Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.17.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Peterson Motorcars West Palm Beach

Episode Date: November 17, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Peterson Motorcars of West Palm Beach to purchase a car with an identified Takata Airbag Recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Well, good morning, everybody. We're back, your automotive team. We're in the studio on this chilly morning in South Florida, Chile for South Florida. This is Earl on Cars, and we are not going to sing to you. This is the true only station.

I understand that. But I'm not alone, by the way. four of us in the studio here. We're automotive experts. Now, I hate to be am honest and say that I'm an expert or that my colleagues here are experts, but we are. And who is it that said it ain't bragging if it's true? It's Yogi Berra. Not, I wasn't Yogi, but something about his age back in the day. And we've been in the business a long time. We're here to help you avoid being ripped off by a car dealer, frankly. How to avoid being ripped off if you buy. or lease a car, and also when you maintain a repair car.

Our regular listeners know this, but I have to continually remind, because we get a lot of new listeners. We build this audience. We've been doing the show for about 14 years. We started out as a little half-hour show, and we moved to an hour, an hour, two hours. I just saw the latest Nielsen ratings, and we're really growing, and we've got listeners from all over.

We've got listeners from all over the world, actually, because I'm speaking to you as a radio audience. A lot of them are, a lot of you are streaming us. I've just got a list here of the various devices that we have. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.com, Periscope. So this is a live stream. You can see us on any of these channels. Of course, hear us on your radio. And if you go to Erlon Cars, we have our podcast.

So you've got the archives of everything we've done. And that's a lot because we've been doing this for 14 years. We have mystery shopping reports that you can access at earlancars.com. I keep thinking this is a radio show, of course it is, but we're a lot more now. We're live and living color, and we are here for you. Live is a very important part of the show. we dare to do this not recorded

what you see is real time I think there's a little delay but not much maybe 10 seconds and so what you say is what we hear and what we say is what you hear we're very candid

we don't pull any punches we visit a different car dealership every week and we pretend to buy or lease a car it's probably the most exciting one might even say dangerous part of the show that we would dare to go into a real car dealership,

pretend to buy or release a car, and then report back to you the facts. I mean, we name names, we name the dealerships, we name the salespeople we talk to, we name the managers, and we tell you the exact experience. And so that's kind of risky. And I say risky because sometimes we talk about very bad things that happen. We hope to, and sometimes more often, we,

talk about good things. But when we talk about the bad, we have the fact that we could be sued. And believe me, I've thought about that for 14 years. I keep waiting for something to happen. I would think if nothing else, we would make a mistake or maybe a car dealership would make a mistake and sue us. But we haven't been sued. I'm just knocking on wood there. I don't want to get sued. But I think it speaks for itself. A perfect defense against liable and slander is the truth, and when we mystery shop a car dealership, we tell the truth. When we speak to you and we answer your questions, we speak the truth, at least we try to. We do make mistakes, and we would welcome you calling any mistakes we make to our attention. Your calls to the show are vital. I would go into a cold sweat if we didn't have callers. We have a lot of ways you can reach us. one is the old-fashioned telephone you remember telephones don't you well our telephone number is 877 960 960 and you can write that down if you want to if you're a telephone guy or gal

write it down you might not have a question now but i'm going to give it to you the phone number again and you will have later i promise you if you listen for 15 or 20 minutes you will have a question about your car or somebody else's car. 877-960-99-60. 877-9-60. And I mentioned earlier, we're streaming this live through four channels, Facebook.com, forward-slash hurl on cars.

So if you're a Facebook person, Facebook.com, forward-slash hurl-on cars. If you're a YouTube person, same sort of thing. YouTube.com, forward slash Earl and Cars and Twitter

we're out there on Twitter Twitter.com at Erlon Cars. Easy. And Periscope. I've forgotten about Periscope. They were one of the first guys on the street when it came to instantaneous video streaming and they are not as big as YouTube but

they're out there. So if you've got any Periscope players out there, periscope.tv at Erlancars. Periscope.combe.combe.combe.combe at Earl and Cars. So you got the radio, you got the video streaming. You can text us even.

We have a text number, 772-4976530. Now, I deluged you with links and URLs and telephone numbers and everything else. I'll get you this one. If you just remember this one, write this one down, hurlancars.com. That's the master list of everything we do. do. Earl on Cars.com has got it all. Every blog I've written in 14 years, podcasts, videos,

YouTube, links to the good dealer, bad dealer list, links to how to file a complaint against a car dealer. Everything that is in this head of mine and the heads of these people in the studio is at Erloncars.com. So if you don't run anything else down, write Erloncar's. dot com and check it out sometime now i'm not in the studio by myself i obviously i don't have all the answers but i think cumulatively we can come up with about 90 percent of the answers to my right is rick kearney most of our questions probably should be from folks regarding mechanical

repair issues with cars if there's anything as frightening as buying or leasing a car is repairing or maintaining it because you can they can get you either way And Rick Kearney has been in the business about a quarter century. It doesn't sound long when I say a quarter century. It makes me feel old. And I've known him for over 20 years. And he's been in my organization, by the way, in the way of total transparency. I have to tell you, I am a car dealer.

And I say that because I don't want people to think, Tina, hang on there. It will be right with you. Just let me finish this thought. But a lot of people say, well, Earl's got a car dealership, and he's doing this to trash other car dealers so he can make himself the car dealer of choice. Well, that's not true. I'm a toilet dealer. The toilet only sells about 15% of the cars. 85% of you out there drive something else.

So we're here to help you in any way we can. This is not an infomercial. I do not pay this radio station or anybody else for the right to be on the air. This is a community service. And Nancy and I are, and Rick and I are speaking at a men's club tomorrow in Boyne. 100 folks in a men's club, Valencia Falls Men's Club. This is the kind of thing we do. We speak before libraries.

We do this radio show. We write blogs. We do newspaper columns. We are a room full of consumer advocates. Rick is a mechanical guy. I call him an auto computer scientist. And then we got Nancy, who is my co-host. and she is a woman's advocate that helps the women in the audience to understand how sometimes

they're treated a little differently in car dealerships than not in a positive way, I might say. And Stu Stewart, aka Earl Stewart III, I'm Earl Stewart Jr., but Stu is our cyber guy. And I gave you this list. I'll hold it up before how you can stream us, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. and stew is the master of that he handles a text too and when you post a question like we've got Tina holding on the telephone now but we'll have people posting and texting and this is all kind of handled juggled you might say by Stu does a great job with committing with the cyber world so rather than keep Tina holding before we go to Tina let me remind the ladies

that you can win $50 this morning by giving us a call. The first two new lady callers can win themselves $50. We have a whole lot of free advice to the next two hours, and we'd like you to join us 877960-9960,

or you can text us at 772-4976530. We're going to go to Tina, who's a regular caller. Good morning, Tina. Good morning, everybody. doing. Great. Great. You know, I think it's time to talk about auto financing again, because the phase of auto financing is beginning to change. You're no longer finding zero percent financing deals available anymore, and finance rates are creeping up. So I don't

know which one of you may be the expert in auto financing, but can you please elaborate on how a half a percentage point, a percentage point, 1.5 percentage points, how that can affect a car loan in the long term and how that can affect somebody who's wanting to save some money on their car payments. Well, Tina, I guess I would have to raise my hand. I think I understand interest rates. I've been through a lot of cycles in 50 years. And what we're just coming off of now are the lowest financing rates in my lifetime. And even when I was a young man, And back in 1968, when I started this business, interest rates were higher than they are today. So we're coming off an all-time historic low.

I believe there will be a psychological effect on a lot of people because a lot of people, we've been in this low interest rate environment for so long that going to three or four percent is a shock. Some people have lived there car buying and home buying and every other kind of buying lives in a 2, 3% era. And this was like Fantasyland. It will have a negative effect to some extent, but mildly negative effect. I think that your 0% financing was always offered with a counteroffer of cashback rebates. So most of the manufacturers now are modifying their offers from 0% to a higher percentage.

and they're also weighing more on the rebates. I think there's a lot of talk about it having a negative effect. In fact, I had a call from Adrian Roberts reporter for the Wall Street Journal about a month ago on this subject. And she did an article in the Wall Street Journal about this. She seemed to think, and I think some of the other folks that spoke to her, seemed to think this was going to have a significant effect on car sales. I don't believe so. And I'm looking at it from a half a century of business.

perspective. I think it'll have a short-term impact after that people will equate. You know, I bought my first house back in the 70s, and my mortgage rate was 7.5%. And I thought I got to steal. Today, you can still get a mortgage rate at 4%. So if this is where we are, I think things will stabilize shortly, and interest rates will remain lower than they have been in a long time. At least that's my take. Does that answer part of your question, Tina? Well, sort of, but you have to think about something, and I know that you're aware of this, but last week I mentioned that the average car payment now for a used vehicle is $400 a month. And new cars are starting at very easily $22, $25, $30,000.

So when the interest rates change because the price of the vehicle is so much higher, that's where people, I think, are a little bit fearful. It's not like 50 years ago where you could get a car so much. cheaper now than you can then. I mean, I understand the economic change and everything else and income change, but over the years. But it's the basic price of the vehicle. And when the interest rate even goes up a little bit, it can make somebody say, okay, I can afford this much, but then they may have to buy less cars than they want because the interest rate's kind of priced them out each month. No, you're absolutely right. There's no question that

people buy cars and lease cars on monthly payments. We think about price. You know, we don't think that's a $30,000 car or a $10,000 or $40,000 car. We think how much can I fit in my budget? Typically, we get paid monthly or weekly, but we don't think in terms of large, and very few people pay cash. So exactly, going from a $350 payment to a $400 payment is going to create lower demand, and sales will drop slightly. The good news is that cars last longer. And if you go back to when I started selling cars, a two or three-year-old car that had 50,000 miles on it, was ready for the junkyard.

