Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.21.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Toyota

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Palm Beach Toyota in West Palm Beach to see if she can best deal possible on a 2021 Toyota Camry. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Here we are, and welcome back to all you records. We've billed over the past 17 years a really good following, and it's currently. not only in numbers, but geographically, I don't know how far I think we've been to Bali, so where I guess technically Earl Strow and Cars International, certainly all over the United States, California, Texas, Missouri, I think, I know we've been to Canada. So thanks for all our regulars,

and I hope we have some new folks out there. The idea is to build our audience. We have a mission, and you know that mission is to help you buy or lease a car, maintain and repair a car without taking advantage of. I use a term ripped off. That's offensive to some people, mainly car dealers, but that's the way it is.

We're operating in a retail group of car dealers. Car dealers are a group of retailers, I should say, that they're still operating in the mid to early 20th century. All the other retailers have kind of passed them in terms of trade practices, advertising. You can't believe in advertisement today for anything, really, but for a car dealer, you don't even want to look at it. My advice is just don't look at the advertising

because it is trying to trick you to come in. You know, the formula is very simple. Advertise a car well below the price that you can afford to sell it for. It's gotta be below your cost, would truly cost you to buy the car from the manufacturer because if you don't do that, all the other car dealers' advertisements will be lower than yours.

So you don't dare advertise a car with a price that's $1 higher in competition because then the, I hate to use the word sucker, but the person who is deceived will go to your competitor. So in order to drive the people to your dealership, and I'm speaking to car dealers now, you have to advertise a price that, nobody can possibly match, meaning your competition.

And that can't be a true price. So that's it in a nutshell. No control out there. The regulators are either have more important things on their minds or else they're afraid to offend car dealers because car dealers have a powerful lobbyist group. National Automobiles Dealers Association is, I believe, stronger than a national lifeless.

National Automobile Dealers Association is extremely powerful. And then the local associations, the Florida Automobile Association, the Colorado, the Ohio, every state, all 50 states have state associations. And then there are regional associations. We have a South Florida Dealers Association, a Tampa Dealer Association, a Jacksonville Deal Association, and the overall Florida. And all of these are packs. political action committees that pour cash into funds to re-elect your legislators.

And let me tell you, to cross the National Rifle Association for a politician is against a death. And to cross the National Automobiles Association by a politician is against a death to your business. So you support those folks that are paying your election, your reelection some. And that's where we are. So this show is one little voice in the wilderness to try to turn that ship in a different direction. And we're here to educate you, entertain you.

And we ask you to call the show first and foremost because we need to hear from you because you're giving, you keep us on top of what's current and what you need to know. We have a call in number 877-9-69-90-60. That's 877-960-99-60. get to write that number down. You might not have anything to calls for now. You might be busy on driving. You've got other things on your mind. But we're here for two hours from eight to

ten. If you listen to us for 15 or 20 minutes, that's about average. You'll think of something that will make your life a little bit easier. Maybe help us. We get a lot of information from our audience. 877-960-99-60. We have a text number. 772 or you. you code 4976530 text us at 772 4976530 or go to facebook we're on facebook Twitter YouTube.com forward slash Erwin cars YouTube.com forward slash Erlancars Twitter Periscope don't get much on Periscope but if you've got a periscope up out there give us a shout on Periscope we'll pick you up anywhere in the world and we'll try to answer your questions and we will stop yacking like I am right now to answer that telephone

when you call in. Please call in 877-960. I have to introduce Nancy Stewart, who is my co-host, and she is a female advocate on this show. She started with me on this show coming up on two decades ago and we're only a half an hour, and she's the female friend. She's trying to encourage more and more females to call the show. We're on a little bit of a slump now, so all you females out there heads up, Nancy Stewart has got an offer that you can't refuse. And you're not going to believe this.

It sounds like it's too good to be true, but she'll tell you about it. Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning. We definitely enjoy your company because you make the show. Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-996. or you can take advantage of our text number at 772-4976530.

And the ladies, I'm speaking to you, did your shopping experience go as you had planned it to in purchasing either a used car or a new car? I'd love to hear from you. And this morning, like every Saturday morning, we offer you the first two new lady call $50, yes, $50 this time of year, I know you can use it. So share your shopping experience with us, and absolutely, if you went into service, I'd love to hear from you and for you to share how that went. 877960-972-49-6530.

We're going to get to John in just a second. What would you like to do, world? Well, you take the caller. You want me to take John? Callers or gold. John is calling us from Palm City, and he's a regular caller. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone.

I just want to mention the big news of this week that just passed. General Motors, $27 billion would it be, spending for the next five years on electric vehicles and trucks it's a big move they're going to make a brand new battery plant near lordstown ohio it's going to employ 3,000 workers

they're hoping to get those batteries for a 450 mile range they're going to have 30 new models already the Cadillac SUV is announced for 2022 it's called a lyric fully electric and my opinion, and I would quote me, and I think it's going to happen,

even though Tesla is the leader right now, I think GM will be the leader in the electric carfield. I almost looked at it, if you remember last year, there was a movie. Ford versus Ferrari, I would say this will be Lex, I mean, Tesla versus GM. And here's why I really think that, because they're not hesitating. spend the money. They know the future is here, and $27 billion is a big outlay, so

they know what they must be doing. And other, like Volvo, they have a new electric vehicle out. Unfortunately, it's called a Palt Star, $61,000. If you remember, Volvo, 60 years ago, was noted for safety.

They were the first ones with the three-point seat belts. Everybody was buying Volvo's mainly because of the safety features that Volvo started before everyone else. So not that the electric vehicles are not without problems, but they'll be worked out. GM's latest recall is on the bolt, 2017 to 2019, 69,000 of the bolts are being recalled. They go on fire. The rear seat, nobody's been injured yet, but when the car is parked,

The car goes on fire. Tesla already had 30,000 cars. The Model S recalled from 917, 2012 to 115, 2018, with a suspension problem. So like everybody else, they have their recoil problems. Nobody's exempt from it. But my opinion, it can be quoted. I think GM will be the leader in the electric vehicle field. and I don't know if anybody agrees with me.

I wouldn't be surprised, John. I mean, that's a big company. Well, I don't know if you're a poker player, John, but $27 billion, we poker players, that's called All In. They just pushed all their net worth into the pot, and if they don't win the electric game, they're going to be out of business. There's going to be some major car dealerships,

dealerships, car manufacturers, I should say, around the world. Quite a few of them that won't be around. 10 years from today and they all know the game is I have to have a good electric vehicle and they're putting all in there they're risking everything to be in the race but we have too many manufacturers now and some of them are gonna make it you're rooting for General Motors and but you've still got some Ford is in there they're all in there everybody has decided it's all electric and they're they're all shoving all their chips into the pot absolutely

I agree with you. I used to be a very heavy GM fan. As a matter of fact, Lordstown, Ohio, I remember my 70 Chevel. I remember the pert to the order on it. It was built in a Lordstown, Ohio plant. It was a very big assembly plant at that time.

But like everything else, many and many of the plants were close through the years. But this is a big thing. With 3,000 workers, they attend a loan to employ in that area. Well, I've got Pontiac in my heart. That's where I started out. Gentle Motors, Pontiac, they're no longer here today, nor is Oldsmobile,

but General Motors are still here. So I kind of got a soft spot in my heart with GM. I'm rooting for them, too. I agree with you as an ex-Ponniac dealer. You'll have a good day. Thanks, John. Thank you, John. Thank you, John.

Thanks for calling very much. You stay safe and be well, and call back next week, please. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I have to mention one thing. I'm not going to go to Rick Kearney in a minute because he has a consumer report for us. It's going to be, instead of consumer reports, there's Rick Kearney reports on a product. And we want to start a whole branch of the show. I like that. Rick Kearney reports.

And before we get to Rick, and I'll give you a little heads up. I want to talk about mystery shopping, of course, and talk to Stu at just a second. But Rick is going to have a report for you on the C-foam. fuel additive, oil, fuel, additive. And it's very interesting, and it's something that we have always made fun of, where additives. We said additives are not worth the price you pay for them. I don't know the answer.

Rick wouldn't even tell me. I asked him earlier. He had the test results, but he wouldn't tell me. So it's going to be a surprise to me, too. Seafone, fuel, additive. Rick Carney reports in just a couple of minutes. now I want to talk to Stu about mystery shopping reports

we have to remember that a lot of folks out there haven't heard the show before I'm hoping there's a few hundred and maybe a few thousand people that just absolutely accidentally tuned in and here they are but we have something that is so exciting and unique our regular listeners know about it

and they love it but still give us a little synopsis of the mystery shopping report not on the particular one we're doing, but you know what I mean. Yeah, well, this started way back before I was on the show, I think it was 18 years ago about you and Nancy started it. The highlight of the show then, as now, was the mystery shopping report, and I was over at the dealership, and you'd give me a call,

and you'd tell me, I just saw an ad for so-and-so, send somebody in there and check it out, so we'd kind of scramble to find somebody. We'd maybe grab a salesperson or one of our employees or someone we knew a friend. And it was kind of disorganized, and we just sent them in. It takes a particular type of person, right? I mean, you just can't grab somebody off the street.

You've got to have, I can't use a term I'm thinking about, but you have to have courage. Yeah, we have to be fearless. I mean, I'm fearless in certain areas, but I don't think I could do a mystery shopping report. I mean, I'd be constantly worried about getting exposed and yelled at or kicked out or something like that. Our most successful investigators, and we all give them names like Agent X, agent. thunder so when you hear the report later today we refer to our shopper as agent lightning and uh obviously because we can't use the real name because they go to different dealerships every week and uh we started to uncover uh things that were only rumors and hearsay the things that you heard from

consumers and after we have so much data that you have to say the things you hear us say on the show these are not our opinions we give our opinions but when we say car dealers are doing x y or z they are X, Y, and Z. Yeah, and that data is in the archives at earluncars.com. So they have hundreds? There's hundreds of them, but that's only part of it because I would say for the first eight to ten years you're doing this, we weren't saving these. They might be printed out, stapled together in my desk in a giant pile somewhere,

so maybe one day I'll actually look for them. But electronically, we have hundreds of PDF files that have detailed reports of what's going in in car dealerships in our area and beyond. We've done one in Pensacola, that was our long-distance shop. And for those of our listeners who are not familiar with Florida, that's like another part of the country from where we are. We're 600, 700 miles away. It's practically Alabama.

