Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.23.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Bozard Ford of St. Augustine, FL.

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to the St. Augustine area to visit the 8th largest Ford dealer in the U.S. and to see how much they will charge for a 2024 Ford F-150 STX pickup on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Join us on Zoom during the live show via Meeting ID 926 589 0586. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Hello, I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the spymaster director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back, and it is a cold morning here in South Florida. It's like in the 50s. Now, that's for a South Floridian, that's cold. I know some of you folks are laughing when I say it's cold at 50 degrees, but it feels cold to me. Particularly exciting show. I say that every week, and sometimes you believe me,

sometimes you don't, but let me tell you, the things are changing, and the way cars are being sold, and this show is all about trying to help you avoid being ripped off by a car dealer. Well, things have gotten a lot more difficult. Suddenly, we have an election, we have a change in authority, and we haven't a change in the Attorney General of the United States, a former Attorney General of the state of Florida. Her name is Pam Bondi.

We'll be talking about that a lot. You regular listeners have been listening to our show for a few years, Now, we'll think back to Pam Bondy, she was a typical, I hate to use that word, but a typical Florida Attorney General, pretty much in the pocket of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association. And pretty much on the side of the dealers when it comes to enforcing the rules and the laws about taking care of the car buyer. And that's not being done very well here in South Florida, a few regular listeners. I love to have your participation, and that's what it's all about. I know a lot of you are pretty much on top of the news,

and this is the top of the news. It's literally headlines, and you're going to find out that the progress that we thought we'd been making with the Federal Trade Commission in terms of the CARS Act, which is Combat Auto Retail Scams, a very nervy title they gave it, I didn't give it that title.

The Federal Trade Commission, Cars, Combat Auto Retail Scams. It was supposed to kick in in July of this year. It didn't happen. And we've been talking about it ever since then. And now the, I hate to say the death blow to cars is a nomination of Pam Bondi as Attorney General of the United States. And that surprised everybody. We'll see what you think about it.

I'd love to have your calls at our favorite number, 877-9-60-99-60. Again, that's 877-9-60-9-960. Write it down. We're going to be on the air for two hours, and that's 8-10 Eastern Standard Time. So you've got a lot of time to think about what you'd like to say and have the number written down. The most obvious thing we probably should be talking about is,

what are we going to do when we have the local Attorney General, meaning our state, Florida State Attorney General, fighting consumerism? And now we have a United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, fighting consumerism in terms of how you buy and sell cars. So here we are. We have a lot of other ways you can contact us.

We have a text number for you folks that don't want, you know, a little bit nervous about being on live radio. Our text number is 772-497-6530 at 772-49765-30. My son Stu Stewart is in the studio with us and he gets those texts. He keeps them in a little list there and we try to get to the text throughout the show and we usually get to most of them. So communication. We learn more from you honestly than you learn from us. And there's a very well-informed folks out there that, particularly the cadre on YouTube,

Earl and Cars, YouTube.com, or I should say YouTube.com, ford slash Earl on Cars. And a group of folks there that follow Rick Kearney, who, by the way, is our technical guy. He's our certified diagnostic master technician. I get carried away with sales. I get carried away with buying and selling cars. But Rick is the expert on repairing them, maintaining them.

and keeping you, you know, safe from being exploited when your car has a problem, maintaining or repairing it. So if you, if you're a YouTube guy, YouTube.com, force slash hurl on cars, you can contact Rick directly. He's watching and monitoring the channel there. So we'd love to hear from all of the YouTube guys. And I'm going to introduce now my wife,

my co-host, co-founder of the show, Nancy Stewart. She is responsible for half our listeners because she brought the female audience from zero when we started the show 20 years ago up to 50% now. And she's done that by letting you know, you ladies out there know, that we're interested in which you have to say

because you buy half the cars. And we also encourage, you to we bribe you too we encourage you to join the show because a special offer Nancy Stewart is going to give you something that sounds too good to be true but if you haven't called the show before

she'll tell you all about that Nancy the mic is all yours good morning everyone and welcome we've got a great show ahead of us and you make the show give us a call toll free at 877 960 9960 Would you like to join us on Zoom? You can do so.

You can use the Zoom number that you see on the screen, which is 926-589-0-586. And it's a whole lot of fun. We get to meet you personally. Jonathan, our producer, is right there to take your call, get your information, and put your call through. We've got a mystery shot. report from St. Augustine, from what I was reading and told, it is the biggest for dealership

in the country. One of them, yeah. So you want to stay tuned for all of that, and don't forget the, we've got dogs, plural. We've got two of them. That's right. Bonded pair. We'll talk about that later on in the show. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Yeah, we're a big advocate of Big Dog Ranch Rescue. So we'll be talking about Big Dog Ranch Rescue from time to time. So I guess you can say it's our pet charity here, pet dogs. And it's one of the largest no-kill shelters in the United States. There's three locations. We have a big one here. in South Florida, and you could go to big dog ranch rescue.com, B-D-R-R-R-D-R-com, and we have a guest doggy later on in the show that we'd like to find a home for us.

So any of you folks out there that are dog lovers, and who isn't a dog lover these days, stay tuned, and we'll talk about finding a home for one of our dogs that needs a forever home. Two of them. Two of them. Yeah, they can't be separated. Double doggie. Oh, they're a bonded pair kind of a thing. Oh, cool.

Toofer. Yeah. So anyway, that's why we talk about dogs so much. I think Nancy just raised your hand. I bet that means we've got a call. We do not, but we do want to remind the ladies that you can win yourself $50 this morning by giving us a call, first two new lady callers. It's our way of letting you know how.

special you are and how important you are to the show. So $50 for the first two new lady callers. You could win that and spend it real quick this time of year. So give us a call at 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. now back to the recovering card you? Well, I'd like to hear from you folks about the headlines. And I have to get careful because we don't like to be

politically politics is not what the show is all about. And we realize that the country is split. We have a new president that half the people don't like and half the people do like. So we don't want to, we don't want to make this a political thing. It's a one issue thing. We have one issue and that's the enforcement of these existing

laws. That's it. Yeah. We're not making a political state. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to argue that the law should be enforced and that's really our. It benefits Democrats and Republicans equally. Yeah. And sometimes people don't like the law, but there's another law that they do like It's like anything else. So what happened was we went from the Federal Trade Commission last year announcing that in July they were going to begin to enforce the rules that were already on the books about fair and honest treatment of people when they kept in to buy a car. Basically, the bottom line has always been when you advertise a price. of a product, you should be able to buy the product at that price. I mean, that's a no-brainer, right?

Well, that has never been the case, especially with the selling and buying automobiles. And the Federal Trade Commission stepped up on the plate, and we were all excited about that and thought that, finally, we're going to get a big federal agency to back up the consumer. And suddenly, things turned around. We found out that.

that the Attorney General for the state of Florida, that's where we are in Florida, was not in favor of this. Even though she paid lip service to it, she said she was going to start enforcing

this September 1st. Didn't happen. And here we are now all the way at the end of the year, and it isn't happening. Shocking. Shocking. And then, as if that was the

enough, we got a sudden surprise U.S. Attorney General, and that was nominated by the new President, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi was a former Florida Attorney General who had the same position that the current Attorney General Ashley Moody has to help with the consumer. Hands off. Hands off, yeah. Lazy fare. So what are we going to do? I like to hear from 877-960-99.

We have a limited number of lines coming in, and we will get to your phone call ASAP. Nancy watches the phones. She's got the laptop right there, and when the phone call comes through, she jumps on it, weighs at me, throws a pencil. I stop talking, or Rick stops talking, or shoe stops talking, and we talk to you. Throw a pencil. I'd like that. I should do that. And ladies and gentlemen, remember, we're not here to me.

make new laws. We're here, have them reinforced. And you want to give Ashley a call? Yeah. And maybe we should do it. I refer to her by her first name. Give Ashley a call. And I don't know what to say about the news that has, well, surfaced with Pam Bondi and Ashley Moody. I guess they're all said enough. But it's certainly disappointing. But we'll, we'll, keep up the fight. Maybe one of us should go to dinner again. We'll draw straws. You can get in touch with Ashley Moody,

who if you forgot, yes. She's the Attorney General. 866-9667-226. Too bad she won't answer the phone on Saturday mornings. Is it just Saturday? Well, I just was thinking we call her from the show. I thought it was 24-7. We'd get her on the show. That'd be pretty cool.

answering machine would be also very entertaining Oh, yeah If you want some more excitement The automotive news And I'll hold this up for you folks watching Automotive news is full of bad news About the car dealers You recall the huge profits

The car dealers were making Back during the COVID issue and the supply chain interruption, we had a supply shortage and a demand surge, and prices were going at thousands and thousands of dollars over sticker price. So the dealers were getting fat and happy and making a ton of money, record profits.

