Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.09.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mullinax Ford

Episode Date: October 9, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning revisits a local Ford dealer to purchase a new 2021 Ford Edge from their lot to see if how much over MSRP they will sell the car. 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 is 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.

Good morning, everybody. You got Earl Stewart here, live. I'm in Living Color on Facebook and Twitter and Periscope and YouTube and all that kind of high-tech stuff. been doing this show for a long, long time. And we're here to try to educate and entertain you. We'd love to amuse you if we can

and we're just, we have a lot of fun doing the show. And live radio, it just gets mine your own going. I'll hope it does yours too. I mean, you're not in the studio like we are, but it isn't scary. It's just I don't know, stimulating is the word.

And whether I feel good or bad, I always feel better when I come and do this show. And I know the same is true with Rick Kearney, Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Jonathan. We all love doing this. It's not boring. I mean, we thrive on you and your comments. I'm going to try not to run on and on and on in my live portion of the introduction.

You've already had a taped portion. I just want to say this, that your calls to this show via YouTube or Twitter or the old-fashioned telephone. [phone] 960-9960. We will prioritize those calls because we've got a of the number lines coming in the station. The show has gotten really popular.

I mean, we're really thrilled with the fact that we're getting all over the country. We're getting calls. I say the world, not really. We had a call from Bali. I keep talking about that. But in reality, we pretty well cover the United States and Canada.

And we have a lot of people call the show. Don't think that the UK get through. We're going to prioritize your call. Now, a lot of people don't like to call and Nancy and I were talking about that on the car driving to the studio. We've got to remember that most folks out there don't call. I mean, I think the percentage, you radio experts out there, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think less than 10%, maybe less than 5%, maybe 1%,

it's a teeny-winy percent of people call talk shows. It just wouldn't be enough room to do a show otherwise. So we respect that too. And if you want to text us at 772-49765-0, that's great. Text us at 772-49765-30. We do monitor the telephone lines very carefully. Nancy Stewart is looking at a computer right now, and if you're on the line, we'll take your call.

We jump ahead to the real, old-fashioned telephone calls because of our limited number of lines. So remember that. 877-9-60-90-960. If you listen to the show for the whole two hours, I mean, a few, I think, may. Most people tune in and out. You know, we got a busy life.

We've got a busy life. You're probably listening for 15, 20 minutes, and then you're off. And you might not come in until the second hour. We're on from 8 to 10, Eastern Standard Time. So, with all that said, I'm going to quit yet, I hope that you do call.

And Rick Kearney, I'm going to introduce him first. You know, the car dealerships call their service departments to back in. I don't think that's very flattering. I think it may literally, it just means toward the rear of the dealership. Back in, I wouldn't know. But that's what, and they're considered second class. The manufacturers that build these cars, they want to sell them. So they give the glory to the guys on the front end, and that's the salespeople, and sell the new cars.

But I'll tell you what, the heart and soul of a car dealership, in fact, the main profit center of a college dealership, and the main thing that you should be worried about is back in, the service department. Rick Kearney is a certified diagnostic master technician that can just about answer any question about any vehicle you want. Give us a quick 30-second, 45-second summary of when you started the business and where you were then and where you are today in terms of cars and knowledge. Yeah, I spent about two years going to North Tech Public School for Auto Mechanics, Palm Beach County School. Von Beach County, okay. And got a job working for you as an oil changer. How long ago was that?

And that was 1995. Okay, I told you you've been around a lot of time. And I started right at the bottom level. I was back in the 1900s. Yeah. Oil changing and rotating tires and doing the basics. And I learned every bit of it from the ground up and every school that Toyota has. Even before that, weren't you tinkering with cars when you were a kid?

Oh, I was building go-carts when I was six years old. I mean, it was, yeah, I've just always kind of been mechanically minded and always wondered how things worked and if I could make them work better. Yeah. When you, when you, a typical 30-day work cycle, how often are you online? How often are you being educated? How often does Toyota, because we're a toilet dealership, come to you and say, This is the new way to do this.

This is a product we haven't had before. I mean, you know, the biggest thing probably was a hybrid. You said, like, you know, Rick Kearney was probably the first hybrid technician, one of the first in South Florida. He certainly was, Toyota was first in hybrids. So the fact that you were our first Prius expert, I mean, so you started out of the whole hybrid technology. I was one of the first, not the first, but one of the first. You know, Honda actually had their insight in the U.S. about eight months to a year before Toyota got the Prius here. Uh-huh, that's right.

But Prius was actually running in Japan in 97, and Honda, of course, was back then they were testing them in Japan many years ago. So, you know, a hybrid was just kind of a stepping stone to try to get people to understand. You don't need a gasoline internal combustion engine on every car. there are other ways to power these cars and other ways to make it work. But, you know, we've had this huge battle against big oil and figuring out how we're going to transition into the future. You know, you can't run these ice engines forever. We have to find a new future. And this was one of the ways to help transition.

Well, the big point is from the time you got a North Tech and started on the Lubrock, there have been huge changes. and you've got to stay on top of it. I mean, what worries me about going to a doctor these days is if he graduated from med school 40 years ago and he hasn't stayed on top of what he's doing,

he might as well not be a doctor. You started as a mechanic 25 years ago, and if you hadn't stayed on top of it, you'd be useless today. I mean, if you went into a coma 25 years ago after you started and woke up the day and they said, fix this car,

and you open the hood, you'd say, what's the hell? What is it? I'd be lost. I mean, the electronics on them now? Yeah. And, well, imagine back then you had maybe one or two little computer-controlled devices in the car and one main computer that helped control the engine. Yeah.

Now there are, on the average, 50 to 60 computers, and they don't even have wires run for everything in it because they actually use what's called communication wires. and the computers will all talk back and forth over these cables. Crazy. So, I mean, it's incredible. We've now got Internet in the cars. You've got Bluetooth, car play. You know, everything is all about electronics.

The cars can actually receive some computer updates. They're working on this to where times when, you know, a mechanic would, say, do a tune-up on your car. Well, now the computers are doing that. But if they need to change the programming in that computer, within the next few years, they're going to be able to simply send it over the Internet right to your car, and your car's computer will update. So the point is, if you have a question about a car, this man sitting to my right can answer it. Maintaining, repairing, anything to do with your car, you can save a lot of money.

I mean, you might get a diagnosis on the air right now that save you a couple hundred bucks. And Rick would love to talk to you. He's monitoring our YouTube channel, Erluncars.com. I'm sorry, YouTube is YouTube.com for slash Earl and Cars. YouTube.com for slash Earl on Cars. And he's right there monitoring it. You can text him through 772-4976530 or just call at 877-960. Anything.

Any questions you have about a vehicle. on the world today, Rick can answer. And Nancy Stewart's sitting on my left here. You know her. She's a co-founder of the show for many, many years ago. And Nancy's part of the team. Her specialty is the fact that she is catering and focusing on you ladies out there in the audience,

our female audience. And she's built that audience up remarkably over the past years. and we have some excellent callers, textures, and participants in the show. When we started out many years ago, we have virtually no female callers. So there's a different perspective of the way women look at life and look at cars and look at purchasing and maintaining. And that's why Nancy has been such an important part of this show.

Nancy, tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're doing for the ladies. Yeah, thank you for the introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, my qualifications, my education is just living my life and knowing as I raised three children that knowledge was power and that all of us have a voice in purchasing, leasing, anything we have to do with your car, getting it fixed. The list is endless. So good morning to everyone. Thank you for tuning in. You are a very, well, a very important part of the show. You educate us week in, week out.

And for the ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. $50. Ladies, how was your car purchasing, servicing? How was your experience? We'd love for you to share it with us. And you can win $50. win-win situation 877-960

or for everyone else you can text us at 772 472 497-6-530 Thanks Earl I don't have anything in front of the number anyway Okay We have signs around the studio you remember

It's hard to see when you're looking down And I memorize I have that memorized every week but this morning I'm working I've been rewired can I tell them a secret we're both a little flustered because we got locked out of the studio and we were banging on the door

and we finally called Rick and try to let it but I changed the code on the door I don't use it but I have it I don't use it anyway I just had a little setback right there okay we are going to go straight to the phones before we go to

Stu and Stu is a A great fantastic, talented part of the show. I can't say enough, the Mystery Shopping Report. It's just amazing and gets more amazing every single week through his knowledge and his applying this elegant way of putting the mystery shopping together. Everyone looks forward to it is a big part of our show. So that's mystery shop is from Mullinac's Ford.

As I said, we're going to go straight to the phones, and we're going to talk to Kevin, who's been holding in Lake Worth. Good morning, Kevin. Hey, good morning, guys. How are you today? Great. So I listen to your show occasionally, and I've been interested to get your take on extended car warranties.

I'm a fleet manager for a city down here in Delray. And I purchase extended warranties for most of the new vehicles that we buy. But what perturbs me is that if I buy a five-year, 75,000-mile extended warranty, most of the things covered under that warranty are really covered under the base warranty. So really, I'm only getting a couple of years that I'm paying for. What's your take on that? Well, Kevin... That's one of the main reasons.

Yeah, what's that? That's one of the main reasons that doesn't make sense. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of reasons that you have to be very careful before you lay out a lot of money for an extended warranty. One reason, a nice, pleasant reason is cars are really much more reliable than they've ever been, and they also require far less maintenance. And if you want the right car, if you were careful and got a good, a highly reliable, safe car, you don't need an extended warranty. I mean, these cars that used to start to fall apart

at 50,000 miles, that will make it to half a million miles. I mean, I stretched out there a little bit, but three or four hundred thousand miles is not too many miles on a well-maintained car. Maintenance is the key, but the maintenance requirements are much less than ever before. So I have a rule of thumb, Kevin. If you bought a good car and you take care of it, don't buy the extended warranty. Do those folks that feel they need the extended warranty? There's two ways to look at it. There's a practical way and there's a feel-good way.

