Earl Stewart on Cars - 10.27.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of AutoNation Nissan of Pembroke Pines

Episode Date: October 27, 2018

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

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning. We're back. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. The name of the show is Earl Stewart on Cars. This is about our 13th or 14th year. I can never keep track. Been so long. uh we're here to tell you how not to get ripped off by your car dealer there i said it angered a few car dealers out there but uh that's a type of show we are we're candid uh we tell it like it is uh we exist because we help you and uh the point of the show is a how to do it kind of a manual uh audio manual video manual as well because we're streaming the show uh how to go and buy a car lisa car

Huge number of cars are being leased today. We can talk about that later if you want to. Buying and leasing is only a small portion of your problem out there because maintaining and repairing takes up a lot more time. You have to bring your car in at least twice a year to have it repaired or maintained. And you can take advantage of there too. Car dealers exist in the past.

There are a retail organization, arguably one of the largest retail organizations in the world. When you consider the ticket price of a car, billions and billions of dollars of your hard-earned dollars are consumed, maintaining, repairing, and buying automobiles. But the car dealers are existing in the 20th century, almost like the Middle Ages, really. It's a barbaric sort of experience to go in and buy or lease a car. If you want one or at least one recently or repaired or maintain it recently, you probably know what I'm talking about. I always get to this point at my introductory talk on Earl Stewart on Cars, and I start feeling like, what's wrong with this guy?

Oh, I know. He's a car dealer, and he's trying to run down the competition so he can sell more cars. So the first thing I have to tell you, this is not an infomercial. I don't pay for this radio show. This is a consumer advocacy, consumer service show here, for one reason only, to help you. And we've been doing it for a long time. So with that said, I am a car dealer. I'm still a practicing car dealer. I've been one for 50 years.

And that's really my credentials to why I do what I do. I should say we, because we have a team here in this radio studio, and I'll introduce them shortly. But when you do something for 50 years, you kind of learn what it's all about. And frankly, I used to do business the wrong way. I used to sell cars, maintain, repair cars the wrong way. I was born into it. My father was a car dealer.

He started in 1937. I came into the business in 1968, and that's 50 years ago. And for the first half of that time, at least, I kind of did it the way the car dealer's doing it today because everybody did it that way. I came in with my father, he did it that way, and bait and switch advertising, SOP, unfair and deceptive trade practices, standard operating procedure. We would advertise cars that we knew you couldn't buy for the price of the car, advertised, and when you came in, we'd switch you to a different car or raise the price of the car that we advertised. Basically, that's

deception. That's total deception. Oh, by the way, last week on the show, I offered $100 to anybody that could find an ad for a car at a price that they could actually buy the car for. And we had one winner. We did. Yeah. Now, bear in mind, there's 20,000 people listening to the show, give or take, a few thousand. And that offer was made to thousands and thousands of people, one person won the hundred bucks and that person hopefully will call them to show.

We're not changing our whole stick here. It's still bad out there. So the point being that car dealers virtually all of them all of the time are advertising cars at prices. You can't buy the car for. Now, other retailers

don't do that. Maybe some do. I mean, some do. But in terms of comparison, nobody can not do a car dealer. Television, online ads, newspaper ads, you name it. It's virtually impossible to find an advertised price that you can buy the car for. That's just the tip of the iceberg, by the way. It gets a lot worse.

And the other verification for us being here, my team here, is because of the Gallup annual poll. Since 1977, 43, 44 years ago, they started doing a poll on honesty and ethics and professions. And they've done it every year since 1977. Car dealers have always been at the bottom. Not the dead last. Sometimes they're next to last. Last year, 2017, they were next to last.

They're down there with the lobbyists and the congressmen, the people that we vilify. I mean, the people that we really don't like. Dentists. Dentists? No, I'm just kidding. They're out there. But dentists are good people.

They inflict pain, that's all. And so there we are. We exist for a reason, a public service. That's what the show is, is a public service. Now, one of the most important things, as I said earlier, is about maintaining and repairing. And sitting to my right is Rick Kearney. Rick has been with my car dealership for 20-plus years.

He's been in the business for longer than that. It's kind of cool because he's seen the primitive technology grow into, to hoddy, sophisticated technology. And he's evolved with it. Let me tell you, in this industry, you evolve or you die. And that's what I want to see in the sales end of it, and that's what we're working on. But Rick here can answer about any question you have.

And he grimaces a little bit. He cheats a little bit. He's got his laptop there, and he knows how to pounce on Google. So he can use that. But that's the world today. Google is part of our brain. If you don't use Google as part of your brain, then you're not operating with a full deck.

You need a full deck. Google can make it happen. Well, this laptop is as much a tool to me as any wrench in my toolbox anymore. Exactly. Well, you heard it from Rick, and all of us have problems with vehicles. I got a problem with my car. I just haven't had a chance to talk to Rick about it yet, and I guarantee you Stu and Nancy and you have some little thing. A tick, a squeak, a rattle, your gas mileage, a little hesitant.

maybe when you're going to a certain speed, cars pulling this way or jumping up and down. Everybody's got problems. So if you have a problem with your car that your mechanic has not been able to diagnose, then call Rick. By the way, Rick used to be a mechanic, and then he became an auto technician,

and suddenly he's become an auto-computer scientist. And that's because you're not driving a car anymore, folks. You're driving a computer. Excuse me, I'll be to interrupt you. Yeah. Rick is comparable to. To a brain surgeon. Yeah, absolutely.

Close, maybe. So that's the point, except you know, he doesn't put you under anesthetic or anesthesia, I should say, when you bring your car in. Until you get the bill. Until you get the bill. Exactly. So we've, and I really, last week, we got a large, large number of calls. We should always have more calls for Rick than any of us because your day-to-day is more maintained and repair than buying. You only buy a car, or lease a car, everything.

three or four years, maybe five or ten years. I mean, a lot of people today, because the cars are so highly reliable, can drive them for ten years. Super reliability. And then to Rick's right is Nancy Stewart. She is my co-host, also, in full disclosure, my wife. And she knows a whole lot about cars, and she knows a whole lot about buying and leasing. And the big thing that Nancy is advocating is something you all heard the hashtag Me Too movement.

you see the women's movement going on. Now, let's face it, folks, us men, we need to admit the fact we have not really been treating women fairly for a long, long time. I'm not saying we're bad people, but 20 years ago, 30 years ago, my mother, when she was young, she couldn't vote. And look where they've come a long way, right? And there's been a quantum leap in women's rights recently. So Nancy is here to talk to you ladies out there.

She'll do anything to get you to call the show, and we have a lot of good female callers. We'd like some new female callers, and Nancy is going to incentivize you on that in a minute. To her left is Stu Stewart. He's Earl Stewart III. He is my son. He is a cyber guy, extremely knowledgeable about cars. He's a generalist. He's not a specialist like Rick, but he can pretty well tell you just about anything about cars, too.

but he talks to the folks out there that are in cyberspace. He's got the texting. He's got the Instagramming, the Facebooking. I said earlier we streamed the show. If you haven't got a radio handy, well, you wouldn't know I just said that if you didn't have a radio handy. But next week, if you hear about this,

we stream it on Facebook. So you go to Facebook.com 4.slash Earl on Cars. Facebook.com for slash Earl on Cars. Stream us live, and you can post your comments, questions, whatever you want to do. I think we're also streaming Twitter now. I think we're streaming our YouTube channel. Is this correct?

Jonathan, in the control room. We're trying. It's a bandwidth. We have a bandwidth issue. We're live on Facebook now. We had a little bit issue with Twitter in Periscope, but we'll get there. In Periscope, right. We're a work in progress.

We're going to increase the bandwidth where the whole world is going to have Errol on cars. So that's the team here. That's what we got going. I've talked way too long about us, Nancy, tell them how they could get hold of us and whatever you get. I'm going to tell everyone that if you just tuned in, boy, you're going to have a treat this morning from 8 until 10 o'clock. We're right here, and the best part of the show is information, free information, and the benefits of this show are, well, priceless. I'm going to rewind the tape a little bit here in bringing up the stuff. speed on Rick Kearney. Rick Herney is going to have some information for us this morning on

ethanol. He talked last week, if you tuned in, if you didn't, I'll bring you up to speed. He talked about the experiment that he was going to be doing with ethanol versus regular fuel. Also, we have a mystery shopping report that you too can be part of because we want your opinion as to how you feel about our mystery shopping report. And ladies, I have $50 for each first two new lady callers, and take advantage of that, ladies. Also, I believe that Earl is still going to run with the $100, and that is out-the-door price taxing tag advertisement. He's got $100. Is this true?

Or was that just last week? Well, it was just last week, but we have the winner holding. on the phone now. We'll talk to him. And after I talk to the winner, we'll decide what we want to do before. I don't even have to look at the board. I believe that's Dawn. And Dawn's been with us a long time. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call. Give us a call toll free at 877-9-60. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. And as I always say, you make the show. So give us a call. Give us a text. There's many ways of getting in touch with us. You can go through Stu, go through us at the studio.

With all of that said, I hope you jotted the numbers, Don. I was talking quickly. I will repeat them one more time. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530 and Dawn from LaBelle, who, as I said earlier, is a regular caller. He's been with us a long time. Welcome to the show, Dawn. Good morning, Don. Yeah, good morning.

Hey, let me congratulate you, by the way, and fill in the folks that may not know why you're calling, but I mentioned this earlier. Don's a winner of a hundred bucks. He was actually able to find a car dealership in South Florida that advertised a car that you could actually buy the car for that price. And Don called in this morning. I really appreciate it.

If you would kind of cover that for us and tell the folks who the dealership is, We'll congratulate the dealer also and tell them how that went down. Okay, very good. Yeah, last week, of course, you made the announcement, and so I got on the Internet, and it surprised me. I'll tell you that I looked like I could have bought or I could have got a, in fact, I did get an out-the-door price within about three or four minutes on the Internet, which was amazing.

