Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.19.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Delray Buick

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Delray Beach to visit one of the oldest Buick dealers in the Nation, Delray Buick to see what they will charge her for a used 2021 Buick Enclave SUV. 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. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “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 listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question. The Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn, space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forward a dealership. And now, on with the show.

You heard my record introduction. We're back for two hours of fun in the sun. Actually, we have some sun now. We just came through a hurricane, what was it, Nicole? Yeah. And we're in good shape. Is your life as exciting as ours? I mean, we got hurricanes, we got COVID, we got the war in Ukraine, we got inflation, elections.

What a wild town. I'm telling you, the whole country, the whole world is going nuts. And the car dealers are the nuttyest of all, and that's why we're here. to help you navigate around car dealers to purchase a new car or use car, lease maybe, maintain repair. And we're kind of a, we're in the 21st century, I say we, everybody except car dealers. Car dealers are still operating like they did 100 years ago, shortly after Henry Ford invented the assembly line, and we have mass-produced automobiles. and we have a dealer network, car dealers,

and they are entrenched in what they do. They're entrenched in the 19th and 20th century, is where they are. I mean, they're still selling horses. It's haggling, it's trading, it's negotiating. I mean, can you imagine any other product that you buy if you had to go through what you have to go through when you buy a car? Now, we've got the worst of all situations

with all the other issues we have with a microchip shortage. We've got the precious metal shortage. We've got the war in Ukraine. We have the economy issue with inflation, high interest rates. And card deals are thriving. I mean, you would think that it would have hit them harder. But even though the manufacturers can't build as many cars and they can't ship as many cars,

the dealers have figured out a unique solution. and they just keep increasing the price. So if they only get one car, if they sell it for $10 million, I'm exaggerating slowly. But car dealers are selling their cars for thousands over sticker, MSRP. I mean, if you'd have said this to me two years ago, I'd say you were smoking something because nobody's going to pay thousands of dollars over MSRP. People back the educated consumer a couple years ago would not even consider paying MSRP.

today if you find a dealer to sell your car new car for an SRP it's a steel so here we are and to help you every morning when Nancy Stewart my co-hosts sitting next to be here in the studio every morning when we drive into the station we talk about well what are we going to talk about

today what are we you know did you see anything in the paper automotive news on the Wall Street Journal is there anything New York Times and then when we finally start yak and we say you know what we're going to talk about is what the people that call the show want to talk about because that's why we're here

and fortunately because we're doing such a good job I guess and reaching out we're having you know we're having calls from all over I mean and I'm probably jinxing myself because we love the calls but we have calls for two hours

and it's your comments of constructive criticism or even unconstructive If we take any kind of criticism or advice you might have to offer, we answer your questions. And remember this. We get hung up on buying and selling, leasing, I should say. But maintaining and repairing is very important. I always remind you, we have Rick Kearney here in the studio, along with Earl Stewart, me and my son, Stu, and my wife, Nancy.

Rick Kearney is a certified master diagnostic technician. And he's on top of what he does. He's not fixing cars the way he did 20 years ago because cars are totally different. And they're computers, rolling computers, is what they are. And they're going to get more and more computerized as time goes by. But if you have a problem in your car, call 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-99-60. And you can ask for Rick.

you can pose your question something that you don't want to take in to get fixed because you don't want to go into a car dealer. I get that that's why we're here. You might be able to get a diagnosis right here on the telephone. If you want to text us you can text us at 772

4976530 at 772 4976530 but even better than that. Rick Kearney monitors YouTube. So, you go to YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars. YouTube.com for slash erlorn cars.

And you can talk directly to Rick. You post on YouTube. And you can even send an attachment, audio clip, video clip. That's really helpful if you could do that. And say, hey, my car does this, it does that. Do I need to take it in? How much is it going to cost? If I don't get it fixed, is it going to get any worse?

Blah, blah, blah. You know all the questions you have. same questions that you have if you go on the car dealer, it's going to cost you a couple thousand dollars. Maybe you get by here with nothing. So, YouTube.com forward slash roll on cars or just call us at 877-960. Now, we have coming up on every show, sometimes I forget to mention this. I, you know, we've done it for so many years. It's automatic mystery shopping report. When I explain it to people that haven't heard about it, that's when I get excited because when I

explain it, I say, you know, that's really cool. I mean, we do it every week and we've been doing for years and years. We've done thousands, I guess, of these mystery shopping reports. We send an undercover agent out, obviously, with not identifying their real name. And they go in and they pretend to buy or lease a car. And they go into a real dealership and you know we get a report I mean they're in there for maybe an hour and they go through all the same stuff that you go through when you try to go and buy or lease a car and they report exactly what happens I mean it's a 60 minutes got a Mike Wallace thing

it's a name names we named the sales but we name the dealership we tell you exactly what happened if they broke the law we say they broke the law now let me tell you something folks if you accuse somebody a break of the law and you're not being sincere about this and you're not right about that and they could prove you're not right about that you're in serious trouble I mean that's liable or slander

whichever form of comment it may be so we've been doing this for 20 years never been sued we tell the truth truth is a perfect defense against liable and slander but we will have such a report at the end of the show It'll be, you know, last half hour of the show, two hours, we're on for two hours.

Last half hour, we do our mystery shopping report. Stu Stewart, my son is sitting across from me. He's in charge of that. He has our current, outstanding mystery shopper. Her pseudonym is Agent Lightning. And boy, does she do a job. I'm telling you, she is dynamite. And we've had several mystery shopping reports over the years.

I've got to say she's the best of the best. And, you know, sooner or later, we're going to have to add another Mr. Shopper to report because she's hitting a lot of different dealerships. She goes such a while. She goes all the way to Pennsylvania, Tennessee. I mean, so she spreads out wide enough where she can go back and hit another dealership twice. Typically, she's gone in before because they have her name in the computer, but they've never busted her yet. I always get nervous when they go to the computer to get her. You think they have a mystery shopper.

Do not call the police. Do not, you know. I don't think so because, you know, first of all, when we read the report, it's sometimes several days, sometimes weeks removed. It's not exactly, these don't happen on Friday. Yeah, we're probably not important as we think we are. Yeah, and, you know, in a busy dealership, and I can just tell you, speaking from our experience, we have a lot of people that come in all the time and never buy cars. They're not mystery shoppers. They just, you know, take a longer time.

Put them in the computer. Yeah, sometimes it takes people years to finally make a decision. We have an old-time customer who just bought a used Thailander from us. And I just fell out of my chair when I found out he has been really nearly a decade that he's been shopping. But it happens. I respect what you're saying. But I, at this moment, I still get nervous. I have the chills and I go, shh.

Well, we have to be. But that was a good question interrupting you for a moment, Earl. what Earl said he made a statement he said the agent lightning might be in the dealership for an hour doing this mystery shop is it about an hour or is it more than that it depends sometimes she's been in and out pretty quick and then sometimes it gets dragged out

they tend to be pretty quick I think they tend to be about an hour to an hour and a half is what the average shop is but she's been there longer and she's also been in there about 45 minutes too yeah good point okay back to back to the important thing about how to reach us because you make the show. That's just not a cliche. We don't say that to make you feel good. The fact is you do make the show. I mean, we learn things

from you. I'm particularly on YouTube. Rick's got some callers or YouTubers or whatever you want to call them. And I'm telling you, a couple of them there, they are really good. I mean, they correct us because we are wrong. We make mistakes. And they give us a situation. They give us a suggestions that don't occur to us, and we've got textures. Anne-Marie is one of the famous texters. She will text, and Sue will pick that up. She is incredible. She comes up with some of the most amazing observations and suggestions.

One of the venues that I haven't mentioned yet this morning is our anonymous contact way to reach us. A way that you can say anything you want to us. You can make a suggestion. you can chew us out, you can ask a question. I mean, anything you want to do, we just don't know who you are. And the more I think about, the more here, privacy is becoming so important. It used to bother me because I figure, you know, if you can't look me in the face and tell me,

I don't want to talk to you, I mean, that kind of a belligerent attitude. The fact of the matter is, that's not right. Anonymity is really good. Think about it. the hotline when you call the police. I mean, if you've got a really nasty guy out there doing some bad stuff, you don't want to have your name in the newspaper saying that in your address, in your picture, saying that we got the information to try to find this really bad guy from this person.

So I understand privacy. So use this anonymous feedback number if you want your privacy. Your anonymous feedback.com. It's not a number. It's a web address. It's a URL. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback.

Your AnonymousFeedback.com. And who can't track you? And this is not a Mickey Mouse thing either. It's not a link that we just came up with. This is a lot of blue chip companies use this. Adobe is one that comes to mind. I think Google. I mean, there are a lot of really cool companies out there.

They like to get feedback. from their customers too, but also from their employees. I mean, think about it, wouldn't it be cool if you work for a company, my company, my dealership, we use this there. So if we have anybody that works here, we have about 150 employees. And, you know, like Rick Kearney, it works for me. If Rick wanted to say some really nasty stuff about me, he could do your anonymous feedback,

and he could call me any kind of a name or anything he wanted to do. I mean, not the fact that he would do it, but it makes people feel good to know they could do it. I mean, because we have no, you know, anybody can get me. I mean, anybody can call me, I'll call Stu and not be identified and make an observation about our company or about a radio show. Interrupt you for a second.

Let's go back to our residents. And at a time when we had people calling us prospective customers, customers at 6 a.m. And at times they weren't saying, well, such nice things. But then we moved on and progressed, and they were calling to compliment us. That's when we had a landline. Okay. So there we go.

We've got 877-960-9960. That is our old-fashioned phone. And I always say, Nancy monitors it. She has a laptop, and she'll see your name, where you're calling from. And we prioritize that. We'll stop whatever we're doing. like what I'm doing now, I'm yacking, or we might have a reading an article or whatever. Whatever we're doing.

