Earl Stewart on Cars - 11.30.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton's West Palm Hyundai

Episode Date: November 30, 2019

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

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. This is The Recovering Car Dealer Live. You heard my introduction just then. I think it pretty much summarizes our show, and we're here to help you. We're here to entertain you a little bit. We're here to hear your opinions. The show is kind of magical when we really get some momentum going from the audience.

You folks out there can call in, you can text in, you can Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. We have all forms of communication other than in person. We haven't tried that yet. I guess we could have somebody come by the studio, knock on the door, but we're not quite there yet. But you can do it. The text is really one of the greatest ways. we found as our technology changes and this whole cyber explosion we have progresses, people are becoming more textors than callers.

I mean, in everyday life, I probably, I don't probably, I absolutely text more than I make phone calls. It's easier. It's to the point. And it's more of a passive. It's not as much of an interruption. So our text number is 772-497-6-5-30, and we love to build a little backlog of those texts because if we don't get to it right away, we do get to it, we usually cover every single text. And that's one of the reasons we like it so much.

You can be specific and, you know, just as give us the details, the spellings, the names, and we get it right. That text number again, and if you're not going to call or text, write it down. Anyway, the text number is Eric Code 772-497-6530 and the old-fashioned telephone, 877-960. Now, well, you like the old-fashioned telephone because we hear your voice. It is more personal. But it ain't going to work. It ain't going to work. I'm just managing expectations.

Well, we have fun. Your regular listeners know that it's kind of a comedy around here that Earl Strew on Cars and Terps. So just for fun, try to call us, even if you can't get through. It says part of your curse. You have a technology curse. It's a trial. If you pass the calling trial, and you can still follow us and call us again and again and again. That's 877-960, 960.

Your Facebook, folks, you're just Facebook.com for us slash Earl and Cars, YouTube, Twitter, or alone cars. You can reach us in so many different ways. YouTube has become big, and we're getting a lot of people following us on YouTube, which is kind of cool. We're streaming live, and we have one beautiful person in the studio.

That's Nancy Stewart next to me. Rick, forget about it. Stu, I got a beard. You can't see Jonathan. He's over the corner. Jonathan's very cute. But anyway, stream us. It is, I think it adds to the essence of the show.

And as I said, we know you're probably driving a car, especially if you're in Florida. Anywhere in the United States of America, you're probably driving a car using a car, and you're probably involved with car dealers, and you're probably involved with repair department, service departments, be it independent or dealer-affiliated. And for some reason, this is really bugaboo. I mean, this is really something that we live with, kind of like you've got to get your teeth cleaned, You have to have colonoscopies. You have to, you know, things, unpleasant things in life that we just have to do.

And visiting cardiolships has become one of them. It's very sad. I haven't mentioned this in the past couple of shows, but for the people who happened to heard this before, this is the truth. You can Google it. The Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. Now, that's exactly what it sounds like. They went out and they surveyed a whole bunch of people, thousands of people, and they've been doing this. every year, the Gallup people, since 1977, and every year car dealers are on the bottom.

Now, if they're not dead last, they're next to last, or third from last. Last year, I think, 2018, almost said 19. We're one up from the bottom. One up from the bottom. So that means that of all your retail, your business experiences, whether it's lawyers or congressman or lobbyist or whatever it is, you don't like car dealers. you dislike them more than almost any other experience you have. So we know we have some problems out there. We want to help you through it.

We can tell you how to make your life easier when you're having your car service, you've got to maintain it, and when you buy our lease. Lease is a real, real minefield out there. The dealers are jumping on the leasing bandwagon and taking a lot of advantage. And our mystery shopping report today,

we went in on a lease advertisement. And what was it, $85 a month to? Yeah. $89 a month. $89 a month. So. What a deal. It's a Black Friday special, $89 a month. So that's just a red flag.

So we went in, and you're going to have a lot of fun listening to this mystery shopping board. If you don't know about the mystery shopping report, that is a highlight of the show. I don't know whether it's more entertainment or more information, education. It's about a 50-50 balance. We send an undercover person into the dealership to pretend to buy or lease a are we usually respond to an advertisement and we deal with the salesman usually a sales manager and we name names we name the dealership and we tell you exactly what happened and if there's

a violation of the law we say hey this dealer and we name the name broke the law and if it's unethical if it's a lie we just call a spade a spade and the good news says we've been doing this for 16 17 years never been sued by a dealership we've been threatened but we've never been sued we've received letters of uh deceased and desist exactly and uh that was from off lease only yeah i believe um who happens to be one of the better places to buy a used car so and we told them that but we just told the truth about our experience and we got a cease and desist letter from off lease only's uh lawyer and our lawyer wrote them back and said we're not going to cease and desist because we told the truth and the perfect defense against libel or slander

You lawyers out there will agree with this. The perfect defense, if someone sues you for libel or sues you for slander, is, did you tell the truth? If you tell the truth, you're immune. And we always tell the truth. Kind of fun to tell the truth all the time. 877-960-9960. Write the number down, please. If you have a second, if you're driving or something like that and can't call, just try to memorize it or write it down whatever is easiest or safest.

877-960-99-60. And our text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. To my right is Rick Kearney. Excuse me for a second. Guess what, ladies. The lines are lit up with female callers. Oh, wow.

Fabulous. So hang in there. And for the first two female callers, you win yourself $50, and that'll go a long way. this holiday season, and give us a call with your Black Friday car buying experience. Would you like to start to call us in? Absolutely, call us. Okay, let's get Tina on the line first. And Rhonda, yeah, Rhonda, hold on.

Good morning, Tina. Tina, Bonita Springs. Yes. Good morning. Good morning. How are you all doing today? Fabulous. I'm a little sluggish.

Yeah, too much turkey for Thursday, yeah. That triptophan is still hanging in there. I call it turkey coma. I was watching a really interesting show that my dad pulled up on Netflix. It's called Broken. And this particular episode of Broken talked about, this does have something to do with cars, I promise. But it had something to do with the counterfeit market in China regarding cosmetics. And then I did a little research online, and I found out there is a burgeoning, flourishing,

counterfeit airbag market that's coming out of China. Oh, my God. A bunch of people thought, oh, a bunch of people thought that, oh, my goodness, you know, I have this awful Takata airbag. I need to get it replaced, and they very well could have had it replaced with a counterfeit airbag that is just as dangerous. I mean, how low can you go? I mean, that's absolutely astonishing.

Chinese. Yeah, look on safercar. Safercar.gov has an article about it. Oh, okay. I was really flabbergasted. They said if you, people go online and they'll buy airbags for less than $400 a piece or they'll get them from salvage yards that are already in question because the electronic components, the electronic components have been degraded by sun and wind and rain.

So it's just, this is a way bigger issue than we ever thought it was. Wow. Well, I'll tell you, I don't know how. And once it's installed, you're just not going to know about it. you won't discover it until it's too late. That is really terrible. Yeah, so pretty much the only way that you can be sure that you're getting your airbag replaced properly

is if you get replaced the dealer. If you go to these places that claim they fix airbags, I would avoid them like the plague. Absolutely, yeah. No, you never want to buy an airbag until you know it's official. And I guess they all have part numbers and they can be verified with the manufacturer. So thanks very much, Tina.

You come up with some of the most interesting, useful information. Thank you. I try to find stuff. And another thing to note, like with this show called Broken, they showed packages of the legitimate product and the counterfeit product, and you could virtually not tell the difference. So if somebody is having these products shipped to them, the legitimate product packaging and the counterfeit product packaging

might look so identical that you can't tell. which is which. Well, that's an old con game. They've been making counterfeit products for a long time. I just never heard of something like an airbag. I just thought that even criminals had some limit to how low they could go, but to do something that is going to kill somebody is pretty shocking. Yeah, it's terrible. So everybody caveat, mTOR. Yeah, you better believe it. Well, Tina, Thank you so very much for the call, and I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving, and you're our most important caller, certainly our most important female caller, but you're right up there in the top rankings. I hope you can call again next week. Thank you.

We're going to call you around. Thank you. All of the women are important, and the $50 is a thing lady, so please. Nancy and I can't do this by ourselves. We need you. Thank you so much, Dana. I really enjoy you, and thank you for the support. we're going to go to Rhonda now who's in Palm Beach Gardens good morning Rhonda

how are you can we help you Rhonda I just had to say that well my name is Vonda V-O-N-C-A Vonda Wanda Wanda Are you a first time caller? Help me Fonda yes oh great whenever you can send out your information to 772-497-6530 that's your contact information and I'm I'll get a check out to you. What can we do for you this morning? I hear about a lot of electric cars. Even the Mustang is going to have an electric car.

How many miles are they going to be able to go? I read that it was over 350. It was a pretty big range. I mean, better than like the higher range Tesla's, is what I heard. Like I think standard Tesla is about 250 miles on a charge, and then you can get an upgrade. didn't get something like 350, and I think the Mustang is starting out right around that higher range. That's not good.

Is that like if you just go at once 350, or does it use more battery to stop and go, stop and go? Definitely driving how you're driving is going to affect how long the battery lasts, also temperature of the air. So if you're really driving aggressively and stopping and starting a lot, yeah, you're probably going to get not quite the range. You know, I was talking about that with my brother the other day. I was saying, well, 350 miles, that's comparable to a tank of gas. And he says, well, what happens when you run out of the electricity? Are you going to find a charging station? So we still don't have the infrastructure yet, but we're getting there.

Yeah, there's more stations at different locations than you think. But, yeah, I was just wondering about that because it seems like, I thought you said that Volkswagen was only going to have electric cars or something. Yeah. One thing to keep in mind is that the electric car, as it comes into regular use, is going to have a very high depreciation rate because the technology on the battery is increasing so quickly. So if you buy an electric car today, for example, right now the Chevy Volt is practically worthless there. It was one of the very first electric cars that came out. And even the Mustang, if it's possible,

for you to look at a late model electric car by it used. You defer and avoid a lot of the enormous depreciation. Because you can see someone buying an electric car that had a battery with a range of 300 miles. And then five years later, they have one that has a range of 600 miles. People are going to flock to buy the one with a greater range. And you can avoid that by buying a late model used or waiting a little bit, you know, and buying the next model if it comes out. Okay.