Now the whole thing has kind of come down and the dealers are going the other way. They got fat and happy, and then suddenly the inventory is built, the demand dropped, and they're starting to lose money. The largest car dealers now are struggling, and it's going to be an interesting year ahead for car dealers. It can be to your advantage because now we go from high-demand, low supply,

to high-supply, low-demand, and that means prices are dropping. So for the first time and a long time, there are opportunities out there if you're careful. And not to say the dealer won't jump on you and still take advantage now, but the opportunity to buy a car at a low price is greater today than ever before,

as long as you can navigate the deception. That's the problem. And I know I'm getting carried away on buying and selling cars because most of what you do is maintain and repair your car. And that's the reason I got Rick here. Rick Kearney's been with me for 25 years. He is about as knowledgeable on repairing or maintaining a car as anyone I've ever known. And if you have a question that you'd be afraid to ask another dealer

or bring it into any sort of an independent repair shop because they might take advantage, you get a free opinion from Rick. This calls at 877-9-60-99-60, and Rick will answer the phone, and he'll give you the answer that might save you a bunch of bucks. We also have a text number, 772-4976530, and we also have YouTube.com forward slash a rolling cars, and Rick monitors that directly, so give us a call, if you have a, you know, a strange noise

or a strange odor or a vibration and you don't know what it is, it could be serious, it could be nothing. Call, or you can describe it, maybe even send him a, you know, a picture or a audio file. He could get that on his YouTube and give you a diagnosis free.

You certainly try. Yeah. 877-960-99-60. and you can jot that number down the text number because you'll need it later on in the show when you vote on the mystery shopping report that number is 772-4976530 and as I said earlier don't forget your anonymous feedback.com as a matter of fact we got one interesting question here mark H is asking he says can you comment on carbon buildup in direct

Injection engines, it seems like those long oil change intervals are for optimal operating conditions, whereas most people drive more in severe service in reality. And South Florida Two Step says, well, in reality, carbon buildup in direct injection is mostly due to the PCV system. Well, that's actually partially true, but remember that direct injection, the fuel is being sprayed directly into the combustion chamber. versus the older fuel injection where it's being sprayed onto the back of the intake valve, which was where most of that carbon buildup would get because small particles of fuel would attach to the valve and the carbon would then dry and stick on it.

And does it not get much oil there? Well, you don't see a whole lot of oil on the valves or even in the cylinder because most of the oil should stay in the crank case. But what really happens is most people, it's driving habits. You do a lot of in-town driving, the start and stop, the slow idling crawls, traffic, and it's times like these that not all the fuel gets properly burned through the combustion chamber.

So that leads to that carbon buildup from the leftover fuel. The best way to handle that is resurrect the old Sunday drive. Get the car out on the highway and get some good highway miles so the heat can build up, and those carbon deposits will loosen up with one good drive break loose take care of the prior weeks build up it will so say for a half hour to 45 minutes on the highway at the higher speeds the higher r pms and you're gonna you'll notice it'll clear that right out quite a bit of what is the symptom when you you might hear it a little bit of pinging but you'll actually what you really will notice is it'll seem like an idle your inch will run smoother the idle may even drop a little bit it may run a little bit it may run a little bit it may run a little bit it may run a little bit little bit lower idle, but it'll seem like the engine's running a lot smoother, usually at idle speed. How old of a car do you, does it have to be before you start thinking about things like this? Pretty much any age, even a brand new car.

I would start right off with once a week, get out for a bit of a drive, because then you prevent the issue. You don't let it get to the point that it builds up to where it's causing a problem. You kind of correct it right off the bat, right at the beginning. I hear you. And we have another one here that, Tom, Deccles says, Earl, can you please comment on the car dealers who promise a loan payoff on a trade-in? He says, it's false advertising. Is this legal? Well, the payoff on a trade-in is up to the

lender, so I'm not sure how they can promise that, Snow. The promise is to pay off your loan. It's simple. They can say, well, pay off your loan no matter how much you owe, but they don't mention that they're going to collect a large down payment from you to do that. You're paying it off. They're legally allowed to say it because they are literally paying off your loan. They are sending the check to the lender to pay off your loan. So, yeah, they pay it off your loan, but you're the one providing the funds for that. $10,000 extra down payment.

Right, exactly. It's really simple. I always laughed at when I saw those, and I'm really surprised that those ads are still out there. I guess now that things are starting to get competitive again in there are starting to be, you know, the manufacturers are putting incentives out there. It's on TV now. I think it's, well, we'll see what the effect it has on the market. I mean, car sales are down, but let's see what happens in 2025. It's amazing how little concern there is over what are obviously ridiculous claims.

no credit no problem that's one of my pet peeves there is that if there's anyone that's vulnerable is the person out there that has a credit issue and they need a car they don't have a car they can't get to work they can't get to the pharmacy and they're basically desperate for a car and they have bad credit and how vulnerable to the promise no credit no problem you come in and then next thing you know they're they're loading you up with payments that you can't afford sometimes even working unscrupiously to misrepresent your credit yeah and they're their dealers out there that will actually falsify credit on a credit application have you sign it and have you sign it so you're responsible for it so there's a lot

of crazy stuff going on out there that is it's not being controlled and that's why this show exists. To tell your story, call us at 877-9-60-99-60, and we'd love to hear your story or how you overcame a problem with a dealer, or if you've got a good dealer. You know, this is not a show just to punish dealers. There are some good dealers out there,

not enough of them, but there are a few. So if you've had a good experience with an honest car dealer that got you a fair deal, let's talk about it. We'll get them a plug. 877-960-99-60. Stu, I have a question for you. This week I had an unusual amount of interest in used cars. Would you say that used cars are, well, a better buy right now than a new car? Good question.

I guess it depends on what new car that you're comparing it to. Prices, even, you know, we live in the world of imports, Toyota's, hondas, but a lot of the domestic manufacturers, they're already resorted to deep, deep discount. So we've seen it on a couple of shopping reports, factory cash, a factory discount, like with consumer cash. And so that's pushing down the price of new cars. I still think it's still tough.

for an import, like a, you know, a popular import. But, you know, I think the trends right now is to where that's kind of evening out. But I think a new car, I mean, a used car is still, at this point, a better buy. The calls that I received are they knew exactly what they wanted, and it was a used car, and it was, they didn't want anything older than three years old because they would have the same safety features, nearly the same safety features. So you think that, yeah, I still think it is. I mean, we're coming off a long period of extremely high use car prices, but if I would to graph it, you would see a two opposing curves. You would see the new cars doing this and the

you car or settling out. Coming back to the normal, the historical levels. You know, we've always said that on the show. Okay, folks, you heard that from Stu. We are going to go to, to the phones. And, oh, I see we have a Mark on Zoom, Jonathan. Morning, Mark. We're going to go to Jay, who's been holding from Hope Sound. And Jake, I'll get with you in just a moment. Jake's calling from Boca. Good morning, Jay. Oh, hi. This is Jay from Hobes Sound. Hey, Jay. And I called up last week. I stopped in Auto Nation was looking at a Corolla, and they weren't willing to drop their $995 dealer fees. But I've got a couple of questions. Like, when is the best time of year to buy a car?

The end of the year, probably. Right now, even we talk about Toyota a lot because I said that's the most of the knowledge I have. We're starting to see some incentives. Toytathon is a historical market. marketing thing, I don't know if who created, Jim Moran created Toidathon, right? Yeah, actually, yeah. So it's funny. I've seen Toyathon parodied on Saturday Night Live.

It's part of the culture. And we always kind of like kind of thought was silly because we're not like big, you know, balloons and glittered sort of folks. But the reality is they do increase incentives and other manufacturers do. you know, in the beginning of the year we get a sales rundown from our manufacturer and they tell us what the plan is through the whole year

how many cars they're going to sell and they try and adhere to these goals. It's a forecast. And so they're all doing it and everybody's behind. Manufacturers live on a 30-day cycle. And so it starts with the end of the month

is typically a good time to buy a car. But they also, the annual cycle is a big thing too. Remember, General Motors, Ford, to Honda, Toyota, this is all about making money. And they're measured, you know, on a monthly basis and an annual basis. And Honda wants to beat Toyota and Ford wants to meet General Motors and Nissan wants to beat, well, they can't beat anybody right now. They're about ready to go broke.

But the competition among car manufacturers and car dealers is huge. So the best time to buy a car is when the pressure is on the manufacturer to get the volume out, and when the pressure is on the dealer, and that happens to be, as Stu said, at the end of the year, huge pressure, and the problem is the end of the year is now, what is the end of the year?

Is it the model year? Is it the calendar year? The first week of January is usually the end of the year. First few days. Huge, yeah. And there's something called Stairstep Financing, which is a, or Stairstep incentives, I mean. And that is where the manufacturer puts intense pressure on the dealer to sell that incremental car. And a dealer can sell 200 cars in a month, but then he sells 201, he can make literally hundreds of thousand dollars retroactive.

and he knows that number and the manufacturer knows that number but you're not sure but typically at the end of the month if there's a stairs down but the sales team knows that number yeah the manager knows it and so that night

when it's past closing and they're keeping everybody there to get that last sale and they'll do whatever to get it and as strange as they may seem you can actually buy a car below the dealer's cost and the dealer's

can actually make a huge amount of money by the kickback from the manufacturer. By losing money. Yeah, by losing money. On your deal. On your deal, yeah. Right. So it's, it's, it is good to look toward the end of the month and toward the end of the year. I recommend getting a nice tuxedo, bottle of champagne, spend New Year's Eve in the showroom, and don't leave until they get you the best deal.

