Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.18.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Riverview Chevy of McKeesport, PA

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Pennsylvania to check out a Chevrolet dealer in McKeesport (about 12 miles from Pittsburgh) and see how much they will charge for a new 2024 Chevy Equinox SUV RS in their showroom. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back again. We're all here alive. We're all present in the calendar for, ready to bring you another, I hope, entertaining, humor. educational and all the above show about how to buy a car or lease a car without being taken advantage of a car dealer and I know I say this probably on at least 90% of the shows that we really have an exciting show we really have an exciting show we have some breaking news that I'm not going to tell you right

now I'm not to tell you in a few minutes you may have already heard it, but it's brand new. It is a breaking news that will shake up the auto industry worldwide. I'm talking car dealerships. I'm talking auto manufacturers. I'm talking anybody that's got anything to do with the automobile business. There is some breaking news. I just happened to pick it up online. I was just released by automotive news and the government and the dealers associations and the manufacturers, nobody has had a chance to digest this particular tidbit. Wow.

So we're going to talk about it. So stay tuned. Yeah, that's a hook. I want you to stay tuned. If you're new to the show, we're here basically to help you, and we're here to answer your calls. we're here to be a podium for you to get up and vent, complain, suggest, recommend

live radio, which is also live Facebook and live YouTube. We're streaming the show, and I say this. So I have so much I want to talk about. I have to restrain myself because I know that your questions and comments are why people tune into the show. You know what I'm talking about. When you're in school, if you just kept your mouth shut,

sooner or later somebody was going to ask the question you were thinking about. Maybe you were afraid to ask. So that's what happens on this show. We have some great people that call and stream and post on Facebook and on YouTube. The call-in number, as I say, if you're new to the show,

please write the number down because I know you don't have anything to say right at this moment. Probably you might if you tune in and tune out. But write the number down. So when you come back and you're watching your listening, call 877-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60-9-60. Write that number down.

And if you have a suggestion, comment, criticism, we'd love to hear from you. We prioritize phone calls. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, for 20 years, sitting here to my left. She's my wife. She's also the co-founder of the show. She's a female advocate

for women car buyers. She has a laptop computer opened. So when the telephone calls come through the studio, Jeremy, and the studio here at Trualdes will get the phone call, pop it through on the computer, Nancy sees it, and whoever's yakking

like me right now, I stop and we take your phone call. 877-9-7-9-6. 609960. That's 877-960-9960. A lot of calls, and we tend to focus on the industry as a new car business. I mean, it's a whole lot more than that. It's a maintenance and repair business that's behind the scenes, which is really bigger than the purchase part of it. I mean, the fun part, the exciting part. We like to talk about buying a new car or buying a used car. they have to maintain and repair that car have to insure the car we have Rick Kearney sitting in the studio your regulars know Rick

he has his own personal host of followers on YouTube we have to give them a name like Rick's Ricks guys or something like that YouTube.com forward slash Earl and Cars he monitors that channel but you can call them on the phone

too 877 960 9960 why do you want to call Rick you got a problem your car. It's making a funny noise. It's a funny smell. It rattles. It's got your concern because you don't want it to happen to you when you're on the turnbike, when you're on vacation, and you never know. You don't want that car stopping on you. So what do you have to do? You have to go to a repair shop. And what happens there? Well, that's why you want to call

Rick, because he can guide you. He can likely diagnose the problem right here just by your description. If not, he can steer you in the right direction, and we can give you some advice as how not to be taken advantage of in a dealership service department or an independent service department. The whole automotive repair

game, just like the buying of car game, is rigged. It's really rigged against the consumer. It's one of the few, it's one of the few businesses that for a hundred years people are buying and maintaining and repairing cars pretty much like they did a hundred

years ago. I mean, it's hard to believe we've had cars for a hundred years, but we've had it for more than that. And we're still doing it the same way. It's like buying a horse or selling a horse. That's the way cars are bought and sold. So, by the way, I'll give you a hint about the breaking news. The breaking news that we'll talk about in a little while is something that's going to shake up the whole automobile industry in terms of how you buy cars. It's going to bring, yank

the car dealerships and the manufacturers into the 21st century. Kick it and screaming. Whether they like it or not, they're going to be yanked into the 21st century. And that's what my breaking news is going to be about. And I'll tell you about little while. If you know what it is, give us a call.

Ban Marie knows what it is. What's that? Ban Marie knows what it is. Ann Marinos. Oh, God. I read a little bit more of this, so we have to discuss that there's some information I'd like to add. Okay. We're totally freaking everybody out right now. Mary, I've got a hand to you.

Okay, I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart, my co-host here. As I say, she is responsible for building the 50-50 partnership with the female audience. About half the listeners, half the callers, and everything is now female. We started 20 years ago. It was an old boys club. And Nancy Stewart has cured that. fix that. Nancy, the mic is yours. Good morning, everyone. Boy, is this an exciting show. We got all kind of teasers. And as far as what Earl said about Rick, you know, a good mechanic is really difficult to find. And he is amazing. And some of the complaints that I get from women are right there in the, you know, finding a good mechanic, service. knowing what part was taken out, what part was replaced.

There are a few great mechanics like Rick. And, you know, it goes without saying that he will pull that part out that needs replaced, show it to the lady, and it makes them very happy. They can even pop it in their trunk and take it home with them. And this makes, you know, going to a great mechanic. really worthwhile for a woman. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, and you can give us a call at 877-960-99-60.

And for you others, you can text us at 772-4976530. You can also get in touch with us at Your Anonymous Feedback.com. So, like I said, we've got a whole lot to get to. and guess what? We have a puppy this morning via virtual. Virtual puppies. Virtual puppies.

I like that. We have virtual puppies. I believe his name is Emerson. And he is a miscar greet. And he's not in the studio, although we wish he was. And he's just so cute. So you want to stay tuned for that. Also, we have the mystery shop and

report that will also amaze you, and if you got a chance to read Earl's, or you didn't get a chance to read Earl's column this week, it was riveting. I call it riveting because it's an open letter to the Florida car dealers, which is always very important to remind them as to who they are. Yeah, that was the first letter I wrote to them about 20 years ago. 2006. And they just suddenly occurred to me that nothing has changed. So obviously...

They got worse. That's why I say. They didn't read the letter, I guess. Yeah, it's really worth reading because as Earl has emphasized and Stu has emphasized, guess what? Some things just never change. So here we are in the 21st century and we're waiting for, you know, things to come around and to be what's.

they should be. And with your help in listening to the show and reinforcing all those ideas, let me tell you what the show would be nothing without you. We really appreciate everyone that listens, calls, YouTube, Facebook. Is there anything else? Yes, your anonymous feedback.com. Okay, we are going to go, let me mention that number one more time. 877-960. 9960 and we're going to go straight to the phones where we have some calls backed up and like I said it's going to be an exciting show so stay tuned all the way to the end at 10 o'clock Howard Howard calls us from Jupiter he's a regular caller and he must be here for this season is that right Howard yes I just came in two weeks ago I missed last Saturday I missed your show and it's a pleasure

being on the DEA with you. You guys are great. You do a great job. Thank you so much. And you're honest. And another thing, Earl, here's a question for you. If I go to a non-dealer and I say I have a problem with, let's say, my fuel line or whatever it is, and then they give me a price. They give you a price. They say, this is what it costs.

And then you go back to, oh, no, I've got a problem. this is a problem but you have another problem and then this happens a couple of times now you told me in your dealership that once you're given a price that's it they can't change it is that correct well within a certain percentage but it's usually close but I think I mean what I would say if something else is found a completely different operation you would be quoted for that it's not like you're getting quote to fix your car you're getting a quote to fix. What was your example? What was your example, Howard?

My example is my car was hesitating. Okay, so they have a hesitation, so they identify as what? Like a fuel line thing? Well, a drivability problem. It could be a fuel line. It could be throttle body. Yeah.

Jumping, explain what I'm trying to say. It's like they don't, it's not like if somebody says we're going to, you're going to fix a specific operation that's going to cost $300. they can't come back as I'm going to say it's going to cost $600. They could come back and say, we're going to be able to do that for $300, but we found another problem here. Let's talk about that.

And then you have an option to, you know, nobody just inflates a price arbitrarily. Right. It was a thralled body problem and it was cleaned and it did the job. Okay, one other thing I have to ask you, I have my cell phone, it's capable now of getting navigation on my 2017 Camry I get everything

but I have to put it on audio Travis took care of this for me so when I put it on audio I cannot listen to music or anything because the sound goes away now before that I was able to

change it when I wasn't on audio in other words I was able to listen to to music and have navigation at the same time. Remember, this is 2017, so 2018 is a whole new story. So what do you think about that? Okay, so you don't have Apple CarPlay. No. Now, what audio are you trying to listen to, the regular radio?

No, I'm trying to get directions from navigation and listen to music at the same time. Right, but what's your source for your music? Is it going through the cars radio, or are you playing music on your phone? No, it's going through the cars radio. Now, at one time, it was going through the cars radio, and I was able to switch to music or listen to a radio program. But now I can't do that. It's on audio, and once I get off audio, the navigation stops.

So maybe I should see Travis's. Travis picked this up to me. He did a great job. Yeah, we need to check the settings on their phone and set up there. Okay, I got it. Okay, one other thing, I don't want to hold you to. I think that once a battery can last 1,000 miles without a recharge, I think then battery power will be good.

But it's 200, 300 miles, and then it's depleted. I don't think that's a good idea. What do you think about that or else? I think a thousand miles is a good starting point for them to really aim at. And then we'll see where it goes from there for the launch yet, you know, for one charge. I mean, if you can charge a car up, say in 45 minutes and then get a thousand miles drive out of it, you've got a successful electric car at that point. Yeah, that's my point, right.

