Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.09.2019 - The Best of Earl Stewart on Cars

Episode Date: November 9, 2019

Earl and his investigative team along with Mystery Shopper, Agent Thunder, visit Wayne Akers Ford, a large volume Ford dealer in West Palm Beach to see if the salesman will disclose an advertised used car with a recalled Takata Airbag. Will the car dealer disclose the recall to Agent Thunder? Listen to find out! “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

I dare you to ask a question. There Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, our linked to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forward dealership. And now, on with the show. Hi, folks. This is Earl, the recovering car dealer.

And we're very excited to be in the studio this morning. A lot of excitement around us. We've got Dorian brewing in the Atlantic. Got some good news the other day. Maybe it will miss the Palm Beach County area. And maybe not Martin in St. Lucie counties. And we got folks from all over the world. Last week we had a call from Bali, if you can believe that.

But we have calls from all over. I hope it doesn't put a damper on our callers this morning. A lot of folks in South Florida are worried about the storm. We're worried about the storm, to be honest with you. I am a recovering car dealer, but I also have a car dealership in full transparency, and we're quite concerned. We've seen our customers drop off quite a bit. People are more worried about getting plywood and batteries and water,

and gasoline, of course, a lot of long gasoline lines. So we'd really like to have you call. 877-960-99-60 that's a call-in number 877-9-60 you might want to write the number down because sometimes you're driving and you can't call or sometimes you just haven't thought of a question I promise if you listen to the show for a few minutes things will occur to you we're all about cars how not to be ripped off by car dealers how to have your car maintained repaired we've got Rick Kearney as I introduced earlier earlier in my previous recorded introduction,

who can answer any question about any car? And I'll make that 99%. You always hasn't got the answers, but we do have Google. And we have not really a guest, but we have someone monitoring the show in our studio this morning, and I'm excited about that. Her name is Jackie Charniga,

and she's a reporter for the automotive news. You might not be familiar with automotive news, but it's the trade journal, the national, probably international trade journal for auto manufacturers and automobile dealers. There's not an automobile dealer in the world or an auto manufacturer in the world. There doesn't read that weekly journal. It's the automotive news. And she flew in from Detroit, down from Detroit.

Didn't realize at the time she was getting into a hurricane, and she might not be able to fly back to Detroit on Sunday as she planned. But she won't be actively participating in the show, but she'll be watching and listening. to your calls and to what we have to say. So any questions that you have, we also have a text number, and that's 772-497-653-0.

That's 772-497-6530. Every week we seem to get more text than calls, and that's fine. Text actually are kind of cooler because we can get to them at the time when we have to, and you don't have to wait, but we'd rather hear your voice and had you called 877-960.

Now, we also stream the show, and we're streaming on Facebook. We're streaming on YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. And you can see us in living color. We're right here in the studio. And we have a, not another, he's not a guest. Alan Napier is not a guest. You regulars know Alan very well.

Alan is our collision repair expert, a body shop manager, aka, and he's been on the show for many years. He doesn't come on every week, and he is coming on this week to answer your questions about collision repair. He's really specially knowledgeable about insurance companies, and insurance companies can be devilish to deal with

and complicated, and Alan truly has all the answers. And, Alan, I'll start going on, I'll do around the table here. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, and what the folks can expect. respect from you. Well, I have been in the industry for 39 years. I've never done anything except work at car dealers. And I've worked for Earl for 13 years now. And we've had some epic battles together against the insurance companies, trying to do the right thing for customers. And not always on repairs we even have in a shop. Sometimes people just reach out to

Earl and they need help, they need advice, they've been done wrong in another body shop or buy an insurance company, and because of the role that Earl has in the community as a consumer advocate, you know, he might get a call from somebody that fix their car in Miami and they just can't get a good result or they can't get it paid for properly. Is there an insurance company we have not sued? No. Maybe one of you billionaires can open a new insurance company, so I have somebody else to sue. No, but we work real hard to do the right thing and help our customers, and sometimes not even our customers.

We just want to help people. That's what this shows about, and that's what we're about. You know, we're running a business, but we're also a really good team, and a rare team. We care and we want to help people. And that's what we're here for and take advantage of it. We've got a lot of knowledge. Put Allen to the test, 877-9-60-9-60. If you have a question about your insurance coverage, we've got a hurricane coming, right?

You probably have questions. There's flying and debris and things of this nature. So any questions, 877-960-99-60, or text it. It might be easier for you. Mary Code 772-497-6530. And sitting to my left is my co-host, Nancy Stewart. And Nancy has, she really has special attention paid to our female listeners. And we try to build our female audience.

And since Nancy has been part of the show, we reached 50% female callers at one point, and then it kind of dweened off. But Nancy, tell us about the special offer we have. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our show. I want to thank you for tuning in this morning. I know you have a whole lot to do out there, so thank you. As far as the ladies are concerned, I'm here to help you in a way to ease your pain as far as leasing, purchasing, servicing, and women play a big part in all of the automobiles.

industry. And this morning, I offer you $50. First two new lady callers. I have $50 for you. No conditions. No, this is not a gimmick. $50 cash. You don't even have to ask a question, do you? No, you definitely don't. Give us a call. Let us know you're listening. I'm here to try to build a platform, and the only way I can do that is with you. So give me a call. When you're $50, the first two new female callers. And ladies, if you don't know it, you play a huge part in the auto industry. You play even a bigger part in servicing vehicles. I would say that 50% of the female ownership, they may own the car, someone else may own the car.

They bring the car in for service. and we really appreciate you listening this morning and joining us. That number is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us, 772-497-6530. You know, I almost forgot to explain why Stu Stewart isn't here. Stu, my son, he's kind of our cyber guy, and we're all kind of filling in. He had a little minor surgery, and he's recuperating, and he'll be back in the studio next Saturday. And he's doing fine, by the way. He's listening to the show right now, I believe,

and he may even call in. You never know. But Stu is our cyber guy that connects with Periscope and Twitter and YouTube. And he's also our spymaster, we call him, because he normally supervised the Mystery Shopping Report. And the Mystery Shopping Report is one of our most exciting elements of the show. We'll do that. In the second half of the show,

we shop a different car dealer somewhere in South Florida every week. and it's unique. Do we have a call, Nancy? We do. Tina's calling us from Benita Springs, and she's one of our regular callers, and we enjoy her company every Saturday morning. She has a lot of knowledge to share with us.

Good morning, Tina. Good morning. Oh, good. The music stopped. I thought I was losing my mind. Hi, Dana. There was y'all talking, and then there was music playing, and that's great, but it's like, oh, my poor brain this morning.

Good morning, everybody. I found a really interesting question on Jolopnik this morning that someone had submitted, and they said, I'm just going to paraphrase it. I'm shopping for a used car, and I went to my credit union to get pre-approved for a loan. When they submitted the application, the bankrupt said they had a list of dealers I can buy from if I want to use this money, and they said the list was pretty long. and the prospective buyer said I thought the purpose of getting credit union financing

is so you can buy from whoever you want and then the kicker is the person's the buyer said I asked them what would happen if I didn't buy from the list or bought a car from a private party and the credit union didn't provide a clear answer for that so the moral of the story is sometimes these credit unions get kickbacks from the dealers

and they will have you go to a dealer or give you a list of dealers that maybe doesn't have your best interest at heart and may charge extra fees or higher prices or whatever they want. So, you know, you have to be careful of those credit union lists and maybe you might not want to get financing necessarily from a credit union for that reason. Well, Tina, let me say this. That's very astute observation you have there. It isn't very widespread.

Credit unions are normally a very good source of funds. I think it's possible this credit union you refer to may have gone to the extra effort to try to find safe dealers to deal with. And typically the credit unions have their

members at heart. They want to take care of them. They want to give them a good rate. They almost always have a better rate than a bank. And they also want to be sure that the customer or the client, actually the member they call them, is not taking advantage of.

Some dealers will take advantage of buyers, as you know. I'd go back to that credit union, and I would investigate a little bit and say, why is it? I think they probably have good intentions as to why they have a list of recommended dealers. What they should do, as you said, they should loan the money anyway, but let the buyer beware and say, you know, we can't protect you if you deal with someone we haven't vetted and gone through and being sure. A lot of times credit unions will call my dealership. I have a Toyota dealership, and they will ask about our F&I products like extended warranties and maintenance contracts. They want to be sure that the F&I products and the treatment of their customer is good,

and they want to know what we sell cars for. Typically, a dealer that wants to be recommended by a credit union will have a special deal for that credit union. They'll offer to sell it for a certain amount of money over invoice or a certain discount from MSRP. Yeah, that's good to know. But the answer that the editor, the person over at Gelopnik said was you still need to make sure the price, get all the prices in writing, make sure you get an independent inspection before buying. You need to see the numbers in black and white on the dotted line before signing anything.

So even if most credit unions are up and up, if they're really looking for the best interests of their members, then hopefully they don't send them to a questionable dealer. Hopefully they have dealers on their list that have been pre-approved, I guess you can say, or that they've had a good experience with before they send their members there. Exactly. You're absolutely right. There's always a rotten apple in the barrel, and that includes credit unions, that something should be aware of that.

Yeah, and I don't know if your reviews on Google or Yelp would help, but sometimes those are kind of good things to look at before even dealing with a credit union when trying to get a car. Yeah, typically the bigger credit unions, Gold Coast Credit Union and Teachers Credit Union and the ones that have been around for a long time are pretty safe. Smaller credit unions I would be a little bit wary of, but you're right. You should investigate, absolutely. Well, take care you all and have a really good hurricane. Hopefully this thing will stay offshore. Oh, thanks, Dana. You're our best female. call her, and we love you, and please call again next week. Thanks, Tina.

Thank you. Stay safe. Have a safe weekend. We're going to go straight to Rosemary, who has been holding from Stewart. Good morning, Rosemary. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 6.7. Good morning. How are you?

We're well, thank you. Are you a first-time caller? I am a first-time caller, and I'm a very recent listener. Wow. Thank you very much. You've just won yourself $50. And if you should stay on the line, you can share your contact information with Michael. Oh, wow. How exciting. Yeah, everyone can use $50. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I was just, I mean, I'm a recent listener, so, I mean, other than what you just did for me, not a whole lot, but I really liked listening to the show.