Unfortunately, I've got to do something pretty soon. I mean, would waiting for Black Friday be advantageous? A lot of dealers use Black Friday as a marketing thing. It's, you know, like everybody else does. Our ad agency wanted to know if we're running any specials for Black Friday. We said no. I don't think you can beat the end of the month. I mean, the end of the month, it sounds boring,

but you can count on the fact that on the 31st or the 30th, the salesman, the sales manager, and the dealer, they're always pushing for that extra incremental unit. I'm going to give some just like some advice. You're in South Florida, right? Yeah. Okay. Go to Hollywood Toyota at the end of the month.

I'm serious. I can't promise you a good deal, but I can promise they're extremely, extremely motivated. They work the system very well. We've learned some things from them. Things have changed over the years and business has changed. So anyway, if you go there, you're probably going to get a pretty competitive deal if you can hold out. If you want to get a good price, I mean, we have good prices on our website, take the price on our website, and then go down to Hollywood and say, you've got to beat this. Be careful.

Yeah, be careful. Be careful. Be sure it's the out-the-door price. Yeah, get the out-the-door price and shop that, and they'll probably beat it. Toyota of Hollywood is offering, what, $1,000 rebate from the manufacturer plus $500 for veterans? There is a military discount that comes from Toyota that all Toyota dealers can get you. And then the extra discount, the only ones I know about, there is some either-or bonus cash with the incentive. So in Toyotathon in years past, we have a great financing rate like 0%, and then another.

500 or a thousand bonus cash right now it's either or anything that that toy to Hollywood is promising different from that is coming from them which could be a legitimate discount or it could be part of the numbers game so just be careful okay I mean I'm kind of surprised that you're promoting Toyota of Hollywood rather than Earl Stewart Toyota well I don't I listen I'll be honest I don't think they can come close to our experience and the ease and the less lack of stress that we put on our customers, but when thing, you know, they're okay with a different business cycle where they can drop prices, go up on each individual sale. We have a more stable, enjoyable system where we have nice

low prices. I'm not, this is a commercial. I'm stopping. Yes, but yeah, Toyota Hollywood will probably be our price on the end of the month. And of course, at the end of the month, you've got to take what's in stock you can't order something right for it to count exactly so if they're going to say you can't exactly you can't order a vehicle and nothing will apply until you actually take delivery and poof suddenly all that good stuff has gone away yeah i've kind of got my heart set on uh the celestite color and uh oh wait that's one thing i forgot to mention forget about color um you're going to have to take the car that they want to sell you um i mean it'll be the same model but it might have some more then you want to sell and the color will be, well, it's what they have available to sell you.

So it'll be a little bit less flexibility, you know, on your part, but the price will probably be incredible. Okay. Oh, and when you start negotiations, should you do that with the invoice? I think that's, you're getting into tricky territory because you can play around with that. I would start with out-the-door numbers. You can get an out-the-door price from us on the website. hours without even talking to anybody. And there might be some other

Toyota dealerships that I don't know locally, but if you maybe go outside the area and get a couple other out-the-door prices where they actually publish that and then use that as a starting point, I think. The key to an outdoor price is really

get a real out-the-door price. An outdoor price, if you can just remember this, is the price that you write the checkout for, assuming you're paying cash. And hand the check to the salesperson, get in the car and drive it home. That is the true out-the-door price. Now, if you can get that price from five different dealers...

It's hard, though. It's hard. But if you can get it... The way I would, if I were a consumer and I were going to buy a car, I'd say, listen, if you give me your best price, I may not buy the car from you. might buy it from somewhere else, but if you will not give me your best price, you'll never hear from me again. So you get down to play the dealers game the way he plays. On the last day of the month.

Last day of the month. And you'll get, sorry, if you could, if you could go to three different dealers and have their best price from three different dealers, you'll get a really good price at the end of the day, at the end of the month. But it's got to be the out of the door. The way they get you is with the junk fees, they say, okay, here's your price, and then they take you to the business office, and they start adding extra junk fees in that they call, make you think they're government fees, like tax and tag and dock fees, and they make up all these names, electronic filing fee. But if you can get to the, cut to the chase and get the out-the-door price, compare that three or four times, you get one hell of a deal. You can get an extremely good price if you do it that way. And I think your dealership only has $136 fees, right? We don't have any dealer fees at all.

We have the fee you're referring to probably is we are a part of Southeast Toyota distributorship, and those are the, all the cars that have sold the five southeastern states are through a distributor called Southeast Toyota. They add a fee to the dealers in the Southeast United States. That is what you see that is, in addition to what a normal Toyota dealer, like in Kansas or California, would have. So you're paying on the average about another $900,000 or $1,000 for a car that you buy in the Southeast United States from Southeast Toyota.

And Jay, unfortunately, we have a lot of calls lined up. Everyone here at Erlon Cars can't stress enough. If you have the time, do your homework. It's, as we always say, a minefield out there. And it doesn't matter whether you're going to wait until the end of the year, the beginning of the year. It's a minefield out there. It used to be pretty easy to purchase a vehicle, but now you have got to arm yourself and you signed like as if that, you know, you're ready to do just that.

Exactly. Thank you. You're welcome, Jay. Keep in touch with us. Let us know what you decided. I have a Zoom caller, but I do have some regular callers on my X-Green, and we're going to go to Jake and Boka before we go to Mark, who is holding on Zoom. We'll be right with you, Mark.

Good morning, Jake. Hi, good morning, guys. I love you, show. Oh, thank you. When I used to work in the post office, I used to listen to you on Saturday afternoons, I think the show was on then. Uh-huh.

And then I found you again. I'm so happy. So how come my 2019 BMWs 330I, you send to me all this stuff through, you know, through a connect or whatever, and go to the little screen and telling me I need break fluid service done. I need to replace it.

I looked in the book. I only have 24,000 miles on the car since I got it in 2019. Wow. How did they know without testing that my brake fluid is bad? In the past, when I used to have to replace, you know, your disc or whatever, you know, they would replace the brake fluid. But how do they know unless you test it? like we used to test any freeze with the little bulb and the little ball inside the two.

How do they know that? Yeah, they've just got a simple, a timer. It's, there's a little clock in the computer, and it watches the mileage and the time on the car. It's like the oil change. And when it says, yeah, okay, you've been, you've had it for this amount of time, whether it needs it or not, just do it. And that's, that's on the manufacturer. Some of them do, they recommend replacing those fluids at earlier intervals. We have good advice for that for you, which is bring it in and have them look at it first.

Yeah. And if it's not, you can see it pretty easily. You access the reservoir, right? Yeah, you can pull the cap off the reservoir, and the fluid should be nice and clear, and it should be like a straw yellowish color. So it would be like a nice, almost sunny yellow color in there. and if it's any other color, if it's starting to get dark or it's looking cloudy,

then, yeah, it'd be a good idea to get it replaced. It may be contaminated with water, but otherwise I wouldn't be too concerned on it unless you're trying to make sure that following the manufacturer's recommendations to keep your warranties in effect. That's true. If it's part of the required service, then do it.

If it's a dealer recommendation, look at the inspection and don't do it if it's not dirty. And bear in mind, a lot of those, you can actually go into those screens and you can program yourself when you get those reminders. So a lot of dealers, when your car comes in brand new, before you get it, they go in and they program all that. So you think it's the manufacturer recommending it, but it's actually the dealer doing it because they want to get you. back in and basically just get some more money out of you. That's scandalous. What I would do is I would look in your glove compartment for the actual book from the manufacturer and look and see what the manufacturer recommends for maintenance on their

car, and if they don't recommend it, don't worry about it. I got a question for you, because I know that we can do some customization on Toyota vehicles. Like we can put an image on the home screen. I don't know if we can still do it, but at one point, we could upload, like, our dealer image. Sure. We could, we can program the, the, uh, navigation to set our dealership or whatever

dealership as their dealership. Yep. So it automatically sets a course when you say, I need a Toyota dealership. Yep. Um, now are you saying, are there options like in other manufacturers where the dealer can opt to remind you for a break service that's not in the manual? In a lot of these new systems, that is an event. That is an available feature.

That's scary. They can make up all sorts of stuff. We have four calls? Oh, really? Oops. All right. Okay, folks. We've got to wrap this call up.

Jake, I think we answered your question. Do you have anything else? Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to ask, how do you feel about like a higher-end car, like a Mercedes, purchasing the extra stuff that pays for, like, you know, manufacturer recommendations on when

the car needs to all change, air filters, like a maintenance. Yeah, yeah. Every dealer has their own maintenance plan. What I would do is just take what is going to get a copy of the maintenance plan when it provides and you can manually add up the services in their maintenance plan

and compare it to what they want to charge you for it and then you can call in and ask what the price is for the same things in service and it's a little calculation you've got to do, but if it doesn't add up, don't buy the maintenance. If it does that up get it because you'll get protected against price increases wonderful thank you guys so much for your show thank you jake we love your company uh we have several calls uh lined up uh but we do have um we do have mark who's been holding and he's on zoom uh but i i want to make an announcement

um as far as zoom is concerned uh and you have a question um you can use the chat function by clicking the icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And there you're going to get in contact with Jonathan. Jonathan is our producer. He's going to get all your information, your location, your name, everything. And the first two new Zoom callers this morning will win themselves $100. And that's the reason I need the contact information. Again, to all of you who are on hold right now, I will be right with you. Also, ladies, $50 to the first two new lady callers. We're going to go to Zoom where Mark is holding, and I'm not quite sure where Mark is from. Good morning, Mark. What's your location?