Great. Thanks so much. And Rhonda, you know, it's amazing that there are so many drivers out there that just don't realize, you know, that their driving skills affect your car, you know, whether it's electric or whether you just have, you know, you're filling the tank with gas. And also, you know, compounded by that, you have someone else driving your car. So there's a lot of variables as far as, you know, you're filling the tank with gas. So how far you can take your electric car or how long it'll take before you have to fill your tank again with gas? Well, I didn't know.

And with an electric car, if you're driving and you turn it off for the night and then you start it again, when it's off, does it use any charge at all? It's still going to use a tiny amount because all the computers have got to keep their memories alive. So there's still going to be a very tiny amount of. electricity being used but the interesting thing that I see about them is like when you pull up to your home at night you would automatically want to plug the car in and let it charge overnight while you're asleep and a lot of workplaces parking parking garages and the like have special spaces so it's a very good likelihood for some people they would be able to charge the vehicle while they're

working at their normal job for the day That's good. Even some places, restaurants where you can pull up, and while you're inside eating for 45 minutes to an hour, your car is plugged in and charging for free. Yeah, because I always drive from, like, Florida up north, and I wonder how many of the gas stations like pilot and then might have one to charge.

You can Google that. They have that information. There's a surprising number of charging stations in Florida, and California, their wall-to-wall. it's important no matter where you live to check that out and look at your radius of where you go and after a while

if you stay in your radius you'll know every charging station just like you know every gas station but to take a trip across country you want to plan your route before you take off and be sure you're near a charging station and I guarantee there's websites how long does it take to charge it well it varies and again that's technology

as we roll along here you can quick charge I think you can quick charge a Tesla now in about 15 minutes 15 to 20 minutes yeah and some of them take like three or four hours so you really need to decide where you're going to use

at what geography you're going to be driving the car and then take into consideration what you're buying and what that car is going to be worth when you're ready to trade it in and electric cars are going to supply a brand new electric car is going to depreciate like crazy

just have to be prepared to accept that yeah a lease might be a better idea than a purchase like Tesla has a leasing option and that way you know exactly where you are they absorb the depreciation because they get their car back at the end of the lease

thank you for the discussion on this great topic a very popular topic and I'll give you that text number again so that you send me your information. Contact information, 772-4976530. And please spread the word. Maybe you have a few female friends who would certainly like to give us a call and join us just to say hello. And pick up 50 bucks. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we have a great show ahead of us, and I can't remind you enough about WWW. I'm having a problem with my speech this morning from all that turkey.

www. www. Youranonymous Feedback.com. Don't forget, you can take advantage of that, and remain anonymous. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I think we got some text over there. Yeah, we go to the text if you're ready. First one came in, says, good morning. Earl, Wisconsin is making an example of a used car dealer by awarding punitive damages. Lemon Law attorney Vince Megna is taking on a used car dealer for faking prices in the sales contract. The car dealer is admitted to doing this on various occasions in the past.

There are more details in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story. And he sent a link to the story. Well, that's good. That is, yeah. You know, for you folks out there that are not lawyers and don't understand punitive damages, businessmen worldwide fear punitive damages more than anything else because they're uninsurable. And when you have a big fat cat corporation or a big fat cat car dealer and you sue him and you get awarded $100,000, that's pocket change to these guys.

And it doesn't really teach them a lesson. But when you sue somebody for punitive damages, now the punitive damages, mean that it was premeditated that the businessman either knew that he did wrong or should have known that he did wrong. And when you could prove that in court, then you get punitive damages sometimes even treble, meaning triple the damages that you had. Now that means he's not insured and whatever you win, it's not going to be coming out of his pocket, not his insurance company's bucket. And I think I'm glad to hear that because a lot of what goes on with car dealers when they rip you off and the bait and switch advertising and the lies that we see in the mystery

shopping reports, they knew about it. It's premeditated. And I wish we could have more punity damage lawsuits. That's a great deterrent. Yeah. Very scary. Okay. Next text comes in from Anne Marie, longtime text or listener. Good morning. There were a couple of new stories of dogs driving cars recently. This is true. One right here in Wellington, I think. I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, no, the first case was in Port St. Lucy. Oh, boy, that's right, yeah. Chihuahua. Right. Port St. Lucy, where a dog was doing donuts in the neighborhood cul-de-sac. The car mowed down a mailbox. The second was in Slidell, Louisiana, where a chihuahua car jacked his owner's car,

backed the car from one gas station across four lanes of traffic, and stopped at the chihuahua stopped the car and then stopped at the gas station across the street both cars were running and the owner said their cars had issues don't know how dogs drove since the driver needs to step on the brake to put the car in gear very true and this is we're talking about a chihuahua in one of the cases

unfortunately neither man nor dog got hurt pet owners if you're going to get out of your vehicle and leave it running while your pet is in the car please put the parking brake on so your pet doesn't go for a joy ride. Unfortunately, Emery, there are less and less cars with parking brakes. I do not believe I have driven in a car with a parking brake. Every car has a parking brake. Really? Well, I just don't know where mine is. Peddle over on the very far left, right against the kick panel. I'm checking. I'm checking when I go downstairs. Okay, please put the parking brake on your car

if your car doesn't go for a joy ride. Your insurance company and pedestrians in the area, well, thank you. Yes, indeed. next text from rufus every year i see car transport trucks delivering snowbirds cars is that cost efficient it's got to cost a lot of money and they have to do a round trip does that really offset the wear and tear and mileage put on the car if it was driven down from say new york like i said from rufus it's surprisingly reasonable i've heard numbers yeah 350 bucks or 300 bucks I mean, compare it to having someone drive your car now. Yeah, a transporter, if they have a full load, they can offer a better deal.

If you're sending one car with one transporter to New York, it could cost you $800,000 maybe, but if he's got a whole truckload, he gets down there. And be flexible on the timing, too. That way it allows them to collect a truckload. And it's surprisingly economical. I'm always amazed. I see them all the time. Yeah.

I mean, you're definitely saving some money because, first of all, there's always a risk when you're driving it down. you get some damage on your car. You're wearing your tires out and also the depreciation you get from mileage. So it's actually a pretty smart move. All right. One more. Thanks for the information.

Oh, this is from Vonda. I'm sorry. She was just calling saying her contact information, but she's thanking us for the info on electric cars. Well, thank you for calling Fonda. Thank you, Wanda. We'll have your 50 bucks out to you, ASAP. All right.

We're called up for now. Yeah. On YouTube. I've got a really interesting one here that just came in from Donovan. He says, Earl, I followed your advice and purchased the car I messaged about two weeks ago, but he says, I also got out of the dealer fee. He says, was very happy, but I found out later that the key remote was missing the key blade, you know, the little mechanical key that comes in it. The dealer I purchased the car from won't help me.

What can I do? Oh, boy, I tell you, it's amazing. When you say the dealer, I'm thinking you probably didn't talk to the owner of the dealership. If you did, shame on him or the general manager. Oftentimes, the lower echelon doesn't want to be bothered with, you know, helping the customer after the sale. You know, once you buy the car, get out of here. And I don't get a commission for finding you a insert for your, you know, remote. I'd go up the line as high as I could. I try to get hold of the owner and at least

the general manager. And if all that failed, I'd call the 800 number to the manufacturer. That'll get their attention. The manufacturer will contact the owner and the owner will see that it gets taken care of. It's just stupid when you hear things like that, yeah. Especially something like that, those little key blanks that cost nothing. Even a laser cut version is like $40 or $50 at the most. $300, $400 for the remote, but that's just a piece of steel. Absolutely. Okay.

Do we have any more YouTube's? We're caught up at the moment. Okay, let me jump in here. Josephine has a text, and it's an interesting one that's asked so often for the ladies, and that is she wants to know if it's a safe place to purchase a vehicle. vehicle online. It's not only a safe place where you can remain anonymous, but you're going to get a pretty good deal rather than go into the dealership as far as paying, you know, a reasonable price for a vehicle. And now I'll turn this over to the recovering card dealer. I know he's got a lot

to add to that. Yeah, Joseph, you know, online buying has become almost the only place that you should buy a car and it's because of your vast expanded ability to get competitive pricing and your vast lack of harassment you can really as nancy said you can keep your privacy by using a different email address that reaches you but not your regular email address free email address and you don't have to give me a real phone number so you can really have total anonymity and you can talk to three dealerships or 30 dealerships, not literally talk, but you can communicate. And out of those X number of dealerships,

you will get some decent prices. And you don't really have to go in to the physical facility and to the actual dealership until you've got your pricing information to decide on the car you want. You're basically going in there to test drive the car and to be sure that the deal is legitimate. But you save a lot of shoe leather,

a lot of gasoline driving around and getting harassed. So it's a great way to buy a car. Yeah, absolutely, and a little less haggling. And a great place to go, Josephine. So you're right on it. Stay in touch with us and let us know how your transaction went. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Lines are lit up again.

And we are going to go to John in West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. How are you? Hey John Hey hi I'm going to be Hello I'm going to be turning in a Honda on the lease

And I want to know how to protect myself I know that my wife is getting a little bit antsy about it And I've had my oil change At Honda when they sent me a coupon But I usually use Tipiloo because I can get a coupon And get it for cheaper Do I need to

Bring in all the receipts from Jiffy Loob, I tend to lose things, and I may not have them up. I'm going to go again today to go get the oil change because the wrench light is on, and I'm just wondering, should I ask them for a history of my oil changes with them? I mean, is that necessary or turning in this lease? The lease companies, leasing companies, don't ask for proof of maintenance or repair or anything else. They just inspect your car physically. now if you had a problem that may have been related to oil

that would be good to have the receipts but if you don't have a problem and apparently you don't and you would rarely have a problem in a lease car because what you're talking three or four years all you need to worry about is the physical presence of your car if you had any paint work done is it done properly do you have enough tread on your tires do you have any dings nints or any stains under your upholstery

what's your mileage and the way to protect yourself is to be present when they inspect the car there should be an official form from the leasing company and you should sign off on that you should have your smartphone camera with you take pictures of the car to be sure that the dent and the door was there when you turned it in make a note of the odometer mileage you can take a picture of that too to be sure a salesman doesn't take your car at the dealership and drive it for 10,000 miles before they turned in into the lease. leasing company. And the same thing goes with the interior of the car. But once you've agreed with the actual condition, it's locked in and you're protected from any charges after the fact.