I couldn't believe it was true, so I did. some further investigation. But the dealer is in Avon Park, which is just north of Sebring, Florida, and it's Wells Motor Company. Wells. And Earl, it turns out they have a similar family situation as you do. Apparently, the father started the car sales in 1937. Wow. The kids took up the Dodge Chrysler dealership in around 1967.

and they've been in that location or 65 years or so so kind of similar to your outfit there. Well, could you give the the way the price was advertised? What I had expected, I was really

surprised when Don discovered this. It's like a gold nugget. I mean, you can look for car dealers that will give you an out-the-door price for years until you find a gold nugget. and Don found one pretty fast, and that's really amazing. Of course, with online, that's the way you'd have to shop, right? You could cover quite a few.

This is kind of like a shopping lesson to all of you out there. Keep on looking until you find a dealer that'll either give you an out-the-door good price or at least get close. But what was the car and what was the price, and how was it advertised? Well, I looked on their used car listings online and found a 2012 Honda Civic. I believe the mileage is about 35,000 miles, and I think the price was like 13,500, as I recall. And on their site, they had a little clicking thing there where he says, click to get your out-the-door price. on their website they do clearly indicate they don't charge dealer fees so so i thought well

what the heck i'm going to try this out and see what if they really do give me an out-the-door price and so i clicked the thing and uh got a email within a minute from uh there's one of their salespeople kathy poti i'm not sure how you pronounce her last name but anyway kathy responded really quickly on saturday morning and said uh what car are you in interested in. Well, I was kind of perturbed because when you click on the particular car you're interested in, you would think that they would know what you're interested in. Well, apparently not. So I had to tell her, well, I was the 2012 civic. So, and then another few minutes, she sent me the complete out-the-door price with all the deductions and with all the taxes and

everything. They figured, you know, down to the penny, their sales taxes. She said, she included the dealer, I'm not the license tag, and she said, now that's for a new tag, if you have your own, it'll be less. So she was like up front on everything. Now, the only question, and the price came out less than it was advertised. I remember you told me. Surprised. I thought, how in the world can they advertise this car and actually show me a price they'll sell to me that's going to be less?

so there was one item on there that kind of I wasn't clear about it said $79 as a taxable item and of course as you've pointed out that can be one of these dealer fees disguised so I ask her about it and it turned out she said it's for title transfer

and it could be less depending on what it is but that didn't make any sense because as you know if it's taxable it's not a government fee Exactly, yeah. Unless they made an error and called a taxile. But I think that's somehow a little tricky there. But the offset that, they deducted $250 as some sort of an e-filing.

They called it an Internet incentive or something. So that more than made up for that $79 fee, and that made the car price less than they actually advertise. Well, that is so refreshing, Don. I'll tell you, you kind of restored my faith in humanity. at least as a car dealers go and to Wells Motor Company and you gave their location there north of Sebring in Avon Park Wells Motor Company I don't apparently they haven't got a new car franchise but they sell used cars so you folks out there in Radio Land if you're

anywhere near Sebring you're near Avon Park and if you want to use car contact Wells Motor Company over there you can ask for Kathy and they sell cars honestly And let me tell you something, you don't find very many car deals. I'm going to, with you on the line, I'm going to make the offer that Nancy alluded to for the next, for the rest of the show, I will pay for the next three callers that can find a price that they can buy the car for or out the door, $100. It has to be verifiable. You can't just say I found one. And we'll have to fumble with this a little bit.

The way Don and I did it, we emailed each other back and forth, so we might have to see some specifics. In fact, when Don first showed me the price, I saw this $79 item, and I said, no, Don, that's not really an out-the-door price, because $79 is a dealer fee, but it doesn't make any difference what you call it, if it was included in the advertised price, the out-the-door price, which it was. In fact, the price was actually a little bit less. So we need to verify it if you can find a car that you can buy out-the-door, for the price to advertise, the next three callers will pay 100 bucks. Don, did you get your 100 bucks?

Speaking of 100 bucks. Well, that's another interesting snafu. I don't know if I should tell you on the air. Oh, tell me. Somehow, I have this service with the post office and anybody can do it where they will notify you every day of the mail that's coming and they actually show you a picture of the mail.

So on Tuesday, I saw the picture of your letter with the check in it. But it never arrived. So somehow between the post office and the letter carrier, it has been this place. But I'm checking with the post office to see what happened on that. Well, maybe we need to go out. Don, what day was that? Because I put that check in the mail. No, the mail did go out and say it was just to get to the post office.

Right. I was wondering the day that was that he, you know, saw that. Yeah, it was there. It showed up on Tuesday. It has to be delivered Tuesday, but it never arrived. So, you know, you definitely sent it because they showed a picture of it. Yeah, exactly. I was just curious at the day.

That dealer is a Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealer. Oh, okay. Well, that's great. Chrysler Jeep Dodge. So if you don't mind a little bit of a ride, even if you're not near Avon Park, let me tell you, to find an honest Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealer is not an easy task. And if you want to buy a Chrysler Jeep or most likely a Jeep, that's their big volume item. check with Wells Motor Company in Avon Park near Sebring.

Call them, get online, deal with Kathy, and find out what the out-the-door price is. I guarantee you you won't get an out-the-door price from a Rigo or from Schumacher or from, name me another. Napleton? Napleton. Yeah, you got Napleton, you got Schumacher, and you got a Rigo. Rigo's the biggest Chrysler Jeep. You'll never get an out-the-door price from any of those car dealers. So I'll pay you $200 if you can get an off-the-door price from Arrigo.

Yeah, another very interesting thing is generally when you do an Internet inquiry with a dealer, they bug you to death. They'll call you and you'll get emails for months. Kathy contacted me, I'd say maybe three, maybe four tops over two or three days. And that was the end of it. Now, one of the very interesting email she sent, a couple of days later, it says, here are six important things you should watch for in your vehicle purchase research. And she lists dealer fees, rebates you don't qualify for, required financing, non-manufacturer

warranties, added accessories, and buybacks. Just like you talk about every week, she put that in a nice list with the expert. of all those things to watch out for. Boy, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to contact that dealership, and I'm going to invite them to call in. We may have found an honest dealer in the state of Florida. I mean, we've looked, and we've looked.

When we do our mystery shopping report, we have to score on the curve, because we can't find anybody that really does everything right. Looks to me like we've got a car dealer in Florida now, Wells Motor Company and Avon Park, that does everything right. I'd love to find more about that, and we will contact them

and maybe have them as a guest on the show or at least a call in the show. So, Don, I can't thank you enough. You've always been a great caller, or texter especially, and now you've really contributed to the show by founding the Golden Nugget of Car Dealership and the state of Florida. Well, you're welcome.

It was very pleasant for me to actually find somebody that, I would actually buy a car from besides your store. So I hope we can find more of these and get a list together and maybe a coalition of honest dealers that can set the other dealers straight. I hear you. And, Don, we're going to send you another $100 check and we'll stop payment on that other check

in case so the post office can't cash it on you. And we'll send you the other $100. And that was money well earned. Thanks so much. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye. I like that, Don.

The Coalition of Honest Dealers, the CHD. Let's do it. Yeah, that is. That's very good. There's two in there right now. You know, Avon Park isn't that far from Sebring, but here's my stories. I got some connections in Sebring, and let me tell you what,

the stories that I've heard out of Sebring and the dealers that are up there who are doing things the wrong way, my goodness gracious. It was great, Dawn, for you to share that story, because, like I said, Avon Park is not that far from Sebring. So there are some people up there, the consumer, who can get an honest deal. And Don was talking about Wells Motor Car, correct? Yes, Wells Motor Car. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Dawn. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 77272-49-7-30. And remember, Earl just extended an invitation to you. I think you said three callers for the out-the-door tax and tag advertised price. You can win yourself $100. And don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. Do you have any texts? Well, we have a comment on our live Facebook.

video from Andreas. Andreas says, speaking of dealer fees, I have recently heard a new one. I was trying to find a deal for the sake of the contest, he says. Closing fee, that's a new one.

He said, I thought this is limited to real estate deals. Yeah, they're very creative. And they look for a business-related notary, dock, electronic filing.

They're very creative. We have, probably, if I got down and started writing down all the different ones, 25. Probably, yeah. 25.

Administrative fee. The only thing they have in common, they all say fee. And fee is probably the most misleading term because you say fee to somebody, it only likely sounds like it's a government thing. And it's not. We saw Florida dock stamps being charged on non-finance bills.

Exactly. So they even leave out the fee there, but it sounds really official. Exactly. You know, when Donne first report of the dealer that had the out-the-door price that was legitimate, he mentioned no dealer fee.

He mentioned the dealer advertise no dealer fee. And we've seen dealers advertise no dealer fees, one in Tampa, and that, I believe, was Port Ritchie Honda, New Port Ritchie Honda. And on Facebook, the general manager over there was congratulating me, Earl Stewart, Toyota, for not having dealer fees.

He says, we don't have a dealer fee either. And he was advertising, and if you get a quote from it, it says, no dealer fees. All he did was change the name of his dealer fee. And he was using the technical, he was saying technically, we don't charge a bogus fee named a dealer fee. We do charge bogus fees named other things. And a lot of dealers are, Mullinax Ford does the same thing.

So when I talk to the folks over at Wells Motor Company who legitimately don't charge dealer fees, I will tell them they should expand their disclosure that they don't charge dealer fees to say that we don't charge any non-government fees added to the price of the car that we quote. Yeah, that's a great idea. We're going to go to West Palm Beach where Bob is holding.

Welcome to the show, Bob. Yeah, good morning. Good morning. Earl, I'm wondering, do you investigate other Toyota dealers? Yes, we do. I know it's a little bit of tricky thing, huh? Yes, we do. Oh, you do?