45 minutes is okay. Yeah. All right. So until that happens, I don't think there'll be a lot of electric cars, more electric cars than gas-driven vehicles. Right, but look how fast our technology is changing on everything. I mean, look at cell phone. You brought up cell phones, for example.

Look at how cell phone battery life has expanded just over the past five years to where your phone used to last a couple hours and you had to charge it. Now it would last a couple days. I mean, and they're getting smaller even. So it's going to hit the point when you're going to be able to charge your car up and you just have a massive amount of battery power

available to you for days on end. Yeah, Howard, they're going to sell 100, they're going to set a million electric vehicles this year in 2023. one million electric vehicles. I mean, I think where we were five, ten years ago. I mean, it's exploding. Now, people

are buying electric vehicles. It's just a matter of, you know, 10 years from now, it's going to dominate all kills. That's great. Okay, I'll let you go. I know you're going to let the phone close. Thank you, Howard. You have a good day, guys. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Hope to hear from you again. Our number's 877-960 and you can text us. at 772-4976530, take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Lance in Tennessee. Welcome to the show, Lance. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

I'm going to have to take a little exception about that first call on hesitation. I've almost made a career out of hesitating. and I've been hesitating pretty well for the last 45 years and looking forward to more she's probably kept you out a lot of trouble you know sometimes a little hesitation stops you from doing something really stupid I don't know if you think we would be a mess if we failed to mention our holiday that's coming up this week

mm-hmm are you talking about you're talking about Thanksgiving right yeah okay I wasn't sure I've got a little tune for you, Earl. Oh, boy. Once again, we're going to collect these, and we'll have them on sale for Christmas, and there'll be an eight-track. Okay, good. Good.

Well, we've got a little holiday just around the corner. Earl Stewart on cars says don't message a call. and just remember when you're listening on Saturday morning to give Earl Stewart on cars a call Gobble, gobble. And you can have a Christmas album, and that'll be Lance's Christmas album.

And every year we'll have another one. And we'll play it on the air. We'll play it on the air all the time. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. It's so good to talk to you. Have a good day. Thanks, Lance. Happy Thanksgiving, Lance. We're going to go to Tricia, who is calling us from Boka. She is a first-time caller. Oh, boy. Welcome, Trisha. Good morning. Good morning.

Trisha, if you stay on the line after we're finished talking and speak to Jeremy in the control room, give him your contact information, he'll pass that alone to me, and I'll get that check out to you. well thank you thank you way in advance god i've waited a long time to call in but um all right here's my question it's about a car buying question so i'm looking forward to that breaking news

but um um i try to buy a hybrid car for my birthday and i got so because i drive okay i'll tell you i spent $350 dollars um a month on gas that's forty two hundred dollars a year um so and i'm trying to calculate well okay if i buy a hybrid the money i would get for my 2016 honda fit which right now

has 93 000 miles on it so the money i would get for that car plus the extra money i would get for a hybrid, my son and I figured it would take three years to just trade it off. But my point is, I remember you saying it's not a good time to buy a car, and I was so turned off by all the extra charges. These dealerships were tacking on all these BS extra charges. I got so disillusioned, I stopped. I said, forget it. I can't deal with this anymore. Well, Tricia, that's great that you did.

And I just, you're definitely an educated consumer, and that's the reason we want more women to be calling through. Yeah, that's why I just tapped you on the arm. Tricia, you are an educated consumer for sure. I love it, and so do all the ladies out there that are listening. Thank you for stating that. Back to Earl. Well, no, I just think, you're, most people don't do that arithmetic, and I use that term loosely, because when people buy a car, they only look at the upfront cost or the monthly payment, and I can just tell by your conversation on the air this morning that you really did your homework.

I mean, how many people calculate the gas mileage on the car they're buying, the trade in value, you did the whole thing in your mind, and you knew exactly. what you would pay. And then, of course, as you say, you went out earlier and it had to be put through the game. By the way, I'll give you the hint. The breaking news has to do with what you had to go through. We're just about the, you know, we're about to the point, and you'll find out when we talk about it in a few minutes, about where you'll be able to buy a car without having to go through that. The entire industry, I believe, is going through a watershed major change moment in history. that that would be awesome because that's what totally turned me off to it. So I just figured I take care of my car well. I remember my neighbor telling me, you know, he had a hybrid. And since I do so much driving, I figured maybe a hybrid would help me. And he said, I had to get another car because my car broke down. If your car is running fine and yes, I take care of it well, just wait.

It's not worth it. And you're right. I did, I did my homework, yes, it would take maybe the extra money I'd have to shell out if I bought a car, maybe $20, $25,000 worth of a car plus the money I'd get, you know, I'd have to, you know, wait like three, three, four years to make it, like, even, but if that'd make a difference, I got, you know, turned off. So, right, if I'm, if you're telling me the breaking news is that these dealerships won't, you know, tack on. these B.S. charges. So now my question to you is, is it going to be worth it for me to, you know, trade it in and get a hybrid? I think so. I think that we're reaching a point now where it is safe to go back in the water and your timing couldn't be better. The amount of vehicles in inventory is higher than it's been in a couple of years. The dealers are discounting. The manufacturers are coming up with special incentives, and there are a lot of dealerships out there that are discounting off of MSRP.

Three months ago, that wasn't the case. So your timing is good. Right. Okay. And when is this going to happen? Well, it doesn't happen tonight or tomorrow night, and it didn't happen last week. It's a very gradual change. You can wait, and there's always, I think.

think if you waited three or four months, you'd probably get a little better price and maybe a better trade-in allowance, a better price for your car. But you have to measure life and what it's worth to you. That new vehicle, and when are you going to start saving on the gas that you want to buy the new car for it? I think you're never going to have the exact optimum time. Now is a good time. I don't wait. There's some sort of a saying. I can't remember. but perfection is the enemy of success. When people strive for a perfect time to do something, they just never do it. So you're not going to find that perfect time.

Today is a good time. Go ahead. I'm not worried about you at all, Tricia. You know what you're doing. You'll go out there and you'll negotiate a good deal, and I think you should buy a car whenever you feel like you're ready. You're welcome, Tricia. You know, I can safely say that.

As Earl, you know, said, you know, it's safe for you to go out there because you have dotted your eyes and crossed your cheese. And you are an educated consumer. And again, I'll reiterate for all the ladies that are listening, you're setting an example this morning. And that's so important in building this platform for women on Earl on cars. And I just want to thank you for calling in. And please give us a call. One moment. Rick? Donovan just chimed in. He says to the caller, after January 1st, the $7,500 tax credit will apply to many hybrids at the time of sale. There you go. So that may be even a better incentive, and there's $7,500. Yeah, that's something to really take a look at a great incentive. So things are getting better and better, and interest rates are trickling down. So there's a lot to look forward to.

That $7,500 is for new cars, all right? Yes. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I wasn't going to get that. Yes. I wasn't going to say that. But, okay, good to know. Okay.

Stay on the line and talk to Jeremy. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Tricia. Look forward to hearing from you again. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-9-9-6-5-3-0. zero don't forget what earl said it in the beginning of the show or if you for if you weren't listening and you just tuned in he's got some breaking news for everyone and it's uh it's very interesting news so you want to stay tuned for that and you can also take advantage of your

anonymous feedback uh com we're going to go to john in west palm beach good morning john oh wonderful morning i'm not in west palm beach right now i'm actually here in michigan a wonderful 39th degree weather. Oh, boy. Winter Wonderland. Where are you calling from, John? Livonia. But I'm heading up to my cabin in Holm Lake.

Nice. Do you know who you just talked to, that lady? Yes. That's John's wife from Palm Beach. It sounds like they sound like they could be married. Really? Oh. You're just guessing.

Both dedicated callers. It just sounds like they'd be suited together. Fabious. Now, the reason why I called is actually the gentleman before her. He was saying that he wouldn't be interested unless it was a 45-minute charge for a thousand miles. I want to know what car he's driving, that when he fills up his gas tank, he's driving for a thousand miles. And does he actually sit in the car for a thousand miles for the entire trip? I get range in anxiety in my sequoia.

You know, so I think what he's looking for is, a little bit unrealistic. I agree. You know, as far as a 45-minute charge for 1,000 miles, I do drive my Tesla up here to Michigan. Listen, it's not crazy.

Toyota's announced they have a solid-state battery that's coming out in a few years and other manufacturers I imagine will as well. He might get his wish, and it might be shorter than 45 minutes. Yeah, that'll be great. Yes. You know, because like I said,

you know, I drive my Tesla from West Palm Beach to the northern part of the mission. Michigan and I have to stop every two and a half hours to charge but it's only 15 minutes because you're driving from and I've talked about this before you just top it on charging station and charging station and that and you got to get you got to stretch your way and you know what I'm I often make jokes but this is seriously you know that they say that sitting is killing Americans we sit too much and it's killing us a recent study says a break every two hours well well sitting won't kill you so stop your car

two hours in charge. That's a good idea. And that. So anyways. But, you know, but now a single charge for 1,000 miles will be great. It's just you're not going to drive 1,000 miles in one stint. No. You got to get out. You couldn't do that. Yeah, exactly.

You'd get bed sores if you tried that. Right. So anyway. All right. Well, that's all I got. I just want to say thank you. And thank you for providing the service. Thanks.

