Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.01.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Ford of Ft. Lauderdale

Episode Date: December 1, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Grieco Ford of Ft. Lauderdale to purchase a car with an identified Takata Airbag Recall and see if the car salesman will disclose it. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. This is the True Oldie Channel. In case you're new to the True Oldie station, and you're just tuning in for a True Oldie. I want to introduce myself and the folks here in the studio here at 95.9, True Only channel. First of all, let me say we're not going to sing to you.

We're a live radio talk show. We're live. My name's Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. Earl Stewart is my full name. And what's the car dealer doing here on the True Oldie Channel? For our regulars, please bear with me because we've got a lot of listeners out there that know exactly what I'm doing. But for our newbies that are just tuned in, we're a how to do it show, how to buy or lease a car, maintain or repair a car without being ripped off by your car dealer.

We're one of the few folks out there that will actually talk about a problem that's existed for half a century or more. Car dealers don't treat you right. And I am a car dealer, so I've been there, and I've done that. And the reason I call myself a recovering car dealer is because I really did that the wrong way for a long, long time. Started the business in 1968, as a matter of fact. And I re-resorted to all the devices, the bait-and-switch advertising, the Deceptive, sales practices. I did it all.

In fact, I could have written a book about how to do it the wrong way, but I wrote a book about how to do it the right way. And it's called Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer. And I bought it to radio. I brought it to print. I wrote a blog. I bought it to newspapers. I do a couple of newspaper columns.

But this radio show that we've been doing for about 14 years is really the most exciting thing that we do. I think it's the most informative, it's the freshest, and I hope you will agree it's interesting. We're going to do a mystery shopping report. We visit a car dealership somewhere in South Florida, went all the way to Fort Lauderdale this week, and we tell you what it was like to pretend to buy a car. We take an advertisement that you see online or newspaper, see on TV. We go into the car dealership, and we say, hey, I want to buy this car. for the price that you advertise.

And then we take it all through the steps with the sales managers, the business managers, all the different folks. We typically talk to three or four or five people when we're in a car dealership, and if you bought a car in the past few years, you know what I'm talking about. There are a lot of voices, there are a lot of people that you deal with. It's just not pleasant experience. So we report this to you in the last half hour of the show. We'll talk about our mystery shopping report.

The rest of the show is all about you. Hopefully, you'll call us. We have some exciting news this morning, by the way. We finally got our bandwidth on Comcast expanded, so we're not talking to you just on the radio. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter. We're on YouTube. We're on Periscope.

And I think my man in the control room shaking his head. So are we? Oh, Facebook. YouTube. So anyway, we might get it on Periscope and Twitter and the rest of it, but we're definitely on Facebook. So you could just go to Facebook.com, www.com, www.org slash Earl on Cars, and you can stream us live in living color. And you can see all of us sitting here in the studio. I am not alone. That would be very boring if I were alone, but I'm not. I'll briefly introduce the folks here so you know what you can look forward to. To my right, it's a man named Rick

been in the car business in the mechanical side, and I'll explain that term in a minute for approximately quarter century. And Rick used to be a mechanic. He's not a mechanic anymore. He's not even an auto technician anymore. He's an auto computer scientist. So for all you folks out there that have problems related to mechanics on a car, computers on cars, your car just won't run right. Am I paying too much to get my car service? is a car dealer being fair with me

or is my independent mechanic being fair with me? Any question you have about any maker-model car I don't care what you drive. Ferrari, Chevrolet, Honda, Toyota, whatever it is. Call Rick if you have any kind of a question

or comments, suggestions. And to Rick's right is Nancy Stewart. She's the prettiest one in the studio and arguably maybe the smartest one in the studio and she's a female advocate is also my wife and she knows a whole lot about how to buy her lease a car she leans toward the female advocacy side because women in this hashtag me too era and most of you know what I'm talking about on the hashtag me too

era there's an awareness that has come to the women of the world really especially in America, that things are not always done fairly when it comes to the opposite sex. The opposite sex, meaning the women. And women are often treated unfairly. So Nancy will address that issue. And I'm going to let Nancy personally tell you about a special offer we have for the females on the audience. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Catching. Whether you have a question. Whether you have a suggestion, as Earl just said, ching, ching, ching. This time a year, well, you can use $50. So give us a call. That number is $877-960-9960. And for you texters out there, you can text us at 772-497-6530.

Now back to the recovering hard dealer. Thank you very much. Why do we give $50 to the first new female caller? because we're trying to build an audience. By the way, Nancy has been very successful in that. When we first started on the air many years ago, virtually all of our callers were men, and after a while we realized this isn't right.

Half the world is female. Half the world are women. Half the intelligence, half the productivity, half of everything. We need to hear from the women and the audience, and we have built ourselves a very, very good female representation. You'll see later in the show. So we do have women call. But if you haven't called the show, here's an opportunity.

$50, cold cash, no conditions, no strings. Nobody's going to try to sell you anything. If you just call 877-960-960 and you haven't called the show before in your female, then you get the 50 bucks. And then to Nancy's right, right across the table, actually, from Nancy, is my son, Stu Stewart. He's also Earl Stewart, the third, but we call him Stu. And, Stu, you tell us what you do. I'm tired of talking about.

Well, I'm trying to keep us connected through the interwebs, otherwise known as the Internet. We're trying to get our Facebook live video going. We have our text number. We're on all social media platforms. And we want to give you another option other than just listening to the radio in your car. So if you're at home or you're walking around with your iPhone or your Android device, you can watch us live whenever we have sufficient bandwidth up here. But we don't have that this morning, but we're working on it.

No, we can hold up things you can see. And, you know, when we've got stuff like that, we'll hold up. So, you know, videos, but the video's the name of the game. The good news is we're doing a lot of recording of the video, and these are all going up on the Erlon Cars YouTube channel. So you can catch, like, the best of the best. So we got Jonathan in the control room, and he kind of, like, filters out all the extraneous stuff,

whittles it down to the pure essence of Erlon Cars and puts it on YouTube. And then, if you miss the show, you go on to SoundCloud or the iPhone podcast app or pretty much any place you can find a podcast. You can find the whole shows. We have a whole archive of every show we've ever done for the last couple of years. Fantastic. I like that word you used, whittle. I have not whittled in years.

I used to do that in Pittsburgh. You do a lot more pairing. Pairing instead of whittling. No, I used to do the anyway. Well, these days I do more pairing Exactly We're going to go to Nick Who is calling us from Cambridge

Wow Hello Nick in Cambridge, Massachusetts Hi, you doing Nick Hi, good morning How are you all doing down in the world? It's great to hear from you Thank you I've been listening and you know watching on YouTube

For some time I have a question on doing a lease Through Toyota Financial Services I've leased a couple of Toyota vehicles And my most recent shopping experience. I've had some pushback from dealers doing the multiple security deposit program, which I believe doesn't get that much, you know, user attention, but it saved me quite a bit of money on several leases that I've done. Why would a dealer be hesitant to doing it? Is there any

implications for them on, you know, losing the backhand gross? Is it something that it's a lot more administrative burden for them. Why would a dealer be hesitant to structuring the deal as the customer would like for an official program that Toyota Financial offers? Well, Nick, a lot of times the whole security deposit requirement is dictated by the lender. So it looks like Toyota Financial Services has that option available for their customers. Down here in the southeastern United States, we don't get to deal with Toyota Financial Services.

We use our distributors financing on it's called Southeast Toyota, Toyota, finance and generally speaking they don't involve a security deposit on their leases for people with better credit when you get down to the lowered tiers on credit scores they will require one but yeah it does it reduces the risk to the to the lender and so they can pass on that benefit to the to the person leasing the car Nick this is overall could you tell us what the you said it actually is advantageous to the lessor and because we're not familiar with it you are, what is the advantage to the lessor? Well, they'll lower the rate.

Okay, so. So, go ahead. In my particular case, I have, I believe, tier one plus credit. You know, I've never had any credit problems or, you know, difficulties to that, unfortunately. But the last time that I leased the Corolla, the payment was zero down. I was able to get down from 180 to 160 by getting the money factor, you know, reduced. It wasn't, I think the money factor was a net two and a half percent, I want to say, but by doing, putting down $1,500, which I'm going to get back at the end,

I was able to save $20 a month, so, you know, $720 over the 36-month term, which, you know, is a pretty good, you know, return, so to speak, if you, you know, keep your car in good condition and, you know, know that in all likelihood you're going to bring it back, you know, in good condition and get the money refunded. But this most recent time with some dealers in the Boston area, I've had some resistance to doing it. And I'm wondering if it's something in the New England region or if, again, the dealerships in this era of rising rates are, you know, there's maybe more gross or more spread between doing it with the buy rate and, you know, what Toyota Financial is doing for lease is right. now.

Hey, Nick, this is still, I really don't think it's a dealer choice in that matter. I mean, I could be wrong. It just sounds like a program that TFS, total financial services, they dictate that. So I can't see either how it would impact the dealer as far as, like, security deposits, because that's just money that they hold and you get back at the end of the lease. Okay, well, hey, thank you very much. I really have learned a lot from this program and appreciate, you know, you're getting out here in educating the car buying public.

Well, thanks for listening. It's exciting to us to know that we have people out of state, and we started out just being a local South Florida show, and we're really happy to know that you're streaming us in Massachusetts, and I appreciate the call. Love to hear from you again sometime. Thank you. You all have a great holiday season.

Oh, thank you. Same to you. Oh, how nice. That's pretty exciting, huh? That is. Yeah, give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us. That's 772-4976530. Just an interesting aside because this brought the subject up.

Some manufacturers, Toyota being one of them, has the manufacturer distribution directly from the manufacturer to the dealers. And then you have independent distributors. In case of Toyota, they have an independent distributor in the southeast. United States called intuitively Southeast Toyota. So the five South Eastern States, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and who I leave out, five South Eastern States, they are dealing directly with the independent distributor, the independent distributor, Southeast Toyota, deals directly with Toyota. And it makes for some interesting situations.

You just heard one of them because Southeast Toyota has their own finance company. It's called Southeast Toyota Finance, and you heard Stu talking about, and you heard Nick from Cambridge, Massachusetts, talking about Toyota financial services, which deals directly with Toyota. So Toyota is not the only dealership or the only distributorship, but they're not as many as there used to be years ago. There used to be a lot of similar things. Most of the manufacturers deal directly, but just for your information.