We do, yes. We've mystery shopped, Palm Beach, Toyota. Oh, you. Treasure Coast, Toyota, Southern 441 Toyota, aka Al Hendrickson. Al Hendrickson, Toyota. Al Hendrickson, Toyota. Yeah, it's probably one of the most notorious flim-flam dealers in the state.

And we've investigated him a couple of times. Advertisement on a different radio station. Exactly. And, you know, one of these boisterers, well, you know the routine. Well, the Toyota manufacturer, Toyota, does not like us to investigate other Toyota dealerships. Yeah, I didn't think so. And we felt we'd be remissed our duty because Toyota sells 15% of a vehicle. cars in the USA and in Florida they sell closer to 20% of the cars and if we if

we didn't report that we'd be remissed in Hollywood and they advertise 50% off of 2018 Toyota exactly that's a Hollywood Toyota we invited we shopped them a long time ago that's a long trip we haven't shopped them recently but I'm very familiar with that ad oh you are Yeah, they run a full-page ad, and I think the Sun Sentinel, and they save 50% off 2018 vehicles. What they do is they take the new vehicles, they put them in their rental department,

and they put a few miles on them, and they title them, and then if you look in the fine print, they will have the disclosure that this is a used vehicle. They don't use the word used. Stu, can you remember the terminology? It was called CPO. All right, okay. Certified pre-owned.

Yeah, CPO. Very good. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thanks for the call. That was an excellent question. Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. 877-960. Love to hear from you, and we'd love to hear your text. We'd like the text because we can build up a little bit of the backlog, and the text number is 772-497-6530. Please write the number down, because you're... You might not have a question now, but you will in 20 minutes or maybe an hour. We're on the air until 10 o'clock this morning.

772 area code for a text. 772-4976530. And you callers, I want to apologize to some of you that have called in the past, we have three lines into the station. We're going to try to expand that. But if we have three people on hold and we're going to be flagged by the control rule, if this happens, we'll alert you. If we have three people on the hold, which happens sometimes during the two hours,

you may call in and nobody will answer. And that's just a fact of the switchboard. We're going to work on trying to fix that, but we'll alert you ahead of time. In just case you think we're not answering the phone, if you call and we have three people on hold, we don't know you're on the phone, and so we can't answer it. But please call. We have nobody on the phone now and nobody holding, and our number is 8.7. 7, 960, 9960, and as he told you earlier in the show, if you're female and you call and you haven't

called the show before, ka-ching, 50 bucks, 50 bucks, no conditions, you don't even have to ask a question. We just want you to call. Females are half the audience, and if you're a female, you're a woman, you want to call the show, and you haven't called the show, especially if you haven't called the show. I love to hear from you. 960 and you can text this but you only get the 50 bucks if you call yeah absolutely we got a lot of money to give away this morning ladies and gentlemen and you know what's really important is that you vote on our mystery shopping report and you can do that as I told you earlier at 772-4976530

and our mystery shopping report is coming from auto nation Nissan Penbrook Hines and you want to look forward to that mystery shopping report and as I always say you make the show we'll go over the good the bad and the ugly gosh I haven't used that term in 13 years that's some pretty good material because we do go over the good the bad and the ugly and you know ladies and gentlemen we don't dwell on the bad and the ugly we have a whole lot of good stuff there's some dealers out there that are really making a difference. And we want to thank Earl Stewart for leading leading the way and changing the way the car business has, well, well, turned a corner in a kind of a bad way. But he's bringing a lot of people back to where they should be. I should

say a lot of car dealers back to where they should be. Hey, 7-7-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. You've got some automotive experts right here in the studio, and we'll try to answer all of your questions. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I think we've got some tax recovery then, don't we, Stu? Yeah, we do. We have an interesting conversation going on our live Facebook feed.

Somebody brought up the dealers charging for a tire and battery fee, and I want listeners to know that that's actually legitimate in Florida. It's very small. It's $6. and 50 cents, and it's for a new tire and disposal of your old battery. So that's a legitimate fee. It's a government fee. Government fees are legitimate.

Yep. But then somebody else pointed out at a Honda dealership, the shop charged them for the rags that were used during the service. It was listed as a separate line item. And so I addressed that with them online saying that these shop fees, Melissa Lienis fees, environmental service fees, they work like a miniature dealership. It allows the dealer to advertise discounted service, like a $10 oil change. Yeah, one of my favorites is a waste oil disposal fee when they actually get paid.

Car dealers today, oil is $79 a barrel or something like that, and so they will buy your oil from you if you're a car dealer, your waste oil. So they get paid by the guy that buys his oil, his waste oil, and then he charges a customer for a waste oil disposal fee. Yeah, and dealers also make, they sell the old takeoff tires when they change your tires, too. So I wouldn't be surprised for them to charge a tire disposal fee. That's a pretty good racket. Yeah, the service fee,

That's a great post, by the way. The service fee when you buy, when you add your car repair is probably more egregious than a dealer fee. Because if you look at the total number of services and repairs, even though the fee might only be $25 or $30,000, you multiply that times hundreds, thousands of more events that occur. It's really the dealer fee in the service department. And I don't know a dealer that does not charge it. In fact, I'll throw another hundred bucks out there if you can find a car dealer in the service department that does not charge a miscellaneous fee or by some other name that is an add-on. And they typically calculate this by a percentage. You can be 5% or 10% of the amount of the service invoice.

And they usually cap it somewhere, but it's, I've seen $100, $150 charges on high expense. If you keep your car for 10 years, they get you for about 50 bucks a year, you're in dealer for the territory. So my advice to you, when you bring your car in for service and you see the service invoice, you'll see it at the bottom. It'll be something you don't know what it is. It'll have, it can be, as Stu Z, hazardous waste disposal fee, waste oil disposal fee, miscellaneous tools. It'll come up with something creative. When you see that, say the cashier, what is this? and she'll go hama, hama, and you'll say, well, I'm not going to pay it because I didn't buy it,

and I came in here to buy this, this, and this, and that's extra. And chances are she'll take it off the bill. Most cashiers, most dealers are instructed. If they make a howl about it, if they complain about it, take it off. Maybe 10% of the time they won't, but it's worth asking. And we also have a text. This is from Alex and West Palm Beach. Well, we haven't had this question before.

what is the appropriate course of action I should do when someone in the opposing lane has their high beams on? Well, Nancy. Would you like me to answer that question? She has a definite course of action. I think what most of us do is we flash our lights, which is probably not the right thing to do.

Right. I'd say, overt your eyes to the side of the road. Yeah, technically I believe it's illegal to flash your high beams at someone for that reason. However, my own preference is simply Excuse me for a moment, Rick. I just want to let the listeners know that we've got Dave on the line and we have one other on hold.

Go ahead. My quick response is simply to aim the 50 caliber machine gun and light up their life. That's what I'd love to have. He's borrowing my machine gun. Just take out the lights. Don't hurt anything. You know, back in the day, way, way back in the day,

flashing your high beams on was an indication that there was somebody, a state trooper running radar. and that's how we alerted each other as drivers on the road. We're going to go to Dave in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Dave. Good morning, guys. Listen, I called in before with a question. I just have an observation today.

Earlier this week, on television, there was a nice article about the active group that, is working on the airbag problems in California, Texas, and Florida. I wondered if anybody had seen that. I think it was maybe 60 minutes. I believe they were talking. Was it in Miami? Was it filmed in Miami, Dave?

Do you recall? No, I don't recall. Yeah. Dave, I'm going to interrupt both of us here just for a second. I believe we have three people on hold on our line, and I just want to alert other people dialing in. Be a little patient. if you call now with three people on hold,

we're not going to be able to hear your call. We won't know your calling. All right, well, let me bail out of here, Earl, and get somebody else on. I just wanted to make that observation. It was a good little article, though. It probably ran six, seven minutes. Dave, I think it was, and I remember it, and I'm glad you brought it up. It's very important.

It was the first time I've seen a local awareness of the airbag situation, and I believe it was 60 minutes, and thank you very much. We're calling that to our attention. It was a good thing. All right, guys, I'm going to hang up. Thanks, Dave. Please call again. Thank you, Dave. You bet. You bet.

Well, that's great that we've got so many folks calling in 877-960. And you can text us at 772-497-60 and post on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash hurl-on cars. Just go to your Facebook page, Facebook.com, forward slash hurlant cars. And we're streaming live right now. So please give us a post, and we'll answer your question. I think that we're going to go to our next caller. Okay. What's his name?

And good morning to you. And John's doing his best over there. It's a little unusual for us to be backed up like this with callers. And Nancy's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning. I enjoy your show so much. Oh, thank you.

from all of us. Great name. My question is, hi, my question is, it used to be, I remember, that you could, if you were driving down the highway and there was a car that was in front of you that was driving very slow, you could flash your lights a couple times and that was supposed to be the signal that they could be invited to move to a slower lane. I'm from Chicago. I used to do that.

People used to move over. I moved to Florida. Nothing. That's the Chicago way. Nancy, Nancy, I'm going to investigate that. Rick's opinion was that you shouldn't flash your lights to somebody else that had their high beams on. Actually, I'm going to give you my opinion. My opinion is it's a good idea to flash your lights because it alerts the person to the fact that he has high beams on.

He might know that. The same thing. And it's a safety issue. So if it works, then you have two people not flashing their light anymore. I'll get to you in a minute, Rick. And the other question earlier was flashing your lights, and you just brought the issue up, flashing your lights up there in the fast lane and the drive and slow. To me, this is a dangerous condition.

