Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.12.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Fuccillo Nissan of Clearwater

Episode Date: December 12, 2020

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Fuccillo Nissan in Clearwater to see if she can purchase the closeout 2020 Nissan Rogue S at the special price featured on their online ad. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Well, you got your auto distress team here back. We're a group of folks that have been getting together for many years to help you, buy or lease or maintain, repair your car without getting ripped off by a car dealer. And you heard my record of the introduction. We're live. We're in the studio. A pretty good team here. I've got Rick Kearney on my right.

He's a certified diagnostic master technician. I talked about him on the introduction. And let me tell you, if you've got a problem with your car, and you just don't feel like bringing it into the dealer or the garage independent mechanic right now. Give us a call. We might be able to fix it on the air. We might be able to give you a tip that will at least put your mind to rest, or you might be able actually get a minor fix. Just by a phone call. 877-960-99-60.

That's our regular landline. I think that's what they call them now. Old-fashioned landline. 877-960-99-60. Well, you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3. The text number is 772-497-6-530. I'm not gonna overwhelm you with numbers here. We got a few that you could reach us.

We're just not on the radio. Again, the old fashioned 20th century radio. No sir rebop. We are streaming. 20 years ago, if you asked me if I was streaming, I'd have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Almost sounds like doing drugs, right? Yeah, I was thinking.

What would you think? I don't know. But today, it means we're on Facebook video. Facebook video. 20 years ago, Facebook. Is that a book with a bunch of pictures of people's faces? No. Facebook video.

We're right there live now being streamed. YouTube, another word we never heard. So here we are. And we've got Periscope. A lot of people still haven't heard of Periscope. They're not doing too well, but we're there. If you have Periscope, we're there. Twitter.

We all know about Twitter. because we have certain famous politicians that love to use Twitter, and we're there. So you can see us, hear us, we're everywhere. And we're all over, I'm just so happy that we're hitting all the states and stretching out of the country occasionally, and we're international, we're actually all over. We would love to have your phone calls, your text, and just listen. We'll be here for two hours. We're going to be here until 10 o'clock.

This morning, that's Eastern Standard Time. I'm not sure what Greenwich Means Standard Time is, but we'll have to get the Greenwich Mean time for the people all over the world, right? I mean, we are international. I think we're at Greenwich Mean Time minus 17. Well, whatever. I don't know. Oh, whatever.

And for you new folks out here, probably the highlight of the show is our mystery shopping report. It's an undercover, kind of a sneaky operation. I think of the old Mike Wall of 60 minutes. And they don't do that as much anymore as they used to. But boy, that was a lot of fun. Sunday night. Mike had come into some business.

And I used to feel sorry for the poor business. Man, I was back when I was before I had recovered. I was an evil car dealer back then. I used to really get mad at Mike Walls because he would just make people feel so stupid and they look stupid and they were doing bad things. So what we do now is we send an undercover shopping into a car dealership somewhere in Florida.

And we actually reached out long distance this week. Where do we go, Sarasota? We went to the West Coast, Clearwater. Clearwater, went to Clearwater, Florida. We're in Palm Beach Gardens where we're on the East Coast, and that's on the West Coast. So it's about 220-mile trip, and our under-top mystery shopper, did a great job, and we'll tell you,

I'll let Stu tell you a little bit about that a little later, but it was one of our most entertaining, and it is educational too. It's entertaining, though, because it's from a very flamboyant, I've got to tell you, his name is Fichillo. And he's,

if you're from New York and New Jersey area, the Northeast, you probably heard of Fichillo. And he is absolutely, he's an entertainer and a car dealer, flamboyant, outrageous, and you're just going to love this shopping report. And we have the YouTube video,

of one of his TV commercials and that's in the second half of the show. So I don't think I spoiled anything. It's still interesting and educational, but it's entertaining as well. So that's what we do here. We educate and inform and we entertain. We listen and we learn. I can't impress on that. Your phone calls it.

