the money for, I think he's paying MSRP. And he gets a call a couple of days ago from the dealer.

This is up in Pennsylvania. He gets a call from the dealer and says, your Corvettes arrived at the dealership, and we're sorry that we have to do this to you, but we're going to have to add another $5,000 to the price. A lot has changed since you ordered the car. and they gave him basically 24 hours to let him know and he's leaning towards doing it because he knows that the second

they've got people lined up, they have 30 people guaranteed they're saying I'll take it at any price so he's debating he's probably made his decision by now but that's just insane well the measure to that is when you do order a car be sure to get a signed buyer's order he did oh he did well he didn't take deliveries

then he needs to get a lawyer he didn't take delivery it's not a contract until he's actually signed in. Oh, no, that's not true. You should get a lawyer there. Yeah, it's a, you know, a contract is a contract. Dealers would have you believe that you have to take delivery and taking delivery

is also another nail in the coffin of selling a vehicle or any product because that gives consideration. But a signed contract is a legal document that if you have a lawyer, you would win that. Usually on orders, they don't do

buyers orders. That doesn't even come out. It's just an order a deposit, it's given. Yeah, it's just a worksheet. There's nothing binding. I would never order a car without a signed contract. But there's no van. They don't have a van when you order it, though. You can't do that. Yeah, Negan 1 says

the Ford Raptor R model is coming out next year. A V8 is supposed to be over 750 horsepower. Their last big hurrah before the electrics take over. So in 10 years, all we're going to have is electric cars and 1,000 horsepower.

monster vehicles. Yep. Oh, boy. All right, let's get back to some text here. I'm getting a phone call. All right, so we have one here from Steve in New Jersey. This is good morning, Earl. This is Steve from New Jersey.

Regarding the car chip shortage, from what I've read, the chip manufacturers may be at odds with the car manufacturers. Intel's chairman recently stated that chip manufacturers do not want to invest in less profitable large chip production needed by cars, but rather wants car manufacturers to adopt the use of readily available, but potentially unreliable,

microchips using cell phones. It looks to me like this chip shortage may not disappear anytime soon, is your opinion still the same as it was earlier in the year? We talked about the different chip sizes last week. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's an opinion. And I just have been watching things for a long, long time, and meaning manufacturing and supply and demand. And I've seen it over and over and over again, the most recent example that in my personal experience, as a Toyota dealer, was with the Toyota Supra. And the Toyota Super was introduced, and I predicted when it came out that dealers would be charging thousands of thousands of times. Now, this is before the COVID crisis. So before the COVID crisis, when car demand was normal, the new Super

came out, and people were paying $10,000, $20,000 over sticker price. to buy the super. And I said, for God's sake, don't do it. We were selling our super's at sticker, and we were making a lot of money. And people were bringing more than that. Six months later, and Stu could probably give me the exact number, we were discounting the super considerably. So the guy that went out here and paid $10,000 over a sticker, he probably paid a $15,000 profit or more to the dealer, and he could have paid a $1,000 profit or $2,000 profit, and it's either way to six months. So supply and demand, supply and demand. When you have high supply, the demand is going to fill the gap. When you have low supply, vice versa. It's

just a matter of economics. So, yes, I think the chip shortage, the chip manufacturers are going to be pouring on the coal to increase the production, and they'll overdo it. They'll overrun production and therefore supply will soar, demand will meet supply, and prices will plummet. And I think it will happen in the next three or four months. Yep. And if you do, we have anonymous feedback we haven't gotten too. Let's see. Okay, is there a chance, oh, this is the same kind of question. Is there a chance that you're wrong about the next six to 12 months about the market? People's savings are at all time highs and they can't wait to spend it on cars. It's inflation.

Well, you know, it's, if you follow the stock market, it's a good example. The market's going up and up and up until it doesn't. And then the market goes down and down and down until it doesn't. Everything goes in cycles. And, you know, if you're in the stock market right now, you've got a big grin on your face, you've got a lot of money in your 401k, and your, and your, and your, you're a book is your hero and your friend. And X number of months,

and I said X, and X the number of months, your portfolio is going to plummet, and your 401 is going to plummet, and then a lot of people are going to get emotional and react and bail out, and then it's going to go back up again. Everything goes in cycles. Right now, the microchip shortage is never going to be over.

