Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.12.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of West Palm Beach Nissan

Episode Date: October 12, 2019

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

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also, with us as my son, Stu Stewart, are linked inside my car. 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.

Hi, everybody. I know you probably don't believe me, but this is really close to the high point of my week. I mean, I love what I do and I love life, but Earl Stewart on Cars on Saturday mornings, I feel better when I sit in this chair and I talk to you. I'm not sure why. Maybe I need a psychiatrist. At any rate, I'm a recovering car dealer. I have been doing this show with Nancy Stewart for many, many years.

I'm approaching 15, maybe over that. And what we are all about, and I say this to the newbies out there in the audience, true oldies here, and I know we have a lot of regulars, so bear with me. We're a show about how to not be taking advantage of, by your car dealer and there are many ways you can be and that's why we're here uh consumer advocacy consumer support uh we answer your questions it's a live talk show i guess maybe that's the reason i feel a certain amount of exhilaration because i you know it's 20,000 something like that people out there and we have facebook and twitter and periscope we're not just uh on the

the radio per se and it's a two way you know live talk you call up you call up us at 877-960-90-60. You might want to write that down because it's too soon probably to have a question. Maybe not. Area code 877-9-60-99-60. More popular than the audio, the old-fashioned, you know, call on the telephone

kind of a thing, is our texting. Texting has really taken off big time. And you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3. And I'll give it to you again. And if you can write this down, it'd be great. Text us at 772-497-6530. Love to hear from you. When I sat down, my son, Stu Stewart, says we have some anonymous feedbacks already.

And we have that for those. A lot of people just don't want to be identified as a privacy. I don't say that's good or bad. I'm just saying there's a certain segment, a significant segment. of our listeners that prefer just to communicate, and they don't say bad things. Occasionally we'll get a criticism, or occasionally we'll get a jab,

but most of the anonymous feedbacks are well-thought, great suggestions or questions, and that anonymous feedback website you can go and click on is YouranonymousFeedback.com. www. Youranonymousfeedback.com. Love to hear from you on that link too. remember, we've got a certified master diagnostic technician in the studio.

His name is Rick Kearney. You heard me mention him in my introduction. And this guy can answer any question that you have about any car. It isn't electronics is the name of the game today. But if you have a problem with your carburetor, if you have a car of that old, he can answer that because Rick started the business back in the days of carburetors and coils. and the old-fashioned stuff, and he's been going to school steadily.

He stayed on top of his profession. And anything you have, I know that Bluetooth is a big problem. There are a lot of connectivity problems with Apple play. I'm having some of myself in my car. So if you have those types of questions or you have suggestions, you can talk to Rick Ernie.

And Nancy Stewart, I mentioned, is my co-host, wife. She's been on the show with me for a long, long time. Her big thing is consumer advocacy. and she is the reason that we have pretty close to 50-50 female callers. We have a lot of regular female callers, and we have new female callers. Nancy, tell them about the super-duper, no-strings-attached bonus we have. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

First, I want to make a comment about Rick. I think at this point, I think he could rebuild an engine. He is so good. He did that when he was 14. Oh, I'm sorry. Twelve. You show off. Hey, good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Can you feel the energy? We all love being here. Jonathan, Rick, Stu, myself, and ladies, we would love you to join us. You are an important part of the show, and we have a little incentive to get you going. $50 for the first two new lady callers. You can call us at 877-9-60-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60-99-60. And here's just a little bit of statistics that I came up with this morning.

Did you know that there were 1.4 million women who are licensed and driving more than men? Yeah, women also tend to purchase more new cars than use cars. So there you go. Ladies, be part of the show. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60. And don't forget to text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, I'm going to congratulate Stu, and I'm going to congratulate Agent Thunder.

We picked a dealership to mystery shop And Agent Thunder Went above and beyond the call of duty And performed amazingly So you want to stay too tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report It was unique And it reflects the fact that we

Responded to your suggestions I believe it was an anonymous feedback It may have been a text But someone said, why don't you use that Althodore Price affidavit that Nancy came up with when you mystery shop and we are and we did and it was amazing and you're really going to enjoy it so sue you've got some anonymous feedbacks over there and you may have some comments about the mystery

shopping report yes I do I was really proud of Agent Thunder and it was a lot of fun this week we mix it up sometimes and our listeners have told us this it can get tedious sometimes if we're on the same subject over and over again so we've broken it up a little bit recently and spread out to different topics and this week we use the out-the-door price affidavit not knowing how it would go down how the people involved at the dealership would react because it's it hasn't been done before as far as we know well tell them what the out-the-door price affidavit is yeah so uh nancy came up with a really creative idea to get a car dealer or the salesperson the management to commit to a final out-the-door price without any more surprises so the idea is that

is you sit down with your salesperson, you work out your best deal, and then you present this form that you ask them to sign it that commits them to not add any other accessory package, hidden fees on top of the price that you guys agreed to. And, you know, we suspected that there would be a little pushback because it looks like a legal form. It's called an affidavit. It requires a signature. And we just thought, and I think Nancy was aware of the irony of the thing when she came up. As a customer, as a consumer, you're asked to sign so many things when you go into a dealership. And it's kind of like, you know, going to a doctor and being examined. You're, you're not the expert. Do this, do that, and we tend to obey. This is turning the tables on

the car dealer and asking them to sign a document that they're not entirely sure about. It's kind of a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a carmic sort of thing. And anyway, I'm not going to give any spoilers for the mystery shop today. Let's just say, it's, yeah, it's entertaining. So So stay tuned, around 9.30 or so. And then other than that, like you said, I'm here trying to get all the comments to you from our social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. And Rick's handling YouTube because I only have a 15-inch screen on my computer here. So, yeah, so send in your questions. And also on your anonymous feedback, that's becoming one of the most popular ways to get questions to us.

So go to your anonymous feedback.com. It comes right to my computer. I'll ask the questions or read the comments on the air. Rick, let me ask you a question. What is the most common problem that you see from drivers, customers, with regard to the current state-of-the-yard electronics? I'm thinking about Apple Play. I'm thinking about Bluetooth, maybe even navigation.

It's complicated, and you have the problem. Do they pair with the smartphone that they buy? everybody's got a different kind of not everybody but there are different kind of smartphones the biggest problem that we had for a long time what and this one very specific i know but it was toyota's intune system um it's like that uh ford came out with a system like this where you would pair your phone and it had certain things apps that would work with it and they were clunky they didn't work well they weren't user friendly they were horrible so all the manufacturers did it their way. And you had a GM and you had a Ford and you had a Honda and a Toyota. A few of them

saw like Ford, I think actually realized that Apple Play was the name of the game and they jumped in with Apple Play. A lot of manufacturers saw the light very, very early and started using Apple CarPlay in the Google Car app years ago. Now, I think everybody's on board now. Even Toyota has finally stepped up and realized, oh, this was a mistake. And everybody, he's going now. And it's one of our biggest issues that we saw was pairing phones to the car. Like Apple, the nice part was that every Apple iPhone, the way to get to pair the phone to the car, to pair the Bluetooth was identical on every model. They never changed that part. They kept that the same. Android, because it's an operating system, was different on every single phone.

Every manufacturer that used an Android system had a different way of getting to it. And there were some phones, in fact, there were some high-volume smartphones that consumers has, I think the name of the phone was consumers or something like that. And that was so basic, it was difficult to pair with any system. Right. Some of them just, their technology, they kept it to almost caveman levels. Cricket, I think was one. Cricket, yeah, was one.

And so as the cars advanced so fast, the radio. and the cars kept advancing. And, of course, now we're at the point where, for several years, we were updating the radio software by simply downloading a program from the manufacturer. We'd put it on a jump drive, then plug it into the car, and it would update the radio. Now, in the latest models, 19 and 20, you get in the car, and all of a sudden a screen will pop up and says, hey, there's an update available for your radio.

Would you like to do it now? you hit the button and within a minute or two, boom, it's done. So if you have any questions for Rick, it's getting great. Give Rick a call. He can probably nail down an answer for just about any make car and any kind of phone. Maybe not, but it's worth a call. And just call them at 877-960 or text him at 772-497-30. As a matter of fact, we've got a YouTube question right now just came up. Omega Rojo is asking, I have a question.

I'm looking to buy a car in March, but if the economy tanks, should I wait to get the best deal? I don't think so. I think that you can get a good deal now. Car business has been better. Car sales are off for a lot of manufacturers. We shop the Nissan dealer.

I'll give you a little hint, and car sales are way off for Nissan dealers. I don't think you're going to get a better deal with the economy tanks. You'll get the best deal if you listen carefully to our suggestions. If you read our, if you meet Earl on Cars.com, my blog has got an explanation for just about anything you will encounter how to do it on buying a car. But take your time as my advice. Start doing your research today with consumer reports and other things available to you on the Internet. and when you finally decide the exact car that you want,

then be sure you get three competitive prices. But I wouldn't wait for the economy to tank. I'd say, go ahead and be careful and call this show. Email, text us, and we can give you some good advice. Sto, you've got some anonymous feedbacks over there, aren't you? I do indeed, yeah. They come in. They're ready for us.

They know we're going to be on in the morning, so here we go. Here's the first one. This one's a little bit unusual, but I'll read it anyway. way, I'm Earl. I've been critical of one of your team members in the past. In particular, of that team member's slow articulation and speech. I've tried myself to make a video about a topic I know quite well, but then I fell victim to what I don't like in presenters. Slow speech pauses and seemingly eternity before a point is made. I need more practice, and I need to retract my past criticisms. Thank you. A little cryptic, but...

Well, yeah, I think that if live radio, I think if you would join us one day as a guest, you would find out that it's not always easy to be uniform and appealing to all of our listeners. I've had criticism from the past of speaking too fast. And when I get excited, the adrenaline goes, I do the same thing. I kind of stumble over my words. And sometimes I speak too slowly. Live radio is a challenge to all of us. I apologize if you're having problems following any one of us, but we will certainly concentrate and try to get better.

We welcome constructive criticism and we hear your criticism and I know that I speak slow sometimes too. I speak slowly when I'm thinking and if I'm thinking too much, that's overload and the words don't come out right, but your comment and constructive criticism is heard and we will certainly try to get better. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, that was a good point that you made

as far as, you know, being in the... the studio of being caught up in the moment and feeling that passion and, you know, just overthinking sometimes because the information that you want to put out there, you want it to be, well, the best information that our listeners can absorb. And the passion here is unbelievable, and so is the energy. And we try to do the best we can, but we definitely appreciate your comment. And as a professional broadcaster, I can give advice on that. Just do what Earl does.

Drink a couple of cappuccinos, a large coffee, approximately 700 milligrams of caffeine, and you'll speak much more rapidly. Yes, I'll speak very rapidly. Okay, excuse me, guys. We have someone very special, and we haven't talked to him in quite a while. Good morning, John. John's calling us from Palm City. Oh, John, welcome back.