All your plaintiff's lawyers out there, you go to earlancars.com and click on the mystery shopping reports, huge amount of data for a lawsuit. So if you want to sue me, all you plaintiff's lawyers out there, you can go through all these mystery shopping reports because we named the dealerships, and we named the people, the sales manager, the salesman, and we said what they did is sometimes we said

they broke the law or they lied. So we said all sorts of things that could be libelous, slanderous. So if you want to sue me, attention lawyers, go to earluncars.com mystery shopping reports. We have hundreds of possible lawsuits for you. Yeah, you love dancing on the edge, don't you? Come on. But it's true.

I mean, there's been ample opportunity. I mean, there's a couple of reasons why. one, you know, we are calling balls and strikes. I mentioned that in the report today. We're not making things up. What we see, we put down in the report and you read it. Another reason, I think, is even if a dealer really thought we got something wrong, I don't think he wants to have in a public forum their forums and their advertising

and all their practices exposed being a part of public record because it doesn't look good for them. So, but let me, one, I have to say this, we have a ton of mystery shopping reports, not the majority, in which we left with a great, warm, fuzzy feeling. They did a great job. For example, two weeks ago, we mystery shopped Infinity of Stewart, and we fell in love with the place. We're recommending people. They got to go there.

The salesperson was great. They were honest, and it was a good experience. And surprisingly, we have a few of those in the archives, and you can read about those as well. We don't go in with a predetermined conclusion of what they're going to do. We don't know. In some cases, we go to a dealership, and they do terrible. we go back a few months later

and they do a wonderful job and take care of the customer and part of the problem with car dealers today is you can have a pretty good policy but if you have the salesman that says to hell with a policy then you can really get taken advantage of so a dealership might have all the good

intentions in the world but they might have a rotten apple in the barrel and on mystery shopper it's that rotten apple or the other the opposite is true a car dealership that really has some bad practices every now and then we stumble across a really honest salesperson.

They say, they'll say, you know, I hate this advertising. It's bait and switch. I don't like what the dealer's doing here. I need the job. I promise you, I'll get you a really good price, and I'll be transparent with you, and they are. It's never the same. Well, the bad apple thing is absolutely true.

I mean, and that's why we mystery shop, our dealership as well. Now, we don't read them on the show because most of them are really good. We don't want to be so self-reflective, but we do it for our own internal, for management, and we shop. And I have to say that hence, the good dealer, bad dealer list was created, and it is all facts, not fiction. We are going to go to Howard, who is holding, and Howard, too, is a regular caller. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning. I hope you're all keeping you safe. Yes. Thank you. Well, okay. My question is about batteries. I noticed that years ago, when we had batteries, we used to fill them up with, you know, check them all the time.

We didn't put distilled water. We used to have a little cup or something, you know, a little contraption to put the distilled water in batteries. Nobody checks batteries anymore. No dealership checks, checks these batteries. and half the batteries are sealed. Now, my question is, what's the difference between a sealed battery and the battery that you could actually see

the distilled the water in there and fill it up and which is a better battery? And why do they make batteries this way anymore? Why don't they make them all sealed? Correct. Well, the fact is that And at our dealership, and I'm not meaning to sound the horns here, but we do check the batteries. We test them quite often with the electronic testers, and yes, I do top off the batteries that do not have sealed caps.

If they have caps that I can remove to check the water level, I will top it off a little bit. Sealed maintenance-free batteries are just simply a design that they actually have little, like, vents in them, that as the water heats up in the acid and it tries to vaporize the water off, they actually have a little spot where it condenses back and lets it flow back into the chambers. The non-sealed ones are allowed to vent it out to the atmosphere so that water is lost to the atmosphere.

I didn't know that. It's amazing. I've only been to the business 55 years, and I didn't know that. Rick, you're amazing. Well, it just, it's something they tried, and it works pretty well. But modern batteries have reached the point now where if you are a driver, if you're someone that you do put some miles on the car every day and the battery gets a chance to be properly recharged from the time when you start the car, those batteries can last an amazing amount of time.

I've seen batteries, I'll take my own personal vehicle, as a matter of fact. It is now eight years old and I'm only on my second battery. the first original battery and my second battery. And I drive, on average, 50 miles a day going back and forth to work with a lot of it being on the turnpike. So it's highway miles that gives it a chance for the battery to get fully recharged and keeps it in good health. That's right.

Howard, does that answer your question? I just want to say that you're the only dealership that checks batteries. Well, you'd be surprised there are a lot of things that... if they say they check and we're not perfect i mean we sometimes we miss i go back to what i said earlier about rotten apples uh if you if any business is really busy even Costco uh you're gonna find people that drop the ball so i'm not perfect at all i'm not true rick you're perfect but yeah there's a question of some people are more perfect and some people less perfect there's no such thing as a perfect retail business especially a car dealer but you're

right about check sheets check sheets you know they'll advertise you have a 25 or a 35 or a 50 point inspection and they say they did it I guarantee you and most they're only as good as the checker it doesn't happen it doesn't happen they don't go through the checks what they will do is they'll check for something that they can do that's going to cost you a lot of money but yeah if everything looks okay they're not going to be checking the tire pressure the battery a lot of other things that they should check, but you're correct, Howard. Okay, one other question, concerning batteries.

Now, when they're going to have electric cars, let's say 10 years from now, and they're going to have them all over, and let's say gasoline gets less popular with people, they've been buying electric cars, how will the infrastructure handle this so that you could charge your battery, and how long would it take the charge? a battery. I mean, half an hour, to me, it seems like, I mean, too long. It takes like five or ten minutes, maybe 15 minutes at most to fill up a gas tank. So, Rick, what do you think about the future of electric batteries as far as the infrastructure and about the time it will take to charge a battery? We used to worry about that, Howard, but Elon Musk has

got a battery now that will last a million miles. And I think the charging, well, the range is extended, yeah. The charging is something like 500 or 600 miles. We reach the point now where unless you're a long-distance driver from coast to coast, you don't need to worry about a charging station. The average American will be able to take his car, plug it into his garage when he goes home, and there will be enough charging stations to take care of it. It's the battery technology has trumped the infrastructure problem,

and the battery will allow you to go just about anywhere unless you live in the Sahara Desert. You just can't do what I do. I'm coming home from work, I'm on E, I'm too tired, I want to guess. I'll just do it in the morning. Now you've got to do it on the way home. Well, they'll be an automatic charger. You'll be, you'll have induced charging from your garage floor. I mean, trust me, infrastructure is not going to be a,

problem and I predict we're gonna have serious electric cars on the road in five years not ten years I think we're gonna see they're even working on on roadways that can charge the vehicle as they drive over you know right I was about to say with the roadways using inductive charging suppose as you pull into your driveway or you're into your garage you simply have a mat yeah it's already connected to your electric so when your car pulls over that mat and you park it inductively charges right into your battery system overnight as much as it needs anything that you can imagine is possible

through technology and that's if you think I'm crazy think of something and and then and then Google it think of something that you say boy it sure would be nice if we had a product of the day this little aside every time I've come up with a brilliant invention I've googled it and somebody already is working on it well or it's already out there I bought stuff on Amazon that I didn't know existed it and so yeah Howard, I'm like you, five years ago, I would have believed that it's just going to be too long. You know, we talked about infrastructure for hydrogen charging stations, infrastructure for just plug-in stations, infrastructure.

Don't need the infrastructure when you have an electric car that can go 500 or 600 miles, you know, last for a million miles. But it's coming anyway. It's coming. Yeah, it's going to happen side by side. I don't think there's going to be a problem. You know, speaking of Howard, have we answered all your questions? Great. You certainly did, and I appreciate all the help you give me, and you give your listeners. And keep safe, and I'll talk to you next week.

Thanks, Howard. Thank you very much. Thanks for being part of the show. We really appreciate you calling us every Saturday. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Speaking of batteries and technology, I'm going to share my story about my battery. And we've called, it's gotten so bad that we've called upon Alexa to remind us.

My car sat for almost a week and it was, my battery was dead. And what a huge inconvenience. And you, in this fast-paced world and with the pandemic, you just, you know, you just forget. I think that Stu alluded to the fact that he pulls in and he says, you know, tomorrow I'll do this. this or that, and the same applies for me. So now we've called upon Alexa to remind me to take my car out. We're fortunate enough to have two cars in the garage, and Earl's car, his Lexus, gets used a whole lot more than my Avalon.

So I made a note of that, and Alexa's going to remind us. Let's not forget we got Rick waiting over here to do his Rick Kearney Consumer Report on C-Fone. fuel additive. We had a call or call in and talk about how good it was and claimed better gas mileage through the running engine. I thought it was nonsense. I went to Amazon. I Google the product. It had hundreds of reviews. It had close to a five-star review. But we always thought gas entities are BS. Rick reports. Before we get to that, I got one quick YouTube question for you, Earl. Okay. Nagan 1 says, good morning, Earl.

I have a friend that searching for a used car. She commutes 200 miles a day. Her budget is around $10,000. And she asked my opinion, I told her an Accura or Honda, with 100,000 miles on average, would be a good used car for her. What's your opinion? You can't go wrong. Accra, Honda.

I would say Japanese and Korean makes are your best bet. Check consumer reports. but Honda is going to be, you'll probably fund Honda for $10,000 sooner than an Accura. And you get a good maintain Honda, check the Carfax, have an independent mechanic, check it out, and you can get a good reliable car for $10,000. Okay. Okay. C-foam.

Here's my report, quick and simple. I started off by getting a baseline reading on my pickup for fueling. economy. And my truck got approximately around 16.3 miles per gallon right at the beginning. Okay, and before we get into that for the new people that you're supposed to get this, see foam comes in a can, you get it on Amazon. What's, I should know this, what's a can of see foam cost you? One can, 16 ounces, is about $8. Okay, and you pour that, they tell you to pour it into your gas tank. It's recommended to use no more than one ounce per gallon of fuel. and approximately one ounce per quart of oil poured into the crank case.

Okay. Now, while I was doing this test drive, because I actually did one full tank just as an immediate baseline figure, then I did three tanks, or I beg your part, two full tanks, and I'm on the third tank now, to test what the increase in fuel economy would be, and at the same time, I used my scan tool to record all my sensor data readings over several test drives,

so I could look and see, you know, what things might change on my vehicle. Very cool. Now, my truck is a 2013 V6 automatic transmission pickup with 120-some thousand miles on it. Okay. So it is an older vehicle, but I do take pretty good care of it. And I also drive a lot of highway driving, so I'm on the turnpike quite a bit. So this may have a big factor in this. Okay.

