Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.20.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Commuter Cars of Jensen Beach/Stuart

Episode Date: October 20, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Commuter Cars of Jensen Beach/Stuart FL. to purchase a car with an identified Takata Airbag Recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Everybody, we're back. By we, I mean Earl Stewart on Cars, which is, of course, the name of the show, and a team of auto experts that are going to be here for two hours, from 8 to 10. That is if the music ever stops playing so you can hear me

and there it is. The music is dying out now. And my name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. And what do I mean by that? Well, I mean that I've been to the business for about half a century. As a matter of fact, this is my 50th anniversary as a car dealer. And I say for better than...

Yes, well, thank you very much. Congratulations. And for the better half of that 50 years, I was doing business the wrong way as a retail car dealer. And so I've kind of changed my life and my business I like to think for the better

and among the things that I've done for the better is a show Earl Stewart on Cars. And all I always have to say because this is the true oldie station and this is musical mainly. There are some talk shows. This is one of them. We're not going to sing for you.

This is all about consumer advocacy. We're here to help you buy a car lease a car, repair, or maintain your car without being ripped off by your car dealer. And that's a sad fact. That's kind of a brutal statement, isn't it? It's, I don't pull any punches on the show. We have a mystery shopping report.

You'll see what I mean when we read the mystery shopping report about not pulling punches. We tell it like it is. We name names. We name instances. Total transparency. I don't know of a radio show. That is more transparent. We've been on the air for over, I'm going to say 11 years.

I've been saying 10 years. Too long, I think. I think the clock is 13. 13, oh, my. The clock is ticking. Oh, that's scary. 13 years. 13 years.

Maybe longer. Oh, my. I was just counting videos. I was going back into it. So for 13 years every week, we've been talking to South Floridians. We've been doing mystery shopping reports. That's where we send a secret shopper undercover under cover into a car dealer somewhere in South Florida. Very exciting. We go in, pretend to buy a car, maybe lease a car.

We go in usually on an advertisement. And we name the dealership. We named the salesperson, the sales manager. We tell you exactly what transpired. And a lot of the time is not so good. As a matter of fact, the mystery shopping reports are of such a quality, meaning anti-consumer. I mean, that's a mild way to put it. We have to grade on the curve because we score the mystery shopping reports. And we have to grade on the absolute basis, ABCD, we couldn't pass anybody. Very few of the car dealerships have ever passed one on an absolute basis. So we score on the curve.

That's just one thing. Rick has a comment. Maybe we ought to have a super list, like the gold list, a platinum level. There's no one yet this made the goal. The Honor Society. The Honor Society. But we should. I've often thought about soliciting car dealers with the Earl Stewart seal of approval

and have a list of standards and say to the car dealership, if you adhere to these standards, you'll be on the recommended list of the certified Earl Stewart dealers. And of course, dealers' ego will not permit them to do this. method to do this. I mean, the dealers out there listening to the show, and there are car dealers out there listening to the show, I promise you, they're laughing at the beer thought of being an Earl Stewart certified dealer.

Anyway, it's not about them, it's not about me, it's not about Rick Kearney, Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, my son, the folks in the studio, it's all about you. We just want to make your life a little easier, and I always tell you, to your regulars, bear with me,

Gallup Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions every year since 1970, has scored car dealers at the bottom. They're not honest and they're not ethical, simply put. There are a few that are, but most of them aren't. And the ones that we have on our recommended dealer list, as I say, we score on the curve. So statistically, the chances are when you go out to buy or lease a car, maintain or repair your car, statistically, you're going to have a bad experience. We're going to help you. No one is better equipped I hate to pat myself on the back, but I will because I've been there and I've done that.

I mean, I've been a car dealer for a long time, and I did it the way the other guys did it. I used unfair, deceptive advertising. I used just a shoddy sales tactics, bait-and-switch advertising. Advertising cars that I knew wouldn't be bought. I could remember back in the 70s and 80s. advertising Pontiac Grand Prix and I would order them back then you could do this without air conditioning and I'd order them with stick shift who wants that right here I'm ordering grand prix with stick shifts I think it had a radio that was the only other option no power steering

and no air conditioning and I had the the price was $5,99 I think it was actually below my cost because I I wanted to shock. And I ran these ads on the Palm Beach Post. And the joke is on me because as I did this, we were selling them. And the idea was to have them come in, you know, bait and switch bait, bait come in. And they came out on the bait and they said, well, I didn't realize the car didn't have an air conditioner. I didn't realize I had a stick shift. But then that's cheap.

Yeah, it's cheap. And so we had, we had, there was. a group of people that liked those cars. Of course, remember, that was back in the 60s and 70s, so different story now. Beat and Switch advertising, not a good thing. We did it. All the dealers are doing it now. I challenge you.

As a matter of fact, I will pay you $100 if you can find me an advertisement online, television, newspaper, any advertisement of a car, a new car, that you can buy for the advertising. price okay that's a scary I mean and I promise you I'm not lying if you I will love to pay the hundred dollars you'll have to show me the ad tell me where it is online I'll verify it but now I'm not talking about adding sales tax and I'm not talking about adding license plate that's acceptable out-the-door price plus tax and tag show me an out-to-door price that you can buy the car for advertised and I'll pay you $100.

Isn't that sad? And what does the Attorney General think about that? What does the Better Business Bureau think about that? What does the county office or consumer affairs think about that? They know what's going on and they let it go on and on. And they just look the other way. And you're used to it. You've been buying cars that way for so long.

You just accept it. And you go through the agony and you go through the purchasing process, which is painful. and then you go back four years later and you do it all over again. So here we are to help you. Now, I was off on a rant here and I'm going to introduce our panel that have been with me for a long time. Rick Kearney. Rick Kearney is an auto computer scientist. You say, well, what's that?

Well, I'll tell you what's that. Here's an ad in today's Wall Street Journal, I think it is, is talking about the fact that Detroit is going strictly to software. It's becoming software. The auto manufacturers are no longer auto manufacturers. They're software manufacturers. Your car is a rolling computer. So Rick Kearney

used to be a mechanic back in the day, and then he became an auto technician, and now he's an auto-computer scientist. So Rick's been with me for 20-plus years. There's nothing that the man doesn't know about a car. Good morning, everybody.

But I mean, you've got to, you've got to admit, you've learned a lot. Oh, yeah. And I still do every day. You do it. Every day. That's the key. If you find an auto technician or a mechanic or a computer scientist, whatever you want to call them, and they're not going to school four or five times a year, then they're not staying up to it, just like a doctor. You know, I sometimes get nervous when I have to visit a doctor that's older.

I like to have someone that's been to medical school fairly recently. And I want to have a doctor that stays on top of his trade. And this is what Rick Kearney does for. Like mid-30s is good. Mid-30s, even 40s. I mean, and 60s is fine if they stay on top of their trade. It's hard to do. A lot of people don't want to do that.

They get their shingle, they hang it up. I is an auto technician. And that's what they do for the rest of their lives. Because Rick's getting pretty old. I'm getting up there. I'm almost as old as you're on top of it, though. I see a gray hair. I'm almost as old as used to.

Oh, wait. No, I'm a month older, aren't I? Yes, you are. And then we have, sitting through Rick's right, is Nancy Stewart. And she is a female consumer-type advocate. She's a consumer advocate, period. She's my wife. She's my co-host.

She accompanies me on speaking engagements. We just attended the 50th anniversary for Southeast Tudor reunion or celebration, I guess it is, in Boca Raton together. and she's part of the team and she loves to talk to the ladies because the ladies seem to be picked on a little bit more than normal. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And Stu Stewart.

Stu Stewart. I've been with you for 50 plus years. Yeah, and I think of Stu is a millennial, but he's not. I guess just because he's my son. Right. And he's removed. He's once removed from millennials. And it's so important.

and have a guy that understands the social media. I sent him an email this morning. I'll be shocked. You may be shocked you hear this too, that 65% of adults over 50 years of age use Facebook. Now, I used to be a little bit concerned. I knew Facebook was for the older and the Instagram was for the younger.

But I didn't realize two-thirds of adults over 50 are Facebook people. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's shocking. We are streaming us right now on live Facebook, by the way. So if you're going in and out on the radio, 95.9, or 106.9, and you'll want to hear a clear signal, you can stream us. And if you're a Facebook person, you just go to Facebook.com,

forward slash earl Stewart, Earl and Cars. Facebook.com, for slash, Earl and Cars. Here we are, Living Color. I'll wave at you. And Stu does the rest of it, too, the Snapchat, the Instagram. and the texting, we get a feed of post on our Facebook all the time. So if you want to ask us a question, anytime, 877-960-99-60, for you folks that still use telephones, 877-9-60-960.

And for you, texters, textures is almost, I think they are replacing telephones to a large extent. Textors. I hate the phone. Well, you know, I have, I love. I like it and I don't like it. Texting forces people to be concise because you wear your thumb out or your fingers out if you go on and on.

And you get somebody on the phone sometimes, you know. You all know those people. Right. That's why I hit the phone. They'd go on and on. So you text us at 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530 or post on Facebook. And last week, I think we got more post than we did text, or it was close.

Yeah, we had a flood. Love to hear your comments. Love to hear your constructive criticism. Oh, and Jonathan, in the control room always reminds me of something that I forget, very important. And that's our anonymous feedback. You can talk to us directly, and it comes through as anonymous. We don't know who you are.

For you car dealers out there, because I know you hate me for what I do. and if you have something that you want to say to me that you're afraid to call because you never call you never text a few do very few write this down it's anonymous feedback it's simply www your anonymous feedback.com what could be easier your anonymous feedback.com love to hear from you you can ask questions that way better that you text for your questions. But if you have something you just don't want to know the source, you might work for a car dealership, and you might have something you want to report. It's kind of

like a whistleblowers hotline almost. People out there in companies, did you know that federal government has a law that says that if you are contracted with a federal government or you are a government company, so to speak, you must have a whistleblowers hotline. I'm not If something's going wrong, and you want to talk about it, because whistleblowers can get fired, whistleblowers could get murdered. The Saudi Washington Post columnist, he was a whistleblower. Yes, he was. So if you fear for your life or you fear for your job. Cut up like a honey-baked ham.

Yeah. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars right here at the Oldies Channel. Ladies, I've got $50 for the first two new lady callers, and we would like you to join us this morning and enjoy the benefits of the show. Questions, opinions, our information, hopefully entertaining you, and we'd love you to be part of the show. Give us a call toll free at 877-960, or as Earl said, you can text us if you're a little shy at, 772-497-6530. We're going to talk about a lot of topics. We're going to go over the mystery shopping report, as we always do. Again, I'll remind all of you to please be part of that mystery shopping report. Vote how you feel about our mystery shopping report.