Okay, very good. So, and when I turn it in, take the pictures, go have the car detailed before I turn it in. Yeah. My wife ended up buying that some type of the armor guard insurance thing, what they take care of little things, fence and rims and stuff like that. So I got to give them a call and I think we got one little door thing. Yeah. If you read the fine print on your lease,

they define what normal wear and tear is. Excuse me. And you don't, be careful when you're trying to touch up or repair something. Sometimes you're drawing attention to something that might not even be noticeable or fall on with,

under the radar we see in our body shop full disclosure i am a recovering car dealer i have a car dealership and our body shop will see instances where people will have tried to fix something on their car and they actually made it worse yeah like bad touch up pain or something like that so i wouldn't even fool with that uh it's been i think maybe just a car wash uh do a uh clean up inside an outside, car would look nicer, probably psychologically, less likely to draw attention to think. Yeah, the leasing companies will use like a third-party inspection service, and you'll get a head-up, heads-up ahead of time before you turn it in as long as you take advantage of that.

If you just turn it in, drop it off at the dealership, then you're kind of at their mercy. But if you get that first inspection, they'll let you know this needs to be addressed. You can ignore this, and so you get a good idea. oh i think i think we got something like that in my in the mail said uh it was some type of a postcard saying your lease is up in such amount of time bring it in and we can check it out or so bring it in for inspection or something just make sure that actually came from honda american credit and not sam's body shop exactly all right very good thanks for the goal john stay in touch oh you're welcome oh thanks good well okay ladies and gentlemen i want to take a moment to thank you

Well, I'll tell you, if you're listening, the calls are coming in one at a time and very smooth operation. And it is a busy weekend, and I'm just so happy that you're taking a moment to listen to Earl Stewart on cars, because, as you well know, the information here is priceless, literally priceless. It is just free information. So thank you. We're going to go straight to Frank from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Good morning.

Good morning. Welcome. Well, good morning. I was, I got a, this is not exactly car stuff. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being in a parking lot on Indian Town Road. And I see a man and a woman coming across the street. He opens her door and she sits down in the car. He closes the door and starts walking around.

And I go, boy, that looks like Earl Stewart. And I go, it was. We said hot. You got a very nice character. cut by the way. But how refreshing, how to see that shiverly still in this day and age, it took me back like 40 years. You know, that's because I'm an old guy, Frank. It's funny when we grew up, I assume you're somewhere around my age, but, you know, we were taught to pull out the chair for the ladies and open the door and take our hats off in the elevator. To this day, people

look at me strange. I get in an elevator and I take, and if I'm wearing a cap. I take my cap off. It's just reflex action, which nobody else does it, and really there's no reason for it, but it was just taught as I grew up. I am at that generation I still do, and I thought I was doing one until yesterday, and I

go, it was so refreshing to see a gentleman, but that's it. It's short and so sweet. You got a great show. And that also means that Nancy and I were getting along at that time, because if we had an argument, she'd had to open a Her own damn door. Very good.

You would have seen a beatdown in the parking lot. That's where I take and I jump on, Earl, and I punch them like, I only need to punch them two or three times. I mean, he comes to a census. She's Sicilian, Frank, so you've got to be careful. Anyway, you know, Frank, on a more serious note, I do have to bring out this on the millennials, the Gen X. I'll tell you what, you know, I see more of.

this younger generation doing exactly what Earl was just speaking of. And by the way, Earl isn't really that old, and neither am I. We're both just about the same age. But it's just so refreshing to see that, that chivalry. And I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention. Thank you so much for the phone call. Oh, no problem. One quick last thing.

The other day, I was at a doctor's office. I'm going to have a knee replacement. And there was about 20 different people in the waiting room, all scattered around every single person is on a cell phone yeah i think i was the only one that did not have a cell phone my hand yeah that's amazing yeah sometimes we just lose control you know and boy i'll tell you what uh if you just stop and enjoy the moment and just uh put the phone down put it down have a great day i thank you for taking the call thank you frank hope to see you again We're going to go straight to, boy, I'll tell you what, the calls are just coming in.

And we're going to go to John in Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Hey, John. I have a question for Earl. Last week I mentioned the Ford Total Electric. Ford, we all know, was for years, number one selling truck, Mustang, hotter than anything. I mean, in August 2018, they celebrated $500 million, a repeat.

$500 million at their Flat Rock, Michigan plant. That's compared to in 204, the 40th anniversary, was $300 million. I could go on and on for 24-odd years. Mercury in Florida was the number one selling full-size American cars. But my question is, I can name dealers, especially in South Florida, that are number one, like O'Rigo, nobody's bigger than him with Chrysler, Dodge, BMW, Lexus, he's the biggest in the world. In Brayman, yeah.

...Voswagon, down in Florida. But I can't name any number one or large Ford dealer in the entire state. Why is that, Earl? I mean, even the dealer like in Lake Park years ago, it was Bev Smith, Ford, and he sold it to Malnix

after he expanded the place. it seems when I go in the Midwest or I go to California, the largest dealers in some of these small cities are Ford, but yet not down here in Florida. What do you believe the reason that they don't want to make investment in a large Ford dealership? You know, I don't know. It's a very interesting question.

It's something that I never thought about. You know, we have a friend, Stu and I, that has a Ford dealership in Lake Worth, that's Wayne Acres Ford. L.S. Acres owns that. We know the Mullinix people, and I know a lot of Ford dealers. I don't know why we don't have an aggressive hot shot kind of number one in the area. I don't think it's the product so much. And when you think the F-150, I mean, talk about a leg up,

if you get a Ford dealership, you automatically get the number one selling. vehicle in the world and why there aren't any huge volume for dealers in florida is a great question i'm i'd like to give you an answer i'm just i'm scratching my head um Toyota Honda there's you know giant as you said a Chrysler jeep with erigo um i and brayman you know the luxury cars have a leg up um in south florida because it's a very affluent area but i can't answer of the Ford question. Anybody got an idea? I'm drawn about. Well, why it's a mystery to me

it seems, I grew up in New York City spent 50 so much years and even in Manhattan itself I remember Pacan number one, you know, Cadillac dealer and I don't remember except for the suburbs on the outside and even he had problems

when you went over the city line there was a dealer called Minioa Ford it was owned directly by Ford and it went under twice. So it seems like a mystery, and specifically, I don't know whether it's the bigger cities or exactly what it is, but with number one selling cars, and there's a deal that really puzzles me that when I used to be a snowbird coming back to Florida, Palm Beach, Lincoln, Mercury,

all of a sudden it disappeared. Any idea what ever happened to that? Yeah, that was owned by Bob Quillo, and I think the, The Lincoln was taken over, his Lincoln franchise was taken over by Al Packer. And as far as the, I'm trying to figure out exactly what happened. Pompit's Lincoln, Mercury. And Mercury disappeared. So that's what it was.

The Lincoln went to Alpacar and the Mercury disappeared. That's what it was. Yeah, it's Alpacar. Okay. But it's a mystery, and it really remains a not known. why there shouldn't be a tremendous, somewhere in the state of Florida, you know, like you see in the Midwest, my God, they are number one in size, too. But today, it's not the same. John, I'm going to think about that, scratch my head, do some Googling, and maybe next week I'll come up with something.

I will say this, though, that Ford today is probably the shakiest of the auto manufacturers financially, and they haven't really made the, leap to electric or autonomous and the software and there's a lot of trouble with Ford right now. The stock is really tanked and I think it might be that people would be afraid

to buy a Ford franchise today. However, it doesn't answer the question why they didn't jump in 10, 20 years ago and why aren't there are no giant Ford dealers in Florida that I know of. Yes. Well, we'll think about it.

I'll tell you next. next week. Either that or I'll say. I don't know. Thank you, guys. I'm looking forward to the report. Thank you so much, John. Thanks for staying in touch with us. I have a text message, and I'm finding it somewhat humorous. But first I'll ask the, I'll repeat the text. And Tony, which I think is my cousin, because it's from Pittsburgh.

Tony. Is he Italian? And listen, this is hysterical. If anyone saw the Irishman, there's a little part in the Irishman where they ask is everyone in your family named Tony who are you talking about Tony who Tony Tony what's Tony? Tony one Tony two Tony three and it was hysterical you get a chance to watch the Irishman it'll amuse you anyway back to Tony he was interested in a question he was asked the other day as to whether he would get a better deal

this past Black Friday or Cyber Monday in purchasing a vehicle, Earl? No. I'll tell you what, Tony. There are some things you really got to be careful for. As many deals that they're advertising right now, that is the exact time for you to be taken advantage of and taken advantage of with add-ons and so many other things. Buyer beware.

It's a bad time really to buy a car because I think that the distortions and exaggerations and the deceptions maximize on something like Black Friday and any holiday car dealers is this was in the mystery shopping report we'll get into later talking about just ignore advertising by car dealers just ignore it especially the

Black Friday thing because there actually are some good deals that you can get on Black Friday and if you go online to Amazon you're careful you always have to be careful, but there's some legitimate good prices. Don't let you, don't, don't, don't fall into the trap to think that car dealers will do it. They won't. They make more money on Good Friday per car than they do any other day. You know, they make more money on all sales. As far as that's concerned, you know, I was reading where they had the flat screen TV. I mean, there were people that

were in line. They were giving them away. But I'm not sure who did the research because it was outdated in so many other things. So you can certainly be taken advantage of on Cyber Monday or Black Friday. So again, buyer beware. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Okay.

They're rolling in. They're rolling in. And we got comments coming in on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. So we want to remind everybody that's another way to get in touch with the show and get answers to your questions. especially if you're feeling shy

and you don't want to give up your phone number. www.w. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I hope that came out clear. It did. Okay, good. Earl, what was the dash cam you recommended? Other than being a novelty, what is the purpose of installing a camera in your car?

Are there legal privacy issues? Don't you record license plate numbers from other cars on the road? What about people who don't want to be filmed? I don't know. O.W. Who, Who, Owl is the name, brand name of the dash cam I have. I love it. And it's technologically perfect. It does what it's supposed to do. And it is, to me, it's one of my most important accessories in my car now.