Oh, welcome. Mark is in New York, and it's a little chilly in New York, and it's a little chilly in new york right now cutting in and out of youtube so if anybody was having that problem i'd encourage them to go on zoom it's crystal clear um i have a uh thing about tires i just want to have everybody be safe on the holidays you southern guys that are driving up north if you have less than five 30 seconds of tread on your tires you got zero snow traction uh and you guys up north every time the temperature drops 10 degrees, you're losing one PSI in your tires. So I want everybody to be safe on a holiday traveling. And I had a comment about Rick's oil response.

I'm going to date myself back in the old days with a carbureated cars. And Muriel And Reddy was a popular race car driver. And my mechanics would get these senior citizens cars that were only driven around town and wouldn't run right and say, I'm going on an Italian tune-up, and they take it out and blow the carbon out by putting a pedal to the floor, and then the cars would run fine. How fun that must have been. Can we do that? We should do that. I've done that. That's great.

And also the advice on the tires, that's so true. And my kids who are in New York right now are listening. I go check the tread depth on that pre-iss you guys got up there because it's getting, it's becoming winter time again. And I guarantee you right now our service department has got no less than 30 to 50 cars that will be showing up by noon with the tire lights on. And the calls just because of cold air and the tire lights on. So they come in, we fill their tires back up and they're fine. And Mark, we want to thank you for that question. comment where it's always on our mind tires whether we live in South Florida or in New York

and if you take care of your tires your tires are going to take care of you yeah mark if you stay on and talk to Jonathan please give me your information sound good all righty hope to hear from you again we're going to talk to Carol and Carol is a first time caller. She's calling us from, I believe she's calling us from Boca. Good morning, Carol. Oh, good morning. It's Carol Kane from Boca, John, Florida. How are you? Well, thank you. We're all great. If you stay on the line when we're finished talking, you can give Jeremy your contact information. He'll give it to me, and I'll get that checkout to you. Oh, okay. That's very nice. I listened to your show a few weeks.

weeks, several weeks now, and I was like telling my son about it, but the reason I'm calling is because I've had quite a few corollas, and I love them. Right now, I had a Yaris before that, but I have a 2016 corolla sport, which is getting a little bit older, but on my 17-year-old daughter, she may be getting a car soon, she's got some money saved up, and she's been driving the corolla. But I'm looking for something. Safety is important. reliability handling purposes the thing is about the lanes like when I'm driving with her it's a little bit scary because sometimes like so straddle the lane and makes me very nervous so I was kind of looking for something a little

smaller but for handling purposes also and maneuverability but I like the safety of the Corolla and the Toyota's but I mean we've been looking just in general doing some research on different cars we'll course the Corolla, but I don't think you make the Yaris anymore. And then basically looking at Nissan, but I'm not a big Nissan fan looking at Jettos, but my son said they break down a lot. I'm just looking for a good, safe, reliable car. I don't want to put her in something that's going to be dangerous. Are you, by Chitwise, are you, I'm sorry, go ahead, Nancy. Carol, you're looking in the right direction. I have to tell you from firsthand experience, all of my grandchildren have

driven corollas and you can't go wrong uh this is a great car it's a great size it's uh everything uh that a 17 18 year old um they're uh they're they're uh 40 something now and uh the corolla is a great vehicle uh but um i'm sure you i'm sure you have some you know safety features you're looking for and everything else, so it's really worth investigating, Stu? Yeah, so you're already familiar with the Corolla she's driving right now. I just recommend if you're looking at, I don't know budgetary-wise where you're at, but if you could get a vehicle that's newer, that's, say, in the 2020, 2020-1 or newer, they're likely to have a lot of the newer safety features that the 2016 Corolla that she has,

that didn't have, they weren't available then. There's one that kind of rang a bell when you mentioned. It was like straddling the line, kind of not be able to get the lane straight. There is a feature in a lot of cars. Toyota has it, Honda has it. I don't know about Nissan. Lane trace assist. When that's on, it keeps you centered in the lane.

You still have to keep your hands on the wheel. But it will actually, you know, I remember that when I was teaching my son to drive. He was terrified. was so far away from the center line he was going off the road so um this kind of does it for you go go corolla's great like nancy said and you already know but um if you just just look for like 2020 or newer and i think and then ask for those types of safety equipment and i think you'll be okay and carroll how many children are you looking uh to put uh behind the wheel in the next couple of years Just one, just one, my 17-year-old.

My son is already, my son, I have two sons, and they're already grown, so it's my 17-year-old daughter who has had her permit for a little while. She's been driving this year, and it makes me a little bit nervous, but she's been driving. She's doing good. She's getting her confidence, but it's hard for our mothers to teach her child, I think, or her daughter. But she's doing well, but, I mean, this is the 2016, and like the gentleman just said that, you have the safety feature. I do look to corolla. I was kind of looking for something a little bit less, the width. Maybe the width a little bit.

But you guys don't make the Yaris. The reason I left the Yaris years ago was because it was feeling a little light on the highway. And I think I felt that way with the Prius. Honda has a FIT, Honda has a Honda fit, which is a smaller. That's still that kind of subcompact vehicle. Toyota has the CHR, which I think is going to be discontinued. Is that right, Rick, do you know? CHR is kind of on the way out now.

It didn't sell very well. It's kind of cute, though. It's small. There might be some still out there. But for one or two, three-year-old cars, there's going to be quite a few those available. Yeah, we're not looking at the new ones. So a Toyota, CHR, I got an issue with that. You might not like the visibility because it's kind of, it's very low of the ground,

and the window space isn't big. Hey, Carol, one of my YouTubers, Donovan, he is, he's a genius, the man. is truly a genius. He's asking, what is your approximate budget for a car? Well, my daughter has about $15,000, but I'm on the sense about whether she should buy. Look, I saw a 2002 coming out of Mississippi from your Earl Stewart store, a silver corolla, and it looked pretty good. I think it had low mileage. I don't think it was in an accident, but it was coming out of Mississippi. And I know you said something about watch out for those cars that are coming

out of different areas because of the hurricanes and the flooding. But they said Mississippi, I don't know if there was any hurricanes there. But if we wanted, I prefer to buy a new car, but if we buy a new car, we have to share it. So, and she would rather have her own car. So, I mean, we could

finance. She could put her $15,000 and we could finance, but she's got to go to college and everything. So I don't want to be the one that's paying all bills i mean i have a feeling i'm going to be paying the car insurance anyway but i understand completely carroll um i did that three times uh i with three daughters and uh it's it's not an easy task so good luck to you uh carroll uh do you have any other questions we have some calls backed up rick do you have a question thank you for the insight yeah no no i i think we got it

yeah to me the the corolla is probably going to be like you're you're really you're really your best choice because even a two to three year old corolla and wherever you might consider a pre-owned car always get a good qualified mechanic to give it a thorough inspection and you know make sure you're getting a decent vehicle and i you you can't go wrong yeah and carroll don't forget uh you got the you have the consumer report there's so many places to go for information uh before you make this decision and to put one of your children behind the wheel of a car. I know what that feels like and it's a it's a makes you a little nervous to say the least so there's a lot of research that you can do. What at whatever place like to do research they said tire where's

Earl Stewart located is it much fun? Yeah we're on US one in right on the edge between Lake Park and North Palm Beach but whatever you're looking to buy a car from, tell them you want to take the car and have it inspected by your mechanic and go to a mechanic you trust. You can find one online or from friends or family that know and trust a mechanic or take it to a dealership, like a Toyota dealership, and they'll usually charge you like a one-hour labor fee to put the car up, thoroughly inspect it. They'll look under the hood, under the car, they'll measure the tires, they'll check

everything on the car, and you can tell them, hey, make sure that you look for any signs of flood damage or any accident signs. Obviously, a Carfax will tell you whether there were any reported accidents, but a good mechanic can look at it and see, hey, here's something that may have been a little fender-bender, signs of a fender-bender, that was repaired by, but not reported to Carfax. But, yeah, it was a good, honest repair. They did the proper repair. Everything's are good. The only thing we're seeing is like stickers on the parts that were there from where they were replaced. Exactly. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as the repair is done properly. A good mechanic is worth its weight and gold for sure. Right. Well, that's good

advice. I appreciate that. Yeah, definitely gives us something to think about. And thank you for the safety features on the Corolla. And I know you guys have the tires for life or something. That's right. said. And none of the other dealerships, because we bought from Palm Beach, Toyota, and we bought from Delaware Beach Toyota or Delray Toyota, but they never did that. Exactly. So if you have time, you know, you just do your homework. That's all, you know, I can, advice I can give you, it's really worth its weight in gold, finding that mechanic and finding that perfect, safe vehicle for your daughter. Carol, stay on the line.

Give me your information, and I'll get that check out to you. All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Carol. 877-960-9960, and we have the calls backed up. And if you'd like to text us, if you're a little shy, 772-497-6530. I want to thank Mark, a special thank you to Mark who donated his $100. He just spoke with us from Zoom.

He wants to donate that to Big Dog Ranch. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Mark. Thank you very much. That's awesome. We're going to go to Ed, and all I can say is everyone else, please be patient. Good morning, Ed. Ed's calling us from Boynton.

