Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.11.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Toyota

Episode Date: December 11, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Toyota dealer to see how many cars they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2022 Toyota Corolla LE. 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 listeners. 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 linked to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forward a dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back, we're live, we're here in the studio, and we're here to help you out there in car buying land all over the world. I say that literally. We are international now, and we're here to listen to you as well as advise you. I always start to show off by reminding you how important your calls are in your YouTube post and your Facebook post and your Twitter post and texting. We have just about every avenue of communication available open to you to get your thoughts across to us,

a very special avenue of communication, which nobody has, as far as I know, and it's called Your Anonymous Feedback.com. That used to be, for a while there, it became our number one source of input, and I was surprised, frankly, that it became so popular, but you go to this URL

www. www. you are, A-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Feedback.com. And if you comment, criticize, praise, you can even get nasty if you want to. Profanity and vulgarity is permitted, but I won't read it that way. I'll put expletive deleted or something like that. But the point is your privacy is totally protected. Some people just like the fact that they can make a comment and just not have to. to have a dialogue about it.

A lot of people just want to say, this is the way I feel, and then you want to go home. So your anonymousfeedback.com is open, and we'll read it on the air, along with our text at 772-497-65-30, 772, of course, this is the area code. 772-497-6530.

And we kind of build an archive weekly, and we get to it before the end of the show. So we'll read your text before the end of the show, and we'll read your anonymous feedbacks before the end of the show. But our most popular line is still our telephones, the old-fashioned telephones. Gosh, I never thought I'd be saying that. I mean, telephone used to be, particularly cell phones, were exciting, and now calls are almost, you know, incidental.

But not on talk radio. Talk radio, they're really the lifeblood. It's a personality. You know, you can, you listen to a voice, and our human, I think our brain is attuned to forming opinions based on tone and volume and accent and, you know, it's important. It's your personality. So call us at 877-960-99-60. 877-960-99-0. give us a call

and we will prioritize you because I think we've only got three or four five maybe four incoming lines

and we've been getting a lot of calls recently I mean it's amazing for the number of calls we've actually had to do a little of tap dance

to get back to our text and our anonymous feedbacks at times because the calls and that's good we have a lot of regular call

we encourage you to call the regular calls we encourage you and new callers, especially females. And we have Nancy Stewart, my co-host, that is in charge of keeping our female callers up equal to our male callers.

It's important because women have a different view of things than men. That's the way it is. That's life. And that's the way it should be. And I don't want to finish this live introduction without mentioning Rick Kearney, who was our certified diagnostic master tech. who can almost literally answer any question about issues you may have with your car.

Mechanically, electronically, computer-wise, Rick has got the answer for you. And rarely will you ever stump Rick. And if you do stump Rick, then he has a backup called Colonel Google. We will go to Google. And we do that openly because Google is a wonderful thing. And it's got all the answers. So I use Google all the time. So between Rick and Google, there's not a question you can answer us,

ask us about the mechanics or electronics of your car that we cannot answer. And I've got Stu Stewart, my son, my eldest son, sitting across from me now, and he's in charge of our Mr. Shopping Report. He's also the active gentle manager of our real live car dealership that we have, and we've had for a long time. 47 years, is that it? Earl Stewart, Toyota. And we don't advertise.

This is not an infomercial, but we use that knowledge we have of a lot of people are critical to car dealers, but they're not car dealers. I'm a car dealer who's critical car dealers, which I'll never be elected president of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association or the National Automobile Dealers Association. I'm not real popular with car dealers because I call a spade a spade a I call it the way I see it. And I am a consumer advocate. I Google myself the other day, and in addition to a car dealer, I was very happy to say, I'm a consumer advocate. So Google thinks I'm okay, made me feel good. Let me introduce Nancy Stewart, my co-host,

and she's got a little special incentive for you ladies out there. If you haven't called the show before, listen carefully. There are no strings attached, and she'll tell you all about this. Thank you, Mr. Wonderful. Yeah, you're welcome. Mike, hit it. Are you there? Mike.

Okay. It's time. I hear music. I'm starting to get sleepy. Earl. happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear girl happy birthday to you and many more thank you very much happy birthday oh you thought of you mr wonderful yeah yeah nobody wish me happy birthday you're 76 biological years old today you saw the tears in my rolling down my tree

We were talking about that in the car. Thank you very much. We were discussing our feel fit. We're in competition with each other. Anyway, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I do have to say how exciting it is to talk about us being across the globe. And because of Jonathan's research, we did find out that it reaches far, far. Well, let's say pass valley, so I feel good about that. This morning for the ladies, I do have $50, $50 for the first two lady callers.

We love hearing from the ladies, and you can share your car purchasing experience, servicing, anything at all, anything. We can learn from you. So give us a call, toll free at 877-960-9960. And don't forget, as Earl said, your anonymous feedback. dot com and back to the recovering car dealer well thank you very much that was uh you know the older you get i guess the less excited as you get about your birthdays but you know i'm i'm thankful that i'm here and i think i still have my marbles and most of them you know it'd be exciting if i lost my marbles right here on live radio i mean you could be witness to to me uh babbling

incoherently. They start the gibberish. That's the reason I have. That's the reason I have Stu on with me in case I take over quickly. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, it's an exciting time to be a consumer advocate. It's also an exciting time, a profitable time to be a car dealer. And so this is a reason I'm having more fun with the show now that I normally do with this whole COVID era.

We're going through unprecedented. profitability for the auto manufacturers, unprecedented profitability for the car dealers, and unprecedented high prices for you. And so I feel important now. I feel very important because I can really help you, and so can Rick and so can Stu and so can Nancy, and we love to hear you call in with your questions about buying a car. Our advice for you, before I go to Rick, I'm going to ask Rick something in just a second, but before I go to Rick, my advice to you is don't buy a car today.

He said, whoa, wait a minute. This guy's a car dealer. He's got a car dealership, and he's telling me not to buy a car. Well, you've got to be honest. If you're going to be a consumer advocate, you've got to tell the truth. The truth is, it's a terrible time to buy a newer used car. I wish you could sit in on our management meetings on Wednesdays. We have a Zoom management meeting,

and you'd be surprised how giddy and happy everybody is with all the money everybody's making because cars are selling unprecedentedly high prices. Used cars, unprecedented high prices. Used cars are actually some of them selling over what their sticker price was when they were new. That's hard to believe. One of the Facebook groups I'm in, I actually saw where a salesman had put a post that a fellow had bought the last 21 Jeep Wrangler that they had on their lot, manual windows, crank up windows, manual transmission, for $35,000.

A year before that, he had bought the identical basic vehicle, 21 crank up when used manual transmission. he had driven it 15,000 miles and then sold it to CarMax when he bought this new one for $44,000. Hard to believe. It's crazy. Every time I hear the stories, I question, but it's true. And so you have to be careful out there, folks. Sue? Here's something that I just learned about Toyota Vero Beach the week before last sent 40 new vehicles to the auction and sold them all at the auction for up to $11,000 over MSRP.

You know, if I didn't know you're my son, I'd say you were kidding me. I'm not kidding you. Wow. And it's where we've been scratching our heads trying to figure out because, folks, if you're listening, there's big penalties for doing things like that. So they will get, right now in the middle of an inventory crisis, they're gambling that things will get better before they get these chargebacks, which means they'll lose cars. They won't be able to get as many cars to sell down the road when Toyota finds out about this. That's amazing. So I just, I could see sell two or three, but they actually sold 40, 40 over MSRP.

We took the vins that sold, a rent, put them in dealer daily, which is our computer system with Toyota, and saw the cost on the cars and what they brought, each one brought. Some were 3,000 over, somewhere over 11,000 over MSRP. Well, that ought to get your attention. And if you're thinking, if you have to buy a car, of course you're going to buy a car, and you should. I mean, I spoke to a woman the other day. She totaled her car. Insurance company gave her a real good price, and she did buy a car, and she paid a lot of money for the car. So, if you have to buy a car, then listen carefully to the rest of the show.

We'll give you some tips how you can buy a car as low as, if it's a new car, as low as MSRP. Absolutely. And ladies and gentlemen, I must take the opportunity to mention what Earl has done. in this auto industry. There was a time when I didn't even want to admit that I was part of this industry. And a time came along where everything changed. And Earl, I really believe he doesn't realize

the impact that he has made on the auto industry. And there are so many of you, listeners, buyers, people that have had service, and they are thankful that the auto industry has been changed by Earl Stewart, and I did have to say that. It's very, very important. It's alive, and he's doing more and more and more to help you. Call us, share your story with us, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And we're expecting a call, by the way, from Barry O'Brien, who is, used to be on the radio. He's a friend, and he posts on Facebook a situation about a car that he leased, and it's such an amazing story. I ask him to call, so Nancy would be looking for Barry O'Brien's a call, and we want to get him on the air. He said he would call today, and that would be great. Rick, the question I was going to ask you is we talk about car prices. and we talk about used car, new car prices being in historic highs. How do you see the service business now? Do you see in your community of techs, do you see real busy high prices?

Is there a big difference than the service end of the business? Right now, we're actually a little slow in the service department for the last week or so. Interesting. The last couple of years, we do see a lot more people. Taking better care of their used cars, the cars they have, they're more willing to do repairs rather than simply trade in to go to something else because there's nothing else available. So, you know, it's almost a scary situation because I can guarantee a lot of shops

we'll be looking to take advantage of that. Yeah, it used to be the other way. The service department used to be the money-making machine. And, you know, you go back a few years. and the new car department, the use car department, were very competitive. You made money in used cars, but you broke even and new, and services where you made all your money. And the cars today are becoming so reliable,

and they're really, if you just do your factory recommended maintenance, it's very inexpensive, and the repairs are less. So the service departments are actually a little safer place than they used to be. Yeah, but I can see, bear in mind, folks, there is a very real potential now where for folks going into a service department in their mindset knowing that new cars and used cars are not available to buy so the car that they have they're going to repair it so I can see a lot of other shops probably being willing to take advantage of that mindset and saying well you need this this this this and this

because the people are going to be more willing to repair that car because they're know they can't simply go and get rid of that one and get a different car. Well, let's go to Stu, and he is our mystery shopping overseer, and he is also managing the text and the Facebooks and our anonymous feedbacks. That's right. It was kind of neat to do our mystery shop this week because we had recently shopped, we shopped Palm Beach Toyota, and we had shopped them back in July. And even though in July, we were still.

