Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.25.2019 - The Best of Earl Stewart on Cars

Episode Date: October 27, 2019

Earl and his investigative team along with Earl's newest femaie mystery shopper, Agent 26, tackle another local Florida dealer selling a car with a dangerous Takata Airbag recall. Will the car dealer disclose the recall to Agent 26? Listen to find out! “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”

You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com And we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart. my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business.

We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our linked to cyberspace 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 hello everybody no more recording that's me this is earl the recovering car dealer in the studio with three other live people this is live talk show radio kind of stuff and as i said in my recorded introduction this is a show about how not to be taken advantage of by your car dealer

whether you're buying maintaining leasing or repairing your car i have to say it's been an exciting week for us. We finally had, after a lot of, I was going to say, months, it's been years that we've been talking about the Takata debacle. Finally, CBS News broke it with a investigation of the Auto Nation stores, the largest auto retailer in the world. Auto Nation. I believe they have over 200 stores in the United States. I believe they're actually in other countries as well. But anyway, AutoNation was proven by an independent source investigating to be selling one out of nine of their vehicles with defective dangerous recalls. And, of course, Takata was the focal point. CBS News, Anna Werner on the CBS News, did the breaking news kind of an expose on Monday of this last week,

and interviewed me, yours truly, in my dealership, remote. talking about our stance on not selling cars with Takata airbags. I've been accused on this show, and it's probably true, of doing too much talk about the dangerous Takata airbag recalls. But I have to say that it was out of passion, it was out of concern for you, the drivers of these cars, and I know that there's a lack of awareness, and people say, what is a Takata airbag?

I've actually had people not know, not know about the Takada airbag recall customers of mine and there are people today that are listening to the show that may not know about the Takata airbag recall so we're going to talk about a little bit more than normal this morning love to hear about your experiences if you saw the CBS news if you saw it online if you saw it on the air I'd like to have you call the show give us your impression if you've had an experience buying a car have you had any conversations with your salespeople or with a dealership that this car may have a dangerous to cut airbag in it and maybe we can't fix it because the parts aren't available. We have a mystery shopping report, as you know, your regular listeners on this show. Every week we shop a different car dealer somewhere in South Florida area. We go in sometimes on advertising, deceptive advertising. We did the streak of them on defective to cut airbags.

we just access the online sources for defective to cut airbags and find out those that are in inventories and car dealers in South Florida. Then we send an undercover agent into the dealership to try to buy the car. And I'm going to have to say, Stu can correct me if I'm exaggerating, nine out of ten or maybe nine and a half out of ten are not disclosed. That is correct. And when they are disclosed, they're typically disclosed in a negligent kind of a careless manner. Oh, yes, you can get that fixed. And they don't tell you that the defective airbag can kill you and has killed a lot of people. And they don't tell you, in some cases, that there is not a fix available.

Now, we have a mystery shopping report coming up, and you probably guessed it already, right? It was an AutoNation store. Auto Nation store. It was Automation Chevrolet and Green Acres. That's like Greater Lake Worth, or as I now say, Lake Worth Beach. but it's a large store. I've been there for a long time. Used to be owned for you oldies out there like me

by a guy named Steve Moore. He used to be Steve Moore Chevrolet. That's right. And Steve Moore sold out to Auto Nation. That's the reason he's a multi-millionaire today. And he's a great guy and an honest guy. And Auto Nation bought it, and they've been selling a lot of cars out there.

So our mystery shopper went out and attempted to buy a car that we had pre-identified. And we'll talk about that later in the show. No spoilers. No, it doesn't. Don't want to do this spoiler. Did AutoNation come out on top? Do they come out on the bottom?

In the middle, what happened? You've got to tune in to find out. You've got to tune in, and you're already tuned in, or if you have friends aren't tuned in, please tell them to. Meanwhile, the core of this show is you. We know that you probably are interested in some of the things we have to say, but you're more interested in questions that you specifically have or comments. Everybody virtually has a car.

If you live in Florida, you almost have to have a car. You have to bring it in to get it fixed. You have to have it repaired, maintain. You have to buy a new one every now and then or another used one, a later model car. And it's just not a good experience. One thing I haven't mentioned in the past few weeks, the Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. Since 1977, every year, every year they do a poll on the most honest

and the most dishonest in terms of ethics. businesses in the country. And nurses are number one. Car dealers are usually at the bottom. And if they're not dead last or next to last, last year they were dead last, I believe. Lower than congressmen. Yeah. Lower than congressmen, lobbyists.

Lawyers actually moved up. Lawyers used to be on the bottom. But of all the professions, of all the places where you buy things, retail mainly, the worst experience you can have in terms of honesty and ethics is with a card dealership. That's the reason this show exists.

The sad fact is that because it's been going on since long, I mean, 19... Are we talking 42 years? Forty-two years, thank you. Forty-two years. Forty-two years. Bottom of the list. And that's just when the polls been conducted. They've been selling cars since the early in 1900s, and I imagine they were probably pretty shady

back in those days. So that's the reason we're here. You call us at 877-960-9960. That's our old-fashioned television. You remember those things that you used to dial and ring? Spin your fingers around a little circle. The telephone. Something that's...

Some of young people out there don't know what a telephone is. You'll call it a smartphone. We used to call them telephones. 877-960-9960. One more time. 877-960-99. We move up in time a little bit. Texting. People love to text now.

When you text, you can say what you have to say, and you're out of there. you're out of there. You don't have to listen to the reply, and the person that receives your text doesn't have to read it then. They can read it later, and they don't have to reply. They can pretend like they didn't get the text. So it's a lot more user-friendly. You never have to talk to anybody. Yeah, right. It's great for introverts. I know people that don't talk it on the phone anymore. All they do is text. I personally think it's far more efficient. And you can say something and you can think about it for a long time and word it carefully. It can really give somebody a zinger in the text. So, text us, please, at 772-497-6-5-30.

Write it down, okay? 7-72 area code 497-6-5-30. And let us know what you'd like to talk about. Let us know what we're doing right on the show or wrong in the show. Love to hear about Takada Airbags in the CBS News article last Monday, Anna Werner. An amazing investigative reporter, and she has won prizes for some of her investigative reporting. Amazing lady, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on that show. You know, I usually go left to right, and I talk about Mrs. Sunrise. Excuse me, Mrs. Stewart. She's also Mrs. Sunrise.

But I'm going to go from left to right, and I'm going to talk about Rick Kearney, certified master diagnostic technician. We get caught up in sales and buying and selling cars, and we sometimes forget that probably your greatest aggravation is having to deal with service advisors going into an independent repair shop, having people try to sell you things

that you don't need in a service department or is telling you there's something really dangerously wrong with the car when there really isn't because they can sell it to you and make a lot of money. Rick Kearney has been with me as an employee for 25 plus years

and he's been fixing cars since he was nine years old and helping his father. Rick, tell us a little bit about why you're on this show. I'm here to answer questions. Yeah, in a nutshell, and he can answer any question. I tell you, I'm going to make a deal here. If you have a real question, and Rick can't answer it, I'm going to pay you $50.

I'm going to put, now, remember, he's got a computer in front of him, a laptop, and he can possibly Google it before you call. But if he can't answer the question, $50 for any question, And Rick Kearney cannot answer. Now, you have to. I say you have to. Yeah, you can text if you want to. Or call 877-960-99-60 or text us at 772-497-30-60.

I've got a question for Rick. Talking about Takata Airbags and dangerous recalls. When you fix a car that has a recall, you get paid for it, don't you? Yes, I do. And the dealership gets paid for it, too. Yes, they do. And the manufacturer pays for it. So it's actually, can you understand why any dealer would be reluctant to have one of their own cars fixed when they make money on the process?

Absolutely not. It would be like what? Just stupidity. I mean, I hate to use the word. All the models are a little bit different, so some pay more than others. But even for Toyota, I really can speak only for Toyota on this part. but the lowest paying model of Toyota for replacing an airbag inflator is still a good job. Technicians work on commission, so I get paid X amount of time to do that job,

and the lowest paying job that Toyota has for one, I can beat that time usually by 20% or better. So I make out on them. I love seeing air. This is Toyota pay, our Toyota dealership, and all Toyota dealerships, for their lowest price. Well, for, say, a corolla, the older corollas, it pays nine-tenths of an hour. Yeah, and that would be, give it to us a dollars and cents. Let's see, at our current rate for warranty pay. $130, $140, $140.

Actually, yeah, it's about $140 to $150, the dealership gets paid for me replacing that airbag. And then, depending on other dangerous recall. they could range up where the dealership could be making hundreds of dollars in some cases. If I were replacing the inflator on a forerunner, that dealership makes around almost $500. So there you have it. Toyota doesn't unique. All the car dealerships out there have similar pay plans. The dealers make hundreds of dollars when they fix it, dangerous recall.

The technician is incentivized on commission, and even the service advisor gets paid. So everybody pays, why would you sell a car with a dangerous recall when you could actually profit by having it repaired? There would be no reason because it's one of the simplest things because there's no go to the customer, recommend it, what the customer determined do they need to be done? It's the simplest amount of paperwork. You simply do the job, get it done, two minutes of paperwork, boom, you get paid. And the customer loves you because you just may have saved his life. He did him a favor.

He probably didn't know about the recall. When a customer car comes into a car dealership, AutoNation or any other Mercedes, Honda, they have a computer. You've got a computer in your hand. You got a smartphone. Anybody can go to safercar.gov. And that's where you should go before you buy a used car.

Safercar.gov. Look it up on NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Safety Association. Find out if there's a recall. And if there is, tell your dealer. Your dealer could do the same thing. for you, but they don't. That's a problem. Well, we've been doing Takata recalls for several years now, three to

four years, and I can honestly say right now, there's a gentleman, or gentleman's family in Arizona that I am sure really wishes that his Honda had been repaired because June of 2018, a man

died because of a takata inflator in Arizona. A lot of Honda's out there with it's defective. Folks, this is just, it's such a deadly thing because when these inflators explode, it is literally a

hand grenade, a pipe bomb exploding within inches of your face. Shrapnel, yeah. And it kills other people. If it's a passenger shot, it could kill the driver, it can kill people in the back seat.

I mean, think of an exploding hand grenade. The shrapnel just doesn't go in one direction. It goes all over the place. So, they're very, very dangerous. Let's move around to Stu and let me go to Nancy please get those numbers out again I'm horse okay good morning folks

welcome welcome to Earl Stewart on cars if you just tuned in we love your phone calls we love your text we love hearing from you we're here for you but also we would like information from you and you always

put that out there for us because we don't know everything our number is 877 960, 9960 and you can text us at 772-4976530 and remember your anonymousfeedback.com.