That's the reason I spread that information out to you. I'm going to mention one more thing here, and again, please call 877-960-99-60, and please text us at area code 772-497-6530. I haven't given that number out because sometimes we tend to get more postings. So if you're following us on Facebook or YouTube, we'd love to hear from you if you want to post to us on Facebook. We treat that just like a text, questions, anything you want to ask. We'll get back to you. And the text number, if you just want to text us directly, is area code 772-4976530. And we love the old-fashioned phone calls.

We really like to have the first-time female callers call in, and as I say, $50 cash if you are a female, and you haven't called the show before. For those may, this may be new to, and for those that may even feel that, you know, It's not such a bad deal buying a car. What are you talking about? I have to bring out my evidence. And my evidence is a Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. It's been conducted every year by the Gallup Organization, 1997, until 2018. And they asked this question, of all the professions, which you consider the most honest and ethical.

Gallup annual poll, honesty and ethics and professions. Cardinalships fail. They fail. They're at the bottom. They're either dead last or next to last. 2017, the last complete survey, cardillas were next to last. They were just above congressmen.

For those of you that are streaming us, I'm holding that Gallup poll up. Yeah. It's for real. Earl is speaking the truth. Yeah. So that's why we're here, folks. We're here because we know most Americans,

and we have it on good authority, that most people worldwide. I used to think it was an American phenomenon. Then I started talking to dealers and people that dealt with dealers in Europe and Asia. And it's just something about the car business. It might have something to do with the trade-in. Back in the day, the trade-in became a haggle-hassel thing

because who knows what he used cars worth. And I think that may have contributed to the whole phenomenon. But whatever happened, it is degenerated into really a bad, bad experience for most people. That's the reason we're here. And we love to hear from you. Live talk radio. You can see anything you want.

You can agree with us. You can disagree with us. And before I forget, I usually forget, to tell you about an anonymous link that we have on the web. You can go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. www. Youranonymousfeedback.com. And you can say anything. you want. We don't know who you are. Say anything you want. Take advantage of that, folks.

We love transparency, and if there's something about the show you don't like, or maybe something about a dealership that you just prefer not to be directly involved with. Anything that you have to say to us, you can reach us constructive criticism, or for that matter, unconstructive criticism. Anything at all. Just whatever you have to say. Your anonymous feedback. Fawning admiration. Fawning admiration. We accept that readily. Thank you, John. We're going to go to our first female caller, and her name is Ada, and she's from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Ada.

Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. You've won yourself $50, Ada, so thank you for calling. Oh, thank you. And thank you for being the first female caller. You stay on the line when we're finished and get that information to John in the control room, and I'll get that checkout to you.

What can we do for you this morning? I have a Toyota Highlander, and it's been a while now. The highlight covers are all not shiny anymore. How can I shine them back up? I've got somewhere to use toothpaste. I did that in an area. It didn't shine it back up, and they're very, you know, they're not, they're okay. They're all cloudy.

Yep. Yeah, Rich smiling. He knows exactly how to fix that. Unfortunately, it's a common thing on all cars nowadays. They've all gone to that polymer plastic headlight, and the Florida Sunshine just eats them up and fogs them right out. And unfortunately, the only real fix for it is they make products that you can use that will scrub it back clean again, but it takes a lot of work.

It's a lot of elbow grease. My recommendation, look around to some of the different dealerships and car repair places. Quite often they'll be able to do that for you for a very reasonable cost because it does take a lot of elbow grease basically to get those scrubbed back clean and then it'll last a couple of years and they'll look pretty good for several years for you. Oh, that's good. Now, you said there's something I could use. What would that be?

And what's a reasonable cost? They've got kids at very reasonable costs, don't they? They do, as a matter of fact. Places like PEP Boys and that, there's 3M is one company that makes a very good product for cleaning up your headlights. And they're available at just about any good auto parts store, PEP Boys, AutoZone, discount auto parts. What do they cost? They're usually ranging, I think, around 30. $30 to $40.

And it's enough to do two or three cars usually. The only issue, like I say, is you do want to practice with them a little bit. You know, try it on a small spot until you get used to the idea of what you've got to do and just follow the instructions carefully. And be prepared. It's going to take a little bit of elbow grease. But you can make them look really good yourself. You know, find a nice shady spot to work in and just buckle right down and scrub them clean and use

that product, like they say. Can you get a toothbrush? and some, like, crest toothpaste and just brush them? No, unfortunately, the old toothpaste thing, yeah, that don't work at all. Is that a myth? It is. It's a very good urban legend. I also recommend, however, check YouTube, and you'll find a lot of videos on there where they will demonstrate how to use those products, and they'll tell you what some of the better ones are.

I know 3M for sure makes a very good product, and it works really, really, really. well. Well, that's good to know. Thank you. Well, thank you very much to the call. You want to stay on the line because we're going to get your contact information, and you can give that to our guy in the control studio here. Get you checkout in the mill for 50 bucks.

Thanks so much. Spread the word, and have a great day, and enjoy your $50. Give us a call again, please. Ladies and gentlemen, that number is 877-960-99-6. or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Don't forget that mystery shopping report is coming up from O'Greco that's down in Port Lauderdale. It's a doozy. We're going to go straight to Claire, who's calling from Green Acres.

Good morning, Claire. Good morning. I called a couple weeks ago with an issue of a check engine light, and I just wanted to give you a follow-up. my my husband was able to change the gas cap I've got a new one and then he googled the process of how to get the check engine light off

and that was a matter of taking a battery cable off and disconnecting it and then reconnecting it and I just want to let you know that it worked yep on a lot of older cars you can pull that battery cable off and it'll clear the light out however on some cars it won't actually let you do that but in that case if you're pretty comfortable that replacing the gas cap solved it try just ignoring that light for about a week or two because usually the way they're programmed is after about 40 times of starting the engine if the computer doesn't see that same issue coming up it will clear that light out by itself turn it off and a short time later it'll even erase it from its memory or you can just start the or 40 times. Well, but you've got to let it run for a few minutes each time.

So that can take a little while, but yes, that will work too. Yeah, definitely. Claire, that's amazing. The two of you, you and your husband, congratulations for figuring this out. And thank you so much for giving us a call back and following up on your last call. Well, I was able to do that because you guys gave me that advice, so I appreciate that. We appreciate you listening. You have yourself.

You have yourself a great weekend and give us a call again. 877-960-9-1960. Is Claire a first time caller? No, Claire called a couple of weeks ago about the problem. Yeah. And she was just following up. The text number is 772-4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

I just got a signal from Stu that we are streaming on Facebook. We are live on Facebook. Live on Facebook. I'm getting reports to the volume is a little low, but they can hear it if they turn their volume up. Ah, okay. So we're here. And so this big bandwidth we thought we had doesn't exist. Not this morning.

Yeah, not this morning. It's amazing with the high-tech opportunities that we have that we're not able to avail ourselves of them here on the True Oldies Channel. It's maybe a little bit too modern, but we will keep on trying. We're going to drag them in to the 21st century. We will try. We'll drag them in. We won't go defeated. You know, it's one of these.

I think I experienced this, and you probably experience this personally. In this high-tech society we live in, you often get caught in the middle between people. And Comcast will blame AT&T, and AT&T will blame the radio station. The radio station will blame somebody else. And high-tech is hard to deal with. But we know that it is possible for us to have, you know, 50 megabytes or 100 megabytes or 150 megabytes of bandwidth.

And we could be streaming everybody. And we'd love to be communicating because it's very inexpensive. And the cost of the extra bandwidth that KONCASH is very small. But we haven't been able to match for that. Facebook is working, though. Yes. And you can go to Facebook.com for slash Erlon Cars. We know all about that technology and sometimes the failure of it.

Alexa, right now, in our home, ladies and gentlemen, is on timeout. Exactly. Well, I got good news. I'm getting reports coming in from our Facebook feed that the volume is at normal levels now, and the video is clear. Hi, everybody, wait for the cameras. Hi. Hi.

All right. We're back. We're cooking with gas. Okay. And for you old-fashioned people, I say old-fashioned texting. You know, texting wasn't old-fashioned a year ago or two years ago. But when it first came to pass, it was. Thanks, everybody, for your patience.

We really appreciate you tuning in. Saturday morning at this time of the year, we know you've got plenty to do. Thanks for tuning in, Daryl Stewart, on cars. Give us a call toll-free. 877-960, and you know we'll take your text. Stu is waiting, and he is going to take anybody's text. 772-497-6530 remember anyone's text and we're going to go to our favorite caller from Palm City and that's John hi John morning to everyone I just want to mention the bad news of

the week corporate America right it's worse and the timing is terrible General Motors announcing closing five plants and laying off 15,000 workers by the way they are the largest call manufacturer in Mexico And it's sad because, like I say, the timing is not good, you know, before the holidays, but it's corporate America, and they're answering to the stockholders and dividends, et cetera, et cetera. And I know what it is because years ago I had a job, and it was also at holiday time, and I was called in and I had a company car even, and I won't forget that for the rest of my life. Just suddenly it happened, and it was a large corporation out of Philadelphia,

and I was devastated. But they said they were doing me a favor, because I don't know. I had under a year, and they said next week we have to go to people with 17 and 19 years service. So I've been out to the General Motors plant in Clark Street, the Cadillac Assembly plant, just before they closed that. And I also visited the tech center in Warren, Michigan, and some people, not only that the plant in Warren will be closed, but some people in the tech center will be losing

their jobs. And basically, they're not offered jobs in other places or between. transferred and the good news like people here in florida uh publics is one of our largest employers they're closing the palm beach gardens uh greenwise store and it was on a news this week and everyone in that store will be offered jobs in another public location so there are firms that do look out for their employees and like i say timing is everything holiday time but i don't go against the protest of general motors but I make people think twice

when you buy a General Motors car these are the people that the government bailed out in the past and what happens now is not good you may be even buying a brand I wouldn't say Cadillac or maybe Buick maybe Chevy but it may not be around again to the future so it happened with Oldsmobile and Pontiac and we just don't know

what's going to happen in the future but this is very very bad news for holiday time with people losing jobs I agree with the timing was terrible and the unfortunate thing is this is going to be a continuous trend the cars just don't sell anymore only the trucks