We were kind of in the earlier stages of the inventory crisis, and it's a wholly different world. So the results that we got this week were, it's just very interesting, let's put it that way. I don't want to give anything away. I don't want to say it was surprising. But it was, it's just strange how quickly the landscape was changing on a monthly basis during this pandemic. Bombay's Toyota is a Penske store publicly traded on the stock exchange. They're number two or number three in size. in terms of publicly owned auto groups,

and they have all different mix of cars. They're all of the United States. They're one of the largest Toyota dealers. I think they're right up there, whatever, on number six or seven, and South Florida, and Florida has got all the huge car deals. I think they're one of the largest. Yeah, South Florida and L.A., those are the two biggest. So, yeah, it's just crazy because I'll admit prior to the pandemic,

things started to get a little routine for me because the same things keep happening. Now everything has changed and it's just been it's been a delight to serve you with these mystery shopping reports. It's been a delight to have you here. Thank you very much. With that said, oh, go ahead. And I might add, we are waiting for phone calls. Take advantage.

877960. And don't forget, ladies, $50, $50 for the first two new. lady callers and as promised last week by earl he did write a great column that addresses a lot of bad credit today and the car dealers taking advantage of that and pandemics bad credit and car buying check it out hometown news and the florida weekly and of course at earl on cars now back to stew all right well let's uh kick it off with ammarie's text um always the first text of the day Amory says, good morning. Toyota's have a reputation for being well built and lasting a long time.

Taking into account your years of experience with Toyota's, what model and year would you consider to be the best vehicle Toyota's ever made? Or to put it another way, what metal lasted the longest with the fewest repairs here in South Florida? And there's a follow-up question, and I'll get that after. I think this is probably more of a Rick question, because my opinions on the best cars are completely subjective and probably based on styling and not on reliability. That's the way my brain works.

Well, I'm interested in Rick's too, but let me guess because Rick knows better than I. I would say in terms of the best overall car the Toyota has ever built consistently and with popularity and so on and so forth, I would say it would be the Prius. She wants to know the model year. Oh, the model year? Well, I didn't realize a model. From 2004 to 2022. Yeah, it would have to be, it had to be the 22, but, Eric.

From a mechanical standpoint of cars that I see the least repairs, not counting maintenance, but the least repairs, any year of a Toyota Corolla. Yeah. Prius lately, we've actually been seeing a lot of them starting to have issues as they get older, 8, 10 years, 12 years, with cool. cooling into the cylinders. When you buy a hybrid, if you're going to keep it for a long, long, long time, you're almost pretty much guaranteed that in about 12 to 15 years it's going to need a hybrid battery. There are certain things that are going to wear out on hybrids, but Toyota Corolla is for some reason throughout the years, other than the maintenance wear items, brakes, tires, belts, filters, very little seems to break on them.

break on them. They are just, they're, they're, they're like the, the tortoise. They don't have an actual lifespan. Barring injury, a tortoise can almost live forever. Same thing with a corolla. I, uh, better than a camera. Camry would that be number two? Camry would probably be second. Tacoma? Now we've had issues with Tacoma. Tacomas have had their issues, but Tacomas would high, uh, and I, I will say yes, I am a bit prejudiced on this because I, love Tacoma pickups and I would say Tacoma would be there was a year of Camry for

for a second okay well we get to because there's a follow-up question the follow-up questions what's the worst problematic Toyota that we've ever encountered in our experience the worst one well I'd say like the FJ Cruiser is like a conflicted one

from a design and a fun and people love it like a Jeep is a great car it was it was difficult to drive and a terrible visibility and I don't know if there was any mechanical issues. They really didn't have a lot of mechanical issues. They just simply had a love-hate relationship with the look of them, the design of them. Yeah, but it was hard to see. They had little tiny windows.

Oh, yeah. They were horrendous that way. All right. Well, thank you, Emory. This was another excellent question. You see, it's sparked a debate and deep thought and contemplation, and I'm still thinking about it, but we can't go on. Earl would stop me.

So I'll go to the next step here. Well, here's a text here, just letting us know about there's a Ford in Orlando, Greenway Kia or Greenway Ford. They have tons of hidden fees and deceptions, and they've been directing their folks up there in the Apopka area to go to Mullinac's for an Apopka. And that was the first dealership that we mystery shop that had absolutely no dealer fee whatsoever, zero. You know, I just have a thought. I hate to say it on the air because it'll probably, it might tip them off. But strangely enough, we tip dealers off all the time and they seem to fall asleep. It would be fun to mystery shop Toyota Vero Beach when they were selling their cars at auction for over-sticker.

I wonder what they're charging customers if they're getting over-sticker at the auctions. I don't know, but I'd also wonder what their salespeople thought as their available inventory just drove away on trucks. That would be a huge morale problem. the next text everybody's got this on their minds when will be a good time when will a good time to buy come especially now that inflation is here

yeah that's a tough question no crystal ball the only thing I can say with certainty is that it will be better every day we've already seen the turn the upward spiral in prices has stopped

and we're now arcing down a little bit. If you look hard, you can buy a car for pretty close to MSRP, which almost sounds like a joke. I hear myself say it, and I choke on those words, but it's true. But when you've been paying $3,000, $4,000 and $40,000, yes, there was a toilet dealer charging $40,000 over MSRP for RAV-4s. If you're going to look at relative trends, we're in a good downward trend now. So 30 days from now, you'll get a better price than you do today. 60 days, you'll get even better.

And 90 days, it will be even better than that. But I can't be real predictive. The only thing I can say is, whatever time you choose to buy it, be sure you shop and compare. You need to take your best out-the-door price to the other dealers of that brand and give them the opportunity to beat it. And they will, if they have the mind to, they will. want to get the business and they want to make the sale, that's the most, that's strongest incentive you can get for a car dealer to cut his price. Shop and compare with the leech three other dealers.

I have something to say about the best cars, and I love Consumer Report, and recently they had some information about the best, the 10 best performing cars. And ladies and gentlemen, Take a look at that, and it will open your eyes. I'm going to interrupt Stu and go to the phones, and we have a regular caller from LaBelle, and that is Dawn. Good morning, Don. Hey, good morning, everybody. Good morning. I have a question about the lifetime battery, which I guess Toyota is doing, and from what I saw on the Internet, which is very little, it appears it's a different brand of battery than your,

typical interstate battery is that true uh no they're actually made by interstate for toyota okay now another question then is it worthwhile well it looked like what i saw was from another dealer on online but it looked like it was two hundred dollars or something is that for all the batteries because i have a hybrid camry and i thought the hybrid uh 12 o battery is way more than the regular battery uh i would i cannot speak myself to the price on it, we'd have to check with our parts department. But I think the 12-volt battery for the hybrids is a little bit more expensive than the regular ones, even for the lifetime version.

Bear in mind, the 12-volt battery on most of those is inside the car, so it cannot be a battery that allows gas to escape like a normal car battery does. You wouldn't want that battery gases building up inside your car, light a cigarette, and boom, you've got fourth of jai. So they're especially sealed batteries, and they're a gel-type battery. So they are a little more expensive for that. Yeah, and I read somewhere online about changing out that battery, that there's on the Toyota battery, there's some kind of thing.

Or you can buy an aftermarket battery, apparently, but there's something on the OEM battery that you take off or put on. I don't know something to do with a venting or a lot, but there was something peculiar. Does that sound familiar at all? Two items. There's a little vent hose that has to go into the, actually it plugs into a little port on the battery. And there's also a temperature sensor on that 12-volt battery. Oh, maybe it was a temperature sensor because this is in a while since I read that, but somehow

you have to either take it off or put it on from the old battery or something rather. So it seemed a little complicated for doing it yourself or to do that. Could an individual do their own battery replacing or it's better to go to the dealer? Oh, it's very easy to do. It's not a difficult process at all. It does take a little bit, you know, a few minutes of time. There's the actual, you know, an extra connector there with the little sensor, but it's really not difficult. And when you take that, disconnect that battery, are you supposed to actually connect a different or another battery?

to the system so that you don't lose your memory somehow? No, we don't recommend that because voltage variations could cause issues more than simply disconnecting the battery and then reconnecting it. Just make sure that the ignition and everything is turned off before you disconnect that battery. And then when you disconnect it and reconnect it, the modern cars, even the clocks on most of them, automatically reset to the correct time. your radio does not lose memory anymore the windows don't even need to be re-initialized you know the power windows for automatic up and down everything has

its own standalone memory and so there's really no issues caused by that okay yeah because I have a 212 and and I of course all this stuff you read online you never know what to believe and not to believe that's the problem yeah well a lot of it you get old information mixed with new and people will remember, you know, cars from back in the 2000s when you had to re-initialize each individual window and your sunroof and reset the clock, reset all your radio stations. And so a lot of this stuff is that old memory carried over

and it gets mixed up with a lot of the new information and causes confusion. Yeah. Okay. Well, wait to hear your mystery report and thank you very much for the info. Thank you very much, John. I got a question to follow up on Don. What does lifetime battery mean? Toyota has come out now with a 12-volt battery

that is a lifetime warranty. They're doing batteries for life instead of us now. Yeah, it's basically it's the battery has a, there is a certain amount of time for pro rate. But as long as that particular owner owns that car, that battery is warrantied for life. So when it goes dead, You get another battery?

Yep. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah. How long we've been doing that? A couple of years. About two years now? Sure, you I'm not on top of things anymore. So as long as you own that car.

Batteries for life. That's right. And they're paying for it this time. Yeah. Anyone that could be on top of everything that goes on in a dealership. Yeah. Anybody that could stay on top of everything in a dealership would have to be an Android. I mean, a computerized brain.