We learn almost as much from you, maybe more, on some days that you learn from us. So please call us at 877-960-99-60, Nancy Stewart, Mrs. Sunrise, I call her, sometimes. And she's been with me for 17, 18, 19, 20 years. I lose track of time. And we've been around a long time. And she was the founder of the show with me many years ago. And she's done a great job of building our audience to female parody. We used to be an old boys club, all guys, call them in.

I still have a lot of guys calling them, and don't get me wrong, we love you guys to call in. But we love the girls, too, because they have a different point of view sometimes. I mean, let's face it, boys are different than girls. A lot of people don't like to admit that, but they really are. They think a little bit differently, and let's not get into that, but it's a matter of, hey, difference should be respected and saluted. So when a woman walks into a retail establishment, a woman expects to be treated respectfully, and Nancy is the champion of that

and she talks about it on the show and she has a very special offer that we offer every week and I'm going to let her tell you about that because if you're female and you're listening don't be timid we really, really encourage you not just because of what you might learn

but what we will learn from you, female callers. And with that said, Nancy Stewart, my co-host Good morning. I love your backdrop. Looks beautiful. Oh, I can't see it. Very festive.

It's a green, solid green field. Excuse me, folks. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Gosh, what an important part of the show. That's you. We love your company. We love your calls, your texts, the whole kitten gaboodle.

So, with that said, I'd like to speak to the ladies for a moment. I'd love to hear from you if you could share your shopping. experience. If things went the way you planned, it would make a great call this morning. Also, how was your, well, how was your service? How did that go? We'd love to hear from you, the good, the bad, the ugly. $50 for the first two new lady callers, and that should make it interesting for you. Fifty bucks. Hard to believe. Yeah, $50 this time a year. Well, any time of year, even more so during the pandemic, you could use it. So give us a call at $877960, $90, $50 for the first two lady callers.

And you can also text us at 772-4976530. We're going to have a, I think the show is going to move really fast this morning. we've got a whole lot to get to and wow what a shopping report you want to stay tuned for that like girls said so with that said back to the recovering card dealer and of course we have a line that we sometimes don't even mention a method of contact has become so popular we almost don't have to mention it but i have to mention it because a lot of folks haven't heard about it it's something nobody else has no call-in show no talk show no newspaper This isn't used. It's a great product. People don't use it because they're afraid of it.

And that thing I'm talking about is Your Anonymous Feedback.com is a URL, it's a web source, internet source, that you can get on the internet, and you can talk to us by going through this website and remain totally anonymous. All we see is an email, and you are screened and hidden, it's almost like a CIA thing. When you go through Your Anonymous Feedback.com, you will be instructed how to contact us. You just basically type it out on your smartphone or your PC like you would normally send an email, but you're scrubbed, you're screened, you're hidden, and nobody can ever find you. It's total anonymity. And when we came up with this, we thought we would, well, we didn't know what we had. We thought there'd be terrible things said, you know, insulting, things so profane and vulgar.

We couldn't say it on the air. It doesn't happen. I mean, once in a blue moon, we might have something off color that we really could. But I can't remember the last time we had one. Most of the input is extremely informative and interesting. So your anonymousfeedback.com, go to that website and click on there and you will be able to contact and communicate with us. Ask us questions. Tell us things, suggestions, whatever you want to say. We cannot find out who you are. So I'm going to flip it over to Stu Stewart.

Stu is my son. He's a general manager of a car dealership that we have, and it's a family the operation and he he's in the front lines every day. He knows what's going on today. I know what's been going on for 50 years, but he's focused. He is laser focused at today's activities. He's also our cybermaster, our spymaster general in charge of the mystery shopping report. And I have to congratulate Stu. He came up with the idea and sent our newer, not new anymore. She's seasoned, female mystery shopper in, and to Clearwater, Florida, to visit a dealer that, well, I mentioned earlier on the show, but that was a stroke of genius. This is going to be a highlight of the show without question. Stu, it's all yours. Well, I cannot take credit for the

idea. As much as I'd like to, thank you for the very, very, very complimentary introduction. Agent Lightning came up with the idea. Oh. Agent Lightning had some business, some personal stuff to take care of over on the West Coast, and I began to panic because our shopper wasn't going to be out of town. She said, hey, I'll be over on the West Coast. You want me to mystery shop a Tampa area dealer? And I said, great. Unfortunately, I don't know any Tampa. I know some.