In the meantime, while I'm doing this, I also went online to use. YouTube and did a lot of research on what other people had done testing and what their results were and to see what everybody felt was the proper application as well as using C-foam's own recommendations of what was needed to be done to use this product properly. And I found there's actually three steps recommended, not just two. The first, of course, C-foam in the gas. The second, C-foam in the oil. The third is actually a spray can of seafone cleaner product that you spray onto the throttle plate. Now this requires a little bit of work because you've got to disconnect the air hose from the throttle body of the car and spray this product onto the throttle plate.

And in a lot of cases they actually have a special straw piece that they want you to hook it up, put the hose back on with this straw in place, run the car at a certain idle rate above idle and then spray this chemical in a little bits at a time. So it takes a bit of work and a bit of time. And what this is supposed to do is remove any carbon deposits on the throttle body itself and let it help clean through the induction system. I can see all the car dealers out there in the audience right now saying, hmm, seafone $9.99.

That's going to look real nice on an addendum label. Okay. Of course, one of the big things that you see in all the videos is they focus on the exhaust pipe and you see this clouds of white smoke coming out as it's supposedly burning this carbon off and, of course, then the smoke clears up over time. Oh, that's where the seafoom name came around. It blows white smoke out. Nope.

No. The seafone name actually came from the fact that the product was originally designed to be used in outboard marine engines that were two-cycle engines, where the gas and oil are mixed together. I got you. And, of course, with gas and oil mixed together in two-cycle engines, you get a lot of carbon build-up. So the carbon build-up in the engine, the seafone product,

worked really well to clean out those outboard engines. However, now we're talking modern cars that are four-cycle. The oil and gas stay pretty much separated. I can't wait. Tell me what happened. Well, except for where the oil residue gets drawn through the PCB. valve. It's important, I'll get to that in a second, but it's important to remember that the PCB valve is actually drawing vapors from the crank case up into the intake. I can't take it. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Now comes the end result of what I got. Okay. My second tank of fuel, which was the first full tank with seafone, was 17.5 gallons, or 17.5 miles per gallon, an increase of about 1.2. The third tank, I actually got up to 18.9 miles per gallon. So I did get a little over 2.5 miles per gallon increase in fuel economy. And you were driving that in the exact same manner? Pretty much exact same manner. Some days might be a little more in the city. There were some days instead of driving home on the turnpike, I'd go over and drive home along the ocean. Have you calculated that into cost savings and fuel for tank full?

When you fill up with a tank, how much money does that save you? Two and a half miles per gallon? Two and a half miles per gallon is probably going to save you about two to three dollars per tank full. Really? Wow. At the most. Now here's where it gets a little more interesting. The YouTube channels that I looked at were such ones as

Project Farm, Nate's Interactive Audio, one road, and I believe it was farm truck was another one. They all used older vehicles, much older vehicles that had like dirty engines inside, a lot of carbon buildup, and older, older cars, not quite comparable to most of our audience, which newer cars using fuel injection systems and they don't have lifters anymore. there's a big design change in the engines. Here's my comparison. Seafone is recommended to be used about every other tank full in the fuel

and is recommended to be used in your oil as often as you can. So I calculate it out over 30,000 miles you would drive, say you get 450 miles per tank full. Now my truck only gets about 320 because it's a pickup truck. If you're comparing to say a Camry or Corolla or mid-sized sedan, you'd get around 450 miles for tank full on average, which is the equivalent of about 66 tanks of fuel for 30,000 miles. Running figure one can every other

tank full plus one can of the $10 spray for a 30,000 mile period, you're going to spend about $280 to $320 for seafone product itself. Then there's also the latest. factor of doing that throttle body cleaning with the spray cam. To me, my honest opinion, going to a mechanic once every 30,000 miles and having them clean your throttle body would cost around $100 to $150. Okay.

So the seafone looks to me like it's going to be almost double that amount to use seafone product. Oh. did not see enough of a fuel increase, fuel economy increase, even at two miles per gallon, which, bear in mind, per tankful, fuel economy can vary as much as two to three to five miles per gallon per tankful, depending on how you're driving your vehicle over that length of time. So the Rick Kearney does not recommend safe room.

And in agreement with me is a fellow who I kind of respect this guy on YouTube, a guy by the name of Scotty Kilmer. We've heard his name quite a few times. Got introduced to him by Tina from Benita Springs, one of our favorite callers. Unfortunately, her work schedule doesn't allow her to call us often anymore.

And the basic opinion is and one of the things that I noticed a lot of these channels did, they used a boroscope to go in through the spark plug holes on these engines and examine the carbon buildup inside the engines. Most modern

cars. When you look at them with a boroscope, you'll see a small amount of carbon on the pistons building up over 50 to 100,000 miles. But it's not nearly as much anymore because gasoline is a fantastic solvent. And with normal injected engines, the gasoline is injected right onto the intake valve, which cleans that intake valve off. You're getting too technical here. And it cleans the combustion chamber. I have a perfect visual of what's going on. I'm inside an engine right there. But the point, the bottom line is, do not recommend C-foam on our economic cost basis. Except for one particular system. If you have a much older car and your car is starting to make some rattley noises in the engine and you do have a lack of power in that, I would

recommend give it a try one time with one bottle in a tank, a small. A small. amount added to the oil, follow the manufacturer's recommendations with seafone, and try the spray in through the throttle body. You're looking at a full outlay of parts, you're looking at about $15 to $20 at the most, and a little bit of time to set it up to spray in on that throttle plate. And in a lot of cases, I think on these older cars, doing it once will make a small difference in a lot of cars as long as the engine is not ready to just simply give up the ghost and expire. Well, thank you, Rick.

I mean, that was a fantastic report. I'm not to be careful. Consumer Reports has loved to hire you away from me. I'm telling you. Put you on the staff. And that's why we called them Rick Reports. Just to close it out, the reason I think you might see a lot of those positive reviews on Amazon and a lot of really big numbers popping up there is because a lot of these

YouTube channels, like one, Project Farm. as a matter of fact a couple of them their video on seafone where they showed a dramatic increase by you know using these old vehicles had over a million views so if you've got one million people have watched that video yeah and 10% of them buy seafoom and try it that's 100,000 and if 10% of those leave a review that's 10,000 reviews absolutely and people that listen to Rick reports you already recommended it to try it once so if 10 million people try it once I'm gonna buy some stock and see foam but you're right it's a it's a product that works but it doesn't work it well enough to pay for the cost in general it

has a specific place yeah but I again my recommendation is about every 30,000 miles have your mechanic clean your throttle body and I think you'll see just as good a change in your systems and you'll see that car out remember you heard it here first on Earl Stewart on cars you have a product that you'd like tested I recommend it to us to test and we'll submit it to Rick and you'll hear about on Rick reports we'll see if there's a question something is popular that seems to be selling well as good reviews but you're dubious we'll be happy to have Rick take a look at it yeah and you know you guys we've we've been

sitting here and we've been jotting down notes while Rick Talks. If you didn't, you can definitely tune in to YouTube. You can go to Stitcher Radio. You can go to Apple Podcast, Facebook, and you can listen to this show that we're doing live right now. That was amazing, Rick. I think you're a candidate for 60 minutes. Okay. I forgot to announce to everyone when we came on the air that you can take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. Oh, yeah. Your anonymous feedback.com. Take advantage of it. You can voice your opinion, and you remain anonymous. And I will repeat for the ladies, I'd love to hear from you, how your service went. Maybe you purchased a vehicle.

Share it with us, whether it's inspiring or it's a bad one. And we have a gift for you. First two new lady callers, get yourself $50. take advantage of that this morning and give us a call tool-free at 877-960-99-60 now back to the recovering car dealer well let's get there to the text on the e-tubbs we had quite a few anonymous feedback responses we didn't get to last week so we'll jump to theirs but before I do that there's one a text that just came in which you got to hear there's no name on it it just says I got a mailer from southern 441 Toyota this week offering a free turkey and ham certificate not a free turkey or a ham just a certificate in the fine

print i can receive a ten dollar discount off the purchase of a turkey or a ham the initial impression was clearly that i would get a free turkey or ham if i shopped a southern 441 Toyota but this is something you can put on your website ain't going to happen dot com i laugh it because um somebody brought me that same mailer a couple of days ago and I read it and it's it's true technically if you go to Southern 441 Toyota you'll get a free certificate that gives you $10 off if you choose somewhere to purchase the turkey or ham but I thought that was kind of cute so you can accept all credit applications exactly so you're saying that you read that literally you can walk into that dealership yes and say give me a certificate you're not going to purchase the car you're not just I

You saw your, you know, advertisement for a $10 coupon. I don't know what the process is to get your $10. Maybe you have to mail it into some clearinghouse somewhere and someday in the future you'll get a check for $10. I don't know. But I thought it was pretty clever. I got a question for Rick. Sounds like a turkey of a deal. It is.

It's a turkey of a deal. Rick, why do hybrids get better mileage and city driving instead of highway driving? Because when you're driving in the city, the hybrid system can. shut off the gasoline engine while you're coasting and stopping at traffic lights, saving a whole bunch of fuel, versus driving on the highway where the engine has to keep running a lot more often in order to provide energy to keep driving the car. Can I add to that? Also, when you take your foot off the accelerator and you decelerate,

the deceleration actually adds additional charge to the battery. Regenerative braking, yes, sir. There you go. Okay, for some reason I just got kicked off the end. internet oh I'm back on the internet oh no that's a frightening thing while we're on uh here we are really yeah let me get well that close off but I got more I got more stuff here um a fruit a few months ago you mentioned a brand of dash cam what was that again and do you guys still use one you know I'm gonna withdraw my endorsement I have an owl dash cam that I raved about and raved about

and it's okay but I'm going to get rid of it when it worked for I guess a couple of years and I just don't feel like messing with it anymore I've had it in I've had Martin Vargas look at it a couple times and he's

a guy in our parts department's a genius on webcam so it just didn't live up to your expectations I'm waiting for the new ring dash cam to come out ring yeah they can make one ring has a new dash cam to come out which are they doing one or are you is hoping they do oh they are they've announced

it and I'm going to replace my owl with the ring dash cam yeah now I'm not using one either but the problem is I changed cars and my windshield is too small the task cam blocks my view so yeah I can understand that would you say it's the ring would be more people friendly

uh probably I mean they're owned by Google so uh Amazon Amazon I know it was one day but the cool thing is I if you get it I'm going to assume it integrate with your ring system. So if you have a ring camera system at your house, you have an app, you can see all your cameras. You can probably see at a glance your car stuff and be part of the whole system. Make it easier. I run a dash cam by a company called Viofo, V-I-O-F-O-F-O. So it's going to, I can't see. Victor, Indigo, Oscar, Frank,

Oscar. And mine is actually a dual camera. I have one that faces out the front. windshield. The other one is mounted on my back window to face out the back area so I can record front and rear simultaneously. It does record onto an SD card. However, this company also has an app where I can use my phone to connect to the camera at any time if I want to to see it and does not require any subscription costs or monthly cost. So once you purchase it and install it, it's in. And I have it hardwired in directly to my electrical system. system so that when I start the engine the camera automatically comes on but also if it detects any sort of an impact while it's sitting still with the engine off it has a battery

life and it will start up immediately and begin recording so an impact would cause it to automatically begin recording to try to see you know what hit my truck I'll check it out okay I want to check it out too do you think it would work in that little tiny windshield I got you certain to take a look at the size of it because it's a very small camera And at the minimum, you'd be able to put the little back window camera up there, which is a much smaller unit as well. Interesting. Before we go any further, I'm going to mention Earl's vigilantes, and we're having a whole lot of fun with that. And, you know, I have to ask you if you consider yourself an auto expert, and are you tired of all the dishonesty out there?