It tells you if someone is walking around your car, when we leave the studio, when we go out to get in the car, if Stu walks in front of my car, I get alert on my Apple Watch that there's movement around. around my car and there's stew's pretty face on my Apple watch so it's really cool and if you're on the highway and you're driving along and you see an incident you verbally say this okay presto when you say okay presto then your dash cam freezes the instant and video for 20 seconds it does 10 seconds before you said okay presto and then you say how do it do that well it just rewinds the tape digitally. It records in a loop.

Yeah, in a loop. And then it takes the next 10 seconds. So if you see an accident, if you see something that you would want to report to the police, or it's important you want to remember, it will capture all that information. Or a beautiful sunset. When you have your car valet parked or anybody's driving your car and you want to see what's going on in your car, the other day, Nancy and I were in Clemente Street, we had lunch. We had our car valet parked, and we went there and waited for the car.

car and so i want to see where my car was i looked on my iPhone and i saw the valet parker's pretty face smiling driving my car carefully out of the parking garage bring it down to see me so that's the kind of stuff that i love and i highly recommend rick as for the legal aspect of it this is something i i personally i did a lot of research on i wonder why because i've had a dash cam for quite a few years and i am big into photos at photography and videography and videography If you, by Florida State statutes, if you are out in public, in a place where it is reasonable that any other person can see and hear you, then you have no legal right to privacy to be recorded for video and audio purposes. So if you're walking out around in public, you're going to be videotaped somewhere, recorded somewhere. if you want to bring your car in cameras everywhere if you want to bring your car into a service department or a car dealership for repair you will have full recording of whoever drove your car road tested it what they did to your car what they didn't do to your car if they turned on the radio if they had some friends in the car if they took it home Saturday night you seem very familiar with us took their girl out on a date in your car you get all that information and it's amazing how people are

are not aware of the cams. You think with a thing sticking on the dash, looking at you, if you got in the car, people would be aware of it, but people just take cams, they don't see them. Yeah, I think the rule of thumb where Rick was going, like if you're in your home, nobody has a right to videotape you inside your house,

but once you walk out your door, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, you're out in the world. But if it's your video came in your home, you have the right to video somebody else in your home, yes. Exactly, visit or beware. Yeah. Okay, great topic. We have a lot more text over there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to go to Miami, where we have a young lady. I believe, yes, everybody pack up. We're headed out. We, I believe, but this caller's been holding for quite a while. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. I want you. Very good. It's nice to hear from you. I didn't catch the name. Aziz.

Aziz. Welcome to the show. Yeah, I watch the show Basically I'm not Sometimes I have time You know To watch it

For some time I work Saturday Uh huh But overall You know I watch it even Oh you're You listen to the show

Every Saturday I listen to the show All the time Thanks for calling Does your dealership Offer a power stream Lifetime warranty On the motor transmission

And a suspension Yes, yeah, our dealership, like in full disclosure, we have a dealership. We do offer a lifetime power train warranty. Okay, because I went to a staff date, and I get a quote for Highlander, XLE, or front wheel drive. And I got a quote for, with my trade, I have a Honda Odyssey 2010, but it has a lot of more, I have 186. they gave it for my trade $3,700 and out-door price

I always said out-door price and you bought me for $33,400 on the door price. Is that good or not or what? I don't know. I got to look that up. It sounds like it's in the ballpark, but it can't.

And we don't sell cars on this radio show, but if you want to contact us after the show, we'll be glad to give you our lowest price and then you can shop and compare it with the toilet dealers in Miami. We'll give you our lowest price on that car. But once you do this, why don't you text Stu, Stewart, and his

telephone number is Ericone 561-635-1349. That's the first time you read that on the air. Or you could do 772-497-6530. It goes right to me. Look out. and we'll give you the price. We don't like to sell cars at our dealership on the show

because we don't want to be taken as an infomercial. We're a consumer advocacy show to help consumers buy, but, you know, I can't say no to the little customer, but we have to do it after the show. Yeah, but I went out to candle, and they went for 34. But I push it, I said, well, you know, I won't 432. you, you know, at the door with my trade, and they said no. So they went to South State, and I told them that they gave me 34, at a door price with my trade in.

And they said, well, we carry half, you know. We give it to you for $1,000. If you guys today. So I said, well, you go home and I talk to my wife, and I will call you. But you're doing the right thing, getting different quotes from different dealers. That's the best way to get the best deal. And so keep doing what you're doing. And if you want to contact me after this show, I'll give you my best shot.

And Azie's a great, you know, a great way to do your research. You know, you have the power of the Internet. And also, let me give you this, Erlon Cars, and you can go there, and you can read a whole lot of his columns on advice with all this competition that's out there. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for the call. Thank you very much.

Thanks, disease. You're welcome. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We're going to go back to Stu, I believe. I have a comment, and I just want to make regarding that last call. And we have the question that was asked by this person in Miami that is thinking about buying a new Toyota.

if our Toyota dealership that we have offers a lifetime power train warranty and we do and now I have to get into something I don't like to get into because it involves my business but I have to do it to be totally transparent and honest the reason that we offer the free lifetime warranty is because we did a marketing survey one time a couple years ago

and we asked of different features and benefits and things that car dealers did that the buyers considered the most important. And we were shocked to find that free lifetime warranties on power trains were one of the most critically

concerned things about a car dealership. Most desired, like highest value, perceived value. And the reason we're shocked is because lifetime power train warranties are not worth much. The power train are the lubricated components

of a car. And it's the engine, the drive shafts, and the rear axle, and the block and all the lubricated components. Transmission. Transmission of a car. When you take care of a car according to the owner's manual and the car is the oil exchange regularly, you don't have any problems with your power train, especially today. They last and last and last. So the cost of a power train warranty, if you go to the wholesale supplier and there are a number of these that sell these powertrain warranties a piece of paper and they sell it to the dealer

and the dealer sells it or gives it away and giving them to the way is about all that's worthwhile. I don't like the fact that we do have to do this but when our competition out there says free lifetime power train warranty and they're advertising this on television we made the decision well it doesn't cost us anything

let's give it away anyway. So if you're still listening, the gentleman that called, the free priority, anybody will give you a free prior to attorney and warranty because it's worthless. Yeah. Okay. Costs under 100 bucks. Yeah. All right.

Here's one about the dealership. Good morning. I was at your dealership a week ago or so and saw five or six supers inside and just outside your showroom. I assume for sale. I thought these cars were in short supply and selling with large premiums. Is the supply already exceeding the demand? I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I was not really impressed with this design.

Love Toyot's and love your show, and that's from Everett. And that's a great question. I'll take it if you'd like. You take it. You were talking about just the other day? I was. Yeah, at one point when the Super is first came out, this is the 2020 brand new Supra.

People have been waiting for it for over 20 years. They came out in July, and every dealer in the country got one or two, and they started selling them for a large premium, over MSRP. The MSRP is about $55,000, and some dealers, we talked about it on the show. We're selling it for $150,000. I think there was somebody close to $200,000, and people were getting this price. The first supra that came out of the assembly line, John Salopi bought for $1.2 million.

Correct. So, yeah, that's pretty insane. And these dealers weren't getting it. The answer to your question is they have completely cooled off now. And we've had some orders and they canceled. uh not well i won't even get into our policy but the fact of the matter is dealers are giving well not selling them they're giving them to other dealers right now so we've taken a few in on trade and uh yeah so exactly the the excitement has worn off uh the the honeymoon period is over so um i'm not saying you should be able to go to a doody dealership somewhere in the country and get it for ms or p or less but you get a lot likelier than you would have a couple of months the super was a flop and it's a shame i mean uh in full transparencies i say over and over again

I am a Toyota dealer, and we were very excited about this vehicle. By the way, the car drives great. It's a lot of fun. It's a well-made car. It's just a design, I think. I'm not sure what. But competitively speaking, it's a flop, and they're selling below MSRP now. People that bought them from us early, I feel bad, but my conscience is clear because we sold them for less than anybody else.

Manufactured suggested retail. I think everybody who really, really wanted one, Got it already. They were on waiting lists all around the country, and the cars came in. They got them, and that was pretty much the market right there. Yeah. All right. Next one.

Car Gurus is advertising a lot on TV. They claim to tell you if the price is good. Is that reliable? How can I know if they are accurate? I'm not sure how Car Gurus gets their data. It's probably accurate. We'll check this out for you. No, no.

No, no. No, I have an opinion on it. Okay. Well, Cargoos will rate the price that the dealer submits to them, and they'll compare it to all the other prices that are listed in Cargoor gurus.com. And they'll tell you if it's a great price, an average price, a fair price, and so on, and they color-cote it. And they show that, I've seen that on the TV on the commercial.

There's like a greens, a great price. Yellow is a fair price. One thing that I know that they don't do, they do not factor in the dealer fee. So Car-Garoos is a source. like any other source. So if you want to price a car out, go on the car gurus, but still follow the advice we give you on the show and go to other sources. You can't rely on one source. Try Truecar.com, Costco Auto. True car's bill curve is, it'll really give you a good general idea. And True car, unlike any other source, third part, third party buying source, they are tapped into

the car dealer's computer. And they can look into a market area. And if you're buying a Honda Civic in Palm Beach County, they'll go into Palm Beach County and they'll look at every Honda Civic transaction with the car dealers that they have subscribed that are certified true car dealers. And they'll put that information on a bill curve. And on top of the curve is the average price. On the lower left is the lowest price transaction. That could be one car.

It might be a hell of a deal. It could be below invoice or some really, really good. And then on the right is the highest price, the poor sucker that got deceived and tricked and paid $1,000 over a sticker. So whatever your main model car you want to buy, you go to a true car, check out the bell curve. It'll give you a good general idea. You don't want to be on the right of the bell curve. You want to be looking for a price on the left. You're not going to get the one on the far left, but get one someone between the top and the far left.

Stay to the left of the hump. Yes. Now, I'm not trying to pick on car gurus, like, there's no online site, really, other than true car that really spells out the amount of dealer fees you might be facing. So, you know, auto trade or everything else, they don't highlight the dealer fee. So the only thing that I think that you need to be aware of it, don't take as gospel the rating, you know, great price, fair price on that. And still using the word dealer fees, we're both of us trying to think in terms of hidden fees.

