Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.16.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Stan McNabb Buick GMC of Tullahoma, TN.

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Tennessee to visit a small town Buick GMC dealer and see what their final price is on a new 2025 Buick Encore GX SUV on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Hello, 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 listeners. 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 is my son, Stu Stewart, our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back live. My apologies to the audience on me missing some shows. I'm back and I never know how to say we're really live because sometimes we might run this as another show and I was ready to chime in on them like if you say that how do they really know but we can tell you the date what's today's date and that voice you just heard was

13th 16th I was kidding my son we have Rick Kearney who is he's kind of like a adopted son he's my brother he's worked for me for many years and probably one of the most intelligent on how an automobile runs of any man I know. And he learns constantly. And if you've got a issue with your car, we'd love to have you call the show and speak to Rick,

and that number is 877-960-9-6-0. You'll probably hear that until you want to slap me. But you've got to remember, this is a two-hour show. We're on for two hours from 860,000. 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Standard time. And we're all over the country. We're all over the world, as a matter of fact. And nobody listens to the show for two hours. Maybe, you know, a couple people, but most people tune in, tune out. So if you tune in for 15 or 20 minutes and tune out again, you'll get some good stuff, but you're not going to get the whole show. and if you have a question about your car

just give us a call Nancy Stewart is my co-host I'm looking at her right now she founded this show 20 some odd years ago with me when we were a half an hour I think we're on Thursdays and then the radio station went out of business

and we didn't have a job there for a while and we came back and now here we are two hours And Nancy Stewart is, as I say, she helped found the show with me, and she's become the female advocate, which makes us unique in the fact that usually car shows are all about guys, guys love cars. It's one of those things. But what people forgot, economically, women are a huge factor in the automobile market. if it weren't for women there'd be a lot of car dealers broke today

because they might have the cars but they don't call into the shows like other like people like men do. Men, you know, it's a toy. I want to talk about my toy. Women are more practical and so she's built

the audience up to 50-50 and I'm going to turn the mic over to her very shortly here and she's going to tell you about a special offer. If you're female, you're listening to the show it sounds too good to be true but it is true we have a pleasant surprise for you if you call them the show and you haven't called in before

this is a crazy time and if there ever has been a time in the evolution of the automobile manufacturing and retail business is now I mean what is going on in the world today with the automotive industry and as retail and wholesale

is scary. I mean, I've been in business since 1968 and I pride myself as knowing a lot about what's going on. I don't know what's going on right now. When you look at the headlines, here we have the head of potentially the largest automobile manufacturer

in the world who is also now advisor to the President of the United States. Now, if that doesn't get your attention, nothing will. We have sacred companies that we look at as the company, General Motors, Ford, used to be Chrysler, no more, that are hanging on by a threat financially. And you have new companies you've never heard of before. How many have you heard of B-Y-D? Well, it's a Chinese company, and they are potentially the competitor to Tesla, which is almost the largest manufacturer of the world.

So all this stuff is happening, and meanwhile, you say, well, what does this mean to me? Well, you're going to buy a car sooner or later, probably if you're listening to the show, you'll buy a car, and that's why we're here to give you information. So with all that said, I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host. and she'll tell you about the special offer. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Ladies, I have a special promotion for you,

and that is we want you to give us a call. So we're putting something out there that, well, just might encourage you to give us a call. The first two new lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning, $50 for the first two new, lady callers. Like Girl said, you know, over half of women purchase a vehicle. They're a huge part of this industry. And I do have to say, if the car dealers don't recognize that by

now, they're in big trouble because, as I said, they are a big part of the auto industry and the finances. And they are a driving force. might say. Our number here is 877960, and you can text us at 772-4976530. Also, Jonathan, are we up in ready to go? Oh, okay, great. You know what I'll do? I'll get to the callers that are lining up already. We're going to go to John in Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning. I have a question for Earl, and I want to tell people if the car that they purchased or attempted to purchase does not have the manufacturers list price attached to it,

never mind in the backseat or in the glove compartment, just walk away from that vehicle. And the reason why I'm saying that is the manufacturer's certificate of origin, not the origin. There's two certificates. yet people have to know. You never see it. One is the dealer keeps it and has to register it for you. That's like a birth certificate, and that's put away. You don't see that.

But the manufacturers suggested retail price, and I want to read one out to you because it's an education in itself. This particular one is from a friend of mine, 2024 XT5 Premium Luxury Cadillac Front Wheel Dry. Now, to begin with, this is the actual manufacturer. Right on it, it has total vehicle price, 56,130. Before that is the standard vehicle price, 50,195. So what the difference is, the accessories, which is 4,540, which makes it 56,130.

So you know where you can start from. This is the actual list price that's been said. since 1958 from Senator Monroney, and it must be attached to the car. Now, Earl, my question is, if this is missing, there's a fine. I think it's $200. Who enforces that fine? Is it the Attorney General or is it a DOT? Has it ever been enforced to your knowledge?

FTC, but I don't know. Yeah, that's true question. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I know about it. It's, uh, we, I know of no dealer, Stu and I, Rick and Massey. We, we, we know hundreds, maybe thousands of the dealers cumulatively between us. I've never had a dealer say to me, I had a, uh, fine because my customer couldn't find the monorone label. You know, the, the sad part, John, uh, and you always bring up, uh, the important things. So, sometimes we don't, uh, sometimes we don't talk about that monorone label as much as we should because it's been a loss since

1958 that's the year I graduated from my school so it's been around for all these years and it's totally ignored so I I think I the analogy I use is I 95 or the turnpike or the expressway where the speed limit is 65 miles and hour and you know what happens when you get on there and you go 65 hours an hour they do 1905 so every dealer decided it was almost like a conspiracy to hell with a bonroney label to hell with Senator Moroni to hell with the federal law I'm not going to do it and all the dealers jumped on the bandwagon especially South Florida and they just ignore it so we we holler and we talk on this show and I'm guilty of it too we need more

laws, more regulations. What we need is enforcement of the laws that we already have. And there are laws on the books now that we're glad or not enforced because they were, you know, they might have been there 200 years ago and now they are silly. But nobody goes back into the books in Washington and say, this law is silly. This law is being ignored. Let's start enforcing this law. and let's drop this law. Nobody does that. We just have more and more laws and more and more ignoring of it. So thanks very much for that question.

But I don't wish to bore people, but let me tell you something additional. The most important part of this naturally is the dealer that was delivered to is on there, the ID number. Then there's a column, government five-star rating, overall score. There's five stars for this vehicle.

Underneath that, frontal driving crash, there's five stars again. Crash, that's for driver. Crash for passenger again. Again, side crash, five stars for front seat, five stars for rear seat. There's even one for rollover. That's four stars. And most important is the fuel economy. Overall, 24 miles a gallon, 22 in the city, 29 in the highway.

4.2 gallons per 100 miles. There's even a call it the annual cost per year of fuel. Then this is another one that nobody is that pays attention to. Fuel economy and greenhouse gas ratings. This is a five. It's one to 10. There's even one a small rating, one to 10. And this means it says in small print, this vehicle admits 370,000,

grams of COT per mile. So my point is, this is an education in itself about the vehicle that you're attempting to buy. And one very important point on our option column, options specifically, it says here, all weather, floor liner package, 375, parenthesis, dealer install, which means it comes with the car, mainly in the trunk. and the dealer puts them out, so you get these shy-ster-dealer,

crooked dealers that will charge you extra for that package alone, because it specifically, when it says dealer-installed, it just means it came with the car, but the dealer actually laid them out flat. John, we got a lot of calls waiting here, but I want to thank you. I want to thank you again.

You learn more, we, consumer, learns more by reading the Monroe label than I do from the salesman. And it's honest, and it's more complete. So that was a great call. Thank you very much. We've got to move along with the next call. Great subject, John.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, John. Thank you. We are going to go to Howard, who's been holding. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. Beautiful day today.

Oh, yeah. A couple of questions I have to you. Is there a, a time element where you have to change drive belts, you know, 60,000 miles, or do you have to wait until it sounds like, you know, my drive belt starts going bad if they'd squealed? So maybe Rick could help me with that one. Got you covered, boss. No, there's no miles or time lifespan for drive belts anymore. It used to be, and I'm going to back to like 95 when I first started working on cars, 92, 95. And drive belts would last about

25, 30,000 miles. They start getting cracks in them. And when you started to see those cracks, it was time to recommend new belts. My Tacoma pickup that I'm driving right now is 11 years old and has 183,000 miles and it's got the original drive belt on it. Wow. They, whatever, Whatever they did to these drive belts, they're lasting forever now. If they could make tires like that, I'd be out of a job almost because, I mean, it just, they are making cars now that are going to outlast you, your kids, and your grandkids. Amazing. Oh, now who makes the drive this toy? Do you want to make drive belts or they...

No, they usually buy from a company like Deco or Gates. But I think Deco makes most of Toyota's drive belts for us. And either one is a good company. Yes. Yeah, there. Okay. Even the Goodyear Gatorback belts are excellent quality. And just, you know, if they start to stretch a little bit and they get loose, they'll start to squeal at times, then you just go ahead and replace it.