I mean, I know Toyota Tampa Bay and things like that. However, she said she'll go to town. She looked up online. She found the offer. She set the whole thing up, and it was very easy for me. So, you know, she's fantastic. You didn't even mention Fuchillo. she stumbled across. She gave me a couple of choices. First was a, like a, she gave me like a few Toyota dealers. I said, now we've been doing Toyota dealerships too much. And then the next one she showed me was this Fusillo, Nissan. And I'm going to stop right there. We're going to do Fuscelo. We did him a few years ago. Yeah. Because we had heard about him from YouTube. So that was the thing. We saw his commercials. The guy is, he's famous up in Long Island, I think, or somewhere in the New York area. Where is he?

Rochester. Rochester. And he does these. these very entertaining, you know, like low-tech, old-school-looking car commercials, but the guy's got a gift. There's something talented about them, and they're cheesy, and you can make fun of the commercials all you want, but you've got to admit they are, they are compelling and entertaining, and the guy's a huge success. He's got 35-something dealerships are all over the place, so it seems to be working for him, and we had such a good time.

The last time we went, I think he was giving away like a house or something like that. It was like, you know, buy a car, get a house. was something insane. And you see what's happening all over the market is what we're doing now. When you get somebody can make you laugh and entertain you, you talk about it and what is advertising

it all about. You want to be talked about. So here we are talking about Fichillo for the past five minutes going out to thousands of thousands of people who have never heard of him. And so we're doing what he wants to do. He's a very smart man. It reminds me of like the Arrigo's our former you know

fellow dealers down the road. Yeah, they do some kind of old-school sketchy stuff, but we have an affection for them, probably just from their commercials, because they seem like nice guys. So, you know, that goes a long way. Kind of old Prime Auto. And Prime Auto, the guy that does those hours long and infomercials, you just laugh. Every Sunday morning. There is value to that.

Before I get off the, well, I'm going to go out the mystery shop and just mention Earl's vigilantes. We have this website set up for people who want to volunteer to help people in their community. doesn't matter where you live or hoping to expand it all across the country and we have expanded in the last week we have somebody in pennsylvania now and then if i may have a moment we have our first report of a vigilante success story and this is from robert who's in maryland so he emailed me do we have a call we do let's go to the caller and we'll get back to robert's email in a few sounds great too thank you uh we're going to go to helen and she's calling from west palm beach and she is a first time caller good morning helen

good morning nancy how are you i'm well thank you thank you for calling oh you're welcome i bet you can use that fifty dollars absolutely yes we listen to you every saturday and i've been meaning to call you and with the weather getting chilly this week i think it was an appropriate time the my husband and i always go back and forth we have a 2013 a Honda pilot and I always ask him did you check the tire pressure so I'll wait until the icon

pops up on the dash so of course it popped up this week because of course it got chilly and I guess the air pressure you know made it do that to be cold so my question is you solely rely

on the tire pressure icon or should you check the tire pressure all the time? Well, myself, I'm going to turn this over to Rick, but I'll give you my opinion for my vehicle. The tire pressure is so extremely important and therefore I checked my tire pressure at least two or three times a month. That may be, you know, too much, but, you know, it affects your gas that you use. It affects the wear and tear on the tires. They don't last as long if you don't pay attention to them. And there's a, there's several other factors, but I'm going to turn this over to Rick and let him explain the technical part of all this. Okay. Because he's the genius. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Because this has been going back and forth, back and forth. absolutely that topic can go back and forth okay thanks nancy hold on Ellen I know I'm gonna get yelled at by somebody about this but your husband's wrong and you're right oh boy well I knew that all along he did too he just needs to hear from you I didn't want to mention that I was a lot on our family exclude that detail until, but your tires do have to be cold. Tire pressures are generally set, say, at around 35 pounds of air in your new tires. Yeah.