My girlfriend, Lori, just turned me on to it like a week ago. Great. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. If you don't have a question for us, you stay on the line, and we will get your contact information, so you don't have to give it out over the air. and we will get that check out to you right away. $50, and please call again. Oh, I certainly will, and I will keep on listening.

I really appreciate it. You guys have an excellent day. Thank you, Rosemary. Spread the word. We're trying to build a platform here for the females who are listening. Some of them don't have, well, as much courage as you do, to give us a call. A lot of them text us. Have a wonderful weekend.

That telephone number is 877-960. 9960, or you can text us 772-497-6530. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you definitely remain anonymous. So share your ideas, how we can improve this show, anything at all. Youranonymous Feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Rick, how are we doing on text over there? We've got a couple in so far. Well, let's hear the first one. Steve from New Jersey is asking about an article that came out in the New York Times

where apparently he says Truecar is possibly aiming towards being dealer directed, where they're trying to direct buyers to certain dealers. So I looked up the article on here, and it looks like that's a, I don't know, They're almost saying that true car seems to be trying to push you to certain dealers that are connected to true car. And so he was wondering if that might be a possibility. Well, that's the whole function of true car was to have certified dealers that they checked out and vetted. And one of the requirements of being a true car dealer is that you agree to put your price, your best price, on the cars that you sell, and that you do not add any hidden fees, also known as dealer fees,

and also that you don't add dealer-installed accessories that were not included in the price. So there are about 10,000 dealers, maybe 12,000 dealers, mainly new car dealers, but also independent use car dealers that are members of true car. Unless there are some new information that came out that I'm not aware of, it's an excellent way to get a good price on a car. Okay. And the next one we have is from NCR Disabled Submarine Vet.

That's a name that's very worthwhile. And thank you for your service, sir. He says, what do we know about dealers scrubbing car titles and actually being able to do so so that Carfax lists it as a clean title? Let me read the full thing out here. Let's see. It says, what do you think of a car dealer scrubbing the title and getting it clean. I checked out a lot of things about the car. Even the Carfax said it was okay. I got lucky because a good mechanic found rust underneath the carpeting way up under the dash. Someone had removed the carpet and put in new. So apparently he wound up looking at a flood car. The problem is not with Carfax, and it really is, of course, with a dealer that

would do something dishonest like that. But the biggest fault lies with the state, laws and regulations on titles. There are about six states that are terribly loose. You Floridians listing, Florida has some very good and tight title laws. Mississippi, New Jersey, not so. And there are four or five other states that are very lax. And what car dealers will do, they'll buy cars at auctions that are totals that are flood cars with branded titles, and they will take them to a state and they wash the title.

and they start out with a fresh, clean title. And I think the main thing you have to do is just be very careful anytime you buy a used car. Sometimes new cars, new cars can be also titles can be scrub, but it should be very suspicious if you had a used car title on a new car. Blood cars are notoriously dangerous, and the thing to do is take it to an independent mechanic. I have them check it out.

carefully. Even with a clean title, the car could have some trouble, but a good mechanic, you might have to pay them $150, $175, can go over that car with a fine tooth comb. And if a good mechanic gives it a clean bill of health, he can pretty much rely on it. I wonder why the, why the texter thinks that the title was scrub, though. It could have just been a car that got wet. The owner repaired it, replaced the carpet. Nobody paid attention to the moisture up in a weld seam or something and it rusted later. I wish he would elaborate on why he thinks the title was scrub because the scrub on the title is difficult. If you're still listening, if you could give us some more details, as Alan says.

But even if the car wasn't in a flood, you want to always have a car checked out. The Carfax Report is a great idea, and it's a good idea to see the title, but it's an even better idea to take it to a qualified technician. Put it up on a lift, lift up the car. Rick Kearney, sitting next to me here, he could look at the car for a few minutes and tell you if it was a safe buy or not. Pretty close, yeah.

And the next one we have is from Anne-Marie. How do dealerships prep for hurricanes to make sure that they don't have to have a massive scratch-and-dent sale afterwards? Well, that's an interesting question, because we're doing that right. now. And I, you know, a lot of it's psychological. We, we have to deal with the psychology of our customers and the psychology of our employees. Everybody's different. Some people can take a hurricane, no problem. You know, they're not even thinking about it. They're thinking about other things. Other people get panicky. And I'd say most people get a little panicky, if not for

yourself, for your family, for your dog, for your home. There's a whole lot being involved. And As you know, the media can tend to hype these things a little bit. And if you watch too much television, you can really be terrified. I try not to watch the television very much during hurricanes like this. I try to look at the updates every, what, five hours, we're getting an update, something like that. And if you just look at every five hours, you can stay on top of things. But if you watch the news all day long, and that's all they have now, it's the news you get panicking. We don't have a lot of business right now as a dealership.

A lot of our customers that are attending to buy cars are just not coming in. And our service customers are coming in, but they're coming in for the reason to prepare their cars or see what, you know, I need to be sure this is taken care of before the storm hits. So if I need my car, I'll be able to go where I have to go. But it's interesting. It's a challenge. And in our dealership to answer a specific question, we will close when there is a hurricane. warning issued. In South Florida, there hasn't even been a hurricane watch issued yet, but it will be

the next day or two, we think, and probably a warning also. And the mechanics of getting the dealership ready for a hurricane, though, is pretty much the same thing that people would do at home. We try to get our customers to pick up their cars if they're ready. A lot of people, if their car is repaired and sitting on a lot, they don't have a garage at home, so they'll call and say, hey, can I just go ahead and leave my car there through the hurricane. We discourage that because we have people who don't have a choice but leave their car because they're not repaired. So we try to get all those cars inside that we can. We get our customer cars in first and then we start trying to get our inventory in, some of our inventory

in, to take up the rest of the space. And with all that said, I have to say I have been through 78 hurricanes. With no damage. I've been here for 780 years. I've been the car dealer for 50 years and we've never, and I've always been near the intercoastal. I've been near the coast. In fact, I've been of the area that my dealership now in is a few hundred yards from the intercoastal, and we're in an area that would be evacuated, could be, ordered evacuation. 47 years at this location, I've never had any serious damage,

no injuries, no nothing. Just take one time, Earl. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Car, and give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. 877960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And I have a text from Mary Louise from Texas, and she asks, how do you tell if a car has been flooded? And also, the second part of the question, are they repairable? So I think Rick could answer that question. I think also Alan can. They can both answer in. Rick? For the most part, if it's mechanical damage, like in the engine, yes, a lot of cars can be repaired.

The major issue that you have is water intrusion in the car. And one of the rule of thumbs that insurance companies will go by is how deep the water actually got inside the car. Usually they kind of go with the idea that if the water got to the bottom of the dash, then it's probably done enough damage to enough computers that they're going to total the car out. So because of how many computers that are in these cars nowadays and the chance that that water and the dirt and the other contaminants to get in there

can cause corrosion that can show up later, it's probably a best idea to let that car go to the junkyard. Alan, would you agree that the insurance companies are cooperative and totaling cars that have been in floods? Yes, it's in their best interest because it's a financial decision for them. And the kind of total Rick is talking about is an economic total loss. But they'll also total them depending on the capacity of the area repair facilities to get these cars repaired. Everybody's supposed to do the best they can to minimize their damage.

But if you get 10,000 cars in a county that have water damage, only so many of them can be fixed. fixed in a timely manner. Sure. So some of these cars will sit a week or two with floodwater in them and all the biologicals that come with that. Anything that's running down the street into a storm drain now is in your car. So that's pesticides and this and that from lawns, animal waste, all that is in your car. What if you have damaged to your car electronic, but you don't know it?

I've heard that sometimes electronic, especially to computers, can remain hidden for up to a year or longer. I mean, are you going to have to argue with your insurance company if they don't total it? And then a year later, your CPU fails in the car. And they say, well, that didn't have anything to do with a hurricane. Most of the adjusters we deal with are reasonable people. And they have some common sense. Because corrosion can get in those little electrodes and everything. And just like corrosion between two metal seams and body panels, as it grows, it expands and it separates things.

So those little diodes and everything in a printed circuit board, just because they work today, if corrosion is started there, that corrosion is just like rust, and it's going to expand and it's going to separate that. There's no connection. The computer is no longer functioning as designed. Yeah, most insurance companies get it. And if they don't, then you have to have your repair shop advocate for you and fight that. You know, the bottom line, if it was flooded, you really ought to hold out for a total. Yeah, and if your car sits with all that flood water in it for more than a week or two in the Florida sun, you're never going to get rid of that stench. It's, even if they replace everything inside of it, that car is going to stink forever.

And this is a danger we incur, and we will have two months from now. We don't know what Dorian is going to do, but wherever it hits, it's going to flood some cars. And probably, if it gets a cat four, it's probably going to flood a lot of cars. And you might not be seeing that car until you buy it off a used car a lot in six months. And that car could have been through Mississippi where they watched it idle, and you have no knowledge the car was ever flooded. So it's something to be, go back to what I said a half an hour ago, is always have a qualified technician.

Check your car out carefully if you're buying a used car. Mary Louise, back to your question about purchasing a flooded car. As you heard the panel talk about flooded cars, I'll add my opinion. There's so many used cars out there. You can go to Consumer Report that just came out and you can find a used car for $12,000 or less. And to play with a flooded car, all you're going to have is problems. If there is an inkling that that car has been flooded, stay away from it. It's nothing but problems. I hope we've answered your question. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And we're going to go to our next female caller who has been holding. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart-on-Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-497-6530 or online at your anonymous feedback

dot com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. Okay. We have a female caller. If you'd like to give us a call back, we would appreciate it. 877-960. We're going to go to Ken if he's still holding. You there, Ken? Hello, Ken.

