Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.05.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton Northlake Chrysler Dodge Jeep

Episode Date: November 5, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealer to see the used cars they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a used 2017 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. 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. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. This is the live Earl Stewart. You just heard the record at Earl Stewart, but this show is live. I'm live right now. In fact, very special, Jonathan just for me, we're transmitting. out to the people that are watching us, the video, and 4K. So you can see how beautiful we all are.

And every pore and blemish, 4K right here at our own cars. So you Facebook folks and YouTube folks, you're in for a treat. At least with Nancy, she's pretty, and you'll enjoy Nancy Stewart. In case you're new to the show, you heard the recorded introduction maybe. We are unique. We are kind of a crazy team of people that tell it like it is. I mean, everybody tells you they tell it like it is. We really do.

We're kind of like a counterculture kind of a thing where I'm a car dealer. I've been a car dealer for almost 50 years. And I've got a story to tell about the way I started out, the way I transformed myself. and here I am a consumer advocate. And it's interesting. I really, maybe I'm not as interesting than I think I am, but I don't know anybody else that does what we do.

In the studio, you heard earlier, we have myself, we have Rick Kearney. Rick is the certified diagnostic master technician. And if you've got a car that you've got a problem with, and who doesn't? I mean, you would think today with the advanced technology we have, that cars were just absolutely question, trouble, problem, free. But they're not.

They're more complicated. Now, they're better. Don't get me wrong. The cars today are amazing compared to what we drove 20, 30, 40 years ago. But they are also very complex. Electronically, they're computerized. So, therefore, you probably still have maybe more questions about the operation of your car. Call and ask to speak to Rick Kearney.

The telephone number that you can reach Rick at is 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-960. Or maybe even better, he monitors YouTube, and he will see your YouTube postings as soon as they go on. And that's just Erlon Cars. I'm sorry, it's YouTube.com, www. YouTube.com, forward slash Erlon Cars. YouTube.com, for us or on cars.

Rick sees that, sees your posting, and he can get to your question. If you really want to get cool, tricky, you can send them an audio clip or a video clip, just describing the problem that you want to discuss or the issue you want to discuss, and you can get a diagnosis from Rick Kearney this morning between 8 and 10.

We're on between 8 and 10 Eastern Standard Time. Might cost you $200 if you have to do it. a car dealership or more. Maybe get a free diagnosis on a problem. You have to save yourself a lot of money. Stu Stewart is sitting right across the table from me. And he's a hands-on car dealer. He's been with me for many, many years. He's my son. And a general manager of our dealership. So he sees the day-to-day stuff that's going on with new and used car sales, real time. And as you say, you're talking to a bunch of insomnia. Siders here. We tell it like it is. We operate differently. Our dealership is different. We think

differently than most all car dealers. And we're thinking that you probably think like we do. That's the reason we call ourselves consumer advocates. And to my left is Nancy Stewart. She's my co-host. Start the show with me. We were talking the other day. How long ago was it? I never can remember. But I always say about 20 years. And we start out a half an hour. radio station at that time was called C-Vue Radio. It was a little bitty station. And we were there for quite a while. Got fired, actually.

We were off the air for about a year. The car dealers in the South Florida market boycotted C-VU radio and said, if you don't get rid of Earl on cars, if you don't get rid of Earl and Nancy, we're going to stop advertising with you. And sure enough, the C-Vue owners caved and reluctantly said, sorry, Earl and Nancy. We're going to have to let you go.

So we were looking for work for about a year, and we finally found out that Steve U was sold to the current owners. And by golly, they're true journalists. I mean, they're true reporters. They don't cave in to what the advertisers want them to say. Back in the day, I think a long time ago, a lot of journalists were that way today. There's a lot of compromise in the way things are communicated to you. but this radio station right here is true oldies they really are honest journalist and they keep us here

they got to get a lot of static and they probably get some pressure from car dealers but interestingly enough car dealers are advertising on this station mainly because i think the station is doing extremely well and our ratings are quite good at our own cars we have listeners and viewers from all over the world literally we even had a call from Bali in one time and we get routinely calls from all over the United States. So here we are. We cater mainly to you. We got a whole lot of stuff. I got automotive news. I got news articles. We have all sorts of material mainly out of habit. Nancy is flinching over here. I think she probably means we have a caller. I don't think that's officially a flinch. Yeah. At any rate, good morning everyone. Here I am. Nancy's not a flinch.

I'm not a flincher. She's not a flincher. You'll know when I'm flinchingering. Her hand was going like this. That's a signal. Oh. Good morning, everyone. And welcome.

Take advantage of Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going straight to the phones where Roseanne is waiting. And if you don't recall, Roseanne, she called last week, and she was getting some information from Rick. Yep, Rick, the mechanic. there's no question he cannot answer he's amazing at any rate rosanna and i had a chance to chat she promised she'd give us a call back so here she is good morning rosan good morning thank you so much for taking my call you're welcome can you hear me yep i was dying to report that to you last week

my car battery had died again and it was a problem is not in my ear I'm sorry. I don't know why it's not. Oh, no. We can hear you. You can hear me now? Yep, I can hear you. Thank you so much. I wanted to call back to say how much I appreciated when I got to Earl Stewart. They dealt with my problem immediately.

They were so kind and so thoughtful there, but they also came up with some alternative reasons why the car battery may have had a problem. And I love the idea. I've moved my purse far away from the car now when it's in the house. It's all the way in the back bedroom so that the key is nowhere near the battery, so they're not talking to each other anymore. But they also said that there's a test they can do.

But everything else they did there, including making you feel comfortable and safe. And you and I both know that as women, the worst feeling we have is if a car breaks down and we don't know what we're doing, and we don't feel safe. So I can't thank you enough, and I've taken your check, and I've brought it to the prayer show ministry, so all the ladies there can see it. I brought it to our landscape group, which are old ladies, and they've all seen it, and I brought it to my birthday lunch group,

and they've all seen the check, and all of the women here in West Palm are talking about you. So thank you, thank you, thank you. You're so welcome, Roseanne. That's pretty cool. You really spread the word, and you know what that does. And we'll continue to do so because you make women feel safe. But we suggest you cash the check and, you know, enjoy it.

Let me show it for a while longer, please. We have a commitment here, Roseanne, and that is to, well, build a relationship, let the ladies feel more comfortable, and to let them know that we have. a vision that they are part of this industry. Financially, if a dealership doesn't recognize that, it's called financial disaster. So I thank you for your call, and I'll wait to hear from your friends. I think you will. Bye-bye.

Have a great day. 877. That was really sweet. Yes, she was really a sweet lady. I was on the phone with her for a while last week. Anyway, give us a call at 877-9-60-99-60. And don't forget, you can text us at 772-497-6530. Your anonymous feedback, take advantage of that.

And Roseanne was a winner last week, as you heard. And if you don't know, first two new. lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning and everyone needs an extra 50. Get yourself some gas maybe or a powerball ticket.

Yeah, improve your odds with 50 powerball tickets. Now back to the recovering card. 25, they're two bucks each. The text number, I don't if we give that out, but Stu collects the text, Rick collects the

YouTube's and the Facebook Stu does that do so Facebook.com 4 slash your own cars you can video see us on video there

and you can post so we pick up just about all your communications old-fashioned text 772 area code 772 497-6530

772 4976530 we sometimes get behind on the text, but then we catch up. And our most popular form normally is the anonymous feedback. It's unique in the fact that we don't know who you are, where you are. You can say anything you want. We read it exactly.

We value candid comments because sometimes we get people that would like to say something, but maybe they're too polite or shy or whatever it may be. They don't want to come out and say it and be identified. That's okay. I mean, privacy is important. That's the buzzword today, privacy. So, Your Anonymous Feedback.com, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

And we don't know who you are. Just tell it like it is. We value input from the industry, and by that I mean the wholesale and the retail. Manufacturers. We'd love to hear some manufacturers out there. General Motors, Honda, Toyota, people that are out there. And dealers, very important.

We're going through a transition now that there's a lot of things happening that people don't want to talk about. We have an article here, thanks to Jonathan in the control room, he found it in car and driver. Now, I don't usually look at car and driver that much because, to use my slang expression, and car and drivers kind of like into the pocket of the manufacturers. And, you know, if you see the car and driver car of the year award,

you can bet that manufacturer advertised in car and driver magazine more than anybody else. So we don't like that, so we think they're prejudiced in some ways. But this article actually got my attention because it's called sympathy for the car dealers. It says new car dealers just clocked their best year ever. and yet their future has never looked shakier. Now, you don't see that kind of article very often. We've talked about it on this show, but the way cars are being retailed,

it's going through a radical change. And the information that car and driver got was from the manufacturers, and the manufacturer sources said, you've heard it before, don't quote me on this. So anonymous source, after anonymous source, was a,

responsible this article. And basically, I'll sum it up for you. The manufacturers don't like to have to sell cars through us dealers. I say us because in full transparency, we have a toilet dealership. I've had it since 1975. And so we are car dealers, but we're also consumer advocates. But the manufacturers have looked at Tesla and said, wow, here's this, you know, upstart guy Elon Musk who a few years ago had this joke like an all-electric vehicle everybody laughed at him and now

he's one of the volume manufacturers in the world he's a number one luxury car manufacturer in the world and he has a combined value of Tesla the Tesla stock is worth all the other automotive stocks

combined and then some so Tesla Elon Musk and the all electric vehicle But here's, it isn't the all-electric vehicle that makes Elon Musk so unique is Elon Musk sells his Tesla's directly to you. They don't have a dealer network. Now, you might say, well, if you have a Tesla, yeah, there's a dealership. Yeah, that dealership is owned by Elon Musk. It's owned by Tesla.

So there's no middleman. If you buy a Chevrolet, a Honda, a Toyota, you're going through the middleman. And my dealership is a middleman. And Toyota sells, actually I'm a third-party middleman. Toyota sells cars to a distributor who then sells the cars to me, and then I sell the cars to you. Now, this article... That can't be good for you. So, Tesla has a 20% cost advantage by not having to go through dealers.