And I'm just using just a general number, because every car is a little bit different. But the sensors... Well, no, ours is, yeah. Yeah, okay. But the sensors are actually set to turn that light on at around 26 to 27 pounds of air. Oh. Which, when your tires have gotten... gotten that low, you're already starting to do some wear. I'll go ahead and call it damaging

wear because you're wearing the edges of the tire once it gets below about 32. As they get lower, it starts putting bad wear patterns on those tires. So if you wait until the light comes on, you're already going to start damaging the wear pattern that those tires and it's going to make your tires wear out a lot sooner, and you'll have to replace them much sooner. Terrific. I mean, it's not terrific, but it's from my perspective, I want me. The best thing to do is check your tire pressures at least once every two weeks or once a week is better, and make sure that the car has been sitting still for at least an hour, so that the tires are

cooled and they're not hot for being driven and then just set those tire pressures where they should be and drive on happy. Terrific. Thank you so much. Helen, you can find you know, exactly what pressure your tire

should be in your owner's manual or on the door what's it called? Side wall on the tire. Oh, the panel. The panel. on the door jam The sticker on the door jam

That's what I was trying to say And also on your tires Yeah I can't thank you enough for your phone call Oh thank you I'm glad you settled that little Dispute A little controversy

Helen you have a wonderful day And thank you so much Thank you and happy holidays Thank you to spread the word or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. Now we're going to get back to Stu and some interesting information. That is right.

From Robert, he's one of our vigilantes, one of our first ones to sign up. He lives in Maryland, and so he sent me an email yesterday and told me about a success story. Our first one that we heard back from one of Earl's vigilantes. This is great.

He says, I'm proud to report a success story with the vigilante program. is with a person that I work with, but I'm hopeful word of mouth will start to spread. He is young and wanted to make a spur of the moment emotional purchase, and luckily I overheard his plans from my office. With a little intervening and intrusive leadership, I like that. I was able to convince him to slow down, do some research, and get the dealerships within a hundred mile radius to compete for the best bottom line price.

Once he received that, the only cause of contention was an extra destination charge, but with a short email explaining that he did not want to pay for a fee that was already built into the price of the vehicle. You'll learn that here. The dealership quickly waived the $1495 charge, almost $1,500. I still wish I could have convinced him to research more makes and models, but it's hard to convince a 26-year-old young man that the charger RT isn't the perfect car for him. I agree with that. Anyway, Robert says thanks again for what we do and have a great weekend, and we will because we got that email because that means this is working. And please, if you're listening, if you need somebody to help you, go to earlsvigilini's.com.

If you think you can be of help, go to earl'svigilandies.com and volunteer. Exactly. Now, speaking of vigilantes, where are our hats? They've been ordered, and I don't know. I'll ask Jeff, you ordered them the little prior. They have to make them. They're sewn. These are going to be nice hats.

These aren't like prints. I think they're embroidering the logo and everything. Well, I'd like to tell you, we should all wear a hat next week. And then that will really drive this whole. vigilante program. You know, added to the detail of them making the hats, you know, everything is running very slow as far as everything, whether it be the post office, UPS, FedEx, so we're just going to have to wait it out. Remember, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. That's www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

And the young lady that just called, who was a first-time caller, give me a call back. Now we'll get back to Stu, I think. Where were you finished? Well, I was finished with the Vigilani's promotion, but we can get on, we have some text, we have anonymous feedback that's come in if you want to get to those. Yes. Okay. Here's the first one. I'm going to change up my MO. I'm going to go to the most recent, and that way we can get to these, because sometimes we go over. Has Earl ever watched the various car sales trainers on YouTube? If so, what does Earl think about them? I'm thinking specifically of Steve Richards, Andy Elliott, Grant Cardone, and Jim Ziegler. Well, I know the names are the ones of most of the names you mentioned.

