Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.04.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Sunrise Volkswagen of Ft. Pierce

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels 60 miles north to visit a VW dealer in Ft. Pierce to see how much over stick they will charge for a new 2024 VW Atlas Cross SE SUV on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. What your auto, how not to be ripped off by a car dealer team is in the studio, ready to go, and try to help you folks out there make life a little bit easier for you when you're buying leasing, maintaining, or repairing a car. It's, there's a trend in that direction. I was just showing my son, Stu, an article in the automotive news about a chain of dealerships, eight dealerships, I think, in the Minnesota area, Apple Group, I hadn't

heard of them, and they have a new theme, don't get screwed. And that's how to buy a car without getting screwed by a car dealer. And that was in the automotive news I just learned about it. So that's exciting to think that maybe what we've been talking about for so many years here in South Florida on the True Oldies Channel. And it's spread now almost worldwide, but we're pretty much nationwide for sure, leaking over a little bit sometimes into Canada and even Europe. But we're streaming, and you can reach us at YouTube.com forward slash your own. on cars you can reach us at facebook.com forward slash hurlunk cars we're uh we call us a radio show and we are a radio show that's uh we've been doing that for 20 years when really radio was just

about all there was in this venue now we stream so you can see us live and in color right here you can call us uh we started out with just a telephone we still have that telephone in addition to our streaming and our texting, and even something called an anonymous feedback web site that you could go to and talk to us without revealing your identity. But the good old-fashioned phone number is still very important. It's the pulse of the show. You get a feel for people and their attitudes and their ideas and their suggestions. That number is 877-960-9.

9-960. 877-960-960. If you call, we're going to try to keep our lines open. We have like five lines coming into the studio. And Nancy Stewart, my co-host, sitting just to my left here, she watches this laptop. And we're going to see the call when it comes in. Jeremy in the studio will flash the number, the name, the call. caller, and we stop what we're doing. So we get the calls through pretty quickly. Every now and then we get backed up, but we try to prioritize phone calls. Again, that number, if you don't have something to say or comment or question, criticisms are acceptable as well. In fact, we encourage us. They're kind of fun to deal with.

877-960-99-60. Please write the number down if you're not driving and you have something to write with. at home or wherever 877 960 9960 and we'll get your phone call very quickly text number 772 4976530 Stu Stewart right across the table from me here of the studio he keeps track of those texts when they come in watch looks at his iPhone and when they come in we we get to them but we sometimes we archive a few towards the end of the show and we get to them. A lot of people just don't, you have something to say,

but you don't want to dialogue, you don't want to be on live radio. So just text us at 772-9-6, I'm sorry, 772-497-6530, 7-70-7-7-2-497-3-0. And for you folks who value your privacy, it's becoming a bigger thing, I'm a public figure. I look at myself as a public figure

because I just give out everything on the air. I get my personal cell phone number, name, address, telephone number. I just open for everybody to see. They say that's not a good idea, but I've been doing it for 82 years, and it's so far so good, knock on wood. But this anonymous feedback is really cool. It's Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

URL, that's the website, you just go to your, Y-O-U-R-A-N-Y-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback, just the way it sounds, Your AnonymousFeedback.com. And you can comment, question, or whatever. There's a link there which, I wish they made it more prominent. And for you, regular Your AnonymousFeedback.com commentators, listen to this. you have to check a little link that says you want a response because if you don't check that we can't respond so we give some anonymous feedbacks that we're asking questions after the show and we can't answer anonymously we can't answer through that link so

oftentimes it's a comment which is fine and if we get it while we're on the air we'll talk about it and you'll if you're listening you'll get the answer but if you just are not sure and you don't want to listen to the radio show for two hours we're on 8 to 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time every Saturday. So your anonymous feedback.com. Check that link if you want a response via the anonymous feedback channel and that's what we'll do. Well, that wraps it up pretty well. I want to introduce Nancy Stewart and she's sitting to my left. You regular listeners and followers, streamers know her very well. She's a female advocate, and we're so proud of her

because she's built the female following of the show up to where it should be, about 50-50. And as you know, whether you're a man or a woman, women, have still got some problems today in the world. Fortunately, in America, things are a lot better, but if you're from certain parts of other other countries in the world there women are pretty well pushed around and discriminated against we're trying to reach that full parity with women callers to Earl Stewart on cars and Nancy has a very special offer if you haven't called the show before she'll tell you about this special offer to call the show all you didn't even have to say you'd have to ask a question

or make a comment call the show if you haven't called the show before because that way we build confidence for all the other ladies who are listening, or maybe a little bit timid about calling. And once you call the show, if you're a first time call her, she has a special offer, and Nancy's going to tell you about that right now. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. We do enjoy your company for sure. Why?

You make the show. We love your company. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 7-7-7-7-7-7-7. 272-4976530, as Earl said, your anonymous feedback, wow, take advantage of it, your anonymous feedback.com. We have a whole lot to get to, but first I'll mention the lady callers and the first two new lady callers. You can win yourself $50 and give us a call and let us know how you feel about the show. maybe your latest purchase or a lease service anything at all call 877 960 9060 and we are going to well talk about insurance rates car insurance rates and how they have gone up in Florida we're going to share some ways that you can save big it's just it's out of control 88% 88% higher in Florida. That's amazing. And of course, there's so many other states that have been affected. So you want to stay with us for that information. We have a great mystery shopping report we're going to get to and written, of course, by Stu Stewart. And it's a great read. And he did another excellent job on writing it up for us. That's a Volkswagen.

Volkswagen and Fort Pierce. They're called Shop of Sunrise, Volkswagen, Fort Pierce. And Earl's latest column, his blog, get it in writing. You definitely want to read this. It never hurts to get things in writing. We are going to just go to the phones, and we're going to talk to Mel. Good morning, Mel. Yeah, good morning, everybody.

and thank you for having it. Welcome. Yeah, I have a mechanic question. It'd probably be directed to Rick on this one. I have a 2010 Rab4 that I've had since original. It has 170,000 miles, of course, is coming up on 14 years old. You have the original struts in the front. And I noticed that when you look,

kind of look in between the, in top of the tire, you can see that the dust cap on both sides are ripped on both of them on both of the fronts they work good there's nothing wrong with the ride and i just wanted to find out what do you think i should do at this point ignore it uh those the the rubber dust cap on there yeah it's it's it's there to try to keep things clean and help the stretch survive longer but at 14 years uh the cost that it would take to remove the strut disassemble it and put a new dust cap on there it would be prohibitive there's there's no reason to even worry about it might even create a problem yeah 14 years i would simply leave it be the struts are working great and they're not leaking i would just go with it right now is that dust cap there and it's not just cosmetic i mean wouldn't it be there because it's going to protect it from any dirt grind mud water to get in there where can it potentially you know know ruin those yeah it's well you got you got a you got a center shaft that's going

through seals down into the strut and over time dirt and grime will eventually get on that shaft and they'll start to wear it and the dirt will get on that seal and they'll start to wear out that seal but at 14 years old I it would cost you probably let's see I'm gonna say about three to four hundred dollars a side just to have those dust caps replaced and you're still going to have the old struts. What I would do is I would simply wait and if the strut finally wears out, I mean, you're really, you know, 170,000 miles, you're about halfway on the life of the vehicle. If those struts really wear out and they do start to leak and get some bounce to them,

then I would consider doing it. and you'd be looking at about 6 to 700 per side just to put a whole new strut in there and have it all brand new again. Right, yeah, I mean, if you go with Toyota, there's plenty of good aftermarkets available. Oh, yes. You know what I mean? Well, we actually, we have found these aftermarket assemblies where instead of taking it apart and replacing just the strut, you actually get the entire assembly. It's the spring, the strut mount, all the dust caps, everything's brand new. We simply take out the old unit, replace it as a unit, and it's actually less expensive in the long run than trying to replace those factory struts.

Right. So basically, I mean, after 14 years, it might just kind of go. The reason why I'm asking is because I'm getting a break job, you know, pads and stuff from the front. And the mechanic said, well, I can do the struts, you know, give you a package deal because, you know, he's in there. ready. That's what I was saying. Yeah, but he's going to sell you replacing the strut or replacing those dust seals and you really don't need it at this point. I would say no. It'd be kind of like saying, hey, do you want to replace your tires? They're at 6.30 seconds and 2.30 seconds is when they're worn out. Do you want to do it a little early? You know, at 630 seconds, you still got a lot

of life left on those tires. Right. Okay. So the mileage in the years, Doesn't matter. Those things can probably go for another $50,000. I have seen struts outlast the car, and I've seen others that die soon. But as long as they aren't broke, I wouldn't fix it. Right. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much, Rick.

I appreciate it, and you guys have a great morning. My pleasure. Yeah, save that money for something better. Congratulations on taking good care. You obviously know how to take care of a car, and you probably have always done your owner's maintenance on that recommended by the manufacturer. That's right. And this is what happens. You heard Rick say, he says, you know, you got another 170,000 miles to go on that car.

So if you buy a good car and you do what the manufacturer recommends and maintenance, no more, but no less. These cars last for a long, long time now. And you obviously knew that and you take a good care. I'm saying that for the benefit of our other listeners. Right. Yeah, well, they're funny. The newer ones, you know, they say. you never have to change the transmission fluid, which, you know, I don't know if I agree on that.

It doesn't even have a dipstick. So, you know what I mean? You know, they say, well, when you're never going to change the transmission, that's kind of crazy, isn't it? Yeah. My 2013 Tacoma, 172,000 miles, original transmission fluid. Yeah, never changed it? Nope. Yeah.