Today, a two- or three-year-old car with 50,000 miles on it is just getting into its prime, and it can last another five, six, seven, ten years. The residual values, the resale value of cars is much higher. More and more people are leasing today. So with a higher residual value, why? is there a higher residual? The cars are better values. They're safer. They last longer. They're more reliable. So they have a higher resale value. And therefore, the lease payment is lower. So whereas maybe the financing goes up a little bit and the monthly payment goes up a little bit, you're actually getting a better value for the money than you did when interest rates were higher. But I think it'll have a short-term impact. Higher payment, there's no question we'll have a short-term impact. then people will realize

well for 400 bucks a month last time I bought a car the car didn't last as long as it wasn't good of value I'm getting a better value that will counteract the initial negative impact yeah and the thing is too

like was mentioned before I think I may have mentioned it a couple shows before where the used car market is getting really hot which means there's going to be less and less deals available for used cars

because they're going to be so popular And they are popular because people don't want to pony up the bucks for a brand new car. But we also have another problem affecting the used car market. There's a lot of flood cars in Florida. There's a lot of flood cars in Texas. There's a lot of flood cars in North Carolina because of the hurricanes. And that's just going to put the squeeze on anything because in the southern states below the rust belt, people want cars from those states because they don't have to worry about rusted out bodies or anything like that.

So, I mean, there's a trickle. the interest rates kind of trickle down effect of a bigger problem with the used car market. Yeah, and you can give some crazy interest rates. The states don't really give you much protection. The usury rates in Florida, you can charge, I believe, in the 30, 35% for buying an older car. That's absolutely crazy. That's like mafia financing. I'm really surprised if they don't curtail that.

So you have to be careful. The victims are typically the uneducated. educated the people, or the desperate, the people that have to have a car at any price. But for the informed, educated consumer, interest rates are not as big a challenge. And by the way, Tina, used cars actually are an even better value than new cars. And you've heard me say this. I know that. But if you get the right used car, you've gotten an initial crazy depreciation that you have with a new car gone. It's absorbed.

You take a two-year-old car that's got 25 or 30,000 miles on it, that's a tremendous value compared to the new car that's sitting in the showroom. As soon as you drive that car off the showroom, if you're looking at $2,500 in depreciation, you can take that used car, and you're looking at less than half that depreciation. So, not to mention the fact that the cars are lasting two or three times as long as they used to, I wouldn't buy a new car.

I'm a new car dealer. If I were not in the business, and I won the best value, I would buy a late model used car, maybe with a little bit of factory warranty left on it before I would buy a new car. Yeah, I agree. I'm in the same position, too. The car that I bought at the time, it was a two-year-old car, and it still had some warranty left on it. So I'm glad I did that. It's worked out for me.

Perfect, yeah. You can sell that car and get a very high percentage of your original investment back. we see so many people that buy new cars and then a year later, two years later they don't like the car and they bring it in and they find out they owe far more on the car than the actual value. They say they're upside down

and I just talked to a woman the other day. Now, Stu did actually who was upside down on the car because she basically paid too much and she won't have any positive equity for another year or two. Oh, wow. Well, that just goes to show

If you pick a vehicle, make sure it's really what you want Because you may be stuck with it longer than you want to be Yeah, Rick had a point, I think Well, the only thing that I, just to play the devil's advocate Is the technology in the cars is increasing so quickly Good point And the safety factors, the changes that they are making to these cars Are coming so fast that even a two-year-old car

The technology in it is quickly outdated And a lot of these new safety items that they're coming out with, you know, like right now, I'm looking at getting a new car very soon for my wife. It should be a pretty good trade, I think. But anyways, I'm looking at trying to get her into the newest, latest version with all the technology and the safety features, especially in today's world, the new safety features on these cars are incredible. Well, that's true, Rick. But remember this, if you buy a car this one-year-old, it's still got a huge amount of safety. If you go back two years, it's still got a huge amount compared to what they used to.

If you're driving a five-year-old car and you buy a two-year-old car, you're making a quantumly huge safety. So you do sacrifice. I mean, if you want to have your cake and eat it to buy a brand-new, shining car, it'll have all the bells and whistles, all the safety items. It's like Star Wars, and you pay for it because you take that big, depreciation that so if you got the money then you can pay the extra i guess the best answer is do your homework and know what you're looking at and know what you want nessie i think a lot of

times you know there are consumers out there that want to impress their neighbors and they buy a new car um used car by far it the savings is amazing your car the cars today or or you can put 200 000 miles on them so again used cars uh tina you mentioned uh uh you mentioned uh you know, how popular they are, and they're selling like hotcakes, and it's very true. I'll confirm that. Everybody is out there looking for a used car with the safety, you know, features that they can use, and it's a huge savings. Yes, it does.

Thanks for your call, Tina. You, as always, come up with some of the most interesting comments and questions. And you are right up there on the top five of all of our callers. And you do a lot of, you do. And I don't mean to, and I don't mean in any way to shed a negative light, but I'm just looking for the consumer because I'm a consumer myself, you know. Sure. And people that are looking for a used car and new car,

they have to be so much more shrewd. And please people come here to listen to these guys, 95.9 true. Goldies on the East Coast of Florida, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. every Saturday. Hey, we're going to put you on the payroll, Tina. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Tina would be the only one on the payroll, I might add. Tina, thank you so much for calling. As a female advocate, you know, I certainly appreciate your call.

And everybody else out there that's listening, the females I'm referring to, you encourage them to give us a call and you're helping us build the platform. Have a great day. Thank you. You're welcome. 877-960-9-6-0. I think we have a text.

Is that right? We do. We have a text from Anne-Marie. She says, good morning. Why do tires squeal at low speed? I was driving in a parking garage doing less than five miles per hour and my tires were squealing

as if I were auditioning for the fast and the furious. What gives? I'm going to throw that to Rick. What a tire squeal, Rick. Well, the number one reason, and she gave us the great clue on this, is a parking garage. And that is you're driving actually on an almost polished concrete surface. And especially when you're turning at those low speeds, the front wheels never turn at exactly the right angle. So one tire is always going to slide just a little bit.

And that's that squealing noise you're hearing. is the rubber slipping on the concrete. That's kind of like when Nancy walks through the house with her sneakers on. Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly it. Okay.

A little bit of moisture, even, humidity will increase that squealing factor quite a bit. But all it is, it's only on turns, and that's why you're getting it. You won't hear it on the blacktop because it's a different surface, and the tires just don't really make any noise on it. Thank you, Rick.

Remember, to text your question? sent to 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And if you didn't catch this earlier, we're on Facebook, Facebook.com, forward slash Erlon Cars. And we're on YouTube. I get a lot of YouTube.

I was really surprised at that. First, I thought everybody was Facebook. Now we find out that YouTube.com is really strong. So YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. cars you can watch us in living color nancy's got a beautiful shirt on uh just absolutely was that fuchsia it's fuchsia beautiful didn't think i knew that did you no i know we got twitter twitter you know you don't know about twitter uh um the only person that uses twitter a lot is don't trump i guess but twitter's having some financial problems but twitter is alive and well

so twitter dot com at earl on cars support twitter watch erl on cars Exactly. And also, ladies and gentlemen, your anonymous feedback.com, we'd love to hear from you, give us an idea of what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. Again, that number is 877-960-90-60, and you can text us, as Earl said, at 772-497-6530, and we have some more information here. Yeah, and let's not forget Periscope. I mean, I forgot Periscope. Periscope. I almost forgot Twitter, but Periscope.

It's been around longer than Twitter, I think. Maybe not. But anyway, periscope.tv at earluncars.com. And you can take this deluge of names and links and telephone numbers and forget about it. And just remember, earluncars.com, because everything we do and how to find everything we do is there for you at earloncars.com. later of the show, mystery shopping report coming up. And that is

really the highlight of the show. Always interesting. Live, true, candid, sometimes we talk sometimes we call illegalities. That's the thing that really worries me, frankly. Because if I say to somebody,

if I say on the air, that a car dealer is doing something illegal and he's not, I'm toast. I am toast they come after me the station would deny any liability of course yep and they would came out after me it is really scary but the truth she'll set you free and i'm telling the truth so that's the reason i didn't i don't get sued um we i'll give a little hint who we we shoped a small mom and pop actually father and son uh yeah son and pop son and pop uh use car a lot and uh we did we

did a luxury car dealership the week before so we only try to be fair we go far and wide we go did we go to fort lauderdale oh we've been south of fort lauderdale Miami oh this time was west Palm beach but we've been down we've been on Miami we've been to pennsycola yeah oh god I forgot about that yeah so mystery shopping report will really be a lot of fun I sometimes forget to mention our justification and our justification for what we do is a gallop annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. The Gallup poll on honesty and ethics and professions.

Rich, I see you hanging on there. May finish my thought, and we have a caller from Palm Beach Gardens. We'll be right with you, Rich. This Gallup poll, honesty and ethics and professions has been conducted every year since 1977. And every year,

40 plus years, car dealers have been the bottom or near the bottom on honesty and ethics. So it isn't just this team here in the radio studio it isn't just me talking negativity people don't want to buy a car because of the way the car dealers treat them a matter of fact one of my most recent blogs was would you rather buy a car or have a colonoscopy that's how bad the experience is when we're talking about buying a car we do have a caller don't we nancy we do we're going to

go to rich in west pome beach gardens good morning rich morning morning uh my question is I brought my car in for servicing at a repair shop and the body got damage a little bit of the body damage and I want to know what my rights are and what their responsibility is. Well, Rich, that is not an infrequent problem that depends on the integrity of the service department that you brought your vehicle into. If you have an honest business person, they will give you the benefit of the doubt and take care of it. What a good business person does in the service business or the sales

business when you bring your vehicle in is inspect the car when you come in. And if you're really smart, you'll have web cameras to view the car when it comes in. Oftentimes, I've got a ding on my fender, and I don't know where it came from. I think it came

from when I, my sons and I went to lunch about a month and a half ago. And a couple people have seen it said, how did that happen? Well, I might have done it. But I don't think I did. So those things happen. So people bring cars into establishments and they leave and then they notice a ding and they immediately assume that it was caused at the last place they visited.