But, again, it's, it might be years and years and years before you ever replace another drive belt on a car. Okay, one other question. A friend of mine bought tires. They calls for a ZR speed rating on it. But when he bought the tire, he got a W rating, which is one less than a ZR. Are there a problem with that? It's going to depend on his driving habits.

If he isn't driving fast, then a W rating is just fine on that car. If he, you know, intends to get out there and, you know, bend a few laws and ripped down the highway at a high speed, he might want that Z-rated tire. But the speed rating is all about the tire handling the heat and the traction control at those higher speeds. So if you're just driving normally around town, normal highway driving at 65 miles or 70 miles an hour, a W tire is going to be just fine for you. You save a few bucks that way.

Right. And last question, very fast one. When do you change your sway ball links? When they begin to make noise. And again, that's something that is so rare to change those anymore. The biggest thing we see anymore now that's a rubberized component that's starting to wear out a lot are control arms. And these are the bushings start to wear out and the arms start to get extra movement in it. but you're usually seeing that on cars with like 150 to 200,000 miles.

If that fails, the sway bar fail, what happens? Do you get an accident? If the sway bar links were to break, the car would feel kind of sloppy driving, and you'd get a lot of noise from the pieces rattling around. That'd be about it. Okay, that's what I figured. Okay, thank you. I'm not going to hold you up because...

Thanks, Howard. My pleasure. interesting conversation 877 960 9960 and if you're joining us on Zoom and you have a question please use the chat function by clicking on the icon and Jonathan's going to be right there and he's our producer and he'll get your name and location and put you right through that number does appear on the screen that you're watching and if you're not That zoom number is 926-589-0-5-86. That number, again, is 926-589-0-5-86. We're going to go right to Barry, who's calling us from Tampa. Good morning, Barry. You there, Barry?

Yeah, hi, good morning. I was wondering if I put on a falsetto voice if I could win the 50 bucks You try That was just a passing thought My real question is about auto shows And specifically the kind where the manufacturers show off their latest model Which I guess you could take a couple of different ways But the vintage shows

And the custom shows that's a different animal I'm not concerned about those today Anyway, I'm interested in attending the show in Orlando that's running through tomorrow but I've read comments that indicate that the Central Florida International Auto Show, as it's called, gets smaller each year with many brands not even participating. A few words like disappointing, bleak and empty coming up in the comments. And when you look at the online floor plan, it shows no Tesla, no Subaru, no Lexus, no Mazda, no Mercedes, and several other brands are missing. Wow.

So I'm kind of questioning whether it's worth the price of admission, but I'll probably give it a try. But what's your opinion of this and other Florida car shows? Are they a dying breeze? I mean, you know, the big ones, New York and, I mean, Detroit and those are the big famous ones. You know, I'm not familiar with some of the smaller ones around. But, yeah, I don't know if it would be worth the admission if, you know, the exciting brands weren't there. Like, I'd want to see Tesla and what GM and Toyota has to, what they're coming out. It's pretty exciting on the big shows because you see what's coming down.

the line and some concept vehicles too. How much does it cost to get into the Orlando Auto Show? 20 bucks for a regular person. 15 if you're a senior military and it's 15 bucks parking. That's adding up there with parking. I don't know.

Can you watch it? Do they live stream it or they do something online? You get a get a close? No, no. I think I might just try it for once to see what it's like. Well, it's not like $100 a ticket. A lot of shows are becoming less and less popular because looks are becoming less and less popular.

It's what's under the skin, and now it's what's in the microchip. So what we used to think, you know, a car is a car. That's that beautiful 1957 Chevrolet, four on the floor with dual four-wheel carburetors, and that was a car. Now that car doesn't exist anymore, and what you've got is a rolling software package. And it's almost too complicated to make a decision as to which car you want to buy because the car you want to buy is the one that ultimately is going to be the one that drives you instead of you driving the car. So I know I say this too many times on the show, but things are changing so fast now that the consumer is pretty much at the mercy of what's out there. and we're not having the influence the consumers that we used to have.

Someone has that vision that a fully autonomous car all electric is a way we're all going to be driving in a few years, and I don't know anyone that says that isn't going to be true. So just imagine what that's going to do to the landscape, to the buyers,

to the manufacturers, to the sellers. It's going to be a whole new world. okay all right thank you very much you're welcome we're going to go to Doug and Doug is giving us a call from

Boca good morning Doug good morning I woke up today to watch the sunrise and it wasn't there all right I guess didn't do it but I'm called to ask a question about

tire pressure So I said it to 37, and it says that's about right, but I've seen some people go up to 40 on the GR. What's it say on the tires? It says 37. Is that the max PSI? No, it goes up to 40. Okay.

That seems high. I recently had a personal experience. experience with that in my tundra and I took a road trip up to Tennessee and I was pulling a trailer and I checked the air pressure of my trailer tires and the truck before I left and all my tires were around 31 PSI the tire on the wall on the tire but the it said 50 PSI it came in from the factory with 30 with 32 I think and I was like right around that and I wasn't concerned about the safety, but I was concerned about the, um, my fuel efficiency. So I was, I came up right up on my next, um, my first actual service, which is just a tire rotation. I told them to put it up to a level that

was somewhere between that. So I had, so we did it at 42. Um, I don't know any, I don't notice any difference in the ride. I'm not bouncing around. It doesn't feel hard like they said it would. And I've already noticed, um, just driving around town, an uptick in the gas mileage. So I would, I would, I would gravitate higher because you also have a kind of a sporty car there so you want to um i think it would be okay if you if it was a little bit it doesn't have to be a a lush ride for you in that gr so i'd go up closer to the um the number on the tires but not all the way rick's going what a great job dude you just answered that like i would perfectly unless you're very sensitive yeah yeah i i mean i was worried about that because i'm like i don't want to be have you know i don't want to get like

like brain trauma driving up to Tennessee next time. But it's not like that. It's all right. Did you hear that, by the way, about the Navy high-speed votes and I assume the Coast Guard? Yeah. That's terrible. I mean, generations of... Bouncing around

for a long time is not good for you. Yeah, and they get CTE from it, and just like football players. And Mike Tyson... Really? Really? Wow, so that means a wave runner. One of those probably wouldn't be good for you either. Yeah, these guys have been doing it

for their entire career, like 20 years of it, so I don't think a couple of weekends are going to do it. Fast boat drivers. Yeah, guys that go out every weekend. But, yeah, I put a little bit more pressure in there. Get some more, better gas mileage and enjoy the ride.

Okay, well, you guys have a great day. Ella says meow. Thank you. Yeah, meow right back at you. Thank you, Doug. I need some coffee. but have a great day. Enjoy.

We are going to go to Trisha. Trisha, if you've been listening to the show, she definitely is a regular, has a lot to share with us. We love your company, Trisha. I love yours too, and this is going to be a different kind of question, an ethical, moral kind of question,

maybe new to your show. As you know, I've been having difficulty with the lights, you know, the four lights being lit up to the left of my odometer going on and off, and it's intermittent, and remember I told you two weeks, well, several weeks ago that, you know, I was charged $350 to replace a math air filter that was way overpriced because he got me one, an expensive one for $159, but they charged me $207, and then an hours worth of labor, you know, it only takes 10 minutes to put in this thing. And it was only $350 because I had a $25 coupon. All right. As you know, that did not work. He went and again,

he cleaned out the throttle, hoping that would work. That did not work. Called him again. He said, I'm going to call a friend of mine who works with Honda. He came back to me and told me It's going to need a what's called a Honda application that you could only get from the dealership, okay, to fix it. All right. So, and also, Rick, I want to tell you, you told me for him to check the wires. The wires he did check, they're not loose. All right. So here is my question to it.

It's not affecting the performance of my car. I'm not going to spend $500 putting in a Honda application to reboot or reset the computer that I could only get from Honda because it's not affecting the performance of the car. But my question to you is, I feel that $350 should be credited to me or paid back to me by my guy who did it since it did not solve the problem. Obviously, it was a computer problem, and his computer misdiagnosed it because it was a mainframe computer problem. I want to know what you guys think. Should I be asking for a credit or a refund? I agree with you on that. That's a good question.

Because one of the laws that I lay down for myself as a mechanic is if I work on a customer's car and I find that I can, cannot fix the car with the time frame allotted or, you know, even if I spend a couple hours on it, if I'm not able to solve it, I don't know where to go next and I have to give that over to someone else or if it's a non-Toyota and it has to go to another dealership, I will not charge that customer. I will tell the writer, this is a no charge. We're not charging them. We couldn't fix it. Give them their car. They're free to go. No charge. Rick, it's the very least to give the warning to the customer that you just gave. Because sometimes a diagnosis is complex. A good faith diagnosis. You know as a very, very well-trained

technician that there are three things that could be maybe equally. And then you tell the customer before you start, I might get lucky and pick the right. problem here, but I'm going to have to do it by a process of elimination. Absolutely right. And there's also, you make great efforts to overlap as much as you can. They've already gotten in here. We're not going to have three separate jobs already done this much. So some crediting should be done.

Exactly. And I'm one that I just learned from day one. You've got to be honest with the customer 100%, because the moment you lie to a customer, you've lost them forever as your customer, and you lost out on all the business that they would have sent to you and it hurts everybody

all the way around. And your nose grows. Yeah, and I'm sitting here telling you right in front of Earl Stewart that I have sent his customers away on a rare occasion, not charging them, even though we worked on that car

for a couple hours. But that's just, I'm, I'm brutally honest. It's just who I am. That's why they came back. But, Rick, this is a different story. He really thought that was a problem because that's what his computer told him. Right. Exactly.