People feel good about insurance. I think we all buy too much insurance. I do. I bet everybody in this room has got too much insurance. If you watch the television or you look online and you're looking at the advertisements, they'll tell you you don't have enough insurance. Well, you know, that's called selling, and that's the reason the insurance company is, the insurance companies are making a ton of money.

But if you want to give me a specific example, Kevin, say, look, I've got this kind of a car, and this is what I'm worried about. I could give you some advice on that, but otherwise, save your money. Don't spend the money on that extended warning. Yeah, so the word extended in itself implies that it would start after the factory warranty expired, but it doesn't work that way. It overlaps. Typically, in year four or five, say we have a transmission failure or an air conditioning component failure, those are the really expensive repairs. and typically they fail right after the extended warranty expires.

It's been in my experience. Well, Kevin, they don't fail on a good car. I mean, I know it seems that way. It's all statistics. In other words, there might be a 1% failure rate in the first three years, and then it maybe goes up and it increases over time. And the actuaries know at that point is the most optimal to make the manufacturer warrant. But you're right. The extended warranties overlap with them. So if somebody offers a seven-year warranty and the car has a five-year or a three-year warranty, you really have a, you're buying a four-year extended warranty. So it just sounds better. It's the way it's presented. But you picked up on that right away. So, and like Earl said, it has to do with the car. I mean, if you're buying maybe an Aston Martin or something that's known for high, really expensive repairs and you don't feel like you could be self-insured to do it,

Well, the prices of that warranty is going to be really high, too, but that could be something that gives someone comfort or just a sense of security. But, you know, a Toyota and a Honda, you know, unless you plan on driving it for the rest of your life for another 50 years, it's probably not the, you know. But you're buying a warranty from the manufacturer. You're not going to get hosed on the price that bad, but they're going to make a nice profit on you.

They make a lot of money on extended warranties. If you're buying it from the dealer, you'd be real careful because sometimes the dealer's own their own, warranty companies and they can charge anything they want. You are going to get probably hosed when you buy a dealer's warranty. And there are independent warranty companies out there that are even worse than dealers. If that's possible, they're advertising them all the time now and make it sound like it's an all-inclusive bumper-to-bumper warranty and they are not.

Most of the things you buy are basically a power train warranty, which is patently worthless. I just, you know, you can make an intelligent purchase on a warranty, but unless you are unlucky, you're not going to need it. And that's, but if it gives you peace of mind, I always say, read the warranty, find out what it includes, what it does not include, compare the prices with other extended warranties, and if it gives you a piece of mind and you know how much you're paying, go ahead and buy it. I just don't think you need it. And, Kevin, I'd like to add something to that on my own hands-on. experience whenever I would go out and purchase a car and most of the time I did. I want to know what doesn't the warranty cover. That was most important to me.

As a single mom, I had to know what the warranty didn't cover. And then after that, I made my decision as to whether I was going to purchase a warranty after the extended warranty at expired. So I just thought I'd share that with you. It was imperative that I get that information, like I said, being a single mom. Okay, Kevin, I'm not sure if you're still with us or not, but if you have hung up, we want to thank you for the phone call. We enjoyed speaking to you, and we hope that we'll encourage other listeners to give us a call. if you have any questions on warranties,

if you have any questions on whether you spend enough time just investigating whether you needed a lease, purchase, anything at all. And gosh, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. Sometimes it's more expensive to keep your car on the road than it is to purchase it. So those are factors that you have to take into consideration. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Yeah, we got around everybody except Stu, and Sue is our cyber investigator on the mystery shopping reports and charge of that. And part of the dealership, he's a general manager of our dealership. He is more of a hands-on what's happening day type of guy. So do a little synopsis like Rick did still, but your career. My career in the automotive business? Yeah. it just started only only about 25 years ago no I didn't have any interest the that's the fascinating thing about my career trajectory is only at one point in my

life did I want to be a car dealer and I think I was in kindergarten because I still remember at we was to Montessori School and on Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach it must have been 1972 or something like that yeah we drew a picture of what we saw ourselves as when we grew up. And the old Stuart Pontiac building on Dixie Highway was made of brick. And so I remember drawing a picture of a brick wall and then me standing in front of it with a blue suit and a really, really wide tie because it was 1972. And that was it.

And after that, I just, I was interested in art. And so I did that my whole life. I went to college, got a green anthropology, and then continued art. And it wasn't until 1990s, 1998 that I actually joined, 30 years after you joined the car business, came to work for you there. And it started off in sales. And I just kind of grew up from there. But it's been 23 years, not 25 years, 23 years. And Stu, I was going down in memory lane.

I have to think back as to when I was sitting and I knew that you were in Shares' home and you were doing your creating because of the artistic. moment that you were born with. I got you, Artagraphs from Cher. And Versace and all of this, so your credentials are many. I had a nice little resume there for a while. It's just a lot of hard work. Climbing up and down ladders, building, scaffolding.

Backbreaking. Yeah, it's much, the our car is physically easier. I digress. But that's it, yeah. They are, you know, the Mr. Shopping report, I think, is your strongest focus on these days. and you are guiding Agent Lightning around the United States. And the last few reports is really been interesting.

And she's an amazing job. I have to say, I used to think Agent X of one of our original shoppers, but I think Agent Lightning is she's surpassed our expectations. And your reports are excellent, and I learn things from her reports. I say this every week but it's true this week what was I pleased

or surprised or happy or you got a good report that I mean yeah it's a good mystery shopper is as hard the definition for me is if it makes my life easier because I remember in the beginning

we started doing these things every mystery shopping report was this huge like was a project I remember just stressed now about it I'm like I'm gonna find someone to go into a car dealership

in this whole thing Yeah, if you sent somebody in there that isn't comfortable and doesn't have the ability, you really botch it. And we had some strange messy shoppers at the beginning, and they would get busted. And then also communication is really important. So you might have someone that has some moxie, you know, goes into a dealership and does a good job, you know, on site, but doesn't have a good writing skills or good communication skills to describe what happened. That's the reason we always wanted to videotape one, but, you know, the loss. laws prevent us from doing that for having from having hidden cameras but um moxie's good

moxie is good but but being able to describe to me what happens good and agent lightning does it really well i get her things and it's uh she's she's a dream to work with that's fantastic which was a shopper that we used and have the uh the gopro or i know that was uh was a shopper we put the gopro on her son she she had a six-year-old like really rambunctious uh kid and we put the GoPro on the kid's head, which was the original video thing that they don't see around anymore. Oh, no, they're big now. Oh, they're big time in sports, yeah. Everybody uses their phone, but... We just came out with the GoPro 10. Yeah. I don't know that. Oh, did they're really cool, yeah. Good on the ski slopes. I'm going to put one on my dog and see what he sees. That sounds good.

But, yeah, so they put the camera on the kid, and the cover story was, well, he got it for Christmas, he won't take it off, and the guy is like, I'm sorry, so now we've acknowledged that they're being recorded. And the problem the kid was so energetic that all we saw was a moving screen of the deal that we couldn't see anything was going on. The audio was okay, but yeah. Okay, folks, you heard it all right here, this creative team that has come together. And the genius of Rick and his scientific education that he shares with us weekend and we got is here. Stu, Mystery Shopping Report. Earl, well, I don't have enough time to say,

well, this man here is very educated and has a whole lot of information to share with everyone. I'm truly amazing. You are definitely. The room is filled with estrogen. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's light up those lines. 877-960-99-60, and for you that are bashful, take advantage of the text number 772-4976530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com

extremely important. Let your voice be heard and remain anonymous. And if you get a chance, Earl's latest column this week is right on target. The COVID pandemic, the market chip shortage. What else can we have? Highest ever. prices. Yeah. And it is just an amazing time, so it pays, well, knowledge is power. Again, that number 877-960, we're going to go back to the phones where we have Marty from Palm Beach, and he is a delight to talk to.

Welcome back, Marty. Hi, how's everybody doing? We're good. How is it going out there for you? Yeah, well, so far, so. good. Do you have anything to share with us? Yeah, I got a couple of things. First of all, for the guy that talked about the extended warranty, I want to tell them, I've been buying cars for about 50 years. Now, I don't keep them for 10 years, but I've never spent a dime on an extended

warranty. And if you would add all that money saved for 50 years, you can pay for a repair if it happens. Exactly. I would tell them that. The second thing I want to ask, Stu, I've seen some websites now where the dealerships show factory invoice. They show you a picture of the factory invoice. Is that something that costs the dealership a lot more money to do or is it easy to do? To show the factory invoice? Yes. No, but like we've talked about in the show, the invoice is a meaningless term.

Excuse me, excuse me, I made a mistake. Yes. The factory MSRP sticker. Oh, on the website? Yes. No, no, that's easy. That's just a free service of the website. They just, the VINIC explodes.

They find it, and the computer puts together something that looks like the Windows sticker. But that doesn't actually come from the directly from the manufacturer. But it's, yeah, it doesn't cost any more money for the dealer to do that. Yeah, because I find it very interesting because you see, When you put down what the car has, to me, it's a lot easier to look at the window sticker and see what the car has on it. Right. No, it's a very helpful tool for people who are used to seeing things that way.

I mean, all the same information is on the web page, but it all puts it together in a familiar format, and that's why they do it. Yeah, because that, you know, that looks good. Yeah. But it's not the actual, it doesn't come from the manufacturing. It's just a VIN exploder, so the computer takes the VIN and figures out how to recreate the window sticker. Yeah. Well, I can tell you this.

I happen to be looking at L. Hendrickson. They only have one 2,021 Camry in stock. Yeah. And it's the only one that they have the window sticker on. Oh, it is crazy. And all the others say it's not available because they probably don't have the car. Yeah, it's funny. Like right now, I think Al Hendrickson, Toyota has a...

For you folks to don't know, because this is worldwide. Al Hendrickson, Toyota is in Coconut Creek, Florida, and they're the second largest toilet dealership in the world. Well, I think Hollywood's still ahead of them. Oh, are they? Okay. They vie for two or three. Yeah, they're right there. Yeah. By 91 cars. Yeah. Well, I can tell you this.