Well, you can help us. You can help us. You can help your community. and you can sign up at earlsvigilantes.com and help out big time. You know what we need to do, Stu, we need to have some sort of identification, a card, a hat, a t-shirt, identification of the vigilante, but all of you vigilantes have already sound up. We have, what, about a dozen, Stu, we need to get them a, I thought, what do you think, I had our shirt. Let's quit talking about it and let's come up with something because we want to reward them for their participation.

And you don't have to be a great expert on how to buy a car, lease a car, repair a car. You should know something about it. You may be listening to the show regularly. And then if you want to call one of us on the show, we will coordinate with your victim that you're trying to help in whatever state. but we want vigilantes in all states, and no matter what part of the world you live in, check out Earlsvigilantes.com, www.w.w.orgulanties.com.

Yeah, absolutely. And as Earl said, well, he didn't say this, but I said it, you don't have to be able to take the engine apart to do your part. And if you're just an auto expert, take advantage of that and get us some information to be helping a whole lot of people. people that's girls vigilantes.com we are going to go to a first-time caller from hope sound and her name is amy welcome to the show amy thank you how are you congratulations you are a first-time caller we're all very excited well great and you won yourself

fifty dollars very nice thank you What can we do for you? Well, my husband and I purchased a Ravre 4 from Earl Stewart in July, and it was a very pleasant and positive experience. And I have to tell you, part of it that made it even more enjoyable was the fact that everybody was wearing masks at that time, and we had been to another dealership where they were not. So that was one part of the very positive experience. So I have a question regarding the fuel pump recall. Okay.

Will we be getting a postcard or something to bring the car in for that repair, or is it the kind of thing where we have to wait for a problem and then bring it in? Or is there a plan for that? Yeah, they'll be notifying owners. However, Earl can address that. There is a process, but there are situations where we can be flexible. There's a Toyota gives us a whole process of ordering the part, but they're not so rigid that we can't help people out a little bit sooner or if you want to jump in on that. Well, until a fuel pump is available, if you feel uncomfortable driving the car, driving the car, because theoretically, worst case scenario, if it failed and you were on the highway, the car would not run.

It would basically come to a stop. And that can be exciting on $9.95 at rush hour. So I'm not trying to frighten you, but if you feel uncomfortable, we will provide a loaner car, courtesy of Toyota, and we will be able to let you drive that vehicle safely until we get your car fixed, and the fuel pump does come in. Okay. Another question is regarding the warranty, if you don't mind. We're not driving right now due to the pandemic. And it's not likely that we're going to hit the 5,000 miles on our warranty for the six months.

Does that negate anything or should we just bring it in in the six-month period regardless? We recommend that you bring it in according to the manufacturer's recommendations, which is 12 months or 10,000 miles. and every six months for tire rotation and balance. We're flexible and some people feel uncomfortable about bringing their car in during the COVID situation, particularly the elderly or people with underlying conditions. And we're flexible on that and so is Toyota.

And so we're all the manufacturers, Honda, the General Motors. Nobody who's loading through this COVID thing doesn't understand why you might not want to come into a public place, a service department and wait in the service drive by the customer lounge or any place else. So if that's the way you feel, the manufacturer will let a slide, you're not going to affect your warranty in any way. Your warranty will be good, and then when you feel comfortable coming in

and you can catch up on your service, you'll be right back to normal. That sounds great. Well, thank you. Very glad that you guys are there, and as I said, it was a very pleasant experience, purchasing our car there. Thank you, Amy. Stay safe and be well. Amy, thank you so much for calling

and being a first-time caller and tell your lady friends about us. They too can win themselves $50. Okay. And make sure you leave your contact information. Have a happy Thanksgiving, and thank you again. Okay, let's get back to the... Anonymous feedback.

Okay. Hello, I saw I used 2019 to a Cemetery, not certified used, and it was about two. thousand more than a similar one same year make mile and trim in color at a Honda dealership why does it cost more to at a Toyota dealership I couldn't jump into that one example is kind of hard to use that to say that that's the case every time every dealership will appraise a vehicle or purchase a vehicle and that price will vary over time I mean it's possible that the Toyota dealer just

had too much money in the to begin with. They could have purchased or traded that car in a year ago and it's been sitting there in the lot and they're trying to sell it and not lose money. But every used car is different and so there's always going to be a range of things. I don't know if it's true to say that they're always more expensive at a Toyota dealership.

Actually, it should be the other way around. The basic reason is that car dealers charge for a used or a new car, for that matter, as much as they can. And some car dealerships will mark a used car up $4,000 or $5,000, maybe 10,000. Other dealers will mark it up 1,000 or 2,000. There's more uniform pricing now because of the databases available.

We are now able to, there's a company called V Auto that we use, most all car dealers do, that gives you the market price and every market in the USA. So if you're shopping for a car in Port St. Lucie or Cleveland, Ohio, or wherever it may be, you go to V Auto and they will tell you that this particular Toyota Camry, 2019 or whatever, the market value is this. Some people will follow that recommendation. Some people will raise the price beyond that to try to make more money. And when you raise the price above what you expect to get, it gives you more room to use on trade and allowance. on the trade end, and then you can offer a bigger discount.

So the car business is crazy. There's no rhyme nor reason why a dealer asked a price. There's a rhyme or reason why they sell it a certain price, but Toyota dealer will typically be able to sell a Toyota for more money because more Toyota dealers because they traded more Toyotas and they have better access to Toyota trade-ins. If you want to get a good price on a Honda, go to a Honda dealer, use car manager. If you want to get a good price on a Chevrolet, sell it, you go to a Chevrolet dealers.

They're more familiar with it. They can give you more accurate appraisal. Another factor is also that nearly all dealers change their price based on the amount of time it has an inventory. They've had an inventory. So the first few days in the lot or the first five days, they might even try to sell it or list it for above the market average. and then the longer they have it, they lower it down. So you could have seen a fresh Toyota unit at the Toyota dealership and an older one at the Honda dealership.

Yep. Okay. Here's a question, and it was for Rick. Rick's already answered about a little answer on the air. This is from a week ago. Can your dealership are all served as vintage Toyotas from the 70s and 80s? And Rick has weighed in. Well, we do have one guy at the shop that has been there since 1978.

so yeah we can handle those it may take a little longer to find parts for them right but we can do it we actually have a guy that was was working on those cars when they were brand new yeah because he's vintage himself and this guy happens to be an incredible certified master diagnostic technician that can fix anything and so he's an outstanding technician and Rick's being modest his name is yeah his name is Glenn Ballard and we got Glenn Ballard and Rick Kernie yeah we got two guys they can do that and our glint's been there longer than you have i i learned under glennie you know what a what a statement

what a statement to make but we know but we stumped them both when we took the 1937 pontiac in and rick had the scratch his head and sort of glens so if we have any that's like bringing a locomotive like a steam engine or any 90 year old or 90 year old technicians out there or maybe it had to be a hundred year a hundred year old technician to work on that car but he did the job amazing Glenn and Rick. Would C-Foam work well in that old Pontiac? I wouldn't recommend putting that in that. That Pontiac needs some TLC, but it needs someone that knows that old system on that car.

Okay. Just like the human body. Okay, folks, give us a call toll-free at 877-960. And you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't Forget Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Lake Worth where Dennis has been holding. Good morning, Dennis. Good morning, everyone.

I have a little story I read the other day, and I know Nancy, you and Earl are both devotees to Consumer Reports, and they had a little news thing that came on my tablet that said that Consumer Reports has now dropped completely the recommendation on one Tesla model, and I guess what it said, panned, a brand-new model, which is a Y model. So I know they kind of go off and on on Tesla, so I thought that was interesting. And yet the Tesla stock doesn't suffer at all, so it tells you something about why people buy cars.

There's a charisma, a halo around Elon Musk and Tesla, and appears he can do no wrong, but he's a very smart guy and he builds a great product, but they cut them a lot of slack. I'm really surprised when Consumer Report gives him a negative. and I almost bought a Tesla a long time ago, and it was a little bit after that, the Consumer Report gave them their first negative. They vacillate because Consumer Reports at one time gave Tesla a perfect score, a 100 recommend,

which they'd never give into any car before. Now they're not even recommending them at all, so it's interesting. Yeah, I thought it was, and especially, I don't know what this Model Y is, but I guess they must have really, by the word panned, must have really trashed the model Y, I'm assuming. What is the model Y? I don't know. I think it was a brand new model. I think it was a model Y because it said they panned a new model that just came out.

And that's what I just saw a little thing. I didn't go to Consumer Reports and read it. And I know you and Nancy are big on reading it, so I thought you might have a more depth of the knowledge. And I got just from the little blip that I read. What research did, Dennis? It looks a little bit. I think it's average MSPs around $37,000, $38,000. And it looks similar to the Model 3, a little bit kind of like a small SUV-looking one. As a matter of fact, you speak of Elon Musk with his, he always seems to have a little something up his sleeve.

If you think about the models of Tesla, they've come out. The first was the Model S, then the Model 3, then the Model X. and now the model Y. And if you were to picture those four putting a nice little line there, Candice looks like the word sexy. That's interesting. That's backwards three, model X, Y, yeah.

