Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.26.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Mitsubishi

Episode Date: November 26, 2022

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

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. We're here in the studio at North Palm Beach, Florida. And into 18, 19, 20 years of this, we're We're the radio advocates for you, the car buyer, the lease or the lesor, the lessee, not the lessee, yeah, the lessee. We're trying to defend you against the leasing companies, particularly. There's a lot of bad stuff going on with leasing companies these days.

We've talked about it on the show. We're here to answer your questions, primarily. We're in very exciting and rapidly changing industry. the retail and the wholesale auto industry is topsy-turvy. I've been in this business for a long time. I've been a car dealer since 1968, and boy, have I seen some changes. I thought I'd seen them all, and the last two or three years have been the most extreme. It's a threat to the entire industry, a threat to you, the consumer.

I think when the smoke settles, it'll be a better place for you, the consumer, and we're trending in that direction. But it's a rocky road, a very rocky road we're traveling. The prices have been off the chart on new and used cars for the past couple of years, and I say off the chart far higher than anyone in the industry in vision. Leasing companies is a prime example.

they got caught with their pants down and put some very low residuals on their option to buy your lease car, and that's come back and bid them. It's been really bad for the consumer because for the first time ever, the standard price for new cars over manufacturer's suggested retail. They're coming down a little bit, just like used cars. but the average price now is still over sticker, full sticker. I mean, three or four years ago, somebody said to you, are you going to pay sticker for that car, whatever it is,

you would say, no, I'm not a sucker. I mean, nobody pays MSRP, nobody pays sticker. The sticker is a reference point, at least it's supposed to be, for how much below that number you can buy the vehicle for. So here we are paying over-stigger. And used car prices are coming down. These cars are a story in itself. And Nancy Stewart, my co-ho, is sitting to my left here.

And I talk about things on the way to the show every Saturday morning from our house. And we talked about used cars. It's complicated. Complicated is normally on the side of the man. manufacturer and the dealers, and the consumers are the ones that get taken advantage of. In this case, the complication in the used car department is very interesting because it's affecting the car sellers and the car buyers. Manufacturers are out of it because it's the used car, but we can talk about that later in the show. This is what Nancy and I talked about on the way in.

And what's happening now is, used car prices are coming down, but the car dealers aren't acknowledging it, actually to themselves. Car dealers are turning a blind eye to their inventories. And their inventory, typical used car inventory, I don't know what, it would be at least a million dollars for the used car lot, and many people it would be 20-30 million dollars, depending on the size of the car dealership. But car dealers, what we call, own their inventory. Very few car dealers borrow the money to finance their inventory.

So they have a huge amount of cash tied up in their inventories. Now, let's say you're a car dealer, and you've got a million dollars tied up in your inventory, and you wake up one morning, you'll find out the inventory's only worth $900,000. What are you going to do? Well, this is a dilemma of, most car dealers in the United States

right now. How does it affect you to use car buyer? Well, we'll talk about that later on in the show, but it really, really affects you. And it's pretty complicated. Ironically, I'll give you the bottom line here, you're better off going to the car maxes

that publicly owned used car companies, even Carvana that's teetering on bankruptcy. A lot of these public car companies The good thing about a public company is their numbers are transparent. They have to be because the Security Exchange Commission requires that. Whereas the individual car dealers are privately owned and their numbers aren't shared with anyone.

So the salesman, the sales manager, maybe the general manager of the dealership doesn't understand that his inventory is way overpriced. And you haven't got a snowballed chance of negotiating. a lower price on a car that he believes is higher than it really is. So that's a rough summary of the dangers you use car shoppers are facing out there. So before I get off on doing the whole show by myself, I was headed in that direction. I want to remind you that we have in the studio with me, Rick Kearney, sitting to my right. Rick gets neglected too often because the glory is always about cars.

You know, the shiny new Corvette, the Lamborghini and the Ferraris, and, you know, cars are exciting and sexy and all that. But when you buy one of those exciting, sexy cars and it breaks, you've got one person you're going to go to, and that's the Rick Kearney's of the world. And there's not many good technicians out there. I hate to tell you this, but very hard to come by. I'm a car dealer. I have a toilet dealership in North Palm Beach, Florida. And let me tell you something, to find a knowledgeable, good technician, auto technician today, forget about it.

I mean, they are really, really, really difficult to come by. And we got one right here in the studio, and he's free, only in the studio. If you go to the dealership, he'll charge you, and I'll charge you too because he works for me. But in the studio, Rick Kearney will diagnose your car problem, and even if he's not going to actually fix it for you, he might even give you a few hints. Maybe you can fix it yourself, or maybe you can take it to a place where they can fix it at a reasonable cost, or maybe it's not as expensive a repair as you thought it was, or maybe it is. maybe it's more expensive, and maybe you've got to get rid of that car

because it's just going to take you down with expenses over the next few months or years. So Rick Kearney, we're at 877-9-60-960. 877-960-960. That's our landline. That's our old-fashioned telephone. And we get a lot of those calls. We get too many, actually, because we don't have a big enough switchboard.

I think we have like five lines coming in. And that's where I get to Nancy Stewart, my co-host. She's a more attractive person in the studio here, sitting to my left as you're streaming us on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. She is one that monitors that laptop in front of her has the phone calls from the producer, from the person that monitors the actual telephones that come in. And when a telephone call comes into the show, we stop whatever we're doing.

And we answer that phone because we don't want to tie up the lines. We don't want you to wait. And that's one way to get through to Rick Kearney. Here's another way. And that's Rick Kearney and get through to Nancy Stewart. Stu Stewart, if he shows up, we haven't seen Stu this morning. He was actually feeling a bit poorly today. So unfortunately, he won't be able to make it today.

Oh, I'm glad to hear that. I mean, I'm not glad to hear that, but I'm glad to hear that. but I'm glad someone told me. Okay, we're going to have secondary priority given to text. If you can text us, it's 772-4976530. We'll get to the text, but we won't get to it as fast as we do the call-in number. And that call-in number again is 877-960-966. That's 877-960-9960.

And again, as I say, the text number, 772-4976530. I hate to deluge you here with, overcome you with the numbers, but if I don't, the phones will be quiet and the show will be boring, so I have to give you this information. Of the most, and this is one I guess I'll have to monitor because Stu's not here, anonymousfeedback.com, Y-O-O-U-R, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now that's a URL, that's a web address, and it's a first-class company. They have as clients, a lot of bootchip companies that use this for their employer. and customers, it's an anonymous way to contact the company.

And this is what we're like a company here. So if you go to youranonymousfeedback.com, you're totally anonymous. And I will be able to find those your anonymous feedbacks, I think. I'll go to my iPhone. I'll set it up right now. While I'm thinking about it, and I put it on right here,

and I will find those, and we will get to that and share it with everything. with everyone. YouTube, as I said before, Rick Kearney monitors that channel, and it's Earl on Cars, I'm sorry, is YouTube.com forward slash rule on cars. YouTube.com forward slash row on cars.

And, of course, Facebook.com, forward slash rolling cars. I imagine Jonathan or Rick will be monitoring both of those. So the only one that can't be monitored are the anonymous feedbacks, and I can do that. And so I'll be keeping my phone open and check on those. So that's all the ways you can reach us. And your calls make the show. Your text 772, 4976530, that's 772-4976530, your text and calls.

anonymous feedbacks make the show because what you want to know, thousands of people want to know, they just don't have the time or want to take the time to call the show. I'm going to flip the mic over to Nancy Stewart. I talked to her just a minute ago. She is a female advocate for this show. She's in a marvelous job over the 20 years that we've been on the air of getting the ladies in the audience. A lot of them have always listened, I believe. pretty sure, but they didn't call the show. And now they're calling the show. And

think about it. Women and men are different, right? We think differently. We act differently. We have different emotions. We have different strengths and weaknesses. We're different. We're equal in a lot of ways, of course. The important ways we're equal. But the smart marketers out there, the people that are selling stuff like automobile, dealers have got to understand that you have your audience are female and if you don't if you don't treat the females right if you don't understand their psyche and what motivates them to buy a car and what they consider respect and disrespect and all that kind of thing then you're going to lose a lot of

business so here we are at Earl Uncars half the audience now we have built up I say we thanks to Nancy Stewart and her incredible offer that you want to hear about right about now. She has a special cash offer for the first time female callers to this show. Nancy, the mic is all yours. Good morning, everyone, and welcome Daryl Stewart on Cars. We have a whole lot to get to, our famous mystery shopping report from Miss Abishi. That's on Use Cars. And we're going to follow up with Jeff Weins here and his investigative reporting that we talked. about last week, he's moving us in the right direction with the attorney Ashley Moody.

Also, I want to remind you that the phone number here is 877-960-99-60. As Earl said, you can text us at 772-4976530, and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. For the ladies, we're here to inspire you and vice versa. and we're committed to a vision, a relationship with you. And we love hearing from you, even if it's just to say hello, we love hearing from you. For the first two new lady callers, I have $50 for you this morning. And if at the end of the conversation, you'll leave your contact information with Mike in the control room. He'll give that to me, and I'll write that check out and get it to you today.

day, $50. I know you can use it. Everyone can today. It's that time of year. We are going to go right to the phones, and we are going to talk to a female caller. She is a first-time caller from L.A. Good morning. Hi, good morning. Good morning. And what is your name? My name's L.A. Ellen. How you doing, Ellen? And welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. This is Nancy. you, Stewart. You've won yourself $50 this morning, and when we're finished talking, if you will leave your information with the mic in the control room, I can get that $50 out to you. What can we do for you this morning?