My last car that I got for them, they took $6,800 off the thicker, and now I saw one where they're only taken $500 off. So Earl is correct. Do not buy a car unless you need it now. Yeah. Yeah, they only have, at this point in the month, where are we at? Now, what's the middle of the month or the ninth?

They would normally have about 200 cars or 300 cars sold. They only have 60 sold. In Hollywood, the big one, or right there, the twin behemoth, is only have 38 cars out in the month. So that's really low for those who are paying attention. And the sad part that the public doesn't realize the dealers that are selling a fraction of the number of cars they normally sell are making multiple of the profits.

So they're selling half as many cars and making twice as much money as they did when they sold twice as many cars. And guess how they did that? because they hosed you when you bought the car. Our Mr. Shopping reports, we rarely ever see a car that sold as cheap as MSRP. Usually is $1,000 over. So supply and demand.

And the car shortage, you know, shortage hurts anybody. It hurts if you sell them TV sets or sofas or, you know, bread. Shortages hurt most people. It doesn't hurt cardio. because they marked the car up so much and people pay them so much they make more money than they did when they sell them more cars

so it's an upside-down world Marty yeah you're right all right well have a good day it's my comment for the day oh we appreciate that Marty give us a call again okay have a good one thank you the same to you

ladies and gentlemen what I'd like to share with you is the consumer report Earl and I were going over this last night And this, well, month in a month out, Consumer Report just puts a great magazine out that I call Our Bible at Our Home. And this time, they haven't failed us. And it has everything to do with the most reliable used cars.

And the fact that you can get a car for under $10,000, buyer beware. But it's out there. And it's fantastic. The other article that's in the Consumer Report is the leasing aspect of, the auto industry and it can be quite profitable if you don't do your homework you just have to be sure that you know what you're getting yourself into the consumer report goes into capitalized cost they go into money factors they go into deposition fees excessive wear and tear and the mileage which is extremely important and what it could cost you if you go over that

mileage. Whenever you sign that lease, it's very important that you know what you are signing and what the auto, well, the salesman has in store for you. Don't forget the security deposit. So at any rate, if you don't have that Consumer Report, you can go to the library. You can work on their PC, ConsumerReport.org, and you can find all your information that you need. And we all hope to get into this consumer report that I mentioned to you. And I have to mention October's also subscription that I got. And in there is the car repair handbook. And it too has an amazing amount of information. And if that isn't enough for you, look here. Can you see that on camera? That is Confessions of a recovering car dealer. And in this book, this is the insiders look.

at what really goes on in the car buying and service business and this is something that you can purchase and you can have it forever on the bookshelf because it's endless and you can just open this up and it will definitely help you out and most of all this is I'm telling you it's a win-win situation this all of the proceeds go to Big Dog Branch and There we have that talented, scientific mechanic. Great bark. That's no good. The dogs are working on there. Stick with a bark, you know. Do what you do and do it well. So, anyway, all that information for you.

Confessions of a recovering car dealer. And Earl's second book will be coming up soon, and you'll have that at your fingertips. So, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com, take advantage of that. Also, that number, let's light up the phones. 772-960, 9-960. That's 877-960-960. We're going to go back to the phones where Bill is waiting, and he's from West Palm Beach,

and then we'll get some YouTubes and some texts. Good morning, Bill. Good morning, guys. Glad to hear. Nice to hear your voice. Are they still, in the finance office, are they still selling the rust and lost and the choke and croak? We have a veteran on the phone, folks. Well, that goes way back, rust and dust and choke and croak.

I'll tell you what. Yeah, it's still the, what is the word, dungeon? and see, we call it the box. It's just terrible things can happen in the finance office, and they still do. So I advise you to avoid it like you do an extended warranty. If you can, raise your own financing with your credit union, your bank, you'll allow you to serve yourself a ton of money and a lot of aggravation. Yep.

I used to make a lot of money selling that. Yeah. A lot of people did. and a lot of people still are. You know, it was, before COVID, profits on cars were really skinny. Competition is a great thing for the consumer, and competition had driven new car prices down

and even used car prices down, where dealers struggled. They were to be competitive and sell cars. They were having to cut their profit margins real low, and then where are they going to make it? Well, they make it in the box, rust and dust and choke and croak. and they sell you stuff you don't need, extended warranties and gap insurance and

hazard, road hazard insurance, and lost key insurance, and if you can think of it, insurance, they make it up and they sell it to you for too much money. And it's still the single most profitable department in a car dealership. Even today, with car prices at new highs, but before that it was by far, dealers were making twice as much money in the finance department as they did when they sold the car. Yeah, it was profitable.

Bill, how long ago were you in the business selling the rust and dust? Oh, let's just say it was the K-car generation. Uh-huh. Both were the days. The K-car generation. You were selling Chrysler's? How many K-cars did you sell?

I mean, I still remember the first car that I sold. Yeah, well, was it? It was a Plymouth Reliant. I sold it, Old Reliant. It was new back in 83. You are a veteran there. Did you knock their head off, Bill, knocked their head off? Actually, no, it was funny.

It turned out to be a mini deal. Back then, many deals were $25. Oh, yeah. $25. The club that I landed these people on was a buyback, unregged to buyback, because it still had the original window sticker. But we had to sell it as a use of all.

as a used car. Sure. Bill, what was the most money you ever made on a car? What was your what was the highest

profit, gross profit you ever made and what was the commission on that in your career? Oh,

I think it was a grand wagon year. Uh-huh. And we added a sunroof you know, brust and lost and all the

undercoating, all that and stuff. Yeah. I think I walked away with $800? And back in the days, $800 was a big commission. And so that would mean

you probably made $3,000 or $4,000 on the car. Oh, yeah, easy. Gross, yeah. Yeah. And today's dollars, that would be probably a $15,000 or $20,000 profit. And the commission would have probably been $6,000 or $7,000.

I think back then we were getting 30% minus pack a dealer told you you're getting 30% they were probably lying to you he did he's this big old pack

yeah all the pack yeah yeah the nice thing about that is the car deal is not only do they lie and cheat with the customers but they lie and cheat with their employees and there are a lot of class action suits by car sales people that wised up and said well they told me they're going to pay me a 30%

commission and they were really adding profit they call it a pack it's hidden they don't tell anybody scraping it taking away the profit first they got a 30% after we glum about a third of the first yeah well it's always good to reminisce bill I a lot of people don't know what we're talking about maybe that's good because I'm not sure the statute of limitations is up on everything we did back in those days so you better be careful don't give me your last name I don't want to I don't want to see you going to the slammer hey statute of limitations We don't want to be an accessory.

Bill, it was great talking to you. Do you have any other information to share with us? Always a pleasure. I'm saying, Earl, if we ever meet, I've got to tell you a story that I am truly looking back on it, ashamed. Oh, no. I've got a lot of stories I'm ashamed of. Send it in an anonymous feedback.

Some of the terrible things I used to do, the widows and orphans. They were my specialty. You know, I think that's a, that is a great, that is a great virtue, just to be embarrassed and to want to do better and work honestly in the 21st century. I think you had to come from that error in order to get to where you are today. Bill, write a book. You know, this made me feel better. You know, if you write a book and confess your sins, it's a good thing for the soul. And you feel good, and it's kind of like, you know, you can recover, too.

You can be a recovering car salesman. I'm recovering from too much other stuff. You take care of yourself, my friend. Call again. I love talking to you. You're a great guy. Thank you. Oh, you guys.

Have a good week. Thank you, Bill. You did the same. 877-960-99-60, and, boy, we have another great show. ahead of us. Ladies, give us a call. $50 for the first two new lady callers. 877-960. And remember, you have to take your time whenever you're looking for a car and just, you know, rather than be overwhelmed, pick out two or three models and go from there and do your homework. Consumer Report, Earl's book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer, 877-960, 99060.

And you can text us at 772-4976530. www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now back to, we're going to go to Rick. Thanks, Earl. And he's got some interesting YouTube to share with us. We've got a couple. The first one here, a comment from Tom, he says, on the extended warranties. He says, good morning.

many of these private warranties may only authorize used, reconditioned, or knock-off replacement parts. Good morning from Orlando. And that actually can be true. Some of the companies will not authorize factory parks when they're repairing your car. They won't use, they'll send even some, I've even seen somewhere, they will say, no, we will send you the parts to put on this car. and they will get lesser quality parts to try to save money and basically it's very poor quality

replacement parts that they're going to send you or have you use to repair the car. When you're right, you're on warranty, you can say anything you want, so that's the point. Exactly. You should never buy a warranty from a dealer that has written a warranty unless you really, really, truly trust that dealer and you read the warranty and you understand it.

It's bad enough just to buy a factory warranty extended because the factories make a lot of money. Warranty companies make a lot of money. The legitimate ones and the illegitimate ones. So, yeah, if you buy warranties without reading it from a dealer that owns that warranty company, you are going to get hosed. And Big Hamza 22 says, why doesn't the government crack down on dealers with those phony maroni labels when you buy a home

everything is laid out and detailed why does the government allow these dealerships to do this political corruption enforcement the the i don't know where the dealers and the manufacturers auto manufacturers are dealers where they rank and contributions political contributions but I would say would dwarf NRA when you consider there's tens of thousands of car dealers in the United States

all of them make a lot not all of them but virtually all of them make a lot of money the manufacturers were they a dozen or more active in the United States and overseas and these are multi-billion dollar corporations some of the dealerships are billion dollars

I mean they're a change now you've got 200 for auto nation I mean, they're huge. The money that they give in their political action committees and their organizations, N-A, F-ADA in Florida, every state has got one or two or three or more organizations. And all these dealer organizations are, is political action committees.