fans and SUVs and therefore before General Motors announced anything they're not building cars anymore and all the manufacturers will follow suit they're going to have to and after that the next wave is going to be electric cars and who knows autonomous and maybe

ride sharing. So the auto industry, sadly, if you are in the auto industry and you're working at a plant, your future is very much up for grabs. It's a sad statement to the increased technology that we're just dealing with on a daily base. I was talking about technology on the radio station. Technology is disrupting everybody's life and something we're just going to have to deal with. Well, I also want to thank you last week for comparing this with the letters scandal that we had on that everybody knew about it, but everybody doesn't seem to know about this Takata Airbag sensor, and I speak to so many people all the time, and they seem like shocked. I said, go on these websites, safercar.com, and find out if

your car could be one of them that's on a recall. And a lot of people do not know. I mean, they don't listen to your show. They just, the dealers don't tell them about it, and they try to sell them cars and lie to them even, as you point out, that there's no recall on it and there's nothing mechanically wrong. So it's sad today that this exists and the public is not aware of it. And there's so many other situations like this on the news this week was a blood pressure medicine. They didn't even give the name of it, but I know what it is. It actually causes cancer. It's called dallas satin. And it definitely has been proven. And it's the manufacturer, some of them

that make it, and they have an ingredients in it that actually causes cancer, but yet you don't hear much about that. You hear about the roundtop, you know, an ovarian cancer on the talcum powder with the women, and that's because the lawyers are advertising that they want you to handle

a lawsuit. So, it's sad that those things are happening in America, but the worst part about it is the way the government does not interfere with this problem, with the Takata Airbags. This is absolutely ridiculous and it's got to be, you know,

bought before the legislature and they have to do something about it. And you people are great to point it out. Well, you know, who doesn't point it all? So, John, and, you know, politics have always been like that. Congressman, lobbyists, we know that story. It's been that way since the, you know, 1776.

I mean, politicians are politicians. But the group that has really failed this, in my opinion, is the media. And there is a real corruption going on in the media today. And it's not a corruption brought on from immorality. It's corruption brought on by survival. You've got to sell newspapers is the only way. It's an old expression.

Of course, newspapers don't sell anymore, but that's the expression. It's all about the advertising and the revenue. So television, radio, newspaper, online. We talked about Facebook. Now, there's media, and look at the corruption going on with Facebook. You have to make a buck to exist, so survival is the strongest instinct. And the reason that the lettuce got all the press is because it was an easy target. The reason that the Takata Airbag did not give any press is because it was a hard target.

The hard target, meaning you go after the manufacturers and they stop advertising. You go up the car dealers, they stop advertising. Yeah, it's strange, though, because there's an old media axiom, if it bleeds, it leads, and I can't think of anything more dangerous or sensational than what's going on with these Takata airbags. And they focused on the victims. But the media has been so fragmented. There was a time when the newspapers really owned the media, and then television evolved, and they own the media. 24 hours, they've got to fill it all up with them. Exactly.

And now we've got fragmented with the social media. And it's very difficult to make a buck. And to stay alive, the newspapers, the TV stations are pandering to the stories that can sell the most advertising. And they are ignoring the most dangerous ones because they can't get the support if they go after the auto manufacturers and the car dealers. You add up all the money in Big Auto with the auto dealers included, and they are afraid to go after the Takada Airbag. So, John, you're absolutely right. It's a sad statement, but I guess we're the one little beacon of light, and we're going to continue to be the beacon of light until we get some results.

I agree 100%. Thank you, John. John, you're going to really enjoy the mystery shopping report from Fort Lauderdale. We shop, Graco. So I know you tune in and look forward to that. Thanks so much for being part of the show. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-9960, or you can text us as It's 772-497-6-5-3-0.

I think we're going to go to Stu. He's accumulating. You're reading my mind again, right? Yes. You knew. All right, yeah, we have some texts and some comments that came in. The first one is, same along the lines what John was talking about, ask the question for Earl, what's your take on GM,

eliminating all those models and shutting down domestic plants? Well, you can look at it from two standpoints. Mary Barris, that's the General Motors, President, CEO. They say it was a brilliant move. It was a gutsy move. It was something that had to be done. And it goes back to my earlier comments about survival. Can I really get mad at Channel 5 or Channel 12 or Channel 25 or, for that matter, CBSNBC or ABC nationally?

Because they're afraid to go after Big Auto. Yeah, I can get mad so I understand it. And this is what Mary Barris has done. And she is the CEO of General Motors. Her job is a survival of General Motors, and she is a very smart lady, and she knows that if she continues to build cars, she's going to go out of business. If she goes out of business, all the GM employees will lose their job. So her job is to maintain a viable, productive, profitable corporation, not just for her.

I mean, we know she gets big bonuses, makes a lot of money. But in order to do that, she has to employ a lot of people. to build the cars or the vehicles, I should say. They're not building cars anymore, folks. They're building vehicles, and the vehicles are the trucks, vans, and SUVs, the larger vehicles. And pretty soon they won't be selling either unless they're hybrids or unless they're electric. And who knows, maybe one day autonomous. So things are changing very, very fast.

Very fast. 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-49-6530. And remember, Your Anonymous Feedback.com, use it, let us know what we're doing, how we can improve, and any of your ideas you could share with us. We're going to go to Dennis, who's calling from Lake Worth. Good morning, Dennis. Good morning. I have a couple little bits of information for the two ladies had called. One, I know you guys have spoken about going to AutoZone before, and they can check your things that come on with your engine light.

Well, they will also, when they check them, they will clear that light. Yes, they will. So if she doesn't want to wait 40 starts, she can just go buy an auto zone, and they'll look at it and take care of that for her. Well, that's great information, Dennis. And that's free, too, right? They don't charge you for that. Yeah, it's free, yeah.

They tell you what the codes are and, you know, what you need to fix. And you can either, even if you don't buy the stuff from them, they don't, I've done it, you know, two or three times. And, oh, they're great about it. They're nationwide, too, I believe. A lady with the headlights, she wants to clear up. If she has access to, like, a drill, a portable drill or any kind of drill, McGuire makes a really nice kit.

I have a 2001, Elantra, one of my cars, and the headlights still look like I just bought them because every once a year I take that kit, it's got a nice buffing pad that goes on your drill, and they give you a compound and you, you know, clean it up. And then they also sell a sealant that you can put over the headlights after you clean them, and it really keeps them looking great. Dennis, what does you pay for that kit? I think I paid $15 for it. Wow.

And the sealant was like another $8. What was the name of that? You don't use that much of the sealant, so I've had that for, you know, two or three years now. I also have a 2012 Mazda. I've used it on a couple times, and the headlights on it still look like they're brand new also. So if you don't want to use all the elbow grease, like I say, if you have a little drill, any kind of drill, that really does it in a hurry. Give us the name again.

Could you spell that name for the listener? Myers, they make all kinds of auto waxes and sealants for your car. I think it's, let me, I think we'll look at it. M-Y-E-R-S, maybe. Actually, it's McWires. Oh, McWires. Yep. McGuire.

They're a big, you go into Walmart or any auto store, and they have all the waxes and things. They've been making them. They make them of the best waxes, too. It's M-A-G-U-I-R-E-S. M-E-G. Let me see. U-I-R U-I-R

Yes M-E-G-U-I-R Boy, that's great information For 15 bucks Keep your headlights clear That's a great That's great information And you could probably

Actually, I'm sorry, I gave you It's M-E-G-U-I-A-Rs I got the E-A backwards Very good I didn't realize that the McGuire's product Was so inexpensive on that

I know they make Great Wax Yeah, they make great wax I use that on my cars too And, like I say, a lot of, like, you know, a lot of people, Turtle Wax makes a kit, but you have to do it by hand. So when I found this McGuire's one, it's like a soft, like, a lamb's wool pad, and you put the cleaner on there, and it busts it out.

It doesn't take long at all. Wow. And you've got a safer car to drive. That's good information, Dennis. I appreciate the call very much. Thank you for sharing that with us. Okay. If there's an easy way, why not?

Exactly. I hear you. Dennis is very important. Okay. Dennis, thank you. Call us again. 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30, and now back to Stu. Yeah, we have some more text and comments.

Steve, on Facebook, is watching our live video. I just commented on what John was talking about online about GM. He said Ford stopped most of its car production, and GM was sure to follow. So we're looking at a trend in this industry trend. You hit the nail on the head. people don't want cars and the manufacturers are reacting appropriately even though there is a human impact to that. You know, speaking for my own experience, I drive a car, and I've always driven a car, and I just feel comfortable in a car. But I'm almost being forced to considering an SUV because of the height factor, and all of you, I know how experiencing this, you get on the road today, you're surrounded by trucks, fans, and SUVs.

If you're riding in a car, it really obstructs your visibility. directly in front of course to the rear to the side when you're surrounded by large vehicles and you're down low near the road I feel unsafe in my car now so this thing is going to happen faster rather than later

we're watching it at our own store we do have a car dealership and we sold our top selling vehicle forever was a Camry that has been replaced with the Rav 4 which is a SUV at one point Prius was very close to our best selling vehicle and suddenly we're selling an

SUV and we can't get enough of them and we got too many preases and it's just the price of progress and you're going to see more layoffs and uh and also the SUVs i mean they've changed a lot in shape and they used to be these big boxy truck like things and now they're calling them crossovers and they're just a little bit they're a little bit lower to the ground but you still have the height and um and they drive a lot more like a car than they used to oh yeah and and i myself stew i'm reconsidering my request to you and thinking about going into You want a good deal? Or can you make me a deal?

I can do it. Hey, I can set you up with a salesperson on that. Oh, thanks, Rick. See, the guys are really taking care of me. I'm the only female in the studio. 877-960-99-60. We have one more. We need one more female caller to win $50 a new female caller.

So don't forget about that. And we're going to go back over to Stu because he has more Texas. Yeah, we have an anonymous texter. It says, why do carmakers have to use? use dealers to sell cars? Can't they sell directly online like Tesla or anything else that we buy today? We'll do a special two-hour show on that. There's nothing that I discuss more with my employees and my sons and my wife.