Yes, hi. I try and listen to the show when I can, and I have three quick questions. One, I have a small Lexus that I've lexas that I've leased in New York about three and a half years ago, and it's coming up right now that they want it back because more than four years they won't allow it. So the first thing I'd like to know is I think I'd like to get another Lexus, not a big one, but a fairly small one too. I'd like to know your recommended dealer in the South Florida area. Easy. You're ready?

That's what I was going to say. It's the number one volume dealer in the world for Lexus. Probably the most ethical. Yeah, and they're most ethical. They have one junk fee, but it's relatively small, but they're strictly honest, and the prices are very good. And the experience, this is really neat if you go to J.M. Lexus, you'll be greeted by a single person, a man or a woman, and that person will help you until the moment you drive off the car. So you're not going to get handed off to a sales manager or a closer, or you don't have to, they don't have a finance department. So the person who sells you the car just will write up your paperwork at their desk, and they use, I think, a little tablet, and it's kind of neat, high tech and very modern.

and zero pressure. And they're somewhat better than Lexus of Palm Beach? Yes. Yeah, Lexus of Palm Beach is an auto nation store. They're honest. Most of your auto nation stores are above board. But because of the volume, J.M. Lexus, it's actually started by Jim Moran,

who was the founder for Southeast Toyota. And he was one of the few distributors. actually had a dealership but uh and and and not knocking an auto nation they just have a more traditional sales model yeah so you'll go in and you know make an offer and i mean it might be simple you might not it might be less brutal than than another dealership might be but um but jam is great because you just go in there the price for the car you're interested is already on their website um if you want to order a vehicle if they don't have it in stock they'll do it for you gladly and like earl said they have a they do have a dealer fee junk

I forgot what it is, but it's there on everything. $500. Yeah, and you can see it. Everything's transparent, so nothing's going to surprise you. Okay. I was listening to one of your other callers, and they were talking about how difficult it is to run around and get good pricing.

Yeah. I was just wondering whether there are any people like your agent, lightning who do this, who help out people who want to purchase another car. Because I know these salespeople, they see customers all the time, and it's their business, and their managers are the same thing. And the ordinary or the novice buys a car or leases a car once every three, four years, and they're not used to it. So are there any people who are professionally doing?

If you have a pen or a pencil, jot this down, if you go to earl-oncars.com, that's probably the easiest thing to remember. That will link you to, so that's earl-on-cars.com. There's a link there, and it says Earl's Vigilantes. You can also go to Earlsvigilantes.com, but that's harder to remember. If you click the link to Earl's Vigilantes and look in Florida, there are several people that have volunteered to assist people, particularly seniors. in purchasing cars.

So they have email addresses. You can email them to get in contact, and they're willing to hear from listeners of our show, and they're willing to provide this assistance. So I think that's what you're looking for. Right, exactly. So that's roll on cars.com and just find Earl's vigilantes. Okay.

The third thing I want to mention is the gasoline, cars have to obviously go to stations to get to get the gas. And there's federal tax and the state tax on the gasoline. And from what I understand, a lot of this money goes for infrastructure, for road repairs, and that sort of thing. And going over to the EVs, they don't get, obviously they don't get gas and they don't pay the state tax and the federal tax. And in a sense, they're getting a free ride because of all the other people who are paying for the gasoline and the money that's going to be going for all that infrastructure. So, one, they're getting a free ride. And two, is there any way that

the government, since it's going to get worse and worse, because of all the more, more the number of EVs that are going to be on the road. Right now, the percentage of vehicles in load or EVs are probably, what, small, small, 4%, something like that. And as that grows, sorry, Rick? Well, that's why California and I think Florida are now putting in addition on the registration fees. Exactly. That's what we're getting to. So as it increases, you're going to see government actions like that or tax or increase in the fees.

are going to which is a tax we'll go up okay that's what I wanted to know okay Ed thank you thank you so much for the calls give us a call again we're going to go right to Sarah who has been patiently holding and she has called us before been a while since we spoke to her she's calling us from Boynton good morning Sarah good morning Nancy good morning everybody so I'm very bad with a computer it took me this long to find you on all on cars so my question is for Rick

and my I have a Lincoln 2012 MKZ and it's a hybrid and I believe the transmission is going so on these cars I have 77,000 miles on it and I believe that the batteries are supposed to be changed. I'm not sure about that, but I'm going to go have it checked on Monday to a transmission

person and see what it would cost to have a fix. What I like to know is, do you think it's worth fixing, or should I just come to Earl and get another car? At 2012, you know, you're 13 years old already on the car. How many miles on it? Seventy-seven. Yeah, that's pretty low for a 13-year-old car, but still, I would get at least two or three estimates on that transmission repair, and then I would compare that to, like, the basic Kelly Blue Book value of the car, and if the repair is going to be 65% of the cost of the car or more, I would seriously consider trading it in. on something newer and in better shape, just for the idea that even if you incur a car payment at that point to get a better car, it might be better in the long run and save you more in the long run versus what other repairs

might be needed on that car as it continues to age. You know, you kind of have to balance that out and decide, is it worth it to put that money in an old car that may then have another big expense coming with that hybrid battery versus a much newer car that, yeah, you might have a payment, but for the right used car that's only a couple years old, you might get that a low enough price at a low enough payment, that it makes it worthwhile to financially to go that route. Okay, so it's very difficult for me to trust people.

So I would come to Earl Stewart because it's very well trusted and look at used cars. So would you tell me how I can get to look at cars? How do I get to that? Oh, that's a simple method. You simply drive to the dealership and start wandering around the used car lot. Or the easier way is relax with a cup of coffee in your living room. and let your fingers do the walking on the internet, and you can look through our inventory.

As a matter of fact, any dealership, their used car inventory will be online, and you can look through the cars that way. How will I find yours? And Sarah, I do have to tell you that, you know, you don't have a car payment. You're in a good position, and you're probably, you know, don't want another car payment.

You know, I'm not sure what your, you know, financial situation is. But whether you, it's a used car and whether it's the best buyer right now, it really depends on several factors. And they include your budget, the market conditions, personal needs. There are so many factors to take into consideration. and for you to go into the dealership, there's no reason for you to go into the dealership. The only reason is for you to pick up your vehicle. If you have access, you know, to a computer,

you know, the Internet is just filled with so much information. It will save you, and you're in Boynton to drive up to North Palm Beach, to Earl Stewart, Toyota. You know, go to your, go to the Internet. You know, start there and just see, you know, what your options are compared to your personal needs, is what I'm saying. And use car is a good, you know, direction, you know, to go in. Nancy, thank you. You're welcome.

Everybody have a fantastic day. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Sarah. It was great hearing from you again. okay we are going to go to frank and we have roadrunner that's waiting but we're going to take frank right now and he's from jupiter forms he's a regular caller good morning frank good morning nancy earl and all the rest of the gang there thanks for hanging on oh that's all right i was on the computer while you were talking and i actually went on the jm lexas dealer down there in south and that looks very nice that was a good point and also being a vigilante which I remember I signed up years ago yeah but I think I had an old

email address so I'm on the computer right now giving my good email yeah I would love to go help people shop I enjoy shopping and right being retired WWW for all of those that are listening right now and wondering about Earl's vigilantes that's www.w earls vigilantes.com you could make a big difference okay Frank Frank email me email me the new email address and I'll get it updated on the site. Yeah, because I saw in Florida, I'm not there, so that's probably why. But anyway, real quick, I got a few things up, but I'll go quickly.

Were you guys up Wednesday morning with that sunrise? I wasn't, definitely. But you got an Earl, Nancy? It was incredible. Wednesday? Did you get the sunrise on Wednesday? Oh, okay. Now, I must have missed it on Wednesday morning.

Oh, my goodness. I mean, I was in bed. I looked at the sky. I looked up brilliant red. It almost looked like a nuclear war. That's like... And so by the front coming in, I guess. Isn't it great, Frank, to be able to, you're in bed under the covers,

especially in this climate, and I'm talking temperature, to watch the sunrise. That's a great thing to do. But real quick with the cars. We were helping this lady to get rid of some of her stuff for her boyfriend slash husband. And he had a Mercedes-bin in 2000. 16. And she was going to drive back from Jupiter all the way to St. Louis. Of course, she talked about the tire pressures because it's warm then and it's going to be cool. But her husband, boyfriend, whatever, said, keep the tires at 2020. And I said, that's too low pressure. And then he said,

make sure you have nitrogen in there. And I said, okay, nitrogen. I said, she really needed to call you guys, but she didn't want to be on the air. Anyway, I suggest that she goes into the local Mercedes-Bend dealer before you go on a 2, you know, a 1,500 mile trip with 20-20 pressure. tires, enough to cold weather. And they filled it to the right pressure, which was actually 35. Yes, I. Was that the tire on the side of the tire, or was that the... On the Mercedes. Yeah, the Mercedes on the 2016, E-360. You know, I reported last week that I increased the pressure in my tires to about more than halfway between the manufacturer of the car recommendation and the tire recommendation, and I have not felt any different, and it feels great. And also, my tire pressure

was not lower when I got in the car this morning. Yeah, well, her boyfriend felt that low tire pressure would get a bare gas mileage. I said it's actually worse. So they didn't know what they were going. Is your vehicle outside a stew or in a garage? I don't keep it in the garage. My garage is full of junk. Organized. I can relate to that. And in fact, we'll go back to the oil thing. Amory, my wife has a SQ5, 2022, Audi, and the light came on saying it needed a quart and a half oil. So I go on under the hood. I look everywhere.