Money, money, money, money. And if you want to get elected attorney general in any one of the 50 states and you have the car dealers and maybe the manufacturers against you, you're not going to get elected. So how do they get away with it? They get away with it because the dealers

make them get away with it. They allow them they get away with it. And for those who are wondering, the Monroey label is the window sticker on the car that Senator Monroe actually had pushed this legislation through. So federal law must have that. sticker on the window. But what a lot of disreputable places will do,

they'll put another sticker next to it an addendum sticker that lists a whole bunch of stuff that you should not have to be paying for on that car. And they design them to look just like the Monroeney level. Which is where you get that phony Moroni.

So you say, the question was, how could you break a law, a federal law, and get away with it? I can't remember the last time anybody has been charged anywhere that I know of, and I know a lot of dealers, I know of no one has ever been charged for not having the Monroney sticker on the car. And I also know that if you walk in any car lot in any dealership, maybe even my dealership, inadvertently maybe, or on purpose, wherever

you go, you'll find a lot of new cars without the Monroney labels. And you'll see cars with monorny labels, as Riches said, with a phony monorony, a counterfeit monroney. So it's a blatant violation of federal law and nobody enforces it, and that's because of the lobbying power of the auto lobby. The big, big auto, scares the hell of the legislators and politicians and there's no incentive. In fact, there's an incentive not to enforce the law. Okay. And we've got one last one here from Guy Larrabee is the Chinese are about to disrupt the electric car world visit these three sites, E for Electric, Electric Viking, and Sandy Monroe. Their electronics are top-notch and their factories are all new, scary.

So who knows, Chinese may suddenly flood the market with electric cars. and personally just my opinion if these companies can start producing electric cars at a competitive price that have a competitive quality level why not I just guy I hate to disagree with you I think the Chinese are way behind

on both electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles I think Tesla is a way ahead of everybody in the world. And this comes up on the show almost every week. Just check with the Chinese buyers and find out what they buy. If you look at the registrations in China, they're buying Tesla's. And Tesla has penetrated the Chinese market to a greater extent than anybody. And they are head and shoulders above everybody. Now, with that said, the Chinese are catching up. The U.S. competitors are catching up, but

Elon Musk is you know, he's already around the curve headed for the finish line, and he can't see anybody behind it, but there will be. They will catch them, and it will be competition, but not for a while. Okay.

Okay, we are going to go back to the phones where John is holding on West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. All right, good morning. I think I'm going to take two steps backwards here. from what the current conversation is about. But you were talking about Chrysler

and the advent of the K cars in the 80s. And I just want to, it brought to mind. Back in the late 60s, we had purchased a Dodge Dart, and it had the slant six in it. And when you were talking about dust or whatever that was thing. Rust and dust.

That's six. Yeah, that slant six. outlasted the car the car from being from detroit the car rusted out but that slant six engine lasted 200 000 miles if if the car wouldn't last 200 000 it was just a great engine you know and then 80s came along and got away with a lot of that's oh yeah but it just uh very true i'm too young to really remember like when the k car i know we were making fun of it It was a bad car, but I don't really remember much about it. Was that Leia Cocosero, John?

Yeah, early 80s. Yeah, early 80s. It was a gas crunch and all the regulations were coming out, and then that's when they went to the unibody. I was working at a car repair, car repair. And the dealer next door was Crestwood Dodge. They didn't have a body shop. So we were their body shop,

and that's where I was redoing my GTO. And we had them coming in, and when the cars were in an accident, we had to get all new equipment put in the floor just to straighten off the frames because there was no frames. It was that unibody. And getting those back into compliance,

it was tough. It was, actually, what we did was, it was easier for us to cut the car in half and another half a car, that was not damaged and weld it back together than trying to straighten out the frame

and we did have several times no joke it's easier to cut the car in half and keep that unibody intact I hope they stayed together they did you know you had a good welder and

like I said that's supposed to be disclosed on the title of the car when you do that but you can actually take that title to Mississippi or New Jersey watch the title and you buy a car that's been cut in half

and welded back together again and you'd never know it. So it's a crazy world out there with what you can get if you don't do your diligence and being sure you're not getting a car like that. There's a lot of cars flooded, damaged, totaled,

cut in half, welded together that are unsafe on the road today because the regulation is not effective. Well, these weren't new cars that we were doing that, too. These were customer cars who had been in an accident. Sure. And, you know, the insurance companies were paying for.

And that just was the easier fix to do in that. But back then, the insurance companies allowed it. They probably wouldn't allow it now or, I don't know. Well, they don't allow it, but they get away with it. You know, my point being that the law is good if it's enforced. And in Florida, you know, if you have a car that's total. or a rebuild, flooded,

you have to disclose that on the title when you sell it, but you can take that title and go to a state with no title laws, but they go lost the title, say, I lost my title,

I need a new title, and they'll give you a title, and it won't say anything about the flood or the cut in the car and a half or the total, the fact of it was totaled.

So it's a, the regulation is enforced, and we want to talk about the question from a call. earlier. Why? Because the manufacturers and the dealers political action committees are controlling the enforcement of the legislatures so the laws aren't

enforced. You know one of the other things that happened in the early 80s with cars, that's when they started losing their sexiness to me. You go back in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, cars had style. They looked great. They got all a boxy. And suddenly in the early 80s, they all went to this utilitarian boxy, the K-car, the Chevy Cavaliers, and they all just, they lost it. Okay, let's go along here.

John, do we answer all your questions? You still there, John? Yeah, I'm still here. All right. Did we answer all your questions? Yes, we did. Well, thank you very much. All again, please.

How else we got over there with a text? Well, we have the first text from Amory, but if we have, are the phones that active? No, they'll call back. Go ahead. Oh, okay, we lost someone. All right. We'll start with Amory's kickoff text here. She says, good morning.

Jalopnik reports that the electric truck company Rivian's IPO filing outlines its expect of lifetime revenue for each vehicle they sell. The company defines a lifetime of their vehicle to be 10 years and expects lifetime revenue of $15,500 per vehicle for subscribers. base features like infotainment stuff connectivity so the MSRP in this vehicle is $75,000 you add another 10,000 for the level 3 driving assist kind of like the Tesla thing and then all the subscription fees for diagnostics is $5,500 Amory says I've seen this detestable business model already well we all have we're they are turning an electric truck into a rolling computer 20 years ago one could buy a computer already loaded with word processing business and

school software. Seven years ago, one had to buy that software separately, but once they had it, it was on the computer. Today, if one needs office 365 for work in school, they got to pay a yearly subscription for it, effectively turning one's computer into an expensive paperweight, if one doesn't pay it, and it comes with built-in obsolescence. As far as Rivian, gee, what a deal. A company builds a product, you can't access all its features unless you pay for a subscription. That's about a quarter of MSRP, and then the vehicles expect to last only 10 years. good thing. There will be competition. I don't know what kind of electric vehicles Subaru will offer, but I do hope they'll measure up to their current vehicles. To quote their ad, after 10 years,

97% of Subaru's are still on the road. So that's signed the crotch and the curmudgeon, Anne Marie. And then she says, P.S. There could be other viewpoints I haven't considered. If you might remember back in the 90s when Bill Gates became a billionaire, he's, Microsoft. and Bill Gates figured it at a long time ago. It wasn't the hardware. It was the software. The software, the hardware, the computers, and screens it was a commodity. All the money was made in the software, and that's what we're seeing here. But, Emery, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned competition. So right now, there's only one real serious electric player in the world right now, and that's Tesla.

And Rivian may or may not come up and be successful, but as more and more players enter the market, yeah, It has to be competition will drive the price to a point that makes more sense. But it is frustrating, but I'm pretty much used to it, the whole software thing. Yeah, you have a phone. A lot of times, like, they're giving away phones, but it was to get you to pay for the fees, the monthly fees. That's how they get you. Earl, your take. No, I agree.

It's just you get away with it. I think I like about Tesla so far is with my Tesla that we're, every time I turn around, I'm getting a software update and they're not charged me for it. And I think even with Toyotas we're familiar with, that's the way they update cars now and the way they repair cars. So the public's not as stupid as they used to be and they're getting smarter every day. software is a very simple thing to do. You do it through the, you know, Wi-Fi, had your Wi-Fi hooked up

and your wireless fixing of cars and software. Once you build the software, you can permeate every car with it with a flip of a switch. So to charge somebody a huge amount of money is you're doing it because you get away with it because the competition is not making you be honest about it. and then you'll make money until the competition says you can't make anymore. As far as the 10-year lifespan, I think they probably, that's just a time, you know, like they had to come up with a period of time to estimate the value that they would get from the customers. It doesn't mean it's going to die in 10 years.

I think it's just they had to agree on a reasonable amount of time when people would keep the car. Okay. Okay. Excuse me, Stu. We're going to go back to the phones where we have Don from Lake Okeechobee holding. Good morning, Don. Good morning, Texas is Don from LaBelle. She didn't quite know where LaBelle was. Oh, well, gone.

A long time. Yeah, I got a couple questions for Alan on oil filters on Toyota. I'm wondering, do most Toyotas now require that special tool to take the oil filter off? Actually, yeah, the tools available just about anywhere, but it's sort of a cup-looking device that fits on the end of the oil filter housing. Because in an effort to try to reduce waste, they went from a metal canister filter to replacing just the paper element. And the housing that goes on has flat spots on it that this tool will fit on to engage

and spin that housing loose. Be advised of one thing though, if you're doing this yourself as changing your own oil, get a big breaker bar and be ready to use some force. what happens is the heat differential between that plastic housing and the metal engine as things heat up and cool down contract and expand they seem to lock themselves in super tight so it's going to take a little effort to get that thing to spin loose yeah that was my question it is definitely stuck and I was wondering where a breaker bar would be dangerous and would break the plastic but

apparently not then huh right you just want to you don't want to use any sort of impact tools on it because you don't want to crack the plastic, but a nice long breaker bar and just basically put some pressure and just start turning it and it will come loose. So the 99.9% of our audience that has no idea what a breaker bar is, including me, you are done? A breaker bar is basically a handle for a socket wrench and they range anywhere from about a foot and a half to over four feet long and it's basically, it just gives you more leverage.