And when you have somebody going, you know, 50 miles an hour in, say, the fast lane and maybe the speed limit's 75, then that's a dangerous condition. People are late to work. People have appendicitis attacks. people are having babies there are people that are in hurry and they need to use the fast lane so if you're going 45, 20 miles

onto the speed limit I think it's a great idea to blow your horn and flash your lights but with that said I'm going to have to research the law on that because I don't want to invite people to break the law we will find out it was against the law Rick what were you going to say? I was just going to mention I do flash my high beams at people to tell them their high beams

are on and I will flash high beams to ask someone to move over and get out of that fast lane. But that being said, even though I do it, I do recognize that it is most likely illegal to do so. Well, I don't agree with you. You know, Linda's chimed in and says, you can't do that, Earl. We're going to find out. We're going to find out. We'll, we've got some Google going for us. You're very welcome. You know, I have something to add to this, Nancy. And what I, my behavior, you know, years ago was acceptable, okay? As far as

this whole topic is concerned, but in today's a volatile society and what people, drivers may be thinking when they're on the road, you know, what I think the best option is, is education. There are more people, more drivers on the road that feel that the left hand is the best place to drive and the only place to drive. We've got three people holding right now. And we need to move these calls along as quickly as we can.

You should be in the middle lane. If you're in the left lane, you should be passing. And it's as simple as that, education. Nancy, you are a first-time caller. You won yourself $50. John will take your information. I'll get that check out to you. Please keep listening and help us build the platform right here for ladies.

We're going to go to Ashley from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Ashley. Good morning. How are you doing today? We're well. Thank you. I'm looking to upgrade my old car and I was wondering about buying a lease

is that a good idea a car that was leased then they sell them? Yes it is. Do they have many of those? Yes it is. A late model used car is a great buy and off-lease cars are a good buy but just like any used car you need to check it out carefully. If you can find a car two or three years old, sometimes even in factory warranty, a certified car, still take that car to your independent mechanic. You might have to pay

$150 to have it checked out, but it'll be well spent. Be sure to check it out with Carfax and see if the car has any recall campaigns or possibly been involved in an accident or other issues. And then you want to shop and be sure you're getting a fair price. But I think a car that's coming back in off lease is an excellent idea. It's a better value than a new car. Yeah. Does Earl Stewart lease Priuses? Yes.

All dealers lease, all cars. As a matter of fact, pre-leases are coming up on percentage-wise, almost equal to what people are buying cars or now. The manufacturers and the dealers are pushing leasing, which is something you need to be aware of because there's a good reason for it. The average profit on a lease to a dealer is more,

and the manufacturers love leases because you will come back to them more often to re-lease or buy a car if they have a lease as opposed to a purchase. Yeah, because my daughter bought a lease car from Earl Stewart. Yes. And I was thinking of coming down and seeing if they had any leases that were back in for sale. Do you know if you have any now?

We do, and all car dealers do, Ashley. I've got to remind everybody this is not an infomercial. I love to sell your car. What's that? Toyota dealers. Toyota dealers, yeah. All toilet dealers have cars available off-lease, and in fact, all car dealers try to buy cars that have been leased

because it represents as a significant portion of used cars now. There's actually a preponderance of cars coming off-lease, and even rental cars are good values. The old story about never buy a daily rental car isn't true anymore. If you get a well-maintained rental car, most of them are, it's a good value. But, yeah, my dealership and all toilet dealerships have good values in all lease cars. Are you guys open on Sunday? We're open seven days a week.

And most car dealerships are also open seven days a week. Okay, great. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Ashley, thank you. And congratulations. you are a first-time caller. You won yourself $50 this morning, so stay on the line and give us that information. I'll get that check out to you. And good luck with your lease. Let's go to Frank. He's holding from Jupiter Farms. Hey, Frank. Hey, hi, guys. Good morning. Hey, Frank. I missed you guys. I was on a cruise for a couple weeks. Oh, good for you. And get it on a cruise ship. How nice. It was fun. The reason I'm calling,

not too long ago with the headlight flashing in some cities hopefully not here in Palm Beach because we seem to have a little bit better but the guys would run around with their headlights on high beam and it was an initiation fee for gangs

and if you flash your lights you get in that gang they would have to turn around and try and shoot you. You can go on Google and see it used to be done I don't think it's happening that much anymore but

a warning to the weary down here that starts happening something to think about so anyway keep that in mind one time many many years ago I grew up in Miami I never thought that's a good way to get me for flashing my lines hey Frank this is Stu yeah we had a text

from Jeff in West Palm Beach on the exact same thing he said he lived in Miami and in his text he says they would drive with the headlights off and if you flash them let them know their headlights are off they turn around and kill you and I just want I mean I don't know how it's an urban legend and there's been a version of that

story going around and probably since there were cars and but i will tell you this if i see a car out without their headlights on i don't flash my head because i'm still a little creeped out according to snopes dot com it's never been verified i picked one up to the airport from germany i was heading back to kendall and i was on that 836 getting onto the pomeadow and this car was going so slow and i just kind of toot my horn thinking you know we can get them moving they stop four doors open And four guys got out with guns. Oh, Lord. And I go, well, welcome to America tonight from Germany.

And, you know, we sat there and just said, hey, I'm so sorry. It was a mistake. I didn't mean to offend your mask and Lindsey. Macho and, you know, I have a nice day. What did you call you? And obviously, they didn't shoot us. This was like 25, 30 years ago. Yeah.

But in a total different realm. And that they do around here in Jupiter Farms, they flash your lights when they have a radar trap to make you slow down so that still goes on it's in the middle of the day on a whole different realm a couple weeks ago before the cruise i listened to your show and afterwards they had a car um advertisement from roger dean Chevrolet and it was a real no money down leased for a hundred seventy nine dollars hundred forty nine dollars hundred twenty nine dollars and that was as quick as you couldn't understand so i called the guy just out of curiosity i got people who looking for cars and I said so what all really did you have to put down I mean I'm sure

there's theater fees acquisition fees he's what are you an Earl Stewart guy you can you can look at our ad read our ad I said did you not hear me when I said I heard your ad on the radio it's hard to read something on the radio he said well just go online look at it you have to bother me with all these details and I said so how much is it really to get that car I know it's not in zero doubt. And anyway, but so I guess your fame is spreading all. Infamous in Mangardiose. Yeah, it's always heartening to hear those stories.

There is an awareness of Earl Sturd on cars in South Florida. There's no question about that. And I think that we are, you know, we like to think that we're having a positive effect. I think they've, you know, who knows how bad it would be without us. I like to think it would be worse without us and the awareness. I tell people that call me just off the cuff, they'll just, you know, they just say, give me some advice. I want to buy a Nissan.

I want to buy a Cadillac. And they'll call me back sometimes. I say, use my name. I say, go in there and just say, I talk to Earl Stewart. And most people, if you say, you heard Earl Stewart in cars, Earl Stewart suggested you do this. They know who we are. And they are a lot more careful when they do. deal with you because they know that you're going to call me and we're going to talk about you

on the radio and no one likes to be bad mouth on the radio so hopefully we're having a positive effect in south florida oh you are for sure and i wish you all good weekend um have found such a deal i'm going on another cruise today on a miami called the msc seaside well you're going to you're going to gain some more weight frank so at least wittily you reduce i hope they have good Wi-Fi on your cruise catch the show next week there you go All right, Frank. Thanks so much. Thank you, guys.

Bye, bye. Give us a call toll for you at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. I think we have another text. We do. Anonymous texter says, Florida has a law that says you have to move to the right lane if you're going slow, but so many drivers on the roads ignore this law. What can a driver who likes to drive with the flow of traffic do about it? You know, you're talking to the guy that's probably more aggravated than anyone.

I saw you texting that in. Yeah, that was my text. No, it is, I don't think there's an answer. I mean, we couldn't afford to have enough police to enforce all these laws. And if they did, the traffic congestion would be terrible. On I-95 or the turnpike, when a cop pulls somebody over, everything slows down. And the more people are pulled over, the slower the traffic. I feel sorry for the police because they have to use selective enforcement.

And they have to pull people over they feel are going to cause the greatest danger. And there's no question in my mind when you have somebody in the left lane during rush hour going 10 miles below the speed limit. Or let's face it, folks, someone going the speed limit. The speed limit might be 55 or 75 or whatever it is. Whatever the speed limit is, people are going 10 miles an hour faster. That's the traffic flow. That's reality. And the police understand that.

So if you're going 65 in a 55 zone, they won't bother you. So we just have to, Nancy said earlier, education. I think we need to continue, try to educate people to know that it is dangerous. to drive slow. They say speed kills, slowness kills. You take a person, let's take a person, a man is in a car, his wife is giving birth, and he has to get her to the hospital. That happened this morning. Or a sick child, or, you know when you've been in a car,

when you've had an emergency urge. Now, what are you going to do when you're behind somebody 10 miles an hour below the speed limit? We were doing 100 miles at under. you're going to do something reckless, you're going to do whatever it takes to get around that person that is trying to get to the hospital or to the doctor's office or wherever they want to go. So the answer to that is there's no answer. And I salute the police who I think you do a pretty damn good job. What irritates me is drivers, when they even see a police officer, even if they're going to the speed limit,

they automatically slow down, that makes no sense to me. It's human nature, though, that part. Okay, we've got Phil from Pond. We do. We do have, Phil, but I have one thing to say, ladies and gentlemen, just because you're on the road, doesn't mean you're educated. Police, forget the police. You must be educated. You must be educated. Florida is not enforcing the law as to whether you should be in the left lane, the right lane, whatever. You yourself should take responsibility for that because you're endangering not only yourself behind that wheel, but the person that's in that car and the person that's on the road. My advice. Thank you very. much. We're going to go to Phil and Palm Beach Gardens. Hi, good morning, Nancy Errol. Thank you for taking my phone call. I listen to your program every Saturday. Question. We had an incident with our Honduras CRV this past week. Unfortunately, the garage door came

down on the tailgate, broke the glass and damaged the door. And we currently have the car at a local dealer, Collision Center for repair. I've been told by the Collision Center and the insurance company, they will not report it to Carfax. And again, it wasn't an auto accident. It happened to our home and no report was made. Is this true? There will be no reporting to Carfax?