And maybe you're trying to rationalize why you should pay too much money. money for a car. It's going to be like just a year from now. You have to just accept the fact that, you know, it's my opinion. And I've been wrong before, I'll be wrong again. I'm repeating myself, but you could either have an opinion or be incredibly wishy-washy, you know, that's not what we do on this show. It might be better or it might be worse. It might be, yeah, but I tell you what I think and what I think, if I'm wrong, then I'll say I'm wrong. I think you should wait until December to buy a car. And, uh,

And if you can wait until January, February, March, it'd be even better. But prices are going to be a lot better in December. And it's still a question whether or not at the end of the year when the manufacturers really pile on the incentives, they've been pulling back. But they depend on the end of the year. So whatever they can muster in terms of production, they're going to want to move those cars quickly.

So it's going to be a much better deal in December. Happy Christmas. Merry Christmas to everybody. Okay, here's a question for us, in particular and anonymous feedback. It says, can you discuss how your new car inventory and website are working? It says there are 73 new RAV-4s that says they're inbound, but a sales person told me they were sold. Then when I asked about several other models showed in stock inventory, the person checks that those cars have been sold too. Several days later, the sold

units were on sale on your website. I know times are strange in the car business, but how am I supposed to know what's actually available to actually purchase? Although this is very frustrating. I still want to thank you for all your honesty and integrity. Well, we're kind of at the mercy of what our website and inventory computer feeds will permit us to do. So when car dealers ran out of cars on the lot, they wanted to be able to show the cars they had incoming. And these are all marked on our website as inbound cars. Unfortunately, until they're actually delivered to the customer, they don't get reported so they don't come off the website. So that's why it says incoming, please check for availability. Not all of them are sold, but a lot of them are.

So we're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. We either shut down our website or we show what is available. In some cases, some might be already spoken. Well, you just told me something I didn't know, and I own the dealership. But what we should do is we should have a disclosure of some kind. There is. Well, the disclosure should be maybe bigger and more obvious because we are kind of, we are, we did the best we absolutely can to make it as clear as possible. but we are limited by technology.

If I could just have a magic wand, it would be a lot better. So if the texture had looked closer, he would have seen that... It says inbound. And when you click on into the listing, it says, please check about availability, because that's the best we can do is put and say, just call. We'll talk about it later, but I think maybe we should make it a little bit more direct.

Let's move on. Okay. Let's see. Do you want me to read a couple of crazy... anonymous feedback about vaccines in our dealership? I think I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, go ahead.

As long as everybody in the studio promises not to go on and on about vaccines because we had one of those earlier. Rick and I were talking about it and we talk too much about it. But yeah, I just want, I like to do the anonymous feedbacks to prove we're not afraid to read anything.

But I don't want to get hung up and waste time on it. These are full of untruths and misinformation. including claiming that Canada has banned the Moderna vaccine, which is not true. Matter of fact, Canada worked out a deal with Moderna to increase importation of the vaccine. But here we go. Anonymous feedback. Dear Earl, I find it really disappointing to find out that you treat your unvaccinated employees as second-class citizens.

Science tells us that natural immunity from past infections is better than the vaccine. Science also tells us that the vaccine is effectiveness of wanes after three months and has gone after six months. But science doesn't tell us either of those things. Do you really expect your employers to pump this chemical under themselves every six months? For a guy who likes, I don't know what chemicals are talking about. I'm sorry, I won't comment. For a guy who likes to promote himself as being fair, this is employment apartheid. And if you paid attention to the science, you would learn that young men are getting myocarditis, which is not reversible.

Either is death from COVID from these vaccines. Did you know Canada is forbidding the Moderna vaccine? False information. Fake news. I didn't take you as a socialist kind of guy, but Earl, I was wrong. Earl's about as far from a socialist as I've ever met in my life. Wow.

All right. All right. Have at it. Socialism. Yeah, no, I'm going to answer it, then we'll stop it. Fake information. No, we'll stop it. Yeah. Well, it's too hit it on.

It's sort of fake news. You know, I think any time you see anything, whether it's on social media or a newspaper, TV, whatever it's Facebook. You need to sit, check sources. And, uh, When someone cites a news source, say, what is the name of the news source? And if you get something that is trustworthy, and we all know the role of Lee Trust, nothing is totally trustworthy,

but if it's something you never heard of before, which the information this texture had, there's no conventional, normal news source that would verify any of that. All you have to do is Google it. So anyway, thanks for the opinion, and I don't hate you for saying it. You're wrong, and I disagree with you, but I respect your. right to say it. And please keep the anonymous feedback coming, because that's why we have anonymous

feedback. Never be afraid. I won't make fun of you. I won't say anything bad about you. I'll just say I disagree with you. I'm not as nice. This chucklehead also sent about four other anonymous feedbacks all filled with and just brimming

with false and stupid information. Hey, well, hey, listen, you got your day on the radio, so we read it out loud. Okay. One of you. One of the accusations when you get the vaccine, did you read this whenever you got a text that when you're getting the vaccine, they're putting a chip in you so they can follow it? Yeah, yeah. They get chips in your cell phone.