Well, I guess our technical problems are still haunting us. Yeah, we're having a few. issues and I'm not quite sure what they are so I'm not going to say but if you would give us a call back at 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 772-497-60 is it too soon to blame dorian we have an exciting show ahead we have a whole lot to get to and we have a whole lot of information to share with all of you now back to the recovering car dealer well we're struggling to fine why our phones aren't working. Let me remind you of a challenge that I haven't talked about in a while,

and I'll hold my blog up to the camera. It's the $100,000 challenge to all the car dealers that are within the sound of my voice. $100,000 fee challenge. And I'm asking any car dealer to come on the air with me and debate me on the legality of the dealer fee, also known as hidden fees we have them in Florida

we have them in Florida which are really totally unregulated a car dealer in Florida can add any quote unquote fee to the price of the car it can be any amount by any name they call them electronic filing fees they call them notary fees

documentary fees administration fees tag agency fees I could go on and on it's left up to the imagination of the car dealer It can be $100, it can be $1,000. It could even be $10,000. And yet, it's legal for car dealers to charge these fees, hidden fees.

Now, car dealers aren't the only ones. They're just the biggest fees, and the amount of a dealer fee can be as much as $3,000. I've seen over $3,000 dealer fees in Florida. The average dealer fee in Florida and South Florida is over $1,000. So, I know you dealers are watching. hear from you occasionally. You don't call. We welcome you to call.

But I would really like to debate you if you honestly believe that the dealer fee is a good thing, come on the show. The challenge amount is negotiable. That's a lot of money. If you want to make it half that or 10%, I'll debate you for

anything. All my winnings will go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, by the way, and I will have two charity. The donations will go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. They don't write. They don't call. I don't feel the love out there, dealers.

We know you listen. We know you listen every week. So take Earl up on his offer, and while we're at it, we were talking about Big Dog Ranch and making contributions. You can pick up Earl's Confessions of a recovering car dealer at Earle's book.com. It's very easy. And 100% of the purchase of this book, I'll show it to, I have it up to the camera, goes to Big Dog Branch, 100%. Buy it on Amazon, Amazon.com.

Okay. 877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And we have a young lady just giving us a call back, and I can't quite see my screen, so I'll just say good morning to you. Welcome. Do we have a caller on Hulk? Can you hear us? This is really frustrating. I'm very sorry. Folks, I apologize. And I'm starting to sound like a fool because I've been apologizing every week for the past.

How many weeks? Four or five? And you would think that somehow we could get the phones working at Trulmys. Yeah. Nancy's going to go out and talk to our control person people. It's not their fault. We had equipment failure, I was told, and we completely replace the phone system on Wednesday and apparently the replacement isn't working. So my apologies, let's resort to the texting and, of course, you can also post your comments

on Facebook or YouTube, and we have Rick monitoring that. Our text number, that's easy. Erico 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And we're on YouTube, just, and Facebook. Facebook.com forward slash Erlon Cars. Facebook.com for slash Erlon Cars. Okay, we're going to try to, excuse me, we're going to try to get to Talisia.

And I want to thank you, Talisia, for giving us a call back. You're calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Are you still there? I'm here. Good morning, Delisa. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning again.

Thank you for your patience. Are you a first-time caller? I am. Oh, congratulations. You just won yourself $50. If you stay on the line, you can give Michael your contact information, and I'll get that check out to you. What can we do for you this morning? Awesome.

So I have a question. So recently, they just passed the law here in Florida that you're not allowed to text and drive. But I've never heard in regards to, like, is it? Is it phone calls as well? Like, am I still allowed to use my phone? Is my phone allowed to be on my ear? Does it have to be a hands-free device? Or I'm just curious.

Talit, I think, and anybody can jump in here. My belief that it is a texting only, I don't think there's a law against using your phone. Certainly not to use it hands-free. And we would advise anyone to use it hands-free. If you're talking on your phone, actually, in my feeling, it's also distracting, but the law, the Florida law, as it stands now, is just against texting. Right, okay, and I do typically use hands-free.

I have my Bluetooth set up. I was just curious because, like I said, I only heard, you know, I know some states is completely hands-free. I was just curious how far the extent of that law went. Yeah, it's a long time coming, and I think we have a lot of problems dealing with distractions and driving today. a lot of them have to be introduced, ironically, the more technically advanced our cars are getting, the more distractions. You'd think that technology will allow us to have fewer distractions, but it's actually adding two to the distractions, even with Apple player, some of your other sophisticated components on the car that we have. There's so many gadgets that people find themselves focusing more on the gadgets than they do the road.

And it's pretty dangerous. Rick has a point. Yeah, according to what I've found on the internet recently, police are only allowed to stop you if they see you texting on your phone only while the car is in motion. And as a side note to it also, you cannot have your phone in your hand in a school zone or a work construction area where workers are present. Oh, I didn't know that.

Oh, okay. Wow. That's great information, Rick. beautiful. My phone actually disabled. So, I mean, I completely agree. It is very distracting. Yeah, Talisia, I'm totally against texting. There are so many distractions today. Drivers, all of us are not keeping an eye on the road. And that's the way most, if you look up the statistics, that's how most accidents happen. So as I agree with Earl also, our cars today, even if you're not on your phone

there's so many distractions it's really it's unacceptable so I hope we answered your question yes you definitely did thank you so much for your time please stay on the line so we can get your contact information and get your 50 bucks to you

and Talisia spread the word we'd love to build a platform here that supports women and we'd like to get 50% of our callers our texters our listeners right up to 50 percent. Give us a call toll free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530. Rick, we have a text.

We do from Anne-Marie. She's asking, if you don't have a garage to put your car in, what's the best way to protect your car in a hurricane or other big storm like we're having? Well, you know, you can you can take your car to a covered parking garage. We had a car dealer. a couple of years ago by the name of Napleton that put his entire inventory in the city-place parking garages and then he was sued for that because not only didn't he pay for it

but he kept other people that could have used the parking garage for cover because he filled it up with his inventory. He's a PR genius that one, isn't he? That was on a news for like a week. Yeah.

Also, Anne-Marie, the amount of damage that's done to vehicles by flying debris is exaggerated. Right after I say this, your car will have a coconut go through the windshield, but again, I can't get over the fact that nobody's got more cars than I do. I mean, exaggerating, but being a car dealer is what I mean,

and I've got probably 1,000 cars if you have the new and used than customer cars, and I've been down here for 78 years. I've been a car dealer for 50 years, and the amount of damage, and I've got a lot of cars outside, there's no way car dealers can find cover for all their cars. And when the wind blows over and the hurricane's gone, you go and check your cars, and there's very little damage, and most of us insured. So I'd worry more about myself and my kids and my dogs,

and the cars aren't going to take too bad a beating. She's also asking, would a car cover help, those canvas car covers? Sure, yeah. My opinion, yeah, that would help prevent from a lot of those small scratches like rocks or debris or small tree branches. Shingles. Shingles especially, yep.

It's like sandpaper going across your car. Exactly. One time I tried to get real clever about protecting my inventory and so I move them all up against the dealership close because I calculated where the wind was coming from and I parked them all up right near the dealership. At that time I had a

gravel roof and the wind blew the gravel. Wow. If I I'd have left the cars where they were. I'd have been fine, but I tried to outthink the hurricane. Must have looked like the results of a BB Gatling gun. I just had a gravel-dense sale and made a fortune. Rick, we got any more? We are caught up for the moment.

We are definitely, although Mr. Hand on YouTube says that our video and phone issues, he says it's all part of SkyNet Judgment Day, the apocalypse, and that artificial intelligence is going to get us all. Give us a call tool free at 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Rick, back to your information that you gave our audience about the covers on your car. If someone were to go away on vacation, leave that car covered outside. What happens with the moisture that accumulates under that cover? Is it detrimental to the car?

Not really anymore because I'm sure Alan can back me on this one, but the modern technology on these car covers, it's like some of the clothes we wear. They've got materials now that even if you're outside, you get hot and sweaty, the moisture just pulls instantly away and at the same time it protects. And these car covers are made with a lot of those similar materials to where moisture can actually be released out into the air quickly and easily. but it'll also protect your car from the UV rays coming from the sun, the wind, and anything else coming down at it. So they're actually, because of the newer technology, they're becoming a lot more effective. Great. Okay. Alan, I have a question for you. Mary Louise texts me back, and she wanted to know if she would have to have insurance before she purchased her vehicle. You mean flood damage?

Auto insurance. Well, yeah, you get that at the same time. Complete coverage. You get that at the same time that you make the purchase. But is she actually considering buying a flood-damaged car? I think after I said, I made the statement that I made earlier, I think that she's going to Consumer Report, and that's the latest edition where you can find used cars for under $12,000.

Yeah, well, like any other car purchase, if you don't have insurance, you're going to need to get insurance on it. before you leave the dealership. Yeah, you don't need collision insurance unless you finance it and you're required to have a personal injury protection liability insurance. Yeah, but you get a binder before you even leave the lot. If you have another car that you're trading in or selling, you transfer the insurance, but yes, you absolutely have to have

at least the minimum liability insurance before you drive away. Thank you, Alan. give us a call toll free at 877-960 960 and I'd like to remind all of you you know from time to time we are having difficulties with the phones so keep trying and if you can't get through give us a text 772 4976530 now back to the recovering car dealer and here's another way to get through we have an anonymous feedback line and we have a few of those now I'll read one in a moment but go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com

www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Total anonymity guaranteed. And for whatever reason, you prefer not to be identified. We'd love to hear from you. Criticism. If you've got a problem with the show, if you have a problem with me, a problem with anybody or whatever,

sometimes people don't like to hurt other people's feelings, but you can do it adamantly, and we like to try to improve. Now, this one here was aimed at me. Uh-huh. Excuse me for a second. If I have a problem with you, who do I... AnonymousFeedback.com. Do I call Ghostbusters? Your Anonymous Feedback.com. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program.

If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. This one came in and this morning. I noticed, no, this was after the show last week. I've noticed that Earl has mispronounced the Florida governor's last name on several occasions. For the record, his last name is DeSantis, with an S at the end, not DeSanti. And Earl has said, please make note of this. I apologize to the governor, and I apologize to you, Mr. Anonymous.

