Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.28.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Southern 441 Toyota

Episode Date: November 28, 2020

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Southern 441 Toyota to see if she can best deal possible on a 2020 Toyota Camry SE 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 link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody.

You're listening to the recovering car dealer live, and you were just listening to him, recorded. doing this show for a long, long time, 17 years, welcome our regular listeners, and I think we've got quite a broad base. I say broad, we're international now, all over, and that's because we stream. I'm not saying the radio signal here is that strong, but we do stream on YouTube and Facebook. And our new listeners, you're in for a treat. And I say that a little bit unembarrassedly, because I think you're really going to like the show. So we're unusual if you listen to radio or stream stuff around on the internet. I don't think you'll find anything like Burl Stewart on Cars.

We are a candid, real-life, live explanation to you. We're entertaining, too. But our main purpose in life is to help you buy or lease a car. It's an unusually bad experience for most people, and there's a Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions that backs up what I have to say. Every year since 1977, the Gallup organization has been interviewing, polling, I should say, Americans. They do it on all professions, all the major professions, businesses. And they ask, you know, what is your reaction to this particular business? whether it's nurses or doctors or car dealers or lawyers or congressman or whatever it is.

And I think they have like the top 50 professions. And I say in terms of transparency, honesty, and ethics. And guess who comes in last every year? It's car dealers. And that's a long time. In 1977, we're coming up on 50 years of this sort of a thing. You'd think there'd be an improvement or a curve. Normally, that's what happened with all the other retailers.

They improve as they realized. And I think as consumers became smarter, more demanding, most of the retailers kind of jumped on the bandwagon in the 21st century. A lot of them have it figured out. But the car dealers are still operating like we were, and I say we, because in full transparency, I am currently a car dealer. We're operating like we were in the mid-20th century. And I think you agree with this. So, this is the show. We're going to help you.

We listen to real-life experiences. We love when you call in. Your comments and suggestions are the lifeblood of this show. We asked you to call 877-9-60-9-960. That's 877-9-60. That's our regular telephone number. I mean, that's what radio shows are all about. Telephone, call-in, talk show.

It's exciting. It's probably the most exciting form of radio, in my opinion. But we also have a text number because a lot of people just don't want to be chit-chat and live on radio. I mean, there's a lot of people out there, 20, 30,000 people listening. And if you add the internet, I don't know how

many are listening. We can't count that. Our text number is area code 772-497-6530. Write the number down. You probably don't have anything you want to text us about right now, but 772 4976565. and of course we have an anonymous line this is something that nobody has I

don't know why more people don't jump on this bandwagon everybody knows that people will tell you things anonymously that they won't tell you face to face and you know you can you can be critical of that you can say well if they were you know if they had the courage to tell you the truth I don't agree with that I think people sometimes just don't want to be inconvenienced annoyed bothered, they have something they want to say and then they want to walk away. That's the reason we have anonymous feedback for crimes. We have anonymous feedback for violations of all sorts of things. You need to get the feedback or you get some

stuff that you don't want to hear, but that's life. If you want to listen to the truth, sometimes you have to hear some things you don't want to hear. So your anonymousfeedback.com. Easy to remember, right? Your anonymous. Feedback put a dot com on it who's anonymous feedback your that's right why oh you are see that's a mnemonic device right there exactly yes anonymous a n-o-n-y-m-o-us anonymous your anonymous feedback dot com it's become our single most popular source of input who would have fun it right and uh retailers out there by the way that's not a bad idea you want to find out what your customers really think about you you want to find out what

your employees really think about you? Or maybe you don't want to find out. Some of you I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to find out, but seriously, it's a great way to improve business people, car dealers. Let your employees talk to you on your anonymous feedback on Tom. In case you want to really do it, and I'm doing a commercial for Incognito, and that's not spelled like you normally spelled it, Incog, N-A-T-I-T-E-A-T-I-T-E-A-T-I. I N-C-O-I-N-C-O-N-E-A-T-O. I believe the website is . . . . . . . .-N-Cognito. Is that right, Stu?

I think it's . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no, it's actually very strange. It's who answered, dot me. Dot me. Dot me. Is that right? Anyway, I'm digressy. He's not getting off the subject. So what I'd like to do is remind you that we're not a show just about buying and leasing cars.

We're also a show about fixing cars, repairing cars, maintaining cars. Don't forget Rick Kearney, one of the greatest auto technician's, auto computer scientists, anywhere in the world. And I say that. I know I'm embarrassing him. He's turning a little rosy there, but it's true. I mean, he's just outstanding. And trust me, I know I've been around for a long, long time. And I've talked to a lot of technicians, and I've been through a lot of dealerships, I've won't a lot of dealerships, had a lot of service departments,

and Rick is the best of the best. So if you have a problem and your car is stuttering or stammering or shaking or rattling or rolling or making a noise or smelling bad, I mean, there's little things that go on with cars. We say, oops, boy, I hope that doesn't happen to me when I'm on my way to Grandmother's House on $9.95. And so, you're nervous about it, and you don't want to go into a car dealership. A lot of people don't want to go into commercial establishments today.

Maybe you could just delay having this fix. Call Rick, 877 960-9960. That's 877-960-9960. And then we've got Nancy Stewart, my wife, my co-host. co-founder of the show back in the I keep say 17 years it's probably 20. Time applies when you're having a good time. You ladies out there

she especially would like to hear from you ladies and she's going to tell you about a special offer for the first time lady callers she is an advocate for the females of the world and for some reason we have a hard time maintaining parody on the show

with female callers. So Nancy go get them. Thank you. Good morning everyone. and welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. You know, we have something unique here, very unique. We have a radio show with no commercials for two hours. We have all kinds of information for you, and yes, we depend on you to give us a call

because you're a big part of the show with your information, just in case we get it wrong, because you do make the show. And like I said, it's pretty unique. It's unlike any other radio show, and it's all, guess what, free advice. That number is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And as Earl said, we do have something special for the ladies. Ladies, I'd love for you to give us a call

and I'd like you to share your experience how you're, well, car shopping, well, how it went. Did you have a great experience, bad experience? Do you have something to share with us? Did you take your car in for service? How did that go? We'd love to hear from you on any level. And again, that number, 877, 960, 996,

And as they're all said, don't forget, www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Text number, for those of you that are shy, 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, let's get started by the way on the text and YouTube's and things of this nature.

I don't want to skip over, mentioning Stu Stewart, who is the general manager of our dealership. I say that because I said earlier we are a car dealership currently, been around for a long time. This is not an infomercial. Nancy said earlier this radio show has no commercials. That's the gratis of this radio station. There's a public service two hours, and it's a public service to you, uninterrupted. We don't pay for this show. This is a show that we do because we're a public service. We are trying to inform. It's not an infomercial.

You will hear nothing about our dealership unless people call it and they ask questions. I just can't hang up on them. But we do have, we don't talk about the name of our dealership. We talk about how you can buy a car and avoid being taken advantage of, or lease a car, have your car maintained or repair. So, Stu Stewart, his gentleman to that dealership. He's also our cybermaster. I forgot to mention why we have something so special for the, the ladies? Fifty dollars. Fifty dollars for the first two new lady callers. Now back to Earl Stewart.

Fifty bucks. Unconditional, by the way. You don't have to do anything. If you haven't called the show before and you're female, we will pay you $50. We send you check. As I say, it's unconditional. It's just cash. Caching. So please take advantage that you lady calls out. Let's spread the word. We need to build. We want to be 50-50. We don't have half female and half. male callers. That's the way life should be. The women need their fair share of the world. And they're getting there, but they're getting there too slowly. So you ladies please call the show. Stu Stewart runs the dealership, and he's also our cybermaster. He's in charge of a Mr. Shopper that goes out every week. It's probably the highlight of the show. And it comes to the last

half hour. We're a two-hour show. And he, it takes a lot of work in thought and it's something to be whole. We name names, we name the sales manager, the salesman involved. We don't name the mystery shoppers because they're undercover agents. You can't do that.

So, tell us a little bit about that and then give us some text that you might have over there. Absolutely. I get nervous every week when we do a mystery shopper report. You pointed out time and time again that we haven't been sued. We've had one

nasty letter that we responded to appropriately, and that went away. But every single week, I'm like, someone's going to get mad. I think this week qualifies for that. It wasn't, I don't want to give anything away, but it wasn't, wasn't the best shopping report we've ever had as far as the behavior of the dealership. So I'll leave it at that, and you stay tuned in the last half hour of the show. And then also, as far as the text and the anonymous feedback, I think we get as many texts and online questions as we do callers.

sometimes more on some shows, which is great. It is tough to wrangle them, and I do want to just put an appeal out there to any listeners who send in text and we haven't got to them. Sometimes we do run out of time, but I get to those first on the following show. Eventually, we get them all. Yeah, we do. So keep listening, and if you do miss a show, by the way, Earl mentioned that we are streaming live on Facebook and YouTube and Twitter, but those videos stay on those channels.

So if you want to catch the show Saturday night or the next day, just go to Facebook.com slash Erlon Cars, and the videos there, I guess, forever, until we delete it, and we're not deleting them. Same thing on YouTube. So you can always catch the show. All right, so I will start with the first text. This came from Brian out in California.

It was waiting for us in the inbox here at 4.36 a.m. So I guess he was up late. That's probably, what is that, three hours earlier in California. So that's not too bad for a Friday night. It says, hey, Stu, Brian, from California, and today I have a question for Rick. I put an aftermarket MRBP axle-back exhaust on my 2018 Mustang GT about a month ago. It's basically a muffler delete setup. He cut the original muffler's exhaust tips off and strapped this aftermarket straight pipe exhaust on.

Everything's worked fine and I'm happy with it. Two days ago, Scotty Kilmer on YouTube, we've heard about him. I told a viewer that this type of aftermarket exhaust, which is like a muffler delete, can cause the ECU in your car to go crazy. He said, you must find a tech that knows how to modify your car's ECU. Otherwise, you may permanently damage your engine and even go as far as burning up pistons as the car tries to compensate for the modified exhaust airflow. Do you think this is accurate?

I followed all the instructions for the installation, and there is nothing about having to modify my car's ECU. it's been running fine and no one else with my car has had issues what do you think i drive it every day and so far so good i don't want to break it thanks as always for everything guys be well can i just jump in here first this is a highly technical question from a very knowledgeable one of our very best callers and there's some terminology being thrown around out there and most of our listeners don't even know what an ecu is and so let's uh let's try to uh speak English when we answer it.