And, hey, how did you like the latest news about thieves targeting cars airbags? They've gotten desperate. They used to break in and take your radio, your stereo equipment, but that's not how it flies anymore. So, stay with us, join us, be part of the show. As I always say, you are an important part of the show. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And most of all, we thank you for joining us because without you, we have no show. We're going to go to Tina, who is a regular caller.

Good morning, Tina. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Great. How are you doing? I'm doing good. I just sent you a link, and this is a subject that we've talked about before. It's been a little while, though.

But there was a gentleman that owned Palm Auto Mall in Pinellas Park, Florida. And just recently, he got arrested for not paying off trade-ins. so this is yet another thing that everybody that wants to buy a used car or a new car has to watch out for if you don't go to a reputable dealer and i use reputable very loosely because as you just talked about dealers they're right down there with politicians so if you go to a quote unquote reputable dealer you're not going to run into this problem but with anyone else that doesn't have a good track record or doesn't have a good history it's something you need to be concerned of. And, you know, Earl, I have to wonder if someone is buying a used car

at a used car lot, maybe they should say, okay, you know, I'll let you have my used trade-in, but I'm going to wait until the deal goes through, and I'm going to wait until you pay off my trade-in before I actually take delivery of the vehicle. I mean, that may be the hardball tactic you have to play in order to be sure that you're protected as a consumer. Tina, that would be a conservative, careful way to go about it. You know, when I add one thing, there's probably more than being dishonest. Well, I won't say when you don't pay off your trade and you sell the car, you don't pay off the customer's trade and you sell a car, that's dishonest.

But sometimes the motivating factor is a lack of cash. And unfortunately, car dealers sometimes get in financial trouble, and they mean to pay the car off, but they just don't have the cash. I think that could apply to all thieves. Well, but I know some good people, and I won't name any names, but I have friends, frankly, in the car dealership business that were good people. And, you know, we have recessions, and I'm not making excuses for anyone.

I'm just saying Tina's point is exceptionally important because you might find a deal that's been a business for a while, and he is an honest person, and he falls on hard times. and you run low on cash. And think about it. When you sell a car, I sell a car to Rick Kearney. I might make $1,000 when I sell the car. And then I've got Rick Kearney's car that owes $10,000 on his trade-in.

Now, I've only got $5,000 in the bank. Now I made $1,000 when I sold Rick the car. Now I've got to pay his car off, which I owe him. That was part of the deal. That was part of the transaction. But I've got to write a check for $10,000. I've only got $5,000 in my bank account. So the dealer says to himself, I won't pay it off right away

because next week I'm going to sell a bunch of cars and I'll have the $10,000 to pay it off. And that's how the ball starts to roll. And it's something that's very dangerous. And Tina's point is extremely important because a lot of car dealers out there do this. A lot of times you just don't know about it because just in the nick of time they paid it off.

I just don't see any car dealers releasing their car after, I mean, before they pay off the, I mean, after they pay off the someone's loan. Well, they would want to verify that they had, that the loan payoff was as indicated. So, so they would, if they don't have the money, they're not going to pay it off. I mean, that's just what happens. Good point, Tina. This is Palm Beach Auto Mall, and where are they located? They're located in Pine Coast, Central West Coast. Palm, Automah, Palm, Automah.

I sent you a hot link, so you'd be able to take a look at the whole story. Yeah, that's definitely a heads-up for anybody, and you're better off to deal with a reliable dealer, and if you're going to the dealer that you don't know, then you want to be sure that your car is paid off. You want to stay on top of that. I've seen situations where the car has been months later before they found out, they're still getting payment from the lender thinking they still own the car,

and that happens not infrequently. Yeah, and that can very easily ruin somebody's credit, who already didn't probably have good credit to begin with. And another big problem kind of tied into this is a lot of these independently owned used car loss or fly by night. They're here one week, they're gone the next. Or they may end up changing their name to protect themselves from financial backlash due to their previous dishonest practices, but you know what?

Eventually it catches up to you, and it seems to me, just from what I see in the news, that Florida's cracking down a little bit more on auto fraud on the part of a giller. They're taking it a little more seriously than they used to. Yeah. Well, the best tool you have when you get flimflam. by a car dealer is the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. That department has the power of life and death over all car dealers, used car and new, and they control. They can fine them.

It's a, it's not a judicial process. When the DMV says to a dealer, pay me a $1,000 fine, they have to pay the fine. And the what if, if they don't pay the fine, is they take away their license to retail motor vehicles. So you really get a car dealer's attention. file complaint with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and they will readily will take the complaint and the complaint will go to the dealer it won't go to the sales manager it won't go to the salesman it goes to the dealer and if they don't answer the complaint they are in serious trouble they can be fined and

they can be terminated as car dealers when you go to the manufacturer on a new car dealer that's like slap in their hand they just manufacturer will just warn them they rarely take any action but The Department of Motor Vehicles has the power of life and death where every car dealer. Yeah, and I'm sure that a pair of stainless steel interlocking bracelets on their wrists will get their attention, too. That can happen, yeah. They don't usually go to jail out. This Palm Auto, that was unusual.

I'm surprised that he didn't lose his license before that happened. But he probably did lose his license, and then it happened. But it's a terrible thing. I know, I've been in the business so long. I know a lot of car dealers that have fallen for this. And dealers, car dealers deal in large, large amounts of money. They borrow huge amounts of money. They borrow money to own their cars, typically new cars.

Most of the new cars that car dealers have, they borrow money to have these cars. And when they sell a car that they have borrowed money on, They're supposed to pay the bank back right away. A lot of times they don't. And just like paying off the trade-in on a car. Sometimes they don't. And at least with the banks, the banks come in periodically, count their cars, and want to be sure that the loans have been paid off on all the cars

that are not there any longer. If they find cars that are not there, if they're not paid off, then they can yank what they call the floor plan, close the loan out, demand all their money back, And for all of purposes, you put the dealer out of business. It creates a lot of problems. It happens all the time. So, Tina, two very, very important things.

And you really, really have struck a nerve because I've seen that happen too many times and consumers have to beware. Yeah, and the bottom line is this is just something to think about, especially if you are trading in a car. Make sure the trade, make sure the trading is close to being paid off or paid off before you traded in because if it's not paid off, you could leave yourself vulnerable. Say, for instance, you still have $7,000 on a car. If that trade-in doesn't get paid off, then you're not only going to have the new car payment. You're going to have your old car payment with nothing to show for it.

Sure. Yeah, I make that clear to the salesperson or better yet, the general manager or the dealer, and say, this is going to be, I want you understand. I've been burned before. I have friends who have been burned. I want to be absolutely sure of this trade-in. What is the payoff? Who is the lien holder?

This is the lien holder. This is the amount. When are you going to pay this off? And when you put the pressure on them, you'll go to the front of the line. If that dealer's having cash flow problems and he knows you're watching, your car will get paid off before the other guy who didn't raise the issue. Yeah, definitely. Knowledge is power.

Being upside down, trying to trade in your car. What a mess. You know, it's amazing that people don't even seem to be aware of that when they buy a car. Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard a customer. like be concerned about that issue. They just assume it's going to happen. Well, a lot of people don't even know what the payoff is.

And it's something that is usually more than they realize. And it has the effect of, affects the true trade-in value of the vehicle. Car dealers will lead you to believe, don't worry about your payoff, we'll take care of it. They're not taking care of it. You're taking care of it because they might be paying the bank. Hopefully they're paying the bank. and when they do pay the bank, they're adding that to the price of the car you buy.

So there's no free lunch. And when you see these big ads to say, oh money in your car, no problem, it's a problem for you. No problem for them. I saw a billboard on the turnpike says, if it runs, it's worth $3,500. Yes, no matter what.

That's not true. Exactly. As I said, knowledge is power. Tina, thank you so much for the phone call. You keep us informed every Saturday morning as a regular caller. Thank you. Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you for inviting me on to your show every week. Thanks, Tina. See you next Saturday. An extended invitation. Have a great weekend, Tina. We're going to go to Fred, who's calling from Jupiter.

Good morning, Fred. Hi, guys. How are you? Great. How are you doing? Great. Excellent. I'm a regular caller on sports shows,

but my next love are cars. I used to work for Ford Motor Company in Detroit, so it's something I'm familiar with. And I've been to your dealership, which I really enjoyed. One point I was going to make, I think no matter how good the dealer is, if the quality of the car they're selling is not good,

I don't care how good a deal it is, if it's not a car I would buy. I think Toyota personally is the best car is made. I wrote a Camry now for this is the third one I've had I've never had one mechanical issue with it, not one tires, brakes, you know,

usual maintenance and I think that says something to you I went through Old Shide because you sold Piotas to be honest, if you're selling Kiyos I wouldn't have gone to you. Well, that's very smart. That's very smart, Fred.

I will say one thing. Toyotas, Hondas, there are certain cars out there that have a really sterling reputation and you've got Fias and you got Chrysler, they had bad reputation. People tend to group cars together by the nameplate. Now, you were with Ford.

Ford has some really good models and they had some really bad models. Believe it or not, Toyota, they've got some bad models too. Toyota, fortunately, has more good models than bad models. If you go to Consumer Reports, the thing I love about consumer reports is they break it down and they can have they don't say if you want to buy a car

buy a Toyota they say if you want to buy a good car by a Camry because if you also want to buy a good car you might not want to buy what's a bad guy? Tacoma I don't know I'm biased Venza

and in other words whether you're talking even Chrysler has better minds that's a good point Earl you know it's a Ford is a name plate some cars are better than I worked, I was in manager in an assembly plant. Oh.

We made Thunderbirds and Lincoln. They no longer even make Thunderbirds, but at one point, you know, it was like a better car. Exactly. They make a Lexus, which I think is probably the best car, you can buy for the money, I think. You know, it's more expensive. But a Camry is almost as good as a Lexus, and it's half the price. Anyway, one quick mechanical question, if you would. Sure.

Um, I have a, well, a good friend of mine, unfortunately, they bought a use 2007 Nissan Milano. It's some kind of an SUV. Are you familiar with that vehicle? You know what it is? Yeah, I've seen them. All right. Anyway, this is more of a general issue. Uh, the other night, his wife's coming home, and she stopped the light, and the whole car started shaking.

She had to put her foot on the accelerator, and to keep it from dying. Now, I had a similar issue a few years ago, and I'm concerned about the ethanol in gasoline now, which does not burn cleanly. It's made from corn, and I think now it's what? It's 85% gas, 15% ethanol. You know, what, this is in 07, the more modern cars are able to burn ethanol. because they fire, you know, hotter. What's your comment on ethanol and the effects it can have on the performance of your engine? Well, 90% of the, actually, I'm going to say 95% of the stations all have only ethanol 10.