And that was kind of stupid to me. It's DeSantis. Oh, I wouldn't go quite that for it. DeSantis. Governor DeSantis, and while I'm talking to Governor DeSantis, let me say this. Why don't you issue an executive order, Governor, to make it illegal to sell used cars with dangerous recalls? Doesn't it make sense that the manufacturers, and it's against the law to sell a new car with a dangerous recall, why isn't against the law to sell a used car with a dangerous recall?

With a stroke of the pen, you could issue an executive order, Governor DeSantis, with a mess. If you issued an executive order, we could save thousands of lives of Florida citizens. And I think that's one of your duties as governor, right, to protect the safety and welfare of the people of Florida. So, Rick? Well, we have another text in from George Lindsay on YouTube. He's saying, I'm in the market for a late model SUV and trying to decide. side between a 2016 GL 550 Mercedes and a 2016 range rover full size. Which in your professional opinion is the better buy? I don't know, but what I would do is I would go to consumer

reports.org and I would look it up and they would give you a specific actual answer. Both of those vehicles sound like they're pretty reliable, but if you go to consumer reports and I'm going to hold up for the camera the annual auto issue. I love this. The annual auto issue, this is something you keep. You can get it online. It's very inexpensive to subscribe to online or for the hard copies of consumer reports. They give you a list of the maintenance costs, the estimate maintenance costs, the repair costs, the insurance cost, the safety, the gas mileage, the resale value, all these things. that so many people don't think about when they buy an SUV or anything else.

People buy emotionally. And I'll give you an example. The Jeep is probably one of the most popular vehicles on earth. And Jeep is keeping the Chrysler Corporation alive. Fiat Chrysler is alive today in liquid and not bankrupt because of the Jeep. And if you check consumer reports or you talk to an owner of a Jeep, they're not very good cars. they cost a lot to repair and maintain they are unsafe in a lot of ways

about every ranking that you have for Jeep is bad now there's one good thing about a Jeep a Jeep has a high resale value which even stranger but because of the they're sexy jeeps are sexy and people buy them because they're beautiful vehicles

and they're fun to drive it's quite a culture exactly but consumer reports I know people get tired of Nancy and me talking about consumer reports. Nancy always says we subscribe twice to consumer reports because we fight over the issue when we only have one. But check it out. I usually win. I have my own for, you know, just for information I'll put out there. I have my own consumer report to comes to the house. Okay, enough fun. We are going to go to Michigan. Yeah, Michigan. Good morning, Ken. Good morning. Thank you for holding.

Did you have a problem getting through? I did, but being persistent, you just keep calling back and you get through. Thank you. And hello to Jackie from Automotive News. Thank you. I'm kind of glad that she's listening in today because she should be somewhat familiar with the area. Let me refresh the listeners with what happened, and Rick Kearney checked into this. I bought a new 2016 Toyota Prius.

and thought I would be able to drive it into Canada. When I bought my new 2016 Toyota Prius, trim style 4, the speedometer was unable to convert to kilometers per hour. So when you drive into Canada, which is only two miles away from the Detroit Auto Show, you have incorrect speeds on your speedometer, and you also have incorrect information coming through. through the NAV system because everything's in miles per hour instead of kilometers per hour.

Canada has the same problem. Now, Toyota, and I hope Jackie will check into this. Earl and Rick Kearney checked into this, and the only remedy was for me to buy a new Toyota to replace my new Toyota. It costs to me of $15,000. Amazing. It's unsafe. Yeah, the car should be just like Takata Airbag. They should be scrapped. Sure. There is no remedy on a new 2016 Toyota Prius. And when I contacted NHTSA, they basically need people to die on the road before it reaches a level of concern. Contacted the government of Canada.

They had the same problem where people there, when they drive into the United States, their speedometer cannot change. but they don't care because it meets the standards there and it meets the standards here. Also, the Michigan dealers and Toyota dealers were told that they couldn't write up the problem because there is no remedy, and the reason for them not writing it up is they said if we write it up four times and you could use the Lemon Law. So Toyota is trying to sell safety, but they're skirting around the issue by just kind of screwing the customers. And that's why Earl is so important

because he can cut through the problems and make it visible to the entire country, just like the Takata Airbag. Without Earl, people wouldn't know, and they're going to die. So Earl's program is helping to save lives, and I hope automotive news can do the same thing by exposing what's really going on in the industry

because it's wrong, and Earl's correcting the problem. Well, thank you again, and I thank you for calling it in the first place. I was embarrassed to be a Toyota dealer, and as you know, I talked to Toyota about it. They corrected the problem, and later models of the Prius now flip back and forth between kilometers and miles. But it was really a stupid thing they did, and it wasn't a big enough problem because they could easily have, you know, taken care of it financially. They should have given you another car or given you a change the speedometer, whatever it took. There were few enough cars out there where they could have remedied, but to consider it a small problem for them, yes, it was a small problem for them,

but it was a huge problem for you, and it was a dangerous problem for you and all the other owners of cars to live in that part of the country. Absolutely. I mean, it's just like, similar to the deadly unintended acceleration issue, that Toyota had to pay $1.2 billion to avoid prosecution. And I would think Toyota would want to step up and do the right thing and fix these vehicles. If it's a small handful of vehicles, like under 5,000, why wouldn't they want to fix it before waiting for people to die on the road?

Sounds like a great class action suit. If there are some Michigan attorneys listening or even Canadian attorneys, that sounds to me like, If you've got 5,000 members of the class, get that certified as a class action suit. That's some big bucks for the attorneys and get some recompensation for the owners of those cars. Absolutely. So if you have attorneys that you recommend, I'm all ears. You'd probably be better off with a Michigan attorney. I can recommend some local, but I think a Michigan attorney would be far better.

I could even talk to some local attorneys and see if they know some Michigan attorney. I would certainly appreciate that. Okay, Ken. The problem has not gone away, and these cars are now going back into the used market, and customers are going to be blissfully unaware. Exactly. It's analogous in a way that's a copy airbag. I think the manufacturers, including Toyota, tend to look at a, they sell a car new,

and then they clean their, they wash their hands of responsibility, and now it's a used car. It's like it suddenly became a different animal. A Toyota is a Toyota, whether it's a car. It's a 2019 or a 2010. A used Toyota is still the responsibility of the manufacturer. Used Honda is a responsibility. And the Takata Airbag issue is a perfect example.

The manufacturers could require their dealers not to sell cars with defective, not just Takeda airbags, but any sort of a dangerous recall. It's amazing to me that the manufacturers will allow their dealers to sell their cars with a dangerous recall and not fix it. And there's no law and nothing requirement. There's no, they have a franchise agreement with every dealer. All they have to do is change their franchise agreement, which is a contractual agreement that every car dealer has with the manufacturer

and say that we prohibit you from selling our Honda or our Chevrolet or our Toyota with a dangerous recall, whether it's new or used. Absolutely. Ken, great call. Thank you very much. Your timing is perfect. Thank you. With Jackie in the studio, and I'm sure she appreciated that.

I hope she calls me. So please forward my number to Jackie. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Thank you, Ken. And thank you for giving us a call and being part of the show, not just today, but in the past. Okay, we're going to give out that phone number, 877960, and the text. and that number is 772-497-6-5-30, and I think that we're going to go to Rick.

We've got a couple more texts in. Right. Tim in Florida, Earl, do you ever have customers that don't want to negotiate and just say, I want that car, I'll take it? Well, we do because we put our lowest price on all cars. before I became a one-price dealer I don't like the word one-price most retailers put their best price

their lowest price whether you're buying refrigerators or TV sets or a loaf or bread you wouldn't want to go into publics and negotiate to buy a bottle of milk most people don't think twice about it when they buy a car so we became a low-price dealer 10 or 15 years ago so we do put our lowest price on the car

interestingly we actually have people that will present that they want to negotiate people who have become so accustomed to haggling and hassling particularly older people that's the way they always bought cars and they come in they've never encountered a dealer that would actually put their best price on the car and not negotiate because it was their best price you're listening to the best of the earl steward on cars program if you have a question text it to 772 4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. And from Roger on YouTube, good morning to you all. My question, as my wife and I are retired, how hard is it to finance a new car on fixed income? Our credit scores are excellent, so what should we be on the lookout for? If your credit scores are excellent and your fixed income is adequate, there's a form

that all the lenders have and they will look at your expenses and you have a mortgage and you have what you want to buy the car you have what other expenses they will look at and they'll say what percentage of your income you would have to rely upon to buy that car and based on your fixed income with an excellent credit score you can buy any car you want based on the amount of that income and that's got us caught up right now for text okay I've got an email here that is an interesting one And Rick and Alan can help me with this. I'll read it to you.

Thank you and your family for educating us on vehicle issues. Feel free to use this question on your Saturday radio show. My 2017 Subaru Forrester has a problem whereby ignition key is hard to remove. I called a dealer and said there's a T.S.B on this issue and to bring the vehicle to the service department. The dealer said there's a TSP. That stands for technical service bullet. This incident tells me that I should review TSBs, technical service bulletins, should any symptom develop, and if a technical service bulletin is seen to bring vehicle to the service of the dealer. The website I found for a list of all TSBs, and I didn't know about this, by the way, for this vehicle is carcomplaints.com.

www.carcomplaints.com.com. The site looks legitimate, but are you aware of this site, and are there other sites with this information? Now, that's Joe from Texas. Joe, we have a lot of listeners in Texas. Interesting. Joe, here's what I know about technical service bulletins, and I'll defer to Alan and Rick on this.

A technical service bulletin is something that all manufacturers issue when a problem first comes up the car. If it becomes a chronic problem, certainly a dangerous problem, it goes from a technical service bulletin into a recall. Manufacturers don't like recalls because they're public. It hurts their reputation to think they build a car with a defect, especially a safety defect, and they would rather remedy the problems quietly off the radar screen, so to speak, and hence the technical service bulletin. Technical service bullets have been called hidden

warranties because sometimes manufacturers will keep it a technical service bolton when it really hits the amount of problem that they should have called NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Association and made it a public issue and make it a mandatory recall. Technical service bulletins also are hidden from the customers, which is what has always annoyed me. You might own a Subaru Forester, 2017, and you might have a little problem with your ignition getting the key out, as you did, but you might not really worry about it too much. Maybe you wiggle a little bit and you get it out, and you say that's just the way these foresters are. So you don't bring it up. When you come into a Subaru dealership, Subaru, and I'm assuming Subaru does this, I don't have specific knowledge.

