Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.16.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Sunshine Used Car Sales

Episode Date: November 16, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits a local used car dealer to see if they will honor their "No Dealer Fee" pledge. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “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 Mystry Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

I really am wide now. We've been gone for a couple of weeks, and my apologies to all you folks that probably tuned in and thinking we were on a live show. But we took a vacation. Nancy and I do that every year. Believe it or not, we had a great vacation. It was a cruise kind of a thing. And we're happy to be back.

We truly are. We're back in the saddle, and we're happy to be here. We love this show. And we got Rick and I got Stu, and we got the whole gang with us this morning. I just do a little refresher for you folks who maybe haven't listened to the show before or watch it because we are streaming

and we're all over the planet, really. We're a show about how not to be ripped off by car dealers, how not to be taken advantage of, both in the service departments and the sales departments. And we're kind of an ancient business. I say we, because I am a car dealer in full disclosure, I'm a recovering car dealer.

I've been doing this for, well, 1968. How long is that? A long, long time. 51 years. Oh, how many? Fifty one years. It's easy for me to remember. It was the year I was born. Maybe you inspired me.

My age is your length of service in the car business. Amazing. Anyway, the essence of the show are your questions and your comments. This is really what we beg you to participate because oftentimes, I mean, I say this. People think I'm just saying it, but I learn something every show from you. The questions you are asked, the comments you make, and we learn from you, you learn from us, It's kind of a synergy thing. And we would love to call us at 877-9-60-99-60.

That's 877-9-60-9-60. Now, that's just the old-fashioned way you can call us, but we love it. We'd like to hear your voice. And you can text us. We're getting a huge number of texts. I'd like to see a lot of texts this morning. Area code 772-497-6530. That's area code 7-7.

I'm a little nervous, to be honest with you, because we've been gone and you've tuned in, and we've had a recorded show, and we want to be sure that spread the word. We're back, we're here, we're back live, and we'd like to hear your comments and criticisms. We even have an anonymous feedback, which is controversial. A lot of companies are adopting this now. You've heard of the whistleblower controversy. There's a huge amount of controversy about whistleblowers. Well, this isn't a whistleblower, but it's a anonymous way you can say anything you want to us.

And we don't know who we are, and we just take the comment, we talk about it. We consider all comments, even maybe the mean-spirited ones, but there are not too many of those. Most of them are quite good. And it's youranonymousfeetback.com. www. Youranonymousfeedback.com. A lot folks like to communicate with us that way, for no ulterior motive. They just prefer to remain anonymous.

I mean, what's wrong with that? So we'll go on, we'll get along with the show, and I'm going to start out with Rick Kearney to tell us a little bit about him, tell you a little about him. I know all about Rick, and he's been with me for a long time, but I defy you, I dare you, as I said on the introduction, to ask Rick Kearney anything about the mechanics or the electronics of a car that he can't answer. This guy knows his stuff. He's been doing it for a long time.

Rick? Good morning, everybody. I am here. Ready to answer questions. Even on the old cars, right? I mean, it isn't all about high tech, which is most cars are high tech today, computerized, but we've got a lot of older people out there listening

that are still driving stick ships and got carburetors and spark plugs and a lot of. of the old stuff that... We do see old cars every day and then in the shop and truth be told, I get a lot of friends and family that ask me about their older cars. A lot of folks love to keep antiques

and having a basic knowledge of cars. Yeah, I can usually answer some pretty good questions on stuff like that. And Rick is on top of the modern science, which is really challenging and going like the speed of light today. Cars today are hard.

to diagnose their computers. And Rick has to take courses all the time, stays in school, a lot of the time, online and otherwise, to stay on top of the technology. Every new model comes out now has the technology that has to be learned. In the old days, a car was a car, was a car. Today, every new model year, you've got brand new things we've got to learn. Absolutely.

Things are changing so fast now that cell phones are completely integrated to the cars. you can almost control your car completely with the phone and yeah I know Elon Musk he's got his Tesla's that are doing some really cool things but everybody's coming out with the newer stuff Audi's got electric cars on the market now BMWs had them out for a while Mercedes Nissan's got electric cars everybody's coming electric everything's going electronic and all computer controlled isn't there some statistic like most people only know

about 40% of the capabilities of their car now. Yeah. In the back, used to know everything. Yeah, yeah. So if you got a question about your car, whether it's an older or newer car, if you have a newer car, you probably have questions about this. Stu just said, the capability. What's this button for?

What's this switch? Why does it do this? What does it mean when the check engine light comes on? What should I do? You call Rick at 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-99-60. Rick at 772-497-6530. Again, that text number is 772-4976530. Stu, who is my son, and I introduced him earlier, the recorded introduction.

But kind of the most interesting thing that Stu is in charge of is our mystery shopping report. We call him the Spymaster, and it's unique as something that you won't see or hear anywhere else. Stu tell us a little bit about mystery shops. Well, it is an exciting thing I get to do every week, but it was nice to have a break for the last three weeks because it is a lot of hard work. We have secret agents that we, they're highly trained, and they're familiar with the car business.

You've got to know the car business. Yeah, and we send them into situations that we think are similar to real life situations. So they'll go in there and respond to an ad. usually with an offer that we think might sound a little too good to be true, something that you might find on Ain't Gonna Happen.com. And we see if they actually honor the ad. We also are on a two years into a campaign to expose the practice of selling used cars

with unfixed Takata airbag recalls. Or any dangerous recall for that money. Yeah, we focus on the Takata recalls probably because it's the most dramatic and, well, it is sensational. but it is it's a really scary thing and it kind of like served as the symbol of this whole problem that there is lots of regulations

with new vehicles and manufacturers and their dealers can't sell new vehicles with unfixed recalls but use cars there is no limits the sky is the limit and they do what they want to do so so week after week we get out there and we try and find out what's going

on and we we expose it on the air and we name names and we It's the good and bad and the ugly, as we like to say here on the show. And we also give credit where credit is due. If they do a good job, we put them on a recommended dealer list. And we actually have more dealers on the recommended dealer list than we do on the do not recommend list. That gives us any sense of credibility here. Yeah, unfortunately, we can't video or record this legally.

We'd love to, believe me. We'd love to have a hidden recorder or even video. But that's prohibited by law. So what we do do is report it accurately, precisely, truthfully. And it must be so because we've never been sued in 17 years on the air. We said a lot of pretty dangerous things if we weren't telling the truth. You know, if you lie about a company, you get sued. And we don't do that.

We're very careful. And we re-examined car dealers that we give bad scores to. that don't do well. We re-examine car dealerships that we give good scores to. So we try to be fair and we try to have a balance. We actually have more recommended dealers on our list than we do not recommended dealers on the list. But the mystery shopping report, if you haven't ever seen the show or watched the show, heard it with the mystery shopping report. Stay tuned is in the second half of the show.

And I promise you, you will be enthralled and you will be interested, entertained, and educated. I promise. That's right. And to my left is my wife, and she is a co-host. She's been with me since the get-go on Earl Stewart on Cars. And she's a very strong advocate for the female component of our audience. And we do a lot of things to encourage the ladies in the audience to participate. Nancy, tell us what your mission is. well I want to say good morning to everybody we're so happy to be back and we hope that you'll stay with us this next two hours and some of what I do and we do is to sort out the good the bad and the ugly and we touch on so many topics and we certainly hope we have helped you along the way and for the ladies well we have an important invitation for you. And that is to reward you for giving us a call this morning. And for the first two new lady callers, we have $50 for each one of you. You're an important part of the buying process, the servicing process in the auto industry. And I can't emphasize enough. It is important to hear from you. In the past, there have been a few ladies that have shared with me.

There are just a little bit, well, nervous to call in. So give us a call. We encourage you. If you're nervous, we'll help you along the way. Is our call screen working okay? I see the box here. I tried to play with that, but I'll get back with it in a second. Stu, maybe you could come over here and take a look at that.

If we get a call, be sure we see it. So anyway, give us a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I'm watching the street. www. www.orgononymousfeedback.com. You can make any comments you want, ask a question, whatever you want to do. and we do not know your identity.

Yeah, you will be, you know, you will remain anonymous. That's a great site, and it's a great way for you to voice your opinion. That's www.W., your anonymous feedback.com. Again, that phone number, 877-960-9960. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I'll be right back. Okay, like I say, we thrive on your questions. We're having a little technical difficulty with our laptop that is supposed to show

the phone calls. So we're going to check to see if we have any phone calls that we don't know about. We know if you send us a text because Stu is monitoring the text at 772 4976530 at 772

4976530. And of course, Rick Kearney who is our YouTube monitor. Do we have any YouTube yet? We do not yet. I think our YouTube listeners may be sleeping a little this morning, but we are monitoring both YouTube channels for Earl Stewart on cars

and Earl Stewart Toyota. And text. Do we have any text coming in, Stu? We do have some text coming in, but I just restarted my computer before I walked over there. Yes, absolutely. I was having nightmares about the show for the last two weeks because we do have some new tech

features here in the studio. We have a whole new camera system, and we also have been, we're a little rusty, so forgive us. But we can talk about cars. We don't need computers. We can just talk about cars all day long. But actually, we'll get to the questions in a second. I'll pull them up and about. As a matter

of fact, interesting note. We just recently had a customer drive into the shop with the new Lexus LFA. If you've ever seen one of those, that's the Lexus supercar that is like what are those two, like almost half a million dollar car?

Yeah, it's like a race car. It was. It was. It was. What's what you're doing? Well, in our dealership. He would be stopping in for some parts for his other Toyota, this other cars, but I've got to tell you, it's kind of cool. Being a car guy, you know, loving cars like I do, to have a car like that pull up and just to hear the sound of that engine. Yeah. Absolutely. It makes your heart race a little.

It's cool. Yeah, I bet it does make your heart race. Hey, we're going to go to our first female caller, and her name is Barb. Welcome to the show, Barb. still with us barb hey barb hey jude good morning good morning hey we hear barb welcome i i i i'm glad you're um back live on the radio love listening well thank you very much oh thank you um i have i i have a 2019 Dodge Caravan

and I was surprised that it takes more oil than the 5 quarts. But it says you can use regular oil or the synthetic. I didn't know what to do, what to use. Well, Barb, I'll

let Rick follow up with my answer because I'm an amateur at this, but one oil is your fossil, they call the fossil your regular oil is about half as expensive as the synthetic, but you do have to change the oil about twice as often. So it's kind of a kind of a wash in terms of cost these days. My feeling is just, you know, put myself in the consumer role, I would stick with the

synthetic. It is a little bit better oil, and it has to be changed only half the time. And that is going to save your time from having to come into the dealership or the, you Jeffrey Louber, wherever you go. Rick, what do you think about that? Yeah, some modern cars actually do take their capacity, how much oil they need in the engine. Some of them can be as high as eight quarts.