A dealer fee has become such a generic term. that car dealers have mostly stopped naming their hidden fees, dealer fees. So we actually have seen advertisements of car dealers saying, no dealer fee. And they don't have a fee called a dealer fee. They have hidden fees called everything but a dealer fee. Documentation. And it's just, that's the trickery and the treachery and the deception of car dealers. They actually turn a negative into a positive.

I had a sales manager from a Toyota dealership on the West Coast. And I was on my Facebook page, and he came on and said, we don't charge a dealer fee at this particular dealership. Son Toyota. Yeah. Yeah. Sun Toyota doesn't charge a dealer fee. And I said, well, send me a copy of your vehicle buyer's order. And he was dumb enough to send it to me.

And I looked at it. Wrong guy to send it. Yeah. And he has a hidden fee. But it's not called a dealer fee. And he's advertising no dealer fee. He's telling the truth. Yeah.

True car, by the way, does. require that no hidden fees, the way they refer to them as government, they have to be government fees. No non-government fees or dealer installed accessories can be included in the true car price. So if the dealer's honest and he goes along with the requirements of a certified true car dealer, you will get one without the hidden fees. Okay. Okay. Next one. I am told that people who put a ton of miles on their car. Leasing is a terrible idea. I drive maybe 8,000 miles a year. Does this mean I'm a good candidate for leasing? You know, I'm going to ask Rick. When we came in the studio this morning, Rick says, you're not going to believe this. He says, I can't verify it, but I found

this information on the internet. On Reddit.com, a person had anonymously posted this picture that showed where a person who had leased a car had driven 130,000 miles over what their lease allowed, and they had a charge when they went to turn that car back in just recently, they had a charge. This was the actual form, a picture of the form, with all the personal data removed, of course. Looks legitimate.

Over $32,000 of a fee. for over-milege. Can you imagine that? More than the cost of the car. You know, if that's true, and it might be, his only option would be to exercise his option to purchase the car. And he'd be cheaper to buy the car than to pay the mileage overage fee. Wow.

Yeah, we were talking about that before the show, and definitely there has to have been some, if it's true, there was some deception involved in that lease. Yeah. I probably didn't know his later. But you have to be careful. our mystery shopping report commissionally involves

an understated mileage allowance. Remember, leasing companies can offer you any amount of mileage they want. They can give you 20,000 miles a year, 15, 10, I've seen lease advertisers with 5,000 miles a year. And you don't

talk about it. It's in the fine print. It's not part of the conversation. So you really have to know what your driving habits are, your mileage amount that you need, need, and you need to ask that question, because the charge per mile can be as much as 50 cents. The one that I saw that sticks in my brain was an advertisement for a luxury car dealer.

Del Rey, name escapes me, and the penalty was 50 cents a mile, and the mileage allowance was 5,000 miles. Yeah. So deliberate, premeditated, punitive damages if someone had gone after that guy. Danger. All right. here's a good one. Everything's in a theme today.

We got leasing, we got Black Friday. I paid more for my maxima last year on Black Friday than my son did the week before. I mean, I'm sorry, that's not funny. But it's very, that's just true. It kind of goes to what you've said all along. They say it's a Black Friday sale, but nothing changes. It's not like you're buying something on Amazon or an item that was priced. You can clearly see the price, and then it's 30% off on Black Friday.

My ring cam was like that. Do you know where the term Black Friday is what that is supposed to mean? Uh-huh. Profit. It's the day, folks, this is what that definition is. Black Friday is the day that most retailers typically begin showing a profit for the year, and that is they're going into black ink instead of the red ink that they were in before. You're giving away the Mr. Shopping report.

And you have to remember. remember folks that car salespeople and car sales managers are paid a percent of the profit they make. Now, if you're having a sale, and it's a legitimate sale, what are you doing? You're reducing the amount of profit that you're making on the car. So right away, you have an adversarial relationship. If the sale were legitimate, the civil people are very unhappy. because if you slash the price on a car that you normally sell it for then the salesperson's commission is being slashed

that's how he feeds his family he gets 25% of the profit he makes on the car if they discount that car by $5,000 then that means that he's being he's losing 25% of the $5,000 he's losing $1,250 in pocket and he doesn't like that So he's either going to switch you to another car and tell you it's a better deal,

or he's going to tell you that car's already sold. It's not going to happen, folks. You're not going to get that great deal. WWW, it ain't going to happen.com. That's right. On www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com, we have three questions or comments. I think it's possible they're all from the same person, so we'll see here.

First one says, and they're all attached. on you by the way so this is you'll enjoy these yeah let a roll I love a thanks yeah okay so you like to play games raise prices just to lower them for negotiating buyers you could not play the games at all and just explain the business I realize you are speaking hypothetically but just for entertaining the idea as a joke makes you as bad as the other blank dealers blank hole dealers Earl Stewart Toyota no thank you you run a blank business oh blanks in there that hurts yeah How do I respond?

I don't know. We read everything, so. Yeah, yeah. Let's read it again. Go ahead. Really? Okay. So you like to play games, raise prices just to lower them for negotiating buyers.

We can unpack this one sentence at a time. We raise prices just to lower them for negotiation. See, that's the point. Now, that puzzles me is we put our lowest price on every car we sell and we won't lower a price no matter what. So if you came in and asked us to lower the price of our lowest price by $1, the word track is, I'm sorry, sir, this would destroy our credibility and our transparency and honesty that if the president of the United States or the governor of the state of Florida walked in or any dignitary came in and asked for a lower price, we wouldn't lower it.

If we lowered it for you, we would be dishonest to all of our other customers that we wouldn't lower so I know you well the anonymous feedback prior to that was upset that we wouldn't lower the price for them so wouldn't lower okay well no that was from last week oh okay he came in so anyway all right so next sentence uh you could not play the games at all and just explain the business uh-huh okay i realize you are speaking hypothetically but just for entertaining the idea as a joke makes you just as bad as the other blank blank dealers okay well see that That's the reason we have anonymous because people can say really stupid things and we don't know who they are.

And I wouldn't say that if he'd given you your name. I wouldn't call anybody stupid. But I'm just saying the comment makes no sense. All right. I think it's somebody just, it was kind of a cathartic thing. There's maybe angry at all. It is. And it opens the pathway for people that want to say things of the.

afraid to say and be identified. Because that man will never say, I'm assuming it's a man, because men see dumber things, I think, than women. Right. Also, I just want to remind everybody, this is the recovering car dealer. No one has ever truly recovered. And, you know, we have thick skins. I mean, there's absolutely no reason for us to be upset that people lump us in with other car dealers

because that's the world we're in. It's okay. Yeah. All right. The next one, Earl, what is the closing rate at your dealership? I know you or your team track this. How much money have you lost by taking on Takata Airbus? bag afflicted or other dangerous recall affected cars but not selling them with that loss how have

you come up with the money to give the dealership the lavish facelift that it recently received how many importers are there in the USA is an importer responsible for a certain brand or can they work with multiple brands who makes the decision on which area of the country the dealership receives what mix of cars i'm sorry anonymous you're only you only get one question well i wasn't take a note. Start with the first question. Yeah, let's do it that way. Error, what is the closing rate at your dealership?

Okay. We don't really know exactly what our closing rate. This will make Stoodle ruffle his feathers a little bit, because he's a general manager. But the closing rate for those folks who don't know what it is, it is the percentage of people that you sell a car to who come into your dealership, and either online or physically. And there's a round number of people use. use it, you close 20%, one out of five.

We have a computerized system, and so we think that our closing ratio is somewhere between 30 and 40%. When we mystery shop our own dealership, we find out that people come in to look at cars, but the salespeople don't register them, and the sales manager doesn't know that they were there. Never happens. And that, just as a very defensive, that never. perhaps, but it does. Anyway, a really good closing ratio at an average dealership is about one out of five. A great one would be, you know, like 30%, 35%. And that's my answer to that

question. All right, the next question. How much money have you lost by taking on Takata Airbag afflicted or other dangerous recall affected cars but not selling them? Okay, how much money have I lost by taking on the Takata issue. I know that. I can tell you about how much I've spent, about a million dollars. About a million dollars, it cost. Our cost was in terms of depreciation of the kind of cars that we sat on the lot and would not sell until we could fix the airbag.

We also took another hit last week in a lawsuit I had against Rego because he was selling cars with dangerous airbags. and we sued Arrigo and we went and we lost and then we went to the fourth district court of appeals and we lost and our attorneys, so Jack Scarola, Scorola Barnhart and Chippley, a great group of guys if you like lawyers and they thought it was pointless to take it any further and so we had to pay Arrigo's attorney's fees which were $220. So Jim Arrigo, John Arrigo? $220,000.

$220,000. What I say? $220,000 that we paid to Arrigo and then he paid to his attorneys because we had to pay his attorney. So he had all that together. Our cost on the took out of your bag so far has been about a million dollars. I like to think that we probably have profited somewhat because we have identified ourselves as being a dealer that will not sell you a car with the defective. And we have profited spiritually by not killing people. I was going to add that to our last ten. or the anonymous feedback.

This is how we do business, and we do separate ourselves, you know, from the others. Next part of the question. Okay. It's a follow up to the last question. With that loss, how have you come up with the money to give the dealership a lavish facelift, the lavish facelift it recently received? Well, that's, you know, we've been in business for 47 years. We have a lot of money, and we're fortunate.

we've been successful, and we have a lot of repeat business, and you make a profit. And we have good credit. Yeah, we have good credit, yeah. And so we were able to pay for the expansion. How do you buy a house? Basically, large expenditures, you have a good relationship with a good bank, and that's how you do it. Exactly. All right, next question.

How many import, and I'm going to jump on this because I think we want to move along, but it's a question about how, you know, foreign cars or foreign manufacturers come to the countries, is how many importers are there in the U.S.A.? Is the importer responsible for a certain brand? And the way it works is every manufacturer has a distribution system globally. Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, BMW. And so they're not individual importers that bring them in. They've established their operations in countries all around the world.

So in America, United States, for example, Toyota, which we're most familiar with, there's different regions, but they're all under the auspices of Toyota Motors North America, which is actually a division of Toyota Mortar Corporation out of Japan, and they're not individual importers. So they handle their own distribution system, and the question is how many vehicles they bring in. They determine that based on the market, supply and demand. Well, there are independent distributors versus factory on distributors.