I'm surprised. I think that as long as insurance covers the repair, it will automatically be covered by Carfax. It's more or less of a automatic data obtaining process. The only kind of

accident is not reported to Carfax is if it's paid for with an insurance company. Who told you it would not be reported to Carfax? Oh, I talked, girl. I did talk to the Collision Center. Of course, the lady said, no, we don't report it to Carfax. I talked to the insurance. I'm thinking it's a claim adjuster, and he kind of said the same thing. Now, I can call my insurance company back next week, but I just want to get your counsel on it. What's a good call?

I'm going to double-check that. My understanding was that the repairing body shop, the Collision Center, is not really involved whether Carfax gets it. The insurance companies all are paid, I assume, by Carfax to allow Carfax to access their database. So when something is repaired by an insurance company, paid for it by insurance company, it goes into their computer. Carfax automatically draws that data out of their computer and it becomes on a Carfax report. The insurance adjuster, the collision repair center, have nothing to do with that. Now, there is an agreement between car dealerships and Carfax, but that's on mechanical repairs. A car dealer must sign an agreement with Carfax saying you may access our database to allow you to reflect mechanical repairs.

Most car dealers, by the way, do this. But the insurance company database either has it or it doesn't have it. Collision center has nothing to do with that. Okay. Well, we'll probably keep the car for the next several years, but I just want to be honest when I get ready to sell or trade it. Exactly. I'm going to check that, Phil, because I'm not 100% sure. There may be some way that a collision center can restrict that information going to Carfax, or there may be a way that the insurance company can restrict that information going to Carfax. If that's true, I didn't know it, and I will find out.

sure because it is important. Very important. You don't want that in Carfax. If you're going to sell a car, anytime a car has been damaged, it lowers the value of the car. Even if it's not something serious, it's still, to some extent, will lower the value of the car. So if you could control that, you'd like to, and let's find out whether they're being honest with you on that, or if they can restrict it. That is a very good call, Phil, and I appreciate I will find out the answer for sure. Well, thank you so much for all you do. I really enjoy your program.

Thank you, Phil. Give us a call again, Phil. We enjoy your conversation. Hey, 77-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Remember that mystery shoppery report is coming up, and I'm certainly hoping to hear from Rick on his ethanol experience later on in the show. No, back to the recovering car dealer. Got another text or post?

Well, you do. It's a comment on the flashing the headlight issue, and the texter says there's case law on the headlight issue that defines flashing to warn oncoming drivers as a constitutionally protected speech. I googled it, and he's right. Even Florida, there's case law, Florida, Oregon, Colorado, that says you can't restrict a driver from doing that

because it's a commonly accepted means of communicating amongst drivers. Well, that's great. And my intuition was right. I think what we're doing when we flash our lights or blow our horns, if we're doing it with good intent, we are making the roads safer. If you're doing it to harass, it's a different story. It would be a different story. And it's encouraging to know that there's case law to support that.

I wonder if that poster was an attorney. I don't know, but I googled it. There's a lot of law firms, and there's a lot of stuff. If you Google flashing headlights, you'll find it all over the place. Now, I wonder if that same legal theory applies to turning your flashers on during the rain. Because that's illegal. Well, that is illegal, but it's also clearly dangerous. The purpose of the flashers are to let you know that there's a vehicle stop for an emergency.

So if you pull over the side of the road, that's what the flashers are for. So when you see in a dense rainstorm flashers, you assume, you should assume, the car is stopped. And if you see a stop car in front of you, you're going to slam on the brakes. If you slam on the brakes in a dense rainstorm, the car behind you is going to hit you. No, because it's a totally different message. Flashers mean equals something else. By the way, that Textor is a construction worker, not an attorney. I like your better already.

I like construction workers better than attorneys. Don't we all? And you're higher on the honesty and ethics and professionals. Quite a bit higher. Exactly. 877-960-9960, or you can text this. It's 772-497-6530, 772-497-6530, and Facebook posting, facebook.com slash earl on cars. Do we have another text, too?

We don't, but I do want to announce that John Neal is watching, and congratulations on getting your Facebook account back. Yeah. John was fired on Facebook. He was banned. Ban. Welcome back, John. I'll tell you an interesting thing about big band.

on Facebook. My blog this week is an open letter to Pam Bondi, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and here's the blog right here. It's also in Florida Weekly and hometown news. So it's all about dealer fees, and it also quotes the dealer fee itself, the actual statute. Florida statute 501.976. That's the law in Florida. And it's a law affecting dealer fees. It comes under FDUPTA, which is the Florida DeSepi Unfair Trade Practices Act. And it's a very serious law. And it's been flagantly violated by virtually all card dealers. We found one, by the way.

What was the name of the card dealer that Donned from LaBelle? Wells. Wells Motorcars. Wells Motorcars and Avon Park. Right. The only one we found that does not violate the law. So I wrote a letter to Pam Bonnie, the Attorney General. and I told Stu when we posted the blog to boost the postings.

You can, on Facebook, you can pay Facebook to increase the frequency with which your posting is shown. You can increase it to thousands, 10th of thousands. Basically, make it an advertisement. Make it an advertisement. So we wanted to get the word out all over Florida. We particularly wanted to get the word out in Tallahassee where Pambandi exists. She's there. She lives there, I think, and her office is there, is Florida Attorney General. And Facebook came back and said, we won't do it. It's just an interesting observation.

Facebook also told the Iranians they can't run any more political ads because they're trying to affect the... You are in dubious company. Yes. So the Iranians and Earl Stewart have been stopped. It says, Facebook says, we're not authorized for this type of ad. Your ads not approved because your page has not been authorized run ads related to Plitz. politics and issues of national importance. At least they acknowledge that the dealer fee is an issue of national importance. Exactly.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to protest the protest, and we're going to say, we want to expand this and advertise it, because what it's saying is car dealers are almost unanimously breaking this law every day, Pam Bondi, and you are ignoring this, you're not enforcing it. And that's just not right. flagrantly violating the law. And this law is costing Floridians, conservatively, millions of dollars. Cardinals out there are charging $1,000, $2,000. A teeny-weeney-dealer fee would be $500. And they're doing it illegally, and you're not enforcing the law. So we're going to alert as many people as we possibly can.

And I'm in discussions now with attorneys on a class action suit against all car dealers in Florida, except the one in Avon Park, who is not violating the law on the dealer fee. So if you have any thoughts on the dealer fee, please call us at 877-960-99-60. You can text us at 772-497-6530, and, of course, you can post for a live-stream. this on Facebook, Facebook.com forward slash hurl on cars. We have a little lull in the activity here. Do we have a text here, Stu? No, I'm just talking with John.

Okay. Let me talk with Rick here, because as Nancy said earlier, Rick has done an experiment on ethanol gas. Yep. Well, we had, who was our caller that has the professional driver that he swears by the REC-90 ethanol-free fuel? Mark, so what I did, did a baseline first, running a full tank of regular E-10 fuel through my pickup, and I kept just normal driving habits.

Okay, tell us what E-10 fuel is. This is the standard 10% ethanol fuel that's available at every regular gas station throughout the U.S. 10% or less. 10% or less, yes. And it's basically it's the standard fuel that you get everywhere. where you see the low grade, the medium, and the premium. They all have up to 10% ethanol in them. Now, that one tank of fuel, I got about 17.4 miles per gallon,

and that basically breaks down to about 15.5 cents per mile of fuel for the E10 fuel. How much? About 15.5 cents. The R90, which is the common. name now for ethanol-free fuel. I did 18.6 miles per gallon, but due to the increased price of it, it did 18.7 cents per mile. I paid approximately, let's see, where was my price? $268-9 for the E-10 fuel, and the ethanol-free fuel that I found at a Wawa station right in Riviera Beach was 3.48.9 a gallon.

Oh, wow. Yeah, pretty good increase there. Holy mackerel. However, for scientific purposes, no result is good unless you duplicate it, right? So right now I fueled up again with E10, or I beg a pardon, with the ethanol free, rec 90 fuel again. And I actually found it, got it at a Wawa Station again down in Lake Worth for 319 a gallon. So we'll see what that next tank load does, and if it comes out about the same fuel economy, the same 18.6 miles per gallon thereabouts, that, of course, will reduce that cost per mile a little bit. But there is still, you know, it is a little more expensive, about three cents a gallon, or I beg a pardon, three cents a mile more to run the rec 90.

But it did get a little bit of increase in the fuel economy. We finally are starting to document this. and get an actual firm answer. I wish Mark were listening, our professional truck driver, who swears by ethanol, and he swears that the fuel efficiency with ethanol is so much greater,

it's less expensive for him, and as a truck driver, you know, he burns a lot of fuel. Yep. So I think, and Rick is on his second round of testing, found that the ethanol was less at the Wawa Station. I wonder if we were to go on the app of the fuel app for the shows.

Do they show the cost of fuel or just the fact that they sell the fuel? I would say they probably are going to list the price per gallon at that time. Because if you could find the ethanol, the pure ethanol-free, zero-ethanol fuel cheap enough, the indications are they'd probably give you a little better fuel economy.

So let's see. So it's the cost of the ethanol-free fuel that is, killing this kind of yeah kind of works against it now i do know that most wawa stations which there's quite a few have just popped up in palm beach county yeah they all carry ethanol free fuel and the thing to look for is any sign that says rec 90 r c 90 because that's kind of like a i don't really want to call it a slang term but it's like an industry name for ethanol free fuel rec 90 because it's meant as a

recreation vehicle fuel I got you which any off-road vehicles that are meant to have ethanol free or of course all boats that's what you're looking for well Rick thank you very much and I can't wait to hear the next round of testing

Stu I think we got some text coming in yeah we do here's a really interesting one I sold cars for many years in South Florida when I was trained as a green pea that means a brand new car dealer car salesman when I was trained as a green pea I was taught to ask a lady customer

if, quote, all the decision makers were present. We were not told to ask men that. Back then, I never questioned it, but after listening to your show about how women are treated at car dealerships, I remembered my training, and now I'm embarrassed that I followed along with that. Interesting.