And that's a good face. If he went on record and he told you it was a problem, he should have also told you that should have also told you that should their problem still exist, there will be another charge. So, you know, if a technician said, I'm sure this is a problem. this will fix your car and you get him to write that on the repair order ticket because that locks him in legally but it's always uh he said she said kind of a situation when a there's this conversation and nothing's in writing always get it in writing if it's not on the repair order get a text get an email and say this is the problem i've diagnosed it's going to cost you three hundred and seventy five dollars and that will fix your problem and now you're legally

But I've already done it. I've already paid it. And then he's going to hire a lawyer. Ethically, here's what he should do. He should give you a break on the second job. It doesn't mean he needs to sacrifice. He made that diagnosis. There's a computer.

It was done in good faith. He didn't try to screw you. But he shouldn't enjoy the awards of your misery. So to keep you as a customer and happy, he should do the second one at cost. He made money the first time he charged you. Maybe he could do it. just what he has to pay his technician or himself if he is the technician, but just it needs to come down significantly to acknowledge the fact that you both went down the wrong

hole, but you suffered from it. And he profits from it. Something we haven't mentioned on the show recently is small claims court, and I sometimes hesitate to call a lawyer. People know lawyers cost a lot of money, and they don't want the time and aggravation. But there is a small claims court. And it's available to everybody. And if you write a letter to the dealer and you say, I will be taking this to small claims court, it almost has the same impact as if you really call the lawyer.

You're not really going to do it. Sometimes you need a little bite to get their attention, and that would do it. Okay, he's got to buy. He told me he has to buy this application from the dealer. I didn't ask him how much it's going to cost him, but should I, should I make him buy it and say, hey, you know, you've got to... No, if he tends to pass that cost onto you, he's going to use that for... I think you should go to the dealer at this point,

because now he's buying, you know, software he's going to allow to fix the car when the dealership has that. They might have a higher rate, but now this guy's adding this stuff on, you've already paid for the job that didn't fix it. I think you've got to stop screwing around. with this guy but maybe ask him he can give you like a rebate or you know make you feel happy about the last job you know a couple hundred a hundred bucks or just something to acknowledge the fact that this happened and it was unfortunate he can make a little money and you can go away but

stop you know i wouldn't mess around with him anymore trisha have you built a relationship with this person yes yes yes that gives you some leverage i think just going back in and uh letting your voice be heard I think maybe I could get a credit on my next oil anything of the job that has to be done instead of asking for my money back I said give me a 350 credit on any work I have in the future perfect what do you think I don't know because you still have to fix this fix the car right is it done well but but Rick it's not affecting the performance of the car so I don't it's you know I just have to live with the damn lights um so that's another thing I don't want to put in any more expense to this what is it what kind of I understand Tricia I think that

going in and talking waiting here but I will say this if you want to if he's a good mechanic and you told me you thought he was and you got along with him up until now I would give him one more chance but what he did is technically wrong but your your challenge will be if you don't use this person anymore and if you take him to court small claims court or anything else and the and then you have a adversarial relationship with them you're gonna have to go out and find another mechanic and that's easier said than done so so I try to keep him happy yeah yeah and have a nice conversation we got five

I say you know this relationship that you've built with this person continue continue until you get what you want. After that, walk. Thank you so much for calling. My pleasure. We're going to, you know, I want to thank Paul and Roger and Jay for their patients. We're going to go to Paul, and he has been holding from North Palm Beach. Good morning, Well, good morning. I have a 2012 Toyota Sienna that I brought from Earl 12 or so years ago. Wonderful, wonderful vehicle. Something strange happened the other day, and I wonder if someone could comment on it. I am driving with the radio turned off, and I get through the radio Sirius XM. The radio is turned off. but I definitely have this broadcast. I turn the volume up and down on the radio

while it's turned off. It has no effect at all on the volume. I turn the radio on. I get the regular radio station. The volume works. Turn the radio off and I'm still getting serious XM. So I wondered if you had any

experience with that. I was afraid I hope there wasn't like a short or something somewhere because it's being powered somehow although when I turn the car off, I don't get the broadcast. I can guarantee you Rick has never encountered that before. I actually have not. However, let me ask you this.

When you bought the car, was it set up for satellite, for serious satellite radio? Because normally that requires an added extension module be installed to the little antenna so that you can get the serious XM radio. Yeah, because without a subscription, it would play Channel 1 over and over and over and over. Yeah, I believe we did have it for a short time when we first got it, but hadn't had it in a decade or more. Okay, that sounds like then,

most likely the head unit of the radio has got a short in it somewhere, and it's actually, even though the power is turned off, the radio is still receiving all its power from the car and it's still connected to the speakers and everything and what's probably happening is that serious XM module is receiving those two channels the the sample channel and the one that tries to get you to buy the subscription and for some reason your radio is actually putting that on to the speakers even though it should be turned off

so it's I'm willing to bet you've got to a short net radio somewhere. And with it being a 2012 radio, my recommendation is unless it's, if you can live with it, just ignore it. But if it really, really bothers you, stop in it like World of Sound or Best Buy and look into the idea of an aftermarket radio that has 2024 technology. And you'll be able to get things like the Apple CarPlay, the Google CarPlay, all the maps and everything, the Bluetooth, and trust me, you're going to love the new features that they have, and it'll be about half the price of just buying the replacement radio for that Sienna,

if you could ever find one. Yeah, it stopped doing it. It might start again. It's not that loud, and it doesn't bother me, so I probably won't do anything with it as long. I was just afraid, is it only getting power when the car's turned on, or is the short possibly, would that drain my battery if I didn't drive it for a while? No, because when you shut the car off, it's a different system that controls the power to the radio.

And there is one wire that keeps constant power to the radio, so it has its memory. But when you shut the car off, the main power for the radio turns off. so the whole head you know will power down and goes into the sleep state but yeah unless it's like i say unless it's really bothering you if you can just live with it when it occurs i i probably wouldn't spend any money on that on you know as long as the rest of the radio is working normally uh terrific well thank you very much uh i really appreciate your help love the show thank you paul give us a call again uh ladies and gentlemen $50 for the first two new lady callers take advantage of that offer you still have time 877 960 9960 that's the first

two new lady callers you can win yourself $50 we're going to go to roger who's been holding good morning roger good morning what can we do for you so um yes i have a 2017 Nissan Quest it bucked a little bit, and then the engine light came on. So I put the machine on it, and basically it said it was a misfire. So I hadn't changed the plugs in a while, and I thought, well, maybe I should go ahead and change them out, and that should fix the problem. So I put in a brand new set of plugs. It seemed to drive okay. I wasn't having any problems.

And then toward the end of the day, it started doing the bucking, stuff like that, and I couldn't get it to kind of straighten out. So I started checking other things in the engine, and I found that the connector hose between the mass airflow and the filter had a crack in the bottom where you couldn't see it. A vacuum leak. Yep. Yeah, I left vacuum leak. So I thought, okay, I'll replace that. And by the way, I just want to say, what a ridiculous price.

That was like $158 for that wrinkled hose. Yeah, some of those they are very, very proud of. Yeah. So anyway, I put that in there, still had a problem. I checked all the vacuum hoses, and I found a hose that had a crack in it, and I replaced that. And so what's happened is that the car smoothed out, the mileage that I was getting for a tank of gas, straightened out. But what happens, I start up in the morning, drive here, go here, do that, do this. by the end of the day, around 4 or 5 o'clock, if I parked the car and go do an errand and come back to the car, it'll start bucking.

And I sat there and let it idle for a while until it straightens out. But it almost happens almost every day, and I don't know what else to check. I have no idea what's causing that problem, and I thought maybe you might have some ideas. Let me ask you this. When the problem first occurred, had you refueled? the car recently, like within a day or two bought gas for it, you know, filled it with gas? Well, it's been several weeks, but probably. I mean, you know, you've got to buy gas every week or so. Because misfires can occur for a number of reasons. Usually, though, one of the

most common things that would cause a misfire like that is contaminated fuel. This is something I see a lot of and what happens is rainwater will get down into the fuel tanks at the gas station and sometimes their system will suck up just a little bit of water and that water will get into your tank now what happens though obviously water and gasoline don't mix so the water actually forms like a little puddle down in the bottom of the tank and as you're driving it's moving around and that little puddle sometimes little bits of it will get sucked up by the fuel pump and of course water doesn't burn well in an engine so it winds up getting that stuttering feel.

I would try and this is one of the only times that I will suggest a mechanic in a can type solution but for about $10 or $12 get a can of dry gas. This is an alcohol mixture that you put in the fuel tank, you just dump it right in and it actually causes the water molecules to be able to bond with the gasoline and the alcohol. It works as a catalyst to collect it together and it will slowly burn that through so if there is any water in the gasoline it'll burn it out and might just save your issue for a $10 fix. Other than that you just have to keep watch and see is it the same cylinder that's acting up each time or is it multiple?

cylinders, you could have a coil pack starting to go bad, or it could be the, even the cylinder itself might have a mechanical issue. Since I fixed the air mass flow connector and the vacuum, I haven't gotten an engine light hasn't come on since. It just bucks with no engine like. Yeah. Sometimes the computer won't flag the misfire because it thinks it's just a, a quick occurrence, and it may not trigger it enough for it to flag.