I have seen them. In fact, I used to hire these people to come in and train myself people back before I become a recovering guard dealer. They basically are extremely articulate, charismatic trainers, personalities, They are motivators as much as they are educators when it comes to teaching salespeople and car dealers how to sell more cars. And my problem is where do you draw the line with enthusiasm and persuasion? When you go into a car dealership that's been trained by Grant Cardone or one of these other expert trainers, they're good. They're slick. And if you adhere to their advice, you'll sell a lot more cars.

It's basically aimed at getting your hot buttons, your emotions, like any good salesperson, whether it's insurance or refrigerators or automobiles, when you're one-on-one with a really good salesperson, you haven't got a chance. They will control you and they will dominate and they will sell you, and you'll probably pay too much. I know I've made a lot of enemies out there and the salespeople have been revered in our society our capitalistic society for hundreds of years

and a good salesperson is considered you know a very very special person and any retail group wants to have that we're coming now to a point in our history where salespeople have to change and this is what we're trying to lead here in the show. A educated consumer prepared who has done their research

and spent a decent amount of time getting competitive bids, it's a whole different animal to a salesperson. So you take a typical salesperson where all the charisma and magic, he has far less of a chance of taking advantage of the educated consumer. So yes, I know about them.

I respect what they do. do. They train a lot of salespeople and managers and dealers, and they make a ton of money. Here's the cool thing about it, though. When we've heard this from listeners on the show all the time, they also train you. So, you know, if you have the time and you want to, you pick up the insider secrets, watch these trainers. I think it was, who is the Master of War, Shenzu, or Ricker would know this, the book, The Art of War, Know Your Enemy. Oh, Sun Su. Yeah, Sun Su. So if you know your enemy as well as you know, know yourself then you have a fighting chance and so when you learn the tactics you learn how

with how they learn to overcome objections which is like the the core thing that they train in sales training is when you tell somebody i need to think about it they have a million comebacks to them you haven't got a chance yeah i'm back back when i was a Pontiac dealer many many years ago i've told this story on the show and my son's heard it a thousand times but i had i had a sales motivated trainer that came in to train all my salespeople and managers. And I can still see this like it was yesterday. We're standing on the showroom floor of Stuart Pontiac and West Palm Beach. And he says, now I want to show you something. And they were standing back. He says that the next customer that comes in, I'm going to have that customer get in the trunk

of that Bonneville. It's right. You told me this. And lie down on the trunk. And I'm going to close the trunk on it. and why would you want to do that, we asked. That is how you control. I'm going to teach you to control customers. And when you reach the point where you can persuade a customer to climb in the trunk of the car and lie down

and let you close the trunk lid, you have learned total control of customers. And sure enough, he did exactly what he said. I can't tell you a quick, funny story? And before I finish, the customer wasn't angry a customer was happy the salesperson was happy

it was not a negative experience he didn't know he'd been totally controlled no when you told me that story I had to try that out but I didn't want to do it on a real customer so it was Larry Wells who was a salesperson his son was at the dealership one night and I persuaded him to get into a trunk of a camera but he wasn't a real customer

but you're telling us the truth when I went through your sales training by the way back and it was at Pontiac in the late 90s. We were told that you never ask permission. You don't say, hey, would you like to go out and look at a Bonneville? You say, follow me and you start walking. And the psychological impact of somebody walking away, they just naturally follow you. And that's just an example, but it happens at every step in the sales process. This is also very interesting, ladies and gentlemen, and we're here to remind you that, you know, you can break that mold. You can get

that salesperson in the trunk of the car. Knowledge is power. If you get the same, you get the salesperson in the trunk of the car than you have one. There you go. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget we have one more lady caller. I have $50 for you so take advantage give us a call and share your you know whether you want to ask us a question or maybe you have an experience you'd like to share with us this morning about your car buying or your service. We are going to go to John, and I thank him for his patience. He's a regular caller from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I have a question, a pickup truck question for to ask, and it may not be his field. Diesel in a

pickup truck. Did Rick ever hear of diesel tuners? Diesel tuners? I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but... Okay, it's an additive. Like the fish? They're illegal. There's a Florida company. They're sold on the internet. Auto stores can't sell them.