In other words, it's up to 10% ethanol. Cars are now designed, the modern, most newest cars are designed to handle up to 15%, and there are stations with 15% however the pumps are very well marked for it and they also have that E85 which is 85% ethanol ethanol is really not that big of an issue in most of the modern cars it acts as a little bit of a cleaner and to help get moisture out of the fuel tank but the E10 really shouldn't be a problem as long as she didn't put the wrong fuel in the car If she got E15 or E85, even a little bit of that can cause some issues, but being in 07, she may be looking more at a fuel pump issue or a fuel pressure issue, and that's where I would start looking first, especially if this has got like a return system.

You know, sometimes those parts start to get a little old, and when you come to a stoplight, the fuel pressure drops, and it just lose. loses a little bit of power that way. So I would start there by looking at fuel pressure issues first. Right. Okay, I know. My son owns a boat and the ethanol issues a big problem with a marine engine, not just two strokes, the four strokes, which is essentially similar to a car engine. And the ethanol just does not fire, it's caused a lot of problems. Some dealers won't even sell gas with ethanol in it. if you own a motor, a boat motor.

So it's a problem. It's cheaper that farmers want to grow corn, but they keep pushing it up past 85%, 15%. I think, you know, the car, you have some issues. I just wondered how far back. The newer ones can probably hand it. Maybe the 07 couldn't handle ethanol because it's just not. I think you got that right.

I think you got that right. And, by the way, Fred, I appreciate your calling the show. why, you know, you say you're regular call sports show. We'd love to have you. I really enjoy your show. I really enjoy your show. You're very knowledgeable. I'll try to call in from time to time. I hope so. I really appreciate that.

And I got a question for you before you hang up. You will look forward for a long time. There's a lot of conversation about Ford today in terms of their financial ability and whether they're going to have the, you know, with the changes being made so rapidly in the car business, what do you see for the outlook of Ford's? motor company. Do you think they're going to be around in 10 years?

I have my doubts, you know, GM and Chrys were both filed for bankruptcy. Ford sold almost all their assets. They're trying to build cars. You know, you've got the electric cars coming. There's going to be big times. There's going to be cars with no drivers. There's going to be big changes in that industry. When I worked for Ford, the stock was 50. Now it's 8. So that tells you something. There was no split. I wouldn't buy the stock, and I wouldn't buy a Ford, be honest with you.

I don't think they're going to be around in 10 years. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I'm glad I asked you because you work for them, and you got a lot more knowledge about it than I do. So $8 a share. That's a Ford stock now. Wow, I had no idea. Was that a lot of it?

Yeah, $8.54. I was buying on the stock plan at $54 a share. That was 40 years ago. Nothing would go down. So I wouldn't be too hot for a fort. Some of their trucks are good. Yeah. You know, every company has things that are good at.

The F-150 is a good vehicle. Yeah, great. Some of our cars, I wouldn't buy for free. Yeah, that's the number one selling vehicle. That's true in any nameplate. Number one selling vehicle. I'd buy a camera and I buy it from you. How's that?

Well, thank you very much. We appreciate that. I hope you can call again, Fred. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Bye-bye.

Let's go to John. He's holding and has been holding from Palm City. John's a regular caller. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I just want to point out Tina's point about the manufacturer and dealers. Well, several years back, a new car franchise food dealer in Lakeland lost his franchise just for that very reason. Not paying off cars that were traded in, and he totally lost.

Earl knows the whole story of him. I do. And that's what I wanted to point out. That's a brand new car dealer that lost his franchise just for that maneuver. And he was an honest man. He was an honest man. I know him personally. And he, well, he was an honest man that started doing dishonest things because he had to.

And his argument was that he had, you know, a couple hundred people working for him. And that his life and his family and his employees' family, all depended on him, and that if he closed down, which he had to do, because he didn't have the cash to pay the cars off, then everybody was going to be without a job. And so he rationalized it and got in big, big trouble. So, you know, sometimes bad things are done by good people. Well, we can understand that. But what I want to speak about today is politics and the manufacturers.

I just had a blood test, and they tease me. They said, oh, we determined that in your blood, cars run through your blood. But it actually goes back to high school. And one of my favorite cars that I followed was Cadillac. And Cadillac was, with Buick, was the first one that had factory air condition. Brand new cars, first time installed. Optional and rare and expensive. But what I want to say is, I always admire Cadillac.

I never could afford a new one, so I bought a muse. Late model, low mileage, some of them were snowbird cars. I even went all the way up to Maine, friend of mine, that would tell me he had a real cream puff. And I just enjoyed them. And then Cadillac and GM, I was disappointed when they had the ignition problems. They wouldn't acknowledge it. And the big move that I saw was in September 7, 2015. General Motors, Cadillac, specifically, moved their advertising and sales.

from Michigan, 30 Hudson Street down in Soho, New York City. They spent $12.7 million renovating five floors in that Hudson Street building. They moved their, well, most people didn't take the move, so they hired new people, higher salaries, and a bad mistake. Anybody could see it. But in 2018, they decided that they're going to move and get them out of there. But they were talked out of it by Governor Como, who gave him $1 million grant to stay in New York City.

Well, that didn't go over so big when the new president of Cadillac in March of 2015 said, we're out of here. So the million-dollar grant was out the window, and Cadillac moved back to Detroit, where it was supposed to be. They're supposed to be in the design and engineering section, you know, for advertising. but what I want to say is the politics involved in it and I don't need a million dollar grant but GM in the past contributed $31,500

to Governor Como's campaign and in the past on that another $140,000 and politics involved usually happens that Como owns a 75 collectible stingray Corvette but you talk about mistakes

this is a big expensive one and GM stockholders, which I'm not, I don't own anything, should be outraged at the waste of money that these corporations can, you know, make. So it's a disgrace. But anybody could see that's a mistake right from the beginning to move out of Detroit. And incidentally, what I enjoyed in 1990, I toured the Clark Street plant in Detroit, just before it closed and I found that fascinating

and at the same time I visited the Henry Ford Museum but that was a major problem with Cadillac moving out of the plant that they manufactured all the Cadillacs in for years and I think it's 71

then they started farming them out a member in Linda New Jersey they had a plant and other plants throughout the country but the Cadillacs basically were all made in Clark's street in Detroit and Michigan. Yeah, well, John, all the auto manufacturers now are struggling.

It's really interesting. Nancy and I were talking at the 50th reunion affair we were at the past couple days for Toyota. And she was asking about Toyota stock. I just asked her call her about

Ford stock. And the bottom line is there are new good auto stocks anymore. All the auto stocks, even the great companies, like Honda and Toyota and Mercedes and BMW. Even these car companies are really challenged because there's a total transition going on. Cadillac, General Motors, Chrysler, all of them

are converting from manufacturing to software. And they don't know the first thing about software because they sublet all of their software needs to the outside. So they have to partner with Googles and apples and other people that are experts in software, and it's just panic city to be able to get into a completely different business. I mean, they have to reinvent themselves. They're no longer what they were 25, 50 years ago.

It's going to be interesting, not to mention what's going to happen to auto dealers, too. The whole industry is shambles right now, and I wouldn't advise anybody to buy any stock in any auto company at the present time. Well, Cadillac is really concerned. They're coming out with six brand-new models. And for years, what they're worried about, they lost particularly the baby boomers. Those people are buying Ackerrists, Lexes, Infinities, and Mercedes.

And one of the reasons they thought going to New York City, they wanted to push the urban population, and they thought by moving to New York City, they could get them to start buying the Cadillacs again, but they were up the wrong, parking up the wrong tree. Yeah. Well, Cadillac is not a bad car. It's just the fact that cars are an endangered species because it's ride sharing and software, autonomous vehicles. Cars, as we know of them today, won't exist in 20 years for sure, and a lot of them won't exist in 10 years. So unless you reinvent yourself and you partner with a ride sharing company like most of the manufacturers are doing now,

all the major manufacturers are trying to establish relationships with Uber's and lives and the other ride sharing company. companies and all of them are buying or or merging with the software companies and the old school Detroit assembly manufacturing where you sell a car and a guy drives the car those cars won't be around much longer very interesting and only time will tell what's going to happen you're correct 100% John thank you very much great call and you do have gasoline in your blood I think that's exactly he might be related to you yes he might be I read that Lyft has just introduced the subscription service. You pay $300 a month.

You get $30 rides a month. Basically, you get $450 worth of rides for $300. And you don't have insurance, you don't have maintenance, you don't have gasoline. It's actually a viable alternative to own in a car now. I mean, that's here. I didn't know that. That's amazing. Interesting.

So how many rides do you get? You get 30 rides a month, and they count the value of the ride at $15. what they normally charge $15, you get $30 of them for $300. But you've got to have, I mean, for the average person, you need more than $30. There's a niche of people that would work for, like that wouldn't work for me, but if somebody lives in a city and you don't use a car that often, that's a lot cheaper than known in a car. And the concept is great because think about this, supposing it was $200 a month for 100 rides. Now, why can't that be?

When they scale it up, it will be. when you have autonomous vehicles and the cost of the vehicle is nominal because all you have is the comfort. You have a shell and a comfortable shell and electric motor. So the cost of that vehicle is nominal and you're using electricity and it's all computerized software. Why do you need to own a car for 200 bucks a month? You have transportation, Rick? Well, one of the things just happened just recently, I know personally. Karen, we see you. Hold on with you right with you.

I'll be with you in just one second, Karen. Thank you. A friend of mine was actually wondering if it's viable to make a living being an Uber or Lyft driver. And as we were talking about this, a few other people that knew about it and had tried it once before. So, well, it is possible for a person to make a living doing that driving, but only if you're in a place like Miami or Fort Lauderdale where you can really make the best use of the time. because otherwise it's just their cost levels now are going down. It can be pretty lucrative. So autonomous cars would make a great change to that.

It can be very lucrative depending upon your location. Ladies and gentlemen, you are an important part of the show. Please give us a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 7-7-7-2-497-60. And we're going to go to Karen. a new caller from Boynton Beach. Congratulations, Karen. You just won yourself $50. How were you this morning?

Well, thank you so much. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, I've been listening to your show for some months, and an issue came up, and I thought, no, I think I really need to call you. So I really, really appreciate all the information you give. Thank you.

And I was particularly interested in hearing that Tina drives Toyota Yaris, is that correct? Which is what I'm driving. And I haven't had any trouble with it at all, but I have a very strange thing that happens every so often. I can have the car sitting in

the garage. It's off, of course, and it's parked, and it could be hours after I've driven it, and I will hear open the garage door and hear this humming noise coming out of the back of the car. And it sounds as, you know, it's an

engine noise and it obviously must be in there for a purpose. I don't know. Is my car invading my privacy? Are they collecting data on me? I mean, what is going on with that thing? I was going to ask you if there was any particular tune. Yeah, I was trying to think what tune it might have done. It's kind of a low hum. And I go and I think I had read in the book that possibly I might hear this, but I shut the gas cap or I, you know, open and close the gas cap or do something. Nothing changes it, but then it goes away. Rick has a knowing look on his face, right? Of course I do.