So that's why I would try the dry gas first. All right, I'm going to try it. So you think, but that makes sense that by the end of the day, that the water would show up into the fuel mix. I mean... It's possible if it's moving around. Yeah, like this morning, I've been driving the car. It's no problem whatsoever.

It was perfectly. Yeah, I guess the reason I mentioned is I had a customer a while back that every time they would make a left-hand turn, the car would sputter. And it was because of a little bit of water in the gasoline. But, yeah, the next most obvious thing that I'd look for is, if it's misfiring on the same cylinder each time, then it might be the coil pack getting ready to go. And we have seen that happen quite a bit.

I'll give that a try. Now, this dry gas, where do you buy that? Any auto parts store. Amazon. Okay. Amazon will have it, too, yeah. Amazon, okay. All right, that's a good idea.

I was wondering about water and the gas. That's funny the way it drove, but because I buy my gas at Costco, I just felt like that wasn't it, but I could be wrong. Well, and Costco has a super high turnover on their fuel. I know that because I try to get mine there, and unless you go there super early in the morning, there's always a super long line. And so they use that fuel up quickly there.

That's like they're hot dogs. They sell them at cost. Yep. All right, well, listen, thank you for the tip. I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks, Roger. Give us a call. Let us know how that turned out for you.

It'd be nice if you could get hot dogs in line at the gas station at Costco. Like, you wouldn't have to go in if they just bring them out while you're fueling up. Be still my heart. Well, we'll pass that along. That would be awesome. Yeah. Okay. Minnesota.

We're going to go to Jay. He's been holding. Thank you for your patience. Jay's calling us from Hope Sun. What can we do for you, Jay? Well, good morning. I was, I dropped a friend off to have his car service at Auto Nation and Green Acres. And I happen to see a Toyota Corolla that I was, what was interesting.

It was a 20-23 corolla. And I asked one of the salesmen, what's the price out the door? And he printed out a sheet for me. And basically the auto nation price was $20,998, sales tax, about $1,400. And then the things that are, the questions I have are on, for instance, electronic filing fee of $199. Is that a junk fee? Yes, that's a junk fee. That's one of the favorite names.

Dealers come up with creative, official sounding names, and they love the electronic filing fee because it just sounds like documentary fee. They try to make it sound like a legal, legitimate fee, and they come up with that. But electronic filing fee is almost become commonplace, because all the dealers thought of such a cool name, if they put in a junk fee, they might have a problem. It's related to the filing it, but, yeah, go ahead, sorry.

That electronic filing fee. There's going to be more. Keep going. Okay. And then registration fee, $500. Well, that's what, transfer registration? That could be legit. Yeah.

Well, that sounds high for a transfer fee. It could include a transfer fee and maybe some extraneous stuff if they're lumping it into one line. But keep going. There's probably more. And then the final one is dealer service fee, $9.95. Yeah, that's the famous one. Junk. Junk, yeah.

Anything else? No, that's it. Yeah, it sounds like an auto-nation store. A test that you can apply to any fee instead of having the guest, because the dealers are pretty clever about coming up with good-sounding names, is recalculate your sales tax on your buyer's order, and find out if the dealer had set that particular item up to pay sales tax on. If you're going to have to pay sales tax on it, then it's not a legitimate fee.

It's part of the price. It's part of the price of the car. So if it's a $500 fee for electronic filing fee, and in Florida it's a 6% sales tax, there should be $30. If it's legitimate, there should be a $300. $30 charge for that under the sales tax. If not, then it's junk.

It just added profit for the dealer. Yeah, I mean, $30 is reasonable, right? Yeah, it is. And also on that registration fee of $500, like at a dealership, typically, it's an estimate. They run the tag when you actually buy the car, and so they get the exact price. So that could change and could come down. Or they could have some things built in there, like the private tag agency fee. which I don't think they're allowed to include that on the same line.

I don't know, but it's part of the same process, but it's a cost of the dealership. And if they charge it to you, you're paying sales tax. They're just adding it to the price to increase their gross profit. Well, and I also checked Earl Stewart Toyota for Corollas, and a brand-new 2024 Corolla with the smart path price was 22-993. which I think is a really good deal. Well, is that the sale price? Because we have the out-the-door price on the website as well.

So it might even be lower than the SmartPath price? No, that SmartPath price is what we have on the website is the current price that we're charging for that vehicle. I didn't know because if you click into it, you can see the after we add sales tax and the estimated tag fee what the out-the-door is, and that's in there. on the website as well all right well i got a feeling uh if i'm going to buy a toyota i should probably do it at your dealership no you should look around i mean we have um we're we do we do our best to get the best pricing um but we're trying to be competitive with other dealers and so um we can be beat i just just got to be wary of the other fees we have a unconditional money back

guarantee for a week on all our vehicles. The reason we do that is to make it less fearful when you buy a car because any other dealer, if you buy the car and drive it home, you own it. Unless you want to go hire a lawyer or something because once they take delivery of the car, customers are legally responsible for having bought and paid for the car. So we have an unconditional. I underline unconditional, and all you attorneys out there know what that means. It means that you're crazy because you shouldn't

say that because you can get in trouble. But we do it anyway because we are crazy. We want someone to be able to buy a car. And say you did buy a car from us with that unconditional guarantee. Three days later, you got a call from our competitor and he offered to sell you the

same car for $1,000 less or any less. You could say, fine. I'm a bringing that car back to Stewart, and I'm going to buy the car from you. So that's what, it's competition. It's good. Good for the customers, good for the dealers, but it isn't something that they like. And that's the reason, you know, you should be absolutely positive before you drive that car home.

Well, and I do have to hand it to Auto Nation because it really was a hassle-free experience. There was no pressure by anybody, you know, the sales manager wanted to speak. Generally, that's true with automation. They're better than most. We have seen some surprises at automation stores, but when you have 200-some-odd stores, a car dealership or any business is only good as the people that work there, and every now and then you get a rotten apple in the barrel. We have rotten apples in our barrel from time to time.

It's just the way it is. If a business tells you, I've got 160 people here, and every one of them is strictly honest and nice, and they're all angels they're lying to you if I was a car consumer though I would feel comfortable shopping at an auto nation store I would too

and how about you heard of a true car in Opalaka yeah well true car is a service I don't know if they don't have a location yeah they're actually yeah I think it's West Coast I think it might even be San Francisco

but yeah they're nationwide and it's a franchise sort of a thing that dealers sign up with to get a true price, to get a low actual price. It's a good company. Get the true car price. They will tell you that that price is the price without junk fees is this. And they'll also tell you about the junk fees.

So you get the total price, plus you have the opportunity to say, I don't want to pay that electronic filing fee for $500 because it's not really a fee. It's a profit to the dealer. So a true car, if you can find a true car dealer or a Costco dealer, you got yourself a good chance to get the good price. And by the way, I was checking out your Reds Supra, that's a really sweet car. That's the, that was the launch edition. It was the first, the 2020 GR Supra.

And, yeah, we got that because it was special. And it wasn't the very first one, I think, was bought by, Stalupi. Stalupi, John Sloopy, at this auction for a million or two million or... At least a million. Whatever was, it shocked us all. But we didn't pay that much for ours. We paid around $60,000 or whatever the cost was.

Wow, that sounds great. All right, thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for the call. Thank you. Okay, back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I want to just say, again, And it's the frustration that we feel on the show about the way things are being, a way dealers are big, dealers taking advantage of people.

And unfortunately, there is no, they own the legislatures of this. Every state, the dealers own the federal, the Federal Trade Commission. Right now, you know, with all this presidential election, behind us and talking about the Federal Trade Commission, you hear the influence that the politicians have on who gets prosecuted. You know, will our president be prosecuted? And they use agencies like that improperly.

Meanwhile, the legitimate laws out there where they should be prosecuted are just totally ignored. So we don't have a regulation, We have a enforcement problem, and the only way to get around that, the best thing to get a dealer's attention is call this radio, call this show, or call Channel 5 or 12, or go public. One thing the dealers all fear, all shady businesses, don't want to be exposed to the cold light of day. So the more you can draw attention to something a dealer does, the less likely he's going to continue doing that. So that's why the show exists.

We name names, we do mystery shopping reports, and when you call the show, we can stop some of the violations. Absolutely. And not only that, but don't forget about Ashley Moody. You know who she is. The Attorney General of the state of Florida. Totally useless.

And I don't know. I think that with some positive thoughts, I think that I think she is going to muster up some time to help us out. But ladies and gentlemen, you know, you have to let your voice be heard. And you can do that, you know, by giving her a call at 866-9667-226. Hope Springs Eternal. That's Attorney General Ashley Moody. Hope Springs Eternal. I think so.

Here's a tip. Let me give you a real legitimate tip. This is for real life. And I think everybody here in the studio, I know that Nancy does it. I know that Stu does it. I know Rick does it. But we talked a long time about Google. One of the most amazing things.