Youranonymousfeedback.com. Let us know what you're thinking. Let us know anything. You do remain anonymous. Okay, Sue. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your place on the show and maybe you've been accumulating some text or feedbacks or something. Well, good morning. Yeah, we got a bunch of text on deck.

We'll get to them in a few minutes. But I just wanted to say this last week, what a momentous week. I mean, with the CBS News story, it was something that we were actually, we had backed off doing the mystery shops and backed off talking about Takata. And we were doing that because we didn't want to become tiresome. And also, you don't want to get it where it's just background noise. So maybe there was taking a pause was a good. thing. But having a national news story putting the focus back on this again was huge. And the

fact that we got to participate, you got to be interviewed about it, it made it that much more impactful for the people in our area and also nationwide. So, you know, we're back on this with a passion. You mentioned already. We went back and did a Takada mystery shop at an Audenation dealership. The CBS News story focused on auto nation and their reversal of their old policy that They put it into place right when it started heating up back in 2016. And Mike Jackson made an announcement, and we applauded it on this show. The CEO at that time of AutoNation, Michael Jackson, who I admire and respected greatly. And, you know, I'm sure he has plenty of defensible reasons for Auditation to go back on the policy.

But it lasted a year. After a year, I guess the reality of the cost involved caught up with him, and they said, we've got to go back. So with the story from CBS News, putting a focus on it again, I think a lot more people are going to be aware, and I think it's going to save lives. And Michael Jackson, as you know, resigned recently, and I wonder how much his resignation had to do with him committing for the corporation

not to sell cars with dangerous recalls, and then suddenly reversing, going back to selling them again, and then there's a resignation. I talked to Rosemary Sheehan, in California, one of the great consumer advocates in the United States. Rosemary said in an email back before she doesn't know if it was a coincidence that Michael Jackson has resigned as a result of them going back to the selling the dangerous recalls automation. We can speculate, but if I was him, I probably wouldn't want to stick around after that. It's kind of a big flip-flop. The other thing I can tell you is, you know, when we prepare for these mystery shopping reports and we had been

reporting in recent months, it's getting harder and harder to find cars, use cars with Takata airbag recalls, and it feels like it might be getting a little bit easier again. And what we see is these recalls come in waves, and new recalls are announced, and I can report Toyota is announcing a new recall on cars that were already fixed that had Takata airbags, and they're replacing the replacements. No one's forcing their hand, they're doing this voluntarily, but it's over a million vehicles and they're all, you know, they're older Toyota's, but this is happening and consumers are going to get notices in the mail next month, and they're going to let them

know that they've got to bring their car in. So this is ongoing, and it's been going on for three years. The Takata situation is actually getting worse. It's not getting better. The cars are coming of age, and they are reaching the unstable, accelerant situation with the humidity and the temperature at a greater rate than they're being fixed, because only at one out of four is being fixed. So the Takata situation is far worse today than it was three years ago. Exactly. As a matter of fact, the fix, this new recall that's going to be announced shortly,

the problem was the airbag and the inflators that they replaced them with didn't have a desicant, which is just something, a little chemical thing. It absorbs moisture and prevents this accelerant from degrading anymore. So the new ones will have this desiccant and keep it dry and safe. But like you said, there's no end in sight to this. Yeah. I myself can't find, you know, a legitimate reason for any of this to have taken place. And for us to be added since 2016, folks, I can tell you things are getting better.

But the lives that have been taken and continue to be taken, I'll tell you what, this is definitely a hot topic. And we are going to get back to it. remember 877960 and I'd like to hear from you by text at 772-4976530 remember ladies $50 for the first two lady callers and we have Tina and Doug holding and we're going to go straight to Tina right now good morning Tina welcome to the show hi good morning how are y'all doing you're doing great hey Tina hi how are you great hi how are you great Hi, I was reading an article this morning from a few months back on the online version of Wall Street Journal, and I think we need to turn our attention to millennials. I know millennials get bashed and ticked on. This is definitely not a bashing. This is just a statement of fact.

I'm an older member of Generation X baby boomer. If I would have been born a year earlier, I would have been a baby boomer for whatever it's worth. I think, but our generation, when we turned 16, we were chomping at the bit to get our driver's license. We wanted our freedom as soon as possible. And for some of us, that was a necessity because we were going to school, we were working after school. Some kids had football practice or sports practice, and they needed to have a car to get around because there wasn't a lot of public transportation around at that time, especially where I live. but now the tight is turned.

I hear from clients at work at a hair salon, I hear them say, well, you know, my granddaughter just doesn't care about getting her driver's license, or my grandson's 21 and he's still not driving and they're concerned about it. But there's legitimate reasons for this, and some of the reasons are

that, number one, cars have gotten more expensive, and these kids for the most part just don't have the money. And insurance is also high. But another reason why millennials are for going getting a driver's license is because of Uber and Lyft, public transportation has gotten better in a lot of areas. Some of these young people are going to school in metropolitan areas where there's a lot of public transport. And quite frankly, a lot of them just admit, I'm not interested in getting a

driver's license. So among the younger age category, the amount of driver's licenses has decreased sharply over the years. Yeah, I believe that, Tina. There's been a lot of conversation about everything changes. You and I can't understand it, but our kids can and our grandkids can. So it's a definite change, and you hit on it. Technology is driving a lot of that change. Yeah, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea for kids to wait if they can. At the time that I learned how to drive, my mother, she wanted me to wait. She made me wait until the last semester of my senior year before I took driver's ed, and I got my driver's license the day I turned 18.

And I think in my case, that was a good thing. But when my mother discovered how convenient it was to have somebody else not tried besides her, she didn't have to be mom's taxi. So guess what? When my brother and sister turned 16, they got their licenses, and it made her life much simpler. Exactly. You know, I think that our kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. and our grandkids are even smarter than that.

I think every generation is just getting more efficient and smarter. And Stu's raising his hands, I think he agrees. Well, yeah, I mean, I have a 17-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. And when I see their kids, now, my son, he was chomping at the bit. He wanted to get his license. They have a lot of friends that are not even interested in driving. I mean, his best friend just got his license, and he's almost 18 years old. And there seems to be so many other, I think, I guess, things for kids to do.

instead of driving around, like, we used to drive around and cruise, you know, just get in their car because we were bored. Well, now they got their faces and their smartphones, but I do agree with Grandpa Earl. I think this is the smartest generation. Way smarter in mine. I'm a Gen X or two. You can't quite change, Dana. We will always love our cars. We'll always remember them.

But 20 years from now, it's going to be just motor transportation to get from point A to point B. The love affair will not, Rick's looking at me, because, yeah, he's going to tell me we still have horses on the street. And we will always have, we'll always have 57 Chevrolet power packs with dual quads. Roman chariots. And they'll be around. There'll be antique cars. And you can go to the museum and see them. And you might even be able to drive one if you're lucky, just like you can ride a horse if you're lucky.

But, yeah, we keep our antiques and we keep our memories, but time marches on. And Rick, you know what? I'll tell you what, I certainly do wish there were horses back then because I have three daughters that were wanting cars immediately, and their ulterior motive wasn't to help mom out, you know, and get to the store and take care of things. And the same thing applies to grandchildren. They wanted cars, and they wanted them now.

And I wished it would have been horse and buggy time because it would have been less expensive for me. That's my point. We've got to feed that horse. Okay. Thank you, Tina. Appreciate the call. Always interesting.

And you're our star caller. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. And ladies, I can't do this by myself. Please call the gang. Thank you. Thanks for the plug. 50-50.

Thanks, Tina. We really appreciate your call. Yeah. And your plug. We're going to go to Doug, who is also another well, he's here every Saturday. Good morning.

And Ollie. Good morning. How are you guys? Hey, Doug. Well, first of all, Ollie wanted a car, but I told him even though he's going to be 21, that he can't drive. 21, wow. Well, he's a senior sister.

That's an old kitty cat. Oh, yeah. You'd be kind, Ollie, now. I like that, Doug. So I had a question, I did get my Honda back, and it's working pretty good, but for some strange reason, the battery isn't working, and instead of replacing the battery, they replaced it, they replaced a thing called a battery sensor. Do you know what that is? Rick does. Now, refresh me, your Honda, is that a hybrid or regular gas?

engine. No, regular gas, and it was struck by lightning. Yeah. They replaced all the electronics, and the battery went dead. And then instead of replacing the battery, they put a battery sensor, and I never heard of that. Well, maybe the battery, maybe that battery really wasn't dead, and the sensor was defective, and they had to replace the sensor that alerts you when you have a low battery. That's certainly possible. Or a lot of batteries also have. temperature sensors now in them or the car has a sensor

for reading the temperature of the battery and also to try to help determine the health-wise of the battery. Lightning's pretty hot. Well, as long as it's working, Doug, and they probably charge your list to repair the sensor than they would if they had to replace

the battery. So they didn't charge me anything which is good. Yeah, it's insurance. Oh, insurance, cool. Very good. Well, I... The other thing The other thing that was weird is, unfortunately, my car was parked. Tim and I went to a restaurant, and Ali stayed in the car, and someone hit my car on the tend to hit and run

and created $1,200 worth of damage. So it's like, really? Did Ollie get the tag number? You don't tell him. No, he did not. Meow. That's all I said. Well, you're running through some bad luck, Doug.

I don't know what to tell you. That's a... You're due for good luck. Yeah. You know... I tell my son to... Karma, C-A-R-M-A-C-A-C-A-C-A-C-R-M-A. Well, you got...

You know your insurance company real well now, and they know you probably too well, and Wittley, your next premiums come up at the end of the year. They're going to be apt to you, I'm sorry to say, but at least you've got a working relationship with them, and I hope things go smoothly for you. Thank you, and you guys have a great day. Thank you, too. Take care. Nice hearing from you, Doug. Give us a call, toll-free.

You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. I mentioned quickly earlier that if you're the one of the first two lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning. So please give us a call. Say hi.

I think we've got to go back to Stu. Who'd we leave off? Oh, I got text piling up. We have on Facebook, youranonymousfeedback.com, and also are on our text number. So I'll start with our anonymous feedback. It came in very early this morning. This is kind of funny. you need to put Nancy's affidavit on ain't going to happen.com

because it ain't going to get signed. Well, maybe so, but it's definitely going to start a conversation with you. And that proves a point in itself. You know, if you have a company that has a product advertised for sale at a price and you walk in and you ask them to guarantee you that that really is the price and they say no, what are you going to do? Leave. You're going to leave, right?