Nancy, I know you must have some comments on that. I think that's a great text. I really like that response. You know, that was fantastic. Things have changed today. first of all, thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars and the respect that women should be getting, well, we're not quite there. We've done a lot of work and we've achieved a whole lot, but you really have to be careful as to exactly what's going on whenever you're sitting in the F&I department and the man and the woman are sitting there and you're directing all of your conversation to him and not to the couple. Because in most cases, women make up, the population of women is what I'm trying to say, is more than men.

And most women are involved in 85% of the decision of purchasing a vehicle. So you've got to be real careful as to the words that you choose. Right. Worst case scenario, you've got a 50% chance that the woman is making the decision. So asking that question now, or. for years is really ridiculous. Yeah, it is very ridiculous. I appreciate the honesty of the texture.

He was trained that way. I think when he was, I got from the comments that he really didn't think about it when it happened. And now when he thinks about it, he was embarrassed. And so he's, there's a lot of awareness, a lot of men today, things that we all did 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 50 years ago. And we didn't think about it. And now as the light has shined. And we feel kind of bad about it. Yeah, it's just not Pass A anymore.

And that's a great text. I really like that. And what was the question? Are all the decision makers present here? Are all the decision makers present? It's a euphemism saying, is your husband here or not, basically? I mean. It's a slick way of saying bring your husband in.

Yeah. But like you said, it's right. This guy is there is a term with the millennials called woke. And that salesperson is woke. which means he's been enlightened to how things are now. We have another text, and this is from Paul and Stewart. It says, what's the deal with Jeeps in Florida? It sounds like Jerry Seinfeld.

What's the deal with Jeeps in Florida? I see so many of them on the road, few ever go four wheeling with them. The last time I rode in one, it was not a comfortable ride. So what's the attraction? Before you answer that question, let Steve know that we know you're on the line. We'll be right with you. Okay, and what is the Stewart?

Basically, it's an uncomfortable vehicle that never goes off-road. What's the deal with Jeeps? Why do so many people like them? Earl's favorite topic. Yeah, Jeeps, it's a, the reason people buy cars, one of the single biggest reason, not the only reason, obviously, but it's an emotional thing. It's like falling in love. It's like getting married.

Emotions dominate that decision. And when people buy a car, and I've been selling cars for 50 years, it is largely an emotional experience. A Jeep is a very romantic vehicle. It brings up visions of a lot of things, mainly in men, World War II, General Patton, John Wayne, General Patton, macho, clean he's cool. I mean, as a man, I have to say, when I... I see, I have a visceral feeling when I see a Jeep on the road. I can see myself in that jeep. You start to grunt.

I can see myself in there with no doors and a roll bar. He's in the Grand Canyon. And dangering myself. And I don't see the consumer reports. I don't see the danger of the vehicle, the high cost of repair and maintenance. I don't see any of that. And so it is the car manufacturer's dream, and it is what keeps Chrysler Corporation alive. I should say Fiat Corporation alive.

Without the Jeep, Fiat Chrysler would no longer be in business. So car dealers copy. I mean, the other manufacturers are the Toyota had a vehicle that copy the Jeep. FJ. Cruiser. Yeah. And if you look at a lot of the manufacturers that you, these, they're copying the Jeep. But Chrysler's got the original. They're all over the place and more power to you. Now, the good thing about that, if you think about buying a Jeep,

they're so popular that they have a high resale value. Now, that's counterintuitive because usually a car that has terrible safety, terrible high cost maintenance, and everything else can go wrong with a car, has low resale value. But people will buy that used Jeep. And pay more money for it because they fell in love with it. And it's all about emotion. As for the off-road part, you might be surprised at how many people will take a $30,000 or $40,000 vehicle that they've spent a ton of money dressing it up. And they will go out various places in South Florida off-roading and they're set up for it. The places are designed for it. And they just clean them up really, really well afterwards because those folks love their

jeeps. And when they get done filling it with mud, they scrub every inch of it right back out again. Okay, folks. I know we have a caller. We've got Steve from West Palm Beach. Thank you for holding, Steve. Welcome to the show. Good morning, Mr.

Mr. Mr. Stewart and Rick. I had a question. It was a couple months ago, but it's kind of a heavy question. You know, I wanted to know why the Deemers, and if you do, you know, I know my brother used to have

with the old Toyotas and things and you put a spare with a you know a donut spare with a you know a wrench and a jack to do it isn't that standard anymore because I was asking a lot of these contractors

they should be held accountable you know I see them go to Palm Beach and things and all there's tacks and screws are loose and I work at a condo at the door and and at both And I go around when I'm checking outside to pick up these things. And there's like, you know, a couple inch nails and things that these people are leaving, you know, around.

So I'm just wondering if it's nuts. Is it a Toyota's have it standard now, or is it listed in the car or what? I brought it up, but I had forgot because I have a car and they don't try to be a little bit better, you know, practice the Dowell, the good force. but they always, they don't have it standard. You know, they didn't put it in there, and I thought it was standard in the cars. It varies from model to model, I guess. We have some cars, I guess we probably still have some cars with spare tires.

I'm not sure. Some have just the inflator, and some have the run-flat. Most of our cars still have a jack and a spare tire. There are a few models that have just an inflator, and they include, as much as I hate to say this, they include this bottle of Fixa Flat, and I'm going to state it on the air. I think that's the worst thing,

even when it comes right from the manufacturer, which Toyota has done this too, do not use Fixa Flat in your tire, because if that tire is still repairable and you put Fixa Flat in it, it's no longer repairable, and that Fixa Flat will damage the tire pressure sensor. Unless it's an emergency.

If you're trapped in the Everglades and nobody's going to come and the alligator is going to get you, then you can use a fix of flat to leave. Well, my advice is use that inflator, fill the tire back up, drive until it starts to get soft again, and just keep filling it

because you're actually going to do a lot better because when you figure that the average tire could be anywhere from $120 to over $200, and then that tire pressure sensor is another $150, and then it has to be programmed to the car, which is labor. Good point.

That's a lot of money. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I didn't know that you could still purchase a can of tire inflator. It's everywhere. It is still everywhere, because I used to use that back in the 50s and the 60s, and long after that, I heard that it was not good to inflate your tire like that. Because once you've used it, that tire cannot be patched. The patches simply won't stick because it's.

It messes with the rubber inside the tire, and that's it. It's done. Steve, thanks for the call. That's interesting. You get to see a lot of trunks, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot. When we're moving a car, if we have to or something like that, yes, sir, yeah.

I really enjoy the show. You ever find a body in the trunk? No body, no body. No, no. No, don't you behalf of stories. Well, if you ever do, give the show a call. We'd like to hear about that. It's early, it's a secret line.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Steve. Okay, 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-49-3-0. I have a text from Allison, and I promised her yesterday that I would get to it today, and the text is about protecting yourself against flooded cars. It might be a little bit too late for Allison, because I think that she did purchase a flooded car. But I'll put this out there anyway and I'll let the auto experts that join me every Saturday morning add their professional opinion to this. The best way to check

out your car, Allison, is through a professional. Take the car and have the vehicle checked. But for myself, just looking at your car, looking at the interior of your car, looking for musty smells, especially the carpet, the seats, trunk, all the different places, and if you like tinkering around with your car like I do and taking a look at different things, you can also check under the hood. Check under the hood and take a look for excessive rust, dirt, mud, all those types of things. So now I'll turn that over to that question over to Rick. yeah you pretty much covered it perfectly one thing to look at though

lift up the floor mat and look for any signs of moisture or condensation buildup on the bottom of the floor mats because that rubber surface on the back side of it any moisture that is under the carpet that's starting to steam its way up we'll collect on the bottom of that rubber floor mat very quickly yeah and all of a sudden let me tell you what

what a distinctive odor mildew there's no denying it. And if you can pick up on that anywhere in your vehicle, well, you've got problems. Please give us a call. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us. 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

I think we're starting to get a little backlog of text here. We do. And I'll start with a comment from our friend John on Facebook. And he just said something. I think it's important to read. He says, I appreciate it. Earl and Nancy and all the audience here that sends me daily messages checking I may as I go through this illness. I'll be the first to admit I'm scared and for people that I've never met to think

of me means more than I can express. You guys are like family to me and I can't stress how much that means to me. Your kindness has restored my faith in mankind. John, thank you so much. We're touched. Interesting question here. We never got one like this before. This is Jeff on Facebook. He says, Earl, what's your favorite part of being a dealership owner. You know, the funny thing is, I'm having more fun now as a consumer advocate than I ever had as being a car dealer. To answer your question, when I was a car dealer, the most fun I had was winning.

I have a very high, I'm a very competitive person, and I've been psychologically tested for that, and scientifically proven I'm a competitive maniac. I'm just, I've always got to be number one. That was done in a lab at an undisclosed area. So I always had to service more cars, sell more cars, and be number one. And the irony is, as I evolved from a dishonest car dealer to an honest car dealer, it was almost like an outside force had taken control of me because I'm thinking to myself, my evil side is saying, how am I going to be number one, and sell them,

more cars against all these evil dealers if I'm trying to be nicer and kinder and more transparent. And I found out an amazing thing as I became a better person and had a better company. I actually found out more people wanted to buy cars from me. That's harder. The message is to all you car dealers out there, if you're honest and transparent, there's a huge disparity. car dealers you don't have any competition if you can do that your your customers will flock to your door it's uh you got to tell them though it's harder it's harder evil evil is easy evil is easy yeah good is harder if you want to do it the easy way thanks too for mentioning that

earl doesn't mention that very often hard work oh yeah it's hard work being uh honest a car dealer and if everyone thinks that uh well he has an outside force we earl and i are want to announce that we are going to be doing a reality show of the office that we work out of from our home, and I can guarantee you that everyone will be entertained. All right, so we have Johnny from Riviera Beach texted us. You noticed there wasn't a comment. Earl just looks shocked for a second. You're doing what?