So Southeast Toyota, five Southeastern states are owned by the Jim Moran estate. And then there's a middle. Yeah, there's the, what? Mid-Atlantic. Yeah, Mid-Alanic. And there's, you know, they used to be three, but it's... Cincinnati, Denver, and all that. But I think most of them are falling under the...

Gulf states is the one I was trying to think of, yeah. Yeah. And let's say, who makes the decision on which area, the mix of cars? Well, that's based on sales. So if they're selling a whole lot of trucks in Alabama, they're going to try and bring more trucks into Alabama. All right, the next one on your anonymous... feedback. It is easy to say, quote, unquote, one-price dealership. It is easy to decline the

sale to a customer that challenges this, but not for every dealer. Nonetheless, it is a consumer's best interest to challenge this every time. The dealer that has the lowest one price will decline the sale. The desperate dealer, who doesn't have the lowest price, will try to retain your business by negotiating that price. Now, the consumer has a choice. Go back to the one-price dealer or take on the supposed one price dealer. No harm if the choice is with the consumer. Thoughts, thanks a listener. Well, that's a very insightful comment and it is the reason that there aren't more legitimate one price dealers. It's extremely scary for a business person to put his best price on his product, be it a car or whatever he's selling. And giving

and give the consumer the right to shop and compare that car or product, whatever it may be. If you do take the lowest price and you take it to a competitor, there's a good chance a competitor will try to beat the price or make you think he's beat the price. What we've experienced in our, what, 10 years we've been doing? Seven or eight years. seven years. We see that in most cases, they will take our lowest price, which you can obtain online or on by phone or come in, the lowest price that we will not come one dollar off of. And you can take it to all of our competition. And what we've learned is that rather than try to

beat the price, because it is a very low price, it's our best price, rather than try to be it, they try to fool you into thinking they beat it. So they'll say, okay, we'll beat the price. they will add hidden fees, they'll add dealer and stole accessories. And that so insults the informed consumers, they come back and they buy at our price. But if suddenly all the other competitive toilet dealers in the market became honest, and they did not try to add and cheat and add the hidden fees and dealer and install accessories, it would probably be pretty bad for our business. But right now, our business is great.

because people are trying to be deceived. They come to us because they're not deceived and they accept our price, which is a good low price. I think the old axiom that you repeat on the show every week, which is do not believe any car dealership statement or advertisement applies to us, applies to everybody. You've got to do it yourself. So if a dealer says they're a one-price dealer,

take it with a grain of salt. We're telling you where one-price, take that with a grain of salt too. Be sure when you get your lowest price from any dealer, any make, wherever you are, it's an outdoor price and be sure you compare it with at least three other dealers. It's easier said than done, but it's a sure way to get the best price. Yep. We got a text from California. This is John from California.

My question is on the negotiation end of the lease price. I was under the impression that I would be able to negotiate that price with the leasing company, but I was told no that I would have to deal with the dealer were my father-in-law on the issue. So we did that. And Nissan said the price was not negotiable. But my father-in-law really likes the car, so he kept it even though I told him not to. The car was worth only $12,000. They told him the car was worth $15,000.

So they're talking about buying out the car at the end of the lease. Yeah. Well, it could be a mistake. I mean, the leasing company does have the final say. They own the car. They give you the option. I heard something the other days do that I think it was an email I got from a customer that said, not our customer, that said that the dealership Wallace and Stewart, I believe it was Ford,

it was charging him a $300 buying fee for excising his purchase option. I didn't see that one. Yeah, in addition to, it was an email to me. In addition, they had the dealer fee. So my advice was to go to Ford Leasing and try to find a dealer that would not charge a dealer fee to excise the purchase option. and also ask the Ford leasing if, in fact, there was a buying fee or if that was a creative way Wallace had of adding another hidden fee and calling a, you're like me, you've never heard of a purchase option fee. No, no, not at the end of a lease, no.

All right, this is from Steve in New Jersey, a longtime listener, longtime texter. Good morning, Earl. I'm in the process of getting a new car price from four dealers following your advice. One that I purchased from in the past wants me to share bids with. them together together with their price. I feel this is unethical, although it may be standard practice. I said I would give all an equal chance to bid and would not share bids and that they should be prepared to give me their best offer the first time. What's your opinion? I think you're right. I think that I think that by playing their game, they'll sense whether

you're going to play their game, even if you don't agree or disagree. But I would say, I want you to understand that this has got to be your lowest price you're not going to get second look yeah and so you make your own decision yeah they might come in a little bit higher but you might find that you trust them or you have a good experience when you're there and so yeah they don't have to have the absolute lowest if there if it was a reasonable you know amount variation my blog uh word track for getting an out the door price uh i have a i wrote out um you can just read it or type it or email it or whatever. But it's the best way to make somebody understand

when you're walking out the door, this better be your lowest and out-the-door price with no games or gimmicks or hidden fees or dealer-installers accessories. Because if it's not, you'll never see me again. And I agree with you, the chances have you ever seen me again are low,

but there's zero if you give me anything except your lowest price out the door. Yep. And finally, Linda says, As Rick, you're very quiet this morning. That's because I've been doing all the talking. We haven't had a whole lot of technical car questions. It's all been leasing and sales and all that.

Well, I have two texts, and Rose is a regular listener. And she tuned in last week, and she heard us talking about the cyber truck. This question is for you, Earl. Rose wants to know if Elon Musk has had any pre-orders. CNBC said he had 250,000. pre-orders and then someone told me that the deposit required was very low I was stocked a hundred bucks or something like that yeah hundred dollars yeah so um I would say he probably had a lot of pre-orders but certainly far more than he would if it was a normal yeah because

Elon doesn't exaggerate it yeah well with our super to be full disclosure we only required five hundred dollars and that was refundable so there's a there's a there's a uh balance between it's too low and it's too high. If you make too high, people are worthy, they're not going to get their money back. So we really can't scoff at Elon too much if he charges $250 and we charge $500, right? $100. 100, yeah. Well, even $100, yeah. I mean, the difference is $400. I don't know. Well, Rose, keep on listening. We always have some fun here, and we give out a whole lot of information. The other text, ironically, is you, was that Linda, said Rick was quiet?

Rose wants to know from you. She tuned out last week whenever you were giving advice on mechanics and how she could find. Was Rick that boring? Rose had to go to work. So at any rate, she's wondering if you could advise her. She's in the Orlando area and she's looking for a great mechanic a great mechanic no because I'm down here there you have it I'm more than this mechanic right best advice actually is social media Facebook the forum sites any sort of social media and get a bunch of recommendations and then investigate every name and every suggestion and do lots and lots and a homework yeah it's a great idea uh facebook youtube instagram and not youtube but instagram yeah

just say hey folks this is where i live and i got a ford and who's the greatest ford mechanic you've ever dealt with it yeah it's a minefield out there ladies and gentlemen and you have to do your homework i'll tell you what i always say knowledge is power whether you're leasing whether you need a mechanic whether you're purchasing a vehicle hey auto insurance there's another topic. We need another two hours on that one. So 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60, and we're going to hear from Rick right now, and he's got some YouTubes. We've got a, well, one on YouTube. Richard Poplis is asking, will a car dealer give you an out-the-door price online or for if you want to counter-offer their price

or will they need you to come in to do this? Well, the conventional old school will require you to come in and sometimes they won't even, they say we don't get prices online. I mean, that's so 20th century. Today, the competitive dealers, the ones that are going to survive and the 21st century will give you a price, but sometimes you have to be adamant about it. have to explain to them an out-the-door price means and then you have to tell them what you mean

by an outdoor price no hidden fees no dealer installed accessories the simplest way to do it and Stu and I talk about this all the time is to have an out-the-door price mean what it says literally meaning it means the amount that you bring the check to the car dealership for and they take and give your receipt and you get in the car and you go home that kind of a price that includes tax and tag and that would really eliminate everything if you did that and in our dealership we don't do that we we put our prices online with and the only thing we add is tax and tag and we always have to explain that we only add government fees government fees but i wonder we hesitate to put the government fees on there because it makes our price even higher but wouldn't it be nice

And I put yourself in your shoes, you consumers, car buyers, wouldn't it be nice if there was a law? They required that. A law that said, you cannot advertise a car anywhere unless you have the full price, out the door, meaning the price that the customer pays and he owns the car and he takes it home. No more fees, government or otherwise, and no more dealer installed accessories. If that was a law... I wish this wasn't a commercial. Well? Well, because we do that on our website.

We don't put the tax and dag on. Yeah, we do. We add it separately, right? Well, you click on one little thing. It shows you the table. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it should be. That should be the law.

Yeah, and you have to pay the pre-installed fees, you know, from the dealer. You have that, but then you've got to really be careful because you get into the dealership, and they add on, just like Earl just said, add on all these fees. So, ladies and gentlemen, again, buyer beware. Mother, got no, you too. We are, well, somewhat caught up. Wayne, I'm answering his question online. Also, let's bring this open.

He says, I have a question for Rick. My new 2019 RAV4 LE doesn't keep the favorite four phone numbers in memory. Sometimes the memory lasts a few days, and other times the numbers are gone. And my first answer for anyone having an issue with their cell phone connecting with the radio, I'm going to guess because about 60 to 70% of people have iPhones. The new iOS 13 that came out

has not been properly tested with most Toyota radios. This is going to be an issue with a lot of other manufacturers as well because Apple's been doing a lot of uproletes. updates. The easiest thing to try, and this works for pretty much any phone, any car. Delete the phone from the car, erase it completely out, and erase the car from your phone, and then restart both of them so that you get a fresh, clean, new connection. But always make sure that your phone has been updated to its latest operating system that all the updates are in before you begin that pairing process. 99% of the time that will solve your issues and get everything working right. Great answer. And for a lot of folks out there that are not real cyber-sabby and technological, bring it to your dealer and let them do it for you.

They shouldn't charge you for that. No, because that's something that takes about three or four minutes to do, and then you're all set. And as a matter of fact, the interesting part is we used to update radio software by downloading a program from the Internet through a special scan tool. and then putting it into the car. Now, those radio updates can be simply sent to the car over the air, and it'll actually come up on the screen and say,

you have an update, which you like to install it. It's kind of spooky when it happens. It is. How do it know? All right, we have another text. When you read the mean anonymous feedback, it reminds me of mean tweets on Jimmy Kimmel. Have you watched those?