Did you notice I was going cross-eyed when I was reading it? So Brian he'll understand you even if you speak it for the average troop out there. Well the ECU is the engine control unit, the computer. And the first thing is, although I hate to argue with Scotty Kilmer, because I agree with a lot of his stuff. Technicians cannot modify the computer of the car. That is federal government EPA regulations. You cannot modify the way that engine computer controls the engine because of emissions laws.

You can't, but you're not supposed to. Right. It's illegal. And especially if it's an on-the-road car, if it's an off-the-road car, a race car, whatever, that you're not driving on the road, you can do whatever you like with it. But if you're going to be running it on the road, that computer, you're not supposed to mess. with it at all. You're not supposed to do any modifications. And modifying the exhaust, like what this gentleman described, is changing the pipe after the catalytic converters, which are what controls all the emissions. So that part is legal in most states, but what it's actually doing

is when you change that muffler and get rid of all the muffler, there's less restriction to the exhaust, and the computer has to try to compensate for it. Now, it's not likely to to cause engine damage, but it can cause some performance issues because the computer has to recalculate how it's going to run the engine to compensate for that loss of what's called back pressure, which is the restrictions in the exhaust that the computer's expecting to see, and now it's no longer seeing it. I flashed back to my youth. Brian, I didn't think people were still doing that because when I was a very young man,

And it was very popular to cut the pipe, the exhaust pipe, and run straights out. And you put a little cap on there so that maybe your parents wouldn't know you did that. And then when you got away from the house, you get down on your back and you're rolling on the car, and you take a wrench, and you take the caps off, and then the exhaust would run straight out of the engine and it sounded like a Sherman tank. And that was the old cars back in the 60s, the late 50s, the 60s, the 70s. when the muscle car era was really getting going. And before we had all the emission standards on the cars that we have nowadays.

So, in effect, you're really not going to change much by putting a half exhaust on like that. You won't need to adjust anything with the computer. But you shall make your neighbors, man. Oh, yes. It's kind of like those guys that have a Harley Davidson, and they get rid of the mufflers and just put straight pipes on them. and then they go up next to you and they rev it up and your windows vibrate. I mean, to me, it's just, no, you're really not helping the engine much that way. For the little bit of an increase in speed that you might get, well, more power to you,

but I guess I've just gotten a little bit old. I'm happy with the speed that I get out of my stock system and I'm good with it. Thank you, Rick. Okay. All right, we're going to go right over to Ammarie's text. it's another great one. So she sent me a link to an article in Jolopnik, which is a great car website.

There's just so much information there. And it's a list of the worst. Here, let me pull this up. It's which dealers, I mean, which manufacturers have the worst dealers. And there's a list here. And she wants to know if that matches up with what we've experienced on our mystery shopping report. So here's the list. And this just came out.

So this is a very recent article. It came out in Monday. Oh. So here, they ranked them. And this is just a blogger, so it's not from any efficient source. Can I guess? Yeah, let's go ahead. What is the number one worst, and by the way, the list goes from the worst to the best. So the very bottom, the last is the best.

Nissan. Number one. Did you look this up? No, I just knew, and I didn't see that. I just knew that Nissan has been abusing their dealers so badly. Yeah. They're almost in, they're an uproar in terms of, they're very, very unhappy. And the annual reports from the Nissan dealers always rank Nissan. dead last. I didn't know

they were also the worst dealers, but when you treat people badly, sometimes they act badly. You know, well, stuff rolls downhill, so if the manufacturer's kicking you, then you're going to turn around and kick the first thing you see, and that's your customer. Can I guess at number one? Well, that was number one. I mean, the best one? Oh, sure.

Honda. Nope. I'll say either Lexus or Toyota. Nope. Okay, so come on, let's go to this. We can't spend the hold hand, but what's the second worst? Ford. No? Oh, second worst? Jeep. Stop it, stop it.

He's got to give us a list. All right, so let me just read them down. So you were right on the first one. Nissan is the worst. I started it, I'm sorry. You did. No, it's okay. So the next, Hyundai and Kia is number two.

They put them on the same line there. Number three is Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram. Number four is Genesis, which is Hyundai. And often they'll be side by side. This is from the very worst. We're getting better. We're getting better as we go. long. There's 12 on the list, so we're

so number five, it's tied Ford and GM and that includes Lincoln, Chevy, GMC, Cavy, all of them for number five. Number six is Mazda. Now number seven is a tie between Honda and Toyota.

And then what's left, it just goes, it's the luxury. So you have BMW, all you, Mercedes, Lexus, Volvo. The only non-luxury is Subaru is number 11. So that's almost the best. The best in terms of customer treatment, Porsche, which is about a hundred and...

But they only have one customer. Right, I'm saying about 30,000 people in the whole country. Interesting. Hey, so as far as Vaugham goes, it feels good. Honda and Toyota's up there and Subaru.

Subaru has got a great reputation. And Marie Delgado, we love you. Yes, we love you. You're the most interesting person and asked most interesting questions and feedback and ideas. Thank you. Yeah, because let's get, I mean,

every single week, you know, there's a little bit of some anxiety. You gotta have, we have to have good material during the show and something that's entertaining and informative. Amory delivers week after week. You know, J-L-O-P-N-I-K. Yeah, that's J-A-L-O-P-N-I-K. Yep, yeah, dot com. Yeah.

Yeah, very good. Okay. We have another text here. It's came in. Tell me your thoughts on rolling coal. I see these trucks all over Jupiter. Isn't this illegal? Why isn't it enforced? I've seen these just rolling coal

Do you know what this is? I don't know what it is. Rick could probably tell you how they do it, but basically the exhaust system is modified on diesel trucks to it creates a thick black cloud of smoke that comes out when they accelerate.

Excuse me, Steve, remember the other day, Earl whenever I pointed out the truck that was blasting out all this black smoke? Yeah, that's what the ruling... I think my comment is you can always tell the IQ of people when they do that. I call that room temperature IQ. Exactly. It's around 74 or 75 degrees.

I think that they used to say the same thing you just said about the IQ back in the 50s and 60s when these guys were running around. Not only did they have a cap on their exhaust pipe, but some of them even stuck a rag in their exhaust pipe. And then we can move on to bicycles where you put the balloon on it. back, or a popsicle stick? Oh, that's a key. Okay, I digress.

That's right. I don't know it's illegal. It should be. I mean, is it, I mean, Florida doesn't have any emissions standards now, so. It's technically not, well, depending upon what's done to create it, it may be illegal. But to me,

you're going to rank it right along with those cars with the big boom stereos. Yeah. Those are supposed to be illegal if you can hear it clearly 50 feet way but it's such a subjective thing yeah that that's the answer to the question why is it enforced because it is subjective the problem is is law enforcement lines it impossible and practical to enforce every law yeah yeah and you have to draw the line somewhere and rolling coal is i have a message for the people who roll coal you don't make people upset when they see it

nobody yeah no yeah we i i look and just like you said just think that's a really stupid person but I'm not getting emotionally charged over it. I used to say that about Hummer drivers, but now they have an electric commerce. Rick, what's the payoff? I shake my head and feel pity. That's all I do. What's the payoff? None.

Ego boost. I mean, I want to run for the hills. First of all, you have to be a male to understand, and you have to be a younger male. And when I was a younger male, I just did some really stupid things. I know. I mean, that's the reason I can't run for political office, because if I ever ran for political office. You can now. can now.

You think the statute of limitations is up. At this point, you're fine. Let's jump over to anonymous feedback. I'll go to the most recent one. Here's the question. It's just with the battery indicator light on and the alternator going bad,

does that cause the daytime running lights to not light up? It certainly can. In modern cars, especially those with electric steering, electric power steering, a weak battery, even with an alternator still operating properly, can cause the steering issue.

So you want to keep up on that battery and alternator system. Make sure it's charging properly, and your battery's in good shape. Okay. Okay, breaking news. We have our first female caller from Gainesville, and I believe her name is Lottie. Good morning. Hi, it's Rainie.

Lainey. How are you? Good, and you? Very well. Thank you. You're the first few. female caller. Oh, yay, exciting.

Yay, yay. You won yourself $50. Oh, well, thank you. And she's also the first new female car. Thank you. What can we do for you? I was just calling because I was planning on getting a new car soon and I was looking at Toyota because Toyota seems reliable and I was wondering that there was a recommendation on a type of Toyota car. Well, it depends. I mean, Toyota's got like all the other manufacturers, you know, cars and trucks and big SUVs, small SUVs. What kind of vehicle were you considering? Probably a smaller SUV. Okay, that's great. Well, I mean, we try to avoid being a commercial for Toyota, but I can tell you that the RAV-4 is the small SUV from Toyota, and it's a great car. We do recommend that you always go to Consumer Reports because...

I think of some of the reports actually rates the Honda CRV above the VF4. I was getting to that. You ought to check the Honda CRV as well, and then you have hybrid versus non-hybrid. So, yeah, check it out. Honda and Toyota, you can't go wrong with you either one of them. Yeah, exactly. And it's great that you narrowed it down. And there's, I'll tell you what, that Rav 4, it moved into the first place.

camera used to be right there for many, many years. So the Rav 4, you just simply can't go wrong. But as the guys said, consumer report is a great place to go to get started. And also to give you a little variation in price, Toyota and Honda, their small SUVs, the CRV and the Rav 4, they're going to be in the mid-20s, mid-to- Upper 20s. They can get pretty expensive all over $40,000. But you can look at Kia and Hyundai actually have some decent rated small SUVs. I can't remember the name of their names, but check out Kia and Honda, too, because you can get those in the lower 20s.

One of my soul. Yeah, the Kia's sole. That's a real small one. That's like a crossover. But, yeah, there's a ton of them out there. And right now, small SUVs, like Nancy mentioned, have taken over in the country as the number one volume type of car. It used to be, like the Camry, like Nancy said, now small SUVs are everywhere. Lamborghini's even making a small SUV.

Yeah, that's probably true. The Consumer Report is the Bible. We wouldn't be without it in our home. So I want to thank you so much for giving us a call this morning and being the first of two lady callers. So therefore, you have yourself $50, and I certainly hope that I hear from you again. Oh, no, thank you.