And if you don't know what artificial intelligence is, don't be embarrassed. I mean, it's pretty complex. But there's a particular. that I use and I think Stu and Jason Rick Josh everybody up are my sons with we at any time we don't know something we go to chat GBT and the thing about chat if you write this down chat GBT as a goat boy tango P huh GPT yeah yeah Papa yeah and you know this is amazing place to go you know I used to go to Google all the time.

And the nice thing about it is you are able to speak just like Nancy speaking now and I'm speaking now. Google will give you a lot of information but you have to pour through it, scan it, look up something again. If you just go to chat

GPT and you put it in your own words, just like you think and I think, the artificial intelligence takes something that the average person wouldn't quite understand. Just It's not like you're talking to your friend or your brother. It understands spoken and written language.

Google requires you to come up with the right question. If you don't phrase the question just right and write it out, who knows what you're going to get? It gives you everything kind of related to this. And then if you ask chat GPT something and it gives you something, you can correct it. You can say, oh, I'm sorry, that's not exactly what I was looking for. I was thinking about something like this. And it goes, oh, I'm sorry.

It's like talking to a human being. You say, I didn't understand that because you're clarified. I mean, you could just, if you're doubtful, just try it anyway, right? I really think the chat, GBT, is a whole lot more creative, and they'll work with you. When I say they'll work with you, you know, you can ask a question, and they'll come back and maybe create a more personal, you know, question. and they come up with an answer, and it's always right on. So that's a good place to go. So that's chat, GBT.

That's GPT. So take advantage of that. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a dog also this morning from Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and Buddy is the dog of the week, and he was, I believe that he came here from North Carolina, but we'll get into that a little bit later in the show. And don't forget, we do have the mystery shopping report. We're going to go to John, who's holding from West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Good morning, is it? You're talking to me?

I am. What can we do for you, John? Thank you for calling. No, you're welcome. Speaking of AI, I'm educator in Jupiter. The one thing that we tell the students when using AI is that the information could possibly be wrong. So when they ask AI a question, whichever program they're using, to ask the same question two or three different ways, and then take the answer and draw from that. Because sometimes the information can be wrong. So if you're picking up something, you want to ask it, two or three. And actually, the reason why I tell them to do it, because they teach science, is they have to sit there and think,

they have to think about what they're going to ask. And sometimes that's just a challenge in itself, because the students today, they don't know how to ask questions. They don't know how to think they just want everything spoon-fed. So when they have to ask a question, they have to sit there and think about the question of what they're going to ask. make sure if it's given me some kind of information I'm looking for, like some factual, ask it for where its source was, if it

can't provide the source, or it gives you something crazy, say, come on, you're wrong, try again. Usually they give you a link that you can double check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's true. It's like talking to a person. They're imperfect. Yeah.

Well, thank you, John. Appreciate the hall. You're welcome. You have a great week. Thank you, John. Thanks for joining us this morning. Our number here is 877-9-6-960. And you can also text us at 772-497-65-30. And you can use that number to vote on the Mystery Shopper Report. So jot that down, 772-4976530. We're going to go to Wally. Wally's been holding, and Wally's calling us from Boka. Good morning, Wally. Hey, good morning. Nice to talk to you. I called you, well, probably the last winter.

I got some very good advice from Earl. I have a BMW 330 series that I was buying off the lease, and I called about buying an extended warranty. And I took Earl's advice, did not buy the warranty. This is almost a year later. I'm happy. I haven't had any problems with the car. But at this time, I decided to sell the car and probably lease another BMW.

So that's one question I ask you as far as a dealer. But mainly from my call right now, I want to sell my car. It's a 2,021 BMW, 39,000 miles. in lieu of going to a BMW dealer to see what they will buy it for, I was thinking of possibly going to Carvana or Comax. And that's my question to you if you can give me any recommendations of if that's a good option. You're in the driver's seat. It's a seller's market today.

probably one of the most favorable changes developments in the retail business and retail wholesale for that matter is the way used cars are bought and sold. It used to be an art. I mean, there was no science to it. The biggest liar got the best price and it was one of those things.

Even dealers used to be taken advantage of auctions were rigged a used car was considered something that only the good Lord could give you the true value on and I used to play a game with my salespeople in my dealership years ago

and I'd have a meeting and I would have my managers who appraised my used cars I'd have a car parked in the service drive I wouldn't tell them whose it was or where it came from typically I'd maybe borrow it from a customer and I send my managers out to appraise that car one at a time and write the number down

that they price and give it to me so I'd get five or six prices now these are professionals they have they've got the NADA book they got the black book they got the Mannheim book they got all these all these ways to decide what a car is worth and I would read the I would out of it I wouldn't embarrass the salesperson because they or the manager because he knew who he was but I'd say here are the prices and I would never do that exercise when there wasn't more than a thousand dollars difference between the prices quoted by professionals so today it's completely different you can get you can nail down the actual price on a used car by using some of the things that you

suggested you can say CarMax they're probably the test but CarMax will also give you too high a price but they might give you a too low a price. So, you know, that's one price. Then you go to your BMW used car department, and you say, I got too many cars to the family. I'm downsizing. I want to sell my BMW, describe it, give it to them, let them test drive it. And then go to a couple more BMW used car departments.

Just don't let them think you're going to buy another BMW. Think they're going to sell it. But you can have fun with this. If you have time, you can get a car max, you go to three BMW dealers. You've got to go, We Buy Anycar.com, you go to Carvana. You can end up with eight or ten offers, solid good offers to buy that vehicle, and you take the top one. And you'll find the difference between those.

It will be in the hundreds and probably thousands of dollars. So it's a seller's market. Okay. You know, I just want to mention, that's good advice. Thank you. One thing I want to mention, I was coming out of a Costco parking lot on Sample Road the other day. And there was a guy at the light and handed me. He was giving out these flyers as we beat CarMax office. There's another one called Car Drop, C-A-R-D-R-O-P. and they say we buy cars and we pay top doll and we'll beat their office. So I guess it's pretty competitive, as you said.

So I will take your advice, and I do have the time. You'll enjoy it. It's such a thrill. You get three or four numbers, and all of a sudden some guy comes along. I'll give you $18,000. That's $3,000 more than anybody. Right. You run over there and you sell the car and you laugh.

all the way home. So it's a seller's market for the first time ever. One question, if I may, as far as leasing or buying another BMW, I know you've often said, and I agree with you, stay away from some of these deals in South Florida. If I head up towards West Palm Beach or even a little farther north, do you think I'm better off? and my other second question to that is would you recommend telling them I want a lease or I want to buy

or don't say anything I just be sure you want to sell the car see if they suspect you're going to be buy another car that they can play with a trade in or they offer right this is afterwards so when I actually you want to think they can buy that and put it on their car lot Yeah, but when you actually go, get a price first before you mention how, again, out-the-door price as if you were just going to pay cash.

And then that price that they use, and even if they, remember, you got to compare this against other dealers, but they give you that price, including their fees, then you say using this same. And if that's acceptable to you, then you use that selling price to establish the lease payment and that sale price to establish a purchase if that's the way you want to go. Okay, and one question, as far as you mentioned fees, and I've been listening to you every Saturday, very educational and very good, and I realize that obviously the state attorney is not doing what she's supposed to do. And am I correct in saying that if I go to lease another car or buy another car, and if they do add on dot fees or extra fees like that, I mean, can I just, just look at them and say this is not legal in the state of Florida? You sure can. You sure can. I mean, it's legal to charge them, but they have to include it in their advertised price. Oh, okay.

So that's how they get around it. So, you know, you can come in on an advertisement that's not done. See, junk fees have only one purpose, and that is to deceive you into thinking that they are part of the cost of the car and not part of the profit that the dealer makes so that's the reason that the Attorney General of the law says that it must be in the advertised price must be the price that you actually write the checkout for plus government fees only and that would be sales tax and license plate so it's okay yeah if you're comparing prices between dealers that have fees you're you know you're comparing apples to apples a dealer ship that doesn't charge fees and for example we

I mean, we might not have the lowest price. It's just everything you see before you come in and waste your time is available to you, to the penny. It's not used as a surprise. There's no, the dealer fees are usually used to restore the money the dealership would have lost if they had honored a ridiculously low advertisement. So, yeah, they advertise low and make it up for it. I'm just confused with one quick question. If I'm not going in on a particular advertisement, and I just go in, and I say, I want to buy a 2025, I want to lease a 220,000-25, whatever, BMW, and they come back to me, they say, okay, this is the price, this is the price, and in that price they're giving me at that time, they have documentary fees. Is that legal at that time that they're disclosing it at that time?

Yes. And they get away with that. But they won't disclose it at that time. They won't give you a price. unless they think you're going to take that car home today because that's their ace in the whole. If you're shopping and comparing prices, they'll have a couple thousand dollars in these junk fees,

which they don't tell you about until you're in the business office. Or after going through the whole back and forth process. So I have this phrase that I recommend that you use. You go in and you say, I want an out-the-door price on that, you know, 2002 Honda Accord. I want the out-the-door price. And my definition of the outdoor price is,

if you want a little drama, you can reach in your pocket and take your checkbook out and say, I want the price that I can make this checkout for and give you the check and get in that car and take it home. That makes it pretty basic and obvious as to what you're looking for. But, yeah, the law says that a quoted price must include all junk fees, all fees except government fees. And if they include it, then they're within the legal rights. And the price they give you, yeah.