If not, you have to check it out very funny. It is very funny, and it actually, it reminds me of that. too as well. Have you ever seen that? I haven't, no. Okay, go on YouTube and just search mean tweets and you'll crack up. Maybe we should start saving the mean anonymous feedback. We should do a video. And we could have a website with a mean anonymous. You know, we did that once, I think. It was, yeah, we did a video of that a long time ago. We got to do that again. Funny thing is, this morning on the way of the show, just before we left, actually, I got a Facebook message that said they tried to go on Your Anonymous Feedback.com

and it said website not available. So I looked at it and I had a typo and I spelled anonymous wrong. So I edited it, changed the spelling, and I sent it back. But now I know who the anonymous feedback coming back. Because he's contacted me on Facebook. Be careful Speaking of iPhones Another text here

Speaking of iPhones I love my Apple car play But when will it work Without the cord That's something We're actually waiting to see from Apple Because right now I actually know this one

You're right The new 2020s now have cordless That is correct Yeah So that's pretty cool That's right It's nice that you get in the car And your phone appears on the screen

It's really cool So I imagine all the manufacturers Are doing about the same time It probably had a thing to do between Apple and the manufacturer. So we've talked about Apple CarPlay on the radio a lot here. It's just really cool because over the years, like the infotainment things in cars are just terrible. And you have these phones that work great and they're easy to use and they're just really neat. And then the cars suck.

But now with Apple CarPlay and also Android has a similar thing. So if you don't have an iPhone, you can still do it. Basically, Google CarPlay. Yeah, it's really cool. So things are getting better. So I'm glad about that. Not to mention the fact that the maps for navigation system on Apple and Google are always up to date. Whereas it used to be to update the map in your navigation system,

and pay like $200 to get a new DVD. Exactly. You have a satellite view with the Google Maps in your car. Oh, I love it. I feel like I'm flying. Exactly. No, if you go to the Google satellite view, it's a picture flying. in a small plane

like a thousand feet or maybe five thousand feet and then you see the world in your neighborhood the way you've never seen it before I mean you're driving along two-dimensional and you look to the right

and you see a bunch of office buildings and then I'm looking at my Google map and I see what's behind the office building oh there's a pond back there I never knew that ladies and gentlemen I am in the trunk at that point Okay

Because Earl's just staring at the map I wonder if I can make this turn I want to see I want to see 77 I do confess it's dangerous But I can't help myself I go Did you hear what he said You should see what Nancy looks like

Every Saturday morning when she shows up at the studio He said he can't help himself Guess what ladies and gentlemen I'm working on that I'll give you a hint I got handcuffs so far I got hogtie rope, a lot of stuff.

I got a wild imagination. Anyway, I am going to read this next text that is directed at me. Long time coming. This is from Marianne, and she says, Nancy, thank you for being part of Earl Stewart on Cars. I really wish there were more radio shows that included women. Thank you for the information that you share with us. Mary Ann from my heart and soul

and from Earl Stewart on Cars Thank you Okay, where we stand on text and... Notice the guys didn't make a comment on that No, I said thank you And also on a more serious note We do have a mystery shopping report coming up And that is from Napleson

It's been a long time since we had a good old Napleton shop Yeah, we need a knockdown here We're all caught up with text And comments online but I'll interrupt if we get another one. Okay. Okay.

You know, I think I'm going to do this before I get to the mystery shopping of work. I didn't even tell Stu about this, but I was inspired yesterday, and I did my blog a little early, and so it won't go out until next week. But my inspiration was to get to the core root cause of evil in car dealers,

and why are you people taking advantage of? and it's called competition, insane competition. And I explain in this blog, and this will be in next week, I explain why car dealers are insanely competitive leading to the things that they do. And it has to do with us being, as a car dealer, I'm a car dealer, I'm on a very limited franchise agreement, contractual agreement with Toyota. Honda dealers are the same way with Honda Ford. And if you don't perform as a car dealer, a lot of people don't know this.

If you don't hit your quota and sell a certain minimum number of cars, you lose your business. Now, car dealers invest millions of dollars. You don't see a car dealership out there that has less than a few million dollars invested. And sometimes it's life-saving, sometimes it's a life work, and it's your business. You employ, you know, 30 or 100 or 500 people. And it's a huge investment and commitment. And a car manufacturer can take that away from you overnight. All they have to do is not review, renew your franchise, your contract.

And if you don't sell enough cars, they will not renew your franchise, your contract. And if they take away your right to sell, I'm a Cadillac dealer, and say, okay, Earl, you can no longer sell Cadillac's. And I've got a $10 million building and $20 million. worth of land and $5 million worth of equipment and on and on and on, suddenly the value of all that brick and mortar and inventory and equipment is worth maybe 10% of what I paid for it. I mean, it's devastating. So it's like having a gun to your head. And I've been a car dealer for over 50 years. And for over 50 years, I've in a sense felt like I have a gun to my head. Not a good feeling. So what do you do? You do whatever it takes to sell

the number of cars that Honda tells you you have to sell, that BMW tells you have to sell. And if you don't sell it, you have to decide, do I lose my business? Do I have my employees without jobs? Do I have my family without food on the table? I mean, I know I sound overly dramatic now, but the competition is intense. And it caused for desperate moves. And the desperation translates into unfair to safety trade practices, advertising, sales practices, lying, cheating, and stealing to sell cars. And they're all selling the same product. A Ford is a new Ford is a new Ford, as a new Ford, a new Honda is the same.

They're generic. So if Brehman Honda sells a car and Morse Honda sells a car, they're the exact same car. And you can go to buy the exact same product from two different businesses and where are you going to buy it. You're going to buy it where the price is the lowest. And if everybody can be to sell you that Honda at the lowest price, what's going to happen? They're going to lose money and they're going to go out of business. Do you see a correlation between the more desperate dealers who are in more danger of not meeting their quotas and the style of advertising? I do, but I also see a correlation between the more successful dealers. And I hate to say this,

but the really successful dealers oftentimes are the most deceptive. And it's... It works, I guess. It works. Yeah. Lying and cheating and stealing. Works, especially when the legislatures are dropping the ball. The regulators are dropping the ball.

And the strength of the lobbyists, national automobile dealers, the floor automobile dealers, the power to get people elected into office and the fear that those people have saying something against that industry. be it insurance, be at the National Rifle Association, be it whatever it is. It's just the way our system operates. So that's a preview of my blog that's coming out next week, not this week, but next week. Catch it online Monday morning. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

Earl, I have to commend you. You really broke that down well. And I think you can attack a topic when you've been part of it, been there, done that. And what you did was you broke down the desperation of selling a car. And the, well, like I said, been there, done that, and all the passion that's involved in a lot of emotions in deceiving the consumer. Now we're going to get to the mystery shopping report. And I believe Earl has that right in front of him.

Like I told you earlier, that is from Napleton, West Palm Beach. Naples, West Palm Beach, Hyundai. Car dealers love sales, maybe more appropriately, car dealers love the opportunity to have a sale, President's Day, Groundhog Day, Valentine, you name it. Any day is a sale day at a car dealership. And, of course, Black Friday, it really, really gets the impetus because it was created. It's created for the retailers.

And every year, Black Friday gets me excited. I mean, I had to jump on Amazon and I had to look around. I'm shopping right now. Yeah. I thought you were quiet, yeah. I like that. Jonathan, are you sure? Shopping?

Jay Crew is 40% off, right now. And Black Friday, I mean, has really been pounced on by the car dealers because it gets the adrenaline. And people, it has credibility.

The media and the news give Black Friday credibility. Of course, like the other endless string of holiday-based sales during the year, Black Friday sales at car dealerships are bogus.

You know, as the old joke, how to tell, you know, how to tell when someone is lying, you know, when their mouth moves. Yeah, that's what they say about teenagers. How do you know how to tell when a card dealer is lying is when he advertises? It's like the, it almost goes back to my competition thing that I talked about earlier. If you told the truth about your price, card dealers feel, if I give them my best price

when I advertise, what are they going to do? That customer, that damned customer. is going to take my price. And I was so honest with him. He took my lowest price, and he went over to my competition, and they beat my price by $100. Buyers or liars, that terrible customer. Sounds funny, doesn't it?

It's true. It's exactly true. I go into a dealer meeting, and I go to a student. I go to dealer meetings all the time, and that's the conversation. So what do they do? They lie about their price. and what a better place to lie is than they're advertising, and that's what they do. A good old Black Friday promotion is too irresistible for car dealer like Ed Naples to pass up.

Ed Naples is one of the largest car dealerships in the country, by the way. He's right up there in the top, I think, 30 or 40 dealer groups. He's got like 30 or 40 dealerships, not that many in Florida, but Ohio, I think he's all around. And he lives at Palm Beach. He used to have family in the business. I don't know if he still does. His son? Oh, son?

Yeah. Okay, that's right, yeah. I read about his son, the paper. So we went looking for a Black Friday advertisement. We immediately found one. Naples West Palm Beach Hyundai is offering Black Friday pricing. Isn't that a beautiful? Can you see the ad agency now?

Let's call it Black Friday pricing. And unfortunately, unfortunately, people say, all month long. Oh, yeah. The ad we found promotes a lease on a new 2019 Hyundai Alatra SE for just $85 per month. That's right. $85. I just wonder who believes that.

When I say that, I know people do believe it. I don't believe it. Well, nobody in this room. We're all informed. But if you go to the masses, it's just like these Nigerian scam people that are on the internet that say that their lawyer just decided I'd inherited a million dollars. You fall for that every time.

And you laugh at it. Well, there are people that believe this stuff. And all you need to do is get 1%. And am I hearing voices? Yes. I'm hearing voices. I'm trying to turn my, turn my... Yeah.

Okay, I'll just have to ignore it. Stu's looking for the source of the voice that is speaking to me from above. We know, educated people and aware people know that this is too good to be true. The first paragraph of fine print indicates there's a total due, this is in Napleton ad, to the total due at signing is $2,999. Let's call $3,000. So somehow you have to see this in the fine print, and you're not going to find it in the fine print.