Now, you've got to believe that all the other manufacturers say, whoa, we'd like to do that. but they can't talk about it I mean think about it you can't talk about it because if you get the dealers mad at you you're a trouble now there's even an arc

and you've done that before oh yeah oh yeah they're all mad at me but the dealers the dealers are kind of like they see it coming and they're going now through their groups

their dealer organizations and they're going to the state legislature and they're going to try to firm up the laws in each state, all 50 states have laws that are keeping the dealers in existence. So it's going to be an exciting time ahead. There's going to be a lot of legislating and a lot of arguing and a lot of lobbying. And I think in the end you'll be the winner.

The consumer will be the winner because the one thing the manufacturer has to have and the dealer has to have, has to have you. and to have you, you've got to satisfy them. So look forward to more pleasant times as a car buyer. I've been yacking a lot. Don't we have a telephone call? We don't. But I do want to remind you about that article that you and I were talking about

in reference to what you just said. It is time for the consumer and things are looking up finally for the consumer. Things are going to be not perfect, but almost, well, we're getting there. It's slow. 877960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. I think this Saturday morning we are going to take advantage, well, not advantage, but we're going to recognize Stu for his texts and Rick for his YouTube's. We've been bombarded with phone calls. Last few weeks, we've had a hard time getting to them. So you guys go for it. Yeah, we can kick it off, Emery. Emory says, good morning. Years ago, I was on a road trip when my car broke down in a small town.

I had to wait until Monday to get my car towed to the dealer 30 miles away. That reminds me of like an old story. Well, you can stay up in the barn while we work on your car. Anyway, it took until Monday 30 miles away. They squeezed me in, fixed the problem, and I was on my way in a half an hour. That experience prompts today's questions. How does your service department decide which car to work on when they show up without an appointment? Is it first come first serve?

Is it based on critical need? Does a tourist broken down car being towed into your shop get taken care of before someone just coming in for an oil change? Of course it does. How do you triage vehicles without appointments? And that's a great question. Well, a lot of it, and I'll let Rick get into it on like the dispatching of work, but a lot of the work gets dispatched to the qualified technician. For example, a lot of the basic maintenance stuff, most of it goes to our loop technicians. and if you go in a lot of dealership you can see them right out front

and there are the guys changing the oil and rotating tires and then we have various degrees of skills of technician in the shop culminating with Rick Kearney at the pinnacle he sits up there in his throne and so it gets dispatched that way but of course when there's special situations like that if somebody you know comes in and gosh I'm in out of town I need a special thing yeah everything is just kind of looked at individually and and triage that way Rick, I'll let you jump in. Well, I'm a gentleman to agree with both of you

because I disagree with Stu's analysis. That's the way it's supposed to be. Again? No, no, that's the way it should be. The fact of the matter is if there is a problem with car dealers all over the world. I got to interject. Whenever something doesn't go right, that means nothing works right.

So that's, but go ahead. No, it's the fact that cars are complex. things. You have people are complex things too. And we have appointments, car dealerships have appointments where they come in. But a lot of people, as the texter said, as Anne-Marie said, they don't have an emergency. Now, emergencies, the dealers intend to prioritize the appointments, and the emergencies depend on the analysis of the individual. A typical car dealership has service advisors, we call them, they're really service salesmen. And each one's got a different personality.

Each one of them has a customer following. My point is, the most common complaint I get is a car dealer, and I get a lot of complaints because I make my cell phone, my personal number, known to everybody. So when a customer of mine has a problem, they call me personally, email me personally, text me personally. And I can tell you right now, there's no other car dealer out there, they can make that statement.

And one of the most common calls I get complaints is, and my car was towed in and it didn't get taken care of. Or I came in for a routine oil change and it didn't get taken care of. It's a very, very delicate balance system. And consumers don't get treated the way they should be in most dealerships when it comes to priority. The way it should be was just the way Stu described it. And if it's happening 99% of the time, 1% out of thousands of customers is going to seem like a lot of complaints.

Yeah, but it's more than that. It's truly, the average waiting time, and you listeners out there, you viewers, you can, this would be a great call. We love to have you call or text about the subject. How do you view your experience in terms of the time it takes for your car to be, taken care of, either routine service or special issue where you have a problem with your car. My guess is, here's a good analogy. Is there anybody happy about the amount of time they have to wait for a doctor? If you go into a hospital, emergency room, or if you're going to see your doctor,

how happy are you with the time you have to wait? And I think the answer is very few people are happy with that. It's a challenge for cardiose and challenge for doctors. and when people have issues that are, you know, car stops at $9.95 and you've got a meeting or you've got something important you have to do and your car is towed into a dealership, how quickly can that be fixed? When will they look at it? You know, the thing that chills me is when they say my car was, I came in at 3 o'clock, they said they'd have my car out by 4.30. I looked out there in the service drive and they haven't even parked it yet

It's still where I left it So we hear a lot of that We admit it's a problem Rick I jump on ahead of you Before Rick says anything You know I do have to add to this There's nothing more reassuring And Henry this is a great question

Nothing more reassuring Than to know that you can connect With that dealership wherever you are And there's nothing more unique than to be able to call the owner of that dealership. I remember Earl and I having a lot of telephone calls when he put our home telephone number out there for anybody and everybody, and they called the house, and they were in shock that they were able to get the owner or the owner's wife.

So there's a connection there that can help when you're in the service. service department and something slips through the cracks. And no matter who you are, what you are, how perfect you are, it'll happen. Rick's there every day. So let's hear what he has to say. Well, I just, the only real difficult part is a car may come in just for a simple oil change. And suddenly, as we're looking at this car, hey, all four of your wheels, the brakes are just about gone.

Good point, you know. And suddenly that 30, 45 minute to an hour oil change has just become four or five more hours of work or hey did you know you're leaking oil here you know which can add several hours onto a job or correct me if I'm wrong here let's say that you have a job just like you described and someone has a routine appointment to come in at 10 o'clock and you just got the car you described that was supposed to be a for routine at 9 o'clock now you have to identify your issue the fact that the car you're working on now is going to be tied up longer than expected, then you have to notify a service advisor who also has to notify a customer

that the car that they brought in has one or two cars ahead of it that have an emergency situation. You're describing a very hard job. Exactly correct. Yeah. And, of course, you also can run into a situation where certain jobs require certain levels of certification and an ability. And we actually only have a limited number of people for certain levels. A car comes in for an oil chain.

We run the van on every car, and most service departments should. And there's a recall, and that oil tech doesn't have a qualified certification level. Now that has to go back in the shop, and then we have another delay. Exactly. And certain recalls, we may only have four or five techs in the entire shop that can do it. And if one or two of those techs are off that day, that can put a bottle rack. Now, I'm going to jump in here. I'm going to wrap it up because everybody wants to talk about it, but we're not going to talk about it anymore.

Okay, I'm going to say one more thing. The problem is not so much what happened. It's reality. You can't change the way cars are and those things happen. But where dealers can improve is the communication between the technician, the service advisor, and the customer. When customers come in, the complaint I get is that no one told me that there was going to be a problem. And I've been here for three hours. They told me my car would be out in a half hour.

Communication, communication, communication. Exactly correct. Communication, very important. Hey, folks, I have some breaking news. It's good news. Now, listen closely. Auto prices finally begin to creep down. I'll get back with you on that later.

We have two patient men who have been holding, and one is Mark, and we're going to take his call from Palm Beach Gardens. But, Marty, hang on, and we'll be right with you. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, everyone. I trust everyone's doing fine this morning. I'll try to make this call brief. Some might recall I called last week and talked about my misfortune of my 17 Camry XLE got involved in a severe car accident. Yes.

I felt as though my back was up against a wall. It's 2017 with 55,000 miles. All of a sudden, you know, I was going to, I had the feeling that, oh, well, boy, I'm really screwed on this. But anyway, I just wanted to get back with you and let you know that the insurance company, the responsible parties insurance company, because there was no fault of my daughter who was driving. But I don't know. This might be directed at Stu, you know, ballpark figure, whether $2,000, $2,000,000, $2,000,000.

on an XLE model, what the ballpark is or what they're worth. I wouldn't even venture into that. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty, I think things are changing so much right now. Back in the old days, we used to call it the Obi-1 Canobee. You'd look at a car and you just knew what it was worth. Now we go to our resources and we see what it is, what the value is today. Yeah.

You know, anyway, I did some comparative research. And the insurance company was very, I think, very fair. I got 24-5 out of it. Yeah. And I did some looking around. And, you know, you've talked before about these used car. I kind of drove through your lot kind of looking at the used cars. And unfortunately, I couldn't afford those prices.

But anyway, I checked this Carvana site out. and I found some comparative models. I was going to take a step down to an L.E. My kids wanted me to buy all sorts of other cars, but I said, nope, Toyota and it has to be a Camry. Anyway, I found some interest at L.E. that I felt as though I was kind of right there in the ballpark. But you know what surprised me.

I went ahead and picked out a 2016 LE, the comparable mileage on it. So I started the process, you know, almost getting ready to buy it. And what surprised me, this vehicle is located in Miami. And in order to bring it up and deliver it to me, you know what? They wanted $1,000 extra to transport the vehicle to me. Yeah, I mean, that blew me away. Now, being in the business, I know how much a tow bill would cost from Miami to Palm Beach. You know, even worst case scenario, $300, $300, $3.5, something like that.

But for them, it's almost kind of like a hidden fee. You know, we talk about hidden fees? Yeah. To get the vehicle to you, a grand. what ridiculous is that so anyway I'm gonna assume the other sites are somewhat the same but I've got to

now I know Carbano what was the other sites you guys recommend to check online for use cars we buy any car.com CarMax was the best one yeah CarMax okay and one last question

to Stu 2016 between there was seen there was a transition or a rebuild or remake of the Camry? Did that occur? 2014.

No, there was a 2014 Camry came out, and it was a brand new body style. It changed from the 2007 model. And then there was a 2014 and a half, which was really weird. They came out and had like a partial redesign. And then that changed again in 20. Rick, do you remember when the body style changed to the current, I think it was 2017? Yeah, 17. Yeah.