Thank you. That was a lot of great information. All right. We're glad we could help. Have a wonderful day. 960, 960, and we've got a guest caller coming and shortly, so we'll keep our eyes on the screen for Rich Gruber, who is a radio talk show host from Janesville, Wyoming.

No, I'm sorry, Wisconsin. I'll be watching for that. And he'll be calling in shortly. I think he said around 8.30, so we'd love to talk to him. He interviewed me on his show yesterday morning, and so this is reciprocating, very interesting guy, retired from the pharmaceutical industry, and we were drawing some comparisons

between the retail automobile industry and the pharmaceutical industry in terms of morals and transparency and ethics. It was kind of fun. I'm looking forward to Rich's call. Yeah, it's going to be great. And speaking of Rich, we have them on the line. Oh.

Good morning, Rich. Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. Nancy and Earl, it's great to be here. How you folks are having a wonderful morning. Thank you. Well, thank you. You know, I guess I kind of did an introduction, but I just want to say that Rich contacted me. He has a friend of Jupiter who heard Nancy and me speak at a couple of engagements.

We normally do a lot of public speaking, but in the past year with the COVID thing, we haven't been doing that. And his friend told Rich about us and the show, and actually our book. And Rich bought a copy of Confessions of Irons. recovering car dealer and he read that and he thought it might be interesting to the folks in Janesville, Wisconsin. So it's kind of cool. I love the idea of being around the whole country like this and first time I can remember being on a radio talk show, certainly in Wisconsin, I think anywhere else other than locally. So Rich, thank you very much for taking the time to call the show. Tell you what, you have become kind of the talk of the town today.

We had a good time yesterday and I think he struck a nerve or two which is not all bad. It's people's attention on a lot of different levels and like I said I think you're the talk of the town today so congratulations.

Jamesville, Wisconsin, wow. You said it used to be a GM town manufacturing plants. I guess they closed some plants there but you recall the plants that they had in Jamesville? You know, the Jamesville plant, up until it closed in 2008, was the oldest manufacturing facility owned by General Motors.

I'm sorry. It dates back to 1980, 1980, 1920 era, when in fact, a tractor manufacturing companies that they were able to convince GM to come to town and test. the idea of GM selling practice. It didn't go particularly well at the time. It lasted four, five years, and they shifted the assembly line over to make an automobile. And they made up to consistently until 2008

when the last Chevy Taho was bounced off the line. And, frankly, what they ended up doing with that Taviton, I was given away to a charity, and I think it's been in a museum here in town. Yeah. There's probably a lot of XGM employees, boys in other professions if they pulled up sticks and left town. I was thinking it's, sometimes that affects the attitude of the population.

You know, if you have one big manufacturer that kind of dominates an area. And I don't know if any of the comments about my comments had anything to do with that, but I was pretty critical of car dealers and, of course, that's what we do. that's one of the things that you have to being on the receiving end we're car town I've always been a car town and will always be a car town but what I find fascinating is

we're the most objective car town that you could possibly imagine every brand and version of of manufacturer being represented in our stable here in town your car dealerships I think I told you yesterday when I was talking that I had mystery shopped online, one of your car dealers, and I don't want to mention any names.

We're unusual here in North Palm Beach or Palm Beach County, and this radio station is highly unusual, and the fact that they let me name names and do anything like that. But I wouldn't do that on another show, and I'm not going to do it now either. But it seems it was interesting to me because we haven't ever a mystery shop, a new car dealership in a, you know, in a smaller town like that. I was kind of thinking it would be more of a laid-back, homie thing.

What's the population of Jamesville? A couple hundred thousand? Actually, the market's the best 200,000. Gainesville proper is 65,000 people? Yeah. But they were pretty standard from my experience, as I think I told you, that the one of the small dealership, and by definition, on a smaller town, And they just absolutely would not give me a price on the car online.

And that's a standard operating procedure, I guess, at virtually every car dealership in America. You really got to try to get an out-the-door price from a dealer. We did a mystery shop yesterday, here locally, a larger dealership, and the same thing happened. There was no way we would get an out-the-door price. So I guess if you had to say the one thing that is disturbing about a car dealership is you cannot get a price, a real price,

unless you're ready to sign on the dotted line and get in the car and take it home that day. Well, and as times change, what I'm finding is fascinating is the fact that we, in smaller towns, really haven't adjusted to the idea that I can buy and sell a car online and do it just as conveniently from the comfort of my own home. I use my son as an example who was relocating from Chicago to, in North Carolina area. And on the way, he picked up a new vehicle in Atlanta, Georgia, because that was the dealer who beat him the best deal on the car he was looking for. And his entire transaction was done online up until the point where he stopped with the dealer

and pick up the vehicle. He was happy. The dealer was happy, and that vehicle was still around doing quite well, frankly. And that's how business is being done today, but it's interesting to see how we have adapted exactly. Yeah, I think the last question you asked me before I left your show yesterday was what are the three most important things. And one of the three was I said buy online. Of course, the other thing is I don't believe any dealer advertising. And the third thing I said was be sure you get at least three competitive bids. So all of that sounds really neat and easy, but it's not

easy when you're dealing with a typical car dealer, I'll have to say, the United States, even in Jamesville, Wisconsin. I used the example yesterday when we were visiting of the healthcare industry, which is where my roots are. I sent a lot of news in the healthcare industry as an administrator. There was a medium-large size of health care. And as I read your book, what really struck me was the parallels in how. how business is done in both of those large segments of the economy.

Just as the car dealership world is adjusted slowly to the internet, I look at the transition that medicine is made to telemedicine where you can get on the phone and have a conversation with your physician. In years gone by, that would just never, ever, ever happen. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, you know, I hadn't thought about it you mentioned yesterday, the parallel between the pharmaceutical business and the other retail

business. And it almost makes me think, I'm the thought that crossed my mind, it's a moral issue, it's an ethical moral issue between corporations and especially big companies and what you and I consider ethics. There's really, I don't want to get too esoteric about this, but if you have a company, you have two responsibilities. One responsibility is to the stockholders, you know, fiduciary responsibility to make a profit. And as long as you make a profit by obeying the law, you're fulfilling your fiducius responsibility. But that doesn't say anything about ethics. And it does.

It also, there's too much flexibility. And the pharmaceutical companies are doing that today with the way they're selling their products at extremely high prices. And some people can't afford to buy them, but it's maximizing the bottom line. Well, can you imagine walking into a big box store looking for a piece of electronic? And then the person in that big box store saying, well, you know what? I can't give you the exact out-the-door price on this picture. We can talk our route through it, okay? It's unique to just a couple of industries that seem, where, by golly, if I used the example yesterday,

You got on the phone and you did a price check with three big hospitals in the region and said, you know, I want to have common everyday, no complicated, no complication appendectomy. Can you give me a round ballpark? I would challenge you to come up with a number. Yeah.

I never thought about it. Of course, I wouldn't cry shop for my appendectomy because I'd probably be on the ambulance in for the hospital. But that's part of the problem, you know, When you need medicine and you need surgical attention and you need a doctor badly, you're really not in a position to do a lot of negotiating in discussion. So they have the upper hand.

It's sad. I look forward to some more conversations, Rich, and I thank you so much for having me on your show and you're a welcome guest to call back anytime. You're a very interesting guy, and I can't thank enough. You even plug my book, Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer, and you talked about it being available on Amazon and you talk about the fact that all proceeds go to Big Dog

Ranch Rescue. I bet you've sold a lot of books for me in Janesville and Big Dog Ranch Rescue thanks you and I thank you. I want to say thank you so much and I'm hopeful that this is going to be the beginning of a lot of conversations back and forth.

I look forward to hosting you and perhaps Nancy as well on my show up here in Jamesville and I sure look forward to opportunity to talk to your talk to your listeners and talk to you. Thank you, Rick. You stay safe and be well, my friend.

And you as well. Take care. Thank you, Roach. 877-960 or text us at 772 4976530. And before that call, Rick has some

YouTube input here we'd like to hear about. We do have a couple. Let's see, back here. Rainbow is asking, good morning, Earl and Crewe. Have a great day there in Florida. Can you tell me, please, is it worth the money to purchase a Lexus GX, or is the forerunner, Limited or TRD Pro, a better value? Main use would be for Snowy Roads here in Canada. Well, you know, the answer to that is there's so many cars that you pay for the name, and that sounds like a bad thing, but it's not really.

the brand is very strong for Lexus and underneath the skin there are a lot of Lexus and Toyotas are the same just like Nissan and Infinity and Accura and Honda and Chevrolet and a Cadillet. So Stuie had a point. I had a thought and Rick might know better to me

so the GX is a unibody sort of the SUV like most of them now. The Forerunner is still built on a truck platform yes so as far as like city driving and stuff like that foreigners okay but it's I mean it's great it's just but for that it's got that rougher truckier ride it feels more like you're driving an off-road vehicle where the the GX is probably it's going to be probably more comfortable it's a lot more expensive so that's another huge consideration people buy SUVs not to drive off road anyway they drive them because

it's a macho thing they do in Jupiter you know and so no it's a I used to get you know, I don't want the word as irritated when people would buy a Lexus and they have the same model Toyota for thousands of dollars less. But you know, the funny thing is, the Lexus does hold its value. It's pretty nice, too. Yeah, and I drive a electric. Yeah, they're really nice. There isn't a Toyota equivalent to my Lexus.

I drive a 550, but there are a lot of Toyos to which they're equivalent. And you get your money because when you trade it in, it holds the resale value because of the brand. brand is a powerful thing in a car and it has to do with the value i don't just say brand alone but brand enhances the value and it certainly does in electric cars absolutely yeah definitely and you know my personal opinion about the lexas you know it definitely carries a a pretty heavy brand but for my liking i really don't care for that car in particular you know the uh the movement to all-wheel drive vehicles i think we're seeing in cars um and SUVs that's great i think even

Even if you're in Canada on snowy roads or the rain in South Florida, it is safer, I believe. And it's, you feel a lot more secure when you're knowing that all four wheels are working for you. Absolutely. Okay, folks, we're going to go to Howard, who is a regular caller. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you all, I hope you all well. Yes.

Thanks, Howard. And I'm getting a little feedback on this. Okay. So, my story today is about tinting. What's happening is tinted windows in New York, it's illegal. I was pulled over, and I was told that I could not have tinted windows because New York, doesn't allow for different windows after a certain shade. Right.

