Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.03.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Audi of Coral Springs

Episode Date: December 3, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels south to the Fort Lauderdale area to visit Audi of Coral Springs and see how much they will charge for a new 2022 Audi A4 sedan. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Here we are back live in the studio in North Palm Beach, Florida. That's in North America. We're in an international situation here with our daily, not daily, but our weekly show. on how not to get ripped off by a car dealer. Been doing it a long, long time. Audience is growing. We're doing live video as we speak with Facebook.

Facebook.com forward slash Roland Cars. In case you didn't know that in your radio, you want to see us in living color in the studio here. Tune us in. We're in a time that is unusual in the whole history of the auto industry, both retail and wholesale. There's not a week goes by, then there are not some major changes.

We're coming out of this COVID, I call it a COVID high. It's been a uniquely prosperous time for car dealers. You'd think, well, with all the shortages, supply chain shortages, what with the microchips and all the other parts that go into a car, that are in short supply worldwide.

It wouldn't be such a good time for cartels. But the way it worked is, yes, the cars were cut down on production considerably. There's not nearly as many cars as there normally as. We're operating, well, right now we're operating pretty good. It's around 15,000 annual rate. But we're coming down, and the prices soared to the highest retail prices for automobiles ever in the retail history of automobiles. And now it's coming down, and things are slowly, slowly returning normal.

So I hope you're interested in this phenomenon because opportunities lie ahead for you right now. You're going to be able to buy a car much less. The latest forecast I heard was on CNBC, the Finance Channel, and it was forecast that we would be back to supply equals demand in the third quarter of 2003. Now that sounds like a ways off, but remember

that's back. We're coming down now and we see it. We're an automobile dealer family and we have a car dealership, a Toyota dealership of North Palm Beach. So we see in real time what's coming down. We're actually starting to build an inventory. We

had zero inventory before. Now we have probably, I'm going to guess, 35, 40 cars on the lot. We've had fewer cars on the lot for a long time. We had no cars

because we had a very large order bank. Why? Well, we were the lowest-priced toilet dealer anywhere that we know of because we capped our price at MSRP. Now, if you hadn't stayed on top of things and you just heard a car dealer say, we're keeping the prices down to MSRP, you probably were shocked. Yes, if you've been in a coma for three years and you just came out of your coma, MSRP is a bargain price

for a new car in anywhere in the world. I started to say America, but if you could buy a car at MSRP without any hidden fees and without any dealer installed options and accessories and all the other surprises that we see weekly on this show, it's a bargain. And now we're not there yet, but we have, as I say, my dealership capped it at MSRP, and that's the reason we're sitting with right now over 2,000 new Toyotas on order waiting to come in. Why? Because people can't buy them anywhere else for that little.

The people that do buy the cars are buying the cars at X number of thousands of dollars over MSRP plus dealer installed accessories plus hidden fees in the amount of, depending on the region of the country. South Florida, the average is probably $1,500 in hidden fees, multiple electronic filing fee, tag agency fee, administrative fee, prep fee. The number of names that they attach to the hidden fee in Florida is only limited by the imagination of the dealer. Florida law, Ashley Moody and her preceding attorney generals in Florida, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they would let card dealers call their hidden fees anything they want. So card dealers are pretty clever.

They try to come up with names that sound like government fees, like sales tax. So they use tag agency fee and doc fee and what else? Electronic filing fee. That's one of their favorites. Anyway, here we are returning very, very slowly to normal. And I had a call yesterday from a reporter from the Wall Street Journal on this subject. And we discussed, I was on the phone with her for at least 45 minutes, that we talked about what we're doing in our particular dealership to relearn how to sell cars,

relearn how to deal with competition and how we should price the cars and how. It's going to be a different world in about a year for everybody in the car business. It won't happen overnight. It'll happen slowly. So here we are to answer your questions. By the way, a key member of the staff here, my son, Stu, Stewart. He's actually Earl Stewart III, but we call him Stu. Stu has had a problem with his back, a serious problem with his back. He's right now in a walker. He's not here.

Hi, Stu. I hope you're listening. I hope you feel better. But he's a key member of the team, and he's the one that normally handles the text and Facebook postings. We'll double up with Rick Kearney here, and Nancy will kick in, and she's taking some of the load-off stew what he normally does. Our mystery shopping report, by the way, Stu normally writes that up and we didn't get that today. We have the rough notes, but

we're going to get by. We're going to have a very interesting report and we'll talk about it later in the show. We do the mystery shopping report in about the last half hour of the show. We're here from 8 to 10, Eastern Standard Time. And that's two hours. We have plenty of time.

If you possibly can call the show we'd love to have you call we prioritize callers we prefer callers now don't you texters and amount of feedbackers and Facebook posters

and YouTube posters don't take offense we love you too some are very very best smart as people are doing the YouTube or the Facebook but something about the sound of the phone call

the personality and the voice the real time kind of exchange that you can't match Nancy Stewart, my co-host, sitting to my left here, she has her laptop right in front of her, and when she sees that phone call come in, we have Jeremy in the studio,

and Jeremy will tell Nancy that Joe Doe from Paducah, Kentucky, is going, and she knows that, and we stop what we're doing, and we go to the phone calls. If we're on a phone call, we try to move it along, if we have to, to get to the next phone call. So if you will call 877-960-960, we'd very much appreciate that. We consider your questions and your thoughts and your comments the heart of the show. We can yack you.

I'm probably the number one yacker. I love to talk. I love to share my great knowledge with all you folks out there. But everybody does. That's human nature. We all do that. But we'd rather hear you say, hey, I got a new Honda cord, and did I pay too much money for it? What is this notary and closing fee that I got charged?

Or it's going, it smells like Limburger cheese. Is that a serious problem? And if you have a diagnostic problem, who do you call? Rick Kearney. He monitors YouTube. So, or you can call on this number. Now, we're probably going to give the number out so much. You're going to hate it.

If you're going to listen to the whole show, you're probably going to hear this number way too often. I apologize at advance. Here it comes again. 877-960-960. Please write it down. I know you don't have a question right now. We know that people listen to the show for about 15 minutes, and then they tune out. And some people don't listen at all for the first hour or so, and they tune in.

So people come and going, the ab and flow. If you're flowing or aband, if you write the number down and you don't have time to call now, you'll probably want to call later. 877-960-9960. We have a unique way to breaches. A student normally monitors this. I will monitor that today.

It's an anonymous feedback way to get hold of it. It's a way to talk to us and we don't know who you are. It's like the anonymous tip line to the police. We don't know who you are. We can't find out who you are. We don't want to find out who you are. So you can say it your way. You can say it the way you want to say it.

We'll have to censor out four letter words and other profanities, but we will get the essence of your message across, I promise you. And that anonymous feedback way is a website. That's Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And there's the old-fashioned text line. Yep. I prefer text.

I know Rick and Jonathan and Nancy and I, we all probably text more than we call, but if you prefer that, that text number is code 772-497-6530. That's 772. 497-6530. So that's where we stand right now. We don't have any calls yet, or Nancy would have thrown a match stick at me or something.

She doesn't smoke. Why did I say match stick? I don't know. But I'm going to turn the mic over at Nancy because a very critical part of our show are the female listeners. And our job and Nancy's primary job is to turn female listeners into female listeners. callers because we know that you look at life a little differently you look at purchasing a little differently you look at a lot of things a little different you're females Viva deference right we love the difference and

where you respect your purchasing power and your influence on the auto industry car dealerships if they don't think you're very important are nuts because half the business comes from you what do you think about out when you buy a car. What do you wish people did differently? Here's your source right now, Nancy Stewart, and you can call her at 877-960, and she's got a super offer. Nancy, hit them with an incredible offer we have for the ladies. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. You know, we're here to inspire and motivate women, and I think that we've done a pretty good job. Ladies, But this morning, I'd like to offer you $50 for the first two new lady callers.

$50 for the first two new lady callers. Just give us a call at 877-9-60-99-60. And also to the ladies that have called and haven't received their check that was brought to my attention this past week, If you'll give me a call at 561-386-6-6-4-98, I can get your contact information, or you could give the studio a call and talk to Jeremy in the control room at 877-960. We have a great mystery shopping report to get to. Thanks to Agent Lightning, and Agent Lightning, I thank you for... Well, what you did for me this morning. I hope that you're sitting back and enjoying the show.

Agent Lightning went out to Adi Coral Springs. So you want to stay tuned for that. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Text number 772-4976530. Now back to the recovering. Cardio, oh, in case you're tuning in, Stu, good morning to you, and I hope you're feeling a little better this morning.

We're thinking of you. Okay, I didn't hear that last part. Do we ever call her? Oh, okay. Oh, we just, you're a mind reader. I am. You're a psychic. We're going to go to the phones where we have Howard calling.

Howard is a regular caller from Jupiter and Rick we have you on hold and we'll be right with you. Good morning, Howard. Good morning for you all. I have a question about next year's model. According to Rhin, though, next year's Camry should be different because it's after the five-year time where the model has changed. So I want to know what next year's Camry will look like?

What was the question? What was it? What was it? He's asking what we think the next year Camry is going to look like. Gosh, you know, when Toyota keeps a secret, they keep it from everybody. And actually, car dealers find out about

some of these new developments after the media gets hold of it. The media, some of the automotive, especially in the media, they devote all their time to sneaking in, climbing over fences and seeing what's going on in Japan and all over the world. And it's a great scoop when they can find out something like that. So I usually read about the new Camry in the newspaper, or that's an old-fashioned way to do it.