We go to telephone calls for two reasons. First of all, we love the personal nature of the call, but we also only have five lines, and we don't want to keep you waiting. So please call our regular phone number. That's our preferred line, 877-960, or you can use your text, 772-497-6530. I'll flip the phone the phone, the mic over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host. You've heard her earlier and she is monitoring the regular phone line

but she also is a female advocate and that's her really special function on this show is to build our female audience. We really want more women out there to call in and we've got it. We've got it pretty much to 50-50 so if you're a woman, Nancy wants you to call in and she'll explain that. We do. Good morning, everyone. And as you can feel and hear, yes, feel through the lines, the energy, great energy that goes on right here in the studio. We're here to make you feel good and give you the truth, which will make you feel good. We're here to motivate and inspire. But most of all, we want to thank all of you, all of you for being part of the show here, Earl Stewart.

on cars. And for the ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. The first two new lady callers, $50. Give us a call. Let us know how your, well, your transaction went, whether you had service, whether you have to wait maybe too late, excuse me, too long for a vehicle, anything at all. Just give us a call. And our platform, it has definitely grown with the ladies. And I have some news about shortages. I was thinking this morning as I came in and remembered how my phone was blown up by politics.

Am I glad it's over? I'm glad that voting is over. And I'm sad to say, don't have. We don't have a shortage of politics. politicians, and they're the ones that we're depending upon again, and we hope that they can hear our voices. That's Attorney Ashley Moody. That's Governor Ron DeSantis. And if you're listening, listen to us, loud and clear. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And don't forget, as Earl said, anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go with the phones right off, and we're going to talk to

Tim, who's calling us from Stewart. Good morning, Tim. Good morning. Last year, I had a, I threw a time go on a Volkswagen, 2000 10 Volkswagen Bissan, and I took it to an old mechanic, a friend of mine, and he dropped the new engine in there, and it was working fine. Still running fine. But now I'm getting this engine pressure seal light that keeps coming on to turn the engine off and you know and keeps flashing and uh but i took it to a guy he said if it was your rear engine seal you'd have oil blasting out of you know where the engine meets the transmission and that's not the case so i'm a little bewildered about uh you know seeing what the cause is all see what the remedy is and i was looking at this i went on a lot

and they said that they have this uh something you can put in your oil that uh seals his from the inside an engine seal liquid or something so that's what I was calling a professionist you guys right off the bat I never recommend any sort of additional any chemicals additives like that generally they wind up causing more harm than good my recommendation is find a good qualified Volkswagen mechanic somebody that knows those systems it could be as simple as the the crankcase valve starting to plug up and building too much pressure there. Yeah, that's something.

I would be looking for somebody that knows Volkswagen's a lot better. I'm really not up on the German cars myself. My first thing I'd recommend is Volkswagen is one of those kind of like Jeep. They've got a really great following. I would look online for local forums and talk to owners online and find out who they take their cars to for repairs, they will give you some of the best recommendations for a local technician for you.

Okay, thank, you know, because I took it to one guy, and he said, sell it. He said, clean it up and sell it. So now I took it to another guy, he said, I'll drop the transmission, but, you know, that's $100 an hour. It's a 10-hour job. So, okay, okay, well, what I'll do is,

thanks for the information. I'll check around and not go online. Thanks for thinking of us, Tim. Give us a call again. Thanks for helping. You're welcome. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Wow, we have a dozy of a mystery shopping report, so you want to stay tuned for that.

And mystery shop comes from Agricago Ford, Delray Beach, Florida. It's going to be, well, hang on to your hats. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, let's check with Stu. and we have you text over their stoves. We do. We have a big one waiting for us from Amory. Amory says, good morning and hallelujah.

jalapnik.com reports that a team of Swedish engineers has finally developed a seat evaluation tool, a.k.a. crash dummy designed on the body of the average woman. The tool is 162 centimeters, which is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, and it's 62 kilograms, which is 136.4 pounds. That's about the size of my wife. This tool was developed by a team led by Dr. Astrid Lindler, Director of Traffic Safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute. This crash test dummy was developed because females are typically shorter and lighter than males, and they respond differently in a car crash.

Now that this tool has been created, legislators will need to tweak their testing requirements and force its use. Right now, there is no legal requirement for car safety tests for rear impact collisions to be carried on anything. other than the average man under current EU in the U.S. testing regulations. By the way, crash test dummies based on males have been around since 1949, that's 73 years. The first child-sized mannequin came along in 1994. There was even a crash test moose used in testing earlier this year, but there hasn't been a representative female human crash test dummy until now. In the past, they just used a scale-down version of a male test unit,

roughly in line with the proportions of a 12-year-old girl. And there's an additional editorial comment from this show's listener, aka Amory. Note to car manufacturers and insurance companies. Female musculature and bone structure differs from males. Females buy and drive at least half the vehicles out there, and we would like to be protected as well as the males have been. Thank you.

No, thank you, Amory. Thank you very much, Amory. I can't imagine why somebody doesn't jump on. on that with both feet I'm telling you imagine a little manufacturer that says Ford says we you test everybody yeah we test females I mean if you're a female you'd buy that car I mean all you got to do I all you got to do is say the competition uses male dummies therefore it's unsafe for a female relatively speaking so that's happening in Sweden so what a what a great story if it's going to be the EU I don't

If it's just going to mean Sweden or the entire European Union, if it's the entire European Union, that's going to have a big impact on all manufacturers. I mean, they could have European versions of their cars, but if they're going to test their cars, they might as well get some of those female crash test dummies. Yeah, for sure. Sees evaluation tools.

Exactly. And the reason for that is because 20 to 28% more women get killed. Yeah, likely to get killed. in an accident and boy we've been kicking this around for so long and maria i can't thank you enough i think the uh a great swedish ambassador has been listening to the show i think so they started they started out with the male dummies and they said back in the 40s one of the 40s women didn't know how to drive right and so but moose moose did so then they developed a moose dummy immediately after they did the man and you know they had a moose dummy before a female

I have a feeling they developed the moose dummy so they could drive the car into it to see what would happen to the car. I really think that they need to fine-tune this a little more. I don't like the numbers that you, that Anne-Marie shared about the 5-foot-3, so on and so on. I'm 5-4-3, and I'm 114 pounds. You know where that leaves me? Airborne. Well, you're just a little bit smaller than the dummy. Pardon me?

You're just a little bit smaller than dummy. Well, let's get rid of the moose and let's concentrate on the women because they're There were more women on the road. It was a female moose. Did you say female? I'm not sure. Female moose? We have more text unless we have any phone calls.

Thanks again, Ann Marie. This one's for Rick. It comes in from Bob. It says, good morning. My question is, what are the absolute best disc brake pads in reference to durability and break dust accumulation? I would stick with factory brand pads. Made for your car and designed for it and I would definitely stick with what are known as ceramic brake pads versus the semi-metallic or the metallic pads

Semi-metallic and metallic pads will wear the brake rotors a lot more and brake pads of course They're all going to create dust. You're always going to be cleaning them But I'd rather put up with a little more dust and replacing brake pads that are about And depending on where you get them fifty to seventy five dollars for a set of brake pads versus $150 to $200 for each rotor. That makes a lot of economic sense. Okay, Google, best of the best brake pads. These are the five best.

Adelco, Bosch, B-O-S-C-H. They make a fine watching machine. Aki-Bono, sounds Japanese. Which is what Toyota uses? Aki-Bono. Akibono. Stop-T-T-C-H. And last, Wagner.

So there you have the top five break pads, Adelco, Bosch, Akebono, StopTech, and Wagner. And consumer reports does not rate break pads. Sounds like a law phone. I'm going to interrupt you for a minute, Stu. We're going to go back to the phones where Tim's holding in Jupiter. Good morning, Tim. Hey, folks. How are you doing this morning? We're great.

Thank you for calling. Good. Well, how does it get any better than getting up on a Saturday and listening to a lively discussion of crash test tummies? There you go. That's why I woke up this morning. And don't forget, moose. That's right.

Meese. See, I got a question. I've called once or twice in the past. You guys, nothing recently. You guys have always been helpful. I've got a 2019 Jeep Cherokee latitude. That's got about 50,000 miles on it. We were driving home the other night, almost ready to pull in the driveway, and I felt a little bit of a hitch or tug.

And the check engine light came on, and three other lights came on. One of the park brake lights, I think it was electronic stability control, activation or malfunction, and one other light. I didn't take a picture of the dash I should have. but we took it over to a well-known franchise auto repair shop here in Jupiter. They charged me $150 for the diagnostic and said that there's some kind of a sensor problem, and I didn't get the specifics on it. They thought they had one. Turns out they had to order one.

This all was about November 1st. They said, well, it'll be in about the tent. But they said that, you know, the vehicle's okay to drive. but we didn't want to drive it a lot. Drove it a few times. Those same lights came on, and we had a slight problem with the power steering after we started the car up,

but when the car was moving, there were no issues other than those lights were on the dash. And then a couple days ago, and the sensor is still not in, we called them a couple times to follow up. A couple days ago, miraculous, I guess. Three of the lights, you know, started the vehicle. Check engine light came on, but those three other warning lights were off, drove the car a little bit, came home. The next day we started the car again. This was now a day or two ago. No check engine light, so everything was fine. The car felt fine. I turned it on this morning, drove around the block again. You know, no problems. So I'm wondering if we should still go out, they wanted, I don't know, close to 200 bucks for that sensor and the labor.

I'm wondering if these things can kind of just resolve themselves, reset themselves. You know, should I cancel this little fix with the sensor or should I go ahead with it? What do you guys think? Actually, without knowing exactly what part they were recommending, it's kind of a gray area, hard to really give you a definitive answer there. But what happens is if the computer system in the car detects a problem with a sensor or an actuator, a valve or something, and then that problem goes away. Like we've seen valves, switching valves, that will get stuck for a moment or two

or a sensor that may have a little bit of debris on the sensor, and then it clears itself, and the problem goes away. and if the computer sees over a certain amount of time that that sensor or actuator is now working properly, then it will clear the codes and erase that information. It'll still store it in a memory to where later a technician can go back in with a scan tool and pull that information up and say,

okay, you had this problem back then, but it corrected itself and now you're okay. That way if it does occur again, If everything's working normally and nice right now, I would cancel that order and wait and see, and if the condition comes back, then go ahead and get it done. But if it's working good now, I'd go with it. Yeah, okay, that's good. I was kind of leaning that direction.