I just have a generic question about car repair. Some things I learned recently on some car repair I had on the pricing of the repair itself and also the charges for the parts. I know that forever they've always upped the price on the parts a little bit at the shops, but they seem to be, you know, upping them a crazy amount, half 50% to 100% over what they're paying for them at the shop that they buy them from. And I'm just shocked at that's so high. What's going on with that?

Okay, I think Rick can start. That's actually a pretty common practice. Most mechanic shops will raise the price on the parts. They're actually getting those parts usually at a discount, especially if they're buying wholesale, pardon me, or if they're buying from the same parts dealer all the time, they'll quite often get even a discount from it. And one of the ways that they make extra money for the shop is by,

increasing the price of that part before they sell it to you. Ellen, am I asking what part of Los Angeles? Are you in the suburbs? Are you downtown? Well, actually, I'm in Florida, but my name is L.A. Oh. My name is L.A.

So, but I'm aware that they do that. Everybody does that. Generally, it was, you know, to pay for the time and effort of them running all the parts through their company. But it seems like they charge a lot and I went online and read after my recent repair,

and they charged 50 to 100% of the amount. I mean, that just seems like it's price gouging. I understand that they have to make a living and a profit. We all do. But, you know, I mean, if it's a lower-end part, they charge up to 100%. If it's something over $300 I was reading online that they charge you, you know, up to 30%. And I was way overcharged for some parts recently, and I just couldn't believe that that's the percentages that they're running on, you know, on their add-on. Yeah, unfortunately, that's not uncommon.

And it's a great question, by the way, because it's something we haven't devoted enough time to on the show. Parts are actually overpriced from the get-go. And by that, I mean the manufacturers make a huge profit on the part. I'm an automobile dealer and I buy my parts from Toyota. Toyota marks their parts up to me considerably. One of their most profitable areas is selling parts to the dealers. So there's a wide margin when I buy the part. I see parts that are virtually the same as I buy from Toyota available

and what we call the aftermarket made by other manufacturers other than the other than the OEM manufacturer that I work for, or that I contract with to sell cars for, I should say, that are much less expensive. So when you are taking your car in for a repair and you get an estimate, you just reminded me to remind everyone, always check the parts prices as well as the labor prices. Typically, what you do is you check the total price. And that's not a bad idea. I mean, the total price is more important than any individual, the part, or the labor. But sometimes they get away with it quite, even within the independent repair shop or the dealership you're going to. The service department and the parts department and car dealerships are two completely separate departments.

Rick Kearney in the studio here, he works for the service department. my dealership and there is a parts department. The parts department is almost like an independent business. They sell the part to the service department and then they mark it up to the service department and then the service department marks it up to you the consumer. Oh, I forgot. Toyota marks the part up to me. So it is a series of markups and parts are probably one of the most unfairly and a grossly overpriced part of an auto repair. I agree with that, and it's come to my attention recently because back in the day they just did a minimal markup

again just to run it through their business. But I just am shocked now how it's being done. And in addition, I understand about the service as well, they quote you a price based on the book hours, and most of the time the book hours are too long. for different reasons and I had one shot recently let the car sit for the last half it was it took them an hour and a half and they quoted me a three-hour book price and they let it sit five minutes into the third hour so they could charge me for the three hours without anyone

saying hey you only took this long again I do understand they have to make a living and make a profit and it just seems like the way that they're coming up with their pricing of the total. You just, sometimes you just have to walk away. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to find a different business to do a different dealer or repair shop to do the business with because this is the way the business is conducted. The markup to my dealership and all Toyota dealerships from Toyota is 40%. And that's, that's a sizable markup. Then the dealers.

I know, it doesn't seem. legal almost, but I guess, you know, it's America, you can go where you want. Yeah, well, 40% is marked up again. So, you know, it isn't, here, let me, let me give you a website. If you have a pencil that you can write this down, it's fairly easy to remember. It's called rock auto.com, R-O-C-A-U-T-O, W-W-W-W-W-R-A-O-O-O-O-com. Now, they carry every automobile part you can possibly imagine. I don't care what kind of car you got, they have the parts that fit it.

And if you want to get a fair price to compare with the independent repair shop or the dealer, you're going to go to rockato.com, put in the specific, specific. You just can't say a rocker arm for a Chevrolet. You have to have the specifics, your make model. or the VIN number best if you can get the VIN number of the car and then they say this is a part they will give you a price as a retail

price because they mark up the price too but that price for Mock Auto will be 50% Rock bottom low Yeah rock bottom low So that's the solution and I can't thank you enough

for not only being the first female caller this morning and you won $50 but also for asking an extremely interesting important question which the men and the women and everybody listening out there can benefit from so that you're just saved

all the listeners and viewers to this show a lot of money if you go to www.w.com and compare the price that you're being charged for that same part wherever you're having your car fix and I thank you again I know nice to you thank you

as Earl said you know I heard You say back in the day, you know, there's truly nothing back in the day. What is here and now is, I hate even saying it, the new normal. And, you know, it can really be very, very costly. And, you know, in my experience, everything and anything I do, you know, I check out three prices, you know, whether it's labor, you know, whether it's a part. and that website did it will give you lock auto.com simply by putting in your VIN number. You know, it's very telling.

And boy, I can't reiterate enough the timing of your call, the question. It was, you've opened up, you know, the lines here. There are a lot of people, men and women, who are very interested in what you had to say. because not everyone knows that there's a lot of gouging going on out there, and it's unnecessary. You know, it's just like buying a car. It's just like leasing a car. You know, there's enough for everybody to go around here. So paying MSRP, you know, that's the way to go.

But we really have to preach and preach and preach. And we thank you for being here with us this morning. sharing your knowledge and you can stay on the line get that information to the controller mic and i'll get to get you that check i have to ask you one more question before you go how did you hear about our show well you're on the radio i think every saturday aren't you excuse me saturday aren't you on the radio every saturday i listen to the radio and that's what i hear very good thank you thank you for tuning in to the Oldies Channel, Earl Stewart on Cars.

I hope to hear from you again. Spread the word. We're trying to build a platform here for the ladies. Okay, sure, absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate the forum. Thank you. For everyone that's holding right now, we're going to get right to you.

We're going to go to Mike first, and Laura, hang on. Good morning, Mike. Yeah, hi there. Welcome. Yeah, well, thank you. I want to say one thing about Earl Stewart. I think he's one of the sharpest guys going. I bought a 19, sorry, a 2018 Hyundai Sonata from him.

I paid top dollar at the time, which was actually cheap in today's dollars. I paid $13,000 for it. However, it only had one owner, was never leased, and I got 38,000 miles out of the car without ever touching it. except for regular 3,000 mile oil changes. And that car had an air conditioning system that would give you frostbite on your nose. No kidding. It was perfect.

I gave the car to my daughter as a wedding present, and she's still running that today. And it's just one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. Unbelievable. Yeah, I'll tell you. I think you're a pretty good judge of character. I think you're a pretty good judge of character. Yes. Believe me, I've been around a long time. I'm 76, so I've going on 77. I've seen a lot of cars.

I used to buy a brand-new Cadillac, because I put 65,000 miles on them. And in three years, I'd burn them out, so I'd have to get a new one. Oh, geez. Okay? So I know about automobiles, all right? I mean, trust me, when I know that, I do all my own repairs. I don't take up the mechanics. There is one problem I have right now, though, that I want to ask them about. And that is I have a 2014 A-T-A-S, an A-T-A-T-S-C-Catelac. And what happens is when I put the air conditioning on, I get lukewarm air to cool air on my driver's side

and the two vents, the middle one, and the passenger side comes out hot air like the heater was on. So it's actually, you know, now it's not too bad because I don't use air conditioning. I think it's not that hot, but during a seven, when they got it, a murder. Yeah, I think Rick can answer that. Yeah, your Cadillac probably has automatic air conditioning, meaning the computers controlling the blend doors. Most likely, either one of those blend doors is seizing up and giving you hot air instead of cold,

or you may simply be completely out of refrigerant on it and not getting any cold air there. You need to have a mechanic check that one. Yeah. I doubt it's refrigerant level because, as they say, I do get cold there out of the driver's side vent when the car is moving down the highway or going somewhere. But if it's idling, it kind of warmed a little bit. So it may be low, but somebody told me the actuators are what the problem is. And the actuators, in order to get them to respond properly, I don't know if this is correct or not.