They add speed and performance to the diesel engine. They're illegal, totally illegal. EPA shut down one company in Florida. It's called Punch It. The reason they're illegal is they release tons and tons of nitrogen, oxide. Ah, yeah, okay. And they're only sold

on the internet. They're not allowed to be sold in any auto store. And the EPA is really, there's 28 companies that offer these. And the big problem is the nitrogen oxide, that it's much worse than what the Mercedes

and the Volkswagen engines that were cheating that, you know, they got caught. This is 10 times worse. and it's a big problem and it's like I say you cannot buy these additives in an auto store, they're illegal

but the EPA is on to this and they already shut down the one Florida company that's called Punch It. Kind of like the idea of hooking up nitrous oxide and a gasoline powered car. Yes, well I figured you know Rick wouldn't be on top of it because he's a

you know regular gasoline engine and the EV but this is a very serious problem. And also, if you notice sometime, especially a performance, we don't have any of our inspections. Diesel particularly smoke so bad. It's unbelievable. You have to shut your inside air, out, you know,

you get the exhaust coming in on you, and you see it from time to turn. That may be also that they don't change the filters. I don't really know the reason, but you see that many a times on a road. smoking diesel, it's terrible. I mean, it can block your vision even some time. Absolutely.

And they also aren't using the exhaust fluid properly, which is supposed to be injected into the exhaust in order to help reduce those emissions. But if the vehicle's not set up properly and they're not using it, well, it saves them a bunch of money, but it's not good for the environment. Well, these items are called diesel tuners. and they're totally illegal. But one item that really throws me off, I see it's in Costco,

it's not illegal to be sold. I don't nearly know what it does. It's a blue DEF exhaust fluid that you buy. It's on the shelf with the oils. Right. And I don't know what that really does. Probably helps performance at a diesel. Maybe Rick knows that.

No, that's diesel exhaust fluid, and that's for diesel trucks. It's a newer thing that they've started putting on the trucks. It's a tank that you're supposed to fill up with this fluid, and it's injected into the exhaust stream, and it's supposed to help reduce the emissions coming out of the diesel engine. The problem is that a lot of people don't want to use it because it's kind of expensive to put it in every time,

and it doesn't really do much for the operation of the vehicle. It simply reduces emissions. Well, that's a good point, but like you say, it's expensive. And I don't know much about the diesel. I know one thing, General Motors, which I followed. They really made a disaster in the 80s when they converted a gasoline engine to diesel, and it literally fell apart. It was a joke.

But I do see that the good diesel, I hear at a traffic light, especially in the Ford's, is the Cummings. They seem to be one of the best-performing diesel that I see in a vehicle. in a car or a truck. Well, it's amazing because a good, say, a four-cylinder turbo diesel, a small engine can produce as much torque and horsepower now as a V6 engine that's running on normal gasoline, and if it's designed properly and is maintained and run properly,

it produces much less emissions. Well, unfortunately, though, diesel was a great engine. That's why it's in all the big trucks. But it never really came over that big in the automobile individual passenger cars. No, I never will. Yeah, well, we got the EV now. So that's the future of everything. Absolutely.

Well, I thank you for the information, but I just wanted people to know what that is and how it pollutes the air and how it's illegal. Hey, John, I have a question for you. How'd you like the, the 2021 GMC Hummer's EV that sold. out. Oh, they sold out within 10 minutes. I saw that, and another big vehicle that they can't even get. They have 155,000 orders

out is the new Ford Bronco. They can't produce it. It's something to do with a shortage of the roof that's made in European country and is a shortage of that factory. So they're all on hold, but it's a very good item, you know,

a vehicle that's going to sell very hot and it's going to give a run to the Jeep. Things have slowed down on the Bronco, but I was really surprised as far as the Hummer was concerned. I mean, the price tag on it is $100,000, and it hasn't even been tested, and people bought it anyway. Well, my opinion, I hated that vehicle from when it came out from the beginning, and I think General Motors made a bad mistake, paying a lot of money to buy the Hummer label. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, that's what makes a horse race.

