Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.21.2023 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Conley Buick GMC of Bradenton, FL.

Episode Date: October 21, 2023

This is a replay of one of our past Earl Stewart on Cars live shows. If you have a question for our auto expert team, you can text it to [phone], or online at youranonymousfeedback.com, and we’ll answer it during our next live program. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. We're right here in the studio in North Palm Beach, Florida. We're reaching a lot of people all over the country, actually, and even the world. we're on streaming on video we've got podcast I mean there's a million ways

you can listen to what we have to say and I think I don't want to say how important the show is because that'd be bragging but I think it's probably more important than it's ever been you can use your own judgment as how important it was before

but here we are here we are an unprecedented that time in our history, literally, that's not an exaggeration, combination of events that I've been around a long time, and I haven't seen anything this intense as an affected business, especially the automobile business. So if you're in the market for an automobile today, you really had a challenge, especially if you're from South Florida or Southwest Florida with the hurricane issue, the flooding, we've got to COVID, we've got the economic crisis, the supply chain crisis, the war in Ukraine. I mean, it is really crazy. I hate to turn the

television on sometimes and listen to the news because it seems like there's always something new that's affecting us. We're heading. Some people say we are in a recession. Some people say we're heading toward a recession and here we are car dealers and manufacturers you think you know if you just get clients of the headlines you say oh that's too bad they don't have enough cars to sell or that's too bad the manufacturers aren't able to build a lot of cars because they don't have the microchips well the fact of the matter is the auto retail industry and the auto wholesale interest in general is doing extremely well I'm an automobile dealer. I mean, if you're new to the show, you might not know this. We're a consumer advocacy

show, but I'm also a car dealer. And I have a car dealership in North Palm Beach Florida. I've been a car dealer since 1968. So I have the inside and outside. I can look outside as a consumer, and I've been doing that for about 20 years. But before that, you know, I was selling cars. I was wheeling and dealing. And I wrote a book. book, Confessions of a Recovering Cardiator because I did business the way I'm condemning today. You go back 30 years, 40 years, I just, I was like all the other card dealers. And fool them, trick them, advertise, get them in the door, bait and switch. And this is the way it is done today.

This is the way it's done today. And it's even easier because of the supply and demand situation. Now, you add the flood in South Florida, I say the hurricane. For those of you who are not in hurricane affected areas, it's not the wind. Do you think of hurricanes as being a lot of wind? Well, they are. But there are also a lot of water, especially if you're in South Florida and the ocean is involved. Now you've got salt water.

So we have thousands and thousands of flood cars that were totaled by the insurance companies, of them and they're going back on the market and there's a whole industry out there that reprocesses cars that should be totaled and they're selling them so these are all the these are all the things the mine field i refer to what on the show is these are all the things that we have to fight and be uh and be on guard with uh this show relies on you and we talk before the show we sit around the studio and talk. Nancy and I, when we drive in to work, work, when we drive

into the, this is, it's our work, we love it, but it's still work. And two hours, I feel tired after this show, two hours. If you're just tuning in, we're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. And I do a lot of yakkin,

and we all do, and ever try to sit in a small room for two hours and just keep on answering questions? It's like being interrogated by the police, I think sometimes. But your questions, we don't look at you that way, we

love you. We want you to call the show because without calls we're just wasted everybody's time. We'll talk about what we want to talk about. It's usually not what you want to talk about, at least not as often as if you ask the questions. And the call number is

877-9-60-99-60. Again, the call number is 877-960-9960 you might want to write that number down if you can if you're not driving and because you'll think of something if you haven't already thought of something a reason to call and we prioritize the phone call because there are a lot of other ways and I'm going to get to that in a minute that you can reach the show but the phone line is kind of cool because we hear you We hear your voice. We hear your emotion.

You know, there's a lot of an unhuman voice. And it's really good radio. We like it because it's good radio. And we have a lot of regular callers. We have a lot of new callers. And we love to have you called 877-9-60-99-60. Nancy Stewart sitting to my left here in the studio in North Palm Beach. She has a laptop right in front of her.

And when the call comes through the studio, You know, he sees the number, she sees your name, and she says, stop what you're doing. If we're talking, if we're doing something else, we go to the phones and we take your calls. That's also because we only have four or five phone lines, and we don't want you to have to hold. I get complaints every down on them. I called. I got a busy signal or I called, and I had to wait too long. We don't want that to happen, so we will jump on your phone call.

877 960 9960 Now, the majority of you like to text and you text one way is just a plain old-fashioned text line and that's area code

772 4976530 That's 772 4976530 And we will archive those now My son, Stu, is on the way to the studio he's running a little late this morning but he's the one that

keeps track of the text and if we are on the phone or we're doing something else we get to it we have two hours I say 8 to 10 Eastern time we try to get to all the text before the end of the show now my favorite line of communication

I'm not sure why I guess because it's unique nobody very few people I know use it a lot of blue chip companies out there like Adobe and I think Google, and there's a lot of really cool companies out there that use this for customer feedback and employee feedback. It's an anonymous link.

It's an anonymous URL. And if you use this, it's www. youranonymousfeedback.com. That's your anonymousfeedback.com. If you use that, we don't know who you are. And I think people speak more freely when they have that. privacy and it's not be it's not a secret thing so much most of the people just in fact we have people that do use the anonymous feedback and then they tell us who they are i don't know why but

they do that anyway but there's a particularly interesting anonymous feedback that i got this morning and it was a regular listener i hope you're listening now one of our radio show listeners the regular and he mystery shopped my dealership and rick you'll have it and you'll have it and you're email if you look because I sent that anonymous feedback out to all of my employees in my dealership so this this radio listener he said I listen to your mystery shopping report all the time and I decide to mr. shop the dealership and he did and frankly it's a little embarrassing and I I'm gonna read it on the air and I sent it to all my employees

For two reasons, first of all, I want to prove that we're totally honest and transparent. And if I read a report, and when I read it, you're going to say, I can't believe that Earl Stewart Toyota, that's the name of our dealership, treated this customer this way. So, hey, it's out there for anyone. And I encourage all you listeners out there to, take advantage of that anonymous feedback and tell us things that we may not want to hear. One of the reasons I have that is for my customers to tell me and for my employees to tell me the truth.

I don't know. If you've got business people listen to this, and most people understand, if you're the boss, people tell you what you want to hear. I mean, it's, you know, job security. Tell the boss what a great guy is. Tell the boss how much you love the company. tell the boss, you know, how much you love his dog, anything. You want to get in close with the boss.

So that's fine. It makes the boss feel good. But the bad news is a boss doesn't know what's really going on. So that's what we have anonymous feedback, youranonymousfeedback.com, and we will read that mystery shop of my dealership on the air. We'll have two mystery shops today. We have a real mystery shop. if you haven't listened to the show before

we mystery shop a different car dealer somewhere in Florida or some other state, usually Florida, every week. But now we're doing my dealership too, so it'll be kind of fun. And thank you Mr. Radio listener. If you want to send me another anonymous feedback, I'd love to have you send me if you

got the name of the salespeople and the managers you talk to. And you're probably not going to do that because you say, I don't want to get them in trouble. well we won't get them in trouble we just like to find out specifically who's responsible for problems and we coach these people I'm serious we don't fire people Rick'll tell you that he's working for a big long time I haven't fired him yet right I'm he's still here not yet 20 some odd years I've done some pretty good goofups anyway it's going to be an exciting show and we will also what was the other thing oh One of the thing I always forget to mention because it's kind of unique, but it's, we recruit people from around the country to be our deputies out of the field. We call them vigilantes, but they're really deputies of Erlord cars.

They're people that are familiar with how to buy a car without being ripped off. They listen to the show. They're educated. They're consumer advocates. They understand how people should be treated. and we have a company, we have a club, call it, Vigilantes, Earls Vigilantes. If you go to Earlsvigilantes.com, I know I'm giving you a lot of written stuff now, numbers and websites and things like that, Earlsvigilandies.com, you can sign up.

And we'll screen the form to be sure you have the qualifications, but everyone that's applied really did. And then we will ask you to help people in your geographic area if they have a problem with a car dealer and what needs some advice on how to buy leaves or maintain your your car so I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart she's sitting in my left now and she is a female advocate she's a co-founder of the show she's with me through thick and thin and she is uh she gives the ladies the viewpoint that they have on life and buying and car dealers and they're treated differently, let's face it. I know they've come a long way. I know that

back in the 20s, we didn't allow you to vote, you ladies out there, and now we gave you the right to vote. Isn't that crazy? When I say that, I kind of show. We had citizens of the United States back in the 20s that we wouldn't allow to vote because of their sex. Hard to believe. Well, it's gotten better, but I hadn't gotten good enough, and Nancy is here to talk to you ladies, encourage you to call the show, and she has a very special offer for you if you are a first-time caller. Nancy, the mic is all yours. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Yes, indeed. We are in the driver's seat. It feels real good. I'm going to give a shout out to Agent Sprinkle, who did the mystery shop at Earl

Stewart, Toyota. We have a new Agent, Agent Sprinkle. So you definitely want to hear that mystery shopping report later on in the show. And did you know that ladies, they buy 54% of the cars in the United States? 54%. 54%. I didn't know that. And also, they influence, influence 84% of the final decision. So with that, ladies, I'm offering you $50 this morning, $50 for the first.

to new callers. So pick up that phone, give us a call, give us a shout, say hello, or maybe share an experience that you may have encountered in leasing, in buying a new car, a used car, whatever the case, we would love to hear from you. And don't forget, as I'll mentioned this morning, you can send your YouTube to Rick. a stew is managing the text i'm taking care of excuse me the phones so we're all right here and gosh i do have to tell you you are an important part of the show we love your company

and all of the knowledge you share with us yes we don't know everything so we love it when you call in and update us on the latest take advantage at eight seven 7-7-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. Again, don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And also I have to point out Earl's column, you want to go to Earl-on-Cars and take a look at that latest column that certainly meets with the times that we're going through, especially over there in southwest Florida. How to avoid buying a flood car after the hurricane. Hurricane Ian. What a disaster.