Okay. One last question. I don't want to take your bit of time. You've mentioned before, and I really forgot what your suggestion was, you better off saying you're buying or you're leasing. because I am leasing. I'm not going to buy. It's better off to, yeah, not, don't see, leasing numbers and even finance payments can be manipulated, so it's just best to go in there and say,

I want a purchase price. Like Earl just said, what am I writing the check for? And when you have that number, you can compare that number. See, the thing is other dealers will have fees too, but they know you're shopping, so they'll play with the price. If you do, if you do your homework, you will be able to essentially pay as good a lower price, the lease as you do a purchase but the lease is more complicated and it's easier for the dealer

to manipulate and take advantage of you on the average the price the profit dealers make on leases is much higher than the profit they make on the purchase because it's complicated okay and wellie this is nancy stewart i got to tell you you know you're in a great position you're in the driver's seat and uh you got a whole lot of room to negotiate good luck I have the time. I do have the time on my side, so I'll take advantage of that. That's a great asset. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure listening to you every Saturday. Very informative and great show and a happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We thank you for the compliment. Please join us again. I believe that Jonathan, what do you think? We're going to switch gears here and go ahead to Ann Murray. Okay, we're going to switch gears and take a moment from all the calls. And I believe that Stu has some messages. I have some messages, yeah. Are we ready? Because I have some anonymous feedback. Oh, great.

Yeah. Some came in just in the last week. This is a really good one. What do I do if I lost my key? I just wanted to move my car to the garage and I at least got in a new. neutral only to see my steering is now locked what do I do before Rick says anything you could go to YouTube and search how to unlock my locked steering wheel and you will see Rick in our most most viewed video well over millions of

Chaggy BT all right never when Rick is wagging his finger I've been finger wagged all right Rick on to you after the the locked steering wheel video that you're speaking of yeah is if you have turned the car off right and you're your screen wheel got locked because your tires are up against a curb or something. Oh, this has no power. But if you can't turn, if you don't have a key to turn the key on, you can't do that. Your wheel is not going to unlock. Oh yeah, don't look at that video.

Yeah. Well, look at the video anyways. It needs more views. Yeah. But yeah, if you've lost all the keys for your car, it's going to depend on whether it's an immobilizer or whether it's just a normal ignition type car. If it's just a normal ignition, you can go to any Toyota dealer, take along your insurance card or the registration that has your name and your information on it with the VIN number, and they can look up the key code and cut you a new key right then and there. They'll probably charge you like five or six bucks if it's just a manual key, but it's very easy to do. But they will ask you to identify yourself to make sure that you're not trying to get a key for somebody else's

car and that will at least get you to be able to unlock the steering wheel with just a plain metal key. How many keys don't have chips anymore? Yeah, unless it's like a 20-year-old car, most of them are going to have the immobilizer chip. Now, if that's the case with yours, that key is going to be more expensive, but what I would do is call a locksmith. Our local locksmiths actually have a way that they can hook up to the computer and they can clone a new key to operate your car. And they'll be able to reset it and do it actually less expensive than what the dealership would do.

Or if you know a car thief. Exactly. A very technically savvy one. A really tech savvy one. It's possible. All right. Let's see. The next one. More anonymous feedback. These mystery shopping reports reveal car dealers really do think their customers are stupid. How can any reasonably ethical person be a car salesman when they have to try with a straight face

to convince a customer a price which is 15% or so over MSRP is a good deal? You know, that's a tough question. I mean, it's something we thought about for years. I know there are tons of good sales people and just people in general in the car business. I think that as an industry, it's hard to see when you're in it. Maybe it's not discussed there. From the leadership on down, they're not discussing ethics. And I think a lot of people do eventually, when they're at a dealership, an unethical place, will leave.

and they see a high turnover. They don't have... Or you rationalize it. And I think, look at yourself, you need a job. You need to make your mortgage payment, your car payment. You've got to take care of your family and you need money. Car dealerships pay really good money to salespeople. So the first temptation is the fact that you can't find another job.

So you get a job at a really high-volume dealership, you can make easily close to $100,000 a year. Your first year, yeah. Your first year. There's no other job I can think of that you could do that with. Without a degree. So then you rationalize what you're doing, and your manager tells you, the dealer tells you,

you know, these other dealers out there are competing unfairly. That's why we have to have these junk fees, and all we're trying to do is make a fair profit. Yeah, but also what people are seeing at a dealership is you're looking at a snapshot in time. You know, Earl and Nancy and I, we've been sitting in place for decades, and we see people come and go, and salespeople come and go really fast, and that's called turnover. And most of these dealerships with, you know, high pressure tactics, those salespeople don't last long. They go in there and they're instructed by their managers to go through their sales process,

and after a month or two, they go, I can't take this anymore. Yeah, I can't take it. And they leave. And then we have people that we call dinosaurs, and they've been in the business for 100 years, and it's hard to shake the old habits, and they're still out there. But they're farther and few between. But, yeah, it's very rare to find a true den of evil. That is a special type of salespeople, because we have those, too, that have been doing so long,

they've developed a customer base. So it's like having, they have their own little dealership. And their customers come back and buy from them year after year after year. And yes, they do give them a fair price. Why? Because they know they're going to come back. And that's the way

you find honest dealers. You find a dealer that's at a relatively small town and he has no choice. He's selling to the same people. Yeah, you got to be good. If you get into a big urban area like South Florida, a dealer can

be in business for 50 years and never sell a car to the same customer. There's too many people out there so you can screw every customer that comes in and there's someone waiting behind you to come in. It won't work in Paducah, Kentucky. Yeah, in Palm Beach County. How many people live in Palm Beach County?

Well over a million. A million people. You know, we sell 5,000 cars a year. You know, we're barely scratching the surface. All right. Let's see. I think there's one more. and

okay hello Earl I've been contacting numerous dealers by email to get out the door prices so far they reply back with no out the door pricing but only show a link to their dealership

showing a picture of the vehicle at this point is it a good I'm sorry as this point is it good to personally go to these dealerships that have the car in stock and me knowing what I want to pay for the vehicle

just go ahead and negotiate from there. See, they win. They win if you do that. Don't go to the dealership yet. You've looked online. You found the car that you liked. Send in an inquiry on the vehicle. There should be a button.

They'll say, you know, give me your best price or get a quote or they call them call to action buttons. And there will be a button on the listing, and they're going to get in touch with you. And so do it by email or phone or text. Don't do it. Don't waste your time and drive there because that's their goal to wear you down. But if you can get the information first. Here's a trick if you have a sense of humor and you like to fool the dealer is you can call the dealer back and say you're, this is Mr. Smith at First National Bank. And I've got Mr. Jones, that's you, who has been talking to your dealership.

And he said, this is the price that you gave him for that. you know, 2,024 on to accord. And I need to get that price now because I'm giving him a cashier's check to take to you. Right, how much do we make that out for? How much do I make that check out for? And then for those of you who remember Jackie Gleason,

you will hear yama, hama, hama, hama. Because he's not going to have an answer. He won't be able. So that's a trick you can try. No. Nancy? I thought we were getting waved at. They're communicating with sign language, folks.

I see it all the time on the corner of my eye. It has to do a time. I've learned that a long time ago. Rick, you have anything for us? I do, actually. Great. We're going to go to Rick. This one's from Donovan.

He says, for Earl, what do you think about the Japanese car makers really starting to have sales issues globally? Nissan is in a lot of trouble and has lost basically 100% of profits. Honda has also been down. everywhere but the U.S. They're all struggling in China. Toyota continues to have falling production and sales in both the U.S. and China.

And the Japanese brands really seem to not be in a very good position lately. I think Donovan was in the car with us this morning when we were discussing all of that. Nissan's hanging by a thread. I don't know the answer, but I would guess the answer

is that the Japanese business community and the government are pretty tight and the Japanese don't like to see any big companies fail. So I think they orchestrate alliances. If Honda gets in trouble or Nissan gets in trouble, they will try to negotiate an alliance with a strong company like Toyota.

I don't like government interfering like that what they do in Japan, and it's unusual, to see a Japanese company go under, although if there's an exception, it'll be Nissan. They're all old. All these companies, you know, they used to build fighters and engines in World War II and all that. So it's crazy, even the little ones, like Mitsubishi we make fun of, but in Japan, they are a major manufacturer of machinery and other construction equipment. They're just, it's crazy.