I know Toyota does it, and I know Pontiac did it when I was a Pontiac dealer. I know that Mazda did it when I was a Mazda dealer and Pujo and Fiat, all the dealerships I've ever owned have always had this rule that you do not bring up a technical service bullet unless the customer brings it up. So you're absolutely right when you go into a dealership and you have a problem, you should ask them if there's a technical service bullet on the product problem. If you don't ask them, the service advisor and the service manager of the dealer has been advised, don't bring it up. Rick, can you add to that issue? That's actually about 90% true. However, as a technician, when a car comes in and a customer says, I have this problem going on, one of the first things that I do,

one of the first weapons of my arsenal, is I get on the computer and I look for technical service bulletins because the original intent of them was to help the technician solve a problem with the car. That's because the customer, did bring it up with the service advisor. And so once the customer brings it up, then the dealership can refer to the technical service bullet. And that is actually their little trick,

because what the manufacturer tells me, what Toyota has told all the technicians is, if the customer is not experiencing this problem or they're not complaining about it, then you don't do anything. In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, sometimes it's broke, but the customer don't know it. don't know it. I mean, you know, sometimes you have a problem with a car and you just don't realize it or it doesn't seem important to you or it hasn't occurred. But the intelligent thing to do, if you have a 2017 Subaru Forrester and the customer comes in the service drive, you should say, ma'am or Mr. Have you had experience a problem getting your key out of the ignition? If they say no, that's fine. If they say yes, then you go to the

technical service bullet and take care of it. Well, one of the most common ones, and this is not really what I would call a safety issue, but this is something that I think should not be a technical service bulletin, but should be a, just a straightforward Toyota should be covering this and having it done on every car, and I think every manufacturer is probably experiencing this. One of the biggest issues is customers want their cell phones to work properly with the radios for navigation, music and all that. And the software update for the radio, 90 times out of 100, the customer doesn't know that

there's an update for their radio that will make it function better with the new phones as the technology in the phones increases. So the service advisors should advise the customer. They should say, hey, and I don't think there's any prohibition. We should be checking on that. I don't think there's any prohibition against notifying them because it doesn't cost manufacture anything to do the software update. It costs a dealer something to do it, but, you know, I understand. I just think that's one of the technical service bulletins that should definitely be covered.

So the software update is a technical service. It is. Oh, okay, absolutely. I understand. You're right. We have two people that want to talk. Well, on technical service bulletins, for me, they're a huge time saver. We had, what, Avalon's, four or five years? ago that had this just little tick that some people that don't listen to radios and drive their windows down, you just hear a tick when the car twisted a certain way. Now, a technical

service bulletin saved me on that because somebody, somewhere along the line had experienced it and somebody had figured out there was a little weld in the back window opening. You had to pull the back glass and fix this one little weld. But if we would have, if we would have, without the technical service bulletin, we probably would have looked for that little tick for a week and may not have fixed it properly. No one's saying that technical service bullons aren't a great thing. What we're saying and the point is technical service bullets kept a secret or a bad thing. Yeah. And does anybody know a site other than car complaints? What was it? Carcomplaints.com that, let's see, that was, yeah, car complaints.com. Any other sources of technical service bulletins that anybody knows about?

Unfortunately, other than Googling them, no. However, carcomplaints.com is one of the sites that Tina, our good friend from Medea there, has brought up so many times. What I would do is, I would go to the chat room for your car. There's probably a Subaru Forrester chat room. And if you go in the chat room, you will find about technical service bulletins. That's exactly the type of thing that they like to chit-chat about and Google it. But chat rooms of owners, it's amazing how much information you have about what really is going on with your model car when you get into a chat room of those people that own that car.

Great information. Ellen, this text is for you, and it's from Pittsburgh, and Jennifer was in a car accident, and she feels that because of all the stress, she just didn't do the right thing. And she said that before she knew it, a tow truck showed up, not of her. choice and there began back and forth of uh she used the word bullying her she wanted her own tow truck and she wanted it taken she wanted her car taken to the dealership of her choice what should she have done this was at the scene of the accident i assume yes um there are tow companies that have arrangements with every town county whatever there's always somebody on rotation to to pick up your call.

So when the responding officer, after all the reports are written up, the pictures are taken, the measurements are done depending on the severity of the accident, the main thing that the police officer has to do is worry about the safety of everybody else and the inconvenience of them. They gotta get your car out of there.

If most people don't have a tow company in mind, nobody thinks they're ever gonna need one. So if the cops waited for everybody to make up their mind, call their mom, call their cousin, call their dealer, hey, hey, do you recommend? I mean, you'd tie traffic up for hours and hours and hours unnecessarily. So letting the rotation tow company pick your car up is really about all you can do, but you can be very specific with that tow company where you want your car to go. they don't get to just take it to whoever's giving them $100 for a job. You tell them you want it to go to your dealer, you want it to go to your home, whatever, but fighting the cops about the rotation tow company,

picking up your car is just going to make the cop really angry with you because he's got a responsibility to get that road opened up. Thank you, Alan. Great answer. The other part of her question is she wanted to know about insurance. and she wanted to know someone else was driving her car and if she was covered. That varies from state to state here locally. If somebody lives in your home and you don't have them on your policy

and they're using your car regularly and they wreck it, say my daughter that has the same address as me, if she goes out driving in my car and I'm not paying for her to be insured in that car, then it's not covered. But if I lend my car to a buddy because his is broke down and he lives five miles away from me and he crashes my car, that crash is covered. Thank you. Give us a call tool free at 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. We're going to go to our next caller and that's Frank who's calling from. Jupiter.

Good morning, Frank. Well, good morning to you all. How are you? I figured I got some, oh, we're real good, thank you. I'm just underwater out here in the farms. I'm in the Jupiter farms. Oh. Just a lot of rain, a lot of rain.

A lot of rain. Yeah, that's true. I got some, how can I say, time-appropriate question and information for, since it's a hurricane and stuff. trying to find gasoline is almost impossible yesterday I was at a gas station and I have a Mercedes that needs high test the only feel they had was regular I said I got to put it in

I had like a gallon left and the lady behind me is in a BMW she said they don't have a high test they don't have mid-grade they don't have regular I can't put this in my car and I this is why I told her and you can verify if I thinking correctly

I said you can put it in It's not what you use regularly, but your computers and your car will adjust the timing to accept the regular fuel. You may not get quite the mileage and stuff you would normally. So was I telling the right information? Exactly. Yeah, you're correct. And it might even run just fine on a regular. You'll find out if it doesn't run so well, you lose a little bit of a pep, perhaps, maybe even get a ping.

If you get that, then you go back to the next grade up toward premium. You know, when you're trying to find gas during a hurricane, I wouldn't put diesel in, but I certainly would put regular. Just about anything by diesel. It'll burn. You know, the thing to remember also to remember is that if the storm does say this, we're really not going to feel it much until Monday. And this is a Saturday, and those gas trucks are coming down fast, and they're filling these tanks up. and the station that was dry today might have gas tomorrow because they're making money because they're pumping gas like crazy.

I saw on the news the other day a lady saw a tank truck going and she just followed the tank truck to the gas station. Exactly. So I don't think anyone's really going to have any problem to find gas if they're a little bit patient. Rick, you have a point? Also, gas-buddy app I've been told has a way that they will track the different stations to see when they're.

have fuel or are out. Gas? What's that? Just gas? You can download it on Android. Android and iPhone. It's Gas Buddy. Gas Buddy. It's also there for finding your fuel prices, but right now they've apparently been able to get it to where they can tell whether or not there's fuel available. I love Gas Buddy.

I have one comment on the gas hoarding, which there's a lot of gas hoarding going on right now, which is dangerous, for one thing, store all that gas at your home. If you've lived here in Florida, a long time and you've experienced a week or two weeks without power. That was a real problem for getting gas because the gas stations couldn't pump the gas because they didn't have generators.

Most of your major gas stations now have generators. Good point. So a day after the storm, two days after the storm, you can go buy gas. You don't have to hoard 100 gallons of gas and 5 gallon gas cans in your shed and pray that it doesn't catch on fire. Or your limit room. Yeah, you're going to able to get gas next week. Yeah. Why? Why? That's what I keep saying. Don't play with fire. There you go. A little play on words.

Thanks for the call, Frank. That was very timely. Give us a call again. No problem. Like you said, about hoarding the gas, I'm watching people pull in their cars. And all they can squeeze in is another three gallons. So they wait in line for an hour to get three gallons. It's incredible. Yes.

It's insanity. are scared. Yeah. Do crazy things. Again, thanks for what you guys do on the radio. We appreciate it. Thank you, Frank. Call again next week, please.

And folks, as a public service announcement, due to a picture that I have seen that has gone nuts on the internet, please do not put gasoline in anything except an actual approved gasoline fuel can or your car. There's a picture out there. where some guy is filling up five-gallon Home Depot buckets and putting the lids on them to try to transport fuel

in these five-gallon homer buckets. Folks, don't, don't do that. Gasoline only belongs in an approved gasoline can. Rick, there's no cure for stupidity. That's so true, and unfortunately, we're going to see it. But, wow. And don't store your grills with your propane tank. in your house or your garage.

Keep those propane tanks outside. Not to mention, keep your generator away from your windows if you wind up needing to use it. Absolutely. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November.

16th. Ellen? Last thing on a gas. And I see this a lot, even when we're not in a hurricane watch situation, don't fill your gas can up in your trunk.