So stay tuned, sit back, and enjoy. Back to the recovering car dealer. You know, without a blog, this week's blog, it just occurred to me. What a sad situation. We have thousands of flood cars coming on the market. And then we have the people whose cars were flooded, who are now on the market to buy a car. car. I'm not trying to be funny here. This is tragic. I mean, it's entirely possible, all too

possible, that someone that was victimized by the flood lost their car and had to buy another car. Conceivable, they go out and buy a flood car. And the worst thing about a flood car is you can buy one and it can look squeaky clean, it can run good. In fact, Rick Kearney, who I'm going to introduce to just a second, Rick Kearney is our certified nasty. Master Diagnostic Technician, he pointed out to us last week that a flood car sometimes can be spotted quickest by the fact that it's too clean that it has been because the experts that will buy these total cars clean them up are so good that they clean them up so well that you can't see anything unless maybe you're a real expert wrong with the car. In fact, it looks really good. So, ironically, counterintuitively, when you're buying a car, if it looks too good, be careful. And it would be terrible for a person that just lost his car, had to go out, pay an arm a leg, too much for another flood car. So it's a very sad situation.

Speaking to Rick, as I say, he is an expert, been with me for over 20 years. He is the best of the best when it comes to maintaining and repairing cars. He can diagnose the car. He's got the badges of the certifications in every piece of a car. I call him a computer technician because cars today are really rolling computers and are becoming more so every day. And Rick said earlier in the show before we had one on the air, people get to have to have their cars repair and maintain a lot more than they buy one.

So we give a lot of advice about buying and leasing. Rick's advice is probably in greater demand far more often. And if you have a question about a symptom you may have with your car now, a squeak, noise, the smell, anything that worries you about your car, instead of taking it into the dealer and say, here's a blank check, fix my car, let me tell you something, if you do that, you're in trouble. if it's still drivable and it's not obviously unsafe call us

and ask for Rick and you can YouTube by the way YouTube.com ford slash Earl and Cars YouTube.com ford slash Earl and Cars go straight through to Rick and he'll see your post and he'll read the post

and he'll answer your questions or he could just call at 877-960 9960 that's 877 960 9960 and nancy will prioritize phone calls and get right to it absolutely and we do have a call oh let's take that call we have uh william from west palm beach good morning William good morning Earl how are you Earl I got a complaint against you okay oh no I keep buying your

cars every year I bought one yesterday what's up with that I think um you have a serious problem Bill, and I think that you need help. This is Bill Wilson. This is Bill, our buddy, Will, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Thanks for calling in. Earl, I've got five cameras. I'm trying to buy cameras, Earl.

I'm trying to buy cameras, Earl. Stop making good cars, okay? He can't stop buying cameras. A great car. Bill, we love you. Thanks for calling in. Listen, Earl, I've got one yesterday now. Okay. How many? It's enough. Come on, man.

You can stop now. Okay, Bill. Bye-bye. Thanks, Bill. We'll talk to you later. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-3-0. 497-6530.

I got asked through there. I mean, you recognize. Is that a... Oh, that's a customer of ours. That's Bill Wilson, and he's been buying Camry's for us. Oh, he texts me. He says, I can't... I texted the other day.

He says, I have a problem. I just bought another camera. I can't, I can't help myself. He says, I'm addicted to cameras. And I said, you need to help, Bill stop. And you bought one anyway. Okay, folks, your anonymous feedback, don't forget that. Your anonymous feedback.com.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, Stu ran a little late, so I had a chance to ask Stu if he has any text buildup or anonymous feedbacks. Oh, yeah. I was looking forward to getting. to Anne Marie's, they're always good. Oh, yeah. Good morning, Anne-Marie. I hope you're listening.

Anne-Marie says, good morning. What would you advise if I was faced with the following scenario? Granny needs a new car to replace her old Saturn. One, she's not as tall as the average driver. She needs a comfortable and adjustable seat so she can see over the hood and still reach the pedals. Two, she's not as flexible or nimble when sliding into the driver's seat so she prefers leather or leather-like material to fabric seats. Three, she prefers

knobs and buttons to control the radio and air conditioner heater over a touch screen. Do they even make vehicles with knobs and buttons nowadays? Four, she also wants blind spot monitoring with a rearview camera. Based on your experience as a car dealer, which

vehicles and features would you recommend for her? Toyota Venza. Yeah. Like the previous model. Exactly. The Venza. it's the doors are large enough that you can easily get in and out yeah it's easier to swing your legs in and out of them it's not high like in this you know just a little bit so it's you're not dropping down into the car so an older person can get in and out easier it's not a massively

huge car it has good vision all the way around with blind spot monitor and that size of car with the height advantage of it plus the seat are adjustable up and down, Ed. That would be the size car I'd recommend. I drove that and it will, it would be more conducive to her heights because I too and not forget, Ann Marie, that we recommend you don't buy a car today. That's true. The other one I look at is a Subaru Forrester.

Yeah, in the same, that same kind of class. They're about the same level and they have all the features, but they have that same size and the advantage of not dropping down or climbing up into the car. It's a nice. size. Yeah. It's good size. See?

You called and then you got an answer right away. I didn't know if we were going to come up with something. I was scratching my head. I didn't know the answer. But wait, we sound so excited about it. I had to remind people that if you buy a venture today, you're going to pay through the nose. And I do want to remind Amory and anyone listening. Rick is referring to it.

There's an old vent that was discontinued a few years ago. There's a new one that's a very expensive hybrid. It takes forever to get and it's a lot of money. But the old vensers are also very expensive because all used cars are. It goes all used cars. Exactly. But relatively, they might be okay. As a matter of fact, I've got a question right here on YouTube.

Guy Larrabee is asking, he says, good morning to all. Happy to see that COVID seems to be behind us. I'm a snowbird in the greater Montreal area. Again, international. We're talking to Canada. And used car prices here are dropping like a stone. Is it the same in Florida? Well, they're not dropping like a stone here.

Nationally, they're off. prices are down 6% from what they were a year ago. A year ago, they were in the, you know, the stratosphere. So they're down a little bit. So they use car prices nationally. In this market, we're tracking in the Palm Beach County, South Florida area. They're down, but just nominally compared to what they would have been, you know, at a normal time pre-COVID.

But, yeah, the new car prices are kind of, stabilizing and the used car prices are kind of coming down a little bit. But, you know, they're so high that I think they still have a long way to go. And, you know, one thing, I hate to say this, this is a sad note of why they're coming down. We are really getting into inflation and recession time, and interest rates are really going up. And so I think you're going to see a, I think you're going to see a, the pressures put on the retailers now. it's not going to be quite as easy to sell cars because people aren't going to have quite as much disposable income because of inflation. And that's just the rates or so why the monthly payments are going to go up.

So the retailers of cars used and new are going to have to start discounting a little bit, we hope. And that would be better. But I always say wait a few months. I've been saying that for three years. I've been wrong. But I think we're at the end of the tunnel now pretty close. And it's interesting that in Canada, apparently the used car prices are dropping, maybe a little quicker than ours. Is that right?

I haven't tracked that, but it could be a possibility. I have not been paying attention to the Canadian market. This caller, yeah. Thank you, Guy, for that information about it. It's something to consider. We can always be updated here. You're listening to Errol on cars. Give us a call.

877-960. And you can also text us at 772-497-6530. and jot down your anonymous feedback, we'd love to hear from you. We're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to John, who's calling us from Stewart. Good morning, John. Good morning. Thank you for waiting. Sure, not a problem.

I have a question for Earl. My wife and I would want to buy a car, and she wants a Highlander hybrid, but, I mean, you can't get one of those at all. and I can't even drive one, and I've never driven a highlander before. And I just want to ask him this, we drive about, I got two cars, we drive about 5,000 miles a year. And we only take, the longest trip we take, we go up for the race that's in Daytona, and so we went, and we go to Orlando once for a time share, and besides that, it's just within probably 30 miles or something like that, we drive. Would it be worth it to buy a highland or a hybrid dinner now, you think?

Well, you know, my answer, Stu's right in the middle of this, but my answer is, you're right, the Highlander is a very low supply high-demand car. By the way, I just read that the six-cylinder is being discontinued in 2023 for the three-seat Highlander, and they're going to a four-cylinder for, you know, obviously, fuel economy and measures. So if you buy a Highlander, you're going to be getting a 2,023, and it's going to take you a long time. You know, when people tell me, you're a low-mile-less driver, I'm a low-mile-driver, driving 5,000 miles a year is just something that I, you know, from a pure economy standpoint to spend that kind of money when you're only driving 5,000 miles a year, I question that. but you buy what you want to buy. And if you want to buy one, you'll have to wait, that's all.

And it's a great vehicle. I mean, the Highlander is one of the best vehicles on the market, one of the best vehicles that Toyota sells. But as I say, the weight is long. You know, I've seen dealers out there now advertising. We have 20 of this model in stock. We have eight of these. We have 100 vehicles in stock.

you can be sure that when you see a dealer advertising that he has new vehicles in inventory, number one, either he's lying, which a lot of them do, or he's charging a huge price. The only reason that anyone has a car in inventory today is because they're charging a very high price. They're holding out for the big hit. Yeah, they're holding out for as much as they can get. If they're charging a reasonable price, they've sold all their cars. I'm not petting myself on the back or our dealership, but because we sell all of our cars at MSRP. If I told you that three years ago, you'd say you're price gouging, charging me sticker for a price.

Today, MSRP is the lowest price out there. And because we charge MSRP, we have no cars in inventory, certainly no Highlanders, and we have over almost 2,000 cars between 1,500 and 2,000. thousand cars on back order so that's the reality of it and John I don't know if I helped Jenny because if you want to buy it then you're gonna wait a while pony up yeah and by the way if you want to order one from us at least a year it'll take you a year but when the car comes in hopefully it'll be below MSRP yeah we're going to price whatever the current pricing is at the time the cars come in so yeah it could be lower

okay so what i did i did that about three months ago i put down five hundred dollars i ordered one a highlander for you guys and the guy said it wouldn't be in until maybe this was like three months ago so he said maybe uh may or march or may or something like that but it's probably going to be longer than that so but i'm just debating now about well i don't drive that much so i don't see why I would probably, you know, I didn't need one. And then these other guys call me when you see a website. They get to all these cars, like you said. And so, I mean, you just kind of check it out.