But car dealers, I know, and I'm sure, most of them will refuse to sign that. But that's a confession that they've been lying to you about their advertising. When they say, this is the price, or they quote it to you over the phone, or it's online, or on television. And they say they won't sell to you for that price, which is what they're saying when they will not sign the out-the-door price affidavit. So we learn something. And to Your Anonymous Feedback.com, my thoughts and my opinion on that, that's a little. going to be that's going to bring uh shall i say control uh that's also going to and this is for the consumer it brings control it brings attention it is a positive even if it doesn't get used

it's out there it's on earl on cars.com and there are a lot of times that the consumer doesn't realize they are in control that car salesman is not Not your friend. If he doesn't give you what you want, you leave. Okay, we get some more text. Yeah, next one. It says, hello, Earl. I enjoy your show very much, and I listen to it every week.

I'd like to add to last week's comment from anonymous feedback in regards to confronting dealers. I share that listener's idea and agree with Stu's response that it is not a good idea to become angry and loud. But I believe that there was another part to this confronting the dealer and letting other shoppers know that you have a deceitful tactic. liar a trick that you've uncovered. I myself have wanted to do this. I see the ads, listen to them talk, and push the extras. I just want to come in there with a rolling thunder and stop the madness. Question. Should a friendly neighborhood consumer advocate call out dealers in a non-shouting manner and interject sales that you witness to be morally wrong? Thank you. I think it's not worth raising your blood pressure or getting people excited. Excuse me for a moment.

Joey, we'll be right with you. Joey's calling us from Jupiter, and Jonathan, the call that was dropped that was, it dropped quickly. I didn't see the name on it. I'll find out. Okay.

Okay, we'll definitely get to our holding caller. And going on as to whether you should confront a car salesman or a manager when there is deception going on, you catch them at it in the dealership, what I was about to say is that

You're far more effective to voice that concern and outrage, if it is outrage, on Google, on dealer-rader is another rating system, Yelp is another rating system. Or you can actually email the manufacturer or call the manufacturer on the 800 number. If you call the manufacturer for that dealer and you go into some detail about what happened, the dealer principle will be contacted on all complaints of this nature. But I think, again, it's just not worth the taxation on your own body and the people around you to lose your temper in a dealership showroom. They're probably used to it, and they take it as like rolls right off their shoulders. With you, you'll be upset for a long time. Not worth it. Hit them with their Google ranking, their Yelp ranking, and their dealer-rater ranking.

You try some nonviolent protest, maybe sit in the showroom floor quietly with a sign. Yeah, and Better Business Bureau is also another way to go about it. Let's get to our children. No egg throwing. Not right. Okay, we're going to go to Joey, who's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Joey. Hey, Joey.

Hi, good morning. How you doing? Yeah, I got a couple. I might have a bad connection there. Yeah, it sounds like I got a bad connection. Joey, I don't know if you can hear us, but you got halfway through that sentence, and we lost you. if you have a bad connection call us back

call us back yeah give us a call back Joey and also to Rich who was holding please give us a call back 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and we'll go back to our text I got a good one here this is on your anonymous

feedback.com important point of discussion when is that manchild Elon Musk going to be removed from Tesla and placed into psychiatric care. Earl, do you know of any of the followers of the Church of Electric Jesus? If so, send them to psychiatric

care right alongside their savior. The affection with Tesla, the insane battery production pollution, and the car is catching fire needs to end. We did newer, better, more mature, electric vehicle manufacturer. Tesla on fire? Yes, here is a passerby's camera footage, and there's

a link to a, I guess, a video of a Tesla on fire. That's the comment. And by feeling about Elon Mosque, is he's typical of founders, he's a genius, I think nobody will argue that. I'm not sure what his IQ is, but it's got to be north of 150. And he just is not a good manager, and he doesn't understand people. He doesn't understand personalities, but he is. It's more like an Edison.

Yeah, easily, yeah. And you see this in so many cases, the founder of a company, after the first few years, and it reaches a point where you need to have a man. manager as a CEO. And that's what's happening to Elon Musk. You know, I like the guy as a academic genius, but he ruffles my feathers as a manager. I wouldn't hire him. Yeah.

Right. You wouldn't hire him in a business, but you'd love to have him do research and development. Oh, yeah. That's where he ought to be. Yeah, for sure. He could be like an Oracle I could go to, you know, every now and then for inspiration. Actually, Stu, I think he's more of a Tesla, Nikolai Tesla. Cool. We had somebody comment on that last week.

Very good. Good point. Elon Musk, you know, you've got to hand it to him. The academics, the science. The man is very intelligent. And as Earl alluded to, a high IQ. Can he get across the street by himself? Eh, who knows?

He doesn't need to. So next one, here's a good one. Good morning, Earl and team. You all have a great platform. Great camaraderie. Fantastic advice. And I enjoy listening to the show each week. Here's my question. Why is True Car not reporting the outdoor price?

Take a look at True Car's definition copied from the website. Here's a quote. How to use the True Car Price Curve. The True Car Price Curve presents new car sales transactions data in a way that helps you easily recognize a fair price for a similarly configured vehicle. Dealer, documentation, administrative, or similar processing fees are not included in these recent sale transactions. end quote. Those fees that are left out do not really reflect a true price. Is this the dealers purposely providing numbers without the dealer profit fees? Asking that question may have answered itself. Thank you a loyal listener. Yeah, it's a very good question. And true car has an agreement with every dealer that becomes a certified true car dealer that they allow true car to access their computer, the dealer's computer where all the transactions are related. And they take all the

transactions, which is one of the good things about Drewgar, they have about 15, maybe 20,000 dealers by now. And so all these dealers around the USA pretty accurately reflect the transaction prices in the sale of their new and used cars. But you're absolutely right. Dealers accounting leaves a lot to be desired. And when they sell a car, some dealers will not include certain items such as hidden fees, they'll put them in miscellaneous income. They won't show them as being a profit on the sale of the car. However, the bell curve that you see is a relative comparison of the higher and lower prices. And because dealer fees tend to kind of average out in a community, if you go to Palm Beach County and look at the average dealer fees, they're

very close. If you go to Orange County in northern Florida, such as a Florida, they're very close. So it leaves a lot to be desired. But if you look at the bell curve, you will see at the top of the bill curve the average price. That's fairly accurate. Yeah. It's definitely a useful thing to put you in the ballpark. True car has changed over the years. I mean, it used to be you could get the actual, the price. There wasn't a, it wasn't a range, it wasn't a suggestion or an average price. It was from the dealer. Some manufacturers still provide that, but some of them don't. And it has gotten harder to get a true out-the-door price from a particular dealer.

The true car does have a rule that you must include the dealer installed accessories and any extra non-government fees. Those are the hidden fees. They have to include this in the final true car price. They are itemized. You can see them. So you see what you're paying for. All right.

We have some texts. The first one, this comes from a listener in Utah, and he texted this last week. His name's Don. And he just received his copy of Confessions of a recovering car dealer. sent us a picture. He sent us a picture of the unboxing. How exciting. He says it just received the book. It will be well read. Thanks for all the cost-saving tips from Don. And then he chimed in this morning says, keep talking, taking care of the dogs. And he has an adorable chihuahua. Ah, fantastic. And just to tell everybody listening, when you buy a copy of Confessions of a recovering

car dealer on Amazon, available on Amazon, and you just go to earlsbook.com. That takes you right to the link on Amazon. Earlsbook.com. 100%. of the sales proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. They're the largest no-kill. They don't euthanize their dogs in Florida. They're an amazing organization. The only part of your purchase price,

the only part of the price that doesn't go to the dogs is Jeff Bezos is cut. Amazon takes a little off the top of the rest goes. That's the reason. He's the richest man on Earth. That's right. He's taking money from the dogs. One more time. All right, this is from Gary in Lake Park. He said, I saw a Honda at my neighbor's house. He had a sign

on the door that said Honda recall team. The neighbor said they informed him he has a recall for a passenger airbag in his 2003 Civic. Looks like they got the news. Yeah, Honda has been one of the most proactive manufacturers on getting their cars fixed. They actually check junkyards. They actually check newspaper advertisements. They go into inventories of dealers all over. They have really been proactive in trying to bring down their number of outstanding dangerous cars. And that's a good reason it's a good thing because they had the most they were out there they sold a lot of cars and the very first cars big in problems with takata was the Honda yeah well that's like the

easiest well for a while it was the easiest car for us to find we just look for like a 2002 to 2007 civic and we would almost find one every time all right this one's for rick it's from stephen new jersey he says how dangerous is it for you to change the airbag device what safety measures do you take to guard against it exploding when we're playing placing. Well, have you ever seen the Hurt Locker? I was kidding. Well, my best answer is I still have all my fingers and toes, and I haven't suffered any major loss of blood lately. So, you know, what he's saying, you're making light of it. But the fact of the matter is, you brought me a Takata Airbag for a 2016 war runner the other day. It's still on the other day.

when we were having the CBS. And so 2016, this is 2019. That's a three. I think it actually could have been in 2014. So it could have been a five to six-year-old to county airbag. The accelerant has been in South Florida sitting in a parts department somewhere

at who knows what temperature for the past, say, four or five years. That is a time when the accelerant degrades becomes unstable. So your job and the job, job of all the technicians that are having to work with these stockout airbags because they will explode without an accident. You don't have to be in a car crash. They can spontaneously explode. So you ought to get hazardous duty pay. Well, it comes down to the fact that...

Excuse me, Rick. John, hold on. We'll be right with you from West Palm Beach. There are safety measures that we follow. Antistatic mats, trying to avoid creating static that might put a charge in, the wiring that we're working with, and there are special steel cages that are used that we'll put it in to try to, if it were to detonate, try to keep any metal shrapnel from flying directly at you. I'm going to get you a flag check. I've actually got one. I'm sure you do.

The best thing we can do is just not think about it, and we simply do the job because this is what we've got to do. As a technician, that's our contribution. to try to help out to make it safer for folks. I mean, there is the potential that as these bags get as old as eight to ten years, they could potentially detonate on their own. And it's a rare occasion, but there have been a couple of documented cases. Great information, Rick. Well said.