So they said they won't give me a ticket because I was a Florida driver. I had a Florida license. Then the cop let me go, and then I found out that they have to have a kit to measure the window. That's right. and they're just, you know, they're just blowing me off and saying I couldn't have a tinted windows. This was in 1992. So what I did is I removed the tent from the windows and then I felt safe. However, the problem was that I wanted to find out if it's legal in New York State,

and it is to a certain extent. In Florida, it's even... It can be darker. It could be dark. Yeah, we know all about this. We got a great story, Howard. Southeast Toyota, our distributor, which sells Toytas and all the dealers

in the five southeastern states, stopped selling Window Tent because of an intervention that Earl took. And what happened was the exact same story you're telling. So Southeast Toyota would sell Window Tent. It was legal for all the five southern states, but it was too dark. for New York. And like you, Howard, we have a lot of other customers who are snowbirds, and they

live up north. And we had people like you who are getting tickets up in New York, and we're like, well, how could Toyota be selling, or at least Southeast Toyota, be selling this window tent when, you know, people can get a ticket for it. So they looked into it and they realized it was insufficient just to keep it legal for the South when people are buying cars from up north and taking it up there, so they stop selling it, period. But New York has a much lighter standard. And, The police officers are supposed to have a meter, and they put a chip, a little color thing on the other side of the window, and they measure how much light goes through. And so you're taking a chance if you put a dark window tint on, like a lot of people do in South Florida,

if you're going to leave the state, especially if you're going to go up north. Yeah, my nephew was a police officer. He said very few cruisers had this kit. And all they could do is pull you over and mourn you. If they didn't have the kit, they could. not give you a ticket. They can't give you the ticket, yeah. And if they gave you a ticket, you can contest it and ask, how did you surmise that might 10, you know, correct? And they would say, well, it's like challenging a radar gun.

Yeah, I know. It's not like a radar gun, exactly. Yeah. One other thing, Tacita Airbags also recalled on an American car recently, I think it's General Motors or Chrysler. General Motors. General Motors. Seven million cars worldwide. Yeah.

It's a serious problem now. Again, if your car is 10 years old, I believe you should either get rid of the car or have the airbags replaced. Or for sure, run that van on NH safercar.gov just to find out if there's any recalls.

This is going to open up a whole new world of mystery shopping in the next few months. Yeah. So there's the silver lining. Not to be foolish. Sorry. Okay. Thanks very much for the information. And my suggestion, the snowbirds don't get your windows tinted.

No. Period. Really? Thanks so much, Howard. Your dealership doesn't do that. Am I correct? No, we do offer it. We don't do it at the dealership.

If somebody wants a window tent, you know, we do advise them. and we have a company that we can work with. It's all legal, but it's legal for Florida, and the same advice we give to them is if you're taking it out of the state, it might be legal here, but their state laws are not national laws for Wenditin. Oh, okay, great. So California probably has the same situation as Florida, where they allow. I'm going to bet they probably have darker than Florida,

with all the celebrities driving around, they don't want to be seen. In Arizona, you've probably got to get black windowed, pretty bright every state has its own law well thank you thank you very much have a good day you too howard thanks for being a regular caller my thoughts on window tent is it's a safety issue and i uh listen and see if any of the agrees with me on this when we are driving and we come to a four-way stop or you know all sorts of traffic situations eye contact to see that is this person looking at at me. You might say somebody, who got there first, you can go like, you can make a hand gesture, you can look at people. When you see a car that is totally blacked out, you have

no idea whether they're looking, whether they're passed out, whether they're putting their makeup on, whether, you know, you don't know what they're, what they're doing. I think that, I think that it should be a law that your windows should be visible by other drivers. They should be able see in the inside. I know a lot of people I say, well, hate that because there are people that just have this privacy thing, and you see these black windows going around. The windshield, it's illegal to tent the windshield, so you can't do that. But when you darken the side, though, you're not as illuminated, so you're even harder to see through the windshield. So even, I think that's the, they're like, because you're at a

four-way stop, you're looking through your windshield at people. But if you've darkened all the other windows, you're in the dark. Well, sometimes you're looking through a different window. I mean, you're not in the windshield, mainly, obviously, but depending on the angle, you're looking at the car. It's just a thought. Yeah, I like looking at the police through that dark, dark tint. And if you're a cop, you hate that. Let's clarify something.

Who would want to walk up to a car that you couldn't see in? It happens all the time, and you're a cop, and you're walking up, and you don't know what sort of a nuts in the car. And at night, it's harder to see it. Yeah, and I have ten of windows. I just don't like ten of minutes. Very true. Clarify, who's slumped over and who's putting her makeup on?

Anybody want to go first? Okay, just putting that out there. 877-960-99-60. That is our number where you can reach us, or you can text us. 772-4976530. And while I'm thinking about it, let's talk about Earl's Valant. Valanzis. I'm sorry I didn't understand.

I was talking about the Valandis. Vigilandis. The vigilantes. Yeah, Earl's Vigilandis. Earl's Vigilandis. We should sign up Rich Gruber. I forgot. He's Jamesville.

Maybe I'll ask Rich if he can be our vigilante. We need somebody in Wisconsin. We do. And we have to do something, Stu. This is your assignment. Get a hat or a t-shirt. Get an ID card. We want to send somebody something to have a dedication.

I got the logo. I got the logo. He's got to order some hats. And we'll provide us. And we need to get organized on the vigilante thing. I had a, I think we have an anonymous feedback or something that we talked about involving the, sawgrass, O'rigo, Chrysler Jeep Dodge.

And we had a, we had a volunteer who should be a vigilante report a situation that was a perfect example of what vigilantes can do. And we were able to report this issue the owners of Chrysler, of the new Arrigo stores, and they, they, the Larry Morgan and Brett Morgan, the owners now of the Morgan Auto Group that owns the Rego stores, contacted somebody at the Claw, if the Sawgrass and Weston store, to make them modify a giant addendum label. So need vigilantes, need you to sign up.

Yeah, definitely. www. Earlsvigilantes. Yeah, now that I can say that word, vigilantes. I must say www. I might. Oh, yeah, we better cover that part of it. That's right, boomer.

That's right, boomer. Earlsvigilantes. Do you consider yourself an auto expert? You know, you can help not only the consumers out there, but everybody in your community. So take advantage of that. That's www. www.

Earlsvigilantes. dot com. We are going to go to West Palm Beach where Bobby is holding. Good morning, Bobby. Hi, good morning, everybody. I was, I was one calling about the General Motors recall, which you just talked about. And I did note that they made it, they were able to wait anywhere from, what is it, 13 to seven years to recall the vehicles, so they don't have to recall as many. shameful absolutely they fought it yeah and they kicked and screamed and complained

and the National Highway Traffic Safety Association had to force them they have just absolutely been unconscionably I don't know what the word is well they're certainly not looking out for the best interests of their customers you know they don't care it's a shame you know

and go ahead my I wanted to move on to the to my next reason why car dealers don't care about their customers, I've been on a, I'm no car expert, but I am easily irritated. So the fee that they add for service now, that 10% fee that they've been adding, I've been talking to you about it, and I wanted to follow up because I went for an oil change at Southern 441 Toyota, where they add that fee.

and at least three service writers assured me that that fee was a state-mandated fee. Wow. Right. That's what I said. I said, you guys are just crooks. And they don't bat an eye when I say that. They could care less. They assured me, so I called the service manager, Chris McPhillips, no return phone call.

So I told him, I said, if you don't call me back, I'm going to just file a complaint with the state attorney, which with the Attorney General's office, which I did, so we'll see what happened. Yeah, that's priceless, Bobby. You guys are crooks. I thought that was a new level of contempt for the customers to tell us it was a state mandated fee. And so I called them liars, and the people that are waiting to be served, you know, they all hear it, but I don't know if anybody else does. But your show, your show sure helps get the message out for, what was that, Southern 441 Toyota? Yeah. Well, Bobby, you know, it's entirely possible that they were told the service advisor may have been informed by the service manager or maybe even the dealer.

I don't, you know, we attack the people on the front line, but I sometimes wonder whether they're car salesmen or service salespeople. You wonder where they get some of this nonsense to tell you that. In fact, they all said the same thing. You wonder if somebody didn't lie to them. Clearly, it's a lie. 10% of the amount of the invoice, right? So if you get a... That's right.

Yeah, so if you spend $100, and the bottom will be $10 just for the heck of it, called dealer profit. I call it the service department dealer fee, and it's something that I don't talk about enough. Bobby, thank you very much for bringing it. up because it goes on almost it seems small but the volume and service is so high you apply to thousands of customers a month and exactly you Bobby before before you go let me ask you a question how would you like to sign up for earl's vigilantes you sound like as if that you're well pretty well in control and that you're an auto expert would love to have you on board well i think i probably will

Well, as I said, I'm not much of an auto expert, but I am easily irritated. Well, we could use your passion. I love passion. One last thing about that. I always – and the reason I went to Southern 441 Toyota was because it's closer and I don't have to drive by three Toyota dealerships. I take my major service and I buy my cars from Earl Stewart. But I do always say when they tell me, well, every dealer charges this. I'd say, Earl Stewart doesn't.

And they all, and I say that loud enough for all the people in the showroom to hear. And they say, well, of course he does. He just adds it in. And it's simple. I say, no, I show up with a coupon for a $59 oil change, and they don't add $6 to it. It's that simple. They don't add it in. So I try to encourage people to go to Earl Stewart as much as I do.

Stay tuned about it, because you're going to hear some more about Southern 441 Toyota. That's our mystery shopping target. So you're going to enjoy that one. It's a doozy. It's a gem. Okay. And it sounds like it's just that you're tired. Can you take a moment to explain on the air about the vigilante program a little more?