Johnny from Riviera Beach says a lot of cars that are shipped from overseas are damaged and repaired at U.S. ports before they're shipped to new car dealers. Are the dealers required to reveal this information to customers before these cars are sold to them, or do they have a don't ask, don't tell policy? Well, that's a great question. There is a law on this, and if there is damage exceeding 1% of the manufacturer's adjusted retail price, it must be disclosed. And you're absolutely right.

There's damage from the time the car leaves the assembly line. Anything could happen. Put on the truck, taking off the truck, put it on the ship, taking off the trip, and then you've got to want another truck. So there's a lot of a handling of cars. And during the process, there's scratches and dings. And you only know about it if it's 1% of MSRP or greater. Now, remember, that's what it costs to repair.

That's only what you're only going to know about it. Yeah. The dealer might know about it if it's less than that. Yeah, exactly. I can only speak for Toyota, but when we get cars from the port, if there's any repair on it, there's a dollar amount. It tells you how much they repaired it for it. But it's up to the dealer to tell the customer.

Exactly. Rick? years ago when we were doing training classes and we would actually go to the port in jacksonville they had one occasion where a ship in sea in transit coming from japan one of the cars broke loose during a storm and it literally tumbled around in the hold so they had 30 or 40 cars lined up that we were able to go see and it was unbelievable the devastation on those cars obviously those never got sold, but yeah, things like that can happen.

It's a great question, and the textor is a great question because any paint repair on a car, when detected by a paint meter, devalues the car. So a repair that costs less than 1% of a $50,000 car

is $500. So if you had a $495 repair, there's no law saying that that has to be disclosed. And $495,000, worth of paint on a quarter panel of a car, somebody picks up with a paint meter, could devalue that car by $1,000. And you never knew about it.

Exactly. So the 1% is an old law. It should be revised. When that law was passed, the average cost of a car, MSRP, was probably half of what it is today or less. We have a question on Facebook wanting to know. Is that 1% damage disclosure of Florida or federal law? It is a Florida law.

Okay. All right. We have another text question. This is from Steve in New Jersey. Steve says during the past few years, there's been a huge increase in car safety devices sold in new cars. In your opinion, Earl, what are the next new important safety features that we're going to be seeing? Lasers are the thing that we're going to make all the safety features even greater.

Lasers, which you've seen some of these autonomous cars, and they have the little circling thing going around, shooting out laser beams. Laser beams are far more accurate than the radar or the sonar devices. And they have them now in Waymo, which is Google's autonomous car company, that has pretty much got a down pat. It can detect about anything. I mean, you can catch a kitty cat on the side of the road.

You can warn the car computer or the driver of the car, pre-autonomous, to just about any event. So that's coupled with the communication between cars. When we have the communication between cars and the radar, by the way, the radar, Waymo has learned how to conceal that within the car. So you can have a, I mean the laser, they'll be able to conceal the laser devices so you won't have that crazy looking thing up on top of the car. So you have the lasers going and you also have the communication between the cars. The cars will be approaching perfectly, perfect safety.

Yeah, I'd also guess that as they keep, as we're evolving closer to autonomous vehicles, that things like Lane keep assessed, there's going to be more things where there's driver-assist things it will be introduced. Yeah, the car I'm driving right now, I will confess on the air, I drive a Lexus. The car I'm driving right now as I came to the dealership, to the dealership, to the radio station today I stopped. And anytime I'm stopped at a stoplight, I have a, what do they call it with a windshield, windshield, where you go look at the windshield. Heads up display. Heads up display. Head up display. I could see cars coming 100 yards, beyond my vision from either direction.

And there's a yellow arrow that says there's a car coming. So we're at the point now where we will be able to have virtual total safety with the digital assistance that we have. Not to do a commercial for Toyota. I'm sure all the car manufacturers are doing this, but Akio, Toyota says the goal of Toyota is a world where there are zero traffic deaths or injuries. Yes.

So that's the plan. Great goal, and it's a realistic goal. Last comments from our Facebook page is from Andreas. He says, Oh, you've suggested in the past that a smart shoppers should get three or four out-the-door quotes and use that information to make a decision which dealer to potentially proceed with. Should a smart consumer during the deal still try to get a better out-the-door price or should we simply go by the original quoted price?

You'll get the best price. If you get three competitive prices and if you make the dealers that gave you those prices, know that you're shopping and comparison, There's nothing that'll give you a better price if you do this properly. Properly, I mean you have to compare apples and apples. If you're looking at a Honda Civic with these accessories of this year, Han Civic, the same exact car, same exact MSRP, and you compare it with three different Honda dealers,

you will get the lowest price you're going to get anywhere. You have to be sure that you're getting an out-the-door price, and that's the big challenge. no other fees added other than government fees you will get a great price if you do this is a lot of work and that's the reason that we say

consumer reports true car what is the other one consumer reports true car Costco Costco those three sources of third party buying services will give you

a good price too we were just talking about that this morning we were yeah okay is that it on the text That's it. We're all caught up. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind you a very important website, Youranonymousfeedback.com. Youranonymousfeedback.com. We want to hear from you. It's completely anonymous. You are very protected. Say whatever you want, well, within reason. Youranonymousfeedback.com.

And don't forget the other website, because of all these recalls, every morning you wake up and turn on the TV, there's a recall. Safercar.gov. Safercar.gov. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, before we get to the mystery shopping report, Stu just reminded me we're going to end the show at 955. The station is a lot of sync here and the way the shows are being scheduled.

So normally we quit at 10. We'll quit at 955 today. And so I'm going to move to my mystery shopping report to be sure that we get that end. I just have one thing that I thought was very interesting. I saw this in the Wall Street Journal this morning that Tesla is being investigated by the FBI. And I say this just to alert you if you're thinking about buying a Tesla. I thought about buying a Tesla. I think Tesla is a good product. I chose not to buy a Tesla. I happen to admire Elon Musk greatly. I think he's a genius and a good person. But the FBI isn't.

investigating them having to do with misstating the production numbers. It's pretty serious because they're a publicly held company. If they were misstating their production numbers to inflate the price to the stock, it could be very serious to the stock price, and it would also be very serious to the existence of Tesla. So I'm not trying to tell you, don't buy a Tesla. I'm saying if you're thinking about buying a Tesla, bear in mind, if the company goes out of business, it's going to devalue your business.

car. Or maybe Honda will buy them. Or somebody may buy them. So I'm going to move to my mystery shopping report now. And as Nancy said earlier, we mystery shopped Auto Nation, Nissan, and Pembroke Pines. Of all the car dealerships that still freely sell Takata affected used cars, the ones that trouble us the most are the big publicly owned auto groups like Auto Nation. Auto Nation is one of the very largest dealers. I believe they are the largest publicly owned. Penske is right up there, and there are Sonic and a number of others. You add all the publicly owned together.

They really control and sell a significant percentage of all the cars. These corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders not to expose the company to liability. AutoNation seemed to be taking this responsibility seriously back in 2015 when the CEO, Mike Jackson, a man who I admire greatly, by the way, and a man who just announced his retirement shortly, that all automation dealerships can stop selling used cars, wholesaler retail, with an open safety recall. Now, my dealership took this step some time ago, and I was really happy to see that Michael Jackson, Alderman Nation, had announced the same thing, and it was a major move instigated by the growing to cotter airbag crisis. Jackson said that the sale of any unprepared vehicle is not a responsible solution. You're just kicking the can to someone else. And that's a true statement.

I believe that. All the Nations pledged not to sell these dangerous vehicles lasted 18 months. Mike Jackson said it was both a good faith effort and a learning experience when the company announced it was a reversing course, Jackson had this to say. I'm not big enough to change how the system works, how the recall system works. I tried, valiant effort. We still identify repairs or disclose them. We're at a better place than when we started, but it's not everything we hoped that it would be.

bottom line here is Michael Jackson might be the CEO of Auto Jackson, of AutoNation, but he doesn't run AutoNation. The Board of Directors runs AutoNation, and the stockholders indirectly run AutoNation, and the stockholders expect them to return a profit on their investment, and by holding all these cars, it was taxing the bottom line, expensive, extremely expensive, and I'm speaking from personal experience. because we spent a lot of money, well over $100,000, well over $100,000,

having to hold these cars from sale. So in Michael Jackson's case, Alderman Nation, it was millions and millions of dollars. So he tried, I salute him. Sorry that he had decay, but he had no choice. I think if he had not made that decision, they were to fire him as CEO. So fiduciary responsibilities,

not only to liability, there to making a profit and that's the that's a hard role there that the CEO has the last time we mystery shopped an auto nation dealership to investigate how they handle the sale of a dakota afflicted used car it was an automation Cadillac in December of 2017 they failed the takata test by not disclosing the recall or trying to stop the sale kind of shocking they didn't do what michael jackson said they would do this week we investigated Auto Nation Nissan and Pembroke Pines, our first visit to this dealership. We found a used 2008 as a whole car, Ford Edge 2,000 SUV, orange in color 93,000 miles with a fixable but yet unfixed passenger side to Cotter Airbag Inflator Recall that was issued in June of 2016. The vehicle was listed for sale on their website for $6,550. We confirmed the recall with three independent. independent sources and Agent X, the best of the best, valiant, brave.