We're going to go to John, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Good morning. Can you hear me? Hi, John. What's on your mind, John, thanks for the call. Oh, you're welcome. I had the opportunity the other day to stop in your new showroom

and was liked it very much. I wanted to see the Pontiac that you have on display there. Yeah. And then came across the old Supra. Oh, yeah. What I want to know is, can I get your permission? What I... You sold me as a customer when we go to turn our two leases in on our hondas,

and I'm glad they're going to play the... $300 or whatever it is and come get a toy just because of your window sticker and I think you guys are making a process just on saving ink alone because there's nothing on the window sticker except the price and taxes well thank you that's the wave of the future I think John that I hope all car dealers will do something like that I actually had a call from the legal counsel of off lease only last week and they're doing some lobbying in Tallahassee, Florida, and talking to a lot of politicians about making the dealer fee law something with teeth and binding. Offleash only does not charge a dealer fee, and we don't charge hidden fees. People call them dealer fees, I call it's something that I think is going to get legs pretty soon, and the sophisticated consumer, 21st century consumer, is going to make it happen. but thanks for the compliment. Well, what one of the reason, uh, I actually want to ask, uh, next time I come in,

can I take a picture of one of the sales things on the windows and post it online and with the captain saying, this is the way car spying should be? Love to have it. I, you know, uh, we love positive publicity. Thank you very much, John. All right. Now, I'll do that then. All right.

Thanks for the call. Thank you. That's it. Thank you, John. Give us a call, tool for you. at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us 772-497-6-5-30. I have a really important text that I'd like to share with the audience and with our team. How much should I spend on my son's first car?

My problem is with all the press that I have been reading about with Takata Airbus, bags and it being a death trap, I don't feel comfortable purchasing a used car. What are my alternatives? I can only afford a used car. Well, it's very simple to find out if it has a Dakota airbag recall. You go to NHTSA website, which is safercar.gov, put the VIN number in, and then you could check with the manufacturer. You should check with the manufacturer of that car you've chosen.

and finally can go to Carfax. If you do that triple check, you can buy a used car, save money, and be sure that there is not a dangerous recall. And if you're really nervous, you can go, NHTSA has a list called Recall Spotlight, and it tells all the cars that were ever manufactured with the Cod Airbag, and believe it or not, there are some that weren't. Hyundai's and Kia's never had to cut airbags.

Why didn't know that? Yeah, we've never found one, and it's, a matter of fact, not listed on their website, so there's no danger of a recall happening in the future on that. You know, if I were a Hyundai dealer or I were a Kia dealer, or for that matter, if I were the manufacturer, I'd be advertising the heck out of that. They don't. There's only one car manufacturer. We'll verify this.

Nobody cares. Yeah. I mean, I'm saying that they don't care. They don't care. It's crazy. Okay, Jennifer, there you have. It's safercar.gov. You can reassure yourself and the safety of your son and get that used car.

And as stood stated, Hyundai and Kia. Yeah. Nope. Correct. And not only that, every manufacturer, it'll list the models of the manufacturer. So you can look at Ford. Not every Ford had a Takata airbag. A lot did.

You could go to Mercedes, Nissan, Toyota, whatever. And the ones that are not listed are the models that never got a Takata Airbag in the first place. Knowledge is power, Jennifer. And you've got to do a whole lot of homework today because, as we used to say, when we did the old show, I'll tell you what, it's a minefield out there. And you want to protect your loved ones. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. We're going to go to Jim, who's calling from Jupiter. Good morning, Jim.

Good morning. I have two questions, and then I'll jump off and listen to the answers. Could you go over the commercials about leasing? They seem to give a very low number. You can lease this car for $150 a month, but the fine print is really where the where the real answer is found, it takes a huge deposit or down payment. So I think a lot of people don't notice that they're going to get surprised when they come into the leasing department. They have to put $4,000 or $5,000 down.

And then the second question, could you go over the manufacturer's, let me see, not invoice? Well, you got MSRP, which comes from the actual manufacturer, and then they boast that they're going to sell at invoice. So invoice is something that's created by the dealer himself, right? Not actually. It's kind of a collaboration, a conspiracy between the collusion between the dealer and the manufacturer. But you're absolutely right. The invoice is meaningless. Okay, yeah.

So that was the two points I wanted to bring out. I know I hear a lot of commercials touting the invoice or at invoice or below invoice, but it's really smoking yours. Yeah. You got to figure it out. All right, Jim. Yeah, I'll go back to your first question on leasing. You hit on some super important points. The leasing ads are deceptive.

Even the leasing ads by the manufacturers. That really distresses me. You'd think that General Motors and Toyota and Honda and the rest of the manufacturers would understand that when you advertise prominently a payment, this is a price. This is when you lease a car. The payment is what you're paying for the car. Essentially, it's what it cost you.

So you put a $199 a month payment on a particular vehicle. And in the fine print, and the unreadable fine print on a television net. $10,000 down. Yeah. $10,000. $10,000 down. It is a violation of the Federal Trade Commission rule that the price of the vehicle or any product, the price of any product that is advertised,

anything that will modify, change that price has to be prominently and conspicuously. Those are the exact words conspicuously and prominently displayed in the near the price that's advertised. So the manufacturers and the dealers violate that Federal Trade Commission Act day after day after day and all their advertising. Lease payments mean nothing. You see $199 a month, $99 a month, whatever it is, you can't lease the car for that price. It is a terrible abomination on the U.S. consumer. Another thing to watch out for, you'll see things like zero down, and that's always a deception because they're not talking about totaled out-of-pocket.

So the down payment is just a down payment. It's something it's called our cap cost reduction. but they're still going to hit you up for dealer fees, taxes, registration fees, first payment. It could be thousands of dollars on a $0 down lease. So watch out for that, too. And the lease could also have a very small annual mileage allowance. I've seen leasing as... 8,000 miles.

I've seen 5,000 miles. Yeah, insane. And you can put anything you want that the leasing company puts in their lease agreement and put in the fine print. and a guy comes in and he drives average 15,000 miles a year and he's looking at the lease payment that means you can only drive 5,000. And if you don't see that when you sign the paperwork

and you end up with 30,000 extra miles at 25 cents a mile, you do the arithmetic, yeah. But those are the two. Let's get to the MSRP. The MSRP manufacturer's suggested retail price is a good thing. It was established in 1958 in the law by Senator Monroney, and it was a really good idea because it gives you an ability to compare apples and apples

when you're shopping and comparing prices. If you go to a Chevrolet dealer, and you look at a Corvette, and the Corvette's got a MSRP of $65,000, and you go to another Chevrolet dealer that's got a 65,000, you know, same Corvette for 65,000 MSRP, you can buy it safely from the dealer that gives you the biggest discount from that price, Just watch out for Phony Monroney's.

Watch out for Fony Monroney's. It's got to be the legitimate manufacturer's suggested retail price. But the dealers got around that by putting addendum labels next to the Monroney, and they are counterfeit. Identical. They're identical. And you think you're paying the Monroney suggested retail price or being discounted from that, but you're not. Invoice, the last thing that Jim from Jupiter asked us about, the invoice is not the invoice is not the cost from the manufacturer to the dealer.

The dealer's cost of a car is not the invoice. Please remember that. The invoice includes thousands of dollars in profit to the dealer. Comes in forms of rebates, kickbacks, phony fees like advertising fees, floor plan reimbursement, dealer

cash, effectively reduce the true cost of the car. And why they call an invoice is only one reason. It's to deceive you, the buyer. Because when the dealer shows you the invoice of the car, he's able to make you think that he's selling you the car at that price or 500 order of invoice. 500 over invoice could be a $4,500 profit. I got four words you got to say to the salesperson who shows the invoice.

What about the holdback? And that's just all the built-in profit. Some invoices, I can tell you, Toyota, list what the holdback is. You have to know where to look, though. It's in a little paragraph down there. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars, If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. Okay. Let's move along. Okay. We have a text from Anne-Marie, long-time listener, long-time text her. Good morning. I saw the news story on TV when it aired, and she's referring to the CBS story on Takata Airbags. What struck me was that Earl appears to be the only question. car dealer in the country who's willing to publicly appear on national TV to highlight the problem of recalled Takata airbags. Thank you, Earl. By the way, if anybody wants to see the story, and we've already plugged this, go to CBSNews.com and click on the little magnifying

glass at the top of the page and type in Takata Airbags, and the automation story will pop right up. And then she has a question. I have a basic question, why can't Takata Airbags be replaced with a different brand? Or is Takata the only manufacturer of airbags? Thanks. Well, Takata is bankrupt. They no longer exist. We use the word Takata, and another company acquired them, another airbag company. And Rick, and you remember, as anybody remember the name of the company that bought Takata? We can Google that for you.

Yeah, we did that a while back. I'm going to have to Google it again. Yeah. In Amory, there's also other airbags out there that are problems. Takata is the mother of all problems in airbags, but there are. or other airbag manufacturers that have had their problems reported. And there's only one way to be sure, and that's to check with Carfax and with safercar.gov and with the manufacturer. That's right.

Okay, we got a funny text here. It's just a picture. I sent it to your phone. I don't know if it came through. You could probably put it on the camera for our viewers on Facebook and Twitter and all that. It's a millennial anti-theft device, and it's a picture of the shifting pattern that you would have seen on a standard transmission vehicle. which would be completely alien to my children, which are not even millennials or Gen Z.

But, oh, yeah, it's been a long, you don't see too many of those. I learned to drive on one. I'm sure most of us did. But the kids just don't know. Here, you do it. I'm trying to hold up, and I'm getting it. Oh, yeah, it's funny.

I'm not getting it. Maybe Jonathan can edit into the video later. Yeah, not important. Yeah, we got a question on Facebook from Steve. He's a longtime viewer on our Facebook video. When did manufacturers start using Takata airbags? His 1988 Porsche had airbags before they became mandatory, and they're pretty old now. Good question.

When did they start using those? I'm not sure. I do know that it was a long time before anyone even talked about problems. And Takata, one of the scandals, one of the reasons they went bankrupt, is because of liability exposure, because they've been lying. There was a conspiracy. and it was probably, I'm pops in my head early 90s. I'd have a guess. I mean, when we've been looking, sorry, Rick,

most of them, the oldest one I've seen when we're searching these things is 2002. So I don't know if that coincides when they started using it or when they started putting in bad ones, I don't know. Takata started making airbags in 1988, and the first faulty airbags that they were able to determine are as far back as 1998. So they had 10 years worth of airbags that did not have an issue, and apparently they changed the manufacturing process in 1998, and that was the first ones in Honda airbags, which that would coincide right about the time when they started producing car manufacturers were wanting what are called dual-stage airbags, where the airbag can actually come out either full force in a severe accident or at half power in a severe accident. Ironically, the most effective way we're getting rid of dangerous airbags is by

obsolescence and scrapping cars. So from 1998, we're looking at cars that, you know, 20 years old, you probably see a lot of cars being scrapped. And so fortunately, the ones that didn't blow up and kill somebody are in the junkyard being scrapped. That's right. They could still blow up, though. And just think of all the cars they were sold with no warning whatsoever. It's absolutely, This is so huge and there's so many cars out there that this is the reason that the legislators and the regulators are sitting on their hands. The lobbyists, the manufacturers and the dealers

are lobbying the legislators and so the economic impact would crush the automotive economy, not just for retailers but for the manufacturers. So that is a reason nothing's happening. Well, the total number has been reported as being over 110 million cars worldwide. Imagine if those cars were frozen legally by the World Court that said you cannot sell these cars.