Chitty, chitty, bang, bang, chitty bang, chitty bang. Oh, sorry. First humming car thought that came to my mind. Actually, what you're hearing is the emission system doing a self-check. It's completely normal. Oh, my goodness. Okay. And what happens is when you shut the car off, the system is programmed to wait about five hours,

and then it will do this pressurization test, where an electric pump will begin running and draw a vacuum in the fuel system. And it's to make sure that there are no emissions leaks so that there's no fuel vapors leaking out of your car. It's federal government mandated because the cars cannot be allowed to leak any sort of emissions. and so it tests it very often to make sure that your car is working properly. Well, thank you. I mean, I don't notice it. I guess it'd just be if I went out there, you know, and so it's a couple of times.

So it must be doing this fairly consistently then over time. Absolutely. Sometimes you just happen to be at the right point where it's quiet enough that you can hear that pump motor running. Oh, right. It's just testing the system to make sure everything's working properly. And Karen, don't be at all embarrassed to ask that question because I didn't know the answer. My son, Stu, didn't know the answer.

I don't think Nancy knew the answer. It's amazing what we learned on the show. As Johnny Carson said, I did not know that. I did not know that. And I wish all you. I have one other question here. Great. The only thing that I have a problem with this car,

and my husband, before he passed away a couple of years before, he said, know, I want you to have a smaller car. So we ended up with this car, and I'm very happy with it. Only the horn is very weak. Can the horn strength be increased somehow? The factory systems really won't do much, but if you go to one of these aftermarket shops, even a pep boys, they can install an aftermarket horn that's much louder.

As a matter of fact, you can have horns installed that are literally the volume of a locomotive, a train horn, and play Dixie. And even one to play's Dixie, if you like, or La Cucca Rocha. I can't know, they maybe get one that would harmonize with the home. Oh, thank you. That could be, yeah. That'd be nice, like a barbershop quartet. Yeah.

I didn't know that either. I mean, you're asking some great questions. One more question. Don't keep you too long here. I wanted to put a compass in my car, and my Subaru, I had a compass there, and I'm not a high-tech person, and so I don't have the phone or the directional system that I could put in there. But they said, no, you can't put a compass in this car. I guess because of the computer system?

Oh, no. Again, stop in at your local pep boys. I knew that. And they have these little compasses that have, all it is is a little stick-em adhesive pad, and it can stick right on your dash, and boom, you'll have a compass right there. Okay, well, thank you.

No, you can find. And a good quality compass like that is maybe $10. Oh, you get one out of a box of Cracker Jack. Well, you could do that, too. Well, thank you so much and keep up the good work. Well, Karen, Nancy's got 50 bucks for you, I think, doesn't she? Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

You can get five compasses. I do care. And Karen, the compass is priceless, isn't it? Amazing. Thank you for the call. Stay on the line. Give John your information. We're going to go to a number.

first-time caller and that's Pam who's calling from West Palm Beach a good morning Pam congratulations you won yourself fifty dollars good morning can you hear me yes I can well thank you so much for the fifty dollars I appreciate that you're welcome thank you I have a question my question is about I got a 2004 CLK Mercedes and kind of tittering out a little bit and so I I'm looking for another car, and I was interested. I was talking to a couple friends of mine, and I was asking them about electric cars.

I do a lot of driving on the sales. And so it just seems like I can't really hear the real story on what's going on with electric cars. Are they going to be around in the future? A lot, is that what everything is turning to? Where do you... Is it enough port stations or whatever kind of stations they have that

can keep you charged up what happens I mean what are the downfalls of the electrical system I mean when my electrical system has a problem that any car I've had in the past is major costs

I mean I see a lot of cons more than I see pros but if I can charge I spend a lot of money on gas if I can charge my car and how long does it last and go go, go. How many miles do you put on a month on the car?

I'm about $50,000 a year. Okay, so you're doing 4,000 miles a month. You're probably driving more than 2 or 300 miles some days, aren't you? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The problem now is range on electrical cars. If I were going to buy an electrical car, to that I'd probably buy Chevrolet Bolt, Volt.

Volt, I'm sorry, and that's Consumer Reports, ranks the number one electric car, and the price is reasonable, but you are going to have a challenge on range, and you can charge it overnight, and you're good for probably 250 miles during the day, but if you've got to go further than that, you're going to have to recharge it, and there are charging stations, but not as plentiful as you might think. Well, isn't the Chevy Volt the one that has the gas engine also? So when the electric charge totally runs out, you simply switches to the gas engine. Well, the bold is the old electric way.

No, it has a, there's a gas motor that will, that kicks in when you run out of battery. Yeah, but it's only, it's essentially an electric car. Oh, yeah. And when she's not an hybrid, that's the reason I said bolt. So that the bolt has a, just a tiny little engine that will get your home again if the, hopefully, I mean, like a 50-mile range if you run out of juice on your battery. With a volt, it's a hybrid combination.

So a hybrid would probably be a better choice for you than an all-electric right now, Karen. I think, I mean, Pam, I think that two or three years from now it'll be a different story, and the range of these vehicles is growing and growing. You're pushing 60 miles per gallon with the hybrid now. Yeah. The Tesla, the lowest-priced Tesla,

We'll get you almost 500 miles, I believe, on a charge. But it's a lot more expensive. The Chevrolet Bolt and the Chevrolet Bolt are much less expensive. I was missing the B and V. I've heard a lot of... I've heard people having a lot of issues with Tesla's. I don't know myself, for sure, and I have to test drugs. And that's a very expensive car.

And so, I mean, so you're not... You're probably leasing a Tesla? I mean, but breakdown, what if the electrical system break down? I mean, are they having a lot of breakdown issues on cars that are electrical now? That's a big issue with me. The electrical is less likely a breakdown than a gasoline engine. So breakdowns are not a problem or less of a problem than a regular mechanical vehicle. One of the great things about electric cars is electric motors are so simple

that there's not as much go wrong with electric motor as there is with a gasoline. internal combustion engines. So, you're a little early, Pam, and going all-electric. I'd wait. Things are changing so fast. If you would, it just maybe two years, you might find yourself something really good that would be the answer for you.

And it's just a matter of time before everybody's going to be all-electric. But you're just a little early for that, right? That's a little scary, but okay. It is when you think, think about it. And so these ports faces, will they ever have it, the availability, will consumers be able to charge their cars themselves and they're at their home? I mean, you have to go someplace? That is the best answer.

They have that now. And you can have a home charger. And remember, a hybrid charges the car itself, too, with the, you're braking on you when you break the car and you have the electric motor. that charges the battery. That's the whole principle of hybrid. So I'd recommend that you look at a hybrid. They're tried and tested. They're reliable. They're very good cars. You look at consumer reports and look for the recommended hybrid vehicles. And if you choose a consumer report hybrid vehicle, you'll have yourself a low price,

extremely good fuel economy, high reliability, and you don't have the risk that you have with the all-electric range anxiety. Okay, ma'am, thanks very much for the call. Yeah, Pam, you know, we appreciate you. And besides that $50 that you want, there's so many benefits in listening to Earl Stewart on cars every Saturday morning. And the proof is in the pudding right here. We've been on the air since 8 o'clock and so much information. So thank you again.

Give us a call, toll-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530 and remember that, well, your anonymous feedback.com, what an important site to go to, and we so appreciate you going there and voicing your opinion. Another, well, very important website, safercar.gov. Safercar.com. With all of the recalls that are out there today, it's just something that you need in your back pocket. Safercar.gov.

And anyone has any opinions about the thieves getting into your vehicle and stealing those airbags? Give me a call if you know anyone that it's happened to locally now back to the recovering car dealer. We've got some text coming in. Finally, I'm going to give that text number out again because we've really lag seriously. recently behind, not only on text, but postings, right? Facebook postings. So, 772 4976530.

That's the text number. 772, here we code. 497653. And Sue's got three or four text over there. Yeah, we've got three messages. We got one on her text number. We have one on Facebook, and we have an anonymous feedback. Don, a long-time listener, and caller

and text her, texted us. He says, I noticed this week, oil chain shops I visited are not sure if a 2012 Camry hybrid needs full synthetic oil or synthetic blend and we'll try to sell the blend because it's less expensive. Any comments? 2012 Camry. Let's see, 2012 Camry. I'm pretty certain it's going to go with 0W20 synthetic oil. However, the best way to tell is just look on the oil cap and it will tell you because a lot of cars in that year were in what we call the transition and they could go with either the 5W30 standard fossil fuel oil or ZeroW20 Synthetic. My recommendation, though, go with the synthetic.

Okay. And then the next question, our comment, is on our Facebook page. It's from Steve, and Steve wants to know how long gasoline will be available for our classic and collectible cars. Now, that one I think we're going to see ethanol-free fuel. which is what he's talking about for those classic cars. That's going to be around for many, many years yet to come, simply because of the marine industry. Boats generally always require ethanol-free fuel,

especially for the two-cycle versions, but also a lot of regular, just smaller boats need it. There's too many lawn maintenance equipment, lawnmowers. All of these run best on ethanol-free fuel. So that stuff's going to be around for many, many years to come. Golf carts. And actually, we're finding now it's easier to get now than it was just five or six years ago. Okay.

A lot more places have it. All right. So the last one is on our anonymous feedback, youranonymousfeedback.com, and I understand why they wanted to remain anonymous. It might bring up a sore subject, but hello, do we have a verdict on applying an undercoat to a vehicle in those regions where snow ice and salty roads are prominent? Thank you. We had a disagreement last week, and somebody wants to hear the verdict. I apologize for not looking it up. I do know that no car dealers sell undercoding anymore,

and I do just from my belief is that the manufacturers have become to treat the undersides of the cars with non-corrosive material, so it is not needed. I think there's also, I have to verify that, but I drop the ball and not researching that. All right. Well, we're all cut up with our messages. Very good. 772. We need more text, folks.

Here we go to 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530 to text us. And Facebook, you can go to Facebook. We're streaming live. That way you see us, as well as hear us. It's just Facebook.com. 4.slash Earl on Cars. Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars.