And it's one of the most frightening things that I encounter as a car dealer. Full transparency, I am an automobile dealer, have been since 1968. And I'm seeing the times they're changing. And I see my future very dubious. I don't know what's going to happen 20 years from now. Car manufacturers will be selling cars directly. And before I get into that, and I'll just say that in a minute, let's take the call from Bob and Lake Park. Okay. Good morning, Bob. Welcome to the show.

Good morning. Good morning. What we were discussing a month ago has happened. The owner's manual in the new Mazda CX3 will now be in digital form. You will no longer get an owner's manual. That's great. That's right. About time. Hey, wait.

There's more. Listen, there's more. The car now, when you have an issue in the car, it will send you a message and tells you where to reference the issue in the owner's manual. Very cool. I love it. Nice. Very nice. It's a, you got to say, Bob, I.

Are you comfortable with that? I'm not going to ask you how old you are, but there are a lot of people that just don't deal with it. One of my best friends still has a flip phone, doesn't text, does very little email, doesn't know what Facebook is. I'm 77. I'll be 78 in a few days. How do you feel, Bob, about this digital revolution? Well, I'll tell you, you know, I used to have an 82 Trans Am useful. They just started to put the computers in the cars back in those days, and I used to take, I had a three-inch wire that was exposed on both ends, and I would attach it to that little receptor, take the plastic piece off, and the car, the Czech engine light would blink, and if it gave me 11 blinks, I had my Chilton's book, you know who Chiltern's are.

Oh, absolutely, Chilton's manual, yeah. I would go to the Chilford book, and I'd look up and I'd see what the problem was. It said if that was the code, it was 11 blinks. It wouldn't give you exactly what the problem was, but it would give you a general area way to look, and then you would have to troubleshoot. 1987? 82. 82.

Wow. Boy, I tell you, I didn't know that. That is really interesting. Actually, Chrysler products used to be you would put the key in ignition. and cycle the ignition on and off five times, and then leave it on, and the light would blink a Morse code telling you what the code was. That was sophisticated back then. It was so simple, and it worked so well. Anybody could pull the code, and then you could look it up in a book to find out what was going on.

Wow. Right. Well, the only things, usually when you looked on the code, there were probably maybe 20 different things that you would have to troubleshoot. It wasn't that. It wouldn't pinpoint it exactly, but it would put you in the general vicinity. The other thing I wanted, the other thing I was, you know, didn't you have a Mazda dealership at one time? Yeah, I had the first Mazda dealership in the eastern United States, August 1970, on South Olive and West Palm Beach. Right, I remember.

It was right across the street from your other dealership. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Why did you rescind that dealership? Mazda has done a pretty good job of making a nice comeback. Well, yeah, I went through the whole revolution with Mazda when they almost went out of business

and the rotary engines were blowing up and I went through all the excitement. Frankly, to make a long story short, I didn't get along with Mazda, the manufacturer very well. they were they were we just we just didn't do very well together and I just didn't like the idea of being a master dealer anymore and I'm still not unhappy that I sold the Mazda deal with you and there were some other issues there are some location issues that we won't get into that yeah but I'm glad they survived Ford had a third of them they owned 30% of Mazda shortly after I came into the Mazda business but I'm surprised they're still here to be honest with you. I want to talk to him about

before I go, and that's the warranties, a gentleman now is doing something with their warranties. They're extending them out further on their vehicle. So instead of the regular 336 on the Chevy's and the lower

price cars, I think they used to have $4.50 on the Cadillac and Beauty. Now what now is they've extended those warranties out longer. And I think that what they're doing is they're adding it to the price of the car anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000. But it's not being sold through the dealer. It's actually part of the deal with the customer.

Yeah, I understand. Yeah, warranties have always puzzled me, Bob. You know, sometimes the best manufacturers have the shortest warranties. Sometimes the cars that have the lowest quality have the longest warranties. it's a very complicated mix car dealers would prefer to do what they call customer labor and fix a car that's not under warranty

the car manufacturers make a huge amount of money showing parts to dealers so it's complicated I don't even think we know or the manufacturers know why they have the warranty that they have clearly the short of the warranty the less expensive is for them so I don't know

So I think Hyundai has got a great warranty now. Yeah, I think they increased their warranty back during the big financial crisis when car sales had collapsed, and they went to a really long one. Well, Bob, very informative, and I appreciate your call very much, and it's nice to talk to an old-timer that knows how to fix 1982 poni-h. Not only that, it's a coincidence. I was looking at a picture of a 1982 Trans-Am the other day, and I was looking up your old car that you drove, like in 1988.

bonneville and so these were great cars i mean i love they were i mean i love transam was one of my favorite cars smoking and the bandit exactly that got stolen uh and it was funny it was a limited edition it was it called the ricaro transam wow and it had recarro racing seats that had the the cloth that they used to put on the seats came from italy they only used for a couple years and eventually they caused that swipe. And, you know, I think it got trimmed up from what I, what they used back in those days. But, yeah, it was a wonderful car.

It had a lot of issues. I had it for a long time. But I did enjoy, I did enjoy it, though. It was quite enjoyable. It got a lot of looks because that was the first year when they changed them over. Yeah. 82. Of course, then they make that movie, that TV series, the Knight Rider. Yes.

Nice writer. The Hoff. I remember that. Hasselhoff. Well, please call again next week. We love to talk to you. You're a very knowledgeable guy, and I appreciate if you could call us again next week. Knowledgeable and entertaining.

Bye. Bye. Stay in touch. 877-960-99-60, and our text number is 772-49-7-7-7-2-49-7. and six five three zero we're going to get back to stew just as soon as we talked to Howard and I'm not sure if Si is with Howard this morning but he is a regular caller good morning Howard Howard good morning everybody good morning I hope everything's fine with you I know I love the conversation about that Trans Am a friend of mine had one

it was nice in its day okay so I have a question by the way so I may call later He's still doing his homework, thanks to Earl and Earl's book. Here's my question. It's for Rick. Stop me if I'm incorrect. The foreign cars, Japanese cars, don't have a hot ignition. In other words, when the car is off, you can't plug anything in and charge anything up. Is that correct?

Most cars have the ignition shuts off the power outlets. pretty much Yeah I think except American cars I think they're I know it used to be their ignition was hot all the time that you could charge your cell phone

in an American car even though the car is not running I think that's the fact I don't know about the late the late models but I know like five six years ago people were able to do that

now my question is this can I have that installed in other words tap off a fuse and make, you know, a separate receptacle that I could plug in that's hot all the time. Would that void the warranty? It wouldn't technically void your warranty, and it is possible to set up a power outlet that would be powered all the time.

The only thing that I caution on that is when you're running something that is drawing off your battery without the engine running, I'd be concerned about the possibility of it draining your battery. That's the only concern that I would have with it. But, yeah, it'd be pretty straightforward to set something up like that. Okay, so the only reason why I would use something like that is that, I'll give you an example. I was running out, my cell phone was running out, and I wasn't near any place that could charge it. And so the only thing that could have done is put it in my battery. Now, I put it into the ignition that looked, the receptacle.

However, I also realized that I would have to, I have a 2017 Camry, that I could make it hot by touching the ignition switch twice, and it would give me, it would make the ignition, You have, but then the car could not be shut off. In other words, the engine is not running, but I have the capability of charging the selfie. Right. Is that correct? Yes.

Okay. But how long does that last when you do that? I think eventually it shuts off. Is that correct? Actually, no. If you've just turned it on just, you know, turning just the accessory power on, it'll stay on until you turn it off. or until your battery dies. I got you.

That's not a good idea. No, not really. That's a bad idea. Yeah. My recommendation actually for cell phones, and I do this because I like to be out wandering around sometimes, I actually carry a little battery backup with me in my computer bag that I'll carry, and it's set up to where it can charge my cell phone at least three times

before I have to recharge that battery backup. And it's about the size of the phone itself. Rick, I had no idea that such a thing existed. Oh, yeah. Best Buy, Walmart, Target. Any place with an electronics section has these battery backups. And they're great little items. All you do is you plug it in to a power source to charge it, you know,

initially off like a USB charging source. And then when your phone battery dies, you just plug it right in. into this power source, and it will recharge your phone right back up. That's great. Tremendous information. Rick, you're great. I appreciate it.

You always ahead of the game. He's a genius. You know what I mean? I just try to keep up on some of the toys that are out there because it makes life a little more fun sometimes. Yeah, I had no idea this thing existed. And now you, that's exactly what I'm going to do to. I go to Walmart and get one of these things.

And by the way, Sire probably called, later, but his problem is, and maybe you could reflect on this, his problem is at night. He has a problem, not that he's severely handicapped, he's not, but he likes a bright light, so he's saying to me

he would like a car that has the brights on all the time that dims when you're approaching. I told him there's no such thing. I may be wrong. I thought the low beams would be on and the high beams only come on when necessary.

Am I correct? Actually, with the new automatic headlights now, they'll keep it on high beam when they don't detect any cars around you and switch it to low beam when it detects another car coming up to you. Yeah, if you're out in the woods, you've got your high beats on all the time, but around town you're probably not going to have that situation. Yeah, right. On the new models.

Yeah, if you're out driving on the highway, say, you're heading up through Florida or something, and you get to where there's no cars ahead of you coming at you or in front of you, it'll leave the high beams on the whole time. And then when it detects another car, and they detect them quite a ways off, it automatically drops it down to low beams,

so you're not blinding anyone. Okay. How more effective is the LEDs compared to the other type of headlights? Are the LEDs much more brighter? Are they cooler? or explain the difference between LED headlights and the I know when I bought my 2017 Camry I had the option of getting LEDs or the regular ball

I don't know what you call that, not halogens I don't know what they were. Right, we used to have halogens, then they went to the high-intensity discharge or H-I-D lights, and now it's the LEDs, and the LED lights, the biggest advantage with them, is that they last so much longer. The lifespan of the bulb is supposed to be almost infinite, and they draw a lot less energy or use less power from the car to run them,

and they are a brighter light and a cleaner, wider light. So they've got advantages all the way around. Howard, the name of the game is LED now. If you haven't got LEDs in your home, you ought to put them in. They last, as Rick says, a long, long time, 15, 20 years. They're inexpensive, and they throw a better light. The old incandescent lights and the old previous to LED are obsolete. So you're far better off with LEDs everywhere.