Sure. I'm not exactly sure of all of it. So I'll just say goodbye and listen it. Okay. Sounds good, Bobby. That is WWW. www earls vigilantes.com and if you consider yourself an auto expert i mean great if you don't that isn't the qualification i mean we just need you to get involved like bobby did expressed

himself expressed his passion and expressed the fact that he was tired of dealing with dishonest dealers especially 441 the most important qualification to be a vigilante is to have the current urge to speak up and report things that are not supposed to take place at cardioloships. Yeah, we could really, we could really use your help, Bobby. Okay, that number is 877960 and you could text us, of course, at 772-497-6530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Okay. Rick's got to you two. I see the sign. we do have one more here Ernesto was asking

does paint correction or ceramic coatings affect your warranty at all and I had to actually look up paint correction it's apparently when you have swirl marks and they actually do a I guess it's almost like a

polishing that levels out the swirl marks by leveling out the surface of the clear coat or color coat in order to get rid of those swirl marks on it. I'm glad you Googled that. I've never heard of it. Neither had I. Yeah, I don't think it would affect it. Obviously, if it damages the paint of it takes the clear coat off or does something,

probably something we should check with the manufacturers on it. I am not familiar with the process. And the ceramic coatings to me is the same thing as applying a wax. Sure. So that certainly would not affect warranty at all. If you do something to the paint that causes the paint to become thinner, then you would probably be challenged by the manufacturer. If you have some problem down the road and they go, hey, well, you put some solvent on it,

you know, and you thinned out with the clerico, you cause it. You can measure the thickness of the paint. There's a meter you can buy it. They're not too expensive. By all car dealers have them to see if a car's been painted because it measures in the millimeters, the thickness of the paint so if you have a paint issue and the manufacturer

or the dealer as it were would check the paint thickness in different areas say whoa whoa whoa on this fender here you only have as much paint as you do on the hood so someone did something to this fender and it could be as you say a

dequalifier for a warranty claim okay let's come with a text too okay someone people are listening to the show so that this is a response to our earlier conversation about rolling coal. People roll coal to make a statement about how weak and feminine our society has become. When we see a whiny liberal in his Prius,

we let him know that Americans like big cars and trucks with power and strength, powered by American oil. Good luck trying to stop us. Well, we're not going to stop you and have fun and just don't get arrested and grow up one day. Exactly. enjoy yourselves we're all laughing at you I did the same thing when I was your age so when you get a little older

and a little wiser you'll find other things to have fun with hopefully yeah hopefully some people just never get out of it but you know knock your what is it knock your socks up you know what I'd like to change about life I'd like to be I'd like to be 20 again

and I'd like to know everything that I know right now how fun would that be yeah I do take issue to the guy's statement. He says, how weak and feminine. I don't think you should put weak and feminine in the same sentence. I probably could

introduce this to some women who could probably kick your butt. But anyway, let's move on. Here's a great question. I don't think we've ever had it before. How do I become a car dealer? I'm 23 years old. I have a business degree and I'm considering applying for a job at a dealership, but I have serious goals.

How do I get my own store? And that's from John and Pennsylvania. Well, it's a long, tough road. The car dealerships now are becoming bigger and bigger, and they are being bought up in large groups. Individual stores are hard to find, comparatively speaking. The biggest retailer of automobiles in the United States is automation, probably followed closely by Penske Auto Group,

and there's a bunch of them, Sonic, and, you know, there's, I'd say probably I'm going to just shoot this from the hip. 75% of the retail dealerships are probably publicly owned now or at least by one private owner. So you're out of luck. You can't own a dealership if it's an automation store. You can be a general manager. If you want to own a dealership,

you have to find a privately owned dealership and you have to work real hard and hope that the dealer will recognize you and one day give you that opportunity. You save your money and you invest and you might buy 10% or 20%. You have to get approval by the manufacturer before you can do any of this.

That's not too hard. A hard thing is getting the owner of that dealership to agree that you have the talent and the money to be able to take over. I only know a few people that actually did that. They went in and started selling cars and they worked their way up. It's almost like becoming a not to

over glamorize you, but it's almost like becoming a rock star. You might have talent, but you have to be with the right dealer and really, really stand out. But I do get one bit of advice. Focus also on the fixed ops, the service part of the dealership as well, because most general managers, they're a dime a dozen, and all they know is sales. So if you can show that you can know the whole dealership, you could stand out. And the one thing we left out, there's something called an open point, and when a manufacturer adds a dealership that wasn't there before,

so if there's four dealerships in Palm Beach County and they want to add a fifth Toyota dealership, then they would find someone that wanted the dealership, and actually you get what we call the ticket, the franchise, is free. All you have to do is build the building and buy the equipment, make the investment, which is quite expensive. The problem is it's pretty political, And the chances are that a new dealership would go to an existing dealer.

But if you had a lot of political pull and you had some Prince of General Motors or Honda and you've got an open point, it's like free money. I have two. I have two questions for you. Is it as political today as it once was when you got into the business? And number two, does the franchise hold as many rules? yesterday as it does today? Well, it's just as political, probably more political today.

I don't know. It's always been political. I mean, anytime you're awarding something worth millions of dollars, there can a lot of people in line holding up their hands say, get me. If someone, if Honda said it were adding a new, you know, accurate dealership, there would be thousands of people that would want that. and somebody in the hierarchy of the Honda Corporation would make that decision, and chances are the guy that got it or the gal that got it, would probably have some inside track that nobody else has.

Well, one thing. And a lot of money. One more statement, all the glitters is not gold, and there are so many dealerships, but you must have a brand, something that is so, unique to make you a success. Okay, let's go moving right along. Jumping over to anonymous feedback.

It was mentioned on the radio program that the salt air can cause cars to rust from the inside out. When I look at the history of use cars for sale in Minnesota at dealers, there seem to be a lot of used cars from Florida. I wonder if they could be flood cars or salt damaged cars and the dealers are trying to make extra money. Sure. I mean, wholesalers are very good at this. They buy cars in one area and take them to another.

The biggest thing in Florida is they export it. You can have a car that is totally illegal to sell in the United States. They're going on a ship, ship it to Venezuela or ship it to Nigeria. They go all over the world. And unsafe cars with all sorts of problems or brought to other areas. Flood cars are often retitled in states that have sloppy title laws hiding the fact that it's been totaled by the insurance company and then putting a washed title, they call it,

and selling it someplace else. So buying a car is, you need to be very careful. One simple rule, you're buying a car, use car, get a mechanic, and check it out. It'll tell you everything you need to know about that car and the title even might not tell you the truth. Right. The Vehicle History Check can miss these things. if there is it can be branded as a flood car but it's a really good question about florida just a few

weeks ago at the beginning of this month we had a a brush with a we had a tropical storm or hurricane that hit florida twice we had a ton of unprecedented flooding in south florida particularly down in brower and dade county and i guarantee thousands of cars became flood cars just this month and they're going to go somewhere so watch out yeah great advice 877 960 99 or you can text us 772-497-6-5-30. I have $50 for one more new female caller.

Please give us a call. There's plenty of time left. You want to take advantage of that. I know you can use that $50 this time of year. The second new female caller. Now back to Stu. More anonymous feedback. I have heard Mr. Stewart talk about calling the Florida Attorney General

to a report unethical action. by car dealers wouldn't it be better to send a letter with details it's easy to ignore a phone call that it's easier to ignore a phone call than it is a letter that's a great that's a great honest feedback it's true and I use that probably Ashley Moody call Ashley Moody we give the number out maybe is to annoy her but yes well you can download a form on Earl and Cars.com we have three forms there one of them is a complete form to the Attorney General's office. One is a complaint form to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And what's the third one, Stu? The County Office of Consumer Affairs or the Florida Office of Consumer Affairs. It's part of the Department of Agriculture, and it's a subsection consumer of affairs. And they actually do take action. A quick note, better business bureau, it's nice, but they can't enforce anything. All the business has to do is respond. They could respond to a complaint and say, sorry about that, and that suffices. The Department of Consumption, Affairs opens an investigation and requires sort of a meeting of the minds with the business and the consumer. You're absolutely right. The point is very well taken, and I'll bounce this back to all our listeners. If you're going to complain about a car dealer, put it in writing. Email is your friend. A text is your friend.

When you have a verbal comment, it disappears. Poof. It's gone. Because six months from now, nobody remembers it. even if you remember it, they'll tell you they don't remember it. So you put in writing, it's there forever, digitally frozen in time for eternity. Absolutely. And, you know, folks, we can't do this alone. And even though we mentioned it on the air during this radio show, we know that there's somebody out there that's going to hear us. And to the point of a letter, sure, that's fine.

Email is fine. But we're exposing a lot of car dealers every week with the mystery shopping report. But like I said, we can't do this alone. So that telephone number to get in touch with the Attorney General Ashley Moody is 850-414-3300. Give her a call, leave a message, talk to anyone that will pass that message onto her. We really need your help with these dishonest car dealers. Let's start giving out an email or something because the texter is absolutely right. We're giving a the phone number. We'll get either a text number or an email number, put you complete in writing to Ashley Moody. That's a great idea. We should have been doing

that. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for that tip. Okay. More anonymous feedback. Happy Thanksgiving, Earl. I would like to ask about the dealer arbitration clause most dealers ask you to sign. Does this clause negate the Lemon Law? And can you expound on that? The Lemon Law is not a lawsuit. The Lemon Law is an arbitration. And so you're really talking about an arbitration clause banning another arbitration. You have a right under Florida law to arbitrate with the, actually a better business bureau, I think it's typically the arbitration group.

And the arbitration clause would not negate that. It negates lawsuits. And we think of the Lemon Law as a lawsuit. It's really an arbitration. A judge does decide, but it's a special niche in the law. Okay. All right. More anonymous feedback.

Hi, I was at my local Toyota dealership and saw them displaying the Toyota President's Award. They won it a lot in the late 90s and early 2000s. Is it hard to win? And have you all won it before? I can answer it's not particularly hard to win you just can't be terrible you have to sell a certain amount of cars

to your market you have to be sales efficient and you also can't be in the bottom 10% in terms of the customer satisfaction surveys that's pretty much it and so no it's not hard to be as long as you're just not terrible

I'm not trying to negate it we've won it I think every year this century It isn't that easy because in South Florida, only about half of it. Well, that's the old customer satisfaction thing, I usually knocks them out. But if you get knocked out for sales efficiency as well. Okay, I think we read that one already. Here we go.