Haven't seen a reason to. And I have towed with that truck. I've pulled some pretty good weights with it, and it drives going just back and forth to work 50 to 60 miles a day. Well, that's, you sound like an old-timer like me, and I know how, you know, it goes counterintuitive to us. But, you know, it's true. The technology today with fluids and sealed cases and the whole quality of the vehicles has made maintenance. much less required. But it goes against our...

We have customers at our dealership and we talk to people every day that change your oil every 3,000 or 4,000 miles. And you only have to change it every 10,000 miles or once a year. But people that are used to taking care of their car like they take care of a baby somehow can't adjust. But it better to take a little bit too good care than not care enough because that's when it gets expensive.

but you're taking real good care of that Ravre for and I just want to compliment you on that. Okay, well thank you so much. Thank you, Mel. Thank you, Mel. Give us a call again. There's proof, you know.

We're hanging in to our cars much longer than we ever did. Ladies, did you know that 62% of the women out there are part of the purchasing, you know, deal and all the

the transactions and everything that comes with it. But 62% of women are purchasing vehicles. That's from Edmonds. Give us a call toll-free. 877-960-99-60. And ladies, the first two new ladies can win themselves $50 this morning. Take advantage of that. We are going to go to Lance, who is a regular caller, from Tennessee. Good morning, Lance. Well, Earl. I'm waiting. I want to let you know that we've placed a copy of your book in the local library. Oh, well, bless your heart. What an honor. I'm very flattered that you would do that.

Now, around here, the road, you're not going to get a lot of traffic on the road to the library. Is it paved, Lance? No. Well, it is paved, but you're just not going to run into a lot of times on the road. But that being said, Earl, I couldn't let the morning pass without a little tune for you. Oh, bless your heart. And I just want you to know that we all, you have a loyal, dedicated, listeners here and lay we think the world about every one of you all um well saturday morning

is about to come and go we're not going to miss earl stewart on the radio they call them up they'll preachy night it's an awful good way to break the eyes listen in and learn what you can Earl Stewart is a real good man. Wow. We're going to go back on our podcast, and I'm going to put together an album. The Tennessee Lance album, and maybe we could get together and market that.

Hey, all profits go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. That would be a great, in addition to the book, we could have the album. Or we could raise funds to fix the road to the library. That's true. Do that first. Before you do that, let me ask you this quickly. I read a kind of a discouraging item about Big Dog Ranch.

Have you commented about that? Yeah, I'm glad you asked. I didn't bring it up before, but our local paper, Palm Beach Post, and this is for you folks that haven't heard about this, We're big advocates and supporters of Big Dog Branch Rescue. They're the largest no-kill shelter in really Florida might be the whole country. They find homes for hundreds of dogs every month, and we have a dog of the week we promote. But anyways, it's just an amazing organization.

Palm Beach Post came out and said that Big Dog Ranch had talked to, a puppy mill and insinuated that Big Dog Ranch was affiliated with puppy mills. Now you know puppy mills are these places that raise puppies like they

like you raise corn, treat the dogs like the commodity. Don't take care of them. Some of them die, some of them get sick. The idea, if you want a dog, and this is Big Dog Ranch's whole mission in life, if you want a dog, find a dog without a home. There's too many dogs out

there that need adoption. You don't need to go to the store and buy a puppy, and these puppy mills are despicable, and most of them are, and the way they take care of their dogs. So what Big Dog Ranch had done, it had gone to some of the illegal puppy mills and taken the puppies out of the puppy mills because they'd been closed down. The puppy mills were going to auction these puppies off and God knows how that would have worked out. Who they would have trusted these puppies

do and how much they would have auctioned them off for and what really would have happened. Again it's kind of like just a very negative thing. So a big dog went in and bought these puppies out of these bankrupted puppy mills and the

only thing they paid because the puppy mill required it was for what the puppy mills had spent on vaccinations and medical care. So it came out to an amount of 50 or 60 bucks a puppy, and Big Dog Wrens took the puppies into their beautiful facility in Loxahatchie, Groves, Florida, huge, huge beautiful facility, and they're taking care of those puppies and making them healthy

and finding good homes for them. So the Palm Beach Post interpreted that as some sort of a negative thing that they'd done. and that's the true story. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post, and I post it on their Facebook. But sometimes if you make too big a thing out of it, particularly when you're fighting a newspaper, it ends up in spreading more negative publicity

than had you remained quiet. So I remained relatively quiet. But Lance, I'm glad you brought it up and gave me a chance to tell the story on the air. Well, listen, good morning. again and take care. Have a good week. You too, my friend. Stay tuned for the Christmas album.

Okay. That's right. Next month. There you go. Thanks, Lance. We enjoy talking to you. You know, speaking of Big Dog Ranch and it'll be soon, it'll be Veterans Day. You know, it's an amazing

program that they have out of Big Dog Ranch. And it's a great program for all of the service that the veterans have done. And they introduced the veteran to a trained dog, and it takes them about a year to do that, and they match it with a veteran. So there's a whole lot to read about Big Dog Ranch, and you can go to big dog ranch. dot org i believe that's the big dog branch org there you go bdrr.org there you go thanks guys uh we are going to go to jersey mike he too is a regular caller from west palm beach good morning folks nice to hear from you got one of the best shows on the

whole radio oh that's for sure i mean it's so informative I mean, you help me out so much. You can't believe. I'm going to tell you a couple of things. But anyway, let's go to Bork Big Dog Ranch. I went out there and I adopted a dog. If you're a veteran, which I am, I serve in Vietnam, you get, any veteran gets 50% off of anything that they adopt, whatever the fee is. Moreover, when you get that dog, it is fully cared for.

It's nails are clipped. It's groomed. It's the fleet, whatever it needs medically is taken care of. It's brought up today on all its shots and vaccinations. You get a full printout and a record of what you need to do, when you need to do it in the future. It's a really great, great place. I gave, and also veterans that are out there listening to the show, there's a veteran building in the rear manned by veterans that actually will help veterans out,

secure the ability to work through, and I actually accomplished this over a period of time, getting the dog to become a service dog. Once you have a service dog, that dog gets a free chair and an airplane, and he can go anywhere as long as it's not disruptive, and nobody can deny your entry with that dog anywhere. A restaurant, food plates, supermarket, wherever it may be, doctor's office. nobody can deny your entry with that dog if it's a service dog i don't know if people are aware of that but it's a real big uh asset to have so that you can travel with your loved one basically

that's great yeah no i see dogs more and more and i think it's becoming just normal now i don't think people are when they see um especially when they see the service dog harness and it indicates that it is people i think it's pretty much well known but there's something else you brought up Mike, it's wanted, was when you're talking about everything that they do for the dogs, and we mentioned week after week because we sponsor these dogs and we do the, we'll pay for the adoption fees. I think it's important to know. It's not buying a dog.

You're just covering the cost of everything that you listed there, the vaccinations, the grooming, any other heartworms. There's all sorts of things that go on, not to mention all the care that went into just keeping the dog there. There's another positive benefit on that, Stu, and is so the big dog grids people say that a lot of these other shelters. I'm not bad-mouthed in any shelter. I do bad-mouth the puppy mills, and they're making them illegal now.

But the other shelters, they do a job, and the public shelters, they do a job. The problem is there is no charge. And I say a problem, too many people adopt a dog on a motion. And, you know,

they go out there just look at the dogs and how can you not fall in love with a puppy. So they fall in love with a dog. and then two weeks later they get tired of the dog and next thing you know the dog's out of the street somewhere so what big dog ranch was they not only do they investigate the foster parents or the adopting parents to be sure they're the kind of people they would want their dog to be with

but they also have a fee $250 is what they normally charge that's their stew fee refers to that we pay on the dog of the week And then they have reduced charges, like you mentioned, Mike, about the service dogs for veterans. But when you have to come out of pocket a few bucks, you're less likely to say, I don't want that dog, and I'm going to take it home and change your mind. So serious adopters is what we're looking for. And I would also add that a lot of people don't realize this. I go to pet stores to buy an animal, whether it be a cat or a dog.

those are the puppy mill suppliers. They get their dogs from places that are known as puppy mills. So they're supporting people, which they may not realize, they're not doing the right thing. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. That's very true, Mike. Also, we didn't mention the fact that they're microchipped,

and along with the vaccinations. And, you know, what a great big dog ran. Ranch Rescue Veterinarian Healing Center that they have out there. So thanks for mentioning all that this morning. We definitely appreciate your call. Can I ask the question to go to cars and just ask a couple questions real quick? Okay. First off, I know I should not be looking at a Cadillac dealership in South Florida, for that matter, anyone.

I want to go up north. Can you recommend up north? and I don't know where I have to go. If I've got to go to Georgia, I so will, in order to get myself from a reasonable dealer, a used car, and I know how to deal with people. I'm a negotiator very well, okay? I've done it all through my life. I'm 77 years old.

I just want to know, I'm going to stay away from South Florida because you've talked about that. Could you recommend northern Florida some dealerships that you're aware when you do your dealer report, Earl? In general, I would say one of the better reputed public companies like Auto Nation, Auto Nation is the second largest retailer of cars in the United States, and they pretty much cover all the brands. Okay. And one of the reasons, not to say you can't have a problem at an Auto Nation store,

we've mystery shopped Auto Nation stores and had problems. But the nice thing about automation is they're structured, they're public, they're a publicly held company. So you can get all the information about that company. You can go to the upper level of supervision. You can take it up the ladder. If you have to talk to the general manager of an automation store, you can. One of my blogs has to do with talk to if you want to go, if you have a problem, take it up the ladder to the highest supervisor you can find.