100 million cars that cannot be sold, that would have a huge impact on the world economy. You guys would ignore that. By the way, Takata was bought out by Chinese-based Ningbo-Joyson Electronic Corporation, and Takata will be rebranded as Joyson Safety System. Ah, that sounds very joyful. Your Mandarin is very good, by the way. Yeah. Okay, let's move along here.

We have some more text? We are all caught up. All caught up? You've got a text on you. We've got one. Richard is asking, Earl, what's the average markup the dealer makes on a $30,000 car? It varies all over the charts. Depends on the model and depends on the manufacturer.

I'll get to you just. just a minute's due. I'd say that it would vary from a low of 10 or 11 percent to a high of 50 percent, and that's the reason you really can't negotiate or buy a car based on discount. And there's also various incentives and things like that that you never see, never comes into discussion. It doesn't appear on the invoice, even in the little hidden section of the holdback. I'd say, you know, I can just talk about Toyota's, you know, a $30,000 car probably has a spread of $2,000, $2,300 from invoice to MSRP, another $1,800 a holdback, and then possibly another thousand in incentives. So if selling it sticker, it's a ton of money, a ton of profits.

The advertising that you will see, the dealer will typically take a particular car that happens to have a huge markup and reduce it. And maybe we talked to a lot of dealer last week on the show that was selling 2018 cars. And Lord only knows. how big a discount was available to him in those cars. But they'll say discounts as high as 50%. With the average car in his stock probably has an average discount of maybe 12, 14%. So you can't play that game with a dealer. He'll win.

What you need to do is just compare prices on the same MSRP with different dealers. If you go to three different dealers, I wish you'd go to five different dealers, but you probably don't want to spend the time. go to at least three different dealers on the exact same year-make model car with the same MSRP and buy the one that gives you the biggest discount from the out-the-door price. And, of course, be careful about hidden fees, be careful about dealer-install accessories. With that mouthful, that's the way you get a little price.

It is tempting to get into the weeds and figure out all the details, but we could probably shut this show down with one bit of advice, which is always get three bids. And a used dealer, play them off each other. They're going to compete and you wind up at the lowest price. But it does, you know, it changes by manufacturer incentive. Generally speaking, though, the more expensive the car, the bigger the markup. The, you know, if you get a car that's $15,000, you might see a $700 markup from invoiced MSRP and a small amount of holdback.

So, but yeah, don't focus on that. Just plan against each other, get three bids. Yeah. Okay. Before? The pricing is so complex that even the car. dealers themselves often don't know their own cost. There's something called stair-step incentives. And stair-step incentives is something that's imposed on the dealers by the manufacturers.

Most famous ones for that at Nissan, Nissan dealers, Nissan manufacturers is infamous for the way they have these stair-step incentives. And what that does is cause the dealer to hit a certain quota in a given period of time before he gets rebates. effectively making the cost of the car vary all over the map. And you can go to one Nissan dealer who will effectively have a higher cost than another Nissan dealer based on the stair-step incentives. So you can see the dealer himself doesn't even know what his car costs. This is like a massive conspiracy because if the dealer and the manufacturer are not sure about the cost of the car,

how can you? So don't play the cost game. Just use the competitive bid team and you will win. Ladies and gentlemen, our number, 877-960-99-60. Earl, Rick, Stu, Jonathan, and even myself. Would love to hear from the ladies. First two, lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning. Now we are going to go over to Rick because he has some YouTube to share with us.

We do. Mark Ryan from Iowa. is asking, what do you think about switching incandescent bulbs for LEDs on the headlights, brake lights, et cetera? It says, thanks for providing a great show. I recently put LED headlights in my truck, switched over from the regular incandescent bulbs that I had, and I like them a lot better. I like the color and the brightness. Provided they're done properly and aimed properly, I see nothing wrong with switching to LED bulbs.

bulbs and one of the very tiny advantages that you might actually find is because LEDs will use less power you'll actually save a tiny little bit of fuel by switching over to the less powerful bulbs. Why don't the manufacturers put them in? They actually are a lot of newer cars. You'll see they have those bright white headlights and of course the brake lights are getting much brighter. the turn signals and other lights because they're all switching now to LEDs now that they've been able to get them so much brighter as available

and they just work better so most new cars now come with LEDs already installed but if you are driving an older car it's not a bad idea I think LEDs are great I'm surprised that it hasn't already happened but most of them are yep most of the new ones now more great information from Rick we're going to take

a pause and we're going to go to John who's calling us from Palm City Good morning to everyone I have a question for Rick but I just want to give a little background because it actually happened to my father in 81 he bought a new Pontiac Bonneville from

I think it was Jack Nicklaus then it was in Delray Beach and later it was changing over then to Sherwood so from day one on he got the car he had quite a few oil leaks in it And, you know, he just played by ear.

And he took the car, and he went all the way up north to the Adirondex Mountains in Vermont. And it leaked so bad, it was like unbelievable. He went into a small Pontiac Cadillac dealer, and they had to redo these seals and do a lot of work on the engine. And the theory was then that would leak from the beginning that the car, when it was transported either by rail or a truck, It was assembled in Canada that the angle was not, you know, flat. It was a, you've seen some of the car hauled as to wait. There's a hole. I mean, it's unbelievable.

It's a 90-degree angle almost. And they said that they believe that that's what the problem was. So I heard of a person over here now in Florida that had the oil overfilled. You go to some oil chain places, and, you know, it's strict on. some cars, it's 4.5, a five, it's even amount. It used to be five and one for the filter. If an engine is overfilled, over period time, way overfilled, and you get, would you get oil leaks from the pan and front seal and rear seal?

Especially if you go on a long trip, like a 95, with excess oil in the engine. Is that possible that the seals could be leaking? I find that highly unlikely, especially the angle thing. I don't think that's really a factor. Seals are actually lubricated by the oil that they help hold in. So having oil just resting against the seal is not going to affect anything if the car is not running. So the transport thing, somebody was playing a little bit of smoke and mirrors game there, just looking for an excuse for a defective vehicle.

If you're overfill with oil, you're going to get oil dripping down, and you may think you have an oil leak, but you don't. That's possible if they really seriously super overfilled it. The other factor that would happen overfilling it is you would actually wind up with oil getting through the breathing system, the PCV valve, and being burned in the engine, and you'd have a lot of smoke coming out the exhaust pipe. That, I think, would be the number one symptom.

that you would see for overfilling a car and that case would occur I've actually seen it a couple times where a tech goofed up thought he had drained the oil he got distracted he went back he put oil in the car took the car out for a test drive

and of course it's now it doubled the amount of oil that he should have had and came back smoking ferociously so that I think is the number one symptom and once we drained the oil everything was fine. It's really not that huge of an issue. Answer your question, John. Yes, it does, but it's important that people do go to a place

that does get the oil change and it's the exact amount that's supposed to be in it, especially if it's short. It could be the problem. But Earl, as a Pontiac dealer at that time, what I thought was they were making excuses, Earl. If you remember, in the 80s, they were putting Buick engines and Pontiac Chevy engines and older wheels, Oh, sure.

And they were just screwing up completely, and I think they were just basically looking for an excuse, in my opinion. That's what I think. One of the things, the only one good thing about being an old guy like me, I've been in the business for so long that I appreciate the increase in quality that we've seen. And back in the 70s and 80s, when I was a Pontiac dealer, those cars were so bad in comparison to today's cars. And the quality, it was a joke.

when I first got, I bought a Toyota dealership and found out what real quality was like. Domestics have caught up to Toyota, but back in the 70s and 80s, the imports were Japanese imports, especially, were far higher quality. I used to, as a Pontiac dealer, used to make more money doing warranty work on cars than I did doing what we call customer pay. And we would, the customer pay, meaning people that would come in and pay us to repair their cars, would be the equal to. the amount of warranty work that the Pontiac Motor Division paid us to fix cars under warranty. So it was really quite a... Of course, all the cars were the same bad quality, so it didn't really make any difference.

If you wanted to buy a car, it was going to be a bad quality car, and everything averaged out. Also, I remember driving in those days, and a V6 and a heavy Pontiac Bonneville was way, way underpowered. Yeah, no, the cars were amazing. He had a four-silled, a Corolla. And my father said that thing has more pep to it than my Bonneville. How about the...

You sort of problems. And you remember the GMD's... Especially using different engines from GM cars. Or the GM diesels. That's another favorite story of mine, is that the GM diesel was such a bad car that General Motors Acceptance Corporation, the financing lending arm for General Motors, refused to finance the cars that General Motors is building. And that's not a story.

That's a real, honest-to-God fact. That's great. Unbelievable. But the good news is the General Motors' strike looks like it's finally settled after a month. I'm sure the union is not going to be stupid. They're going to definitely vote on this to go back to work. Absolutely. 49,000 workers affected. That's the good news. Yeah. That was a very expensive strike. Very expensive. Unbelievable.

The number is outrageous. All the plans next year that Canada assembly plants will be closed, and they won't be built in Canada anymore. So where it's going to go to, hopefully not all Mexico, it'll be distributed through demands of the United States. Okay, John, thanks again. I'm glad you're back online. You can get the show and listen and call on.

We missed you there for a while, so we'll be looking for your calls. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Okay, have a good day. Thanks, John. Everybody, hang on to your hats. I have an interesting story for everyone. It's a little ha-ha, but it's a little ha-ha,

but it's kind of serious. Okay, and this made it to TV. A station covered this. Okay, a couple found out where all their walnuts have gone. It turns out squirrels stored more than 200 of them under the hood of the couple's SUV. The TV station that covered this said that the wife had. called and said that the vehicle smelled like as if it was burning. So you heard a rattle.