I see it on Facebook, I guess, or Instagram. But we don't know. They keep a secret. It'll leak out. It may have already leaked out, to be honest with you. Have you seen a... I have not seen any pictures yet. Who knows?

Probably not going to see a whole lot of body changes. It seems like all cars nowadays are kind of keeping that same general body shape. I'm sure there will be a few design changes, some different lines here and there. But I kind of like to wait and see. I like to be surprised by it. Howard, I think what's going on also today in this unique time. I think a lot of the brain power, engineering science power, for all the automotive manufacturers, including Toyota, is aimed at how are we going to get an electric vehicle, how are we going to get an autonomous vehicle.

And in terms of the way it was in the old days, go way back, you know, to the big tail fins and the chrome, and now we're getting into, you know, elegant, sharp-looking design. I think a lot of that focus will be devoted to the fact that if you don't have an electric vehicle in 10 years, you're out of business. Toyota particularly kind of got caught with their pants down there. They focus too heavily on hydrogen fuel cells. And I know the argument is still going on about hydrogen fuel cells, but I think the argument's been lost. I think that the electric vehicle is the name of the game. toilet's playing catch-up right now.

They're not worried about what the new camera looks like. Okay. Thank you very much for the information. Thank you very much, I appreciate to go. Yeah, thanks for tuning in, Howard. We're going to go to Rick and Stewart. Good morning, Rick. Hi, good morning, everybody.

Quick question. I am in the market for a car. I've been looking around. I've gone to a few dealers. And it's a really terrible experience. I mean, I had more fun getting a colonoscopy that'd go and look for a new car. I mean, okay, so now I know you, you mentioned many times about the dealer prets fee

and how that's just a bunch of BS. So now, do you, what, could you tell me what fees exactly that I should look at the guy and say, I'm not paying that because I know it's a bunch of bull? So what fees exactly would you go with that? Rick, I don't recommend you take that tech because they're trained on this because a lot of people now are saying that exact same thing and in fact in some dealerships the of the fees that they charged the hidden fees are baked in they the salesperson has no control over them that's pretty much the case in every dealership salespeople

don't get paid on this and the dealer whatever you want to call it's on filing fee tag agency fee dealer fee dealer prep fee they that should be that's profit to the dealer. And normally the salespeople get paid 25% of the profit. They don't get paid on the hidden fees. So they don't, if they take that hidden fee off, if they were to do that, which they won't. But if they did, they would be losing 25% of that fee. So if it's a $1,000 fee and they get, I have a 25% commission, by taking that fee off, saved you $1,000, cost them $250.W.W. be an ain't going to happen.com so the person but are they are they itemized are these fees itemized when you signed your contract could you say low what is this could you question what what is this fee was that or they just melt it into the price are they itemized it varies from dealership to dealership there are some dealerships the most the most underhanded the most devious dealerships you don't see the hidden fees until you're in the finance office most dealerships will

have them on their worksheet, which is not a legal document, and they tell you that in the fine print, it's the worksheet. And so they put them out there, but they're disguised to look like government fees. So if you spot something that's obviously an extra fee, my approach is this. Now, I would say the salesperson, if I'm Rick, I say, I see these extra fees you have here. You said hidden fee, there's actually probably an average of three hidden fees. If you find one, you haven't found them all. There's one or two more. I say you charge as many of these hidden fees as you want.

But I want the bottom line out-the-door price. And the way I define that out-the-door price is a price that I can write you a check for, sign a check, hand it to you, get in that car, and take it home without anything else. And oftentimes, in addition to hidden fees, they're adding dealer-installed accessories. They'll put nitrogen in the tires. They'll put window tent. They'll put pinstripes.

They'll put mud guards. I mean, they'll put thousands of dollars of crap on the car and expect you to pay it. So keep your fees, keep your dealer-installed accessories, anything you want. I want your out-the-door price. Then I'm going to go to your competition, and I'm going to ask them if they can meet the price

or beat the price. That way you don't get into the weeds where you're hearing arguments, well, legally I have to charge you this fee, otherwise I couldn't charge any customer of the fee, or I have no control over it. You're playing their game when you argue about the fee. Stick to that one phrase,

out-the-door price. Okay, so if I go to Earl Stewart Toyota because I'm looking for a Tacoma, are your salesmen already versed in your style of selling where they're not going to, you know, try to, you know, con you know, con you into these fees? Absolutely.

Our salespeople are not paid on the commission. They don't get a commission based on the price of the car. I set the price of the car. Every one of my new cars I price at MSRP. I have no additional fees. I have no dealer-installed accessories. What you see is what you get is what you pay. It's an off-the-door price plus sales tax, four of sales tax,

6% and you also have to pay for the license plate. But you have an out-the-door price on every car online. You don't even have to come in the dealership. You go online, you find the price, then you try to go to the competition and see if they'll meet or beat it. But they have to meet or beat it with an

out-the-door price, not one loaded up with hidden fees. Right. Okay, great. It looks like my next stop is all to do with Toyota. And Rick, Rick, I'll wrap this up by telling you that you can read just what we talked about. You can go to Erwin Cars and you can read his, you know, a column, all of his columns, as a matter of fact. And the one in particular that would interest you is dealer fees are not bad.

Hidden fees are. And this will sort of open the door to, you know, all of these fees that they may, you know, take advantage of you on. Where would I find that? Those articles? Earl on Cars.com, E-A-R-L-on-C-R-C-R-S dot com. Okay, wonderful. Great. Thank you very much.

You guys have a great day. Thank you, Rick. Give us a call, toll-free at 877-960-9-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, again, we'd love to hear from me. We're on YouTube, and I know you folks are driving cars now because you don't want to buy them because you're having to pay too much money if you do buy one.

So you're trying to make your current car last longer. If you have any kind of a diagnostic issue, Rick Kearney, certified diagnostic master technician, he's sitting to my right here in the studio. He's monitoring YouTube. I guess you're also monitoring Facebook because Stu's not here. And you can post a question. You can call 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-99-60.

And ask Rick the question. Describe your issue. I know one of the things that Rick talks about is when you have a problem with the car, don't hear a third-party opinion of what's wrong, say, oh, you need a valve job, or you need a... you need to have the transmission overhaul. I mean, if you walk into a car dealership or drive-in and you say, please give me a new transmission,

they'll be glad to get you a new transmission. But don't diagnose your own problem. Have it diagnosed by someone you can trust and then get competitive pricing. So you've got a free diagnosis right here on the air, live on this radio station. And you could call Rick Kearney at 877, 960, 990, describe the problem.

Okay, I hear a click, click, click going in the lower left-hand side of my rear door. Or I hear, I smell something. Describe the smell, what smells like. Or, you know, in the morning, when I go to start the car, you know, you give all the details. And if you're really high-tech, send an audio clip or a video clip of the issue, write to Rick at YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars.

YouTube.com ford slash Erlancars. Rick Kearney will see that immediately and he'll answer your post. So you folks out there that like a free diagnosis, please give us a goal. Okay, let me talk about something

very dear to my heart because I've talked about it on the show a lot and I was really surprised to read in the current issue of the automotive news, Toyota worrying about leasing dropping off considerably, and it has. Toyota typically did about 30% of their business with leasing. Leasing is one of the most talked about subjects on this show, and for years and years and years,

and especially during this COVID-induced high that we've had with car dealers, leasing, for a lot of reasons. Now, when you lease a car, you have an option to buy that car when it comes back. And the whole industry, all the leasing companies, the captive leasing companies, meaning the manufacturers, they all got caught by a big surprise. When you lease a car, they look into their crystal ball, literally, of course, and they guess. That's a calculated guess of what that car will be worth in three years, assuming. a 36-month lease, because in three years, they're going to give you something. You don't get much free from car dealers and manufacturers, but what you do get when you lease

a car is an option to buy it at a price they guessed at three years ago. Well, three years ago, the guessing wasn't too good for 2022 in December. Nobody knew what was going to happen. So your car is coming back at a bargain price. been for about a year now. They missed the residual value of your lease. So you can buy your lease car at thousands of dollars below the actual market value. So that's one of the reasons why leasing is in the spotlight right now. A lot of people aren't leasing cars because they're keeping their old cars by extending the lease. And the car leasing companies will grant you an extension

reluctantly in some cases and some people are just exercising their option to purchase and keeping that nice new to that they're new to you I mean it's the lease car but they excite the option so they had a three-year lease

they got that nice Honda cord and they'll keep on driving and a lot of people are doing that so the leasing is dropping the manufacturers love leasing why? Because they sell or lease you a car at a much higher percentage if you leased at the beginning.

Think about it. They know who you are, where you are, and the customer can't get away from the manufacturer or the dealer. So Toyota, Honda, Mazda, General Motors, they got a great chance of selling you or leasing you another car at the first one was leased. If it's not leased, they don't know where you are.

You own the car, your foot loose, and your fancy, and you're fancy free, you do whatever you want. They don't have that control over you. The car dealers, love leasing, because they make an average of about $2,000 more on a lease than they do a purchase. Well, right now, they're making way more than $2,000 if they sell your car. So it kind of shot leasing down, and now they're trying to build it back up again. So what, excuse me, what is Toyota's leasing percentage right now compared to the 30% that it was?