And usually you have that. And because you're a public company, you can't do outrageous things like Napleton. Napleton seems to get away. We've never seen anything crazy, like crazy. I got a bad story about Napleson. I don't want to go into that, but because there's one of the last question I have, you're absolutely correct about Naples. Last question I have it, you told me at one time,

I had with 95, kind of like Coup, Sedanderville. and I had three guys, they had the car and had to replace the steering column. They charged me $950 to do that. It was done by an ASE mechanic in one of the repair shops here in West Palm Beach. I'm satisfied with that work. But before they did that, they had three people come in, and they each spent a couple hours attempting to reprogram because it's got the chip in the key that catalog that year.

It's not like the key bombs we have today. Right. And they could not succeed at doing that. And you're the guys who advise me to contact, if you've got any kind of problem with an old Cadillac, get a hold of the Cadillac owners group, and there you shall find the fact that they already have been there, done that, and I found out about the VATS system,

and I fixed it myself in about half an hour. Congratulations. All right. Rick is. Rick looks proud. I guess what I'm saying there is anybody's got a problem in an old Cadillac or any Cadillac for that matter. Go online, Google, or Y2, whether, you know, padlock owner's group, and you'll get an answer to your problem. Absolutely.

It's amazing. Absolutely. It's wonderful. Thanks, Bob. Mike, it was just great talking to you. We enjoy your conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Give us a call again.

Ladies, how do you feel about going in to get your car serviced? Do you think that you're taken seriously? Give us a call. I have $50 for the first two new lady callers, 877-960-9960. And we'll talk about, if you so choose to, who gets the best service? We're going to go to Steve. Excuse me, give us a call at 877. 960, 9960.

Roadrunner, Steve, is calling us this morning. Me, me. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Three quick things. Did you ever hear? Did you see the commercial for Fuel Save Pro Company? Fuel Save Pro.

I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to save 35%. You get 35% more fuel mileage on your car. I've heard of it. I don't think I've seen the commercial. Rick's looking confused.

Fuel Save Pro. No, I haven't seen that. It was a commercial on TV, and it's for, and it's only for cars, 1995 in up, and you plug it into the OBD2 connected air. Okay. I'm looking, I just looked it up. Yes. Okay, keep going. Yeah, it's something you plug into it.

My question is, what about if you put that in your? Like a newer car, and your car is still under warranty, and it kind of messes it up. Okay, I'm looking at it now. It looks like a little advice you plug into the data port down there. Right. And supposedly it does all this wonderful stuff. I don't know what it's doing. Rick's got to speak to this.

Okay. Rick says, no, don't stick it in your car. The next thing is, what happened to offlease.com? I've seen they went bankrupt. They're now... They did indeed. Well, that's an amazing question. They're in liquidation.

They, like a lot of businesses, it happened suddenly. I knew the owner, the original owner, and Mark Fisher is his name. I tried to reach him the other day on the phone. I can't reach him. He got out. He kept 30% of the company, sold 70% to a financial investment. investment group. And apparently they just, you know, businesses have to be careful. And they over-expanded, got caught in this bubble with the used car prices, wholesale prices, crumbling.

And it was a difficulty to buy cars. And they just, it was a liquidity problem. But you've got to have cash. And especially when it's hard to borrow money. awfully's only they were selling a lot of cars but they were losing money as fast as they sold the cars so one day they woke up and there was no cash in the bank and that's the end of the game

so the company that took over killed that killed that company they were private as a private investment company it wasn't a stock market type of transaction it wasn't a public company. But from what I understand

for Mark, he got a lot of money. He and his wife, actually I'm talking about Mark, his wife, and he together founded this company off-lease only about 20 years ago. Yes, they had true cause. They were our nemesis as a car dealer, toilet dealer, our used car department. They were making this look silly. And they were, here they go, they've got

little dirt lot in Lake Worth, Florida. And just, it was, they were the Walmart of the car dealers. No frills, no expenses. You know, if you want to buy a car, come and buy a car and get out. And they weren't giving you an espresso bar. They weren't giving you a massage and nice music and fancy advertising. But they bought their cars cheap. They sold them cheap.

And they were selling a huge number of cars. So they expanded Mark and his wife, Mark Fisher and his wife, expanded two lots. They might have gone to three. And somebody, a group of private investors, said, boy, he really knows what he's doing. So they bought him out for a lot of money. And then they realized that when they bought him out, they didn't have Mark to run the store anymore, his wife. So it takes a lot of hard work and knowledge to make companies. work and when they lost mark

they lost that and private equity don't don't make good car dealers private equity doesn't make good car dealers what happened to all the cars that they had on their lot oh they would have been liquidated they would have gone through the auction that when the court adjudicates the bankruptcy

they require that all the assets be sold at arm's length so that the person going bankrupt can't pocket any money so all those cars probably went through the various auctions around the area where their lots were located. And we probably have some of their cars in our lot right now. We probably bought some of them.

We don't know where they came from. But, yeah, it's all gone. They vaporized. I'm like you. I was shocked at how quickly they just disappeared. It was like one Saturday. It was gone there. Yeah, Saturday.

They told their employees the morning, that Saturday morning, that don't report to work tomorrow. That's pretty cool. 500 employees lost their jobs. Yeah, terrible. Hey, Steve, back on the Fuel Save Pro thing, I looked up, there's a lot online that suggests it's a scam, including their reviews.

There's a lot of stuff that suggests they have a lot of, like they're paying for reviews. A lot of websites that purport to be articles are actually advertisements. And then on Reddit, there's a lot of discussion. on it. One guy says he plugged this into his 2019 RAM and completely destroyed the ECU. It's going to cost in $5,000 to $6,000 to replace.

And then somebody commented, technically, that vehicle is using less fuel now, though. Okay. The other thing I want to talk about was I see on the news, on West Palm Beach news, they said there's 5 million uninsured

drivers in Florida. Yeah. Wow. How is that possible to to get your license and your registration. They got insurance, and then their insurance went to $300,000 a year, and then they dropped it. Yeah, Lance, here's my take on that. What Florida has is a lot of older people. I'm one of them.

And when older people come up for license renewal, it gets pretty touchy. Some people just really don't have, they shouldn't be driving, and they kind of know that so they don't even go in to the driver's license and they you know the way the bureaucracy is and the government they don't pick up on this and if they can actually drive a car

and not get a ticket and not get pulled over they can keep driving and that's very important to people so they don't have insurance they don't have a license because you can't get insurance without a driver's license and a lot of these people this is probably one of Florida's biggest dirty little secrets

is there are thousands of thousands and thousands of older people out there that have elected not to have their license renewed because they know they can't pass the I-test or they can't pass the driving test or they can't pass the written test or maybe they can't but they're afraid they won't so they would they say hey I've been driving for the past 20 years I've never been pulled over very few people get stopped very people get tickets most people don't and so they say hey I've been doing fine for the past 10, 15 years, why should I go in and take an eye test flunk it

and then they take my license away and now, if they cite me, I'm in serious trouble. I'll just tell them if they pulled me over that, oh, I didn't realize Rick has a point. You've also got a lot of people out there that buy insurance by the month. Yeah, well, let's complete

this point first and we'll talk about that. Don't they get letters motivated? Like, I had a lapse in my insurance from New York, a two-month lapse, Of course, I thought it was something else. I got a letter for motor vehicle. Hey, either you stop driving, turning those plates on the car. Well, yeah, you can get some, but the insurance company's not going to pull you over.

I mean, it's a government. I have a concierge's a doctor. I go see, and I'm one of many, many old people that goes in there, and I see him in the waiting room. and as I say I'm one of them and I said to my doctor I said you got a lot of people here are are any of them having difficulty with their passing the test to get he says off the record he says I have a lot of patients that that shouldn't be driving and they don't have a license but they just don't do it that's that's the Florida thing and that's just my theory you ask the

question about why there's somebody uninsured people that's why One big reason. Okay. Thank you, everybody, and have a good, safe weekend, and enjoy Thanksgiving. Talk to you soon. Thank you, Steve. We hope we hear from you. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-7-2-49-7-6.

Ladies, give me a call. $877-9-60. $50 for the first two new lady callers. We'd love to talk to you. You know, Road Hunter, he's talking about, you know, what it costs for everything as far as a license insurance. I'm going to say first that Earl and I love going into the waiting room when we go into the doctors because he refers to himself as an old man. We look so much younger, so much younger than everybody else.

But let me tell you, I mentioned earlier that your insurance about your insurance rates. And the fact that 88% hike in Florida, 50% New York, Colorado, and I forget what the other state is. But did you know that by increasing your deductible, it really makes a whole lot of sense. Increasing your deductible from $500 to $1,000 can bring your annual premium down by 20 to 25%. uh-huh isn't that amazing and also um as far as your uh collision and comprehensive insurance is concerned there you go again you know um as a general rule when the premium is more uh to more than 10% of the car's value it's time to consider dropping the collision and maybe you know the comprehensive uh your thoughts 877 960 9960 we're going to go to marty

in west palm beach good morning marty good morning how are you today we're doing well thank you nice to hear from you uh last week i uh i i got this question for rick uh last week i told you sometime when i turned the left turn uh turn signal on the wipers go on yes well this week i got a note that came on the screen in the car and it said reverse motor wiper and it said a malfunction in the wiper system has been detected. Contact your Toyota dealer in order to have your vehicle inspected. My question is, if I bring it in and show that note to the service writer, are they going to tell me we still got to hunt around for it,

or does that mean I just need a new wiper motor? I think at that point as a technician, if I saw that note, I would spend a few minutes looking in the repair manual just to make sure that there's not something else that could cause that, but I'd be going right after that motor. Okay, and how much does it usually a wiper motor cost? It's going to depend on the vehicle, but it could be anywhere from $3 to $700 for the park. And you're looking at probably, I'm going to say $2.250 for labor. Now, Mark, let me just jump in here quickly. One of the things that I was going to talk about on the show if we had time today was the fact that Auto Nation has opened up an online parts company, basically, for 20 OEM parts,

version of equipment manufacturer parts for over 20 manufacturers. If you have an expensive part, wiper motor or whatever you consider expensive that you're faced with, to keep the dealer, in your case, keep us honest to keep the prices competitive. And you can also go to rockado.com. They sell OEM parts too. Amazon sells OEM parts. So don't be taken advantage of by any dealer on the part. It should be competitive with the market.