And although the synthetic does get a little more expensive, like Earl says, it's good for 10,000 miles in most cases. And you'll want to check the owner's manual on that because some manufacturers actually extend that number and some reduce it a little bit. so just check with the owner's manual but if they recommend that you can use either or

you do have a choice it's probably not a good idea to mix those oils so if you know if your engine was low on oil you'd want to add in whatever oil is in there now but if you wanted to switch over to regular dinosaur oil the fossil oil it's not going to hurt

anything at all as long as it's on that recommendation why is it bad to mix the oil well it's a thing of mixing the weight of the oil it can cause chemical just it does a weird chemical reaction sometimes

and it causes the oil not to flow as properly and one of the basic properties of oil what is mainly there for is to reduce heat in the engine it's actually getting out so you recommend you never mix it

so what you would say if you want to switch from the synthetic to fossil or vice versa drain your oil completely and start fresh Exactly. Barb, then answer your question? Yes. Thank you so much, guys.

Hey, Barbara, hang on a second. This is the first time you call the show, right? Yes. You know, we've got $50 cash for you, and we would like to send you a check. Nancy Stewart will send you a check for $50. If you just stay on the line, then the guy in the control room is going to get your contact information

so you don't have to give it out over the air. and Nancy will mail you a check for $50. Barb, thank you so much for calling. We're trying to build a platform here for the ladies. And, you know, we just implore to them every Saturday morning that their calls are very important, their questions, and I have to honestly say to you that someone are very nervous, and I'm glad you took it upon yourself to give us a call this morning,

and I'll get that check out to you, and your content. information. Thank you again. Okay. I think we got some text over here. Steve, you guys have a great day. Thank you, Barb. You do the same. 877-960-99-60, and we are going to I'll give you the text number again, 772-497-6530.

Remember your anonymous feedback.com. We want to hear from you, and we're going to go to Michelle who's been holding. Good morning, Michelle. Good morning. How are you? Well, thank you. Are you a first-time caller? Yes, I am. Oh, beautiful. Thank you for calling.

What can we do for you? I have a question. I believe it's probably for Rick. We purchased the vehicle from you guys about six months ago, and we opted for the lifetime warranty. So I'm just trying to find out after the Toyota Care is finished, and we start with the lifetime warranty. We're trying to get like an estimate cost of what our visits will be.

after that? Well, Michelle, your visit should be by the factory owner's manual, by the Toyota. I'm assuming you bought a Toyota. And whatever the Toyota owner's manual recommends is what you should do. If you're going into a dealership, oftentimes they'll recommend visits more often or more services. A good rule of thumb is just stick strictly with the owner's manual recommendation. They're going to tell you to come in. Toyota will tell you to come in typically every 10,000 miles or every six months or 10, or 5,000 miles. And you can count on that. That will keep your car in warranty.

It'll keep your car sound and safe. And your extended warranty that you're referring to will remain into effect. Okay. Well, we have a 2019 Tacoma four-wheel drive. I was just trying to kind of get maybe like an estimate of what it would cost once the Toyota Care is done. It's typically your tire, most of the maintenance that consists of tire rotations and oil changes. So you're going to do two tire rotations a year, and that's roughly about $20 to $24, something like that. Then a synthetic oil change depends on the size of the engine, but on a probably, pardon?

$80 for an oil change. You'll do that once a year. On the 30,000 mile intervals, there's usually a little bit more stuff to do, like some, like my filter or something like that. The Tacoma, Rick, might be able to advise on that. Engineer filter and cabin filter, which total together should be about $80. And the only other thing that you'll need is at 100,000 miles. Actually, I beg your pardon, on the Tacoma, it'll be 120, I believe, for the engine coolant and the differential service and the transfer case and front. differential and those I'm going to say probably about $200 total at 120,000 miles and let's see

what else is there again at 120,000 miles would be the spark plugs as spark plugs on that are going to run a little bit more just a ballpark figure I'm going to say about $250. Okay. Michelle's amazing. It's amazing how low the maintenance cost now is on modern car. You've got a brand new car, a truck, and the cost of maintenance today is far less than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It was really expensive. So in the first two or three years, it's virtually nothing, and then after that, it's much lower. So I would still say this, though, as your truck gets older, shop around and compare prices.

You've got your owner's manual right there, and you should read it, and you're coming up on. a particular mileage, 50,000 or 100,000 miles, look and see what's recommended, and then check with a couple of sources. You don't have to have your car maintained at a toilet dealership. You can have it maintained anywhere, but be sure you keep your receipts and check with your, you can check the prices on your cost of your maintenance. Well, just for the Earl Stewart Lifetime warranty on the engine drive line, she would need to have it done at our dealership for that particular.

For our, you can do it anywhere. Really? Oh, okay. I wasn't aware of that. Yes. I am corrected. And Michelle, besides thanking you for calling, and I'll get that check out to you. I just want to let you know that it's just amazing whenever you take care of these simple maintenance things for your vehicle.

And it's amazing that, you know, these vehicles run up to 300,000 miles now with the way. they're made and taken care of so I hope we answered all your questions and stay in the line Michelle we got 50 bucks for you and we'll get your contact information and mail you check for $50. Thank you very much. Thank you for the goal.

Give us a call again. Spread the word. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and we are going to go to the star of the show And that is Tina from Benita Springs. Oh, we missed Tina.

Hi, how did you guys enjoy your time off? Oh, we had a great time. But we missed you. We missed your voice. And we just hung upon you. Benita, if you're listening. She didn't believe us. We really did miss you.

Please call back. Give us a call back. 877960-9960. 772-497-6530. We have a whole lot to get to. Tina, I really apologize. I'm embarrassed that we do these things. Those things happen.

We're a bunch of amateurs. We do our best. I'm back. Oh, there you are. I knew you wouldn't give up. Yeah, I don't know what happened. It just kind of got kicked off there for a second. Thank you, Tim.

I was reading a news article, and apparently there is a fairly new group of people. I mean, you think of women getting taken advantage of at the auto dealership or older people, but millennials are the ones that really have to watch. The reason why is because the millennial age group, they're getting married, they're having kids, and as their life changes, they need to get a car that can reflect the life change. And unfortunately, a lot of the millennials, they have the highest amount of bad credit scores just from student loans and everything else and just various to other circumstances. but they're the most targeted for subprime loans.

And what's happening is these millennials are purchasing a vehicle. They have a couple kids. They realize, oh, my goodness, I really need an SUV. So their car is not paid off. They trade that in. They get another car, and they can end up having a $25,000 car that they owe $45,000. That's right. And this is not uncommon.

And I heard a story of two roommates. They were living in Hawaii, and I guess the one roommate had to get a, a vehicle, but other one didn't have one. Well, long story short, they ended up with this 84-month loan, and now they're paying $900 a month on this vehicle. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that is the number of people that are trading

in cars, they say negative equity. It's also known as being upside down underwater. But, yeah, it's, unfortunately, the car dealers are motivated to push to finance these cars because

they make more money, finance. the car than they do selling it. The profit on a new car sale is about half of what the profit is on the financing of that same new car. We get this information from public companies like Auto Nation and Sonic and Penske Auto Group because their information, they're publicly held company, they have to publish the information. And the Auto Nation, for example, makes about $2,000 when they finance a car. So as you can see, if they can get a customer, to come in with a lot of negative equity and roll that negative equity over into the next car loan, then their profit potential is even higher.

The more you finance, the more you make when you're a car dealer. Well, I think for someone that's a millennial or younger, rather than buying a car for the moment, like sports car or something like that, I'm not saying that's wrong because I've had sports cars before. but I think it moves you to really take stock in your future, like five to ten year future and see where you're going to be and buy a car to reflect that rather than buying a car for the moment and then realizing, oh, I'm married, I have two kids, now I need another vehicle, and then not having the balance paid on the first vehicle, and then getting

yourself into financial situation. That's right. It's going to be a lot of foresight. And another thing I've noticed, sort of as in the side, I've noticed you're listening. to the show that we don't really have a lot of millennials calling in on the show. I would say the demographic is maybe 45 years of age and older. So I think it would be really neat if more millennials called the show because they're a targeted group with these car finance companies.

Well, that's true. Why is that, Stu? They don't listen to the radio or what? It could be. I mean, but we do, I mean, we're out there on, you know, on social media as well. But to Tina's point, you know, I mean, I'm a general. Xer with Rex or Gen Xer. You guys are silent. You guys are silent, you know, greatest generation. But yeah, I think most millennials, they don't have all the experience and haven't

like live this. And we call it a stereotypical car dealership experience, but it's not stereotypical. It's the actual cardiolish experience. And it's just something that's more new to them. Also on your point on something they need to watch out about is also doing these extended loan, extended term loans, the 84 month loans, which are becoming more. more and more popular and pushed by dealers, it's really tempting to get that lower payment, but you're going to be stuck in that car for a much longer time. And like you said, wind up in a situation like, you know, describe, you know, a ton of money on a car. But yeah, we could probably do a better job, maybe trying to promote the show on social media

and trying to get some more younger listeners to call in because, like, they are targeted. Well, this brings about a question. how long should a car loan be for? Is the ideal of 48 months? Is it five years? Well, the shorter, the better. When do you want to cut that off and say, uh-uh, no? I'd say over five years, 60 months to me is like the longest.

If you take care, I think it depends. If you can lock in a low rate for longer, if you accept the fact that you're going to be keeping your car longer, and this is your plan, then there's nothing wrong with a longer car loan. If you get a good rate and good financing, and you're going to keep your car, 20 years ago, or let me go back even 30 or 40 years ago, we used to tell people 36 months or 24 months. People that financed the 36 months, we'd encourage them to try to do it for 24 months.

But back then, cars cost $8,000 or $10,000. Today, people are paying $40,000, $50,000 for a new car, and these cars are much better. longer. Today, a car with 300,000 miles on it that's been cured for is just fine. I mean, you can drive it for another 100,000 miles. So if you can accept the fact that you want to be frugal, I see nothing wrong with a 60-month car loan. And we just hung up on... Tina, are you there? Tina, yeah. Okay. Interesting noise effects we have.