So you're saying that the computer will probably save the code. if it has reset and that could those that could be drawn out at a future date if this problem reoccur is that right yes however there there is a certain point in time where if that computer does not see that issue again at all for say I think it's usually something on the line of like 60 cycles of the key or so and it says okay I haven't seen that problem in a long time. Obviously, it's fixed. The computer will simply erase that information and say, nope, we're back to good. Everything is good now. Okay. All right. That's good enough for me. I really appreciate your viewpoint on that and just love the show, folks. Well, thanks very much.

Thanks so much, Tim. Give us a call again. Okay. All right. Have a great day. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-7.com. Ladies, I have a question for you. You heard Anne-Marie's message this morning that she sends to, and what an important topic it is to test female dummies. Let me ask you a question, okay? This should help you and prompt you to give us a call, and you can win $50 if you're the first two new female callers.

Okay, here's the question. What do you think? Crash test dummies that are better reflect, that they better reflect how women's bodies react to the forces of a crash. It's pretty simple. What do you think? It's time, right? He's 7-7-960, 99-60.

When yourself, $50. first two new female callers now back to stew we have some anonymous feedback that came in a few over the last few days and it was in reference to agent lightning's purchase of a of a new car a couple of months ago and for the listeners who are not familiar with that agent lightning actually purchased a new car during a mystery shop and from another from a competing Toyota dealer ship. And the anonymous feedback addresses the fact that she had overpaid for the car. And I'm not going to read them out directly because a lot of them were pretty harsh. And the person making these comments do not know Agent Lightling personally. And so I don't think it's appropriate to

make some of the comments. But I do want to point out that we've said on this show over and over again that it's not a good time to buy a good car. But unfortunately, there are millions of people that have to buy a new car. And this year, they call the SAR, it's the estimate of the amount of new cars are going to be sold this year is over 14 million. So there's 14 million people out there that are purchasing new cars in 2022

that aren't stupid. They're in a situation that really sucks. They have to get a car, and the car dealers are behaving badly. So the anonymous feedback poster said this is not a question of car dealer's bad behavior. It's a question of consumers, intelligence and it is not absolutely absolutely not this is a situation of a pandemic induced

situation that has created a a dynamic that dealers are taking advantage of and some people can't help but get into that situation awesome in this case is a perfect example that proves just what you said automobiles in in certain areas in fact most areas are a necessity you know we the way the U.S. is set up, if you don't have some form of personal transportation, you might have a real, real problem. Chicken is at an all-time high price. No one is suggesting

people stop eating. Exactly. And it's a different product, but it's in this ancient lightning has worked for us for a while, and she's been our mystery shopper. We know her very well. She's an extremely intelligent person, and she wanted to buy a car.

So we sold her car. And And we price all of our Toyotas at MSRP with out the door. You know, we don't have anything, hidden fees. Great price. And she really thanked us. But she had to have a car. No, no, she bought her from Treasure Coast.

She paid over MSRP. She wanted to buy it from us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we would sell it to her for MSRP. Yeah, she couldn't wait for it. And so she couldn't wait because she had to have the car. And so that's what people do. So, yeah, it isn't, if you can wait,

then you should if you can't wait you can't wait you shop around get the best price you can and and agent lightning um she didn't buy it because she was fooled by anything she went in there with a with bile rising in her throat she was forcing it down as she went through this it wasn't a happy experience no not at all and you know you can't stamp uh stupid on a person's forehead when something like that happens because if you listen to what's Stu said, Agent Lightning had to purchase a vehicle. She had family, she needed a car, and this, by the way, can happen to anyone. I don't care whether you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, a psychiatrist, anybody, it can happen. When you're in a situation, and for lack of

another word, you're desperate, things happen. And it's not because of a lack of knowledge. That's right. we have more anonymous feedback this comes in that says good morning do you have any tips on buying a new car related to one buying with cash or two how to deal with the

F&I office well if you're sophisticated and you have a bank and a credit union it can be based on your personal situation

the preferred way to go get a competitive low rate. You don't want to finance through the dealership unless the manufacturer is offering a special subsidized low interest rate. Cash, in my personal philosophy, I've always looked at this way. If I could get a good competitive low interest rate, I'd rather invest my money and have that money earn a greater rate than I would

if I could get a competitively low loan rate. So the thing that universally is true, don't go directly to the dealership and have them finance the car for you because car dealers typically make more money financing your car than they did when they sold you the car. That's not true today because dealers are making thousands over MSRP. But in normal times, car dealers make more money financing your car than they do. And they buy the money from the bank, so to speak, and they mark. and they mark it up, just like they mark the car up, and then they loan it to you. Eliminate the middleman, that's the dealer.

When you finance to the dealer, go directly to the bank that the dealer gives his money from. Or better yet, go to your own bank because you have a relationship there, and even better yet, go to your credit union who have got better rates than the banks. All right. We are caught up on my end with text and anonymous feedback.

Okay. Okay. Rick, do you have any? Well, we're actually a little quiet down here, except for Donovan did come in and says, in his opinion, Aki Bono brake pads all the way. He likes the Aki Bonos. How about that? I like that word. I do.

Acubano. And they're actually the company that... Is they made in Ireland? I think so. Sicily. They're actually the company that makes the brake pads for Toyota and Lexus. Yeah, you said that earlier. That's it.

And Donovan is just great, isn't he? Every week, or just about every week, he's always with us, and he is informing us, and he's also asking some great questions. And I loved his music back in the 60s. Yeah. Do you? Well, I wasn't around the 60s except for a couple of years. I was going to say.

As long as we have a lull here with no calls. Excuse me. Ashley Moody. We have a call. Ashley Moody did win the election, and I predicted she would, and it was a little. lands live, I'll give you the details after we take this call. Well, go ahead. How did you, uh, how did you know?

She exploded my phone. Okay, on a more serious side. Let's talk to John from Palm City. Another, uh, one of our, our callers that inform us week in and week out. And he, uh, doesn't miss a show. Welcome, John. Good morning to everyone. I have two questions for Rick.

one is on, it's on tires. One is a shady dealer that mounts the tires backwards. All tires are approved in the United States by the DOT. All kinds of symbols on them. We'll get into details, but the tire has to be approved no matter what country it's from. And all the numbers mean something on it. But the most important number is the day code. So some of the shady tire dealers will mount that tire backwards from the inside you won't be able to see these actual numbers and the importance about that but I want to ask Rick would that affect the balancing of the tire when it's installed backwards actually that's going to depend on the tire some tires can go on either way and what a good mechanic will look for is the manufacturer will usually put a little red or yellow

dot or circle on the tire. And when you see that, normally you're meant to line that spot up with the valve stem of the wheel because that will give you the closest to zero balance that you can for that tire. It means they'll use the least amount of added weight in order to get it in balance. Some tires, a lot of tires though, are what's known as directional and the tread has to go in a specific direction. You'll actually see an arrow on the type. saying this direction forwards or the tire will say inside and outside on the sidewall telling you which way that tire should be mounted up. And sometimes that does not align with where they put the DOT number.

So if that DOT number is on the outside, on a tire that says outside, then you're okay with that. But if the tire has simply an arrow, it is meant to go one direction forwards. What percentage are directional? 50% anymore. And we actually have to watch for that. And I've actually had cars come in and I look at the as I'm inspecting the tread on the tires

looking to see if there's any nails or anything in the tire. I have found tires mounted up backwards with three tires mounted properly and one is mounted backwards on the rim. And then I get with the rider and say, hey, we've got to fix this. We've got to put this tire back where it's supposed to go.

That way the tire will perform properly in rainy or wet conditions. I never thought about this. In my entire life, I never thought about it. And when John, when you said backwards, I said, what are you talking about? And now that's amazing. I learned something on every show.

It's little things, but it's... You're going to answer my second question because some tires have a red dot on them. Yep. Yeah. The eval stem should be actually lined up with that. Exactly. So you answer my second question.

But the most important part is, is the date code. Very simple. It's a four-digit code, okay? I'll give you, for instance, 2619, which simply means that that tire was made the 26th week of 2019. Now, the National Street Hot Rod Association, the NSRA will read your tire if its car is entered in a official show of NSRE. And if the code is over 10 years, that car will not receive. receive a safety sticker, and they won't be able to race. So it shows the importance of not keeping a tire on your car that's 10 years or more older. It's dangerous.

It can be hazardous, and it's hazarded, not under you, but the people on the road. John, that's what I wanted to say. That's very important. I appreciate that. You said one thing I don't agree with. It's not simple. I mean, the number code is ludicrous, but you stop a thing about it. I mean, every other date, you know, every date you look at has a format.

You know, you put the month, the day, and the year. So why can't they just put the month the day of the year, which is the day of the manufacturer? I'll tell you, there is a reason for that. I know the reason. And that is because Great Britain and Europe put the day, then the month, then the year, and so does the U.S. military. Well, yeah, but you can put, you can put three of them on there.

When you buy it or when you buy clothes, they have U.S., European, and that. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I did a little good one, too. Get a life, get a life, do you? Well, I was, I don't want to confuse people. Well, this is why, no, John, it's okay, because, well, the week number thing on the, on the day. We forgot we have a caller. The 2000 had a three-digit code, so I don't want to get into that at all. All right, sorry.

Oh, come on, why not? The tire question, but question. for Earl now. Okay. We're circling back to this. Earl, are you a member of the Tesla Owners Club of Florida? I don't think I am. I get a lot of email, but I mean...

They want you to lead this year's parade. My friend is in it. It's the greatest thing. It's a non-profit. It's, you can text it. Tesla owners, Florida.org. Okay. I'm writing it down.