That's much cheaper and you're paying for it. They don't put chips anymore because of the microchip shortage. Right. You're safe now. Wait a minute. That's why we have a chip shortage. They're all in everybody's arms. Yeah.

I have a chip on my dog. Okay. We're not going to talk about it. Yeah. We have a text from Robbie. Robbie, Texas last week from Stewart about this. Good morning. We have a BMW with milky white headlights. Can they be cleaned or they need to be replaced? Thank you. Your show is the best. They can be cleaned and don't do it at a dealership because they charge like $150 to do it. You can buy a kit on Amazon for $15, maybe $12 and you just rub it off. It's like a little compound that cleans off the...

Yeah, absolutely. And you can go to Consumer Report and you can get all that information about cleaning your headlights. Yeah, and you definitely don't have to get new headlights. And with all of those kits, remember the most important thing, the more efforts you put into it, the better it's going to come out, the better the outcome. You reap what you sew. It's open. A quick note here from Mike E, I think that's how you pronounce it.

It's kind of Mike, but he's got a space in there. He says, Earl, I just wanted to say, when I was looking to buy a used vehicle back in 2015, I came across your YouTube channel, and after watching many videos I left feeling like an empowered buyer I now recommend your channel to anybody I know

who's going through the car buying process we aims to please how nice thank you so for every one of the guys out there that are complaining about our issues of the vaccine whatever there are other people out there that are finding good information

what we're trying to provide is how to help them buy a car and they're being successful at it. Absolutely. Nice balance, for sure. Okay, I have a text, but I hate to answer my own question. So Nancy will read a text, and I will answer the text. This right here? Yeah.

Okay. I have a question. My husband and I are looking to trade both cars in. We have car notes on both of them. on one vehicle should we sell the cars outright or should we trade them in on one vehicle

well I know one place that they should go but I'll give this back to you I would say that you answer you don't want to trade either car in unless you have the actual best valuation on your cars

your trade-ins are worth more today than they'll be worth in a long long time and it's a great time to sell or trade a car if you get the top dollar. You need to check with Carvana. We buy any car.com, carmax. There are a number of sources, independent sources, Varum, the A.R.O.m.com.

A lot of sources out there to get and check prices that are quite high. If a dealer can give you that amount in a trade-in, and then it's okay to trade in. I would maybe trade one car in or two cars based on what I could get. We were talking about that earlier, and you're sitting on a, well, a gold mine. Exactly. And we buy anycar.com. Wow.

Get out there, show them that car, and go to the bank. Yeah, you're right. Okay, where are we now? Do we have time? There's 939. I think we're ready for the mystery shopper. I think we should, yeah. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't know by no, Jonathan has frozen the lines,

but you're definitely welcome to the... vote on our mystery shopping report and we would appreciate it if you would vote on that mystery shopping report and did I give you two mystery shopping reports this morning? You might have. It seemed pretty thick, but...

Okay. The mystery shopping report that Earl's going to get to right now is from Wallace Volkswagen and it is a doozy. You can when am I trying to say 7-7

to 497653030 and you can vote. Okay, here we go. And as you said, this is Wallace Volkswagen and Stewart, Martin County. That's in southeast Florida for you folks all over the world. And we took a refreshing new direction in our shopping report. We conclude our six-week series of Mazda, mystery shops. We really did our job with Mazda, and I hope we did a lot of good for you folks out there

who were thinking about buying Mazas. And now we changed tracks. And we're back. In fact, with Mazda, this is a really cool part. We haven't done this ever before. We did South Florida. We did Nashville. We did Pittsburgh.