Okay, so it's like a giant wrench. Exactly. How long do you think a breaker bar should be in that particular case? I don't want to get a four-foot long one. I use a two-foot breaker bar. Two feet long use me enough leverage. I've got a three-foot breaker bar. How about you, too?

How big is your breaker bar? It's only two and a half feet. Has Toyota given any thought to fixing that plastic issue with a different type of plastic or something? They're actually starting to go back to regular steel canister filters on a lot of the engines. They're switching back. They realized it just wasn't that good an idea because unfortunately those housings sometimes do tend to break. So, yeah, they realized, all right, you know, it was worth a try, but they're starting to go back to the metal canister filters.

Okay, now putting that back back all. Do I, should I give the guy instructions I'm not putting it on to tight or is there some special instructions on putting it so it maybe doesn't get stuck? Well, there is a torque spec listed for how tight it should be. Just make sure to coat the threads and the O-rings with some fresh clean engine oil. Can you buy a torque breaker bar? Well, a torque wrench actually is a breaker bar because they aren't long enough. Okay. Depending on size of it.

Yeah. So even somebody replacing that normally. it still can get stuck like that because of the plastic. So I can't blame the guy that changed it the last time then. No, no. Okay. I was ready to give them what for, but I'll refrain from that. Okay, well, thank you very much, I'll appreciate the help on that.

Thanks, Don't, nice to hear from you. Don't be a stranger. Calls again. When you said LaBelle, I remember. And by the way, Alan is not on the show anymore. That was Rick you were talking to. and we'd love to have Alan back. We're trying to talk them into making

at least a guest appearance, but yeah, when you used to... Yeah, I apologize. I get my names all mixed up. I think my very first call, I got your wife's name mixed up. Well, Nancy, Nancy's still here. And Nancy's still here. Alan snuck away.

We're trying to get him back, but he was a regular on the show. Well, thanks again. I'd like to have you back. It was. It was great to hear from you. Thank you. I hate for all of you that were listening to the conversation with Don and Earl and the guys. Nobody asked me about my breaker bar set that I have. I have a set.

Everybody knows about your breaker bar. I have a breaker bar set. You're walking around that breaker bar all the time. That's right. You've been stalking me. Yeah, but that was the set that came with your barracuda, right? I see what I'm up against ladies. When you collect these terms, you can really impress people, you go to a car dealership to say, look, if you have a little trouble out of oil filter, I got it in my breaker bar in the trunk.

You can feel free to use it to the both side baby. But be sure you're talking. And you have a choice, whether it's a quarter, an eighth, or three quarters, right, Rick? They're afraid to take advantage of you. I always like pulling out those little tools whenever I was single with three kids and I'd walk into a dealership, whether it would be for me to get my car service or anything else. I had to wear a bold-proof vest, and the way I did it, knowledge, knowledge is power. And you may not know everything, but to, you know, put that out there, just a breaker bar set, it's going to make, the mechanic's going to step back. So, fake it to you make it.

We're going to go back to the phones where John from Palm City is waiting to talk with us. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I have two questions to Rick. So concerning tires My neighbor, he's a snowbird He just came back And he said to me, John, do me a favor

I have a slow leak He has a motor vehicle He has a motor home And he has a car And the car On the way back down to Florida He got a flat in a remote area And it has a slow leak

And so the first thing I asked him How did they fix it? He said With a plug I said no You need to go to a car tire dealer and get that thing or demounted and get it fixed properly

with a patch on the inside. Now let me ask Rick this question. If it's demounted and it's fixed the right way, which it should have been, you know, taken apart, if it's marked by the out valve stem in the same position that it's in now, does he need a new balancing, tire balancing? No.

However, there is one issue here. Once a tire has been plumbled, Yes. You can't fix it again. You're going to need a new tire. You cannot remove the plug and patch it from the inside. Once it's been plugged, either trust the plug and hope that it holds up or replace the tire. Okay.

I kind of thought that might be right, but I'm not an expert on it. And the second question I want to ask you, he said, John, how old are the tires that are on there? So I know from my notes, you look for the DOT label on the tire. Every tire has that. It has to meet the DOT specifications. And right after the DOT label, there's four digits. And I told them it's very simple.

Yours reads 50-20. The first two digits are the week it was made. In other words, 50th week of the year. And the last two of the year, 20. So in other words, that was made. in the 50th week of 2020, which is basically a fresh tire. And if he replaces that one, I told him, make sure he has a Michelin, which you pay extra for, but they have good ratings, naturally.

You only buy a tire that's Consumer Reports rated it. And then that's what I told him, no. I said, your tires are not old that are on the vehicle. But the second thing I want to ask you, on his motor home, he lets that sit in the sun for, like five months. And you and I know the sun dries tires. So I told him he should be going at an auto accessory place. They have these like canvas covers like to stop the sun directly from hitting the tire. Is it going to be a proper thing to do? You're exactly correct on all

counts. The DOT dates and recover those tires up. Okay. Now one other thing too, for others or the or the vehicle. Is there a coating basically like a black rubber dressing or something that we all could use on an older tire to stop the rubber from drying and cracking? Is there any such a thing in an auto store? Not really, no. The only thing they will sell you are those, the tire shine and the stuff that makes it look all shiny and wet and pretty. And truth be told, is a mechanic. I hate it. All I will do is that way. What's that? Olive oil will do the same year. Yeah.

But when I go to rotate the tires and I have to pick that tire up and I get that stuff all over me, and the other side is within about three days of driving time, every speck of dirt that is on the road is going to be sucked to those tires and are going to look horrible. Well, that's why I also told him, he said, can I use WD40? I said, no, WD40 will make the dirt stick to the tire more. Am I right? Absolutely, it will. Yep.

Okay. I thought it was interesting, though, because covering on our motorhome, that tire will dry directly with the sun hitting it, and you'll have problems with cracked and bad tires. So thank you for the information. Anytime. It was great talking to you, John. I know you're going to stay tuned for that mystery shopping report and so much more. Let me say something here about that DOT date. I was just thinking, well, of Rick and John. we're talking what what possessed the disease brain that came up with that format for a date in other words the 50th week you know why why wouldn't they just say you know on November 1920 I mean no I mean 2020 why wouldn't they

say November 2020 well why would they put an innocuous crater you look at that it says 5020 what the hell was Now, what's the purpose of putting the date on the tire? Tell the purchaser and the retailer and the wholesaler the date of the tire. And why do you want the date on the tire? So you don't sell an tire that's too old because NHTSA says six years is about as old as old attires you want to put on your car. And so why would they disguise the date so that nobody can read it except

them that's in the no. Well, you know, the answer is pretty obvious, right? They want you to ask you to know. Somebody said, okay, there was some regular key, said, okay, we just passed a law. And you tell all your constituents, I pass this law requiring into the date a manufacturer be put on every tire.

And you get a lot of accolades and votes. And then the manufacturer counterfeits or disguises the date so that nobody knows what the date is. And it's a lot easier to sell his tire because, hey, I'm not gonna buy a tire from this manufacturer if he has a date that says I can't keep it on the shelf longer.

I can buy it from this one that's putting 5020, nobody knows what it is. I can keep that tire for 10 years and sell it and get away with it. Now, am I the only one? Do any- I got a problem with that. You know, I can share my story.

I'm at the garage, you know, a long time ago when I'm checking the air, the PSI, pressure per square inch or whatever the hell it stands for. And I'm looking at my tire, and I'm wondering, why has the manufacturer made it so difficult for me to know the year of my tire? And it just gets so complicated. It could be so easy by stamping that tire, just plain and simple. October 8th, 2021, period. You know, so that's my take. I'm good with it. You're good with it?

Okay. Stu's good with it. Okay. His eyes are a whole lot sharper and he's way, way younger. I'm much shorter. The thing I like about that, it's true. I beat you on shortness. We can sound a lot smarter on you.

It's not like we know stuff because we can tell people how to read the code on their tire. No, we don't know. But why do we have to tell them? Okay. I'm going to protest. Okay. Hey, we are going to go to Tequesta, where Steve is holding, and welcome to the show, Steve. Thank you.

I have a regular, I'm a regular listener, and I'm hoping you can help me out. I wanted to buy a really fancy sports car under the Costco Auto Program. Okay. But the shop said that that particular, like, new Corvette, the new hot-looking Corvette, C-8, doesn't, yeah, they don't allow you to get a discount. So, is that common throughout the industry, or is he just telling me a story? No, that is common. See, Costco lets the dealers submit the prices they want to sell,

and then Costco determines if it's, if it's, if it's. in with their parameters for the market value. And if there's cars that dealers don't want a discount, they just won't submit a price, especially on a car that's like a low-supply, high-demand vehicle, like the C-8 Corvette. Right now, I think there's a eight-month wait just to get those things. So those would probably be excluded by the dealers themselves. Yeah, the car had a sticker of like 100 grand on it, and the dealer wouldn't take less than $140,000.

I thought that was crazy, but that's when I... That's insane, but it's not... Yeah, that's not unheard of. We see that, like, even the Toyota was super when it came out. Deals were selling it for 50, 80 grand over sticker. The sticker price was like $60,000 in the 50s. And they did it, and the manufacturers can't do anything about it, and the state, the governments can't do.

It's just... One thing you might try when you're trying to get a price from a... Costco certified dealer and they don't have the model, the type of car you're interested in on display. And as Stu said, that's their choice. In fact, that's buyer beware. You know, if they won't put a Costco price on there, that just tells you it's such a high-demand, low-supply car. The price is so high they don't want to put it on there. And Costco allows that.