You have to put your container on the ground. You have to make contact with the opening of that with the nozzle so you don't get static buildup. That's how people catch their cars on fire leaving a gas can in their trunk,

ungrounded and filling them up that way. If you have some kind of a physical limitation to where you can't lift it back in, surely somebody is going to be at that gas station that can lift that back in there for you. Just ask for help. Somebody will help you. But that does happen. It builds static and boom, you lose your car. Yeah, we're all Floridians. If you need help lifting a gas can and somebody's definitely going to help you lift it back in your car for you. Yes, absolutely. information and folks we do have the mystery shopping report that's going to be coming up and that

is from Wayne Acres forward so stay tuned from for that I have a text believe it or not I had one last week about nitrogen and I can't I can't believe I can't digest the fact that some people are still paying for nitrogen last week it was $499 and this week I was just asked a question is nitrogen important to put in your tires and you know I'll let the panel chime in on this but my thoughts are unless you're a race car driver you're at NASCAR driver you need nitrogen guys what do you say well let's make this real fast nitrogen is worthless in tires consumer reports has come up with a study you can google it go go to consumer reports dot org and it is totally

useless. It is nothing to improve the longevity of the tire, fuel economy there's absolutely no valuable value to having nitrogen tires. Car dealers sell it to make a profit and they fool people. Sometimes they pre-install it

and have it as an addendum sticker on the car. Sometimes they tell you if you bring your car back in for service we'll fill up the top it off with the nitrogen and that's just a way to get you back in the service department to sell you another car and do some more service. So nitrogen is worthless in cars.

If you're going to go over to Costco and get it free, that's another, you know, that's another topic. I have another anonymous feedback here. We're talking about Costco. It says, Dear Team, I've listened to the show for at least of the last couple of years, I could like to find an answer to this question.

I'm shopping for a new car and I qualify for Ford's X plan. Would I get a better deal with the X plan or using Costco Auto Buying Program? Also, can you explain how the X plan is calculated? Thanks, love the show. I don't know how the X plan is calculated. We can Google that for you, and we can get the answer. I know a lot of the manufacturers have special plans for employees,

and my guess would be that the X plan is a good deal. I do know this that the X plan and the other manufacturers plan does not provide for the dealer not adding a dealer fee and this is almost comical dealers have dealer fees in South Florida

as I said earlier that average over $1,000. One dealer I know has a dealer fee over $3,000. I say dealer fee multiple fees, three and four fees by different names. So you can come in with a great price on the plan, and then he'll put on $1,000 or $2,000 on top of that price.

So don't feel like you're getting a good price on any plan if you do not control the dealer and have him include his hidden fees in the out-the-door price. Costco, you asked about Costco, Costco has the best plan of any of the third-party sources. Costco's rule is this. If you're a certified Costco dealer, you must have. the lowest price for a Costco member that you will sell that car or have sold that car to any person for. The car dealers don't like the Costco program because of that reason. The Costco program oftentimes is a losing proposition for the dealer, but there are certified Costco dealers.

Well, that said, when you buy from a certified Costco dealer, be very careful and be sure that the dealer installed accessories and the hidden fees, dealer fees, are included in the Costco price because even though Costco says they should be, you have to verify this. Always go online with Costco, register as a Costco member, and deal with the Costco represented

at the dealership, Costco salespeople, but have one or more salespeople with name and sometimes their pictures and deal with them. And I apologize for not knowing the answer about the X plan for Ford. We'll Google that, and we will get back to you later, probably next week.

And Nancy just handed me her iPhone with a whole bunch of information on it, and I'm not going to read it. One was highlighted. Exactly. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us 772-4976530. We're having a whole lot of fun here this morning, being a little silly, sharing some great information with you,

and receiving information from our callers. And we want to take a moment and thank you for that. We're going to go to Adriana, and she's calling from Jupiter. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Hey, Susan. Susan told me to call, so she's listening to. Thank you.

How are you? Okay, so I'm good. I'm good. I'm staying safe. I'm still going to finish putting out my shutters, better safe and sorry. But I do have a question about my car I actually bought my car with you guys And you used car lot

It's the Kia Sportage, 2011 And I drive a lot for work So what I noticed This is right before the hurricane What I noticed That my car It's kind of wobbling a little bit And the steering

It seems ever so slightly loose But not, you know But it's just weird and it just started happening so I wonder if you have any feedback on that yeah that's a worrisome symptom and I can't diagnose it but I bet you Rick has got a better idea than I do yeah I'd like to hear it the first thing I would do is I would get to a mechanic and have that checked it sounds like you might have a loose steering component something may have worn or broken and if one of those linkages gets damaged in

that it breaks totally loose, you could lose steering. So this is something that's very important. I would get it checked by a mechanic. It's possible also that it may simply be something known as a bubble in the tire, where a damage to a tire. If you hit a pothole or something or hit a curb, it can damage the steel belts in the tire, and it'll actually make like a bubble in the tread of the tire,

and you'll feel that every time it hits the ground. But I would get to a mechanic, and have that checked out as soon as you can. Okay, and with that, I mean, I, you know, I don't have a lot of cash flowing around. Is that an expensive fix, generally speaking? If it's just the tire, you'd be looking at the cost of a new tire, which really not too bad. Most cars, you're looking at about $150 to $200. Steering components, that would be, that's something would need to be looked at to figure out what's going on there.

some parts are relatively inexpensive others like the power steering rack itself which that one's pretty unlikely that can be kind of pricey okay well we'll help you out with that we'll help you with that by giving you $50 for calling Earl Stewart on cars how would you like that hey I would love that okay stay on the line and share your contact information with Michael and I'll get that check out to you and give us a call again definitely well thank you guys thank you bye bye how we doing on text uh we just got a new one in and actually two in now uh mel in new york is asking which is the fastest way to remove fog from the windshield warm or cold air and should the airflow be set to recirculate or vent air from the outside and one of the best ways actually is make

sure you have the AC actually turned on the air conditioning. What that does is it helps dry the air that's coming across the evaporator before it flows upwards. As for the temperature, I would set whatever's really comfortable for you. Warm and cold really won't make that huge a difference. It's putting that drier air against that condensation on the inside of the windshield. That's what will help clear it out. And the vented air from the outside is usually best because it's usually not going to be quite as moist as the air inside. Another text? And we do. Let's see. This is from, well, it's just from an anonymous number. So let's say,

if you do research, you will find both the Mercedes and Range Rover. I believe he's speaking to George's question we had earlier, are far down on the reliability rankings. Ooh, I agree. I knew Range Rover was. I should have pointed that out. but Mercedes that surprises me and he goes on to say they become money pits very quickly and I'm guessing this person is also making a comment

for our caller from Michigan with the Prius I recommend a lawyer named Steve Leto L-E-H-T-O he's in Michigan Lemon Law and Consumer Law Attorney Oh let's send that to Ken that's fantastic we'll forward that to Ken

they called in Absolutely. So, Ken, if you're still listening, Steve Leto, L-E-H-T-O. Very good. And we'll talk about a class action suit against Toyota. They have about 5,000 vehicles there in Michigan and Canada that they cannot change from the kilometer to the mile per hour. And they just told them to take a walk, take a hike. There's nothing I can do about it. bought a car in the United States that had kilometers per hour and kilometer odometer and just said that's too bad if you want to get the miles per hour buy another Prius actually it was it was in miles per hour and he wants to take it to Canada for

kilometers yeah exactly okay very good of course playing devil's advocate if the US would just go to the metric system well I ain't gonna happen yeah tell me about www. Ain't going to happen.com. You love saying that, don't you? I was just waiting for an opportunity. Honestly, it sounds great. Real quick, I have a text that's, well, from Pittsburgh again, and they're asking about their tires,

and they're asking whether they should check the PSI, whether the tires are cold or hot, and I can give you that answer. The tires must be cold. And also, you really need to check the pressure in your tires every 30 days. It's amazing. A lot of people just don't realize how important your tire maintenance is. It means everything.

It affects your gas. It affects, Rick? We got another one coming in, but yeah, keep going. You're giving great advice there. Oh, thank you. And that's really about it. Take care of those tires. They'll take care of you.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, in reference to our earlier question on texting in Florida, texting while driving, Patrick says, good morning. The law in Florida recently changed regarding texting and driving. The new law allows police to stop a driver who is texting as a primary offense. Therefore, it's not something they need to pull you over for something else. They can pull you over if they see you texting. I'm a lawyer in real life and I don't play one on TV. Great show, Patrick. Yeah, it's kind of hard for the cops to spot that. They have to see you texting, and, you know, through ten and glass, it's awfully difficult. But hopefully implied threat is enough to get people to behave themselves. Well, and the simple fact that most newer cars now have hands-free systems, I mean, even in my own vehicle, I put a hands-free radio in there to where I can just talk to my radio, and it works. I agree.

You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart-on-Rour. car's program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. I have an email from a person. Rick and Nancy, you remember last week we talked about what happens if you go into a canal and break in the window and we found out that a laminated glass is now being. installed on the side windows and cars, and you can't break the laminated glass with your old hammer that you had that you used to be able to break the glass to get out in case you're in a canal.

And so we had a call, I had an email from Diane Hennessy, and Diane Hennessy is with an outfit called Drowning Prevention Coalition of Palm Beach County. And it's very interesting. Apparently, this is a much bigger problem than we really. realized, especially in West Palm Beach County, Western Palm Beach County has a lot of canals, and she's informing me that Palm Beach County goes from school to school, giving courses and lessons to the kids so they can talk to their parents about this, and she advises people a lot of things we talked about on the show last week, which basically, we all agree,

is if you go into the water, and I hope this doesn't happen anybody, but we're talking hurricane time, and I suppose if there was a time where that danger exists, it's now. If you go into the water, you want to put your side windows down as quickly as possible. And the other thing that came out is you put your sunroof or moon roof open that. That's actually more desirable to get that moon roof open than your sunroof. Now, another interesting thing that was pointed out to me in this conversation I had with Diane Hennessy is that she thinks that you should not try to open your sunroof. door. But there are other people that think you should try. If you open the door, the car's

going to flood quickly, and that's an issue. She thinks that you're better off to leave the door closed, but get your windows down ASAP. And of course, the sunroof or the moon roof. And she also told me about something I didn't know about, but Rick did, and it's a little tool, much smaller than a hammer we talked about last week. It's called, one brand is called a rescue me R-E-S-Q, letter Q and you can buy that on Amazon for about 10 bucks

and it's a little spring-loaded pin that you put in the lower right-hand or left-hand the corner of the glass it pops that glass if it's not laminated and it shatters the glass and you can hang it from your

rearview mirror you can put on your keychain Rick I was just going to say that even on these newer cars with the laminated side windows I wonder if they're laminating the moonroof glass because if not

which and most cars have a the roof glass is a tempered glass that little rescuing tool or a spring loaded center punch is kind of a generic term for it or even those rescue hammers would pop that moonroof glass

into pebbles and give you a nice big escape hatch above your head could the moon roofs be plastic I don't think so So most of them, I'm pretty certain, are glass. Yeah, I don't know. Do you know, Alan? I have never seen a plastic or Lexan sunroof or moon roof. I think they used to do that many years ago, but not anymore.