They said, take the battery cables off and click them to get. and that should reset your actuators. Is there any truth to that? No. Disconnecting the battery for about five minutes will reset all the computers, but you do not ever, ever want to touch the positive cable to ground ever. Touching those two cables together, if there's any sort of system in that car that has any residual charge in it, in a capacitor of any sort, you would take the potential of burning something up, damaging things. Never want to do that. But what they were referring to is that you take the cables off the battery and you click them together, not while they're on the battery. Right. That's what I mean, though. Even if your battery's disconnected,

certain computers in the car still have capacitors that retain electricity to retain memory. And a lot of those things, you know, something like that could possibly backfeed. I would never ever touch those cables together even with the battery disconnected um okay what do you suggest i do then if i can repair it myself what do you think i should do just give it an extra charge he said let it set for about five disconnect the battery and then let me i'm sorry let the car sit for about five minutes yeah and when you reconnect the negative terminal that will reset all the computers so if it's simply a problem where where one of the computers sensors is reading bad information. That may help correct it. If it doesn't, then what I actually consider, it almost seems like you've got two issues going. The fact that you have warm air on one side and cold on the other, to me, is potentially a low AC charge, especially if it's not getting really ice cube cold, even sitting at idle. And the other one is there's a potential that one of your actuator doors is not moving to give you the proper mix of air temperatures.

well if that's if the second thing is my problem how would I resolve that you'd have to find out whether it's the actuator or the computer if the computer's not telling it to move then obviously the actuator's not going to move to move to how does he find that out that would have to be a mechanic would have to diagnose it with a voltmeter okay there's nothing uh in the way the uh there's no diagnostic equipment on that no i understand how to bolt meters I'm an engineer so what would I do with the voltmeter. Basically, you'd want to get the specifications of what signals you should be seeing at that actuator and measure the voltage there at it. Yeah, that might be just easier to go to,

you know, a mechanic and have them do that because he has a computer that you can cross-check my computer with. Yeah, I understand. Okay. Right. Thank you very. Oh, one more question. You always are supposed to put the negative term connection first and then the positive second on its battery. Am I Correct? No. Negative terminal is always the last one that you connect, the first one you disconnect, and the last one to reconnect. See what happens when you get to be 76 years old?

Well, I'll tell you what, I'm 81 years old, and I never heard the answer either way, so I just learned something. The reason for that is that batteries can create hydrogen gas that can collect near the surface of the battery, and when you connect the negative terminal, you can connect the negative terminal, generally it will not cause a spark but the positive terminal very likely can cause a spark and if you've got some hydrogen gas there

you could suddenly get a little flash of fire well that's the reason why I thought you're supposed to put the negative on first and then the positive because that will prevent a spark from taking place but I mean right Jay Leno didn't know the answer of that either well he was playing with gasoline unfortunately that was a joke gasoline yeah yeah I think he's recuperating

well thank you Mike you're a great caller and you enlighten me and I love to be able learn something new every day if I can't well I'll tell you isn't that the truth Mike as Earl said him being 81 me being

80 we learned something new every single day in fact it is a must and as far as batteries are concerned boy back in my day when I worked on the battery I learned you know the hard way as far as the negative and the positive and I'm glad

that Rick was here to answer the question. Good luck to you. Well, Earl, I want to tell you, thank you for that pleasant experience I had with the Hyundai Sonata you gave me because you sell nothing but quality cars down there, as far as I'm concerned. Well, thanks, Mike. I appreciate that. The fact is, we sell some lemons, too, but don't tell anybody about that. Mike, give us a call again.

We love talking to you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Thank you. We are going to go to Laura, who has been holding, and she, too, is a first-time female caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Laura. Good morning. How are you? We're fine, thank you. Welcome. You've won yourself $50 this morning. Stay on the line after we're done talking, and you can talk to Mike in the control room. He'll get your information and pass it along to me, and I'll get the check out to you. Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much. It's the added bonus. I have a quick question for you, and obviously it's not going to be as quite as detailed as your other callers.

However, it really had no idea what I'm doing under the hood. My car had stalled out, and I had a towed home. At first I thought it was the battery, and it was only a year old, so I would think that it wasn't. But then I thought, well, if it's stalling and it's not, my lights aren't coming on. And, you know, when I lock my windows or my doors and my windows, you know, I couldn't unlock them. And therefore, I thought it was the battery. So I went, I got a brand new battery, and that's not it. Then someone told me to do some kind of a test, and I cannot remember what it was,

but it had something to do with the battery cables themselves to see if it was an alternator. now what do you do for that first question what's the car we're talking about we're talking about a Ford Explorer 2008 it's an older car but it's a good work truck

okay and when you turn the key on are you getting any lights on on the dash at all none and it's not even turning over I have no idea what I'm doing with cars so that's why I call to you all somebody tell me about you all

yeah if you're not getting anything at all. Most likely you've got a blown fuse or something or maybe the terminals for your cable are just simply not connected properly on the battery. That one you're going to have to get a mechanic to look at because if the battery is connected properly and the fuses were good, you should at least get the lights to come on on the dash when you turn the key on. And if you're not getting anything from it, you know, we'd have to go and figure out what's, you know, Something is not letting the electricity get out of the battery to the car systems. So we'd have to start checking fuses at that point to figure out where, you know, where it's stopping.

Okay, and there are fuses in the vehicle, but are they under the hood or are they, somebody told me that if there's a battery that's under the hood, or not a battery, but a fuse that's under the hood. Is that correct in 2008, Ford Explorer? You're going to have at least one large fuse block under the hood. with probably 30 or 40 different fuses in it. And there will be another one under the dash with, again, 30 or 40 different fuses in it. Oh, God. Okay.

Cars are not simple animals anymore. They're very complex. Yeah, definitely with computer system, et cetera. Okay, well, I do appreciate it. I just was concerned if it was an alternator or what. Laura, I hope that we were able to... battery. Yeah, I hope we were able to answer your question. You know, it's a win-win situation whenever you call, you know, about a question, you know, a subject, you know, like you just did

with Rick here, he can answer, well, most of the time, 99% of the time, you know, he's right on it and he knows exactly what the answer is. So I hope that he was able to lead you in the right direction. she certainly was Nancy and I thank you so much oh you're welcome Laura please spread the word as I told Ellen this morning I'm trying to build a platform here for the ladies and you have to let your voice be heard

if you want to you know if you want to build that platform and every voice is important we look forward to hearing from you again I thank you so much and you certainly will thank you so much Have a great weekend. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530, and don't forget your Anonymous Feedback.com. We are going to talk to David, who is calling us from Jersey, and I believe that's Howell, New Jersey.

Did I get that right, David? Yes, yes, you did. Oh, great. My eyes are failing me. so it was sort of a blur. Welcome. Okay, welcome. Good morning.

I have a question for Rick on my 2012 Prius. I have an odd issue that has developed, and maybe you have something similar. On the windshield wipers, there's an intermittent problem, but it's getting to be quite often where it doesn't work on the intermittent speed and the first and second speed,

but then when you put it on a high speed, it works. And then when you go back to the lower speeds, it works. So I can deal with it, but, you know, I'm afraid it'll go out while, you know, in the rain sometimes. I was wondering, and it had a similar problem. My dealer said to start by changing the switch, which could be about $400 and he doesn't even know if that'll do it. Yeah, you got, there's really two, only two components to the winchel wipers themselves. you've got the motor itself, which is a computerized motor.

It actually has a small computer system in it and the switch itself. The switch on the 12 Prius is simply a set of contacts. So the idea that it would work up on high and then going back to the low speed would make it operate again. I would actually kind of rule away from the switch. I'd be leaning away from it because those contacts are going to. to make their hit each time anyways, I can't see how going up to high and back down would cause the switch to start working again if it were, you know, if it was starting to burn out. So my first thought actually would be the wiper motor itself, because that's actually

where you have the circuits in it for the resistors that actually tell it how to time the the wiper speed, and it tells it when to go to low and medium and high speeds for you. So I would start with the motor myself. Okay, correct. And the switch, like he was telling me, that it could be very expensive. He said there's more than one kind. You'd have to open it up first, and that it could be like four or five, even $600 just for the switch. And it's a Toyota dealer, a Penske dealer.

Yeah, the switch actually, it's a bit of a pain to replace because you've got to pull the steering wheel loose. to get down to where that switch is but as I recall the wiper switch side actually disconnects from the spiral cable piece on it so

it you know it can be a little bit of a hassle to change that out but it takes about an hour to an hour and a half and then of course there's the cost of the switch itself he said there's more than one type of switch so he can't tell until he gets on that particular model

Nah, they should be able to look that up by your VIN number and know exactly what switch it is. That's what I would think. So, really, I'm not going to go that way anyway. I would lean towards the wiper motor. That's where I would suspect is going to be your issue. Okay. Okay. And one other issue that I had on the car is, it never burnt oil until recently.

So I don't know if I said. It was a 2012, I'm the original owner with 150,000 miles, and it started burning oil maybe at 135. It was getting up. All of a sudden went to a half a port per thousand, and his dealer put in the hybrid performance service, a BG kit, and it actually didn't use any oil for 10,000, and now it's using a little bit like about a quarter of a port.

Do you think I should do a second hybrid performance service, if you're familiar with it? That's what I'm not familiar with. That sounds like one of those mechanic in a can, additive type things. That's what it is. It's a BG kit. You pour it in.

They run it for a while. They run it for about a half hour, then they take it out, and then they put a little bit more in it. It actually did something because the oil consumption went down for 10,000 miles. Okay, well, hey, if it... What I'm saying is, should I do it again,

or can I have a problem with gaskets and all? If it works, I would have them try it one more time. I mean, depending on the cost of it. It's not very, very inexpensive. It was $80. I'd give it a shot. You know, Prius Motors, we have found, at around 150,000 miles, they start to develop two different issues with them.

One of them is they do start to use oil. The piston rings start getting gummed up a bit in the pistons, and they don't seal as well. So as the engine's running, the oil is seeping past your piston rings. getting into the cylinder and being burned away and if that chemical that they're using actually helps clean some of that carbon out of there unless those rings start to pop back out and seal a little better it will reduce your oil consumption that's exactly what I think happened so I'll try it one more time

can hurt yeah and give us call back in a while let us know let's know if it helped in it because as the mileage as I put more mileage on the shore but it's a already improved it quite a bit. That's pretty interesting. It's a rare thing that one of those chemical additives actually does what they claim. Did you call it mechanic in the can, or was that just a, that's kind of a joke comment on it.