Well, I guess our technological problems did not get resolved while we're on vacation, but we're fighting. I can say that Nick is working very hard on it, and he's getting a lot of exercise this morning running back and forth from one studio to another. But let me complete my train of thought on what I was saying to Tina, because she might be listening on the air. And when you're done, I'll tune in. What I was going to say is that before you buy or finance a car, decide how long you want

to keep it, and that will determine your financing. You have to do a little arithmetic and find out at what point in your payments you will have break-even equity and then positive equity. What you want to avoid doing is buying a car and decide you want to trade it and find out that your car is not worth what the payoff is worth. So that's the key. Once you keep a car and have break-even equity, you're okay. And another thing that Stu was talking about with 72-month financing or 80-year-old. four-month financing is being flipped to a lease. This is what happens. Oftentimes, people come in with a budget. They spend $400 a month now in their car, and they want to buy another

car. They've got a lot of negative equity. And if they finance it for the same length of time, their payment will now be $600 a month. So the car dealer will stretch out the term, unbeknownst to them, or even worse, we call it flip to a lease. Tell the car, tell this buyer that he can have a payment of only $400 a month, but don't tell him that he's not buying, he's leasing. And we call it that the lease flip, and we have a lot of people that really get taken advantage of there. That's right. You know, that topic that, Tina, if you're listening, the topic of millennials that you mentioned, you know, that's an interesting topic because, you know, we all know the millennials as to not own a car, they don't rent, you know,

they're more or less a free spirit compared to us, but the older millennials, the ones that were born in 1980, there's quite a few of them that own vehicles, and I'd say it was like 65%. But like I said, that was an interesting topic that you mentioned this morning, and we knew to pay a little more attention to them. So thank you for the call. Sorry for all the interruptions, and thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart. on cars. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call tool-free at 877-960-960, or you can text us at 7724-7-297-6-530, and I believe that Stu is covered up with texts. That's right. We have a text from Amy. Amy says, hi, I have one more payment left on my lease.

It's in December, so I need to turn my car in. Is it better to turn the car in at the dealership you leased it from? You get the inspection done prior to turning the car in. that's required by the leasing company, or is it better to go to the car dealer you'd like to use, which, of course, is Earl Stewart, thank you, Amy, and turn the car in and purchase a newer pre-owned vehicle. I know there's that dreaded disposition fee do if you don't lease another vehicle. This is the last time I lease a vehicle. Thanks for your help. Well, I mean, you can turn the car into any toilet dealer, I'm assuming. If they let you.

Well, sometimes they would be foolish not to, but I mean, I guess it can't happen. But, you know, if you buy a car in Florida and then you move to Maine, they're not going to make you drive back down to Florida to return the car. So if you want to return your car to any toilet dealer, they should accept it. And if they didn't, I'd call Toyota and say, I got a problem. But, yeah, it's probably better if you like the dealership that you're dealing with to return there. The main thing when you return a car is to be absolutely sure to capture, on the record, the condition of your car. so there's no nonsense with the leasing company, Toyota or any other leasing company,

and sending you a condition charge saying that your car was dented and scratched or stained on the upholstery, the tires were too thin, freeze in time with photographs, notes, and a copy of the condition report so that you can defend yourself. We see a lot of instances of overcharging for repairs. Yeah, the most important thing is the leasing companies, like you mentioned, and have an inspection company that they use, and that's the official inspection. You can go to the dealership,

and the salesperson can tell you, oh, the car looks great. And it probably, well, it might look great, but if he's wrong, you're still stuck with the bill. So make sure you get the official inspection. And there is a copy for you, a copy of the condition report, and this is a very important document.

Read it, look at the car, and confirm every scratch, sting, stain, and tire condition, and see if it's true. They include pictures, too. Yeah. There's pictures on the report. When cars that are returned, Amy, often sit on the lot for a while before the leasing company picks them up. And a car with a full tank of gas, or for that matter, a half tank of gas can be a temptation for a car salesman to have a ride for the weekend.

And if he ends up dending the car or doing something that's going to cost you money, you won't be able to prove it happened with him unless you have a copy of that condition report. All right. That should answer the question. Also, sorry to interrupt you, Stu, but Amy, thanks for texting, and you mentioned your shyness. And for a lot of listeners, they feel the same way. They just don't do well on the telephone or in front of a mic on one of them. But thank you for texting us, and we hope to hear from you again. 877960, where you can text us at 772-497-60.

too. We have a text from Andreas, who's a longtime listener and Facebook viewer, and he apparently is on a road trip. He sent us a picture. I texted to you, Earl. This is kind of funny. He says, Good morning, Earl. I saw the attached building with its nice new window adornments, and I had to stop and take a picture for you. Crown Nissan of Greenville is open 24-7 and 24 hours a day. Doesn't the sales team needs sleep? Who shops for cars in person at 2 a.m.? Oh, wait, no, wait a minute. I see what's going on here. It's the website is open 24-7. It probably doesn't come through. Our internet is very slow here, but it's a big banner on the side of their building that says open 24 hours, seven days a week, but below that it says it's at their website. So very clever.

Stu, what about the dealership that's open 24-7 south of us all the way down in Fort Lauderdale, I think it Well, I think a toy to Hollywood is open until midnight, I think. I'm not sure. But they sell a lot of cars over like a thousand Toyota's a month, so it might be working for them. We have a text from Anne-Marie, who's also a longtime listener and text her. Good morning. Welcome back. Y'all are greatly missed.

Rick, the display screen on my 2013 camera normally has a black background with blue lettering. A couple of days ago, the screen turned white with pink lettering. That sounds pretty. She sent a picture. What's going on with the display screen? I started pushing buttons randomly and it went back to normal. Well, then why are you texting us? Just kidding.

I started pushing, but that's what I usually did. That's what I do. I just start pushing buttons. Exactly. The next step is smacking or hitting the top of the dashboard. Percussive maintenance. Exactly. Amory says, I have no idea what I did, but it seems to have worked.

But what was wrong in the first place? She says the radio display screen? Yeah, I'll just angle this your way. Sorry, viewers or listeners. Yep. Believe it or not, that actually happened to my 2013 Tacoma. It's actually an issue in the radio head unit itself. Toyota's not going to like this, but here is my best recommendation for a fix.

Best Buy for an aftermarket radio. You will be able to get 2019, actually 2020 technology, brand new aftermarket radio installed. for half the price of replacing that with a factory radio and you would have a better radio. A brand new 2020 technology that will have like the Apple CarPlay, the Android CarPlay, better Bluetooth. Everything will work much better

and it'll work a lot better with all the new cell phones versus that 2013 technology radio. But it is an internal problem in the radio. And I wonder what year, Danmarie? 2013. Yeah, she's a 13 camera. Friday, that's what it is. She probably bought it on Friday 13th. I've seen that happen on a few vehicles now where that radio screen suddenly whites out like that.

And to me, it's actually a safety concern because it started occurring on my pickup. And when I leave for work, it's very early in the morning before the sun rises. And suddenly that screen is blinding white in the face. So when that occurred, I immediately got upset. I wouldn't got an aftermarket radio. put in and I have it looked back. Very good. Great idea.

All right, Stu. Are you guys in the mood for a controversial text? Absolutely. Okay. Love controversy. Nancy's going to love this one. This is from Dave S. I prefer that you use men as mystery shoppers.

Women do not have to insert themselves into everything that men do. I will stop listening to your broadcast from now on. I'm getting sick of women trying to act like men in every aspect of our society. Uh-oh. Go home and make a pie, make a home, make a family, and create a pleasant atmosphere for your family to live in. This is the purpose for which God created you. If he had wanted, only he would not have created Eve. So that sounds like a question for real.

You know, the funny thing is, you know, the funny thing is, while Nancy's blood pressure comes down. My blood pressure just went up. But, no, let me go first. I know everybody likes to jump on these things. there are a lot of get into everything I'm going to knock you off that chair there are a lot of people out there

with a sort of attitude and it's interesting and it's a generation in Saudi Arabia Dave without even meeting you I know your age you're probably around my age you're a senior citizen

you grew up in a different world a different culture and things are changing a lot cars are changing technology and culture is changing and you know you're Your problem is you were, your father and your mother, for that matter, raised you in a manner that women were inferior creatures that should be almost like children.

They should be seen and not heard, and they should bake the pie and clean the house, and the men should rule the world. And you're sincere in your belief. And I'm not angry at you. I'm sorry for you that you haven't become enlightened. You have to learn to change. You have to go with the flow. I'm an old guy, and one of the things I love about myself, I'll pat myself on the back, is I've learned to change.

And I call myself a recovering cardiolier for that reason. But I'm also a recovering human being, because I used to think about women about like you did. But I got educated, I learned, I know how things have changed. And it's a 50-50 world now, Dave. Women have got just as much smarts and ability as we do. and what we need to do is encourage them to participate and become part of the planet

because in many things they can do a better job than we do now we'll go to Nancy Okay well Dave first of all thanks for listening to Earl Stewart on cars You know we appreciate each and every one of our texters Our listeners Everyone that makes this show possible And I am one of those people who make this show possible and I do respect your opinion and everyone has one and if you feel comfortable with the same opinion in the 21st century

then I say run with it stay with it and see if it takes you far it seems like as if that it has so it's in this in this world of women that you say are trying to act like men, gosh, we wear so many hats today that we didn't wear a long time ago. And again, you know, you've got to give credit where credit is due. So again, Dave, thanks for the text. Thanks for your opinion. And I hope you continue to listen to Earl Stewart on cars. Okay. All right. Thanks, Nancy. We have a follow-up text that came in on that from the last text. Just one word pie, question mark. Pie. I haven't heard that one before, but all right.

He may be referring to a formula in algebra or something like that. Well, he had an E on the end of it, but who knows, you know. So let's get back to cars. This is from Lee in Alabama. We will be moving to Michigan, and it would suggest that we look into an all-wheel drive vehicle for those winter snow days. We currently drive a CNXLE, and we're looking to get a second car there. What do you think, Rick?

Subaru Believe it or not And I'm a Toyota guy all day long But Subaru makes some of the absolute best All-Wield Drive cars out there Especially if you're looking for something In a smaller SUV Or a sedan that can be done as an all-wheel drive

Other than that I would look at either a Tacoma pickup Or a Ford pickup I have a question about all-wheel-drive. Why wouldn't all-cars be all-wheel-drive? It seems to me like an all-wheel-drive car is a better vehicle for anything, whether you're in the south, certainly for the north, but they're just much safer and more, they perform better. Maybe for the same reason, they still make stick shifts, but I would say cost would be the biggest one.