The question is, was it really? So what a good businessman would do is give the customer the benefit of the doubt and take care of it. Because if you believe that they dinged your car and they won't fix it, you won't go back there for service and you'll tell all your friends and neighbors what happened and they won't go back their for service so if it costs this company 250 bucks to fix your car

and you didn't do it it would cost him $2,500 in additional business that he lost because he did not do the right thing Nancy? I'd like to add to that I've had

a few ladies ask me the same question and I advise them pictures. Pictures are worth it all. And you take pictures of every angle of your vehicle before you leave it for service. And that will clinch it right there. Rich, have you gone to the top guy there, the owner of the business or the general manager? Yeah, I contacted them.

The service isn't finished yet, so he said that he'd work it out before we, when I have to bring it back, so he said we'd work it out. I bring it back. Good. Well, let me know how it goes if you could call the show and let us know tell them when you go in there that you talk to us at earluncars.com and that what I said and see what they say.

And if they take care of you, you call us back next week and we'll give the business a shout out. We'll name the company. And we'll tell them they did the right thing. And they give them a little credit for being a good business person who cares about their customers. Okay, great. I'll do that.

Thanks for the call, Rich. Have a good day. Stay in touch. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Remember, ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. We're going to go to Dave, and he's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Dave.

Good morning, guys. How is everybody? Great. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, how you were opening this? show this morning and you were talking about all the different ways we can enjoy your program something occurred to me that some months back when i discovered through all these radio stations

and you would come on while i was in the car and it was compelling and interesting and i really appreciated it so i tried to download it onto my i heart radio and they played music they did not play your show. And then I accidentally just, well, happened to put the I-Heart radio on the True Oldies channel on Saturday morning, and there you were. And yeah, I was wondering, would your application on IHeart

be nationally broadcasted? Would you know, or would it just be maybe a local thing? I think it would be national, and I'm not sure why you weren't able to get us at that one time. Stu, you're our cyber expert. What do you think? I know that on tune-in radio, we are national. I have friends up in New York that listen to the show every Saturday.

I heart radio, I'd assume the same thing, but I guess we might have to speak with the station manager. Yeah, and a tune-in. Well, it was some months back. I mean, this was quite some time back. But, yeah, up in New York is exactly why I was wondering. because this is the kind of information that, like, my kids are in New York and New Jersey. And, you know, this is just great stuff. And I'd really like to turn them on to it.

And, like I said, the I heart for me is a perfect platform. I just punch it up on my phone, walk around with my headset on, and get to talk to some nice people. Well, Dave, that's a great suggestion. And we're remiss and not mentioning that more often. We have so many sources now It's hard to believe that 14 years ago All we had was a little bitty signal That reached not very far

And now we've got so many channels To get this message out that we lose count And you just gave us two more Because you said eye heart And then made the stew think of tune-in So absolutely We'll start talking about that That's a very good point

People love it And all over the country They can do eye heart or tune in yeah i did i i agree yeah i think it's great and listen uh more people need to listen to your program i mean it's just so full of information and thank you and suggestions and it's great all right i'm gonna go guys thank you for that have a good one yes thank you for that 877 960 or you can text us at 772 4976530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback dot com go there and your opinion. We're going to go to Doug, and Doug is calling us from Boko. Good morning, Doug.

Good morning, and Ollie says good morning, too. Meow. Good morning. Again, for people think when nuts, Ollie is Doug's kitty cat. Yeah, hi, Sam, and Doug are all members of the Sunrise Club, and we see them every morning. Salma's morning at 641. Welcome. Yeah, so I didn't know if you knew this. about me, but I used to produce car commercials, and the very first dealership I used to produce for her with Gary Farnreff.

Is that right? I was in Fort Lauderdale, and I used to do his dancing bear dude that used to stand in front of the dealership, and he was really successful with these silly commercials, and then I moved to Boca and started doing all the Boca dealerships like Dan. God, I went with Dan Ultimobile, Dan something Oldsmobile, Dan Burns, yeah. Yeah.

That's actually, you know, I knew Gary Fronrath very well. He had a used car lot on South Dixie Highway just a couple blocks south of Stuart Pontiac, and he was a protege of Roger Dean and went on to become rich and famous and had a huge Chevrolet dealership, and just a heck of a nice guy. But he really came up the hard way.

They were a great guy. Yeah, they treated me so amazingly. And then I probably wound up doing at least 10 more dealerships in Fort Laudan. You know, and I did the cougar with Pompano. We hired a live cougar and put him in the commercial, and unfortunately, he got a little wild with the announcer. I wish I had that. tape. It was amazing. We had a dog commercial

that Stu and my sons and other sons produced, and we did it down for a lot of the production studio and we had a Great Dane. And the Great Dane got totally out of control. And he was running around, knocking the chairs and tables down. He also chose

to use the area for his bathroom. And so finally, it took, I think, three people to get the Great Dane out so we could do the commercial. Oh, too funny. so one more thing so so i have a good a good story about a dealership del ray honda now del re honda used to be sherwood and and i used to produce sherwood's commercials and at the end he would go who would and then we go sherwoods yeah butch remember those and he was he was really difficult

to deal with i went there i said you guys want to do business with me i used to work for an ad agency and produce your commercial. And at first they were okay, but then they tried to get me on the mileage, over mileage on Sim's car. And then Sims car was involved in an accident, and it wasn't her fault. It got fixed, and there was a devaluation on the car. So it wound up being a fight, but we won. and now I would say that they're an okay dealership because they made good on everything,

and I wound up not having to pay overmilege, not having to pay anything, nothing out of pocket. And they kind of came through. That's great. I didn't know that you had that background. That's really interesting, because you and I know a lot of the same people. We need to get together sometime and swap stories about the old days. If you knew Butch Sheen, he was a real character.

I could tell you some stories. I don't want to get into that now. We're on live radio, but I can't tell you some of the stories I know about Butch on live radio. No, we don't want to go there. I don't want to go there. And he used to yell at me about the airtime, and I go, I don't control the airtime. You have to call the table company. He says, okay, well, then.

Just go do the commercial. I go, okay. Oh, goodness. What fun time. We got Rod holding. Rod, hang on there. Don't give up. We're going to be with you just a second.

Yeah, let's say, maybe we can do lunch or something and talk about some of this crazy stuff. Yeah, I mean, Gary Franerath, butchian, boy, you know some of the players. Oh, boy. I always sing. Have a great day, and thank you, guys. Thank you, Doug.

Thank you very much. Stay in touch. I always thought some of the best commercials ever that related to cars to was Chuck Kersio and his Tire Kingdom commercials. Yeah. Oh, that man, was he a genius? I love that. Yeah. I love that.

Boy, we're showing our ages. Except for Rick. We have Rod, and Rod's giving us a call from West Palm Beach. Welcome to the show, Rod. Good morning. Good morning, all. You were talking about the, the, um, the, um, turning in driveway areas and such, something years ago they came out with called the

Ackerman effect, perhaps, perhaps here, and I'm probably sure you remember that and such, Earl. Do they still use something like that? Because I'm sure that that's going to be past the times of longevity of, of, oh, let's see, somebody getting paid for their rights with it, you know, Mr. Ackerman. You know, I'm drawing a blank on the Ackerman effect, Rod. It sounds familiar, but I don't know what it is. What is the Ackerman effect? Rick can't come.

It's where one tire, if you make, say, see a hard left turn, one tire goes, And one tire goes at a certain degree of angle, and then the left front tire goes at a different. If I'm not mistaken, the one that you're turning into the turn makes more of a degree of turn, and it used to save tires and used to save front ends and all that stuff. And when this happened and ran over a man named Murray Ackerman, and they probably can name it the Ackerman effect in honor of Mour.

No, I'm just kidding. Well, that's interesting. I didn't know what it was called, and this goes to testify to the intelligence of our listening audience. And I've got a degree in physics. I've got a degree in physics, and I didn't know what the acronym effect did. But thank you very much, Rod. That is extremely interesting. I like you.

I've been around cars basically all my life. So been in a little longer than you were in business. So we're both about the same time. Wow. Yeah, my dad was in the business, and he started in the business back in the teens and 20s. He started to work for the Oakland company before it became Pontiac. And my dad used to ride a horse because the Pontiac or Oakland sold cars directly to the farmers. And when they had to repair a car, there were no service departments, there were no dealerships. He would ride his horse out to the farm, and he would fix the car.

Sometimes he'd have a battery to charge, jumpstart the car. And that's going way, way back. So it's kind of fun to talk about the old days, Rod. I appreciate your calling in. Thank you very much. Yeah, the old Pontiacs. We came to Florida in an old Pontiac of 52, 52 straight-eight Pontiac. Wow.

So, my first car. Had that great big emblem on the hood. My first car was a 51 Pontiac, and it was a straight-eight, 51 Pontiac. I named the car Betsy Stick Shift The only option was a heater And it was You never forget your first car

Just like your first girlfriend Yeah If the battery was down or anything like that Back then there were 6 volt And tube radios and all that stuff If it didn't start you'd hook it up to the horse And pull it and pop it in second gear And fired right up

Oh gosh That's true and now we're driving computers, and that's strange. Never thought that would happen, but price of progress, I guess. Oh, yeah. One of they planning on going to starterless vehicles? They've been talking about it for a long time, where they shoot a charge in on the piston that's on the downstroke

and start the end of the crud on up. There's going to be smaller batteries and stuff. Any idea when they're going to do that? Well, I think the electric car kind of trumped that whole thing, because the internal combustion engine is on its way out, and I think we'll just be. So essentially we have start-less vehicles now. All you do is turn them on.