And then they have the roadster, so it's sexier. No, but it's been on the Internet. That's the Y first was announced. And the roaster fits in there because that's the R, so it's sexier. Yep. Tesla's more sexier. Okay.

Well, thank you. I just thought I'd see if you guys do more than I could figure out. But anyway, everybody, have a nice Thanksgiving. Thank you, Dennis. I'll say it again, the human mind. You know, I think for Elon, he comes across maybe just, you know, he's so sure of himself and he knows what's ahead and what he, he has a plan at every corner he has a plan. And I think a lot of people find him a little intimidating. And that's why they give him such a rough time.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. I have to mention this, I think Rick probably knows about this. Up with Traditions, did you notice that they have a driverless car up there? A van, I guess you might call it. it up there in the Treasure Coast. I was not aware of that, but it doesn't surprise me. Yeah, it was a very interesting news clip that they had on an autonomous shuttle that's provided by Beep, if you've heard of them.

So it's an interesting clip, pull it up, guys. You can probably Google that. Who are we going back to? Rick has a YouTube. Well, I've got an interesting one here from Donovan, Donovan Lewis. He says, V Auto is a problem because it's owned by Cox Automotive. So you have one company that owns the software that tells you real-time value. Then what the car is worth to consumers on Kelly Blue Book and where to buy them an auto trader.

This is where the government is failing because they have the ability to influence prices. Cox Auto needs to be broken up. One company owns way too much in the car buying, pricing, and management business. Well, this is true. It worries me a lot. I speak about J.D. Power. A lot of dealers brag about their J.D. Power award and J.D. Power has a lot of affiliations and, you know, cross agreements with dealers and manufacturers. They accept money from manufacturers and from dealers. The reason I talk about consumer reports until it makes you sick, and I'm sorry, but they're the only game. in town. I mean, they're not perfect, and they make mistakes, but the one thing you have to say about consumer reports, they accept nothing from anybody, except you, the reader. I mean, they take donations, and they are non-profit. They will not even get a break on a car. They buy the test. If they want to test a Chevrolet, they go to a Chevrolet dealership undercover, and they buy it

just like you, and they're not beholding to anybody. You're not even allowed to advertise, that consumer sports endorses this product. So they are pristine in terms of morals and transparency. And I think this thing with Kachado is very suspicious. I don't like it. I'm not saying it's influencing anything, but I don't like the cross-fertilization here in the whole evaluation process.

And Guy Larrabee, he's got a great question for you. He says, I flew in from Canada on Monday. Palm Beach, Toyota, across from the airport, advertises Camrys for $1999.99. What a deal. I couldn't stop because I was on the shuttle. Is that possible $19.99 for a Camry? It is if I buy a use one. Yeah.

Well, this is what I said earlier in the show. Any advertisement by any car dealer is a lie. Isn't it a sad statement? This is my profession. This is my life. I've been in the car business since 1968, and my family's in the car business. And it's embarrassing to me that I have to make a statement like that on radio, television, YouTube, and Facebook. Car dealers lie.

And you can't buy that Camry for 1999, and they're going to add $1,000, over $1,000 in hidden fees. And as Stu just said, I use Camry, not a new Camry, and that's in the fine print. And it's a game of get you in the door and then screw you. And that's the way. Been many years since you could buy a brand new Camry for under $20,000. Yeah. And it's a sad situation. We have a lot of legislators listening to the show.

We have regulators listening to the show. You're sitting on your hands and you won't act because you're afraid of big auto. And that's a big auto manufacturer and big auto dealer. If you come after an automobile dealer group, you won't get reelected. Our Attorney General will not take action, and I, you know, you think she'd at least send me an email and say, I'm sorry, but she doesn't. And that's where we are. Gallup Annual Gallup Association and their annual Honesty and Ethics and Professions ranks Car dealers last. So I'm on a ran, I'm going to shut up.

Let's get back to the text. Let me mention for a minute about the Attorney General. And what a job she does. And, you know, I receive her Attorney General newsletter. And she is really on top of these people that are scamming. And it has a whole lot to do with the pandemic also. But there's so much that she reports on. And she does a great job.

And we would just love Attorney General Ashley Moody to help us because it's classified in the same category. scams and lies and deceit you'll never see her go after someone that donates heavily to her campaign and election you'll never see it uh and you'll never see any politician go after someone that could affect their re-election and that's our system folks i mean i love the united states i love our democracy uh and i well we got to fix some things well you got to fix something yeah so you keep talking about it and people keep listening and maybe someday something something will change. You can change things, our listeners, consumers, all of you. And that's by giving

her a call. Give Ashley Moody a call, the Attorney General. Maybe she'll take your call. One call, two calls. It doesn't matter. 850-414-3300, Attorney General Ashley Moody. You know, you're right about if she receives enough calls. The one thing that can Trump heavy contributions for reelection is when the voters rise up and the voters are the car buyers and if the car buyers rise up they would put Ashley Moody between a rock and a hard place she'd be caught between the Florida Automobile Dealers Association and the thousands of dealers in Florida and the political action committees and you the voters so the only way to do it is to really go

after her and say Ashley I'm not going to vote for you and I know a whole bunch to other people that are not going to look at. And we need a groundswell activity, which, you know, call me a Pollyanna. I probably ain't going to happen.com. Let's get back to the text. No, I think that as long as you keep mentioning this and the listeners keep listening, there's some way somehow that it will change things, but you've got to keep talking about it. Otherwise, people forget.

Now back to Stu. Okay. This is from Anne-Marie. We got a text from Anne-Marie. Good morning. The U.K. will stop selling new gas and diesel vehicles by 2030 under plans announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. California announced a very similar plan recently. This is part of their plan to

move to a greener economy. Other countries, including China, are moving towards electric vehicles as well. Toyota is famous for their gas electric hybrids. Is Toyota working on all electric vehicles to comply with other countries' requirements? Just wondering, thanks, and I hope everybody has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. And answer your question is yes, and that's what frustrates me, is because they are developing electric vehicles for the markets that are requiring them. So I feel bad that the United States will be behind China. China will be filling up with all electric vehicles before we will,

and Toyota will be making them and selling the China. And if the UK follows through on this plan, the UK will see a lot of electric vehicles in their country. But Toyota is working on it. They have a five-year plan to have electrification, and I put that in air quotes of all their vehicles by 2025, and that includes hybrids, all electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell. So it's coming, but it sure is coming slow, at least over here in the States. Okay, anonymous feedback. Earl, I'm the buyer you described that has negotiated 25 leases in the last 30 years for my family.

I was a professional negotiator for 35 years, and I lived to negotiate cars, purchases at Home Depot, garbage pickup service bill, dish network, etc. The F&I guy doesn't even offer me any services or financing or added fees or screw with me because I just laugh at them. Keep up the good work. You do a great service for customers that fear the process. America needs your help. Well, thanks for the anonymous feedback. And I, you know, people like that cause you who don't negotiate or who don't go to true car or Costco or do not listen to the advice on this show to pay way, way too much money. Because when a guy like that walks into a car dealership, he ends up buying a car very near actual cost.

And he doesn't pay the F&I department any profit because he finances his car through his credit union. and you might maybe pay $100 or $500 profit on the car, which is not really enough to make money. If you look at the total overhead of expense of a dealership, they're losing money on that car. So to make up for it when Mr. Sucker walks in, and I hate to use that word, P.T. Barnum is one born every minute.

When you walk into the dealership, you pay a $5,000 or $10,000 profit. Every person that walks into the car dealership pays a different price for the same car. And the high prices are the people that are misinformed, uninformed, careless, or maybe they just have too much money. And the negotiator, the hardcore, I do my work, I read consumer reports, he steals the car. And the average is what the dealer has to hit to be profitable. You're in luck if the first deal of the day they make a $10,000 profit. And they've bought themselves a handful of deals that they could sell for no profit.

And the average works out to the goal that their boss set for them. Exactly. You know, I'm going to take advantage of all this talk about these shopping and service and all the shenanigans that are going on. You want to empower yourself with knowledge. Pick up rules book. The book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer, it's the Bible. I compare it to Consumer Report.

There's so much information in this book, and gosh, what a great gift. And guess what? All the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. 1999, the purchase of a book, and it would be a great Christmas gift. Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Railball on Amazon. Yes, www. Amazon.com.

Okay, we got a ton to catch up from last week, and they're coming in this week. Earl felt warm and fuzzy with the shopping report on Infinity of Stewart. Priceless. I love your mystery shopping reports. I've purchased four cars since I lived in Iowa, three Toyota's one Hyundai, and no dealer ever had those exorbitant fees added on fees. If they ever did, I'd walk out of the deal. Thanks for posting.

By the way, I give a B-plus on the shopping report. That was from a couple of weeks ago. This is laughable. Morse dealer fee is $999, which is $200 hires than Johnson Honda's, and they add $499 for XPP, $159 for mudguards, and $94 and $10 for wheel locks in every car. If you would have negotiated the car, you would have received the best price. You can't expect the best price to be given to you without any back and forth. You're in a mystery world. And that's true, and we addressed that on the show, the Agent Lightning, in the time she was given the price, and she didn't choose to go to battle

with the salesperson, and she very well could have if she decided to dig her in her heels. But many don't, so she was just being a typical buyer. Exactly. And we probably should be sending her back in maybe as a more clever buyer and get some contrasting reports.

That's right. More anonymous feedback. Hey, Earl, I saw a 2020 Mustang GT for $34,000 with 750 miles discounted. I inquired and immediately was told it was under the Rav program as a buyback. Your video, how manufacturers buyback impacts resale value,

stop me in my tracks from making the purchase. The sticker price is $50,000, but I would rather pay $43,000 discounted than get duped in the end. See? We're having an effect. People are listening. That's a good one. Good morning, car crew.

That's us. I have a question for Rick. I was reading the April edition of Consumer Reports and looking at the Toyota Corolla 2019 and the Toyota Refour, 2019. in the section where they have all the green and red and yellow eras for very good average and blow average. I saw that the Toyota Corolla and the RAF4 has dropped from a very good way above average to only the yellow average in major engine issues. Have you been seeing any major engine issues in the 2019 Corolla or RAF4?