Wait, maybe? weight, the cost and weight, plus your fuel economy is going to be lower on an all-wheel-drive car because of so much extra weight and so many more moving parts. How much lower, I wonder, that's a good point. I would say it could drop quite a bit because, granted, in an all-wheel-drive car, the power is only being sent to the wheels that need power at the time. So, in other words, you'd be driving mostly just with the front-wheel-drive car, and the power's being distributed.

Does an all-wheel-drive car weigh more than a four-wheel drive? Not necessarily, because they both have all the same parts, but again, they've got so many more moving parts and they're so much heavier, that's where your fuel economy's lost. Well, we'll do a little research on that, but I love the idea of all-wheel-drive cars. Any more text? Yeah, we've got a bunch. Another one for Rick.

Does the transmission on my Camry really never need changing? I assume they're referring to, there's no name on it. Transmission fluid, I'm sure. I'm guessing they're referring to a car that's probably less than five or six years old because most of the new cars for the last six or eight years are coming with what's called a WS-type fluid, and under normal driving conditions, never needs to be changed. As a matter of fact, in the repair manual, they say to check for leaks, you are to check the fluid level on most of the cars like that

they say you look for leaks if there's no external leaks then the fluid level's good and if someone tries to sell you a transmission flush on of those cars run and go to my mind was going to go somewhere else because as Rick says you just don't need it and they prey on people like our last texter who are not entirely sure if it needs to be done

so if you're listening to show spread the word you don't need it done William sent in a text wants to know, can you please mention what the hidden fees are if we buy a new car below MSRP? Well, the hidden fees vary from dealership to dealership

and it's kind of like in the state of Florida, which is a wild-while west in terms of laws on control of dealer fees. It can be anything. A dealer can have in Florida a fee, and he can name it anything he wants. He can name

it orange juice. He can name an electronic filing fee. He can name it Rick Kearney. Any fee. Or Bob. And so therefore, the deception is totally open and legal in Florida. Also, in California, for example, they cap the fee, I believe, at $75. A lot of states cap the fee. So if you're going to cheat the customer, you can only cheat them this much. In Florida, there's no limit on how much you can cheat the customer. So you can change the name to fool the customer. You can raise the amount, lower it. Another interesting thing is in Florida, there's no limit on the number of hidden fees you can have. In California, you can only have one. You can only

cheat the customer once, and you can have to limit it to $75. In Florida, you can cheat the customer for as much as you want, as many times as you want, because you can have as many hidden fees as you want. So when you buy a car in Florida, I almost want to tell you to drive to California and forget about buying the car in Florida because the legislature's here and the trade associations for the car dealers, the regulators, it's all a conspiracy in a gang to take advantage of the consumers. That's right. Okay, that telephone number again is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-60,

and I do have to respond to a anonymous text. And the anonymous text comes from a man, and he says that Dave must be a very lonely man. Ha, ha, ha. Anyway, I thought, you know, I'd throw that in there, but most importantly, John from Palm City is calling. Good morning, John. Good morning. Hey, John. I'll come back to everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. Just looking out a brand new ad, makes a lot of sense to me, and I think Rick would agree with it. It's a brand new ad from X-E-Rex antifreeze. Xerox years ago used to be made by DuPont. Today it's owned by Valvaline. And here's what the ad said. There's no such thing as a generic car.

Why would you buy a generic antifreeze? Xerox has Xerox, it's called, has, I'm counting it, seven different antifreezes now for the different brands of car. And actually, we know when we go to like a Nissan dealer, that they have special antifreeze that they use when we get the radiator flush. Does it make sense to Rick to buy the antifreeze from Xerox that's meant specifically for your brand, whether it be General Motors or Ford, for your brand car? Because right in the air, it says over here, it's better for the engine

and maximizes the life of your cooling system. I'd like to get Rick's opinion about the new Xerox antifreezes for all different makes of cars. well they're basically antifreeze is kind of like oil it's oil is oil some companies are going to be refined to a little better quality but ethylene glycol is the main ingredient in antifreeze and the only real difference is the coloring

that certain companies have a different color to them like we use pink for Toyota blue for cyan they have red they have green They have orange. Do they all taste the same? As a matter of fact, they do. Okay. And it's pretty good.

What was it? Ethylene. What? Ethylene glycol. I didn't know that. It's highly toxic. Don't taste it. I'm sorry for saying that.

It's an alcohol and it's actually very sweet tasting. It just accidental splashes. I've gotten the flavor of. It's dangerous because pets like it. So you got to be careful with that. Safety note, folks. You might be one of the few normal people that knows what antifree stays like. but I'm not normal

Do you have to add You're lucky to be alive Nope No vermouth No just a touch of it But folks Do not let antifree Stay on the ground

Clean it up Because not only is it bad For the environment To get out there In our world But it's bad for any animals Because they like that sweet flavor They will lick it right up

And not realize That they're killing themselves very quickly So it's a very bad thing Does that answer your question? Yes Another important thing I want to say, thank God for the American engineers. I mean,

I'm going to go over some of the things that they have come up with. But there's one thing, by the way, the new Mustang that's coming out in late 2020 is going to be a full, a full electric Mustang. Nobody believes this, and it'll be just as

performance-wise as one of the hottest Mustang. Wow, I didn't know that either. I've learned all sorts of stuff today. That's the future of us. And also the new Corvette that's coming out, the mid-engine with an automatic top that you could actually fold down it matches the outside contour

painted the color of the car and you could actually raise it at 30 miles an hour I'm an engineer but the thing that shocks me like we're in Florida a boating state never never did an engineer ever come up with a car that goes on land and in water

does any of you remember there was one that was made in Germany. Oh, yeah. The car was made in the 60s. Yeah, I was trying to buy one recently because they were going to start working on the bridge where I live. I couldn't get to work. That's right.

And I would have had to drive to Holbe Sound to get across to the mainland to come to work. So I did a little research on that, and I was this close to buying an amphibious car. It was either that or the helicopter. Right. All right. Well, here's a cool one. You want to go drive one? Disney World has a small fleet of them

that you can actually drive around and drive right into their lakes you can at Disney World Lake Pwinevista. What do you think about that, John? This car, yeah, I followed it. It was made in the 60s, around 61 to 67.

Is that what James Bondro? It was made in Germany. It was called an amphicar 770. And it was so good doortight, watertight doors, and 65, two of them crossed the English Channel and Gail Force wins in 20-foot ways, and they survive.

But here's the problem. They appear on the collector car market, right? Around $60,000, $70,000. It costs much more than that to restore and to get the parts, and mostly every one you restore has a major problem. I bet. Salt and rot, water rot, so. But it was a fantastic car,

and it was made for like seven years from 61 to 67. but maybe someday with all American technology it may come out and we will be able to buy one. I'd love to have one. I fantasize about having an amphibious car. I'm trying to picture the logistics of this. What would you do?

Would you just like drive off the bridge? We have a boat launch. A boat launch. You just drive down the boat launch ramp driving to the intercoastal waterway and go across the intercoastal. You know, wherever you're going on. You're actually driving off the seawall and plunging into the inner coasts, too.

That's more realistic. Do you really think that your dad's going to go down to the marina? I don't know. I don't know. No, no. He's going to do what you're just. John, thank you very, very much. It would be a great fun car.

Welcome back again. Thank you, John. Before you go, here's a trivia question for you. Which president had an amphicar? Ruzelt, I guess. Lyndon Johnson. Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, the famous story.

about him was he used to drive into a lake screaming the brakes were out the brakes are out that's scaring his passengers yeah that was in a there was a biopic movie about him he they did that forgot fantastic i'll look up the name of that movie we'll recommend it on here john good to hear good to hear your voice we missed you while we're gone okay welcome back again thank you thanks john we're going to go straight to howard who's been holding good morning howard hey howard you out there i'm here hey howard good It's been a while. Yeah, been a while.

Nice talking to you. I don't want to commend you on the – I received a statement from you saying that you have a tire price match guarantee. So – and you have to bring in proof of the pricing at the time – you know, it says bring at the time of purchase must be current within the last 30 days. and it has to be a coupon. They get a coupon if you bring, let's say a statement from the tire manufacturer, a sales slip, and then you're going to beat that price. So that's tremendous.

Well, you're saying you got that from us, Howard? Yes, I got it from Toyo. Neither one of us knew about it, but maybe Jeff did it. I think it could be like a Southeast toy, like a regional offer on our behalf we got to look into that because um yeah we i didn't sign off on that yeah sorry i'm not honoring it just kidding howard we'll look into it but yeah sometimes there's some like regional uh stuff that goes on but yeah it says we will meet or beat any competitors price has to be within a 50 mile radius and uh you have to have proof of the you go to tires plus and you get

a little statement from them yeah and then you're going to beat the price you know maybe you can Maybe you can fax me a copy of that or email it to us, and we'll check it out. Either that or maybe we just lost control of the dealership and people are doing whatever the hell they want to do. You went out of town and I went crazy. No, it has to do with, I think it's... Also, on that statement that I received from you, it said it's past time for your 25,000-mile service. Ah. The only problem is I already had it.

Uh-huh. Okay. Well, that's the southeast toilet marketing thing. It has to do with their obsession with selling tires. Exactly. We could do a whole show on Southeast Toyota. We might do it one day. Let's be careful.

I need the questions I have for you. When I wanted to get the 25,000-mile service, the person who was checking me out said, I can get the service. I'm not going to give you an engine filter or a cabin filter because they look okay. Now, how could you tell you? they look okay you have to put them up to a light or something is that correct

correct we pull them out and we just shine a flashlight on them and if they just look kind of a little bit dull but they're not packed up with dirt we will let them go because I mean a filter is a paper white paper filter like this very easy to tell if it's super dirty or not and if it's not dirty we're not gonna waste your money how it usually works the other way the dealer says you need a filter but you don't really need a filter. And so this guy was trying to take care of you and say, look, I know it says you need a filter, but we just checked it and you don't. When manufacturers come up with these maintenance rules, it's an average. And every car drives in different conditions,

different drivers, and no two ear filters are going to look exactly right the same after, you know, X thousands of miles. And some of these filters don't need changing. And why change them if they don't need to be. Yeah. So I've got to give you kudos because I never heard of a thing where a dealership turned down changing any of these filters. They just automatically changed them without even bothering. Well, I'm going to check and find out who the service advisor was and congratulate him because I'm surprised myself. They're paid on commission and he cost himself some money when he didn't sell you a filter and he was just doing it because he was trying to take care of you. So I thank you very much for that comment,

and he will be congratulated and thanked by us. And hugged. And hugged. And hugged. That's great. One other thing I just wanted to say, I know a guy that bought one of these cars, amphibious cars.