I have no idea what's going on. It's insane. There you have it, folks. Free information. Is that amazing? Give us a call toll free at 877-9-60-99-60. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback, and also you can text us, 772-4976530.

We're going to go back to the phones where we have a regular caller, and that's John from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. batteries seem to be on my mind with a question for Rick and I'll tell you how the situation come up they're still short

of the popular-sized batteries for some reason that they don't have them in stock and the ones that are so basic 24F or whatever at Walmart he told me a big shortage of them but let me tell you an interesting story that the Walmart manager

told me people have put about one person put a battery in the car and it was too high. He was kind of desperate. Couldn't get the one that fit. And believe it or not, Rickle mentioned what it can do with the electrical system. It was too high. So it hit the bottom of the hood, which is metal, and it shorted the whole thing out. So it's a major problem right there. But here's another problem. A guy recently brought the battery back. Batteries have top terminals and side terminals. Now Rick will tell you, the side terminals has a

bolt that goes into the side of the battery. God forbid you should overtighten that bolt. It goes into a lead sleeve. So does Rick have any solution? If somebody overtightened that, is there anywhere that can be fixed or the battery is void? The only way really to repair that would be to actually you'd have to put lead in there and try to thread a bolt back in. My own trick, I would use what's known as a, oh, come on now, haven't used it been so many years now. It's basically a thread replacement where you kind of carefully drill it out,

cut larger threads, and you put an insert in that gives you new threads. Probably be more expensive than a new battery. Yeah, those even, well, they're not super expensive, but they are a little time consuming to install. labor for a mechanic to do it it almost be better to put a new battery if it's stripped out that lead that badly myself my other trick I would cut a little piece of copper wire like from household wiring stick that in the hole and put the bolt down in and let that take up the gap and let it cut new threads right into that lead

new ideas in your opinion as a mechanic don't you think that there's better connection with the top terminals that they're bigger and fatter than the small side terminals that attached to it? Absolutely. The second thing I want to discuss is they're talking about shortages because of the chips of the new cars. Well, people forget another major reason is the getting the drivers that deliver these cars to a dealer.

You want to see an experience anybody that didn't. Watch the poor guy. He's on the truck alone. that has to unload these new cars with the responsibility not only of driving it with traffic and expressways, but when he gets there, what a procedure with lowering and raising hydraulic lifts with all the cars that are attached to it. And this is a true story that observed years ago at a Chevy dealer on Long Island. The delivery man and Howard would appreciate this living in the Bronx. He had two cars that he had to drop off in the Bronx

before he bought him to Long Island and he got off at Cross Bronx Expressway and Jerome Avenue and got hung up over an elevated train line and bingo the top cars, two of them, damage, unbelievable amount of damage that was scraped on a steel, a train elevated line. How do truckers do that?

Is there a certain usually that says how... of a driver, usually they're all alone. And Rick, and your experience has a car ever come in and got damaged in any way in delivery to your dealership? Oh, yeah. That's common, yeah. Yeah, we see cars damaged all the time. By the way, that was a heli coil, was the term I was trying to come up with. Thank you, Nican.

Negan one from YouTube. Oh, okay. Click me on that one to jog my old memory. But we've never seen, the worst damage we've seen from a new car vehicle carrier was when it took out. our curb when it was leaving last year and it got a little bit too close to the side of the driveway and it ripped up it was a it was pretty they paid for it well how about the one not that long ago maybe six months ago he was pulling out onto us one he went too fast and the car carrier flipped over on its side in the middle of us one ours it was actually a guy that was picking up

a wholesale okay as a wholesale yeah yeah it was and his his car carrier trailer flipped on its side. Amazing. Amazing stories. I've got drawn on the line, folks. The reason I mentioned it is that's a terrible responsibility of one driver alone that not only has to drive them to the dealership, but the loading, unloading is a terrific responsibility.

Absolutely. And I just thought I'd mention that, so it's an additional reason for dealerships getting shortage of the car, even where it's made, of getting the, you know, and getting the delivery to come to them. Yeah, I wouldn't do it. It's too scary. I agree with you 100%. Because it's beyond driving in expressways and traffic, it's the responsibility of the unloading of the cause. Absolutely, John.

John, it was great hearing from you, and the drivers do really deserve so much recognition today. We don't realize it. Thanks again for calling, and we look forward to hearing from you next week. thank you yeah let me let me piggyback on that getting the cars on and off the truck and be careful when you buy a car today new car always be sure that they have an alignment check you think well why should i need an alignment check it's a brand new car well because of the way they're transported they come some of them from overseas so they get on a ship off a ship sometimes they get on a railroad off a railroad on a truck off a truck and this whole procedure if you've ever watched it it's not

gentle i mean these these cars get bounced around and uh there's a good chance well uh we experienced probably 10 percent of our cars coming in uh needed an alignment and some people just don't check the alignment if you buy the car and it needs an alignment uh and you bring it back in two weeks because you're getting abnormal tire wear they're going to blame it on you but it should be covered under warranty um if it was done before you bought the car and it will be but Have an alignment check, and you get a computer printout. It'll show you that all four wheels are in alignment. And then after that, it's your responsibility.

But don't take that car unless you can see a recent alignment check. Absolutely. We're going to go back to the phones where we have our first time female caller who won $50 this morning. Her name is Ann, and she's calling us from Hope Sound. Good morning, Ann. Hello, Al are you this morning. Well, well, thank you. Congratulations.

You've won yourself $50 this morning. If you stay on the line after we talk and give the control room your contact information, I can get that check out to you. Thank you very kindly. My question is I have a 2008 corolla, it has $140,000 on it. I was wondering, is it time for a tune-up? Most important of all, is it time for a timing bell? First one is yes, because at about 120,000 miles, you should replace the spark plugs on it.

If it's a four-cylinder, that's going to run you about $75 to $100 in labor, and probably I'm going to say about $100 in parts, maybe a little less on that. And for a timing belt, nope, because your car has a timing chain that will... It lasts longer than the rest of the car well. Really? That's very good news. Now, if you're listening earlier, but Rick just said an answer to another caller, text her actually,

that the Corolla was the most reliable car Toyota had ever built, and Rick sees them coming in with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles, and they're in really good shape, better than any other car manufactured. So you got yourself a real gem of a car, and it's, what is it,

13 years old, and you're just getting warmed up. That car's going to last you a long, long time. Oh, that's, you made my Christmas. Thank you very much. You see, Ann, isn't it amazing? I mean, this information, this conversation that we just had, you have helped to ensure so much experience and information to our audience. There are so many females that are listening out there, and males, and this is just a great way for us to. to get to everyone, and you were the major player. As a Christmas present, you should treat your car to a nice detail. There you go.

Vacuum, shampoo, wash, and wax. Yep. She deserves it. Okay. Pedicure, manicure. Yep, that too. You see, Ann? There you go.

Maybe new wheel cover. Okay. Thank you so much. Give us a call again, and please spread the word right here at her own cars. Not my first Toyota, not my last. Ah, nice. Thank you. You're welcome.

Have a great weekend. We're going to continue with our calls, and we're going to go to Ron, who's calling us from Summerfield. Good morning, Ron. Good morning. This question is actually for Rick. Rick, I need your help in buying a new car. I have a 2012 Highlander, which has been absolutely flawless. I like the 3.5-liter engine.

However, you know, I wanted to get something more. gas-friendly, and I was looking at the hybrid. I heard you mention a week or so ago that the hybrid, the four-cylinder, is not driven by the four-cylinder engine. That just powers the batteries. Correct. And my question is, if I get this four-cylinder hybrid Highlander, is it going to be able to get out of its own way? I'm used to the power of the 3.5-liter V-6. And so I don't want to buy something that's sluggish. Can you help me with that?

You've got a Ravre 4 hybrid. No, you're actually, you're thinking the wrong direction here because hybrids, because all Toyota hybrids are technically an electric car that carries its own generator with it. The gas engine is simply a generator. That car, the moment you step on the accelerator pedal, it has instant 100% torque. There is no ramp buildup of the torque, which is what gets your wheels spinning and gets the vehicle moving. Snaps your neck back. Exactly.

Earl found this out with this new Tesla, which is a dedicated electric car, and it's designed to basically, it'll try to break your neck. I always said when folks were looking for an SUV, if they wanted to pull a small voter or trailer, the hybrid was the best choice because it had so much torque and power. power to get that load moving. If it were not for traction control on a hybrid, you could literally burn the tires off of it. I mean, it'd be like the old muscle cars where they could just sit still and spin the wheels and just smoke them until they blew the tires out. The traction control will prevent you from doing that to save your car, but hybrids are massive torque and power. They have to hold it back to keep you from damaging the car, breaking your neck by having so much power available. You should drive one, take one for a drive, get in an empty parking lot or an empty street, and let us just sit at idle for a moment, and then just floor it and feel that power as it snaps. So you'll be pleasantly surprised, I think.

Okay. So, Rick, why don't they put that kind of power, the power that they have in the prime, into the Highlander and into the minivan that you have. That's what they're working towards. This, it's a, we're right now, we're in the baby steps. We are the, it's the beginning of that long journey to becoming every vehicle fully electric. And it's, it's going to be a longer road. It's going to take a while.

A lot of people are going to be resistive to it. So they, you know, to make vehicles appealing to all the massive, they have to, you know, have some still available. But eventually they're all going to be electric and you'll see it come. Yeah. Okay, then I heard Earl mention get a RAV-4, which I actually love the car. However, I want to do some light towing, and the RAV-4 just doesn't have enough towing power for me. Right. So that's why they have to stick with the Highlander.

And the Highlander hybrid is an excellent choice. Okay, then. Well, thanks so much. I do appreciate it. Any time. Thank you, Ron. I think that, you know, Summerfield is in Marion County. Is that the first time we've had a caller from Marion County?