When she popped the hood, she found walnuts and grass piled over the engine. They took the SUV to a mechanic who found half a trash can of walnuts under the engine. Anybody find this interesting? Well, it sounds like some healthy squirrels. There's a lot in the energy here. Okay, I'll continue. Okay. There was extensive damage

and the squirrel had chewed through the fuel injector hose of his new truck. True story. We actually get a lot of rodent damaged cars and I got to admit, one of the first encounters that I

had with one like this was way back in the mid-90s when I went to check an air filter on a car and the air filter box was full of dog food, dry dog food. It was because a squirrel just kept storing the pieces, would steal the dog food from an outside dish and would store them in the air cleaner box. Interesting trivia, by the way, and Earl was about to tell us to get off the subject, I can tell. But did you know that squirrels lose the location about 80% of the nuts that they hide. That's why we have so many trees that are up from them. That's true. Anyway,

this couple got a quote on removing the walnut tree from their property. Oh, I would have taken it. I hope we have some more text. We do. Oh, my goodness. I don't think I like that reply. We haven't run out of things to say.

If you came in, Kia vehicles do not have to cut an airbag. You should highlight this on your show. You might have tuned in late. We actually did bring this up about 20 minutes ago. Kia and Hyundai don't have Dakota Airbags. It's on the NHTSA Recall Spotlight website. So that's true.

And you made a great comment. How could they not be advertising that? You Kia people out there, Hyundai people, your dealers, your salespeople, you've got yourself something to advertise. You're going up against you trying to crack into Toyota and Honda's dominance. and Toyota and Honda are just rife with Takata airbags. I didn't know it until you listened to it for about three years. I should have mentioned it a while ago. Well, it's kind of like apathy.

You know, many people just don't know. Well, not my apathy, but it was something it wasn't remarkable. I'm just looking for Takata Airbags. All right, the next one, my brand new Ford Edge has an annoying wooden noise problem. It's less than six months old, and the dealer's service is telling me it's normal. It is not normal. How do I get this taken care of? Yeah, I'll let Rick answer this, but I just have to tell you as a car dealer, one of my most maddening experiences with the manufacturer, or even with my own service department.

I don't. I just, I'm morphed into more of a consumer than a car dealer. And if I bought a car and I wasn't a car dealer and I went into my car dealer and I had a wind noise and the service advisor told me that that's just the way they all are and they all make that noise. That wouldn't be acceptable to me. And why the manufacturer, I can kind of understand a dealer doing it because it's just lack of knowledge. But when the manufacturer, I can kind of understand a dealer doing it because it's just lack of knowledge. But when the manufacturer, fracture backs up the dealer, and that will happen. You know, you build a product with a problem, a squeak, a noise, a smell, a vibration, whatever it is. If you have something about your product, your car specifically that's annoying to the buyer, you've got to make it right. You just can't say that they all do it. If they all do it, then fix all of them, have a recall.

But anyway, Rick, you're in the trenches. You see this every day. You have cases where a customer comes in with a Toyota with a problem. And Toyota tells you that that's the way they all are. In a case like that, the best, the only real weapon that I have is what's called a dealer product report. Where as a technician, I can send a report to Toyota that says, hey, this customer is not happy about this particular. thing on this car and as a matter of fact Toyota takes them rather seriously they award certain prizes to us for those of us that will go above and beyond really making sure that we're

conscientious sending in these reports and really you know letting know what's going on in some cases if you dig deeper on the situation you just suggested customer comes in let's say a wind noise and then he's got a wind noise in a Camry, L.E., 2017. And the answer from Toyota is they all do that. And I'm just making this up. And unbeknownst to us, perhaps, or certainly to the customer, they are working on a fix. So when a manufacturer, this isn't just Toyota, any manufacturer has a problem.

Well, it'll come to light after they go to a market on the car, and there's thousands of cars out. They will say, oh, look, we've had a lot of complaints from customers and dealers around the country. We have this issue with a car, but we don't know how to fix it. Randy, we're going to get to your call real quick. Randy's calling from Toronto. Yeah, we'll be right with you, Randy. And right, so what they should do is come out and say, we have a problem, we're sorry, we're working on a fix. but they wait until they have the fix before they acknowledge the problem.

There's a lot of times they do that, yes. Okay, let's go to Randy. Good morning, Randy. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be on the show. Thank you. You're calling from Toronto.

I've called before. I haven't been able to get through on the phone, so that's why I haven't tried. So I got through today. Thank you for your persistence. I wanted to give a bouquet to Earl. I saw his profile in the automobile news there. They did like a write-up on him, and it was very interesting. Well, thank you very much.

We'll hold that up for our streamers out there, and we were very proud of this, and I hope I can get this centered. Yeah, right here. Yeah. This is the anti-dealer. I kind of like that title, and there you can see Nancy Stewart,

and myself right here where we're sitting now on the radio show. It's like a picture within a picture. Yeah, we're very proud of that. And thanks for calling us to the attention, Randy. I appreciate it. Thank you. My question today is we have a Ford factory in suburbs of Toronto in Oakville. They're advertising on TV, employee pricing.

Is that the same as you say the dealer would like that because it's basically the same as buying at MSRP, buying it at invoice. Can you just talk about that? I still has the specifics on that, but I recall that the Ford employee pricing is very good, are very good prices. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's something that you normally, if you can buy a car at the Ford employee price, it is a very low price.

And they call it like the Z plan or there's some plan. Yeah, it's, I can say Ford, if we've looked into the car, The Ford Employee Pricing Plan or Z plan or whatever they call it is legit and it's really good. Can't speak for other manufacturers. Employee pricing kind of got bandied about as it became popular during the recession when the car business was just really struggling. And they began to offer employee pricing to the public. And unless you do your due diligence and really check on the cross shop, you know, there's no way to know if it's really good. But we've done the legwork for you.

If you can get on the Ford Employee Plan and it's legit, then it's a good deal. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe they require the dealer not to add hidden fees. Some of the other, I know, employee plans for other manufacturers allow the dealer to add hidden fees, maybe even dealer-installed accessories, but not the Ford plan. It's clean and it's honest. Okay, good. Okay, thanks very much. I'll let you go.

I enjoy the show, and it's nice to get through on the phone. Thank you. Thank you, Randi. Thank you, Randy. Bye-bye. I hope to hear from you again. to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th.

Our numbers 877960, or you can text us at 772-49760. We sure would love to hear from you at Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Do you have any more? I do have one more. Wayne Vait is asking, does the engine in the 2019 and 2020 CHR, Toyota CHR, have direct injection? And the answer simply to that one? Yes, they do.

Very good. Direct injection just means, what, that the fuel is sprayed directly into the cylinder? Absolutely. It's a newer design. They've been working on it for quite a few years. years and tried them several times in the past, different manufacturers, well, now they seem to have got some of the bugs worked out. Not only does it have injectors that spray into the intake

manifold runners like a traditional gasoline engine, but it has a second set of gasoline injectors that spray directly into the combustion chamber. Double whammy, get a lot of fuel. Yeah, well, it actually gets better fuel economy, more power, and less emissions. Evenly distributed. Much better. Yeah, very good. All right, we got a couple more coming in. I just sent you a picture, Rich and Jupiter, sent us a screenshot of the most recent Gallup poll, which actually shows car salespeople above members of Congress. Congratulations, guys. Yeah, so moving on up.

That sounds pretty good. Then, Rich also shined in. He is listening to the texter with the problem with the wind noise and the Ford Edge. He says, if I was told, and this is great advice, if I was told that they all do that, I would say, let me drive one of yours on the lot and see if it makes the same wind noise. So that's absolutely right. That's a great idea. I'm a brand-new-one.

Unfortunately, sometimes they do make the same noise. But sometimes that's a ploy. And actually at our dealership, in full transparency, if you haven't tuned in before, I do have a Toyota dealership, and I am a dealer, and this is not an infomercial, and we don't talk about our dealership, and we don't try to push what we sell, which is Toyota's. But with the proof to a customer, sometimes when we have that sad situation, we will get a new car out of stock and let them drive it and say, see, this has got the same problem. And every time that happens, I have a tear in my eye because I identify, empathize with that customer. And why should that be an excuse?

Because you build a problem into a car because all of them, all the cars have the same problem, I should be happy about that? What's that phrase? It's not a bug. It's a feature. Yeah. Steve on Facebook says, I took my wife's car for a quick oil change, a quick oil change place once. They pulled the car out, left it running so you can drive it right off.

When I got home, I had to add a quart of oil. I have since gone back to doing my oil myself. Yeah. You know, the whole oil change thing is a red flag. When we begin a mechanic at our dealership, a technician, we start in changing oil and rotating tires. It's a preliminary to learning the mechanics and technology as you grow and get to be like Rick, a certified master diagnostic technician. So the red flag is the fact, the kid changing your own, and I say kid, because they're mostly very young, and they're just starting in the auto industry.

If they haven't had the proper training, you really got a lot of problems. They can inadvertently not rotate your tires properly or at all. They can maybe not put the right amount of oil in your car. They may not tighten your lug nuts tightly on your wheels. And these are things that can really affect severe damage to your car or even danger. So you think it's a simple process when you go to Jiffy Loob, but all these oil change places, they're not paying these people a lot. these people a lot of money. That's the starting, beginning wage. It's the lowest wage of

any thing that a mechanic or a technician does is changing oil. So, you know, it's like buying the joke about the U.S. government. Remember that all the tanks and all the planes were built by the lowest bidder. Right. Your oil is being changed by the lowest paid, right. The oil is being changed by the lowest paid employee in that dealership. And it's not right. And, Rick, we actually had a case one time where an oil changer, a new guy, was just simply checking an air filter on a car to see if it was clean or dirty, and he knocked off a vacuum line, and it caused a drivability problem with that car. Yeah. Yeah, they shouldn't have to learn at your expense, and it wouldn't be a bad idea. If I were taking my car into it and I wasn't in the business, I'd ask a question about how long is this gentleman over there that will be changing my all?

and rotate my tires. How long has he worked here? If the answer is, three days, I would go somewhere else. If he's been there for a year, he probably knows how to do it. And he's got the mistakes out of the way. The quote was from John Glenn. He said, as I hurled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind. Every part of this rocket was supplied by the low as bitter. That's a great quote.

Just to brag a little bit, though, our oil changers do spend about three days just shadowing another oil changer and learning the process and learning to double check themselves and even I myself I have trained myself that I double check every single thing I do and quite often you'll see me run out

to a car an hour later that's still parked in the lot just to triple check the oil level because you had that nagging thought in my age I just I remember that I've made many mistakes in my life and if it doesn't leave the lot, it's not a comeback, so I catch him before I can. You're a mature senior citizen.

You know, you have the wisdom over all those years to make sure you. So in our dealership, we can ensure them that the man that changes his oil has had three days' experience. That's right. Don't worry about it. Minimum. No worries here. Okay. I have a text, and the text reads, what is the text?

what is the difference between a warranty and a service contract? Well, I'll tell you what, Mary Elizabeth, I can't answer that question because it is such a gray area. Once you get in and you start signing these contracts, I'm not sure if I would know the difference between a warranty and an extended debt. I can answer that. Stu? Yeah, a warranty only comes from the manufacturer.