And if you go back 10 years, the only place you could buy in O.E. in part, was from a dealer now. We have Auto Nation. We have Rock Auto. We have Amazon. Check the part that you need if it's an expensive part that you're concerned about. And then when you go to the dealership, in our case, you go to our dealership, you say, listen, I can get this on Amazon for X dollars. You want to charge me 200 more. That's not fair. And you're right. and that dealer should either meet the price or beat the price or you should go somewhere, or you should buy the part and bring it in and let him install it.

And if it's an O.E. in part, there's no reason why they shouldn't agree to that. Okay, now what I have found when the wiper starts going by itself, I turn the turning signal to the right and it shuts off. So I guess I have a way to, you know, not really bother with it. It doesn't stay on all the time. You know, it maybe makes two wipes, and then it stops on its own. But it's just an annoying thing. But I hate to pay $7 or $800, excuse me to fix it.

You know, that's all I'm bringing out. Right. And the other thing is with old people and insurance, this is the same thing that's going on. I mean, you're talking about car insurance. This is the same thing that's going on with homeowners insurance. People are just not taking it out and taking a chance. And if the house blows down, it blows down. And, you know, they said the homeowners insurance is out of whack.

And the governor has not done anything in this state to do this, to fix these insurance crisis. Yeah. Get some control over it. Yeah, I mean, I know when I used to have an address in New York State, I used that address in New York State car insurance. Meanwhile, the insurance company wrote me a letter, said, we know you're living in Florida, and we're dropping you. And it just so happens at that time I didn't need New York State for my health insurance. So obviously I took out Florida insurance, but the car insurance here is crazy.

How long did you, were you able to take advantage, you know, of that New York? Oh, I did it for about five years. Oh, did you? Until they figured it out. You're asking Mark to confess on the air so they could go after him. That's interesting. This is an interstate crime. But that was my sister-in-law's house.

you know, it's an address. So I didn't have a fake address. It was just personally just not living there. But the insurance company, you know, it was ridiculous. I mean, and here, you're paying so much more for uninsured drivers and everything else. Now, what I'm going to do on my next renewal here, I'm going to do what Nancy said and see how much difference it is. Like, I've got $200 deductible.

Raise it. I'm just, you know, change the deductibles, and that's it. That sounds like a plan. Yeah. Hope you get 25% off. Yeah, I don't, I think she, I think that's a little too much. But, hey, if it works out there way, then it's good. Yeah.

I'm going to take Nancy's advice, and then if it doesn't work, I'm going to let her know. Just drive real carefully. That'd be great. We'd love to hear from you. You know, there's so many ways to save on your auto insurance. and your house insurance, you can bundle that. And, you know, you can save yourself $300 a year. Another way to save on your insurance would be to take a defensive driving course,

and you can save, I believe it's $200 a year. A lot of the big insurance companies don't do the houses here anymore. Yeah, and they're pulling out. So who you get as an insurer, if you read a lot of. out of their reviews, people say, well, they're wonderful as long as you don't have a claim. Yeah, exactly. Also, I forgot this, Marty. Are you getting married, you know, recently going to plan a marriage?

Well, I've only been married for 52 years, so. Okay. You're not contemplating a divorce then. No, not yet. There's ways I can tell you to say. Nancy, what if they renew their vows, do they get a discount? Yeah, do I get a newlywed discount if we? We do it again?

Yeah, just do it all over again. I'm just trying to cover all the life events here. Okay, Marty, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. All right. Good luck with your journey on the insurance. Yeah. Talk to you later. Have a great day.

We're going to go to Mike and I'm Ventura. Thank you so much, Mike. It's great to hear from you again. I hope you're still there. Hi, Mike. Hi, how are you? Good. It's good to hear from you again.

Thank you. Good morning. There is a law that not many police people know, but it's on the books. A few weeks ago, they celebrated White Cane Safety Day, and White Cane Safety Day is a law where if you're crossing the street with a white cane or guide dog, the cars have to stop. And I've contacted the Aventure Police Department, and I told him about that.

They knew about it, but the police are not following up on it, Lord. I just looked this up, too. It's a sign in the law from Lyndon Johnson back in the 60s. Right. And also, did you know that a lot of the guide dog schools and a lot of the, a lot of professionals that work with the blind or against the electric cars, because they hardly make any noise,

and nobody says anything about it. I think that there is a new federal regular, is it federal, Rick? We've talked about it a lot in the show. I don't know if they all have it now, but there's a requirement to have these electric vehicles when the motors aren't running to emit a sound. Some of the older ones would still be guilty. Yeah, I don't know if they have to be retrofitted

or if it's just new sales. But fortunately, the new sales going forward, they all have to make a noise, so they can alert people because they're silent. You're absolutely right. I used to listen to you guys on 1470, but I understand they went Spanish. But I have another question.

I was wondering, since we turn the clocks back tomorrow, the cars that have clocks, do they go back automatically or what? Well, it's interesting. Sorry, Ringo's about to speak. No, a lot of them don't. Isn't that stupid? Well, here's the thing. There's multiple clocks often in your...

car now you have it on your infotainment screen like you're you know but then there's the built into the car and still i think my 2023 has a minute and an hour button everything else does it automatically but i think i think i have to change my car rick were you going to say the same thing or am i wrong uh it's wow i'm going to say it's about a 60 40 split 60 percent of them now have it in the entertainment center and it uses gps signaling and it will automatically correctly correct itself, but there are certain few, and the older ones, like my truck, my clock, I'll have to reset it.

Yeah, you have to go through the whole thing because it only goes forward. Yeah. Okay, hey, thanks a lot, and I enjoy your program. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for listening, Mike. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Back to insurance, this might affect Stu. Did you know that

if you add your teen driver onto your insurance, I know this? It's going to cost you 1,000 to 2,000. thousand dollars yeah more a year I had three teenagers I got three teenagers let me say it hopefully Mike is and there more is still listening here because well before he doesn't listen there's something interesting a lot of people that didn't know Mike Mike is sight impaired he

was down in Miami and he was one of an earlier callers for the show years and years ago and we we decided what we would do and we were pushing for autonomous cars because how important would that be to a sight impaired person? And everybody was positive and extremely enthusiastic about this. And there were a few cars that were on the road that were autonomous, and we overestimated how fast that was going to happen. So we were going to have a car go to Mike's address in Miami and pick him up and drive him to the studio, and then he would come up to...

We would have him come up to the studio, and that would be kind of a cool thing to celebrate it. We tried and tried and tried, and of course, what's happened is through personal experience. Now, Nancy and I, with our Tesla said, ain't going to happen.com. And Stu gave me a supplement to the bumper sticker we have on our Tesla. Tesla says, we say total self-driving Tesla car, and below that is another bumper sticker, said we wouldn't have bought this if we'd known Elon Musk was crazy. But it's not quite that, by the, but it's funny. So we keep the bumper sticker on.

We bought it before. Mike, if you're still listening, I'm really sorry. I thought we might be able to do that. And let's be positive about that. Still might happen. And there's some quantum leaps being made in autonomous driving. A lot of negative publicity. We'll be the first to admit.

The Tesla is not ready right now for prime time. But I'll bet you sooner than we expect now. It was a lot longer than we expected, and now it'll be sooner. We'll be able to maybe have a car pick you up and come up to the studio. I hope you're still listening. You're always in our thoughts, Mike. We definitely didn't forget about you. Back to teen driving.

Ladies, the first two new female callers, you get yourself $50 this morning. Do you have teenagers in the house? Did you? I'm sure that you know that your insurance rates are, you know, staggering. And that adding your teenagers to your car insurance policy, it goes up by $1,000 to $2,000 per year. Give me a call. We can chat about that, too.

877-960-9960. We are going to go to John, who has been patiently holding, from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I want to talk about engine oil because Napleton's name came up today and in the past,

Napleton was accused of cheap engine oil, cheap oil changes after market filters. I want to ask Rick a question. My car uses, how do you find out you're going to the owner's manual? It's very critical that you have the correct weight and the correct type of weight. oil. My type call on the oil cop itself says SL, SAE 5W30. Now, I know SAE is a society automobile

engineers. What does the SL mean? That's the quality designation for the oil. Okay. What I want to say why it's so critical. And also, it's not a bad idea that you're not only, you know, a hand, but whoever does the oil change, that they specifically write down the type of oil. that they're used in your engine. And also, it's very critical that an oil change, place, a new car dealer does it correct. Not all cars take, like, the old-fashioned five quarts plus one quart for the oil.

Some of them take an odd amount of oil, so you want to make sure that it's filled right exactly to the capacity it should, and you can see that on a dipstick. So I just want to bring that up. We actually have a, we have charts that every, single technician in our shop has and the parts department has that shows the year and model an engine and tells exactly how much oil that car is supposed to get obviously with the filter because we always change the filter and it shows the exact amount and it can be anywhere from

4.9 to 4.4, 7.1, 7.9. I mean, it's all very odd amounts and those are put into the digital oil pumper gun to pump exactly that amount of oil. What happens if you have too much oil? You actually wind up with what's known as cavitation, where it will start to boil, foam up the oil, and it will also cause that oil to be sucked up into the old PCV system and burned in the engine, and you get tons of smoke. What happens occasionally, we see this from just about any shop. They go in for an oil change, and the guy that's supposed to

to drain the oil, forgets to. So they pump oil in and now you have a double amount of oil in the car and boy they will smoke like crazy. And possibly damage the engine. It could possibly damage it but usually they start smoking

so much that the person gets in and gets it checked out very quickly and it saves it but that's one of those mistakes that it's like oh boy it's scary but it's at least less likely to cause damage to the engine as running with no oil.