They're done around 10%. That's a drop. And that's a huge drop. And in different regions of the country, it was more than 30%. There are a lot of Toyota lives before the COVID crisis. They were leasing 50% of their cars. I think lack of inventory, lack of incentives has really affected the, you know, whole climate. Well, here's a secret of why leasing is dropping so considerably that this article didn't address.

I'm not sure whether they know about it, but if they did know about it, they would deny they knew about it. The article was quoting the head of Toyota in North America, and Chris is his name, and he was giving a lot of reasons why the leasing was dropping. When you lease a car, the leasing company, of course, buys the car and then, and then, leases it to. They own the car, the leasing company. So they are in a sense financing that car. Now, they capped the amount of amount that you can sell the car for or lease the car for to the dealer. Now the dealers are selling the car at thousands of dollars over MSRP. Well, guess what? The leasing companies, the Toyotas, the Honda's, the General Motors leasing companies, will not be gouged.

They will not buy the car for the price that the car dealers can and are selling the cars for because of the car charters. That's why leasing is dropping off. I mean, the dealer can make a whole lot more money by selling you that new Honda Accord for $5,000 over MSRP because Honda leasing, would drop the amount they would finance and require the list or the listee, I should say, you to pay $4,000, $6,000 up front to lease the car. You're not going to do that. Okay, that's the truth.

So again, back to the beginning, leasing is not something that you're going to see come back soon and all the leasing companies and the dealers are going to try to get there, but they're not there yet. we're going to take and change gears for a moment and folks give us a call let us know how you feel about this topic that we just covered on leasing 877 960 we're going to go back to the phones where Walter is calling us from

Stewart good morning Walter good morning I had two quick points during the heights of the pandemic Toyota would offer a concierge service at no charge. Now, recently, that has become an issue, and they did reluctantly offer me that service, but I was wondering what your thoughts are about the customer. I live within five miles of the Toyota dealer about even charging for concierge as an adjunct to increase service. Second point, especially when you're building a new dealership and the service advisors are either standing or sitting in extremely tall chairs and people that have disabilities don't even have a place to sit while they're discussing their problem with the service advisor. I find that to be very disturbing and I'm shocked that it's not a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But the first point was about the concierge service where the dealer would pick your car up, fix it, and return it to your house. Well, Walter, that's a very good observation. I think there's a lot of, I don't know what the word is, going on now in car dealerships, the owners of the dealerships, the general manager of the dealership, the management team, because of the unique situation where car dealers are making so much money in the new car department, the focus has been taken off customer service, and this is something that's going to have to be relearned. I think I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I was contacted by a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. And the same thing that you describe is happening to some degree at all dealerships, even my dealership. You don't see the way I see it, but it's hard to sell cars. It's hard to keep customers happy. It's a real challenge. And if you want to be the retail car dealership that prospers and has a significant market share in the market they're in jingering.

graphically, they have to treat customers right, including the, including the disabled and everybody, minorities, everybody. You have to give the customer that comes into your store. Same is true with selling iPhones, selling television, this. This is the 21st century way of smart retail. This whole COVID thing has kind of put a stop, we're frozen in time. A picture car dealerships that would, car dealerships have always been profitable.

Picture a car dealership that's averaged making a million dollars a year. Now that's a small dealership. A small dealer makes a million dollars a year, okay? Now this dealer today is making four million dollars a year and he's not working nearly as hard. Now, he doesn't put the pressure on his team and his employees to,

service the customers and take care of the customers and I know the main profit is coming from the new car department but it's everything starts at the top so when you have a car dealer or a general manager all the top management making much much more money than they ever did and having to work much less than they ever did because the customers are coming to them and begging to buy the car and you accommodate them by selling them a car at thousands of dollars over sticker. This is why you're being neglected in the service department, Walter, because the management team is remiss and not seeing

that the concierge service, that the service advisor is sitting on their tools, looking at someone that's obviously disabled, not going to assist them, not offering them a ride. These are all things that have to be corrected when things return to normal, which are which I predicted at the beginning of the show will happen sometime near the early third quarter of 2003. Well, what are your thoughts about, because this particular dealer also owns the Lexus dealer. And it's getting to a point where I consider Toyota a premium brand. Now, what are your thoughts about even charging the customer for concierge service? Well, I've entertained this, myself, and my dealership.

And I think that one difficulty the dealer has with consular air service is the distance. And, you know, comp car dealership, especially today, they have dealers, customers from coming from 50, 60, 100 miles away. Okay, I'm for like five miles or less. Yeah, I think that in my particular dealership, we offer concierge service within a certain zip codes that are reasonably accessible to and from the dealership. But I couldn't honestly say that I would offer concierge service to a customer from Orlando. I mean, the further way, it gets difficult. But I think it's good business, and I think you'll see Treasure Coast Toyota. And you were talking about the owner there is Sandy Woods,

and he also owns the Lexus dealership in Fort Pierce, I believe. And I'm sure he sees things returning to normal. And especially in a Lexus dealership, Lexus customers are used to being pampered. They're used to being taken care of. And most luxury dealerships treat their customers far better than a Chevrolet dealer were originally. a Toyota dealer or a Honda dealer, you get a much better treatment at a Cadillac store or an accurate store or a Lexus store.

So your observations are, I hope people are listening, I hope Treasure Coast Toyota's listing, this is not the way you treat your customer. Well, the other thing is that once you offer something and then you take it away, that comes as a shock. Exactly, exactly. In other words, if you did it then, why didn't you do it now? Yeah. Yeah, just being honest with the customer, they might not like it, but if you just ignore it, that anger's, you know, we're all consumers. I'm a toilet dealer, but I'm also a consumer.

And I, one of my strengths I like to think as a businessman and a car dealer is that I can identify with consumers. Every time I go into a store, whether it's Costco, or Target or Walgreens. Every time I go into the store, I think of it. You know, I'm a consumer. How do I like being treated? Would I come back here?

And if I wouldn't, where would I go? That's the way my mind works. That's the way all business people. You can't just be a businessman and a car dealer. You have to be a consumer. In your mind's eye, you have to see how your customers feel when they come into your dealership. This Wall Street Journal reporter that called me yesterday,

was amazed that I mystery shop my own car dealership. You know, we mystery shop, as you know, if you're a list of the show, other car dealerships all around Florida. In fact, around the US. We shop every week. We've been doing it for 20 years. I shop my own dealership.

Why? Because this way I can see my dealership to the eyes of a mystery shopper who is a typical consumer. And the boss never sees what's really going on. really going on. If Sandy Woods, the owner, a Treasure Coast Toyota, or maybe his daughter, I believe, might be an owner too. If she goes into Treasure Coast Toyota, guess what? Those service advisors are not sitting down the stools. They're running up to say, oh, hi, Ms. Woods, what can I do for you

today? So when you walk into a car dealership and you're the owner, you see things through a different lens, and you don't see that lens when you have Mr. Shepard. And that's what I would recommend to Sandy Woods and the owners of those two dealerships. Since the mystery shoppers in, we have, read some of our mystery shopping reports on Treasure Coast Toyota and Lexus of Fort Pierce. You can go to

Irwincars.com and you can read in our archives all the mystery shopping reports of your dealerships and see how you did. That's how your customers did and not the way you do when you walk in as the owner. Right,

right. Well, what I'm going to do just as I did in the past just try to assuage the service advisor to provide that service that's all I can do and if they don't do it they don't do it yeah I mean exactly you just

you just have to they don't have the power I mean now what you know some dealerships do like we do the same thing we might not have a car available and I have a currency fan may be out

but we we will have a salesperson take a customer home. And if you look at the sales department, if you take your car into service, you go in the service lounge, and you stand around, it looks pretty busy, doesn't it?

Now, walk into the showroom, you'll see a bunch of salespeople standing around, talking to each other, having coffee, maybe outside having to smoke, telling jokes, maybe playing solitaire on their PC, because they don't have anything to do. Customers come in,

that's a surprise, take her to leave, it because if you leave it, the guy comes in the door next will buy the car. Salespeople got plenty of time. The sales manager and the general manager, these dealership, just say, hey, take Walter home. He brought his car in. The courtesy van is not available.

We don't have the concierge service available anymore. Please take him home and then we'll call him and you can come pick him up and bring him back in because salespeople have plenty of time on their hands and they have a car drive. Right, right. Well, listen. I appreciate all your time and your thoughts on the subject. Thanks, Walter. I appreciate the call very much.

Great call, Walter. Okay, bye now. Bye-bye. Ladies and gentlemen, that number is 877-9-60-99-60. You can give us a call. Ladies, that's the number you would use to win yourself $50. The first two new lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning. 877-9-60-99-60.

And for you others, you can text us at 772-4976530. So take advantage of that. And, boy, I'll tell you, our caller so far has certainly hit on a lot of interesting topics. And we thank you for joining us at Earl Stewart on Cars. We are going to go to David, who's been holding, from Tequesta. Good morning, David. Morning. How are you doing this morning? Great.

Thank you. I had a question on a few shows back quite a while now, I think. I have a 20-21 Toyota Tunja. I wanted to get leather installed in that, and unfortunately the one I had picked out at your place to wash guy had accidentally hit somebody else's car with it. When I got done, I had to get another car. At that time, they said that I could get leather installed,

but I haven't been able to find out how to go about doing that, because I said, you guys don't actually do it there, and I wonder if I'd get that information from you. Well, that's a thriving industry, David. And that's one, if Stu were here, my son, he would know the answer to that. We have several vendors. There's a lot of vendors out there that do the leather. The markup is typically a couple hundred dollars to the dealer.