All right. Cool. It's a 2016. Thank you. Anyway, thank you for answering my calls, and I appreciate your advice. And Nancy, Earl, when you get a chance, could you pump up Earl's vigilantes for me? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll do it.

I'll do it right now. All right. All right, you guys, have a wonderful day. Thanks for the info and the conversation, and may God bless. And thank you for asking about Cameron's because that's the only thing I know about. Yeah, I'm just kidding Everybody go out and vote on Tuesday, please Absolutely

Thanks, that's a good weekend gang Thanks so much Mark We love talking to you And as Mark mentioned Earl's vigilantes You can join up Mark did He is a huge part of Earl's vigilantes And you can help your neighbor

You can help so many different people By volunteering and you don't have to know how to disassemble an engine. You can help others in your neighborhood or anyone that you choose to. Earlsvigilantes.com. And we have a hat that you can... How do you like my hat? It's very, very nice.

It's very stylish. I can see that during fashion week in New York. I think that Stu has made, well, he has done something magical again. Well, this is his hat. And it's my brother's dog holding a red phone wearing a sheriff's hat. At any rate, sign up for Earl's vigilantes. You can go to Earl on cars. Let's see what you look like in that with your new haircut.

Ah, he's not up for it. Okay. Where can go? enough of this silliness. We're going to have silliness. If you want to join the vigilantes, go to earluncars.com, and you can click on vigilantes. You fill in your information, contact information,

then other people that are looking for help and buying a car can go to your name based on your location. So we're trying to get vigilantes geographically around the whole country and the more the merrier. So earl oncars.com, click on vigilantes, and please give us your contact information, means you volunteered. Yeah.

Thank you for reiterating. That was from the recovering car dealer. We're going to go to Marty in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How you doing? We're well. Thank you.

Thanks for your patience. Okay. I've got a question for Rick, but first I'll tell you that the model changed for Camry in 2018. That's right. That's right. Marty would not. Because I'm a Camry buyer.

Right, right, right. Okay. Now I've got to ask Rick about my problem I've got. On my car, on a screen, I can receive a call, I can receive a text. But when I hit the little microphone button on the steering wheel, it keeps telling me that it's loading my contacts or loading the phone book. I've tried to repair the car again with the phone. I've tried to do everything. I went on YouTube. I've tried to do everything.

I can't get that button to work. First thing I do is say you might want to stop in at the dealership and let us check and see if there's a radio update. We see so many cars that just a simple software update for the radio solves all those issues. And unfortunately, it's one that we actually have to download the update from our system onto a flash drive that we then installed in the car and it updates it. Maybe Google knows. Yeah, I did on Google, Earl, and I did all, I did what it says to do to make sure I put the phone book back into the system, and that didn't change anything.

Okay. Yeah, I would check for a software update for the radio. Okay, do I need an appointment for that? It's best. It's best, yeah. okay because i was going to drive over there today and see if there was one of your guys that knew something quick you know it's just i'm gonna i'm gonna vary a little bit on the subject because you bring up a very interesting point updates one of the one of the things that that uh tesla is

way ahead on uh and and all the manufacturers will be getting into is uh over-the-air updates where It'll be an automatic thing. Not a week goes by when I don't get an update of some kind on my Tesla. It's all automatic. I don't have to run another dealership and worry about a bunch of service riders, service sales, by trying to sell me something I don't need. And it's very inconvenient to have to drive into a car dealership and wait an hour, two hours, three hours,

for something that could be done electronically in the cyberspace in 30 seconds or maybe it might take five minutes but software updates need to be automated for all manufacturers and that's your problem Marty now we're telling you come into the dealership because you might need a software update

well the software update in my opinion should have been done and you wouldn't even have made the call so that's where we're going with science you should get in your car in the morning and says your car has been updated exactly just like the Tesla exactly yeah okay if I haven't to call the dealership

now and they tell me there's an appointment available today and you can come in and wait for three or four hours and we'll try to get to you. We'll feed you well keep you caffeinated you got a lot of bagels though can I drive Earl's car

home until it's ready yes you can Earl has an appointment this afternoon I have complete control of the Tesla today so you'll have to give me a call how about the Avalon you got the next Avalon hanging around? I'll give up the Avalon.

The Avalon's getting no love. Okay, let's get off the chit-chat. Okay. All right, I'll have to call in and make an appointment. Okay. Thanks, Marty. I can get, I can do it if I just go on my phone and say Siri, call so-and-so, it'll still appear on my screen and everything. Okay.

So it's definitely a software thing. Sounds good. It was great hearing for you. Thank you. Thank you again for all your help. Oh, thank you. Thank you for staying in touch and calling Earl Stewart on cars. We have a few calls that are backed up, and we're going to go to Joe in Boynton, and we're going to, oh, we have someone calling from Nair Falls.

Shea. Hold on, Shea, we'll be with you. Joe, good morning. Yeah, good morning. Welcome. I'll talk to you. I hope everything's okay. I have a 2003 Lexus ES300, and it's only got 174,000 miles. And what's happened is I'm starting to get a leak on the transmission.

So I'm wondering if it's worth doing anything with it. Just trying to get an opinion on this. I would absolutely have it diagnosed it. Transmission leaks are usually going to be a pretty simple thing for external leaks. It's usually either the axle seal or the transmission pan gasket. I would very quickly have that checked out, especially since a leak is only going to get worse and can cause damage inside the transmission by having a low fluid level. So definitely worth getting it checked out.

And it might be as simple as a $300 repair near back on the road in a car that can resell for many, many thousands. Right. what would that run for the to have it checked out price-wise most places would probably be about $100 to $150 for the inspection and then usually that applies towards the repair if you have it done right right okay okay because everything else works on the air conditioning works fine that's good news I mean it's a good thought though I mean because you have a car and you're looking at a really expensive repair and that's the thing you got to consider whether it's worth doing but well that's the thing because, you know, you figure if you repair that for, say, a couple thousand,

you know, the air conditioner goes. Well, I was fully expecting to hear Rick say that's going to cost you a couple of thousand dollars, but a couple of hundred bucks ain't so bad. Yeah, it's good news, Joe. Not too long ago, I just spoke to someone that it cost him a whole lot more than what Rick just talked about. So you're in a good place. Thanks for the call, and I hope you give us a call back and update us. Okay, thanks.

Take care. You too. Have a great weekend. the first two new lady callers. You win yourself $50 this morning. Give us a call at 877960. Or you can text us, for you others, you can text us as 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to our first time female caller, and that's Ashay from Niagara Falls. Good morning. Good morning. And welcome. If you stay on the line when we're finished, you can talk to Jeremy in our control studio. He'll get your contact information and pass it alone to me, and I'll send that checkout to you.

Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Welcome. Let me ask you a question. Now, it might sound, I'm new with driving and stuff like that. My granddad just gave me a car. it's an older forward tourist but i mean it's not really here or there um yesterday when i was

driving somebody i don't know if they threw something at the car or shot the window out but the passenger side window just shattered and is now gone now i put a um a garbage bag in there you know just for yesterday so if it rained last night nothing got in the car i'm wondering because, you know, I'm kind of low on money. Can I go to a junkyard and see if I can find the same window? Like, is that something that I'd be able to do at a junkyard? I think Rick can answer that question for you. Yeah, you've actually got two economical routes for that.

If you know somebody that's handy enough that they can pull the door panel apart to replace that glass panel, a junkyard is a great place to find glass. they quite often the guys the employees there will sometimes disassemble the cars to save the glass so that they can make sure that it doesn't get damaged while it's sitting out in the yard or you might even check eBay or some other option like that for car parts a lot of junkyards and salvage yards well online is probably the way to go right i mean you'd want to see where they were located describe the urnake model of a vehicle which window it was which door.

Absolutely. And if you do all that, then they'll give you areas that you can go. They don't call them junkyards anymore, but it's salvage yards. But it's very sophisticated. Most of them are online and they have all their parts from just about any car you can imagine, any part you can imagine is all online. The trick will be, hopefully you can find one that's fairly near you in Niagara and then make the visit. And also, they may, a lot of them also will advertise, they'll put those parts online on eBay to where you can simply order it and they can send it to you.

A lot of great advice. Yeah, I had no idea that you could do that. Okay. Yeah. It's amazing. The sophistication of the availability of old parts. It's never been better thanks to computers and the Internet. So I think he'll be pleasantly surprised.

Your problem's going to be finding someone knowledgeable because you don't want to spend a lot of money on this. Someone that can take a panel off a door and replace a glass. Finding someone that'll do that for you is going to be a problem. But I think you'll find the window pretty quick. Yeah, absolutely. I actually am lucky that a neighbor of mine tears cars apart and puts them back together and stuff like that. And he said he'd help me out if I got the glass. Oh, there you go.

That'll be great. And you have the power of the Internet right in front of you. Take down this website. Jonathan just sent me a link. It's the letter you need an E-D-A-Part. Oh. Dot com. And that's apparently, it's a link with several multiple salvage yards,

recycle yards that they all advertise their parts right there. And you probably could find it in just a few minutes. Wow, that's great. I had a pencil on my hand when you guys had that, so perfect. Thank you so much. And that $50 will help you out, definitely. You know what? It absolutely will.

Thank you so much, guys. And don't forget to stay on the line and talk to Jeremy. I'm not going anywhere. That's what I like to hear. Spread the word. We want to build a platform here for the ladies, just like you, where you feel comfortable giving Earl Stewart on cars a call. absolutely thank you guys so much you're welcome oh we have to thank jonathan too boy i'll tell you what a team

we have here it was right on it he had that site that you could go to what was it you you need a part but it begins at the letter you and then need a part dot com oh yeah i think a part dot com thanks jonathan 877 960 99060 or you can text us at 7772 4976530. Don't forget, take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. Ladies, I have $50 more here for the next new female caller because we give out $50 for the first two female callers every Saturday morning. So take advantage of that. Which one, you or Rick, do you have anything?