No oil can damage your engine in about four to five seconds. Instantly. It can cause expensive damage to the engine. Irreversible. Today's oils, though, are fantastic, and that's why the engines last as long as they do. The quality of the oil and the multi-weight is very important. Earl and I are from the school where you use 20, 30, 40, even 50 straight oil in the old days, and if it burnt a lot of well, you want as high as 50.

But today it's a multiviscusity, so it comes from five all the way up to like 40, so it's better for the life of the engine. One fast thing, too, I want to mention, the best thing that ever happened to America was when the lead was taken out of gasoline at 1975. All cars then had catalytic converters, and there was such danger in the lead. it was unbelievable, and it went beyond polluting the air. I mean, I was told at the time, Rick, as a mechanic, would say the fastest way when your hands are greasy and dirty from working on a car is just to wipe them and clean them up with gasoline. Well, in those days, I was told never do that, because when it was lead to the gasoline, it seeped into your skin, and there was a lot of cancer of the blood, basically, caused by the lead that was in the gasoline.

It seeped into your skin, and there was a lot of cancer of the blood, basically, caused by the lead that was in the gasoline, but we people weren't aware of that. Autom mechanics could expose so much. But, John, you say 5W40 oil? 5W30, I have in mind. Guess what the newest one out is? Probably 0.40 or whatever. I don't know what their own designation, right? 0W8.

Wow, boy. We've been running 0W16 for several years now, but now the newest one coming out in the last year is 0W8. It's about the thickness of olive oil. Well, that shows the importance of using the proper oil. Very important when anybody gets an oil change, and it looks like the best place, again, as Rick pointed out, is the dealer, because they have the charts

and they know exactly what the car in the year, is and they know exactly the amount to put back of the car. Not to mention that... Very, very critical. All of your maintenancees are kept in computer records. If you go to a dealership throughout the nation, it's kept in electronic records, easily accessible by any other dealership for that make-a-model, and a dealer's going to stand behind their work a lot quicker, too, because they've got a lot more to lose.

Well, thanks for the information. John, did you use it? You said lead. You were talking about lead and gasoline a couple of months ago? No. Yes. Before 1975, all gasoline had lead added to it. Here's an interesting article that Nancy,

I just got it from Nancy from the Wall Street Journal, today's Wall Street Journal. And because we get so many questions about what sort of fuels you do we use do I need, die test or regular, blah, blah, blah. And this, of course, sends back to the original putting lead in the gas to raise the octane. Mazda has come out with a new model. It's the Mazda 3 hatchback turbo premium plus.

And you can put any kind of fuel sold for cars in that, in this particular Mazda. You don't have to worry. And it meets the California standards. So by having that, especially if you live in California, by having that particular model car that is designed to be able to accept any kind of fuel sold, you're saving a ton of money. In California, you're saving $450 a year. If you drive 15,000 miles a year at 26 miles per gallon,

you save $450. So that's a really cool breakthrough for a combustion engine. We talk about electric vehicles and hybrids, but even the combustion engine cars now are making some breakthroughs, being able to use just basic cheap gas on any pump you pull up to, you'll have a car that will get good mileage

and good performance and pass all the rules on emissions at the cheapest gas you can buy. All right, well, that's good information, but lead was very dangerous. Not into the air from the illusion, but it was also very dangerous on the east. All right, I can get to a text from Emery. Emory says, good morning. John's still talking, I think.

John, thanks so much for calling us. We enjoy your company. Stay tuned for our mystery shop of Sunrise with Volkswagen Fort Pierce. We have about three more calls to get to, and then Stu's going to go to all. of the texting, and Rick is going to cover the YouTube's. Sorry for the Facebook situation. It remains the same as it was last week. We're going to go to John in West Palm Beach.

Good morning, John. Hey, good morning. Thanks for your patience. Oh, you're welcome. I have a curiosity question. I saw a Toyota Crown for the first time yesterday, and my first thought was that it was electrically. Toyota doesn't make electric

You're all hybrids Where's the I didn't see any exhaust Where's the exhaust on the crowns It's there It's just hidden up under a little bit But it's there Yeah I didn't see It was it's a nice design

Then I'm going to say it's a very clean design then Because there's no exhaust pipes coming out The rear it seemed like Yeah there It's a beautiful car The trick to spotting an EV is the grill. If there's no air intake in the grill, then it's, uh, it's not a gas engine. Yeah. Right. Right. Did you drive a crown? Pardon me? Did you drive one?

No, no, no, no. We were just going through the neighborhood and I saw one. Oh. It's gas. I don't drive gas engines anymore. Ah. I did. They got my test. Well, it is a hybrid, but I'll tell you that, that crown is a very nice vehicle. Yes. If I buy a crown, I'm getting like a 97, 98 in Japan. It's going to be right-hand drive, just like the Excelsior. Okay. Now you know who I am. Okay, yep, yep. Yeah, my son.

So anyways, and then my one last thing that I wanted to throw in there on insurance and teenagers. Yes. We had two teenagers. Our insurance didn't go up because they were on their learner's permit. after they're off the learner's permit, that's when you get hit with the extra fees. So as long as

as they're on the learner's permit, your insurance does go up because they have to drive with an adult. Right, that's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's great information. The reasoning is that you know, the teenagers are in more accidents and that's the reason.

The insurance companies are going to have any reason to raise the insurance rates. right um when your kid when you're uh before you get your full uh license you get the uh the the learners permit for a year and then you have to drive with a uh a 18 year old driver or older or your parents usually and during that case it's not going to affect your insurance um once you add them you can't add them as a driver and you add them as a driver oh they're 16 because you keep them on the learner's permit oh yeah oh yeah 16 17 it's not the age it has to do with the license part so you can you like uh how long can you keep along

Oh, no, you can only be on it for a year. Oh, one year, okay. That answers my question. Okay, John. All right, great. Thank you. Thanks for calling. 877-960-99-60.

Ladies, you still have time to give me a call. 877-960-960. And you can win yourself $50 this morning, the first two new lady callers. We are going to go to Brad, who has been patiently holding from Deerfield Beach. Good morning, Brad. hi good morning i was listening along and uh actually i called in to make a comment on the insurance but um yeah my buddy uh has a 17 year old son and just like the previous caller said i said did he get his license yet no he's still on his permit and i'm like when i was a kid

i couldn't wait to i took driver's ed so i could get it six months earlier at 15 and a half he says um happy he's not in a big hurry because as soon as he gets his license my insurance mandates that he goes on my insurance so you're right he's going to have to pony up the big money as soon as he gets his license it's never worked for the kid but if you were just it'd be cheaper to let the kid take Uber and then to pay the extra insurance premium yeah I should have decided to give my girls a horse and buggy all three of them it would have been a whole lot cheaper for me some sort of emancipated minor thing because the insurance is going to kill you but yeah I never had kids, so that's not my worry. When you're talking about the oil viscosity, when you hear

multi-wates, it was my understanding, like say you hear 5W20 or whatever, the five only comes into play when the temperature goes below zero. So in Florida, we don't have freezing temperatures, so it's not an issue. My Lexus uses OW20, man, that's like water. And by the way, I, you know, I'm not, I'm going to mention it because you have your tech there, and he's going to tell me I'm not doing the right thing. But I don't put much mileage on my car as I'm retired. And, you know, they tell you are 8,000 miles or annually, whatever comes first. But I'm only putting like 1,000, 2,000 miles on my car. And that OW20 synthetic is like $6 a quart. So I keep in the garage, you know, it doesn't, we don't have big temperature fluctuations. You think that that's

a very bad thing for me to extend it out to two, three years. I mean, I'm going to do it three, four thousand miles, but it takes me three years to get there. You think that's pretty bad? What do you think? We see a lot of that in South Florida. Retired folks that just don't drive very much. The biggest issues that you're going to run into is like the seals on the engine are going to start to dry out because they're not getting lubricated. They're not getting exercised. Your battery, of course, is going to be the biggest situation. By not getting it cycling, it's going to wear out and die a lot quicker. Rust is going to start to set in a little bit. And of course, just that natural Florida humid air is going to get into everywhere. And so

you're never going to get a chance for that engine to get up to operating temperature and boil all that moisture out of the engine. My best advice on a case like that is like once every couple weeks, get the car out and exercise it a little bit. Get on the highway and just give it a good 45 minutes to an hour drive to give it a chance to exercise, and you'll see a better lifespan out of the car for it. Yeah, no, I do regularly run the car because, but my, you know, I used to commute down to Fort Lauderdale Nightmare, and it was 30 miles each way, but now I'm going a mile to the grocery store, a mile back once a week. I keep battery tenders on my back, matters. But my concern was more like, you know, like you said, the moisture in the engine block, I'm worried because I don't change my oil annually. They say annually or 8,000 miles, whatever comes first. Right. And I'm only putting 1,000 miles on in one, two mile trips. But I'm wondering, you know, all right. Yeah, the oil change actually isn't the biggest concern there. You're going to see other things start to wear out before you'll ever have an issue with the engine because of that.

Okay, yeah, no, I run it regularly, but I have two cars. I have an 03, Mazda. And on that subject, you know, I had texted in last week, yes, I had texted in last week about the highway safety motor vehicle department has a program called self-insurance, as long as you can show that you have $40,000 of assets over your debt. They allow you to become what they call self-insured, and you get a certificate in the thing. And what's good about that is I heard a couple weeks ago, you had a caller, and he said, you know, my wife and I only come down, we're just snowbirds, and is it worth keeping a car?