I mean, how cool is that? So we've really got a wide spectrum and opinions of different dealers in different parts of the country. So here we are, and we're back in front. forward again and we went to a direct mail ad. Direct mail ads are the, usually some of the worst because they fly beneath the regulators and radar. You don't get a whole lot of attention except for the people that you're trying to deceive and cheat with direct mail because you mail a letter and you know who's getting it. You're not going to send a direct mail unscrupulous

Spate and Switch letter to the Attorney General of the State or to Consumer Office of Affairs but a Business Bureau, you sent it to who you want to. So we all this folks playing did this direct mail ad in Stewart, Florida, Martin County, South East Florida. Lately Agent Lightning has been conducting an improvised style of mystery shopping. She goes into dealerships, gets read of the situation and personalities involved, then goes where the events take her. It's impromptu, spontaneous, like jazz. I like that. It's kind of just exactly the way jazz is. You kind of do your thing. Things are different when we

investigate a specific ad. We have a goal in mind. We uncover the ruse. Of course, we usually have a high degree of certainty of what the ruse is before we even set foot in the dealership. Most of the tricks we see are some variation of the same tricks. I mean, every now and then we get a new one, but it's been a long time because, let me tell you, for 50, 60 years, car dealers have been working on them, and they pretty much got all the good ones figured out, and they used them over and over and over. This was a case with a direct mail ad that came from Wallace Volkswagen. The letter was promoting the Time is Now Sales Event, that's original, and a promise teeny-weeney-print, up to, 140% over Kelly Blue Book Valley, up to,

there's a lot of words like that and they use them all the time I quickly I googled virtually is another one of my favorites and I then I went to virtually synonyms on Google and here these are synonyms and these are you car dealers are out there take notes

basically synonyms for virtually basically essentially nearly practically practically around fundamentally, implicitly, in effect. We're going to implicitly give you

140%, but not explicitly. But anyway, write these down. You can use these in your fine print or even in your big print because, you know, people don't run over them and they don't think about it. Things are different. We investigate a specific ad.

Okay, we did that. Okay. The letter appeared to come from a general manager, this direct bail piece from Volkswagen and Wallace, trigger. Eddie Momeni was the supposedly general manager and even included it appeared to be a check

for $6,461. I like that amount too. You know, $1,000 or $5,000. That's believable. $6,461 for authorized assistance. And I've got a picture of the check here and I'm not going to take the time to show it, but it looks real legitimate. Now the disclosures there in the fine print says this is not a check, but when you see it, you've got to open the envelope, you've got to look at it, and some people even try to cash these things because they think they're real checks, it actually happens.

The numbers on the bottom look exactly like you're routing a checking account number as the same computer print. I mean, the ultimate and deception. The gist of the letter was that they desperately needed vehicles and were willing to pay top dollar, which is probably true. All dealers are desperately needing used vehicles and new, but not 140% over Kelly Bluebook. Kelly Blue Book is on the market pretty much

and the Kelly Blue Book money is reflecting the very very high value of cars so when you see 140% over current Kelly Blue Book it ain't gonna happen.com like I mentioned earlier we had a pretty good idea of what to expect

but history has proven again and again that any mystery shop can be unpredictable uncovering the truth requires a flesh and blood agent in the field boots on the ground The woman wearing these boots is Agent Lightning. I have a picture of mental picture of Agent Lightning

with boots. Boots are made for walking. Yeah, boots are made for walking. And here's what they're going to do. Nancy Sinatra, right? Okay, here's the report. I arrived at lunchtime, and I'm Agent Lightning. I arrived at lunchtime was greeted by failure. As I wanted the selection

in the voters up front. You know the interest. She was unmasked. Oh, gee, there we go again, with a mask. Phelia asked how she could help, and I told her I'd like to trade in my 2018 VW Atlas for something new or smaller and with better gas mileage. We walked inside and Felia led me to her office area. We sat down and as Thalia began to collect my info, I interrupted and asked her if she could wear a face mask covering while we worked together. I highly recommend that. Don't be timid, folks.

I did that the other day. I had an inspector come out to her home and knocked on the door, and I opened the door. No mask. I said he had vaccinated. He said, no. He says, but I had COVID. I said, that doesn't matter. Stay outside. I mean, you've got to assert yourself. But I digress. She returned a minute with a mask, and we continued. I'd been there over a year ago, so my information was on the computer. We talked about the car. I wanted it and settled on a new jetto. Unfortunately, there were only two at stock. No surprise. I expressed my disappointment at the limited selection and failure. gave me another lengthy explanation of the global chip shortage. I mean, what an aid to car salespeople today to get all the money for a car? They really have a legitimate excuse. For the first time in 120 years. Exactly.

Exactly. I asked her if I could see the two jettas they had, and she said she'd run get the keys and be right back. Thalia led me outside. The jettas were parked near each other. I chose the price of your sportier, white one, with red brick calipers. The MSRP was 33,240, and there was an addendum label on the windshield. It added $995 for a southeast regional adjusted market value. Boy, that sounds official.