Rick. I just wanted to mention that from last week's show, and while we're talking about ethanol fuel, I'm in the middle of doing a fuel mileage test. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be fueling up today with ethanol-free fuel in my truck. I ran one full tank first of regular fuel to get a baseline mileage, and then I'm going to run this one. Actually, I'm going to do two tanks of the ethanol fuel. That way I'll have two versions to compare, and we'll get an idea of whether the fuel economy increases or decreases or stays the same, and be able to work out an idea of what the cost per mile is to drive on regular fuel 87 octane versus ethanol-free fuel to see if it makes a difference, and if it's worthwhile. Where that came up, we had a regular call

for a couple of years, and he's called the show probably within the last six months. Mark, he's a professional truck driver, and he swears by ethanol-free fuel. And he uses an app, and I looked at that before. There's an app that tells you where all the ethanol-free fuel pumps are. There's quite a few, as a matter of fact. And he says that he just gets better fuel economy. So Rick is going to put it to the test, and we'll let you know and report back to you. Now, remember, ethanol-free fuel, totally-free fuel, is a lot more expensive.

Yep. I think you were saying 50 cents a gallon or... 50 to 60, yeah. And I'll be... I've got all that data that I'll be saving, so we'll get a good idea of the difference in price per gallon or the price per mile that it costs for that fuel. Great information, Rick. We'll look forward to the outcome. And we're going to go to David, who's calling us from North Palm Beach.

Good morning, David. Good morning. Simple little question here. Neighbor left for two months. He has a 2014 Prius, and he wants me to make sure the battery stays charged. Can I just stop the car and let it run for five minutes every week, or is the car have to be driven? Rick will answer that. I think it needs to be driven more than that. Rick, what's your recommendation?

A 14 Prius, the biggest thing you need to wonder with that one, or to keep watch on with that one, is that the battery that actually activates the car, all it really does is it turns on relays. to power the car up and then the hybrid battery will spin the engine to start the engine but that little battery that turns on those relays because it's so small and doesn't have to produce a lot it does tend to not last a very good time sitting and not being used for any length of time what i would recommend is at least once every week to two weeks take the car for about a 25 to 30 mile drive and the reason for that is it's not only just just to keep the battery charged up, but also to keep the engine seals, the oil circulating

and lubricating everything, because those seals rely on the oil to help keep them soft and pliable. And if they dry out over time, you're going to see some issues from that. Very good. You answered my question. Thank you very much. David, quite welcome, sir. That's a very common problem that we have with a lot of snowbirds, and sometimes they don't even to make arrangements. This person was smart enough to ask David to start the car for him, and you heard the answer

Rick gave it a bitter to drive it a little bit. Also, we see some problems also, Rick, don't we, with the not turning off the remote key detector. And sometimes you have

a switch where you can turn that off so that it isn't searching for the key all the time, which is a drain of the battery. Right. Some cars have that. the 14 Prius does not. Where do you, if you have one that has that sort of a device, I guess you just ask the dealer, where's the switch to turn that off? Because if you leave it for a couple of weeks, you go on a cruise, you come back, you

could have a dead battery because your lock has been looking for the key. Yep. Well, on the second gen Prius from 04 to 09, it was just a button down underneath the steering wheel. Yeah. And each car may be a little different. So, yeah, check with the dealer or the owner's manual, and they'll show you where that is.

Very good. Well, we got some text coming in. I see Stu's got four marks on the board. All you've got to do is ask. Yeah. All right. Well, the first one is from Marty, and Marty wants to know what part of the sale gives me

the greatest negotiation leverage, the out-the-door selling price, the monthly payment, the discount percentage off MSRP, or the trade-in price from my car. That's Marty in Palm Beach Gardens. Marty, that is a great question. The best thing you want to have is the out-the-door price. The problem with that is you've got to be sure it's out-the-door.

Every car dealer has a different definition of out-the-door. To me, out-the-door, well, let's put it this way. The true definition would be the full price, including tax and tag. What you would write a check for. What you'd write a check for. Now, you can't Mickey Mouse that around, and that's what I would ask for, and then I would shop that price with the competitive dealers. Payments are something that you can't really negotiate

because there's too many other factors and variables. They can play games with you on the payment. You can lower payment just by stretching the term out from 36 to 48 months. It changed the interest rate, a lot of other things. Your trade-in is probably the worst thing that you can get you a lot of trouble. Never negotiate the price of a car

by what they allowed you on your trade-in. They can give you anything you want on the car, trade in just by jacking the price of the car up or by raising the interest rate on the financing the only fixed thing that you can rely on is the out-the-door price now if you have to you can take tax and tag and add it just be sure this is government fees sales tax and license plate because they will call a lot of other things electronic filing fee they'll call a tag agency fee they have a lot of names that sound like tax and tag but they are not out the door

including everything. As Stu said, I'm going to write a check. I'm going to my bank. I'm going to bring the check in. I'm going to put it in your hand. I'm going to get in the car, and I'm going home. What is that number? What is that price that I could put on the check?

That's about as straightforward as you can. One of the little tricks that I used to play back in the day, probably might even play it fairly recently. I hate to admit this, but we'll have a person come in with a price. And they say, the dealer told me that he could sell me the car at this price. Well, you can get on the phone and pretend to be the customer's banker. And you say, hello, this is Joe Smith. I'm the loan manager at Bank America. And Mr. Jones is sitting here and he wants to have me write out a check to buy the car. And you're talking to the bank now,

or you're talking to the car dealer. What is the amount that you want me to fill this check? out for that I can give to Mr. Jones so that he can buy this car with that check. And then that's when they start, ha, ha, ma, hama, hama, because they won't give you an answer. That's a good trick to play. That's a great trick to play. On a dealer. On a dealer. You're right.

Yeah. I thought you were about to confess to something evil you did like last week or something. No, we know. I'm like, we do this. On behalf of the country. Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing. You said trick and I got scared for a second. He was leaving.

He's regressing. Total transparency. Total transparency. That's a good one. Back in time. Next text. Okay. Let's see.

We have Jeff in West Palm. It's probably for Rick. It says, do you ever see Toyota coming out with anything diesel? Believe it or not, there are a lot of Toyota diesels worldwide, but not here in the U.S. Toyota's had a problem. Excuse me. Just a second. Sorry about that.

Toyota's had a bit of a problem getting their diesels to meet. the U.S. standards for diesel engines for imports. Apparently they've made them a lot tighter. Toyota had a problem of being honest and saying that their diesels didn't meet the standards, unlike BMW, Volkswagen, and two or three other manufacturers that came up with an ingenious device that tricked the emission control test to think that they were clean. And right now, there's virtually no clean diesels,

and Toyota was just honest enough to say, We can't do it. We cannot meet the tight standards in the USA. However, they are working on it, and they do want to get Toyota diesel trucks as a foot in the door. But worldwide, the Toyota Highlux and the Tundra and several other vehicles are diesel in other countries. And they do some amazing things. I think they even have a diesel Avalon. I believe so, yeah.

Another factor in there is a cost of diesel fuel, and sometimes diesel fuel. It's been a while, used to be real cheap, and it's not cheap anymore. So in Europe, diesel fuel is much cheaper than gasoline, and so they have more of a demand for diesel vehicles because it's less expensive to operate. Why would you want a diesel vehicle in the United States when the diesel fuel costs more than the gas? You just put cooking oil in it. Yeah. Okay.

So the next one we got is from Paul and Jupiter, and we're going to limit the answer on this one. It's another ethanol question, but Paul wants to know. if you can combine ethanol versus non-ethanol fuel. Is that a bad idea? If you're talking about just having some of one in your fuel tank and topping up with the other, as long as you're not exceeding the ethanol concentration that your vehicle can handle.

In other words, if you have ethanol-free fuel in your vehicle now and you put in ethanol E-10 rated fuel, you're totally safe. If you were to put in E-15 and your car is not meant to handle E-15, I definitely would not do that, ever. Okay, great. We have a text from a J.

I don't know where it's coming from. I read that Uber is actually deploying a fleet of flying cars, more precisely, electric drones that carry passengers. Do you see this as an actual viable transportation system in the U.S., Mr. Stewart? I think so. I think that, I believe that's in Dubai, and I think drones are a great source of transportation.

And I believe in Miami Beach right now, you can take an Uber helicopter. Ooh. And they also have Uber boats in Miami Beach. And a lot of these things are just getting off the ground. I believe eventually we will have, I believe, that was a pun, I didn't know I said it. I believe in 10 years there will be flying, ride sharing. That's really cool. I'll get in one of those after I'm heavily sedated.

Exactly. Okay, next question. It's a text. We don't have a name. It's anonymous. It's for Rick, though. This is for Rick. I was reading the car forum with Toyota Master Techs,

and they said 5W20 is like water. Also, the 10,000-mile oil change was instituted by EPA, and gives Toyota kickback for that. Second question, can you use C-form? Okay, well, as for the first one, 5W20 is non-existent. That doesn't exist. Zero W-20 is what you're probably thinking of,

which is the synthetic oil. And yeah, it's actually a very thin oil. However, in engines that are designed for it, it works quite well. And as a matter of fact, in the new 19 Camrys, actually 18 and 19 Camrys, we're now running 0.W.16 oil, which is even a little bit thinner. As for the EPA giving kickbacks to Toyota, and I would have no knowledge of that whatsoever. I consider that to be a political thing, and I'm a mechanic when you come right down to it.

I work on cars. I don't get in the politics side. Well, I'll comment on that. And there was no kickbacks from EPA to any manufacturer, but there was a real huge push to synthetic oil. And one of the reasons the manufacturers push synthetic oil is because of the fuel economy standards and the mandatory fuel economy standards.

And when you build cars to a tighter tolerance, You need to, for more fuel economy, you need the synthetic oil. And you can squeeze out a few more tens of a mile per gallon with synthetic oil. Synthetic oil actually is conducive to a little bit better fuel economy. And so I was violently against, I won't say violently. That's a figure of speech, but I'm mentally against. I was mentally against synthetic oil because I knew, I knew that the man. manufacturers had a double motive.

Synthetic oil now, I've accepted it. It's a good thing. But at the time it happened, I was mad because I thought they were forcing the car buyers to pay twice as much for the oil so they could get three-tenths of a miles per gallon more to meet the statute, the standards, the law on standards. But it's good stuff. It doesn't really cost you that much anymore because you only have to change your oil. have as often. If you have to pay twice as much, change your habit as often. It's a wash.

That's right. Okay. And the final part of that one about the seafone, I just looked that up. It's another one of those fuel additives. And my opinion, again, snake oil on 99.9% of those. It does state that it's a fuel stabilizer. Seafoam, you mean the shaving cream in the sea? I mean the, yeah. Well, that's what I would have thought. The fluffy white stuff. No, I think this is just another, it's available from Walmart for $6.97. Seafone.

I mean, you know, when I weigh bricks and you see all that white stuff, that's seafone. That's seafone. That's exactly what it is. I wouldn't put that in my gas, no. I wouldn't do it. All right, so we got a question on our Facebook live video from Linda, and she wants to know if the 2016 Highlander has one of the switches to turn off the search for the key fob. Let me take this one, Rick. I'm sorry, Linda, the 2016 Highlander does not have that switch.