And there's a lot of articles that will explain, like, well, if you're only doing this many miles, then you're really better off just Ubering. But let's say you want to have a car down here, and you're down here only two, three months, and you want a car, and you leave it in your condo parking lot, and you're gone for 10 months. If you, it enables you, what enables you to do is you get the certificate of self-insurance, you still can turn on insurance when you get down here. You can say, I want to insure the car. Sure.

The two months we're down here. The difference is that if you don't do that self-insurance thing, you can't drop your insurance, you have to turn your tags in or to suspend your license. So what enables you to do is turn the insurance on and off without having to. having a flag you and say you're uninsured because you're self-insured. So it's a good alternative for people that only come down a couple months that you don't have to turn your tags in or insure your car for the year. Well, it sits in a parking garage, you know, something like that.

As long as you're not leasing, that works. Yep. No, if you own the car outright and you don't do a lot of driving, it might pick your lifestyle instead of paying, you know, whatever they're three or four thousand a year yeah i bet you're saving a lot of money i've been a self-insured for 10 years it saves me a lot of money on two cars and two motorcycles but i don't drive them much each one of them has super low mileage i mostly ride a bicycle

everywhere and then i use a car to occasionally go get closer but just just throwing it out there it might fit somebody's lifestyle but it enables you not to have to turn your tags in if you want to shut off the insurance and go back Canada, you know what I mean? Right, right. Very smart. You're a sharp guy, Brad. Thank you.

Thanks for putting that information out here for our listeners. I got one more question. It's tongue-in-cheek. It's a little joke. Sure. But, you know, because I love the show. I keep trying to get my girlfriend to call in, and she's so shy.

She listens, but she won't call in. So, you know. Hi, girlfriend. Her name is Susan. Hi, Susie. She's a nurse in Boca. And I say, then again, What is a woman?

Wait a minute, I feel like a woman today. Do I qualify for the $50? Because even our Supreme Court justices can't explain what a woman is. If you're calling on behalf of your girlfriend, we'll discuss it. We'll send you five bucks, Brian. Okay. So ask me like you don't need five bucks. No, I don't is.

This may be too personal, but does your girlfriend spend the weekend with you? Is she there? Once in a while. Is she there? not here. No, no, she's not here. She should call. She has her own house. She should call us. I'd love to hear from her. I'm going to donate five bucks to Big Dog in your name. What's her name, Brad? Hey, we're both, her name, Susie. We're both big dog lovers. I rescued the last three dogs I've had, and she had a Roddy that just died, and she stole my Labrador, and I got a golden.

Okay. We are big dog lovers. You guys are right with us. Thanks so much for that very important information. and give some important information to your girlfriend. Tell her to give us a call. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll get her to call you that. We'll set her up where you call her and catch her off guard. Thank you so much.

Have a good day. Thank you. I lost John, so we're going to go ahead in, John, give us a call back. We may have time to talk to. Hey, 7-7-960, or you can text us at 772-497. We have the mystery shopping report coming up, and the mystery shop is from Sunrise. Yes, Sunrise, Volkswagen, Fort Pierce, and you'll be able to vote on that mystery shop at 772-4976530.

We're going to go to Stu, and then we're going to go to Rick. Okay. All right, so Anne-Marie's first text. I'm sorry, I did that earlier. My headphones were turned down. I thought there was nobody was talking. It sounded like, I'll start reading the text. So, sorry about that.

Rick's laughing at me. All right. I'll blame it on him. Amri's text. Let's get back to business. Good morning. New Orleans district attorney and his 78-year-old mother were carjacked at gunpoint recently. Fortunately, they're okay.

The vehicle was later found abandoned. It was recovered because he managed to keep the key fob with him. At least one suspect has been arrested. That prompts the following questions. Years ago, people could buy a LoJack system in case their car was stolen. One, what has replaced it now? Apple Air Tags? I'll go a long line item.

Well, actually, yeah, people can. You can use Apple Air Tags for that. They're not perfect. It has to be around people with iPhones, and LoJack is still available, but we usually make fun of it here because it's usually part of a finance department package that's foisted upon you on an addendum or something like that. But it is a legitimate product. If you're interested in LoJack, I'd recommend going online and looking at LoJack and buying it directly.

It's so expensive compared to. I looked up, and there are other GPS trackers. I think LoJack has changed over the years. It used to be some kind of radio thing. It's more modern. But there's other ones that are very cheap. As a matter of fact, one of the ones that was highlighted online more than anything was something called bouncy. It's about 30, 20 bucks to buy the unit, and it's $8 a month subscription.

They all have subscriptions, but there's no set-up fee. Amazon. Amazon, buy a bouncy on Amazon. You know, the thing about LoJack, you remember, we wanted to find out if a car had LoJack on. Yeah, we couldn't. Never mind. I rescind my, yeah, yeah, right, they wouldn't tell us whether that the car had LoJack. It was impossible to find out.

Well, the joke was dealers selling LoJack and charged a whole lot of money for it when you could get a more economic-like bounty, Stu suggested, on Amazon for a much, much less of money. So this dealer was selling LoJack, and I said, just kind of being funny, I suppose they don't have LoJack and they just tell them they have LoJack because they hide LoJack so you don't know where it is in the car. That's part of the selling point. So everybody comes in, you got LoJack, you owe me $800. And so we tried to find out if they had LoJack. We call LoJack, and LoJack won't tell anybody, including the owner of the car.

There's no way to know if it's true. So if you want to take LoJack off your car, you can't because you'll never know where it is. Rick, where is it? I'm not going to tell. Oh, you know where it is. I know where they installed about 98% of them. Okay, but how did you find out? Trial and error.

He was a car thief. It actually happened several times with flood cars, that as we're disassembling the interior of flood cars, that we would find the little low jack box. And it turns out that they pretty much have almost a standardized place that they will hide them on just about every car. Don't tell them. I'm not telling them.

No, I'm not telling them. You're devaluing. Hello, Jack. It does have to actually wire into the car. I'm going to have to go back to the phone real quick. Okay. We'll get back to the other questions. And thanks, Sam Marie, for the...

I've got more from Ann Arroy. Great texts. We're going to go to Shelly. Shelly's a first-time caller. And here she is. She's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Shelly. Good morning.

Welcome. You just won yourself $50 this morning. if when we're finished with our conversation you stay on the line you can talk to a very important person and that is Jeremy in the control room give him your contact information and he'll pass it along to me and I'll get that checkout to you fantastic you're welcome what can we do for you this morning shelley i have a 2005 lexas and the timing belt has never been changed at what point should i get back done. It's now about 190,000 miles.

What your Lexus is it? 2005. Yeah, if it's got a timing belt, I would definitely get that done. And the water pump. Well, yeah, the water pump and the seals simply for the fact that if that belt breaks,

2005 would have been one of the V6 motors that has what's called zero clearance. So if it breaks, the pistons can hit the valves. and cause damage to the engine. What's that cost, over? The whole job of replacing the timing belt

as a package, around $11,200 right now. Wow. If it damages the engine, 11 to 12,000. Yeah, but it's a 2005 car. Yeah, that's, yeah. On an 05 Lexus,

I put 1100 in one right now. How many miles do you drive, shall we? Very little. I do not drive for one. work, it kind of sits. Yeah. You need the car, you drive to work, then my heart bleeds for the fact

that you'd have to pay $1,100, but Rick's right, you don't want to be caught in 95, and that could happen, the engine could blow. Okay. You would have no warning of it, it would simply occur. Yeah.

Come on. That's scary. One other question, and I about this. The timing belt, I understand, why do you have to do the water pump? I know that if you have to do the water pump, you have to go back in and all the labor to take it out again.

You're there where you can do it. But if she only want to do the timing belt and not the water pump, how much would that cost? It would probably cut the price by about 30 to 40 percent. However, once they get in and inspect it, if there's signs that the water pump has been leaking, then it'd be definitely a good idea to do it. But it's worth taking a chance for... Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Worst case chance the water pump is leaking. There'd be some evidence of it before it was catastrophic. Sometimes. They'll start... We've seen water pumps. They'll start to leak from what's called the weephole, and it'll leave a pink crust from the coolant. And once you see that, you know, okay, yeah, it needs to be done. So you can save about $500 by forgetting about the water pump.

And that's what I do in your shoes. I'd save the $500, do the timing belt, and they'll give you a big argument. And it's a valid argument because Rick, maybe Rick and I disagree about this. But I would take a chance on the water pump, but I would definitely get the timing belt by save $500. And if they do say, hey, we got in there in the water pump. is leaking, pull out your Missouri attitude, say, show me. Yeah, yeah. And they should take you right back there and be able to say, here is the dry crust

trail of the residue from the coolant leaking, and they should be able to show you proof that it's been leaking. And they will tell you it's leaking, so you wonder. Odds are, yep. It might not be, but they really want to give you that new water pump bad. So that's a great suggestion by Rick. And you say it, tell them up front. So I want to do the, replace the timing belt.

I know you want me to do the water pump, and I understand why, but I don't want to do the water pump. If you do want me to do the water pump, you're going to have to take me back and show me where it's leaking. And that maybe that primes them so they're not even going to try. If they do take you back and it's leaking, of course you have it done. Okay. And, Shelly, just as a sidebar, let me ask you this. You've had the car since 2005. Do you find that you drive, you know, a whole lot less than you did?

Yes, because I changed my job. I used to drive a lot for my job, but now I hardly ever drive for my job. Okay, so you're driving probably under 10,000 miles. Oh, most definitely, yeah. Yeah, you can really take advantage of. that change in your life with your automobile insurance. It's quite a savings, you know, if you look into that. Okay.