When trading in a car with some scratches in the paint, would it make sense to use touch-up paint before getting it appraised? I realize this is not ideal, but could it help with the car's value. You have to be real careful with touch-up paint because you often can make it look worse. Sometimes you're better off, especially with minor scratches because a good body shop can make those scratches go away a lot less obviously than touch-up paint. I would have it done professionally even if I had to pay a few bucks rather than try to do it myself, Rick. or maybe try just a simple bit of wax on it first

because sometimes those light scratches, little wax, you know, make them vanish or even decrease them to the point of which they... Yeah, great advice. The fact, the Hippocratic go first, do no harm. I've done that myself. Don't mess up the paint thinking you're going to make it look better. Yeah, I would agree with you after, you know,

I've praised a lot of cars, and, you know, you're not fooling anybody, and in some cases you can make the repair for the dealer if they're going to repair, the scratch a little bit harder it's a little extra work to kind of repair the because it gunks up it didn't look that good I've been told another this is a text message I've been told by different service managers that the water pump should be replaced when the timing belt is replaced is this true on most cars the water pump is actually spun by the timing belt so it's a good idea if you're

already in there doing that job of replacing the timing belt go ahead and do the oil and the water pump at the same time just because with the age of it, it can't hurt. And it's going to save you money in the long run. I was afraid you were going to say that, but it can be true, and it's become automatic. And any car dealer or independent garage you go into will tell you to do that. The thing that's always bothered me, because one of the things I, one of my talents, is I can put on my consumers. I can put on my consumer hat really quickly. And so if the rationale is, as long as you go through the labor to get in there and remove the, what was it, the time, the time.

You're right there where you could take the water pump and everything can be done. If you have to go back and do the water pump later, you're talking double labor. Right. So you're saving it. I get that. But I can't get out of my head as a consumer. whatever, but there's just absolutely nothing wrong with my water pump. I mean, water pumps last, you know,

depending on the car, I suppose, the quality and so, and the maintenance and care. I just, you're an expert on mechanics, but I just, I can't, this is the way customers think. They think, was there something, well, we're supposed to do it this way. We're saving you the labor. But was the water pump bad? No, it wasn't, but it might have been bad later.

What is the range, Rick, on water pumps in terms of how long they can last from what? 50,000 miles to 150,000 miles? Easily and more. Yeah. I mean, the quality's been increasing quite a bit. Like right now, my own truck, 120,000 miles. Yeah. Still going strong.

What the customer should be told is the full unvarnished truth. that it's going to save your money if your water pump would be failing in the next 12 months. Right. If your water pump is going to fail for five years, you'll probably trade the car and be driving something else in five years. So you have to get, you let the customer needs to be able to make that judgment. Give them the whole truth of this. I just don't say, no, you've got to do it this way. It always seems like as if it's the water pump, you know.

This takes me to my story. a brand new dishwasher going to replace the pump. I mean, this is going to happen on Monday morning. Well, guess what I'm going to do? I want to see the old pump and I'm going to see the new pump. I'm going to take a look at that. I'm even going to video it. So that is a great question about these pumps that are just like,

they're doing it like as if that they're doing, back in the old days, you're taking your tonsils out for no reason at all. I digress. Okay, 8779-6. 9960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and we have a call from Paul good morning Paul hello hello are you calling us from Missouri yes ma'am I am I'm the same person that told you the last time oh really well welcome again yes ma'am got a question for you I've got a

I've had a really blessed Thanksgiving I've got my wife's call paid off and two other debts that's been holding me back for some time paid off and I've got enough money to put down on a new Toyota that I've been looking at

I talked to you all about that last time and my question is I kind of feel like I'm getting the run around from the dealership I'm doing with Well, Paul, have you got prices from more than one dealership? Because the key to success in getting a fair price is to get at least three bids on prices. And in your area of Missouri, are there three dealerships within a reasonable driving? Or I won't say driving because you can deal online or by phone.

How far away the other two toilet dealerships where you live? I've got one 48 miles away from me, and I've got one probably just about an hour and a half or two away. Are you anywhere near St. Louis? No, I'm about 120 miles south of St. Louis. What about Kansas City? I'm sorry. I know a guy out there. I could hook them up.

Well, if you're willing to go that far, I know what we can do for you, Paul, is still will give you contact information, a friend of us. You don't have to buy the vehicle from him, but you can contact him online. He'll give you a good price on the Toyota you want to buy. Take it to your local dealer and tell them to meet it or else. Now, you could be bluffing that you're going to drive 140 miles, and maybe you won't bluff because you might save so much money. It'll be worth it.

But, Stu, can you give them an email address? Yeah, well, just, if you can just, can you text me or email me? What would be easier? I can probably text you. Okay, text of 772-497-6-530. Okay. Well, one of the questions I just need answered, that's a general question, is do the SEs come with a push-button start or not? Not the all-wheel drive as the front-wheel drives.

I believe so. They have the push-button. I'm actually looking that up right now. Did he actually, did you put a question on YouTube about that? Yes, sir, I did. Yeah, I'm researching that right now to see if the SE does have that as a feature. Yeah, I don't want to go, like, I don't want to guess. Sometimes in terms of levels I've been fooled.

But we'll look that up for you, and I'll let you that know when you text me. I'll give you the answer on that. And then I'll get your information, and I'll call my friend out there. What's his name? Well, we have Joe Cardello, and then we also have, oh gosh, they're both at, Jay Wolf stores, so we can help you out there. Have you heard of Jay Wolf out there, Paul, in Missouri? Jay Wolf.

Yes, I have. I've looked up on his website. Okay, great. Yeah, that group is, we have friends in that group. We'll get you a really good price. Yeah. I'm not so much worried about the price. I think they're going to do me good on a price and everything.

But the features are what I'm wanting to know. When I go up, when I look online, they have cars that they're showing the price to, but they're not, but when I went up there yesterday, they didn't have them on the lot. Okay. And I'm just wondering, and then they say it's going to be a couple more weeks before they get any SE front wheel drives in, and I just don't know what to believe anymore. Well, the authoritative source, if you want to find out all the features, just going to Toyota.com at the manufacturer's site,

and they list all the features and specs on all the vehicles. And it's pretty easy to navigate. I'm on there right now, and don't have time to find all the details on the show right now. But if you go to Toyota.com, just pull up a Camry, and it'll let you know what the SE, all the equipment on the SE is. Okay. Will they have, like, options that you can put on, like, push-button start if it doesn't have it? It'll list factory options that are available that Toyota provides.

So, yeah, it will have that. Okay. All right. And then the other thing was the lines on the backup camera. Will they turn on the SC? I figure maybe you might know that. I don't think they do. I think they're straight.

But the changes every year they keep upgrading it. Okay. All right. Well, I'll text you here in just a few minutes. All right. And I'll go on the website as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Paul.

Thank you, Paul. Well, thanks for being part of the show, and thanks for becoming a regular. And I'm thinking about being a vigilante too for this. Oh, please sign up. Go to Earlsvigilandis.com. We need more. There you go. And if you missed any part of this show, remember, it's recorded, and you can catch us on YouTube.

You can catch us on Facebook, Sketcher, all over the place to obtain all the information that you need. Hey, Paul, on the SE. It is not showing smart key as the push-button start is one of the options. It's showing as simply as the regular remote keyless entry with the regular key, but no push-button start on the SE. No remote start on that either? You could get remote start, but not the push-button start. Okay.

All right, thanks, Paul. Look for your text. Thank you, sir. All right, bye-bye. Your points too about going to the manufacturer's site. I recommend this on any make car. Every manufacturer has a really good, accurate website on terms of product. So whatever product of a, if you're looking for a Honda or a Ford model or whatever, go to the manufacturers, you know, Ford.com or whatever the manufacturer's website is.

And that way you get the unvarnished facts about the product. You're not going to get good pricing information. you'll have to go, unfortunately, to the dealer for that. But if you have product information, that's definitely the best place to go. All right, jump in anonymous feedback. I love these. Has anyone thought about installing prescription windshields for people who need vision correction?

Whoa. You know, it sounds laughable, but I think that there will be something available. I mean, if you can imagine, it will happen. And it's going to happen. I mean, there's no question about it. I don't know. I feel bad for the passenger. No, well, if you visualize it today the way it sounds, it sounds ridiculous. But I promise you there will be something in automobiles that will enhance your vision through whatever

we're looking at. We might even not even be looking at a windshield. We might be looking at the screen. They want to know if there's going to be prescription windshields. Yeah. Well, how about How about a screen that you're looking at that is a TV screen and the, and it will buy software, artificial intelligence, set the granular thing to the view so you have a crisp view. It could be on a regular TV too. I mean, it's just so exciting technology that you can't rule anything out. I just, I wish I could live another hundred years just so I could see what the vehicles are. look like 100 years from now you know what I'd like to see is I know window tint is an issue but up to a certain degree you know window tint is can be very helpful

especially here in the sunshine to be variable I'd like to see windows where the tint can darken automatically and then lighten up at night yeah it will happen I mean I don't know what cars have it I do know that a couple of toilets have the the roofs that actually become opaque with the button push of a button. Pretty cool. All right. Here's a great question. What are people with large CD collections supposed to do now that most new cars don't have CD players? I'm an old guy and I don't know what the hell an MP3 is. You can convert your CDs to digital. But he didn't know that. If you have a grandson or granddaughter, maybe they could help you out with that. But yeah,

we've run into that. And we've helped people out. We've done that. We've converted people's CD collections. I remember converting cassettes because about 10 to 15 years ago Carr stopped having cassette players and we had some people that were very upset. Big music collections and they had to be converted to CD. Now they need to come back and convert

the CDs. So I think we are caught up right now with all text and anonymous feedback. Well, fantastic. You know, I'm going to take a moment and remind the ladies that I do have $50 for a second female, new female caller. So we're on until

10 o'clock, and I think our lines will be open for maybe about five more minutes. And also ladies, if you'd like to join in Earl's Vigilantes, please do so. www. www.orgelanties.com.

Yeah. And now this gives me time for a commercial. I say we're commercial free. And so I want to let you all know, the confession of recovering car dealer is a how-to-do-it book on everything we talk about on this show. Matter of fact, you can read the book and you don't have to be harassed by this show. You can just go to the chapter on the area that you're interested in.

And it really gives everything comprehensively about how to avoid being taken advantage of, whether you're leasing or buying or maintaining or repairing. You can buy it on Amazon and all the proceeds. I don't just mean the profit or a nickel or a dollar, a book. Every nickel you spend on this book doesn't go to me. It goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Exactly. And Big Dog Ranch Rescue, by the way, is the largest no-kill shelter in Florida.