It does not have that switch. How did you know that? Rick already answered her on Facebook. Okay, I think this one more. We got one more, sorry. They were piling and you shouldn't ask. Is the black smoke, this is from Paul and Jupiter Farms. It wants to know, is the black smoke I see coming from diesels, bad for the environment from Paul.

Oh, yes it is. That's actually, in the industry, they call it partner. articulate emissions, and that's actually heavy amounts of carbon. Rolling coal. Yeah, the rolling coal thing. And believe it or not, it's actually a result of the diesel fuel not being completely burned. And for some reason, there's this great big thing among these diesel truck drivers that they all, and I'm talking to pickup truck drivers.

Yeah, they floor it, and a lot of black smoke comes out. Exactly. But they actually, a lot of them actually go in and they're, find ways to connect in through the computer and they adjust the way their truck runs to make it burn a lot more fuel, use a lot more fuel wasting it just so they can create these huge clouds of black, noxious smoke. Is that legal? Well, technically no.

Really? Yeah. But it's not something that the police are really going to pull them over for unless they're doing it in a very egregious manner right, you know, right in front of them. and it's it's one of those horrible things that is yeah it's ruinous for the environment it's bad for your health it's obnoxious and it's just another unfortunately it's bad for children people do and other living things yes it's like probably black lung kind of thing oh yeah it's almost like cold exactly exactly but it's even worse because it's being forced right at you right into your lungs okay another text

came in this is from cliff in coral springs this is a rick question Is it true, the viscosity of motor oil gets thicker when hot, and that the 10 in 10W30 is the weight, cold, and 30 is the weight hot. Do I have that right? Nope. Backwards. The hotter the oil gets, the thinner it gets. So the 0, or 10w30, 10 is the thinnest the oil will be, and 30 is the thickest that it will be. So 10 is when it's nice and warmed up, and 30 is when it's ice cube cold. Okay.

Thank you for clearing that, of course. Somebody did comment on the seafone. Somebody said that they knew a friend that had twin 175 Suzuki's, and he used seafone in his gas tank, and it messed up his engines. So his mechanic told him never to use that. The German for seafoom is meershelm. Is it? I used to have a pipe.

When I smoked a pipe, it was made out of meershelm. It's very interesting. I have no idea why I mentioned that. Well, now it's in my brain. Thank you. Here's Sean. Great information. Great information.

We're going to, I'm going to discuss a young lady's problem. She's got a, this is, I think this is a Rick show today because he's had so many questions. But she recently bought herself a Honda CRV. And four months out, she finds that her vehicle, her SUV is stalling out. and she didn't notice that there were any recalls. It is, I believe she said it was a 2019. Can you answer that? Can you help her? Well, the first thing I'd be doing is basically I would run it until the tank is almost completely empty

and refuel with a good source of fuel. One of the issues that we see in South Florida is water gets into the fuel tank and, of course, water and gas don't mix. so the water will actually form a little bubble down in the bottom of the fuel tank and as you're driving around it moves around and when it gets sucked up into the motor the motor just shuts off for no reason they got something you can pour in your gas tank that'll make that absorb that that's actually what the ethanol is ethanol or alcohol acts as an emollient it actually allows a little bit of that water to mix and bond with the gas with the ethanol and then it can go through the engine safely because

The ethanol also bonds with the gasoline. So there is something good to be said about ethanol. Exactly. It works almost like a glue between the water and the gasoline, so it can safely mix them and burn it through. But if you've got a lot of water in there, the ethanol and the fuel can't really work well with it. So we recommend a product called dry gas.

Pour some of that in the tank and see if it helps. But if she doesn't see any change within just a couple days on this, I would get to the dealership because the 19 is going to be underwater, warranty, and get it checked out by a qualified Honda mechanic. You heard it right here at Earl Stewart on Cars. So many benefits in listening to the show. We've covered a whole lot, and we have the Mystery Shopping Report coming up, and I want to remind everyone to please vote on the Mystery Shopping Report.

See where this Mystery Shopping Report leaves the Gallup Pull, see if it goes up or down, and that Mystery Shopping Report is from, Jensen Beach, Stewart? Is that correct, boys? That is correct. All righty. Okay, I think we're on a roll here. What's our text record?

Are we going to break it? Or post text. Yeah, we're halfway through the show or a little bit more. No, we have a lot of text. Today's theme is definitely gasoline. We have Carol on our live Facebook who says, I have filled six five-gallon containers to have from my generator if we get a hurricane. How long can I keep it before that goes bad?

well I see her question here and she says how long can I keep it before I put it in the car I would have if you've had it in a sealed container gasoline container I would say no more than a month to two months at the most simply because that container can still collect water now I thought vapor I thought that if you had fuel that you use the proper preservative kind of thing in there that wouldn't last indefinitely. Well, the problem is no, because unfortunately water vapor can still get into that gas that's down in there.

And I've actually seen almost like a mold or an algae grow in the water down under the bottom, and then people pour it in their tank. And I've actually had a customer came in that we had to replace their fuel tank because it had this brown, mold algae slime in the tank

and no matter what I did I had the fuel pump out and was reaching my hands in the tank and I could not get it all out because there was so much in there. I talked to this survivalist one time I think Stu knows who I'm talking about and he wanted to trade some gold for a car and we got

to Chichetton and he said that he had a 10,000 gallon or a 5,000 gallon tank of diesel fuel so that when the wheels came off and the rebellion happened And he says, I said, how long have you had that? He says, well, I've had it now for eight years or ten years. And he says, but I have it preserved so that it will keep it fresh and to use when I have to use it.

Well, if you plan for that and you have the proper equipment to keep it that way, then that can be done. We just had a big tank. Right. But he put stuff in the tank and I was going to keep it. So you telling me, so like in those shows like The Walking Dead is not realistic that they're starting cars four years into the apocalypse. That's a pretty good trick there. Well, if you're listening, Mr. Perspective Survivalist customer, you better check your tank.

And, of course, the real problem is most people are using these little five-gallon cans from Home Depot that are vented so that they don't burst by building too much pressure. But maybe if it was sealed, airtight, and you had this. And put some C-foam in it. Seatron. I'll put the C-4-Mier-Schman. One more comment, and that we're going to give Rick a break. Should I wait, and this is from Carol on Facebook live video,

should you wait until the end of your lease or go to the dealer a couple of months ahead? Well, the dealer will probably come to you a couple of months ahead, and you won't have to worry about that, but you definitely don't want to wait if he forgets to the end of the lease. You need to start shopping and considering different vehicles. You need to start thinking about leasing versus buying, and do your homework,

and check consumer. Of course, don't wait until the last minute when the pressure is on you. The dealer and the manufacturer will probably come up with some motivations to keep you in the family. And that's the reason that dealers love leasing so much. Not only do they make a lot more money when they lease you a car, when they sell you a car on the average, but they also have the string on you. And they require you in a lot of ways to come back. Well, you have to come back because you've got to give them their car back.

And when you come back, they can, they can assault you with all sorts of specials. Be a little coy. They'll come to you. They'll come to you. And if you don't release or re-buy from them, there's a penalty. And this penalty could be $3, $400, I suppose, higher. In your lease contract, there's a, where do we call it, Sue, the lease disposal. Disposition fee or lease disposal?

Disposial disposition fee. And you don't see that. That's in the fine print. So when you lease a car, you've got to lease the next car and the next car and the next car from that same manufacturer. You could go to a different dealer, but if it's a Ford, you have to keep buying or leasing another Ford. Otherwise, you have to pay that $300 or $500 penalty. You will also get offers like we will pay your last two lease payments or something like this or we'll give you a special rebate and so on and so forth.

so but start thinking about this six months before you leases up okay uh i have a text from sherry quickly uh sherry is interested in air pressure tires and a few maintenance tips and she asked me about the gas stations and getting you know air and getting her tires maintained there. I don't go to the gas station, Sherry. I don't, I really believe that the public pressure gauges are if the gas stations are abused and unreliable, and I carry a pressure gauge with me in my glove box, so I recommend that. Number two, Sherry is asking about the maintenance if it's just as important to take care of the valves and also the caps. Rick, whether you you can add to this, but my opinion is that they're very important to maintain.

First of all, the tire valves are, I believe the valves are made of rubber, and they tend to deteriorate. And remember, they hold all this air in your tires, and they keep your pressure where it should be. So these three, these two items, the valves, the caps, make sure that you do maintain, and get yourself a pressure gauge and check your pressure from time to time. And one important detail, check that pressure whenever your tires are cold. I hope that I was able to help you out. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. The lines are going crazy.

We're going to go to Doug, who's been holding, and Boka. Good morning, Doug. Hey, Doug, is that Ollie's Doug? I missed the sunrise today, but I got you guys, Earl. Wanted to know about how he sent the picture of Ollie watching your show. I'm going to pick it up or still hand it to me. I'm going to show. That's Ollie.

Ollie is our official kitty cat mascot for the Sunrise Club, and he watches the sunrise, and now he's watching Earl on Garz. That is awesome. Doug belongs to Ollie, by the way. Does Ollie have a question for us, Doug? I think he wants the car, but I told him he can't drive for him. Oh, no. Laptop, and we won't get him his own laptop.

Good morning, Diane. That's Sim. Pardon me. I gave you the wrong wife. Good morning, Sim. How cute. I wanted to know about the gimmick. If it is a gimmick, my dealership says, oh, we're going to put nitrogen in your tires

instead of regular air. Yeah, that's one of the favorite rip-offs of most car dealers, Doug, is, you know, the air we're breathing right now, the air that's in your tires right now is 78% nitrogen. So that's probably one of the tricks is they just fill your tires with air to say you've got nitrogen, which you do, 78%. Consumer reports did a test a few years back.

They took every tire sold in the United States and they filled it with pure nitrogen. Then they took another tire of the same description. They filled it with air and they tested it for a complete year. At the end of the year, they said there was no noticeable difference in the permeability of the air and the nitrogen and that if you want to use nitrogen in the tires, it's fine. If it's free, it's fine. But if you have to pay for it, it's not worth it. So

don't waste your money, Doug, on nitrogen. It's a source of profit to the car dealer. I appreciate it. And one more question. Is Toyota going to ever make a fully electric car like Tesla? Yeah, they will. They were a little late to the party. They kind of poo-pooed the all-electric and they started out with a hybrid, which was a great success. And then they evolved to the hydrogen fuel cell. And that didn't really catch on. And so now they're really re-evaluating. Akio Toyota, the chairman of the board of Toyota,

is starting a complete new company, totally different from Toyota. And the company is one of ride-sharing, autonomous, no-ownership type vehicle. And you heard Stu earlier, he was talking about Lyft has come out with a package deal for 300 bucks. You get 30 rides a month. The world, according to, I think what Toyota's looking at, some time in the future, will not involve car ownership at all. It will all be just using cars. Yeah, Toyota promised they said they would have some form of electrification on all of their models by 2025. Yeah.