Here's the problem with the amphibious car. When you got out of the water, the brakes didn't work too well. Because they were drum brakes. The drum brakes do not take water very well. No, they don't. So that was a big problem. Now my question to you is Europe always used disc brakes.

Why the heck did we catch on to European style and change over to disc brakes many years before? Rick, what are you saying? I still haven't figured that one out. As a matter of fact, the Toyota Tacoma is like one of the last vehicles out there. they are still making them with drum brakes in the back, and I don't get it. Disc brakes are so much more efficient. Could it be a cost factor to keep the price of the truck down? I can't see how it would make that big a difference.

When you've got the manufacturing capability set up with the tools and machines and the process, and you've been doing it for 50 years. But you've modernized everything else. And every other part on that vehicle has been changed over. Everything else has been retooled. Why still stick with an ancient technology of drum brakes? The only real difference that it makes is you have to design the system now to have either a caliper that can apply a parking brake

or a separate parking brake in a small drum inside the disc. But every other model of car that is made that Toyota makes has disc brakes. Every single one. Great question, Howard, and you're right. It just seems silly. Toyota's wrong. My theory is it's just a matter of keeping the cost down a little bit, and they shouldn't do that. Ah, foolish.

Now, how come every car that they ever owned with disc brakes, I never had to change the disc in the rear. Do they last much longer than the front disc? Well, the front still do about 70% of the stopping power on the car. That's why your rear brakes will last. so much longer. And because of that, those rear discs can be resurfaced a couple of times and they cannot last the car. Can you resurface the front discs? Yes. Can that be done? Yes. Unless they are severely corroded, which northern cars, they generally just replace the brake disk because they're usually rusted really badly. And so unless you live right next to the ocean

down here. Most of the time we can resurface front disc two, three, sometimes even four times depending on how bad the wear is on them. Yeah, but is it a fact that at one time the front disk was thicker than they are now? They made them thinner or they made them less durable. Is that correct? I think it's probably just they're changing the durability factor. The thickness is still there, but sometimes they wear a little more. And of course, course, corrosion has a big effect. Okay, I got you. Thank you very much for all the information.

I appreciate it, and you have a nice day. Thank you, Howard. Thanks. It was great hearing from you, Howard. Howard's been a big part of our show for a long time. Thanks for bringing that mailer to our attention also. Our number is 877960. And you can text us at 772-497-6530.

Don't forget, we have that mystery shopping report coming up. So we're going to go to Frank, who's calling from New York. Good morning, Frank. Hi, how are you? Hey, Frank. Well, thank you. Earl, I need to get a new car within the next two weeks, and I've been looking at the 2019 Highlanders,

and I know that the new ones are coming out next month, and they're giving $2,000 dollars back, and I've got a pretty good deal, I think, and I've been going to a couple of dealers. my worry is the depreciation. If I can wait a month, I know there won't be new deals on the 2020s right away, but in your opinion, it would be worth it to wait for the 2020s? Frank, how long are you going to keep the car after you buy it?

Usually we keep a car for a long time, but at least five or six years, maybe longer. We have no, we don't have anything in sight to trade it in. It isn't a huge decision because you keep a car longer, but you're right, the depreciation is pretty heavy. If you kept the car for six years, then I would, or if you kept it for five years, let's say, I would opt for the 2020. And you also want to look at the improvements in the... It's a total redesign on the 2020, so that's going to kill the value of the 19th.

Well, I didn't even realize that, so the fact that you have a total redesign on the 2020, would indicate that you probably, you could wait two or three months and buy the 2020 and get just as good a deal as you got on the 2019. That's great. Thank you so much. I've been so worried about it, and it's great to hear that. Well, Frank, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Good luck with your next purchase. Keep listening. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. You're welcome. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530. have texts that are piling up with stew and we have uh uh youtube with uh direct and we also

we also have boy i'll tell you talking multitasking whoa having a good time this morning we're going low tech we're actually running back and forth from control room the studio i got pens pencils papers computer i got cell phone i believe that we have uh mina calling from west palm beach i hope I hope I didn't butcher your name. Are you Nina and are you there, Nina? Minna. Minna. Yes, I'm Minna and I'm here.

Good morning and welcome back. Well, thank you, Minna. Are you a first-time caller? Yes, I am. Oh, well, congratulations. But I'm an often listener. Oh, thank you very much. I hope you have spread the word about us.

I have $50 for you as a first-time caller. What can we do for you? Well, my question is I have a, actually, it's a 2007. BMW with 57,000 miles. It's the hard top convertible. But my question is, does one rotate run flat tires? Yes. Can you do you rotate?

Yes. The answer is yes, you do. And you rotate them the same way you rotate a regular tire. Yes, generally recommended to be front to back. Front to back, but not side to side. Generally not because radial tires, if you change them from side to side, you can create a pull. And as you're driving down the road, DeCarl want to try to pull to one side of the other. Okay.

Okay. Okay. That was it. All right. Well, thank you, Minna. I appreciate the call very much. We love your voice. And you're going to have $50 cash mailed out to you.

Stay on the line, and we'll get your contact information in the control room. Yes, definitely. And thank you for everything you do. It's really a great. Oh, you're quite welcome. We want you to call back. I mean, we love your voice. You have a beautiful voice.

Thank you very much indeed. You're welcome. Stu's sitting here smiling, eerie. I'm smiling here, so we can't. Well, thank you. Thank you for being part of Earl Stewart on Cars. Okay. We'll get to the text now.

Yeah, bye-bye, man. Yeah, we got a lot of texts. We have one. This is from Steve. New Jersey, this is really interesting. It says, hi, Earl, I have a topic I believe may never have been discussed on your show. My wife is 4 feet 8 inches tall, that's 56 inches. I was just at the point of purchasing a new Mercedes, and looking at the owner's manual

before finalizing my purchase, I found that the front seat safety systems are designed for people at a minimum of 4 feet 9 inches, 57 inches. Front seat passengers below 57 inches require a booster seat. Otherwise, the shoulder strap might not properly secure the person, and the airbags might not properly protect them. When I contacted Mercedes-Benz, their suggestion was to have my wife ride in the back seat or purchase a booster seat for her to ride in the front. My guess is a lot of older people, particularly women, may be short like my wife, and are at risk of inadequate protection without even knowing it. It's very troubling to me. And then he added, he saw on Consumer Reports in their October 23rd edition,

The Crash Test Bias, how male-focused testing puts female drivers at risk. So in addition to front car seats and safety systems, designed for women five feet plus, remember his wife is four feet eight, now I have to worry. Is she safe in any car? Is this the next airbag tragedy? Wow, that is really interesting. It is. Steve, you're right. That's a great question.

And we actually have a little experience as a car dealer because we have a lot of elderly folks. We have a lot of ladies that I own cars, buy cars from us. And I used to be 6'5, I'm 78, be 79 next month, and I'm not only, I'm only 6'3 now. Right? But we get a little shorter. And, you know, we have a lot of elderly shorter people who have problems. And they don't talk about in terms of safety, although you're after. absolutely right. It is a safety issue. They have time in terms of visibility, not being able

to see out the wind, you know, the front window, the side windows. We talk about, they always ask us, can we adjust the seats? Can we raise the seat? And we can't raise the seat because the factory designs the seat is approved by the NHTSA. And if you modify a seat, you're going to have a real problem with safety. There should be somebody that's got some common sense that would design seats that could be adjusted so that you could raise a seat no matter if you're four foot eight. Are there? I mean, I know that there are companies that do modifications for accessibility, you know, for, you know, people need a wheelchair or special like steering or pedal accommodations.

Rick, do you know, is there any like, you know, accessibility options that are approved by the manufacturers and the government for safety things? Do you know? I don't know about manufacturer approval, but I know a lot of cars that come in. They have those seat pillows that actually raise the person up by an inch or two inches or even a little bit more. My guess is that could be considered to be a modification of the seat. I mean, the seats are designed today. Your airbag is designed in a certain manner. But I sometimes people have no choice. I mean, if you can't see out of the front window and you want to buy a car, you have to be able to raise it up. And it's a problem. If we've got anybody listening out there

in the federal legislatures or state, for that matter, it's a problem that needs to be addressed. I mean, there is no, I will Google this. We'll find out when you do a safety test in a car, crash test, roll over, and the rest of it, what is the assumed height? range of the individual. Because if you have somebody there, let's really exaggerate, what if you have a small person, four feet tall? Can a four foot tall person drive a car? Like Steve mentioned, he said that from the Consumer Reports article, he says that most of the testing is done, and the safety systems are designed for people who are at least five feet tall. So that's a serious problem.

So what's your four? It's a great question, and we need to do some more research and study on that. It should be, you know, who should raise this question is a National Automobile Dealers Association and the state associations. If they cared about their customers, instead of fighting to keep their hidden fees, they should be fighting

to have the manufacturers modify the cars so that it could accommodate smaller people. Yeah. All right, moving on, we have another text. This is a Rick question. Rick, I have a 2019 Tacoma with the 2.7 liter engine that's equipped with factory installed Toyota air filter and then he provided the

part number for the Toyota air filter. After doing some research, I can't seem to find a source that offers this actual filter and each source offers me a different Toyota part number. I do realize that multiple Toyota oil filters will fit on the 2.7 liter, but which Toyota filter is the best and closest replacement for a part number, which I'm not going to read because it's boring. Can you please explain how to decipher Toyota's part numbers on these filters that were recommended to me. Also, can you please tell me if any of them differ in quality design or origin?

Thank you. The 2019 Tacoma, 2.4 liter, is going to use a normal cartridge filter, I believe, a normal steel filter, as I recall. The interesting part is the filter that came from the factory

has got a special factory part number on it that's only available at the factory. That's why you can't find it. Right. The part that you will be sold by a Toyota dealership actually has a different part number on it. And I don't know exactly

why Toyota did this, but I kind of like it because it lets me tell at a glance whether or not that filter's actually ever been changed. So actually the best way to get the proper filter is right through the Toyota dealership. You know, what I would

suggest to is if they check Amazon, I know you said that this particular filter with the part number is only available at toilet dealers. But toilet dealers can sell to Amazon. Yes. And Amazon is famous for having products that you wouldn't think they would have. And if you do nothing else, then check with Amazon. If they have it, you can still buy from your local dealer, but make the dealer match the price on Amazon.