And they use a lot less power, too. Absolutely. Everything's better about LED. Yeah. Why are they still selling incandescentral? I thought that was illegal to sell those after a certain year. They're still selling because people still buy them. And sooner or later, they won't be selling them because they'll stop buying them.

But it's just like anything. You could probably buy a buggy whip if you look hard enough. I mean, they don't have much of a demand, but at Walmart you might be able to find a buggy whip. I don't know. Well, no. Packer barrel. Rosie's Red Barn right out in Wellington there. There's a lot of them out there, folks.

Rosie's Red Barn. Hey, Howard, thanks so much for tuning in. Thank you. And have a good day. and I'll be talking. I probably call after 9 o'clock. We'll take you. We'll take you his call.

We look forward to it. Have a great weekend. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to get back to this text in just a moment because Alan has been on hold. Thanks for your patience, Alan. Alan's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning.

Yeah, hi. I've been listening to you each week, and I find it very interesting. I have a suggestion. As far as the mechanical stuff, the stuff has just heard, it's good for people who drive. I no longer drive. But the one thing is sort of an observation

and maybe a criticism when you have this mystery shopper and so forth. But I don't understand. You're not going to buy the car anyway. You're just trying to describe the fact that most dealers

are doing something. They're not disclosing the Tocata Air Base. bag, or they've got a big dealer's costs and so forth. But, and the fact that your dealers are all the way down, that we understand. I mean, if you go to the Middle East and you've got to give you a price, you know you're going to have to bargain. Same thing with the own bill dealer. But why, after you find out that the guy has not disclosed the Takata Airbag, why can't you just confirm?

Listen, I understand it's a Takata Airbag. Why, I would like to buy the car, but I don't want to have it fixed first. You know, that's an interesting question. Or the other one is, when he has the dealers' price, $1,000,000,000, say, wait a minute now, this is not something that really is part of the price of the dealer or the manufacturer. This is something you're adding on, and I'd buy the car, but you've got to give me a break on this, the dealer's course. Otherwise, confronting them. You know that they're going to be like an automobile, like you're talking about the years, that this is the way they all operated. But when they confront them, you've got to take some responsibility.

You know what they're going to say. But how about what you're going to say in confronting them and giving them an opportunity to answer? Alan, your point about the Takata Airbag is very interesting, and I like it. And we will try that on our next mystery shop. Just tell them face to face. I think maybe we even go a little further and say, you know, we're mystery shopping in here, and we're so-and-so,

and we'd like to talk to some. somebody in authority here, why would you advertise a car with a dangerous recall, and why would you advertise a call with a dangerous recall that cannot be fixed, and why would you say the car is safe? Because I asked you twice or three times, you said the car was safe, and then just hear what they say. That would be extremely interesting. Yeah, that's what I'm suggesting.

Because I've been listening and waiting for you to say something, and you just, oh, we gotcha. We'll do. We're going to do that. But the second part of your suggestion, we have actually done that with dealer fees. And we talk to the salespeople, and we say, I'm not going to pay that dealer fee. That's just profit to you. You didn't have it in the advertised price.

Why did you do it? And, Alan, they lie to you. They say, and I don't know if they lie on purpose, if they have been missing. misinformed, whether supervisor or up the, maybe the dealer. We don't know where the misinformation came from, but they will say things like we're required by law to charge a dealer fee. All car dealers charge a dealer fee. They'll also say that if we don't charge you a dealer fee, we would have to, we could be sued

because everybody else that we charge a dealer fee would come back and sue us. they make up some of the damnedest things to justify this dealer fee and it's so entrenched in the culture of car dealers I think they really think it's okay and the other thing when we do these mystery shops we try to by being anonymous by not letting them know that we're shopping them

they're going to behave the way they normally do with a regular customer but we do confront them And we've even done that on Takada. We've called him out. But I like what Ellis said. It's kind of like a, remember the old Mike Wallace? He would go in under cover. At the very end, he'd say the cameras would come out and watch the, it was a shame we don't have cameras.

But you just expose. You're on TV. You're on a mystery shop. This is what we're doing. Now, explain to us why did you lie to us about this Takada airbag? And then report what they say. It gets a little dangerous. It does.

We'll have to ask Agent X. if he's willing to risk his life. What a great idea. We're doing that in the studio, though. So that's, you know, we know they're listening. By the, we know they're listening. Yeah, we've got. Definitely know they're listening.

Great idea, Alan. And we're going to try the first part. We're going to talk. We'll do the Takata Airbag thing, and we'll do that next week. And so tune in. Yeah, just some of any suggestion, don't confront them with your lying. I think you maybe forgot something or maybe, you know, you didn't, you didn't see. the list of all things

that are on the whatever the you get them a chance to weasel out of it yeah okay I like that okay great thanks for the suggestion Alan thank you Ellen keep listening

we're going to go to Beverly and she's a first time female callers from West Palm Beach welcome to the show Beverly thank you very much and I do want to say good morning to everyone good morning Beverly before we go on you won yourself

$50 stay on the line and give John in our control room your information and I'll get that checkout to you. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I have to purchase four new tires, and I am a senior citizen and do not want to be taken advantage of. Our tire dealers is crooked,

is automobile dealers, and have to be careful. I think Rick can take care of that. Well, I think on the commercial side, I think, let me address it. Beverly, new tires are sold about like new cars with a lot of extra fees, and you want to get an out-the-door price when your tires, just like you get an outdoor price when you buy a car. But the game that is played with tire dealers,

including new car dealerships and, you know, what's the big tire dealer, a tire kingdom. Tower kingdom, yep. When you go in there, in addition to the price of the tires, they charge you for they have road hazard insurance they have mounting and balancing fees I know I'm leaving things out

we shop tire kingdom a couple years ago and there were multiple multiple fees added on so you want to pick the tire that you want to buy you can go to consumer reports and decide the best tire for you and then you can shop that price like

you would shop a car and be sure you get on the phone before you go in what will I have to write a checkout for or give you my credit card? What's the full amount of those tires after you put them on my car? Oh, okay. I was wondering if you could recommend a good tire dealer in your area because I do live in the West Palm Beach area,

and maybe you know one that I could go that would not have to be worried about it? I don't have anything that comes to mind. it's tire dealers are a little bit like car dealers it's a culture and everybody does it this way it's just not fair i mean you walk into the public's and buy a loaf of bread they don't hit you with a bread fee or a public's fee they don't charge you for bread insurance i mean uh and it's just the culture of tire dealers very similar to car dealers and they all do it that way i don't know of a tire dealer, Firestone, Goodyear, Tire Kingdom. Rick, do you know a tire deal that's fair?

Costco. Probably, I was just about to say, probably the best one I would recommend is Costco, if you're a member. I'm so sorry, I should have said that. That's your favorite story, and I can't claim credit for that. That came from Steve watching our video on Facebook. He says, the only place to buy tires is Costco. Then somebody else chimed in. Oh, actually, Steve chimed in again.

BJs, too. Oh, fantastic. I almost dropped the ball there, Beverly. Costco, for sure. I don't know, you're in West Palm, so you're near a Costco. If you live in northern, north of here up in Martin and St. Lucie County, they don't have a Costco up yet, but there will be a Costco coming in. And Costco, prices on tires are so good that I, that's where I'd buy a tire if I didn't sell tires myself.

I mean, the tires are extremely reasonable. And let me chime in here. Beverly, you can't go wrong with Consumer Report and checking out. what they recommend and all the testing that they do on these tires, it's a sure-far way of purchasing the set of tires that you need for your vehicle. So go to Consumer Report. I will check all of that out because it does sound serious. Okay.

I'm not going exactly where is the best place to go. One little added footnote. I do thank you for your time. And I'll just talk to you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. And before we go to Rod, I just want to mention on Costco. They do something interesting.

I just, with tires, they give you free nitrogen when you buy your tires. Everybody does. Well, a lot of dealers charge for it. It's one of those little things. There's nobody perfect. I think Costco should not do this, but it's free. And they will give you a refill of nitrogen when you come back in. And the motive to that is to have you come back in so you'll buy something else at Costco.

Now, it's something Costco does that I'm not crazy. about, but in view of the rest of the industry is such a minor factor, I don't hold it against them. And it's free. It's free, exactly. Just takes your time, that's all. They love moving their inventory around because that gets you to purchase even more. So give us a call toll free.

We're going to get back to Stu in a couple of minutes. We still have more callers. A77960, or you can text us at 772-49-6530. We want to welcome you to the show, Rod. Good morning. Good morning. Correct me if I'm wrong. With the TV shows that you're talking about,

you've got a group of, let's say, five or seven people with the camera crew, all this. With Agent X, you've got one. Now, what if, what if with today's news and everything that's going on out there, What if Agent X gets, you know, does the confrontation? All of a sudden, Agent X goes out and two or four of the tires are slashed or something like this. You know, nobody knows how it happened. Nobody this, nobody does that. That's true.

The arrow of surprise is what you've got. My suggestion, keep it. Your Agent X, you're going to put him into, put him or her into jeopardy. Yeah. Right, you're right. And we think about it, and we talk about it. Agent X is a remarkable person. And he's highly trained in defense, combat techniques, so we're covered there.

He's very good. And we have had almost physical confrontation. We had one instance in Fort Lauderdale where he was trying to get the vehicle buyer's order a copy of it. And since then, we've resorted to taking pictures of it. but he was trying to get the vehicle buyer's order and the sales manager in a very aggressive manner confronted him and snatched it out of his hand stood over him stood over him in a very aggressive manner adrenaline began to pump yeah it was not yeah it was a little it wasn't cool he handles himself pretty well he's very seasoned yeah we we have as a matter of fact agent x we would like to be able to use

different shoppers we've talked oftentimes about having female shoppers we've talked we've talked about having elderly shoppers and very young shoppers. We want a cross-section of the different types of people, but to find someone with the stamina, courage, and knowledge of Agent X is very difficult, and he is. And the Hutzpah. You have to have, you have some bravery. I might check with you on becoming an Agent X if you want and desire. Well, we're looking for good agents all the time, and we would love to hear from you.

You can contact us. directly off the air. Or if you give John your contact information. Give John your contact information. And we would love to talk to you. It sounds to me like you've got a good grasp and understanding. You're watching the show. You understand the mystery shopping report.