Well, the hybrid cars don't have a starter or an alternator because the electric motor simply starts the gas engine. Yeah, yeah. And I guess they're going to still keep staying with diesels. I mean, they've had diesels, I don't know, forever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot of good stuff is going on the way of, you know, steam engine. was a fantastic engine and my dad used to tell me it was the best engine ever made in terms of

efficiency and power and the problem is you had to have a very large tank of water on the car yeah the old stanley steamer and firewood yeah you uh you you uh the steam engine uh hit it on both strokes but the uh but the problem of uh of rust was a big problem too yeah yeah i think at one time a steam engine held the land speed record Daytona. It did. And the rotary engine,

I mean, we could go on and on. On and on. But, Ron, thanks for the call. I love to hear from me again next Saturday. Please call. I love to talk about old times. Yeah, interesting call. Stay in touch.

All right. Thank you, Ron. Take care. Have a great day. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 7772-497. 6530 talking about horses and carriage and wagons, gosh, born in Pittsburgh, I can just close my eyes and I can see the horse and carriage coming by my house delivering milk and these little glass

bottles, memories. It was wonderful. Yeah. I think we've got some text coming in, don't we? We do. We have some from our text line at 772-497-6530. It's anonymous, but the question says, my car, a 2017 Prius does a weird thing when I cross railroad tracks. When I am breaking, my car jerks and shutters as the tires cross the track. It feels like the ABS is kicking in and shutting off.

My last car, 2012 Prius, did the same thing. That's a Rick question. And actually, they've pretty much answered their own question. That's pretty much what's happening is when you're stepping on the brake and you're slowing the car down and you go over those railroad tracks,

the tires tend to bounce a bit. at that railroad crossing and the ABS is so accurate now that it detects that loss of motion and the loss of rotation from the tires and it immediately starts trying to kick in the

ABS thinking you might be on the verge of losing control of the car so it's trying to help keep you in control of the car it feels a little odd but it's operating the way it's supposed to and it's going to help keep you in control of the car you know one of the things that under my head is you were

explaining that, and I didn't know the answer. Thank you, Rick, is that here I am a car dealer, and I don't know the answer to this question, and we sell those cars. Cars are so complex today that the challenge for car dealers, including me, is to explain adequately all of the technical good things and questionable things and scary things. Because a new car, if you haven't driven a modern car, 2019 car, and you're driving at 2005, it will be a strange experience for you. And this needs to be pre-explained before you go down the highway because you can get scared.

You're going across the railroad tracks. Suddenly something weird happens. You don't know what's going to happen. Is my transmission going to fall out? What's going on? So very interesting question. Yeah, that lane keep assess is something that popped in my mind. So if they didn't explain that to you

and suddenly your steering wheel starts nudging you a certain direction, Yeah, you could panic. It's beeping at you. The steering wheel is trying to keep you in the lane, and it's all because you didn't use your turn signal. You know, that break warning light telling me in a break goes on like 10 times a day for me. I got to slow down. You're getting too close to that other car ahead of you.

Break. It's terrifying. We have another question. This is from Ernesto on our live Facebook feed, which, by the way, we are having some network issues, so we're aware that's going in and out. So if you're watching live, please be patient with us. We are working on it. Ernesto says, good morning.

Why are the dealership maintenance schedules most of the time more frequent than the owner's manual? Which would you recommend to follow? Why is tires for life usually depending on the dealership maintenance schedule? Well, Ernesto, to answer your questions, because the dealers are trying to make money. And cars today have so little maintenance compared to what they did 10, 15, 20 years ago that the car dealerships are starving at the service departments. are starving to death because they used to thrive on lots of maintenance. And old cars used to require, I don't mean cars built,

and new cars that were built a long time ago, used to require two, three times as much maintenance. Now they're almost maintenance free. And a lot of the manufacturers have subsidized it by giving you free maintenance for two years, sometimes even three years. So what's a car dealer to do to make money in the service department? They make up their own maintenance schedule. And my advice to you, and this is very important, do not pay any attention to the car dealers or the service department's recommended maintenance.

You want the manufacturers recommended maintenance. Now, Rick's looking at me because there are exceptions. There are certain types of services depending on the part of the country you live in. high heat, high cold, dry, humidity, environmental conditions change all over the world. And there are some pockets around the world that require special services that you don't normally see. But 99 times out of 100 rule of thumb say, I want my factory recommended maintenance, stick to it, you can't go wrong. And the good news is there's very little factory recommended maintenance required anymore. I think we have a...

We're going to, yes, Stu, you're finished, right? Oh, no, we got a couple, but we get callers take priority. Okay, Darla, thank you for calling. You're a first-time caller from Palm City. Oh, thank you. Good morning. You won yourself $50. Wonderful.

Yeah, I'll stay on the line and give John your information. What can we do for you today? I was just wondering when you're purchasing a new car, Can you tell me more about the dealer fee? I could, do you have six hours? You can condense it down that small? Dealer fee, prep fee. It's funny, I'm so happy you ask that question because it's probably the reason I'm still on the radio

and I've been on the radio for 14 years. I cannot believe that our regulators and our legislators allow this to happen. a dealer fee is a generic term used to be called a dealer fee and then the dealers decided people were getting on to them so they started changing the name believe it or not in Florida there is no law on what you call

that extra hidden profit that you tack on to the price that you advertise or you quoted on the phone or online you ask a car dealership what the price of the car is he tells you a number it's not true you come in He adds $1,000 or $2,000, believe it or not, as much as $3,000, and he calls it something generically referred to as a dealer fee. Some of the names they use are electronic filing fee, notary fee, dealer services fee, e-filing fee, tag agency fee.

It's all up to the dealer's imagination and whatever, and it's okay with Florida. The governor, the legislators, the state attorney, they say that's okay. You can tell, Darla, I can tell you, I'll sell you a car for $10,000, and you come in and you sign the paper, and they go into the business office, the computer picks out a paper for $11,000. The $10,000 that I told you the price was, and another $1,000, because that's what the charge would be for the dealer fee. So it's a crazy situation. This exists because our legislators and our regulators are in the pockets of the car dealers. They're financial lobbying along with their associations. And it's crazy.

In California, it's regulated. A dealer fee out there, I think, is $75. Not that they don't have a dealer fee, but that's all it can be. And that's the end of the conversation. Here, there's no regulation. It's a wild wild west. Darla, I think I did that in less than six hours, and I apologize if I rambled. It's okay.

I appreciate the information. It's a dirty little secret, as what we used to call it, Darla. And there's so many names for that fee. It's very deceiving. It's not a secret anymore. Unfortunately, yes. And Stu said it's not deceiving anymore. Thanks to you.

Is it? Well, thank you very much. I hope you can call again every week. I always appreciate Nancy because she does, since Nancy has been on the show from the beginning, she has grown our female audience. When we first started, practically no female callers. And now we're up pretty much to 50-50, thanks to Nancy. And I thank you for responding.

And if you can become a regular caller and call in at least maybe a couple Saturdays a month, we'd really appreciate it. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Darles. Spread the word. Okay, I will. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Stay in touch.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. We're going to go to John, who's calling from Palm City. He, too, is a regular caller. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Hey. Funny, a call from Palm City. I was thinking yesterday, I took the turnpike.

I visited a friend in Wellington, And I took the Florida Turnpike and got off Palm City. It doesn't even say Palm City. It says Stewart, which is misleading, because it goes to Stewart. But when you get off at the turnpike, right on the corner, there's only one gas station. Actually, they're sock it to you with the gasoline price. But then it gets worse. If you continue going straight, and that's Martin Downs Boulevard, then the center part of Palm City is a Chevron all by itself.

No competition. Again, they sock it to you. Here's the story. In the last month, the gas price has gone down 22 cents a gallon. Yesterday, according to NBC News, West Palm Beach price is 264 average. Nationwide is 268. There's six states now that have gasoline that's $2 or under. So hopefully, for the Thanksgiving weekend, we will be good shape and get lower prices on gasoline. Wow.

But what I want to say, again, to Palm City, besides the stations that are all high-priced, all you do is continue to go straight, you cross the Palm City Bridge, and there's a speedway, which is a formerly Hess, and then there's Lala, right? Yeah. And then totally, in Stewart alone, you've got three racetracks, three speedways, which, again, is the former Hess. so there's no reason in some areas why not only it's the importance of a discount gas but when you buy from these stations you're getting freshest gas with a turnover and these stations are company-owned and they always clean out the water that's in the tank your mechanical tell you the importance of that and that's why these stations are so important that we gas up on them because some of the independent they don't spend the money money to remove the water that's in the gas. Good point. And that's a major problem. Yeah, we always advise people to use it.

Yeah, brand names. The good news is the gasoline, hopefully, is going to continue to come down. And that's very important with the economy, with the amount of driving that people do. Then I want to mention another thing that a little nostalgia, what we've talked about today. On the computer today, on your internet, is an auction, Julian auction company. They were auctioning off Marilyn Monroe's 56 Thunderbird, which she bought new. She owned it from 56 to 62. They have all the papers on it.

I have a picture of the car in 1957 with Arthur Miller, one of the husbands that she had, driving the car, and they bought that car brand new in Connecticut. And I looked up in 56, a T-bird was $3,050, and they built 15,000 of them. Amazing. But what I want to say is sit out for this course today. It's estimated. You can follow it on your computer. It's estimated that it'll bring in, because it's Malam Monroe's car, from $350,000 to $550,000.

Wow. Nice price. Actually, I thought it'd be higher than that. Because of who owned it. And she was really hot on convertibles. When she died in 62, she had an El Dorado, New El Dorado Cadillado convertible. And at 62 Christ, 300. So 300 convertible.