Yeah, the, it's the old, oh yeah, put this polygraphers in your tank and what is the name of it? On my bill it says hybrid performance service and then as a number on the, like on the item number which is BG Kit. I can take a picture of it next when I go to the dealer again, and they have signs all over to dealers before I can change you it. Yeah, BG is a company that they sell all sorts of different chemical cleaning products

for the engine, transmission fluid, flushes, all sorts of different things. Most of it is just fluff. That's why I'm a little surprised at one actually worked. That's kind of surprising. Well, being that they were advertising it and had pictures all over the service department of it, I was surprised that the price was so low that they're only charging $80 extra. Right. I didn't really know if I figured I'd try it, but it seems to have done something.

Well, thanks, David. Sounds like a win-win. Like Rick said, call us back and let us know if it worked again. Yeah. And David, it was great hearing from you. Well, I'll tell you, our callers, our listeners, they certainly educate us. And that's why, as I say every week, you're an important part of the show, and David, you were an important part of the show. That's just amazing.

It's very interesting. We're going to stay with the phones, and just in case you didn't jot that number down, I'll give that out again. 877960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. We look forward to hearing from you at Anonymous Feedback.com. We have a regular caller from Jupiter, and his name is Howard, and I want to tell Bob from Lake Worth to please be patient and hold on. Good morning, Howard. Good morning.

I hope you all are fine, and it's getting to be a nice day, even though it's a little cloudy now. Okay, I have a question about maintenance. Okay, what we used to do, let's see if it still holds true, we used to change belts, change hoses, and if you have a timing belt, change the timing belt, of course you don't change the timing change. What about that? Do we do that now after a certain amount of mileage or time?

Do we change hoses and belts automatically, or we just go on until they fail? Well, we used to have to recommend them because about every 25,000, 30,000 miles, The belts would have big cracks in them. The hoses might start to swell up. They get oil soaked or whatever. You'd see suspicious spots on the hoses. But unfortunately, technology has made it a little backwards on that. My truck has 158,000 miles, and the original drive belt and the hoses are in perfect condition.

And I guess I go with the attitude. If it ain't broke, I ain't going to fix it. And all I can say is belts and hoses now, the quality of them has gone so high that we don't sell them. It just, unless something is broken, nope, don't need to be done. I remember my belt, we used to squeal, and a friend of mine said, oh, you have to spray it. I said, what are you talking about, spray it? He says, yeah, you spray it and the squeal go away. So we sprayed it, went away from about a half an hour, and it came back.

Then we had a share. I'm talking about 20 years ago now. Yeah. Okay, now, next question. Should we use parts from the original car like Toyota or Ford, or should we go with aftermarket parts? Which aftermarket parts should we never buy out of the dealers? Excuse me.

Like Bendix brakes parts, right? Let's compare that to Toyota brakes. What is the difference? Well, it's hard to say, Howard. I'll jump in here on that. My fear, when we talk about aftermarket parts, parts are built by someone other than the original equipment manufacturer is on crash parts on repairing the bodies.

Your cars in an accident, you got a bumper, a hood, a door, a fender, that is part of the caged that's protecting you in the event of an accident. You know, if you have a hose or a belt that breaks, it's likely not going to kill anybody, but if you have a hood that doesn't compress properly in coordination with the airbags that are, you know, milliseconds or microseconds, I guess, in terms of reacting. to an accident, it can kill you. So I would never let a body shop repair my car unless they use original equipment parts

on the crash parts. Now, every part in a car isn't a crash part, but you can visualize most accidents. I mean, you've got a, you know, your body of your car is a protective thing around you from the back. Even the trunk is a crash part. Your bumpers obviously are.

your doors your roof all these so crash parts use all the OEM everything else is pretty much sometimes an aftermarket part is as good as an OEM part and sometimes it's you know a fraction of the cost so you don't want to be just super safe and only buy parts that are made by the manufacturer of your car that would be super safe but it would also be super expensive. I would shop around. I'd do some Googling. You go to rock auto.com.

Their parts are generally represented as being safe and high quality, and the prices are much less. But there's no book out there that tells you which aftermarket non-crash part is good. Am I right, Rick? Absolutely. Now, for regular repair parts, My recommendation would be if you know the company that makes the manufacturer's part and you can buy that part for a lower price by going to an outside source, that's no problem in all.

Let's see, Aki Bono makes most of our brakes for Toyotas. Nippendenzo, that's the one I'm trying to get my mind around. Nip and Denzo makes most of our things for like alternators, air conditioning compressors, things like that, but you can find nip-and-denzo compressors through an outside source for half the price of what a dealership would charge. And it's the exact same part. Okay, my last question, and I'll hang up. Breaks, metallic, semi-metallic, organic, and brake dust. Why do some breaks, when you spray the brakes, the dust comes out, and can you explain why?

I'm going to hang up now. Thank you very much for taking my call. All brake pads are going to make dust. I mean that's how it works is you're actually squeezing the pads onto the rotor and that friction is what slows the car down. So they're all going to make dust. Metallic and semi-metallic pads might last a little longer but they also wear out the brake rotor, which is a much more expensive part. So I would stick with organic or ceramic brake pads that won't wear the rotor

as much and just do the brakes. Maybe, you know, okay, you might not get as quite as long a time, but you'll get 80, 85% of the same life out of those other pads, and you won't have to replace the brake rotors as often over the life of the car. Well, Howard, I think, hung up on that. Let me add something on that. I have Tesla on my mind this morning. I'll tell you about that in a minute.

But we're talking about maintenance and repairs and cost of repair. If you have never driven an electric car and you don't know much about them, my Tesla, of course, is an all-electric car. And I never use the brakes. I don't mean literally. I mean, I might drive 50 miles before I had touch a break. The brakes of this Tesla of mine, I'll probably be dead and gone before they ever need any replacing.

I just don't use, electric vehicles use the automatic inductance braking. When you take your foot off the accelerator, the car automatically breaks very nicely and efficiently and smoothly. You know, that's a good point. I don't remember hitting the brake while driving the distal. Never. So, just a thought. We get a lot of people out there that are very negative. on all electric vehicles.

I have anonymous feedback, as a matter of fact, the honest feedback says that you gave me a link to an article about all the downside to electric vehicles. And make no mistake, there are certainly things that are negative about electric vehicles. And a lot of them are being overcome by technology. I think eventually all of them will be overcome by technology. But if you go out and buy all electric vehicles,

say there's some sacrifices that you make too. So they're not perfect, but they'll be the only act in town in about 10 years, so you better get used to it. And one of the great things, I mean, go back in your life and see how much you spent on brakes on your car over your lifetime. It's a lot of money. A brake repair is fairly expensive, and you'll never have to do that in an all-electric vehicle. Well, actually, you won't have to do that on most hybrid.

either right because hybrids again good point use electric motors to drive the car and what you're actually talking about is regenerative braking where to slow the car you're using the force of the the those electric motors they're being reversed into generators and it's the electromotive drag that slows the car down and of course that's a fantastic way to do it because that energy then is turned into electricity which is put back in your battery that you get to reuse. Well, explain this to me. Why is the drag in my all-electric Tesla so much more

than the drag when I drive a Camry or a RAV-4 hybrid? Because your Tesla has more motors. I believe you have dual motor in that, where it's three. Three motors, okay. So you have three separate motors. That means three generators. So each one is creating more electromotive drag. I got you. Versus the Camry or the RAV-4 that, well, the RAV-4 can have two motors, one in the rear, but that one actually doesn't use the drag. It's only the front motors that are turned into a generator.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay, Howard, I think, have we answered all your questions? Yeah, he's off the phone now. Oh, he's gone? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, last week we did a report on Jeff Weinsere, and if you missed that video, that we aired on this investigative reporting about Ashley Moody, you can go to Earl Stewart on

Carr's Facebook or you can go to Earl Stewart on Carr's YouTube channel and you'll find it right there and you can watch that video if you missed it. We are going to go to Bob in Lake Park and Bob thank you for your patience. You've been holding for quite a while. Welcome. Thank you. I'm thinking about becoming a dealer in a can. That's a funny one. Dealer in a can. I like that.

What can we do for you? Do you ever a mystery shop, body shops? That's an interesting. The answer is no. And as soon as you said, I felt embarrassed. Why? Why? The reason for the question is I have about $1,000 worth of body work I want to do

on my car. It's not an insurance claim. I'm just going to pay for it. And I was wondering if you knew maybe you could make a recommendation of a shop nearby, you know, not too far from what your dealership is. It does quality work and will give me a fair shake. Well, I actually, I have to get back to you on that. When the insurance company is involved, you're very, very smart to be careful because the insurance company, and much as I poke fun at insurance companies and pick on them, they're your advocate,

at least as far as the collision repair shop goes. They're going to see that the collision repair shop does a safe job and not necessarily uses the correct parts because they push repair shops to use aftermarket parts and they also push them to use aftermarket crash parts. which I am totally against. But I can't, Rick, can you think of an independent body shop

that you would recommend? Hard to really say, because I actually have been pretty doggone fortunate. I have not had an automobile accident in either by vehicles, mine or my wife's, in 15 years or more. Bob, let me ask you this question.