We're a little quiet right now on YouTube. Okay, we'll go back to Stu. stuff. I'm a text from Gary. Gary says, well, Takata airbags are back in the news again, but people don't realize it's the old Takata airbag that was replaced with the new Takata airbag, and now the new Takata airbags are old. So here we go again. Yeah, we knew this was happening. I know that was pretty much across all manufacturers. That was the only available airbag to replace it. They said, well, we better just put a fresh one in and reset the clock but I'm assuming that all of those are going to get fresh notifications and 25% of them

will respond. Am I right? Yeah, that's true. That's what's going to happen. I think what was happening when they were replacing them, they were doing these new airbags to reset the clock and they were hoping that a large number of those vehicles would blow up. Getting older would wind up going to the salvage yards. Right. And a lot of that didn't happen. And especially with the COVID situation. Everything changed. A lot of those older cars were getting fixed because new cars weren't available. Wow.

These two seismic changes in the industry, two things are just kind of coming together. It's just like, it's crazy how things are connected like that. And the average age of cars on the road got older instead of getting newer like has been happening in the past over years. Absolutely. They didn't think of everything, did they? Nope. we're going to interrupt stew and we're going to go back to the phones where frank's holding from jupiter farms

well good morning to you guys good morning it's frank hi frank how are you frank wonderful thank you for asking i appreciate it and um i i listened to that one guy is saying he was going to get a car delivered from miami for a thousand dollars well here's another option that people could think of if they need to get to Miami, just go down to the tri-rail station, get on the tri-rail for a couple bucks, get down to Miami, and if you need to, they could probably pick you up or take Uber for a few dollars, and you'll save a whole lot more than having it up here. Yeah, especially Miami, yeah.

Or Bright Line, get there even faster. Very fast. I don't know if we have current statistics on this, but we started seeing this when the prices started going crazy. Oh, you've cited this before, the distance, the average distance traveled by, you know, used car buyer got really, really big. And people were willing to drive thousands of miles across the country to pick up used cars if they found a price that was good. So Miami doesn't sound so bad. And for people out of our area, Miami is about an hour and a half, two hour drive from where we are right now.

Yeah, I went down there last weekend for an art show. And I grew up in Miami, and every time I go back to Miami, which is very sporadic now, I'm so thankful that I'm here in Jupiter as opposed to down there. It has changed so drastically. Very congested. It's very crazy. Did you check the new Winwood area, though? I mean the refurbished windwood area?

No, I happen. It's pretty cool. They have a nice revitalized arts district. It's very colorful and very Miami-ish. Check it out. Yeah, this is on Miracle Mile, I believe. Anyway, one other thing last week, it was also listening to your show brings it back memories from my car days.

I was pumping gas for 75 cents an hour so you can tell that was long time ago but the hydrometer with the batteries I haven't seen or heard of those for so long I said that was kind of cool and someone mentioned that last week so anyway interesting with that I'll let you guys get back we do enjoy your show and thank you for thank you Frank give us a call give us a call again we're going to go to Warren who's holding from New Jersey good morning Warren good morning guys how are you today great how are you well we got great i want to follow up last week i called and i talked about i had this great

experience okay and i'm going to be brief because i went to a couple of the dealers uh i went to tyota and i went to nissan and i went to honda Toyota up here didn't have any cars basically and all they wanted you to do was order one so i moved on to nissan and to honda and both pulled the same stick what it was was when i went to nissan i don't have to give you the maker model but i'll just be quick They had, the cars they had in stock were all loaded. They had every gizmo on the car, Apple Play, and this play, and all that kind of stuff. So it came time to looking at the sticker. I looked at the sticker.

One of the cars was about $37,000. And the guy said to me, well, you have to add $5,000 on to that. So I said, well, no way, Jose, am I going to do that? So he said, then he can't get the car. He says, okay. I said, thank you. And I started to leave. Then he comes back to me and says, oh, well, what would you give me over his sticker?

I said nothing, absolutely nothing. And he says, well, let me see if you're really interested, we could talk to the manager. I said, well, look, I want to look at all the cars. Then I went to the Honda place. I swear to God, he gave me the exact same thing as the one in the Nissan, like they talked to each other. It was unbelievable. They had a couple of cars all loaded to the gills, a couple of cords all loaded to the gills. and when it came time to negotiate, he said, $5,000 over a sticker.

So I said, I'm not interested. So he said, well, what would make you happy? I said, if I was going to do it, it would be sticker. So he disappeared, and the sales manager comes out about 10 minutes late. I didn't want to walk out, but I would figure, look, give him the courtesy, he spent some time on it. Yeah. Salesmanman comes out, sits at the desk, and he's pounding away and keeps saying to me, well, you know, if you do, give me $3,000. Finally he got to the point, he said, if you buy it today, you buy it, you buy it,

today, I'll give it to your sticker. So I said, I'm not buying today. I'm not buying today. So finally, he said to me, it's the deal of the century. So I said, well, I have to wait to the next century then. What could I do? I like your style, Warren. Did you say to them, hey, we can do this the easy way or the hard way? I just said, you know, I just said the bottom line was that, you know, he was pounding on the desk. And, you know, like, you know, if you get it today, you get it today. And, you know, And it was just amazing that both the Honda and the Nissan dealer were exactly the same with the $5,000 over. But immediately, if they were going to go right down to sticker.

And the Toyota deal, I will say, with the two of them, they had their very few cars. They said if you order it, we'll get you closest stickers as possible. That's possible. They had very little stock. They had used ones, and they want you to order it, and I'm not into that ordering thing as of yet, maybe, in the future. But I just want to tell you that's the shit up here. $5,000 over, and then, you know, maybe people are dumb enough to just give it to them. I don't know, but maybe they figured they could, if they say $4,000 over, $3,000, you're getting a bargain.

Exactly. Yeah, that's the idea. Both have said the exact same thing. Not you, Warren. Not today. You're an educated consumer. The dealers make out a ton of money at a sticker anyway. They both ran after me. So I just want to let you know that's the stick up here now. Uh-huh.

That's good to know. Thanks so much, Warren. Stay in touch with us. We love talking to you. you. Okay, guys. Have a good day. Talk to you. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Hey, 77-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. I'm going to talk for a moment about Earl's book, and that's three confessions of a recovering car dealer. And you definitely can still purchase this on Amazon.

and all proceeds, all proceeds goes to Big Dog Ranch. That was a terrible one. And that dog is waiting for a cold. Do it again. Much better. That's live, right here. Okay, what did you think of that, Jonathan? I think Jonathan is going to take his headphones off.

Okay, so took advantage of that on a more serious note. go to Amazon, purchase a confessions of a recovering car dealer, and you can look very soon for Earl's book that he's writing, Redemptions of a recovering car dealer is going to be phenomenal. Now back to Stu? Sure. We have anonymous feedback over here. It says, what are your thoughts on buying a vehicle service contract

at the dealership, when I buy my new car next year. It will be a Toyota-based model Camry hybrid, expect them for 10 years and put on less than 10,000 miles a year. And there's a lot of difference on specific pricing on, like how much should you pay for, like a really extensive, comprehensive warranty and all that. But I'd like to get that to you because that's a very, it's a common question that we have,

and you definitely have an opinion on this. Yeah, if you're going to buy an extended warranty, I recommend you buy the manufacturer. extended warranty. A lot of dealers, us included, we have our own warranty company with our own warranties. The other big thing is consider the car you're going to buy. If you're buying a good quality car like a Toyota or a Honda or, you know, there's a huge number. Look at consumer reports. When you're buying cars today and you buy a quality car, you don't need an extended service contract. So I always say to people, because people,

want that peace of mind. I mean, you know, a lot of people buy more insurance than they need because they have the peace of mind. They know if something should happen, which you probably won't, they can sleep at night. So if you want the peace of mind, buy the manufacturer's extended contract and then read it carefully to be sure what it does cover and what it does not cover.

But I would, you know, to be perfectly frugal about it, I wouldn't buy the contract. I would put, if your monthly payment on the contract was $50 or $100, I'd put it in the bank and save it and bank it. And then if you had a problem with the car, draw from your bank account. Self-insure. I don't think you need to insure your car if you buy a quality car. And there is a follow-up on that.

It says I would like to hear what Rick thinks from a master technician's perspective given the complexity of newer cars. Camry hybrids a tested, tried and true model granted for the first couple generations with the Prius, we were doing a lot of the HV batteries replacements

but Camry's and Avalon's and the Highlander very, very few I think one of the issues is they developed the cooling system for the cooling fans better on them. You're getting into Toyota's and I understand that. Other hybrids I mean, there are hybrids

all across the board now every manufacturer has several models of hybrid and now they're all coming with electrics as well but yeah the the choice you made of a Camry hybrid is a great car I would comfortably compare it to any of the Honda hybrids although they're fantastic cars as well I'm also just a real quick note on pricing on those warranties if you're in Florida and some other states those warranties are considered insurance products and they're regulated by the state which is means it's a one price and by law they can present a price they can't increase it or discount it and so these prices are going to vary greatly by dealer and the

pricings are set by the warranty companies so it's okay it is you you stated exactly correctly but to me it's still misleading I mean the only thing the insurance company the State Insurance Commission's office does is say how much do you want to charge and if the dealer says I want to charge a million dollars for warranty. Well, the warranty company, not every dealer owns a warranty company. Well, no, but if the warranty company, if it's a dealer owned or not dealer owned, most large dealers own their own warranty companies, and they go to the state of Florida, they say, I want, I want this to be posted and registered. They say, okay, how much you want to charge? You can charge a million

dollars for a warranty. So all that means is you can't charge more than a million. Right, right. Well, they tried, the dealers try to keep it, you know, within the pocket of, you know, the market. insurance products when you say they're registered with the state, I mean the state says this is a legitimate product, but the state does not make it legitimate. They just say you can't change the price. And that's the same with all one pricing at anywhere in any store and any dealership anywhere. They set the price. But they do vary in price. So when you ask like what a good price is, it's kind of hard to kind of judge on that because it's it is all over the place. We're just looking at F&I reports recently. Where unlike the profits that we were saying on average, or dealers are making, are huge on extended service. Well, this is inside stuff, maybe not interesting to our listeners, but a lot of dealers, where they don't have the fixed price, they don't, they do very the price. So you come in and you say, you don't want a warranty. They sell you a warranty for $1,000, $2,000. In California, for example, you go to California.