Where have you been? Good morning to everyone. Errol has the right answer with a guy that's worried about the economy tanking. Nobody mentions nobody about the General Motor Strike. It's been going on. I can't even count how many weeks now. And it's inevitable. It will be settled.

And it's only questionable that the answer is the price will go up on the GM cars. And one of the biggest things that's holding up, the strike is with the health care plan. They eventually will get settled. And before Earl and I were born, the worst strike automotive and United Auto Workers in history was in 1937. I forget how long it lasted, but it was absolutely the worst in history. So I just want to mention that it's inevitable that when this gets settled and the prices will go up, because it's no question about that.

You're right, John. And the second thing I have, is, do you agree with me, Earl? I do, yes. Okay. Then the second thing I want to ask you, and it dawned on me when everybody's before the hurricane, especially when they were lined up with the gas stations, and I said to myself, this is crazy, pushing the hoses because it's on the left and on the right side, and it's confusion. So I want to ask Rick, what's the reason that he think it was so easy when Camero came out and, and, um, um, they're forward. How come I can't think of Ford? Thunderbird? No, no, no. Mustang, Mustang.

Mustang. Yeah. Okay. It's dead center in the back, which could not be easier for anybody to gas up a car. Could it be a safety factor? I'm going to just see what Rick's opinion is, and why did they continue that on all cars?

Great question. It's so simple, gasoline, right in the back, either by the license plate or dead center, and fill up your tank? Well, the simplest answer to that is for safety factor. Probably, I'm going to say, 60 to 70% of car collisions are a hit from behind. And like they found with the Ford Pinto, having a gas tank in the very back of the car was a bad idea. That's why most fuel tanks now are located ahead of the rear suspension and the rear axle

in a safer, more solid part of the body. Unfortunately, if you want to have that filler in the very back, you've got to have a long filler neck now, which again creates a conduit directly to the gas tank. And I always pull in the wrong way, and I find I've got my gas cap on the wrong side of the car. Well, if you notice so, if you look at the, on your instrument cluster, your combination meter, where your fuel gauge is, every car now has a little indicator, a little, usually a triangle acting is an arrow, the points to tell you what side of the car your filler cap is on. So if you rent cars often, if you travel and you're in unfamiliar vehicles,

you just glance at that gas gauge and it'll usually show you what side the filler cap is on. I've never noticed that. Yep. Wow. Interesting. Thank you. Thank you, John. You just ask the question that made me learn something.

If I'm not concentrating, I'm dyslexic a little bit too, right and left kind of a thing. And there's nothing more aggravating when you're in a hurry to pull in a gas station. you jump out the car and you find out that you're in the wrong point in the wrong way well as long as we're on the sense it's right yeah as long as we're on the subject to fuel i stopped for gas yesterday at a uh racetrack and did you know now that we've got e20 fuel available in the pumps which is a third handle now so now when you pull up to the gas pumps you may see the regular gasoline rec 90 fuel which is the no ethanol fuel, diesel, E85, and E20. So you have to be very careful to make sure you get the proper fuel for your car.

Goodness. John, what else did you have to ask us this morning? Well, making more confusing, I noticed in a Wawa station the other day, just on the regular pump, there's one on diesel, one number on 87, one number on 89, one number on 91. One on ninety three. That's four grades right there. And then if you want them, 90, it's on the end aisle, which makes it convenient for people with boats and trailers. So if you total it up, that's one, two, three, four, five plus the diesel.

So that gets enough to confuse people because there was the guy there from New Jersey with a rented car. And he was asking somebody on the rental. It was a Nissan. And the guy told him, he said, don't worry, if you use the regular 87 would be. fine. But the reason he's used to it in New Jersey is because New Jersey, you can't, it's illegal to fill the car up yourself. It's, uh, they have to have certain. New Jersey and Oregon. Is that right? That's crazy. By the way, uh, we had a question in the past. I think a couple of years ago already, two years ago, New Jersey was one of the first ones with compulsory

state inspections. It's eliminated. Oh. And they don't need it. Wow. New Jersey's a interesting We don't have it, really. They are. It shows you if they eliminated, it was in effect, and it doesn't pay. So answer to the people that keep on asking, why don't we have it in Florida. Well, John, it's so nice to have you back. I was worried about you. I was getting ready to drive up and see if you're okay.

I'm glad you're back. I'd be honest with you. I gave up. I not only had trouble getting on the phone. Oh, yeah. I have another radio now, and I'm listening to because I'm in Palm City West. going toward Okachovie, so I got you on 960 a.m. Great, great.

And it's as clear as a bell. Well, thank you. You guys have a good day. Send you, John. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you for being there. Thank you. Got Jonathan on my mind.

John, thanks so much for giving us a call, and our apologies for the inconvenience of you're not being able to get through, but we're glad you're with us today. We're going to go to John in West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. John, you there? John, from West Palm Beach.

All right, we'll move on. Yeah, I'm sorry, John, from West Palm Beach. We don't want to lose you like we lost John from Palm City, but we just have phone problems, and we try hard, and please don't give up. I think the station's just updated their phones. Oh, I hear something. Oh, I hear somebody.

Okay, John, you there? Yeah, I'm here. Oh, great. Oh, good morning, John. Good morning. I wanted to add a possibility as to why they move the cellar to the side. For safety reasons, the gas stations have smaller, you know, no longer service stations, they got strong, to keep people from getting hit by the other people,

they had to pull up to the smaller islands, the tank islands, the gas tank islands. So putting it on the side, reduce the risk of someone getting hurt, you know, when someone pulls up and, you know, not getting your legs caught between two cars, I think. As the best is, it's kind of smaller. I'm not sure. Yeah. What do you think? That is a certain possibility.

It gives them the ability, like John is saying, that people not standing directly behind the car to fill it up, but being to the side. It's a lot safer that way. Someone who comes in behind accidentally bumps the car ahead of you. Yeah. And cars have gotten a little bit bigger again. We're going back to bigger cars now. And, you know, it's harder to fit them in those lineups. Well, that's a good question.

And interesting point. I hadn't thought of, John. Thank you very much. Oh, you're welcome. I don't think it really matters, you know, like, as far as money or economy or saving money, where the gas filler is, you know, it just, you know, I don't think it doesn't seem like It doesn't matter where it is. Well, a few bucks a car times a million cars is big bucks, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, so. Okay. Have a great day. John, call again. Thank you very much. That was very insightful.

We appreciate that. A lot of people learn something, including me. Oh, for sure. Thank you, John. Hope to hear from you again. Give us a call toll-free this morning at 877-9-60-90-60. And don't forget, you can text us at 772-497-6-5. and remember ladies

$50 for the first two new lady callers I know you're out there remember this morning what I said there's 1.4 million more of you on the road so somebody has time to give us a call here

more women than men on the road 1.4 million I would have never guessed it Stu how about some anonymous feedbacks? I think that we're going to have to interrupt Stu and go to Tina. I hadn't even started you oh boy Hey, Tina. Good morning, Tina.

Good morning, everybody. How are you doing? Great. We have the giggles this morning. What's up, Tina? Well, Sir Dyson. He has tried to get himself into the electric car business. And unfortunately, he has decided not to because there's just way too much competition.

And he's known for over-engineering products. I mean, his products are good. But you got to admit, they're very much over-engineered. And part of the problem, funny enough, is that he figured out that a regular petrol or gas-powered car has over 33,000 parts. And electric cars have less than 11,000. So that kind of started the problem. But the Chinese are really jumping on this electric car bandwagon. He also figured out, for Dyson, figured out, that the electric.

car market there's only 3.5% of the total automotive market and he just didn't think it was competitive or he thought it was too competitive so he's pulled out yeah it's uh you're playing the time game with electric cars and you have to have you have to be huge you have to have staying power a large amount of capital and you can't be looking to the next uh five years or 10 years you got to be looking at the next 50 years so the big the big players uh like uh Volkswagen, Toyota, Volkswagen's the largest manufacturer, Toyota's the second largest manufacturer. And then after that, you're going to see some non-automotive people that are going to do it, which is essentially Tesla, you think of them as a car manufacturing company,

but they're really a battery manufacturing company. And a lot of these software companies like Google, Waymo, is their car division. So the electric car will happen, but probably not by those that you think of convention. is auto manufacturers. It'll be only maybe the one or two top auto manufacturers. They will morph into a software company. And that's what's kind of, you know, manufacturers are just people that put things together and roll them down the highway. Software companies design the heart of an electric car. And that's what is going to prevail. But you've got to have a lot of money and a lot of time to spend it. well i still wonder what's going to happen with tesla because left and right they're continually having problems and i think they're using the word over-engineered again i think like bmw and some of these other companies their cars are so over-engineered that if there's a problem it's pretty much almost systemic failure there've been people that have had their tesla i think it's a model three

they've had those and there's been so many people saying you know i get this error message on my scream that says that my car won't charge. So they have to take it down to the dealership, get that all straightened out. Sometimes the car's gone for a week before it's fixed. So there's definitely, I mean, the cars are beautiful. They're a work of art when you see them drive down the road, but they're just not a reliable piece of machinery, and consumer reports and Tesla are not friends. No, today's cars are very, very complicated.

As you said earlier, a huge number of components. And it's impossible, really, for a manufacturer to build a perfect car. Every, I don't care how good the manufacturer is, they always have problems with cars. And it's a huge challenge to build something, millions of the same thing and have them all work right. The electric car, when the day comes, and you can argue about, it's definitely going to come. It's going to be five years, ten years, or twenty years. But when it finally does come, it'll be a simpler production item. It'll be a transportation.

It won't be a car anymore. It'll take you from point A to point B in a very effortless, easy, inexpensive, clean manner. And you don't want to be playing the game unless you can be around for a long time. It's not going to happen overnight. Yeah, and I think the other problem is, too, that not so much my generation,

but the generation before me, which is my parents, they're in their 70s, I think that these auto manufacturers in general are trying to shoehorn the older generation, I said it respectfully, the older generation into these very technologically advanced vehicles, and it's a source of frustration for people that are members of the greatest generation or before. Yeah, it's generational change is an interesting thing to watch. And I look at my grandchildren today, they won't have any problem in all. with, you know, taking their smartphone, summoning a moving vehicle, all-electric, automated,

and say, you know, take me to the soccer field, take me to the drugstore, take me to the wherever. It's easy for them. I can't quite capture that in my mind, and a lot of people in my generation can't, and we won't have to because, you know, we're not going to be around then. But that's what happens, generational change. We're looking at a watershed moment in the history of the world in terms of the world. of transportation and the internal combustion engine is bye-bye but not now it'll be a few years

but it'll be bye-bye yeah and that'll be kind of a sad day for those of us that enjoy for you a real feeling of driving a car and having the experience be with your hands and your feet rather than just a push button yeah rick has a point well Tina just remember one thing They said that about 140, 150 years ago, and we still have people riding horses. They just, now they do it for pleasure and fun. But not a 995. No, no. But you can still go and ride horses in, in a safe place and safe place.