I mean, that's got to be okay, right? A 199 pinstripe, that's kind of obvious. I mean, that's one hell of an expensive pinstripe. And it costs a dealer, $15, maybe? $12. $12 and another $2,800 for limited availability. Now, my question would be, if I were going to be confrontational, I said, wait a minute, you got a $9.95 for a southeast regional market value

is the adjusted market value because of the limit of availability. And then you just charged me another $2,800, but I wouldn't be. Well, it was limited, then it got even more limited. Then we added that. The Wallace dealer list price, the Wallace dealer list price, was $37,234. Okay.

Fellie asked for my driver's license, disappeared inside to get a license plate. She was back in a minute or two, and then we took a test drive up US1. It was fun. Thelie spent the time educating me on the new car. Once back in the dealership, she asked me if I liked it,

and if I wanted to move forward with the purchase. I said, let's go for it. Before we got out of the car, I asked her about this significant markup over MSRP. Failure replied by telling me that the sales manager on duty is the best, and that she's sure he'll be able to, between my trade and the purchase price, give me a great deal. We went back to Thelius' office, and she pulled out an iPad. She said that in order to get me the best deal, she needed to know if I would qualify for additional rebates. He asked if it would be okay to ask me some questions.

I said, sure. So here were the questions. I love these. Listen, this will knock your socks off. Did I serve in the military? Was I at first responder? Oh, man, that is rough. Have I ever purchased from all this dealership before?

Of course, I hadn't. So I got a no, no, no, okay? I'm not a fireman. I'm not in the Marines. And I haven't bought a car from here before. Okay, so let's keep going. Did I currently own a Volkswagen? Oh, yes, I got one.

Okay, now I get a discount. Was I a recent college graduate? Come on, come on. No. Did I receive coupon? How many people are recent college graduates, percentage-wise? One-tenth of one percent? Yeah.

One-hundred to one percent? Yeah. It's basically every 23-year-old in the country. Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, not every year-old. I know, I know. Did I receive a coupon code from Wallace and the Mail?

Yes. Okay. What did I do for a living? I'm a realtor. And actually... And there is. It turned out later on. At least I said it was a realtor rebate.

A realtor rebate. Thalia told me she had everything she needed and asked for me for my keys to the 2018 VW Atlas to get it a praise. I handed them over and she said she would be back soon with some numbers. I waited 13 minutes and Thalia returned to Salyze. me what monthly payment I wanted to be at I told her I was concerned with the outdoor price not the monthly payment correct answer never let them switch you to that monthly payment you end up paying a lot more money when you do that I said that I had an excellent credit so I decided to finance I would know I would

qualify for the best rates they had so you thank me and left again she returned again after another 10 minutes to ask why the check engine light was on and my looks like I said I bought it in several times with the same thing. It was undetermined. Thalia thanked me and left. I waited and then waited some more. Finally, I decided to run around and look for her.

I could see her in an office with a sales manager. She was on the phone. I walked over and told both of them, I've been waiting to get a price for over 40 minutes, and I've getting annoyed. The sales manager said he would have everything ready in a few minutes or I'd return to Thalia's office. I'll wait another six minutes that Thalia came over

with a worksheet. The selling price was Wallace's Big Fad and played the list price, $37,234. They took off a $1,000 discount which comprised of the $500 VW owners' royalty rebate and $500 for being a realtor. They finally paid off.

I mean, realtor. I mean, what if I was a plumber? Is there a plumber? I don't know. They gave me $23,000 for my car, which is exactly what Stu, you know, who was my master general, told me it was worth. The trade difference was 13,234, to which they added, here we go. $7.99 dock fee, hidden fee, sales tax, and non-tax fees. With the addendum items in the dock fee, Wallace was selling this 2021 VW Jetta for $4,793 over sticker, over MSRP.

As I started the worksheet, Lance, the unmasked sales manager, everybody was unmasked. I came over and enthusiastically asked me if we had a deal. I left and said, no way. Lance asked why, and I told him, there was no way I was paying over MSRP. Then I pulled out the mailer, and so the numbers just don't make sense to me. I told them that I'd looked up my trade value on Kelly Blue Book, and it was 21,442. 140% over Kelly Blue Book would be 30,000. not 23,000.

Lance said in a pleading, give me a break sort of a way, they really didn't have much room to move on the price. He excused himself, said he'd see what he could do. Thalia stood up to follow him and told me she'd give him to put a mask on. Okay, good for her. They both returned seven minutes with a new worksheet. Lance was now wearing a mask. He put the worksheet down on the desk and went to take a picture.