Good points, Paul. giving, John. It's going to be a cold one, but you'll enjoy it. Let me jump in here, just a second. On this comment that was made by a YouTuber to Rick about the government rebate on electric vehicles applying to hybrids, that's only on the plug-in hybrids, and there's not that many plug-in hybrids, and I'm not a big fan on the plug-in hybrid in terms of the increased cost. Yeah. I just pulled it up and Donovan, it's said the same thing. It's pre-owned all-electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell electric vehicles, purchased on or after January 1 of 2023 may be eligible for a federal tax credit, equal to 30% of the sale price up to maximum $1,000. Patricia was thinking about buying a regular hybrid.

Right. So I wouldn't apply to her. So my advice to her was to buy a car as soon as she's ready. not wait till January, because she does not blogging. Well, this one actually is already, in effect, it was 23. Yeah. January of 23, so. And but in January 24, nothing's going to change. Right. Yeah.

Okay. Okay, folks. Is our caller still holding? Okay. We're going to go to Dawn in Jupiter. Good morning, Dawn. Good morning, Dawn. We hear you.

Good morning, guys. Just a quick secret shopper. I just got hit with $13,000 ad on a used car. In what form did this take? There was almost $3,000 for conditioning of the car. $700 for tinted windows, but I thought the car is already tinted because I hadn't conditioned it yet. $3,000 for a five-year warranty and a bunch of other garbage fees. I was shocked.

I couldn't believe it. Don, would you care to share the location of the dealership? Oh, that was Napleton on North Lake. Surprise, surprise. I didn't want to make an assumption. The interesting part was what I really want to question or ask all about is, how do they teach these guys not to laugh when they show you the price? You know what?

I don't know. Like Agent Lightning, I mean, she invest herself in it because she'll get angry. So she's in a mode, so I don't think she's laughing. She's like, when they do that, she gets pissed. No, no, I mean, the salesman, how does the salesman? I mean, so the guy, they might believe it. Yeah, $25,000. He's charging me over 50% of the price of the car.

But, Don, they say it for so long. They truly believe what they're saying. But here's something good about Napleton. You know, Naplesa moved up from the worst dealer in the United States to the next to worst. Remember, our mystery shop last week. Oh, yeah. What was the name of the dealership in Michigan? Garner.

Garner? Garner or Gunther? No, no, it's not Gungther. Garber? Garber. Was it Garber? Garber. Garber.

Yeah, Garber in Pennsylvania, I think. Right. Pennsylvania, right. Obviously, I walked out of the dealership. The salesman contacted me a week later. He said, well, come on back. Let's talk. So I text him.

I said, here's the price of the car. I will pay you the tax. I will even pay you the $900 and some dealer feed, which is garbage fee, and $450 for the tax, you know, the paperwork, which is another garbage fee. So he said, well, let me check with my manager. So then he knocked the $13,000 over price to only $7,000 over. So obviously, I'm not buying that car.

Well, I don't blame you. That's crazy. I just thought you guys would get a good kick out of. We'll have to have a segment of the show from now on the Napleton report, because there's always something humorous. The people that are still buying from Napleton clearly are not listening to this show. Maybe it's entertaining. Maybe it's fun if you go in there.

The other interesting part was, you know, I listen to other people's conversation. So an older couple was there. And the salesman goes, well, here's what we'll do. If that's too much for you a month, we'll just extend the loan out for two more years. And we get the price down to what you're like, oh, my goodness. Wow. Anyway, you guys have a great. great day.

Thank you. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Todd. Thanks, for listening. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. You know, maybe I'll drop Napleton's little mailer here on the guide for states, cracking down on junk fees to lower costs for consumers. This is just really very amazing.

And resource outlines action states can take to build on the Biden-Harris administration efforts on junk fees and spur private sector action. So they go into what are junk fees and how are states taking them on. Very interesting. I think Earl mentioned just a couple of shows back, and it is very interesting. We are going to go to Mike, who is calling us. from Aventura. He is a regular caller. Good morning, Mike. Hi. You should give your phone number out more, but I have a question. Okay, what's going to happen with all these cars that are coming out that hardly make any noise for the blind?

I mean, I don't see the manufacturers doing much about this. It's like a lot of things that are happening for the blind. Hey, Mike. Hi. Hey, I think that is now, is it a federal requirement, Rick? Yeah. On new electric vehicles and hybrids for when they are not running the gas motor. We talk about this a lot.

By the way, Rick, I know I have a better description, less scary for the sound. They have to emit a sound when it's not, when the motor is not turning. So pedestrians, animals, people blind, you know, so you can't sneak up. on them and Rick and I have joked around on the show because on Toyota's that sounds we call it the disembodied souls of the sound the hailing of the damned souls right it's because it sounds kind of like this high pitch it's like multiple notes kind of blending together but it sounds like a distant jet that's what it sounds like to me so so it sounds like a jet where you just kind of hear that whine from like a far distance away and who's going to be selling these

cars all it's every yeah all no that's not going to be a fix for all the cars that exist on the road so they can't do that but going forward all new vehicles um electric and hybrid have to make that sound so you'll hear it coming i hear my wife and my kids come home because they drive hybrids and the dog can hear them like you know before they even get into the neighborhood right who's going to be selling these cars for the blind do you know they're not uh it's mike it's four it's all new cars so all manufacturers um whether it's Ford or Honda or Kia or or a Lamborghini, they're all going to have to have that noise maker. I would love to actually see what one is like.

Actually, the driverless price for the blind, I'd love to see what they... You're down to have insurer. You can go by just, you know, a car dealership and say you wanted to take a look at a hybrid or just have them start one up for you. And so you can hear it. Okay, I'll give your phone number out a little bit more. Well, we'll do that, Mike. Thanks for the reminder. Good tip.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Happy Thanksgiving. You too, happy Thanksgiving to you. Bye, Mike. Thank you. 877-960-99-60. Sometimes I just say it so fast, you don't get a chance to write it down or maybe absorb it. 877-9-60-99-60. That's because Mike has just suggested that from Aventura.

And you can text us at 772-4976530. Your anonymous feedback.com is always, well, an option. We're going to go to Steve in Jupiter. Good morning, Steve. Good morning. How are you guys doing? Great. A quick question for you.

I'm trying to buy a Ford trans van, and I've only been to one dealership down on, I think it's a Beth Smith and North Lake, but he says it takes a year to get one. Wow. A new one. Is there any solution? I mean, I'm willing to travel to go get it. I just have a shot. He said Amazon Prime, he said he's buying them all up. Yeah, that's what they're driving and then painting them blue.

that doesn't sound surprising I don't think any of us here at the show know the specifics about that that vehicle but that's you know everybody knows what they are you see them on the road it doesn't surprise me with the coming to the end of the supply chain issues

that it's hard to get some vehicles like that especially if you have a big buyer like Amazon taking a big chunk out of the production of what they're producing you could I mean when you searched initially

did you go on the internet? I mean, you can expand your search. Like, you could go on to AutoTrader and select only new vehicles, and then you can expand the search to cover the whole country. So instead of going to individual Ford Dealers' websites, you could just get... The problem is

when you find one, it's probably going to be pretty high price because the reason someone has one is because they're asking all the money for it and you probably really get a host. But just take a look and that's something to keep in mind. want to get hosed. And then also possibly, I don't know what the used car market is on those,

but that might be a solution for you. And I do the same thing on AutoTrader, flip it over to used and see if there's used vans, if that's something that you could consider. You guys like that site Auto Trader? That's a good one. Well, I'm just suggesting it. It's mainly used for consumers to find cars. All dealers in the country use it to list of used vehicles, and most of them do their new. I'm just suggesting it because it's a shortcut to finding, you know, just a search, get search results for all dealers. So you would just put in the, you know, either new or you want to take a chance on a used one, and that way you can, you're not limited to the local area here.

Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was hoping you could suggest a site. So I'll try auto trader and dig in there. I can't wait a year to get it and I don't. Yeah, I'm not recommending going through the site to actually purchase it. I'm just saying you can identify where they are. And so you might find one in, you know, in Upper Michigan. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate it. I know you guys have been waiting a while, so you've probably got a lot of people waiting. So thanks. I enjoy your show. You guys have a great day. All right.

Thanks for calling. You know, I thought that Facebook was up in, you know, and running. But according to Jonathan, you know, the glitch was fixed, and now it's not fixed. If we don't have any calls, why will we go to Stu and get Anne-Marie? It's not available, so you can go to YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars. Our number is 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Stu now.

He's got some texts for us, and then we'll swing over to Rick. Yeah, I can't start with Amory because that's going to be a spoiler for Dad's big announcement. No, because that's the reason I want to do it. Oh, you want to use it? Yeah, let's do it. And then we've got a visual that Jonathan will put up. Gotcha. Okay, Amory says, I suspect Earl is going to talk about buying a car on Amazon.

You can't kick the tires on Amazon, but perhaps the worst dealers will deserve the competition. And that alludes to it, and then you can jump into it and break the news. Yeah, I don't know if we have it up on the screen yet, but. But I was frankly shocked. It was online in the automotive news this morning, and I was looking online, and you'll see this if it's up on the screen or not. But basically the headline is, auto industry ponder's impact of Hyundai's link up with Amazon.

To summarize it for you, Amazon has struck a deal with Hyundai. When they say Hyundai, of course, remember Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, There's three makes right there that will happen in January of 2024. You'll be able to go through the process, just like, I think, something like 60 or 70% of the world buys on Amazon. Amazon is huge, as you know, the largest retailer in the world. And there's a lot of Amazon does that you don't think about, but they also have tremendous computing power. They actually are making

about as much money on their web services, AWS, Amazon Web Services, which is cloud computing that they do with retailing. They're huge. So when 800-pound gorilla decides to do something, it's kind of hard to stop

them. This reminds me a little bit about Tesla and Elon Musk. The richest man in the world, he's building electric vehicles, and he can sell them cheap and lose money if he wants to, because he's got all the money. Here we got Jeff Bezos with Amazon.