Anyway, congratulations. Let me piggyback on Ron's comment about, or it was actually Ricks about traction control, is, you know, back of the day when we first had it was called limited slip difference. which is real posit traction? So is it more sophisticated today? And is traction control just baked into every electric vehicle? Traction control is now standard every vehicle. And the basic idea of what it does is the computer looks at all four wheels.

If one wheel is slipping, which is pretty obvious by its sensors, it will actually reduce power to it and apply the brakes to that wheel. The reason I asked the question is, and Stu and I were talking about this, my Tesla plaid has something called drag race mode, and I kid you not, and you put it in drag race mode on the screen, and then it tells you to put your left foot heavily on the brake, and then put your right foot on the accelerator and to press it all the way to the floor. Now, I can't imagine any other car putting all your weight on the brake and then all the way to the floor on the accelerator. Well, that would kill the engine in most cars.

And then when it says, launch, you see a sign on the Tesla plaid screen. It says launch. You pull your foot immediately off the brake, and then you are launched into a drag race mode. It's like a rubber band. They pull you back like a slingshot. So that traction control must be absolutely. phenomenal. It is incredible.

Yeah. Well, I was talking about what is the emergency stop. If you hit the gas and accelerate, break at the same time, it will cut off the engine. Well, it will shut the throttle off to the engine. Yeah, that's why I meant it was after the sudden recall reaction. That actually used to be what mechanics would use, known as a, it'll come to you. Pardon my brain, folks. I'm losing my turn.

older, a stall test for the transmission. In other words, automatic transmissions, in order to determine if anything was slipping inside the transmission, a mechanic would do what is known as a stall test. And this is completely normal. This is how they were tested. You would hold one foot on the brake nice and hard. And then you was on a, now this is not in a hybrid or an electric car, but a full gasoline engine car. You would floor the gas pedal and see how far the RPMs came up. If the RPM, you would, you would floor the gas pedal and see how far the RPMs came up. If the RPM, went too high it meant something inside the transmission was slipping and if they stated the proper specified value according to the repair manual then you knew the transmission was good and solid and you did that in first gear and in reverse should i add don't try this at home yeah yeah this is this is something that the mechanic would do only professionals in the 50 to make sure that things are right let me shed some light on this please um i understand that whole thing with the track and all. But I'm almost positive. That's the mode that we use to get to the show,

isn't it? Drive race? Yes, exactly. That's why you beat me this morning. You're not a software thing that cuts the engine off in the event that your car starts accelerating. You hit both of them at the same time and it just dies. And that actually was developed after they had that the sudden acceleration, unintended acceleration, as Toyota called it. And other manufacturers saw this as well. But that only applies. That actually, that software kicks in if the vehicle is in motion. If the vehicle is moving even one or two miles an hour and it detects that your foot is on the gas, so you're driving down the highway and you're one of those people that you have your left foot hovering over to brake pedal, if you step on the brakes just enough to activate your brake

lights, even though it doesn't apply the brakes, it will immediately close the throttle to idle speed and your vehicle will lose power. And that is designed to where you cannot have the engine race away with you. Because I think Toyota realized that the sudden acceleration were people hitting their gas pedals. And by the way, folks, as a PSA public safety announcement here, floor mats in your car on the driver's side, no matter what you do in the rest of the car, the driver's side floor mat, you should have only one floor mat maximum. Yep, no stack. And it should be properly secured by clips.

Or Velcro. Well, Velcro works, but clips are the best way. No, some come with it. Right. Super comes with just. Yeah, some of them now have a Velcro surface on the back. Let's get going on. Yeah, great information.

Yeah, great information. Never stacks floor mats, one on top of another. Okay, folks, I am going to go back to the phones to our first-time female caller. And her name is Stacy. And she's calling from North Palm Beach, and she won herself $50 this morning. Yes, $50 just for giving us a call. So if she stays on the line, she can share that information with our control room. Good morning, Stacey.

Hi, how are you guys? Welcome. Great. What can we do for you this morning? I recently went up to Wallet Kia and Stewart. to look at a new Sorrento. They have one online. The price was $35,000.

I'm just making a ballparking the fee. And they had a lease program that was comparable to what I wanted. Online went up there. The $35,000 car was now $45,000. Oh, boy. $10,000 up to the car. So I said, I talked to the G. and he basically said that's it you can't negotiate I have no trade in I didn't want it

I don't need a trade and I don't have a treatment so I was so mad I just left and they it's like they could have cared left yeah so my question so my question now is if Hyundai's up charging he is up charging if how how can you go from one dealer to the other to use one price against another, you know, I mean, even if I wait 90 days, I mean, I don't know how, they don't have any inventory. How can you use one car at, you know, your Toyota dealer? To work at one dealer against the other. It's really hard to do that now. But what we were discussing earlier on the show is that, you know, we believe that prices have peaked, and that doesn't mean they're going to come tumbling down, but

gradually over months. And we've actually discovered some dealers with, they're selling the cars at no more than MSRP. Now, they all have dealer fees, most of them do anyway. And it's obscene to say, but it's the best deal, and that's the best deal you can get. So I would definitely, what you did was right, you leave a dealership that's trying to, you know, gallage or go way over MSRP, but if you have to buy a car now. To save your time, you do it online or just, if you don't want to do it online, you don't feel comfortable with computers, then just call. You have to be firm and you have to have your kind of your word track laid out, write it out if you want to. But what you need to do is either on the telephone or online, get the best out-the-door price.

And the best, and the out-the-door definition is the price that you can write a check for and hand it. it to the car dealer and drive your car home. So if you don't get the out-the-door price, they're going to play games with dealer-installed accessories, hidden fees, and so on and so forth. So you can call, I'll exaggerate a little bit, 20 dealers and get 20 prices in the time it takes you to go physically, drive your car in, and go through the game playing with the sales manager and the salesman in the dealership. When you're in the dealership and their turf on their property, they're in control.

But when you're at your home on your telephone with your computer or smartphone, you're in control. If they don't give you an answer, you just don't call them back. Say, you have one choice. You give me your best out-the-door price or you never hear from me again. And usually today, especially, you'll find two out of three dealers will give you a price. One-on-three won't, but that's enough where you can get three or four comparative points. prices then you physically go in with your check-in-hand. And Stacey, you know what I love.

I love being in control and being at that computer and, you know, say and do whatever you want, and you are in control. That's number one, so that's where I feel safe. And number two, if you don't have to buy a car right now, and some of us can wait, I would advise just that, just to wait, just to be safe. Well, that's what we're going to wait. But the question then was he was telling me that the reason they're doing the upcharges there were if people had a trade in, if you had a, I have a 2015 Lincoln, MKC, if they

were going to pay $10,000 over for it, the trade in, that would wash the trade, the upcharge on the Sorrento. And I was like, well, that's, I mean, I could take that car anywhere and sell it. Is it means that is my car worth $10,000 more just with you? Or is my car $10,000 less at Molynex down here on North Lake? Well, I mean, it's crazy. They're breaking the law. It's a violation of, it's unfair and deceptive of advertising.

So they're breaking the law. Most of it was through. Bates and Switch. Yeah. To me, it was Baten Switch, because how can you advertise a $35,000 car, and then when you drive up, it's $45, I was furious. I can't tell you how mad. I still am it.

Yeah, I don't blame it. I just, I mean, it was like, it takes your breath away. It really does. And this conversation with you is proof you will. are an educated consumer and you are in control. Even though I said the best place to be as is online, I believe that you could, you know, conquer this situation in any dealership you went into because, as I said, you sound like an educated consumer. Well, I don't mind that a car dealership's going to make money. No. That I understand. But I'm not going to give a car

dealership $10,000. Absolutely. It's not happening. And my back story is my dad was a Lake and Mercury dealership and we have one in Annapolis, Maryland. I grew up in the car

industry. I mean, this is now 25 years ago. But still, I mean, you used to negotiate off the MSRP. And now, I mean, even with the $10,000 upcharge, then you're back to, you'd be happy to give

the MSRP which is which you used to start with I can't tell you I mean I'm furious strange days it is and and then of course they told me oh this is going to last forever

this is not going away the current situation no no yeah next year is the last year of it it'll last as long as they wanted to so the operative word here negotiate. I love negotiating. So, Stacey, I can't thank you enough this morning for sharing your

story with all of us and encouraging other women to give us a call. Yeah, thank you for letting me. You're quite welcome. I hope to hear from you again. Let's build this platform together. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And, you know, I haven't mentioned, a long time that affidavit did introduced to the website Earl on Cars, but there you can download

that affidavit and that is to guarantee you an out-the-door price. Yeah, take a look at it. I'm pretty proud of it. Now back to Rick, do you have any YouTube? Well, actually, we have several birthday wishes for Earl

from Regina, Mark Smith, Mark Ryan, and a few others. So I just figured I had to pass those along. Thank you. And we did have one interesting comment from Negan 1. Apparently his Raptor, he has it, his Ford Raptor pickup, is in for engine work at a dealership. And he says that he heard from his mechanic there, they're having a very big difficulty getting mechanics in there. They hired in five new mechanics, and none of them have any ASC certifications.

and a Ford dealership out in Arizona there. So if you're looking for a Ford dealership, I would be careful of what service department you went to and who you have working on your vehicle. Well, that's a great point. I never thought about that. Ask them make sure they're certified. Yeah, we're short of technicians too,

and I think every car dealer is short of technicians. It isn't so much for the demand you heard Rick earlier saying that actually the service business is a little slower. but the fact of the matter is a lot of technicians are leaving the business and there are a lot of high-paying jobs out there there's a shortage of labor worldwide and people are moving

and they work here at this job and they move there and they take another job because wages are going up so you got to be careful people are hiring people because they have to and to hire a technician without ASC certification that is shocking.

We always recommend that you check to see that they have the certification. Tell me again what that stands for ASE. It's the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. Every mechanic that knows what he's doing will have at least one of those certifications. There are, what, five of them? Actually, there's about 40 or 50 right now total to cover the entire industry for automobiles, heavy trucks, and the like.