Well, I wonder what one's cost. And then they start calling you like crazy. And the guy called me last night from one up in Daryl Beach. And he said, we have a market adjustment. Some people call them and it's in them. They have a market adjustment. But it's not like $10,000. It's only like $6,000.

Oh, that's good. I guess. You know, I might have missed the earlier part, but it's like the need, because I keep forgetting some of the best advice, Earl just threw it out with our last callers. If you don't need, wait, wait until this situation comes down when you can actually drive a Highlander or hybrid, see if you like it, and prices hopefully will come down and it won't be as crazy and you won't have to wait as long. Well, you know, it's, you know, speaking not just to John, but anyone, you know, it's funny. where when you're in a situation like we are today and I'm talking to the world I mean you

you I think all of our thoughts change a little bit and I think one of the reasons why people are paying all this money for cars and you know without blinking paying you know we think $3,000 over sticker is not a bad deal now and and and you know people don't want to put their life on hold and so people love cars thank God they love new cars because we're I'm a new car dealer and you want to deprive yourself to be frugal to be i mean sometimes budget budgeting isn't a pleasant thing and if you have if you can afford it if you're comfortable and you can afford to buy a car and you want to pay more money than you should uh if if you if you wait three years to fulfill a need of something will bring you a lot of pleasure is that the right thing to do

if that's kind of a philosophical question so uh john i i leave it up to you uh you know, it's the guy that goes out and pays several thousand over sticker, and he has that new car that he won really bad, and he drives it, and he loves it, his family loves it, he paid too much money for it, but he could afford it. Is he a sucker? I don't think so. I think it's just a matter of your philosophy of life, and some people just feel like they don't want to be taking advantage of. And if they did pay that $3,000, they wouldn't feel good because they knew they paid too much. So it gets complicated. I'm starting to, I'm starting to babble, someone slatting the case. You know, it's personal. You like when you babble.

You have a stream of consciousness. Yeah. Thank you, God. Love your show, okay? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, John. Just as a sidebar, we did a speaking engagement the other evening, and it was in Boyton at the computer club.

It was the Cascade Lakes, yeah, a great group of people. Yeah, we really had a great group of people. They had a great time, and, you know, that was the first thing that we told the audience, you know, don't buy a car unless you really have to right now, and we couldn't stress it enough. But as they're all explained, you know, it could be very personal. And if you want to buy a car, you know, and if it's your needs financially and so many other reasons, go for it. Don't wait. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497.

6530. And ladies, when we, you know, opened the show, I let everyone know that the first two female callers, you can win yourself, $50. First two new female callers. So give us a call. Don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to which one of you guys are going to take? I'll take it. We have a Bob who text us, and he's probably a question for Rick, and says, his wife and I drive, his wife and I drive her Sienna, the powers driver's seat is used a lot. What is a life expectancy on it, and what's the approximate cost to have the motors replaced? That sounds like a question for Rick. Yep. We don't do very many seat motors. They just don't seem to go bad, but most people, once they get their seats set, it doesn't get adjusted.

a lot. I'm going to go on a limb, say, the seat motors themselves of parts. Not cheap, I bet. I'm going to say probably 350 to 400 per motor, depending on which motors need to be replaced, and probably around 250 to 300 labor to replace, you know, whichever repair. So, Bob, if you want to just follow up, is there any indication that it's not working or something, if it's making noises or slowing down or something? But like Rick says, the good news is he doesn't see a lot of them coming into the shop. It's very rare that we have seat issues anymore. Yeah, maybe if you had kids that played with them or...

Yeah, but even then. Could it be a non-motor problem, like something jammed in there that might... It's possible if they have a problem. I mean, there's lots of things can happen. Yeah, you take a look at it first. Stuff gets under the seat sometimes, and you move the seat to get jammed up. It may, you know, seize stuff up. But for the mail, the motor's actually just wearing out and going bad, extremely rare.

They last really well. Is it difficult to get those parts? Would you? Hard to say because some parts are on like months back order. Other parts, we're actually kind of spoiled by Toyota. I got to give them credit on this. We can order a part before 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and the very next morning it's in our parts department.

If they have a part. Yeah, if it's available in Jacksonville. And that's actually the greater majority of parts that we need, we're seeing a lot less stuff going on back order now. Things are starting to come around. We just got to notice in the mail the other day that they're only going to furnish one keyless remote with every car because they don't have enough keyless remotes.

That's the first we've heard with Toyota, like shorten us on stuff. But they actually were doing that with Tacomas for a little while. They were giving only one key. And then once the customer, a couple weeks later, they could come into the dealership, we'd say provide them the second key of program it, and Toyota was covering the cost on that. Interesting. All right.

We have a text from Bob from Naples with a hurricane car update. Good morning, all, Bob from Naples with a hurricane update. A few days ago, 67 luxury cars were towed from the formerly underwater parking garage of a building next to mine. 67 luxury cars. He says, I bet all these hit the auction market pretty soon. And you're right. My second car, a 2010 corolla, remember he got the insurance payout last week and got a lot more than he paid for it several years ago. His second car, which was a 2010 corolla with 25,000 miles, was settled with the insurance company for $13,000.

Not bad concerning. He paid $18,000 12 years ago. Good Lord. Wow. He paid about $50 a month for their car. And now the best part. Stephen figured a way to get my two 222 corollas transported from your place to my home in Naples, so they'll be there when I return south soon.

All done at a reasonable fee. Everyone stay well and keep up the good work. I will personally pick up my 2023 corolla, as Stephen says, in three to six months, regards Bob from Naples. Thanks for the update Bob, and keep updating us, too, with the information from the West Coast, because it's important to everybody. And check that blog at Earl and Cars. Go, you're reading my mind.

You know, how to avoid being taken advantage of by buying a flood car. And it's pretty tricky. And it's actually, you know, there's only one sure way to do it, and that's have somebody that really knows what they're doing and inspect their car. Because the car has a title doesn't mean anything because there are a number of states out there. Every state has different title laws, and people know how to wash a title, they call it. and they buy a car that's totaled by the insurance company that has no title. They run it through a state with shabby title laws like Mississippi or New Jersey.

They get a title, and they get the car cleaned up real well, and they put it on a used car a lot, and people buy it, and they pay a lot of money for it. We have an anonymous feedback, but it's not anonymous. It's from Don and LaBelle. We haven't heard from Don in a while. No. But this is relevant. Earl, I live in LaBelle near State Road 80.

and see hundreds of flatbed trailers with a car on it and one towed behind it. It's a double trailer thing. Hundreds of these heading from Fort Myers to West Palm. I wonder if you could take us through the process of who's buying them and moving them to the East Coast and what happens to them and what the consumers should be aware of and selling their flood car. Don from LaBelle. It's a big industry.

There's not two or three people. It's a big industry. Lots of independent wholesalers. I mean, there's no army of these guys. Well, yeah, you know, someone said to me the other day that's mainly the independent used car lots that are selling these cars. I don't believe that. I mean, it's a perfect storm of deception. Think about this.

If you're a new car dealer, you can't get new cars. Even if you're a used car dealer, they're in short supply. Car dealers that buy used cars, they hate to pay a lot of money for a used car. when you buy them at the auction they cost a lot of money so it's a perfect storm so you take one of these cars you're talking about they're on a truck coming into you know from Naples

they can they can sell them below the market because they're flood cars and they paid nothing for them Rick well there's also bear in mind a legit reason for a lot of those cars coming over they're probably heading for places like Copart where they will will be sold as totaled out cars and actually the parts that are still good on them will be recycled and used for repairs on other cars.

Because a lot of those items, a lot of those cars, things like body panels and parts that aren't damaged easily by water can be cleaned up and reused. But it occurs to me. Actually used properly. It occurs to me that if I'm bidding for a car that's been in a flood and I'm going to take that car and sell it for parts, that price will be one thing. If I'm bidding for that car and I know I'm going to sell it to a car dealer at wholesale, I'm going to make a lot more money.

So I think the people that are buying the cars, the legitimate ones, you're absolutely right. If I'm in the business and all I do is buy cars and sell them to these companies that take them apart and resell the parts, then that's one thing. But if I'm trying to cheat somebody, I'm going to pay the seller more money. And these insurance companies, they auction the cars off, basically, to the highest bidder. The highest bidders are the crooks because they can sell them for more money. That's true. Very true.

Okay. Okay. We have, this is a, oh, I missed that here. This is really interesting. This is about Ashley Moody, anonymous feedback. Says, in Saturday's show, you referenced Ashley Moody's opponent, Aramis Ayala, and recommended her over Moody. Although Ms. Moody may not be doing enough in combating the car dealers, the Attorney General deals with a lot more issues, and I believe she is still a much better choice over Ayala. You shouldn't support or pose any candidate over a single issue.

My knowledge of Ayala indicates she would be a lot worse for Florida overall. Thanks. Well, it's entirely possible. Well, if I recommended you don't vote for Ashley Moody, it wasn't because I thought she should vote for her opponent. I don't know her opponent, and you could be right. It could be that Ashley Moody is far more qualified. Being qualified doesn't mean that, you know, she's got a law degree or a Ph.D. I don't know what her experience is. I do know what she doesn't do.

She doesn't protect the consumers in Florida from predatory car dealers. She doesn't go after the car dealers that break the rules. She doesn't enforce the laws in Florida. So, you know, I'm the wrong person to talk to about politics because I don't think that, I think the Democrats and the Republicans, and for that matter, the independents all have a lot to be desired. and all I am is a consumer advocate for car buyers and car repairs and maintainers, people that deal with repairs and...