Not necessarily in the United States, but around the world. Awesome. Well, thank you, guys. You have a great day, everyone. Thank you. I do. I think so. Ollie, see you at sunrise. Okay. Don't forget we have that mystery shopping report coming up, Doug, so we're expecting you, Sim, and Ollie to vote on it. Thank you so much. Our phone number is 877960, where you can text us at 772-4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer and our mystery shop of Computer Car, That's of Jensen Beach, Stewart. We have a text. It's a follow-up from Cliff, and this is directed at Rick. It says, I googled the oil question. I thought Rick was right until I read otherwise.

It says, clearly, the 10 represents the weight cold, and there are properties in the oil that makes it 30 weight when hot. I am confused. I will surprise myself. If I'm right, did I stump Rick? Do I get 50 bucks? If you stumped Rick, you get 50 bucks. I may have stated it wrong, too.

All right, well, let's let's go benefit the doubt. Well, let's clarify this. Let's clarify this. So the point is, he says that the 10w. 30, the 10 is the weight cold, and the 30 is the weight hot. Right. Now, what does the weight mean? I mean, viscosity, I do know that Rick was right when he said the hotter the oil, the lower the viscosity. Now, if viscosity is measured by 10 and 30, 30 sounds like a higher number than 10. Well, the weight is supposed to be the viscosity, and the higher the number means the thicker the oil.

So technically, the way it's actually meant to be is that 10w30 is simply a range stating that the oil can handle. It has properties that can handle from being what a straight 10-weight oil would handle to what a straight 10-weight oil would handle to what a straight 30-weight oil would handle. Therefore, if you wanted a 10W-50 oil, it can handle much higher temperatures, whereas a 0-W-20 oil is meant to handle more reasonable temperatures down to the cold temperatures. Okay. If you'll give us your contact number,

if you call back in, we'll give you the 50 bucks anyway. Yeah, I think that one, I kind of misstated that one. You clarified it for me, and I understand it better now. I don't think you were wrong. I think it was just. a matter of terminology, weight, and viscosity. Okay. Okay.

I was surprised that you didn't hear from a listener when you offered $100 earlier in the show as to the advertised price. Out the door. Tax and tag. $100. $100. Give us a call. If you can find an advertisement that you can buy the car at the advertised price. Isn't it silly?

We're talking about this. You can find an advertised price in Publix at the Apple Store. at Nordstroms, at Sears, they're going on the business, but they're still in business now. They'll go to Target. Any advertisement that you see, you can buy the product for the advertised price. All I'm saying is, with all the car dealership advertisements, show me one car, new car, that you can buy the vehicle at the advertised price, and I'll pay you $100. No calls.

Okay. Shall we go to the Mr. Shopping Report? Let's do it. Yeah, we should do it, but one moment, please. Jennifer, I'm going to get to your text after the show and answer your question about the Munrooney label and what it means. It's a little lengthy, so we only have time to get to our mystery shopping report.

Thank you so much for the text. Yeah, or we can do that after we finish the report, and if you'll just remind me. This mystery shop was of commuter cars of Jensen Beach in Stewart, And the very first Ticada mystery shop we ever did was commuter cars of Port St. Lucie, way back in June of 2016.

That secret shop set off years long, over two years, a series of investigations that would reveal just how recklessly the deadly Ticada recall crisis is being dealt with by sellers of used cars all over Florida. Boy,

two years. Hard to believe. Commuter cars was the first to be shopped And they were the first to fail the Takata test Back in 2016 They made no effort to disclose a deadly recall On the 2008 Chrysler 300 They tried to sell to our mystery shopper Agent Blue

Yeah Whatever happened Agent Blue? Agent Blue, you're not going to believe me Works for JetBlue now I'm not kidding Now you're going to people think We're nuts. No, it's true.

Given this history, it was almost poetic that we found another Chrysler 300 with a passenger side to cut airbag recall at commuter cars this week. This time it was a 2011 model and it was at their Jensen Beach location. We identified and confirmed the recall, actually two recalls. There was another defect that could result in the alternator starting a fire. That's always fun. on, we check these all, of course, on safercar.gov, Carfax, auto check, and Chrysler's recall site.

That's a pretty sure way. You check all those sources. You're pretty sure you're going to get accurate information. One will not do it. We see about a 30% failure rate with the Carfax and Auto Check, and even the Chrysler or the manufacturers recall can be off. It's all a matter of timing. Yeah, it's timing.

Check all four. Agent X went to see if anything had changed at commuter cars. I'm speaking the first person as if I were Agent X. I called ahead as usual. You know, I say that every time, and the reason I say that is that bait and switch advertising. Too often our mystery shopper has been burned. We see a car.

We want to check the price out on, check the airbag recall out on. You get there. Oops, we're sorry. We sold that car. On the phone. Yeah, got it right here. We just sold that car.

Right. Car just, but we got another one just like it. So we... Wait, right here. I'd be right back. And this is a good lesson for you to learn when you're shopping. If you're going to shop a car, you'd be surprised. You're going to save yourself a lot of gasoline and driving time in aggravation.

If when you see an advertised car, call the dealer, say, I'm on the way in. It's going to take me a long time to drive there. I want to buy the car. I want to be sure. Don't disappoint me. Now, if they say this, this is a little reach here, but try this. If they say, we can't hold the car without a deposit, but if you come right in, we're pretty sure it'll be here.

Say, okay, I'm going to give you a deposit. And give me a credit card number. You can always take the credit card number off. It's a stop payment on the credit card. That's the thing I like about credit cards. and they can't charge you for it if you don't use it. So that way, you really call their bluff. Now, if they start him and on, then save yourself the trip.

Always confirm the cars there and make them hold it for you. Okay. I've run out of this problem before. Community Cars has three locations, Jensen Beach, Stewart, and Ford Pierce. And we're going to the Jensen Beach. And Port St. Lucie. They also have a confusing website. I was able to determine that the vehicle was at the Jensen Beach location.

I spoke with a sales manager named John. He was certain it was physically there, and we arranged a 1230 appointment for me to come and see it. I arrived on time, parked my car in front of a small pack of salesmen. We often referred to salespeople when they gather together as packs. I was looking for another name for a collection of animals. just to throw you off. We used gaggle before.

A gaggle. A murder. There's a cackle of hyenas, but I didn't want to be too offensive to the salespeople. So the pack of salesmen, ignoring the eyes on me, I made my way over to what appeared to be the Chrysler 300 I came to see. One of the salesmen broke away from the group, approached. He introduced himself as Maricio? Maricio.

Maricio. Maricio. And asked if I was the one who called about the 300. He said, John asked him to keep an eye out for me. I thanked him, gave him my name, and asked if he had a key. Maricio did not, but he offered to go get one. He asked me to wait and ran inside. A few minutes later, I was startled by the sound of the engine and the Chrysler starting.

I look up to see Maricio walking toward me, pointing the remote, and looking very pleased with himself. It's got remote start, which is cool. Nice touch, yeah. He says he opened a driver's door for me. me mercio climbed in the passenger side crank the air I asked him for the car had been inspected and if so were there any mechanical problems found now we call this our three questions that's the first or three questions we always do this and we really are putting these people on notice it's good for the

shopping report because it proves what we're trying to prove but it's a good idea for you is a shopper yourself when you you're really serious about buying a car, ask the three questions. I mean, you got enough problems when they lie to you, but if you don't ask the question, you're just setting yourself up for a really big problem. So ask the questions. The first question we ask is, are there any mechanical issues? Maricio said it was inspected, and we have no issues, okay, that's not true.

He went on to emphasize that a commuter has a 90-day, 3,000 mile warranty, becomes free with every car they sell. He suggested we take it for a drive, and I agreed. We are very low on fuel, and Mauricio directed me to a gas station. I sat in the car while he pumped. I noticed an indicator on the dash signaling, it was time to change the oil. I asked Maricio about that, and he said the mechanic must have forgotten to reset the light after they changed you ill, and I acted as if I accepted that.

And it could very well be treated. I'm sorry to tell you that this happens too often. It's just carelessness. And when you have that happen, it happens at my dealership, it happens at other dealerships, a technician. Never the computer scientist, but just regular technicians can make that mistake. They have to reset the button on that. And sometimes they just don't do it.

Back on the road, I asked Marizio if the car had ever been in an accident. He said he would check, auto check, and pulled out the phone. He tapped on the screen a few seconds, and the report of the car had been in a minor accident. We returned to the lot and parked. There was a loud clicking sound now coming from below or behind the dashboard. That's embarrassing, you know, when that happens. I asked Maricio what it was, and he replied confidently that it may be. and I'll listen carefully, Rick.

It may be the air conditioner blender vent. I hate it when my air conditioner blender vent clicks. You can make smoothies with it. Yeah. Yeah. I tried not to laugh. But he thought, thinking fast, right? He actually was pretty much on the...

Oh, he was. But it's actually going to be a solenoid. It's a little electric motor that moves those blend doors to change the temperature. And where the air flow goes. Right, let's be fair to Mauricio. Agent X wrote Blender. He could have been Blender. It could have been a blend door vent.

The little solar window, what happens is when they start having a problem, they'll try to move in. It's like it makes a clicking hole. Well, we owe. There we go. Sorry for laughing. Maricio, an apology. So that one, yeah. I was just because Stu and I were dumb enough.

But Blender sure is funny. It's funny. It did sound funny, but not funny. It's true. I popped the hood, tried to check the oil, but the dipstick wouldn't budge. Now, that one's really not funny. I pointed out to Mauricio, he said it's because it was too hot. Yeah, that's, uh, is that for real?

When the dipstick welds itself to the crankshaft. It's really hot. That's when you ever put. It got hot. I hate when that happens. I mean, it doesn't expand and get stuck if it's, uh. Well, the only thing that I've seen is there is usually a rubber O ring. And if it has not been checked in a long time, that O-ring dries out.

and it sticks. So you've got to really break it loose and then lubricate it with some oil. If it hasn't been removed so long that the old ring dried out, that means it's probably never been checked. Not in a long time. We closed up the car, went inside

to talk numbers. I told Maricio that I was going through my credit union and I would need a detailed buyer's order to take with me. He asked, this would be a problem. I asked if this would be a problem and he said it wouldn't. But he immediately went to the sales manager, John, John came over, made some small talk and asked a few questions.