And cars will still be around, and there will still be places where you can go and drive cars. I'm sure places like out in the middle of Montana, you know, it's going to be difficult to have electric cars. places like that until they figure out how to get solar charging. So you're going to need some other ways to handle this. Sure. They'll still be around. Yeah, exactly. And Tina, you know, I really think that with the electric vehicle revolution,

it's going to bring its own problems. You know, it'll certainly be dealt with. But on the plus side, maintenance costs, you know, it'll be, you know, much cheaper. Oil changes, there won't be any, I believe, necessary. and that's a good thing so like girl and Rick talked about the change will come and my grandson

that will be 40 years old I can see him right now driving an electric car and adapting to it very very well but that's our future that's from the young ages to the millennials

yeah definitely and I have a feeling that by the time I'm ready for another car my next car probably might be electric. I plan on keeping this vehicle for at least 10 years, so I'm sure that by the time I'm ready for a new one, it's going to be plug and play pretty much. I want one really bad.

Earl won't let me get one. He said, I have to drive a Toyota. Just kidding. Well, thanks, Tina. The Toyota electric car is really looking neat. They're coming down the pike. I drive hybrids. I'm halfway there.

Tina, thanks so much for your call. We really appreciate you calling every Saturday morning, and really jumping on that platform and telling the ladies, give us a goal. Yes, because I can't do this by myself. Come on, ladies, get your $50, line up. That's right. Give Tina a hand. Thank you, Tina.

Okay, let's get back to our anonymous feedbacks. We got a bunch of them out in now, aren't we? We do, and I actually lost my place. Here we go. Good, we have an out-of-state anonymous commenter. Hello from Alabama. I'm very nervous that I made the biggest mistake of my life buying a brand new Corolla hatchback. I did some research before my purchase, and most of the car magazines recommended the hatchback over the sedan corolla.

I bought the new Corolla hatchback about six months ago, and I'm having transmission problems. I took it to Toyota, and they did a software update. My neighbor, who is a mechanic for a private garage, told me to get rid of the car because the software update is just a way for Toyota to limit the torque output on the transmission to make it last long enough to get out of warranty before it critically fails. I took it to the dealership to look into trading it in and owe thousands more than it's worth. What can I do with the Toyota with the transmission? Toyota knows is going to fail and will not replace with reliable transmission.

I think this is going to fall under Rick. This is certainly a conspiratorial idea, but we could probably shed some light on it. Rick, what do you know about that particular software? update. Well, unfortunately, I have been instructed that I am not to reply to those. I'm just kidding, folks. I'm kidding. Please call Toyota customer experience. Trust me. I don't tow any sort of lines when it comes to that. I love Toyota, but when they make a mistake, I'm going to be one of the first ones to throw the eggs at them and say, hey, you got to fix this. Well, did they fix it? That's the question. The transmission, the update that she's speaking of, the, the, the

person is speaking of is a software update for the CVT or continuously variable transmission. And it seems to have been quite effective. Basically, it doesn't seem to limit torque in any manner. What they told us is it's actually to help control when the gears were actually changing in it. Unfortunately, I can't really describe how they operate very well on the air. It's something you would almost need a visual impact to describe. But a continuously variable transmission doesn't have gears that shift. So it actually controls it by way of two large pulleys that can actually change size, one getting smaller, one getting larger, as the car is needed to accelerate.

How many have you personally worked on? For that transmission update, probably three or four hundred or more? Three or four hundred. Just me personally. Have we had anybody come back? and say it's still not fixed, it's not right? We have seen, I'm going to say in our shop, total throughout the shop for that software update, we've probably done 2 to 3,000 of these cars over the last couple of years,

and I think we've had maybe three total that have come back that needed further work and needed the transmission replaced. And in that situation, the anonymous feedback person, we simply replaced it. You heard the answer there. His concern was he's on the verge now of trading the car back in and taking a huge economic yet because he has negative equity. And a friend of his has scared him into believing this is a conspiracy by Toyota. So the answer is no, this is not a conspiracy by Toyota. Rick estimates we've probably done 3,000 of these.

It's a quick fix, right? How long does it take to do the flash? It takes about 25 to 30 minutes. And then there's a test drive that we do afterwards. So total figure maybe an hour in the shop. So you bring your car in, you're in and out in an hour, and you don't have a problem again. We've done 3,000 of them.

We've had half a dozen come back for a tweak or a problem, but that's fixing the car. And a lot of your repairs, you should be happy about software repairs because instead of having to take the car apart and put it back together again, you plug in and the magic goes into the computer and it's fixed, and that's the way cars are fixed today. So hang on that corolla, don't buy another car, don't take a negative equity loss on that, and your car is going to run just fine. And we've also, you know, we've offered praise for, you know, independent mechanics.

And we've, you know, but just bear in mind there's good and bad mechanics, just like there are good and bad car dealers. And some of them have selfish motivations to get your business and might not conduct themselves ethically. Not saying this is the case with your mechanic, but just be aware. Somebody has a horse, what are they, horse in the race? And axe to grind. Exactly. There's a lot of good and bad. There's good and bad.

When you buy donuts. Bear in mind also, folks, that Toyota has a track record that even when the car is out of warranty, if it's a situation that they know there is an issue, they'll stand by it with Goodwell warranty. So even if you're 10,000, 20,000 miles past that end of the warranty or time-wise, they'll fix it. Most of the manufacturers will do the same thing. If you have a problem and it's under warranty and you bring in and it's fixed, and then it isn't fixed, you find out, but it's not a warranty. Most of your manufacturers, because you came in during the warranty period, we'll take care of it for you. More anonymous feedbacks, do?

We sure do. Earl, if dealers can use these deceitful tactics, both legally and illegally, could we not take some approach to educate the dealer by being passive aggressive, walking out, or being honest and calling them out on their BS? Maybe when confronting them on a deceitful or unfair point, we can raise our voices in the dealership to the point that other customers can hear us. Maybe we could even interject other salespeople and customer interactions to provide the details of the deceitful acts. Maybe the customer walks out. Maybe we need to go on the offensive. What are your thoughts? Thank you all.

I think that it's, for your own good, I think it's probably a tactic that you'd rather not do. First of all, a lot of people don't have the aggressive ability to do head-to-head with a car salesman. Another reason I don't like that idea is that the car salesman oftentimes is an innocent victim of the whole system. He's a cog in the machine. He's a cog. And a lot of these young salespeople, they don't last very long. They'll turn over shoes in car dealerships with car salesmen, and they've been instructed what to do. sometimes they don't even know that they're doing wrong.

Car dealers will tell a salesman that the dealer fee is okay, and the hidden fees are part of the business, and we do it all the time, and all the car dealers do it, and that's just the way cars are sold. So there's a brainwashing thing going on. So to go head-to-head with the car salesman, if you could go head-to-head with the owner of the dealership, that might be a different story.

If you could arrange a meeting with a dealer and sit down and talk civilized, it might be an interesting conversation. And just in my experience, I always think de-escalating a situation is always most helpful, especially for any kind of negotiation. You know, if you become hostile or aggressive, they're likely to raise their defenses and you're going to defeat the purpose that you're trying to, what you're trying to accomplish. So keep it friendly and professional at the extent that you can.

And don't blame the salesman all the time. Yeah. Okay. Earl, it's a good question for you. Earl, if I was to visit your dealership and was quoted $24,750 out the door for a car, would you sell it for $24,500 if $24,500 is all I brought? No, and this is what one price is all about. A lot of car dealers profess to put their lowest price on the car, but they really don't.

It's something to lure you in and say, you know, bottom line pricing. A good example, Al Packer Ford's motto is, bottom line pricing, but the bottom line pricing isn't the bottom line. You lose the trust to the consumer when you make a claim that's not true. So even though economically, I might be able to rationalize and make a profit by lowering a price on a car that I put my lowest price on, but then I'd be a liar because I didn't put my lowest price on the car. So I tell my customers when they sometimes there won't be $250 they'll say almost for argument purposes

so you want $24,750 for this car I'll offer you $24,740 will you give me $10 off I say I won't give you 10 cents off because I'll loan you $10 though yeah right you'll pay me back but by coming off the

guaranteed one lowest price then you're showing your dishonesty. If you're dishonest by $1, you'll be dishonest for $1,000. And that's what transparency is all about. That's right. Good morning, Erland Team. This is another anonymous feedback. Good morning, Erland Team. I have a short story I'd like to pass along that relates to your article, how and why car dealers sell you things you don't need or want or even know about. When I visited my local Kia dealership to check out their lineup, especially that radical Stinger, I noticed all the cars I looked at had phony maroni labels attached that had the same

or at least similar looks as the actual Maroni label. I browsed some more and was eventually approached by young salesperson. We exchanged pleasantries. To get to the point, I finally asked him what the price of the car was. He looked at the window and read back the dollar figure from the phony label. I did not lean into examine the label. He looked back at me and told him, and I told him, are you sure this is the official MSRP? This tiny paper is a phony Monroeing, and if you look closely at it, it's an unofficial sticker to rip off customers. What I was pointing at on the phony label were the words, this label is not an official factory or government sticker. At least they had that. The salesperson suggested that he

asked the manager to come and talk to me. I quickly said that this won't be necessary and suggested to him that he go and talk to the manager about the rip-off stickers and why a potential new Kia customer is walking off the lot. The dealership is Kia Greenville in Greenville, South Carolina. If you need a remote mystery shopper, please feel free to write me back. I've included my email and incognito anonymous feedback submission for him. Great job, by the way. Great job. That's a typical salesman is a pawn in the game, and he's just following orders. And unfortunately, he's just trying to make a few bucks. He's not a bad person, probably. the dealer is

and to use something that distorts the manufacturer suggested retail price is just plain wrong Moroni Act in 1958 was supposed to the intent of the law

and the written way of the law is to give you the consumer a way to honestly compare this Kia dealer with that key dealer with that key dealer. If you have an MSRP from Kia dealer A of 25,000 and you go to a key dealer B and C and look

at a car with $25,000 MSRP, you can say, I will buy the car from the Kia dealer that gives me the greatest discount from MSRP. But if Kia dealer A tricks you into thinking you're looking at the MSRP and he's really adding $2,000 or up to $10,000 we've seen in terms of additional profit and calling it MSRP, the phony monorone, then you're not comparing apples and apples. And so he can take advantage of you and make a good. a huge profit. So yeah, it's a bad thing to do. Most car dealers do it. Why? There isn't some action taken by the federal government because a Monroney label is a federal law. And the phony

Monroney's are a deliberate premeditated distortion of a federal law. Why do they allow it? I don't know. The law should be updated. And considering our current United States Congress, they can't seem to agree on anything. Here's something I think they can find common ground on, make it illegal to adjust, modify, or disguise the Menroney label. I mean, that's pretty simple. Who would disagree with that? No gray area at all. And if you ask someone, if they know of Senator Maroney,

they wouldn't even know what you were talking about. Exactly. That's a bipartisan bill, if I ever heard. Exactly. All right, this is not a political show. So, here's another anonymous feedback. I heard you speak about Carfax. I recently sold my Honda Fit to one of those we buy it.