We're kind of a single issue show. We are. So I don't know any politician that can get elected that's going to go down on the car dealers. The car dealers have a huge amount of financing. They have lots of money. Car dealers individually are rich guys. they got a lot of money then they take and they

join these organizations like the Florida Automobile Villals Association the National Automobile Dealers the Tampa, the Jacksonville the South Florida all these are associations which are really political action

committees and they have millions of dollars and they decide who gets elected that's our political system before you start attacking me and telling me If I don't like America and love America, I should leave it. I like America, I love America, and I'm not going to leave it because I agree with you. It's the greatest country in the world.

But it's still a country that gets people elected for the wrong reasons. And people that run for office tell the money supporters, the people that give them the financing to get elected. If you don't have several million dollars, you're not going to get elected to anything, any state office. or national office. So to get several million dollars unless you're a billionaire, and there are few of not there that have run

and we're self-financed. That's a different story. But most people have to rely on contributions. And that's the reason Ashley Moody is in the pockets for the car dealers. And do you want to vote for her or Yala? I don't care.

Maybe a Yala, maybe she, if she got lucky got elected without a lot of donations from car dealers. Maybe she would be better. I don't know. I'm not recommending either candidate. You know, I would have felt a whole lot better about the Attorney General if she would have made herself available whenever Jeff Weiser, you know, did that report. And it wouldn't have taken up much of her time. Yeah, Jeff Weinser was the investigative reporter for WPLG Channel 10 in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. And, uh, it wouldn't have taken up much of her time. He's exposed a huge amount of deception, mainly with car dealers that are forcing lease customers to pay thousands of dollars over the purchase option price for their lease, violating the Lease Act of Consumer Lease Act of 1976.

I mean, they're breaking the law. And car dealers are settling out of court, even GMAC, and Toyota finance settled out of court because they basically admitted they're guilty. of being part of this whole thing of breaking the law and charging car lease customers more than they should to buy their cars. So Jeff Weinstein called Ashley Moody to talk to her, and she wouldn't return his phone calls. Huge story. What kind of an attorney general is that?

Yeah, she could have made herself available. Anyway, folks, how do you feel? What do you think? Give us a call. What's on your mind? 877-960 9960 A little shy

Go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com You want to text us 772-497-6530 Don't forget Stu is taking care of the text Rick has the YouTubes And do you have something for us right?

Got an interesting comment from Donovan Oh, hi Donovan He says, and what Earl is talking about Is why it's so great What, Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, VINFAST, and the other startup auto companies are doing. The dealers need a challenge to their way of doing business. Sure.

Yeah. They have a monopoly. They have lobbied all the state legislators so that they are the only people. First of all, it's almost impossible for a manufacturer to cancel a dealer. If you have a franchise agreement with a car dealer anywhere in the 50 states, it's almost impossible to get rid of that dealer. He has a lifetime agreement for all intents and purposes to retail cars. And he's immune pretty much from what the manufacturer can do.

And I got an automotive news here on that subject. Champion Motors, the luxury car dealer in Miami, Coral Gables area. It's called the collection, a multi-brand dealership in Coral Gables. they're suing Porsche, they're a Porsche dealer, they're suing Porsche for $300 million. And they'll win, by the way, because Florida law, which the Florida Automobile Dealers Association lobbied, said that a manufacturer that builds the cars

that has someone that they contracted to sell those cars has to give them all the cars they want, even if they don't have an exclusive showroom, sell those cars and Porsche told the collection the Miami Coral Gables Porsche dealer that unless you build an exclusive building to sell Porsche which it would be nice I mean you know it's a pretty nice car to sell you make a lot of money sell Porsches then you can't have as many cars as we give the other dealers that spend a whole lot of money building really nice showrooms and

really nice service departments, we're going to give them more cars. Well, Florida law says you've got to give anybody who's got a franchise agreement all the borses they want. And that's the reason they're being sued for $300 million. So that is the problem right now with car dealers running rampant and doing whatever the hell they want to do. Yeah, that's why it's so important that Attorney General Ashley Moody get involved. folks take advantage of the number

877-960 Texas at 772-497-6-530 ladies $50 for the first two new lady callers Rick do you have anything for us a little quiet right now

okay I tell you I've got I'm going to read I'm going to read the mystery shopping report on my dealership and that's from Agent Sprinkle And I got my magnifying glass out because the print didn't come out good, but this, again, if you just tuned in, and maybe if you haven't been a regular list in the show, we mystery shopped a car dealer every week on the show.

We go to sometimes out of state, mainly South Florida. We've been one of the days in Bradenton, actually in the hurricane area, but we tell the facts. We go in, pretend to buy or lease a car, and we named the dealership, we named the salesman and the sales managers, and exactly what happened. And if they broke the law or did something bad, we talk about it. And I like to brag, and I should knock on wood, and all the years we've been doing this, about 20, we've never been sued. And we've been threatened, but we've never been sued. I say that's to our credit because the truth is a perfect defense against libel and slander. So if I go in and tell exactly what happened, they can't sue me.

Now, I can't sue myself for this mystery shopping report that I'm going to read. So I'll read it to you right now. I'd like to give you a brief mystery shopping report from last weekend at your dealership. You can think of me as Agent Sprinkle, S-P-R-I-N-K-L-E. We are regular listeners of your show for the past several years, and were interested in a new Rav for hybrid. My husband and I were greeted by salesmen as we got out of the car, and he asked what we were interested in.

We told him, and he told us there were none available for immediate purchase, and we followed him inside. He never introduced himself. Strange, you think a salesman would do that? That was my editorial comment. Or ask us, my husband and myself, our names, never asked the customer's name. When we got to his desk, he didn't offer us a seat, which surprised me. And so we stood up during the whole time we were there.

His only comment to us was, what color did we want? And I asked, what were the choices? He seemed to have no knowledge of how to find the color options on the computer. After several frustrating minutes, watching him try to use his computer, I pulled out my phone and found out my phone and found the color options myself since he had already done a lot of pre-surge, pre-purched, pre-purched research. We told him for the trim level, he never asked.

We wanted to ask for a price. He disappeared for 15 minutes and came back with a price sheet. We timed him like Agent Lightning. And if you're new to the show Agent Lightning is very precise on how long she's made to wait. Okay, back to the mystery shopping board of my dealership. After 10 minutes, he came back with a sales manager who informed us. You missed. We asked if the options could be removed.

Okay. We asked if the options could be removed. Okay. Thank you. And he disappeared again. After 10 minutes, he came back with a sales manager who informed us that floor mats can never be removed from an order because of potential liability. in changing charging cords, which come with a hybrid. Now, I'm going to pause there.

I believe that's accurate, but I want to ask, I know ever since the unintended acceleration issue years ago, floor mats have become more, shall we say, safe and specified. The charging cords, I kind of question, because one of the options that I see listed, the charging courts are actually to plug in your cell phone to the car. Yeah, that doesn't make sense of it. I don't know why that couldn't be removed.

I think we have some misinformation there. Thank you. We recently bought a new Mazda and were able to take these options off. We did leave a deposit but thought you'd be interested in a mystery shopping report of your dealership. Your staff did not try to build any kind of relationship. with us. They were basically order takers like at McDonald's. Also, no one asked if we were interested in selling our car, which is a 2018 Toyota in excellent condition with only 13,000 miles and a transferable extended warranty. We hope you find this report to be useful. And this is

anonymous. And they were in last weekend. Now, this is very embarrassing to me as the owner of the dealership and I read this for several reasons first to prove that our anonymous feedbacks are in fact red on the air because if there ever was an anonymous feedback I would like to hide as a businessman it would be that one and the bigger message here is why did my salesperson do this now let me say this because I know a lot of my employees are listening right now because I sent this mystery shopping report out to all of my about 150 employees and I know a lot of you are listening right now wondering how angry I'm going to be and I'm a little I'm angry I'm disappointed and I'm also not going to discount the fact that

this might not be a legitimate report but I think it is I mean it really sounds legitimate to me would you agree Rick I mean does it sound legitimate I don't I don't don't see anything there that would make me think that this person is going with an agenda or anything. It reads as a true feeling from their heart what they experienced. I don't there was a lot put into it. I believe it's true. It didn't sound like as if they had an ulterior motive. They went to too much trouble to put this together and all the PowerPoints are right there. But for my employees that are listening, I'm not saying I know it's factual. It just seems highly likely.

And it also confirmed some of my concerns and suspicions. Now, here's the atmosphere that the auto retail interest he finds it in. It's a seller's market. You all know what the seller's market is. A seller's market means that you can sell every product you have at pretty much as high a price you want. And you don't have to be good. You don't have to be polite.

you don't have to be, if you've got a product that someone wants bad enough to pay a whole lot of money for it and stand in line and wait, you can kind of do what you want. And if you're getting paid a whole lot of money to do that, then the temptation sometimes is too much to overcome. And what people who do that forget is that buyers have long memories. And they remember how they're treated. We say this at Erlancores every week, and we say to those dealers out there that they're charging thousands of dollars over sticker that customers have a long memory, and they're going to remember how you price gouged them, and they might not return to you. Well, the same thing goes for my dealership. Customers are going to remember that the salesman was cold, aloof, unconcerned, didn't offer him a seat, didn't ask his name, didn't ask his name, didn't

introduced himself, kept him waiting for a long time, for no apparent reason, and they remember that. So our salespeople who do this, and maybe I'm hoping that most of my salespeople don't do this, I'm hoping, I don't think so. I know some of my salespeople very well, and I don't think they would. This salesperson, if he did it, shouldn't have done it. So there we are, total honesty, total transparency, my mystery shopping report, I'm going to give this dealership an F. And I know we're great on the curve, but I'm not giving myself an F because it's embarrassing.