Used to be. I don't know the California. It's not regulated, well, unless something changed in last year. But, yeah, you go in there, and it's just like buying a car. You start all over again. Yeah. And it's, if I get you the right price on this warranty, would you buy it today? You know, it's a sidebar.

Consumer Report is really a great place to go. And you could find out all the information that you need on electric cars, tires, insurance, the best cars to buy right now. So take advantage of that. You can go to ConsumerReport.org and get your information. And we're going to go back to the phones where we have Ellen holding. She is a first time caller. And you know her very well.

Yes. We are going to, she's from Jupiter. Good morning, Ellen. Good morning. Good to talk to you, Nancy. It's nice to hear your voice, Ellen. If you stay on the line, you can speak to Jeremy in our control room, and he'll get your contact information.

He'll send it along to me, and I'll get that. check out to you after we're done talking oh i don't know about the check that's great i wanted to thank you guys because i just got my car service at earl stewart stuart toyota and randy deppin has to be one of the nicest guys my service advisor he is you know when you go in as a single woman i am not somebody that always checks my tire pressure and everything else he is so not judgy He's just a kind person who is not intimidating and does it make me feel like, oh, you don't know anything in my car, just not taking care of my car. So he's great.

And another shout out to Daniel Trapp in the body shop because I had this dent that I've been driving around with. And again, easy, easy, easy, nice, such friendly, and just a good crew you've got. You know, I'm really glad. I'm really glad to hear what you had to say. And these trips can be very, these trips can be very condescending for women. They can be very intimidating, even if you know something, because not everyone has got the memo. And I have said this to you before in the 21st century. There are car dealerships out there that are still doing business the same way.

And, you know, they may not say it, but they're wondering if you, well, if your makeup mirror is working properly, you know, and that sounds funny, but it's so true. So, Ellen, I can't thank you enough for sharing with our huge audience, your intake. I just feel so comfortable when I go there, and, you know, it's strange that I would even have those feelings, but it's over a lifetime of, you know, going into the muffler shop or going here, going there, and they just kind of look down and you're like, what's it now, honey? So I never get that run around at all.

Honey. Anybody at Earl Stewart Toyota. It's just such a pleasure. Maybe we should give her $200. Honey. Honey is the operative word, and it's used often. And what you said, you know, it's sort of unusual because you've been going in to have your car service,

you've been going into car dealerships. you'd think that that was like old school but guess what ellen what makes it difficult is it's learned behavior it's learned behavior and that says it all so we have to you're right yeah we have to stay on our toes and we have to as i always say that i don't have a problem with let your voice be heard I have a quick question, if you don't mind, a car question. About once or twice a week, I drive up to my steward office, which is on U.S. 1. I'm very near U.S. 1 in Jupiter, but there's a lot of stop and go traffic, traffic lights, traffic, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm wondering if it's better to go that way or if it's better for the car to actually put on a few more miles, go west to 95,

and then drive on the highway and then east to U.S. 1. Because does a lot of stop-and-go traffic wear on the brakes or the engine or anything like that? Highway miles are always the better option except with a hybrid car where the fuel economy can be better in the stop-and-go traffic. But, yeah, when you've got stop-and-go, you're constantly on the brakes, is changing the speed of the tires, which is going to increase the wear on the tire. you're sitting at traffic lights idling which is using up extra fuel whereas highway miles drive gently and just try to stay with the flow of traffic and you'll get much better wear from

the tires better break life better fuel economy and it's just is better all the way around for the car I'm so happy to hear that thank you so much and thanks guys you are just just a wonderful team thank you all for your help I appreciate it you're welcome Welcome, Ellen. Thanks, Ellen. It was a pleasure. Take care. 877.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 877-960. As I said earlier, you can text us also at 772-497-6530. Again, your anonymous feedback.com. You know, writing on Ellen's a question about that, a car driving in the city or on the I-95. In all-electric vehicle, actually, you had your cake and eat it too, because with my test, Well, I marvel at the fact I don't ever use a brake.

So when I take my foot off the accelerator, it's still the same braking action, which is inducing... The electromotive drag. Exactly. So I'm charging my electric battery just by taking my foot off the accelerator. So actually, an electric vehicle does better when you're driving around town. It does. So many benefits. And you have no brake wear whatsoever because you don't use the brakes.

Yeah, so many benefits. I love my electrons. I have to announce to the audience that my driving, well, my privileges have been revoked from the Tesla. Really? Because I... In the last five minutes? Drove erratically. Oh, and you ruined the score?

Are you still chasing that score? You're chasing the 100? She holds the lowest score ever recorded. I was 100 forever? Lower than Haywood? Oh, yeah, much lower. We're talking big time. Heywood, if you're listening, sorry about that.

I was a wildcat. And I was nervous when I had to do the tire on it recently and took it out for a test drive. And I'm like going along the back road at 20 miles an hour, super gentle because I didn't want to mess up a real score. You have to focus, you know, really have to focus. And I'm so scarred from all the focusing. For people who have no idea what we're talking about, Tesla has a software program that measures the driver's abilities and safety. and if you hit a certain safety score 100 actually for 30 days then the car can go in full autonomy totally autonomous

and to get to 100 on your Tesla is a real challenge especially in South Florida especially during rush hour so I finally just said to hell with it let Nancy drive the car and I was I was achieving such a high score but at any rate the other morning I got in the car I was in a hurry I wasn't focused and you really have to focus most on the accelerator it's a great car to drive and the yoke was slipping out of my hand and all kind of other things but uh i'm going to be right back on track and i'm going

to be focused and behind the yoke very soon we are going to go to our next caller which is hello is it phil are you calling us from jupiter yes i sure am okay good morning How are you all doing this morning? We're great. Yeah, I just wanted to ask you, I was on some of the car sites, and it looks like Toyota is going to completely change the Prius of 2023. And I just asked, do you all know anything about that? I mean, is it going to be a completely new car this time?

Well, they don't give a lot of information in the dealers about the future vehicles. They will preview them at the dealer show, at the car shows, and then there's a big dealer show. one last month in Las Vegas, the big Toyota meeting. We didn't go. And I don't know if they preview that or not. I know that Toyota is also

kind of re-looking at their whole EV strategy that I think they're acknowledging now that they were slow into the game and kind of hedging their bets with some hydrogen and hybrids. So they're even considering, and this is on the down low, anonymous services,

they're reconsidering the TNGA platform, which is the new platform that they designed for all of their cars and trucks to not trucks but the cars for the hybrid and electrified versions and they're reconsidering that to look at all electric harder so don't really have a lot of information on what the new Prius is going to look like or but Rick is on Google looking at all the all the industry stuff yeah you can see a YouTube big update the all new 2023 Toyota Prius plus they have a YouTube video it's 11 minutes in 53 seconds so probably quite about a quite a bit of information that we were unable to give you but

yeah as i say if you or i don't know the answer dr google does so give it a try okay i just pulled up at what point would i be able to order one of these things i mean would uh you would need to do it now if you're looking like at our dealership since we're doing orders and not going over msrp I would definitely get in touch now and just put in an order now because right now hybrids are taking longer than other vehicles and for example like a RA4

hybrids taking a year and a half right now to get in and a regular Prius is not as long but definitely want to start earlier and then if things speed up and inventory things change everything's going to come in quick and you want to wait that long but just to be sure I would get started soon would I ask for somebody in particular

when I came into the dealership to do that? You can ask to speak to just a sales manager and these salespeople. It's just one price, and you just got to put it in an order, and that's a refundable deposit if you change your mind for any reason. Yeah, I've got a Prius now I've had for quite a while, and I love those cars, but I would go with the prime this time. Oh, I'm sorry, the prime takes even longer. Today, but seriously, because a Prius,

prime is taking we don't know um they produce so little of them and it's a year and a half longer you might be able to get one for 2027 i'm rick's not kidding i mean if it could possibly the the next model year so that's that's a real possibility okay all right well thanks for the information you got it you're welcome phil give us a call again our number here is 877 960 990 60 give us a call you have a question or if you have a suggestion And Rick, were you going to say something? Hey, Earl, Johnny Z. Freidley popped in on YouTube. He says, I thought Elon opened full self-drive to everyone no matter of their score.

No, I wish you would. Still hasn't yet? No, there are different levels. You know, I think that they use different score levels in different parts of the country where in this area, it's still 100 for 30 days. and I've heard that they've lowered it to 99 or 98 in some areas but it will be open to everybody at some point they have a new generation autonomous that they are still test driving

and they're getting toward the end of that test drive I hope which point they will open up autonomy for everybody what was our highest score between the two of us well you get 100 that's what you should get so we did Because I wasn't keeping track of it Have you ever ridden in a completely autonomous vehicle?

No Not yet I'm going to How are you? In Port St. Lucie there is an area called Traditions, a new housing area that they have these, they're shuttle buses

and it's called Traditions in Motion and I'm actually planning I'm going to get up there in the next few days and it literally they have various stops they stop at you get on board the shuttle there's no driver there's no controls yeah but it doesn't it's not in traffic

it doesn't have a it's a planned route it's a planned route yes going through several shopping centers with other cars on the road other vehicles around it I mean it's a small step a small step but yeah hey as demand once said

a journey of a thousand miles starts with but a single step There you go. And I want to go ride on one just for the fun of it. I'm going to do that. It'll be pretty exciting. We're going to go to our next caller, and that's Bennett, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. Welcome back, Bennett.

Okay, guys, good morning. Good morning. A couple of questions, please. On the extended warranty, is it okay if you believe in them to purchase one, but to wait, say like before. the extended warranty is over on the new car

like at 30 months instead of 36 it's okay to purchase you mean later on after the month like drive it through the factory warranty and then purchase? Yeah about six months before yes you can't do that

no you can do that and you can purchase a warranty later but now at this point you're buying an extend service contract on a used car now and they're a lot more expensive than a new car just because they have miles and they've been driven. So you can do that. It just costs more. Yeah, because they'll tell you if you bring it up at the F&I that, you know, it'll cost you less now to put it in with your monthly payments.