I mean, it's social events. It's a must. must and it brings out the fun of the Tesla cars. Social events that, John. Tesla owners, Florida dot org. Yeah, very good. It's a non-profit

organization. There goes my schedule. And it's official recognized by Tesla and it's Tesla owners of Florida. Well, thanks John. I appreciate that. I recommend it. Thank you. Thank you very much

for the entire information. Be careful. and just one other fast thing on a tire, the difference between an expensive tire and a cheaper tire is you look specifically for the tread life. For instance, a 220 tread life will last twice as longer

than a reading of 110 on it. That's all I have to say about tires. Thank you. Thank you very much, you guys. Thank you. So, you know, back on the date thing, for real. I was thinking about it because with Toyota, when we look at our

to manufacturing or out our new car allocations as they're producing new cars and we get it on this very technical looking printout well we don't print it anymore but it's on the computer with the VIN number and a bunch of codes for all the accessories and a bunch of stuff and then but we track them using the week number and everything is used by a week number and it took me a while a long time ago to get used to this you'd say okay it's week 36 you have to know intuitively when that in the year where that falls and I wondered if that is that a standardized manufacturing thing I didn't go to college for business or manufacturing, and I looked it up, and there is a standardized thing for manufacturing. It's the ISO calendar, and it's based on weeks, and it's for international, and it was standardized a long time ago.

But consumers don't know that. I know, and I said, so this is what it was designed by engineers and manufacturers. Right, without any consideration of the people who also will be using the information. It makes people feel superior to use in language. So Rick, he can talk about some really complicated transmission thing. and at a party and he's talking. He said, boy, that guy must be smart. Yeah, using no English.

I can't understand a word he's saying. He must really be smart. Hey, Rick, don't you feel powerful? I do. Even in the sales department, everything is with code. So it's model numbers and codes. The doctors love doing that too. Yeah, a doctor wants you to say, what do you mean by that doctor?

Yeah, we're supposed to keep that in the back office. I went to medical for 14 years. And you're going to know it. Yeah. I'm going to make sure everybody knows it. Yeah, this is on a funnier side. I love walking into the doctor's office and using, well, some of the medical terms that I have learned through going to school. And the doctor will turn around to me and say, did you go to medical school? Because he feels so intimidated.

That makes you feel real smart. I'm throwing around tempo mandibular joint, oxidable, I'm throwing around here. We just rely on Rick for the technical stuff around here. But I love doing that. Rip love's doing it. The lithium crystals are cracking a bit. All right, Scotty. Okay, we have some texts.

Okay. This is from Steve in New Jersey. He says, hi, Earl. The February 2019 Consumer Reports article Crash Test Bias talks about what Amory texted this morning. In it, women are 17% more likely than men to die in an accident and 73% more likely to be injured in a frontal collision. Volvo, in particular, leads the crash research and interior safety. design, particularly for women. In my opinion, from the research, also, okay, Sweden leads in his opinion. Also, Europe's new car assessment program NCAP is far more advanced in testing for

whiplash injury, which is the leading cause of car injuries by far. Unfortunately, this is not new news. I haven't seen our government insurance industry or other OEMs making any progress on this topic, and they sent along the Consumer Reports article. Thank you, Steve. That's from the Consumer Reports article. Yeah. I wonder how long ago that was because from AAA. A.A. Three years ago.

I have the statistics of 20 to 28 percent. Yeah. 20 to 28 percent likely that a woman will be killed in a car accident. 37 to 73 percent more likely to be seriously injured. Yeah. So I'm going to interrupt Stu, and I'm going to. to take advantage of a moment that I extended an invitation to the ladies this morning. $50 for the first two new lady callers.

This is an important topic, ladies. How do you feel? How do you feel about female dummies being tested in a different way? Give us a call. 877-960-99-60. You have to be careful about how you use that phrase, female dummies. Hey, back to, boy, everyone's, and what do you have to say for yourself? I got one quick question here on YouTube.

Hey, Stu, Jay Zuno says, good morning, all. My wife and I just put a down payment on a 23 to add a forerunner from your dealership. We added some extras. Is the six-month window a reality? It's a reality. But I will tell you this. that the estimates we give, we're giving generous estimates. They're realistic, but they're on the outside time.

Occasionally, you know, well, not occasionally, I would say every month, probably 10% of the, well, that's not a good math measure. We lose people, drop orders every single month, and so people do move up quicker depending on the car. Just practical advice for the listeners about this subject about ordering cars. If you're going to order a car, whether it's a Honda, a forward catalog, whatever you're going to order. forget about certain specific things that you like like color and trim if you want to get a car in a faster amount of time think about the cars that the manufacturer is building the most of and that includes colors trim engines accessories if you order a unique car you can wait a year or more and if you came to us and said I just need a car give me the first car it's available I don't care what it is what the price is you'll probably get one that month oh you get one yeah

Because people will cancel cars. Cars will come in. If you just say, I need a car in hurry, I don't care what it is. You can get one tomorrow. I mean, it's a slight exaggeration. If you don't care what you pay, you can go anywhere. Yeah, but the more specific you get, and the salesperson should tell you that,

because typically they just take the order. But you need to get something that is fairly commonly built by the manufacturer. The manufacturers do not build your car to order. That is a myth. You write your order out, the salesman leads you to believe, okay, I'm going to go to Honda and they're going to give that to the shop foreman and he'll say, okay, we're going to build this. It doesn't happen that way.

Honda and all the manufacturers build the cars that they know people are buying the most of and that's the way they have to do it. You want a unique car, you're going to wait and wait and wait. How about the rebuilding of a car that you want? putting, adding your personal touch to it. I mean, are you going to get it in this lifetime? I don't think so. Not like it was, well, yesterday, and I don't mean that literally.

Stu, I have a question for you. I had somebody call me about, oh, gosh, I guess 7.30 p.m. And it was a prospective customer, and they were inquiring about the Crown. And, you know, when you get a call at that hour, they're really serious about looking for that vehicle. well they were that's what I can say we weren't we were in bed at any rate you're a real comedian at any rate you know he was missed a lead you know the crown isn't there not until 2023 and also he was comparing the crown to an avalon and he was saying that he was like six four and six feet four inches tall and that he thought that he

would fit as well in the crown as he did the Avalon. Well, I was a little skeptical. What's your opinion? Well, somebody asked me about this last week. She went on the list, even though there's no they're not being made yet. We're expecting

them to be a very small number of production. I mean, we're talking about a brand new model. I mean, Camry's are struggling. We're spending way too much time on Toyota right now. Well, we'll wrap it up. It's going to be a long time and probably into 2024 before most people will actually get to drive one.

Yeah, exactly. Our Dodge is going to bring back to Barracuda. Yay. He's going to ask you to leave. And me. 877960-9960. You can text us at 772-4976530. Are we having fun here this morning, folks?

we sure are and we love we love our listeners our texters YouTube all of you you make the show give us a call 877960 960 Texas at 772-497-6-530 we're going to go back to the phones and we are going to talk to Mike good morning Mike good morning welcome I have a question about a a 2014 used car that I purchased, a Cadillac ATS. I would make a suggestion to the audience, don't ever buy a used car unless you take it to a mechanic you can trust first to go through your car thoroughly to find out what's wrong with it, and then before you buy it from that particular dealer,

you address those particular problems, because otherwise it's on you, and you can have a lot of headaches. I have many, many headaches. advice now my problem is this currently uh it's an air conditioning problem what i get now is cold air and not very cold air coming out of one side of my car which is the driver's side fortunately and hot air coming out of the other two vents on the passenger side and no matter what i try to do i can't get it resolved where i have cold air coming out of the other two vents on the passenger side and no matter what i try to do i can't get it resolved where I have cold air coming out of all four vents.

And somebody has told me it's an actuator problem, which I don't know what that is, but they said, take your battery tables and clank them together, and the actuators may reset. Now, I don't know what that's all about, but I'd like to find out if you have any suggestions as to how to resolve that problem. The first thing that I would do on a car like that is I would totally evacuate and recharge the air conditioning system. Is that a mandatory evacuation?

Yeah, unfortunately it is. Basically what that means is when you get cold air on one side or cool air on one side and a warm air on the other side, most likely you have a leak in your system, a small leak,

and the refrigerant has started to get to a low charge and a mechanic would be able to put gauges on it and tell by the gauges, Yes, that charge is low. The pressures are not coming up where they ought to be. But they can hook up the machine, basically recover all the refrigerant from the car,

and draw it down into a vacuum state. So there's no air left inside there, the system at all, completely vacuum it down, and then recharge it with the Frion again. You said it was a 14, so that's probably going to be R134A gas. And once it's recharged again, then you should get cold air across the board, everything nice and cold. Now, most shops would be able to do this for you for somewhere around $100 to $150,

maybe a little more, maybe a little less, and what I usually recommend to someone on an older car like that is recharge the system back to full pressure, and you're kind of throwing the dice on it, because a lot of times that tiny little leak will stay tiny and you might get another six, eight months to a year out of that inexpensive type repair. Sometimes getting it back to full pressure, that tiny little leak suddenly says, boop, I'm a big leak now,

and then it makes it very easy to find, and you can go from there to decide, do you wanna fix it or not, by actually replacing whatever component is leaking. May I ask this, can I just take a leak detector, put it in the charge, adapt, you know, adapt the way you do the filling and take a look, but then also I like to see where the leak is myself? Not really because leak detection is actually done one of two ways. The first way is what's called a sniffer device, and this is actually a handheld device that we move around different locations, and it is supposed to, detect the leaking gas and beep and light up, and they don't work for anything.

They're horrible. They almost never work. The other option is actually to, we shoot a ultraviolet dye into the refrigeration system, and then wherever it starts to leak from, you put on these very fashionable-looking yellow glasses and hit it with a high-powered ultraviolet light, just basically a black light, and that dye will begin to fluoresce and it will show up where the leak is. The problem is if the leak is inside the evaporator core up under the dash, you can't see it because it's all enclosed in a box.