And I'm going to do as much as I can to see that we don't get another mystery shopping report like this. And I encourage radio listeners, and I thank the person that mystery shopped, are always. Stuart Toyota in Northbound Beach I thank him for doing that and because you help me as an owner and you embarrass me but you help me and sometimes embarrassment is a great help it's a motivation it's a motivation for owners to change things that need to be changed and all you dealers out there and other people that are in the industry this is why mystery shopping is such a good thing it lets you know what's really going on

I said earlier in the show, if you listen from the very beginning, a lot of times people tell the boss what they want to hear. But I've been told the truth, I think here, again, assuming this is an accurate report, and I think it is, I've been told the truth, which I would never have heard had not it been an anonymous feedback kind of thing. So if you dealers out there who get angry at me because I mystery shop you and embarrass you on the air, I hope you appreciate the fact that I just embarrassed myself. And if you want to get better, you should mystery shop yourself.

I don't mystery shop you often enough because there's thousands of dealers. I can't get around to you very often. If you want to improve your operation, and not just car dealers, anybody that's in the retail business, mystery shop your business. Find out what's really going on. You owners and high executives, people that really make the rules, shop your own businesses, find out what's really going on, and make the changes to improve your operation so that you can sell more product, cars, TV sets, refrigerators, find out what you can do to improve,

and that's what business is all about, right? Selling cars, make your customers happy, so they come back and buy again, and you make more money. So that's my Mr. Shopping Report. When I read the Mystery Shopping Report, you know, I had the feeling that the customer potential customers that walked into the dealership, they may have felt like a sift that, well, they were really, you know, intruding on the salesperson's time. And he was probably wondering, you know, the couple, they were wondering, gee, are we taking up his time?

Does he have something more important to do? Maybe he just wants us to leave. We don't know. Mixed feelings as what I'm talking about. It's almost like talking to a doctor who doesn't have bedside manner. It's a very personable situation when you're purchasing a vehicle. The salespeople today are order takers instead of salespeople, and they forget that's why they get paid. And they get paid a lot of money and maybe too much money for taking orders,

because you could take anyone and put them there, and someone comes to say, please sell me a car, especially when we're selling cars for less money than anybody else. please sell me a car and anybody can do it right so that's uh thank you very much again to this what was it what was it what we call us it agent sprinkle agent sprinkle we appreciate it very very much and uh do it again yeah we love it constructive criticism you shot the new car department shop the used car department and tell me what happened there we'll read that mystery shopping report on the air too yeah and we'll get to the mystery shopping report shortly Uick, GMC.

That was in Bradenton, and that's part two of our series. So stay tuned for that. And give us a call at 877-960-99-60, and I think that Rick's got some... Got a couple of them now. First one from Donovan again. Question for Earl. In your entire time in the car business,

have you seen anything change over the time that ended up being a bad change? change for the way we do things today versus in the past? I haven't seen a massive bad change. I think, well, I speak mainly for Florida because that's where I am right now and that's where my dealerships have always been. And what I've seen is so much apathy on the part of the regulators and the legislators. You heard me talk about that a lot.

And it used to be the dealer fee was just a nominal fee that was gradually increased, but it was fairly gradual. And in recent years, it's gone crazy. And again, I'm speaking mainly for Florida. In Florida, for the, I don't like to use the word dealer fee because it's become a generic term and it isn't descriptive enough

of what it really is I far prefer the word hidden fee like I've told my marketing company to stop using the word hidden dealer fee and on our website we use the word dealer fee it should be hidden fee the dealer fee as I say has become a genetic

generic term in fact the dealers have jumped onto that and we have dealers now advertising is we don't charge a dealer fee and they are playing a word game because they just changed the name of what they charge you know they changed the name of their hidden fee from dealer fee to electronic filing fee to tag agency fee to doc fee to administrative fee in the state of Florida believe it or not the lawmakers our great Tallahassee lawmakers has

said we don't care what you call your hidden fee you call anything you want to you I suppose you could probably call it a license plate fee. I mean, they allow documentary fee, and a doc fee is an official term. Notary fee is an official term. You would think electronic filing fee or tag agency fee would be something that would be regulated, but it's not. So they charge dealer fees now by different names.

And the other thing that Florida does, they don't have any limit on the amount of the fee. I mean, that sounds crazy. In California, I'm going to say it's $125. It used to be $75. It's come up. But in California, I believe they call it a dock fee, and everybody knows, because that's state law,

you call it a dock fee, and it can only be $125. So when you go into buy a car in California, there it is. You can mentally add that into the price they quoted, and you could go to another dealer because his fee is exactly the same, but the same name. In Florida

you go in and they don't have a common name. All the dealers call it something else and all the dealers charge something else and it's always hidden so you don't know that it's part of the price of the car. So going back to Donovan's

comment, what has happened it has happened that the hidden fees are totally out of control in Florida and that's probably the most disappointing thing has happened in recent years. And this one from Kyle in Pennsylvania, I've only had good experiences when at Earl Stewart-Toyota. I've bought four new cars from you and bring my carola in every two months for oil changes.

I drive for Uber. Everyone can have a bad day. And that is true. I mean, we all have our bad days, but. Well, that's exactly what my managers are going to tell me. And what they say is true. But the only way you can be sure is to, I have. I need to do more mystery shopping of my dealership.

And I need my employees to know that there will be more mystery shops done. And that will keep them more on their toes. So, yeah, I'm being overly sensitive, partly because, you know, when you get on the air every Saturday morning for two hours and you land-bast all the other dealers, and you hold yourself up as holier than now and I'm the good guy and then somebody goes into your dealership

and does something wrong. It's kind of embarrassing. I mean, you know, that's the reason the other dealers will love for me to trip and fall because I'm the guy. Did I miss something? Yeah, yeah. I'm just kidding.

I just figured it out. Have you read the report? Yeah, I did. Yeah. So that's the reason. I'm a little sensitive to it. And you should be. Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And Rick, you mentioned something about YouTube, a bad day. From Kyle, he says, yeah, everyone can have a bad day. But excuse me for interrupting you, communication is a beautiful thing, no matter what you do. Communication. Hey, listen, guys, I'm really having a bad day. Sorry, I'm not up to par here. something well but if it's a bad day stay home when your job is to communicate and to speak with

the public you kind of got to be able to put that behind you and and be a person be a human being you know and introduce yourself ask their name you know we all understand bad days but absolutely it's that's no excuse for rudeness and in my opinion just sounded rude said to me earlier when we're coming here in the car and I didn't really understand the comment and now I do and I apologize for I said that doesn't make any difference but the mystery shoppers at the end here said talking about the way the salesman was you know pretty apathetic and not being courteous didn't offer him a seat didn't introduce himself didn't ask the name at the end of the shopping the report, Agent Sprinkle, the anonymous feedback, said they were basically order takers like

at McDonald's. And that's what Nancy said to be in the car. I said, no, it's not at McDonald's. See, at McDonald's, they are polite and they are courteous and they're trained. And at McDonald's, if someone isn't treated properly, they don't work at McDonald's. anymore and McDonald's does pay a competitive wage they don't pay

they're paying I think a little bit better than minimum wage but you know they're young people and they wouldn't be working there if they weren't getting something they thought was fair so yeah at McDonald's they're far more courteous can you imagine going to McDonald's

and having somebody be you know wait to 10 minutes for your hamburger and then not say thank you or be polite so it is this mystery shopping report was not as nice and polite as a McDonald's employee is which is really disturbing good point we're going to have to go back to the phones Victoria is waiting and so is John from West Palm Beach Victoria welcome back good morning hi there can you hear me yes I can hear you how you doing this morning? Good. I wanted to call in, but I didn't want to interrupt the very good conversation about the flooded cars. It's very interesting, and you guys are doing a fabulous job of keeping

people aware. What I wanted to tell people was on the week of October 6th to 12th, you had this fabulous article in the Florida Weekly. I don't know if everybody read it. How to know if a car dealer is breaking the law and you spelled out in very good detail the title 33 501 976 which says exactly what is involved in breaking the law and adding charges and not being open with the cost and so forth I don't believe you've gotten a lot of input from people that they've had these problems and I hope that they will go to that website that you mentioned at www.

Florida-Lawprotectingcarbuyers.com and I hope people will send information at least your email to Earl because I'm now going to go ahead on my own and talk to my attorney about filing a lawsuit against this dealer

which happens to be 441 Nissan which is one of Terry Taylor's car dealership but if you want to get your money back, it's up to you to do something about it. You can't just sit there and wring your hands and say, oh, woe is me, I lost my money. So that's what I wanted to say, and I appreciate very much being able to be on the show and talk to people and let them know that there's somebody out there that's going to do something for them. So glad to hear from you, Victoria. Would you repeat that website again? This is what you had in your article. Yes, we'd love to hear it

from you. Yes. Okay. It's not the only place, though. If you go to Google and you just Google a Florida statute 501.976, you'll get everything. Absolutely. So that's pretty easy, you know. And it spells out in detail.

Thank you for bringing that to the attention of our audience. I try to repeat that, you know, every Saturday. But I can't thank you enough. Well, Victoria, for one of the specific points in that. 501.976 says simply that when you advertise the price for the car, it must conclude all charges, including dealer fees. And they use the term dealer fee, which is I talked about it earlier in the show misleading. But this law is violated by virtually every dealer in Florida all the time. All you have to do is go online and read any online ad, any radio ad.

any tv ad any uh you know whatever any advertisement at all the dealers are all advertising prices that do not include their extra fees so uh you're absolutely right victoria yeah it's just it's insane we talk about actually booty earlier the show she's the top law enforcement officer in florida it's her sworn duty to enforce florida and she is just totally ignoring Florida statute 501.976, totally ignoring him. And she's going to get elected. She'll be re-elected. She's all over TV, and she's got some straw dogs up.