It's an amazing, amazing place on Okeechobee Boulevard in Loxahatchie Groves. And we have hundreds of dogs out there. Lori Simmons, the founder, is an amazing woman. She flies dogs in from all over the United States and the world. Would you believe China, Puerto Rico, and we take dogs from other shelters all over the southeast United States. We see dogs all the time from North Carolina. So if you buy a copy of Confessions of a Recoving Car dealer, it's great to read for yourself. for your kids, your grandkids.

Anybody want to buy a car? It's a good gift, good Christmas gift. And every nickel goes to save a dog's life. We take dogs that are going to be euthanized from Miami and from Port Lauderdale and from even as far away as Georgia and Carolinas. Puerto Rico. And we never euthanize these dogs.

We find homes. We have the dogs been out there for a couple of years. Yeah. And we find homes. We always find homes for these dogs. Buy a book, save a dog's life. What's interesting about Big Dog Ranch is every single dog has a different story. And it, as Earl said, comes in from all over the world.

Go to Big Dog Ranch website, and you can learn about Laurie Simmons. And what a God bless her, what a wonderful job she has done out there. B-D-R-R-D-R-R.org. Big Dog, B-D-R-R-R-R-R-B-D-R-R-R. And as far as Earl's book, Confessions, of a recovering car dealer, what an investment. It isn't something that you're gonna spend 1999 on and you're just gonna put it on the bookshelf. You'll be bringing it out all the time

and referring to it because it has so much information in it, it's phenomenal. You'll be glad you purchased it and you'll be glad you helped every single dog at Big Dog Ranch. Okay, we are gonna go to Marty and Marty's calling us from West Palm Beach. Hi.

Good morning, Marty. Hi, good morning. I just have a couple of quick questions for you. First of all, does every southeast Toyota dealer pay the same for the car itself? Yes, they do. Okay. So the basic difference in the deal is whether if you have a trade-in, some dealers will give you more for a trade-in, and some don't make.

make as much of a profit. They don't care about making as much of a profit. Marty, they all care about making a profit. The problem is that everybody pays a different price for the same car. And that's not just true with Southeast Toyota dealers, but any car dealer. So sometimes if you do your homework, you shop and compare prices with at least three dealers, you can get a really good price. If you don't, you pay a very high price for the same car. You just have to be digilant, careful do your homework, but the most important thing is to get three prices on the exact same vehicle from three different, you're talking Toyota, because of three different Toyota dealers, and find the one with the lowest price. You will pay thousands of dollars less if you do that. Okay.

And now the other question I have, have you ever done anything or heard of Prime Motors leasing? Prime Motors is a buy-here pay-here company in Palm Beach County, and I've heard of them. They've been around a long time. They have a good reputation, but I don't know about the, you say leasing? Or is that Prime Auto? Oh, Prime Auto. Yeah, Prime Auto. Is that the deal man?

Yeah, the deal man, yeah. Well, they've told me, and I don't know if there's any truth to it, that they can get a lease a lot cheaper than, any dealer? I found them right now. That's not true, Marty. It's not true. You lease a car just like you buy a car by competitive comparison.

They just have to keep the variables fixed. Always use the same car, the same number of months for the lease, the same down payment. Don't vary anything. Go to three different dealers and take the lowest lease payment. Prime is not going to get you better,

lease rate, I promise you. Okay. Now, when they lease a car to you, let's say you lease a Toyota, would you be leasing through Southeast Toyota Finance or somebody else? Southeast Toyota Finance. They have the best rates, usually the captive financing arm, whether it's Honda Ford, General Motors, they have the best rates because they're actually subsidized to encourage the sale or leasing of those cars. If you go to an outside leasing company, like Prime, assuming that's what they are, they can't be competitive. Oh, okay.

All right. I'm not ready to renew my lease, but I'm just wondering. Sure. Be careful. Be careful. Call us anytime, and competition is your friend. If you don't go to three different Toyota dealers and you have three different lease prices, you're going to pay too much money.

Okay. What other question, if you got a minute? Sure. Every other Toyota dealer has a dealer fee. Yes. No doubt about it. You do not have a dealer fee. Yes.

So therefore, you should be $1,000 less than any deal. Is that true? No. Well, not necessarily, because if you go hard enough and compete hard enough, they will account for the dealer fee in their pricing. You have to get the out-the-door price. Once you decide that you're going to get the out-the-door price, and that is a price that you're right to check for,

and it's the salesperson and drive your car home, then that negates the effectiveness of the dealer fees. The dealer fees are only effective if you don't know about them, and they spring them on you after you signed in and think you bought the car. Knowing the dealer fee and knowing the amount of the dealer fee, it should be plural because car dealers have more than one dealer fee today, our mystery shopping report coming up momentarily, there were two dealer fees, typically there's two or three dealer fees. So don't even discuss dealer fees, just say, give me the out-the-door price, my credit union

is going to give me a check, I'm going to give you that check, I'm going to get in the car, and drive it home. What is that number? What is that price? that three times and take the lowest price, and you'll get a great price on a car. Right. Yeah, I know one time, even though I wanted them to knock off the dealer fee, their invoice still had the dealer fee. They gave me, like you said, they gave me the price that I wanted to pay, but they took, as far as their paperwork, the dealer fee was still on there,

but the out-the-door price, obviously, was what I wanted to pay. Just like pulling teeth, Marty, it's a hardest thing to get from a car dealer, the out-the-door price. You have to insist. And you say, listen, if you don't give it to me, I'm going home. And I'm going to buy it from another car there. So they have their choice. Sell your car or don't sell your car. They will generally give you an out-the-door price when you push them hard enough.

All right. All right, thanks. Thank you, Marty. Bye-bye. Okay. All right is good. Okay. I think that we're going to be going to our mystery shopping report.

from southern later after i do the mystery shopping room we're going to go to our mystery shopperry report of southern 441 toyota and you do not want to miss this and we've shut our lines down in order for earl to talk about the mystery shopper report okay as nancy said this week we shopped another toilet dealership southern 441 Toyota in royal palm beach it's technically the first time we've investigated them. The dealership used to be part of the Penske Auto Group. It was called Royal Palm Toyota back then. We probably missed your shop Royal Palm Toyota more than a few times over the many, many years. Three years ago, Penske sold it to a guy named Terry Taylor, and he's the owner of the largest private auto group in the country. He doesn't like to put his name on his

vehicles. He does, I mean, on his dealerships. He likes anonymity. So, Terry, I'm sorry, I blew your anonymity, but you do own Royal Palm, used to be, now Southern 441 Toyota. Last week, you'll remember we shop Palm Beach Toyota, who did very well. We gave them a B-plus, one of the highest grades we've ever given a car dealership, and typically we see C's and D's passing grades, but at Palm Beach Toyota got a B-plus, and we kept them on our recommended deal of this. Now, I mean, it's unusual for us to mystery shop the same brand two weeks in a row, but Southern 441 Toyota

got stuck in our heads after a listener last week wrote to us about them. The listener had received a letter this is very humorous in the mail from Southern 441 Toyota promising a free certificate for a $10 discount

off the price of a hamburger turkey. It looked like it was promising a free hamburger turkey but it wasn't. It was giving a discount of a hamburger turkey. Free certificate. So we called up Agent Lightning, or female shopper, to go to work. She was instructed to try to buy a new 2020 Camry SE, a popular model.

After being presented a price, she revealed that she had a competitive offer from another Toyota dealership. Agent Lightning had a picture of a buyer's order with a very low, but realistic price on the same model to back up her claim. So I just a little bit more hard nose than Agent Lightning has been. in the past. So it's difficult to go in there with a more aggressive, demanding sort of a demeanor. And it's difficult for a lot of people, and I'm sure for Mr. Choppers, although Agent Lightning does have a pretty strong personality, and she carried it off quite well. Finally, Agent Lightning was asked to really insist on getting an official vehicle buyer's order. Now, this is one of the most difficult things to get from any dealer.

Now, we're just talking to Marty on the line about what, how do I get an out-the-door price? Well, to get an out-the-door price, you have to get the official document, the legal document that the dealership will be using to bulk the sale. If you don't, you're operating on a worksheet or just a scratch pad, and you have nothing in writing legally. And those worksheets will say right on there, this is not an official bill of sale, this is for information purposes. So here I am in the first person as Agent Lightning. I arrived in Southern 441 mid-morning. I parked at the Southern 441 Toyota, mid-morning. I parked as I walked toward the entrance.

I was greeted by Elias, a salesman, wearing a mask. That's a good start. He welcomed me to the dealership and asked what he could do to help me. Or what can I help you with? I told Elias about the Camry, SC, I wanted. He was really nice. Talk to me about the Camrys. He led me to where several were parked.

He explained the differences in the trim level and said, Terrilla had good incentives on the 2020 models. We walked back to the entrance to the showroom where he asked me to wait. He said he'd be back with a car for a test drive. Elias continued to impress me with his knowledge of the details of the vehicle. We finished a short test drive, went back into the showroom. We sat down to the desk and Elias entered my info in his computer. He asked if I was ready to see the numbers.

I was. He left for a few minutes and returned with a worksheet. That's what Stee was just talking about. Worksheet, it's like a scratch pad. It means nothing. In fact, it says this is not a legal document or these are, you know, this is not binding, and you're just, you're talking when these numbers are being bandied about. There's nothing you can enforce, and you still don't know the bottom line with a worksheet. This is not an offer or contract for sales, is what it says. Yeah, and you usually don't see that. and you think you're doing something official,

and you shake hands, and I say congratulations, you just bought a car. But you haven't bought a car. You've just got a bunch of scribble, scrabble on a worksheet. Now you're going into the business office. That's where you're going to buy the car, and that's when you're not going to be able to read what you're signing. And that's when you get the hidden fees, and you get the extra $1,000, $3,000 that you didn't know you paid.

Okay, the top line on this worksheet was $30,064, which was, hard to believe. $1,699 over sticker over MSRP. He took off a $1,500 discount. This made my adjusted price, $200 over MSRP, or $28,564. he added $1,699 for a dealer appearance package. This made my total purchase $30,000, 2623, but wait, there's more. Then he added an $899 dock fee and a $279 e-tag fee. Now, this is what we're seeing on the worksheet, but we don't know what would have happened later on.