I don't know if that cars were auctioned off later. But this is a hell of a price today when a fully restored 56 T-bird probably only brings about $60,000 or $70,000. Maybe I'll buy it. I was in love with my own. Those that are following any movie star, you know, names and nostalgia of a car that can go as high as the sky is high on that price. So interesting. My 13th birthday party, I took my friends to the Care Free Theater in West Palm Beach, and we watched the River of No Returns, starring Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum.

I fell deeply in love with her, and I was just a crush when she married Joe DiMaggio. Interesting. Well, some like it hot. Well, I'm not going to give my age, but I followed Dee Birds when I came out in 55, and it was in the answer to the Corvette, and the 56 was. the same thing, basically, but I've had the continental tire in the back, and then 57 was the big body change. I love those continental tires.

So I go back and follow on cars way back from high school. Interesting. Yeah, it's going to be real boring when we got all autonomous electric cars without drivers and no continental kits. We'll have nothing to talk about on this show. Exactly. Cap stations won't have anything to sell. It's kind of the world's changing.

Did you read the article where in Arizona, Waymo? is saying that in December they are going to have autonomous ride-sharing cars in operation in direct competition with Uber and Lyft. I read that article. Yeah, they're way ahead. That's Google's Autonomous Car Company, by the way. They're way ahead of everybody else and look for them to have the first realistic you and I can buy or share autonomous cars.

They're going to be putting the pressure on General Motors, Toyota, Honda, all the big manufacturers. Waymo is really leading the pack. John, thank you. Just a footnote to this. Don't buy gas in Palm City. That's one of the many reasons why Costco was turned down for Palm City. It'd be a competition to put all these gas things out of business.

The good news is now it's going to get final approval from Stewart. There's going to be Costco on Indian Street, which is not far from the veteran bridge. Fantastic. I didn't know that. That's great. For final approval now. Great news. Costco is coming to the area, finally, Martin County.

Beautiful. They've got a great auto buying program, so that'll be really good for the folks up in that area instead of having to drive all the way to Palm Beach Gardens now is near Costco. So that's great news. Thank you, John. Mike, have a good day, folks. We love hearing from you, John. Stay in touch.

Gosh, what an exciting show we've had. So many interesting people. Callers with information. for us that we didn't even know. And I want to thank all of you for tuning in, Daryl Stewart on cars. We do appreciate you. And we do have the mystery shopping report coming up from West Palm Beach, and that's Peterson Motorcars. Linda has a question.

She texts me, and she says that she thinks that she might get a better deal if she pays cash for her car. I say, I don't think so. What do you say? No, you're exactly right. most of the money that a car dealer makes is into financing. A car dealers make more money when they finance your car than when they sell you the car. So oftentimes, you'll end up paying more for a car when you pay cash. It's counterintuitive, and most products you buy, you probably get a better deal for cash.

But in a car dealership, they love the financing. I recommend that when you go into car dealership, tell them that you intend to finance the car and then go ahead and negotiate the best price you can and then say, change my mind i'm paying cash write them out of check great idea linda i hope we helped you out if uh if we haven't give us a call at 877 960 9960 and you can text us at 777 2497530 i think stew has some oh yeah we got the text and comments they're backing up we got him uh dug on facebook um wanted to know if he could turn off his lane departure assist on his 2018 Honda Cord and Doug yes you can because I googled that I already answered him on Facebook

but yes you can turn off the lane departure assist the next text we got is from anonymous but the question is does the new 2019 Toyota forerunner have clear coat on the paint or just the pearl white and I can answer that as well there's two colors that come on that vehicle on the 2019 four runner that's super white and blizzard pearl the blizzard pearl the blizzard pearl has a nice thick clear coat on it the super white is color code 040 and we've talked about this on the show for years yeah and it has an insufficient clear coat and it will oxidize and fade over time no fault of your own excellent question to ask anyone you buy a car from especially white cars is find out and get proof verification that they do have clear code all cars should

be clear coded i don't know why well i do know why but that's another show as to why they don't have clear coat. But if you buy a car without clear coat, you're asking for trouble unless you wax it regularly and keep it garaged. If you wax it way more than you should, and then unfortunately you have to pay more to get that blizzard pearl paint. It's a premium. Our next text is from Anonymous Person. Is it just me or is everyone terrified to use the special express lane in I-95? I know I'll get where I'm going faster, but it seems like a major commitment to use the express lane. I think you have commitment issues. I'm sorry

I don't know I understand how they feel because that's the racetrack that's where everybody's going faster here's the way I look at it I like the express lane because I feel like I'm only having to worry about

my right side if I'm in the express lane then I have the wall to my left and I'm protected and a car can't cross over from the other side very easily and I feel more secure are only worrying about cars on my right.

Now, you have to go faster to be there, but I happen to like to go fast, so it doesn't bother me. But I understand that. Yeah, and remember, you've got to pay for that, too. So if you don't have a sun pass in your car, you're going to get a bill in the mail. They'll take a picture of here.

Someone stole my son pass. That happened, that's right. Literally, I'm glad you reminded me of that. It's been gone for about a week. I probably got a huge bill waiting for me. I was supposed to get back to you to tell you that his son pass was stolen. I'll put it back to you.

I'm sorry about that. We are going to go to Hope Sand. Barbara? And is it Barbara? Yep. Yes, it is. Hi, Barbara. You're a first-time caller.

You won yourself $50 today. Stay. I'm not a first-time caller. Oh, and you're honest, too, Barbara, because you could have got us for $50, sir. Thank you, Raymond. It was about four years ago when I spoke to you. we had to do with a car that we had purchased.

And I have to say, I listen to you every week, and I have a new fan of yours. My husband is sitting here with me, and he said, wow, they're interesting. So I think you'll stop listening to you also with me. But I just wanted to kind of just bring back, when I had called you, I had bought the Ford Focus from Advantage Ford here in Stewart. and it was kind of a story was I very quickly tell you that we were looking for I was looking for a special color and they didn't have it and they all of a sudden drove around with this blue car and they said here it is and I said where did you get that oh well we had in the back whatever it's back a while so but anyways when we got off the property with the car it was bumping and jumping and jumping and it was because it was one of the cars that they had supposedly changed and or tried to change the automatic drive from a standard shift to an automatic driving. And when I went back with them and said, you know, but it's something. They said, oh, you have to let it ride a while.

You have to let it ride a while. And the story comes as they said, I had to drive 500 miles before the company would even go in and fix it. Make a long story short. We didn't keep it very long. Okay, so we went around and we finally got a new car. My next question is, I have now a Kia Sorrento, which we absolutely love. We feel very safe in it. We drive a lot of places to go to see the children.

New York, South Dakota. We're all over the place. And we love it, and we're having a very good time with it. My question is that the advantage for it, Kia, The, um, it's, um, that's, that's, that's, that's next. Okay. Okay, that's where we bought it. Um, they just keep, they keep calling us, emails, anything they tend to get our attention. I am so tired of their emails. I have a private guy who takes care of our cars, has always, has done this since we lived here. It's about 18 years. We've got introduced to him. He's done us well. He's always taken care of us. As a matter of it, as a matter of it, a story, we, we've always, we We were on our way up to New York to see the children. The car was packed. I stopped by.

I said, okay, Frank, you know, you wanted to just give it a one-pova. He comes out and he says, you're not going anywhere. And I said, you're not going anywhere. We're heading on from $195. He says, and not with both tires he's not. Wow. So we did delay our trip by a couple of hours because within a couple of hours, he had brand-new tires on my car, and I trucked totally in half forever.

And, anyway, because he's been like a good friend. So to us with our cars. Anyways, he services our cars. My question is that somebody told me, well, if you do that, or at least I think the company told us, that if you do that, it negates the warranty on the car. No, no, that's not true. You can have your car service wherever you like,

and warranty work has to be performed by a Kia dealer on your Sorrento. and by the way, if you have any problems with Bessmith Kia, call Frank Hernandez. He is the owner and the general manager. He runs things. And you tell him Earl Stewart. Gonzalez. I'm sorry.

Frank Gonzalez. I always get his name wrong. Call Frank Gonzalez and tell him your friend Earl Stewart, and he'll take care of you. But you can have your car serviced anywhere as long as is by the factory recommended maintenance schedule. And be sure that you keep your receipts. So if you have a problem with a manufacturer, that you'll be able to say, yes, I had my car

serviced according to your recommendations, and we're done at an independent service department. So I hope that answers your question, Barbara. It does answer my question because I have saved every single paper that Frank has for us with the cars, with the clip everything on it. But my other thing is, do I have to just go over there and tell them to stop calling me? because they keep calling me about, you know, redo this and redo that, or so trade in or this and that.

You know, I mean, I'm happy with that. I mean, it's just so annoying that they do this so often. And, you know, there's any way, I mean, I just go over there and say, can you off your list or something? I mean, I don't know. Yeah, Barbara, just called the dealership,

asked to speak to Frank Gonzalez, tell him you're a friend of Earl Stewart, and say that, suggested that they have you deleted from their follow-up list. You're in a computer, and they can delete your name in the computer, and you'll receive no more phone calls. They have somebody called a BDC, which is a system that they use for, it's like a boilerplate room. They have a bunch of people in the room, and they just keep calling people. And if you're not in the computer, they won't call you.

So you tell Frank Gonzalez, I said, to take you out of the computer, he'd be happy to accommodate. and call us next week and let us know if it worked. And, Barb, the same thing happens to me, and it is very, very annoying. I get a lot of emails, and to take girls' advice and have them take you off that call list, you know, it would be very helpful. But it is very annoying, I agree with you.

Okay, thanks for the call, Barb. Frank Gonzalez, you said his name was. Frank Gonzalez, it. That's correct. Yes. And we're located? Where is he? I thank you for calling, and please call again.