She's attacking, but she doesn't ever say anything negative about car dealers. And I would like to point out that 501.976 is the Consumer Protection Act, whether it's old or whatever. if consumers don't do something, then it's their own loss. And you can go to the Florida Division of Motor Vehicles that regulates car dealers, which I also did. And after months and months and months of back and forth, at the very least they find and cited 441 Nissan,

but it's not their job to get your money back. No. Yeah, it's just great hearing from you, Victoria, and you're absolutely right. you know unless you let your voice be heard things are going to remain the same so i can't we can't thank you enough for bringing this issue to up front and to our audience that's listening and so please please audience if you feel that you are someone where you've been violated with by this act send send your information if just an email and a little brief statement about what happen send it to earl so we can get together and get a group of us and we can actually make our

voice heard absolutely power in numbers our voices must be heard thank you i hope you call every week because it's a great reminder to us and to our audience that we need to get we need to gather some proactive people like you to get together and uh and take the uh bit in their mouth and run with it and we will uh we will certainly uh try that every week and thanks for your support have a great weekend victoria thank you bye bye stay in touch we're going to go to john in west palm beach and uh john and palm city will get right to you good morning john hey good morning uh i want to say i'm an agreement with i believe it was stew who said if you're having a bad day stay at home that was rick that was rick oh it's rick okay it was rick okay it was rick

um i teach high school and i hear i'm sorry all the time i i tell the students i can hear the sincerity in your voice but hear the sincerity in my voice that you get a zero you know you've earned a zero you didn't you know because you didn't do your homework and they want to apologize for it because they want to use as an excuse for not taking action for their irresponsibility you know whatever it may be i had the work whatever and that sometimes i get parents you know say hey how come they didn't get the grade they said they apologize well you know what they still haven't earned the grade um you know in this uh and i was going to call last week with the same thing because of something i think early said about you know do the action

now and apologize for it later and i am i'm old school i do not believe in that and i don't think girl believes that either but that's where we've come you know commit the offense and then apologize for it later well i'm sorry just doesn't cut it anymore and like rick said If you're having a bad day, stay at home. Because there needs to be consequences for our irresponsibility, and I'm sorry, just doesn't cut it. And it shouldn't be accepted. It shouldn't be, there should be, you know, I tell my students, you know, don't come with me an excuse of why you didn't do something because there will be a consequence. Well, there's an old story for that that a fellow says hands a student a plate and says, throw it on the ground and break it.

and he throws it down and it shatters. He says, now say you're sorry to the plate. And the student apologizes. He says, now that's all well and good. But is the plate still broken? Yeah, exactly. Good point. I'll use that.

Rekke should be a teacher. I am. Yeah, it's true. Very true. A teacher of life. How about an elementary school teacher? Oh, no, no. no he teaches us weekly on the radio i know yeah he's an educator yes he is

oh yeah that's it that's all i had to say thanks so much john we love hearing from you have a great weekend uh good uh 877 960 960 and ladies you still have time to give us a call uh and when you're the first two new lady callers you can win yourself 50 dollars we're going to go to Palm City, where John has been holding. Good morning, John. Welcome. Good morning. Earl mentioned two weeks ago about the cost of bumpers, how they've gone up tremendously because of all the automated equipment, you know, cameras, et cetera, et cetera. And I did a little research on bumpers. In 70, 1973, it was a federal legislature at, you have to have an impact of five miles per hour bumper impact would stand so that there's no internal body relation related

parts. Then that law was changed in 1983 under 495 F.R. Port 581 to 25 miles per hour. Really? Again, soft fasciers to deflect and deform car crash impact, but people don't understand something. That act in 1983 does not apply to minivans. or SUVs or pickup trucks. So that's an important point that I wanted to say. And again, it's soft facies to deflect and deform car crash impact. But I wanted to bring that up. Those two laws were passed.

It started in 73 and in 1983. I had no idea it didn't apply to the other types of vehicles. I just assumed it was across the board. You look up $4.95, F.R. Port, 581. That's the law. That's the ID. Well, I'll take your word for it. Always a great caller, John, informing us.

I just wanted to bring that up. And again, as far as Liz Price, in 1958, MSRP was nothing new. That just came out for the first time, and people at that time almost were glad to pay MSRP because there were so many games played before that Monroney Law came in that they really didn't know the price of the car. So there was a recession year, 58, my father bought a brand new Chevy, and he was glad to get a few dollars even off on the Chevy from the MSRP, because before that, you didn't even know what was going on. But going back to that era again, Volkswagen, and originally when it came out, a deal that was given the franchise free. And if they were court discounting the Volkswagen, as much as a dollar from MSRP, they would lose their franchise.

And the same thing happened when Saturn came out. When Saturn came out from General Motors, there was no discounting on the Saturn, but they played a lot of games because they were able to get way above that people had a trade in. They were able to give you a tremendous amount over what the basic book value of your trade-in was. Just played with numbers. And that was a success at the beginning. So I just thought I'd point that out. You know, I think, John, maybe you were reading my mind. I don't know.

Earl and I are on our way in to do the radio show. And I'm talking about that very topic, Senator Monroney. And it's just an amazing story. I think a lot of people forget who. is and that's dating pretty far back so thank you for bringing up that subject best lord it was ever passed and i never thought we'd see in this bond day and age that people would be glad to buy a new car and just pay that price yeah exactly okay john thanks so much stay tuned for that mystery shopping report i will and that's from connelly buick in bradenton we're going to get to

the second part two of that series let's go to just one thought on that maroney thing just as i hadn't thought until john from palm city just talked about him is prior to 1958 it was the wild wild west because the car dealers could put any sticker on the car they wanted to there was no msrp so you could have a Chevrolet nova and in five different Chevrolet dealerships and Each one have a sticker on it with a different price. And nobody thought any difference of it. That's just the way it was. In a way, it was actually more civilized than it is today

because at least you could shop around for whatever price they wanted to put on it. So when they came out with the Mironi label, it was by law required to be displayed on all cars. And it gave everybody a point of reference to measure the, the cost of the car. And I guess for a while it did until the laws were totally ignored.

And now there's addendum labels. There's phony Monroney's we go on where you can make up a monroney label and put it alongside of the real Monroney label. So we went from the Wild Wild West before 1958 to even the Wilder West in 2022.

So it's just a little reflection there. Yeah, quite a journey. We're going to go to Lee, who's been holding in Palm, or Palm Beach. Good morning, Lee. Okay, guys, good morning. I'm a long-time listener, first-time caller. My question is on my 2019 Toyota Camry, S.L.

Car runs perfect. I change the oil religiously, but I've been hearing so many stories about changing my transmission fluid. I haven't changed to get it. I got $1,000 to $24,000. The transmission's running perfect, but I hear sometimes when you change the fluid, the transmission doesn't act the same. Do you tow anything with it?

No. Don't worry about it. It's a lifetime fluid. There is no maintenance interval recommended by Toyota. As long as your transmission is operating normally, keep driving don't even you you don't even need to worry about it yeah no i absolutely love this car i bought it with 9000 i just do highway miles up and down the county oh even better miles 33 on the highway and it's it rides so incredibly beautiful i can drive 500 miles today my

back doesn't bother me i'm a big big believer in toyota camrys they are awesome cars yeah that's great and you did you say your back doesn't bother you you know not the slightest i could go to Orlando and that's amazing not that I do that all there out of the car and it's like I just drove around town wow that's quite a statement to me I have back problems all the time yes I listen to show every Saturday morning when I can

when I'm out making appointments so thank you very much for taking a call and have a great day you too leave give us a call again we're going to go to Michelle who's holding and she's calling us from Hollywood Excuse me. Good morning, Michelle. Welcome. Hello. Hi. I'm calling because I have a car, a Toyota, Corolla, on order for the end of the month. My salesman, I think his middle name is Alberto. He's Spanish.

But I wanted to make sure, do I have to ask him that I don't want added accessories or dealer-added products or does he know that? he should know that but just we don't do any dealer added accessories but um you can get a vehicle price sheet from him i mean the information sheet and make sure there isn't any sometimes if they coming on trade there could be some things on there but just you tell them exactly what we want and what you want and that should be no problem okay that's great that was my main question thank you so much oh you're welcome michel thanks for calling uh as a first time caller michel you won yourself $50 this morning. Well, that's a nice

thing. Yes, and if you stay on the line, you can give Jeremy in the control center. You can give him your information and he in turn will give it to me and I'll get that checkout to you. Okay, thank you so much. Spread the word.

With your company. I sure will. Thank you. 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-496. 76530. I think we have something on YouTube. Actually, I got a couple of them here that I'm going to read all three of these at once because they all seem to kind of work together.

First one is Regina Downing. She says, we ordered a Rav4 Prime from your dealership in July, and we're told it would be eight to 12 months to come in. Today, a chat, I'm guessing a person in a chat, said he put a $50 down payment or deposit to order it, but I was told, or Regina was told, no deposit until the VIN number was available. Please clarify. And this one other here was from John Strine. I have my name in Stewart Toyota for a new Venza and was told no deposit was necessary either. Have no clue when the vehicle will be available. What's the lowdown on deposits, Stu?

Typically, we ask for a deposit. If there is any kind of pushback, it's okay. We'll do it without a deposit. If there's an issue to, you know, we're not going to get into an argument. We can still order a car. Okay. Because all that is, is just to sort out. We do have sometimes have people that will not really order cars and just,

and we have to make sure that's a real order. Yeah, it's possible a person could go and order 11 cars and take the first one that came in. and normal times that'd be bad and good times like this for the dealers. We don't really care. We don't care. We've never, we never, all our deposits are totally refundable

but, you know, it kind of separates the wheat from the jab. If someone is buying a $40,000 or $50,000 new vehicle and hesitates to put down a small deposit, you kind of wonder, but as Stu said, if they really object, we say no problem.

especially in today's market, with the market the way it is today, if someone decides they don't want to take their car, there's 25 people standing in line to take that car. We honor the buyers today should be more worried about the dealer not selling them the car they ordered instead of having to buy their car they ordered, because every car that's ordered is going to get sold real quick when it comes in, hopefully to the person that ordered it. In the past, there was a real danger of a car that you didn't want that would come in,

would sit there forever. And that's why, you know, the reason for deposits. And this one from Kyle in Pennsylvania, do Earl and Stu have a prediction on how much MSRPs of 2023 Toyota models might increase? If my Toyota I ordered doesn't arrive until 2023, will the price be MSRP or the original order sheet price? It's going to be MSRP at the time. I mean, there is annual increases them in MSRP, they're usually pretty small. A few weeks ago on the show we talked about there was a mid-year MSRP increase and that was reflective of the inflation that we're feeling. So they were fairly substantial, but usually it's about a 1% increase.