I guess they no longer have dipsticks. Surprise, surprise. And so it had 7,500 miles. I guess my question is, would they consume a quart of oil in 7500 miles? It hadn't happened on the first two oil changes, but now we're getting a little bit past 7,500 miles. Is that normal for a six-cylinder with the turbos, something to not be worried about? It's possible, but I would be a little concerned about that much oil in 7,500 miles. Now, unfortunately, Toyota does this, and I'll bet the others do as well.

Toyota actually says in their owner's manual that using up to one quart of oil per thousand miles, they call it acceptable. Now, that's what the engineers say. I don't call it acceptable. Personally, myself, I say, y'all are throwing a bunch of weasel notes in there. You're playing games with these

customers, and that's a bunch of BS. But yeah, they kind of say, yeah, you know, you can use a little bit of oil here now and then, and they give it that really high thing to make you think, oh, okay, it's all right in reality that's that's a bunch of BS and I would get that checked out by

the dealer to say hey you know this car should still be under warranty why is it using so much oil and they should be taking a look at that very carefully and for the dipsticks yeah a lot of transmissions did away with dipsticks years ago and now cars like BMW that makes our Toyota Supra, the new one, they no longer have a dipstick for the oil. You can't even check your own oil with a dipstick. You actually have to drive the car a certain amount and then pull it up on the computer screen inside, and the computer will tell you how much oil it detects in the engine. Hey, that's pretty good. They're, you know, I learned that. That's what they do in the outies. Yeah, I love the technology for it, but I also question because

you know, you're trusting now sensors, wiring, and a computer that they can have issues. Whereas a simple dipstick going in a tube, you bring it out, you wipe it off, you put it back in, pull it out, and check it, that is to me basic. That's to keep it simple, stupid system, and it works. And why they had to go to this whole, oh, let the computer decide how much oil is in the car. Gosh, me as a mechanic It hurts my head It literally hurts my soul When they do that

I'm like, come on guys Yeah, we're talking a basic system here But it's the basic fluid That if you lose that oil You're in trouble Keep it so long Well I went by the I was at the dealership

Because the air show was going on on a Stewart And I bought the car up at the Stewart I'll be up there On a Sunday, we have no, the service department's closed. They had no oil. I think, can I get some oil? No, just drive it home. It should be all right.

I said, the lights on. So, anyway, long story short. But then I also then I started wondering if they put enough oil in when they did the oil change a few months earlier. So I said, okay, now that I know where to look for it. I'm going to start looking for it. Yeah, another thing to wonder about. Yeah. Anyway, as always, you guys are great.

Thanks, Frank. I'm enjoying the cool weather. The doors are open. It's free air conditioning, but I'll definitely get my new email for you guys. And one last thing I hate to leave on this note, I was shocked when I saw Ashley Moody got the nod, so we'll leave us out. I don't know to get them wound up. Yeah.

Well, we talked about it years ago when she was Attorney General State of Florida, and now we'll have, you know, four more years. Well, maybe four more years, maybe a year. We don't know, of talking about the Attorney General. be fun again yeah yeah you go buddy oh one last thing one last thing i promise very last um i was very impressed that gentleman that gave us $100 to big dollar ranch oh thank you that's sweet truly um a nice person that time time of year yeah made my morning yeah made my morning you all have a great day well glad see you're back on the air take care thank you frank let's go to roadrunner

steve who has been waiting a while big big good morning roadrunner steve oh i grew a beard waiting here Okay, I'm so happy with the cold weather. It's like to get my carbureated car out there and run a whole lot better. Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. Because it's dry or? Here's the wildest story I ever read in my life.

The 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona. It's going electric. Okay, it has the hatchback. The thing is, they're going to. to have this thing called fratonic chamber exhaust so mind you now it's an electric they're going to have a sound system in the car oh so it sounds like that gives you the sound of a real hemis oh that's that's that's horrible but it's happening that's what they're doing the cars already by the way rick is falling out of his chair laughing steve he got them you got them good for uh issue

December, December, 24. So this election the people is going to annoy your neighbors. If that noise is... Can you adjust the volume, Steve? I don't know. They're probably going to have an app on the phone. I read

this. I said, you know, there ain't nothing like the real thing. It's like eating a plant-based steak. You've got to have a real steak. But this is the craziest thing I have a handle. Listen, I've seen videos. I don't know what other cars are doing

this. There's some other car that does it and you can't tell and if you don't know the car it sounds like a real car. Rick can breathe. That's worse than the 80s when Ford detuned the Mustangs and so they put a resonance chamber in the exhaust

to make the exhaust sound deeper and more throaty and make it sound like a powerful V8 when it had this crappy little 305 they built it. Those little LX one's little boxy things. Yes, and they couldn't get out of their own way. Garbage.

And they did the 5-0, and they couldn't get it out of its own way, but they put a different exhaust to make it sound better. So you're going to put a speaker to make your electric car sound like a V8 magnum. Wow. Generated through a set of pipes into a resonator. Oh, my gosh. Same old technology. and Hellcats.

But what is the Franzonic? Is that a made-up word? Franzonic? Probably. That's an Italian flex capacity. Fras-Zonix changing the ball. I can only compare this. Now, this one was actually something that Toyota tried to do with the Prius, when the cars

were so quiet in electric mode, they put a special little speaker that as you're driving the car, it would make this little sound. so that when it's an electric mode it would make like a humming sound so that people who are vision impaired could hear the car coming and one of the things that they talked about doing was allowing customers to upload a sound file to make it customized yeah like bubbles and I always wanted to have one that would do the sound of the Jetson space car as it went by you I thought that would be so awesome or chitty chitty bang bang yeah oh yeah Yes. Oh, it would be fantastic. Or bubbles. I like the bubble, like the Willie Wonka mobile. Yep.

That's what I want. But no, you're going to take an electric car that should be a total silence and be a sleeper that would put Earl's plaid to shame, which is what it should be able to do, and it won't. But instead, now you're going to make it just sound crazy. Draw attention. But it's not even really going to be that big of an electric car that fast. I said, you're referring to the cyber truck? No, the Dodge Charger. No, you mentioned the Plaid, the Tesla Plaid.

Are you referring to the cyber truck that Earl drives? I bet the cyber truck would beat the Dodge, too. Yeah. I know your plaid would. You're Miss Nancy. I know she beat the light on her feet. She'd tromp that Dodge into the ground, but. She's been going to get a little crazy.

All right, B, B, tell us. Call us, let us know when you take delivery. Everybody have a good holiday. Everybody have a good holiday to all you and our listeners. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank, Steve. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Okay, folks. We caught up. I think by the clock, we have got to get to the Big Dog Ranch segment of the show. Can we do an Emery text first? I don't want to neglect her. Please. Okay. Thank you.

for reminding me. And Rick, you too, if you have anything. Go ahead. It's another great question. Good morning. Every so often, this is Emery. Every so often Costco will drop the price of Michelin windshield wiper blades. When they do, I stock up and buy several sets from my car. I was wondering, can wiper blades still in their package sitting in a shelf away from the sunlight significantly degrade over time before I install them in my car? Rick, what do you think? Are they like tires? I mean, wiper blades out of the light,

no UV. If it's kept totally out of the sunlight, I would say they're going to degrade a lot slower. Okay. But any, any rubber or plastic product is going to eventually degrade itself down a ways. Yeah, I was thinking.

Things get harder and more brittle, things like that. Anyway, next part. Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'd like to take the time to say thank you. very much for giving me the opportunity to ask all kinds of questions week after week. It is greatly appreciated, and I hope that everyone will have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks, Amory, and listen, I go, I bet you we appreciate your questions more than you appreciate having the opportunity because they're always thought-provoking, and I'm like, I sometimes wonder how you're doing this. Are you, Amory, are you an AI? I'm just kidding. much. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, Annery. No, we've met Amory, I believe. Maybe not. I can't remember.

Yeah, we did. Thank you for being part of the show, you know, a weekend and week out, and more or less the leader of the pack, I'm going to say, and you encourage women to listen and to call. And for that, we're very thankful to you. Okay. What about, Rick, do you have anything for us? well one quick note from Donovan he says the Dodge EV is 3.3 seconds to 60 miles an hour Earl's cyber truck would do that in 2.6 and the cyber truck will also reach 100 miles an hour faster than the Dodge so yeah I was writing my guess on not quite but you could almost go to the end of the race and back before the Dodge could get to the end of the first leg

If you could manage that turn real quick. It's that you turn at the end that gets you. Yeah. Oh, wow. I wonder if you just put it in reverse and went backwards. Does it go to that? Do you know, Dad, if you put your car in reverse, can you do, can you go just as fast? There's an interesting question.

I'll try it out for you. Wow. Hey, Donovan. I know you're watching right now. Does this, will the cyber truck or will heavy, uh, EV, do reverse as fast as they go forwards. That you don't know this, Rick. Ooh, scary question.

That's not live, so we can't wait for them to answer. Okay, guys. We got to wrap this up. We've got to move forward here. And that brings me to Big Dog Ranch. And, wow, Big Dog Ranch will be open. Oh, in about a half hour, and they open up at 10 o'clock. And I'll tell you what, the weather couldn't be better for you to go out to Big Dog Ranch.