What I can do is get that information. If you'll text me, I'll give you my cell phone number. You can text me later. the day. I'll give you the, I can text you back the name of some leather vendors, and I'll tell you what my cost is on the leather install on a 2021 tundra.

You got a pencil, Andy? Great. Okay, write my number down. Is here a code 561? Yes. 358. Yes. 1474. 1474?

Yeah. And he'll text me there. I can't get back to you until after the show, we're on the air till 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. So I'll get you that information probably around by noon today. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You're very welcome, David. 877960-99-60, Texas at 772-4976530.

Earlier this morning, I mentioned the fact that there are some ladies who haven't received their $50. If you'll give me a call at 561-386-6-6-4-98, I can get your contact information and get that checkout to you. We're going to go to Mike, who's been holding from Wellington. Good morning, Mike. Mike, okay. Hi, Mike.

Good morning. Welcome. How's everybody doing? Great. Good. Well, I had a question about a Colola S.E. My son has to get a new car. Well, he doesn't have to get a new car, but he has to get a car.

he has to turn in his lease in the next few weeks. And, of course, we were talking about Toyotas because I've been listening to you guys for years. And I'm pushing him toward Earl Stewart. But he went online, and he said they don't show any 2023 Corolla SEs in stock or coming in soon. Can you tell me a little more about that? Well, it's the situation with the microchips

and all the other parts that are not available. the cars are coming out slower. The 2023s are coming out slower. If you were to order a 2023 Coral SE now, your waiting time would be about six months, and that would be optimistic. I'm lowering it to only six months because we're starting to see more and more parts availability,

and it was forecast earlier in the show, that we'd be back to pretty much normal by early in the third quarter of 2020. if that's the car he must have and no other car will do then he should order the car and put his name on the list if he changes his mind

then he can change his mind any time you said he's got a lease car he's going to turn it in has he considered exercising his purchase option on the car he's currently leasing well yeah that's a long story but we did

that and they want there such a ridiculous amount of money for the car, we just got up and walked out. Okay. Yeah, they were crazy about that. Who wants a different amount of money? He's a they. It was, I'm trying to think of the name of it.

And right down the street of you guys on North Lake Boulevard, the Hyundai dealer. Oh, God, I forgot the guy's name. Oh, it's a Hyundai. In Apleton, yeah. Okay, so he's leasing a Hyundai. Right, yeah, they were ridiculous. Yeah, they're not a dealer that I would trust, and the Federal Trade Commission just find them, you know, $8 or $10 million for...

Yeah, so we cut out. They can't tell you what the option price is. Your son has a contract with Hyundai leasing, and that option to purchase is made his right by the Consumer Leasing Act of 1917. And I can give you the name and telephone number of an attorney that he can call that would be glad to give Hyundai, Napleton Hyundai, a little call and say, you cannot deny him the right to buy this car at the purchase option price. Purchase option price should be well below the market price. So if he were to call or you were to call on his behalf and just say you talk to Earl Stewart or wrong cars and he said that it is illegal for them to change the purchase option price

that he must be able to exercise that option price with Hyundai. Now, he's not dealing with Hyundai Napleton on North Lake Boulevard. He's dealing with Hyundai leasing. The leasing company probably doesn't even know about this conversation. It might actually be easier for him to call Hyundai leasing, not in Ableton, but on his lease contract, there'd be a number, call Hyundai Leasing, and say you want to exercise the purchase option price. They cannot add one penny to that price.

That's illegal. Okay, good. All right, thank you. I appreciate that. You're very welcome, Mark. I do have another question for you. Yeah. You show a 2022 Corolla SE in stock.

Now, I don't know if it's still there or not, but it was online the other day. And my question is this. It says it's new, and the price you're asking is 24,000, I think, 801, which is pretty close to the same price as the 20203 SE. Does that seem right? Well, the used cars are inflated in price now. The price that we put on our website is the actual out-the-door price. The only thing you have to pay besides that is you have to pay the state of Florida, 6% sales tax, and you also have to buy a license plate for the car.

But the out-the-door price is a price. Why is the price on the used car so high? Because of the inflated price of new and used cars. So, yes, strangers it may seem, late-months. certified or not certified, used cars are selling above MSRP or at MSRP for a new car. So you say yourself, well, why the hell would I buy a used car? When I can buy a new car, the MSRP is less. It's because you can't buy a new car.

You have to wait six months. They're not available. Exactly. I, Mike, let me tell you something. I feel bad just having this conversation because I know how you must feel. Here's a used car and I'm charging more than 2023 new car. Good news is probably by the time that 2023 arrives, prices will have come way down and that price of the new car will come way down too.

But right now, people are buying the used car and paying over MSRP. Yeah. Okay, his timing is bad Great call, Micah. You cover a lot of issues that a lot of people are interested in, so your question is enlighten a lot of people. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. You guys have a great day. Thank you. Give us a call again. Let us know how that all turned out for you.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-2-497-3-0. Ladies, I'm still waiting for you to call. $50 for the first two new lady callers. I think we're going to turn the mic over to Rick. Do you have some texts or YouTube for us? We got a couple things here. As always, for Sue, we will start out with Anne-Marie's text message. Let's see here.

She says, good morning. My 2013 Camry has turned into a mystery machine, and I'm hoping that Rick can solve the mystery. I will try. Recently, I started on an 800-mile trip in the fog and rain. I drove on the interstate for about 30 miles with no problem, until suddenly the tire pressure light on my dash started flashing and then came on steady. I was in the middle of nowhere. I finally found an exit and pulled off the road. It appeared that I had picked up a Phillipshead screw in a front tire.

I pulled out my trusty presser gauge and checked all my tires. All tires were holding air. I drove to a tire shop with visions of having to buy a new set of tires. Turns out there was a seed in the tire tread, a little rock or nut or something, which looked exactly like a Phillipshead screw. And I have actually seen that. I had a tire shop staff jack up the car and check all tires for leaks. The light was still on, so I had them take off the front tires and pour soapy water on them

to really make doubly sure there were no leaks or screws. The tires were fine. They put them back on, and the light went out. The weather was still poor, so I decided to leave the next day. The weather was good the next day. I hopped in my car, 30 miles down the road, the tire pressure light starts blinking and stays on in the exact same location as the day before. Once again, I pull off the road and check my tires. They're still holding air just fine at the proper pressure. I had to get back home, so I drove

very carefully, no speeding. The car was tracking straight, no vibrations. By the time I traveled another 120 miles or so, the tire pressure light on my dash went out and stayed out. I made the rest of the 800 mile trip without incident. Therefore, I suspect my tires were not the problem. My questions are, what's up with the tire pressure light, the idiot light, on the dash, could it be a bad sensor? How much does a sensor replace, or how much does it cost to replace the sensor if that is the problem? And the last one, it's a sensor. didn't apply this time but why don't tires indicate which tire is soft like Accuras do when one tire is low on air or do the newer Toyota's indicate which

tire is soft I'm gonna start with our last one first and for about the last two to three years just about every Toyota would tire all of them have tire pressure sensors now and all the newer ones they have a spot on the dash that will show you which sensor is in what tire and which tire is going low on air. So that actually is the newer technology has caught up. Now for the cost of a sensor to replace a tire sensor and the average Toyota is going to run about, I'm going to say about $200 to $250, including the cost of the sensor itself if it were to die, say the battery went bad or the sensor got broken or just it finally died, 2013 cards, 10 years old. So they're getting to that age that the batteries might

be finally wearing out. Now the interesting part is the fact that the tire light came on and was blinking and then went solid means that the computer saw a loss of one of those sensors. It couldn't read one of the sensors. Not that the tire went low on air, which would simply turn the light on solid, but that it was blinking means that it was. that the computer can't see one of the four sensors. Most likely in what we experience... Let me jump in there. I mean, it's great that you, obviously, you know this.

You're a certified diagnostic master technician. Why would they do that to a customer? I mean, that's a signal to a technician. What about a woman driving on an 800-mile trip in the fog and the rain, and she's got these flashing lights going on, has no idea what they are. The only way to find out is to drive them to a dealership

and get someone like you. Why do they do that to the customer? That's a rhetorical question. But I'm just saying, Toyota, shame on you, and I'm a Toyota dealer, and I don't care. I'm telling you, you're as stupid as the other manufacturers that don't think about the customer. Well, they don't think about the customer in a lot of ways on it.

Ann Marie is a very smart. She's the smartest woman I know. No, except for Nancy, and she would remain cool under almost any circumstances. There are a lot of people, men and women, that would just say, I'm going to find a hotel. They're in a panic. I'm going to abort my trip. I'm going to call somebody. I mean, it would have ruined your trip.

So, again, I know I went on and on about that, but I put myself in Ann Marie's shoes, and it's just a shame that. That happened. Yep. Now, the interesting thing is, though, that it occurred in two different, two times, as she says, in the exact same spot, but now the light has gone out and is staying out. Now, playing the Sherlock Holmes, I would have to say... Play Sherlock quickly, will you? Most likely, somewhere around that exact spot is some sort of a high-energy, electromagnetic,

force, such as high-tension power lines, or something like that, a radio tower, or something that is interfering with the electronic signal between the sensor and the computer, and that's why it occurred. Could be a UFO. That's certainly possible, too.