Don't be a stranger. It was four years since your last call. We'd love to hear from you more frequently. I hope Frank. Please call next Saturday. Yeah, it can help you. We're going to go to Brad, and he's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Hi.

How are you doing, Mrs. Stewart? Oh, great. Good morning, Brad. Good morning. You were talking about used cars earlier this morning. morning, and I have a question, just for fairness, I do own in my driveway, two cars that I bought at Earl Stewart. I'm very happy with the dealership. Well, thank you. Is there a perfect time or that's time to buy a used car, one year, two year, three years out? Is there any kind of

roll of com as to when you get the best return for your dollar? I would say the sweet spot is two to three years. One year is pretty quick, and you kind of wonder why a used car is traded in in one year because whoever traded it in experienced a loss on the depreciation. Three year is really probably the exact sweet spot, and if you can really get lucky and find a three-year-old car, there's still got a little bit of factory warranty left. Best to have, you know, certified cars often are a good way to go. If you have a dealer you can rely on who did the proper certification and check it over carefully.

But a two or three-year-old used car is a far better buy than a new car. And, of course, consult consumer reports. Nancy has a consumer report in our hand right now. And the annual edition says that they have their list of best and worst. used cars. So at the very least, before you buy used car, be sure that you don't buy one of the worst ones. And then if you can find something on the best list, you're way ahead. Two to three-year-old with a little bit of factory warranty left. Thank you very much. I appreciate to help.

Oh, you're quite welcome. Thank you very much. A lot of people had that same question in their mind. That's the reason I say it was a great call. That best and worst used cars would really help you out. But this here is something that everyone should pick up the consumer buying guide here for 2019, and there's a whole lot of information in there. 877960, or you can text us at 772-49730. We're going to go to Howard, and he's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning.

It's great to be back. Oh, welcome. Just arrived a couple of Saturdays ago. Try to call you last week. I'm driving now with my friend's eye and he's ready to buy a new car and he has a couple of questions which I will ask and he'll listen to the radio he wants to get something with adaptive headlights is that such a thing?

Say that again Howard? He wants to get a car with adaptive headlights. Adaptive so that's like when you turn a corner, you know they aim around the corner Rick, you're only going to find those on a lot of the high-end luxury cars, the higher-end Lexus. I know a lot of the Mercedes have those. And, of course, Earl's favorite drivers, the BMWs, a lot of those have that. Jaguar, I think, would probably have it. For the adaptive headlights that actually turned the corner with you, you're really going to be looking at a high-end luxury model for that.

Yeah, Howard, my advice to your son is, stay away from something like that. They're extremely expensive, and you're probably not going to be wanting to buy a Jaguar or a BMW anyway. And my guess is that if you have a problem with them and they're out of warranty, it's going to cost you a lot of money to fix them. It's a little bit exotic. So stick with something that's a little bit simpler in terms of options and accessories.

Now, however, the automatic headlights, which simply turn on when it reaches a certain level of darkness outside, they'll run the daytime running lights during the day and then go to the light at night. They work well. Now, those are available on just about every model now because it's such a safety feature that they've pretty much become across the board. And those work pretty well. What else you got? Just another question.

This is side. I'm driving, but I'm trying to talk to you at the same time. Is there a better type of headlight that gives more light? In other words, the type of bulb to look for. I think, again, Rick will answer that. The LED lights are really the best now. They give that pure white light. And when they're installed, you know, when they're done at a factory designed for the car,

they produce a beautiful illumination without blinding other drivers. Does the lamp itself last longer? Yes, LED's lights last a lot longer. They don't produce the heat, and they use less energy to run them. All right. I have something to contribute, but I didn't want to make this a commercial. But I can't tell you that the 2019 Avalon has adaptive cornering headlights. Okay.

Are the LEDs on the Toyota this year? Yes. Yes. Yes. Most of them do. Yes. But the adaptive cornering, silo, see, listen to this, the adaptive headlights are available on some vehicles. including the 2019 Avalon.

And now the headlights don't actually pivot like they used to do back on the Tucker. They have LED lights that wrap around the corner that illuminate when you're turning. So it shines it in the direction that you're about to turn. Even though they have them on the Avalon, I still say you're better off, and speaking to your son, Howard,

he's better off to buy a vehicle that has tried and proven accessories. When you buy a brand new car with brand new accessories, that's never been out before you're asking for trouble wait a little it's been on the market for two or three years and then you can jump in there but stick away from the exotic and stick with the tried and true I appreciate that

hold on here's how we back I want to thank you I want to thank you for your information and I explained sorry about the steel of fee he had no idea that the deal of fee was illegal and Florida does nothing about him Yeah, shameful. So I really appreciate that. And you have LEDs, which is great.

Does it Camry, the XLE have the LEDs? Yes, Stu, the XLE camera. That does have LEDs, right? And those are LEDs. Yeah. That's great. Okay, we'll be shopping you pretty soon. Thank you.

Okay, guys, welcome back. Enjoy this beautiful South Florida weather. 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. I have a text and it's from Jenna and Jenna asks how she can be sure that she gets enough money for her trade-in. Well, first of all, Jenna, your trade-in, you keep it absolutely separate from your car purchase. That's number one. And to ensure that you get the right price for that trade-in, take it to $3.3.3.3. three different dealerships and get three different prices,

and you can be very sure that you are in control. And be sure that you tell them you don't want to buy a car, you're just selling your car. You're just, you're selling your car. You've got too many cars in the family. You're downsizing and bid on my car. Give me your best price because I'm going to two other dealers after I leave here, and I'm going to sell my car to the highest bidder.

I hope we answered your question. Give us a call. 877. Okay. We got Claire from Green Acres. Hello. Hello, Claire. How can we help you?

I feel like a call. I'm listening to you. Saturdays for having myself breakfast with my mom. And I have two quick questions. One, I'm too you've heard all the time. But I'll ask you my first one. I have a Ford Explorer. it's 2005 and I love it and then the back window the hatch that goes up there's a split in it

and every time I see another one I see the same split in all of them you know Claire I think it sounds like a chronic problem that Ford has with the Explorer I would Google that and with the year of your explorer and a description as you just gave me you'll probably find chat rooms that have this problem. And you probably should contact your Ford dealer because there's something called a technical service bullet bulletin. They call them TSB, technical service bulletin, TSB. And when they have a chronic problem with a car, oftentimes they will go out with a fix and recommendation as to how to fix this. It's almost like a secret warranty. They don't want to go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association and make it an official recall, but they

They will fix it if you come in and you call it to their attention. So give your forward dealer call, go online, and I think you'll get the answer to your question. Okay, that's awesome. I appreciate that. My other question is, I'm sure you hear this every Saturday, my check engine light just came on. So where do I start from here? Check engine light, unfortunately, is one of those things that the manufacturers all do the same thing wrong.

they give you a check engine light and doesn't tell you what it is. There are a multitude of things, two or 300 things that can go wrong from the check engine light. All you know is you've got a red light on. The most common one, and you might try this yourself, is that your gas gap is loose because most of the check engine warnings come from emission related problems. It could be internally, could be, as I say, the gas gap, which is kind of an external. issue. Tighten your gas cap. Take it off and put it back on again. Be sure it's tight and see if that fixes it because over half the time it's that gas cap. The rest of the times it's something usually very minor. I always advise people when the check engine light

comes on, don't panic. 99 times out of 100 is nothing serious. Something that will wait. Rick has a comment. Swinging at your local parts store, especially AutoZone, they have these little generic code pullers that they'll plug into you. your car for free and pull the code and if they tell you it's just an evap what's called an evaporative emissions code then i would just definitely check that gas cap and just say no i don't want to buy anything thank you very much maybe you slip the guy a fiber or something and and just wait and see and let see if that light goes off that's free too claire uh auto zone and uh we'll give them a real shout out uh they're nationwide you should be able to find one google it's probably one near you and they'll

give you basically what the manufacturer should have given you when they installed that check engine light. There should be a code right there that you could call and call your dealer, and he would tell you what the problem was. I think the cars of the future will have this, and I think that as a matter of fact, there'll be direct communication between your car's computer and the manufacturer and the dealer. So you'll have an issue with a car. You won't see a red light flashed at you, but you'll have an instant transmission of your exact problem, your dealer should call you and say you might not know this but you should bring your car in because and fill in the blank that's actually in the works right now yeah yeah clara thank you

you know you guys are you guys are brilliant because my um check gas um something came on last week and i bet that's what it is yeah it could very well be it and then sometimes when your life goes on, you'll bring it in, and this is another stupid thing, they'll fix the problem, but they'll forget to reset the light. And you have to remind them, I mean, they shouldn't have to be, that when they fix the problem, they need to reset the light. Now, you can actually reset it yourself, but you'd have to probably call your dealer, and he could tell you, we're under the dash, you can hit the switch to reset the check engine light. But it's really a stupid thing, It's been on cars for years, and it creates, just think of the inconvenience.

You can be on the turnpike in Pennsylvania, and it's Sunday, and the dealerships and service departments are all closed, and you've got to check engine light. You don't know if your transmission is going to blow up, or the car's going to stop in the middle of the turnbike, or your gas cap is loose. What kind of thing is that? It's just a very bad system. But thanks for that great call, Claire. You asked her question that's on the minds of lots and lots of people. appreciate the call thank you i appreciate your help have a great day okay we got a bunch of uh text here we got a little bit ball going here so uh let's hear the stew go ahead and read some yeah we have a guy on

our live facebook feeds it once it says i was looking at a 2019 camry the sales lady told me all the controls work with your iphone the only problem is that i'm a senior and i don't have an iphone why don't they make cars with simple buttons anymore i am looking for now looking for an older used car yeah yeah that's a that's a chronic problem especially in south florida we have a lot of senior citizens i'm a senior citizen and and it's hard to adapt to change and people that have been driving cars for a long time maybe the same car for a long time have especially problems if you've got a 10-year-old car and you come in by a new car you're talking about a quantum leap and technology You can probably barely drive the car home because you won't know the buttons and whistles and all the rest of it.