The other issue that came up in my conversation with Diane Hennessey, the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Palm Beach County. In fact, if you have an interest in that group, you can contact me. It's free. You call the Drowning Prevention Coalition Palm Beach County. they'll appear at your organization, wherever, and put on a presentation on how to survive when your car goes into the water. But an issue is with people being able to fit out of the window.

I mean, you go, they put the window down, and some of the kids were saying, and the classes say, well, my mommy couldn't fit out of the side window, and that is an issue. And maybe the moon roof or the sunroof might be easier, but I'm not even sure. I mean, I'm a big guy.

I'm not sure I could fit out of the window. but something to think about. Absolutely. I think that at one of our A-E-D classes, I was given, you know, one of those little gadgets that, you know, I'm now thinking about, and boy, I'll tell you what, everyone should have them. The name escapes me.

Rick, what is that little, not hammer, but... The rescue me tool? R-E-S-Q, not rescue, R-S-E-E-E, R-S-Q-M-E. It's on Amazon. on for about 10 bucks. Yes, something something, everyone should have in their car. Otherwise, the generic term for it is a spring-loaded center punch. Oh, that's what I was after.

Very good. Okay, folks, we're getting close to Mystery Shopping Report Time, but we can still take some calls. 877-960-99-60. Again, that's 877-960-9-1960, or text us at 772-497-7-6. And, Rick? Al Shukri on YouTube just popped up, said, good morning, guys. Does BJ's Wholesale Club have a buying program? Yes, they do.

I'm not familiar with it. I believe the Costco is a better program, but then again, I'm not familiar with the BJs. Costco is such a good program that the dealers don't like it, because it keeps the dealer too honest. It prohibits the hidden fees. It prohibits the dealer-unsold accessories. And think about this for a minute. The requirement, I'm a certified Costco dealer, so I speak from experience.

If I sell the car to Rick right now, and I gave them a really, really low price, and you're a Costco member, I'm contractually obligated as a Costco dealer to sell the Costco member for less than I sold the car to Rick. So that's pretty strong. and you can see whether those don't like it because it actually can be a losing situation for a card dealer. So they'll try to mickey mouse it, and that's where you want to be careful. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, what we're going to do right now is we're not going to be taking any more calls.

We're going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report. That, as always, I encourage you to be part of that mystery shopping report and I'll vote on it, and you can do so at 772-497-65-30. to the recovering car dealer. Okay, our mystery shopping report this week was of Wayne Acres Ford. And let me remind all of you

that if you're looking to buy a car, we have a list called good dealer, bad dealer, list.com. And you can access that on our blog, Erlawncars.com. And we use the feedback from the mystery shopping reports largely to populate

these two lists. Now with that said, on our recommended list, we recommend, with a caveat, that there are no perfect car dealers, and you should always be buyer beware. We have this conversation every time we issue a score, because after I read the mystery shopping report, Per Wain Acres Ford, we'll ask you to vote, failing road, either an A, B, C, D, or F. If you fail them, then we put them on our do not buy list. there's a tendency sometimes to want to fail a lot of dealers, sometimes all dealers,

because they usually have something that happens that irritates the listeners. And we have to remind you we grade on the curve. Because if we graded strictly, absolutely, and we had nobody on the recommended list, then there'd be no place to buy a car in Florida. So on the recommended list, buyer beware. And I just want to be sure you understand that. Okay. Mystery Shopping Report.

Wayne Acres Ford. We intended to investigate our old friends, the Arrigo brothers, originally, to see if they could, if they would sell our mystery shop, a used vehicle with a deadly Takadier bag recall. However, I'm pleased to report that after a thorough scouring of their used inventories, our team could find not a single vehicle afflicted with the stage of recall. Now, the reason we say that about Arrigo, Arrigo is the largest Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, a ram dealer, in Florida. They have three extremely large dealerships, one in Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, one in West Palm Beach, and one in Fort Pierce. Very large, high volume, very visual. You see

the Arrigo brothers advertise a lot. And I sued the Arrigo brothers a couple of years ago. We litigated, and I sued them for selling cars with defective to cut airbags. During the litigation process, Arrigo agreed not to sell any cars they stopped selling actually they were interviewed on Channel 5 WPTV and John O'Rigo said or Jim Arrigo said that we do not any longer sell cars with defective

Takata airbags and so we'd like to say that this is true not only of the Rigo but a lot of the car dealers are not selling cars and we find out that the amount of vehicles that we're able to find with defective tecotta airbags is novel. That's not to say these cars aren't being sold. They are being sold somewhere.

They don't disappear. I think some are being exported. And I think a whole lot of them are being sold by independence, like CarMax, offlease-only.com, what is some of the other? There's H. Gregg. There are a lot of new names out there. Well, and not to mention, all these little car lots that are all over, U.S. 1 and all over military trail.

So, a buyer beware when you buy you's car, and you can protect yourself, job, just by going to safercar.org. S-A-F-E-R-C-R-G-R-G-R, not gov, I always say, or safercar.gov, G-O-V, and you can put your VIN number in, protect yourself when you buy used car, because you

won't be protected by law, and you won't be protected by the manufacturer. So kudos to the Rigo's for not having any Ticada airbags for sale in their inventory at this time, and that's in all three of their dealerships. I'd like to think we've done our part in helping to clean up Dodge, so to speak, with respect to the Takata vehicles. The expenses of these cars has been noticeably less prevalent in recent months. So we turn our attention back to our show routes, exposing the dirty tricks of old-school Baiton's switch, deception, and advertising, and sales.

It didn't take too long for our analysts to discover an advertisement that appeared too good to be true. The adding question was from Wayne Acres Ford, there in Lake Worth, Lake Worth Road. It listed a handful of vehicles with incredibly low prices. What Carter, Iowa, was a special offer for a new 2019 Ford EcoSport for only $14,995. It's a good price. This is a tempting offer. As always, we sent in the venerable Agent Thunder to investigate. We don't use the real names because, you know.

It would be dangerous. It would be dangerous, yeah. A report, and I read in the first person as if I were the shopper. I arrived around 3 o'clock and was pleasantly surprised by the showroom. It was clean, modern, staff seemed warm and friendly. I was introduced to a salesperson named Rolanda. I told him I was interested in a small SUV. particularly the Ford Echo Sport I saw online advertised for $14,995.

I mean, that's a low price for a new car today. He told me, I have some bad news. There was only one vehicle in stock at that price, and it's on hold for a customer. However, they hadn't taken delivery yet, he said, and there was a chance that may become available. Explain that he could show it to me, but I wouldn't be allowed to drive it, naturally,

It was pre-sold. It was beginning to appear that this was a classic bait-and-switch. But surprisingly, Rolando said that he could order another one for me just like it. Oh, that's refreshing. So maybe they sold a bunch of them at that price. Maybe. He walked me over to the vehicle, and he did a quick presentation. I checked out the window sticker and saw that the MSRP was $20,290.

As a selling price online was listed at $14,995, this would represent a $6,000 discount off of MSRP. Now, remember that was MSRP, that's good, that's the Monroney label, not Dittalist or an addendum label, just a Monroney label. I was incredulous about being able to buy the car at that number. I truly was. I gently pressed the issue by asking to see a purchase order for that. that eco-sport at the advertised price. I told him I was very curious to see how they got the price so low. He replied by saying there are several rebates on this model.

Apparently Ford was doing their best to move these ecosports. I'll tell you when I got this far, the thought that entered my mind was, ah, unattainable rebates like loyalty rebate, I'm a farmer rebate, I'm the active military rebate, I'm a college graduate in the last six months from a four-year accredited college rebate, all these rebates that you can't qualify for. Yeah, that's what I thought.

The selling price, well, he returned with a completed buyer's order, and the selling price was $19,910, and that was a discount of $1,080 off the $20,000. NMSRP. Well, that's

not much. To this, added their dealer services charge, okay, they all got them, right? Dealer services charge was $799, and something called an EFS, which was to find is their e-filing fee in the fine print, and that was $99. And there was $6.50 for a tire battery fee, that's legitimate, and it was $1,299 in sales tax. That's legitimate, and $400 for registration. They deducted, here's the big one, they deducted $4,915 in rebates. This left me with a drive-off price of $17,638, which is, what do I say, the $14,995 was the advertised price.

So that is lower than the advertised price. Before I left, Rolanda's manager came by to thank me for the visit and assured me they would honor of the advertised price if that vehicle became available or if they had to locate another car for me. This is truly, truly amazing, astonishing. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th. Agent Thunders report was a bit surprising. We were curious to see how they came up with a $4,915 in rebase.

We had him contact Rolando, the salesman, the next day, to see if he could itemize these. He sent a picture of an incentives bulletin that listed $915 in summer sales event retail bonus customer cash. That's legitimate. $3,500 retail bonus customer cash and $500 select inventory retail customer cash. Now this all sounds legitimate, and I don't see any qualifications here. The total $4,950 just as he told me. So if you subtract that from the 19,910, that equals the advertised price of $14,995.