A meteorite buried in the ground. But something at that spot caused that to occur, and my recommendation is, if the light has stayed out now and your tires are all at the correct pressures, leave it be, and why it and if the light does not come back on don't worry about it you're fine

okay and and all your manufacturers out there think about the customer when you build these damn cars and your indicator lights and your warning you remember the first person to see that is your customer and to get tricky and have something that's only in the tech manual and so that the poor customer has got to go to a car dealership and spend a lot of money to get it fixed makes sense. There should be, you should be able to tell a customer in plain English, or the language of the customer, what is wrong with the car? Just tell them, you might have a defective sensor, you might have outside interferes, just give them some hope. Just let them know

you don't have to abandon the car in the middle of a rainstorm because you're afraid something's going to happen. You're the greatest. Anne-Marie, that was just a great question, and we sympathize with you. But I have to say that you are a great woman, and you are very intelligent and knowledgeable, and you pulled out all the stops, and the reason I know that is because that has happened to me, and you were looking for an answer, and you're not going to quit until you find one. I did the same thing. And it was a lot of time put into that issue of that light on the dash.

And one of the things that I did, the first things, was the gas tank, and that you can make sure that that lid is closed on it. And you don't know how many times I did that on the side of the road. But at any rate, I was going to get to the bottom of it. And I did. So we thank you for that great question. And we hope to hear from you again. We're going to go back to the phones.

Let me, before we do, let me remind the ladies, please give me a call, us a call, and say hi. Or if you have a question, first two new lady callers can win themselves $50 this morning. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Gary, who's been holding. Thank you for your patience, Gary. Gary's calling us from Naples. Welcome.

Good morning. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. One, you all do a good job, and I enjoy listening to the show every Saturday. But I guess this question may be for Rick. I have a 15 Hyundai Sonata with 150,000 miles on it. The only thing I ever did to it is replace the turbo.

and the car runs and looks like brand new I use it as a commuter car. Should I have the seals on the engine and the seals on the transmission check? There is nothing wrong with it just to be proactive. Well, it certainly can't hurt to have a mechanic just look at them, but the easiest way to tell really is at your next oil change, ask the mechanic to just take a look and make sure you don't have any oil leaks. would you recommend I change that oil

and I use synthetic every 7,000 miles since the car has such high mileage on it what would you recommend? Stick with that okay ladies and gentlemen thanks again

you do a great job and have a great day oh thank you thank you hope to hear from you again 877 960 9960 we are going to go to Marty

in West Palm Beach he is a regular caller Good morning, Marty. Welcome. Good morning. Nice to hear from you. I got a question for Earl. Okay. I ordered my new Camry in March.

It still hasn't shown up because it's got a lot of stuff on it. But in March, when I ordered it, the Kelly Blue Book on my used car was worth $4,000 or $5,000 more than it's showing now. so now at that point in March it was a good deal even though you were charging thicker what they would give me for my used car was a good deal now bottom line it's not a good deal so would you suggest that this car ever comes in so far March to December it hasn't shown up yet

maybe it won't show it up until 24 but would you wait if the car comes in. I would double check that number. We don't use Kelly Blue Book. Most dealers don't use that. It's kind of a consumer thing. Kelly Blue Book has pretty much gone directly to the consumer digitally.

And car dealers use, there's a company called V Auto, the Mannheim auction real time. We can go online and more accurately determine. the value of a used car than ever before. NADA used to be something else that dealers use, but they don't. So look up, you can either call your salesman or me or somebody of the dealership and say, give me the V-A-Oto value for my trade-in.

And they could also give you the Mannheim value. and then if it looks like your car for some reason has come down precipitously, we can talk about that. It doesn't make sense to me that the value of your car would have dropped that much, so I think it's an error with Kelly Blue Book. Okay. Yeah, first of all, excuse me, since the new car hasn't come in yet, I really have no reason to check it out until it comes. Well, really, that's true.

I mean, it's, either way, I mean, we don't, when we take an order in a car, we don't freeze the buyer in. We don't take a deposit and say, you bought a car, and then six months later, you found the car for far less money at the competition, or you can sell your trade-ins for far more than we allow you. If you want, anytime you want out of the deal with us, you're out of the deal. You know that. In fact, you can get out of the deal for seven days after you buy the car. and drive it. So, yeah, we don't hold anybody's feet to the fire

when we sell a car. And things are so volatile today to, you can't commit to a price on the car you buy or a price to the trade end and six months down the line. No one has that crystal ball. Okay. My other question for you, if you still can, answer,

do you think when this thing gets back to normal, which is, you said probably, Near the end of 23, do you think car dealers are going to go back to all the discounts and everything? Yeah, I've given up figuring out I've talked earlier on the show I saw on CNBC. Are you familiar with a reporter by the name of Phil Leboe? He's an automotive expert reporter, one of the best I know, and he's regularly on CNBC. Phil O'Bow a couple days ago said that

and to the best of his knowledge he would think that things would be back to normal in early third quarter of 2020, 23. Yeah, not as normal. Whatever that is. Yeah. We can all laugh at Phil LaBow.

I'm not going to make any more forecast, but if I had to guess, I'd go with him. He's pretty good guy. Yeah. All right, let's see what happens. Like I say, my order was in March, and now it's December still hasn't shown up yet. I hear you, Mark. I know how you feel. Thanks, Marty. Okay. All right. Have a good day, everybody. Bye-bye. It's great hearing from you. 877-960, Texas at 772-497-60.

You can also get, you know, you can get in touch with us anonymously. at www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Is there a ladies convention going on? Where are all the ladies? And we have $50 cash for the first two new female callers. Nancy Stewart, he's got her pen and hand or a checkbook. You call, first time you call the show,

the first two new female callers, $50. I mean, how can you turn that down? We haven't had a new female. call her. So 877-960-99-60, 877-9-60. I know you ladies are out there, and normally we have a whole bunch of a lady-callor. So please call 877-9-60-99-60. Yeah, well, it is that time of year, and ladies, we do it all, right? You may be out there taking care of your family. Excuse me. Here's a, well, kind of a, it seems like a joke, but it is about your favorite topic, leaf blowers. Now, I was asked if it was okay to use a leaf blower in the interior of your vehicle.

Notice how I said your interior, because we all know what a leaf blower does. It just blows everything everywhere. It doesn't pick it up. So give me your thoughts. I went ahead and researched this and found out that Consumer Report was out there giving advice about leaf blowers. So there has been quite a few consumers that have asked about it. And for me, I definitely wouldn't do something like that. In fact, we're in the process of petitioning the leaf blowers.

blowers off the earth. So, Rick, what do you have to say? I would recommend a vacuum cleaner. There you go. The old traditional vacuum cleaner. There's just a lot of places that the debris can end up in all of these cracks in crevices. So that would be a very dangerous. You'd be blowing dust, dirt, debris, sand right into your radio, your speakers, the electronic controls, the buttons, the switches. How about the carbon monoxide poisoning? I digress. 877-960-99-60 and Yucin, Texas at 772-49-6-5-30. We're going to go to North Palm Beach where Terry has been waiting.

Give us... Let me see here. First-time caller. Hi, Terry. Good morning, Nancy. Hi, Earl. Hi. Welcome.

I love listening to the show on my way to work Saturdays. Oh. Thank you for an enjoyable experience. You are a breath of fresh air. Terry, stay on the phone and after we're finished. And Jeremy is waiting in the control room to get your contact information, and he'll pass that alone to me. How does that sound? $50.

That's very exciting. Thank you. You're welcome. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I had sputtering in the car that happened so suddenly, so I took it in, and they changed a spark plug, and I think the coil. Now it's sputtering again, so I suspect it's in other spark plug and coil. When you take the car for servicing, would they be checking all those issues so that I don't have to be without the car again? Should I have just asked for a complete tune-up? Rick will take care of that.

Thanks. Well, tune-ups anymore. basically is simply replacing the spark plugs. And depending upon what model car, what you have, they can be anywhere from 30,000 mile lifespan to as much as 150,000 is the recommended replacement time on them. The coil packs, unfortunately, when one goes bad, we find that the others usually aren't too long for this world.

So one of the things we'll recommend is if you've got one coil pack that has died, we usually recommend, hey, do you want to do the rest of them now? Just get them all in one shot, and it's a reduced labor cost. Due to the cost of it, though, a lot of folks prefer to do just one at a time.

So most likely, yeah, if one has gone bad, it's a very good chance that a second one has died. I suspect it as such. I'm a little disappointed in my regular mechanic for not having recommended checking all of them or replacing all of them.

I take really good care of my baby. Oh. And your baby, you'll take care of you. Oh, I know. You're absolutely right. It's a 2011 BMW 3 series. I got it over at North Palm Mercedes. They only had 30,000 miles on it two years ago.

I think it was a snowbird car. Wow. So I'm just at 66,000, and it runs great. But now I'm very sad that I'm getting sputtering again. So I'll call and see if they would do something on a package for a tune up. Yeah, absolutely. Excuse me.

And Terry, stay in touch with us. Let us know, you know, how it all turned out. Okay, good. I'm a member of the Sunrise Club, too, on Facebook. Oh, are you really? Hopefully we'll have a sunrise one of these days. I know. I'm shocked you can get up

so early, but more power to you. We've been announcing babies recently. We have a and Maisie Elizabeth Stewart, who was born just this past week, and the week before we had Jaden John, he also was born. And, wow, it's been an exciting time. But we really...