And, excuse me, sales are definitely falling. I mean, the stock is, well, less than desirable. But Nissan is, they're cutting 9,000 jobs as sales fall, and they're in some trouble. Yeah, the dealers hate Nissan. The joke is that the top guy for Nissan considered one of the best CEO is the best heads of an automobile manufacturing company in the world. is hiding in Lebanon now because the French want him in jail he escaped from the Japanese jail

You think I'm making this up You'll listen to you won't believe this But Carlos Gone packed himself into a trunk And sent himself to Lebanon To escape the Japanese jail This is the head of Nissan I'm waiting for the Netflix movie That comes out about that

It's worthy of a Netflix show actually i was worried because amory didn't didn't text us but she did and um we quick a second for amory's text before we get going good morning anne mary she says good morning it's been a challenging four years uh with a pandemic quarantines chip shortages and supply line meltdowns that have already impacted customers and kept them from buying the specific vehicles they wanted it is said that time heals all wounds and i was wondering how's the healing coming along. Our number one, our car inventories finally expanding. Oh, yes. We saw it a while ago with domestic manufacturers, and those lots are full at Toyota dealerships. We're not all the

way there yet, but we are now acting in a competitive mode now like we were before. I would give you an example. If you snap back to 2019 and looked at our lot, we probably had 400 or 500 new Toyotas. We have 100 now. But it's still plenty of inventory. But yes, the discounting has started. The competition is kicking up between dealerships. The spending on advertising is going up. We are a part of that as well. We're doing a whole new marketing effort and we're getting back to the basics. We're shifting from an ordering system that we put in that was really good for our customers, and I want to say this out loud, it wasn't good for us. It caused us to have some difficulties in the amount of vehicles that we could bring in,

and we have fixed that, and we're in the process of fixing it. But Toyota wants you to sell cars fast. They don't want you to have order banks getting the perfect match that the customers want. So, you know, we did that. Hey, that's what kind of people we are. Our parts readily available now. much much better but we still have some

some things that are hanging out there but for the most part pretty good and our more dealers selling their inventory at MSRP are lower finally yes pretty much everybody is except for we've run into a few at the on our mystery shops they can't leave the past behind

and we had a couple where we had in South Florida here it was the BMW down there in Broward somewhere anyway yeah it feels like it's normal. It's like a slightly reduced version of normal. It's getting better. Yeah. We're not quite there yet. I don't know if I want to say better because what's going to happen

and that's when they start frothing at the mouth down, when the competition gets going, that's when our mystery shops are going to get interesting. Yeah. They never quit doing that, does it? Yeah, I know. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, Rick, are you finished? Yeah, we're pretty caught up here. Great. We're going to switch gears here and we're going to go for the Dog of the the week. And the dog of the week, his name is Buddy. Buddy. And he is a big dog ranch rescue. And he's a rescue from North Carolina. And remember, you know, the registration fees,

we pay those Erlon cars. We'll pay the registration fees. So keep that in mind. And, you know, it can be pretty expensive to adopt a dog. and it's a $200 value. So take a look at the video. Take a look at Buddy and see how adorable he is. Oh, he's a tripod. Hi, my name's Lorna. I'm a volunteer here at Big Dog Ranch.

This is Buddy. This big boy is Buddy. He came to us after the hurricane in North Carolina. He's a recent amputee, and he's learning to walk very well already. He needs a forever home. He's such a sweetie, loves to go out, loves to walk. He's a great dog. Look at that happy smile.

Oh, how precious. He has a big grin on his face. Yeah, he is a special dog, and he needs a special home. So he's got three legs. He's missing one of his front legs. He's seven years old. I bet he doesn't miss it at all. No, he's getting around real well.

He's a mixed breed. He's large. Very houndish. Yeah, exactly. It's a happy hound. Yep. All right, so if you want to get more information, information like you can usually you can spot the happy hound yeah you can tell a happy dog and most dogs

they usually crawl over stew when we're out of pig dog ranch they have a bomb Rick smells like dogs the dog guy smell like dogs there you go so he's seven years old he's a mixed breed and uh if you didn't notice he's brown and uh he has been um he's been vaccinated he's got everything so it saves except for his right front leg. Well, yeah. It saves you, you know, a whole lot of money. And like I said, that's a $200 value. And don't forget that you can get Earle's book at www.orgul's book.

And the reason I mention that is not only is it a great book, but all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. That's 1995 for the confessions of a recovering car dealer. And you want to take advantage of that. So go to Big Dog Ranch. That is www.bdrr.org. And you can take a look at Buddy and all the other dogs. I think that what we're going to do now is we're going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report,

which is an interesting one. I find it interesting that there were only 21,204 people in that town. I'm glad you looked it up because I didn't look it up and I knew, you know, Earl was going to ask me questions about it. I'm going to go, I'll Google it tomorrow morning. I wanted to go to bed after I did the report. Well, it's interesting because when I said earlier in the show about small towns or nicer places to buy cars. I don't remember a terrible shopping report from a small town, do you?

No, no, no. No, no. If you take advantage of somebody in a small town, the whole town knows about it. Yeah, you can't take that chance. You know, it's how funny how small this town is. What's the name of it? That is Stan McNag Chevrolet, and they are in, they're in between, they're in Tennessee.

Right. And they're between. Nashville and Chattanooga. Okay, so this town said the guy, he referred to Murfreesboro as some big city dealers. So that gives you an idea. Like how many people here in South Florida have even heard of Murfreesboro? And this town thinks that's the big city. Well, maybe that's the reason we're such nice guys because our dealership is in Lake Park and they've only got 10,000 people.

Right. We live in a little small town dealer. I didn't look that at home. Is it 10,000? Tallahoma, Tennessee. Telehoma. Oh, is Telahoma? Yeah, Telahoma, Tennessee.

And the folks of Telahoma look to Murphy's Bro. That's where they go to party. That's the big town they take vacations in. And they go shop into Murphy's Brough. Yeah, so there you have it, folks. Tala Homa, Tennessee. I like saying that. I feel like I want to apologize to everybody up there

because I was just up there because it's gorgeous. I'm not making fun of the towns. It's fun because we're, you know. They're between Nashville and Chattanooga. Yeah, you were in Tennessee just recently. I was in Gatlinburg, and it was awesome. Yeah. It looked like it was very beautiful, beautiful, yeah.

Agent Lightning did a fantastic job, as usual, and she remains a star. Let's say that. She does such a great job on these mystery shopping reports, and we thank her for that, and we thank Stu for his. ability to do such a great review and write it up. So, back to the recovering car dealer,

and we have our mystery shop from Stan McNabb, Chevrolet, in Tallahoma, Tennessee. Okay, I'm going to read this report that was put together by Stu, and Agent Lightning makes a lot of notes, and Stu turns it into something I can understand and read. And here it is. I'm speaking the first person, just like I was Agent Lightning. I arrived, mid-morning, was greeted by a salesman named Jimmy.

A small town name, Jimmy. I like that. He was very friendly and eager to assist me with purchasing a new car. He asked me what I had in mine. I replied to what I was considering a small SUV, either a Chevy or a Buick. This, by the way, is Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, which is what you typically say. see in very small towns an investment in a car dealership is pretty high normally but in a small town you really can't afford that sort of investment so

they have multiple makes in this case here are all the GM makes or most of them Chevrolet GMC and Buick I decide on a Buick model a new 2025 encore GX Sport touring and Buick blue And when I said new, 2025, and I always remind you that a new car is the car that you get, the latest model that you can possibly buy in that because... This is a new car. This is a new car. It's not even 2025 here right now. This is a real new car.

It had its Monroney label, our first caller, I think, in the show, would add to do with Monroney, John from Palm City. so he'll be delightful, delighted to know that the Mironi label was properly affixed and there was no addendum we call phony Mnuronis. I pulled up online on my phone to see if there was anything interesting. It had an MSRP online of $32,085, but on their web listing for that unit, they advertised a selling price of $28,065.

$25. So there it is in a nutshell, the MSRP, and that's a plus that was a fix to the vehicle where it should be. And then online they had a price, which was the advertised price was $28,065, which is below the MSRP. So this is the way business so far so good kind of thing. It's the way it should be done. And she doesn't mention this to Jimmy. She looks at it just to see if there is, and she doesn't say anything. So she sees it's advertised quite a bit below MSRP. Yeah. And this is a reason that smartphones are so cool because you can stay one step and ahead of the salesman. I mean, sometimes he's telling you one thing and their online pricing is telling you something else.

So I like the way Agent Lightning has always got that phone in her hand, and she sees and describes what's going on. Okay, the salesman Jimmy and I headed inside to get the Keys. He asked which county I live in. I explained that I'm the process of moving here into Tallahoma. And currently staying with my son. She comes up with some good stories. He then asked what vehicles I currently own because they offer a discount program if I own a 2010 or newer non-GMC vehicle.

This is a typical discount offered by most manufacturers. I mentioned that I own a Toyota Rav-4 hybrid. Jimmy responded, I believe that will work, but let me double-check with someone who handles more of the out-of-state transactions. Jimmy picked up the phone and asked for Danny. Danny was a sales manager. Asked him to step out to his desk to meet me. Danny quickly came over and confirmed that the discount program would apply and explained that all they needed was my vehicle registration to verify the eligibility.

Simple as that. He also welcomed me to Tennessee. Volunteer stayed. Shored me they would take excellent care of me. He encouraged me to reach out if I had any questions before heading back to his office. Jimmy retrieved the keys who went for a test drive in the beautiful fall weather. He was very knowledgeable about the car's features, demonstrated various modes which I was while I was driving.

He also showed me how the blind spot detectors auto stop and lean assist features work. If you haven't driven a car in a while, or bought a car, I should say in a while, sometimes these things are, you know, you say, I can't believe they can do that. I mean, the technical improvements in cars, if you haven't bought a car in five years, I guarantee you your new car will have something that's a wowser. Oh, I love that. Once we returned to the dealership, we went back to his desk, we were to ask for my driver's license to enter my information into their system.