Well, that's true because, but they're trying to, that's a sales tactic to make it seem nice and easy, not as expenses as it is. And sure, it is easy to, but you could take anything. you know, spend a lot of money, you don't necessarily need to spend that money. It might make not a big impact on the monthly payment, but you're still over time paying the $1,000, $2,000 for that warranty. Obviously, you know that, but... So you don't think it's a bad idea to purchase it at 30 months? Well, I mean, it depends.

Like a used car extended warranty can be very expensive, so you might be looking at a $1,500 warranty when it was brand new in a $3,000 warranty. If you buy a good car and you take care of it, if you do all the fact you recommend in maintenance, you don't need an extended warning. Okay, now, very good. Now, with the holidays approaching,

do you think there'll be sales on vehicles? My wife and I are interested in getting a new car. We're looking into the Highlander. my concern is, I'm sure it's a really good car, is that they change the Highlander's engine from a 356 to a turbo. Can Rick explain the difference, if there is any? There's really not a whole lot of difference, except by switching to the turbo. They're trying to get a tighter power band on the engine.

to get better fuel economy while still providing you the amount of power to get the car moving and running properly. You know, to satisfy that need for speed, the need for power, but at the same time, decreasing fuel or increasing your fuel economy and decreasing the emissions. Because I'm torn between getting the 22 or the 23 and I'm just a big fan of the V6-35 because I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not I don't know about the turbo engine is it much less power the turbos and more fuel economy is that it's it's actually they're trying to get the same amount of power out of a smaller engine by getting the turbo on it but also increasing the fuel economy from the four cylinder and make taking it way above the 6-cylinder.

As a matter of fact, Toyota has done away with all of their V8s in the trucks and they're going down to a turbo V6 in the trucks. Okay. Now markups on vehicles, how do you know if there's a markup on a new car? That's a great question because we've seen, we talk about addendum stickers all the time. So in a lot of cases, the dealers will stick a little decal next to the Monroney label with all their add-ons. But we've seen it where that's not on the card at all. And then when you get into the actual write-up of the deal, they add all that stuff on there.

So you're going to find out either if you look at the car or when they write up the numbers for you, where you're not going to find it, you're not going to see it online. You're never going to see an addendum online. They're advertising this stuff. it's always going to be a surprise either on the lot or at the desk. Yeah, there are three ways that they get you. And if they get you on dealer-installed accessories, these are nonsensical, very low-cost, very high-margin markup for the dealer.

They get you on the hidden fees and, of course, the addendum label. So the MSRP is just a guideline now because the average price, it's coming down. The average price, I read the other day, in Automotive News is only $1,000 over a sticker. So it's a good time to start looking, but the MSRP,

the addendum, they've also got the dealer-installed accessories, and the hidden fees. Hidden fees can be $1,000, $3,000. Adendum can be $3,000. So it's just it's a minefield. The only thing that's going to

keep you safe is competitive shopping. And if you get three, four, five, six, as many competitive prices on the exact same vehicle, then that keeps the price down to the minimum. So I called your place up, and I think her name was Marjorie, and I told her the same thing I'm talking to you about. And she told me that you guys have absolutely no cars on your lot, no Highlanders anyway. Right.

So for me to test drive, is that true? That's correct. Yeah, the problem is because we don't mark up. the cars. We don't have addendums. We're selling every vehicle at MSRP. That happens to be the lowest price for Toyota in the USA now. So while we have two or three thousand cars on order and zero cars on the lot, unfortunately, if you want to get a specific model from us and you really are hung up on color and equipment and a lot of other stuff, it could take months and months. Sienna's going to be a year about it. Yeah, it could be a year.

That's what happened. I mean, it's good news and bad news. The lowest price, but we don't have the cars. You go to a Toyota deal that has cars on the lot or Honda or anybody, you're going to pay a lot more money. That's the reason they're on the lot in the first place because they're charging thousands over sticker, and then you go in there and you negotiate, and you'll have a better selection, not a great selection,

but better than we have. We have no selection. Now, the other car that I was interested in, other than the Highlander was the Verandvado. Am I saying that right? The Venza? Venza, you're right, I'm sorry, Venza. Now, those cars are difficult to get. Yes.

My wife and I were talking about hybrid in the beginning, but we don't drive a lot. So we're just going to stick with the combustion engine. Do they come in the combustion engine? No, the Venza. The Venza's are all hybrid. hybrid. And again, with the holidays coming up, are there going to be, do you think there'll be sales? Not with Toyota or probably, well, actually that's not true. We did see the other

week there was an American car that had a $1,200 rebate. You're not going to see that on any Toytas or Hondas or, you know, most of the Japanese imports. We just got the, you know, our annual Toytathon sale. That's the Toyota Big Event Nation 1. where it's usually where they unveil a whole bunch of great cash incentives. And this year we have some, there's some special APR rates on some vehicles, no real cash incentives. They usually double-lease loyalty rebates, and they're not doing that this year. And there really isn't a reason to do that, you know,

when there's not a lot of cars to sell. There's not a whole lot of reason to incentivize them. So when you see a car manufacturer like a Toyota fund, that goes to all car dealers that they have to uh they all have to do the same on the toy or the phone all they if there's the pricing no toyda doesn't control the pricing all toyda does is offer cash incentives or lease incentives or or or finance like APR incentives so if there is a cash incentive from a Toyota that is a it's called there there isn't any right now anyway but it's dealer cash. And the dealer can decide whether he wants to include it in the pricing

or keep it himself. And so even if there was any dealer cash right now, I promise you all the dealers would keep that. And as far as leaf specials, I'll give you, here's, here's an important thing. There's the regional advertising, you've seen it. You know, Ford does it, Honda does it. You'll see these commercials and they're very specific to South Florida or the area that you live in. And if they advertise lease specials, you'll see these things, they're almost as bad as dealer ads, and there's so much fine print in it. And right now, I'll tell you, Southeast Toyota is sending out lease specials that not one dealer in their entire distributorship is going to honor because it requires selling the car for

about 3,000 off MSRP. And we're not even going to do that. So if you see these lease ads, it's an annual event. They're going to do it all the time, but they're not going to be honored no matter where you go. And in the fine print, it says they don't have to honor it. because right now they're only doing the financing if you have a good credit score

9 or 2 9 if I went down to your place is there a highlander that we could test drive or no if there was it would be on the used car lot and so you could check down there but you know there's there isn't really any there's nothing there to drive yeah all right

all right thank you so much guys you got it thank you all right we're going to go to Lake Park where Bob has been holding thanks for your patience Paul good morning how is everyone today we're well thank you welcome thank you uh i want to tell oral i got uh an email from car max and they've actually raised their offer to me for my mustang uh from 17 to 17 8 and i was i was wondering because you know you had said that the use

car market was starting to soften and do you think this is because of the storm over there on the West Coast that they need cause. Now, CarMax has got a very honest way of pricing offers to buy used cars. It's a software program that determines

how badly CarMax needs your car. And they have a huge dealer inventory. They're all over the United States nationwide. Hundreds and hundreds of locations. So, if they have a shortage of something like you're driving, they'll pay you more

for it, maybe than Mannheim or any other dealer would. On the other hand, if they have too many of the particular vehicle you're driving, they'll offer you less than everybody else. So it's a great place to check, because sometimes CarMax will pay you way more than you can get from anybody else, but the other half of that coin is they can pay you way less. Always include CarMax in when you're getting prices on your car. You can go to For Room, you can go to We Buy Any Car.

You know, Carvana, but CarMax is a must. Yeah, I was just surprised that they actually raise. Yeah, it's an honest. It's not a bait and switch. They mean it. So if, you have a question. Yeah, go ahead. I have a question.

He has a second. I'm throwing a circuit code on the Evap, purge valve solenoid. And I wanted to know, I can test the hot wire with a test light, but the ground wire gets the signal from the it's computer controlled is there a way of testing that without an advanced scanner not really on the ground side

because the computer's going to control that to turn the solar on and off you see it's you're getting an issue with the purge valve it's a circuit code it's thrown the in check engine line is stolen a circuit code the valve I don't know if the valve is good

than that I put I put that valve been back seven months ago I wasn't throwing a light at the time but the car when you filled the car all the way up to the top it idled a little rough and I did my due diligence I found on the Mustang

YouTube said some of the other people had changed that part out and I did and it's been fine for seven months but now it's throwing a code and I just want to make sure it's not the wiring it's probably the part because I put it off market part

from Amazon. I didn't buy the Ford OEM part because it was half the price. When you say filling the tank all the way up, were you filling it all the way to the top of the tube? Well, I don't know. Like I said, the Ford's don't have gas caps. I told you that last week. I haven't used gas caps. By the way, I checked that out. They haven't used a gas cap in 15 years. They have that different system of closing the gas cap. One issue that can go across the board on cars, So if you're filling the tank, and when it gets to the first spot where it clicks off, if you keep filling after that, there's a chance you're getting liquid fuel into the charcoal canister. And then when you start the car up, and it goes to purge the vapors from the charcoal canister,

it's getting liquid fuel coming up and going through that purge valve and going in the engine, and that can make the car run rough because it's running too rich then. So what I would do first off... Ever since I replaced the part, the car runs great. It still runs great. There's no issues with the running of the car. It's just throwing that code. And so what type of scanner would I need to get to send the computer a message?

You need something pretty extensive. I would do it the old shade tree method. I would simply take two jumper wires, one side of the terminal, one to the other, you know, figure out which ones you're positive, and just touch it to the battery and your purge valve should click when it opens, and one with it's closed, it should not let air blow through it, and when you connect it to the battery, it should open the purge valve and let you blow air through it. Well, it's not a vacuum issue. It's a, it's throwing a circuit code, so it's electrical. Right. Well, if you can test the valve itself that way, and if the valve is good, then it's got to be

the wiring or the computer all right so do it the or the p you right so just test uh both ends of the of the of the valve itself right positive okay all right well thank you very much and you guys have a great day and uh oh i want one other thing or all there's a couple of genesis deal is i don't know if you ever shop them before or not but uh there's one coconut creek genesis yeah we should charging on their website, pre-delivery service charge, just under $1,000. What would that be? Yeah. Yeah, that's a...