But if you're going into a Ford dealership, there would be how many? For an automobile dealer, our automobile technician, there are eight basic tests and one advanced level tests. So you want one that has, ideally, the advanced level and all the others. But at least if it's a transmission issue you're having, be sure he's certified in transmission. Real simple. ASC certification. How many people have, how many customers have walked in and asked a mechanic, are you certified? Almost none.

I mean. And as a matter of fact, technicians, when you're working at a dealership, we send our technicians to those dealership-sponsored schools, and ASC certification is almost a prerequisite to go to most of those schools so that we can get you started. That's only a bottom line in a lot of cases. there you have it ladies and gentlemen another well another aspect of the auto industry and something to be careful when you have your car

service going to a repair shop and having a technician that isn't an ASE certified is like going to the dentist and having the dental hygiene is like going to your friend not vaccinated or it's like going to your friend for the dentist it's more like having the janitor that sweeps up in the dentist's office take care of your teeth

not the dentist don't talk about the I think we're going to get back to Stu and his text. Yeah, we have a text from Chicago. Tom in Chicago. Chicago. He says, hello from Chicago. Yeah, it is. Assuming a Honda dealer and a Toyota dealer have similarly equipped vehicles in stock,

is there any leverage these days by walking in getting some discount off percentage off MSRP, even if it's small from either dealer to land the car deal from the competing brand, Or is inventory so low that the units will eventually sell at full MSRP? And that's from Tom. And no, they will not sell for over MSRP. And let me give you another tip. If you really want to get the juices flowing, competitive uses, a toilet dealer doesn't care as much about beating a Honda dealer as he does another

toilet dealer. The Honda dealers feel the same way about other Honda dealers. The manufacturers look at it differently. The manufacturer, Toyota wants to beat Honda because all their dealers are selling Toyotas and that's who they sell their cars to. But the Toyota dealer and the Honda dealer, they sell to the public. And if you come into a Honda dealer to buy a Honda core, chances are if you don't buy from him, you'll buy from another Honda dealer, a Honda cord. So he knows most of the business he loses is to his own making brand. So if you want to get a great deal on Honda, go to three or four.

Honda dealers. Next year, like in two years or something. This is not going to work right now. Yeah, and get the best problem? No, it'll work now, but the best price you'll get today will be MSRP. And that's better than 5,000 over MSRP. So if you have to buy a car, shop three or four hundred dealers or three or four Toyota dealers, if you're going to buy a Toyota. That's right. But as you'll see on our mystery shopping report, that doesn't always work. all right let me see what else we got here I don't have any more texts

anonymous feedback nah back to you okay I'm gonna point I always want to take a moment and thank Jonathan our digital general manager

who is well the passion the energy that he puts in to this show well we're very thankful for that and he is behind the scenes and sometimes a little ignored. So we're sending the love.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 877-960-99-60 or text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And don't go anywhere, folks, because we do have that mystery shopping report coming up. And that is Palm Beach Toyota. Now back to the recovering hard-doing. Yeah, while we have a little lull on the text and the calls, and by the way, please get those texts coming in. anonymous feedback. I'm amazed that we haven't had any anonymous feedbacks. It used to be our most popular pipeline. Your anonymous feedback.com. I was going to look at, I've got the current automotive news. This is fun. Even if you're not an automobile dealer, this is a trade journal for the all manufacturers. Everybody in the auto industry, retail or wholesale, reads this religiously. It's a weekly newspaper. And it's our trade journal.

You get all sorts of inside information, things that you don't normally find out about. And the headline, the right featured headline now, is, could this be the end of stair steps for good? And you're probably saying, what the heck is you talk? What's the stair step? We all get in elevators. Yeah, stair steps is the trade, automobile, dealer, auto manufacturer, an acronym, or not an acronym, but a vernacular for, incremental incentives. Incremental is the technical word, yeah.

So what it means is the manufacturers tell their dealers that over the next 90 days or 30 days or one year or a period of time, this is how many cars you're supposed to sell. And they look at the market and they look at the dealer abilities and other things, history, and they say, okay, in three months' time, you should sell 900 cars. be a big dealer. I expect you to sell 900 cars in three months, 90 days. Now, if you do sell over 900 cars, you hit your objective. If you don't, you don't hit your objective. If you

hit your objective, retroactively you get paid $200, $500, the amount will vary from manufacturer to manufacture. But it's a huge number, and it's a huge incentive and motivation for a car dealer to sell enough cars to hit their quota. He could be working hard for 30 days or it could be 90 days or say even a year. This is hated by the dealers, most of them. It should be hated by the consumers because the feature of this article

is the president of the NADA and a lot of other influential people in our industry. The dealers are trying to get those blocked by the manufacturers, because it causes, the reason that affects you, the buyer, is it creates chaos in purchasing a car. I circled one paragraph here, and I'll read this from automotive news, and the headline being, could this be the end of stair steps for good? The worst consequence of the bonus scheme, he said, is a loss of credibility with customers.

With stair steps, two customers buying the same model two weeks. apart can pay vastly different prices when a dealership drastically discounts one of the vehicles to hit a stair-step volume target at month end. So it makes you confused and it makes me in this show we've always advised you to buy a car when you're going to buy a car toward the end of the month. One thing common about stair-step incentives, they all end at the end of the month. It might be a 30-day cycle or a 90-day cycle. And the end of the year is but particularly good.

December 31st, January 1st, an incredibly good time to buy a car because these stair steps incentives are still out there. A lot of manufacturers have cut back. In the southeast, Toyota has not cut back. They still haven't. And I think other manufacturers are still doing the same thing. They try to stabilize it some, but it's still there. It used to be way worse.

They used to be crazy. Yeah, they'd have them on individual models. So if you get a certain, if you sort of a certain number of a car, of a Tacoma truck, you would get extra dealer cash, but if you didn't sell enough, you didn't get that. And so then you couldn't price your car as low as your competitors, who did it. So this is December.

If you want to get a great deal, relatively speaking, because it's still going to be a sticker price, you go out at the end of the month, end of December, early January, January 1st or 2nd, right in there, and you'll get the best price you'll be able to buy a car for all year.

and it won't be a good price it'll still be sticker if you're lucky there you have it folks January 1st, 2nd there you have it purchase your vehicle we're going to go back to the phones and we are going to talk to

Corinne in Wellington good morning and welcome hi hi good morning listen to your show all the time and always get good advice anyway I have a S60 Volvo, and every once in a while I'll see this signal on the panel that says low-power charge.

So I took it to my mechanic, and he checked the alternator, and he changed out my battery. And still, every once in a while, those words appear, low-power charge battery. Hmm. That sounds like either the alternator is starting to have some issues or since he just changed out the battery, that kind of precludes that one. The other possibility that I'd have them look for is make sure all the connections are tight, especially the negative terminal on the battery and the end of the negative cable where it bolts up to the frame and the engine or block of the car. those are the first places I'd be looking okay and also I read online about this little wire it's like a little plug that's attached to the battery they said

remove the plug and and then with the engine running put the plug back in and that that stopped the signal for a long time but now last week it came on again just for like a second and it went away hmm I'm not sure what wire that might be but that may be a Volvo specific setup which unfortunately there's just no way I can be familiar with all the different cars and the designs out there um but if it worked once I would I would go to try again

and see if that helps anything I'm praying it's not the alternator Yeah. A lot of cases... Yes, you know what that means. Big bucks. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of times, actually, I've seen something as simple as the wire connection, and especially on the negative cable, this, for some reason, it seems to be always the negative. Where it bolts to the frame, ask your mechanic to unbolt that and just clean that connection up real good with a wire wheel

and then bolt it back down to make sure it's getting a good contact. for some reason those seem to be and it's something to discharge maybe $50 to $100 at the most to do and it's a simple little thing but it can cause all sorts of weird issues with the modern computerized cars that little bit of resistance there

Okay I will report back to him and see what he says Corinne you sound like as if that I don't know you could be a mechanic I like your style. I wouldn't want you to unbolt and rebolt to secure the contact, but I'm just saying you sound like an educated consumer, and we appreciate that.

I try to get it done myself. It's usually, you know, sometimes it's easier to take a few minutes of your own time and do it. But I appreciate the input, and I will tell him what you said. Thank you, Karen. Cool. Give us a call again. Let us know how things turn out. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

Now back to Stu. Hi, how you doing? I'm all caught out with text. That is not acceptable. This is a particularly good automotive news, and I got another article I want to share with everybody. the finance and insurance department, F&I department, that's where they call it the business office. The vernacular in the trade is the box,

and they can make more money there. In fact, they do make car dealers, make more money in the finance and insurance department than they do when they sell you the car. At least that used to be the case. And now they're making so much money on the cars. It's secondary. But in normal times, they make over $2,000 on every car they sell.

And it's in the finance and insurance department. Now, there's two things that worry about. First of all, you should always check with your credit union or your bank and get the best financing arrangements you can terms, interest rate, and you should be very leery of any after-sale products that they try to sell you. You come in to buy a car, buy the car, and you finance you're the lowest rate at the proper term and then get out of there. You can buy service contracts or maintenance contracts anytime you want to.

You don't have to buy it at that time. And you shouldn't buy it until you understand exactly what you're buying. Here's the other thing you need to worry about, and that's fraud. And this is Automotive News, the Trade Journal of car dealers and auto manufacturers. And fraud means there's two reasons that someone's going to break the law and actually maybe even implicate you. If you have bad credit, and that was a subject by blog in a newspaper column this week, bad credit, if you're buying a car with bad credit. One of the problems you have with bad credit you probably don't even know you have is that to sell a car,

car dealers will lie about your credit. They'll misrepresent your income. They'll misrepresent your job, the fact that you have a job. There are a lot of reasons that if you sign a credit application, that has been falsified, even though it was falsified by the dealer, and that's what these dealers are doing, they will put false information on the credit application and ask you to sign it.