Bob, what bank car do you have? It's not an accident, and it's only about $1,000 worth of work. Yeah. And it's something I'm going to pay for out of pocket. Do you know anything about these people that took over Jim Prices? I'm going to open up where Jim Price was over here on the Old Dixie. Now, I know Jim Price used to be a pretty decent shop, but I don't know anything about the ones that have bought it out, no.

There's another one called the Irishman. I remember I go by there. I just don't know any, I don't have enough experience with independent body shops to say. The insurance company, I mean, even though you're not going to use the insurance company to pay, you might call, you know, state, farm, mall state, and just, you might find somebody they'll say, this is an approved shop, and if they're an approved shop, then that gives you some indication of their reliability. Now, there is one place I know of down on Dixie, down in West Palm.

It's a little way south of Forest Hill. They're on the west side of the road, almost into Lake Worth. It's called G-O-N-Z. That's a little bit too far. Rick, that's too far. Okay. I just know they have been at that location for 30 years or more. And you're not going to stay in business if you're not doing a good job.

You're not going to be in business that long, and I know they've been there a long time. Bob, just call your insurance company and say, may I have a list of your approved repair shops? Yeah, I could do that. You don't have to tell me at an accident. Just say, I'm curious, I might need that. Well, within a 10-mile radius, what are your approved shops? Right. I wasn't in an accident, so I'm not concerned about that.

I just thought maybe you knew somebody did quality work. Yeah, I understand. In the area, and I had another question about, you know, if you do find parts, you know, you want to save the money on the parts. Years ago, you could do that. You could go and find somebody that would actually do that work for you, and you could bring them your own parts. Oh, sure. That's much part of the do now. Yeah, just be careful.

They don't want to do you. They're not going to let you bring your parts and have them do the work for most. Most of the shops now won't go for that. So that's not a real good alternative. I mean, unless you're qualified to put the pot in yourself. You know, you can buy the parts on Marquado. And then even if you find somebody that puts the parts in few, they're not going to guarantee the work.

Well, there's no good, honest reason why they wouldn't do it. I would do it up front. I go to it. The reason is they're not going to make as much money on the job. Yeah, I, you know, it's part of, and they don't want to care, they don't want to guarantee the work. No, it's part of the, part of the negotiation, you go, you find, you're, you're, your insurance, listen, your insurance company tells you, these are the approved shops. You call the first approved shop and you say, I want you to take a look at my car. You were recommended by my insurance company, but I'm paying out of pocket, and I'm going to bring the car over.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to buy the door. I've got a, I'm going to buy the, I'm going to buy the fence. I was talking about mechanical parts, though. Yeah, okay, whatever. You're telling people to buy parts on Rock Auto. Okay, yeah. Even if they get the parts, even if they get those parts from Rock Auto. And they save 20% or 25, maybe 30% on the price of the part. Try 100%.

Yeah, well, maybe. But they would have to find somebody willing to put that thing in. Well, Bob? They won't do it. Yeah, well, but you, you. you might have had some bad experience. I do it. And, you know, any, I think any good businessman in the repair business would do it.

I mean, it's either you're going to get some business or you're going to get no business. I'd like to sell you the part and make a profit and also make the labor profit. I'd like to, I'd really like to do that. But if I only have one choice, I'm only going to make the profit on the labor and not the part, I would take that too. I mean, you know, a small bite is better than no bite at all. to your dealership and I brought my own parts and I went to Rick and I said I want you to put them in to me I'll pay for the labor you would do that at your dealership yes actually are the policy in our service department right now is

what is that we do not install customer supplied parts unless they bought them through our deal through the shop well just get the policy is the policy the policy just changed so here we here we go here we go here we go. I learned something new every day. There's an absolutely I'm getting bad advice here, Earl. I don't know. No, no, listen, let me tell you

something. Let me tell you something. The nice thing, when you stop talking, I'll talk. Okay, let me finish. There isn't a dealer around or a majority of the repair shops around that will do that anymore. Where you can bring

in the days gone by, you're an old time like me. Things have changed. They don't want to do that anymore. They want you to pay for the parts to them. This is the world we live in now. Unless you're qualified to put the pot in yourself, you have somebody that's a friend,

it's a mechanic that's going to put them in for you. It's a very difficult thing to find somebody that's going to do that. And that was my point. It's not that big a deal. I already know what the situation is. I was just curious when you said that. you did that. I thought it was very unusual that your dealership would be doing something

that nobody else does would bring my own parts and, you know, I was going to buy that story. So, yeah, I mean, to me, when you've been around a long time, I've had plenty of experiences in things, but I was looking for, what I was really looking for is somebody

that does quality body work that's in the area that would give me a fair shake and I don't have to worry about them doing it. Because I know right now it's hard for people to find help, Bob, the show ends at 10 a.m. I'm going to give you your, you can keep on talking, but I do have something I want to say to you

when you're through talking. Okay, go ahead. I stayed online for a long time to talk to you, but that's okay. Okay, okay. The policy at Earl Stewart, Toyota, is if you have the proper part and you bring it in,

we will repair the car with the proper part. But if Rick is right and we haven't been doing that in the past, we should have been. So that's what you do when you run a dealership or any business. You change things to make them right. So we were doing something that was wrong. If Rick is correct, either Rick's wrong or I'm wrong. But I know for a fact, and I've been personally involved in transactions where people will complain about the tire price. and I'll say, if you want to buy your tires at Costco,

bring them over, and we'll install them for you. You know, it isn't a question. Now, if you come in with a part that we've never heard of before, can't identify, and you want us to put it in your engine, your transmission, and it could cause damage and be unsafe to, it also called solidility to my company, I wouldn't put that part in. but if you had

well how do you how do you define a proper pot because how about a proper part Bob I got to let me talk Bob a proper part is the part that we identify as being proper

it would be the original equipment manufacturer part for your car you're making model that's the proper part if you bought a part on rock auto dot com for less money than I charge you and you could because rockato.com sells parts to you cheaper than I will.

So go to Rock Auto, buy your parts, bring them to my dealership, and if you got the diagnosis correct, and Rick says, yeah, you bought the right part on Rock Auto, then we will put it on the car for you and not charge you for the part, just Rick's labor. So even if you buy it from Rock Auto and it's not an OEM part, it's the right part number. It's the right part number for that problem. You'll put it in.

Exactly. If we say to you, this is the right part, and it's the right for this car, your mega model, then we'll put it on for you. That's good. That's very unusual. Well, I'm an unusual guy, Bob. Listen, thanks for the call.

Call again, and let us know. You can call in next week and see if I was telling you the truth. Yeah, we look forward to. you're hearing from you Bob and I look I hope at some point in time maybe you'll do some mystery shopping of some of the body shops oh that's a great idea we should do that great suggestion maybe that would be good we'll talk to you next week we're going to go to George all these calls that I have holding everyone thank you for your patience I want to let everyone know also we are going to get to the text and we're going to get

some two some other things we have just had a well a lot of telephone calls this morning we're going to talk to george who's been holding good morning george and welcome good morning guys good morning how are you great thank you for calling good i'm going to be a little short-winded um i uh i heard a conversation with the first lady that you had this morning and i only caught the tail end of it and it had to do with i I believe it was book labor time and that they held her car in the shop to confirm that it had the right amount of time on it for the job that was being done. Was that correct? Yes, that was Ellen who was calling for the first time from L.A.

Okay. Sure. Okay, well, I do understand book labor time. and I also know that these technicians have like 30, 40, 50,000 dollars worth of tools and equipment that they use to try and beat whatever the book says if something's supposed to take 45 minutes is to their benefit to be able to complete that job within 30 minutes. You're exactly right. And get paid the book labor time. Exactly, George, your question, and we should have brought this up before, one of the stupidest things that car dealers and manufacturers do, is call labor units hours. So Rick will say, he said this earlier in the show, I meant to say something to enlighten the listeners.

He said, that's about a two-hour job. Well, there's two hours on the clock, and there's two hours on the clock, and there's two hours on what we call the flat rate manual. So every manufacturer has what they call a flat rate manual. God only knows where they came up with that. Flat, I don't know what that means. But they like to confuse everybody, including the customer, the dealers, everybody.

So you're right. Rick is a top technician. He's been doing it for a long time. When you do the same operation on the same vehicle for a number of times, you get quicker. First time you have a repair car, an air conditioner on a particular model, it takes you a lot longer than the 20th of the 100th time. So the flat rate manual might say it's a two-hour repair. Rink might be able to do it in one hour.

But you still pay for two hours, but it's not really two hours. It's two-hours labor units, is what they should call it. And customers get angry, they get confused when you say, this is a two-and-a-half-hour job, and then they fix your car and they bring it to you in one and a half hours. You say, you're charging me for two and a half hours. You've only had my car for one and a half. Well, either they did a lousy job and fixed it too fast

or they had a great tech, they really did fix it an hour and a half. So the name of the game is confused to consumer. And that's what this lady that called in earlier that you heard, they had confused her on purpose, probably, just to charge her more. And just to clarify one thing, my toolbox, if all of a sudden I walked in the shop and my whole toolbox was gone and I had to try to replace it, I don't think I could. I probably have, conservatively speaking, closer to $75,000 to $80,000 of tools that I have purchased over the past 27 years of being a mechanic. and I mean a lot of them are very specialized tools but I've got a lot of money invested in this career and 27 years learning how to do my job the most efficiently that I can and a lot of things that you

also will not hear is the one simple rule every job is one broken bolt away from being a three-day nightmare so what does this continuity hours when we set the labor time on a job And we say, okay, this job pays two hours. If I have a bolt breaks off, I've got to repair that drill and tap out that old rusted bolt, and I don't get paid any extra labor for it. You know, it's just there's, it's a double-edged storage on flat rate. And it's, you know, I know it seems like a great thing for the customer times. Well, the flat rate is a creation of the manufacturer.