So here's what, again, what the buying public doesn't understand. That's why the show is here. The MSRP, we talked about it on this show. today more than normal. It was supposed to be a guide for the consumer. It's supposed to be a measuring stick. Now, what's happened with MSRP as far as whether there'll be an increase,

the manufacturers and the dealers don't rely on MSRP to price the car. The MSRP could remain the same for the next 10 years and the manufacturers could increase the price of the car by other means. Packed in the invoice of the car, for example, are a lot of charges. Dealer incentives, the intended price by the manufacturers for the retail is much higher today than the increases in the MSRP. The average dealer incentive today is very low compared to what it used to be,

before COVID and before the supply and demand situation. It used to be that you didn't have 10 buyers for every car, and the dealers didn't charge $5,000 over a sticker. So that's the reason, MSRP should be considered, but knowing that MSRP is only going to go up $1,000 in 2023 is a meaningless statement, because the MSRP could go of $1,000, but the actual price to the buyer, you go up $10,000, and you'd never know

about it. Dealer incentives are hidden. You don't know about them. It's a private understanding kickback between the manufacturer and the dealer. Okay. We have Agent Sprinkle has sent us another message. Agent Sprinkle says, thank you for reading our mystery shopping report. Your price was the best that we found. We appreciate the service you provide educating the public on the world of car dealerships and how to save money. By the way, your bagels are great. So now we know he's legitimate. Thank you, thank you, Agent Sprinkle.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. If you have any friends out there, we welcome mystery shops, you know, in fact, even telephone shops. I'm telephone shopping, our dealership now hired a company that does that professionally, record them, you know, if you call from out of the state of Florida, it's legal, and we can record telephone shops. But I love to have the physical shops. Any of our customers or friends or listeners to this show that would like to go in and mystery shop, our dealership, Earl Stewart Toyota, North Palm Beach, mystery shop it. You can either call me directly, you can anonymous

feedback, your anonymous feedback.com, like Agent Sprinkled is. and I'll read it on the air. I mean, to me, it's healthy. Being able to find out what you do right, what you do wrong. I just hope we can avoid an army of mystery shoppers descending that could interfere with. So if you're going to do it, do it once a month. Well, I would. And organize amongst yourselves, work it out so you don't show up on the same day.

Our floor traffic is very, I mean, our salespeople really don't have a whole lot to do. We don't have a whole lot of salespeople, though. Yeah, well, that's true, too. Anyway, yeah, we welcome mystery shops, and I'd like you to do some more for us. We appreciate it. Okay, thanks Stu. Rick, if you finished up with you, we're going to go back to, we're going to stay with Stu. Okay, let's see.

I think I'm actually caught up on tech, so. Okay, great. I think we're going to go to the mystery shopping report, and it's a good time. And that mystery shopper report is from Agent Lightning. That's Conley, Buick, GMC, and they're right there in Bradenton, and this is the part two of our series. Back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, you can tell small dealerships, we call them dueled,

and that means that the population of the market they're in is small enough We're normally one franchise name of Buick or GMC or Chevrolet or whatever it might be isn't big enough. You wouldn't be able to sell enough cars. So Conley, Buick, GMC, they sell GMC trucks and Buick's in Braden and Florida. Our old store in cars now brings you part two, as Nancy just said, of our series from the West Coast of Florida, with Agent Lightning, our female shopper, who has done a great job. How old has you been, or it's a couple of years now? Two years? A little over two years.

Yeah. Reporting from the disaster zone of this terrible hurricane Ian, of course referring to the blow to the Gulf Coast, it hit, actually Palm Beach County just declared an emergency also. We had more damage in the southern part of Palm Beach County than we thought, but mainly the west coast, the southwest coast of Florida, was devastated. Last week we talked about the thousands of cars and trucks that were inundated by ocean water. I underlined ocean

because you forget, you've got a flood car. It's easy to say, but salt water is just absolutely terrible. If you've got to buy a flood car, you buy a freshwater flood car. Don't buy salt water flood car. Like a Great Lakes flood. So salt water is terrible. I mean, salt water is bad enough just in the air. The salt mist can, if you live on the coast of Florida,

And you keep your car in a garage or outside, even in the garage, it's going to get into the car. And the sole mist that actually blows in the air. Not to mention all the stuff that's in the sewers and everything else that's getting mixed in there. Exactly. Horrible. So this is going to go down in history. I mean, we'll be talking about this years from now because there was such a huge amount of damage to the cars by saltwater. Great many of these vehicles will be totaled by insurance.

companies and will need to be replaced a lot of these vehicles will wind up in the used car market some with branded titles and some without you know as I just read that the thought occurred to me if the insurance company doesn't total the car you should raise holy hell because there should be an argument how someone inspect your car if there was if there was involved in water damage if there If you are aware, if you saw your car with several inches of water, I mean, you know, certainly anything up to what, the middoor, you're out of business there. You're going to be up to the dash.

You're out of business, right? Yeah, the general rule of thumb that insurance companies used to use, they may have changed since this, but it used to be if it touched the bottom of the dash, the car was done. Yeah. So how can you be sure if you saw it? whether it was above the bottom of the dash or not, if you are listening to this show

and you have a car that was gotten wet from Hurricane Ian, be real careful. I would actually have my car inspected, even if I didn't think it had been submerged just to be sure, because you can't

really tell. The true damage isn't to the... what you can see is to the inside workings, the electronic the brakes the I mean there's so many things you can't see that may have been damaged by salt water so have the car checked out and then if the inspector a knowledgeable tech technician says you know I think this car's been underwater to some extent then you need to stand ground with your insurance company and if need be you need to hire an attorney not to mention well actually it's in the profession they call it

organic growth, which is mold and mildew and the bacteria that grows up in those nooks and crannies and in the padding under the carpet, which can become a very serious health hazard. Yeah, the part you see might be dry, but the part that seeped inside the car you can't see isn't dry. And as Rich just said, we're not just worrying about, you know, damage. We're talking about mold milieu. You know, mold is actually sometimes a worse problem than mechanical damage. damage. Anyway, that's, where am I here? Okay, thousands of people on the West Organizing, great many of these vehicles will be totaled. A lot of these vehicles will wind up

in the used car market, some with branded titles and some without. And as we talked about earlier, if you go, Google flood cars or Google, cars without title, there's a whole industry out there of people that are experts on how to get a title for a car that shouldn't have a title. and there are states that will give you a title to a car that shouldn't have a title. Every state law is different. Thousands of people on the west coast and central Florida, and now we found it even southeast Florida, are currently in desperate need of replacement vehicles.

The sudden demand is hitting a new and used vehicle markets at a very unstable time in the car industry. This problem hasn't even begun to get serious, and it will get serious in the coming weeks and months. my column this week in the hometown news and the Florida weekly and on the blog or longcars.com is titled

How to Avoid Buying a Flood Car after the Hurricane E.N. disaster. In the column I address how these flood cars can make it under the market looking and smelling clean even with a clean title. And I mentioned earlier also. Sometimes they smell too clean.

Sometimes they were the expert that the crook took your total car to says, make this car look like new, they'll do it. They can make a flood car look and smell like new and you'll never the wiser and the buyer's never the wiser. So too clean is one way to know that you need to look deeper into the car. Flood cars are not however the target this week's mystery shop. Agent Lightning instead paid a visit to Conley, Buick, GMC, and Bradendon.

It was a compare contrast mission with Furkins, FI, RK, and N. this Chrysler Dodge Jeep that we did last week, being the other object, the other subject. Last week, Perkins, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep shined in our mystery shopping report. We gave them an A, unheard of, unheard of high score, and for not price gouging on a new plug-in hybrid Jeep Wrangler. You know, price gouging, I get a little bit nervous when people call dealers price gougers for charging over a sticker and for having addendum labels and hidden fees. You know, price gouging, the legal definition of price gouging is taking advantage of a product

that you need, that gasoline is a good example. I mean, it's unconscionable to take, let's say you're paying the Exxon, you're paying them $2.50 a gallon, your gas station, and you charge somebody $5. That's price gauging. You're taking advantage of someone that has been, you know, someone that needs a car, a car something, you can need, you might need it for your work, you might need it for your medical care, you need that car, and you can get away with charging far more than the price you pay. So this is, a prime example of the legal definition of price gouging. It's one thing to sell a car for $10,000 over a sticker if it's a new car. That's not price gouging. Sounds like it, but legally

it's not. A flood car sold for an exorbitant amount is price cashing. So you have not only being unethical and dishonest, you're having, well, not just unethical and immoral, you're also breaking the law. It is price gouger. We gave them a for not price gouging on a new plug-in hybrid Jeep Wrangler. We're so happy to find an honest dealer on the first shot. I got very emotional when I saw that truly is. It was nice to know that we have a good dealer and Connolly and the Bradenton. Asian Lightning was riding high on the success of the Perkins mission.

Perkins was the honest dealer. They got the A, not Connolly. Conley is the one we're dropping now. But apprehension began to build as she approached Conley Buick on the morning of October 6, 2012. Here's a report I speak as if I am Agent Lightning. I walked around

the lot for a few minutes hoping to attract the attention of a salesperson. No luck. I went inside and was greeted by a young guy named Eddie. He asked what he could help me with and I told him I was looking for a new car. Eddie apologized before me. He was working with someone else, but he'd get someone

to help me. He brought Christina over and introduced me to her. Christina asked me to go with her and I followed her to a desk. She'd be in the process of information gathering and entered everything into a computer. I told her I wanted to get a new encore and she informed me she had one in the stock. She asked me, if all goes wool today, would I be buying? I said, yes, ma'am. Christina was energetic, energetic personality. She jumped up and excitedly suggested we go check on my new car. We walk over to where they stored the keys and headed out to the car. It was a new 22 Buick Encore GX in Summit White with an MSRP of $30,780. And there was an addendum, phony and Roni, we also call them.