Or the easy way, if you want to make sure you get the right part number from Amazon, just call your local dealer. and ask them, what is the part number that you have for this Toyota factory OEM filter and go by that part number? Car dealers have a typical markup on parts of about 40%, but a lot of car dealers will mark up cars beyond 40%. There's no rule on that, just like MSRP is only suggested. The suggested retail price on parts is only suggested. And you can call a lot of Toyota dealers and get a price on a part. part oil filter that's even higher than a 40% markup. That's the reason I say if Amazon carries it is a great place to check the price.

Absolutely. And for alternatives, I would stick with a company like Fram or Purulator, any of the big brand name companies for oil filters, their quality is just fine, and they'll have what's called a crossover chart, which will tell you exactly which filter that you would need for their part number that will match up to be the Toyota part number. Great information, Rick. We're going to go to David, who's been holding from North Palm Beach. Good morning.

How are you, David? Oh, good morning. I'm sorry. I went to the Costco site to try to buy a car on a Costco auto buying site, and they directed me to Del Rey and to Stewart. Aren't you still on the Costco auto buying site? Yes. Yes, we are.

They, they, uh, uh, Costco, where do you live, David? North Palm Beach, 3,3408. How, can you tell me what kind of vehicle were you, uh, searching for? Was it a 2020 model? Toyota RAV-4. Uh, do you know, it was a 2019 or a 2020? No, I wanted a 2020. I wanted an XLE premium with two-tone paint.

And I'm trying to find out whether they do make an XLE with two-tone paint. Okay. Okay. So if you don't see a dealer show up on the Costco search, it means they don't have the vehicle listed for sale yet. The 2020, let me just double check this, the 2020 Rev 4. I am going to look real quick. It might not be one second here. The 2019, there are no 2020s out yet. Oh, I'm sorry, they're just coming in now.

some of the dealers do have them yes some yeah we should have them listed and we didn't do it and we dropped the ball and we just learned something that we need to correct so thank you still honor the Costco site uh yes absolutely yeah if you just you if you if you try it later uh today they'll be they will be up that's the reason i love this show is we find out not only what other car dealers are doing it's stupid, is we find out what we're doing that stupid. Well, another reason, it might be if we don't want to put in with Costco's suggested price because the dealer few issues. So if they are saying that they're selling them for a great discount, then we won't put that in.

Well, I think we can discuss this at another time, but when other car dealers are listing cars with Costco, and we don't, sometimes people go in and buy a different car, so I think we just need to bite the bullet on these enlisted cars that are available. And David, thank you very much for helping me improve my dealership. Thank you very much for taking my call. Okay. Thanks for listening, David. I have a text that I'm going to squeeze in here, and this is from Janet, and this is for Rick.

Janet's out shopping for tires, and she wants to know which of the two tire centers would be a better place to go. And she asked about Mitchelm. and she also asked about Costco was a place I always recommend for tires Farstone My recommendation is find what size tire you need go with a Michelin

Michelin makes the absolute best tire out there for quality and I would price shop them around but I would check Costco first because Costco's got some of the lowest prices out there and they've got what you need. And the current issue or maybe it's the last month's issue of Consumer Reports has

recommended tires. And they also had they also had a recommended tire retailers recently in Consumer Report. So check there in terms of what really is a good tire, but Michelin of course is a good tire. And Costco is the best place to buy a tire. Absolutely.

And also Earl was right that is the December issue of consumer report and they have everything in there about tires and I'll take a minute and thank Jonathan what a great feature that we have a new feature today

and that's a split screen and if you guys haven't noticed it I have and it's a great feature a great addition we're getting behind on text I think we need to put some catch up here 10 of them Steve followed up real quick he just looked this up

he said per consumer reports this has to do with the people of shorter stature in female in car crashes. Females are 17% more likely to die and 73% greater chance of serious injury than a man and a car crash. Women test dummies are hardly ever used to assess vehicle safety. So that's a shame and that's got to change. Isn't that amazing?

I mean, the stuff we come up with and you just wonder what are these people that we're electing to office, what are they doing? I mean, let me say that we have the greatest government in the world. we have the our democracy in the united states america is amazing but when i see the way our politicians operate i just it's a it's a miracle that we are that good country it is it is uh stew would you please read those statistics again yeah um women are 17 percent more likely to die and 70 73 percent greater chance of a serious injury and then a man in a car crash amazing the law has to change Amazing. Just like the law has to change on these car dealers that are selling these cars with Takata airbag recalls. I mean, this is, what's it going to take? People are dying. I know I switch gears there for a second, but it's a very important topic. The same as the statistics that Stu just shared with us. Now back to Stu.

Okay. This is from Kevin. He says, hello, Earl. What do you think of Honda's new insight compared to Toyota's pretty? I could take that. It's a pretty even match. They have identical mileage, 52 miles per gallon combined. Prius is a hatchback. He gets some more cargo room. The inside to sedans, you get less cargo room. Prius costs a little bit more, maybe about $700 more.

So it's kind of a flip of the coin depending on what you want to use it for. I check consumer reports. I honestly don't know what the valuation is, but if consumer reports checks them both, I buy the one consumer reports. I think they're both highly rated, so it makes it even harder to choose. Well, usually they give you points. So I would buy the between the Honda and the Toyota. I'd buy the one that had the highest number of consumer points.

Yeah, I would also consider things like if you have a lot of cargo to carry around or if you don't. The next one is, sorry, good morning. I recently agreed to price on a Camry at a local. car dealer pretending, pending a, sorry, I can't read that, pretending, but pending a purchase inspection by my mechanic. I took a Toyota certified pre-owned 2017 Camry L.A. to be inspected. The salesman was reluctant to let me take the vehicle and said it had already been inspected. He eventually let me take the car. My mechanic said that there was an excessive amount of water and copper in the intake fluid and suggested it would be flushed and the

battery was low and he said it needed to be replaced sometime in the near future. He also pointed out that the shark fin antenna had been damaged and repaired very poorly. The paint was off and poorly done and it was not sitting flush on the roof. That was for the antenna. And you can see light between the antenna and the roof and that could be a water leak waiting to happen. Other than this, he said the car was good to go. I took it back to the dealership and the salesman told me that this is a used car and those items are to be expected. It's kind of hard to read. Ring advertised as a Toyota certified, and they did inspect the car.

Why didn't they fix these issues? He agreed to fix the issues, but only after I bought the car. I told him he fixed the car before. I'll buy, but I haven't heard back from him. It's been two weeks. The car 26,000 miles shouldn't have gotten a certification, but better than pre-owned and held to a higher standard. It's from Billy.

Billy. Billy, congratulations. You are an educated consumer, and you saved a lot of people, including yourself, money because follow Billy's procedure. Always get a car checked by an independent mechanic, a used car, before you buy it. And when the dealers

won't have it done or allowed to be done or makes it hard on you, go somewhere else. Next text. Yep. This is actually on your anonymous feedback.com. This is from an anonymous person, obviously. Hi, from Gainesville, Florida. Love your show. Wish you would buy the local Toyota dealership

here. They have an $8.99 pre-delivery fee, and I'm not sure of the other fees. I'm taking your advice and we'll be price shopping. Very good. Good on you. Next one is also Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Good morning. Why is Jacksonville the only city north and northeast of Orlando that has a Lexus dealership? Most Lexus dealerships are from Orlando and south of Orlando. Thank you. Lexus dealerships are located in areas where the demographics support the product. Luxury cars require people with money and older people typically buy

with money buy Lexus and that's the reason you see more Lexus dealers in areas of that demographic description okay we are caught up okay how about a I got a YouTube over here right

we've got a few here good from a little bit earlier here Donovan was asking he says he's looking at two different dealers for a car but they both have a $799 dealer fee how do I get

out of that? Well, the best thing to do is just assume they're going to charge you the dealer fee and take the price, the out-the-door price, including the dealer fee, and compare it with at least two other dealers. So you want to buy the car from the dealer of the brand that you're buying that has a lowest out-the-door price. If the dealer insists on putting a dealer fee or a hidden fee or any other thing in the car, he can charge anything he wants. He can charge her for his breakfast, put it in the deal, and just have that price, and the only thing will be added to it is sales tax and tag, government fees, and take that bottom line out-the-door price and get three comparisons, let the dealers know this is what you're doing, and buy it from

the dealer that gives you the lowest out-the-door price. And Living Like Julie asks, she has an 20-year-old Nissan Xtera, and she's looking for recommendations for a new vehicle, but she likes the feel, the solid feel of a truck. What would be your recommendation for something to replace a Nissan Xtera? Well, again, I'd go to Consumer Reports. I get a little bit nervous about the Nissan franchise today. They're having some severe financial problems. They're having some severe managerial problems.

One of their top managers, I believe the chairman of the board, is in jail, and the other just got out of jail and they're struggling to try to merge and it's I would not buy a vehicle from a manufacturer that whose survivability was in question so I'd go to a brand other than Nissan and I would go to consumer reports and you've got a really good selection of similar vehicles to the exterior. Ernesto Ortega is asking the CBC marketplace recommend a 60-month maximum loan, preferably 36 to 60-month. That was from our earlier conversation about how long a car loan should be. More of a comment, actually, I guess.

Yeah, I look at financing a car in terms of how long I'm going to keep the car and how low an interest rate I can get. Now, if someone said to me that I wanted to buy a car, and they said, I'll give you a 0% loan. for 20 years, I take it. I'm exaggerating to make the point. Certainly. If they said, I'll give you a 1% loan for 20 years, I think about it a little bit.

If it was a 2% loan, you see where I'm going with this? So it's a matter, your money, your cash in your pocket or your cash and your checking account, your bank account, is worth something to you. If you invest in the stock or bond market, it's worth probably more to you. And you can make use of your cash. If I can find a lender that will loan me money at a low enough interest rate, I'll finance with him for a long, long time. The reason I wouldn't do it is for a long long time is because the rate was too high and because I wasn't going to keep the car that long anyway. Omega Roja says the Chrysler dealership in Tampa is offering employee pricing.

Is this really the lowest price you're going to be able to get? Employee pricing is kind of a joke. employee pricing for a car dealership is whatever the car dealership decides to sell to the employees for. Same thing with a manufacturer. They have manufacturer employee pricing. Employee pricing is just a name, it's a label. Find out what the employee pricing is. Find out with respect to the true cost of the vehicle,

how much more does an employee have to pay? Because oftentimes, I see these advertisements, you can negotiate. a lower price than what the dealer is advertising as the employee price. And Mark Smith from Iowa says he has seen a couple different posts online talking about the idea of an all-wheel-drive Camry and an all-wheel-drive Avalon. Have we heard anything about these? I have not. I do know that the Prius is coming out with an all-wheel-drive Prius.