It's backed by the manufacturer. and has to do with defects and work. Everything else that the dealership presents to you is a service contract. Sometimes the extended service contract is called a warranty. I'm saying I'm defining what they are. So the name is used very loosely and you have to be careful. I'm saying I'm letting the listeners know that if a dealer is selling you a warranty, it's not a warranty. It's a service contract.

If they call it a warranty and you have to pay for it, it's not a warranty. It's a service contract. Sometimes it's all about the numbers. That's right. All right. We have a text here. It's an update from a caller who called in last week. Update on the raffle with the tires wearing on the edges.

I spoke with Tier 1 Toyota customer service and the dealer. Toyota looked up all the service records confirmed everything required was done by me. They still refused to do anything about it. They are blaming the dealership saying it's a service failure and they should have caught it. The dealer won't do anything about it as well. It's a shame. It's my mother's third lease, seventh Toyota, and it will be hers and my entire family. his last Toyota. What happened to Toyota? They used to be the best when it comes to standing

behind their cars. It's going to cost her $1,000 for new tires, which she doesn't have. It's crazy. A two-year-old car with 20,000 miles needs tires. Thanks. Love the show. That's from Ryan. Well, the dealer should be checking your tire pressure every time you come in. And that should be part of the maintenance and your factory recommended maintenance. If they're not checking the tire pressure, your tires could have been underinflated, in which case, would you have the edge wear. It should be a matter of proof, science, a picture of the tire should tell anybody that why did you have the excess wear? And the dealer is to blame. Manufacturer is not the blame only in the sense that the manufacturer should lean on the dealer and say, you should

take care of this customer. Unfortunately, they don't do that like they should, and I would still go back to the dealer, try to take it up the ladder, try to talk to the service manager, the real service manager, meaning the guy that runs the entire service department, not somebody in the service drive that calls himself service manager or the general manager or the owner of the dealership. I'm going to add another advice is he said you called the Toyota customer the number. When you do that, basically they're going to refer the problem right back to the dealer. It comes in, it's called an 800 complaint.

It comes in and basically describes to the number. the dealer what they already knew. And then you're going to be contact by a customer relations manager and probably people who can't actually get anything done for you. Ask the dealer, some friendly voice or somebody who will actually listen to at that dealership to call the Toyota Customer Experience Desk or whatever they call it. Sometimes they'll step up, especially for long-term families that have bought a bunch of Toytas and they've made the threat to leave Toyota altogether. They could step in and assist you. So just keep pushing with the dealer, but that the 800 number for Toyota is probably not going to do too much to help you.

Great information. We are going to be getting to the Mystery Shopping Report, so therefore we will not be taking any more phone calls. But let me remind you that you too can vote on the Mystery Shopping Report, and you can do so at 772-497-6-5-30. And two-year mentioning when we first aired this morning about the Chevy. dealership in Green Acres. Boy, all of a sudden, I feel this thought just came to me. I feel pretty old.

Remember, Earl, playing racquetball with Steve Moore? I do, yes. Do you? That was a long time ago. Long time ago. When did he sell up? Oh, 25 years ago. Wow. Okay. We have our mystery shopping

report from Auto Nation Chevy Green Acres. The Tagata Test I sent a copy of this by the way this morning to Anna Werner who is the CBS investigative reporter that broke this story about

Auto Nation having a lot of cars being sold with defective Tagata airbags and hopefully she'll read this and maybe do a follow-up of some kind because you're going to see in a minute what happened when our mystery shopper went in

and again as Nancy said this is a mystery shop of Auto Nation, Chevrolet and Green Acres, that's southern or central Palm Beach County. A lot of people don't know where Green Acres. It's near Lake Worth, West Palm Beach area. This week, CBS News featured a story on the Takata Airbag recall crisis. The piece focused on a report by the United States Public Research Group that concluded that one in nine used cars being offered for sale by Auto Nation. as a safety recall issue. One and nine.

Now this is staggering. This is a large, large percentage. You're familiar with the Russian roulette where you take a revolver and you spin the chamber and you hold it up to your head and you're drunk because you wouldn't do that unless you're drunk and you squeeze the trigger. I've seen it, the movies, you've seen in the movies,

Russian roulette. This is what it is. When you buy a used vehicle from Auto Nation, You're playing Russian roulette. You have one chance out of nine of having bought a car that can kill you. And the fact that this is going on says something about our legislature,

our politics, our regulators. It says something about the American system where money can trump life, where money can trump safety, where the lobbyists for the manufacturers, auto manufacturers, the lobbyists for the auto dealers, can go to our,

legislators and persuade them not to pass a law that would make it illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall. And they won't do it. They're afraid to do it because they won't get the donations from these giant lobbying groups to get reelected. A sad, sad statement on America. As you know, and I said before, I was interviewed for the story about automation by CBS News, reporter, Anna Werner. I hope she's listening now, and I hope she's reading the same mystery shopping report that I'm reading to you now. I discussed my policy in my dealership of not selling dangerous recall cars, something I stuck with since July of 2016. I applaud CBS News for helping me to return the national attention to national attention of the public safety

crisis that has shamefully been ignored by our media and political leadership. In the story, she asked me, in the interview, she asked me how much money it cost, and it was bordering on $600,000 in depreciation and others, so it cost by not selling these cars to you. It's been a very, very painful burden on me financially. And recently, I'm having to pay an additional $250,000, and I'll talk about that on a further show that had to do with the Takata issue that I had to, from a matter of morality and conscience, not sell cars, I sued another car dealer,

and this resulted in costing me $250,000. Anyway, the PIRG, which is the U.S. Public Research Group, by the way, this PIRG was funded by Rosanne Schahan, Rosemary, I'm sorry, Rosemary Sheehan, who is the consumer advocate in California, the president of cars. It was one of the most influential, powerful groups, consumer groups for car buyers. And she funded this U.S. public research group research that caught automation doing what they're doing. They looked at 2,400 used vehicles at 28 automation locations. and found 267 vehicles that pose serious safety threats to their occupants. That's astonishing.

Now remember, Automation is the largest retailer of cars in the world. They have more car dealerships, well over 200 car dealerships. So when I say one in nine cars are being sold by Auto Nation, this pretty much translates to all car dealers. One and nine, when you buy a car from any car dealer, including Ono Nation, you have one chance of having an unfixed, dangerous safety recall. CBS highlighted the dramatic reversal taken by Ono Nation

when just a year after announcing they would no longer sell cars, used cars with unfixed safety recalls, they went back to selling them. Michael Jackson, I saw the actual live appearance that he had on CNBC, when he said, it's unconscionable to sell a car with a dangerous recall. The American consumer, we have to respect and be careful that we do not sell them a dangerous product. And AutoNation will not sell these cars.

A year later, he reneged on it. And it was very little made out of it. I mentioned earlier in the show that Michael Jackson, the CEO at the time, did resign from Automation. We don't know if there was any relationship between that. I personally feel that his conscience made him say that, and after a year, I believe the Board of Directors and the stockholders said, look, you're costing us money because you're not selling cars that our competition is selling, and therefore you're not upholding your fiduciary responsibility, and put pressure on Michael Jackson to reverse himself. I think that embarrassed him and angered him and eventually led to his resignation, but that's all speculation on my part. The U.S.P.I.R.G, the research group that found this information, does not act, this is what, this is what. Yeah, they issued this statement.

Yeah, this is a public relations release from automation when they were caught and embarrassed. And they said that the U.S. PIRG report does not accurately depict the buying process at automation dealerships. The group's responsible of the report did not attempt to thorough. review the purchasing process at any of the other nations 200 plus locations around the country. Well, I'll address that. Everybody makes mistakes

and people buy cars. They shouldn't buy. There is not a check process that is effective. Obviously, if a used car manager at an non-adation dealership will take a car in his inventory and advertise it, all he has to do is check the Carfax

report or the safercar.gov or the manufacturer. report. The data is there and we looked in our computer and we found a lot of cars out there at automation dealerships with unfixed Takata airbag recalls. I found three in about five minutes. Yeah, three and five minutes. So this is BS about us or this public relations report by other nations saying that they didn't do their research and they shouldn't have made this statement. Had they done so, they say that they'd be aware of all the nation's robust policies and procedures that's designed to provide a transparent buying process.

Well, it's not happening. It is not happening, and the proof is in the pudding, the proof is in this mystery shopping report, which I'm going to get into it just a minute. It goes on to say, auto-nation customers are required to sign a recall disclosure

acknowledgement prior to purchase. Well, I'll fast forward in a minute. No spoilers. Well, I'm a spoiler. They did not. do this. So that's a lie in the PR report. They did not disclose it. A lot of the bad things that happened with car dealers are based on carelessness and stupidity. And sometimes the guy in the ivory tower, the dealer or the CEO of automation,

he thinks things are going okay, but in the trenches, they're not going okay. And we're in the trenches and we're shopping these people and the automation stores are selling these dangerous cars and it's happening, and we can prove it, and we have a copy of the mystery shopping report in Anna Werner's hands right now. We've conducted several Takata mystery shops at automation stores over the last three years. Only one effectively disclosed recall, only one in three years. Perhaps with a renewed attention, automation will make an effort to inform the individual locations were not adhering to their recall policy.

We selected one of these stores to see if this was the case, Auto Nation, Chevy, and Green Acres. It was easy to find cars with Takata recalls in Automation Chevy's online used car inventory. We found three in a few minutes. Three cars with dangerous recalls. All at the Green Acres site. All at one location.

Now, you multiply that by 200-plus locations. You've got a lot of dangerous cars, one out of nine. we chose here's the three there was a Mercedes C-class sedan two of them and two of those and a Chevy Silverado now this is a Chevrolet dealership

so we talked earlier in the show and talked to Rick about the fact that Automation Chevrolet and Green Acres gets paid by General Motors to fix that Silverado they get paid the technician that does the fix he gets the commission

he gets paid the customer buys a saved car that's the reason I say this isn't premeditation this is stupidity a Chevrolet dealer has a car with a dangerous recall he puts on his lot

he advertises it for sale and he sells it he cost his company his dealership money by not fixing it and he costs a commission to the salesperson I mean the mechanic

that could have fixed it why? Yeah because they're stupid and they're careless and it's not right We chose to shop and buy a 2014 Mercedes 250 with a no-fix to cut airbag recall. That means that this car, if they did know and disclose that it had a airbag recall, there's nothing they could do about it.