Jimmy then asked how much cash I planned to put down and asked about my credit score. I told him I was likely putting down around 5,000 and that my credit score is in the mid-700s. He said he had everything he needed and would be back shortly. About five minutes later, Jimmy returned with the finance manager. This is somebody you normally don't see. They sometimes call themselves the business manager. And usually you see this half the car has been purchased, meaning you sign the vehicle buyer's order,

but you haven't signed a whole bunch of other stuff, and that's where they really get you. But in this case, the finance manager, T, letter T, introduced itself and presented the sales and financing numbers. I wondered if T was his first name or last name. I don't know. Middle name. Mr. T.

Well, yes, if it was his last name, Now it's Mr. T. That's kind of fun. Top line, you had to work for that one. The top line was MSRP $32,085. They took off $1,200,000,000, took off $1,020, took up $1,020. That was Stan's discount, and another $3,000 rebate. This brought the sale price to $28,065.

Wow. is the advertised price. Well, so far so good. But the next paragraph, $599 junk fee. So even in Tallulah, where are we, where are we? Tallahama. Tallahama. Even in Tahoma, the junk fee exists. $599 drug fee was added along with sales tax and some small legitimate fees. Bottom line, $31,151. As nice as this report has been, they still did essentially the same thing that happens in South Florida, but just not as much of it and is not...

We've got to keep the lights on. Yeah. And that answers another question about why does salespeople do that? Because salespeople can be fooled just like customers can be fooled. And thinking of what they're doing is totally legitimate. So I believe that's the case here. Then he covers subgeneralized financial terms giving me payment ranges based on my self-assessed credit and $2,500 down payment. And bear in mind, although we didn't go there in the shopping report, there's more money made financing cars than there is selling the car.

In other words, the profit on the sale of a car might be $1,000 or $2,000. and a profit on financed your car will be 2004. I mean, a lot of money. He explained that he could offer the, he could offer the conquest bonus, but if any financing specials applied, I might not be able to combine both benefits. This is true.

However he assured me, he would do his best to secure the best rates while keeping the bonus intact. T, then asked what he needed, are in my business today and make me a part of the Stan McNab family. Stan McNabb. Sounds like a football player name. Yeah.

McNabb. It acknowledged that I was closer to Murphysboro and its big city dealerships that cracks me up, Murphy'sboro. Some fancy Murphy's girls. They would love the opportunity to make a deal with me, whether today or in the future. I think that both for the time and said I'd be in touch. Wow. And there you have it.

And we vote on that. And we, if you haven't listened to the show before, and you haven't voted, we try to vote on the curve, and C would be the average dealer, and average dealer ain't too good. So that's a C, though.

You've got to consider the market they're in. And the market, that's true, a small town. So, yeah, we, we don't like to throw A's around. We don't like to throw Fs around. F is pretty serious, and it means that you are not on the recommended dealer list at all. A means you're perfect, and as you know, there's no perfect dealers. So try to keep it in the middle there somewhere, and B, C, D. And if you got to, we'll take an F and we'll take an A if you insist.

We understand that. So you can vote. All right, yeah, make sure you send them in. I'm waiting for my folks to send their grades in. but I'm going to take I have an interesting take on on how I'm going to grade McNabb

in Tallahoma it's such a small town I mean it's it's they they have this deal they got to be the worst dealership in Tallahoma yeah I was surprised

it went off by 599 I'm giving them a C minus well if all the other we don't know that like there's no way they can actually they can actually I'm joking If they have a $599 dealer fee in that market, I guarantee other dealers do

because they've got to be competitive with each other. Then again, there might not be any other dealerships in that market. What we should do is go around and find out the junk fees with the other dealers. All right, so I'll give two provisional grades and then we'll settle it up after we look after the show. On its face, they get an A. I'm sorry, they don't get an A. They have a dealer fee. They can't do that.

They get a B. because everything was right they just have something in place at that dealership that they got a fix and that's the dealer fee if nobody else in town has a dealer fee that grade is going down

to a D if they're the only one in town well and they gave them the price and that was another plus because most dealerships especially South Florida you know they tell you I won't

give you the price unless you're going to buy it. Yeah, that's true. And so in this case here, he said... They wrote it up, they even got the finance guy to come up to do it. Yeah, so it's either a B or a D. So, folks, what do you think? You can text us, your answer, your grade for this dealership,

and that number is 772-497-6530. What do you think about this mystery shopperry report of a population of, I think I quoted over 21,000, 204 people. Population, 21K. Bob texted us. He says B-plus for Stan McNabb, Chevy. Marie has a great. I'll give them a B-plus, one dealer fee, but still under MSRP.

And Jonathan, Palm Coast, try not to faint. I'll give this dealership in A-minus. That's unlike you, Jonathan. All things considered, it really wasn't a bad experience. The junk fee was tolerable. And I agree with you, if that's how it is in... Yeah, Tallahoma, Tennessee. In Tallahoma.

That was not a big... It's not a big town. It just wasn't a big fee. It was a fee. It's bigger than our fee when we used to have a dealer fee a long, long time ago. 499. Yeah, 495.

495. Yeah. Okay. Okay, again, that number is 772-4976530. Let's get some scores in. And Rick, what do you have for us? I've got Negan 1 says D for the junk fee. Des Don says B.

Sounds like they might even reduce or eliminate the dealer fee. Doug Tesler says the fees are not good. So Ella says B-minus. Meow. Over here on the other channel, we have Joseph Keller says B. Would have been an A without the high dock fee. Johnny Z. Fradley says B, 599 fee is not too bad, and there's no forced add-ons.

Tim Gilliland looks like a B to me with minimal junk fees. Tom Steckle, B plus plus, excellent salesman, no addendums, and they met their advertised price, except for the $5.99 junk fee. Mark H, B plus, no pressure, fairly low junk fee. And myself, I'm agreeing with the majority of, I'm going to say a B. I like the salesman. He was very knowledgeable, and everybody was nice.

Nobody was putting any big pressure. Are you going to buy today? What can I do to put you in this car right now? It was a very good experience. I think the, yeah, the $599 is a little stick in the craw, but it's doable. And if, you know, if you need a Chevy, that's a good place to go looking for one. Yeah, exactly. For me, you know, the fee, $599, you know, I just dislike fees very, very much.

I'm going to give them a C-minus. Okay, Earl, what do you have? I'll give them a B. You got a B. You're giving them a B? Okay. I will say this. I just looked up, I looked up dealerships in,

Tallahoma. Thank you. I'm having a hard time with it. I'm looking at John Roberts, Toyota. John Roberts, Toyota has a $599. dock fee. So I'm raising my grade. He's now on the curve,

a B for McNabb. Because that's in the market, that's what they're doing. I was playing while we were listening to the votes. I took about chat, GPT, and I said, list all the car dealerships in Florida that are

in towns under 20,000 people. So this is, we've established that small dealerships or more honest. Yeah. So I'll just, I've never heard of these dealerships.

Furman Chevrolet of Tarpon Springs. Wakula, one stop in Apollochicola. Carabelle, this is Franklin Ford and Carabelle, Florida. Indian Atlantic, Florida. Yeah, why not? Rosner Chevrolet. I just be careful in Florida for people who are not familiar with it. You can have a name of a town if you're in South Florida,

and it's completely indistinguishable from. the town next to it. There's no difference. You get north of Palm Beach County and you can drive through some country, come up on a little town, drive on and find another little town, you know, like it used to be. But down here, it's like Earl's joking. We're in Lake Park, Florida. A small town is 7,000 or 9,000 people. But it's really contiguous with the metro area. From Tequesta on the north end, all the way down to Boka on the south end, it's pretty much one continuous city right now. Yeah. And they keep going south. It doesn't end until you get to Miami.

Oh, yeah. It's good point. That's Florida, folks. And optimistically speaking, I really think that someday we will have a no-dealer fee list. Could you imagine? I mean, I'm going to give all of us, you know, a pat on the back. When you go back in time, you can go to 2002 when, you know,

our dealer fee was eliminated. And I really, I'm thinking positive for the future. I really think that that's going to happen in time. And also with Ashley Moody's, you know, with her help. And just in case you didn't hear me mention her earlier, she is the Attorney General. And I think she has some plans for the auto industry. I am going to start believing in her and sending positive

vibes and her telephone number if you'd like to give them a call is 866 966 7226 okay back to the recovering car dealer well all I can say is that if you do contact Ashley yeah if you do contact Ashley Moody I'm on a first name day also copy and contact your local media source. The only thing that the Attorney General reacts to in our state and probably most states is publicity. So if they have a law that they're not enforcing knowingly and this is the case with Ashley Moody and Channel 5

or Channel 12 or this radio station or whatever source of media you contact, if they talk about this dealer, breaking the law, is going to cost them a lot of money. That's the only thing really gets a car dealer's attention today, and you're better off to try the media than the enforcement agency. Yeah, great idea. Ladies and gentlemen, we are at the end of the show, and we have to say to you, we so appreciate your company and all the call.

calls, the Texas, the YouTube, and everything, all of you really make this show a success. We'll be right back here next week, Saturday morning at the same time, and you can tune in to Earl on Cars. Have a great weekend, everyone.