But I haven't heard about the Avalon or the Camry. Okay. It's encouraging to hear that, and I haven't heard of it either, but I hope. They hope they do it. I just have a gut feeling that all-wheel drive will be what we see in all-cars one day. And I think when we're all-electric and autonomous, it's going to be all-wheel drive too. Well, the interesting part, just to throw my thoughts in here, the hybrid Highlander, when it came out, they had an all-wheel drive simply by putting an electric motor back at the back end that would drive the rear axles. and, of course, electric vehicles, the really nice part about that is you can make a small, very powerful electric motor, and I've even seen some prototype ideas of having a separate

electric motor for each drive wheel, thereby allowing you to have all-wheel drive without the weight. Exactly, and decreasing that weight quite a bit. Very good. As a matter of fact, got a couple words here. Ernesto Ortega also is saying, have we considered being part of the Sam's Club? auto buying program. We looked at it, and I can't recall why we... No, we are.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. We don't do much business with Sam's Club doing it. Yeah, it's not a... It's not nearly as extensive or well known as the Costco program. Is it as good a buy for the... I don't think so, no. They don't have the strict pricing policies that Costco has.

We also do the Walmart Car Saver thing, which also doesn't, has never really taken off. Yeah. Dealers typically... sign up for a lot of these buying programs. Costco is the best. True car is good, but there are a lot of buying programs out there.

Okay. And the last one I have here is sorry, you just got a post here that's going to make me crack up, but I don't think I'll be reading that one anytime soon. Living like Julie just asked, she says,

it'll be hard to let my exteric go. I love that truck. Which vehicles are similar to the Exterra. Most of her now cars dressed up as trucks is the forerunner the only true truck option. I think what she's looking for is an SUV that's on a full frame. And for Toyota, I think that would be restricted to the forerunner, the Sequoia, or the land cruiser. And I would check some of the other manufacturers out there. I don't think Honda really has anything because they're restricted just to the what's the name of their trucks

do the ridge line the ridge line how about Subaru Subaru I don't think actually makes a full frame vehicle I think most of there's all unibody yeah otherwise you'd have to be looking at Chevy or Ford let's see

what's Honda's upgrade there the Accura Accura I think has some of the other vehicles that also have a full frame to look at. We've got a couple of more texts that popped in last minute before we get the Mr. Scheld. Tim is

asking, Tim in Florida says and he wants it read, are the rumors true that Rick used to be a male model for Autotech Monthly magazine? I was wondering why you were washing. He did, he was. I have it. We have a penned up in the tech lounge at the dealership.

He may have been. Folks, I just want to let you know that Earl referred to consumer report several times and the December issue it is got some real hot topics in it and one of the topics is how to save yourself some money on car insurance and also the November issue you want to check that out tires can't say enough about tires so check that out too and take a look at Earl's latest column negative equity that's a.k.a. upside down and underwater that would be in the hometown news can be Earl on Cars and Florida Weekly.

And you're very handsome, Rick. Nelbecks, too. No name on this one. It says, good morning. And again, I love listening to your show. I live here in West Palm Beach. I was visiting last week in Las Vegas, and who do I see on television? Oh, this is an older one.

That's okay. We never read it on the air. Who do I see on television? Yours truly Earl Stewart talking about Takata Airbags. My point is that this is now getting the... the word out nationwide and I'm really happy about that shutting down the dealers that are still selling these faulty cars. Thank you for spreading the word, the good word that it is. I also thought, how cool. Yeah, I know this guy. I listen to his radio show. Also, could you please

explain to me the defectiveness of these airbags so I know how serious it really is? Well, it's basically the inflator. It's a metal cylinder filled with ammonium nitrate, which is an explosive and it's designed to be explosive, but it's basically the inflator. It's a a controlled explosion that drives the air into the airbag when impact when you have a crash. The problem is the ammonium nitrate inside the steel cylinder called the inflator becomes unstable with heat and humidity and time. And in Florida we have a lot of that heat and humidity. And once you have a five-year-old or a four-year-old vehicle, you have a very unstable situation and it's liable to blow up even without impact. Okay. Next one. Do hybrids cost more to maintain

than conventional gasoline vehicles? Say that again. Do hybrids cost more to maintain than conventional gasoline vehicles? No, I'd say they cost less. Even less. You're going to be changing your brakes less often, so they don't worry how as much.

Next, we're doing this rapid fire because we've got to get to the mystery shopping report. Good morning. I've been following your show for about two months. Your show is great and very informative. We are in the market for a crossover CRV 2008, got totaled in July by my daughter. test drove a 2019 CRV-EX will test drive a 2020-F-R-Ster, a 2019 CX-5, and a 2019 or 2020-RF-4.

We're confused. How do you calculate out the door? When is the great time to find great deals from now? How do you send emails to dealers? I'm in the Houston area. I dread going to dealers. Car buying is not like grocery or mall shopping. Thanks for all you do, and that's Maria in Houston.

Well, I love the educated consumer. Maria sounds to me like you're doing it all right. and I would throw consumer reports. I know you get tired of me saying consumer reports, but it's the only source of accurate, unbiased information about automobiles. As far as you're doing the driving and comparing, which is amazing, you did that, I would use consumer reports as the tiebreaker and go with the vehicle that I like the best.

And dealing online is the only way to go, and if you're online you're safe be sure you get an out-the-door price to find an out-the-door price is everything except government fees and there's some very small little fees that are taxable I usually say

anything that has sales tax on it is not a government fee you don't tax sales tax again and you don't tax license place again so say I want an out-the-door price online meaning when I pick up my car I want to be able to come in with a check that will only have to be extra paid sales tax and license plate.

We're all caught up. We're all caught up. I want to take a moment and thank the texter that, you know, recognized the fact that Earl did that video on Takata Airbag. And I'll tell you what, there's just a whole lot more people who haven't heard, you know, about this death trap. And if you've seen Earl, hopefully you've seen Morgan Freeman. He did, you know, join the bandwagon, so to speak.

And it starts out, do you have a minute? And it is amazing the way he is so passionate about the cause. Okay, it's mystery shop time. Mystery Shop of Sunshine Used Car Sales. That's a nice name. Sunshine used car sales. And we called it a Ticada test. And we've had a couple of Ticada comments during the show, and so this is pretty timely.

I sometimes in the past felt like I was overdoing it on Ticcata. We actually had some feedback saying that, you know, get off the Takata thing. And, you know, purpose of the show is not to save the world. The purpose of the show is to educate, entertain, help you buy, lease, maintain, repair your car. And I apologize to those that are tired of hearing about Takata. It's just something I can't. We can't get out of our minds. Our first mystery shop in three weeks takes us to a car dealership.

We've never investigated. We never even heard of it. Sunshine used car sales. Sunshine used car sales, very small, independent lot on Mercer Avenue in West Palm Beach. How small is it? How small is it? It's so small that there's only 29 cars. That's a small used car a lot.

Small or not, it had two used cars. If you do the arithmetic, that's 7% of the inventory, had Takata airbag recalls on them. And, in fact, I think nationally this is about the percentage of cars. It matches the average, yeah. The national average. The older used car, the independent used car lots are totally out of sight on mine, what we found to cut airbags. The headline stores, the origos, the shoemockers in this area, the car dealers you see, Graco, the ones that you see on the air all the time. a lot of them have gotten the message

and they're wholesaling the cars but these cars don't disappear into thin air when somebody wholesales a car with a Takata airbag recall they reappear and this is where they're reappearing on the independent used car lots one of these on this sunshine used cars on Mercer Avenue was 2007 Honda

for $6,999 the other was a 2008 Chrysler 300 being promoted as a mechanic special, got to watch out for those folks, for just $999. We opted to check out the Honda. The other thing that picked our interest in Sunshine was a claim of no dealer fee. I love it when I see that. I mean, sometimes it's not true, but, you know, it might be true.

So we wanted to see if they really had no dealer fee. I hate the term dealer fee because you'll see advertisements saying no dealer fee. they'll call their dealer fee something else. See, some dealers actually, very few nowadays, will call their hidden fee a dealer fee. Yeah, we almost never see that any more. Once in a while. Yeah, and so I don't want to get off on a tangent,

but this piqued our interest. We stressed before on the program that the vast majority of used cars in our area are sold by independent dealers and private sellers. We've been criticized before, sometimes by the independent sellers and the smaller dealers, why are you picking on me? You know, we only sell

20 cars a month. I'm a little guy. I'm a mom and pop operation. I'm just trying to make a living. Why are you picking on me? Unfortunately, you and tens of thousands of other little mom and pop shops sell most of the used cars in the United States. And if you add private sales

to independent used car lot sales, that's where all virtually most of the used cars are being sold. and most of them have defective not only to cut airbags but they have recalls, dangerous recalls that can kill you and there's no legislation or control so that's why we're picking on the little guy

Sunshine used car sales they picked a well tested well rested I should say Agent Thunder been three weeks for the mystery shop and we sent Agent Thunder and speaking in the first person is if I were the Thunder before heading down to West on Beach, I made a quick phone call to Sunshine, used car sales to see if the 2007 Accord

with the Takata Airbag recall was still there in Brazil. The person I spoke to confirmed its availability, and I set out on my mission. Sunshine's lot is small. It consists of a small yellow building. Dealership's name is hand-painted. I like the hand-paint on the front of it. Some inventory was parked in front of the building, and it looked like the rest were parked in the fenced off area on the side. I walked in the front door

greeted by a man named Clyde. I love the name Klein. It's a great name. It is a good name? Is Clyde short for anything? Clyde's deal. Oh. No, no, I don't know.

You're joking. Okay. I told them I was searching for a cheap but reliable used car for my stepdaughter, stepdaughter's first car. I said I found their Honda on an interest internet search

and the price was right I'd be paying cash. I said that the car was right up front. He needed to make a copy of my driver's license. If I wanted to drive it, I hand it in my license. He said he always test drove the car, already test drove the car before I bought them. Clyde went behind the counter, grabbed the keys.

We went outside. He opened the door and the trunk. Let me explore for a few minutes. Didn't open the hood. The door and the trunk. Interesting. I asked him if there were any mechanical issues. and replied, not that I know of, but we're very careful not to purchase cars with problems.