One of those, we buy your car places. I went to three places, and to my surprise, nothing came back as far as accidents. I had three on his own-of-fit. I backed into another car when sitting in a parking lot. I was rear-ended by Mercedes at a stoplight, and I was also broad-sided by a Cadillac. All were repaired, but none of them showed up on Carfax. Before finalizing the sale, I did let them know that all of these events had occurred, and it was shrugged off. I also have a question for Mr. Stewart.

I heard you say that you can test drive a car. for up to a week before you buy it to see if you like it or if it's a fit for the buyer. Your salespeople don't mention this or allude to it in any way when selling either a new or used car. Why would that be? Well, let me back up on the Carfax and say that if the car was not repaired by insurance, then there would be no data in Carfax on their computer to know the accident. So if these fell under the deductible or you agreed for whatever reason not to report to your insurance company in the three instances, I can see why it would not be on Carfax.

Now, Carfax is not part of it. Or if they screw up, the insurance didn't report it. Exactly. Carfax on their website does have a way, Avenue for you to report errors, and you could do that. We, in our experience, the damage to cars is pretty accurate on Carfax, but sometimes they mess up. As far as taking a car out for a week on a demonstration ride,

if I said that, I was probably, I should have qualified it. A lot of car dealers would not let you do it, especially on a new car. Frankly, I would be hesitant to tell you to take a new car out for a week. I think if we had some agreement on mileage and I was comfortable with that you're a legitimate buyer, I would say fine. Use car, I wouldn't have much of a problem with. But a week isn't amid much. I think that what I meant to say, and I hope I didn't actually say that, but if I, you know, What I would say is that you should take the car for several hours and overnight, overnight would be the best solution.

You should drive that car and the conditions that you normally drive your car, highway conditions, residential conditions, park it in your garage, anything that you do normally, go into Publix and come back out, going to Costco. You know, just drive it in your normal routine. And if you can do that in a few hours, that's all you need to do. But a week, I would not want you to take one of my cars for a week, new, use would be something I would consider. Yeah. This is a really interesting question. Excuse me for a minute, Stu. And you know, to Earl's point, what's really important, and you're going to know this in a couple of hours, is whether that front seat is comfortable.

There's a lot of people that really overlook that. And once you purchase the car and you're in that front seat for, well, a long time, well, It can be a real problem if you have back problems. Yeah. Or getting in and out. I mean, you can contort yourself getting some of these cars. I watch you try to get into that Supra, and I felt very sorry for you. Rick has a point.

One thing you might consider is find a car rental place that has that year and model of car and rent it for a couple days. Yeah. But you have to pay for that. Well, you got to pay for it. But say if you're, you know, a hundred bucks to drive that car for two or three days to know for sure. It saved you a lot in the long run, I think. Very true. We got another one?

Yes, we do. This is really interesting. Most roads, especially highways, are crowned, and I hear that's on purpose to divert water off the road. Is that true? Additionally, do you think it was intentional to also allow cars to drift off the road to the side in case the driver drifted off asleep? Allowing the car to drift to the road to the right would avoid head-on collisions. I guess with the advent of lane-keep assist technology, that's not really a problem in the future.

And, I mean, I understood the roads were crowned for the water runoff, but that's a, I mean, that's a valid question. What do you think? Road crown was only meant for water runoff, and as far as I know, it was never intended to make cars go off the road if the driver fell off the road. No, you go off the road to the canal, you go off the road to the end of the oncoming traffic. You don't want to go off the road. All right, stay on the road. And don't go to, don't drive the car when you're really, really sleepy. Okay, this is from Anne Marie.

This is a text. Anne Marie, she's a longtime text, her and listener. She says, good morning. Jalopnik.com reports that seven 2020 Toyota Supers have potentially faulty seatbelt guide loop mounts. Two surprises came with the story. One, the vehicles will be inspected, and if a defective seatbelt guide loop is found, the vehicle will be replaced. Two, BMW, not Toyota, was the company that filed the recall documents with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. BMW said that it might not have been welded to specifications.

Specifically, BMW is aware of potentially missing welding spots on the vehicle's safety belt guide loop mount. So the remedy is to replace the entire vehicle. Ouch, that has to hurt the company's bottom line, but they're glad it's only seven vehicles. And then another question, when did BMW start building Toyota Supras? Thanks. Well, I can tell you, the Super, it was a joint partnership with BMW. It's based on the BMW Z4. I don't know the internal reasons why I would imagine it was probably a lot cheaper than developing their own new inline 6 engine which they had in the old Supras so BMW I think was ahead of the game and I am going to do a little to Toyota commercial here the Super beat the BMWs E4 and a draggery so but Rick's got more technical things for you

I everything they said there is absolutely correct from what we have been told you know here in the the fighting trenches And, yes, they are going to simply replace the cars, the few cars. There's only literally five or six of them that got out to the public. They're simply going to replace them. Now, I don't know what they're going to do about the vehicle identification number. I think I've just crap the cars. Well, they'll either do that or they'll take those cars and donate them to trade schools for training purposes, which, you know, would be a smarter thing to do.

But such people... They may not drive them, but use them to work on. Right, such people is, what was the guy's name that he bought 0-0-0-0-0-1? John Stalupy. For $2 million. Right, but bearing in mind, now those few cars are going to become the missing VIN numbers. And for car collectors, that could be an important thing by having suddenly your VIN number just went from a low number to a higher number to a higher-down airplane. You know, that really, like the $10 billion stamp, you know, in the future.

Right, the inverted Jenny. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to let you know our lines are open, and as you can hear, we've covered a lot of topics, but most importantly, we would love to talk to you. Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-960, and remember you can be part of the vote on our mystery shopping report that is a fantastic report. You want to stay with us for that, and you can also go to www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback. Tell us what you think. And Texas, Texas, too. Yeah, 772-497-6530.

Okay, which one of you, Rick, or Stu, are going to take over? My throat's getting kind of scratchy. Well, I got a couple quick ones here. First one is from Sung Sam. He's asking about the New Jersey car inspections that we mentioned earlier. He says he's still seeing cars lined up for inspection. So I went ahead and did a quick Google search and the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Department

is still stating that their program is going to be changing so far they haven't done implemented any changes yet but right now they do still have vehicle inspections on all passenger-plated vehicles and commercial vehicles. Is it mandatory? It is mandatory and those inspections can be done either at a state operated inspection station or at a private inspection facility

that has been certified to perform their state inspections. Great information. So, ladies and gentlemen, again, our lines are open. 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And I see that Ed is calling us from Del Rey. Good morning, Ed. Good morning, everybody. Let me just start out by saying I very much enjoy your show and appreciate your your show.

My question is I'm thinking about one of those new gladiator Jeep trucks, but when I look on YouTube, all you hear is negative, negative, negative about Jeep products and how terrible they are, the maintenance is expensive, the parts are expensive. But when I drive around, all I see are jeeps. So I'm kind of confused if the product is so bad and the maintenance and parts is so high, how come there's a million new jeeps running around? Does anybody know the answer to that? The answer is sex.

The Jeep is a sexy vehicle. All of us in the room here agree with the Consumer Reports analysis that it's not a quality vehicle, high cost of insurance, maintenance, and repairs. but it is just one of the best-looking cars. You see, every time I see a Jeep, I want to own one. And whoever came up with the whole design concept, it's the only thing saving Chrysler Fiat from bankruptcy is the Jeep. They make their money on the Jeep.

They sell a lot of Jeeps. And it is just something that human beings will deal in emotion more than logic. And the Jeep is the perfect example. People will talk to me, and they'll say, I know a Honda is a better vehicle I know whatever is a better vehicle but I want to buy a Jeep because I really, really like the Jeep

and Ed, the one good thing about Jeep that is tangible and logical because it's so popular, it has a high resale value so the one negative that you think for a car that had terrible cost or repair and maintenance would be excessive depreciation. Jeeps do not depreciate excessively

because there's always somebody else that wants to buy that used Jeep. So you can buy a Jeep, be prepared to spend a lot of money on insurance and maintenance and repairs, but when you trade it in, you'll get all the money, a high valuation to trade it in on whatever you want to buy another Jeep or a Honda or whatever. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate it, Earl.

Okay. Enjoy the Jeep, Ed. I know you're going to buy one. Don't be ashamed. Right. Enjoy that, gee. If it feels good, do it. Have a great weekend.

But we're going to go to Joe, who's calling us from Port St. Lucie. Good morning, Joe. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Hey, too. First time caller. I didn't know if I was going to get through, but you said all the lines were open, so I dialed the phone. Thank you, Joe.

Oh, thank you. Okay, I have a 2011, in fact, it's one of your cars, Earl, Ravrefour. Okay, 161 and so many miles, how many thousand miles, 161,000. All of a sudden, my average gas consumption, 26.7 miles per gallon, went down to 23.7 miles per gallon. I lost three miles per gallon somewhere within the past two months. And I just like every two or three days, I'm at the gas station filling up again. Very interesting. I have no engine light on or anything like that.

that just starts up, runs fine, drives fine, ships fine, and everything. Buying the same brand of gas over and over? Excuse me? Are you still buying the same brand of gasoline? Yes. Uh-huh. My 87 octane from Sam's Club. Interesting.

Rick, can you answer that? That's a tough one. I just happened to lose three miles a gallon, and I don't know where the heck it went. Mm-hmm. I'm just thinking, you know, should I go someplace and have it put on a diagnostic? Maybe something that's not showing up with an engine light and not coming on. Could you give me any kind of ideas or what? I can't, but Rick Kearney might.

Okay, Mr. Rick. First question, are you tracking this only by the numbers showing up on the combination meter? Or are you checking this on paper as well? No, just on the little button. on the driver's thing. The first thing I would recommend right off the bat is double check it on paper

first. In other words fill up your gas tank right down your miles how many miles you have on the car right then on your odometer and track how many gallons you can use on that

tank of fuel, do a full tank run and just do the math to find out how many miles per gallon you get from that tank but do it on paper and then do that for about two or three tankfuls to see what the actual fuel economy really is because unfortunately the the computer in your car is trying to make a good guesstimate based on how much fuel it's putting in the engine how many miles you're driving but it's it's a big complicated thing that it goes through so trying to really trust that is a little difficult i would do it on paper

just to make sure what you're getting. And the other thing I'd recommend is check your tire pressures. Make sure your pressures haven't dropped down a little bit because over the course of one to two months, you can lose five to six pounds of air in your tires, not enough to put the light on, but enough to hurt your fuel economy a little bit. Okay.