Now this doesn't include the $8998 and their other dealer fees. When I looked at their vehicle buyer's order, I saw something that was not shown into the description. And that was another electronic filing fee, but that was a small amount. So we have here almost a pristine shopping report. Now, in full transparency and disclosure, You know I'm a recovering car dealer, and I do have a car dealership. I also have to say that the owner of Wayne Acres Ford is a friend of mine, a colleague

I've known for many years. His name is Les Acres. Now he has a partner who is the active partner in this dealership. Les has the toilet dealership in Tallahassee, and that's how I know him. And he's in something called a 20 group, and everybody knows what a 20 group is. this to our listeners, car dealers join these groups for reasons of improving their business and they form a group of members. They exchange financial statements, ideas, and they go to meetings three times a year, and we become friends and colleagues. So Les Acres, I thought I was being

daring to Mystery Shop Les. And what a pleasant surprise that he came off what I consider a really good report. So, Les, if you're listening, I love you, buddy. And thanks for not embarrassing me having to tell the world that you're my friend. I miss talking to that guy. Absolutely. Now, you're still doing the dealer fees and the hidden fees, and I don't like that. But you're really a class act to be able to advertise a car at a low price and agree not only to sell it at that price, but to order one at the same price and get it for the customer.

So before we even do the grading, I'm going to recommend all the listeners. if you want to buy a Ford and you're in South Florida Wayne Acres Ford they treat your right but you can argue with them about the dealer fees anyway now do we have any

votes from our listeners we're waiting for texts come in for the votes let's go around to the panel I'll start with you Rick how do you want I'm I'm kind of shocked here

but I'm going to go with an A-minus if they let go of the dealer fees, it would be an A-plus. But I'm only going to hit them just a tiniest bit for the dealer fee. But I would say if you're looking for a Ford, Wade Acres is the place to be. Yeah. How about you, Alan? Well, I really, really, really like less.

And Al. Oh, you know, Les. I forgot because he came into our dealership. Yeah. Well, my wife worked for him for years. Oh, I. I forgot about that. Oh, I like his Christmas parties.

Yeah. Okay, we're not taking your vote. Your bites. I really, really like less. This doesn't seem like a setup, isn't it? Al Young, the managing partner, he's a great guy. It's good to his people. This particular shop, I would give them a B-plus.

But that being said, because I've bought cars there, and I've walked his lot, and they have a lot of addendum labor. They preload cards with stripes and wind a tent and this and that. And as an overall, I'm going to give them a C-plus because those addendum labels still bother me. I didn't know about the denim labels, but we didn't see that in the shopping report. Yeah, not on a special. You know, I didn't know what an eco-boost was. I had you Google it. I still know.

It is a freaking cute little SUV. It's a four-door SUV. kind of like a Rav4, a cool spare cover on the back. That's a lot of car for $14,000, even if it is a stripped-down version. It is. If it's a first car or just a weekend go to the beach car, what a great deal. Well, you notice they didn't have a lot on the stock, but the fact that they ordered a lot of dealers said, I'm sorry we sold that car, but he agreed to order the car, which is almost unheard of

in our Mr. Jobbing reports. Yeah, that's a heck of a deal. Nancy? I just have to go with my gut feeling and that is, gosh, I just hate that dirty little word and a.k.a. the dealer fee, it isn't necessary. Therefore, even though I do have a relationship with less, I do have to give them a B. Rarely am I the high grader. I'm going to give Wayne Inkers for an A. And the reason I do that, I go back to my curve. All the dealers charge, the hidden fees, all the dealers charge

dealer fees, I don't like them but if everybody does it and you're grading on the curve you really can't follow them. I'm telling you, I don't think we've ever shopped a dealer that had a low-price car advertised

that they agreed to sell the car and if they didn't sell the car they would order one just like it at the same price. I've never seen that. Rick? Well, we did get Mark from Iowa, came in with a B-plus-plus. Yeah.

It's refreshing, isn't it? Usually what happens is the call-in votes, the ones on Facebook, and the rest of them, and the techs are very, very low. But I think anybody that's ever shopped and bought a car in Florida would agree this is an outstanding report. And I'm going to send a copy of the report to Les, and maybe we'll give them a plaque or something. Okay, well, don't tell them how I voted. Rick, is that all the votes that came in? At the moment. I think folks may be kind of...

There's a storm out there. Yeah. That's very unusual. They're kind of keeping their eyes open for this situation. We're in kind of a tight situation right now with this boring. Absolutely. Folks talking about dealer fees, that dirty little wild secret that I shared with you earlier, let me share with you Earl's latest column, and that's dealing with hidden fees,

a.k.a. dealer fee and you can excuse me, the mayor's calling. Here's the hometown or the Florida Weekly. That's appearing in this week's Florida weekly. Yeah, exactly. I was about to get to that and it's really, it's profits

to the dealer. So buyer beware, knowledge is power. And you can also read Earl's column, The Box, and that's in the hometown news. Or you can go to Erwin Cars and pull those columns up. Yeah, the box is dealer vernacular for the F&I department, and dealers have a lot of interesting vernacular.

That's one of the few I can say on the air. Some of the vernacular I couldn't repeat. That's absolutely right. Okay. If we're running low on text, I would like to renew my challenge to all the dealers out there. I think it would be so much fun that someone, how about less? Less Acres. You're my buddy. Do you want to debate me about the dealer fee? And we could do it just for, you know, $20 or something. I'd like someone to sit in the studio with me. And it would be set up by the rules of debate that they have where each party gets to state their case. And then they have a rebuttal. And we go back and forth. And the premise would be, in Florida, the dealer fee should be made illegal. And I'd love to have someone at a car dealer. preferably at least a general manager, and hopefully the dealer themselves,

they could tell me what they have, tell me the purpose of the dealer fee and the fact that they believe it should not be made illegal. I think that'd be fun. And I'd be willing to bet we could probably find someone from like Palm Beach State College or something that would come in even as a guest judge, someone that would have absolutely no dog in that fight, but simply be here as an impartial judge. Exactly.

My premise of my argument, I'll tell you my argument before you come on, is if the dealer fee, a lot of dealers say that we have to have fees because we have to make a profit and we have to be able to sell our cars and make money into car business,

especially new car business, is so competitive today. Without the dealer fees, we would lose money. I agree with you. But put the dealer fee in the advertised price of your car. And when you quote a price on the phone or buy email or put it on a billboard or television or online, include all of your costs. If you have extra fees like some of the hidden fees that rental car companies have, some of the hidden fees that airlines have, you know, baggage fees and things like that, all fees, all costs should be included in the price. And that's my premise.

So if you have something out there that you feel is legitimate that I missed, debate me. That's all I'm saying. We can take a call 877-960-99-60. We still have a few minutes, and we also have our text number for you those two timid to call. And that's 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. And I'm going to ask Nancy to talk about her form that she invented. It's called an out-the-door price affidavit.com.

Tell us about that, Nancy, will you? Okay, but there is something I want to mention before we get to that real quick. I'm holding it up. The Attorney General can definitely help us out on these dangerous recalls, these Takata bags. How many deaths does there have to be? Please, Ashley Moody. help us please uh now we'll get to the uh tool for an honest price uh that i invented and uh you know i was just sitting and i was just wondering how can we insure an out-the-door price it's so easy so

i decided to put this form together and you can take that and uh you can fax it or you can email it to whatever dealership that you're dealing with and you can ensure an out-the-door price the price that you either saw in an advertisement, no matter what it is. And also, here's a bonus, no dealer fees, no fees of any kind added on to the price that you're quoted. So go to Earl on Cars and download that form, a tool for an honest price from a car dealer at last. The acid test, by the way, for an out-the-door price on fees, is the fact that the fees that they do, there are legitimate fees, are government fees. If they're government fees, if you're in Florida,

sales tax is a government fee, registration, license plates of government fee. If the dealer pays that fee to the government, it's legitimate. Anything else that he calls a fee, if it's not government, it's added a profit. We have a text. And I also forgot to mention dealer accessory. Dealer accessories. I mean, they add so much on to the price of the car. and our text here is from Steve in New Jersey

he says I have a 2011 outback with black body side plastic the trim panels the plastic side panels are weathered how can I remove this Alan that one's right up your alley boss there are several products available the most common being armor all which is kind of messy

and slimy the I think you're going to want to look for a product called black magic because what happens is those start getting that bleached white gray look and armor all just stay on there for a couple days but the black magic a lot of used car reconditioning guys and that old black magic that old black magic uh look for a product called black magic it's good stuff it'll stay on there for quite some time and it almost makes it well it does make it look new for at least a month six weeks two months then you're going to have to apply it. Does that work on when you're waxing the car and you get wax onto those plastic panels?

Does it get the wax off there? Because that, it's tough to get it back off. I don't think so. You're always better off spending an extra minute or two masking that off like you were going to paint because it's tough getting wax out of a textured black plastic like that. So take an extra 10 minutes in your wax job and just run a piece of tape over that and then wax up to the tape and pull it back off. Great advice. Okay, how about you want to time? Great information. We have about three minutes. Okay, let me put a plug in for automotive news here. This is the current issue of automotive news. You know, and even if you're not,

a car dealer, a manufacturer, there's a whole lot of excellent information. You can subscribe online. I've been getting it for 50 years. I read it cover to cover. And it's inside information. So even though you're not a car dealer or a manufacturer you can really find out what's going on. Interesting stuff you can't find out insider is really good to have and help you buy

a car maybe. Maybe help you decide which is a good car and which is not so good. Find out all the good gossip that's going on inside. And if you have any questions, just give us a call. Tina from Benita Springs, one of our best female callers.

She subscribes to the automotive news. Yeah, a lot of great information in there. And some of the ladies that I've spoken to have are now receiving automotive news, because like I said, there's a whole lot of great information in there. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to thank all of you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars, and I hope we have kept you entertained and informed. And from all of us here at Earl Stewart on Cars, I want to thank Jonathan for his participation.

and Mike, and what a great job these guys do. And we're a team, and we wouldn't do it, be able to do it without you. So I have to say stay safe, and we will be right back here next Saturday morning. Thank you. You're listening to the best of the Earl Stewart on Cars program. If you have a question, text it to 772-4976530 or online at Your Anonymous Feedback.com and we'll answer it during our next live show on November 16th.