Genesis is a good car, from what I understand. I actually, you know, it's a luxury guard, considerably less than a Lexus call. So I believe it's got a pretty good rating in consumer reports, too. It does. We'll definitely have to... I was just wondering about this pre-delivery service charge. Well, that's, you know, free delivery is BS. It's, you know.

Yeah, there's anything they can come up with. Anytime you have a hot car and you have too many buyers and too few cars, this is what happens. So you're just going to pay through the nose. I also looked at layman Genesis on their website. At least they tell you, you know, they tell you that some vehicles have addendums on. They don't say how, you know, how much the addendums were, but it was mentioned on their website along with, you know, the dealer fee and everything.

So they were, at least they were telling you, you know, before you shop that you're going to encounter these things. I guess it's some sort of consolation, but it is definitely a bunch of hocus pocus. So, Bob, thank you so much for your call. And you guys have a great weekend. Thank you. Give us a call again. I'm going to give this website out that Earl wrote about in his column, and it's how to know if a Florida car dealer is breaking the law. You can go to

www.w Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com go there. And if you didn't write that down, you can go to Earl on Cars and get all the information that we announce on Earl Stewart on Cars. Earl?

Yeah, I wanted to, I almost forgot to mention, you've heard, if you listen to the show regularly, you've heard Jeff Weinseer's name mentioned. Jeff Weinseer is an investigative reporter for WPLG, Channel 10, Fort Lauderdale, Miami area, great TV station. I say great TV station because they've got the courage to speak up about car dealers. Car dealers do a lot of advertising on TV, and most of the TV channels that we watch nationwide, I would say, are afraid to attack local dealers.

They don't like to offend someone that spends millions of dollars with them in advertising. So Jeff Weinstein, the investigative reporter, has called me a couple of times. He's read some of my blogs and listened to the show. He called me two days ago to let me know that he had finally cornered Ashley Moody. He snuck up on her while she was in Fort Lauderdale and asked her about why she has not filed any actions, any control, any regulation on car dealers. And she kind of Hamah Mahamahad and said,

well, actually, we do have an investigation going on now, but I can't talk about it because it's an ongoing investigation. And then he asked her, is it true, and he knew it was true because he already checked it, that 81 Florida car dealers had donated over $161,000 to the Ashley Moody for Attorney General campaign for Attorney General. I mean, that's, now beyond that, and I did a little investigation myself, a lot of car dealers have donated to Ashley Moody's campaign

in their personal names, their wives, their daughters, their sons. There's a lot of contributions. So there's also a political action committee. So the bottom line is we finally have contact between Jeff, lines here, WPLG investigative reporter and Ashley Moody. Now, we're right up on top of the elections, so I guarantee there won't be any more conversations until after she gets elected. As a foregone conclusion, Ashley Moody will get elected because she's got all the money and all the advertising to get reelected, and she got a big chunk of that from the car dealers

and their associations. So at any rate, I just thought you'd like to know we have one honest journalist, one journalist true to the journalistic ethics in Fort Lauderdale, his name is Jeff Weinseer, and I'm going to give you his number. If you want to call him, if you have a story you'd like to share with him about an experience with a car dealer or with Ashley Moody or anybody else, his cell phone number is 954-364-2823. That's area code 954, 364, 2823, Jeff Weinsayer, WPLG. And if you're down the South Florida area, tune them in. They are an honest station.

The editors don't editorialize the honest reporting of their reporters like Jeff Weinstein. And share your stories with Jeff. And if it's worthwhile, he'll investigate. And when he investigates, the car dealer's attention has gotten. And Ashley Moody attention was gotten the other day, too. So I had to mention that before. Yeah, it's not breaking news to hear about the contributions that were made. If you did, if you're just picking yourself up off the floor after hearing $161,000, $161,000.

Those were the contributions, 81 dealers. That's what we know about, yeah. Yeah, that we know about. So, Jeff winds here. What a great job. He's doing at WPLG TV in investigating all of this. So, as Earl said, the elections are right around the corner. We're going to hear a whole lot more after she's been elected.

So stay tuned. Okay. I think we're going to go to Rick. Do you have some YouTube for me? I've got a couple of here, actually. First one, Kirk in West by God, Virginia, is asking Earl, hey, what's the update on the book? What's the what? What's the update on your second book?

Oh, second book. That's going to do this every week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, actually, Nancy was talking to the ghost writer we have and John Van Zile. And we're hopping it up.

We're right there. The book's completed. and it just needs to be edited it needs to be we need to get the publisher going and we're in the final stages I feel confident that it will be published by the end of the year

it's a redemption of a recovering car dealer yeah redemptions of a recovering car dealer I have an introduction that I really have to finish up and it kind of got away from me so you can expect that book and it's going to be a doozy. Rick?

And Joseph Kelleher says, I read an article on the internet that says CarMax is bankrupt. Is this true? No, it's not true. They lost money last quarter and they're victims of the same situation that all car dealers,

used car dealers, new car dealers that have used car lots, are experiencing now. They bought a lot of cars at too much money when the prices peaked and they have them in inventory. and they either have to sell them or write them down and they will take a loss.

We wrote down quite a few cars last month ourselves, and that's what happens when a market peaks and starts going the other way. My blog this week, this last week, was, is it safe to go car shopping again, and that's new and used cars, and the answer is yes, it is safe to go car shopping. Just don't buy right this second. start the process, start the investigative process. Prices are coming down and the supply is going up, the demand's dropping, prices are going down, and it's turning from a seller's market to a buyer's market, but it's not there yet.

It's still a seller's market, but the advantage the sellers have is much less. So start looking around, start sniffing around, comparing prices, reading consumer reports. and if you wait a couple months you get a pretty good deal on a car new or used. CarMax only has a 36% probability of going bankrupt this year. 36? Only 36.

Is that because of the lawsuits that they recently had and this whole thing with titles? They were facing a lot of negative press. They're considered a healthy company. This is an analysis website called macro access and you can put in it looks at all their financials and has a probability of going under. Yeah, if the stock has gone,

down. I'm not going to recommend a stock to you, but I would, CarMax, Warren Buffett owns a chunk of that. And he's pretty sharp investor. But it's just one of the best companies, period. Well, definitely one of the best car companies. And they're, first of all, they're honest. Their extra fees are minimal, and their integrity is above reproach. And they have the greatest name recognition almost of any brand. Yeah, totally transparent. If the stock goes down, I'd buy some. I mean, I'm not going to... They're not going anywhere.

I'm not going to tell this. They'll be here. They'll still be standing when new car dealers are gone. Yeah, exactly. Well, and from Negan 1, our buddy out in Arizona, he says, I bought my Ford extended service plan on my 2019 Raptor that covers 35,000 more miles and three more years for $1,025 with zero deductible. I was able to get that price through a dealer in Rodeon.

Island. He says a lot of extended warranties can be bought online from different dealers. You just have to shop around. I found this place being on one of the Raptor forums. Seems like a pretty decent deal actually. It's impossible for me to comment on whether you're really smart or not because I have no idea what that extended warranty covers. And the $64,000 question to date myself a little bit is what does it cover or what does it not cover? And I don't care. I don't what it costs, whether it costs, you could buy an extended service contract for a $1.95 cents, but if it doesn't cover anything, you pay too much money. So read it carefully, and nobody does, I'm telling you, nobody reads contracts.

I don't read contracts. So my advice is just don't buy the damn things. Don't buy extended contracts. Buy a good car. Take care of it carefully. And if you really have to have some peace of mind, put $100 in the bank or in the the stock market every week. And if you ever have a problem, which you probably won't, you've got a little savings

account there to take care of it. Instead of paying the insurance company a big premium, that's the reason Warren Buffett is a multi-billionaire. He makes most of his money in insurance companies. And it's a great way to do it. It's a seller's market for insurance companies and extended contracts. Yeah, they make a ton. Okay, Rick.

Have you wrapped it up? Well, I got a couple of years. We can save those for next week if it's mystery shop time. Okay, sounds good. How about used to? Can we, we're running. Yeah, let's get to the mystery shop report. I think we just had to cut you a couple of comments here,

but there are all stuff that we can get to next week. Well, you want to read the whole thing because I couldn't print it out, so. Oh, okay. I get to read the mystery shopping report? Oh, absolutely. I couldn't print it out. Oh, okay. Well, here we go.

And I got a partial. I will explain to our listeners. We had a technical glitch and Agent Lightning's report came in, but it was missing the photographs and some of the text. And she said, we have it all now. So I'll read the Mr. Shocking Report. Okay. I'll reintroduce Stu in just a moment, but I want to let all of you out there know that you are a part of the mystery shopping report.

We want you to vote. And you can do that by texting us at 772-4976530. You are an important part of the show. Now, here is the famous Stu Stewart. Well, this is going to sound interesting because I write this in the voice of Earl Stewart. So when he reads it, it sounds natural. So if I sound a little bit older and a little bit wiser, that's because that's the reason. A little bit better looking?

All right. Well, I look just like you, just a little less gray. Our mystery shopping report this week is Napleton Jeep Chrysler used cars on North Lake Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. It's been a while since we did a used car mystery shop here on Earl, on cars about four months ago when we went to CarMax of Royal Palm Beach. It's a good thing we're doing this now because change has happened in here in the used car market. Not just here in South Florida, by the way, but nationally. Prices are coming down and the result is putting a hurting on car dealers. The car is sitting on dealers lots right now were acquired, it were

acquired in many cases months ago, and much higher prices than they're worth right now. So the collective dealer body is now looking at billions of dollars in losses. And when I wrote that, I wasn't sure if really was billions or tens of millions, but I just did a quick, you know, kind of like a made-up calculation. There's about 150,000 new and used car dealers in the United States, mainly used car dealers. If each one of them lost only $10,000, we're talking billions. And we lost $200,000 last month. So in many cases, it's a lot more.