They can pretty much do what they want to do. So they broke the guys with Hyundai, and what they will be doing. We don't know what the price is going to be, but we do know the price will be transparent. What do you know if you're a Hyundai, if you're an Amazon shopper? You know that when you go on Amazon, the price is the price. There's no games. They don't tell you the price is this and then change it on you. There's no hidden fees.

There's no add-ons. When you buy something on Amazon, 99% of the time, it's a very pleasant experience. So you will be able to buy these cars on Amazon. on these Hyundai's in January. Now, what's going to happen, in my opinion, is the other manufacturers will be scrambling. The dealers associations, everybody is scrambling to not miss the bandwagon.

A lot of people missed the electric vehicle bandwagon when Tesla came along. I don't think they want to see this happen twice. Now, dealer franchise laws protect dealers. But all that protects the dealers is that they get credit for the sale. The sale has to go through that dealership. So Amazon will be able to strike deals with the dealerships that want to do this.

Now, you'd have to be crazy if you're a Hyundai dealer, not to want to have your car available on Amazon. If you don't make it available on Amazon, Amazon's going to have a Hyundai for less money than you're selling your Hyundai's for, and you're going to have to have it on Amazon. That's how Amazon did what they did, where they are today, because of price. If you recall, if you followed Amazon over the years,

I've been following Amazon since they were a bookstore. And Amazon, they lost money year after year. They laughed at Amazon and Jeff Bezos the way they laughed at Elon Musk, because Elon Musk was losing money. Well, when you got all the money, money, it doesn't make any difference if you lose some, you can just keep on losing it. People forget, by the way, and this is personal for me, it was the very first place I felt

comfortable enough on the internet to give up my credit card information. It was an alien thing when they said, you're going to type it, because there are people who heard about hackers even back in the 90s. So when Amazon came out, that was the first online seller that I felt comfortable of, and it was a big thing of trust. And I wasn't the only one. You did, millions and millions of people did, and that opened the floodgates for online e-commerce. It was that revolution of people forget. Yeah, Stu commented when we talked about this earlier that you pick the car up at a Hyundai dealer, you can have the car delivered directly.

Now, because of state franchise laws, when that car would be a drop shipment, the car would be shipped directly to you, but it would go through the books or the dealership. So that allows them to abide by state law. See, this is a stroke of genius on Amazon's part because all Amazon, I say all, they've done a huge thing. But it's one thing, transparency. Hyundai will be the only dealership that worldwide you'll be able to get a transparent bottom line

out-the-door price. No other dealership, no other manufacturer has that. So it gives you, and you might be able to buy a Hyundai from a local dealer for less money. Sorry, do you remember when we got, we got a cease and desist letter from Amazon? Oh, yeah. Because we started using, we started using, like, similarities, Amazon style. Yeah, we ran an advertisement that said, buy a car at Earl Stewart, Toyota. we deal like Amazon.

Yeah. And then we got a cease the desist letter. Stu told me we would get one. I said, well, let's wait until we get one. And then we got one. We got away with it for a few months. We didn't hesitate, Lance, if you're still listening. We did it.

Anyway, that's the breaking news. And it's going to take a while to sink in. We'll be talking about this next week and the week after and for a long time. Because the dealers are going to get hysterical. the manufacturers secretly like the idea because, first of all, competition. I mean, as I say, when Ford decided to go electric

and General Motors decided to go electric, all of a sudden, everybody didn't want to miss the electric vehicle bandwagon. Now, no one's going to want to miss the Amazon bandwagon. So hang on your hats. It's going to be a fun ride. Definitely. Can you even imagine? I mean, you can select

and finance your vehicle. Unbelievable. You can finance it through Amazon. You probably put on your Amazon Rewards Visa. Yeah, yeah. Apply members may get a discount. This is true. The sales will be channeled through local dealerships.

Folks, you know, we knew this was coming, but did we know it would be right now here? This is proof that everything is changing in the car buying. leasing, everything about it, everything about it, and it's great news. For you, for me, for everyone. I'll be brutally honest. I buy things on Amazon sometimes that I don't shop because the shopping and it's time-consuming. Oftentimes, I buy things off Amazon, and when it comes to me, it's broken in the package or the package gets lost.

But when I buy something from Amazon, it's seamless, and it's about as near perfect. It's not perfect. I have my issues with Amazon because... Sure. Every once in a great while. Every once in a great while, they send the wrong item. But when you spend a lot of money and you go through a company you know is honest and you know we'll make it right and you know you can get your money back, that'll be good to see how that goes.

Will you get your... If you don't like your own day, return it? Will we have a better return policy than Amazon? Yeah. You think? Will there be unconditionally? You know, I would hope so. I don't think.

There's no way. There's no way. Don't underestimate yourself. I'm just wondering how something like that scales up. And by the way, you can go on Amazon now and buy Ande, but it's an electric vehicle. And I think they're using that, Hyundai EV. They're using that as the loophole because they haven't got their system set up for the non. And as you know, electric vehicles can go direct from the manufacturer.

And so it probably would avoid some litigation. But right now, go to just put Hyundai in your Amazon and go right there and you can buy one. Yeah. And, you know, incidentally, online auto sales referral service, TrueCar, the stock has dropped 7%. So, you know, things are moving quickly, and we're proud to be part of the industry. To the young lady that called, who was a first-time caller, give us a call back. I'm sorry that we went on. We're going to go to James in Palm Beach Gardens.

Good morning, James. Good morning, James. Welcome. Jane, can you hear us out there? I think we lost. James from Palm Beach Gardens. Give us a call back, so we have, hello. Good morning.

Good morning. Welcome. Oh, yeah, this is James from Palm Beach Gardens. You know, I just want to put my condolences. I went yesterday to see Michael the salesman. Yes. He passed away, and I felt so bad. He was just a gentleman.

He was a gentleman. You know, when you walk into your... dealership and I see him it was so even by nothing it was just a welcome walk into your dealership to meet him and he and I really felt bad when I heard he passed away yeah and you know James he touched so many of us and he was a great addition to the family out at the dealership and it goes without saying that he was so passionate and had so much empathy you know about selling a car that it was just amazing, and he will be very much missed.

And his food pantry at one time for a volunteer, I remember him telling me that. Yeah. He was doing, you know, give him food out to people that needed it. Yeah. He's very caring. He took place, we did, he did the meals on wheels. It was a shock when I walked in.

He was a young guy, and it was a shock that he passed away. So I just want to pay my condolences. Thank you. Thank you so much, James. You're very kind. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Take advantage of that. We will go to Stu if you have anything or we'll swing over to Rick. Well, we covered the Amazon thing, Amory, kicked that off. Excuse me. We have a call. Yeah, we have a call from Deerfield Beach, and we have a call from Tricia, from Boca. I believe that that's who I was waiting for you, a first-time caller.

Okay, we'll go, Tricia, you hold on. Brad, good morning. Welcome. Good morning, Brad. Oh, good morning. Welcome. How are you? Thanks.

People are falling asleep. That's okay. You know, I was listening and I always listened. It's very interesting your take on, you know, the future of buying cars and whatnot. But I think if you look a bit further into the future, the future is that we will eventually not need to own a car. In the future, when Amazon, let's say, or when the technology exists, You just, and it already exists. You know, I read an article a while back, and it said that if you drive less than 10,000 miles a year,

it's actually cheaper just to use Uber and things like that. I think that's the future, is that you won't even have a car. You won't have to insure it and register it and maintain it. You know, it's just you'll flip your phone out and you'll click a button and a car will pull up in front and beep, and there'll be no driver in it, and off you go, and that's the future. That'll cost you about $2,000 or $3,000 a year.

Just think what your car costs you today. I don't care whether you got a Bentley or a Ford Ranger, but it's a lot of money compared to $2,000 or $3,000 a year, and that would include everything. Fully autonomous, all you do is just

you'll hit your smartphone app, car picks you up, takes you to the grocery store, and then when you come back guy that picks you up and takes you to the pharmacy and then it takes you to grandmother's house for Thanksgiving. So you'll be paying for the time in your car

only. You're not going to be paying for the time. It's sitting in the garage or rusting out in front of your house and it's going to be a huge economic boost to the economy. But you're two or three thousand dollars as opposed to what probably $10 or $12,000

now. Yeah. And exactly. And, you know, they're also, once they get the autonomous driving down, you know, the insurance is what's killing a lot of people, too, the car insurance. Once they get the autonomous driving down, you won't have to worry about that anymore that you just, you know, the car shows up. It drives you where you've got to go, and, hey, you'd be drunk in the back seat on your way home from the bar, you know, it doesn't matter. You know, it'll take you home. There you go. Put you to bed, hopefully.