When you sign it, then you violated a federal law. Now, you don't want to do that. That's not good to break federal laws, and that's what you have to be careful. So, read the credit application, be sure it's accurate before you sign it, and also be aware of the fact that that financing that you got may have been fraudulent, and the car you bought would be repossessed

as soon as the bank found out that the dealer had defrauded them. So you're the one that pays, your down payment's going to be gone forever, or your trade-in's going to be gone forever, and then they're going to come out and put your car on a hook and take it away, and you possibly might even have some sort of implication in finance fraud. So be careful. Yeah, and take a look at that column. I'm holding it up right now, and I will remind you,

you. Pandemics. Everything is surrounded by pandemics. Bad credit and car buying. 877960-97-49-7-2-497-497-9-6-530 is our text number, and we're going back to the phones, and we're going to talk to John in West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Yes, good morning. Welcome. Thank you. I've got a question as far, I have a 06 Honda element, and about approximately a month ago, my catalytic converter was removed from my vehicle in my pocket not. Oh, sorry.

Now, you know, my mechanic has charged me $2,700 to repair it. Put a new converter in, and everything was authorized by the insurance. Now, as soon as the check arrived from Pearl Holding, which is the insurance carrier, we get a phone call that they stop payment on the check, and they are reissuing me a check for $600. They are claiming depreciation on the catalytic converter as a wear item. Oh, what? That's unheard of. What? name of that insurance company again?

What? It's Ocean Harbor Insurance, which is Pearl Holdings. Yeah. You know, I'd make a quick call to the Florida. Are you in Florida? Yes. Florida State Insurance Commission. Call the Florida State Insurance Commission's office, email them, and call them, and

report this, because I can't imagine. I've never heard of any insurance company requiring someone to buy a used catalytic converter that's just you know it would be a violation of federal law yeah depreciation that's an emissions part and but catalytic converters don't necessarily wear they don't have a lifespan for wearing out sometimes they do go bad but it's pretty rare the only time that we really see issues with catalytic converters is if someone uses contaminated fuel like they get a lot of diesel fuel in their tank for some reason and it contaminates it but But otherwise, that's not a wear item.

That's my train of thought. I mean, you know, we're not talking brakes and tires here. You know, we're talking a catalytic converter. Yeah, we're not talking knees. We're not talking knees. And, you know, but they even sent me that a $2,200 check is $500 deductible. And the day that the check arrived, later on that afternoon

we get a phone call that they stop payment on it Wow Here's a number Here's a number for the Florida State Insurance Commission You got a pencil? Yes sir It's area code 850 413

3140 And you might have a hard time getting them on the weekend But try them on Monday Leave a message Oh yeah With the name of the insurance account In fact you might even want to call the insurance company and say before I call this number would you like to

reconsider because what you're doing is violation of state law okay I will most certainly do this and would you call the show back and let us know well what happened I'm I'm real curious I it's not common that an insurance company will do something like this blatantly because they have a risk of losing their license in fact they can they can be put out of business so I'm really shocked did that. You know, I understand it, you know, it's an 06 vehicle. It's got

147,000 miles on it. But, you know what? A test is a test. Yeah. It's not like it wore out. Sounds to me like somebody in the insurance company may be a new person on the job that didn't understand what part that was. They thought it was

like maybe a part that could be replaced with a used part, but you can't replace a environmental protection agency regulated part with a used part. Okay, very good. Thank you for the call. Very interesting. Please. Give us a call back, and I'm not sure how far back you go, John, in listening to the show,

but I'm going to tell you what, Alan would have some fun with this one, for sure. Okay, folks, we're going to stick with the phones, and we are going to go to Frank, who's in Jupiter Farms, a regular caller. Good morning, Frank. Well, good morning to you all. That was a very interesting call that I just heard before myself. That's what I love about your show. You really do help people in all different problems solving and instructions.

And I think that's why you have such a large audience. Thank you. Last week when I spoke to you, I meant to mention something. You may have already done this, and if you have my apologies, about the big Honda recall, about 740,000 or 20,000 cars with a passport, the pilot, and the ridgeline for their hood opening while they're driving over the engine, that hood. Are you familiar with that recall? The basics of it, yeah. Anyway, so it's out there, and it reminds me like Earl and I talk about.

We go back a long ways, and I remember down in Miami driving down the Palmdale Expressway, and probably once a month you can see a hood pop open and cover the people's windshield. The latches weren't like they are today, of course. So it was amazing that they're having some problems like that with new cars, but anyway. And one other thing I noticed, too, on the TV the other day with the electric vehicles, the new F-150 is supposed to be coming out

in a few more months. They can actually stop in front of their person's house, take a plug from their truck, plug it in the house, and all the lights come back on. for power failures. So I guess with your Tesla and everything else, things are really moving ahead in the electric side of the house.

It's really crazy how electricity is taking over the whole world is going to be, it will be an electric world in 20 years. Yeah. So that's basically it. I just had a chance to say how high and I'll keep it short for a change, which is very unusual for Frank. I love to hear from you, Frank. I love contemporaries.

You and I are approximating. same age and I think the older you are the different perspective we have on on things and I think we appreciate things a little bit more because there has been so much change in our lifetimes that's that's very true I mean I've seen such a change I was actually had to testify in front of a jury federal jury down in on Lauderdale we won't go into specifics but you can just the things I was talking about I realized with such a difference from us but the younger people had any clue about. So we'll leave it that. Those young whippersnappers take everything for

granted. Yeah, or they expected to be entitled to everything. So anyway, before we get the audience mad at us, I'll better stop. So you have a great day. And I guess someone's having a birthday, which I just tuned in the show late. I was actually trying to do something I need to do and go for walks and get a little exercise. So are you having a birthday today? Or your wife? Yeah, Nancy's taking me to lunch. So I'm having a I might even have maybe a mimosa or a Bloody Mary. We're going to get crazy. Yeah.

Go crazy. Yeah. Well, if it's really a birthday, go to Okochobie steak. I'll think you're a free steak dinner. Ooh. Wow. Free is for me. Thanks, Frank.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Folks, I have to mention, would you like an insiders look at what really goes on in the car buying and service. business. I have the perfect gift for Christmas. And 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. So pick up confessions of a recovering car dealer. You won't be sorry. You'll put this after you read it on the shelf and pass it alone to every friend and family member. It is priceless. Priceless. confessions of a recovering car dealer there you go I have it right up there on the camera

and you see it okay back to the recovering car dealer actually I'm working on a new book now and I still got interviewed by the ghost writer I have a ghost writer it's called redemption of a recovering car dealer so hopefully that'll be out next year sometime I'm talking to him again

yeah it's very spooky it's a ghost I'm really nervous. He's going to interview me and I'm very nervous. He kind of has wears a sheet. He kind of floats around, disappears. He's interviewing. I asked him to interview people that also have issues with me. He's going to be, he's going to be interviewing some of my competitors and are going to be interviewing some of the higher-ups in dealer associations. And so you have to get both sides of the story. You need to know they're good. And that's why he's going to interview me. That's right.

Nancy will tell him the truth. Okay, our lines are lighting up here. We're going to go to Mark, who's been holding from Lake Worth and Steve, I'll be right with you. Good morning, Mark. Welcome. You there, Mark? Hi, Mark. I think we lost Mark.

Good morning, Mark. No, I'm here. No, I hear you. You're very faint. Okay, how's this? You're a little louder. Much rather, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, my sort of had to buy a new car, and it's in Pennsylvania. And she went to previously two years back out of Rav4 and loved it. And she went to the nearby Toyota dealership. And obviously they said, here's the car. You know, they jacked up the price above MSRP. And, I mean, I tried to teach you years ago. You don't pay that. And watch out for all those other fees you mentioned.

And she was with her sister who owns a Subaru, borister, 19, and loves it. So they went over to the Subaru dealer, and she paid MSRP. And she bought that car there because they put in writing that they would give her when she, they would give her a free loaner car until the car came in because they had a VIN number on it. And they knew where it was and they were expecting it like in four to six weeks. She doesn't need the car until the end of the month because she's moving to pencils.

Pennsylvania. But I found that interesting because once she said, look, I got transportation now. They're paying for it. And I just thought you might find that interesting that's what that dealer would do. Mark, that's very interesting. Yeah, Subaru is a great car, by the way, and one of the very, very best cars manufactured. They also have a pretty good dealer network. I'm really amazed that you was able to buy one for MSRP. That's testimony to the dealer, the ethics and honesty of that dealer. Super has a huge shortage problem, much worse than most of the manufacturers. And all the manufacturers have a issue with microchips and availability, but Super is even more acute.

So that dealer in Pennsylvania is to be, was it a local dealer or Pennsylvania dealer? No, the dealer in Pennsylvania. Do you know the name? Give them a plug. No, I don't offhand. I don't recall. But she even stepped out a moment and she called the Toyota

because she really wanted the rap four. The guy said, go buy the Subaru. I can't give you a rental to nothing. Exactly. Well, the manufacturers ought to be a word about that because I said earlier that's the biggest competition for a Toyota dealers, I know the Toyota dealer, but you can't rule out the universe of all the other manufacturers out there,

and there are an awful lot of good cars out there. There's Honda, Subaru, Nissan. There are a lot of good cars out there. So if you have a group of dealers, if it's Toyota, and they're doing a lot of price gouging, and you have another group of dealers like Subaru that's not, you're going to lose your manufacturers should be concerned about their dealers, price gouching.

yeah but like I said what really sold was that you know they put it in writing that she could get this rental oh that's great that's amazing okay thank you Mark thank you for the call thank you Mark look forward to hearing from you again we're going to go to Steve who's been holding

he's giving us a call from Boynton Beach good morning Steve good morning how is everybody today great great good I had three short questions. I wanted to ask Rick. I am the owner, the original owner, of a 2011 Lexus ES350, which I know has the same power train as the Camry.

So it should be something Rick would be familiar with. I wanted to change the transmission fluid in the car. I've never changed the transmission fluid in the car. It only has 53,000 miles on it. My son used to own a transmission shop, and he told me do not change the transmission fluid because whenever they had cars come into the shop for transmission fluid changes, he says they'd come back a week later and say the transmissions were slipping and they would blame the shop for trying to do some damage to the transmission,

which he says they never did. So I wanted to know, should I change the transmission fluid at 53,000 miles, or leave it alone? Are you having any issues with the transmission? Does it feel like it's slipping or anything or shifting oddly? No, this would just be for maintenance. I wanted to do it. Everything is fine with the transmission. Nothing wrong with it.