Let me ask you this now. I have my tire pressure light is on. It might be just one defective tire. would that have something to do with it if you've got to yeah the tire is you know has sufficient air in it would that have something to do with it good well if if one tire is low on air then yeah that can definitely hurt your fuel economy because that increases that resistance the rolling resistance of the tire and anything that creates a drag is going to reduce your fuel economy

if you started carrying extra stuff in the car any extra load extra weight and always, of course, in South Florida, the temperature, I mean, this has been one incredibly hot summer and changes in the air, the amount of humidity and the temperature can change how your engine runs and that will change your fuel economy a bit also. Okay, would that anything, how about that, anything with an 02 sensor or anything like that,

would that just not show up on the check engine light? Is there anything you can plug as a Rav4 in in the shop? that would give you an indication that some sort of whack that might affect the fuel economy. Not really, because if something like that were happening, it would turn on that check engine light. Isaac. Right. Okay. Okay.

I mean, if I went to someplace like AutoZone that gives me a free code check, I've got nothing to lose by just checking it out, right? No, nothing to lose at all by having them check that. Yeah. All right. And check out the tires and everything else. And like you say, do the gas mileage on paper rather than just. going by what's on the... Yeah, and then call back and let us know what happens.

That's a common problem. People I've heard this before were suddenly your fuel mileage varies. And there's the old joke about the guy that both the Volkswagen and his neighbor was coming up and siphoning gas out every week. And he was complaining and complained and took it to the shop. And then after a while, the guy went back and started adding gas every week. And he had a nervous breakdown. So maybe you've got a neighbor who's playing with you.

Oh, that's awesome. open the gas store without opening the car door. Yeah, call back. Thanks for being a first time caller. Be a second time caller. Calls next week, thanks. Thank you very much. All right. Have a nice day now. Bye-bye. You're welcome. I look forward to hearing back from you. We're going to go to Alan, who is giving us a call

from New Jersey, and I believe he's originally from Hawaii. Good morning. How are you, Alan? Good morning. Hello. Welcome. Welcome. Hello. I'm going for Earl. Okay. Earl.

In Hawaii, how did one company come to have the monopoly on, you know, Toyota? They frequently charge 1,500 to 2,000 over MSRP, and there's a controsity with, you know, service being the monopoly. How did that come about? Well, of course, Toyota is an international company, and they have different arrangements with different countries. I'm not sure why Hawaii is United States, I guess maybe because they're so close to Japan, maybe that was one of the first places before, I'm not sure how this longest distributorship has been there, but it's like a dealer distributorship. Another interesting, which you probably know, they actually have a Toyota endorsed. dealer fee. It said, because it has the, one guy owns all their family, I think it is, owns all the Toyota dealerships in Hawaii, and they have a dealer fee that's mandated by the distributor.

Servco, I think, was it even aware of that. I believe that, you know, Surfco is not a auto dealer, but a distributor. Yeah. And they were put in place right at the World War II. Yeah. It's illegal, for example, in the state of Florida for a distributor to own car dealerships and in most states in the United States, a manufacturer distributor cannot own a car dealership. In Hawaii, the distributor owns

all the car dealerships for Toyota and they can get away with anything they want. I'm surprised somebody hasn't challenged them on an antitrust level saying that you're hurting competition. You're raising the price to the consumer. because you can set the price for every toilet dealership in Hawaii

thousands of them, I guess, or maybe not thousands. No, there's only two dealerships. Oh, really? And they're both, you know, so... I didn't know that. Yeah, it's still price fixing, in my opinion. I would think there's a valid class action suit or something that could

be done. But I've done about that for a long time. It's always been mysteries to me, too. They got a bunch of toilet dealerships in Australia, too. Oh, is that right? Surfco. Oh, is that Surfco? Yeah, they got a ton. Okay, I was not aware of that.

You know, when the Manu, you know, Thatcher is offering, let's say, you know, $1,200 back throughout the United States, they rarely offer it in the Hawaii zone. Yeah, they keep it in their pocket. So it's worse than it seems. Where are you going to go? You know, in the eyes. You could, in fact, change brands. Yeah.

And the other brands are much. more, you know, competitive. But this is a monopoly. And I am amazed I've never read where the AG has ever acted against them. You know, Alan, the

distributorship in the southeast for Toyota is owned by Southeast Toyota a man named Jim Moran who died years ago. He got that distributor ship back in the late 50s, early 60s. And there's also another Gulf states, a Toyota

around Texas, the four or five Louisiana, and those states, called Gulf States, they're a distributorship so that Toyota, the manufacturer, sells to Southeast Toyota and to Gulf States, and then Gulf States and Southeast Toyota marked the car up again to the dealer, and then I'm a dealer for Southeast Toyota,

and I buy my cars from Southeast Toyota, but I have to pay about $1,000 more for a car than if I was in New York or New Jersey. I was not aware of that. that. Yes. That comes as a shock. It is.

But okay. Thank you, if your insight on this one, very much. Great question, Alan. It puzzles me. I don't know how that happened, but it's a serfco is a culprit,

and I don't like the way they're marking the cars up, but that's the way it is. It doesn't sound like a car company either. What is the possible chance of the manual manufacturers being able to grab back their stores

from these independent businessmen in the future. I wish they should. I wish they would. I wish they would. There's a lot of reasons for it. They're contractual agreements. You know, Toyota always wasn't a big powerhouse.

You know, they did well in Japan most of the time. But when they started spreading around the world, they were struggling. And nobody care. And when Toyota first came to the United States, I don't know if you knew the name of it then was called the Toyo P-E-T. It was not.

And it was a piece of junk. It was like a toy. And so they were, you know, Biggers can't be choosers, and they were out trying to find ways to distribute and sell cars. And they made some bad deals. They made a bad deal with distributors, and they made a bad deal with Servico.

And the deal they signed back when they were vulnerable was probably something they wished they could get out of. They didn't have a sunset close. You know, I think when they started to import to Japan, and they made farm implement. Yeah. Well, actually, they started out making looms. The original Toyota was a loom manufacturer.

It's Hiro Toyota. Yeah, his hero, yeah. And it's still in the family. Akio Toyota is a grandson, and he's still... I saw it? Yeah, yeah. It's hero's house. So in Hawaii, we owe this oil to an aberration that occurred.

decades ago. Yeah, it was something Toyota was doing to get around international distribution and sales and they made a bad deal and now they can't get out of it. It results in very high price. Yeah, yeah.

You can see how there's being isolated where are you going to go if you're in Hawaii. You've got to go, you're on an island in the middle of Pacific so you have no choice. There's a dealer. There's one guy who quit and built himself up a

shop that does a Lexus, you know, Toyota. And he's going great guns. I'll bet, yeah. Because basically they built him a market. Yeah, smart guy. You know, he's an independent guy downtown Nautilulu. But he's the only guy who specializes and advertises in a Toyota Lexus repairs.

Smart guy. I'm making a lot of money, too. Oh, but Alan, thanks. A great call. Okay, thank you. Please call again. You're a real smart guy. I like to talk to smart guys.

Thank you, Whirl. Take care. Thank you, Alan. Give us a call to all free at 877-9-60-960. Or remember, you can text us at 772-49-76530. I do have one text from Rachel, and she says that she hears Nancy talk about maintaining her tires from time to time and has a question about rotation. Is it important to rotate your tire?

Well, I'll have Rick answer this question, but I'll give you my information, and rotating your tires, it really, well, it spreads the wear and tear, and it really ensures of the tread depth. And it's surprising how much the maintenance on your tires will affect your ride, noise level, so many different things. So my answer to you, yes, it's important how often I don't have that answer, but Rick does. Well, you've got it all answered except for just 5,000 miles. And that's pretty much most manufacturers recommend rotate your tires about every 5,000 miles. She added to this kind of, this text, a PS 3,000 to 5,000. And that's where I really couldn't answer. her question.

If you want to do it a little more often, do it every 3,000, it certainly can't hurt. Okay, there you go, Rachel. Good luck with your tires. Okay. Where are we going? YouTube's we got to. I got texts.

I got all sorts of things. Let me say something. I was interviewed by Anna Werner of CBS News, and I couldn't talk about it because the story wasn't going to break until this week. But I'm very excited about this, because Anna Werner is an investigative reporter. She is a consumer investigative national correspondent for CBS this morning.

And that's the show goes on, I think from nine, from, what is it, nine to 11 or seven and I? You think you're right. Yep. Yeah. And we think next week on Tuesday, this interview is going to break. But she actually interviewed me remotely in the dealership about the Takata hairbag. and I've been so frustrated and I've tried so hard

to get somebody's attention our legislators, our attorney general, the governor, anybody to do something about selling cars with dangerous recalls to cut airbag specifically. It should be illegal to do it. I can't understand. I get

worked myself into a frenzy talking about it and I felt that the media had kind of abandoned this. Well, the media did not abandon this so we have finally Anna Werner of CBS News and she's an investigative reporter and she's doing a report of the Takata Airbag

debacle and that's what it is it's a terrible situation it's being condoned by manufacturers and car dealers and car dealer associations and I believe it has to do with the pressure

on the legislators by the lobbyists to keep this ball rolling. This dangerous ball of selling cars with dangerous to cut airbag recall. So I'll keep you posted. I'll let you know

and by Facebook in any other way I'll let you know how and when this article is going to come out. It'll be a TV report next week we think Tuesday morning on CBS News. Great information. Boy, you've been out of for a while.

Yeah. 2016. Yeah. Anyway, give us a call. Tell us what you think. and that number is 877 960 9960 and we have that mystery shopping report coming up so you remember you could vote on that at 772 497 6 530 and we're going to go to Bobby who's been holding from West Palm Beach good morning Bobby hi good morning everybody thanks for taking my call a couple of things one I was going to congratulate you Earl I've heard I think I've heard more about Takata airbag in the last three or four months than I have previously and I think even some of the some of the personal injury lawyers are starting to run commercials about Takata airbag

well I haven't seen that which is which is sort of interesting I'll try to if I find one I'll send it over to you I think you are making progress yeah I think you are making progress and more I've seen more stories and more just general information on on TV and the newspaper and you know one of the things I think that may be behind this is the demise of newspaper advertising for

car dealers because they controlled what newspapers would print because of how much advertising they would buy but now hardly any well that's true and I think that same is true to some extent of TV because a lot of dealers have gone digital heavily and Facebook and Google and that sort of thing so the less advertising they spend in a particular segment of the media, the less likely they are to intimidate that section, and maybe some of these people start speaking out. So I'm

so encouraged. The thing you said about the personal injury lawyers jump on board, that is good news. I had not heard that. And if you can give me a law firm commercial's name, I'd love to call those guys. Okay, I'll have to sort of check back, and I'll send it over to you. My real question today has to do with a combination of a Toyota problem.