A lot of problems will be solved in this future, yeah. you know I like to ponder things and you know you talk about Amazon and how they're going to modernize the car buying industry I'd love to see them take over the health insurance industry where you know you could go on Amazon or shop a doctor and they have to compete against each other and you're not going through insurance yeah you do have they do have and this might be like a sneak peek to what they're thinking about there is you use Amazon pharmacy that's uh i mean they've got to that way i'm a member too and it's it's it's way better than dealing with uh the local pharmacy it just shows up you know to worry about running out

it's great it could it could be that the whole auto industry uh boils down to jeff bezos and Elon Musk i mean uh yeah the two richest men in the world uh would control transportation in the world. I mean, it could easily happen. I don't think that would be a good thing. No, why? It couldn't be much worse than what we got. Because. Because. I wanted to relay a story to you because I know you guys love your electric cars. And, you know, before I do, there was a story a couple months ago that said that Toyota was coming out with some new. battery system that's solid state. Yes. Solid state

battery. Yeah. Boy. I can do without the liquid electrolytes and it's a solid state battery that's compact, charge charges faster, doesn't have the fire issue and has the I think it's 700

to 900 mile range. I've heard different figures but. Interesting. I have a Lexus CT that discontinued continued that model. It's basically a fancy Prius, but I love that car. It's the best car I've ever owned, and I average about 45 to the gallon, which, I mean, the down part is you have the weakness of the batteries going bad over time, and you also have the maintenance involved with changing

oil and oil filters and air filters and all spark plugs and all the other stuff. But right now, I think it's pretty much the most practical. I wish it was a plug-in. I wish I could, you know, goes, because I don't drive more than 20, 30 miles in a day. You know, it would be nice to plug it in and I even have to run that gas engine. But no, the story I was going to relate to you is FPL. Are you familiar with this evolution program that they have? It's $38 a month and they install a level two charger in your garage? Yes.

We've heard about that. I was really glad to see that it was expanded. that sort of thing was coming to the utilities instead of just from Tesla because I was actually considering getting a Tesla battery to work with the generator, I mean to work with solar, but that's

pretty cool. I'm glad that they're doing that. Did you sign up for it? No, so I was investigating it. I haven't purchased an electric car yet. I was really looking hard into it and it would have been it would have fit my lifestyle back when I was commuting back and forth, 30 miles to work, but now I'm retired.

I don't do much driving. It really is. lifestyle but um no the the interesting part was so I called up and I had some questions and the FPL evolution expert got on with me and and I said I see here that it says you have to have Wi-Fi in your house why is that and she said well uh because it communicates with you know you know the mother uh system at the grid yeah so I said well that's I don't have Wi-Fi. I do everything off my phone, and that's going to cost me another $50 a month. And she's like, well, I mean, that's just part of the deal.

You cannot get it without paying that 50. You know, you've got to buy a Wi-Fi. You have to have a Wi-Fi system. That's like $50 a month right there. And I'm like, well, that buys me a lot of gasoline. Yeah. You know, okay. Well, question number two.

I said, okay, so it's a smart system, and I understand that you basically get free charging after 9 p. and, you know, all peak out. Right. Right. So I said, since it's a smart system and I'm signing up, let's say my wife has an electric car, can I plug it into my car at 9 p.m., charge it up until midnight, and then plug it into her car, or is it only for one car? And she goes, oh, I don't know.

I can answer that for you. It's how many outlets you got. It's during that period of time. So if you had, how many charges do you have at home for the, for the car? Well, I don't have an electric car, but what I'm saying is, I asked her. You would have, yeah, you would need to, if you wanted to charge both cars simultaneously, you would need to charge us.

No, no, not simultaneously. My question was, let's say I sign up for the system, and they say, okay, you're good to go, and it's a smart system, and that car is allowed to be charged for free, but what if my brother comes down from Orlando, and he needs to charge his electric car, Will it allow me to charge? I might have missed a point in the system. I thought it was they have the battery there, so it charges, and then during, you use that during the peak hours when the electricity is expensive.

And then when the electricity is cheaper, then you can get it off the grid. And so I don't think it matters what you're using the electricity for in your home, unless the evolve program is specifically for electric vehicles. No, it doesn't involve a battery. I'm not sure. So the program is this. You pay $38 a month. They come in and install a level two charger for your electric car.

And it will allow you to charge the car. Gotcha. It will allow you to charge the car after 9 p.m. When it's cheap. Yeah. Until when it's cheap, right? Sure. Okay.

So I have, but in order to qualify, you have to, to install a Wi-Fi router system in your house. Most people have that. Yeah, I think, I don't know anybody who doesn't have Wi-Fi in their home. Yeah, absolutely. You're talking to them. You're the first person I've met since 1998. I'm just kidding.

Hey, Brad, it was just great talking with you and you sharing all this information. Rick is going to wrap this up because we got calls. Go ahead, Rick. Quick note in from Donovan here. I actually just got mine installed this Wednesday from FBL. Cost 31 a month for unlimited charging at nights and weekends. You have to have Wi-Fi because the charger sends you how many kilowatt hours you use to minus it off your electric bill. For the caller, you can plug in as many cars as you want.

FPL has no idea what car is plugged in. Great information from Donovan. 877-960. Sorry, Brad. We're going to have to take the next call. Have a great weekend. Happy Thanksgiving. Our text number is 772-49765.

and Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Back to a stew or Rick. Jump over to Rick. He's got some access. A lot of stuff bubbling over there. I've got one interesting question from Guy Larrabee here, which, by the way, he says it's 50 degrees today in Ottawa, Canada, where he is. That's a heat wave. And he says he'll be in Florida by Wednesday.

He's running from it already. What have we heard about the new Toyota Stout? And will it be electric? Probably. The Toyota stow, I think, is the thing that's supposed to, it's like a small pickup truck. Supposed to be slightly smaller than the Tacoma. Tacoma? Right.

I think I'm pretty sure, listen, we got a lot of information thrown at us from Toyota. And they're trying to please many different audiences. So when they're talking the dealers, you know, they're not blowing, they're not pumping up the electric vehicle future. when they're talking to regulators and customers and so but yes they said that the stout little the little truck if it ever does because it's not a production it's not production yet i don't think wow so it's a little um but it should be a cool little car reminds me of the uh the old is it Subaru brat yeah yeah that little pickup truck well and they say it's supposed to try to compete with the board maverick right yeah interesting all right okay uh back to

Rick? Let's see if we've got any others here. Most of these we've already hit upon. I just didn't want to hog all the text time. So I got it from Tim and West Palm Beach says, good morning, great show. There is a car dealership, and I think Earl needs to pay attention to this because I think he'll be skeptical here. There's a car dealership in Hollywood, Florida that doesn't charge a dealer fee. I'm interjecting here.

That's in the belly of the bees, folks. I'm already skeptical. Okay, wait a second. I have to sit down. Okay, sit down. I don't want you to fall. It doesn't charge a dealer fee. A lot of dealerships do.

How is the dealership of Hollywood making up that money? Lastly, what does the dealership fee consist of? Thank you, Tim, in West Palm Beach. Well, that's a name game, right? I mean, yeah, that's all it is. We have other dealers that have advertised no dealer fee. In fact, I meant to, what was that? advertising the other day. I dropped the ball. I didn't call and verify. But the dealer fee became

such a negative turnoff. Everybody said, oh, if you go into a cart dealership, in addition to the price they advertise, they're going to charge a big, fat dealer fee. So the dealer's got an idea. I got an idea. Let's just not call it a dealer fee anymore. We'll call it a widget. We'll call it a Robin Redbreast. I'm being physicians, but they came up with electronic. filing fee, doc fee, administration fee, tag agency fee, and state law in Florida, and probably a lot of other states, allows them to get away with this. So when a dealer says we don't have a dealer fee, that means they don't have a junk fee that they name dealer fee.

They have a bunch of other junk fees that they name something else. Right. I would like to, if you can, if you're listening, Tim, if you want to send us the name of the dealership, I'd be happy to. do a little deep dive into their website and their listings and their disclosures. The asset test for a phony fee, we call legitimate fees, government fees. Government fees don't charge sales tax on the, they're already a tax, so they don't charge a tax on attacks.

So when you see something that a dealer is charging you, if you can check to see if there was sales tax charged on that item, then it's a phony fee. because, yeah, you don't have to pay tax on a tax. That's the way to differentiate. It's an easy way to figure it out. Here's anonymous feedback. We're good? We are good.

This is important. We missed it last week because we got caught up with a lot of callers. But it came in on anonymous feedback. Our daughter saved a lot of money purchasing a new car by taking your advice. She went to a Honda dealer who had a $3,000 markup and wouldn't budge. And she walked. She then went to a key dealer, and they had a $50,000. $500 markup. She called us, and we said to walk, and she started to walk, but they ran out,

they ran out, they started coming down little by little until they ended up at MSRP. Thanks to you and what you tell us each week, and she saved thousands. You do a great service. Oh, thank you. Thanks very much for that. Those are my favorite. I love getting that. And also, let me say, let me compliment your daughter, because in addition to her gaining from information she got from the show, and we appreciate thank you on that. She had the nerve, hutzpah,

courage, you know, she was able to stand up, and a lot of people can't. When you go into a car dealership today, you have to be tough. And too many people are just nice, and they just don't want confrontation. And so

when a salesman comes up, and he's got all that charisma, and he's likable, and he's got that great smile and he tells you what you want to hear, compliment you on your intelligence and research. I mean, and then hits you with that junk fee and hit you with that dealer installed accessory and the digital dealer markup. Most people are not ready to look a salesman in the eye and say, no, you're taking advantage of me and turn around and walk out. That took courage for your daughter. So your daughter, you've got a great daughter there. And this show really is for the

people out there that don't have that kind of ability. You know, if everybody had that kind of courage, you can go into any dealership and do battle. It wouldn't be pleasant, but you could do battle and you could pretty much win the negotiation or at least break even. You wouldn't be really, really taking advantage of you. But people are not built like that. Psychologically, people are not looking for a fight. Right. If they were, we would have a very violent society. Well, the people that are built like that, that are looking for a fight, they can buy cars real cheap, are lawyers. Lawyers. That's a lawyer mentality. When you take a litigation attorney, a plaintiff's attorney, trial lawyers, what I'm trying to say, trial lawyers can go into Napleton and take advantage of

maple but Ed comes running out out for them money yeah I don't know anyway you know to your daughter

arming yourself with knowledge is just an amazing tool and she did just that and it's just a great text

that you sent in and as I said earlier there are a lot of women who are listening to the show and I want to thank you for

sharing that story with us okay Marty just came in. So we're going to break from the texts and YouTube's, and we're going to go to Marty, who calls us from West Palm Beach. Okay, how are you doing today? Good morning, Marty. Great.