Yeah, and it's outdated and really should go away. away. But that's what they do. All right. All right. Hey, guys, in the technicians' defense, Rick, I think you underestimated the amount of money in your toolbox because you're probably still paying the snap on man every month. Every week. Yeah. And you technicians are not being paid as you were 15 or 20 years ago. You used to be able to turn 60 or 70 hours in a week.

legally and responsibly and I think those hours have been cut down considerably by the amount of maintenance that's no longer being done on the vehicles and as you stated the hoses and belts we don't replace those anymore there's a lot of maintenance it's just not being done and the technicians are actually suffering for some of this stuff and Rick I don't know how many hours you make but you're the top tech so you get all the hardest jobs and hey Bob Bob I hate to interrupt you i know you and rick are commiserating with each other here but we got a whole bunch of people on the line awaiting and thank you very much for your call yeah it was great talking to you stay in touch give us a call again george we are going to uh go out to uh we're going to talk to ken

who's calling us from antarbor michigan welcome to the show ken well good morning thank you for your Patience. Oh, no problem. I'm the guy that brought a 2016 Prius at the Detroit Auto Show after seeing it, and had the speedometer that I couldn't convert to kilometers. Ah. And I remember you tried to help, but Toyota, their bottom line was the only way that we can fix this is you need to buy a new Prius to replace your new Prius.

Yeah, I'll never, that should be part of my new book. because I won't ever forget that one of the dumbest things that Toyota ever did was in your particular case it was just cruel and unusual punishment of a customer to do that to you and it all the manufacturers probably to some degree or another this issue on the Canadian American border you know kilometers versus miles that creates a lot of problems and it should shouldn't be the consumer's problem. It should be the manufacturer's problem. And when they knowingly allow you to buy a car with a kilometer to charge you an arm and a leg and then some to correct the

problem, it's just absolutely stupid. But thanks for calling back. You sure took it to, you went all the way on this, as I recall, Ken. I mean, I've never seen anybody more persistent. And you really fought the good fight. Yeah, they said, you know, we're Toyota, we have millions of dollars. You know, you're only talking about a $30,000 car, just buy a new one. Well, so I see last week, Toyota has a class action suit regarding selling obsolete 3G telematics because of the 3G network shut down, and that intentionally would disable things like your crash

notifications. I'm thinking of buying a new Prius because the 23 Priuses are coming out, but how do I avoid getting basically screwed again by Toyota? Because I can't drive into Canada. I think that's

been corrected. I'm just I'm going to have to verify this, but I think after they screwed up so badly with you and thousands of other customers, I think they finally I think when you buy a car in Canada now you can flip over from miles to kilometers and this is true probably for all the manufacturers but for a while there it was really a dumb thing they were doing and they

changed it right but the reason I called today was that new lawsuit regarding the shutdown of the 3G network and Toyota apparently was still selling obsolete telematics in the vehicles saying that, okay, your 3G telematics don't work, but you can buy more new telematics to make it work. So I sent you a link in the Facebook and also messaged you. So maybe you can follow up next week. I will. I will.

That's news to me. And thanks very much for letting me know I promise to follow up on that. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. It's great hearing from you. Boy, that new Prius is unbelievable, is it not? It is just, it, it doesn't have that old-fashioned look that the other, the old Priuses have,

and it's going to be a hot seller. Okay, I think it's time for us to go to Rick, and we're going to take a look at some text and some other things. All right. Well, we will start off with Stu's. obviously his usual thing here with excuse me Anne Marie first one good morning

in a perfect world well maintained cars would never suffer a decrease in fuel efficiency as time goes by obviously this is not a perfect world why does a properly maintained cars efficiency drop over time thank you

and I believe she's speaking more along the lines of fuel efficiency. And obviously this is going to have many, many factors to it. The biggest one that I see right off is your fuel efficiency is going to drop for one main factor at the beginning, and that is as your tires begin to wear. And, of course, tire pressures, if you don't keep the pressure up, that's going to cause your fuel economy to drop a bit. But also as the tires wear, you'll get, you know, just different.

diameter and that's going to affect your fuel efficiency. The engine itself, eventually those moving parts are going to start wearing out and you're not going to seal as well as tightly in the engine. That's going to cause a change in fuel efficiency. Transmission, again, all these moving parts, everything that starts to wear and kind of break down a little over time, all these things are going to have a change in efficiency. Yeah, and not as much as that might have at one time, but yeah, I think any machine becomes less efficient the older it gets, the new machines, the new cars are highly efficient, and the amount of, I've never seen statistics on that. It'll be something I'd like to look up. You take a highly fuel-efficient car and then measure the fuel efficiency five years later or ten years later. I wonder how much, what percentage fuel efficiency you would lose. I don't know. I'm sure you do lose some, but much less than it used to be. Okay. Okay, I think you're right.

We are going to interrupt Rick and the reason we have our dedicated follower, exciting caller. I could go on and on, but we'll go straight to the Roadrunner. Roadrunner, Steve, welcome. Hey, Steve. I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving. Oh, man. We did.

And you? Good. It was nice and quiet. Oh, that's the best. Okay. I need the text number. I want to text you a photo. My road run to be an electrical charge.

Okay. 772. 497. 497. 6530. Okay. 6530. 772-497-6-5-30 correct okay thank you so much everybody I would be texting in a few minutes

okay that sounds good Steve have a great weekend okay we're going to go back to we're going to go back to the text okay well we did have quite a few interesting comments come in here particularly this one set up from Donovan, when Earl was talking about the regenerative braking on his Tesla, as compared to like the Prius or other hybrids, let's see, where did he put it? Here. Donovan says, Earl, the motor in your Tesla is many times more powerful than the Prius, and it can generate up to 300 kilowatts of power for braking by way of the electromotive

drag. I don't know where he got the spec, but if that's true, that's an impressive. very much so very impressed always great to hear from Donovan he gets some fantastic yeah let's see what else if we got here going interesting on Negan one from Mount Arizona says that his Ford dealership will install motorcraft parts if they're bought on Rock Auto but he says most other places he's heard of really don't do that a whole lot of the dealerships try to avoid that but we'll save that battle for another day, I think.

If you just tuned in, we had, who was it, George, Bob, actually, I think. Bob, and he said that no dealer, no repair shop would ever use the parts supplied to them by the customer. And I said that we did, and Rick said, no, we don't. And so we got into that discussion. But since I'm the boss, I won the argument because we are, we will do. that and and we do we should do that so obviously independent manufacturers and car dealers don't want to use your parts because they know that you paid less for them and they're losing the profit they would have made had they sold you

the part so they don't want to do it but what's the old saying half a loaf is better than none to me a good businessman would take a half a half a little bit of apple loaf and say, okay, I'll forfeit the parts profit because you bought this genuine Honda part to fix your Honda that I will put on and I verify that it is the right part. I will put it on the car and I'll charge you for my labor, but I'm not going to charge you for the part because you bought it from rockado.com. So you got half the profit that you would have otherwise. If you had none of it said, I won't do the repair, you have none of the profit.

So why any good businessman, and I consider myself a good businessman, would say no, we simply are not going to accept parts from customers that they buy that they do not buy for me. It's just stupid. It makes no sense at all. Well, for this, here is the picture that Roadrunner Steve just promised us. If you want to hold that up for the camera. And it's a picture, obviously, of his 68 Roadrunner. Oh, man, look a beep, beep. With Wiley Coyote sitting on the back of it and an extension cord going in behind the gas license plate on it.

Oh, you're amazing, Roadrunner. We love you. Oh, you're the man. Thank you, Steve. Okay. And going back to our text here. Let's see. We're going to interrupt.

We got some. Okay. interrupt you for a minute. We're going to go to Marty, who is a regular caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Hi, good morning. I've got two quick questions for Rick. Okay. First question, my son has a Tesla. It was four years old, but out of warranty, and he needed a new air conditioner, and he had to pay Tesla $2,500 for a new air conditioning unit in the car. Did Tesla the only one that could furnish a air conditioner for a Tesla? I would guess, yes, I would say that if you got into putting in an aftermarket

non-Tesla air conditioner, I don't think you could buy an air conditioner from rockado.com for a Tesla. I mean, I could be wrong. It's a relatively new make-a-car And Tesla is Selling cars as fast as they can make them And I don't know I think he's probably stuck with Tesla

And that's one of the bad things about Tesla Is you don't have a lot of people That are fixing Teslas If you want your Tesla fix You pretty much got to take it to Tesla because it's unique. Yeah, he did it.

Earl, he did it already, so it's just a question I had. Do you think it could have been done elsewhere? But Kassla told him, you know, you had to go through him, through them. And now I got one other question for Rick. On my car, on the steering wheel, where you pressed a little speaker button,

I said about a week or two ago, it kept saying, loading the phone book, loading the phone book. So I made an appointment with your service, and the day before my appointment was it started working correctly. So when I canceled the appointment, the lady that took the appointment, she says, well, maybe you should still bring it in. I said, well, how are, I said, you know, what are they going to do if it's not doing it? So she says, well, maybe you still want to bring it in. So I just canceled the appointment.