And so, Rod, if you would love to come aboard, we'd love to have you. We reimburse you. We pay. We'll give you the details. We pay Agent X for his shops. Not nearly as much as he should pay for risking his life, but we pay him what we think is a fair amount. He does get the free vest. He gets the bulletproof.

He gets the bulletproof. Yeah, yeah. Rod, yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, now, maybe perhaps you just step it up a bit to where you do some follow-up, follow-up information personally or whatever, with the person that you, the dealer that you dealt with, to let them know that they were mystery shopped. And, you know, please take care of this staccata bag problem.

Yeah. Another great suggestion, and I've set it on the air, and I have more often than not drop the ball there. The dealers that we shop know what we do, and we hear about that through third parties all the time. We've been caught. I think one of the problems is, yes, we have been caught. they've recognized our shoppers and thrown us out of the store, not physically, but say,

we know that you work for Earl Stewart and we will not talk to you, get out of here. I think the dealers themselves, the general managers and the owners, they're trying to maintain deniability. And if they talk to me directly, then there goes to a deniability. We're saying some things that are pretty, you know, pretty serious. We're accusing dealers of doing things that are illegal, dishonest, of course, unethical, immoral, all the time. And the fact that they don't sue us is proof of that, and we've been doing it for 14 years. So for me to talk. You got it.

The dealers don't want to talk to me because they lose their deniability. Well, it's, you know, the old saying, ever since the first, the first, the first, the, First of times with mankind has been green, and people want to put food on the table, but they don't want to put just food on the table. They want a gold-plated table. Well, Ron, I love your attitude. I love your outlook, and you sound like a man that wants to do something about this situation with the car dealers taking advantage of people.

We love to talk. You'll leave your contact information, and we can call you, and we'll get together, maybe see if we can't do some work together. Love to have another agent X. I'll see you on the line. Okay, thanks, Rod. Give us a call again. Remember, your anonymousfeedback.com.

Your anonymous feedback.com. Voice your opinion. We're going to go back to Stu. He's got a lot of texts to share with us. And I'm really glad that Rod volunteered because it is getting tough. Our listeners might have noticed that our mystery shopping reports are getting farther and farther away from our studios. And that's a necessity because Agent X is, well, he's pretty well-known around town. Well, we thought about disguise, but that raises it to another level.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we, but I think volunteers from our listeners, Rod, you know, if we put something together with him, that would be great. Anyone out there that would like to apply for a job as a mystery jobber, we would have to tell you, we'll have to be fair to tell you right now. It takes a special type of person. So don't be unhappy or disappointed if we turn you down. And we have tried mystery shoppers that just fell apart. And it's tough. Yeah.

No, I mean, and you're not kidding. Literally. Yeah. The stress was too great. All right. So on our comments and texts, we have, well, going back to our conversation, we're talking about the visibility that you get when you're driving in an SUV. Our friend Steve on Facebook has a humorous comment talking to you.

He says, once in a while, well, I take my 944 for a ride, I have a hard time seeing over your Alexis. So, you know, it's all rail. You have little cars, you've got medium-sized cars and big cars, so that's pretty funny. Well, I find myself, you know, moving out of my lane sometimes to see who in front of me. You pull up to a stoplight, and you've got a left turn signal with something you're trying to look for. You can't see. You don't have the lights change. So that's not right for me to have to pull out of the lane.

And it's dangerous. That's why you put me on the hood recently. Exactly. You're the new hood or, you know, the cars in the future are going to communicate with each other. So maybe you'll see their camera view. Who knows? Hey, Beverly, if you're still listening, I have the buying guide for 2019 from Consumer Report.

Let me tell you the information that I just found about tires, you're going to love it. So pick up that Consumer Report, the buying guide for 2019, and they break it all down for you. It's not complicated. Very simple. Okay, back to Stu. We have another funny one.

I was listening when John from Palm City was talking. says, John reminding me, I loved your Caesar salad analogy last week, Rick and Pembroke Pines. Okay, here we have another one. This is from Sal and Hyalea, and Sal says, I don't trust all of these high-tech safety things. You can't rely on a machine or computer to do what man can do better. Beeps and buzzes will never replace eyes and ears. Sal and I can take it away. I can second that, and I'll criticize my own detail department at my car dealership.

When I have my car washed, sometimes they push the switch that turns off the proximity indicator or the lane indicator. You've got switches that can turn all these safety devices off. So if you take your car to a car wash or a detailed place and someone's not careful and they're wiping off your dash, they turn something off that you come to rely on. I told Nancy the other day we have some construction going in our neighborhood. And I backed out of the driveway the other day and I almost got hit. had some trucks on both sides my proximity indicator actually with my automatic braking indicator stop my car and when I stay actually I wonder what the hell's going on back and out of the

driveway my car stopped and this big truck went whizzing by yep if it hadn't stopped my car I'd have been toast yeah I'd have been teaboned what a story that would have been yeah but pretty bad what a story um and I will disagree a little bit with sound just saying you can't never computers will eventually replace us. They are faster, they are smarter, and they can do things like you're like the situation. You just, you just

computers don't have egos. Computers are going to follow the logic and it's all going to be straightforward, simple logic. Exactly. We're going to go straight to Glenn. Glenn's calling us from St. Louis. Welcome to the show. Megan, St. Louis. You said you weren't

going to say. I'm sorry. Hey, Glenn. Good morning. Good morning. I haven't called in a while, Earl. I called a few times about six months ago, and I want to thank you. I think I already did, but I think taking your advice, I saved a lot of money. Great.

And I recommended you to friends. Thank you. Number two, you and I have a couple things in common. We're both old goats. with pretty wives I'm not sure why that works out how that works out

personality and I've missed a lot of your programs I'm retired and so I don't always get up that early on a Saturday morning but recently I got a new puppy and he's two months old so I have no problems getting up at 6 o'clock here in St. Louis and just one thing

earlier I was listening and you were talking about And it just hit me. The automatic dimming of headlights for oncoming cars, my father had a 54 Chevy that would do that. Is that right? Wow. And it was a dealer car or a salesman's car. It was kind of a full-dress car. I don't know how my old man ever afforded it.

But it had a bubble on the dashboard, the size of a cantaloupe. I swear to God, all the way to the left, all the way to the left side of the dashboard, pointing out the windshield, and that's what would dim the headlights. Wow. It had power windows, which another thing you guys were talking about earlier is hooking up accessories, you know, hot or not. Well, power windows were always hot. and it was common for my father to come out to a dead battery when two of his sons would be in the car rolling up and down the power windows in the driveway.

So that's all I've got. I just had a flashback. You just gave me a flashback. In 1957, my father was a Pontiac dealer. I was still in high school. And the Pontiac came out with the first fuel-injected car. Pontiac Bonneville and they put some

fancy gadgets on there one of the gadgets they had in there it was a convertible they had a little plate on the hood of the car up close to the windshield and it was a sensor plate

so you could drive your convertible park your convertible go into the restaurant to get lunch and if it started to rain the raindrop would hit the sensor plate and raise the convertible roof wow now to this

This day, I think that would be a fabulous option on the car. Absolutely. In 1957, Pontiac Bonneville fuel injection had something like that. And this thing, you talk about the house on the Deming Lights on the 54 Chevrolet. It's amazing how far back great ideas existed. And today they, you know, back then it was probably too amazing for people to really understand. So, Glenn, from one old goat to another old goat. Thank you very much.

I found something full on that. Earl, you keep up the good word. Thanks, Glenn. Glenn has a very distinctive voice, I recall him calling in the past. And thank you so much for giving us a call from St. Louis 877960. And you can text us at 772-4976530. We're going to go back over to Stu. We're cleaning up the text.

And by the way, I googled the self-dimming headlight on the 54 Chevy. And apparently they called it the. Autronic I, A-U-T-R-O-N-I-C-I. Wow. So if you can find the Bonneville, fuel-injected Bonneville sensor plate for raising the curatable top. I will check it out. I was Googling Bonneville the other day. I remember the Bonneville I stole when I was 12 years old, your car.

Well, this was the first Bonneville. Oh, boy. This was the first Bonneville. The truth comes out. 1957 was the first Bonneville, and then after that they used a nameplate, but the first Bonneville was fuel injected. the first fuel-injected car was a period. Pretty cool. Yeah.

We have a question. This is anonymous question. I just heard you talk about light bulbs being LED now. I have noticed they are making them look like the older ones that look a lot like a light bulb without the tubular round look. So as long as they say they're LED. So they don't have the tubular look correct. Did I hear you correctly? they can LED is I'm guessing what they're asking is the shape of the headlight I think he's talking about all LEDs and I think he's talking about probably you can put a screw an LED into the lamp

that you have in home that looks like an incandescent lamp and I think that just make people feel more comfortable when the LEDs first came out they had that squiggly thing people didn't like that I guess and so then they They emulated the incandescent because people were used to buying those.

Yeah, I think that's what he's talking. Yeah, the LED lights, they're very small, so a lot of times when you see them, there's a series of lights in a row. Right. And they don't look exactly like your traditional headlights. They can actually make them a lot smaller, so you're going to see a lot more kind of cooler, more futuristic looks on the headlights. But they're bright.

They're great. They're more efficient than any other light bulb that we've ever used on a car before. They are. Okay, where are we now? Are we caught up on text? We're caught up on text, comments, questions, and callers. Okay. We've got 926 on the clock.

We're going to be coming up in discussing that, well, a doozy of a mystery shopping report from Fort Lauderdale. That's Greco. Greco, Greco. Fort Lauderdale. Our old friends. Yes. I did get one anonymous. We strike again.

Check. I'll read the anonymous as just came in. Hello, World. We recently opened up the new lobby. No, that's from the dealership. Oh, dealership? Yeah, that's an internal question. Oh, internal.

Okay. Yeah, we have anonymous feedback from everybody, and it's a lot of fun. Yeah, remember, your anonymousfeedback.com. We would love to hear from you, and you do remain anonymous. Your anonymousfeedback.com. Give us a call, toll free at 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 7752-724. 497-6530. Remember, we want you to be part of that mystery shopping report.