There is no maintenance recommendation to replace it, and I wouldn't do it. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. I thought the whole cars had to be a habit, so just leave it alone. Leave it be, yeah. If it's operating normally, I would leave it be. Thank you. Now, I had two other questions, Rick, I wanted to ask you.

Number one, number two, I'm sorry, the coolant. I've never changed the coolant in the car. I think it was supposed to go 100,000 miles, but I'm not sure. Do I change the coolant in the core? It is recommended for that model, I believe it, 100,000 miles, and then every 50,000 miles after that. But he's only got 53,000 miles. Well, he's at 50,000.

Yeah. So he's still got enough. there are 47,000 miles to go. No, don't change it. So I wouldn't change it until 100,000. Okay, I didn't know if it was a time limit to, like, so many years and they? No, because the cooling system is pretty sealed. The only thing I would do would recommend is on the overflow bottle.

If it looks like it's running a little bit low, I would add in some of the Toyota super long life coolant, which is a nice bright pink color just to get it to the full line, and that's it. Okay, I actually never check it, to be honest. I have to look, I rely on them to check it for me when I bring it into the oil changes, which was my last question I wanted to ask you. Because we don't do much mileage on the car, I change it according to the factory recommendation of every six months.

And I wondered, at the 11 that I have, I believe, was the last year for the conventional oil, and they switched to synthetic in 12. Would I do any harm if I switch to synthetic and then did one year at a time, oil changes? Well, you're out of factory warranty at this point, so you're not really going to endanger anything on that. Truth be told, with the low miles that you've got, I would see no problem with switching over to a synthetic oil. I would stick with the same weight of oil. My preference at that point would be Mobile 1 oil. oil, and I would change it once a year and go into that way.

Make sure they change the filter as well each time and... Yes, yes. And I change the... Every six months, every six months I've been changing the filter and the oil. Yeah. The car's been running great, thank goodness. It rides like a brand new car. Yeah, they're fantastic cars.

Yes, yes. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your advice, and I certainly will take it. Now, make sure you treat her to a Christmas gift of a water, wax and detail and shine her up nice and pretty then it'll show all the scratches my wife's put on it find find a good high-quality detailer and a little bit of compounding and you open a detail and the scratches go away it's like you're pushing these details what is it's called Kearney's Rick's been passing out detailing and all these

Christmas gifts to a car owner so we're teasing him right now but it is a great great idea in those scratches that you alluded to that your wife is responsible for. I don't know about that. You can have those removed. Let me say something constructive here. There's one of the things that we all have to watch, and a lot of people particularly have older cars, like the caller we just spoke to them, is they're so used to changing fluids. There's also a game going on there called flushing, and it's almost standing.

standard operating procedure when you pull into a service department now they want to sell you a flush or they want to change your fluids if you have a late model car you just heard Rick even on 2011 that's not a late model

but if you have a 2020 or 21 or 22 everything's sealed nothing needs changing I'm exaggerating slightly but when you hear the word flush turn and run because that's what

it's called profit to the dealer is something to sell It sounds good. And even dealers that some people get sold on what they've been doing for so long that they feel good about it and they don't feel guilty. But beware, FLUSH, a flush when you go into a service department. It happens too often. Now, once in a great while, and Rick is thinking this right now,

once in a great while, there can be a reason for it, But that once in a great while isn't worth taking a chance. I would always get another opinion when someone said flushed to me. Otherwise, you just took your money. You dropped it in the bowl and you flushed it. And to go back to the... That's what we want you to picture. Going back to the beginning.

Just take the $200, put it in the toilet, flush it down there. Oh, Lord. You just flush your transmission. Exactly. Do we really need that visual? Hey, back to the... Back to the beginning of the show, Rick pointed out the old and the new. And sometimes I'm stuck right there when I do certain or attempt to do certain things to my car.

And Earl reminds me, Nancy, it's the 21st century. So there's a lot to be said about that statement you made this morning. Well, one thing about keeping your car looking pretty, you feel better driving a nice looking car. Yeah. When you walk out in the parking lot and you see dirt. Dirty car, dirty car. And there's that shining gem. Yeah.

And this is an extension of your personality. And I'm really into the, you know, PSI on my tires, the windshield wiper fluid, all that stuff. And sometimes it's like overkill. And like I said, Earl reminds me it is the 21st century. And we're not back in the 50s, 60s. I digress. Okay, folks. No more phone calls.

We have our mystery shopping report we're going to do. Before we get to that, we're going to get back to Stu, but I'm going to mention, have you signed up for Earl's Vigilantes? Would you like to see the birthday boy in his hat? Come on, put your hat on. Okay, Earlsvigilantes.com. Go there and sign up, and you can help your community at by signing up. and you can, oh, these car dealers and all the craziness and the shenanigans, as Jonathan would say, go to earlsvigilantes.com.

You can win yourself a great hat that Stu designed, and it's a win-win situation. Now back to Stu. All right, we got one fresh anonymous feedback that came in, and we'll get to this before we start with the Mystery Shopping Report. Good morning. I'm a regular listener to your program, and appreciate the information you provide. I have been amused to hear Earl predict when the chip shortage would be coming to an end. Back in the summer, Earl boldly predicted the chip shortage would be in good shape by October, November, or December.

Since then, the predictions have continued to move out further and further. As recently as last week, Earl hedged that chips would be coming in gradually. Perhaps each week, Earl could report on how availability is improving or not in his Toyota inventory as a fact-based demonstration of the inventory. Improvement. Thanks. Yeah, I don't have a crystal ball And back in September or whenever I started predicting this I was guessing

The only thing I knew for sure that the chip shortage would abate And it will overcorrect And we'll be right back to the days of too many cars And price slashing and good deals And unfair deceptive advertising It'll be the old game all over again I just don't know how soon it will happen, but I am sure one thing I can speak for Toyota. We turned last month, the Toyota manufacturers, the Toyota manufactured, and the dealers are catching up now to their inventory, but they've got a long way to go.

And we've seen cars, prices come down as low as MSRP. What we're really seeing is most us and also most dealers are taking orders for cars. So when production increases, you're just filling those orders faster, but the lots aren't really replenishing yet. And that's what's going to happen slowly. But what it means is the people who are waiting four months or five months for a car will be waiting two months or one month, and that's going to shrink. And it depends on the manufacturer and the dealer. But basically, it's going to slowly improve. Yeah, the best single thing you can do today, if you're going to buy a car and we can wait a few weeks or a month or so,

is to get the Costco price approved at the time you take delivery. And a Costco dealer, if you press him on this, we'll do it, a Costco certified dealer, because he's contractually obligated to sell you the car at a lower price than he sells anyone else. So that will naturally accommodate the reduction in price at the time your car comes in. So you buy the car today, but with a contractual addendum, if you want to call it, that the price will be the Costco price six weeks hence or whenever your car is coming in. And then you go to the Costco contractual agreement he has with Costco, and you pay that price. And you've got the lowest price that he sold that car to anyone for. So it's a win-win.

It might be a higher price, and you would pay after another 60 days. it'll still be the best price. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we all can't be Elon Musk. He doesn't have a microchip shortage. He was way ahead of the curve. That's all I have to say about microchip. Okay, mystery shop.

Mystery shop. Palm Beach, Toyota. I hate mystery shopping nearby toilet dealers. I do. I feel funny about it because I'm a competitor and I'm in the market and I don't want to be considered to be taking advantage. in any way of my show and putting out bad information about my competition. So I get nervous about it.

I don't want to give the slightest impression. I'm taking shots at my closest competitors like Palm Beach Toyota. But we have to check and see what they're up to from time of time. I mean, first of all, Toyota is the number one selling car in America right now. And they have been number one in Florida for a long time. And so the big volume of dealers are all Toyota dealers. and that's the most of the cars on the road for any one individual manufacturer

so how can I ignore toilet dealers? Besides the last couple of times we mystery shopped Palm Beach Toyota they've done well they have the highest grade out of eight toilet dealerships on our good dealer bad dealer list.com write that down

good dealer bad dealer list dot com that is the URL where you can see the recommended dealers and the ones that you should not buy a car for And Palm Beach Toyota got an A and a B the last time we shopped them.

Very good scores. When we last visited Palm Beach Toyota in July, we were well into the inventory crisis. New car prices were rising rapidly but had yet to peak. We wanted to test how aggressive Palm Beach Toyota would be with matching a competitive offer. We sent Agent Lightning in as our female shopper, mystery shopper, with a printed buyer's order on a new Camry that they'd bought from Earl Stewart Toe. other. The price was the same clear price we offered everyone. Back then, our Noahigal price was invoiced. Can you believe it? So that was our discounted price, invoice. And for

folks that don't say that sounds too good to be true, we make a lot of money at invoice. Invoice is packed with profit by the manufacturer. Yeah, we raised our prices to invoice when the inventory started. Yeah, exactly, yeah. We raised it to invoice. We were selling two-thirds of the cars before the COVID issue were sold below invoice and then we raised them to invoice and that's what their price was. Anyway, Bombay's Toyota

handled the situation admirably beat our out-the-door price and the salesperson was friendly and professional. So was the manager. They were very wanting to come down drastically in price to beat the deal of my dealership. So we gave them an A or a B and we said that's great

and we were being objective and honest about it. So we're back and we will be objective and honest again. How have time to change in the past five months. My no-haggle price, at Earl Stewart's Toyota is now, MSRP. Nearly every dealer have every maker selling their cars well above MSRP. So suddenly, sticker price, Monroney label, is a real deal. And we're using, they're also, the other dealers, in addition to MSRP,

they're putting big market adjustments on there, you know, addendum labels, and they're putting hidden fees and it's just absolutely price gouging is not it's not legal price gouging but it's moral price couching it's taking advantage of somebody that can't defend themselves

it's just not the right thing to do we returned to bombish to Toyota this week in a very different environment but with a familiar scenario agent lining was sent in with a buyer's order from Earl Stewart Toyota with a new crowla she was that's our bestseller

at Palm Beach Toyota, and that's one of the reasons we chose that car. She was tasked with saying if Palm Beach Toyota would be Earl Stewart's Toyota deal with an extremely aggressive price. And that price, I choke when I say it. Very aggressive. MSRP, I mean, I've been doing this so long. Low, low, low. I've been a dealer for over 50 years.