Connolly Buick added $1,995 for the Connolly Elite package. It was for one-year paint and fabric protection. a front screen protector red alert brake safety system I have no idea what that is I know what that is we have a friend that sells that it's a you hit the brakes

and it pulses the brake light fast to get the attention of the person behind you okay that's really cute it's questionable whether it's legal in Florida I wonder how much that costs about a dollar it's incredibly cheap oh it's incredibly cheap they preload them on the cars it's a little a little

chip thing that you just put in the and the wiring harness. Crystal fusion, that's got to be poly clay coat. I guess so. There's already paint and fabric protection and there's crystal blue persuasion. And door edge guards.

So all this is cheap stuff. Dealers buy at incredibly surprisingly low prices and install them for incredibly low prices and charge you an incredibly insane high price. Christina covered all the features and I was impressed

especially with the teen safety features, which I didn't know about. And Stu told me that it's something that you can limit the speed limit. Yeah, there was a bunch of features. It was you can limit how loud they can put the audio on the radio. They can control that so they can't blare the music. You can keep them from speeding. It's kind of neat.

So if you're a teenager, you can ask him, because I'm either going to lower the speed or lower the volume, Which would you prefer? You have to negotiate that with the team. We went for a test drive, and Christina directed me to an old, condemned mall's parking lot where she said I could go as fast as I wanted and do whatever I wanted it.

That's cool. I think we used to do that at one time. Yeah, we're at the Twin City Mall. Well, we still do. It's not the Twin City Mall anymore. I'm going back in time. I drove around for a while, and then we headed back. At Christina's desk, I told her I hated all the back and forth,

and she said she hated it too then she said this is how we're going to do this I'll get the price and then we'll tell them what we want to pay I kind of laughed at that one already she commiserates that she hated the back and forth said here's how we're going to do it and then described it back and forth yeah but I mean

but you can see where she was she was selling herself to agent lightning she did a better job than our salesperson did she was a stab up oh yeah absolutely and here that's an interesting psychological point here we have a salesperson whose purpose in life is to charge

as much money as they can get away with and they're being polite and nice because they have to be and they want to be their way into a big commission. And then we have our salesperson and our ministry jobbing report that isn't paid on commission. It doesn't make any difference.

They get paid the same. They get paid anyway, so they don't have to be polite, so they weren't. Right. We have a rude salesman. I'm just kidding. We have a wonderful sales force. We do. I mean, we love them. We love them, but they're It's human nature. Yeah, I'm, I've been rude. I'd rather have a rude person that was not going to screw me than a polite person that was.

But I don't want to have to make the choice between those two. Let's try and have both. Let's try and not, too. Yeah, we'll try and let's do both. Nice people. Anyway, so she's on my side. Christina's on my side as a mystery shopper. We're going to go get a good price.

She left to get the numbers. She was back quickly in a worksheet with a worksheet and new. vehicle invoice so she could show me what they paid for it now let me stop here and i i wrote this down somewhere on the invoice i don't know if you read this or it was pretty fine still probably oh i saw it yeah what it tells you at the very bottom okay she says this is what we paid for it yeah and then at the very bottom i'll read it out because i got it right here okay if you can read So I couldn't read it. So it says the actual invoice amount on this car is $28,540.

But then it says at the bottom, invoice does not reflect dealer's ultimate cost. Real cost. It doesn't reflect dealer's real cost because of manufacture rebates, allowances, incentives, holdback, finance credit, and return to dealer of advertising monies, all of which may apply to the vehicle. So what they're saying is, as Earl said on the show for many, many years, The holdbacks, they amount to thousands of dollars. The real cost of this car is not $28,540. It's thousands below that.

But listen, it doesn't really matter because they're not working a deal down there. They're way up here on MSRP plus a big package. So I didn't understand why she brought the invoice out to justify a price. Like in the old days, when you were trying to justify a low price, you're beating, look, I'm right above my invoice, but they're going over MSRP, and now they're just showing a pretty fat markup. It's still disguising, it's still concealing a lot of the profit. Well, it's just, it's very few people know that.

We talk about on the show not often enough. It is pure deception, clean and simple, to tell a customer, this is my invoice. What is an invoice? Invoice is what you pay for a product. A car dealer invoice is not what they pay for the product. It's total deception. And thousands of dollars are. are packed into the supposed cost.

And that is profit to the dealer. It's a, what is the word? It's a joint deception of the manufacturer with the dealer. The General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Honda are in a conspiracy with the dealers to trick the customers into thinking this is what they pay for the car. And fairness to Toyota, they do live. out most of those charges on their invoice. Yeah. But not all of them.

Not all of them. No, they don't. Most of them. And so in normal times, and we can speak for our dealership, most of our cars are sold, we're sold below invoice. So obviously the invoice couldn't be our cost because we sell most of our cars, can sell most of your cars below our true cost. So below invoice. And and below cost are two different things. Anyway, we digress a little bit, but that is, and Stu said in this case here, it didn't make much difference,

but she brought it out to show. The top line market value selling price was $30,780 MSRP. Then they added the Conley Elite Protection Package for $1995. Then $653 in taxable fees. Taxable fees is another name, for hidden fee the fact that they say fee is the giveaway fee is to trick you

in thinking it's a government fee it's not it's profit to the dealer and here's another fee dock fee dealer doc fee $799 so you know there between those two you got $153 in hidden fees then you add that to the $19955 and you're talking $3,447 and junk fees added to the MSRP, making the real price $34,227. Now, let me say this. Junk fee, the dealer addendum is not as egregious violation as a hidden fee. The addendum is at least it's on the window.

It's for BS, low-cost products that are way overpriced, but at least it's on the window. The hidden fees are not on the window and the hidden fees are disguised to think that they're not profit. At least you know the addendum is added to the price. You don't think of the junk fees or the hidden fees as being added to the price and that's why they're illegal. And we talked earlier, Victoria called about Florida Statute 501.976, violation of Florida law and almost every other law in every other state.

I said that was more than I wanted to spend. I said I haven't factored in all those fees and add-ons. Christina asked me to tell her what the out-to-door number was I wanted to be right now. I said no more than $34,000. Christina wrote down $34,500 back to the game, right, and asked, would I buy it if I could get out, if you could get me there, give me there, will you buy it? I said I would need a check with my husband.

They hate it when you say that. She hopped up, she'd be right back, and she left. She returned a few minutes, pulled the invoice on the desk towards her, and underlined the part that read Friendly Chevy Buick, okay? It said, there was a slight problem, and that was they had already purchased this vehicle. So there was really no wiggle room. And that was such utter horse blank. I just, I can't even believe that.

Just trying to say it was a dealer trade, they got it from Friendly Chevy Buick. Or maybe they bought it from Friendly Chevy Buick. Or maybe they bought it for a higher price. Maybe they did, but then that wasn't indicated or written down on the invoice. So maybe that's what the manager said, and Christita didn't understand and didn't convey the information. Well, I don't know, but it made no sense. And if you buy the car from the other deal, sometimes you don't get the whole back or kickbacks. That's true.

Yeah. That's true. And other manufacturers, you do with Toyota, but other manufacturers, you don't get this. So there's some credibility of the fact that they would have had more legal room there. It just confused me. Yeah. But again, she would never mention that had you not try to negotiate, and that's where we are. I said, thanks, and stood up to leave. Christina looked desperate. Ask me to wait so I could meet our manager. They always want you to meet the manager, except our dealership.

They don't care. We'll jab there. Well, I mean, that's true. I mean, they don't. They care. They don't want to pressure. Yeah, well. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, they got 200 people lined up to buy cars because they're selling them cheaper than anybody else. He came over anyway before I could say no. And the manager asked me if I would take the car, if he got me to $35,000 out the door. I said, I didn't think so. Oh, we got three minutes. You know, that her, or Nancy's hand hurts. I'm not sure. Give her a hand massage. He suggested another less expensive vehicle. I said no one left. So there are there we are. We have two brains.

Bradenton dealerships. We flunked on one last week. No, no, no. They got an A. I got an A last month. Sorry, going backwards. We got an A last week. And now we have another Bradenton dealer.

I equivalent to the equivocated the A last week to a small town dealer. So now we have two small town dealers. And this one seems a little bit different. So we'll see what the voters think. All right. Let's go to the votes. Anybody on Facebook? Who do we got here?

Rick, you look on. I'm searching here, because I don't see any yet. I've got Joseph Kelleher with an F. Guy Larrabee. Sales lady was nice. Nonetheless, all the junk fees are unacceptable. I give them a C-minus. Kirk, get West Buy God, Virginia. Connolly Buick, GMC, 2,400, and addendum in junk fees,

Urzua D-Minus. Invoice, hokey, pokey was just silly. Ah, let's see, Tim Gilliland. Can I get a Connolly Not-So-Elech package? C. Scott Hunter, F, too many fees. Ryan Zedlako, too many hidden fees, D. Mark Ryan, D, Rocky Blocketeel, D.

Wayne Fite, Big D. Well, you get a lot of votes, that's great. I was going to say your crew is on money. My guys are slow. All right. I love it. It's awesome. Thank you, right?

Jonathan and Bob are coming in. Okay, they were taking a nap. Bob gives them a D for Conley. And Jonathan Wellington, he's nothing to say other than D. I'm not as going to be as harsh. I'm a C-minus. It seems to me like it's an average shot, but with a little extra things that bother me,

like the invoice thing and all that. Absolutely. Yeah. D-minus, I agree. I almost want to fail them. You know, the contrast is so great. I want to fail them, but, yeah, it's just contrast. Well, we've been great on a West Coast curve.

It's the old school games, I'm calling it a D as well. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to give them an F. You know me and fees. And also, don't forget to read Earl's column how to avoid buying a flood car after Hurricane Ian disaster. If you're a buy car, read that column. Read that column. Really important. And as Victoria called in and shared with us, don't forget, www.

Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We so appreciate your company. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you right back here next Saturday morning, 8 a.m. I don't know. Oh!