He rode down on his steed. He did. I called ahead speaking as if I were Agent X on the availability, spoke with a salesperson named Todd. Todd offered to go out on the lot, check the computer to make sure it was there and available for sale. He would call me back and then took a minute to collect all of my information, including my email address. I heard back from Todd 15 minutes later He said the edge was at their market location

But he could get it to him And Pembroke by dealer training I thought that was pretty cool And that is pretty cool The fact that they could move cars around that fast And I asked him if it was a big deal I didn't want to be a problem Todd said it was routine

And he would only need an hour To complete the transfer He said he would call me when he received the car An hour later Todd called me to tell me that he had the fordage. We set an appointment for me to come in and see it at 2 o'clock. Todd said he'd have the car in front of the showroom and to look for him near the entrance. I arrived on time and quickly found Todd key in hand.

He smiled, welcomed me to automation, the one-price store. Now, that's interesting. There are one price on used cars. That's correct. But not on new cars. Not on new cars. I told him and by the way

CarMax is one price on used cars too so there are two two stores, large stores, national stores that are one price I told him I like the sound of that because I hated to haggle back and forth and I hated dealer fees

that seemed to throw him off he cleared his throat and he said well we do have a dealer fee even I paid it when I bought my car here and that's true everybody pays a dealer fee at all the nation

I never pay a dealer fee I told him as Agent X Todd suggested we look at the edge ignoring the comment entirely we walked over to it it was really orange bright orange I asked him to pop the hood

open the doors I walked around it inspecting it was a very clean vehicle I asked Todd if it was mechanically sound he said it was an additive that was a sort of pre-owned car, CPO. That's right.

Certified pre-owned. And it came with a 90-day, 4,000-mile warranty, and a five-day return policy with a $250 mile limit. That's a pretty good deal. Yeah, not to rag on them too much. It seems like a kind of an old car with high mileage to be considered certified, but maybe they have a... It does.

Maybe they have a special program. Yeah. And they're not a Ford dealer. Yeah. It depends on what they, yeah. It's a Nissan dealer. Well, they may simply be certifying that it is a pre-owned vehicle. Here's the proof.

It could certify this. It's an orange real. It's got, had four previous owners, so it's, yeah, you're right. Thanks, Rick. That's a good point, Rick. We went for a test. You sound like George Carlin. I asked him my second question.

He sped along Pines Boulevard. Has this car ever been in an accident? First of the three questions. Todd opened the glove box, pull out a folder. Inside was a copy of the 125-point inspection in a printed Carfax vehicle history report. That's good. Todd reported to me that the Edge had been in an accident,

become disabled, and had to be towed away. However, he said the airbag did not deploy, so it couldn't have been too bad. Good thing the airbags didn't deploy. Yeah, it's a good thing you'll see later. It's a good thing that the airbag did in the point. I agreed and said it drove nice. I suggested we head back and write up the deal.

Todd seemed pleased and said, let's do it. Todd and I sat at the desk. He asked me if I was ready to get started, and I asked if I had any questions or concerns before we wrote it up. I said I thought one of the turn signals wasn't functioning properly. Todd replied, he'd have that checked out and fixed. Then I said that since the car was over 10 years, old, I was just slightly nervous about safety.

And you should be, a 10-year-old car. I asked him if there were any safety issues. I needed to worry about besides the turn signal. Todd said, no, there were none. This is sad. Todd left to speak with Sergio to get the buyer's order. He came back with a nicely printed proposal, $6,550 plus $799 dealer, sales tax and a pretty

pretty hefty $549 for a new tag you know I meant to ask us to check that out because that sounds like a lot of money for a new tag we'll check that out and get back to you later on that

but for 2010 vehicle my suspicion is there probably is a e-filing theory of private tag built into that oh that would be a real no-no Yeah, I don't know.

So the actual buyer's order, which you can see is in the back page of the report, is not an official, like the legal one, it looks more like a proposal. So it could probably, it's not as itemized as it could be. Well, we'll have to note that in our conference on the class action suit because this would be something that would be very difficult to undercover. You'd have to go into the business office, see the official printout, and then you'd have to see what was included. And I think there are car dealerships out there that believe that tag agency fees and electronic filing fees are part of the tag fee.

And they're not. They are dealer profit. And they are officially dealer fees, legally dealer fees. Yeah, but I bet you auto nation, I bet you their buyer's order is legal. So those would be separated out as line items. We'll have to find out. I said I need to be no more than $7,700 out the door. Oh, no, did I skip something?

Yeah, I skipped the fact that the total was $8,354.77. But I can't be over $7,700. And Todd said it wasn't possible to come down from the $8,354.77. Stuck to the one price. That's it. It's one price. And I believe they stick to their one price. Todd said it wasn't possible and they reminded me they were on price store.

I said he had to have some wiggle room. I said I had to have some wiggle room and Todd said he'd go see Sergio and he could maybe explain it better. He left, came back with Sergio, who was really nice, thanked me for my time, and confirmed that Todd had told me they couldn't budget penny. Now I respect that. If you're one price, you have to be true to one price. Otherwise, you're flimpleming people. People will come to you because they think they've got the lowest price.

And then when you test them on that and they lower the price, they're done better than the non-one price store because they're charging everybody a different price. So I respect anybody, even if the price is high, I respect it, because they're sticking to their rules and what they say and their claims. They're honest when they do that. Well, they're more honest. They're dishonest because they're not including the dealer fee and they're out-the-door price.

He left, okay, we got that, couldn't budget penny. I said that I asked if he could hold the car from me for one night. I said I was out of my budget and their price had to be cleared over with my wife. Sergio apologized that they didn't hold cars. If I left, they considered it available to sell someone else. I respect that too. I thank Sergio for his honesty, so I hoped it wouldn't sell before I call back the next day and I left.

So there we are. He failed at the Togata Test, is especially disappointing to me because of my feelings for Michael Jackson, and it was especially disappointing because All the Nation is so big. And I do know now, and it's in the press, that they are pushing used car sales. They're trying to beef up their used car departments. So here they are. A few or three years ago, they had an honest intent to protect people against the Togata Airbag or any dangerous recalls, and now they've gone the other way.

They have certified cars. Certified cars imply safe cars. A car with a dangerous recall is not a safe car. They were sued by the California consumer against a for cars, auto cars and reliability cars, C.A.R.S. Rosemary Sheehan is the president of that very large consumer organization in California. They were sued, and the Federal Trade Commission was sued for doing advertising certified cars that had dangerous recalls. This is on appeal now, by the way. So CarMax was also sued in that, how can you have a certified car

in states you have a safe car when you have a car with a dangerous recall? You can't do it. and good conscience. So let's vote. Car Nation, Auto Nation, and Pembroke Pines. Auto Nation, Cadillac, the Old Nation Cadillac, and Pembroke Pines. How do you feel about that? Well, we have grades coming in, and how do you want to handle it? Would you like to have us go first? So we don't want to be tainted by our listeners, yet we don't want to taint the opinions of our listeners ourselves.

How many replies we have? One, two, three, four, five, six so far. Okay, let's vote. That's six. We'd be tainted. Let's vote ourselves. Okay. Still, you go first.

It was a really good experience as far as the way they handled the dealer fee, the one-price thing. The recall thing, I think it's a training thing. I don't think it was intentional. I don't think they're trying to deceive. I think it's just lack of foresight. It's lack of thinking about it. So I'm going to give them a C. C.

Nancy. I'll give them a D-minus. And by the way, folks, this day in history, October 27th, 2016, Earl announces a dramatic step that he's going to be taking to stop car dealers from selling cars with dangerous Takata airbags. That is, 2016, we're still fighting the fight. The cars are out there. They're being sold. What's the score?

A D-minus. D-minus. Rick? I can't get past the fact that Todd looked right at the Carfax, stated it's a good thing the airbags didn't go off and missed an airbag recall. I'm going F. I can't get past that. I'm going to go with a D-minus for the same reason that you went with an F.

Let's hear the scores on Facebook. I'll go through these rapidly. Alex gives them an F. We have an anonymous text with a D, another anonymous text with a D. Lisa on a text, a C minus, Roman is a text, a D. Linda on Facebook, gives them an F. Andreas on Facebook gives them a C, and John on Facebook, gives him a D. Okay, AutoNation fails.

Automation Nissan. We got another F, by the way. I said Cadillac. It was Auto Nation Nissan in Pemburg Pines. So another F just came in, who said, over one. failing and the reason they failed is because they had premeditation they knew and I were you know Stu doesn't think so I think that if they looked at the Carfax report they had to see the recall and we had a lot of people that looked at a

Carfax report the used car manager had to look at it Sergio had to look at it Todd had to look at it a lot of people looked at that and they had to see that there was a recall. They called it a safe car. They did it verbally. I just think, and I hold on a nation maybe to a little higher standard. They're a publicly owned company. I have to believe that this is a federal issue. The Securities Exchange Commission, when a publicly held company deceives the public, that is a very serious fact. And you flunked them. I was too kind. And Michael Jackson, Mike Jackson, the CEO, somebody knows Mike Jackson, tell him what happened.

Nissan, Pembroke Pines, Auto Nation, Nissan, Pembroke Pines. And you know how Michael Jackson feels about it because he tried so hard not to sell cars with defective, with dangerous recalls. He tried, and the board of directors and the stockholders forced him to change his mind. So the CEO doesn't like to do this. We said two more Fs coming. No, one minute left. With this one minute, I'd like to apologize to Neil, whose mobile Starbucks order I took off the counter

and didn't realize until I got to the studio. Shame on you. Sorry, Neil. Great latte, though. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining all of us here at 95.9-106.9 FM, the True Oldies Channel, and we will be right back here next week. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy your football weekend.

Thank you. Go. Go. Go. Red go. Oh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Back-go. Uh-huh. Red go to me. Redmondo. Oh. Let's go. Let's come.