There's so much out there to do and take the kids out, and guess what? These dogs, all of them, puppies, cats, all of them out there, are so energetic this time of year. It's just amazing. They love this weather. So you can go out there, and you can really enjoy yourself. You can spend the morning, spend the day. It's just a whole lot of fun, especially with the weather that we're having. Stu?

I just have a quick point. I did look it up, and theoretically, EVs will go just as fast and forward in reverse, but software prevents that from happening. Donovan says 15 miles an hour. Yep. Uh-huh. Interesting. Okay.

Back to our dogs, plural of the week. And I have to tell you that there's a huge savings. It costs so much to adopt a dog. So take advantage of this offer that we have from Erlon Cars. That's a $200 value when you adopt a dog. And you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and you can check out all the dogs that they have for adoption. And you can just take a look at what they have out there.

It's a whole lot of fun, like I mentioned earlier. And we have, as I said, two dogs and Rover, aka Kobe. And then we have Kona. And they both have to be a Kona. They have to be adopted together. Wherever they go, they go together. Whether thou goest, I will go. Yes.

I think my husband said that too. Really? I think that was Ruth to Naomi. That was an old's quote. So let's take a look at what we have here. We're going to talk about Kobe, and Kobe is between three and seven years old, and he is a bulldog, and he's quite cute.

I think we're going to take a look at the video. I think that'll tell us more. Right, Jonathan? Take a look at Kobe and Kona. Hey guys, this is Rovert and this is Kona. They are a bonded pair here at Big Dog Ranch. So these two came in together about eight months ago. They were surrendered by their owners.

They are honestly two cute, beautiful dogs that want nothing but affectionate time. They love being outside. They have to go home together. because they cannot be without each other. They are inseparable. Oh, I'm over. So Kona really is just wanting to always be around somebody, always sniffing, always wanting to go outside and explore.

While Rover is kind of just a cuddled bug, wants to sit down all day, eat food. A little bit more confident. Wow, they're awesome. That was real nice. Hey, listen, I can tell you guys, I have, I have dogs that are pair bonded, and they, it's so awesome to have, it's a really, it's a totally different ownership experience. It's not much harder, except when they get crazy sometimes, but, or walking them, they're big dogs. But they go everywhere together.

I, you know, I took them to the beach the other day, and they run off, like, out of my sight. They just run down the beach together, and they come back together, and it's really something special. And it's really, it's like your family gets real big all of a sudden when you get, oh, you get, pair of dogs like that. That must be really nice. It's great. How they just, you know, they want to be together and have fun. So ladies and gentlemen, Big Dog Ranch, what a great place that is.

And you know all about Big Dog Ranch. Go out there. It's a whole lot of fun. What do you think? I think it's, they should get an award, really. I mean, there are so few shelters that will not euthanize a dog. And they take dogs from all over the country that do have to because, practically speaking, what are you going to do?

Yeah, all over the world. All over the world. They've come in from China. The list is simply endless. The best time I ever had out at the ranch was with you guys, and it was in the February a few years ago. Perfect weather. Yeah.

Yeah, it was the cold weather that made it awesome. So this weekend, it's great because, you know, it gets hot, you know, but it's so nice. It's beautiful. The dogs, by the way, there's something about cold weather and dogs. They love it. They get all crazy and they're running around. Their tails are in the air.

Oh, yeah. So go out today. And as Earl said earlier, Big Dog Ranch Rescue is the largest cage-free. No-kill, no-kill, no-kill. in the United States. We don't emphasize the cage-free enough. We always talk about the no-kill.

Each dog, they have dorms, and they have roommates. And they're not cages, they're actual rooms with doors and windows, and they all have murals inside of them. They're decorated by people that donated the artwork. There's a mural of Earl and Nancy and the style of, look this up, folks,

American Gothic, it's an old painting, Winslow Homer, I think. You created that. That was really cool. I didn't paint it. I just came up with the idea. An artist donated their time. Yeah, another artist. Not this artist here. But it's great.

And the dogs are happy and they're not in cages. You know, you go to another shelter and you start playing Sarah McLaughlin in the arms of an angel. And you get sad. You go to a big dog ranch. You can see it like an apartment community of dogs. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a happy story. and both of both cona and uh cobi are male dogs and they're bulldogs as i mentioned earlier and uh i i believe the kobe might be a little smaller than uh cona yeah they're like yeah one the uh cona was a it was a little bit more assertive and the other one was a little bit yeah a little smaller and just a little shy they they looked like uh quite a pair together you know uh not to be separated so keep that in mind if you decide you like Kona or Kobe, they come hand-in-hand each other. Okay, I see by the clock that we need to get to the mystery shopping report.

And don't forget, you can vote on the mystery shopping report by going to 772-4976530. Now, let's hear from the recovery car dealer. Stu, do me a favor. Read that. Read it? Yes, there's the author of these, and I read them all the time, and I feel like I'm, right, yeah. I forgot to mention that the mystery shopping report is from St. Augustine, and it's Bozart, Bozart, B-O-Z-A-R-D Ford in St. Augustine. And I'm going to repeat again that it is the biggest Ford dealership.

One of us. One of the biggest, yeah. Amazing. Okay, Stu. Yeah, this is crazy. He never heard of Bozard Ford. St. Augustine isn't that far away. It's about a three-hour drive north of us.

And, yeah, and it's a big store, which makes it very, very, very unusual that we just, Agent Lightning stumbled upon it. All right, here we go. I'm reading as Agent Lightning. I arrived mid-afternoon as greeted by a younger salesman named Stone. are you here to see anyone specifically he asked no i'm just looking to get a price on a new truck while i'm in the area i replied perfect i can definitely help you he said let's go over to my desk and see what you might like are you looking for new or used agent lightning answer is preferably

a new ford up f150 he nodded and added we're a very big store with a huge inventory in fact we're the eighth or eighth in the country in terms of volume so it is really You guys looked it up, and they are. They are, yeah. I think they might own more than one store, and perhaps they're using the name as being the largest. But I can't imagine one store in St. Augustine being that big. But Tampa, maybe.

Well, she described a huge lot. You know, we'll get to that in the report. So it definitely, you know, it looks like what they're claiming. Stone pulled up a truck on his computer. A new quote, unquote, 24 Ford F-150, STX, with an MSRP of $52,105. It had 2,300 miles on the clock. Clock is a euphemism for odometer in the business.

Earl tells stories about when they used to clock the odometers and set them back to zero. Well, not zero, that would be unbelievable. He probably took off this, you know, I just shaved a little off the top. Stone says, this one is being offered at a discount because it's been used as a loaner vehicle, he explained. What that means is, say you bring your truck in for service, we may give you this vehicle to drive while yours is being worked on. So this one is discounted. Agent Lightning is very agreeable.

She says, works for me. I said, I love the discount as long as all the warranties are covered. Absolutely, Stone assured me. So what they got is a company vehicle. The dealership owns it. They got it as a new vehicle, and they did not title it, so it is still sold as a new vehicle, new car. And then they used it in their service department, and then they, so nobody knows how many people conceivably. A lot of people drove it, but it only has 2,300 miles, so it's not like tens of thousands.

So they're discounting it. He didn't say how much at this point. Stone then asked, will you be paying cash or financing? Likely cash, I replied. Great, he said. But there might be additional discounts for financing, but I'll need to put your information

and pull up this vehicle to confirm. In the meantime, why don't I grab the keys and we can head out to the lot and take a look? It's a pretty big lot, though, so be prepared. I left. I noticed that as I drove in It's a bit overwhelming She sent some extra pictures

I should have included those in the report Yeah, it's a big place Lots of Fords After waiting for just a few minutes We headed out The lot was massive with rows upon rows of trucks Stone used the alarm button on the key fob To locate the one that we were looking for

It was the same one that Stone pulled up on the computer The MSRP was the same and the Mononi label was in the right place. And that's on the inside window of the passenger side, I think. Rear, but it happens. And it's also hard to see because now all these trucks are coming in with pre-tinted windows, a lot of vehicles too, in the rear especially. So you've got to get up pretty close to put your, cup your hands to actually read it.

There was an addendum. And it added $180 for 3M window tint. and when I saw that I was confused because I've never I don't think I've seen an end addendum for that little amount and by the way $180 for 3M Windington is a very good price

so it's not like we've seen 3,000 for Winda 10 so to put it in a perspective Stone unlocked the door opened it and then gestured for me to climb inside go ahead and start it up he said standing by the driver's door

he walked me through some of the features and then went around to the passenger side to hop in let me show you the screen and some of the other functionalities he said so they went through the computer stuff all the high-tech stuff that's on the screen which includes you know you all know that climate control the audio function navigation then he asked would she'd like to hit for a test drive agent lightning shook her head declined no I don't want to waste I don't waste your time or mine since it's late on a Sunday. Plus, we're traveling back from Tennessee.

We saw so many signs for your dealership along the way. We just had to stop. Stone smiled. I appreciate your honesty, he said as we headed back inside. Let's get you a price. Back at his desk, he asked for my driver's license. After entering my information into the system, he pulled up the numbers on his computer and showed it to her.