Yes, right. Well, okay, that's a rather reasonable price to pay to get that, you know, to find out what the problem is. But let me ask you this. You're suggesting evacuate the system, hold on, that pre-on and add to it whatever is necessary after the repair has been made. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. The second question is if I can detect the leak myself, it may be repairable by my own mechanical ability as opposed to paying the $150. That's why I asked that question. True, but in

order to recharge the system, you've got to have the proper equipment to draw it down to into a full vacuum, you can't just simply put Freon in it because without having it in a full vacuum, the gas won't be able to fill the system properly, and it can cause you a whole lot of hassles. It's like when you fill up a lighter with lighter fluid. I can't just take... Could you use a dog for a sniffer device? No.

Yes. No. Sorry. I'm sorry. I mean, they got great. A bigel might be a best. better than the tool you're using. Bloodhound.

No? Floodhound, I said. Oh, okay. Earl. Me? Could you use me? I'm sorry? Would I be causing any real problems if I just attempted to add more free on to the system?

Not really. They do make the recharge kits, but they are kind of difficult to use. And the drawback to it is if you get too much refrigerant in the system, then it won't blow cold either. There's like a very happy medium where it's got to be at an exact level of charge that you'll get that optimum cold air. If you get too much, it won't work,

and too little it won't work. I learn something to do every day. So you go out of the customer and you say, the problem with your vehicles has got too much free on. Immediately they say, you need to be free on. I've seen that happen. Wow.

Because they do it themselves. Yep. Interesting. You learn two new things today. Wow. I'm saying then the only way to do it probably is you have to have the gauges like you do on your home air conditioning system in order to determine what the pressures are and all that is that what you're saying right you have to have a mechanic you don't have those gauges and technically by law you're not allowed to release the gas into the atmosphere you have to use a machine that captures the gas and it runs it through a filter and then we reuse that r-134 ozone later but of course okay put all the carbon monoxide into the air. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Wish we could capture that. They should be arresting all those cows that are creating a methane problem. Oh, geez. Where are you going to put the hoof cups? Balloons. And soft of dioxide and nitrous oxide for sure. Mm-hmm. That's bad.

Well, thank you the information. I appreciate you. I think that might. You're welcome, Mike. You're very welcome. Thank you. Keep on listening. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0.

Remember, we have that mystery shopping report coming up. I think we're going to go back to Stu. You can go back to me, but I have nothing to read. Well, say something profound. I have something humorous and very interesting. You've got our attention. As you know, if you listen to the show, Tesla is the only manufacturer. They can sell you a car direct.

All the other manufacturers have to go through dealers who are evil people that take advantage of you. But Tesla is really shaken up the whole industry with the fact that they are able to market directly to you from the manufacturing. Now, in New Mexico, they really have a hardcore law that won't allow them to sell, period. I mean, that's this, so what Elon Musk has done with Tesla is he's made a deal with the Indian tribe of New Mexico. And so the Indian tribe, just like they do in Florida and other states with gambling, they bypass federal laws. And this Indian tribe. And state laws. So there is now a, there is now a partnership between Tesla and the.

Navajo, Paiute. I can't think of the name of the tribe. What state? New Mexico. New Mexico. I don't know. So, but, but even, that's humorous, but it's also predictive and indicative of what's going to happen. So they're going to open dealerships on Indian reservations, like they have casinos? Well, they'll probably have the headquarters there or something like that.

So they, see, the law says right now that if you're an auto manufacturer, if you're an auto manufacturer, you cannot sell cars in New Mexico, period. And so Elon Musk is going to bypass that law, the state law. Right. I've gone through the Native American tribes. That's great. The state will challenge. Interesting. It'll be fun.

Elon Musk, always thinking. And he is ahead of the game, always proof. If you don't know about Elon Musk, it's a good read, definitely, everything he's done. 877-960-9960, and you can text us at. 772-497-6-5-3-0. Now we're going to go back to Stu. Yeah, Bob has a text. He had a question about break paths before.

He has another one for Rick in regarding the tire pressure monitoring system, TPMS. My next question is the car manufacturers put tire air pressure devices on most vehicles now. Why not on the spare tire, which most people forget to check? I have a 2017 sienna, and it's a real pain in the butt to check. Thanks again. They should. I agree. The Toyota actually started out putting them on any vehicle that had a full-sized spare.

You had five sensors. And for some reason, they stopped doing it. And I think that's the most foolish thing in the world. I understand the idea of not having a sensor in the compact donut spare, but almost nobody checks the spare tire, the spare tire pressure. I mean, my truck, I've got it pretty easy to check because when I put it in the air to do an oil change or something, I can walk right back to where it's hanging under the vehicle. But we get so many customer cars to come in, I open up the back of the car, the trunk, and I've got to pull tons of stuff out of cars sometimes just to get down to check their spare tire pressure. And I know there's a lot of shops out there.

They won't do it. They're just, they're not going to haul all that stuff out of your car to check your spare. and then you're going to get caught one day. Okay. That's a great bit of advice. Keep that thing clear it out when you go in. And my other bit of advice is for about $30 or $40 or less, get a little air pump that plugs into your power outlet in your car

and have it in the car just tucked to the corner somewhere because that one time you need it, it's going to pay for itself 100 times over. I agree with you 100%. That's exactly where mine is. Okay. I'm all caught up. Okay. How about you, Rick? Well, I got a couple of notes here.

By the way, Casey, when they asked if the BZ4X was ready, and you said you drove it in, it says I take it the wheel of state on it. I made it here safely. And Donovan says that Tesla's already doing this in Arizona. They have a delivery center and service center on tribal land. it gets around the franchise laws because tribal land is not subject to state or federal laws

in the same manner that every other place in U.S. is. Sovereign. I'm surprised they haven't made the deal with the seminoles in Florida. Yeah. Well, any day now. Opportunity for you, Seminoles listening. You could possibly get in the car business. Do a deal. Yeah, do a deal

with Tesla. Elon Musk. Well, they don't need it. And we'll hold seminars. They got gambling so the Seminoles are. Doing quite well. Car dealers gambling. One door closes, another one opens. Yeah.

Cheap cigarettes. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to Earl Stewart on cars, and our calls have, we're in a little bit of a lull right now. I'll give you that number again. 877-9-60-90-60. Ladies, heads up, $50 for the first two new lady callers, whatever you have to share with us or inform us about $877, 960, $960, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And we're going to go back to the recovering car dealer.

Yeah, I was saying before my blog, Nancy, I think I was a copy of my last blog. I thought it was kind of interesting. I mean, it wasn't really scary, but I forecast the day before this. Ashley Moody, you know, on Monday, I forecasted Ashley Moody, who was running for Attorney General, kind of a joke because everybody knew she'd be elected. And I said the title to the blog is Florida car dealers rejoice. Ashley Moody reelected Florida Attorney General and landslide. And I did that the day before, and, you know, you make a prediction.

You know, it's just people say, well, you could be wrong, really be embarrassed. Well, that's how sure I was. In fact, I looked up the numbers, and she was running against someone nobody heard of before by the name of Ayala, another female attorney. And we met her at the speaking engagement. So, yeah. And the final vote was Ashley Moody, 2,614,329 votes to Ayala's 1,091,091,000. So it was a 42% margin, which qualifies for a landslide. You knew what was going to happen.

It's our system. And the auto manufacturer, not the manufacturers, the auto dealers, strongly, strongly supported Ashley Moody. I talked about it last week on the air when I was talking about the investigative reporter from PLG who cornered Ashley Moody and asked about. the donations by the dealers, and he found out that 81 car dealers had donated $161,000 to Ashley Moody, 81 dealers. Well, in addition of that, you have family members, relatives of those dealers that donated. In addition to that, you have the multiple associations, car dealers. A car dealers associations are basically lobbying groups, and you have National Automobile Dealers' Association.

state has one. We have several in Florida, Florida Automobile, the others, and then Florida has the Jacksonville, and they have the Orlando, no, FAD is in Orlando, they have Tampa. Miami has a very large, very large dealer association, and they're lobbying groups, and they give millions of dollars to politicians. So that's our system. I mean, I'm not being, you know, I guess I have being a little facetious, but that's our system, right? Special interest, troops, Abladius, they go to Washington, they go to the state capitals, you know, Tallahassee in Florida, and they schmooze the politicians, and they greased their bombs, and that's the system. So you can rest assured that Ashley Moody, the Attorney General, she's got another four years

now, do you think she will be jumping in and enforcing the laws of Florida against car dealers? No, she won't. And that's the life in American politics. That's the way it goes. The only way to, I guess, force her to do that is by making the complaints. When you make a complaint, then she has to do something. The problem is the complaint process is so awkward

to fill out, if you filled out any state or federal form, it's difficult. It's not easy to do. So for every time a car dealer takes advantage, or somebody, you know, maybe one out of 100, there's going to be a complaint file. There's probably less than that. I really think that if Jeff has anything to do with it, and folks out there, if you're not familiar with whom I'm speaking of,

that's Jeff Weines here, and, boy, he's done a great job investigating. He is an investigative reporter, and he got a response from Ashley, and I think there's more good things to come. I really have to think that there's more positive in the air all around us. Well, she said there was an investigation going on, but she couldn't comment on it. And I just don't believe that. Afterwards, after the interview, Jeff Weinstein, WPLG, accidentally caught her, Ashley Moody, to talk, and she had to kind of stutter a few replies.

And so, yeah, we have something under investigation right now, but I can't comment on it. And then after the conversation with Jeff Wineshear, her press agent called Jeff Winesir up and really chewed them out. So how dare you accost our attorney general and what are you talking about and blah, blah, blah, blah. So that was very telling, very telling. But the fact that we're sitting here and we're having a conversation about her, about Jeff, this is positive. And I really think that there are some things that are going to happen that are going to change everything, and we are going to get the help that we so badly need in this industry. Give us a call.