You just don't know what to do. Frankly, in my car right now, I'd say half the switches in my car. I don't know what they're about. It's just evolution. It's change. Your grandchildren can probably hop in a car when they're ready to buy, and they will know intuitively exactly what everything is. But we're going through such change now. It's very difficult on old folks like you and me.

Here's what I tell some of our older customers. If you learn 20% of what your car does, pat yourself on the back, you're doing a great job. And think of it like a computer. Most everybody has a computer, but you only use a fraction of where that computer is capable. So there's a lot of things that aren't that important. Don't feel bad about it.

And you just inspired me to think of anything else. We're going from very simple to crazy complexity back to very simple again, because the next evolution, the next thing will be the autonomous, driverless, the, you don't own the car, ride sharing, how simple will that be? You'll walk out of your front door, a car picks you up, you say, take me to the Taco Bell, take me to the pharmacist, take me to the public's, and it takes you there. And you get out of the car, and by the time you get out of the car, it's going away. You come back with your bag of groceries, and another car picks you up, and you say, take me home. you don't talk to anybody except the car simple Rick I just hope they don't put those creepy robot drivers in like they do in all the

sci-fi movies that no I'd be walking everywhere then they're not gonna do that oh that'd be just too creepy for me I was counting on it no no no no that's really weird isn't it yeah I know I've seen those all those sci-fi movies and there's always that creepy plastic robot guy does I was picturing the inflatable guy in the movie airplane that's what I was picture. Autopilot. Oh, boy, we have devolved. We are going down the rabbit hole.

You can see we're having a great time here. Ed Earl Stewart on Cars. And again, thank you for tuning in. Give us a call, toll-free. Hit 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Yep. And speaking of text, we have one. Anonymous texter says, I heard that if the new tariffs take place in 2019, the cost of a

new car may increase by at least $4,000. Have you heard anything further about this? The terrorists are still up in the air as to how they will affect different manufacturers. Bear in mind that all manufacturers don't build their cars in the same places. You've got the China issue, which is the big tariff issue. You have, for example, someone that's going to have a real problem will be Buick, because Buick and Cadillac will have a big problem. They sell more Buick's.

and Cadillacs in China than they do in the United States. You also have other manufacturers that don't manufacture their cars in the United States. So it will affect some cars more than others. I think in general, the $4,000 is an exaggeration. Everybody that's talking about tariffs has got a political agenda. The manufacturers, the car manufacturers are exaggerating the cost impact on the drivers because they don't want the tariff. The dealers are exaggerating.

As a car dealer, I get emails and texts and contacts from Toyota telling me to scream and yell about the tariffs. Speaking totally objectively, I think when the smoke settles, the effective terrorists on most cars will be negligible. I just don't think it's going to be a big issue. Great information. We have Andreas on Facebook, says, I think this is a joke. Is there a light that turns on if the check engine light is bad? Rick, you couldn't see Rick.

I love that. He wasn't on the camera, but he. I love that. His eyes narrowed, and he looked grim. Actually, Andreas follows up, says, I have found, talking about high tech on cars, he says, I found there are modern radios with old school dials that you can purchase as retrofits. The only caveat is that these are not replacements. for the integrated infotainment systems.

But if you like dials, it looks like you can get them. I'm going to use that joke with your permission. Andreas. Tomorrow, Andreas, because we're speaking to the men's club at Valencia Falls. Valencia Falls. And, boy, so I'm going to use that joke that we need a light that comes on when the check engine light fails. And then you've created an infinite regression. Exactly.

And then we need another light. That is hysterical. Well, it adds to the idiotony honesty. Is that a word? Idiocracy is a... Anyway, the stupidity of the check engine line. It adds to the understanding of that. You know, we're getting close to half an hour before the show ends.

We've got a mystery shopping report we need to talk about. If we cleaned up the text and we don't have a caller now... I have one more from Mary Louise, and she's asking about extended warranties, and if she should buy one. Extended warranties, I'll give you a rule of thumb. Don't buy one. Now I'll give you the detail, a little bit of detail there.

If you're going to buy an extended warranty, you're better off to buy a manufacturer's extended warranty. Most of the extended warranties, virtually all of them, are sold by independent companies, and they're also sold by dealers. Sometimes the dealership owns the extended warranty company. Now you've got to worry about it. Is the dealer going to be around to honor the warranty, or is the independent company? If you buy a General Motors extended warranty, you're probably safer to think that General Motors will be around longer than the car dealership. So find out if it's a manufacturer's warranty.

Then if it's not the manufacturer's warranty, even if it is, read the warranty. When you're reading the warranty, read what it does not cover, not just what it covers. they can list, they can do two pages of stuff that an extended warranty covers. But the few things that they say doesn't cover are pretty important. So the computer modules in car dealers and cars today are enormously expensive. You want to be sure that the computer components are covered, that your navigation system is covered, that your air conditioner is covered, very, very important things, which typically cannot be covered. So you can see it's a minefield.

when in doubt do this go to consumer reports get a reliable product like a Honda or a Nissan a car that you know has got good reliability and longevity and buy a good car don't buy the extended warranty if you have to buy the one that's offered by the manufacturer yeah and Mary Louise be sure that you do ask that question what doesn't it cover and the most important question what does it cover and you'll cover all the angles. 877960 or you can text us at 772

49760. Oh, we got a text here. Another text came in. We got one more text. How much should I expect to pay to have a new Prius battery installed, regular battery, and not the hybrid battery. That's good because the hybrid battery ain't cheap. Believe it or not, that Prius 12 volt battery on the up through Generation 3, which is 2016, I think, or 2015, that's not very cheap either

because that battery itself is a special sealed-type battery, and it's located inside the passenger compartment, and it's about a 320, I want to say about $320 to $330 battery, and about $60 to $70 for installation. Okay, so you're talking $400 on round numbers. Yep. Do we have another text coming in here? No, we're all caught up. Okay.

Let me get into the mystery shopping report. As Nancy mentioned earlier, it's on a little outfit called Peterson Motor Cars there in West Palm Beach. Before we presented last week's mystery shopping report of Jaguar, Land Rover, Treasure Coast, we took some time to remind ourselves why we keep investigating and reporting about dealers who continue to sell used cars with deadly Takata Air Bag Recals. we discuss in graphic detail

how an explosive canister installed just inches from a driver's or passenger's face I mean that's right up there in your face it can blow up violently causing disfiguring injuries and deaths and it has many many times we discuss

the fact more times in Florida than any other state we discuss how easily anyone can find out whether their vehicle or a vehicle that they're considering buying is affected by this defect A piece of cake. We talked about our elected leaders and unelected bureaucrats charged with ensuring public safety who stand by unwilling or unable to do anything to stop this crisis.

Every time I think about this, my blood pressure goes up. We called our governor and Senator-elect Rick Scott. Governor-elect Rick Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General Pamp body by name, spoke to them on the air, live radio, and asked them what they are prepared. prepared to do to protect their constituents we've called them we've called on them to take action for years and we've heard nothing over and over again round full-page ad in the tallahassee democrat that's the newspaper in tallahassee so all the politicians up there saw it ran that twice it's been online it's been all over the place for the next 90 days or so rick scott will be

the governor of florida he can issue an executive order banning the sale of used cars with unfixed to cut airbags stroke of the pen Rick Rick Scott we know you hear about this Rick

we know we're big enough more people enough people know about rolling cars that someone knows somebody

that listens to this show that knows you you've heard about this so you're burying your head in the sand now you're moving up to becoming a senator

you got a couple more months as governor Rick Scott stroke of the pen make it illegal. He probably doesn't have to deal with FADA that much anymore after this. He's a national candidate. Exactly.

All you have to do is say it's illegal to sell cars with dangerous recalls. What a no-brainer. What a no-brainer. At any rate, if you just do something like that, then Earl Stewart and Cars could move on to talk about less serious things like Karanuba Wex. That's the name I can never remember. Karanuba.

Or is that, yeah, Carnalba. Carnuba, I don't know. Carnuba. It's a really good wax, folks. You've got to have a lot of that caranuba in there. We're waiting, but we don't want to haul our breath because maybe Ron DeSannie will listen to take action. Any politician, for heaven's sakes, do something. This week, we investigated a small and independent used car dealer who we've never heard of, Peterson Motors, and West Palm Beach.

It's family-owned, father and son, Peterson Motors. And we found a Honda Civic with a past. Newside to cut airbag for sale on their website. The Civic at 2008. Boy, that's a nine years old. Eight or nine. 150,000 miles currently being offered for sale

for $4,900. There is a fix available for the defective passenger side airbag but no one, not in 10 years, has ever done anything to fix it. Still needs to be fixed. Honda's got the inflator sitting in the parts department

and for 11 years that canister that could save this car and killing somebody has been sitting in the parts department to the Honda dealer. He wants to go home. Yeah, exactly. We sent Agent X to Peterson Motors to found out if they were to represent the vehicle as safe and if they were willing to sell the car

even after the recall was revealed. Here's a report speaking in the first person like I'm Agent X, which I am not. I called Peterson Motors to make certain they still had the 2008 Civic with the Takata recall. The person who answered the phone was Eric Peterson,

the owner's son. Eric verified that the car was available, told me it was a new arrival. They only had it for three days. He said they were closing soon and asked if I could make it to the lot quickly. He'd wait for me. I said I'd get there in 15 minutes. It was hard

to find the lot. Couldn't find it. Tucked away near a warehouse on Church Street. I don't even know where that is. It's over near Okachobia 995. Thank you very much. I called Eric, who guided me to his location over the phone. I parked in front of the small office, the sign of the front door at PMC, apparently Peterson Motorc. It was actually a pretty interesting place for a few very nice luxury cars, some Harley Davidson motorcycles, and some well-maintained collectibles, like a 400-mile orange 2001 plumber plowler.