The top line was MSRP, $52,105. Then they took off $1,303 for the Bozard discount. And then another $4,000 came off labeled as rebates. And that was further broken down into a $2,000 retail customer cash and a $2,000 bonus cash. And the reason I wrote that down, because I'm not sure he mentioned something about the financing and getting additional things. bonus cash typically you get when you finance but I don't know Ford's you know with their what their systems like so it could just be another rebate then they

added 899 doc fee $177.87 and 81 cents and dock stamps like I said that is something that you're charged when you finance it is a legitimate thing but this is a sale a cash sale breakdown, so it shouldn't be in there. $219, $219 electronic filing fee, sales tax, and tag. My out-the-door price was $55,000, $51,57.953. There you go, he said, showing me the details. No sales manager was involved in the process, which is bad for us because usually that makes it a lot funnier

and entertaining but it's pretty they're doing it pretty straight here they got the price out the door we got the discounts all right then he offered i'll print this for you um there wasn't a there was no issues of can i take a picture of your screen no we don't allow that this is proprietary uh documentation um no he went offered it i'll print this for you he said before step being away briefly he returned promptly with a price sheet in hand, and that's another lovely adjective, or I'm sorry, adverb from Agent Lightning. Usually it's, he left, stepped away, and I was there for 45 minutes. Now, he came right back with a printed sales proposal with an out-the-door price,

so Agent Lightning thanked him for his time. When you're ready, just call or text me. He said, I'll do whatever I can to make this process as easy as possible. He walked me out, and I left feeling well taken care of. yeah and um always waiting for the other foot to fall yeah well you got you got the price I mean it was it took a while but uh you got the outdoor price which is uh not if you uh if you get a better price come back and I'll talk to you kind of a thing yeah at least you have a price and you feel like uh you know you're in shop and compare it and if you have a better price you get

buy there. Yeah, pros, Agent Lightning felt good, and she definitely didn't feel pressured. I do have a con that I want. So it's got 3,000, 2,300 miles on it, and there's a big, Agent Lightning gets a big discount. It's over $4,000, but only $1,300 of it came from Bozard. So that's the only pain they felt. They sold this thing at MSRP, a truck.

close to a $50,000 truck, they made a big fat, big fat deal on this used truck. I mean, like, okay, so in six weeks from now about, it's going to be 2025 and this will be, and if they don't sell it, because she didn't really

buy it, this car is here in January 1st, now it's a model year older with 2300 miles, if not more, if they continue to use it as a loaner. So it keeps on going down the value. I don't think it's worth like H. Enlightens, her little rule of thumb, which

I think she made up, but I think it's it works out pretty good most of the time. She likes to be at or below MSRP out the door. We didn't tell her to say that. That's her thing. But it usually works out to be a decent discount, like a fair price. Yeah, you can't get her too bad if you're really below MSRB.

So she is over MSRP on out the door and what I consider, and I think you guys would agree, is a used car. Yeah. I looked it up on Google maps just for the fun of it and it's a pretty good size dealership broken up to the fords and the lincolns and something i thought was kind of comical they actually have a restaurant in the same building that is ford's garage which it actually has no connection to ford it's just a uh like an american food restaurant called ford's garage they had one in wellington for a while that's a good and it's

they decorate the place with old Ford cars and engines in this, you know, looking like a mechanic shop almost. How's the food? Not bad, nothing that I'd really write home about, but... Better than typical car dealer affair, right? A step above Applebee's, I'll say. Okay. And, you know, halfway decent food. But it just, it was interesting to see if they actually have a Ford garage.

Is it like in the showroom or is it on the property? Is it like within the building? According to Google Maps, it's in the big building. with the Lincoln dealership section. So, hey, you're there to buy a car. You need lunch? There's a good place for lunch right there. Hey, you're just traveling through St. Augustine.

And it's right next to 95, right next to some of the outlet shops. Yeah. So, yeah, it's pretty easy to get to. All right. So let's go around since I've taken over the reading of the mystery shopping report. We'll start with you, Rick. All right. Well, I've got Niga 1 says B-plus.

should have been a little more of a discount for being a loner. Thank you. T-cash says D, the best I can do. I was going to say A, until I heard you say it's thousands of miles on it. Well, yeah. 2,300, yeah, that's technically thousand. That's stepping up a little bit, yeah. A couple of thousand.

Yep. Mark Smith, B-plus for Bozard Ford, a decent Ford dealership. Andrew Placincki says B-plus. Tim Gilliland, dealer fees, get them a B. Tom Sekel, C-minus, $1,100 in junk fees plus bogus doc stamp fee on a cash purchase. As a comparison, Mullinac's board is an A. Brian said Lacko, geez, that's a lot of money. However, it's an A for me. Johnny C-Fraidly says C-minus for $899 fee and demo should be a bigger discount.

Joseph Kelleherst, C, junk fees lowered the grade for me. also I would have wanted a lot bigger discount from the dealer on a used loaner truck yeah I think Johnny C. Freedly says there's a Ford garage in Cape Coral they're a they're a chain place they're around a few places cram 1624 get rid of the dealer electronic file fee and dock fee also it's not brand new D call Ashley Moody Mark H says B, not that

created a deal on a loner and myself I'm going to give them a C I like the salesman I like the place a bit with their their attitudes they're easy going and smooth operation without being pushy

but I again I think they needed a bigger discount for it being a loner and being a year old and I think they could have done better there to really make it a killer deal on that truck but that gives that brings me down to sea level on that you're coming down a little bit lower um who who who said call pam bondi uh that was uh cram 1624 so cram you gave me an idea um or call ashley moody yeah call ashley moody

yeah well we could do those they do that too do both we're gonna do that but but for now on the Ashley Moody, I think we should get, call Ashley Moody hats. Oh. Like, what does it mean? What does it mean? Anyway, Rick, I'm going to let you wrap up the grading. I'm going to give them a B because they did pretty well. I'm with everybody else's sentiment, and that's what I'm getting on the text, is that the discount

wasn't big enough. Yeah. All right. And we're going to double check, see if there's any grades of confidence. come in. Let's see here. Anne Marie says she'll give him a B. Bob says C for Bozard Ford could have been a bigger discount for 2,300 miles on it. Jonathan and Palm Coast says he's right down the road from St. Augustine says I like the Monroeley label properly placed. The window tendons price is reasonable, but the dock fee is questionable. And I'm not happy with a new vehicle having such high mileage. But

overall, it's not a bad deal. I'll give this dealership a solid B. And here we go. Oh, this is from Marty. He says, yeah, Ford's garage went out of business at the Wellington Mall. Yeah, they did shut down a while ago there, but that location's a tough one. There's been a lot of stuff turned over there. And let's see. Frank here in Jupiter Farm says, being a used truck, the price should have been less for a 2024 F-150. He says, we own a Ford King Ranch F-150. Now, there's an upgrade. But Frank says B-minus. And unfortunately, Earl's a little disposed at the moment. Nature calls for a quick moment. Nancy, would you like to give your grade, no, give your quick grade real quick? Sure. I'm going to give them a B-plus. A B-plus from Nancy.

Yes, that's an admirable grade. Yes, very much so. Oh, folks, let's see. How much time we got left there, Jonathan? You got about eight minutes. Oh, cool, I can have some fun here. Oh, by the way, Doug Tesler says, Ella says B-plus and meow.

Well, yeah, that folks sounds like a pretty decent deal there at Bozart. So if you're in the St. Augustine area, that region around Jacksonville just to the south if you're looking for a Ford that looks like a pretty good location to stop in and check out it's located like right off of I-95 there in the St. Augustine area so it's quite reasonable and easy to get to and I think you can find a pretty decent deal there oh oh yeah we have a video if you can watch the YouTube channel and even if you don't down check this one out later look for it

online Jonathan's going to play a video for us this is a walk around on Earl's cyber truck now he I gave him a suggestion of what I had seen on the internet where they took the stainless steel

and they polished it mirror smooth this is like it's a total mirror finish and it's polished stainless steel now this is something that comes from back in the 50s before we had chrome plating on cars

they would take stainless steel and they would polish it down and make it as shiny as could be but if you took it a step farther and you really worked it good you could literally get a mirror finish so yeah that video is coming up in just a moment here and we're going to see that in just a quick second here

and it is Earl's Cybertruck and the finish that he's had done on it and look at that it is just totally reflective I mean you will need sunglasses when he goes down the road because this thing is going to be shining like a diamond

that is folks that's almost scary to me i mean it's like it's looking like some sort of science fiction camouflage blend in material here that is awesome that is really cool the rick kearney show well folks please remember if you can get a chance to get out to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, they definitely can use any help for donations. And Earl's book, if you purchase his book, Confessions of a recovering car salesman, all the proceeds, 100% of that price goes directly to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And Earl loves the place. It's all about making sure that those puppies are happy and that we're finding good homes for them.

And Johnny is asking, how long did it take? I don't know exactly how long it took them to polish that, but I am betting hours. I mean, that is a lot of work with just the hand elbow grease, the machines to really smooth that out. Get a ceramic coat on there. And remember now, you can get that ceramic coat, even on regular paint, on your clear. coat and it will shine your car up and make it almost hydrophobic. The water will just fall right off. Folks, that's about all we've got time for today. Thank you very much for joining us and we look forward to being with you again next week. We will be right back here 8 a.m. Eastern

Standard Time. Have fun. Stay safe and happy driving folks. Thank you.