How do you feel? 877-960-960, Texas, 772-497-6530, take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We're going back to the phones where we are going to talk to Joanna, and she's calling us from, from West Palm Beach and she is a first time caller. Good morning. Hi, good morning. I'm so excited to be on the radio with you guys. Oh, thank you so much. You won yourself $50. Don't forget to stay on the line when we're finished and talk to Jeremy in our control studio to give him your contact information where he will pass that along to me and I'll send out the $50 check. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Well, you know, I listen to you guys a lot, and I don't know much about cars, but I know some, you know, and I just enjoy it for whoever's calling. But the reason why I was calling, I have a close friend, and she's got a 2016 Toyota Highlander, and she got a recall on her Toyota. She's got a Pearl White, and then,

recalls it for painting. And I was just really wondering, I have at 2012, Zion X-D is and David. I love it. I got it from all two at Toyota, and it was at the right time for me to get it. And I love the car. It's got 120,000 miles on it, and it runs really well. The problem is the front and the top. The paint is coming up. It's as if I live right by the water, and I don't. I live west. And I know that Toyotas have been infamous for not good paint,

like not for the paint jobs to last. And I was just kind of curious, like, with her, she's got the appointment this week to go. Right. And she doesn't really know what it's. means to, you know, and if they're going to fix it or if it's going to be money out of her pocket. But, I mean, I've got a beautiful blue car. It's like an almost a navy, a royal I remember that color. I remember. Yeah, it was like color. I went online and I actually

picked out what I wanted. And I got exactly what I wanted and there was only one left. So it was just great. I pretty much rose in my Honda record. and I couldn't leave. Love you. That recall on the paint, it is on certain models and certain colors. And I don't know, and I don't recall hearing anything, I don't recall about this recall, on CyanxBs. But you can call in and just ask to speak to our body shop and ask if it is included.

I don't think it is, though. And also, I do know that they are wrapping up this campaign because it was a limited thing. And we just got a notification that just a reminder, that it is coming to an end soon. But definitely check it out. It was great for a lot of people who were getting full repaints on their cars and what was happening was the paint was peeling off.

They called it delamination, but it just meant that the paint was peeling off. Yeah, yeah, and that's what seems to happen with Toyota's a lot. I don't know about the new ones, but... Yeah, you're right about that, Joanna. They haven't been around long enough to find out. You're right about the paint peeling, and I had, you know, a few,

complaints quite some time ago about the pain peeling, dashboard problems, and, you know, here we are, you know, the elements. There's a lot of things that play into, you know, a factor of the deterioration of a vehicle. Good luck with whether or not you would be well covered. Well, I did want to say to that I loved Earl Stewart's Toyota dealership. I'm there the bath. I've referred a lot of people. People referred me. And it was, I had a really good experience.

I had at one point when I had the car, I was going there regular for maintenance. And I had to pick up the red phone. And so he ran to me because I was picking up the red phone. And, you know, just I got compensated for the issue that I did have that they made a mistake on, that they compensated it more than ever, you know. Oh, great. That's what the red phone's for. Even if you don't pick it up, just the threat.

Just the idea of it. Do you feel the energy all around it? Anyway, Joanna, what a pleasure. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. And I know you could use $50, and it's yours for the taking. Leave your information with Jeremy, and I'll get it out to you. Okay, thank you.

Spread the word. We're building a platform here for the ladies. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I would go back to the headlines that we've seen. The car prices are coming down, and I get this question all the time. I mean, people recognize me, say, should I buy a car now? and I feel embarrassed because I've been predicting that the prices are going to come down for two years and they never did. They are coming down now slowly.

So a blog I wrote, I think, three weeks ago is now is the time to begin the searching process. Now is the time to begin the investigation. You check the consumer reports. Decide what you want to buy. Don't leave it up to a motion. I know shopping is fun. I know a lot of people enjoy it, and you like to go out and look at the shiny new objects.

But the car dealers rely on that. They rely on you making an emotional decision. So please, begin your car shopping process by consumer reports, the Bible. Go online, go to your public library if you don't want to pay for a subscription. You can go online at the library. They have most libraries now have PCs available, and they have access directly to consumer reports. Decide what the better cars are. They don't tell you the exact car to buy, but the one thing I always say about consumer reports,

if you don't buy the recommended car, okay. Just don't buy the ones that aren't recommended. We had to call it earlier, a great guy, and there are a lot of other people out there that buy cars that are not. quality. This person called about a Jeep. Jeeps are, I mean, jeeps are a hot selling car now. The Jeep dealers and the whole Chrysler Corporation, Stalantis, they call themselves now, they wouldn't be alive today if we're for Jeep. But Jeep is not a good quality car. I saw a grown man driving down the road in the Jeep but no doors on. Yeah. So, the point is, decide what you want to buy first. Then you start searching around.

If you do your due diligence, it's going to take you a month or two to finally consummate the purchase of the vehicle you want. So in a month or two, prices are going to be way down compared to the way things are going down. One other thing is that you want to be sure that the dealer, I know you're going to choose your car, You want to choose the dealer, and you want to be able to have an out-the-door price from the dealer. That's the hardest thing you're going to have to do. It'll be easier to choose the car you want than to find the dealer that will give you an out-the-door price. An out-the-door price is simply the price that you can write a check for, hand it to the salesman, and take the car home. But to get that out-the-door price is like pulling teeth.

Very, very difficult to get it done. So that's my advice. This one's coming in from Bruno Rated R, and it fits right in. He says, is Value Shield worth it on your car? No. I don't even know what Value Shield is. I mean, Value Shield could either be something that you buy and then you make an intelligent decision about

or it's something that's put on an addendum. Everybody sell, you buy a shiny new car. It costs a fortune to paint a car today. I mean, you're talking about $10,000 to paint some cars. So they have this, they come out with these things like value shield and, and crystal protect, and there's a million of them, and the dealers jump on this. Crystal fusion. Huh? Crystal fusion. Yeah, crystal fusion. Crystal blue persuasion. I think she was a striver.

She probably was. Yeah, yeah. So ignore all of the sealants, the protection packages, all these things. Let's face it, folks. The manufacturers aren't stupid. They really want to give you good paint, and the paint that they have on is pretty good if you take care of the car. It didn't used to be, and there's still some pain issues. I'm not saying there aren't pain issues, but don't spend hundreds of dollars on something that comes in a can that's going to protect your car forever against environmental fallout. It reminds me of some of those, like those mouth rinses.

Like if you rinse your mouth with this, you're not going to get any cavities. I mean, you've got to brush your teeth. And one thing to be aware of, too, with car painting, it's kind of like, remember we used to get things chrome back in the 60s. It was all, chrome was everywhere. But the EPA came down and said to the manufacturers, you can't use certain of these chemicals anymore in croming because it's dangerous for the environment. And they're doing the same thing with a lot of auto paint systems. the chemicals have been found to be so dangerous that they're having to find new ways to create these paints

and get them on. They've developed water-based paints. Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of them don't work like the old paint used to work, so they're having issues there. I don't agree with that. The minus, the plus. And I have one other here from Extreme Rides

who says Tesla's used values have plummeted in some cases down 30% on used car prices on Tesla. Well, if you have a, the battery is the heart of, of course, an EV, and so if you have a real old electric vehicle and you're looking at time to replace the battery, obviously it's going to be a bad, you know, I recommend leasing your electric vehicles. Okay, we are going to go back to the phones where Howard's holding. Howard's a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you're all fine.

Hey, Howard. day today. Yes. And, yeah, so here's my question. Guarantee companies, they're abounding, television, ads, and newspapers, and a friend of mine considering buying it, and I said, you're going to have to pay a big premium, and when your car goes into service, you're not going to get your money's worth. And I try to, you know, instill this in him, and he still went, and he bought it.

You know, he bought a warranty service from, it's supposed to be one of the most reputable one, the first one that came up. Can you talk about this and why you should not buy it? Hello? We're still here, Howard. We're making a decision as to who's going to answer that question. I didn't understand the questions, so somebody else better answer it.

Can you repeat it because I think somebody came through really at a very low volume for us? I'm turning up my head. Yeah, that was part of the problem, too. Okay, my question is why you should not buy a warranty that the shield warranty. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Okay, yeah, Earl just covered that a little bit. Just generally the shield warranties paint shield is what you're talking about, right? No, no, no. I'm talking about warranty service, not the paint shield. Like an extended warranty. Your service warranty? Just the extended. Okay. I'm sorry. I got kind of alluded with the last conversation that we had about the paint shield.

Well, Earl can chime in on this as well, but generally speaking, he does not recommend getting an extended warranty, but you have to look at your situation. Are you, it's like any insurance product, it's just a weighing of risk. What's the likelihood is there going to be a repair that's going to be costly to me down the road? you're going to consider the new car warranty, which is going to probably cover all of those expenses during the entire length of ownership, then there's a period of time where you're not covered, and that's the risk.

Of all the insurance policies, that's what it is, it's an insurance policy, it's the highest price. When you buy an extended service contract, extended warranty, or whatever you want to call it, on a car, new or used, the average one is way, way overpriced. And there are a lot of reasons for that.

The biggest reason being that the dealers are involved in this. The dealers typically will own their own warranty companies. And say to Florida, for example, you could go to the State Insurance Commission's office or your car dealer, and you've got ABC Ford, and you say ABC Ford, I want to sell a warranty. extended warranty on fords and I want to charge a million dollars for that and I'm not going to cover anything there's no law that says what it has to cover all the law says as you have to register with the state now you're registered with the state and current insurance commission office and you can tell the buyer that you're registered but the prices are just too high Howard if if it were a

an even normal insurance product, then you could probably get somewhat of a fair price. If you have to buy an extended contract, buy it from the manufacturer of the car. Ford, Honda, Toyota, the manufacturers all have available extended warranties. And that is, if you have to buy one, the fairest priced. And you read my mind. That was my second question. Should you buy it from a dealer? I just next to my second question.

Yeah, don't buy it from it. I'm not saying we own at our dealership. We have a warranty company. We try to price it fairly. But I'm not going to push mine over some of the other dealers. Especially, it's really easy. You know, we all set our prices. So we think we've priced ours with a good price for the value.