Hi. Two questions. First of all, with the Amazon and Hyundai, can you return the Hyundai to Whole Foods? In the locker. Can you pick it up in the locker? I don't know. Right. The next question is Napleton runs.

the Hyundai dealers for the most part here in West Palm. So do you mean to tell me that they're going to be forced to selling that Hyundai at the same price all over the country? No. You're going to put them out of business. No, Amazon, this remains to be determined by Amazon, but I think they'll do the same thing they do today. If you have a product you want to buy and you go down,

Amazon, chances are, if you want to spend the time, you can go to Walmart, Target, or you can Google and get all other retail outlets. Amazon has a policy of putting a price on their website that is going to get action and sell, and they can adjust the price up or down. strength is they can take a price as low as they want because they're not, they're so big that they can afford to lose money for, you know, indeterminate periods of time. So what they try to do is they tried to build a volume. That's what they did. I think for 20 years, correct me if I'm wrong, you investors out there, I think Amazon lost money for 20 years.

and the sales kept growing and the company was huge but they kept losing money and Wall Street was laughing at them you can't do this so pretty much all of a sudden Walmart I mean Amazon looks around

and they've got most of the business now they started raising the prices so that's what that's going to happen you'll still have your the best news Marty to this whole Amazon thing It's not that Amazon is always going to have the lower price.

Amazon will have a transparent price, and you can take that price, and you can shop it with a Hyundai dealer, and he can make it a lower price. So that for sure is happening. I think eventually, with the volume that Amazon does, eventually, when they have to, they will have the lowest price, because nobody can compete with Amazon when they want to cut a price down. It's like Costco. They're so big that they can adjust their prices as low as they have to. Yeah. Well, the thing I thought is, of course, you get these dealers like Napleton. They're charging you dealer prep, and they're charging you a fee to get the license plate,

and they're charging you all kinds of crazy fees. No matter what they're getting the car from, and they're doing the warranty work, I assume. So you'll go online to Amazon, you'll look at your Hyundai model, your make model that you want to buy, and you will put it in your basket, and you'll print a copy of that out, and you'll take it in Napleton and say, I have this in my Amazon basket. If I push by, it'll be here next week.

Now, do you want to sell it to me today? Because I have a check in my hand. I'll take it today if you'll give me that card. and take this check and let me take the car home. So that's the strength you have now as a purchaser. You have someone that Enable can choose to compete or not compete, and you'll have an out-the-door price to make him compete if he wants to. Okay, well, I guess it will be a very interesting purchase.

You know, I wish Toyota would come out with a good electric car to compete with, you know, a Tesla. They will. They will. I guarantee you, I mean, Toyota is the largest, most powerful, richest auto manufacturer in the world. And they're above Tesla. I mean, not in terms of market cap, because that's an artificial number. but Toyota is huge and they're smart

and they have one huge advantage over everybody else. They look at the long run. They look at 20 years hence, 30 years hence. They're not worried about what happens every 30 days. That's all, 4 GM Chrysler, the rest of them, they think on 30 days at a time because they're watching the stock go up and all the CEOs have got these stock options and bonuses

and all that care about is short-term, driving the stock up, Toyota doesn't look at it that way, so they'll have some great electric vehicles later than they should have because they screwed up there, but they'll be back. Yeah. Well, I know that's what happened to Kodak, because I was from Rochester, and Kodak didn't go digital, they were still doing regular film, and they went down the tubes. Good example, yeah. I miss going to the photos, you know, picking up the film. at Walgreens. All right, well, have a good Thanksgiving, everybody.

Happy Thanksgiving, Marty. It was great to hear from you again. Have a wonderful weekend. You know, later on in the show, just about 9.30, we're going to have the dog of the week. And you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. www. Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org. And you can take a look at all the dogs that they have there.

And by the way, if you didn't know it, Big Dog Ranch is the largest, the largest cage-free, no-kill dog rescue in the United States. Can you believe that? Mm-hmm. They do a fantastic job. So stay tuned for our dog of the week. Emerson will be with us about 9.30. Back to Stu. All right.

We have another anonymous feedback here waiting for us. Joey O'Cardy CDJ That's in Pompano Beach Florida everybody Joey Cardi CDJ is a terrible dealership My husband worked there for two months They consistently stole each other's commissions When someone else sold his commissions

He left after their corrupt management did nothing He had many people walk out during financing due to their price hikes Their dealer fee is now $2,500 Yikes Okay And we don't know Well, we don't know much that about Julia Cardi.

I think we've shopped them before, though. I'll go check the list. The Garber Group, we shopped them last week. They're up in Pennsylvania. The Garber Auto Group is well known in the Saginaw, Michigan area. I believe this is the home of their first dealership owned by the family. And when I located to Port St. Lucie, Florida, I wondered if the Garber dealership in Fort Pierce was related to the family that owned the dealership in Saginaw.

So I called. Sure enough, same family. I checked some things at the Saginaw store, and they did not have near the add-ons and fees and bad sales tactics, as the one down here in Florida. Very disappointed on the mystery shopping report. They have a decent reputation in Michigan. You know, part of I would be remiss if I didn't defend dealers to some extent. Picture yourself as a young entrepreneur,

and you're getting ready to get into the automobile, business, you think I like to have a car dealership, and you're a little naive, but you got a lot of money, and you get a dealership, and you decide you want to advertise cars and sell cars and make money. Suddenly, you realize that all your competitors are advertising cars below what it costs you to buy a car from the manufacturer, and you say, how can they do that? And there's a little bit of that domino effect that creates want to be honest business people to feel compelled to lie, cheat and steal, like everybody else in the car business, because if your competition is advertising the exact same year-make model car for a thousand dollars less than it cost you

to buy it, what are you going to do? Just quietly go out of business? No, you get into the game and you advertise it, a thousand dollars less, what makes it $2,000 less, and he can buy the car, and the games begin, and that's what happens. It's a rotten egg, a rotten apple in the barrel syndrome. One rotten apple can contaminate the entire market. That's right. I think that's it for the...

Oh, wait, there's one more anonymous feedback. We are all but a kite dancing in the wind. It's very profound. I would correct you to say we are all but kites dancing in the wind, but, you know, I'm a particular person. We have a text from Joe and Carol. They said they'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Stewart for intervening on our behalf and finding a 2023 four-runner. Leonel and Matt made sure all my wife's extras were installed with the auto.

The red phone works. Thanks, Joe and Carol. And I'm all caught up here. Okay. My only question, is Amazon going to have nitrogen in the tires? I stole that from T-Cash on YouTube here, but I had to ask that one. Lots of questions. Listen, I mean, it's got to make the car dealership.

The car dealer is happy to some degree, so I'm just, we'll see how it plays out. But I can picture that because some things you buy on Amazon and there's options. Like you select something, then there's size. and there's this. Yeah, size, color. What I think what they're going to do is like there's a lot of, you know, they call it online retailing and there is very few actual like online retailing where people are buying cars A to Z.

And there's all sorts of platforms that are available to dealers. Some are like Roadster. There's a million different names. And SmartPath is another one. But Amazon, obviously, jumping in to become an online retailer is pretty, pretty. pretty crazy because they have just perfected this. They have a global distribution network. They move products all over the world better than anybody.

And putting cars into that equation is going to be a really, really, really neat thing. Can't wait to see how it plays out. I got to see it. It is pretty cool to go on Amazon at like 10 o'clock in the morning. Buy a car and have breakfast. Buy it now. And four hours later, it's at your door. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, I feel bad for all our local merchants, though. But they're online, too. All right. Again, I want to remind everyone, we do have Emerson that will be coming up about 9.30. And remember that we do pay the, I was going to say the dealer fee. The doggy fee. The dealer flea.

Yeah, the dealer flea. We pay the fee for adopting the dogs. So keep that in mind as to how expensive it is to adopt a dog today. So I see Earl leaving through the automotive news, and I think he has something to share with us. Well, I was thinking about a little confession I make. I made light of the fact that a lot of the electric vehicles didn't have AM radios, and I said,

well, you can always stream the AM stations and so on, so forth. And besides AM radios, are useless they're they're obsolete and so sometimes when you like excuse me we were desperate during that's what I was just trying to say we were during that storm the other day we had a real storm in South Florida and that was extremely severe in the neighborhood the Nancy and I live in suffice to say the electricity went out at 153 in the morning and we long not only we lose the electricity our generator went out. So we really had the electricity. And of course, the internet went out and the telephones

and everything's out. So we were totally in Kim Minnecano. So I said, I got an idea. Let's go out and we'll sit in the car and the Tesla. Let's see if we could. I couldn't find an AM radio station even to stream. But of course, the Wi-Fi was out and the Internet was out. And so there is something to be said for AM radios. I take back all that negative. anything that I said about AM radio's and that was a that was hopefully a once in a 20-year event I think the last time that's happened to us in a hurricane has been 20 years but it was still very unpleasant it paris to maintain the generator one other point I wanted to make and it was from there were some articles in the

automotive news also about our car dealers being getting in trouble with the lenders because they are submitting false credit applications. This is a easy way to sell cars. If you lie to your lender, meaning the lender that the dealer works with, you can phony up a credit application. And if you're the buyer, you're personally responsible for that credit application. So be very careful when you go into a car dealership. If you have marginal credit and you suddenly find out you're able to buy a car maybe more expensive than you thought you could have credit for and everything went too smoothly.