The car had a Carfax window sticker that displayed Carfax highlights. Carfax, you know, is a great source of information for maintenance, damage, wrecks, flood cars, recalls. But they're also getting in, they're very retail, and now they're offering window stickers, and they're offering their name. So they're saying if it's a Carfax check car, it's safe. They're trying to get into that Carvana sort of online sales because they're also becoming a pricing information source. The thing to remember is that Carfax is a good company. They're reliable in the data that they supply.

But don't buy a car because it's got a Carfax window sticker on it. You have to also wonder who put the window sticker on the car. Well, I suspect that you have the options to choose which things you want to show and which things you don't want to show. Yeah, I believe. Be careful at Carfax, that's for sure. Anyway, the Carfax window sticker boasted no title problems. He even reported it was free of several potential serious issues,

like structural damage or domitometer rollback. There was no mention of recalls. Structural damage, again, is a questionable thing today. Used to be serious. Now with unibody, even the definition of structural damage is in question. client asked me to get in the driver's seat and start the engine Clyde sat in the passenger seat and we drove off Clyde talked about the car

I noticed Clyde has mentioned many times because you like the name Clyde you could tell Clyde you could tell because you kept throwing Let me let me full disclosure I try to mix up you know pronouns and the full name and I think I overdid it with the full name Yeah he went heavy on Clyde yeah He knew a surprising amount about this particular model I asked him if there had been any accidents

and whether he was aware of any safety issues I recommended them, I reminded them that my 17-year-old stepdaughter would be driving it to college. Smart girl going to college at 17. A lot of people do. Well, about half of them do. Yeah.

I went to college when I was 17, I think. No, I didn't either. I joined the Coast Guard. I digress. Clyde said he didn't know of any safety issues. He was pretty sure there had been no accidents. He said that we could see the Carfax report back at the lot. We returned and went inside.

I reminded him, I needed to get the Carfax report, and I told him I needed him to total things up so I could send a picture of the document to my wife and make sure she was good with a purchase. Very clever. I asked him if he could do better than the $6.9.99. Clyde replied that we're a one-price deal. So not only does he have no hidden fees, he's one price.

That's very progressive for an independent use card. Clyde tapped away on the keyboard while I waited. He printed a buyer's order and a Carfax report. We went over the Carfax first. Byrd said the Carfax was as good as it gets. He emphasized the one-owner status, lack of accidents, and the extensive service history. And again, Stu mentioned that earlier. Carfax reports do have a lot of data.

And when you get something disclosed, that's good. But what you have to always worry about is what's, not disclosed. I say this about extended warranties. You buy a service contract and an extended warranty. What it covers is okay. I mean, that's kind of important. But what it does not cover is even more important.

What you do not hear when the salesperson is reading the Carfax report is what you need to worry about, which is why you should read it yourself. Read it. Sometimes they're lengthy. But read the whole Carfax report. Otherwise, you're going to get fooled. Yeah. Okay, moving right along, I nodded in agreement that the Carfax report was as good as it gets,

but I asked, so there's nothing I should worry about probing here? Clyde said, no, it would be the perfect first car for my stepdaughter. We looked at the buyer's order. The price was $7,000, $1 more than the ad price. Didn't quibble about that. The only thing was $470 in sales tax, which was correct, and $360 per license tag and title, which I'm assuming it's about right. There were really no dealer fees. There were no hidden fees.

There were no non-government fees. This was truly a rare occasion, a car dealer, albeit very small, that was actually selling a car without any hidden fees. and kudos to Sunshine Auto Sales. And thank you. A good way to get an edge on the competition because Sunshine Auto Sales is like 1 in 10,000. We just don't know anybody doing that. I read the text to Clyde, grab the buyer's order and said,

I got to go, I'll call you in the morning. So went home. I really like the exit strategy on this one. Yeah, I do. Gotta go. Got to go. Yeah. Oh, I forgot to read the text.

Oh, sorry? Yeah, the text that his wife sent him back, sent back a pretend text, well, real text, but made this up, and Agent Thunders's wife said, the numbers look good, let's do it, but I'll have to wait tomorrow. I have a surprise, so come home now. Right.

You can't deny that. You can't, you've got to run. You've got to go home. Okay, epilogue. Sunshine used car sales failed a takata test by failing to disclose or even acknowledge the Takata Airbag recall plainly visible on the Carfax report

even after being promoted or prompted by Agent Thunder. Sunshine used car sales kept its promise of no dealer fees and deserves credit for not playing the dealer fee game. Now, on the Takada thing, before we get into the voting and we would love to have you text

or call your votes in or however you want to do it, text them in because we've got the phone. phones turned off, I guess. But here's my dilemma when I read this. Did Clyde, the salesman really know there was a recall? And if not,

if he did know there was a recall, it was a fixable recall. He could have disclosed it, and he could have made the sale. At the very least, he'd say, I'll have to take it over to the Honda dealer to have the recall done. So it wasn't like he was going to lose a sale.

I wonder, did he really know about the recall? Did he thoroughly read the Carfax report himself? My theory is, and this theory applies to a lot of the car dealerships that we investigate is that it is a lack of awareness. A lot of times

I don't, you know, apply like malevolent motives here. I just think that it's not something that they're educated on. When you look at the recall, it doesn't it's not in red print, it's not bold, it looks like everything else in the Carfax report. It says NHTSA

number 19V-501 recall X5C. So it's like a lot of technical stuff. I think that it's because no one's paying attention to it. So I don't fault Clyde, but we don't know. Well, yeah. And I think, again, I go back to the real problem here. Our legislators, our regulators, the conspiracy, and I hate to use that word conspiracy because it's overused.

But the National Automobile Dealers Association of Florida, Automobile Deals Association, and the manufacturers have an un, let's call it an unwritten, unspoken understanding that we're not going to make a big deal about the dangerous recalls that took out of everybody. And even the media are involved in this because the media exists by advertising and who does more advertising than car dealers and car manufacturers. so we have a really serious and therefore the awareness of the dangerous recalls has slipped way way down

slipped so far down that the owner of Sunshine Auto Sales might not be thinking about it and Clyde might not be thinking about it and nobody's thinking about it it's like the root of all our problems are politicians, lobbyists and the media

yeah we mystery shop our own car dealership and sometimes the people that we talk to that mystery shopped, our dealership aren't aware of the Takada Airbag recall. We have people on the street. I have people

ask me, what is this about the Takata Airbag? Hard to believe that's falling out of sight out of mine in our country. But anyway, I'm off on a rant and I'll stop. We need to vote about Sunshine Auto Sales. Do we recommend them or don't we? Do we give them a, B, C,D, or a failure?

The grades are all over the place on this one. I'll start with Linda on Facebook, Elinda gives them a D, which is better than her usual big fat F. So there was some redeeming qualities there. Joe gives them two grades in A for sales and F for the Takata. Maria gives him a D plus, Ella gives him a D minus, John gives him an F, Ed gives him a C, Vicki gives him a B. And I'm going to take the easy way out and give him two grades, A for sales and D for the Takata.

Yeah. Fair enough. Rick, we got Mark Anderson says a D. plus passing grade and Mark S F for the Takata recall and a B plus overall and myself I'm going to say a I'm going to give them

a C and I'd give them an A if it wasn't for that minor miss on the Takata thing and you know this one being fixable I just wish they'd caught that yeah absolutely Nancy so two grades were born

right here today okay Okay, this Sunshine used car sales, I'm keeping in mind that they have 29 used cars, you know, in their inventory. I'm keeping that in mind, and they may have overhooked the fact that there was a recall. Carfax I haven't been happy with lately. I've read some things about that. For sales, for Clyde, I'm going to give Clyde a C. For Takata, they get an F. Lives Matter.

Yeah. I'm going to pass them. I'm not going to do the great thing. I'm like Rick a little bit. I'm very impressed that they have no hidden fees. Clyde seemed like a stand-up guy. You could give them the benefit of the doubt on missing the Carfax or the Takata thing. I give them a high grade, and I would definitely pass them. We're definitely going to put them on the recommended list. And Ernesto has just come in with a C for him. Yeah.

I mean, that's pretty good grades, folks. And we grade on the curve and Sunshine Auto Sales. And they're on Mercer Avenue and West Palm Beach. Is that right? That's correct. And Mercer Avenue. So if you're looking for low-price cars and you're looking for an honest deal and you do your own check at safercar.gov to be sure there's no recall,

you're good to go to get a low price on a full disclosure. The price you get is the price you pay. there are one price and there's zero hidden fees none so i've never seen that except for one other place i've seen it but it was it was it was it was it was sunshine auto sales and we have the other uh buy here pay here type lot in uh martin county the wallis uh easy pay car yeah yeah yeah that was up uh easy own i think yeah easy own or easy pay and anyway it's funny uh buy here Bayer, small lots, having some of the best grades that we've gotten anywhere, as opposed to some of the razzle-dazzle-dazzle big guys.

It's usually because the owner typically works right there, and sometimes is the salesperson and the manager and the manager, everybody else. As a matter of fact, one last one, Karen came in with a D. So, again, a passing score. Yeah, we've got some great response. Okay, we're getting near the end of the show. You know, I want to, I just love, I love the title of this article. I did. I'm going to hold it up. But should I have a colonoscopy or buy a car?

Sounds like your youngest son chose the letter. Yes, my youngest son had it, and it came out squeaky clean. That's right. I'm not touching that. I bet he is really happy we shared that with 20,000 listeners. Yeah. And I shared my hemorrhoid surgery story, so he's got to, you know, he's got to participate. I think they, I think they bleep that. We're on a 20-second delay. I'm only kidding. But anyway, should I have a colonoscopy or buy a car? And that's in the current issue of Florida Weekly.

Florida Weekly, should I have a colonoscopy or buy a car? If you were 50 years old, I say you get a colonoscopy before you buy a car. Absolutely. Great advice, too. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in this morning. And bearing with us. Yes. Are we on time already?

We always appreciate you. And, you know, you're a huge part of what we do. And your encouragement, your phone calls, your texts, and just listening. And I just want to take a moment to thank everyone, and we're certainly glad to be back. And I want to thank Jonathan again for his efforts and everything that he does behind the curtain. And Rick, Stu, recovering car dealer. and Nancy Stewart want to wish you a wonderful cold weekend and enjoy it. Snuggle alert.

Thanks, Steve Wiggle. Okay. Thanks again. Come. Go. Oh. No. No.

Go. Prenton. Wreckedong. Wreck. Wren. Vecro! Fet no! Fet no,

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