I just wanted to ask Rick, does he think they would have done anything or would that have been a waste of time? It truly, it would have been a waste of time. Step number one for any auto mechanic anywhere is confirm the condition. If we can't confirm it, we can't fix it. It's the old rule. If it ain't broke, I can't fix it. So that's why the first thing that I do when a customer comes in, if they have some, some odd condition, a noise or a vibration, something like that.

I quite often will say, hey, go for a ride with me, show me what you're looking for. Because I remember in my earliest days, I had a customer come in and said, my car is making this noise. I went for a drive. I thought I had found that noise. I worked on that car for hours. I thought I had it perfect. Let me ask you this.

Isn't it better today than it was 20 years ago? In other words, we have a lot of diagnostic tools and we have computers and aren't there intermittent conditions that can be picked up by the computer and the error code? They can, yes, a lot of times. So I'm not sure exactly what problem you said it was. Well, his was connecting his phone to the radio. Yeah, that's a, yeah. And the fact that it cured itself, I would say, I would wait and see if it has any other issues. Yeah, for that idea.

And if it doesn't, I wouldn't worry about it. I'd say just if it's working, stick with it. The only reason, right, Rick, that I was thinking of bringing it in to do nothing was that I only had 1,500 miles left in the 3-year-36,000-mile warranty. I just wanted to get it, like, logged in to say this was the problem happened before the warranty ran out. Marty, that's a very good point. that is. And now that you've told Rick and me, you're covered. But to all the other people are listening, if you have a car that's near going out of warranty and you have an issue,

Marty is exactly right. You need to go on record that the issue occurred while the car was still in warranty. And that would cover it, even though it's out of warranty, because it is an intermittent issue. So I'm not sure whether you're a repair shop or dealer or dealer. would tell you this, but if you called and you and you and you and the service department in this dealership agreed that you shouldn't bring it back in until it reocurs, you should say fine, would you please make it in the record on my file that I called you today and this is what I described as my problem. If they'll do that and you trust the dealer then a thousand miles later or five years later or whenever this thing is out of warranty and the same problem

comes up, it should be covered. So great point, Marty. I wouldn't have thought to say that. All right. Well, I want to thank you now that I'm documented on November 26th. You're covered. And the whole country has heard this. Yeah, we've got a podcast too. You can come in with a podcast. All right. Thank you both. And have a great weekend. Thanks, Marty. talking to you. We're going to go to Mark, who is calling us from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, crew. I just wanted to quickly share an experience. I called

a show a few weeks ago. We had gotten a bad car accident, and we were forced to go and having to buy a car. So, you know, we're looking for a used car. Nothing against Earl Stewart, but or any of the other automobile dealers looking for a used car. Price range were way out. We checked with Carvana. That's the one that wanted to charge $1,000 to transfer a car I wanted. It was in Miami to hear locally. But the suggestions that you have always suggested,

sorry, I'm getting mixed up for words, I'm trying to hurry. CarMax, let's a CarMax. CarMax. I can tell you, CarMax, what a great experience. Good. It found a two-year-old Camry, a 2015 instead of a 17, and only 20,000 more miles. But what a great car, no damage. I, you know, being 37 years in the body shop business, I examined that thing with a microscope.

coke. So anyway, the sales experience was excellent. Everybody worked. Nobody worked independent, you know, one salesman against another. But I just want to call and say that CarMax is a place to go. I checked the other ones. They may be good, but CarMax is far as superior. Yeah, CarMax is the gold standard buying a used car, and I wish they had more CarMaxes around the country. They've got quite a few actually, but that's the way

to go, and I'm really glad you got the right car, and you can trust them. They're a good outfit. Yeah, and I just want to, I can see the tense, the tension that go here about, I just had a

comment about customer supplied parts versus the repair shop supplying parts once a consumer always wants. When they're going in to have repair work, whether it be service or body their expectations is they want their work to be guaranteed you know for a certain period of time or whatever but you know the customer also has to understand uh if they supply the

parts maybe not earl Stewart I can't speak for Earl but I can tell you every other dealer and every repair shop if you supply the part and the park fails you're not going to have every warranty period. They're not going to guarantee you the workmanship or refix it if it had to be done again. Whereas if the repair facility

supplies the parts, they have a certain amount of responsibility as far as the labor cost. Well, Mark, if the customer Mark, let me finish, please, let me finish. Mark, if the customer if the customer

is supplying the same part that the dealer would use, then there's no reason why they wouldn't want to warrant it. So if you're putting, I'll use a body part, if you're putting a bumper on a Honda, on a 2019 Honda, a cord, and the customer comes in and he has a bumper for a 2019 Honda cord that was an OEM bumper, which is the exact same bumper you'd put on, then why wouldn't you warranty that repair just like you would if you'd put it on? The only difference is you're charging the customer

a lot more for the bumper than he paid for it. So the point is, if a customer wants to go to the trouble to buy the right part at a lower price and bring it to you, there's no reason to penalize him by taking away the warranty or anything else. You just have to accept a lower profit and make your profit on the labor. customer comes in with a bumper cover they're carrying it in their hand and uh sometimes there's

not a way of guaranteeing the knowing that that party is actually an oem part unless it comes in a package and you have an invoice and the box that is Honda ohem whether and it show is late you got the car report coming up and i don't want to argue about my just my expression is that somehow, even if they have an OEM part, it's not in the package that they handed to you. If it was handled or somebody tugged on it, they're just going to say that there's that possibility that part might fail in the future.

Okay. So we're not going to get the part. So anyway, that's just, I just want the consumers understand that. Okay. And I don't want to argue with the Earl. No, no, no. You and Rick are entitled your opinion. Unfortunately, I'm the boss, so we do it my way.

Have a great day. Mark, it's always great hearing from you. Please give us a call again. Have a wonderful weekend. I believe that you would want to go to the mystery shopping report. It's just about 937. It's going to be a little bit tight. We have our mystery shop, and sorry, Rick, we're out of time.

We have the mystery shopping report from Palm Beach, excuse me, Palm Beach, Mississippi at use cars. And you can vote. We'd love to hear from you at 772-497-6530. You can have my copy if you'd like. Okay. That's 772-497-6530. Vote on this mystery shopper report on used cars, and we'll get, you ready?

Get ready to it. Okay. All right. We're excited today to bring you the final installment of our four-part used-car mystery shopping series. During the last crazy 18 months of the retail car business, with all the shortages and price hikes, we focused almost exclusively on new car sales. It was useful and informed to do so, but we ignored what was going on down in the used car department. Use car departments often get ignored, unfortunately. It's a good thing that we started

paying attention because change is in the air, not just here, sell. Florida but nationally prices are coming down as getting a hurting on car dealers I mean there this is a mouthful you you have no idea and most car dealers have no idea on how bad it is with used cars and that was a little editorial comment by me the car sitting on dealers lot lots right now were acquired in many cases months ago at a much higher price than they're worth right now the collective dealer body is looking at billions.

You heard it right with a B, billions in losses. They bought these cars back during the days of wine and roses six months and a year ago when you could sell a used car for any price you want. You could sell a used car for more than the same new car because you couldn't buy the new car. So they got drunk with power and these dealers just went out. Carvana was the drunkest dealer. They went out, and they bought cars. They paid crazy money for cars.

Smart people, consumers, took advantage of that, sold them cars at incredibly high prices. Guess what? The markets crashed. And the dealers are sitting around with all these cars they bought at extremely high prices, and this is all editorialized. I'm not doing the Mr. Shopping Report directly right now.

But this is where you are now. Keep this in mind if you are shopping for a used car. Oftentimes, the dealer himself is buried in terms of cost in these cars. So if you think you're going to get a good price on a used car, when that dealer has the car booked into his inventory, $2,000 or $3,000 higher than what the real market is, you're crazy. You're not going to get a good price.

high interest rates and consumers unwilling to pay dealers high asking prices have contributed to the table but what's bad for the dealers turns out to be pretty good for everybody else in the form of lower prices you're paying cash higher interest rates are definitely going to cut into your savings it's so interesting to see how different dealers are reacting to this in the last month we've seen everything from a huge addendum markup to a pleasant and mostly transparent experience. For the record, it was Naplesa with a giant markup, no surprise there, like anyone was really unsure about that. Next page. This week, Agent Lightning went to Palm Beach, Mitsubishi, a thriving dealership located on Australian Avenue in West Palm Beach.

We must have missed the invitation of the grand opening ceremony in July 2021, where Missubish CEO, and I'm really going to struggle with this, it's a Japanese name, Yoichi Yokozawa, Yoichi Yokosawa, and dealer principal Chris Berrien, were in tennis. I just a little personal note. I know Chris Barian from many years ago. He employed my current boat captain 20 years ago. Used to be a Cadillac dealer, Del Rey. What he's doing with the Mitsubishi store. I have no idea. Okay, here's the report. Before heading down to Palm Beach Mitsubishi, I found a used 2000, I'm speaking in the first person, is if I were Agent Lightning, or mystery shopper. Before heading down to Palm Beach Mitsubishi, I found a used 2021 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, unlimited for sale on their website for $53,900. It was actually listed for 59,900, which was indicated to be the Kelly Blue Book value, and it wasn't, misrepresentation.