I went inside and I was greeted by Eric Eric Peterson Eric said the Civic was out back led me to it key in hand the car was an amazing shape it was clean and glossy paint the interior was spotless

and smelled good not perfumed just clean we fired up the engine and I felt the AC ice cold I asked Eric who does all the work on the cars compliment him on the condition of the car

he said they had a private mechanic who inspects their vehicles and does repairs sounds good so far i asked him how the civic checked out and if there were any mechanical issues that's the first question we asked he said there were none i asked if i could drive it he said yes and went to get a dealer plate i looked around the lot while i waited i counted 28 cars all of looked as nice as a civic eric returned with a tag and we drove off on the drive I asked about the accidents and Eric said he just reviews the Carfax report there were no accidents or damage I said that was good we returned went inside and sat at Eric's desk now we've got

question one and question two that we always ask taken care of asked and I mean the Carfax report and showed me where it was indicating there was no accidents we talked about how I was paying for the car and I said I would be getting funds from my credit union. He said he had some decent financing options for me but said I was good with my credit union. He didn't press. Eric worked

up the numbers on his computer talked to me about the company. He said it was just him and his dad. They've been operating at the same location for 30 years. It was just he and his dad or it was just him and his dad. Don't test me on that.

I was an anthropology not in english he and his dad he and he and his dad my grandmother uh was an english teacher anthracian so for 30 years uh they've been doing this and uh that's a real i keep want to say mom and pop i'm gonna say him i think i'm correct i'm gonna say he and don't call in on this weird steve's checking around he's googling him i'm not no i'm focusing on the mystery shopping report when he paused i brought up the car again i said i believe him i believed him when he said it passed the inspection, but given the age of the vehicle, I have concerns about the safety, so I'm leading into question number three. I asked him, point blank, is this a safe car?

He said, there were no safety issues. Uh-oh. That's really sad. Everything was so perfect up until that point. It was warm and fuzzy. Yeah. I picked up the Carfax report, which he gave me, and I thumbed through it. Then I asked, what's the deal with the recall?

Eric took the report and looked. He said that thousands of cars get recalls every year. He is correct on that. Yeah. All I had to do was take it to the Honda dealer for a free repair, which is true. That's true. He said that customers usually take care of recall repairs, not the selling dealer. That's probably sadly true, but it's probably sadly wrong.

Shouldn't be. It is not the way it should be. And again, Ron DeSanney, Rick Scott, Pam Bondi, anybody out there in authority in the way of legislating or enforcing the laws. Why is that that you can sell a car and say, listen, this car can blow up and kill you? Or what's worse, you don't have to say that this car can blow up and kill you. You can just sell the car. You can say there's nothing wrong with this car. That's the law, folks.

He finished printing the buyer's order informed me that the price was the price. No haggling. That's good. The price was the same I saw online, and that's good, too. He added a $299 dealer fee. I think we have a record low dealer fee. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. I mean, it'd be better if there was no dealer fee. That's like a 1980s dealer fee. Yeah. That's probably what it was in 1930, or 30 years ago, that when he came into business, with his father and he just decided to keep it that way so if you're listening to mr peterson you should raise your dealer for you i'm just kidding but you're way low you're the lowest

uh four and dollars for a new tag and sales tax and uh he willingly gave me the buyer's order that's good hardly ever get a real buyer's order but he did although we've seen worse peterson motor cars did not pass it's a kata test but all the papers here it got the car report and there we haven't. We're probably having votes coming in. I hope we're having votes coming in. We have votes coming in. And we have to decide. And I remind everybody that we grade on the curve that we don't have any perfect dealers. In fact, we have very few near perfect dealers or maybe no perfect dealers. So we have to pass some. If we don't pass some that we don't have a list that you can refer to for a safe place to buy a car goes there is no safe

place you have to do your homework you have to question the paperwork you have to research the price no matter where you buy the car so we have the good dealer bad dealer list if you go to our own cars.com you will find the link that will show you the list of recommended dealers and the list of do not buy from this dealer so we love to hear from you you can post it on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Periscope. You can text it at 772-497-6-5-3-0, and we will find where Peterson Motorcars falls very shortly. So I'll go from left to right.

Stu? Well, we have a lot of grades that are coming in. Yeah, let's do the... They're pouring in right now. That way. Okay, so here we go. Here's our grades going. We have Matt from texting in with a D.

A text came in from Susan with an F. Also a text from Ed for an F. So you got that. We got DFF. Guy on Facebook gives him a C-minus. Elion text gives them a D. Kim is a text. It's an F.

John, which is also text, gives them an F for Takata, but an A for sales. Doug gave him an F. Yep. Doug gives him an F. on Facebook, Jeff on Facebook gives him a D minus Andreas gives him a B and I don't know if I read this already

but Guy on Facebook gives him a C minus and I'm sorry Jeff is changing his grade from a D minus to a C and that looks like that's all in that's enough to calculate a GPA yeah yeah it is it's interesting you know

and I'm not if we get more grades come in I mean I don't want to taint them but you have to give Riscott and Ron DeSanti and Pam Bondi and the rest of them out there a lot of blame for the situation. When I read this, I didn't know if this young man, Peterson Jr. was just immune to recalls. He actually gave a copy of the Carfax report to the mystery shopper. Now, if he was trying to conceal something, it was right there in black and white, he handed it. He could have held it in his hand and say, oh, there were no accidents and there's no mechanical problems, but he didn't do that.

What possesses Ron Peterson from saying that it's a safe car and it has a Takata airbag recall? I might be too generous in this, but I just think that it's not a top-of-the-mind topic for, anybody. I mean, it's crazy that it's not top of the mind for car dealers, but they don't think it's a crisis. It's not in their face. It's not on the news. No one's talking about it. No other customers ask him about it. He's just doing his day-to-day task. And he's just, it's just a recall, take it to Honda. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a real good point. It's routine for him. It needs to be shoved in their faces, which is what we're trying to do here. It's become totally apathetic it's absolutely no concern it's like i don't know what it's like i mean i guess maybe

if you if you go hunting a lot and snake country and you get used to snakes you just say well i'm going hunting yeah it's a snake snake might bite me yeah i don't know well let's get some internal votes here uh rick i'm going to go on a curve on this one and i'm going to give him a c simply because average it it seems like he did everything else in a relatively classy manner and there was no games played he stayed late to accommodate Agent X

and I think the whole situation just came down to they just don't understand the importance of this particular recall and so I'm gonna give him a C I'm gonna give him a C also it seemed like as if that it was you know it was a relatively

good place to go for a purchase, and I got a warm and fuzzy feeling when we first started to, you know, you started reading the mystery shopping report. So, a C. I'm going to switch places with Nancy

and become the black widower. Oh, boy. No more. Now, I did like their style. I liked the fact they're, I thought was really cool, just a dad and his son. But, listen, I'm looking at like an airline. Well, if you said an airplane, it gets points for a great

leg room and no baggage fees, but there's a high likelihood it's going to crash. I'm not giving it a C. I mean, I'm, I fail them. I'll give them two grades. They get an A for sales and they get an F for the Takata. Yeah. You know, I think we're maybe, we're overthinking this a little bit. I think that we have to offer a place to buy cars.

if we didn't do that there would be no point I mean you're not going to find somebody that lives in South Florida that's going to drive to Indiana to buy a car you've got to have cars dealerships

the only reason that I would fail them is because of the fact that he knew the recall existed and he didn't bring it up until the shopper confridden him directly with

the recall. But on the other side of that coin, he actually gave the Carfax report. Yeah, the Carfax report. So that would indicate that he's not trying to hide it. And I think that Ron Peterson is Eric. Eric. Eric Petersson. Who's Ron Peterson? I think you're conflating Ron DeSantis and Eric Peterson. It could be, yeah. Okay. At any rate, Eric Peterson just didn't understand. he was immune to the whole he doesn't appreciate the stakes yeah so i'm gonna pass them i i think we get him a give him a pass and i think we just have to shed a tear for the fact we had to pass them yeah and uh you gotta have i mean if i'm buying a cheap car the prices uh sounded pretty good

that car was detailed out uh there was a very small dealer fee uh for under five grand yeah they got a car like that yeah glossy paint and an interior that's It smells like new. Yeah, it smells like new. But it's by and wear. It's when you buy a car, you can see an honest person. I mean, we're calling them honest. So we're saying an honest person will sell your car that could kill you.

And that's just a sad fact about Florida. Well, at least at this point, though, the person that buys that car, if they read that car fax and sees that the recalls there, they can go to Honda and get it fixed. That opportunity is there. In most cases. I'm going to want up you. So Peterson Motor, if you're listening. just take that agent x isn't really going to buy that car take it over to the honda dealership get the airbag inflator fixed and you're good yeah take and then check your other cars it's really easy

run a car package take take your responsibility you know honda's supposed to be so proactive that they're supposed to be going out after these cars and trying to find them i want to know why the local honda dealer didn't do what we did all you do is good online yeah brayman if you're listening call peterson motors yeah you got you got some warranty work yeah has warranty work and not only are you saving lines but you're making money so all you Honda dealers and your Toyota dealers and your Chevrolet dealers go online like we do that's all we do every week we go online we find all sorts of cars out there that have unfixed took out of airbag recalls and we go out and we mystery shop you can go out find that car before we do have it fixed make money and make

life safer so there we maybe I should copy the the other dealers when I said in that mystery shopping report yeah I got the VIN and everything exactly Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the end of the show. I want to remind you to pick up that Consumer Report Buying Guide for 2019. A lot of information in there that will guide you, not only with new cars, but use cars. Thank you for joining us this morning, and we'll be right back here next Saturday. Have a wonderful weekend. Welcome!

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