I shuddered to think what else could happen. later on. The effective sale, usually you don't get these at this point, but every dealer's a little different. The effective sale price now was $31,441, and now we're $3,076 over sticker, $3,076 over dealer-less MSRP. I pointed to the top line, asked why that number, $30,064, was higher than the MSRP. And by the way, a lot of people don't even know what the MSRP is. You should always look at the Menroney label of the car you buy. Always know what the MSRP is, if for no other reason, it's a reference point. And you need to know what is the price you're getting with respect to that MSRP.

A lie stated that was for an addendum for a protection anti-theft package pre-installed on all their vehicles. he said normally there would be a sticker on the glass for some reason there wasn't one on the SC that he was buying she was mine I'm buying he didn't question that the $1,19 package was added a few lines lower I didn't catch that until later yeah that was really odd so he claims the reason that sticker place was inflated by 1700 bucks was for the appearance package yeah but if you look down a couple of lines it was itemized on the bar's order Jonathan's showing it on the video if you're watching. And that shows how fast he was.

I mean, he was faster. He was the fastest liar in the West because he just, he probably missed it himself. Yeah. And anyway, no accounting for it. Got an answer for everything. It was at this point when I revealed I had an offer from another toilet dealer. Elias accused himself, returned quickly with his manager. Folks, if you don't do this when you buy a car, forget about it.

You've got to have three offers, at least three offers. It's so easy today, unless you live in Missouri like Bobby or over the Paul. Paul. And you don't have any close by dealers, but if you live in any kind of a metro area, four prices, five prices. It's so easy online. And use those prices to get the best. price from the dealer closest to you, the one you prefer to buy from, and they will generally

be able to beat the deal or match it. So he goes to the manager, manager was very courteous, beginning with friendly, small talk before getting to the deal at hand, and he wore a mask too. So we gave him a nay here already for their masks and their COVID awareness and protection. The manager asked me to tell him the price. I was given by the other Toyota dealer. he said he will beat whatever our price, whatever the price is, by at least $500. Wow.

Everybody will always beat everybody else's price. True to an extent. And competition is your friend. I mean, half of it's BS here, but half of it's real. When they know they have a competitor, you got their attention. Don't be shy about it.

People don't like to say, I'm comparing your price. I've got another price. People, you're afraid you're going to fence That's why I like doing this an email. I mean, even sitting down there, it is kind of, it is scary to do that with a professional. People don't like to do it. I tangled with him a bit saying, I didn't want to reveal my hand, possibly have money on the table.

I wanted to hear the best price he could do. This is really hard. He refused to come down on the price unless I gave up the, I gave him the offer I had, and he wanted to see it in print. And this went on for 15 minutes or so. So, again, kudos to Agent Lightning. This is tough to do. But this is the kind of thing you have to do if you're going to buy a car.

Finally, he said that unless I show him something in print with a van vehicle identification number, he can be sure we are comparing apples to apples. He was sticking with his price. Playing hardball. He's playing poker with you right now. He wouldn't have stuck to his price, but he's playing poker. He excused himself politely and returned to his desk. I looked at a license side, okay, I showed him my phone with a picture of the buyer's order.

The MSRP of my competitive offer was $29,7442. The sale price was $23,332. Out the door, out the door, the magic price, the magic number, $25,000 on 24. You can also see the VIN as well as the factory package and options. He would be able to very easily determine whether he was comparing apples to apples. He said he could speak with his manager, okay? The lines of the manager came back several minutes later with a new worksheet. The top line was the same.

30,064. But this time, there was a $10,368 discount. Huge drop in price. Everything else was the same, but the alpha door number was $24,410. about seven dollars less than the offer I had from the other toilet dealer. I said, everything looks good. I just need a buyer's order to give my credit union. He asked why I would do that because they can't touch the rates we could get here. Now, this is just wrong. I'm not going to It's true if they were doing the special finance, you get zero percent, but they were doing a cash deal

with the with so they couldn't it was a manufacturer's rate they can be the credit union it was not the manufacturer subsidized rate uh but they're not but they're using the dealer cash here so exactly cash you know so you can't use the rate so i explained that my husband handled all over finances this is the way he wants to do it the manager said if we're going to help i get unless everything entered in the computer he would get me into finance fast where I could get my buyer's order. I want to get you in the box. They want to get you in there.

And that's where you sign the papers that you don't know what you're signing. I said I was not ready to go into finance, and I insisted again on getting a buyer's order. The manager said, I'd have to fill out a credit application. I already told him I'm going to my credit union. He wants me to fill out a credit application or give him a $1,000 deposit

for him to give me the legal document, the buyer's order, before I went into finance. hardball, pushy, aggressive. How unpleasant. And again, kudos to Agent under fire. Agent Lightning passed their test. I asked him what it was he didn't want me to see if all the numbers were

exactly the same as the work should. He said it was the same info, just legal size. Well, that's obviously not true. If it were true, why wouldn't you want to show it to you? I think it's bigger than legal size. It seems like four feet long. We're at an impasse. I excuse myself, walked outside, I considered my next move, ultimately deciding to just leave. So here we are. One of the more exciting shops we've had.

Southern 441 toilets, one for the bleachers on the first pencil, we call it, the first offer. It would have been $9,000 profit, and folks, they make $9,000 profits on some of their cars. They do, and they make $100 profits on the same car. to the sharp negotiator who has three competitive prices. So this is what car dealers do. If they think they have a mark, a sucker, someone that they can bowl over easily, they will give them a huge markup, $9,000 profit to that dealership.

At first glance, it appeared to the manager with Trudeau's word. He did beat the competitive offer by at least $500. However, either he nor Elias pointed out that, their vehicle was lesser equipped. He knew the MSRP. He went out and he got a lesser equipped car so he can offer a bigger discount. Competitive offer representative of zero-dollar gross profit

beating it by $700 on the lesser-equipped Camry. Still, the Southern 441 a $200 gross profit, which is not much on the car. So the nonsense was huge. the trickery, the aggression. It was a very unpleasant experience. But it worked. And if you emulated Agent Lightning

and you went in there and played hardball and you had, imagine she did this with one competitive price, imagine what you could have done with two competitive prices. So remember the lesson. And I just, very few people can deal with this. and that's one of the reasons car buying is so unpleasant. There we have it. Time to do the scores on Southern 441.

I'm so nervous. I kind of feel okay because we give a B-plus to Palm Beach Toyota. So no one's going to accuse us with trying to, like, you know, to hobble our competitors. So you know we're being honest. We're recommending people to go to Palm Beach Toyota. Jonathan Wellington gives them a big fat F Linda on Facebook gives an F Mark

gives them for deception and rudeness gives him a D minus and Bob who is one of our vigilantes in Maryland gives him a D minus I'm going to give him a D I'm not going to fail him Who wants to go next? Well I've got Tim Gillland

multiple dealer fees or multiple reasons to walk away. Aggressive tactics are a reason to run away. D. Mark Anderson says a D and A for all of Earl's great tips. Myself, I'm the D minus. I'll give them just barely passing the skin of the teeth. We got two more Fs that came in on Facebook. Martha Gism and F. And Mark Gism and F.

So. Oh, nice thing. Hi, ladies and gentlemen, this is a kind of a mystery shop that brings a tear to my eye, as Earl talked earlier about Terry Taylor, and that he's the owner of the largest private auto group. My goodness, how much money do you need to make? How many people do you need to take advantage of? And ladies and gentlemen, this is the reason why we need the attorney general, Ashley Moody. so please help us we can't do it alone and also what's really important

www. www. Earlsvigilantes.com Let's try to get together and round up these dishonest dealers there's a whole lot out there and there shouldn't be by now we should be in control but we're not, we need your help.

Earl, what's your grade on this one? I'm going to go with your D. I'm going to copy your D minus I. I actually was thinking about giving them a failing grade. But I let my emotions get carried away. They passed the test in terms of being not below the worst of the dealers out there, or equal, I should say. There was not any overt lying, cheating, stealing kind of a thing. It was just typical sort of shenanigans. And inflated price coming down $7,000 in one fell swoop, two dealer fees, salesperson

misinforming Agent Lightning, but we don't know whether it was accidental or on purpose. Just a bad experience, but we'll give them a D-minus. We need to emphasize more of the level of grades that we give, because here we have two Toyota dealers last week, a B-plus, this week a D-minus. So if you're thinking about buying a car from either 7-441 or Palm Beach Toyota, buy it from Palm Beach Toyota. I've got an idea. We'll revamp the recommended dealer list. Let's stop having it recommend or not.

Let's skip grades. We'll have to go back. We don't remember the grades on some of them. Just basically you'll grade them. And if you want to go to a D-minus place, you're taking chances. If you want to go to a B-plus place, you're probably going to have better luck. That's a great idea. And, ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't catch my vote, it was an F.

Yeah. I knew that was coming. Yeah. Hey, Anne-Marie texted this real quick. She has something really good to point out. She says she'd like to make an observation. When you advocate that people contact Ashley Moody before enforcing legal dealer practices,

please tell them to mail or email her. We talked about this earlier instead of calling her. That's because letters and emails to the government personnel are public records. Phone calls are not public records, and they're easier to ignore because there's no paper trail with him. Another fantastic matter from Anne-Marie. Do we have time for Rick's YouTube, Jonathan?

Yeah. Let's have you too. Justin Thomas says, if I buy a car from a different state, who's responsible for the shipping as a negotiable and can I have it shipped to a dealership close to me to have it inspected? Well, sure you can.

It's all question of cost, and you should be sure you're getting a fair price on shipping. There's a lot of car carriers out there, a lot of shippers, and you should shop around, get a quality, reliable, bonded. I think it would probably be pretty unlikely for a dealer let you to ship a car for an inspection. I don't think. They're going to want you to pay in full for that car before it leaves their loss.

Unless you paid for the shipping there and back, which you wouldn't want to do. They probably want you to pay for the car before they gave it without a buyer's order and getting paid in full. But I don't know. But definitely you're going to have a ship to you. It sounds like he's looking at a used car for the idea of having it inspected. Yeah, it probably won't ship it for an inspection. but if you can, you know, fly out or drive to the dealership, maybe they'd go with you to, you know, it'd be kind of tough there to do that out of state.

If it was a particular car you were looking for, it might be worthwhile. To our listeners, to our callers, our textors, our YouTube, everybody, you do make the show. You're very, very important, and we enjoy your company. So stay tuned next week for Earl Stewart on cars. We would love you to keep your mask on. Stay safe and to hear from you next week. Have a great weekend.

Thank you.