Be sure that you read your credit application before you sign it. There's no other business anywhere that you sign more papers that you don't read than when you buy a car. But be very sure you read the credit application. If they misrepresent your income, your employment, your, any of the vital information that you have to have to get credit. And they send it to the lender, and the lender loans them money. You can be, it's a federal violation.

What more can I say? You could really be in trouble with the federal government for defrauding the bank that loaned the money. So be careful before you sign your name to a credit application. Okay. Okay, I think that Jonathan, we're going to go to the dog of the week. Is that fair to say? Emerson. Josh is going to be from Big Dog Ranch.

He will be giving us the information on Emerson. And I remind you that you can go to www.bidogranch.org, and you can pull up all the dogs. Let it roll. Roll it. Big Dog Ranch Rescue would like to introduce you to Emerson. He's a very sweet and energetic five-month-old shepherd mix. Emerson is currently in our foster care program at a wonderful home awaiting his forever home. Emerson and his littermates were actually born at the ranch.

And Emerson has been at a foster home since he was a wee puppy. He gets along great with other dogs. He gets along great with anybody he meets. He loves people. He gets along great with kids. He's a very sweet dog. He'd be the perfect family dog. Emerson is also very smart.

He's already potty trained. He knows a few commands. He's very obedient and it's just a wonderful, well-rounded dog. If you'd like to meet Emerson or check out any of our dogs, please fill out an application at BDRR.org. And if you'd like to meet Emerson in particular, just give us a call or shoot us an email at Adoptions. BDRR.org and you can set up an appointment. He is in the foster care program, so you'd have to make an

appointment. We can bring him in for you, but he would be in a wonderful addition to any home. If you're looking for a smart, loyal companion, look no further. Emerson is the dog for you. He would be great as your only dog, but would actually flourish in a multiple dog family. He gets along well with other puppies, older dogs, bigger dogs, smaller dogs. He's just a great, well-rounded pup. If you're interested in Emerson, shoot us an email at Adoptions at BDRR.org and just come over, make an appointment to meet this wonderful pup. Well, I think that Josh said it all. Gosh, what a cute puppy. That was a great description. I felt comfortable just keeping my mouth shut. Yeah, absolutely. Can't make it any better than that.

Puppies don't come with baggage. So when he's saying, yeah, it's going to get along multiple dog, phone, cats, babies, because this, This is a puppy. He's a blank slate. So they get along with everybody. All puppies are good. Puppies are very good. He's just so happy, go lucky and energetic.

Yeah, for the people that just in their cars who aren't watching the video, he's a shepherd mix. He's all black. He looks like he's about a foot long, seven inches tall. He's got like pointy ears that are floppy. And the video we saw, he's just running around the backyard playing, catching tennis balls, and looking like you would expect a happy, happy puppy. Not a care in the world. Not a care in the world.

Yeah. I'm reading a book now. It was New York Times, a recommended bestseller. It's called The Body Keep Score. It's written by a psychiatrist. And it's all about psychoanalysis and about trauma and about this, that, and the other. And I had no idea of the scientific evidence that backed up having a dog in the family helps depression. actual illness I can foresee the future where it'll be insurance companies will

require you to have a dog yeah because they are absolutely a like having a child yeah we had a dog in the family growing up yeah that dog caused depression and illness though well I'm kidding it's a set up for a joke let's put it this way Sue meant he had his ups in downs. No, Sparky was wonderful. He's a dog. And he's a legend. I used to beat the hell out of Sparky.

And he still loved me. So, I mean, that shows you. He didn't beat the hell out of Sparkey. I'm just joking. Hey, I sat in front of the fireplace, alcohol involved and heard a lot of stories. Confessions. That's the next book.

I'm trying to make a serious point here. A lot of people don't realize that that dogs actually are, They're very therapeutic. We're talking about being good to the dogs. We're saying, all these homeless dogs, please give them a home, and we're trying to appeal to you to do that. I'm saying, do yourself a favor if you're, I mean, and you can foster a dog if you don't believe me

and see how it makes you feel. Dogs make people feel better. So do yourself a favor. Forget about the dog. Help yourself out. And we'll get back kind of to the point, which is for Emerson, our sponsor dog is grab them up as soon as possible because the puppies go fast and we're

paying the adoption fees on this one. And wouldn't that be a great Christmas gift? Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine a little puppy under the Christmas tree? The kids come down. It's hard to hide a big dog, but like a little puppy dog, you can put them in a body.

One of the reason is big dog ranch has got so many puppies is we take pregnant dogs. And a lot of it's hard to find a home for a pregnant dog because you want one dog. You don't want two dogs or six dogs, but Big Dog Ranch takes those dogs from the pounds and the other shelters that don't know what to do with them. And so they actually built Big Dog Ranch Puppy City. Yep. And the Puppy City, a Big Dog Ranch...

It used to be in just a puppy town. Puppy Town. But now it's Puppy City. Locks a hatchy grows. There's a bunch of houses. They're all different colors. In each house, they're like a little bitty houses, and they each have them have puppies in there.

So Big Dog Ranch has a maternity row where the mama dogs have the puppies, and then the puppies go and live in Puppie City until we find homes for the puppies. Amazing. Loxahatchie Grove, Florida. If you're in South Florida, do yourself a favor. Take a drive out to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. It's on Ok Chubby Boulevard, and it's in Loxahatchie. It's about 20 minutes, 30 minutes west if you're on U.S. 1. Go to Puppy City, sit down, and the puppies will all climb all over you.

Yeah. We had a great time out there, you know, in spite of the rain. I mean, it was a monsoon, but we did have a great time. And as Jonathan reminded all of us to remind the audience that we pick up the registration fees. So there's quite a savings, you know. I mean, adoption fees, the registration, all of that. And I think that comes to a total of two. hundred dollars if I'm not mistaken. You know, one of my greatest memories of my dog, Susie, well, me and my daughters, was the fact that she always waited at the door for me to come home

from work and I knew that she would be waiting for me. You know, it didn't matter what was going on and with three kids anything could be going on. But there she was. She was so faithful to me And she shared so much love with me. She made me feel very important. I walk in through my front door, and my girl, Harley Quinn, is just spinning in circles and jumping three feet off the ground, just panning and super excited because Daddy's home. It never stops. And until I actually, I have her get up in my chair so I can lean over and pet her easy and hug her and really rub the belly.

Until I greet her properly, she is just right. on me. Yeah, she's a big dog, too. Does she love you more than Chris? Who? Does she love you more than Chris loves you? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I can tell you that.

You know how to tell? Who loves you more than the dog or the wife? Oh, God. Old joke. I'm texting Chris. I'm texting Chris. And then let him out and see who was happy to see you. Oh, I don't have to.

Earl always teases me all the time about my dad's dog, because when we lived in Pittsburgh, He'd let peanuts out and should go down and should get inside this big Cadillac and sit there for an hour and he'd go back out and it was like as if he took her for a ride. She was just so happy.

Just to be in the car. I need to try that with Wally. Seriously, he doesn't care where we go. It's just like, well, she'll go sit out there for five minutes. Wally's always with you. We are going to go to our mystery shop at the week And ladies and gentlemen, as I always tell you, please, we'd like to hear your vote, and you can vote at our text number, and that's 772. That's 772-4976530, 772-4976530, and our mystery shop came again from Pennsylvania, McKeesport, and that's about, I'd say, maybe 20, 25,

minutes from Pittsburgh. And I think the, what is it, the, you know, did you look this up, that river that flows through the Yacahaney? The Allegheny? No, the Yacahany. Yes, the Yacahini. Anyway, the mystery shopping report is from Riverview, Chevrolet in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Thank you to our mystery shopper. Fabulous job that she does, Agent Lightning does, week in and week out. And thank you, Stu, for writing such a great, interesting mystery shop. Well, I'll read this as if I were Agent Lightning speaking in the first person. I arrived mid-afternoon on a Friday. It was greeted by a salesman named Devon, D-E-V-O-N.

He greeted me warmly and demonstrated his extensive knowledge, aiding in my decision for a new Chevy Equinox. Despite earlier seeing this several to choose from online, I picked the one on the showroom floor as I saw it. It was a new 2004 Chevrolet Equinox R.S. and mosaic plaque metallic. It's nice to see a Monroney label where it was supposed to be. If you're a regular listener, this has become a running joke.

Federal law, the Moroni Act of 1958, requires that the manufacturer suggested retail sticker, a.k.a. Monroney label be affixed to the window and can only be removed by the owner when they purchase the car upon delivery. That's a federal law. We shop

week after week after week. It's very rare that they abide by this federal law and nobody gives it damn. There's no regulation. Nobody's fine. Nobody cares. So it was nice to see a Munrooney

label where it was supposed to be. The MSRP was $32,820. Devin offered, would you like to test drive this one? It was pouring rain. I could see what logistical and what nightmare it would be to get this particular equinox out of the shore of my ass if he had something more convenient for us to get into for the test drive. Devin quickly arranged for a test drive with the same model,

but this one was sparked outside under an overhang. During the right, he meticulously explained all the safety features and patiently answered every question I had. In our conversation, Devin mentioned, we don't have a dealer fee here. We don't have dealer fees here, plural. The only fees are those mandated by the state of Pennsylvania. So I made a note when I read Stu's rendition here, I said, interesting. He then inquired, are you a Costco member? We also honor a Costco discount.

for that. And that's refreshing, too, because salespeople are generally paid on commission, the bigger the profit, the higher the price, the higher their commission, the Costco prices are extremely low. And a salesperson would really have to be an honest guy or an honest gal to say, are you a Costco member? Because if you didn't know about their auto buying program, they'd get a super low price, and their commission would be much lower. So, Here, Devin is actually asking if you're a Costco member. After returning to the dealership and navigating through the range of the building, we settled at Devin's desk.