I don't know if you remember two or three years ago, the dashboards were melting on a number of Toyota in the high heat. Well, I have a 2012 Lexus that it has the same problem, but not on the dashboard. It's on the side panels on the doors. And it's the exact same thing. In high heat, they sort of melt. And I'm wondering,

is that, am I too far gone from how old this car is to get it fixed through Toyota slash Lexus? Or how would you approach that? Because it's certainly the same problem. Bobby, where do you have your Lexus serviced? J.M. Lexington. Okay, well, that's good. One thing I would do is I would try to talk to their service manager, not the service advisors, the people,

sometimes they say their service managers, the real guy that's in charge of the whole service department in J.M. Lexus. And if you're a regular customer there is, there's something called customer loyalty adjustments, similar to goodwill adjustments that can be made. If you bought your car there and you bring it back in there for service regularly, you might have a shot at a assistance of some kind, Maybe not pay the whole thing, but pay a portion of the cost of the repair.

But I would go there first. 2012, you're getting that seven years out of, eight years out of the new vehicle. So you're really stretching the goodwill. But the customer loyalty, it's something that's little known. People that buy cars and service cars with a particular manufacturer, they are appreciated very much. And they can get things done for them that somebody that just bought the car used or didn't bring it to them for service would not get.

Okay, I'll try that. My other question about it is, do you think it's worthwhile to get it fixed, or do you think the solution of putting, like, a new door panel on an old car will sort of look worse than having the melting door panel? That's a very good point, yeah. It depends on how bad it looks, I would say, and how long you want to keep that car. but if you're getting ready to trade it I wouldn't spend the money

if you're getting ready to buy another vehicle I think it would be well first you'll want to find out if it's going to cost you anything and you have to make the decision do you want to replace it but it's a long shot Bobby but it's worth asking okay all right I'll give that a try

one other quick question if I may my daughter asked me about synthetic oil changes And, you know, when you, it sort of says 3,000 miles for conventional oil change, and we always go 5,000, 6,000 miles, and it's no big deal. How much leeway do you have with the synthetic oil change? You know, they recommend it 10,000 miles, but is it okay to go to 11 or 12 if you have to, or is it better to just get it done at 10? Now, 11 or 12 is fine. You know, it's an hard more than a science.

Every car, you can have the same year-make model, different driving conditions. are different making models. All cars, oil deteriorates at different levels. And the 10,000 miles is a rule of thumb, 5,000 miles is a rule of thumb, 6,000 miles or 4,000 miles, isn't going to make a lot of difference. And it's not a bad idea. You know, Rick's looking at me. I hope I'm giving you the right information, but if you want to save a few bucks and you're keeping a car for a long time, instead of change your oil every 10,000 miles, change it every 11,000 or 12. It's a little. It's not going to kill the car. Rick doesn't like that, so you think the engine is going to blow up?

Well, I just, I become concerned because every 11,000 becomes every 12,000, becomes every 13,000 becomes, and... Well, but that's not what I said. I just wouldn't use caution. One of the reasons that I like synthetic oil changes at every 10,000 miles is because it makes it very easy to remember when you need to change your oil, when you look down there and you see a nice even number coming up, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 50,000, it makes it easy to remember, hey, that's the time to change the oil versus every 3,000 or every 75,500. You're overthinking that, right?

The man's trying to save money for his daughter. He's trying to save money for his daughter. Well, in this particular case, you know, she's away at school, and so she doesn't like getting it done where she's at school. She likes the dealers down here doing her work. So the question sort of is, can you go an extra thousand miles without too much trouble? Yes, you can. Okay. I don't normally overrule, Rick.

Bobby, thanks so much. we love hearing from you Rick Ken is calling from Lake Worth and he has a question for you Good morning Good morning Ken Good morning How is everyone?

Great Good Enjoy your show as I do every Saturday My second time calling I hope this is not going to be addictive for me Thank you so much I have kind of a question for Rick I've been a peyote guy pretty much for the last 25 years after a rav that lasted 20 good years without any major repairs.

Prius for 10 years, it has not been a problem at all. Just bought my granddaughter a Corolla and then ended up with Alexis, and that is not the reason for my call. but just a compliment of product. I live in Florida for part of the year, and in the garage I keep a Ford escape at 2011. And I noticed with 43,000 miles on it, I get a sound like I have a pencil rolling around in the glove compartment. Well, I emptied the glove compartment and drove the car,

and still sounds like there's a pencil, rolling around in the glove compartment when I stop or when I start. Any hints on what? Hmm. That could be almost anything, but it sounds, if I had to guess, you got a screw list. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Well, I've been pulled out more than one. Somewhere, somehow, something has fallen into a crevice, and when you're,

When you're hitting the brakes, it's rolling around. When you're accelerating, it's rolling around. And the very difficult thing you're going to have finding something like that is even if you have somebody riding with you and they're trying to locate the exact location where that noise is, it can be very difficult because I have had sounds that it'll sound like it's coming from the bottom of the car and it's actually a roof rack loose. I've had others that sounded like there was a noise in the left front wheel and it turned out it was the windshield making a creaking noise up at the very top of the car sounds transmit and travel through cars in odd manners

and about all you can do is start searching every little cavity hole inside to try to see if there's anything loose or rattling now but that one's going to be a search for it type thing I got it I got it your plugs either that or a loud radio well wait a minute I can't hear as it is

anyway so you're a real comedian lots of hearing well here's the final option 47 cans of foamofill and just fill the entire

interior with foamofil you shouldn't be able to hear anything at that point all right guys I get too no I don't I don't want to take up any more No, I'll give you a serious answer, Ken.

I would come in and Rick will ride around the car with you. And, you know, seriously, an experienced technician is more likely to be able to pick up on the location. But if it's driving you crazy, I would definitely take it in and let somebody ride with me. And two heads are better than one. You might be able to figure it out. Rick will disassemble the car. Yeah, the last thing I wanted to take it into a Ford garage because I'm going to pay $500 for finding a loose screw.

I hear you. But I appreciate it, guys. Thank you for your service. Thanks, Kenny. So there's equipment to find sounds, but it's not going to tell you where it's coming from, right? If there's a sound, isn't there some sort of microphone thing that detects things? Well, we have things called chassis ears. There are microphones you can attach in various places to try to help you localize a noise.

Because especially if you've got a noise at 30 miles an hour, you can't have a person on the outside of the vehicle at 30 miles an hour. We can't, but, but, well, it's tricky. and I won't even tell stories of some of the things we have done to find noises. Okay, where are we on? I got texts. It's from Bob and Stewart. Good morning. I'm interested in getting the new Corolla hybrid.

First question, is it the same body size of the regular corolla? And also being the first year in production, has there been any service issues? As far as the size of the car, yet it's the same size as the gas-powered one. It actually has a full-sized trunk. Sometimes you'll lose that when you do a hybrid. actually has like the fold-down rear seats, which is also another unusual thing for hybrid. Our rule of thumb, and Earl says this all the time,

in the first model year of a vehicle, it might be a good idea to hold off making that purchase because we do see a greater number of incidents earlier on. I do know that, and Rick can correct me if I'm wrong, that the drive train in the Corolla hybrid is the same as the Prius, so that's gone through the shakedown over the years, but it is in a new body and a new chassis. So that's a valid concern.

I'm going to go with Earl's recommendation just kind of hold off, read online with Consumer Reports and see what kind of things come up. Rick can address any specific things that he knows about now. Any issues with the 2020 Corolla Hybrid? We haven't seen anything yet on them specific, but again, you're matching the Corolla, which is one of the most successful cars Toyota has ever made

with a hybrid drive line, that Toyota's been working on for the past 20 years that just simply hasn't seen very many, you know, major issues. They've really worked the bugs out on them. And I think they're going to be a successful vehicle. Yeah. But also bear in mind that the 2020 Croll is also a brand new design on the body. So that I think the rule of thumb applies.

You know, we'd like to sell Crollas. But to be in an abundance of caution, you know, wait a little bit, see what the shape. Absolutely. Okay. We have another one. Hello, Earl. In reviewing the out-the-door price affidavit, I believe it could stand a small revision, quote, and purchased by is past tense, and the use of this form is prior to the final paperwork signing. Should these words, as well as the word purchaser, at the bottom being changed to and quoted to, and potential customer. And that's from Andreas, who is a longtime Facebook fan, and he watches the show every week. That's a very sensible revision, and it's really easy to do. Well, actually, it's It's not. I can't use Microsoft Word on my Mac right now, so it's got to, until we have a No, that's a good suggestion. Thank you very much. We'll make that change. Yeah. Here we go. Good morning. My cell phone number is a Louisiana number, but I live in Utah, so we have a texture from Utah. I bought your book, and it will arrive today. How exciting.

I watched your dog. The dog, he's a big dog wrench. Thank you. Exactly. Where's the, whoof? Okay. I'm waiting for the sound of us. Oh, great. 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. I love it when you get a notification from UPS. It says your package will be delivered that day. It's like Christmas, every day. Anyway, I watched your numerous YouTube videos,

and I did not realize how much I did not know about buying cars. How does USAA and Sam's Club Car Buying Club stack up against Costco? Both of those use True Car. I downloaded your Costco Auto Buying Program tutorial, and I'm watching your live stream on YouTube right now, and that's from Dawn and Utah. He follows up a few minutes later, says thanks. I'm a member of USAA and Sam's Club,

and I'm thinking about getting Costco membership based on Earl's recommendations. Great show. Well, thanks, Don. Well, USAA is an outstanding insurance outfit. They are partners with True Car. They own 20% of True Car stock, and they have special deals even better than True Car as USA members. So if you follow the rules of the True Car program,

and your USAA member, it's a great way to go. Sam's Club, I'm not as familiar with their car buying program. As you know, I advocate the Costco, and we're in the Florida Weekly this week with the Costco tutorial on how to use the Costco auto buying program. I think the main thing I can advise you on with Costco is Costco Auto Buying Program is extremely good, but it's also more complicated than it should be,

and it leaves too many openings for the car dealers to take advantage of you. But if you go by my tutorial, earluncars.com, Earl's Costco Auto Buying Program tutorial, if you use that and follow each advice tab I give you, you can get a great deal on a car at Costco, but the lowest price of that dealer will sell the car to anybody.