Yeah. I'm with, I don't know if I'm allowed to call the name of my insurance company, but I checked around and I'm getting a good rate. Yeah, it's a good idea. Most importantly, back to your Lexus and the fact that you need to, you know, go into, you know, service. uh be real careful uh be real careful when you go in uh they'd really try to sell you an awful lot and uh you know it's uh it's it's crazy yes have yourself a great weekend stay on the line

get yourself that fifty dollars thanks for the great program oh thank you spread the word yes i will you're helping to build the platform here for ladies okay thank you okay we're going to go back to stew we're at 932 right now so we're going to rush through this so we can get Stu Rick Ann yeah so we're going back to

Annery's question she was talking about theft deterrent or actually theft recovery systems talked about LoJack a little bit LoJack she wanted to know she heard that Tesla's are the least stolen vehicles want to know

what system does it work and it's called is a Sentinel mode or something like that Yeah, it's an automatic build-in. I can look at my test lab now. It gives the address of the studio where we are. So I know where my... Right.

I was going to add a lot of vehicles that are connected now have GPS and they're connected with... Is it 5G now? They're up from the 4G, 5G technology, and they connect it with the dealers. For example, like I'm simpler to what you have. I have an app tells me where the car is. That's for the newer vehicles.

Obviously, the old vehicles don't have that. built in but brand new Toyota's you can you you can track them down let's see what's the most effective way to track a stolen car before it's crashed use another or used to get chopped up in the shop shop or shipped out to who knows where the best thing is I think that GPS tracker because as long as you can get that information to the to law enforcement you can tell where tell them where the car is in real time and the last question for Emery was in your opinion what's the best way to keep your car from being stolen

without risking your life for the lives of innocent bystanders. In other words, by not booby-trapping your car. What do you think, Rick? Park next to a nicer car. One is somebody else is going to want more. There you go. All you have to do is put

decals on your car saying that it's like fake webcams or security cams. Unless it's a kid, unless it's a, you know, just crazy kid who wants to steal a car. Professionals always

go the easy route. If they see a car that says warning protected by GPS they're not going to argue or try to find out if it really is, they just move over to the next car. They're going to steal the car they think is unprotected. Exactly.

So there's a whole bunch of stuff, but technology has kind of got to the point where it's pretty cool. The other thing we talked about recently on the show was the club, which is just a physical thing that goes on a steering wheel that's just another deterrent yes they can be beaten but it takes time it's probably the best deterred you look in there yeah it's great because it's it's going to take time to beat even though it can be done a quick there it's more time there's a

car next to without it yeah that's the one that gets it so it's cheap yeah it's not as cool as the GPS no you can't go on your phone and hey there's my car yeah but you don't have to at that point Yeah. I have a question from Lee says, can you provide some insight into the auto braking system in Toyota's? He says, my 2020 Avalon has that I learned that when a car suddenly stops in front of me, well, it, I can understand that. But anyway, the question is, what are he saying is when the car stops suddenly in front of you, it's going to light up and say, break, break, break. His question is, if he does nothing, what's going to happen? The car will stop. It's going to slam on the brakes. It'll slam them on hard.

Right. It's not going to feel comfortable. It's scarier than the red light flashing break, break, break, break. Because it's happened to me once. But it doesn't cause any damage to your car or their car. Right. And also, the pedestrian stop, same thing. If you're rolling, a pedestrian walks in front of you or behind the car,

and you don't see them, the car will stop. It's really hard to hit something in these cars. Lisa, I saw the red warning light came on, and he thinks the brakes were applied. He doesn't know if they would have brought the car to a stop, and it will bring it to a stop. Same with the laser, like the cruise control and the automatic driving stuff. When you're in those things, it will stop completely when traffic stops in front. The Tesla new software download is if you have a really, really emergency stop, it hits your emergency break and your regular break.

Oh, really? It just locks you down. I wouldn't want to be in that car when that happens. No, I wouldn't. Okay, we have, we have time for one more? Well, we do. We have about four minutes, and we're going to try to squeeze in, Rick. Let's do it. Okay.

I've got one good one here from Negan 1. He says he's got his eye on a 700-horsepower RAM TRX, which is like one of those big race trucks. It was a buyback for having a loose bumper and paint defects with 16,000 miles. He says, Earl, what's your? opinion on manufacturer buyback vehicles that have a premium warranty on? Well, as long as you know the defect and why it was bought back, it's buyer beware. I mean, they're not going to put, no manufacturer that would like to remain in business, they're going to put a car on the market, knowing that it is dangerous in any way.

So, yeah, I think that could be a good buy. If the discount matches the severity of the reason they bought it back, then I think it could be a great buy. Especially if it's been corrected. Yeah, it's not going to be a safety issue for sure. Yeah. And the only area one I see here is, well, Donovan mentions, he went looking at Florida fine cars, which is down a military trail here. And he says, he was looking at a used car that, um. Well, Rick's choking.

This one choked me. $3,000 in junk fees. Wow. We shop them. They're pretty CD. They don't much show them. We shop them. Probably ought to shop them again.

I think we shop them a couple times. They are currently, and I don't know the date in the shop, they have a D, so they're not recommended. They're on the. That's CD, D for CD. That was the old, that's where Saturn started out in that dealership. That was the old Saturn dealership original. That's why I was surprising when we first shopped him, I was like,

it seemed like to be a pretty impressive place, you know, for like a used car lot. Okay, that explains that. 3,000 in junk fees and just it kind of shook him a little bit there on that one. You know, Saturn, just a little quick flashback here, Saturn was a better idea than it would have been a better. already today than it was then. But General Motors had kind of an interesting concept. It was one price. It was sold directly by the manufacturer. The customer satisfaction was incredibly good. Yeah, the cars are pretty cool. The car wasn't that bad. And it was like it was ahead of its time.

But it goes to show you what, if you try to do something too soon, how long was that or not? 30 years ago? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they gave all the Saturn franchises, even though they went through dealers, to the same dealer. So if you were in, like South Florida, I think Ed Morris had all the Saturns

and this market, and then somebody else down in Miami had them. And the price was a price. It was the one of MSRP, and the cars were good, and they were super, customer satisfaction-wise. So it's what they draw.

Just a silly story on it. When Saturn was coming out, they had this commercial on TV where a bunch of bikers were driving running along through the desert, and they come to this little bar hangout, and all these Saturns are parked out front, and the people are like, you know,

these little ladies are getting out of the cars and like, oh, this must be the hangout. And they're all going inside the, to meet with their Saturn group. When the Saturn dealership opened, they're on military trail, they contacted the Harley Owners Group. And I was riding with them at the time.

And we went in, and I was in there early, because I went in plain clothes with all camera gear and video to set this up. And when they had this whole group of people come in as their first new owners event, all of a sudden they threw open the glass doors, and we had like 30, Harley's come rolling right through the dealership in the Saturday dealership to fit with their

commercial. Wow. They just scared the crap out of all your new owners. Oh, no, they cheered. They loved it. They thought that was fantastic. Okay, we have one minute to the mystery shopper report. Guys, what do you want to do? Earl? Let's read it. Go to mystery shopping report. We have the mystery shoppering report, as I mentioned earlier, and that is the mystery shop of Sunrise Volkswagen.

That's in Fort Pierce, and you can vote on this mystery shop, and you're definitely going to 1-7-7-497-6530. Here we go. Let me mention Agent Lightning. You did a fabulous job. Thank you so much. Week in and week out. Earl?

That's Fort Pierce, Florida. That's South Florida, for you folks, out of the area, and it's about 60 miles, what was it, about 60 miles north of here? Yeah, and we're in North Palm Beach, kind of set the scene for you. Speaking of the first person, it is if I were Agent Lightning, I arrived in mid-afternoon, was greeted by a salesman as it walked up the cars on the lot. Okay, I'll offer my help today, P.S., I agreed. Mentioned my interest of the new Atlas Cross Sport with tech.

What's that word? tech. It's the big tech package. Oh, with the tech package. Noting that they had several online, he led me to a red one, inquired, what do you think? I love red. You must have read my mind. I laughed. I'll be right back with the keys, he said,

and after a brief pause, he turned back, extended his hand, introduced himself, oh, by the way, my name is Abner. Not many Abner's out there, either. No, he was 104 years old. Little Abner. I don't think anybody

in the last couple of centuries has been named. There was a red 2004 Volkswagen Atlas Crossport SE. The Mernoli Abel was lying on the seat. That's what you get in Florida, folks. They put them in the backseat on the floor. They don't put them on the window.

In fact, this on the window, they take them off, then they put them on the floor. Maybe because it's so hot in humid, they just fall off. You know, it's just the humidity. They've been there long enough, yeah. I strained to see, look at the Barone label on the floor, and I could see that the MSRP was $44,876.

MSRP, $44,876. There was not an addendum on the window or on the front seat. Abner returned shortly with the keys, and we embarked on a test drive. He was impressively knowledgeable about the Atlas, demonstrating many features until I mentioned I have an Atlas at home, and I love it.

That promised him to showcase the upgraded features on the new features since the Atlas was released that I drove, and that impressed me. So, Admiral seems like he knows what he's doing. Back at the dealership, do you like the car?

One of the see the pricing? Yes, definitely, I replied, as we walked inside, I was immediately drawn to an old Volkswagen bus converted into a fish tank. I have a picture of that. Clever idea. I want to pause and just say,

because I knew this was going to be a point of interest to you because a giant fish tank in a showroom, you can relate to that. Yeah, but all you can see is literally winning. Now, I'm glad when I saw that, because when we first started talking about a fish tank when we were getting proposals, and for folks who you're listening,

We got this big syndrical fish tank in our showroom. It's really cool. It's huge. But we had the people that did tank, the show, proposed taking a Highlander, one of our SUVs, and filling it up with fish. And it was so much. We said no, mainly because the cost compared to a tank that we said, no, but I'm glad we didn't because it's very hard to see the fish.