Disclosure means nothing when you say you can't fix the car. And we sent in a female mystery shopper, agent 26, and response to a lot of people that have been asking us to use more female shoppers. Here's a report speaking as if I were the shopper. I called the dealership prior to departing on my mission to found out if they still have the 2014 Mercedes C-250. Now, 2014, that's a five- or six-year-old car.

That car is ripe. That accelerant in that to cut airbag is degenerating. It's becoming unstable, and it can blow up spontaneously, very dangerous car. I spoke to a gentleman named Joe, who put me on a brief hold to check the key machine. He returned to the call, informing that it was there and ready for sale. I told Joe there I'd be in 45 minutes. I arrived at 11.30 a.m. and went inside the building. I asked the receptionist if she could help me locate Joe.

She tried for several minutes to reach him by phone, but gave up. She directed me towards the used car building where she said I could find him. I went back outside, got my car, and drove to the used car area. I was greeted by a salesperson. I told him, I'm looking for Joe. The salesperson walked me inside and introduced me to Joe. Now, I can call that a little bit of incompetence there. You know, it's just the incompetence that creates the danger.

In this case, it was just not being able to know where your salesman is. And here we're talking about just not knowing that you've got a danger. car on a lot you're about to sell. Joe was ready with the keys in a dealer plate. Took me back outside, walked me to the car. He asked me if I wanted to drive it. I said I did. He didn't ask for my license.

There's a little more incompetence there. All car dealers require their insurance companies require them and they require the salespeople to get a copy of the driver's license before they let them take a test drive. So, policies are not enforced, folks. Hey, CEO

of AutoNation, I believe it's a woman. by the way, the current CEO of AutoNation, if you're listening to the show, I know you're not. You may be after some people talk to you. Your policies are not being carried out, and that is the true danger. I know no one in AutoNation headquarters, board of directors, wants anybody to be hurt by a car you sell, but the policies are not being carried out, and what you're about to hear happens in a lot of your car dealerships. So, no driver's license asked for. He asked if I want to drive it. I said I did. He didn't ask for my license. I said. On the test drive, Joe said it was a nice car

and said it had never been in an accident. You'll find out later, that's some more incompetence according to Carfax. He was really nice and made a pleasant conversation. I learned a lot about his career and the car business. He'd been doing this a long time. I asked Joe if there was any mechanical issues to talk about. Joe simply replied that AutoNation does a 125-point inspection on all their used cars. We went back to Small Talk. As we approached the dealership, I asked Joe if there were any safety issues with the vehicle that he was aware of. Now, he did say this.

He believed there was an open passenger-side airbag recall. Credit Joe, okay? That's one for Joe. Rick. Joe's got little guts because he's sitting in front of that passenger side airbag. That's right. Either guts or stupidity, right? When we parked, Joe took a Carfax report and the service history report out of the folder in the car. We walked back to his office where he reviewed the Carfax Report with me. He said he had to correct an earlier statement he made.

Joe said he mistakenly told me there had been no accidents. That's nice. Mistakes happened. And he pointed out accidents on. the Carfax report. He did emphasize that the report indicated only minor damage. He told me that if any issue like severe damage, odometer problems, or lemon laws appear on the report within the year of my purchase, alternation would buy the car back. That's a nice touch. That's a really good marketing thing to do because people are going to be aware of it anyway, and a low-cost way

to sell more cars. He never made mention of the recall again. I waited to see if he would advise me. Remember, this recall is unfixable. There's no part available. Never mentioned it again. I waited to see if he would advise me of how or when. I could have the defect remedy, but he never did.

I told him I loved the car. I was ready to make a deal. He said he'd get the manager to write it up for me. Joe returned with a buyer's order, and he reviewed it with me. the top line was Kelly Blue Book retail value $12,1211. Next, they showed $1,523 in AutoNation Savings, which made my selling price $10,0598. And that was the same price I saw on mine. That's a good thing. That used to be the case. We're seeing more and more cartialships, the online price equals the price that, you know, they sell the car.

where they say they sell the car for. They don't sell it for that price. They say they do. Then they added, here we go, $799 dealer fee. Hidden fee, you don't know about it until you come in to buy the car. And pretty hefty, $549 tag in registration. We say hefty because it's suspiciously high that it might not really be that much. My total was $12,6.95, and I said I thought it was a fair deal.

Joe said I could get into finance right away, but I said, I need to take the buyer's order home with me to go over with my mom. I explained, and she was advising me on my first car purchase, and this is a young female car shopper. 26. 26, Agent 26. That's where I got the moniker. I asked if he could hold the car for one day. Joe said he'd have to ask his manager. Joe Return said that, unfortunately, I'd have to leave a deposit for them to hold the car.

I said, I couldn't do that. My mom had specifically warned me against that. And it's good advice. Good advice. I said I would take my chances and would call the next day to see if it had been sold. I took my copies of the Carfax report, the buyer's order, the service history, and some warning info with me. Although Joe did acknowledge the Dakota Recall, it fell far short. of an effective disclosure.

It was a far cry from what AutoNation describes as AutoNation's robust policies and procedures. That's kind of a joke. Yeah, it is a joke. AutoNation states that all customers are required to sign a recall disclosure acknowledgement prior to the sale. This didn't happen today.

Maybe that forum would have come later in F&I. We don't know. Probably would have come later in F&I and all the car dealers are putting the hairy stuff the stuff they don't want you to see and do the f-and-a-non-sexy stuff. Yeah. You buy the car

when you shake the salesman's hand and you say, we have a deal. You buy the car, you're emotionally, mentally, every other way, you bought the car. The rest of it is annoying, detail, paperwork. You don't pay attention.

Your attention dissipates. After they shake hands is when they call their friends It says that we just bought a car. Euphoric nature. You probably get a picture taken with a car. A picture with a salesman in the car. You're smiling. And then you go into the box, which is the F&I department.

And that's where you sign all these papers, and you don't know what you're signing. And that's the sad, sad truth. So this disclosure is a joke. The car dealers are saying they disclose this. Automation said they disclose this. They're not doing it, folks. They're not doing it. This is proof right here.

This mystery shopping report is proof that AutoNation and the other car dealers are not disclosing what they did. If they did disclose it, it's still immoral to sell a car with a dangerous Takata Air Bag Recall that can't be fixed. How could you imagine Rick comes in to me to buy a car and I say, Rick, I'm going to make full disclosure. That car that you're going to drive your family home in tonight as a dangerous Tricot Airbag that could explode like a hand grenade. And we can't fix it. And we can't fix it.

And I have to give you that disclosure. Now, here are the keys and take your family home in that car. Now, that's a disclosure. Is anybody going to take their family home in that car? Not me. I'd feel terrible if it blew up and I hadn't told you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I just wanted you to know.

Let's get real. I had a time. So the disclosure is a joke. And Senator Blumenthal, he was also on the CBS News, and he addressed that issue. Disclosure is a joke. It's not happening. What is happening is people are buying the cars, and they're driving them home with their families, and it's just not right. I guess we've got to vote, don't we?

No, yeah. We already have some votes coming in. No, I got to say this. Nancy and I talked about this. and the car on the way in. She said, how is the mystery shopping report? Meaning, is it a good report? Well, you know, the sad thing we have to say,

it's kind of a good report because all the other car dealers are doing the same thing. And we do have to have car dealers listed that you can buy a car from in Florida. And if we didn't, if we, if we'll use an absolute scale, we wouldn't have any car dealers listed.

So we have to take that into consideration. Let's get the score. you got some. Here they are. Alan Gisman F. Julie gives them a D. Lori Gisman F. Ed Gisman F. Linda Gizum, a big fat F. Safety first, folks. You know, I'm kind of conflicted here because I agree with you on the grading on the curve. I will say they did better than many. At least the salesperson mentioned it, that it was an anemic warning. I don't think it would make any impression on any customer the way they did it. So I am going to concur with our listeners and give them an F. I'm sorry.

Rick, you got some scores over there? We've got Mark is chimed in with an F. So far that's our only vote on YouTube. And myself is F. Nancy. Okay. Well, I'd like to speak of branding. Isn't it powerful?

And AutoNation has done. a very great job in branding. I'll read you something here. Auto Nation makes history with the first female CEO. First female CEO, that's Cheryl Miller. You talk about branding. Boy, I'll tell you what.

Build that brand and then take advantage of the consumer. In September, 2015, AutoNation made a major procedure change announcing a policy, announcing a policy not to sell, lease or wholesale any new or used vehicles that had an open safety recall. How do I grade it? FFF. Well, Rick? And we just got in, let's see, one, two, three, four more Fs and a C-plus from Tim in Florida. We have more Fs coming in on Facebook, too, so. You know, I've got a picture here of Cheryl Miller.

I'll show it up, hold it up. And Cheryl, you're the CEO, you're the boss of Auto Nation. Is she? Or is she a pawn? I think you mean well, and I think you're a good person. And I think that, I've got to believe the word of this Mr. Schaubing report will leak back to you. I'm going to send you a copy, and I send a copy to Anna Werner, CBS News. But you're the boss, right?

And you have a chance now to make a clean slate from the get-go. You can't deny that you know about, you don't know about what's going on now. we're just a little radio station in South Florida but we stream all over the country and all over the world for that matter and there are thousands and thousands of people looking at your face now Cheryl Miller

CEO of Automation and I'd like to talk to you I'd like you to talk to Anna Werner and I think we need to do something about this you're the largest retailer of automobiles in the world you set the example for the other car dealers if you would take action now

to lobby to make it illegal and make it illegal in auto nation for any of your dealerships to sell a car with a dangerous recall, you could go down in history. It would be your legacy. I challenge you Cheryl Miller.

Okay. You're talking about a very powerful auto nation. I mean, this is... We're going to fail this company. Amazing. We're going to fail Chevrolet and Green Acres. I start, I reverse myself, but I'm going to fail on the basis the fact that they knew there was a recall and they knew it couldn't be fixed and they were willing to

sell the car. I think that's got to be a failing offense and I know it's going to be hard to have recommendations out there. Absolutely. So this criteria. Folks, we're at the end of another fantastic show. I want to alert everyone that we are going on vacation and you'll be able to catch some really, really great reruns, and our vacation will affect a few Saturdays. That's October 26th, November 2nd,

November 9th, and we'll be back on the 16th. Have a wonderful weekend. We're all going together. Rick, we're all Nancy. Jonathan, Rick, everybody. Have a great weekend. That was a funny. You're listening to the best of the best of the Earl Stuart on cars program.

If you have a question, text it to, or online, or online at your anonymous. Feedback.com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th.