I know, congratulations. Thank you. We really enjoy the International Sunrise Club. It's astounding how many people, Mr. Sunrise reaches. I know. I see all over the world. I'm telling you from everywhere. Thank you so much, Terry. Well, thanks for answering my question, Rick. Thank you both.

You're welcome. 877960, and you can text us at 772-4976530, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. You can go right there and voice your opinion. Rick, do you have any anonymous feedbacks? Well, we've got a text in. Okay. And this one actually is anonymous. He says, I called, but always a business signal, so I'm texting.

I put cash on a new 2017 Cadillac CTS in 2018 from the dealer. Yes, it was still on the lot. It had 2,000 miles on it, but was never titled. After three years and 80,000 miles, I use it as a work car and also always serviced at the same dealer. The differential went bad. The dealer's service manager told me the part was on back order with four customers waiting. About a year ago, I told them to put me in line for the part, as I also could not find a used or rebuilt one. Recently, after having a mechanic service, not connected with my dealer, my 99 Corvette, who does good work,

I asked him if he could look for a differential for the CTS. He checked. He said the differential for my CTS is not being made anymore, and he also could not find a used one but would keep trying. I contacted the manufacturer, as I suspected either the manufacturer or the dealers not being completely honest. My question is, does the manufacturer have to keep the parts for new cars in production for any particular number of years, and are they still? stringing me along until the required time to produce expires, and do I have any remedy available to me? I believe it's 10 years, isn't it? That's what I've always been told is that for any model of car, new parts must be made

available by the manufacturer, by your dealer, for a minimum of 10 years from the date that that car was made. Let me say this, too. I think you're right, you're being misled. You can find a part for almost any car, any time. It's just you have to be persistent. You can go online. I would put your, make model of my CTS on, I would say, you know, the part, the differential will be specific as you can.

And you want to remanufactured or used part. And provide the VIN as well. Yeah, if you have to. That can narrow it down quite well. The VIN will be perfect because that tells it all. And you will have so many parts, I promise, you won't know where to start. You want to find, you want to look at guarantees and prices and Google ratings. And, you know, then you can go from there.

But you will find that differential. Go online and, as Rick said, put the VIN number in and you'll be covered up with remanufactured and used differentials. Now, depending on it if it is a very uncommon or rare part, getting it from the dealership from their supply of new original equipment manufacture parts, it may be on back order for a little while. There's been a real issue with supply chain on parts lately, but I'm sure someone somewhere out there has a differential available for that car. Sure, call several dealers and check with the part. Call a larger dealer and check with the parts department. it'll be easier to do but someone's misleading you you need to find a new guy to help you with us absolutely so I'm going okay got this one came in hi hi Rick obviously is Jay here knew that well I'm kind of helping out here a little today I have a

two thousand four Corolla with 216,000 miles on it that recent developed an intermittent check engine light for code P-O-420. Was this code a common issue on the O3 and O4 Corolla? I've changed the oil every 4,000 miles. The car does not burn oil. Every repair shop I've taken the car to suggested that I need to replace the catalytic converter. An OEM converter with install would cost about $2,500.

What do you suggest? I thought a catalytic converter should last the life of the car, Jay? Well, Jay, unfortunately, sometimes even the best of parts do fail. And yes, a code P0420 is exactly definition for a catalytic converter. That's a, it's one of those codes that just says, nope, that's the only thing that's going to cause it. It's the cat has deteriorated. It's no longer doing its function properly. And you should replace it. And $2,500 from a dealership for the OEM part, yes, that is about the right price because the catalytic converter there is built right into the exhaust manifold.

So that's pretty much what you're going to pay. This is where you have to look yourself in the mirror and decide what you want to do, because the car probably runs just fine, and the question is, do you want to be guilty of polluting the planet? And if it doesn't bother you, then I wouldn't spend $2,500. What year car was? It's a 20-year-old car. 20-year-old car.

It would make no economic sense to spend that money. And the other look yourself at the mirror and decide, you know, how honest you want to be or how good you want to feel about yourself. You can trade the car in and you don't want to run up and tell the person that you're trading it into that it's got a $2,500 catalytic converter that the light's going to come on and you're going to tell them. So anyway, I'll let you... You'd be the moral judge, and I'll be the economic judge. I wouldn't spend $2,500 for a Cadillian converter on a 20-year-old car.

No, for myself, I would say I would ignore that light on that car, and I would just drive it until the wheels fell off. That car has definitely, it's done its duty, but it's still running, and I would just keep right on running it. Absolutely. Great advice, guys. I couldn't have said it any better. 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

And we do have the Mystery Shopping Report coming up. And that is from Audie Coral Springs. I want to remind you all that you, too, can vote on the Mystery Shopping Report. We really encourage all of your votes to see how you feel about the Mystery Shopping Report. You can text us your grade at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, I did a blog last week. You can read it on Florida Weekly newspaper or hometown news or online.

You get to earlancars.com. And the title is that Earl and Nancy drive autonomously. A lot of you follow the show. I know that we have a Tesla, not only just a Tesla, the Plaid, Model S, Plaid, world's fastest production car. We love our car. And it's a fun car. It's very high-tech. And we've been trying for a long time to qualify to drive autonomously.

And we had a scorecard. The car measures every move we make. Our turns, our stops, our fast, follow. too close and you have to have you you had to have a score of 100 for a period of 30 days to be your to have your fully autonomous software turned on the software is already in the Tesla plaid and they had to flip a switch to activate that software well we never didn't make it but last Saturday morning before coming to the show I got a it was like a Christmas card or a birthday card ooh they've turned on our software and so

So for the past week, Nancy and I have been driving autonomously. And it has been a life-changing experience for both of us. It is not at all what we expected. I am still in shock and awe, both. Nancy's more in shock and less awe. I'm more awe and less shock, but we both share some of each. But this car, let me summarize it first of all by saying that no, the Tesla self-driving, TSD, Tesla self-driving is not fully autonomous the way we want full autonomy to be.

The car has, how do I say, has a mind of its own, it drives differently, and it has put us in some scary situations. Occasionally, like going through heavy construction, we call her Ms. Nancy, you have a Tesla on your software when you set your Tesla up to name the car. So we named the car Miss Nancy. And so we'll refer to the Tesla plant as Miss Nancy. When Miss Nancy comes into a high construction area with a bunch of cones, small cones, big cones, and then they painted out the lines on the road, and they painted in new lines and it's total chaos confusion Miss Nancy can't handle it

and she just stops after swinging the wheel around extremely difficult and it is quite an experience and then the good news is you can easily disengage full autonomy by just tapping a little button on the steering wheel easy to do

that's a good news and once we learn to do that and you take back control from Ms. Nancy. But we found that people on the road don't know that we have fully autonomous car, and I've never had my horn. Horns blown at me more in the past week. And it's almost, I'm almost getting used to. I almost like a lot of hand gestures of people. People screaming at us. And it made me feel guilty because I used to do the same thing to people. And now I'm the victim, thanks to Ms. Nancy. Yeah. Well, I feel guilty. because I almost lost my life.

Yeah, we were driving the dealership when, you know, like the second day, we're driving the dealership, and we, I said, oh, Miss Nancy knows a better way to get there than I do. Ms. Nancy got a $9.95, I said, this must be faster. So we're going to $95 for the dealership, and all of a sudden, I realize we're headed for Lake Worth. So Ms. Nancy thought,

Change of heart. Ms. Nancy thought that Earl Stewart-Toyal was in Lake Worth. It's actually in Lake Park, but we had to take over control. And then as we, I put it back on fully autonomous, and we headed back, and she got a blue-haired in Boulevard. These are local streets. A lot of people are listening all over the world. Excuse me for that.

But Miss Nancy wanted to make a left-hand turn, but unfortunately she placed us and herself in the far-right lane. So we sat there in the far right lane with a left-hirt signal on for quite a while before I took control of it over. And I could go on about these issues. The reason I'm actually exhilarated by the experience because I'm seeing what she does is marvelous. The ability, I'm telling all the bad things, but given relatively normal, roads, what she does is amazing. She changes lane,

she slows down, she speeds up, she anticipates, she's extremely careful with civilians. In fact, pedestrians. She's so careful that if she sees a pedestrian in a place where the pedestrian might

not want to be, she slows down. Caution likes to get her all upset. And how many times have you been on the road and you go by a fire station, You know, they had the caution lights, and they're beeping. And it just says, what it says to me in the past, oh, this is a fire station. I better be careful.

Keep my eyes open. Because if there's a fire, these trucks are going to come running out. That caution light will turn to red, and I've got to be careful. That's what it tells me. What it tells Ms. Nancy, my fully autonomous, Tesla Plaid, is I better slow way down. So she slows way down. We could be at a 45, 50-mile-an-hour zone. own, you had cars behind you, and the horns start blowing again.

So that's where we are with the fully autonomous car. After that last, right, we took her home, and she's in time on. Yeah, I promised Nancy that I would, I promised the real Nancy that I would not use fully autonomous without her permission. Because it's rough, it's rough on the passenger. You have to worry about, you have to worry about the normal, yeah, whiplash, the normal mistakes that other drivers make the normal mistakes that you

might make and now you've got to worry about Miss Nancy's mistakes so you really are tense when you're on fully autonomous. Yeah, that's an understatement. In that cabin there's a lot of intense and a lot of profanity and but that's

another show. We'll get to that later. We're going to go to Port St. Lucy where we have a caller and good morning and welcome. Good morning to you. Good morning. What's your name?