The only thing that we've seen on the 19s and 20s has been the fuel pump recall, which, by the way, that's actually almost six million cars worldwide. wide just for Toyota in that recall that could be the reason for the consumer reports right there that could certainly do it plus Honda actually has over a million cars worldwide on that same fuel pump recall and others as well other manufacturers but I know I haven't seen any major issues engine wise on Corolla or RAV and they're one of the vehicles in Toyota's lineup that I'd recommend above all others as a matter of fact 2019 I just bought my wife a

brand new Rav 4. There you go. Very popular car. I think a concern of course has a detail on that. You could probably go in. I'll dig into it. I can talk about it next week. All right.

This is for Earl. Anonymous feedback. What's the deal with the blue shirt? And I think that was Jerry Seinfeld to ask that question. That's a great question. So here's a blue shirt if you're videoing, looking at. Years ago, when television was in its infancy, and commercials were coming along and color TV I should say more when I made a TV commercial back

years ago the TV station told me to wear something don't wear this kind of shirt don't wear that kind of shirt don't wear a pattern yeah and they and they they said the best shirt to show up on TV was blue so I started making TV commercials with blue shirts he threw out all his other shirts yeah and I have a I have a wardrobe and so it became I became identified with my blue shirt I I honestly was curious about that. You have more than one blue shirt, right? I think so. On my book, I'm wearing a book cover. I have my blue shirt.

And it became. So now when I want to be anonymous, I just don't wear a blue shirt. If I go into public, I don't wear my blue shirt, and I can go in there and pick my bread and my milk and get out without being recognized. That's the real reason. Whenever you want to go incognito, you put on, like, the tank top. If I go someplace, I don't want to be seen, like Rachel's. You put on a red shirt. fly under the radar this is a good one

I mean it's not a good it's a mean one but it's entertaining some of your callers appear to have no life they are bogged down by indecision you praise them as smart consumers but they're really neurotic non-committal

dithers I have no sympathy for them that's a mean guy right there more gal come on that's the reason we have people have anxiety from buying cars that's the reason we have an amaze because you can be mean and cruel and nasty and get away with it. That's okay.

You're being mean. That's not nice to say. These people are human beings there. Yeah, I'm saying there's a lot of anxiety. I mean, car dealers have terrorized people for a decade, for a century. And it's only natural to be a little bit nervous. I have a question. Is the anonymous feedback an insult for Earl Stewart or a compliment for the consumer?

It's an insult to the consumer, I think. You know, I just wonder, and for the anonymous feedback, do you really think that everybody has a great experience and nobody gets taken advantage of? And we're here just to remind everyone to do your homework. That's all. Knowledge is power. All right, here's another critical one.

I think it's directed to Earl and Nancy. Oh, boy. Y'all, no one says, W.W. anymore. Just say YouTube.com you sound like clueless boomers. Well, you know, you're absolutely right. We are. We are clueless boomers. You're a pre-boomer.

You're not even a boomer. I just finally learned hashtag and set a pound sign. And so I finally got pound sign out of my vocabulary, but I'm still doing the WWW. So, you know, cut an old guy a little slack. I resent that comment.

WW. That's okay. Okay, let me jump down here with some more texts. Your mystery shop of Roger Dean last week had no surprises for me. They have always advertised gigantic discounts to lure you in, and no one gets these discounts, and that's from Barry O. I wonder that's Barack Obama. Yeah, I never thought about that.

We could be getting some anonymous feedbacks from really... That'd be a reason why people that would want to do the show. I'll bet you some of these are really, you know, right, exactly. We've got major politicians. I bet you Ashley Moody is sending an anonymous feedback. It could be, yeah. She would be defending herself if she did that, I think. You're right, yeah, I guess you're right, yeah.

Okay. Now, here's a good one. Here's a serious one. For the last week, I am hearing a grinding sound when I turn on my steering wheel. It's a 2013 Isuzu rodeo. The sound seems to be coming from up front and low down, But it's hard to tell where it's coming from, and that's from Jay and Fort Pierce. Rick?

First thing I'd be checking is the fluid level in your power steering system. If you've got a leak, when you turn the steering wheel back and forth and it's low, the pump is going to growl and grind because it's got air mixed in with the fluid. And you can also Google it, and you go to a Subaru chat room, and you identify the earmaid model of your Subaru, describe it exactly as you did in your anonymous feedback, and you will find if there are other people out there having similar problems

and you might even get the exact diagnosis and another thing that Rick recommends this is a great idea record the sound send the audio file to the Subaru dealer and say my steering wheel

is doing this and listen to it and you might get an over-the-phone diagnosis I know it's impossible to tell for sure the car is definitely out of warranty it's 2013

what's the range of expense they are potentially looking at it could be nothing too a lot I couldn't even give you a guess never mind I thought maybe it's between a hundred and if it's a just a simple hose it could be as those $150,200 a pump a couple hundred a rack maybe over a thousand when all those fails there's ear plugs that's right hey I'm having a flashback here I am in Pittsburgh driving along by myself thank goodness and I lose my steering wheel it flies across to into the passenger seat. For real?

It was a rush. And I hit a telephone pole. Was this the barracuda? So you really did have loose nut behind the wheel. All right. A loose nut behind. Yay, Rick. Anonymous feedback here.

Hi, Earl. I'm curious about the Takata airbag recall. Why do banks finance vehicles with a no-fix or delayed fix with a dangerous mechanical recall? And why would the insurance industry go along with insurance vehicles with a known or dangerous recall. You would think that both the auto and life insurance industries that have something to say about it.

Well, again, this is one of these mysteries of life. Jonathan gave us an article to read the other day, and it was extremely enlightening, and there's a book been written about the scandal of the Holtercutt airbag. There's stuff going on now and almost makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, theorists to talk about it.

But I don't know the answer to the Takada airbag. There are more Takata airbags on the road now or other airbags that are dangerous than ever before. They're not being fixed. They're fixing them. They're fixing them with Takata airbags that are going to go on bad later. The one thing I found out from this article was that the second in charge in the United States Department of Highway Traffic and Safety Association, the second in charge, I can't think of his name, but he was the attorney for Takata, and he was the one who negotiated a sweetheart deal with the National Highway Traffic

Safety Association for Dakata, put him off the hook, and now he has been appointed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association when the author of this book contacted them he was told by the NHTSA that he has been not allowed to work on any Takata airbag claims or reports he's doing other stuff I mean if that isn't a scandal in the making I don't know what is

so it's just scary to contemplate more anonymous feedback what is the invoice price on a $40,000 Rav4 hybrid is this a good starting point for negotiation the supply appears to be low here in Denver any idea what the reason might be at this time quick answer your question and voice on a 40,000 MSRP rap four hybrid sounds like a limited hybrid 385 386 but that is a

meaningless figure because it is there's approximately $2,000 of holdback before any incentives on that on that vehicle the best bet we'll just forget about the negotiating go to true car try Costco and compare three dealers, you'll get a better price faster without the headache if you go that route. Yeah, I say this every week, but I have to because we have new listeners every week. Dealer invoice is a manufactured document that packs in large profit to the dealer. It is not the cost of the car to the dealer.

It is a manufactured document. If the dealers and the manufacturers are working together, they overpay on that invoice amount, and the money is kicked back to them, and the average profit is thousands of dollars. If a dealer sells your card invoice, he's making thousands of dollars. It's a good price to him, an invoice. It's not his cost. That's a home run. And also the second part of the question, it is a rare-ish vehicle, but it's not a one-of-a-kind type of vehicle.

So, yes, they do are being sold. Typically, they're not giving away these cars, but you can get them. And you'll hear in the Mystery Shopping Report later today when you're talking about rare vehicles. A little patience pays off. If you're rushing, if you have to have that car by the weekend, you're going to pay more money. Slow it down a little bit and you can save some money. Let's go to YouTube over here. I do.

As a matter of fact, Justin Thomas is asking, in the F&I office, What does it take to actually qualify for the 0% rate? And Donovan Lewis is coming in also. He says, I was in the F&I last weekend with a friend at a Mazda dealer. Is it true right now that shorter-term loans are not paying lower interest rates? The person handling the finance said there was no difference in the interest rate between 36, 48, 60, and 72 months. But 75 months was 1% higher. Well, that's not accurate.

Stu, what is the... Well, with the incentivized programs, they do go up higher with the terms. So you might have 0% for, you know, 48 months, and then it goes to 0.9 at 60 months. So it doesn't increase. All loans go higher the longer the term. I mean, that's just banking procedure. And there's a good reason for it. But even Treasury notes are, you know, have a lower rate at the...

shorter term and longer at the longer term that's where interest works that's right now the zero percent um is if you qualify you can get the zero percent um so it's not a um the difference with the uh like on a lease the money factor at the rate does go up the lower the credit tier is what's the beacon score qualification for zero percent now oh i think you're going to get that regardless well no i'm sorry uh six for the top one for the zero percent you're on six eighty and then everything up there you get that below that will probably jump up which is about an average yeah so most people get it's not an it's not an exclusionary thing that they put out there to disqualify people okay i'm going to interrupt stew and we're going to go to frank

he calls us from jupiter farms good morning frank well good morning and happy early thanksgiving to you thank you frank i'm looking at a picture you just sent me yeah i thought you liked that Six-figure Mustang. Ford Mustang for $106,000. Hmm. That's a Shelby. Yeah. Yeah.

They put $10,000 for the market adjustment, which you spoke about that before. Exactly. And it's kind of a, oh, I just lose my thing. It's in Sharpie that they wrote on the window sticker. I'll send this to Jonathan so you can show it later. Yeah. That was actually the dealership that you guys. mystery stop several

months ago called Sunrise Ford up in four years and I had to go to them because I have a 2018 Ford pickup truck and the battery was dead and the wrestling and spoke about batteries earlier in the show

so it was just sitting there and I had called Mullamax several times three times and they never got back to me and so then I went to Saltgrass they were better and Stuart but I said well you've got guys had such a high rating, and this will give me a chance to meet and burn your sales person in person and kind of socialized. So I went up there. It was a four plus an hour

battery check that Ford performs before they're going to give your free battery under warranty. But it was all covered, so it paid off. I did meet that salesman burning, truly a gentleman. You had a good mystery shopper in court with him. And one of the things he said, and it's really, he says, I'm going to drive down and meet Earl Stewart in person. He's a man that walks to talk. That's his way of phrasing. Earl is a lightning rod for a lot of dealers, but this gentleman thought such high esteem of your dad and of your dealership

that he's willing to drive down and see you guys. I said, well, right now with the pandemic, Earl's not in there like it used to be, so better call. But anyway, he was good in the dealership with her mask. were excellent. If I walked in like the showroom, if someone didn't have their mask on, as soon as they saw someone walking by, they immediately hustled and put their mask on. A very nice atmosphere. You guys did well by Mystery Shopping and given a good report. Thanks, Frank. Thank you, Frank. In the battery, we're talking batteries,

I had three quick battery stories. I had treated my mom to a Cadillac on her 80th birthday back in 2005. I bought a Cadillac from school. And when I took it to her down in minding me, she said, I told you I would have diamond white, and this was the light, light metallic blue. She'd take it back. Obviously, they wouldn't take it back, so I kept it. In that car, when I didn't use it much, the battery would drain down. Most likely, and Rick would testify that this is the correct assumption, several

of several months before the horn went off, like someone was breaking in, and I guess obviously the horn shorted out, and it didn't work anymore. So I guess there was a slight draw from the horn, even if it's turned off, and the battery would go dead after, you know, several weeks of not running the car. So there's one little example. The other example was I, since the pandemic, I wasn't driving this in Mercedes. I used Mercedes, I have, and it battery went out too. Mercedes, what is $500 for a battery, which I thought was ludicrous.