So great program. The Sam's Auto Buying Program, I think it's similar to the... At Walmart Car Saver program, and it is not as good as the Costco. Okay. Yeah, they don't. See, Costco puts serious restrictions on the dealership and the pricing guidelines. Walmart, Sam's Club, it's not as strict, so the deals are not as good.

So Costco is a good way to go. Very good. Last text, we got it, and will be caught up on my end. This is from Jason and Abacoa. Should I let my engine idle in the morning before I input it in gear and drive? And if so, for how long? Correct? Yes, and three to five seconds is all you really need.

Really? Can I just throw it in reverse and haul it butt out of my driveway? I almost said... You almost did. I did. I'm a very profan guy. We're caught up with text. We're caught up with anonymous feedback. Okay.

And we might be... Let me remind our listeners that Earl also has a column at Earl and Cars. And it is called Profiles of Car Dealer Victims. and we all know, you know, there's a lot out there, meaning the uneducated, the elderly, the list does go on and on. So you want to go to Erwan Cars and take a look at that. Let me make a comment about that article.

The victims, I classify them, as the elderly, often widows. The very young, you know, first car kind of thing out of high school, just right out of college. And those who don't speak or understand English well, South Florida, we have a lot of people that English is not their first language. And the uneducated, let's face it, we have an education crisis in the United States. People with bad credit. All these people are victimized, and that's the reason, hence the title, don't be a victim.

That's the way car dealers make their money. When the educated consumer goes in, the people that read are on cars, the people that listen to this radio show, people that subscribe to consumer reports, they are an equal match for the car dealers and you can negotiate a good price. If the car dealers had to sell all their cars at the price you're able to negotiate by listening to the show, they go out of business.

So how do they do it? They do it on the average. If you sell 100 cars a month, you want to average probably a $2,000 profit on every car you sell. Now, how do you do that? When the sharp, shrewd attorney comes in and negotiates the price,

it may be $100 over net net cost at that dealership. You do it by the widow who's never bought a car before. Her husband passed away four years ago. She walks into a car dealership and the car dealer makes a $10,000 profit on that widow. Or the kid came in a, you know, he just got out of school, never bought a car in his life. They take advantage for him. Or the person that can't read the contract because it's in English and he doesn't read English. He reads Spanish.

And that's the reason this is, I think, particularly important profiles of car dealer victims. Yeah, absolutely. And not to mention also, you know, you can purchase a vehicle and not even know that it's been recalled. And Earl talked about the issues with Takata and his journey since 2016 to get these cars off the road

and to prevent them from being sold. So go to Earl on cars, and you can read profiles of car dealer victims. Okay, mystery shopping report time. I'm so excited. My favorite? You are in for a treat, everybody. This is good.

This is a good one. And I'm so proud of Agent Thunder for the way he conducted the shop. We mystery shopped West Palm Beach Nissan. Now, West Palm Beach, Nissan, I believe, was owned by Terry Taylor. I think so. Yes. Used to be owned by Napleton. Correct.

And Terry Taylor, who is, by the way, just for you trivia, I'm fans out there. That's a great name. Terry Taylor owns more car dealerships than any other individual. It's not a public company. Terry Taylor owns something like 80,000 car dealerships. And he has a unique partnership arrangement. Like he gets general managers to buy in, and his name just can appear anywhere. This week we shop West Palm Beach, Nissan, and Riviera Beach, Florida.

I thought that was funny. West Palm Beach, Nissan, in River Beach. Oh, that's true. How about a little store to-to-in? North Palm Beach in Lake Park. That's why I liked it. Yeah, okay. That's true.

I like it. Earl Sterling Cars last paid them a visit back in 2017 when we investigated their lifetime warranty promotion. West Palm Beach, Nissan was awarded a passing grade for being honest about the coverage and a value of the warranty. And we put them on our recommended list. I didn't realize that.

And that recommended list, you're going to be found on good dealer, baddealer, list.com. Easy to remember. Good dealer, bad dealer, We went back this time with a different purpose. We want to test out the out the door affidavit. Out the door price affidavit. And we did this in response to an anonymous feedback.

Said, why don't you do this? And we said, duh, we should have done this. And so we did it. Real world situation, we wanted to see if a dealer would commit in writing sign an out-the-door price without any additional hidden fees, how would the salesperson react, the manager, what would happen? And we're advising you to do it, but we hadn't done it ourselves. So the suggestion was a no-brainer.

We should have done a long time ago. West Palm Beach Nissan was a perfect choice for this mission. First and foremost, they have a large dealer fee. Second, they're running a new car special ad for $10,000, off MSRP on a new 2018 Nissan maximum. 18. That's what I said. Did I say 18?

No, I'm just, 2018. Emphasis. Yeah. That's hard to believe. It's not 2018 anymore. Exactly. That was last year. And West Palm and Nissan has 23 of these.

And that tells you something about the Nissan business. It's not too good, folks. Some of you out there, and I think we had a call earlier, about when business being bad, can you get a better price? I said, not really. It's just up to your negotiation skills. Nissan dealers are having a particular bad time. As you probably know, their CEO is in jail,

and their chairman of the board is going to jail. I might have that reversed. But they're having kind of a trauma with the American dealers. They're in crisis. They're in crisis. It's a manufacturer in crisis. So, anyway, here we are. I would be upset to have 2018 models right now.

Yeah, that tells you how better it is. 23, 2018 models. And this is, we're selling 2020s now, folks. Two would be too much. Yeah. Be careful, by the way, when you're responding to advertisements, when you say a new vehicle, you want to find out what year it is.

I do want to say that I had to double check. I ran vans. I actually ran Carfax reports on these just to make sure they weren't used. Yeah. If it's in Florida, all you have to do is have a non-titled car, and you can call it a new car. Tell me that's stupid. You could have a 2014. You could have a 19-12.

Right. Seriously. You have any year car as long as it hadn't been titled, and you get advertised that is a new car. But a car that is a 2018, essentially it's about two years old, is going to have two years of depreciation. better have a hell of a discount on it. Hell of a discount, exactly. Okay, West Palm Beach Mission was the perfect choice. Okay, I did that.

Okay, we went to the fine print disclosure, and you have to go a few clicks. The number of clicks to get there is always a factor. And the fine print disclosure on this advertisement, which was a $10,000 off MSRP, was this. Please note, price concludes all applicable factory rebates and incentives, including but not limited to, here we go.

Military, college graduate, owner loyalty, or any other incentives or rebates. What a joke that they can get away with this. Oh, yeah. Including but not limited financing with Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. All pricing does not include our value package. that's a misnomer value what a value package of $1,495 which includes two years maintenance might even be free by Nissan I haven't checked two years maintenance nitrogen filled tires nitrogen you know how we feel about nitrogen lifetime warrantied tent that's a joke exterior appearance protection and lifetime complimentary car washes and they're charged margin of $1,500 to round that off. That's a joke.

No mentions a dealer fee isn't that disclosure either. No, no mention at all. The law requires that you include the dealer fee in the advertised price, which they didn't do. Maybe it was somewhere else. Maybe. Agent Thunder was called to take on the challenge.

He selected the new 2018 Maxima, SV, MSRP, $36,655. The sale price after the big discount was $26,655. Ain't going to happen. Ain't going to happen.com. W.W.W. Okay, here's a report speaking as if I am, Agent Thunder. I arrived to West Palm Beach Needs on noon.

While I waited in the car for the rain to lit up, I put a printed copy of the ad, some notes, and the Althador price affidavit in a Manila folder. Then I ran inside. I was greeted right away by Yellen. I think it's Yeffen. I think it's Yeffen. Well, the buyers were,

I said, Yeffin. Yellen Yeffin. Thunder. You have a... Potato, potato. Yeffin. A Russian-born salesperson who spoke very fast. Now, I would have a problem.

Yes, you would. I would have a problem. I have a problem with accents, I have to tell you. In Russian accents, in particular, and people who talk fast. And sometimes I'm accused to doing that. Yellen or Yeffin asked what it was that brought me in, and I told him about the new car special I saw on the 2018 maximum. He knew about the offer?

That's interesting. Usually the salespeople don't know about the offer. told me to follow in on the way to the desk. He said that he hoped that I qualified for the offer. Now that to me indicates premeditation. Oh yeah. He knew what was going on and he was ready. He quickly assured me that he would make it happen, whatever that means.

Yellen asked me to wait for him to get the keys. When he returned, he led me right to the lot without getting my driver's license. The dealer wouldn't know like that. That's an insurance issue. We found the car, and y'all in hand me the keys. On the test drive, Yenlund talked mostly about the deal, not the car, and that's not good. That's raw salesmanship there. It's not good at all.

He said the offer was too good to pass up. He explained that these cars were the last of the 2018s, and they already had 2020 models on the lot. Now, that should raise the red flag if you didn't know that. He's reminding you. They were pressed to move. When we got back, Y'all and asked me how I fell about doing a deal today if all the numbers look good to me.

Classic old-school question. The trial close. The trial close. Back of the desk, I opened the manila folder. I've been carrying, pulled out the papers I brought. I showed my notes where I totaled out-the-door price. I thought it was, by the way, I thought that was a nice little technique. So he totaled it up without any fees and said,

that should be my out-door price. Yeah, and that's the reason I thought Agent Thunder did a great job. And he totaled it up. It was 26, 655. And the only thing I added, I'm Agent Thunder, was the sales tax and $300 for the tag. Reasonable. And the Althador price I came up with us, Out of the Door, $28,000, $5.54. That's the out of the door price.

If the ad was true, that's what it would be. That's exactly right. Yellen looked dismayed. I'm trying to visualize a dismay. I dismayed Russian. I can't visualize that. He said he needed more information before he could get the numbers for me. He said my numbers weren't exactly right.

Okay. Sounds like a smart guy. Yellen is a smart guy. He looked at the affidavit asked me what it was. I went over with it. I went over the affidavit with him. I said I had downloaded it on a car buying website. I said it was to protect me from having any hidden fees

or unwanted accessories, dealer installed type, added to my price after we agreed upon it. Yelan said he would need to show this to a manager, but first he needed to know how I was paying for it and whether I needed a new tag

or was a transfer. I said I was financing and I planned to put down $8,000. I said my credit was perfect. I needed a new tag. Answered all his questions. I seemingly dazed, Yellen, did he stagger?

Frank, he's never encountered a customer like agent. Do you take a quick drink? Fray, he put a flask out of his employer. He returned with Jonathan, who was holding a worksheet, style buyer's order. He sat down and said he was glad to meet me. He said he'd never seen anything like my affidavit before. He said he felt a little cautious about it. He said he'd like to go over my numbers before getting back to the subject of the affidavit,

you know, hoping I would forget about the affidavit, probably. This direction. Yeah. Top line was MSRP 36, 655. Next came a $10,050 discount. I couldn't figure that out. Yeah. For an adjusted price, a $25.905.