Lance snatched a worksheet. I love that. Statched it. So I couldn't include my info in the picture, just the car information and price. Of course, he doesn't want you to shop Wallace's price with the competition. Or it doesn't want you to come back and say this is for her. Exactly. I don't know what that came from.

Yeah, exactly. I wasn't allowed to take a picture of everything attached me to the deal. Interesting, and that's why. Dealers hate competition. This time there was a $16,000 discount instead of $1,000,000, gave down a little bit. And now they were showing me 24-5 for my trade, a little bit more, but not much. Certainly not 140% of for Kelly. All of the addendum, garbage, and dealer fee was still added.

So we're still at a sky-high, rocket-high price. I'm trying to lick my finger on my through my mask here. I third the page, yeah. Here we go. Lance F, if I was ready to get into finance and sign in, I said I was still pretty far away from making a decision. I said I need to get another appraisal or two on my Atlas. last four of me that this was the last day of the month and they cannot

guarantee the same deal tomorrow standard operating procedure I said I take my chances okay bait and switch what do we say how do we vote we're gonna listen with you at home hopefully have some votes that have come in now and let's go to anybody who wants to start see I don't have any grades coming in right now but I'm leaning to give them a low passing grade Well, hold on a second. I totally forgot that we have this, the direct mail piece. A very low passing grade. That's a D-minus.

Yeah. I mean, they're borderline F for me. Because I wasn't even, I was thinking, well, the prices high is over MSRP. It seems to be par for the course these days. Yeah. But this is the first direct mail piece we've investigated in a long time. Yeah, you've got a nice graphic here. I'll hold it up, but you're not going to be able to sit too well. I don't like this.

But this direct mail is, again, professionally designed. I mean, Wallace doesn't do this. They hire a company, and these people spend a lot of time coming up with legalized, in their minds, deception. And some of it's not legalized deception. And they don't have to worry about getting in trouble because they don't send them to the Attorney General. They don't send them to the state legislators. They don't send them to the authorities. They only send them to the people that they think and they target their demographics so that they go to the most vulnerable people

that they could possibly go to. Yeah, I think the experience wasn't unpleasant. I don't think they were bullies or they beat her up too bad. And they were even willing, they came out and gave her another $2,100 discount, basically. They cut the deal, but it was still done in that same style. So that's why I'm not going to an F. But we have Bob gives them an F.

Mark gives them a D, and I don't have Facebook up right now. So there we go. That's what I think. I've got Kyle in Pennsylvania says they get the plumber's surplus fee because this deal is crappy. Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis, says F. Kit Kat, D minus. Negan, a big fat F plus. Kyle says he's confirming his F. I've got Tim Gilliland, too many old school tactics, a D.

Brian Siddlako, give me a break, D plus. Wayne Vite with a D-Mobile. minus and I'm going to agree with Stu on the F that was just deceptive had a lot of games As Negan of an F plus is the same thing as the D minus

Nancy what say you well I have a question for everyone with all these questions you're asked whenever you go into a dealership whether you've served in the military what do you do for a living do they ever ask do you have a living wheel Well, because you're going to be on a

That's rhetoric You're going to be on life support when they get done with you That's where I was gone But you know me controversial I love that Ladies and gentlemen I am going to give them an F I wouldn't expect anything less

Yeah You know I I'm going to go with a D-minus I I think that Here's what for The reason I almost want to give them enough is you have a, you dealers out there, listen to all of you, and Bill Wallace or all the dealers out there, you know, listening. You have a situation now for the first time in my memory and history, you have a good reason to charge a lot of money for every car.

And you can do it openly and honestly, because if you look a person in the eye and you only have two Volkswagen Joe's in stock, and you say, this is the price, I'm sorry, and you give them the real price, anything you want, okay? MSRP, $5,000 of MSRP, $2,000 over MRP, you will sell that car because people are coming in and they're buying them. And that's the reason that these dealers have practically no cars in stock, and sometimes they don't have any cars. so if you can sell a car with a real reason that won't come again hopefully ever but probably if it does it'll be a hundred years from now just tell the truth and charge them all the money and say this is a price I'm sorry we do it because it's supply and demand

and if you don't buy the car there'll be something else they'll come in the door and tomorrow or maybe in an hour and they will pay the price Well said. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We walk the walk, and we would love to be in your company next Saturday morning at 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend. And Stu, Negan says, no, it's not the same as you guys. I love Negan.