It is not the Kelly Blue Book, so they didn't tell the truth. In reality, the retail value is around 52,000, and wholesale is closer to 47,000. Now, buyer beware. I've told you this on new cars. Use cars, it's going to be even worse. I drove to the dealership late morning with my daughter and we began to wander the lot and no one came outside after 10 minutes

so we entered. I asked a young woman for help but before she was able to, Nico came over and introduced himself as the salesperson. I showed him the listing of the Jeep on my iPhone asked him if I was still around and I asked if it was still around. He let us do a computer to check for me. Once we sat down, he asked me to spell my last name

so he could put me in the computer. After pecking away the keyboard for a minute, NICO, that could be NICO, appeared to have found it. He said it was here and available. We got up to head outside and see the car. Nico asks us to wait by the front door. He pulled up in a big white Jeep Rubicon, got out, began showing us the vehicle.

I noticed there was no price on the window sticker. No price. Along the test drive, my daughter helped by begging me to buy the Jeep. She loved it. I'm sure Nico appreciated. They helped you advise me to listen to my daughter. A little aside here, a little editorial comment. This is one of the reasons I love using Asian Lightning as a mystery shopper.

She brings her family along. Her husband, her kids, she has several children, and total reality. I mean, no wonder we are not busted so far. knock on wood, that she hasn't been discovered because it is a totally natural experience. I love it. I mean, and her daughter love the Jeep Rubicon. Hey, mama, mama, let's buy this. And they're very opinionated, and they're very knowledgeable through Agent Lightning.

They've really learned a lot through her. She's amazing. We went back to the dealership and sat at this desk, Nicos. Nico asked me what I hope to accomplish today. It said, I hope to drive home in that Jeep. Nico seemed to like my answer, and he offered me to get anything written up, to get everything written up by his sales manager. We waited for 12 minutes, and he returned to ask for a few more minutes, took another five minutes, and Nico had our worksheet. Worksheet is what you always see in the process. It's an unofficial buyer's order. It's not legal, and they can play games with that, and that's the reason they call it a worksheet.

Their lawyers said, don't call this a sales contract, don't call this a buyer's order, call it a worksheet. That means you can put anything down, fool around, and BS the customer, and you can't get sued. The selling price was $53,900, like the ad, but of course, there were fees. They had a $999 document fee and a $497 electronic filing fee, very popular name. Both of them, doc fee and electronic filing fee. I asked Nico if this was the best he could do, and my daughter chimed in to ask if they had any Black Friday specials. Nico said yes.

For us, there are no hidden fees, and any time I get my car service with them, I get a loaner. That was exactly what my daughter was referring to. So I thanked him for the time, and I said, I would think it over. Niko asked me to wait. me to wait so we could get his manager come in and say hi I gulp told him that my

daughter and I were in a hurry so maybe next time so let me see if I can find my printers prints on both sides the pages now it's a little confusing so I think I'm all through with that I don't have anything else to read and I think that might be the whole shopping report stew does a shopping report and Stu is sick now so we'll have to do with that again this was our Palm Beach Mitsubishi used cars in West Palm Beach and under due ownership and we vote on the curve we go from you know F which we give out very few but because you have to be worse than all the other dealers and all the other dealers are pretty bad in Florida and most of the

places where we shop so we don't have very many asks we because we're great on the curve don't have very many A's either but we try to get somebody that's average or above average and that's the way we base our scores if you didn't get that number earlier it's seven for you to vote on that mystery shopping report it's 772-4976530 so what do we have Rick I'm waiting right now for the grades to come in Pardon me, I'm running Facebook text messages. Yeah, you're multitasking over there. Let's see.

So far, nothing on Facebook. Well, Paul A actually had said on Facebook earlier. He said he graded an F before he even heard the report. You. Wow. I thought you were tough. Okay, here we go. Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis.

He's giving a C. So that's not too bad. No. Tom Steckle, D-Minus, way overpriced and junk fees on top. Not as bad as Napleton, though. Rocky Blockadeeel. Sort of what we have come to expect now. I'd give it a C-minus.

Scott Hunter with a D. Mark Ryan with a C-minus. Brian said Lacko. I'll be generous today. I'll give them a C. Tim Gillland, C. C. Mark Smith, C-minus.

Negan 1 a grade of a C and okay up Paul came in he corrected he says really it's a maybe D because the fees are a bit high on it and that's what we've got so far nothing in the text messages but myself I'm actually gonna say a C I see you know there's a dealer fee 998 in there but looks like a pretty straightforward reasonable type thing for today's markets. Yeah, I mean, it's a bad report, but I say, relatively speaking, it's about average. And that's the way.

What do you think, Nancy? Well, you know how I feel about fees. So with that said, I give them a D. I think that's reasonable. And if anyone has read your column, the past column, you know dealer fees you know they're not illegal it's the fees that are not posted that nobody knows about until you're walking out the door so those are my thoughts Rick do you have anything else for us no we're going pretty good although I did have one earlier comment from Donovan

he said for the AC system on the Tesla you can get it for From a third party, Tesla uses a, and I guess the company name is Hannon, H-A-N-O-N, electric AC compressor AC system. Oh, who was that, Marty, that called in on that? Well, Donovan was giving the information here. I forget who would call in about the... I said his son was... Yeah. Well, that's good news.

Marty, I hope you're listening. I'm pretty sure it was you that called, but there apparently is an air conditioner that has been identified. Give that out again, will you? The company name is Hannon, H-A-N-O-N. Okay. So that's apparently who makes the AC components for Tesla. Oh, that's very interesting. Okay, well, that'd be a case where we could test also the theory.

If you buy it directly from Hannon, would Tesla install it for you? And that would be definitely a good one to ask about. We have one other grade just came in from Martha Gillespie-Beman, a C. and you still need to vote yet. Yeah, I'm going to give them a C. I think that... I have to say this, though. I don't want to pick on Mitsubishi.

But Mitsubishi is a manufacturer franchise hanging by a thread. I'm surprised they're still around. The Mississippi is technically for sale in the United States. I'm not sure how many dealers they are, but they're a non-factor, and the support system is very weak. It's, of course, a Japanese manufacturer. Even in Japan, they're weak.

If you follow the news, they've had a lot of legal problems. The CEO of Mitsubishi has gone to jail, and then the subsequent CEO of Mitsubishi, went to jail, and there's been a lot of corruption. It's a, if I were buying a new vehicle, I would not buy a Mitsubishi. First of all, it's not that great a car, but they might not be around much longer. Of course, she also was looking at a Jeep. Yeah.

So, but they do have their following the jeeps. Well, the Jeep, I tell you, I mean, the Jeep is the moneymaker for Stalantis, which Chrysler Jeep does. and they on pure volume and desire and emotion they sell a hell out of them they're well financed Jeep will be around for a long time

the quality is bad but jeep's not going anywhere without Jeep there would be no stalantis and people love the vehicle it's just you're going to be here for a long long time

but be careful if you're buying the Mitsubishi out there and Kirk in West by God Virginia Palm Beach Mitsubishi Excessive dock and e-file junk fees aside, but the elevated KBB price equals a solid D. How does someone expect to lie when the information is readily available? He's got a great point there. Very good.

So there's a mystery shopping report. Do we have time for this visionary dealer thing, Jonathan, with the automotive news? Six minutes, but you need to vote. He gave him a C. Yeah, C. Get me C. The automotive issue of the automotive news, most of you've never seen one, is the trade journal for all of the manufacturers in the world,

auto manufacturers of the world, and all of the dealers in the world. So it's kind of like an inside thing. And they came out with an addition and a section called Visionary Dealers. Jonathan will be putting this up. There were 20. The pressing thing, a lot of them are dead, but these were all the people that have had an impact on changing the way the retail automobile business has evolved over the years. History of the U.S. auto industry. And we were honored.

Our dealership, Earl Stewart Toyota was honored to be listed out of those 20. and I think it's interesting that the trade journal is starting to recognize what we do largely on this show I think that's being held being put up by Jonathan I have this right here you see a picture of Nancy and me and down there is a picture of Stu and me and so we're patting ourselves on the back a little bit this show is pretty much responsible for making us in the terms of the automotive news a visionary dealer and the fact that the trade journal would recognize that normally if you went back 20 years they'd hang me for what I say now the automotive news actually is complimenting us on changing the

direction of the way cars are sold retail and it's good it's a that's a They have new people in there. The crane family owns and operates the automotive news, and the younger generation cranes are now in charge, and they see things differently, just like in my dealership. My generation saw things went away, and the younger people like my sons see things differently. Generations, things change, and here we are. And I think it's time to go, and I'll turn the mic. If I can have just one quick sec, we've got a bunch of other grades popped up.

I had a little lag on my phone here. Yeah, absolutely. Frank and Jupiter Farms, A, for your agent bringing her daughter, C for the dealership, and happy belated Thanksgiving. Thank you, Frank. Mark, D, too many fees. Mark in Palm Beach Gardens. Sorry I didn't get that sooner, Mark.

I just had a little lag here. We've got an anonymous with a D. Richard and Jupiter Farms with an F. and Bob D for Deceit for Palm Beach Mitsubishi well the you know the deceit was on the Kelly blue book on the flat line about the yeah maybe they had an old book oh we'll give them the benefit but yeah that's that's if I was going to give them a lower grade would be would have been because of that my mic just fell apart oh oh Jonathan's gonna hang me

We have three minutes left. I'll try to salvage this mic. Hold it up. Anyway, thanks for the acknowledgement. It's long overdue from Automotive News. Yeah. And we'll take it. And I want to thank everyone for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars.

And we'll be right back here next week at 8 a.m. So tune in. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Go! Go! Go! Let go! Go!