But you can talk to other dealers. In other words, when you call up or you go online, Costco will give you steer you to the dealer, and your zip code. So what you need to do is you need to either go directly to Costco and explain to them why you would like the name of certified Costco dealers in other areas. But if I was shopping for a car, I would definitely use the Costco auto buying program. And I will also go to several Costco certified dealers. If I could find the dealer 30 miles away or even further, it will save me money, I'll go there.

and all you're getting when you buy a car from a Costco certified dealer is that is supposed to be contractually with Costco that is the lowest price he will sell a lower price that he will sell that same vehicle to anybody else but that doesn't mean the dealer down the street who's also Costco certified won't beat his price so get two or three Costco certified dealer prices before you buy okay all right sounds good thanks for the information

Thanks, Steve. Excuse me. Thanks, Steve. 877-960-99-60. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady-cullers. Rick, I have a question for you. As far as charging your vehicle at home, somebody from the Northeast has asked me, is it safe to charge your vehicle at home when it's raining or snowing?

By charging, I'm guessing you mean charge an electric car? Yes. They've got safeguards built in on those like astronomical amounts. Okay, Richard. I hope. I still get nervous, though. Hope you're listening, Richard, from good old Pittsburgh. Again, I'm going to mention it ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And I'll remind everyone that I did mention earlier about the Consumer Report, November's issue. If you don't have it, go to the library. right there. You can go to consumer report.org. Wow, so much information on reliable use cars and so much information about leasing. Anyone out there that has signed a contract recently,

what was the charge, the fee, the penalty for going over the mileage? Give us a call. 877-9-60-99-60. Now back to Stu. Hi. Excuse me. We have a call, and we are going to talk to Kevin, who's calling from Buffalo, New York. Wow, cool. Welcome, Kevin. Good morning, team.

Good morning. My alarm clock is Saturday morning, because I'd like to wake up and listen to your show. And Nancy, I'm glad you have a full set of breaker fires because you have to keep control of your staff in that office in the studio right now. I like that. You saw my bag that I carry. You know, your show always brings up thoughts. Like you talked about a K car. I used to drive a K car, and it was very dependable,

and it really pushed through snow very well. I know Nancy here from the Pittsburgh area. So it did very well in the snow, and I thought it was a great car, and it was reliable. Indeed. The question I have is, the gentleman Kevin called about being a food manager for a municipality. I worked for a municipality,

and a problem by buying dependable cars is that you have. have to put out things to bid and you never know what kind of car you're going to get but the bits have be very generic and um yeah it was always the hard part for us and maybe every three years you have three different models of cars to work on and you have to have special parts for every car it ended up being easier for us just to send them to dealers now to work on them and our technicians do not work on small cars or pickup any trucks anymore because of the technology and stuff like that my question is about a Toyota Highlander with 18,000 miles that's two years old.

And the brake pedal seems soft. Is that normal? When you put the brakes on a car stops and then the pedal goes to the floor. Is that normal or is that something going on with it? Well, does it just sort of go all the way to the floor relatively quick, or is it kind of like as you keep pressure on it, it slowly works its way down? Slowly works its way down. That's actually pretty much normal.

What it is, it's the springs and actuators inside the ABS actuator that is just relaxing that pressure on the pedal, but the brakes are still holding fine. The easiest way to tell is shut the engine off and pump the pedal until all the vacuum's gone away from it, and that pedal should come up nice and high and hard. If it's solid as a rock then, then you know you don't have any air in the system,

and you're fine. However, if it feels sort of spongy or soft at that point, then you might want to have it checked out to see if somehow you've got some air in the system. Otherwise, no, because ABS systems, the pedals feel very different from the old standard systems we used to have,

and they can feel very spongy at times, but it's normal because of the way the actuators activate in there. Okay. All right, you know, I'm not like Fred Flintstone trying to stop his car. It's safe to stop, but it just seems to slowly go down to the ground or floor. I'm sorry, my other question is for Earl. At one time, was Chevrolet and Toyota working together maybe 30, 40 years ago,

and the team effort for a while? Yeah, they are... Geo and the Corolla were the same car, I think. Yeah, the Chevrolet, G.O or the GMG, whatever. It was Chevy, right? Yeah, because we used to have... AC Delco radiators and alternators on the Corolla's and anytime a Corolla would come in with a battery light on we just glance at the alternator and if it was AC Delco we knew it needed to be replaced.

They were building the Fremont plan in California and it was a really an interesting liaison between you know America and Japan and General Motors and Toyota. It was like that movie Gun Ho. Yep. I think that plant now is as owned by Tesla. I think it they got sold and I'm guessing if anybody knows the answer to that Fremont, California.

Actually, I just saw a report that Tesla is moving out of California to Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas, yeah. Okay, let's not digress too much. So, does that answer your question, Kevin? Yeah, I remember he used to call Toy Lead as one time.

Yeah, yeah. And my last comment is for you, the honesty, you know, Instead of service contracts, what they call them a certain warranties, or a high profit margin for a dealer. And you were straight out off, and you gave your opinion of it. That's very truthful and honest, Earl, and to your team too. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for the compliment. That's what a recovering card deal does. He's got a, I'm trying to redeem myself from my evil years in the past. In fact, I'm writing another book now. We're thinking about entitling it, redemption of a recovering car deal. so thanks for the compliment. And I know you donate your money to the doctor rescue group there. Very nice.

And I'm a crowd owner of the book too, Earl. Thank you and enjoy team. Thanks, Kevin. Hope you're not shoveling too much snow. That's something I do not miss. I hope you're from Buffalo, New York. You know, the trees are beautiful right now, Nancy. Aren't they?

Oh, it's just a magnificent. I do miss the seasons, but I just don't miss trudging in the snow. to work. And all those layers I had to wear. It took me an hour to get out of my clothes just to get into the office and clock in. Okay, Kevin. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Give us a call again. 877-960.

Give us a call. And ladies, I just want to thank you for supporting me and my platform. And just to let you know that women influence 85% of the overall buying decisions. Give us a call this morning.

When yourself, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Hey, 77, 960, 9960. And Earl's vigilantes, we haven't mentioned that Earl put on his great-looking hat. I'm not going to put it on, just going to hold up to the... Stew design. I mess with a minute. And, ladies and gentlemen, you certainly can help us by signing up for Earl's vigilantes. You can not only help us, but you can help the people in your community.

and it's a great organization to get involved and we have some real talent there that has signed up. And that's a free hat. We give them a hat. Yeah, you get your free hat. Got a lot of hats. We're working on, yeah, we're working on T-shirts and so much more.

And also, volunteers are needed to sort of help a lot of people that are online and they need some assistance. You know, like the senior car buyer, sometimes it's pretty easy to maneuver your way around the internet. Sometimes it isn't, but you can volunteer for that too. So go to Erlon Cars and join in the phone. [phone], and of course you can text us at 772-4976530.

Please, don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to Stu. Well, we have an important update from Buck. We were worried about him last week, but he tested next. for a parasitic draw. Oh, thank God. Buck texted just now, well, a little while ago, says, it ended up being the battery.

Oh. Because I will not go to AutoZone again. It was a replacement battery for the other one that went bad, and they don't warranty the replacement. Have an awesome day. Thank you to everyone that's a part of what you guys do. Thanks, Buck. How nice.

He said when he went to the place last Saturday, he said he thinks he had a parasitic draw, and they suggested penicillin. That's right You needed an antiparcytic You need Ivermectin A little humor there We're going to go back to the phones

Where Ken is waiting from West Palm Beach Good morning, Ken Good morning How are you all doing this morning? We're great It's great to hear from you Well, thank you And I just want to come out and say

Right off the bat Thank you for everyone in the studio How this show works out and all the knowledge you give us. Thank you all. Well, we appreciate that compliment. Flushing here. We don't take it for granted.

I kind of want to refresh your memory. I have a question for Rick in a minute, but I want to refresh your memory. There was a Michelle that called in. I want to say a couple months ago for Napleton Kia. I don't know if you remember, but I'll refresh her memory. She called in and said we got thrown out of the dealership over a contract on a assault.

Oh, yeah. I'm the gentleman that actually got thrown out. I'm her husband. Okay, I do remember. The blown main fuse, the tire, the hole in the tire, et cetera, et cetera. And boy, what a fiasco that was. And they put me in their glass cage, and I'll tell you, I learned a lot from that experience. I think you did.

Trial by fire. Education by fire. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. My question is for Rick. Mr. Rick, I don't mean to get technical. I know you're an aeronautical engineer in these cars nowadays. I have a question on a 2015 Nissan Ultima.

It had been the gentleman purchased this car brand new from a specific dealership. Got into an accident probably about a year and a half ago. They're the original owners. Look at the same dealership, the body shop. Had it all repaired, supposedly. what had happened now is for some reason the key fob no longer works with the car I can walk 10,000 miles away and the car will still start

I'm losing or they're losing different accessories in there for instance the lights sometimes the instrument cluster my question when taking it to a dealer's body shop, and they reprogram the ECM, the main computer or the BCM, the body control module to make it still work without the key fob and all the reference points with the key fob and the computers make connections, communications with?

No, I'm assuming you're talking about a smart key system where it's push button start. Yes, sir. if that key is not inside the car one of the keys that car should not start if it starts without a key being in that car there's something

really weird going on and there's a key under the cell I would have to believe like Stu says there is another key somewhere in that car no sir I have both key fobs actually it's my brother's car I don't want to say the dealerships name

because I don't want any problems there but no he has all both key fobs in the car or in the house i can take his car he lives up near your way up in stewart i can drive it down to my house in rural palm acreage never with a key fob in the car i can't lock the door lock in the car as soon as i close the door automatically unlocked there's a key in that car somewhere well there has to be you know what i'm going to say just for go online and go to a nissan uh you know chat room, you know, go on, I mean, I, I agree. Rick, you know a hundred times more about this kind of thing than I do,

but, you know, I always hate to say that, you know, this man is, feel sure that there's not a key for a, not a key in the car, so there could be some word thing. I just, I don't know what it would be, but never say never. Okay, I thank you. Oh, thank you, Ken. I do have one more question, and I'm sorry. Sure, take your time.