Then they added a $1495 value package. We went over that, nitrogen and that kind of thing. 137.50 in taxable fees. That's become in commonplace. have adopted the misnomer taxable fees to disclose dealer fees. So taxable fees or dealer fees, dealer fees are hidden fees or taxable, taxable fees. Anything to confuse the buyer. And $999 dock fee.

Now, there's a taxable fee, but they just called it the dock fee. And it's also a hidden fee because they didn't put it in the disclosure. I know I'm confusing. I'm confusing myself. And you would be confused if you're buying the car, and that's the whole purpose of what they do. They added a sales tax and $450 in non-tax fees. My out-the-door price was $30,748. A little bit higher than agents that were figured, yeah.

He pointed out the value package and said it included a window tent, tire protection, free car watches, blah, blah, blah. I pointed to the affidavit and said that if he signed it, you would have... I apologize. I'm sorry. the affidavit. Yeah. I wrote that wrong. Okay, yeah. I pointed, yeah, he pointed to the affidavit and said that he signed it, he would have to do that for all the customers. So he

pulled that out of the briefing they get on the dealer fee. When you say take off the dealer fee, they say can't do that because we'd have to do it for all the customers. That's untrue. Or they have to refund millions of dollars to all their customers

from the past. I've heard that before. That's not true. You can charge one person in the dealer fee and not charge another person in a dealer fee, but they say that they have to charge everybody if they charge one, that's not true. But he applied that to the whole idea of the affidavit because he couldn't think of anything better to say. He just couldn't do it. Instead, he said he might be able to split that with me.

Well, if you split it, you'd have to split it for everybody, wouldn't you? But you don't want to get logical. You don't want to get logical. Logic did not come into play. He said he couldn't do anything about the dock fee. Well, he really can't because it's a dealer doing it. Terry Taylor. Terry Taylor's responsible for the doctorate.

And try to get Terry Taylor on the phone sometime. He wanted to be sure I understood. I would be a little off the numbers, a little that I'd come up with. He said that technically I didn't qualify for the $10,000 discount offer, but he's going to do it anyway. Nice guy. And Agent Thenerkinson, aren't you going to have to do it for everybody? Like you said, logic does not come into play here. This deal, he said it was good as it was going to get.

I said, great. So I have my after door price. Can you fill out and sign the affidavit? So we're giving him the, okay, that's fine. Well, you sign this. So I know nothing else would be as later on or in the finance department. Jonathan replied they would have to call the general manager about it. Oh, choose.

So Yellen couldn't do it. His boss couldn't do it. it, now we're going to go to the general manager to see if he can do it. He left me, we're yelling, we said quietly for a minute, so... I thought that was funny. They had nothing to say. We stared at each other for five minutes.

Another manager, not the GMC, where he said he was Charles. Well, he said he was General Motors, but General Motors, he said he was a general manager, but he was just Charles. Charles started telling me he was taking over Jonathan. Jonathan couldn't take it.

I'm confused. Get me out of here. He held the affidavit and said he really didn't have a problem with it, but he'd feel more comfortable signing it once he knew I was 100% comfortable purchasing the car once I had all my final numbers. And that defeats the whole part, but I'll sign it to sign it after you buy the guy. And that's the reason I want you to sign it, because I'm not 100% comfortable. And I don't care if you're 100% comfortable on the customer. I showed in the worksheet and said, I have my final numbers here. I did it.

I calculate it, 30,000, 748. You told me that's final, I see it, I have them, sign it. He replied that by not having run my credit yet, it was possible numbers may change. And I said, that's the most honest thing that he said. Yeah, that's true. I said my credit wouldn't have any effect on the sale price or off the door figure. I already told you. I had excellent credit.

Charles said, well, we can't sign anything until you actually purchase the car. Then he added, it would be strange with a customer, didn't sign anything until they actually, you can't, you can't purchase a car. What's that called a Mexican standoff? Mexican standoff, right. Probably politically incorrect to say that. It's a pulp fiction standoff. Then he added, maybe if you give me a deposit, I could call the GM to see about signing him.

You know, he was supposed to be the GM, and he's not the GM. I asked if he'd take a $100 deposit. This is my proudest moment for Agent Thunder. actually whipped out his credit card and gave him a $100 deposit, so he'd signed the damn out-the-door price half a day. He did the trial close on Charles. If I could, would you? Yeah.

If I give it, will you call him? Yeah. He said, yeah. So Charles went back to an office for a few minutes and came back, and he said the GM, the real GM, because Charles said he was the GM. He didn't call this guy. Yeah. He said the GM doesn't feel comfortable signing it,

which means it wasn't going to get sound. I'll tell you what, this is absolutely, you know, I got up and collected all my paperwork. I said I needed to get to work, but I'd be back over the weekend to pick up whatever when we went where we left off. They all looked relieved to see me leave, and I can understand that. I wish I could have been there. So, we don't know. We don't know what happened. We don't know what the price was.

It might have been a good price. We don't know. New 2019 Maxmas have $3,250,000. base. It's possible if they left over 2018 may have even larger, but we were unable to find this information. Nowhere. True car, Edmonds. Too old of a car. Yeah, there's just probably very few 2018s anywhere, and so they're unique and I would say that they're going to lose a lot of money on those cars. Yeah. I think they spent the settlement that Nissan gave them. Nissan, as soon said earlier in the show, they'll give them, look, you got

18 or you got 23 of these will give you a thousand dollars for each one now you're on your own do the best you can they took the 23,000 and used it to paint the dealership or something and now they still need to sell those cars and try to mark them up and they can't do it

so here we are what time is it we got a little bit of time we can vote on these folks and they're on the recommended list on that's West Palm Beach Nissan and River Beach they're on the recommended

list for Nissan dealers. Do we want to keep them on the list? How do you want to vote? And this is where, you know, it says on the, says on the buyer's order that it is Y-E-F-I-N, Y-E-F-I-N, but maybe they just misspelled his name. Y-F-I-M-C-O-E-F-M-O-E-F-M-O-E-M-C-E-M-O-V-M-E-M-C-V-E-M-V-M-O. Probably a nickname. It could be, yeah. So how we want to vote? We got any text votes? Yeah, we do. was the first to chime in on Facebook and she says a crazy big fat F and

an A for Agent Thunder Dean gives him an F, Mel Gives him a D-minus and Gabby Gizm an F you know we don't know what was going to happen like we said and who knows maybe he could have gotten the finance and still gotten $10,000 off the car, shaved that

down a little bit when you add the dealer fees in the appearance package and it might still be a good deal we don't know I and be honest with you I don't think I can fault them for being confused with the avidavit. I'm just, I mean, they might not be allowed, like, to sign something that they thought was legal.

They weren't rude about it, but the whole thing, the bait and switch, the big discount thing kind of falls in the whole category of ain't going to happen.com. Everybody doesn't. I'm going to give them a D-minus. I think that's, I won't give my

opinion yet. Let's go to Nancy. Stu, wouldn't it have gone better if they would have admitted. Listen, we have never seen the affidavit. We really don't know what it's about. So let us check on this.

Let's check the legalities. Wouldn't it have made the dealership look? Oh, yeah, sure. A lot. Well, here's, I mean, my opinion, okay, if I put myself in their role and somebody comes up to me and they ask me to sign it, I would be cautious about doing something like that.

However, if I knew that what I was doing in that, transaction, I wasn't adding anything else to the price, then I wouldn't have a problem signing. I don't care how legalistic it looked like. If I was going to, maybe we had a supplement when we're revising the appetabit that gives the deal of the right to put into his own words. All we want you to do is say, I guarantee that this is the outdoor price plus tax and tag only. I mean, that would be acceptable. Yeah. I mean, they accept, you know, when you're working a deal here, sign this napkin here. I promise to pay, or I commit to pay in this number, so.

So, what's your vote? I really think the table's turned, and that was the reason why they were so nervous, and how could so much go so wrong in such a short amount of time, you know? And hey, what the heck is it with the nitrogen? Nitrogen, smitrogen. Everybody doesn't know. I'm going to give them an F. There you go.

And, you know, Agent Thunder walked in with a manila folder. Wow, it was like as if he walked in with a machine gun. Had the effect of one. Hats off to Agent Thunder. Rick, we got any online votes? We do. Mark Smith from Iowa says F. Tim in Florida gives them a C-plus. Glenn Schmitz, an F. Frank, of course, a D-minus.

And for me, I'm going to say a D because I... I liked watching them squirm. That was fun. I really wish we could wire Agent Thunder for video and audio because that was fun. Very exciting. So before you weigh in, we have a good comment here from Steve on Facebook. He says good dealer, bad dealer list is strictly pass-fail. But we do letter grades on the show.

Can we add the letter grades? And we will, going forward. And this has been recommended before, and we drop the ball. I apologize. We definitely need to give a range because you can have one guy that just barely passed, another guy that really did a good job. So we need to. And we've put notes on there before, like recommend a list with an asterisk.

for caution, like high dealer fees or addendums. Can we get that done by next week? Yeah. Let's do it. We'll do it. Thank you very much for the suggestion. Yeah, thanks, Steve. And grape one says D.

Okay. I think I'm going to pass them with a D minus like Stu did. And the reason being that everybody out there, all the car dealers, virtually all, are employing these tactics. It pains me to have to do it because I get, you know, They're lying, but all the car dealers are lying. They try to deceive you. They pack the prices with hidden fees and qualifications. But that's just the way it's played.

And if you're going to buy a car in Florida, you're going to have to go through that. We're tilting at windmills. Yeah. How often do we really get a chance to see this happen and see, I say, who was it? Stu, somebody used the word squirm. And that was the most exciting part about this mystery shopping report. Well, it felt good, you know. And it's so complacent that everybody does it.

All the car dealers, you know, they're trying to make money. They're doing this. They're doing that. Well, it's nice, like I said before, the tables were turned. Thank you, Agent Thunder. You know, interesting enough, got a text back from Bobby, and he was talking about the personal injury lawyers that were reacting and suing onto the Takata airbag.

Guess who's suing under the Takata airbag? Who? Jack Scorilla, Sarcey Denny, Barnhart and Jopley. Where did he get that idea from? And so, yeah, that's a good question. Good job, Jack. I happen to know Jack's Corolla pretty well, and I'll be talking to Jack about that.

He's a little familiar with the Takata issue. Absolutely. Immediately. Very good. Okay, I guess we're at the end of the, the trail. We are. I like this show. Yeah. Yeah. This was a good one. Yeah, this was great. Ladies and gentlemen, you are an important part of the show. And we thank you for taking time to join us on Saturday mornings. And on behalf of myself, Stu, Jonathan, Rick, and most

of all, the host of the show, the hostess with the most us. We all want to thank you and have a wonderful weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Let's go to me. Lots of falling. Let's go. Let's go. Oh! Oh!

Oh! And come! Come! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!