John, thank you so much. We enjoy your company. You have a good day. I look forward to that shopping report. Thank you. 877960 or you can text us 772-4976530. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Youranonymous Feedback.com. We've got a YouTube over here. We do have an interesting question. Timothy Hernandez is asking when is a good time to ask for premium wheels to be included, such as the ones on display inside the showroom? Well, you know, it's a matter of taste. I think premium wheels are a waste of money. They're

extremely expensive. They're inclined to problems, depending on the wheels. If you get the wrong set of wheels, you can spend a couple thousand dollars on a set of wheels that make your life miserable when you're driving your car. Sometimes they screw up the balance. I think what he's asking is in the sales process when you're buying a car, when would you mention to the salesman, hey, I like the vehicle, but I want those wheels that you have on special display there put on. That's what I was answering. I don't think it's a good idea.

I mean, as far as when you mention the salesperson, if you have your heart set on a set of fancy wheels, a lot of people do, then you should check the price outside. You should also verify that it is a good wheel. You have to check it out in terms of reliability, owner satisfaction. But just because a wheel really looks good doesn't make it something that's going to let your car run as good. Factory wheels typically are the best you could go with. If it's a factory OEM installed wheel, then at least it's covered on the warranty, and you'll be able to have the manufacturer responsible if you have problems.

But to me, they're overpriced, and the value to me is nominal. All it is is aesthetic if you want a fancier-looking car and you want to spend too much money by a set of fancy wheels. That's my humble opinion. I agree. We all agree. We are going to go to our second first-time caller, and that's Lynn, and she's calling from our favorite part of the world in Palm City.

Good morning, Lynn. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you. My question is I listen to your show almost every Saturday. I have made a note of that tire issue, and we will now be checking more frequently, and I'll tell my husband, too. But the question that I had was, some shows ago you had recommended the owl, and then I didn't catch because I had to leave the house. A show afterwards, you said, you know what, the owl is good, but this one is even better.

and I didn't catch the name or where it could be obtained. Well, I'll revise my answer about the aisle. My owl is giving me a problem now when it worked. It was really the best. And I've had it for a couple of years, so maybe I'm being too tough on them. I'm waiting for one to come out by ring. Are you familiar with a ring doorbells? Yeah, I'm familiar with the doorbell product.

Yeah. They haven't introduced the ring cam yet, but it will integrate with your ring system. It is state of the art, and who owns ring now, Stu? Is it Google? That's Amazon. Amazon. Okay, so it's owned by Amazon, which is a rock-solid, reliable company, and that's what I'm going to buy. As soon as the ring, dash cam comes out, I'm all over that.

dash cam comes out, I will be buying it. The owl, I can't give it a failing ring. I've had it for two years. It was good for most of those two years, but it's been in and out now and I'm... Yeah, it worked really, it worked well for a while. The downside, it did require a subscription to their cellular

service, and apparently the ring will not do that, so that's a or Rick, actually, I'm sorry, Rick mentioned an alternative that didn't require a subscription, and I don't remember the maker for that. What was that? I run a Viofo dash cam. It's V-I-O-F-O.

V-I-O-F-O. I think that's the one I was thinking of, because, of course, ring probably, and Amazon probably don't charge you a charge because all your information is sold. As it is when you go on those kinds of sides. It's V-I-O as in Oscar, F-As-and-Frank-O.