Is there any way I can go back after the dealership's body shop to get them to repair this? Yes, because if they did the repairs and the repair, you're having issues, they should either take care of it. What most likely they will do is they'll contact the insurance company that covered the repairs in the beginning, and they'll say, hey, you know, we've got more issues going here. We need a supplement repair, and the insurance company will just take care. it and pay for it. Okay.

Well, I greatly appreciate all which you all do. Thank you very much. I'm talking for everybody because you can just teach us so much. Thank you. Well, Ken, call back next week. I'm dying to figure out this key fob thing. Interesting because Rick knows more about this stuff

than anybody and he thinks there has to be a key in the car and you are checked carefully and there is not. So I love mysteries and if you solve this mystery, we'd love to hear back from you. Yes, sir, absolutely. Absolutely. If I find out anything, yes, because I used to be in the industry, and Rick, I commend you, sir, keep going, because I had to get out. It was too much

on my brain. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is. Hey, Ken, I just want to thank you for your phone call, and boy, you sound like as if you're helping out a lot of people around you. You'd be a great asset to Earl's vigilantes, so you might want to think about that, and if you do, and you want to go to Erlon Cars or you can get all your information and you can join us. You can help all the people in your community and help us to. Have a wonderful weekend. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. I will consider it. Yes. Okay. Ken was our last call. Our phone lines are shut down. You are an important part of the mystery shopping report. We always want your feedback and how you rate that mystery shopping report

but we have a whole lot more to get to so don't go anywhere. Only the old-fashioned telephones are shut down, the text are not shut down, the YouTube is not shut down, and the your anonymous feedback.com is not shut down because when we do this mystery shopping report, if we get through a little early, we'd like to go back and answer

more questions. So we've got a YouTube from Rick and we've got probably a bunch of stuff over there. Yeah, so remember, 772 497-6530. Okay. We have a text from Jonathan in Wellington. He says, I think that all dealerships visited by your mystery shopper should start out with a failing grade. Make them earn a passing grade with fairness, ethics, honesty, and a decent car buying experience.

$30,000 or more is a lot of money for a vehicle. You should only spend that money at ethical dealerships. Jonathan, we feel your pain. We know how you feel. We feel the pain every time we give a passing score to somebody that really tried to screw the customer. but one of our purposes is to guide you to a place where you can buy a car. If you live in Florida, that's basically where we do most of our shopping, although we've been to other states a lot recently, but mainly Florida.

So if you live in Orlando, Florida, or you live in Miami, Florida, we want to be able to give you a Chevrolet dealer somewhere or a Honda dealer somewhere that you're going to have less danger. But we find out there is no such thing as a deal. in Florida that has no danger so we have to use the curb but I you know we anguish when we give somebody a passing grade but we put the grades down so when you look at Erloncars.com go for the dealership that you find the highest score for so if you see an A grab it very few of those a big

fantastic stay away from the D minuses okay so we have another one here here from, there's no names, just a question that says, several card dealers in the Orlando area are posting prices that secretly assume a $2,000 trade or cash down. Is that violating 501.976? They're referring to Florida's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. I'm sure that is, I've seen this before, and basically there's an advertisement, you see a price that looks lower, but also it might be labeled trade or. cash from consumer, which we have had the hardest time trying to wrap our heads around

that kind of advertisement. You're not going to read that. I understand the statute we have a year. 5.1.976. We have this on file easily accessible in the studio. I could tell you this, it positively violates the Federal Trade Commission rule that says that anything that materially modifies the price of the car has to be prominently and conspicuously displayed beside the price.

And then also, if they're doing it for a down payment, then they're violating truth and lending, another federal violation that regulates how you advertise bank loans. Okay, so let's see. I think we might have, oh, there are a couple. One is, have you heard about the Tesla Cyber Quad? It's an electric ATV that fits in the back of the cyber truck. I did not know about it. I looked it up, and I saw it, and that's really cool. You've seen the people ride them off road, and down here, they're really popular four-wheel vehicles,

and you can drive off in trails, but they're gas power. This is going to be an electric powered quad and ATV, and it looks really cool. You know, with the power behind the torque and all that. Made by Tesla? Yeah, and he said it'll be the safest ATV ever made. Oh, it's one of the plans. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But there's a big picture of it sitting in the back of a Tesla cyber truck. Oh, cool. Now, here's one. I'm going to read the question, and it's Earl's choice, whether he wants to answer it today or wait until next Saturday. Okay. Earl, what was that incident that happened to you years ago when the cop pulled you over and tried to revoke your license? What time is it?

We don't have time. It's a funny story, and I'll do it next week. I'll explain it next week. I love telling the story, by the way. All right. Well, I guess it's time for the MSR. We go to YouTube over here. Yeah, we're going to go to Rick.

Guy Larravee says, car dealers should be forced to wear racing suits like the NASCAR. car drivers with the sponsor names all over them. That way we would know who owns them. By the way, for Earl, they do build Teslas in China. Tom Steckle says, I'll bet none of Earl's dogs have nitrogen paws. Nitrogen filled collars. And the last one we have here is Charles Reeves says, good morning all. Thank you for your invaluable and indispensable advice. as a first-time car buyer, what resources should I use to find and get the best insurance rate?

Godspeed. Oh, that's a great question. And we haven't talked about that in a long time. You should shop your insurance at least every four years. And there's advertisements now, and they even have companies that will shop your insurance for you.

But if you're with Allstate, State Farm, Geico, progressive, whoever you insure with, if you've been with them for four years they've raised your rates and you can go out and get a lower rate bottom being simple and uh that's what they do you know it's so sad to think that if you're loyal to geico or progressive and you've been with them you know 20 years i know people that've been you know since i learned to drive i've had all state insurance and they're the best and i'm in good hands with all state and i've been with them for you know 40 years well you're You're getting hosed.

Go out and go to State Farm, GICOR Progressive. They all do it. It's one of the little-known dirty secrets that insurance companies will automatically raise your rates if you don't complain. I just want to say some really, really quick here. People get stuck in their ways and people ask for recommendations and say, oh, yeah, I've got to go to my guy, my guy. Well, at our dealership, we've done this over the years, and if you're not going out for bids for everything you're spending money on regularly, you're not being a frugal person. Exactly. It seems like yesterday Alan sat here on the panel, and gosh, did he have a lot to say about all of this, and you must shop everything, including insurance, because like Earl said, wow, you can really be taken advantage of, and there's some great prices out there. If you do your homework, knowledge is power. We're going to go to Rick. Do you have anything for us? We're caught up at the moment.

Oh, okay. We're all ready for the Mystery Shopping Report. Okay, dokey. Okay. We are going to go to Malenax Ford. And again, I remind you to please vote on the Mystery Shopping Report, and you can do so. It's 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Okay. In the last year and a half, the car business has been turned upside down, along with the rest of the world. from COVID in the lockdowns of 2020 to the supply shortages today, epic outside forces have shaped our car dealer behavior in ways we couldn't have predicted. In the first days of the pandemic, when businesses shut down across the country, many states, including Florida and local governments deemed car dealerships essential. We talked about earlier about lobbying and power, political power, with the political action committees,

that was a beautiful, beautiful thing and I say that tongue and cheek how the manufacturers and dealers consider themselves like emergency rooms or hospitals or, I mean, here we have a pandemic grocery stores. Yeah, grocery stores. Service departments, I can see. Repairs are needed. And I was, of course, I'm a car dealer, so I was

very pleased that we were able to remain. I was frankly surprised. When the pandemic hit, we really went to, we panicked. We said, who's going to come out and buy a car? And we did pro-farm a forecast financially to find out how long we could survive because we didn't think we're going to sell any cars. And then the powers that be, the auto manufacturers and the dealers through their political action committees, were able to lobby the legislatures, state and federal, to deem car dealerships of vital industry,

and this is the most profitable year and last year, this year, of any car dealer anywhere. So I just digress, but I just thought it was interesting what we thought was going to happen and what actually happened. Anyway, the only ads we saw after that, and during the pandemic, going back to the Mississippi, shopping report were open and that in itself was refreshing because a lot of stuff was closed in a short amount of time we saw dealers evolve their messages to

emphasize online buying now they're trying to make people feel safe it seemed that overnight every car dealership in America had become Amazon and it wasn't of course in reality 99.9% of them weren't offering anything close the real online buying. But, hey, what do we do? We're car dealers. We tell you what you want a year. When the first federal economic stimulus package was introduced, car dealers jumped to the chance to use that in their marketing. Not to mention the fact that a lot of car dealers got money they didn't need, and all small businesses did, but that's another story. At any rate, and then it wasn't enough that they got millions of dollars that they didn't

need because their profits were bigger than ever and they weren't laying off their employees because they didn't have to but they still got the money but they used the word stimulus because they did get the stimulus now they're telling you the money they didn't need that the federal government was given them they're going to give to you and take it off the price of the car and uh talk about perversion but dealers implying that somehow they were using federal stimulus funds to offer really great deals. One of a bunch of, I can't say the word. Can I say it? Well, yeah, go ahead.

We remember that we have federal regulations. Things got seedier when the ads began popping up that exploited the outpouring of attention and gratitude to our frontline healthcare workers. We saw an ad that used a credit union rebate. This is really, I'm starting to get nauseous already, a credit union rebate for first responders, responders to lure ineligible customers to the dealership. In other words, this was only intended for our police, our firefighters. Emergency with nurses. Emergency, you know, the people that are at risk, the heroes of the COVID pandemic, that's what this special rebate was for. And they put

that in the fine print. So that you and I would come into a car dealership and say, I want to buy the car for that price, they say, well, are you a first responder? They say, no, I'm a bus driver. That price just went up. Yeah, now you don't get the rebates up. That's what we saw in the advertiser. The global microchip shortage and the resulting vehicle in inventory crisis is the latest aftershock of COVID-19.

Man, what a ride has been in the past couple of years. Nancy and I are, you know, we're talking about that. I mean, how life has changed. After shock of COVID-19, to be exploited by car deals. For the first time, in a very long time, the wins of supply and demand shifted in favor of car dealers. And they didn't waste a second taking advantage of this. Price is skyrocketed and remained high today.