Too low! And back in the day, especially when I was evil, when we sold a car at MSRP, it was high fives. It was a slam dunk. We'd celebrate. We pop a bottle of champagne on the drope. Hey, we just sold that guy, a car. We'll put MSRP, full pop all the way.

Anyway, now it's a deal, so here we are. We're going crazy. Prices are so low. As low as MSRP. That's low as. That's what we should start doing. Low ads. I'm speaking of the first person like I'm Agent Lightning.

I ride at Bomb Beach Toil the late morning with my son. We walked on the front door and were greeted by a woman's seat of the front seat. I asked her, if she knew if they had a 22, 2022 Corolla in stock. She said she had no idea, but she had to call for a salesperson. Two minutes later, a salesman named Joel appeared. We said hello. Then he led us to his desk and asked what we were looking for today. I said I was there with my newly licensed son,

my new licensed son, to get his first car, 16 years old, I guess. We had decided on a new 2022 Corolla, LE. Joel said that they received a truckload of new cars that morning and after he gets me entered into the computer you'll see what he can find for me he asked me a lot of questions and type noisily as I answered them after Joel was done salesman he said he needed to check to see what was in stock

he offered some water which we declined he was back at three minutes and said he had a new 2022 Corolla L.E. in stock but he needed to find out where it was He said he'd be back in five minutes. Twelve minutes later, Joel walked in front door, motioned for me and my son to come over. We walked over, and then the three of us went outside to see the car. It was a black L.E. with an MSRP of $22,625,

only about $800 more than the Corolla at Earl Stewart Toyota. There was Toya Guard on it. That was most of the difference. Yeah, that was the difference. Toya Guard is something that cost. dealer a two or three hundred dollars they sell for nine hundred is that a nine ninety nine seven nine so it cost a dealer two or three and a huge mark out double triple what it costs it's not worth what they charge you for it you can

get a toilet even in the southeast with or without it but it's hard to find it without it because most of the dealers put it on because plus up the profit Joel will know the safety features first and he continued to describe all the other highlights of the corolla and my son set up the seat and mirrors for the test drive. And then we drove it all over the big, largely empty lot. It's a big dealership and a huge lot they have there at Palm Beach Toyota. As we drove, Joel talked about what made Palm Beach Toyota different.

He said they weren't doing any of the addendums or market adjustments. I'm going to repeat that because it's going to come up later. He said they don't charge any addendums or market adjustments. That means packing the MSRP. That means selling cars for over MSRP. And he said they don't do it. That was when I said I'd gotten a price from the Toyota dealership in the north, north of there. You must say he actually said he didn't think she would be able to beat this price.

Exactly, yeah, yeah. And so he said, this is a really good price. You're not going to find another Toyota dealer to beat this. That was when I said I'd gotten a price from the Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach. Of course, that's my dealership, girls, Stewart Toyota. I said I thought it was a good deal and told him about the Tires for Life program. That's free tires as long as you have all your factory recommended maintenance done at Earl Stewart Toyota. Joel said he was not a fan of that program because you

have to do all of your service at Earl Stewart Toyota which of course is free for two or three years anyway but he didn't mention that and it's only maintenance it's not repairs. He said I could choose to get a tire warranty in finance buy one which would allow me to be flexible where I serviced. We parked the car where we found it, went back inside. That's the new Corolla he was showing me. Joel said he would do everything he could to make this happen for my son. I thanked him.

He left to get the numbers. Now it goes back to the sales manager. Let the games begin. He returned in seven minutes with a worksheet. The sale price was MSRP, 22625. That's pretty good. Then, here we go. Did you remember what I said before?

They added $2,089 in after markets, which he said, we're not going to do that. But he did. He must thought I had a short memory. And the left-hand calendar of the worksheet, exterior protection for $9.95, that's added by the dealer. Appearance package for $7.95, that's added by the dealer. And $299 for formats, which were added by the dealer. Then, wait, there's more. Then came the $999 and 95-cent dealer fee.

Why don't they just say a grand? That's easier to say. Psychologically sounds better. Yes, of course, yeah. I told my real selling price was $3,084. My total said over MSRP. Now, he said we didn't do that 20 minutes ago. Joel's explaining how they don't do any of that.

Okay, well, I pointed to the average. remarks and said, this ain't happening. It's a deal killer. I told him my kid had saved a long time to make this purchase, his first car, and this was insulting. Joel said that maybe because the car just arrived, the packages hadn't been applied. He got up and said he'd be right back. Okay. Back, the games continue. He was back in a few minutes with another worksheet, and he was able to have everything removed except for the $299 floor mats. Very difficult to remove floor mats.

I mean, you have to pick them up. Take them out of the car. You have to take them back to the parts department. You can't remove the floor mats. Cost on those are about $129. Okay, so that's a huge mark I bought him, $125, and he's charged you $300. Side gave up.

If I was really buying, I would have been, made him take the mask off. Of course you're going to take them out. The $999.95 dealer fee was still there. And this time he wanted me to pay $1,300 over MSRP. So he did not come anywhere near MSRP, $1,300 above it, to be precise.

I said he was closer, but we were still apart. Joe asked me to, he's going again. See, the games continue. Round three with the manager. Go back to the sales manager. He asked me to sign a command. commitment that if they beat Earl Stewart's Toyota price, I would buy now. So I signed the commitment, and he actually signed it on the buyer's order.

Now, well, I'm thinking to myself, if I violate that agreement, do they sue me? Is it a legal document? If you do it on a cocktail napton, is it a legal document? A moment later, the sales manager, Andy, came over to talk about the deal. He said that in this unusual market, the days of beating another dealer's price, are gone. We don't do that anymore. He said, no one is selling blow MSRP, wrong. And he would have to do that to beat ESD, Earl St. Toyota's deal.

So here we are. He said, I would still buy them, buy from them, then I believe they offered tremendous value. Then he cited Toyo Guard, which I just told you, they're charging you $699 for her. Cost the dealer 270? It's about $259 is the cost. So he's marking this up from 260 to $300 or $700.

And he says that's the reason you should buy it. Not. Andy and Joel handed us to business cards and we left. And that's the shop. And that's the story. And we found out what we wanted to find out. Remember, we're great on the curve here at Errol on cars. And we're not looking for perfection.

That was the perfect, the best sense. The best sentence, the best phrase was from sales manager, Andy, he says the days of going to another dealership to beat your dealer gone. But not forever. Yeah, that's right. And all the dealers now are making money hand over fist. And the reason they wouldn't sell that carola at our price is because they have five people lined up behind them that want the car and they will pay the asking price.

So you just, when you remove competition from the marketplace and this is where we are now, There is no competition in the marketplace. It's up to you, the buyer, to be sure you find your lowest price, whatever it is. We have determined, through Mr. Shops on this show, that you can find prices very close to MSRP. Actual MSRP is rare, but you can usually find something within a few hundred dollars at MSRP if you work hard enough and get several prices. And that's where we are now. So we're going to count the grace

You're coming on on Facebook. You know, I asked you earlier Did she literally sign this? Signed it. It's hard to read, but... Yeah, difficult. And when am I going to put my hour magnifying glass away? No, never.

Never. I digress. Stu? All right, we got some grades coming in. From Tim on Facebook. He says, not the worst, but still too many games, C-minus. On Facebook also, we have from Ken, he says those perfidious scoundrels, I grade a D-minus. Profidious, that's great.

Andy, Andrew, gives him a D, Martha, a D-minus, and then over to the texts. Amory says, liar, liar, pants, and fire. Not illegal, but really reprehensible, D-minus, and Bob gives him an end. F. That's what I got so far. For me, it's a big swing from the last one. It's a really big. I think they're behaving more like a typical dealer in this market than they did back in the summer. So for me, even though we don't like these fees and all that, I'm thinking like a C-minus, maybe. I'm not failing them. Yeah. I've got Negan with a D-minus for dealer fee. E-Train with a D-plus.

Tom, a D, addendums and three-round trips are old school. Mark Smith, old-school tactics, D. Boris with a D. Mark Ryan with a D. Brian, with a D. And let's see here. Tom is asking, pre-delivery service charge violates 501.976?

It does. Very astute. Very good observation because you're not allowed to charge for what the manufacturer is already required to do and reimburse you for. Toyota paid Bombay's Toyota to do the pre-delivery to check the car over, and then they pay them handsomely, I might add.

We get paid every time we prepare a Toyota for delivery. Bombage Toyota is paid by Toyota, and now they're double-charging, and they're calling it a pre-delivery fee. So it is a violation of a Florida statute. And for me, I'm going to agree with Stu on the C-minus. Well, guys, too many games. I'm going to give them a D.

minus. I was going to give them a C plus, but I changed my mind. I'm going to make it a C minus because I think about the previous, there was the absolute misinformation. You might want to call it a lie when the salesperson said that they were. They don't do that. They don't have addendums. Well, if they didn't put the addendum on the windshield, the physical addendum was now.

That's how he- Yeah, so he rationalized it that way, but I'd rather have it on the windshield where it's more transparent that you can see it. and to sneak in on. So you can leave without having him to go inside and waste a bunch of time. C-minus. All right. Okay, here you have it, folks. Don't forget to check out good dealer, bad dealer,

and you can check out our overall ratings and get the real deal right there. We want to thank you all for joining us this morning and celebrating Earl Stewart's birthday. And being part of this show, we so appreciate all of you. We'll be back right. here next week, same time, same station. Have a wonderful weekend.