High interest rates and also consumers unwilling to pay hard. high prices anymore. They've contributed to the turnaround. Carvana, we were talking about CarMax and their stock price. Carvana, one of the industry's great disruptors, is now facing an ugly reckoning and a cratered stock price. It's basically in junk territory right now. I mean, not really. It's what is it, like $30 a share. I don't know what its highs were. But, and this is usually a truism, what's bad for dealers, it turns out to be pretty good for everybody else in the form of lower prices. If you're paying cash, of course, because the higher interest rates are definitely going to cut into some of these savings that we're seeing from the lowering of prices.

So, you just can't catch a break. Back in July, when we mystery shop CarMax Royal Palm, we found exactly what we expected to find CarMax's price was really high, but it was completely in line with the market. And additionally, the employees at CarMax are polite and efficient, just as expected. This week, Agent Lightning, headed to one of Ed Nabilton's used car lots. the one at his Chrysler Dodge Jeep store on North Lake Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. And here's the report, and I'm reading it from the point of view of Agent Lightning.

Before heading the Napleton, I picked out a used 2017 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon with just 24,000 miles advertised for sale on their website for $36,402. There was a Car Guru's banner, and that's a popular car buying service. Cargoor's banner below the price on their website, calling it a great deal with their signature green arrow logo. The Carfax report on the listing for the Jeep indicated one owner and no problems. And also, by the way, an extensive service history. I arrived mid-afternoon, and I wandered the lot for a bit. When no one approached, I started walking toward the door.

A salesman walked outside and introduced himself. He said his name was CB, and asked me for my name. I let him know I was very interested in a 2017 Rubicon I had seen online. C.B. said it sounded like I knew my jeeps. We left. C.B. wanted to know if I wanted to pay cash or finance my purchase. I told him I was prepared to pay cash, and I was aware that interest rates weren't so great. CB offered me a seat, asked me for my driver's license, and entered my info into his computer management system. He returned to the subject of financing and asked me how much money I intended to put down if I decided to finance.

I told him I was only interested in knowing my out-the-door price and his best finance rates. I would decide whether to finance only after I had seen this. CB had a hard time finding the keys. He said it had just come in and had yet to go through cleanup. So we went over the Carfax report. And that's where the report ends. But we have it right here. It picks up

Okay, so he had a hard find the keys So we sat down one of the Carfax report CB did find the keys And we went outside to find the Jeep And I have a picture here They walked out, there was no price on the Jeep But there was an addendum The addendum, it looks like their new car

addendum added $1,230 for the exact nylon exterior protection, interior protection package, 998 for the lowjack, and $199 for Napleton care. So that's about $2,500 in addendum stuff on a used car. And we talked about that that was theoretical last week. Now we have now identified it with real evidence. We went for a test drive, but CB said that we couldn't go far because it was low on gas. once around the back block

and then back to the lot where he told me to park where he told me to park anywhere I wanted. He opened the back to show me the all-weather floor mats and a very dirty old tire cover that was dry-rotted. He even rolled his eyes and said

you probably don't want this. He asked if I had any questions and proceeded to leave me back to the desk. He said he's going to get a price for me from his sales manager. About five minutes later, he returned with Nathan who had introduced himself

and to let me know he added a few extras, many of which could be removed if I didn't want them, and then he turned to CB to go over them with me. So here is the, I'm going to go over the, they had a worksheet here. So remember, this is a used 2017 Jeep Rubicon she saw online advertised for $36,402. Car gurus called it a great deal with a big, upgreen arrow. So here's the pricing.

The selling price for Agent Lightning was $36,4002, same as on the website. Then they add $199 for Wheel Locks and adjusted the price up to $36.601. They added sales tax, but also they added an $899 dealer services fee, junk fee, $129 e-tag file fee. Oh, I've got to look at the, I'm looking at this one here. Okay. Okay. Sailing price, $36,204. They added $399 for Shadowmark, $199 for wheel locks, $995 for 4-inch round steps. Then they adjusted the price up to $37,995.

Then they added the $899 dealer services fee, $129 E-file fee, $149 private tag agency fee, a $199 documentation fee, $998 for LoJack, $1,230 for Xylon 7-year silver package, $199 for Napleton care maintenance one year, $299 for nitrogen tire inflation, $799 for window tent, $916 for value protect. You're joking, aren't you? I'm not joking. Jonathan has it on the screen, I'm sure. I'm not looking at it. You usually want to do the mystery charm, but I'm adding all that up, but this is thousands and thousands.

I think it's close to $7,000. Anyway, the final price with tax is $47,087 takeout. The taxes of $2,500 or so, and they're marketing up $8,000. So that's what happened. That could be a new record. We need to add up the number of additions in the total, and this could be a new record. Yeah. So there, I mean, there you go.

So use car prices are coming down. Well, here's, here, now, let's digress just a little bit here. This was a car guru recommended low price. Right. So one of the problems that you have with all your third party, not all of them, but true car, consumer reports, Costco, not so. But most of your third party that give you recommendations for, rich as total of $7,860.

in B.S. So back to my point is that when you go to Cars.com auto trader, car guru, etc., etc., they are not taking into consideration these BS fees.

And they are taking the price that the car dealer tells them they're selling the price for. They're lying to car guru. They're lying to AutoTrader. And AutoTrader takes that lie and post it online and you take it for granted and you go to the dealership so this is one of these huge bogus frauds on the public that attorney general ashley moody ignores and for that matter

the u.s. attorney general ignores because it's a national issue but and this is napleton this is the same guy who just paid how many 12 million dollars for for doing this exact same thing pocket change pocket change right yeah he almost made the 12 million back on this on this deal on Agent Lightning. All right, there's more mystery shopping report. Agent Lightning says, I said, wow. Wow, that's a lot. And this is just going to be a fun vehicle for us.

I don't feel we need any of that. He asked me who the decision maker was in my house. I replied, we both are when it comes to making big purchases like this. He excused himself, this is CB, the salesperson. He excused himself, said he'll go talk to Nathan again, see what he can remove. I stopped him, said, I don't. don't have much time so let's make this make sure he please puts his best foot forward so I waited about five minutes and he returned with another sheet and in the other sheet it's almost the

same thing but he removed let me put these quickly side by side remove the the four-inch round steps those are I guess stepboards like running boards took off the running boards left the wheel locks took off the shadow mark I don't know what that is took off the little lockjack and the window tent left everything else so still probably took off about a thousand or two and and it still had a still had a bunch left it was pretty big of them see um stu can you tell me can you repeat that again did cb ask agent lightning who made the yes yes what were the words again who was the decision maker in her house okay i just wanted to be sure i heard that that was actually part of formal sales training that was to establish that was and that was a question that everybody

was trained back a long time ago in the 40s well for me it was 1997 bottom line price dropped by about 4,800 to 5,000 dollars oh we did okay so that was still okay but we're still dealing with the situation we're dealing with okay so he brings back the sheet took off of stuff and then cb wanted to know when we'd be making a decision, I said probably soon, shook his hand and left. And that's the shopping report. Okay. We're coming at Tuesday is voting day. Just remember, a vote for

Ashley Moody is a vote for crooked car dealers. There you go. We're going to have to take Rick to urgent care after he totaled those ridiculous... I'm coming home. He's turning to Sanford.

Fred Sanford. All right. Do you have any Ray's coming in over there? Oh, yeah. Negan 1, F for way too many fees. Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis. F, I tell CB, that's not a big 10-4. Jonathan Kelleher, F.

Oh, I got a scroll for this group. Let's see. Tom Steckle, that one's an easy F. They need the money to pay that $10 million FTC fine. They never learn. Vincent G. In all capitals, I have never seen this many fees. I think that's an F.

Wayne Vite, gigantic F. Mark Smith, definitely an F. Tim Gilliland, a master class in addendums. Which way to the door? F. Well, okay. Boo. F minus.

Most editions I've ever seen. Brian Siddlatko. Napleton should be ashamed of themselves. F minus. Rocky Blockatiel. F. Mark Ryan, F. For me, that's a W for what?

I feel guilty now because we haven't done enough of these used car shopping reports. So this has been going on while we've been focusing all these new cars, which, by the way, is kind of the same story over and over again. We're definitely doing some more. I got grades coming in. Marathon and Facebook says ridiculous fees and the decision maker gives an F-minus minus for failure. Doug and Ella the Cat, I think we're, had a medical emergency over this. Doug just kept on sending messages.

is OMG, OMG. Ella said meow, but it probably meant OMG. I think so. Who else we got? We have F's all over the place. Amy, OMG and an F we haven't even heard the end yet. They're grading it early. Hillis, I'm missing here. I don't want to miss

anybody, but I'm going to give them an F also. Mark says, are they crazy? Yes, F-minus. Frank says, great F. It would be funny if it wasn't happening to other customers. And Kirk, can West Buy God, Virginia, Red Alert, another Naplesden dealership, nearly 20% junk fees equals a solid, oh my God, F. I've never, I don't think we've had unanimous Fs on a shopping report.

I'm going to go with a death penalty. He's going to, you're rejecting the verdict and you've been hanging with me too long. We talked to, I talked about the death penalty the other night. Okay, ladies. and gentlemen, obviously somebody, well, fell and they bumped their head on a blunt object. What else can I say? It's not even worth my time. Ridiculous in Napleton continues to take advantage of everyone, well, almost everyone on this earth. So that's why it pays to listen to Earl Stewart on cars.

F from Nancy Stewart You can't go lower? Yes All right Of course I say F I can't do the death mentally It's illegal

No it's not For Mr. Shopping or boards That's right Earl Stewart is not an actual judge I forgot about that I got confused I'm picturing you in your robes All right

Okay I'm going to help Okay folks Another great show from the oldies channel right here all of us wish you a great weekend and do your homework stay sharp watch out for these car dealers it's a minefield out there and it continues to be you just adjusted my mic have a great weekend everyone we'll be right back here next weekend at 8 a.m. Thank you.