I mean, over sticker, folks, I'm telling you, if you can buy a car today at NSRP, manufacturers, adjusted price, grab it. It's just crazy the prices that dealers are getting. If you don't need a car, don't buy it today. Every week, month that you wait, the prices are going down and down and down. If you can wait two or three months, man, you're going to save thousands of dollars. So here we are. Every mystery shop that we've had, yeah, everyone.

Nearly, because there was one. The one in, uh, up in Pittsburgh. Well, that's where we had one that was only MSRP. Right. Yeah. Well, actually, it wasn't thousands. It was, it wound up being a couple hundred dollars over because of the little dealers. Small dealer field.

That's right. Through all of this, we kept mystery shopping and reporting, kept mystery shopping reporting back to you. But for the most part, we targeted the usual players, the car dealers you'd expect to behave like this. But have any of the good guys gone bad? Well, we don't know. this week we're turning our attention

to a familiar name and as you're listening to the show before Malmex Ford they're one of the good guys and they've always been on a recommended list and they've been around for a long time they have several dealerships

in Florida and they were pioneers they pioneered the one price they came right along with no dealer fee they've been there with a few vacillations and they started out

just a few stores and then as the dealerships expanded got a little loose, but always, always good, always in the top, what, 5%. Malmix 4 is the home of the nearly no-dealer fees, and one of our used to be no-dealer fees, and came back, we'll complete the story at the end of the shopping report, and one of our favorites, they get good grades on every shopping report, even though we dig them enough for the little dealer fees.

They say there is money, but there is, and that's another story. How are they handling the inventory shortage? Are they strong enough to resist to lure our price gouging? Agent Lightning was called up for this mission. Okay, here we go. Agent Lightning, our female shopper. Speaking of the first person. I arrived at Mullinac's Ford around lunchtime with my husband.

We parked or tried to find some vehicles, and there weren't many. This is North Palm Beach or North Lake Boulevard, right? my plan was to say I was looking for a new SUV and I was open to pretty much anything we spotted a pair of Ford Broncos parked on the patio near the entrance and walked over to see them

as we checked them out we were approached by a salesman it was Raspberry when I read this at first I said Raspberry oh I remember and isn't that clever a salesperson would call themselves Raspberry I can't believe that's his Maybe his mom called him Raspberry

well maybe but it was you stop and think about, and the same salesman I had the last time, and Agent Lightning remembered, and he didn't remember her, but... Yeah, I mean, you see a lot of customers. But if you're in the sales business, how cool it is to have an interesting, memorable name, right? Yeah. What could be better?

Yeah. I might change point. Well, we've seen that at our dealership. You know, remember we had, they have nicknames, like the mayor, we have Magic Mike. And they do that. Yeah, we do. Yeah, that's right, yeah. And they call themselves at the customers, so they were.

members. Anyway, I digress. We asked about the Broncos. He said there was a wait list for them. People were waiting nearly a year to have the orders filled out. Raspberry said that someone recently canceled their order and the newly

available Broncos sold the same day you'd better be sitting down for this one. Sit down, John. Yes, sit down, John. $20,000 over MSRP. Wow. You know, you think we're joking, folks? They pay it. They pay it. I don't know what to say.

I turned to my husband, I'm speaking in the first person, and said, The Broncos out, ho, ho, ho. I told Raspberry that I'd like to see what the other SUVs he had in the high 30s to low 40s. He suggested we take a look at the Ford Edge. The two of us walked out to find an edge where my husband hung back to look at what few trucks they hadn't stopped. As we walked, I asked Raspberry what his inventory was looking like. He laughed and set extremely low. We went into the parking garage where there was a smattering of vehicles.

I saw a white edge that I liked. It was loaded with a big glass sunroof, really nice wheels. The MSRP was 46,220. No addendum. Okay? I always say okay on that because 99% of the cars to that carry an addendum sticker were a phony and ronie. But there was a green sticker that red,

up front sales price $44,470 up front sales price now is that true stick around stick around and find out Raspberry apologized for the low selection and told me that getting a used car

was the way to go after these these days he said he had several comparable used SUVs you could show me I said I wanted a new one Raspberry suggests we go inside where we could get the keys in a license plate on the way he asked me for my driver's license, offered me a bottle of water.

I waited at those deaths for 10 minutes, and he got up to go find him. You know, Agent Lightning, and I'm saying I'm not Agent Lightning, first person, this thing here, but she doesn't play the winning game. No, she knows how much time she's got time, his money, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and she doesn't like her time wasted. At any rate, I walked outside where I expect he would pull up to the escape. There was another 25 minutes before Resbury Joe looked to me, and Major Lightning was not happy. He apologized, so the vehicle was on E, empty, and thought he should put some gas in it, and he should have pulled her.

I mean, you know, you keep somebody waiting for that length of time. I told him how frustrated I was, I said, I was on tight scheduled day. day. And now my afternoon was screwed up. I told him to forget about the test drive. He just showed me the numbers. Raspberry left the edge where it was. We returned to his desk. Raspberry began to explain how the

low inventory had driven. I remember I'm noticing how Stu uses the word raspberry over and over again because he's like me. He's fascinated by the name. Well, no, I think I'm using the appropriate smattering pronouns and his real name. But it's harder for you, because I only have to type it. You have to

say Raspberry. over and over again. That's true. All the same thing that I've been told all over the east of the United States in the last four months about the fact that we got a low inventory. And you have been to the oil supply, microchip shortage. So, been there, done that, I know

that's a story. That's true. So, you know, how wonderful for a car settlement to have a true story. And that is true. He found a record. He'll be telling this story for years. Yeah. It'll be 2027. Yeah, this inventory

situation really so exactly he found by a record on the computer asked if my contact information was up to me we won't know if I was financing a bank cash I set up to pay cash I set up my plan to pay cash they had a new plate or transfer due so there we go we're ready to go for the jugular do we find out if we still got a good guy a good dealer what we got this is where the hammer comes down that's right Brasbury went to get the sales figures, he was gone for eight minutes. Yeah, I'm an obsessive compulsive, as so is Agent Lightning.

Eight minutes. Pretty soon should be doing seconds, eight minutes. I'm going to ask her to do seconds. The top line labeled price before discount was MSRP, 46,220. So, that's the MSRP, that's a good price today. Then $250 and savings came off. Whoa, we're coming down. $50.9 rebate.

Okay. I'm making the price after rebates, 44-470, the same upfront price that was written on the Greed sticker that was on the car. So this car is actually advertised below MSRP. But they can't sell it for that, can they?

The only thing added to the price was sales tax and $500,000 for tagging registration. Out the door, 42-970. I'm tearing up. I know. I'm tearing up. Very refreshing. I asked for a new SUV in the low 40s and raspberry delivered. Wow. I thanked him very much. I said I need to find my husband to discuss. I said I'd be back this weekend. There we are. And we feared that they were still doing the nearly no-dealer fee thing. I talked to one of the one of the the sons of the founders of Molinex about this store before. And the general manager he had in there had put in this small dealer fee. And hopefully we had some influence on I'm dropping that. I mean, why?

You just don't want to say you don't have a dealer fee and you do. And they don't anymore. So there we are. again, I'm overcome and I pull it open to votes. Earl's Kvailing right now. That's the Yiddish germ. I laughed because Jonathan Wellington

posted his grade, but I want to appeal to Jonathan to reconsider. So Johnston says 20,000 over MSRP, automatic F, plenty more dealerships to see. And yeah, that was shocking and I read that and then kind of went contracting contrary to what happened yesterday at the dealership, but we got to judge East Mystery Shopping report on Agent Lightning's experience, you know?

I mean, just the guy he referred to a 20,000 over a minute. That didn't happen yesterday, so maybe reconsider, but Mark gives them a refreshing B-plus, and on Facebook, we don't have any grades coming in, but I'm giving them an A. All right, yeah, I certainly concur. Well, I've got Mark from, St. Louis. A. Wow, great to hear this deal. I've got bro scientists came in with,

if I'm to be savage for thousands above MSRP, get me expensive wine, not bottled water, cheap skate. It pains me, but they got a good grade. B, they would have got an A if I'd gotten expensive wine instead of water. Tom, A minus, tag fees seem a bit higher than actual, and just, Tom, quite often I know they estimate those, so those tag fees may actually come down a little bit, don't they? Yeah, I was going to say it's on the high side, but usually at this stage it's an estimate, and when they run it, because most dealers use a computer thing.

Now, we don't know if they're going to add in any other. We don't know, we don't go in F&I, but they calculate it exactly when you do at the time of delivering. It's probably going to be considerably less. Okay, and Wayne with a B-plus, Mark Ryan says, A, seems like a good deal. I see. Well, first I want to thank Agent Lightning, and what a great job.

She does weekend, and week out with her expertise and her street knowledge and her education. And she's able to maneuver her way around these dealerships. So Agent Lightning, my head is off to you. As far as the greatest concern, it made me feel warm and fuzzy. I give an A. All right. Is everybody waiting for my score? We are waiting for our score?

We have an A that came in for Martha on Facebook, but I think I know what your score is going to be. And we go three minutes. My score is an A plus. Good for you. Because we're on the curve, and that's the best shopping report I can ever remember. And maybe there's one I missed, but if we don't get Lonex for an A plus, we can't get anybody in A plus. Right. It's a curve.

Let's go everybody today. Go to Mullinac's Ford and buy a Ford. Let's give them a round of applause here. Malenix Ford, North Bombay. This is what we strive for. Right. Yes. I'm going there to buy it.

I'm going to get a Bronca. Ah, that's what I want. Can I bar 20 granddad? Hey, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We definitely enjoy your company, and we hope that we helped you to maneuver around this volatile industry. that we're all a part of. Have a wonderful weekend. Stay tuned next week.

We'll be right back here.