Unfortunately, Phosophil, or Sam didn't really carry that-sized battery. But AAA came out to the house, put it in, and it had a six-year warranty. and there's $197. So there's a pre-convee you're listening to audience. Let's see what else. That's about it. Are you guys going to be there next Saturday?

Yeah, we'll be here next Saturday. Unless Earl's changing plans, I didn't know about it. No, we're going on a cruise. We'll be there with our turkey hangover. I'm smoking a turkey this year. I'll see how there goes. I might be bringing in some of my fancy turkey. sausage stuffing.

Ooh, please do. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Frank. And then I did pick up that key the other day. I do. The lady is named Amanda. As the answering on the phone. At the front desk.

Is that correct? Is that right? Yeah. Okay. She is long and to meet Earl Stewart in person. I guess she's only been there since Labor Day or something. Right. She's only been exactly about a month and a half in almost two months.

Yeah. And so Earl is keeping safe and staying away from COVID. I've got a great idea. Let's do a Zoom meeting of all employees. I can, you know, put me on all the TV sets. That would be wonderfully chaotic. To say the least. I can rig something out like that.

I can get your face on all the TV simultaneously. I'll leave them up there all day long. It'll be very, very, very uncomfortable. It's not go too far. Well, next week I hope you have a little positive feedback from the TSU. Well, what I was hoping to see, I saw the notification. that said Frank sent me an image and I was hoping it was a picture of a Tacoma

so maybe next week. Yeah, yeah, next week for sure. We'll see, like I says. It's been a, well, while we're on that subject, Nancy is so correct. There has been, in fact, Vern was one of them,

and a few other people about that's co-signed for loans for their child or whatever, and it's just amazing the negative feedback. I have found a positive one set for one, time. So Nancy, keep that word out and put it for your audience. Don't go sign for anybody. You have a good one, guys. Thank you, Frank. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. We have a couple that we can finish up, and I think we'll be ready for the next phase of the show.

Okay. You guys ready? All right, good morning. Years ago, when one bought a new car, they wanted to sell you rustproofing. Z-Bart? Is it Z-Bart or Z-Bart? Z-Bart. Rusty-Jones. Are you familiar with Oh, yeah, yeah. Before my time. And undercoding. Are the cars today built so well that you don't need these products, or was it back then they just sold you something you didn't need?

Bingo. Also, it does not seem mufflers wear out anymore either. Midas muffler shop sells everything else today, too. And that's from Robbie and Stewart. Yeah. No, the cars they are very well protected against corrosion. They still corrode. And especially in Florida, especially around the coast, salt spray is not your friend.

not your friend, and it will rush your car from the inside out. So you can wax it and wash it all you want. That's all there is going to get inside and get to your brakes and everything else. So, yeah, depending on where you live, rust is going to happen, but the vehicles today are protected far better than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Okay. Last one, and we're caught up. Earl, are there any plans to change the way you are doing things COVID-wise?

Palm Beach County's positivity rate is over 10%. Well, we were assuming the worst when we started our process. We do mandatory masks for customers and employees, social distancing, hand washing, hand sanitizing. Testing. Testing. We test all of our employees and their family. Any employee, any family member can be tested free. At our dealership, we have the nurse, the company, come into the dealership and test everyone.

We've been very fortunate. We've had very few instances of COVID, nothing serious. We also send them to their homes if they're concerned. We have an employee who wasn't feeling well, and we sent her home yesterday, and we had the nurse at her house that night. Tested her, she's negative. She'll be back to work today. One thing we're considering now, and we're going to do an experiment next Sunday,

we're going to have two hours set aside for seniors. It must be 60 or older for service. And we're going to see how that flies. Costco has been amazingly successful. They have eight to nine weekdays, 60, it must be 60 years of age or older, you go in the Costco. So we're copying that, but we're going to do an experiment. We don't want the inconvenience of people under 60, but there are a lot of seniors out there, and some of you are listening to the show now.

You call me and you say, do I have to bring my car in? We had a woman earlier in the show worried about how often she had to bring her car in, for routine maintenance. My answer was her was, you can delay it. It will not affect your warranty. Both the dealers and the manufacturers, most manufacturers, I hope all of them, are cutting a lot of flat to people in an area where you have people with underlying conditions

and older. So seniors will be allowed to come into our dealership on Sunday for two hours. Certainly hours that we chose, one to three or something like that. We're doing two to five. Two to five. From two to five, three hours on Sunday, see what happens. Yeah.

And if a lot of people respond, then we'll expand those hours. So you won't feel like you have to come into a crowd of dealership with a bunch of millennials who may be. Yeah, partying at the nightclubs. Yeah, exactly. Here you go. In Iowa, I've got a great feeling about that. I think it's going to be pretty successful. and talk about success

Earl is amazing some of these columns that he writes is just phenomenal and this one car dealers aren't like McDonald's they're not all exactly alike you've got to read this one that's next week's column actually I haven't a correction for you that came in a little bit too late

so it'll be the following week we have another one on I'll tell you in a second but that came in a little bit too late probably have it right here and by the way ladies and gentlemen we get tested every two weeks every two weeks so we're really on this and if you come into the dealership you can be rest assured you are in a safe environment thank you for that commercial okay so we get to the mr. shopping board let's do it okay mr shop of palm beach Toyota Palm Beach Toyota is on a

list. We have that on our Earl and Cars.com, recommended, and do not buy from this dealer list. They're on the recommended list. They've held that position for several years over the course of maybe a half dozen mystery shops. Our recommendation isn't meant to suggest we wholeheartedly encourage our listeners to buy from them. Remember, we grade on the curve. There are no perfect dealers, and some of them are far from perfect. And some of them are on the recommended list. They're far from perfect. But you've got to have some place to buy a Honda or Chevrolet and we took them all off. You'd have to go to Georgia to buy a car. Don't want to make you do that.

Before I go further, I need to remind our listeners that I shy away from mystery shopping to your other dealers, particularly the only ones my dealership to police directly with. I don't want to give the impression on attacking my competition to gain an advantage. So when I do, I'm careful to treat the investigation as a service to consumers. who listen to this show. We call balls and strikes on this show, then we vote on the pass or fail for the dealership we investigate it. We're trying to be totally in arm's length and honest with you. In every case with Palm Beach Toyota over the past several years, we've given passing rates because nothing they've done, be it advertising or sales practices, falls outside the mainstream of how

car dealers conduct themselves in South Florida. As a matter of fact, Palm Beach Toyota's way of doing business as far as we've been able to determine, is it relatively tame when we consider some of the wildly aggressive car dealers in our area. Can you say Greco? Can you say Napleton? Yeah, they're in a different category. Exactly. Still, Bobby Stora indisputably engages in anti-consumer behavior. All car dealers do that, and it's reasonably great on the curve. There's no question that they have large hidden fees among the largest that are added to their advertised prices and contravention of state consumer protection laws. State protection laws say you have to advertise a car or any product for the price that you'll sell it for.

You can't advertise their product or car or anything else and then add a couple thousand dollars back that you don't know got to add them back in the price when you come in. to buy the car and that's what they do. Our last mystery shop in February uncovered a bait and switch scheme involving used vehicles appear to be new. We went back this week with Agent Lightning. She's our female

on a relatively new female shopping mystery Sharper. Taking advantage of the fact that she's unknown and hasn't been into Pombie's trailer before. We asked Agent Lightning to repeat the Montesoph Brandi that she's

used at Johnson Honda and Infinity of Stewart. No agenda is simply, well, it's like most people buy a car. They walk in and they say, I want to buy a car. And we didn't, a programmer, to go through any sort of try to entice or suggest how someone would be deceived. We just went in as you would, most of you, when you go into buy a car. Here's the report, speaking in the first person, is why we're Agent Lightning. I enter the showroom of Palm Beach, late morning, approached a young masked man. I always laugh when I see that term. I laugh when I type it.

Who was that mask woman? Who was that masked man? At a reception desk. She was friendly, asked if I need any help. I said I was there to buy a new car. She asked for a moment to find the salesperson and pick up the phone. Before the receptions could find someone, I was approached by Michael. Salesperson, he won't know if I'd been to help yet.

I said the receptionist was finding someone for me, but Michael said, He could help me. I told Michael, I want to get something sporty and different. I wanted to stay below $40,000 out the door. I joked that 2020 was getting to me and that I wanted to treat myself to something fun. Michael said, he had something in mind, and asked if I'd ever considered a camera.

I frowned. I said, I thought they were boring. It's a mom and pop car. Michael told me that the one he had in mind wasn't boring at all. He led me outside to find what he described as a Camry, T.R.D. V6, the sports version of the Toyota Camry. I asked Michael if there were any incentives, and he said, nearly all the new Toyotas had good incentives this time of year. This is Toyotathon, right? Big sale going on.

We found the car quickly. It was hot looking, not what I expected. White with a black roof. Ground effects. Blacked out L.A. wheels. It didn't look like a Camry. SRP was 35, 924. Quite a bit more than what I thought Camry's went for, but not a ridiculous price. There was no addendum. So thumbs up, no addendum, no phony Monorone at Palm Beach, Toyota.

When we returned, Michael led me to a desk, asked for my license and contact information, then he excused himself to get the numbers for the Camry from his manager. I asked if he minded if I looked around while he was going. He said, sure. I explored the showroom and customer lounge. The place was clean, modern, nice looking. Everyone I saw a customer employee wore masks. Kudos to Palm Beach Toyota. I felt COVID comfortable. I like that terms, too.