He didn't attempt to get me to finance with them, but he did ask about the written terms that I was getting from the credit union. That's fair. I told him I had some concerns with a car. I mentioned the clicking noise and the dipstick. I said that these were red flags. I wanted to feel secure in my new car. I brought up safety.

I asked him, how was I to know if it was a thing? safe car. John told me that they would be selling, they wouldn't be selling it if it wasn't safe. So we had all the questions and we did not have honest answers. John asked me if I knew the price of the car. I replied that I saw it online for $14,862. He then said he needed to speak with Fred in the shop about the clicking noise. He said that he may have to raise the price to account for additional work the car might need. I mean, I guess that's an honest, well, I mean. I'm ambivalent about that.

I'm ambivalent. I mean, you could make an argument that they didn't fix it. They should have fixed it. And he came all the way to look at the car. They should fix it free. But by the same token, I don't know. I'm not going to get into that. I asked him to ask Fred if he thought the car was safe.

And John reassured me once again. that the car was safe. Now remember, this has got two dangerous recalls. And we've asked the question twice, the same question number three, twice, we've been reassured. He excused himself

to go call Fred. I watched John in his office for over ten minutes. Marysville was out of the side. John got out of the phone and began working on his computer. I walked over asking him what the deal was. He said he was waiting for Fred to call him back, and he couldn't

put any numbers together until he knew the clicking was something expensive to the repair. I said I didn't have time for this and asked if you could give me the numbers for the car as is without the repairs just so I could get an idea of my total expense. I said we could work out the details of the repairs if necessary. Later, John agreed and printed a buyer's order out for me. He said it was his best deal. Okay, he charged me 14,862, which was the online price. Added a $387 dealer fee, which is a world's record low dealer fee.

That's the lowest dealer fee that we've seen. In Florida, yeah. In Florida. I had a sales tax at $225 fee for tag title and registration. That was it. Out the door was $16,438. And 94 cents. commuter cars failed

the Tacata test failed very seriously again very seriously it would be awfully difficult if you looked at the auto check report the accident was reported right

next to the Takada Rico it would be virtually impossible not to have seen the Takata Recall Let's show this on that Exactly and side by side So while he was reading the accident, which was in rear center, said nothing about a minor accident, by the way.

Damage reported rear center. And then right next to that was the Takata Airbag Recall, and the Stude just showed you side by side. So we think that he saw that. And we think that that was a deliberate misrepresentation, some would call a lie. regarding the accident on the other check report I just mentioned that he called it minor they didn't say it was minor they just said it was in the center of the car it was damaged might have been minor community cars does earn points however having as I said earlier the lowest dealer fee that we've seen in many many years of shopping I

didn't know to something on their buyers order they had an electronic processing fee, but they didn't fill anything in there. So we don't know how they do that. The buyer's order was printed out with a blank for the computer to put a number there.

And remember, we're giving them credit for $387. They can program anything into the computer they want. It wasn't printed, pre-printed on the buyer's order. And they did have two dealer fees, so just as a matter of observation, there. Well, is that

two or one because the 225 for the tag title and transfer according to this doesn't it come up after the sales tax they should? Well that's because there is no sales tax on the tag title that's correct. Right so that that's

technically not a dealer fee that's the government fee. Yeah yeah so they only had one dealer fee of the three. Well they only charged for one dealer fee but they had a place for two. They have the dealer service yeah they have dealer service fee and it's just a matter of the business manager, the F and I manager, he could have put, he had put $387 under dealer services,

he could have put $1,000, but he put $387, and he could have put $200 under electronic processing fee, but he didn't put it in there. We're just saying the potential was there for a higher dealer fee. So there we have it. There's our mystery shopping report. We love to hear the votes from our listeners. Do you have a lot of response?

We have votes coming in. I've never seen something so unanimous. So Linda, on Facebook, gives them an F. Steve on Facebook, gives them an F with a capital F. Ed gives them an F, Jen gives them an F, Crystal gives them an F, and Doug, and Ollie give him an F. Ollie's vote counts. Ollie is a tough, he's a tough judgeer.

This is easy to calculate. the GP on this shop. This is a zero. Big failure. Big failure on community cars. Well, uh... Nope, Jeff, Jeff votes an F. Yeah, everything. So, yeah, that's amazingly overwhelming.

Well, let's poll our panel here and see how they feel. Stu, you want to go first? I'm going with our listeners and commenters. We have another one popped in. F. And Ollie says meow, I think that translates to

F. Yeah. That's it. Nancy, what do you think? Well, I'm looking at this, and I see zero disclosures, zero. And just to remind everyone, we're dealing with human beings. These human beings get behind the wheel of a car. And when you're asked three or four times, you know, if the car has any mechanical problems, you know, you would think at that point, it might just like wrap your head around that.

and think, gosh, do I want to put this person behind the wheel of a car? You know, am I that desperate to make, you know, some money on this deal? So I give them an F. And if anyone is interested in going over to computercars.net and voicing their opinion about how, well, computer cars at Jensen Beach does business, go ahead over there and voice your opinion. and your vote on this vehicle. Rick?

I'm going to go to the herd animal and say F. I'm following right with the group. Yeah, well, it's pretty obvious we're going to fail commuter cars. And we still are grading on the curve because of all the other dealers out there that we checked at the Takadira bag and other recalls on, there was some semblance of a mention. Usually we had to squeeze it out of them.

Could we give them an F plus for having a low dealer fee? No, I don't want to do that. It's still a fill. But, okay, we'll give me an applause. You know, that really caught my eye, that dealer fee that was extremely low. I can't remember the last time I saw, a $380.80 do. Like mid-80s. But in this case here, the reason that we gave them such a bad score was because we practically showed the report of auto check with a recall, practically almost, didn't quite do that, and say,

and held it up while they looked at it and said, is this car safe to drive? And they said, yes, it is. And we've checked it. We know they looked at it because they looked at it to see the fact that there was an accident, and the accident was right next to the recall. Sometimes they're separated

by a couple of pages. In this case, it was right there. So you can't give them the benefit of any doubt whatsoever. Premeditatively, they try to sell the car. And remember, when a car has a recall, it costs the car dealership nothing to take it. to the Chrysler dealer.

And parts are available for this recall. And parts are available. So it was just a matter of expediting and selling the car quicker. I mean, I wonder if we'd have given them the check and gotten in the car to head out. They said, oh, by the way, maybe you ought to go have the recall effect. Probably wouldn't have even done that. Oh, no. So that's the reason we gave them an NF.

And it's just a shame. The commuter cars with the full cycle. Two years ago, they were doing this. and after all the publicity is still doing the same thing and who is the real villain here it's the regulators it's the legislators why can it be

what they did we gave them an F and we're putting them on our do not buy list but what they did was perfectly legal it's perfectly legal to sell a car with a dangerous recall not tell the customer And even when the customer asks you, there's nothing

illegal about that. And I said that so often, I'm getting tired to hearing myself say it. So, we've got political season here. We've got midterms coming up. I challenge the politicians. Anybody.

Anybody. Show you care. Show you care. Who are the candidates for governor? Andrew Gillum is the Democrat and Ron DeSantis is the Republican. Okay.

Half of you are voting for Gillum, half of you are voting for Descenti, people listening to this radio

show. 20,000 people listen to this radio show. Most of you are voting, as I said before,

half for Gillum, half for Descenti. Can you tell me why neither Desani nor Gillum have mentioned

dangerous recalls? I mean, much less mention the fact if elected governor, the first thing I'll do

will be the sign an executive order making it illegal in Florida to sell a used car with a dangerous recall. Did you just announce your candidacy? Hey. 2020? This is a political...

If I were to run, I wouldn't have a snowball chance in hell of being elected because I would tell the truth. You're too honest. You'd never get elected. Well, I'm not going to... I'll pat myself on the back. I'm too honest to be elected to public office. And that's a lot of people. reason, that's our system. But can I shame somebody in there? Some of you folks out there

are probably in tight with Desanti and with Gillum. You have an inside, call somebody, call somebody and ask them why they won't just mention it. That might be a fast track. That might be the few votes toward the end you might get. It's too late for the lobbyists to take away your money. You've already got your money. Campaign is almost over. Just say, hey, if elected governor, be the first. You're getting some support on Facebook for your candidacy.

Good. If elected governor will Desanti sign an executive order making an illegal to sell cars with dangerous recall. If elected governor will Gillum sign an executive order, making it illegal to sell cars with dangerous recalls.

Nobody, you know, the silence is deafening. We haven't heard anything from it. Okay. Do we have not time to address the issue about the Monroly label on the... I think we can do it quickly. Jennifer, you asked about the Monroney label, and I'll directly answer your question. And the Maroni label is a window sticker.

And that window sticker is mandated by the federal law, and it's affixed to every single new vehicle in the United States. And it stays there up until the time. time that you overtake the ownership of that vehicle. I will and

this all began with Mike Munrooney and this went back to 1956 58 and actually that there is a law and I doubt very much if it's in force I've not heard

of it but there is a thousand dollar fine for tampering with that Monroney label. So I hope I answered the question. Let me tell you why it's important. Why the Monroe label is a good thing. You should never buy a new car without seeing the real Monorone label.

There are phony mononies. They are dealer addendums. Don't be confused. Look for the real official monoroni label. It gives you a basis of comparing apples and apples when you get competitive pricing. If you get discounts from a monorone label and you compare it with discounts from

three different dealers on that same Monroney label, you can get a fair idea of who is selling the car for less. The Monroney is important. And also, at this point in time, we all know that the car dealers have found a way to evade this law. And it is a very good law, and they have found a way to tamper with it. So, as I always say, knowledge is power. Buyer beware. We have probably two minutes left, and I want to – Earl, do you have anything to add? Yeah, I just read a – there's a really interesting article in the New York Times this morning.

It's in the business section, and if you go online and you have a copy of the paper, it's about car insurance rates that go up based on the wrong side of the street, on zip code. Hardly, you should always – the bottom line without reading into the article is always check your insurance. insurance rates with different auto insurers. Certain insurers will charge the same risk-based customer on one side of the street $5 or $600 more annual premium than the person on the other side of the street. Yes. Depending on which side of the street you're on, you should also check at least three or four insurers

and compare rates. All states seem to be one of the best ones in terms of being fairer, in terms of this sort of zip code discrimination. So check your insurance premium with three bidders. That particular topic got a lot of air time and being on the

sunny side of the street isn't always the best side of the street. So compare your numbers, compare, compare, compare, three comparisons whenever you're picking your car insurance. Ladies and gentlemen, we want to thank you so much for tuning

into Earl Stewart on right here on Saturday mornings from 8 until 10. You're an important part of the show. We wish you a very nice weekend, and we will be back next week with a lot of information and a lot of entertainment. Go! Beckle! Go! Let go!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.