He requested my license and brought out a sheet of paper. Are you planning on registering the car here or in Florida? He asked. I explain, I'll likely co-sign with my son and register it here. The insurance is much lower than in South Florida. I believe that. Florida, by the way, if you listen to, week is 88 percent higher than it was two years ago the highest increase of any

other state in the United States so South Florida or Florida in itself is a terrible place to buy auto insurance Devin surprised by the cost difference asked for the local address before excusing himself to retrieve the price sheet upon his return Devin clarified you can either choose a special APR annual percentage rate or the Costco pricing. Now, I made a question mark there, whether that's legit. I don't see why it would be legit. Not legit.

There's no way that's legit. So that's the first raised eyebrow is the fact that they were, the Costco pricing, which I was just praising and for mentioning, the fact that he could get a discount if they're a Costco member. Now they're saying that they can't choose a special APR if they get the Costco pricing. So there's no link between the manufacturer here, in this case, General Motors, in Costco. So there's not like you can either take the discount or the annual percentage rate because they're two different companies. If they're both coming from the manufacturer, then they can make it a choice.

If you're a Costco member, just if you live in your Costco member, you can get anything the manufacturers offers when you go to. So he misled her, whether intentionally or not, I'm not sure. But I got to say, it looks like it was intentional. He went on to review the figures printed under the heading, financial details. The retail price was MSRP, $32,000, $1,500 rebate was applied, resulting in a net selling price of $31,320. They don't mention whether it was a factory rebate or a dealer rebate. It sounded like she went with the Costco thing and they just used the rebate line to take a discount off.

I think they used a rebate line for the Costco discount. But I don't know. Honestly, I didn't look up to see if there was a $1,500 rebid on the U.S. I raised another question. I didn't think that was a Costco price. Then there was a 449 label documentation fee, which is suspicious in and of itself documentation fee, next to which Devin noted in pen state fee. At the bottom of the sheet, he had written no dealer fees.

Now, I applied the Pennsylvania 6% to the selling price that they showed them on the buyer's order, and it's accurate. Stu raised his hand. I'm raising my hand like I'm in class. Just looked at incentives on equinoxes, there is no $1,500 rebate. They had a lease program, and they had a lease program, and they had. have a dealer rebate and it's just no it's a discount yeah yeah so here we have this he called the doc documentation fee 449 question is was Devin misleading him on that too yeah I did the research and made the calculation that they did not charge the sales

on that 449 so there was no tax on it which would lead you by our rule to say that was in fact a legitimate fee what it might be and I know New York does this New York has an amount they allow us around three or four hundred dollars they allowed the dealers to charge and they do not require sales tax be paid on that California also allows the dealers to charge two or three $300 and I don't believe they allow sales tax so this could be a legitimate fee or it could be like you say like it goes to the dealer it's a but it's a sanction state a sanction dealer it's a sanction fee and sales tax not replied I nope I'm Googling this the average

documentation fee in Pennsylvania is $130 according to their tax handbook yeah yeah okay I'm going to apologize in advance for us not doing our homework on the shopping report. There's a lot of unanswered questions here. I'm highly suspicious, but I hate to find someone guilty when I don't have all the details. But I'll continue. There were about $150 in smaller fees added and sales tax. The smaller fees, again, the sales tax was not charged on the smaller fees, nor was the sales tax charged on the documentation fee.

Out the door was at 33,823. Because of the rebate, I, the shopper, Agent Lightning, came out less than MSRP, even with the $449 junk fee. And if it is a junk fee, it was an authorized junk fee, and we just talked about that, but we're not sure. I just want to just add this in here. We're researching in real time here. it doesn't look like that's not a state fee.

I'm not seeing anything for a $449 state fee. The only thing the state is requiring so far I'm seeing right now is your registration fees. And we've shopped several times in Pennsylvania, and you're right, we haven't seen that. I've never seen a 449 state fee. So we either have a misled salesperson, but he had to be misled by someone, or we have a dishonest salesperson, I guess, is six of one and a half dozen of the others. So this person was misled and we'll verify, but like Stu said, we've shopped several people in Pennsylvania. We have not seen any state authorized fee like they have in New York in California, which would explain the 449 not having sales tax charged.

And if they're not charging sales tax on it, which my calculation, they did not. charge sales tax on it then they're defrauding the state or they're just it's going to change when they go into finance because this is just a worksheet maybe it didn't calculate right still be still be a great deception and dishonest before concluding our meeting Devon asked to see if I had further questions and expresses gratitude for my visit saying thank you for your time today please let me know if you decide to move forward that was that no pressure and a picture of the Monroney label on the window

which is refreshing to see and we have the worksheet here and this is I took those numbers from the worksheet that's where I figured out they did not charge the sales tax on the 449 but they were so adamant that there was no dealer fee but they could have been playing the name game oh no dealer fee it's a documentary fee

so that would be a blatant deception, so. And whether Devin was deceived himself or not, I think it's kind of immaterial. I mean, we could say he was a victim too, but the person who was deceived is the customer, and that's Agent Lightning. So she left believing that was a state fee.

And that's what any customer told the same thing would believe. Well, again, I still feel I need to apologize because we should have had more concrete information. We have no choice what we need to do. I think we have to go to a vote. Yeah, I think we have all the information now. I think we have a, well, we'll have a fair vote. I'm getting some grades in here.

They're looking not so bad. I got a, from Bob, C, for Riverview, on the curve. Jonathan, who's usually pretty harsh. He's from Palm Coast. Mononi label, check, no dealer fee, check. Costco discount, check, pleasant salesperson, check. APR or Costco price Whoops, things are starting look fishy

449 dock fee Whoops, smaller fees Whoops, overall, not a horrible experience Below MSRP We'll get this dealership a B I'm not going to be as Charitable Because regardless of

If Devin was complicit or not It doesn't matter that it seems to be something That's going on there So look at a D from me Okay. Got nothing on the first channel, but let's see. Oh, we're coming in good here. Let's see. From James Fronty, the salesperson is prevaricating. They do charge a dock fee of 449, so let's call that BS out. Second, Costco is offering a $1,000 member rebate until January 2, 2004. This dealer is better than South Florida, but bad. He gave him a C. Ah, here we go with Tom Steckle. C plus.

A bit of deception with the fake fee, but much better than any Florida Chevy dealer. Cliff Spakes, B. Johnny Z. Fradley, B. Sounds like a fair deal, even with the 449 fee. There's no forced accessory add-ons, which is really good. James Fronte again comes in. He says, for anyone looking for a Chevy in Florida, look at West Haney. Chevrolet in Live Oak, which is up where I-10 and I-75 meet up in North Central Florida.

No dealer fees at all there. It's Wes Hayney, W-E-E-S, and then H-A-N-E-Y, Mr. Haney, Mr. Haney, Mr. H-A-N-E-E-Y, Chevrolete in Live-Oak, Florida. And Brian said, LATCO says, that Chevy dealership, gets a C for me. Tom Steigle, he comes in and says, you're right, Wes Haney is an A-plus. So we may have another one we want to look at it up in our north section there.

For me, I don't know. The fees are so small that I know it's the principle of the thing. I'm still going to go with a B. I'll make it a B minus. Yeah. Well, I'm going to give him a D, a D, and I, I'm going to retract that next week after we investigate. Well, actually, we're going to have... We're not going to retract it, man.

It's going to be... No, no, let's ask Agent Lightning to call and speak to Devin and clarify. We will get clarification, and we'll explain next week because I know we're probably right, but probably isn't enough to fail anybody or give anybody a good grade. So let's put that on hold and we'll go back and try to verify some of this information. We had Frank and Jupiter Farms,

compared to South Florida dealers, he's giving them a C, so we have another grade in there. But you and I are on the same page. Hey, Stu, Marcy Everest is asking you real quick, are there any Mazda dealers that we recommend? No. not currently we don't I think

I think Rico and Del Rey did an okay job but historically they didn't on the last shop I think we gave them an okay grade

okay and Tom Steckle says Sport Mazda in Orlando has $1,700 in fake fees so now Marcy we'll keep our eyes open

but so far no Mazda's we really recommend It leads me to say that, you know, I need more clarification. You know, do I vote? I don't know. It's just a bit misleading. So I'm not getting an answer from any of the guys here,

so I'm going to go ahead and vote. And I'm going to give me a D. As in D, David. Or D as in Devon. D as in Doe. I almost wonder, though, if age Agent Lightning were a serious customer, and if she disagreed with that 449 and the other 150 in fees, would they knock that $600 off the price?

I almost think they would. I don't know. As I say, we need to do more thorough when we have questions like this. But be honest with that, I wait until the morning before I come over here before I read it. And I should have read it sooner, and we could answer all these questions. This won't happen again. We'll be more careful, I promise. Yeah, it's something to be on our to-do list.

Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to, we all want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. We all have something, or more than one thing to be grateful for, and I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Again, thank you for joining us. That's one thing that we're thankful for this year. And have a wonderful weekend. We'll be right back here next week at 8 a.m. Right here on the Oldies Channel. Again, have a wonderful weekend.