It's not like a big circle tank. I don't want you to see the fish. They want you to see the Volkswagen, I guess. I guess. He prefaced the next part of our conversation with a straightforward admission. Just to be up front with you, we have a $2,0.95 market adjustment on all vehicles. Well, I guess that was the right thing to do. They didn't have it on the denim in the cars.

That's right. That's why I get, yeah, they should have. They didn't. I couldn't hide my displeasure but conceded. I'm not thrilled with that, but I'm here, so let's see what you can do. Adner asked if I had visited before. I don't believe so I answered and I mean that should that was like a tip off you know I mean she she's a professional mystery shopper as she shops all the time so he says

have you been in here before I don't remember because if she were just a normal shopper she was she might be yeah been so many you can't remember it's all blurry a mile slip but I shouldn't be teasing her because she's a great great mystery shopper uh huh okay um as he entered my information to the computer he detailed the he detailed the uh addendum included a paint and interior protection package uh just so you know standard operating procedure uh they would be adding my to my price he said they charge less than their competition is this if that excuses it i mean they you know they're gouging you your list, you know. How about just not gouging?

They'd be adding, he then pointed to a laminated addendum from Gunther Volkswagon. I have to chuckle about that because we have laminated addendums from our competition on our showroom floor, too. It's the show that we don't have an indentum, not that ours is list. We have a giant blown up addendum of one of our local toilet dealers that we show people when they come so they have Gunther Volkswagen.

By the way, Gunther sold out. Did you know that? Just recently? Fairly recently. He sold out all of his Volkswagen stores. I post this to show our customers what another dealership down south offers price-wise. It added 1,000, this is Gunther.

Gunther added $195 for Xylon, $495 for Bumper Dillow. You'll love that name. Bumperdillo. And I don't know what it is. I don't care. Can't see that with a straight face. Bumper dillow.

$9.95 market adjustment. This totaled $3,485 in junk fees, more than what Abner said his dealership would be adding. After a 15-minute way to return to the sheet and reviewed the figures. Top line was MSRP, $44,876. They added, here we go. $1397, you know, for the installed packages, the addendum. This is indicated to consistent appearance protection for $399, $399,

etch for $2.99, and LoJack, or $6.99. And that goes back to the chuckling Stu and I had earlier about, does it really have LoJack? You'll never know. Unless someone steals your car. That's the only way you find out. You find out because you never get your car back. Next came, here we go, $2,112 in fees, just fees,

which were indicated to consist of dock stamps. Wrong. That's a lie. Because if you're not financing the car, there's no dock stamps. And doc stamps are paid by the financing institution anyway. $170. E-tag, oh, the dock stamps were $70.80. The e-tag for $399.99 and $99, says that's obscene.

Yeah, that's a lot. Because what is a paper tag cost? A penny? Yeah, no, just for the actual paper. It's about a penny. E-tag. No, the actual machine, the actual thing that prints it in there, it's just a service. So it's a monthly service that we pay to do it in the finance office.

So it's an arbitrary, yeah, if you broke it up into a. Okay. Yeah. Dealer dock fee, there's another junk fee, $1,000, $999,99. And this is the only, this is the only reasonable one. And a third party, a third party agency fee, that's a stupid one. That's a private tag agency, but they only charge it. That's probably their cost.

They should mark it up to. They charge you $23 for the party agency fee that they're already charged you for, for the ETAG, basically, right? Kind of, they're separate. The private agency fee does like all the registration and the ETAG. tag does that temporary tag in the office and just a bunch of garbage a little bit different from normal garbage but it's all garbage junk trees yes my head is spinning yes it was a lot to take it that is a lot to take it is I need to talk

to my husband about this I said but I doubt you'll agree with the ad on pricing indicated I'd be in touch he urged me to stay so the sales manager to greet me after five minutes I tried to leave discreetly, but the film and you saw me sneaking out and enthusiastically but

clulously suggesting, let me take your picture with your new car. I mean, that's desperate. That's a tone deaf. That's a trial close. You're trying to run

after your experience, but he wants to take a picture of you with your new car. I would have come up with something obscene at that point. I probably would have something really nasty. Steve. I get, never mind, we're on the radio.

Let me take a picture with your new car. Let me take a picture. No, thank you. I'm good. I replied, but we spent a few more minutes talking as he annoyingly and persistently tried to convince me to make the purchase then there. It was classic pressure. Nevertheless, I declined at last.

So there you have it. There you have a mystery shop of Sunrise Volkswagen in Fort Pierce, Florida. Jonathan, did you put the tank on the picture? We need to vote on this. and reminding all of our voters that we have the curve and that we have if if that's first of all it's stipulated all dealers are a little bit you know shady okay so if they're just shady that's a c if they're a little better than shady that's a b if they're a lot better than shady that's an a if they're worse that you know and to an f so if he if he

if they're really bad we give them an f then we take them don't put them on the recommended list so that's the worst we could do when you say f we're just saying this guy is so bad this dealership is so bad that you'll be able to find a lot of other dealers that will give you the same year make model car and not give you the shabby tree but so f's should be rare even if you get mad at the guy you remember the purpose of this mystery shopping report other than entertainment is to give you you a place to go at erwin cars if you want to buy a Chevrolet or a Buick or whatever to decide see if it's on the recommended list and then see what the grade is and then maybe start with the higher grades but if if it's an F you don't see the dealership at all so that's the reason

we spare spare and we use Fs okay you can text your vote at 772 4976530 mystery shop a sunrise of Volkswagen Fort Pierce what do we have Got a couple. Jonathan and Palm Coast. Great report. This dealership deserves nothing less than an F, or nothing more than an F, you should say. The Monroney sticker was not placed properly on the vehicle. No addendum label was posted, but there were addendum junkies, all designed to increase dealership profit.

Great on a curve, if you like, but all dealerships get the grade of the urine, period. And that's an F from Jonathan. then Bob gives them an F for Sunrise, which should be sundown V-A-W. Sundown V-W. That's all I got. I'm not going to be that harsh. I mean, it is a, they broke some rules there, and I'm going to go with a D. I'm going to give him a D.

Oh, we got one more coming in with a Z-minus. I don't know who that is, but that's pretty clever. Z-minus. What's up, Rick? Okay, I've got Joseph Kelleher with an F, Negan 1. on a big fat f uh let's get back to the oh boy there got so many coming in there scrolling off the screen here really let's see we got j lady 3377 i was just on v dev's website and bumper dillo is a metal protection plate that costs $108 from the manufacturer oh my gosh

thanks j lady 3377 tim gillelan says with apologies to Bill Withers, ain't no sunshine in my life with the hidden market adjustment and Bumperdillo, et cetera. D-minus. Tom Seckle says, D-minus need to be very wealthy with VW in

quotes that beautiful. Clever. To pay these junk fees. Brian said Latko. Bumper Dillow gets an A for creativity. However, this dealership deserves a half. Okay. Mark Smith, I'm going to fail them.

F. Johnny Z. Fradley? Thousands in junk fees? Guess they have to pay for the fish tank somehow. That's exactly what they're going to do. F minus. And Kevin Bryson, I give them a D on the curve. Okay.

I'm glad someone agreed with him when he thinks Kevin Brison. Myself, I'm, I'm going to, I'll let them have the D on the curve. Okay. Straightforward D. All right. Misnames. I think you're a spornery because you've had, like, your leg hurts. There you go.

I'll tell you what, guys, Mnroni label, market adjustment, shall I go on? We don't have enough time. What Mike Maroney is doing, that senator, he's turning over in his grave. So with all of that said, you know, I just got to, I just got to, I just got give them an if okay I do you would I'm not I it crossed my mind to be honest with you but I'm not I'm gonna be in the D campaign I'm gonna say I was even thinking about a D minus but I'm just gonna go with a straight D I mean they're we we don't think you should buy a car from Sunrise

Wilkes wagon and Fort Pierce we don't think you should but I I think they deserve to be on the list and you'll probably find other Volkswagen dealers that have better grades and that's where you ought to go but I hate to they didn't do anything that got me palpitations I didn't have any palpitations about that so we'll put them on there we've got a couple seconds here I this every now and then I get a blog out that after I write it I said that that's not bad And this one here is a current blog.

It's at Erlawn Cars online. You go to Erlon Cars. And it's called Get It in Writing. I probably could have come up with a better title. But after I wrote it, it occurred to me that not only is it something to save you when you get taken advantage of by a disreputable dealer or just an illegal type guy. It also is a preventative measure because when you go into purchase a product, in this case a car, and they see that you're just not being totally verbal and you're taking notes. In my case here, I'm recommending emails or text.

Telephone conversations are fine, but only if you confirm in writing. so I'm saying try to do everything online this is what the blog says try to do everything online and then confirm your agreements in writing I read the blog for the detail but it's worth to read because if you read it you probably won't have you probably won't have the need to enforce it which would mean that's when enforce it if you have to get a lawyer we talked about this earlier and this is a encouragement that the popularity of being honest might become a good thing and as a dealership chain

in Minnesota has eight stores Apple stores is the group name kind of cool Apple good good good good hopefully his name's Apple yeah and he's running he's running the campaign don't get screwed and it's catchy

it's funny it makes you laugh you like to watch things are making a laugh, and it sends a message out. If you buy the car from this dealer, Apple, he's saying he doesn't take advantage. We've got to go. Yeah, we definitely do. Thanks to everyone who joined us this morning. We appreciate your company.

You do make the show. Have a wonderful weekend. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right here. Same time, 8 a.m. Don't forget that daylight savings time. Let's go. Thank you.