Let us know how you feel about it by grading that report. Here's a little tidbit before I get in the mystery shopping report. I've been bringing this to the radio show for three weeks, and I never got to it. So I'll just pick it up. It's from the ARP magazine. I get ARP. In fact, everybody except Rick in the studio gets ARP, including Stu. You only have to be 13 to get ARP, I think.

I keep lowering the age. But what it says here is art members who switch save $482 when they switch from GEICO. They save $571 in insurance premium when they switch from Allstate and they save $427 when they switch from State Farm. Now, that's a little bit misleading. I'm sure it's true, and I'm sure that the ARP insurance program is a good insurance program. But what the advertisement really tells you is anybody that switches insurance companies is probably going to save money. Absolutely. Napier, our collision repair expert, who comes on about once a month now, used to be on every week,

always reminded this that insurance companies, auto insurance companies, collision, liability, will raise your premium, a little bit every year, and the longer you stay with them, the more they sneak it up on you. Meanwhile, they could be actually lowering premiums to their other clients, but their loyal clients, counterintuitively, are paying more money. Now, this is a dirty little secret for big insurance. Listen carefully. If you're loyal to your auto insurance company and you haven't changed your insurance, haven't shopped it, you're paying a lot of money too much.

And you can save $3,000 or $5,000, maybe $1,000 in annual premium if you just shop it and compare. Trust me. So three of the largest insurers, Daico, Allstate, State Farm, if you have an insurance from one of those or another one, call these other ones, say, what is my premium, you will save money. And if Alan was sitting here, he would say he would remind everybody, they are not your friends. No. That is not your friend. It's always best to check.

And for the people that have been with a company, auto insurance forever, what a big mistake, huge mistake. So check that out. Go out there and shop your auto insurance. Very important. Remember I said earlier that you can vote on the mystery shopping report because we would love to have your input. You know, we tease about the mystery shopping report. And the truth be told, there's a whole lot of work that's put into it. And Stu, the mystery shopper, just everyone that's involved in this ordeal.

And we keep going further south for a whole lot of reasons, as Stu pointed out earlier. So it's real important that we hear from you this morning for you to vote on the mystery shopping report from Fort Lauderdale. And we did tell you earlier, I'll tell you again, that's Griego. Before we go to the Mr. Shopping Award, we have another text. We do. It is from Gene and Tampa. Can I take my car to a dealer to find out what's in the black box? I would like to know what my daughter did to my car.

She said she drove it normally and didn't abuse it. It's running rough, and I don't believe her. Oh, oh. Sorry, don't get to laugh. The dealer can't tell you what's in the black box. Oh, yes, we can. Oh, is that we here? The dealer can only tell you if the manufacturer authorizes it.

Nope. There are now certain operations of the car that are available to us now, including information on how the car has been driven. Now, this has only come out for about the last two to three model years. Are you speaking for all cars or just Toyota? Well, I know Toyota for a fact, but I'm pretty certain a lot of the others are going to have this as well. where we can see vehicle operation history, such things as wide-open throttle. In other words, did they floor that pedal right down?

Let me jump in and answer the question before you continue. I bet Stu knows all about that. He has a house filled with teenagers. I think there are privacy issues here, and even if, in first place, I think that most manufacturers will not allow you access to that. Toyota is the exception for some of the information, but I'm sure there's still privacy issues, and I think that you can try to take it to your dealer,

and I think the answer you will get is it's a matter of privacy that we cannot. Well, here's what I'm sorry to interrupt. I think that if there is an issue, a mechanical problem with their car, and you take it to a dealer, if it is a Toyota, I don't know if it is, they don't specify, and they hook it up the computer, and they see, well, this car was, it's her car. So, yeah, maybe they can say this was driven roughly, I don't know. Who knows?

I think, I'm sure it's a legal, it's a legal privacy issue. But if it's her own car? If it's her own car, then that's a different story. But I still think that there are things that the manufacturers restrict seeing. And I'm glad that Toyota has become. more transparent in that, but the fact that most people aren't even aware of the black boxes and the guards, and they're not aware of what if they do measure, insurance companies are also putting black boxes in the cars with the consent of the owners.

So I think the consent and knowledge of the owner is where the privacy comes in, and I don't think they're designed to find out if your teenage daughter is speeding, and I think that's where you might find a problem. Yeah, exactly. Through my own experience with a Sequoia, I was told how that vehicle was driven, and I was told by the mechanic, and it was really abused. Okay. And that was the reason for the condition of it. Yeah.

Before we move on to the shopping report, Howard had asked about the battery charging packs, and I have a recommendation because I have a great one I got on Amazon. And it's the Anchor PowerCore $10,000. and you can get on Amazon doc that's about 40 bucks and it's great and you can charge your phone faster than you can if you plug it into the outlet anchor anchor a N-K-E-R power core 10,000 great great little tool great and the other thing I started to say when Howard was talking about that is you can just have a little power charger in your car which you automatically plug your phone into every time you get in the car I find my phone charges faster on my car than it does and a wall out of it.

So if you just get into the reflex action, every time you drive anywhere, plug your phone in. That's what I did. I automatically do that because I've got the Apple CarPlay. And when you plug in, that way it connects up and I'm running the Apple CarPlay and charging my phone at the same time. Exactly. Okay, let's move on to the Mystery Shopping Report.

And we have shopped Grieco, Ford of Fort Lauderdale. Am I pronouncing Grico, right? I think it's Greco. Reco. But I say Greco. Yeah, G-R-I-E-C-L. Grico or Greco, Fort or Fort of Fort Lauderdale. We cast a wide net in our search for Takata cars all over the state of Florida, actually.

The current record holder for the longest distance mystery shop is Alan Turner Hyundai in Pensacola. That's a long way away. Agent X, I think, had to go up there on personal business. Yeah. And then he volunteered as long as he was up there. Now, that's dedication. He is dedicated. To the mystery shop in Pensacola.

700 miles away. This week, we didn't go quite that far to find a used car with a defective to cut air bag. But it was still a good distance away from our studios here in Palm Beach Gardens. We located our target vehicle, a 2007 Cadillac Escalade at Greco Ford and Fort Lauderdale. Our mystery shopping team has investigated the Grieco dealerships about a half a half a house. Half a dozen times over the years, without getting into a whole lot of detail, suffice to say there are no Grico dealerships on our recommended car list. It's even worse now because Grico has attained more dealerships south.

And the further south you go in Florida, the worse it gets. And I don't mean in terms of anything except car dealership morals, ethics. It's the Wild West down there. It's the Wild West. The car dealerships, the further. Before you go, Martin County, Fort St. Lucie, even Orange County. Maybe not Orange. Orange is a big, it's a big city thing.

I think the more dealers and the more congested they are, the more the wild-wales exist. So here we are all the way down in Fort Lauderdale. Time and time again, they failed to get passing grades for consistently using old-school high pressure sales. tactics and deceptive advertising. They've also failed every tecata test. Think about that. Four tecata test, and they fail all of them. So we thought it would be best if we returned to Grico, gave them one more chance to do something right.

The 2007 Escalade, we found, had a rare no-fix passenger side to cut air back. And it's getting pretty rare. Yeah. We used to see a lot of those. and literally you have a car here, 2007, and that's a seven or eight-year-old. That's a good Lord. Ten or eleven-year-old car, yeah, at least. Ninthens or an 11-year-old car that can't be fixed.

I mentioned Mary Barris, the CEO General Motors, and I was praising her for being a great CEO. But I'll just address her kind of as a dramatic thing. I wish you were listening to this, or someone knows her. Here's a Cadillac Escalade from your company that's been on the road for 11 years with a dangerous airbag that can explode and kill people. And Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, how can you allow something like that to happen? And how can I accuse you of being responsible? If we can find it, why can't you find it?

You have access to all the computers, all the dealers, You have the NHTSA database. Yeah, a lot more money than we do. You have a lot more money. You could find every Cadillac Escalade and at least notify the dealer that had it, the customer that was driving it. You should have found this before we did. Anyway. In the position that she's in, most definitely I agree with you.

I mean, my hat is off to her to be the first female, the first female CEO in this global auto. world and she is in the position of authority so here we got this 2007 escalate with a dangerous Tacana airbag that you can't fix it and it's advertised and it's for sale

it's important to note that this SUV has spent all 11 years of his existence in the hot and humid climate of South Florida I guess we got that off Carfax yeah so for its 11 year history it doesn't start out in Massachusetts, been in Florida for 11 years.

P, humidity, the worst possible things to cause this ammonium nitrate which is the explosive accelerant to degrade. And I'm amazed that Agent X got in this car

and drove it. He volunteered? Making me feel guilty. I mean, I'm the one sent him into combat. That is true. Something happened. To age you next, I would never forgive myself. We need to think about that in the future. Okay, here's a report.

It's been quite a while since I found it to God. I was speaking in the first person as if I were age you next. He could just refuse the test drives going forward. Yeah. Yeah. This could go hand at hand with, was it Rod's suggestion or Alan? One of our callers said confront the person. and maybe H&X could have said, you know, after asking him multiple times, is this a safe car?

And being assured that it was a safe car. Call him out. Get right up to the car and say, I'm not going to get in that car. Yeah. And you know why? Because I'm a mystery shopper, and I will not risk my life. Why are you risking your customer's lives? There you go.

I think you could do that without revealing himself. What happens when you walk into a dealership and you have this form and you say, listen, I'd like you to sign. this telling me that this car is safe for me to drive and putting it right in front of them. Or just saying, yeah, put it in writing. You're saying it's safe? I'm seeing an airbag recall. Please put it in writing. There's no risk to my safety.

Give me the okay. Sign right here. Very good. Great idea. Will that piece of paper stop the shrapnel from the inflator? He still has to refuse the test drive. I'm hoping it would plant a seed to the person, and I use a term loosely. I can't say what he is on the air.

but that person is trying to sell that car. I have another thought. Agent X puts on a flack helmet and a Kevlar vest before he gets in. It doesn't say anything. Full combat attire. Yeah. I'm here to test drive this car. I love it.