My name is Harvey. Oh, good morning, Harvey. Thank you for calling. What can we do for you? Okay. I have a 20-year-old Impala. It's a Chevy. I think it's a Chevrolet.

So I want to know, instead of putting a catalytic converter, I put a straight pipe instead. Is that okay? Okay. Well, technically. Frankly, it's illegal to remove the catalytic converter by federal emissions standards. But I doubt very much that anybody's ever going to find out and check on it. No, he's only on live radio worldwide.

Well, how many people out there are named... They know his name, and they know he's from poor St. Lucey, and he knows they have the 20-year-old Chevrolet Impala. They're probably beaten on your door right now. Have is a... That's a fake name, isn't it, Have? Yeah, that's not you. Of course, that's not my real name because... Oh, of course.

Right, yeah. Listen, I escaped from Cuba, so I know a lot about my identity. Yeah. Oh, okay. I like that. But my question, if I went to New York to live, that would be a problem because there's a inspection there. Yep.

But Florida, no inspection. Now, if I want to New York to live, and they checked the emissions. What would happen with a straight time? They would not pass your car. Well, they'd probably give you a week to get it fixed. Then they would know where you live and they'd come and get you if you don't do it.

Okay. Now, you know, in Cuba we have these old cars. And the parts in Cuba, what they're doing, they're refabricating parts, which is incredible. You know what I mean? I can't believe, but I'm glad I'm out because, you know, Cuba's not a good place to live and the best place is the United States

except Earl Stewart, I heard you were a great man and I appreciate what you do for people. Thank you. Well, you know, Nancy and I were in Cuba, we were on a cruise a few years ago and went to Havana and toured around. We saw a lot of those old cars.

It's worth the trip just to see those cars because I was born in 1940 and in the 50s I grew up pretty much and that was a lot of my car experiences. My first car was a 1951 Pontiac and I see I see all those cars in Havana and other parts of Cuba we saw we went took a tour and we saw where they were rebuilding these these old cars and they're absolutely I mean they're I get emotional thinking about. I took so many pictures that you wouldn't believe it. But yeah, we loved... It was interesting

to see these families. I know it's not a good place to live, but we love visiting there. The families that had these body shops that, you know, that was inherited or handed down, and they really, really did a great job on these vehicles.

It was an amazing tour. Yeah, yeah, excuse me, Ricardo. You have a guy named Ricardo, right? Ricky? That's me. Yeah, Ricky. Yes, a question. I was driving.

Listen to this one. My car was a 1951 Dodge Wayfarrow. Oh, boy. Fluid drive. Fluid drive. Transmission, you could shift or you could put in

drive, but very slow when you put in drive. You could put in a second and go fast. They were no first. So have you any idea? idea about this kind of car with fluid drive i've heard of them i've never seen one i've never driven one but i have heard of them and we didn't we didn't have a oil filter we change oil every thousand miles yeah so yeah so no oil filter incredible and the guy now we're talking about some old cars i got i got to ask rick this question and you'd be interested too uh when i was a kid

You know, a lot of cars are stick shifts. Everybody drove the stick shifts. And there was something called a speed shift. And you said to your friend, do you not have a speed shift? And a speed shift was you would, instead of using the clutch, you would rub the engine somehow to match the something, and then you would shift without having to put the clutch in. Yeah, you would actually try to get the engine just at the right level of RPA.

to where when you shifted, you were kind of slipping it out of one gear and slipping into another gear. But you had to have your RPMs just right to do that. And if you didn't, it really made a lot of noise. Oh, if you didn't, you were grinding those gears because the transmissions didn't have synchronizers even. So, I mean, you were literally trying to disengage one set of metal gears and engage another set super fast without ever touching the clutch. and oh man if you did it right it was slick and smooth

but if you did it wrong everybody for blocks around because they could hear it and they might see it when your transmission blew apart and all those pieces of metal went all over the road so yeah happy days

you know my car when you go in the first gear slow down and you don't want you have to stop but if you know how to do that you don't have to stop you match the whatever you do

with the clutch and I was able to pick up from first gear without stopping the car by doing exactly what you say Oh, yeah, yep, yep Okay, and thank you very much for your call

for my call, I don't know what I'm saying Well, thank you thanks for a nice compliment by the way, appreciate it Thank you, Avi Okay, very good, thank you Give us a call again, Mr. Anonymous Okay, Folks, we're going to get to the mystery shopping report, I believe.

Everybody in agreement? Yeah, let me do this quickly. If any folks out there with the Tesla, as we talked about, the autonomy and the Tesla self-driving, I'm curious. Maybe if I get through the mystery shopping report before 10 o'clock, I'd like to hear from any Tesla owners that are on autonomous and their experience. because this is really one of the most interesting things that Nancy and I have ever done. I mean, we were laughing about it, talking about, you know, it isn't as good as we expected, but it's a miracle.

I mean, in a lot of ways, it's a miracle of what, it's just a thrill, thrill to do this. It's not practical. It's not practical like we hoped it would be, but it's fun. It is, it's a future has arrived now. So if any of you, Tesla, people who are on autonomous, if we have time at the end of the show, I love to hear from you. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you at 877-9-60-960, and at the end of the day, I'll tell you, there's a lot of good news. We really enjoy the AI adventure, I'll call it. But we'd love to hear from you and your stories.

Again, that number is 877-960-99-60. Rick? By the way, Kirk and West Buy God, Virginia, he's not letting you off the hook on this. He says, the new book should be available soon, right? He says he's looking for Christmas gifts that he can send out. Well, thank you. And just to be fairer to me, Nancy is involved in this too because she's doing the forward and she's got to call our ghostwriter and John Van Zile,

and we've got to get this thing wrapped up. So thanks to a reminder. I like being reminded because we got so many irons in the fire. Between our texter and me, there's a lot of reminders out there on this book. So I won't point the blame in any one direction, but somebody's got to hold somebody's feet to the fire. So it might be more like a Valentine's gift than a Christmas gift for this one? No comment.

Uh-oh. Whoa, boy. Okay. We're going to get back to the Mystery Shopping Report, and that is from Audie of Coral Springs. Audie Coral Springs. Again, your vote is very, very important, so you can do that at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, if you didn't hear the first part of the show, Sue Stewart, who is the cyber mystery shopping master who handles the mystery shark reports, he normally writes up the report from the notes made by Agent Lightning.

And because Stu, and again, I mentioned earlier in the show, he's got some severe back problems, and we're worried about Stu, and I hope he's feeling. But a lot of pain. He's home now. He was in the hospital for a couple days, but he's home now. and kind of hobbling around on the walker. So we didn't get this information, and we're going to read from the rough notes. So bear with us as we go through the shopping report of Audi

and Coral Springs. Carl Springs right there near Fort Lauderdale and South Florida for you folks listening around the world. And I refer to that area as the Sodom and Gomorrah of the CARB retail business. The further south of Florida you go, on the southeast coast, the worst and more dangerous it becomes to buy a car. Okay, before you get started, I'm going to give a shout out to our mystery shopper.

And Agent Lightning, thank you for reaching out this morning and saving the day at the wee hours of the morning. You went above and beyond. Thank you. Now back to the mystery shop. So out of Coral Springs, Fort Lauderdale, for all intents and purposes, was recently bought by the lithium. auto group. Now, usually we think auto groups, we think AutoNation, and that's big, that's, you know, that's what we hear. But the Lithia auto group is actually larger than AutoNation now. And that happened earlier in the COVID issue pandemic with the frenzy of buying cardioleships.

Cardinalships, everybody's buying cardioleships. They're making so damn much money, everybody wants one. and the public groups buying them up, buying them up. And Lithia, L-I-T-H-I-A, bought so many of them. They're higher on the ranking now. They probably got close to 300 dealerships. And one of them they bought was the Audi of Coral Springs. I used to know the former owner, and he sold out. And again, this is going to be, these are notes.

All the Wage of Lightning does a good job. I'll read pretty much the way she wrote it down. editorialized a little bit if I can figure out how to do it. Okay, I'm speaking in the first persons if I were Agent Lightning. And here I go. James greeted me as soon as I walked in the door. I let him know that I was a little taken back by markups on the cars. I sat out of front and almost didn't come inside.

He said, well, that's a starting point for New Yorkers. You're a New Yorker, right? A little humor there, I guess. I laughed and said, no. James asked me how soon I plan on buying, and I said, as soon as possible, but not with a markup. He then asked which car I was looking at. I said, I wasn't sure maybe he would help me.

This would be my first outie. He showed me the A3, the four and the five, and all were in a line on the short floor, and said, and he suggested he and his wife, both drive, or told me that he and his wife both driving out of E4, A4. He thinks I'll really like it. I said, perfect.

Show me what you have available. He asked me to follow him outside, and we can take the golf cart. Once outside, he couldn't find the golf cart. And I asked if I mind walking the lot, which was over another building, he said, oh, there's the golf cart, so we found it. So again, and I again, apologize for the rough notes. He apologized again about the golf cart, and also that they didn't have as many Audi 4s as he thought. Some must have been sold.