But that's it. But you've got to look around. And a lot of people have a preference. for the manufacturer warranty, and they don't know you can go online and do that. So it requires a whole another level of research before you go buy a car. That should be, you know, you should know as much about that if you're considering it as the car you're buying. And if you're buying a good quality car, you don't need it anyway.

That's a, you know, part of it. It's peace of mind, Howard. People buy insurance for peace of mind. Insurance companies make a lot of money. They take in way more premiums than they pay out in claims. You know that. So the odds are always with a house. You never bet against the house.

And when you're buying an extended warranty or an extended service contract, you're betting against the house. House always wins. And Howard, these insurance companies, let me tell you, you know, they're very clever and very wealthy, and they have a reason. And for me, as far as a warranty is concerned, you know, I want to sit down and I want to know what that warranty doesn't cover. That's exactly what I want to know before I'm going to put my dollar on the table. So I hope we were able to help you.

Do you have any other questions? Yeah, I just want to say Joe Namath, who's a neighbor of yours, I believe, you live near him, Pennsylvania or something? Yes. But he's the one that's telling. he's saying buy this I'm Joe Namath and using his name to promote sales

and people are gullible they fall for it You know it's really unfortunate there's a lot of that going on and it is a name it is a brand that's being used you know to bring you in and for you to spend

that dollar or I should say that $5 today so why you You're saying, actually, if I own a Toyota Camry, I shouldn't worry about it. If you take care of the Camry, Howard, if you do the factory owner's maintenance, you're never going to need it. I mean, unless something crazy happens. Yeah, you know, here's what I tell. It's a philosophy of life.

If you, when you buy any product, they sell you extended warranties on everything. You're going to buy a toothbrush. They want to sell an extended warranty. I mean, everybody has a slight exaggeration, but every product now has extended warnings. Why? Because they're very profitable. So every time you go in there and you buy a product, ask how much the extended warranty is. And whatever price they say, you take money out of your own pocket and you put it in the stock market or you put it in the bank or you put it into bonds or you invest it in real estate.

I don't care. Make a wise investment without money that they want. for the extended service contract, and if something does happen, you've got that investment to draw on and you're playing with your money, not the house's money. So it's a good way to look at it. Every car is going to have a mechanic, whether it's a Toyota or a Fiat. I'm making it numbers. Fiat has a 60% chance having the expense of repairs after the warranty repires and the Toyota has a 20% chance of having an expense for repair after the warranty expires and it's got to roll the dice Howard you know what the fiat stands for the initials

something fix it fix it again Tony Howard did you know I was a fiat dealer at one time I was a fiat dealer boy I tell you what I had the most profitable service department Fun times. We didn't make much money when we sold them, but when we fixed them, we made a fortune. You only sold 100 of them, but you made a fortune on it when they came back. Rick? Earl, you were not exaggerating. If you go on Amazon and try to buy an electric toothbrush, there's a warranty for it.

I figure it, yeah. And back to your question, Howard, you know, if everybody took care of their vehicle like Rick, forget, you know, that he's a tech and what he does for a living, but he looks at this vehicle like it's his baby. I mean, he knows things about his vehicle that, you know, like a human being, like a little baby, the baby needs fed. He just is very attentive to that vehicle's needs, and therefore, what would he do with a warranty? That's great. Thank you for your information. I really appreciate the show.

Oh, we appreciate you, Howard. Absolutely. Rick, what are you going to say? Well, I got a comment here from Kirk. West Buy God, Virginia, he says, when the F&I guy started telling me I absolutely had to have this vehicle service contract for my investment, I said, well, you must not have much confidence in the vehicle you're selling. Love that comeback.

Kirk, you are awesome, dude. Awesome. You get the award. You know, the other, I just, this is probably going to bore 90% of the audience, but the warranty companies. Here's why Warren Buffett is one of the world's richest men. Insurance companies, they don't have to pay taxes like other companies do. So if I, my insurance company that I have that I go out and I sell a bunch of warranties and extended service contract and then I take that, I don't have to pay any tax on that. I invest that in the market

or wherever I want to invest it. And I don't have to pay taxes on the insurance. until the premium earns out on the policy. So any insurance policy, if you have a policy that's five years or ten years or two years or whatever it is, you pay pro rata. I know I'm getting too technical for most people. But trust me, the money you save on income tax on insurance companies is phenomenal.

That's the reason insurance companies are so lucrative. Extended service contracts are insurance companies. basically. So that's why you see so many of them, and that's why Rick just informed me that you can buy an extended warranty on an electric toothbrush. Every manufacturer now is discovered how lucrative insurance companies are. They form an insurance company. They don't have to pay taxes. They defer the taxes. They sell the warranty for whatever they want to charge. I mean, it's just a great deal for the seller. Sure is. Great point. All right. Before we get to the Mystery Shopping Report, I want to thank Rick.

I want to thank him for enlightening me about the barracuda. And back when I purchased it, it was a Chrysler, and that was between 1964 and 1974. Well, Rick told me that it will be... They're looking at it. They're looking at it. Dodge is going to take a look at it, and it may very well be out there. Don't know when, but it's... You know, it's part of the conversation, which makes me happy.

I might be driving one of those classic muscle cars. Now, back to reality, we are going to go to the Mystery Shopping Report, and we mystery shopped Graco Ford Delray Beach, and Angel Lightning did a fantastic job as well as Stu. And you can be part of the, you know, voting on whether it's a yay or a nay, and you can do so by texting us at 772-497-6-5-30. We would like you to grade the mystery shopping report. Again, that's 772-497-6530.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, it's been so long since we've done Greco. Is it Greco? Greco. Greco, yeah. I was just looking up here, how to pronounce Greco. I love Google. Anyway, Greco, they were a New Jersey outfit, and they came to Florida many, how many years ago?

Oh, gosh. 20? I don't know. And they started out, I guess, just like they always do, one here, one there. And they own a bunch of stores now. Greco is a family with three brothers and a father. Fathers, I think, retired, and the three brothers started expanding down here. Yeah.

Okay, Grico, well, you're Greco, right? Greco Ford, Delray Beach, Florida. Last week, we were horrified by what Agent Lightning as our mystery shopper uncovered at Napleton's Cresler Dodge Jeep used car outfit on North Lake Boulevard and Palm Beach Gardens. It was a world record list of expensive, unwanted items. I mean, it was a world's record. There was so much stuff that Stu didn't even want to add.

it up. I think Jonathan added it up. And when he told me the total, it was $8,000. Your calculator blew up. Yeah. I got the little E, you know, it didn't give you the answer. So it was just, there was no limit, I mean, to what they will do to you today when you're buying a new car, or use car in this case. The extra extra is made able its actual price nearly $8,000 higher than the advertised price. I choke, I choke when I see this. I'm joking, I'm drinking lyrics water. State law.

Ashley, are you listening? Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General. Florida law says the advertised price must include all charges except government fees. And Nableton, in this case here, we shop. He's a repeat offender. Yeah. I mean, everybody's got him except you. Federal Trade Commission.

$8,000. He's had an $8,000 to the advertised price, Ashley. Do something. Anyway, adding insult to injury, Napleton highlighted Car Guru's great deal certification on the listing. And this makes me so angry. Stu, I mean, they're competitors to us. I mean, all the dealers that do this nonsense.

So here we have these third-party companies like Car Guru and AutoTrader and Cars.com and all of them, right? All of them. I think so. Auto-Trader was new. Car-Gruers did it from the beginning and Auto-Trader in the last year started to do it. Or longer, yeah. Auto-trader. So when you go to these third-party sources, you're probably going to have a price that is the start-party.

thousands of dollars lower than the real price because the dealers are adding these hidden fees. Simple. It's just inconscionable, unconscionable. What is it? Unconscionable. Unconscionable. Unconscionable, yeah. Car gurus, auditor and other used car websites rate prices from bad to great. So you go there and you say, oh, I'm going to go into this car dealership because that's a really good price. Well, it's a great price that the dealer told Car Guru, but they don't tell Car Guru, just as they don't tell you the hidden fees that they're adding on top of it.

So I don't know what to tell you. The only good you're going to get from Motor Trader or Car Guru or the rest of these is you'll find the car that you're looking for. And that's a service, I guess. So then you go to that dealer that has the car, and then you start to beat them up to find out what the Althador price is, and that's where the challenge, and that's where you're going to get screwed in the long run.

So not only do consumers get dup by the deal, they get dup of the third-party listing site, and how much do you want about salespeople are telling customers, hey, car guru or auto trader is a great deal. And they'll put a sticker on the car, right? And they'll say, what about these fees? And like, well, Auditrator says it's a great deal. That's all concluded in that.

Yeah. Of course they're going to say it's all included. They're going to lie to you, you know. After Naplena, the next obvious mystery shopping target was a Greco store. It's true that we've documented a gradual improvement in their behavior over the years, Greco. But we haven't shop, well, they were really bad when they first came down. The Mazza dealer in Northland Beach, what a joke. But they have, they gradually have gotten better.

And we haven't shopped them in the era of big prices, meaning thousands over MSRP, let alone on to use car lot. Maybe we're predisposed to thinking the worst, but I can help to think the excesses and temptations of today's market may be too much for the Greco brothers. See, I'm reading my printer copy that doesn't work too well. You gave me the new one, but I have notes on this. Agent Lightning found a used 2021 Ford Broncosport with 13,000 miles listed for sale by Greco Ford for $34,228.

I mean, there it was. That's a copy of the... And they copy it our old logo. That's your old one price logo. So they said, okay, here it is. Here's our price. Okay, here's the report. Speaking as if I were Agent Lightning.

I arrived, mid-afternoon, walked in the side door, made my way to the front desk, and was greeted by a friendly receptionist. I was just telling the receptionist I was there for a used car when Lex approached to him, introduced himself. He asked me to, blah, blah, blah, blah. My printer isn't working with. Oh, you got to read my copy.