Now we're laughing about it because of me. Yeah, but you got to get, people need to get the visual that it is, I mean, that would protect you. And that's probably the only thing that would protect you. The visual. Maybe. Not your face, though. Maybe it would. It's not going to cover everything

You'd need a full bomb suit Yeah, well, we can't cover everything Let's not get too technical, Rick, thank you. Zero Dark 30. That's going to be my costume for Halloween. Anyway, I'm going to dress me on. I'm on my way down. I spoke with a woman in the Business Development Center,

BDC, all car dealers have them, named Olive, unusual name. Nice name. Checked her computer for me that the 2007 escalade was at the dealership. I asked her if the line price... Online, I'm sorry. Typo, online price.

Online price. Of 13,787 was correct. She said yes. She told me to head right to the receptionist and ask for Leo. Another unusual name. At least I think it's in, well... We got a Leo. Traffic wasn't too bad. I made the trip

in a little under an hour. I followed all these instructions. I arrived at some receptions for Leo. Unfortunately, though, wasn't available. The receptions told me he was with the customer. So she called a manager. He introduced himself as the floor manager. Didn't give his name.

Hello, I'm the floor manager. And he scanned the showroom, called out for Ed. It always amazes me the number of people. I'm counting right now. I just... Olive, Leo, Ed, okay. All of Leo, Ed. There's a, there's a trend.

in the auto retail business toward, they call it one person, one customer, where the customer stays with the same person through the entire process. And when you read these mystery shopping reports,

you can understand the frustration that the typical car buyer has. They go from Olive to Ed, the foremanager, to... Leo. And you're just bouncing around,

and that's part of the... I mean, just imagine doing that with anything. You go to buy a phone in a store, and you expect to 6. people before you can buy the milk at public and you've got the milk manager to talk to George bringing in the cow head came running over and the floor manager left us I told that about

the car I'd seen online and he often checked to see if they still had it I told olive that it was there but he said he'd better check the keys computer's wrong a lot he left to find the keys I was feeling a little aggregated fully expecting him to come back tell me the vehicle was sold A few minutes later, to my delight, I saw Ed walking toward me, Keeson, and smiling. We walked outside, found the big white Cadillac SUV, and the window sticker displayed a price of $17,289. That was a lot more than what the online price was. Made a little middle note. Ed popped the hood, the rear hatch, opened all the doors.

We walked around the car, climbed around the interior. here. It talked the whole time, like a typical salesman. I commented on things, I commented on things here and there telling him what I thought was nice and what wasn't so nice. The car was in decent shape, for the age. The biggest cosmetic issue was a badly cracked dashboard. The tire pressure sensor lights were still on. I pointed out the damage dash. Now remember, folks, this is an 11-year-old car. Asked about the tire pressure sensors, Ed said. those stayed on because the vehicle had aftermarket wheels.

That's a reasonable explanation. That will happen. I asked if they would fix the dashboard. He said he'd seen the same thing on a lot of escalades. He speculated there might be a recall. There probably was recall. Probably no longer a recall. And he said if there was GM would fix it, probably not, but maybe.

All speculation. But something you commonly see on. A lot of cars, just as a slight digression, because I've got a little bit of time. The dashboards failed on many, many cars. And the dashboard manufacturers, a little bit like the take out of the airbag, except not dangerous.

The dashboards cracked, faded, reflected, melted, and they were on cars all over the world. For a while, the manufacturers fixed them, and they stopped fixing them. And you will see older cars today with these bad dashboards just because they built a lot of them. We went for a very brief test. I had caution that the escalade was low on fuel.

Back at the dealership, Ed, began by trying to get me to finance with Greco, aka Greco. I played along for a while, going back and forth, listening to him, tell me all about advantages financing through the dealership. And as I've told you before on the show, you make more money financing a car, cartier than you do selling the car. The advantage is to Greco. Yeah, a huge advantage is to Greco. I finally stopped him.

My credit was pretty bad. That'll stop them, dead. And I was comfortable with my decision to go through my credit union. I asked about accidents and safety. Question number one, it showed me a car factory report. He showed me the summary at the top of the report, no accidents. Nothing else on the report. He said there were no safety issues and reminded me again they wouldn't offer it for sale.

If there were, affirmation number two, that this car is perfectly safe. If Ed pivoted back to the deal, said he would ask his manager, Marcos, another name. Marcos might have been the floor manager. To put the numbers together from, he asked me if everything looked good. Would I be driving home today? A pre-closed trial close. I said I would if they looked really good. Wait a long time for Ed to return, 15 minutes.

He had a buyer's order printed out for me. I was expecting to see the sticker price of 17-289. But instead, I was happily surprised they had the original online price, $13,987. I looked a little further down the buyer's order, and my happiness faded. Now, if you just tuned in for the True Oldies Channel, we're shopping, G-C-G-R-I-E-C-O-R-I-E-C-O-Ford of Fort Lauderdale. I look to look forward down. the buyer's order in my habit fit, here we go. Adding to the selling price, added to the selling price,

was $199 for Zurich Shield, an exotic name for a totally worthless wax that they put on cars and charge you way too much money for. $199 for Zurich Shield, $799. Dealer fee. Do they actually call it a dealer fee? Let me look at this document here.

Dealer fee has become generic. Yes, they call it a dealer fee. It's a rarity to call a dealer fee a dealer fee, but they did call the dealer fee, the dealer fee. And then we had $132.95 an $0.95 electronic filing fee and a $79 private tag agency. All of that are all dealer fees. And if you add them all up with a Zurich shield, you're looking at $1,209.95, an added profit to the customer. hidden added profits to the dealer I should say added costs to the customer

sure does look legitimate though it does look legitimate I objected to the Zurichield and all three dealer fees Ed said there wasn't anything he could do he said Zerg shield was a special wax they put on in detail he couldn't remove it so we had to charge

for it I was a pressure let me understand that that's a permanent wax. Of course, I'm being facetious. I asked how he could screw around with me like this. He wouldn't fix the broken dash

for the pressure sensors and thought I would pay $200 for a coat of wax. I wasn't pleasant about it and I got a little loud. Marco, the manager, must have heard because it was suddenly there changing places in the desk with Ed. Just a little aside here.

Confrontation. One of the reasons that mystery jobbers have a difficult time and why customers, real customers like you listening have a difficult time. People don't like confrontation. And

it's very rare that a customer would do what Agent X does, confront them. But you'll see that confrontation does work. And Agent X confronted Marcos and Ed and here's what happened. Marco was slick

and he addressed each concern I'm sorry. Marco acknowledged that I was upset, asked what he could do to earn my business. I said I had a few big problems, the dashboard, the bogus add-ons, and the recall I saw on the Airfax on the Carfax report that no one else seems to think is a big deal. Marcos was slick, and he addressed each concern. Real parole. He would remove the charge for the Zerge Shield. Bam, confrontation works. There goes to Zerg Shield for $200. And he would let me enjoy. their protection and no guns there is no protection

he said he would pay for a dashboard mat to hide the ugly cracks it's maybe a door mat put something his handkerchief put it over

I mean they make them customized but that's not yeah finally he said the airbag issue can be easily fixed and for free easily fixed for free

at any Cadillac dealership now there's a blatant lie Eventually in the future, that might be true. May be true. May be true. So there is a slick manager, a lying manager. Because it says right on the Carfax report, no fix available.

I said I need time to think about it and that I need to go home. Marco seemed hurt and confused. He got all serious, said that Ed had assured him that we had a deal, that he had solutions for every issue. I raised. He wanted to know what the problem was. I told him that taking off $199 and putting on a carpet mat, putting a carpet mat on a dash, didn't exactly address all my concerns. He wanted to know specifically what my other concerns were. I said, I didn't want to play the game.

Marco wanted to know what the game was and asked me to specify my objections to the deal. I said, I didn't want to pay all the dealer fees, and I wanted a real repair on the dash. I stood up and said, I had to go, Marco said, okay, said he would call me. tomorrow personally. He would speak to Mr. Greco, or perhaps Greco, himself, about taking off the fees and fixing in the dash. I ran down my car. Actually, it was more of a walk.

Last walk. Last walk. Now, this car dealer and this closer has done an outstanding job in the eyes of most car dealers. The car dealers listening to this will be calling Marco because he is a great closer. under the old system. He really knows how to work the customer. And most customers would have succumbed to what Marco did. I guarantee you that Grico Ford sells a lot of cars, and Marco sells a lot of cars.

Absolutely. And that is the old school. You just saw a perfect personification of old school car selling. There you have it. You also saw one of the worst Takado violations we've seen, especially in view of the fact that we've been doing. this and hammering it on the air for so long. And here is a lie

about a car that could explode at your face, kill you, maim you, and we were lied to, implied and told directly that this car could be fixed by another Cadillac dealer. Cadillac can't fix the car. There's no fix available.

Pretty bad, folks, and I'm not going to prejudice. This is like I usually do in the mystery shopping report. We have some scores coming in. I see Stu writing on the sheet over there so we can start with our online scores the mystery shopping board how do you rate Grico Ford and Fort Lauderdale how do you rate what happened here

with the total picture of the purchase of this 11 year old Cadillac Escalatis QV well they're coming in I have one two three four five so far all Fs all Fs everybody's failing it and what can I say I guess we need to go around the room here and Studio, do you want to start out?

I'm going to give me an A. No, I'm kidding. Sorry. Yeah, this is, this was an easy one. Sometimes we, you know, we attempt to balance the, you know, talk about grading on the curve. But when it's this blatant, it's, there's no other grade except for an F, I guess. Yes, absolutely. Yep, Jeff, Jeff chimed in on Facebook with an ad.

A big fat F, I like that. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and score. I want to know why Olive and Leo and Ed and Marco are still employed, and I'd like the doors to be closed at a great in Fort Lauderdale, and that's it. Well, they're not going to fire Marco because he's a great sales manager. He's a great sales manager, and any dealer down there would love to have Marco. He's a good closer, and that's the sad state of affairs with the way cars are sold today. Rick?

Dropping the F-bomb. Careful if we're on the air. Tiche. Yeah, it's sad. And Stu mentioned this before. and in the report I told how we were going further and further away to find Ticada Airbag violations and part of the reason we do that is because the dealers

in Palm Beach County, Martin and St. Lucie County, that we regularly shop are aware of what we're doing. Fort Lauderdale, the signal for 95.9 FM probably doesn't reach that far. So that's the reason I think things are a lot worse there. Thank you so much. This is Earl Stewart on cars. We want to thank you for joining us right here at the Old East Channel. We'll be back next week.

Have a wonderful weekend.