He said he believes his Enterprise, possibly bought them. I said that I really like the gray one on the showroom floor. He said, perfect, let's go buy a car. Now, that's interesting to me that Enterprise, they're a very large rental company. They're affiliated with a lot of dealerships, and they supply rental cars for the dealer's usage. dealers usually buy and sell cars from Enterprise, so they're kind of like a dealer-centric auto group, a rental group, and they provide probably the majority of cars to service customers. He didn't offer for me to take a test drive then, and I think he caught himself when it was

being lazy and said, well, it drove nicely, don't you think? I said, well, I definitely will want to drive it before I decide to buy, but I guess I'll take your word for it. He asked if I want to see a price. I said, sure. He didn't ask for my license and phone number. I said he's going to have to come up with something good because I know my other half, my husband hates car shopping, and it won't pay up over MSRP. He said it's nearing the end of the year putting down, uh, will I be a pretty, uh, putting on money and financing where I'd be paying cash, I said probably $8,000 to $10,000.

He said the owner that bought them out last November, that's when Lithia bought out, Audi of Carl Springs, Lithia, and is afraid to lose money to sell cars. That's silly, but that's his way of getting you interested. but he'll take off the $1,495, low jack, addendum. He said he will not take off the $1,495 low jackadendum, but will discount it. So he sets the stage there for what we would see later on the buyer's order. He excused himself and returned about five minutes later with the sheet.

He asked what I thought. I said, not too bad. We have the sheet that he referred to, and for those folks that are watching it online, YouTube, or Facebook, you can see the audio of Coral Springs sheet, and as I look at it, there are some extras here that he didn't mention in the conversation. There's a processing duck fee of $1,000. Actually, it's only $999.99.99. processing dock fee. That's a hidden fee. He didn't mention it, showed on this worksheet, and didn't have any other hidden fees. They did have the LoJack, which

he said would not come off, and the rest of it was accessories. We'll assume those weren't hidden accessories, and I'll hold it up here. It's probably already on your screen. And that's where we stand. Yes, what I thought, I said, not too bad, this is the best you can do. James replied, no. If you're ready to sign right now, I can likely come down another $1,500 to $2,000. I said, okay. Well, he put his hat on, I'll call my husband.

Put my hat on, I'll call my husband. He handed me the paper. I said, I could go over there and call him, and then he'll come back. come down a price once I get the okay. I said, that's not going to work. He said, okay, I'm here, when and if you're ready, let me give you my car, let me know. Texting works best.

This car was sitting on shore and forward just as I walked in. He said, do you want that one? It's a limousine of Audi's. It does everything including, I hate to say this on the air, but it's interesting that he would say that to a lady, to a woman, prospective customer. I'll do everything include rub your butt while you sit in the back seat. I think that's poor taste and not fitting of a professional salesperson.

But that's just me. We got plenty of time left here to vote. My observations before we, while we wait for the votes to come in, is that Lithia is a big target. They're a public company. Their numbers are all made public because the security exchange. Commission requires publicly owned companies to disclose all their numbers. And they better be accurate or else you get in a lot of trouble. For folks that follow the financial news,

you see what's going on with some of these companies of the cyber Bitcoin type of companies that are being exposed for deceiving people. And that's the Security Exchange Commission. So Lithia is there. They're on top of these things. for the public companies. I think I'm not endorsing the public companies. I'm saying that they are more careful.

The privately owned companies get away with a lot, and they do. And the public companies cannot because of their exposure. So we'll see if we have any votes in now. And Rick, how will we look at it? Okay, let's see here. Paul Anderson on Facebook's giving him a D. Over here on YouTube, we have, let's see, Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis.

B, not too bad, junk fees for the times. Kirk in West Buy God, Virginia. If you sign right now, even though I have junk fees and I'm unprofessional to you, you earn a D plus. Niga 1, F for fees and rude comments. Jim Gilleland can't get past a $1,000 processing fee, C. Scott Hunter, see, they were willing to lower the fees. Brian said Latko, D-plus.

Tom Steckle, I saw nitrogen on the addendum, a big red flag. C-minus at best. Prayers for Stu's recovery. Mark Ryan, C-minus. Rocky Blockadele, not as bad as it could get. I'll give them a C. Let's see what we have here for texting in, which, by the way, Anne-Marie sends all her best for stew. Bob F. for Audi of Coral Springs. The person is a smart mouth.

Jonathan and Wellington, poor taste and comments is the least of their problems. Hidden Feast means a poor grade for me. I'll give them a hard D. Here we go. Oh, this is Agent Sprint. Sprinkle. Immediate fail for inappropriate comment. I kind of agree on that. That was a bit rude on their part. Salesman gets an F for me. Stupid rude.

For the rest of it, their fees are pretty much up there. So I'm going to say a D for the dealership, but an F for that salesman. That's just, no, not right. Not in any. To me, that doesn't matter if you're walking into a buy-here, pay here, use car lot. You'd be respectful to everybody. Male, female, whoever, you'd be respectful.

Hit the nail on the head. The supplemental label, and I held this up, and I know it was projected to our Facebook and YouTube, people streaming us, is an obvious effort to jack the price up, and that's what all dealers are doing now. They did take these off, as he said they would, but the nitrogen was there.

It's nitrogen is really an insult to consumers' intelligence. Consumer reports, as a matter of fact, said that nitrogen in auto tires is totally useless worth nothing. They had wheel-locked nitrogen fill. They had perma-plate protection for 1495. They took that off. The one thing they did not take off was the LoJack, which they could kept on there at a I think a $1495 price or something like that so that fills in for the

people that did not see what the supplemental label had as I say that after that nitrogen was taken off the price but she had to ask for it agent lightning had to ask for it and your grade your grade my grade is going to be I'm going to give them a C minus I think we'll go back and shop them like we always do. I think because they just bought them recently in November, I think you'll see an upgrade in the way they treat customers. We'll probably be back in the next six months. Okay.

I think that James needs to clean his act up and, you know, come out of that old school attitude. And it's very unprofessional. And the fees, well, they nauseate me. And nitrogen, gosh almighty. I thought that time was over. For all of that, you get an F. Yeah, pretty tough.

I'll give a C-minus, but I'm a little disappointed. I think, as I say, Lithia, AutoNation, the big auto groups out there, You rarely see egregious, obvious, stupid activity if those dealerships, they're just too exposed. And if you want to have some fun, you know, you could go online to any publicly owned automobile dealership and you can pull up their actual numbers. I'm always shocked if they're profit numbers in finance and insurance. and I see how they do it on a per car basis, and you'll see that these car dealerships will make $3,000 on every car they sell on financing.

Then you add another today, $4,000 or $5,000 on every car they sell for the sale price of the car. So, I mean, you're looking at a close to $10,000 profit per car. and it's just some of these big dealerships are selling a thousand cars a month That's a lot of cabbage Rick, do you have any more votes for us? Let's see, just a couple of comments

Kevin Bryson says Government fee of $600? They're going to find any name they can on those fees Yeah, they can call it the government fee and where you have to be careful we had a call earlier in the show and he was asking what you do about his hidden fees

and I mentioned to him that in the business office this is where you're really most exposed because you think you bought a car but you've dealt on their worksheet what we showed you today rarely do we get to look at the actual legal documents

because they're spit out of a computer literally they come out of the computer when you sit down they're not even there yet and you sit down also the computer you know fast printer is popping those papers out and they're they're dealing them across the desk at you like cards and they're hitting you like this and there's they give you the pen and the initial here initial there and when the smoke settles and you get home if you're lucky you start reading what you signed and so look at this

fee here what is that what is that what is that so a lot of your hidden fees and he mentioned government fees they're too high well you don't know until they get broken down so and yeah and Kevin goes on to say I'll give them a C-minus but only because this is graded on a curve yeah we got a grade on the curve our purpose in life is to guide you you know you have to buy cars you have to buy vehicles we have to give you a way to go if we failed everybody I mean not be cute that'd be maybe almost realistic because the most car dealers treat people badly. But where are you going to buy a car? No, we're trying to give them

a guide, a helpful guide. Voting on the curve, I can understand it completely. But there are times like right now with this mystery shop, you know, it's just so old school. And for that, I just can't vote on the curve. You know, I have got to voice my opinion. Where are we? We back in the 50s, the 60s, and we can't become complacent at all. Yep. And Tom Seckle says, Napleton is the standard for F. Outie wasn't that bad.

The first step is to have the F&I salesman recap the detail of the out-the-door price before he gets into his menu sales pitch. I like that. We'll redefine F as Napleton standards. Oh. So he set the low bar, and so Napleton will be our F standard.

Oh. Johnny C. Freidly, says, I'm surprised they're not charging for helium-filled tires, claiming you'll get better gas mileage because the car will be lighter. I like that one. All right, Johnny. Yeah, Johnny. You just won the prize for today.

That was pretty good, Johnny. I like that. I think we're all the time. Nearly, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. We certainly enjoy your company, and we hope that you found the show entertaining and educational. and stay tuned next week. We'll be right back here at 8 o'clock. And myself, I am going to start celebrating my birthday today.

I'm going to celebrate, in fact, today. It's Monday, but today. Anyway, happy birthday. Thank you. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. And Stu, we're thinking about you. Get better soon. Bye-bye, everyone.

VETOW! VETO! VETO TUM WETO. Thank you.