He asked me to follow him, and I did. Yeah, but I have notes on my gum. So Lex pointed to a desk, and we walked over to it and sat. He opened a laptop and asked me if I had a specific model in her price in mind. I told him I was budgeting around $28,000 to $30,000, but depending on the vehicle, I could afford to go up a little higher. I told him I was interested in a small, smaller SUV and I'd been searching online and was intrigued by the new Bronco.

I've heard a lot about the new Bronco too. He had a lot of PR. Lex stood and asked me to follow him out onto a lot to look at the inventory. Apparently, he had something in mind. We walked by some forward edges and he dismissed them as base models. I agreed I wasn't interested in them. We found the Bronco, I'd seen online, same model, same stock number, No price on the window sticker.

Twice, second week in a row. Napleton didn't have the price on the stick. Yeah, no price on the stick. So here we have a situation where we actually specifically identify a car. Agent Lightning being, you know, she does this for a living, you know, partly. She knows to look for the stock number.

When you go into a car dealership and you want to find a car that you've seen advertised, you've got to get something pretty specific, a VIN, a stock number, you've really got to nail it down because Baiton Switch is the name of the game. If you just come in, say, I'm looking for a white bronco,

you might be led to a different white bronco than the one you saw advertised. So, in this case here, actually, Agent Lightning is using far more sophistication than you would. how many people would look at the stock number. I know that she had the picture on her phone. So when she stood up there, she had, oh, there's listing, she started looking at it.

So if you can identify the specific car that was advertised, you're miles ahead. They're still going to try to get you, but you're miles ahead. Then if you left them, puts you on a different car. That's the definition of bait and switch. Advertise a car that you can advertise for whatever reason, very low. And when they come in, switch to something else that looks the same. And that's how they get you. It's like what I do to pill my dog.

I bait him with a spoonful of peanut butter. Then I shove a pill in his mouth when he opens his mouth. Yep. I like that. Actually, I put the pill in the peanut bread. You trick him every time, huh? I give him the peanut bag. Okay.

The window sticker did say one price advantage, but there was no one price. I told Lex, I thought this was the, I do, read the first sentence there. I told Lex, I thought this would be way out of my price range. Okay, I can read the next line. And he replied, not necessarily. He said he'd have to look at the price, so he pulled out his phone and opened an app. Smiley, he told me the price was a little over $34,000. I smiled back, asked him if there was any chance of it being discounted.

He said, the price could be. negotiated. So what is what is one price advantage mean? He didn't like discount. He said, yeah, you can't discount, but we'll negotiate. Lex excused himself to get the keys so we could take it out for a test drive. I would buy the car for just about five minutes before he got back, and we took it for a spin. On the drive, Lex told me what a hot product the new Bronco is right now. I told him I knew that. That's why I thought I couldn't afford it. I told him I hoped he was getting my I hope he wasn't getting my hopes up

we returned went back to sit at the same desk last asked me for the phone number I came up in the system that's where I get nervous and he asked me to verify if my address and my email record but sure enough they didn't bust agent lightning she'd been there before and as do pointed out earlier so many people come in and they don't buy it isn't a big deal they don't remember you if you don't buy and the other thing you know, notes, there's a lot of things these systems can do. But they don't do it. Most basically help use the basic things just to get them organized,

but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't get used. I confirmed everything was still the same. Lex asked if I was buying a finance or pay cash. I said cash, but wouldn't mind seeing some financing terms. You know, I tell people when they ask you that question, don't rule out financing. You don't have to say I'm going to finance, although I recommend you do, if you don't mind being a little devious.

When car dealers think they have a shot at you in the F&I department, that's where they make a lot of money financing the car. They'll come down in the negotiation a little lower because they know they're going to have the big shot at you with the financing. Not these days, but they'll lose money on the front end of a sale. Well, that's true. That's true, but they could still come down a little bit. Instead of $8,000.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying, but in the old days, they would lose money on the front end of the sale if they knew they were going to kill you in the box. Exactly, exactly. So word is, when you're going, if they don't rule out financing, say you're going to finance,

or at least you're considering financing, that'll make it a little easier to get some flexibility on their price that they hit you with up front. He stood up, said he'd be right back with my pricing. He returned with the worksheet, the top line was $34,000 to $2,000, same as the online listing sounds good so far but wait he added here we go

sixteen hundred and forty nine dollars add this up sixteen hundred forty nine dollars the certified activation fee that's what it was that's original yeah that's very typical to use car it's a certified car they're charging them for the warrant here but they're calling it a certified activation I like that that is a new one we should have a list of these I like that certified activation fee. $1,649. And then another $1999 for reconcone.

Reconditioning. Reconditioning. $240. $2.40 for Zurich Shield. We talk about shields and that kind of stuff. It's all nonsense. Zurich. Zurich has got, you know, Switzerland.

That's got to be honest. 132.95 in taxable fees. Taxable fees is the test. If they tax the fee, it's not a fee. It's a profit to the dealer. If you have to pay sales tax on it, it's not a legitimate fee. And here's the biggie, well, close to the biggie, $999 doc fee, $999 dock fee. So now here we've got $5,028.95 in extras.

That is a lot of extras, folks. So the real price, over the advertised price was nonsense. The real price was $39,256. Do you hear that, Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General? Break of the law. Not the one-price advantage, $34,228 as the ad claimed. I picked up a laminated sales prop touting one price and laughed, saying, so much for this.

Lex asked me what I'm thinking. I'm thinking I'm going to kill you with this laminated piece of paper. She should have said, I'm thinking you're a crook, but she didn't do that because she didn't want to be argumentative. I told him I thought that Miles were great, but the extras were not. He said he'll speak with his manager about what he could do. And, of course, Agent Lightning. Oh, I was going to say she walked.

She didn't walk. He went and got another worksheet. this time under the sale price or 34,228, there was a $3,897 discount. That's a big one. Came down $3897. Then they added the $1,449 certified, here we go, activation fee, the unique fee that we haven't heard the name of before, that's a certified use car warranty. And then 1999 Recon, Reconditioning, the $249, Zurich Shield, and the taxable fees of the $999.99.

So they took all the trash, the drunk fees, added back, which wiped out the $3897 discount. So now they're only $1,131 higher than the advertised price, the one price. So that was a nice drop they made. That's three prices. Yeah. It's the three price advantage. Yeah. I told Lex, I would have to think about it, and he walked me to the door.

I didn't even get to see the manager. Darn it. Okay, here's the end note. Grico's Brock Sport. Bronco. It's auto-correct, man. They go crazy, I mean, I apologize. Bronco is also, I like Brock.

Bronco sport is also listed on AutoTrader.com for 34,000. and 228, and it's a blue label certified gray price. We talked about that before. Auto-trader, shame on you. You're complicit. You guys are like been around. They're worse than complicit. They're pandering to the dealers because that's where they make their money.

And they're co-conspirators. Auto-trader, there's a class action suit, folks. Class action suit. It's so funny. You're right. They do take care of the dealers. I was just laughing. I go, our auto-trader rep texted me on Wednesday morning to ask.

me how I fare during the storm and went to make sure my family was safe. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the storm down here, guys, wasn't that bad. I go, you didn't even call me to see how I was doing. My own father. Well, I live on the ocean. Right. I didn't call you.

And I didn't get killed. So, it was a joke, yeah, the whole thing. People get mad at me when I met in my surrogates because of one on the other coast was terrible. Yeah, they can be bad. I just thought it's funny that my auditor-trader rep was worried about me. But anyway, I just, for some reason now, the anger in me is surging for auto-trader. Probably, because over the years I've really hyped auto-trader.

You know, they have every car listed. They are like the gathering spot in the world for car prices. And if you're looking for a car, it's still a good place to go to find a car. just remember the auto trader price is a lie and if they rate a dealer as having a low price it is a lie they don't probably even examine what the dealer is doing they don't know what the car is going to be and that's what they use that as an excuse all we know is what the dealer tells us well that is hear no evil see no evil speak to evil you know the dealer's lying to you they all they all all have the extra fees that they add in there. And because you're trying to make money by selling the dealer, you're afraid to offend him by getting the true price. Costco, I'll say, is still the only game in time.

Although it's awkward and to implement and understand and enforce, at least it's honest. They tell the dealer, if you have extra fees, you have to reveal it to the Costco. member and they sometimes do it, sometimes they don't, but at least there was effort made. Costco auto trader,

car guru, they make no effort whatsoever. It's voting time. I was rambling on there. We had a vote that came in from Jonathan Wellington the moment we said that we're shopping Greco, he gave him an F. That's not fair, Jonathan. They did get better, but he did say, Greco, stop,

say no more, automatic F. I think I'm going to say you were, you know, you were prescient in that F. So let me check over here on Facebook. We got some wows, but no grades. I'm going to fail them.

My grade is an F. It was a total bait and switch. Complete illegality. And it was just two bad weeks in a row. I'm disappointed. Okay, Rick. Got Negan 1. F plus, way too many fees.

But the plus is for the price drop. Okay. Donovan, D minus. so much for one price. Tim Gilliland, D minus, stay away. Rocky Blocketeel, I give them a D. Mark Smith, D. Tom Steckle, C, minus. They offset most of the junk fees. Scott Hunter, D. At least they adjusted the price, but still too many fees. Mark Ryan, D's D minus. Brian said Latko, don't walk to the door, run to the door. F. Extreme rides. D, their one price is one price plus thousands in junk fees. Rick, did you say a C-minus?

If you're streaming-us, you're looking at the Greco family. There's the boys. Okay. We're getting down to the wire as far as time is concerned. I say outrageous, shocking, shockingly bad, excessive. Attorney General, Ashley Moody, help us. Governor DeSantis, you can help too. Earl, your vote.

I got to give him a D. I'm not going to fail them. They're doing what everybody else is doing. Okay, ladies. Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for joining us this morning. Excuse me. As always, we'll be right back here next week, Saturday morning at 8 o'clock. Have a wonderful weekend.