COVID comfortable. You will be COVID comfortable at Palm Beach Toyota. And trust me, there are a lot of dealerships that you won't be COVID comfortable in, particularly in Martin County. Shame on you, Martin County. And even last week, in Palm Beach County, Roger Dean. Yeah. They were COVID criminals.

Yeah. I like that too. don't be with COVID criminals be COVID comfortable I like that I made my way back to the desk where Michael waited for me laughed to myself at the role reversal I guess she was sitting she usually gets waits for the salesperson oh yeah yeah exactly now she's making him play the way exactly so another kudos to Palm Beach Toyota I got a worksheet on his desk in front of them with the price breakdown printed on it the top line was MSS, SRP 35,924. There was no discount. Sticker, no discount. Selling price was 35, 924. To that,

they added, here we go. Try and pronounce that with the abbreviations. Pre-delivery service charge. Yeah, that's it. Well, pre-dell-s of his charge. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I knew what it was, pre-dil-suff. Yeah. $9.99 and $0.95. Ouch. $999 and $99.99. $9.99. $9. Just call it a grand. Why don't they just say, well, well, we know what? Everybody does that. I mean, there's nothing for $10.

What's the inverse of puffery? And it works. Yeah. It truly works. It works on me. I'm digressing, I shouldn't, but gasoline is $2.99 a gallon, never three. And I feel like it's cheaper. Yeah.

It is cheaper. And you tell people, you go, hey, you go to that place, it's like two-something a gallon. Yeah, yeah. Before I could ask about the price, Michael apologize. that he wasn't able to offer a discount. Hmm, pretty candid, right? The TRD model, I like, was a rare vehicle, one out of a small number across five states.

I asked if he could do any better. I didn't want to consider another lesser car. Michael said he couldn't. That's, you know, straight to the point, no. Let's see if he sticks to it. I reminded him that he told me that nearly all the new toilets had incentives this time of year, and he did say that.

He said that was true and said that I would receive as a holiday bonus cash rebate of $500. Now, that's a customer cash. That's customer cash, and most vehicles get it, and it's only this time of year. Yeah, but the price would remain at MSRP. Now, remember that. Now, here's the thing, though, I've got to address it. I know exactly what you're going to say. I know.

Yeah, and the F&I of us, she's going to sign a release. No, that's what, that's not going to say. There's no way to glom for the dealer to steal that $500. That was totally an oversight. It has to appear on the buyer's order as a rebate, and there's no way to sign, you can't, you can't, it's only customer cash. There's no way, there's no way to steal that from that.

So you can't, you can't have them sign something that assigns that to you. Well, I guess they could have some internal, I don't think, no, no. Well, legally you can, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah, there's, I think. Sure we are, and the price for the main in MSRP, he continued to explain that this TRD Camry v6 was effectively one of the kind, effectively, not literally. I told him that I plan on shopping two more toilet ships before making a final decision. Michael said normally that would be a good thing, but he said the other do is don't have this car in stock. I told him I was really disappointed and asked him again if he could give me a break on the price.

Please see what you can do, I said. Michael left to speak, but the manager again and returned quickly. He told me the manager said he would lower the price by the amount of the dealer fee out-the-door price would be $1,060 less. So the dealer fee wasn't really $9.99

in 95 cents. It was $1,060 less. That was $1,000 plus tax. Oh, it's sales tax. Yeah, that's what it was. And they have another dealer fee that... Yeah, but it's built into that the registration thing. It's 179 I can't remember if it's the private tag agency or the electronic filing fee that they call it, but it's $1.70.

So they're hiding the dealer fee and their tax and tag? Well, no, he was just offering to back out the dealer fee. Yeah, but on their worksheet, they don't show it as a dealer fee. No, on their buyer's order, the last official buyer's order we have from about a year ago, it's 179, but on the worksheet, it's combined with the registration fee. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michael walked me out to my car. He was nice, but he said he highly doubted another deal to be able to produce his car for me. He said if they could, they would be selling it to me at MSRP also. Michael reminded me that I would be getting four years of free maintenance if I bought from Palm Beach Toyota. He said most Toyota dealerships can only give me two years. Then he said that he hoped to hear from me today. Now, there's another little variance from the truth there. The toilet dealers they referred to that will only give them two years. The two years extra that Bombay's Toyota has is included in a product called Toyo Guard,

which is something that's packed on the car by the Southeast Toyota distributor. And that's the two years of they give the oil changes and the two years of free maintenance. So that's four years. almost every Toyota dealer has the Toyota Guard. About 85% and hired in South Florida. But the other thing that's not true

is because every dealer could, we could, if somebody wanted it, we could source a car with it. But this is, okay. And he probably was told that, and maybe he believed it. So he was misinformed. I don't think he's lying.

It was the uplaw. Michael was very straightforward and never appeared to be deceptive. He accurately told Agent Lighting and most Toyolos have incentives now. He was a little late in Reading or know about the $500 holiday bonus cash from Toyota, though. Now, technically, Michael didn't do anything wrong, but there's a little more to the incentive stories. The 2021 Camry has another $500 in dealer cash.

So the holiday bonus is customer cash. The $500 that he didn't mention is dealer cash, which can be used either to lower the price or kept by the dealer. and Michael was keeping it for the dealer and he had no choice I'm sure his boss told him so that's that's a thousand dollars that he could have that Agent Lightning could have had

to reduce the price from Well she was getting the 500 He was getting 500 we think The bonus cash she would have gotten that Yeah okay well we talked about Assigning it to the dealer and we don't Well he but he told her about it so He did tell her about it

He said she's getting that. Exactly, yeah. He also said that I'm still going to charge your MSRP, so you can interpret that two ways. If I were, Michael and I was trying to sell the car, I'd say effectively you're getting $500 below MSRP because you're going to get a check in the mail for $500. He didn't say that. He said you're going to pay MSRP. Michael was also truthful when he described the availability of the 2021 Camry TRD6.

There's only 40, and there's 180 dealers, so they're like Hensief. There are very, very few of those around, and it's justifiable for them to be charging a high price, relatively speaking. Charging MSRP, there are dealers out there that might even charge over MSRP for a car that's scarce. It's a hot-looking car, very hard to get, only 40 dealers, 40 and 180 dealers, so you can see why they went for all. all the money. Yeah. If this sale went through, it made a nice profit of Palm Beach Toyota and a nice commission for Michael.

The gross profit on the deal, including holdbacks and unit fee, would approach $6,000. So, Palm Beach Toyota is going to make about $6,000. That's a huge profit on a new vehicle. Huge profit. And you don't make that except on very low-supply, high-demand vehicles. And that's what they were doing, and that's the marketplace. low supply high demand charge money they didn't charge oversticker

and we do the same thing in my dealership they absolutely did charge over sticker well they did a thousand over a thousand oversticker well we don't know with their dealer fee five oh the dealer fee yeah but he took the dealer fee off that was the final offer I'm sorry they attempted to get a thousand over dealer in this right so

but there's more to that though there's a good pressure anyway that's a lot of money and they're entitled to them I was going to say that with the Toyota Supra, we were selling in our dealership at a sticker price. And what were we making on those? Oh, four in change, $4,000, a big fat profit. We did it, but we didn't charge over stickers.

I'm saying. I guess what I'm trying to say is that charging a high price for a car is not a sin. It's a marketplace. It's supply and demand. That's okay. It's deception that we've come down on. There was still a little bit more, and that's the point in the last sentence. I mean, he used that rule to take advantage, I think.

Well, okay. It could have taken a lot worse advantage. Sure. But this car is effectively one of kind. Not really. They're under 40. There are another 222 on the way in, but they're not here. Invasion Nighting was willing to wait a few weeks.

And that's good advice, a good way to put in the tail of this report. Anytime you're confronted with a high-demand, low-supply vehicle, just wait. In this case here, in a few weeks, you're going to buy it for a lot less. Always wait. Never go in at the beginning of the introduction of a high-demand, low-supply car. You will typically pay a lot more than Palm Beach Toyota was charging here. You'll save maybe $1,000, $2,000 over. They tried to charge $1,000 over, but they discount.

by their dealer fee, so they came down. And that's when she kind of dug her heels in a little bit. Some people might not do that. Another thing I have to mention quickly here, because we're running out of time, the Toyo Guard that's on the window sticker, is like a dealer installed accessory, except it's a distributor installed accessory.

There's Toyo Guard on virtually every toilet dealer's 85% Stu said. Toilers have this on there. They charge of $695.95. The cost on this is, what, $170? Just a little bit more, but yeah, it's $200 with this. And there's something that's packed on whether you want it or not. If you ask a Toyota dealer to find you one without Toyota Guard,

the Toyota Guard is just paint sealing and BS that you really don't want anyway. They can find you a vehicle without the Toyota Guard. So now we've got to get into the voting, don't we? Yep. We have some grades coming in, and they're pretty decent. We have Jonathan and Wellington, gives them a C over on Facebook. Bob, who's one of our vigilantes, gives him a C-plus. Mark, another vigilante, gives B for the salesperson, D for the deceptive dealership,

and he wants to know who's unwrapping candy near the microphone. I think that's Rick doing a throat drop, maybe. I don't know. I didn't hear it. Sorry. My grade is I'm giving him a B. because it was a unique car. I think he did a pretty good job,

and for the most part, it was pretty honest. I've got Denzel Thompson with a C. Tim Gilliland, better than most, B-minus. Derek Lopez, a D-minus. Dealer fee makes it over-sticker. Wayne with a B-minus. Mark from St. Louis, a B. Mark Ryan, C.

And myself, I'm going to go with a B. Okay. go with a C, and I'm also going to ask a question about Toyogard. Stu, how long has that been put into a Toyota? Well, Toyagard don't have enough time to get into it. Would you say the 50s? Forever. No, since the 90s for sure.

It started out as polygolite code. Google that. There'll be some interesting. Okay, that's really interesting, and never ever forget to negotiate, negotiate, and do not buy. My grade is a B-plus. I'm going to give them the highest grade. I think they did a really good job. Okay.

And do not buy during a high-demand, low-supply. That's it. Okay. Happy, have an early, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Yes, absolutely. And have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe, everyone. And thank you, Jonathan, for all of your work.

He's the mystery man behind the scenes. We will be right back. here next week, same time, same station. Thank you.