So that's the first sneaky awareness. This Naples and Hyundai advertisement is not true. And that doesn't include the first payment. So that's contradiction number one. The second paragraph reveals more in this advertisement for Hyundai, Napleton Hyundai. We learned that the 2009-99 plus first payment is to a signing also does not include the tax. So now we got another $215 per month lease. And tag and title we got another $250

bucks. And then here comes the hidden fee. We referred to as the shopping report as the dealer fee. $899 hidden fee. And then another hidden fee that they called dock processing fee, $199. Now, you probably can't keep a track, all that up in your head, too much, too fast. But the total due that you have to come up with for this $85 a month lease from Napleton, Hyundai in West Palm Beach, $4,562 bucks, $4,562 to get an $85 a month lease. Now, what's so good about an $85 a month lease

if you have to come up with nearly $5,000? Yeah. And plus, if you glance, If you bother to look at the fine print, all you would see is 2009-99, do it sign. Yeah. So in Napleson Hyundai, I say to you, shame. Ed Napleton, I say to you shame for this type of advertising. There's a lot to unpack here. So we sent the Intrepid.

You forgot it. The miles allowed. Oh. We talked about that earlier. Shame on me. 10,000 miles a year in the fine print is all you get. And the average driver drives 50% more than that, 15,000 miles a year. So you're probably, in a three-year lease, going to have 15,000 miles overage at 25 cents a mile.

You might owe $32,000 at the end of this lease. So here's all the minefields. We've uncovered them all with our dog. I have an issue of a dog smelling out the minefield. McGruff the crime dog. Yeah, yeah. Okay, here's the report. Speaking of the first person is if I were Agent Intrepid, Agent Intrepid.

No, Thunder. Intrepid Agent and Thunder, that's right. Agent Thunder is intrepid. He's intrepid, yeah. I entered West Palm Beach Hyundai at 1115 in the morning, greeted by a familiar face, a man named Roger. We name names, folks, who I actually work for, speaking in the first person. So Agent Thunder actually worked for this guy in his other life. With him.

With him. him okay and that happens every now and then and I love his coolness his calmness and instead of being flustered he just said hey Roger yeah what's up what's happening and we exchanged a few words he turned me over Roger did to a young young salesperson named Chris what did Roger do he wasn't the manager I don't know am I maybe a greeter or yeah who knows I told Chris the salesperson that Roger introduced me to I was interested in the launch S-E, Hyundai Lentra, and this is Napleton in West Palm Beach, from the advertisement, and he went off to find a vehicle.

Chris did an excellent job presenting, demonstrating the vehicle, took us back inside to look at the numbers. Once back inside, and I found Roger again, and I told him about the $85 lease deal. I remember, I know Roger, so we worked together. I was his buddy, and I said, I looked him right in the eye. I said, is this just bait and switch, or is this the real deal? Now, that's got to be, Roger had to do some serious thinking. He responded, listen to this.

To be honest, you're probably going to have to put up more than $5,000 down to get close to $85 per month. I love that phrase, to be honest. G.B.H. I mean, that's really, I mean, they're lying. They're deceiving you. And now he runs into a friend. You run into honesty when you get there.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, the disclosure. To be honest, you've got to come up with about $5,000 to get close, not to $85 a month, to get close. And close is a worldly term, right? I mean, I'm close to stew, but I'm also close to the gas station across the street. That's true. I'm close. What is close?

We'll find out. I said, my goodness, that's a long way from 85. Oh, no, I'm sorry. A few minutes later, Chris comes back from the offer with an offer $3,000 down to be at $273 per month. That's close. That ain't close. I said, my goodness, that's a long way from $85 per month. I then proceeded to chuckle and belly laugh, and it was easy to do.

I mean, I know this guy, Roger. He's my friend. Chris must have taken, this is a no. the belly lap, walked off to grab the manager. Five minutes later, I'm approached by Jacob, who thanked me for coming in. He mentioned my friendship with Roger, and he said he's going to give it to me straight. You know how it is, he's saying, this is straight. You know how it is.

To get to those numbers, you have to get a lot of incentives by being a retired cop. Now, that's a new one. Did he really say, retired cop? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. A soldier. You've got to be a retired cop

And a soldier And you've got to be a veteran Farmers and teachers Yeah, farmers, we've heard farmers, yeah And of course there's the Loyalist and the Conquest And there's a There's a whole litany

Of different organizations To get all these discounts How about sheep herers? Sheeparder, I like that Shepard I think we ought to do that as a joke sometime Run an advertisement

That in order to qualify for this You must be a sheep herder. A goat herder. Anyway, that's the conversation because I'm a friend of Roger. I decided to just cut to the chase. I said, I don't have any more time. I'll put $5,000 down, just get me a printout that shows exactly what I'll be paying per month. He agreed in return with a lease worksheet.

And I pointed a few items for me. He highlighted that the MSRP of the car was $19,05. I was receiving $2,250 in rebates and putting down $5,000. And my new payment was, drum roll, $227, $227 per month. I remember, the ads $85. Okay. He failed to point out that below my $5,000 down, it listed two upfront fees totaling $796. Don't know what they were called.

I suppose the finance manager would have collected it. A lot of that going on. You see some on the worksheet. You see some from the sales people, meaning hidden fees, and they have more hidden fees in the box, the finance department. It also appeared that the selling price was $1,000 over MSRP. $19,000.5. I shook hands and one of my merry way.

So it was $5,796. dollars and 50 cents to get a 227 a month payment that did not include tax exactly yeah what about the ad yeah 80 dollars what about the ad you would you would you wouldn't you think that somebody I mean you know I get so disappointed in our legislatures and the regulators but I also have to talk about the manufacturers you know the Hyundai district manager knows what's going on and They probably pat him on the back for that ad. Yeah, and they probably have an ad ethics thing, but this isn't part of it.

Bait and switch, low-balling, and all the other dirty tricks are not part of the requirements of what they call good advertising. Hyundai's probably required not to advertise a car below invoice, like Toyota and Honda and some other people, which is their way of boosting the price to the consumer. Okay, let's get at. into the epilogue here, what time is it? Oh, we've got a little bit of time.

This was indeed a classic bait and switch. The odds of anyone qualifying for all those rebates mentioned by the manager are worse than the odds of one in the powerball. And then to add insult to injury when the customer inevitably does not qualify, they raise

the price over sticker and they go for the jugger. So it's the worst type of advertising we've seen. they don't even feel embarrassed about it. We've heard honest disclosures from salespeople before they feel guilty. In this case here, we had a friend just coincidentally, Agent Thunder, who recognized they recognize each where they work together,

and even then he was deceived. And there was a confession of the deception. You'd think he'd get a deal? Yeah. Because it never was a deal. Yeah. It never was a deal. Nobody would get a deal.

If they had sold it for the advertised price, Naples of them would have lost thousands of dollars on that price. Because to be honest with it, it would be $85 a month with no down payment. And that would be a huge loser. It'd be interesting to hire an attorney sometime and sue to buy the car at the price that was advertised. Maybe we've got to try that. I never thought about that.

Write that down. Okay, we're getting close to voting time. We've got about six minutes to go, I think. Yeah, we have a few coming in online. We have Rufus. Rufus gave him an F. Love your name, Rufus. Linda, in all caps, gives them a big, fat F.

We have an F from Ed. We have an F from Marvin, and I'm giving them an F too. Yeah, I mean, just not just deception, but unapologetic deception, confession that they are cheating. So, I don't know, maybe when you

confess that you're cheating, maybe that's better than when you don't confess. Or is it just more arrogant? I'm not sure. I don't know. Rick, what do we got on the YouTube? So far, I've got Karen with an F, Mark with an F, and my own, it's

an F. I mean, it's just Yeah, yeah. Don't even need to go there. Yeah, and Napleton Hyundai in West Long Beach is already on our do-not-buy list, right? We'll make a new list for them. A new list, yeah. They're not a special list. You know, we had a recommendation the other day that we give quantitative scores, numerical

scores, because in Napleton would be down around 9 or 10 points, and we got people up there around 70 and 80 points. It'd be really cool if we had like a little button you could click on it. It shows the curve, and then you click uncurve and it spread. You kind of like the feels like, never mind. Exactly. But, Nancy, how are you going to vote on this? Well, I'm going to give them an F.

And I'm going to say that they really give the word giving a new definition this time of year because they're really giving it to the consumer. That's right. So there we are. I'm going to say, Phelham. I'm going to say that maybe when you have a particularly egregious report like this, maybe we should turn them into the state attorney's office. Let's do it.

Yeah. Anne Marie also gives them a big fat F. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. I think that would be interesting. We could also report on the state attorney to see what the reaction was. Now, they won't always tell you that they took action.

I think they, maybe it's policy they don't tell you. But the state attorney, we've done this before. Yeah. And we've turned dealers in for a very egregious activity, and they find them. So if you push them, the state attorney. the state attorney will take action. That's the reason I tell you consumers out there

complain to the Florida State Attorney's Office, and you might not know they took action, but if it's a legitimate complaint, I believe they will. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people just throw their hands in the air, you know, and say, how can I make a difference, but boy, you sure can. And as far as our list

is concerned, send them a short list. Nothing overwhelming. Sometimes they have the attention span of a net. So we don't want to, you know, take up a lot of their time. They'll just throw our mail in the garbage. Okay. I mean, if we do have another 30 seconds, I'll just remind everybody about my $100,000 dealer challenge. I'm challenging anybody.

The monies will be donated to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And if you'll debate me on the air about the honesty of the hidden feelings. fee, the dealer fee, the hidden fee, and we will have a fair judgment on who wins the debate. It could be done anonymously. It could be done anonymously, yeah. And if you, if $100,000 is too rich for your blood, give me a number. Whatever it is, I'll take my winnings if I win. I'll donate it to Big Dog Ranch, and you can keep your money.

This applies to all the car dealers out there. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I see about the clock that we've got about two minutes left. I want to remind all of you how important you are to the show and take a moment and thank you. Thank you very much for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. We'll be right back here next Saturday

and we hope that you will tune in again. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy this beautiful weather. VIII. VIII. Let's go. VIII. Thank you.

Vendor to me. Vendom. Vendom. Wendtum. Welcome Oh, oh! No. Oh!

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