Yep. Is that reasonably easy for non-attachian? Kentucky people to connect? If you get the version that is a single camera, it's very easy. You just, you hide the one wire down and you can plug it into your cigarette power outlet. I have one that actually has two cameras, one for the front and one out the back, so I had to run a wire all the way to the back window. but the really nice part about it is that you do have that coverage for being able to see recording the rear behind you and in front of you and it has an app where you can simply connect your phone to it to download the footage right to your phone while you're sitting in the car or you can record it onto the SD card you know just and pop the card out and put it in your computer to download the footage you know Lynn there are so many possibilities that

out there now and things like cameras like Al and biofo you mentioned and so many others. You can't go wrong with a product that's so people friendly and they stand behind their product and that's the ring and we've got ring everywhere in the house and like I said you have a lot of options and technology has really taken us pretty far but the main ingredient for me is people friendly? It doesn't get complicated. I think for most of us, fortunately, I have family members who are techies, so we can always get them to help. But I thank you very much because your show is very informative, and we have it on the background when we're doing things here on a Saturday morning, and I think you've helped a lot of people make better decisions. Lynn, thank you so much

for taking a moment to give Earl Stewart on Carters a call. And your, you're, your leading the way and helping me with my platform here on the show. So spread the word. And this time of year, I'm sure the ladies could use $50. And it's always to the first two new lady callers every single Saturday morning. So help me out and spread the word. Shaldo. And this fund will go to the horse rescue here in Palm City. Thank you. you're welcome bye bye bye 877960

and we have a text number you can take advantage of 772-4976530 and Rick is also handling the YouTube end of it and he's waiting for your comments, your questions, your answers so who's up next?

Stu's got some text, I'm sure Yeah I'm hitting the anonymous feedback. Here's what I almost did want to you better read it anyway, because that's what we do here. This is for Earl. I'm offended by Earl's background screen. It appears to show a street light at lit at night with Jewish menorahs on the left side.

I wonder if you put Protestant crosses on the right, what would your viewers think? Can I just answer it? It's Hanukkah. Today is Hanukkah. We'll put a Christmas tree up on Christmas. They shouldn't offend anybody, but... Yeah, it's pretty easy.

That's what anonymous feedback forwards. It's for reasonable people and bigots as well. so you could really get me in trouble because I don't know what's up back there Jonathan that opens up a whole new world of fun so I guess I better start being sure because you know you might be putting

a Ku Klux Klan I started photoshopping things in the background it never goes on there just for my own personal Oh okay yeah Last week you had a frozen snowy scene And I put Jack Nicholson

from the Shining behind you Oh boy Yikes didn't Hanukkah start on Thursday Yes it did The first night was on Thursday I'll interrupt you, Stu, and we're going to go to Nick. He's calling us from Boston. All right.

Hi, Nick. Hi, good morning, everyone. I'd called a couple times before. Talked leasing, talks about the Chevy Bolt, I think, got your opinion on that. And I actually, earlier this year, did buy one in early January when they'd had some killer, you know, rebates. But what I'm calling to just talk about today is just to get you all thoughts on. what the auto industry in the retail industry specifically is going to look like post-COVID. I mean, I'm not talking just, you know, the move towards a digital sales process

and, you know, delivering vehicles to people's homes, but I'm talking more that the industry appears to be moving away from aggressive discounting and producing lots of supply, and they're chasing margin, you know, they're chasing gross rather than pushing out lots of units, both at the factory capacity and, you know, the dealership managers more tactically. And, you know, I've worked in the airline industry, and it just, to me, looks a lot like how the airline pricing attitudes really evolved over the past decade, where the airlines have really been disciplined in their capacity and have been chasing quality of yield,

you know, business travelers only flying when people want to fly, where they want to fly, you know, versus Delta flying, you know, 15 times a day on wide bodies from Atlanta, you know, to Orlando. And anyway, I know that was a mouthful, but I just wanted to get your thoughts. And, you know, if you see that playing out and, you know, what it means for the industry going forward. Yeah, I guess it's a good question. and it's, what separates the airline industry from the retail automobile is car dealers. With the airlines, Delta, United American,

they sell directly. And what they want to do is usually what is best for them. And they're starting to realize that what is best for their customers is best for them. And it's kind of an intelligent approach to the way they do. their business. Unfortunately, with car dealers, car dealers are entrenched. They are independent business people that are protected enormously by state laws lobbied into law by the National

Automobile Dealers Association, State Dealers Association, protecting the dealers. So every dealer pretty much operates with a free hand. And that's the reason change is going to come very slowly to the automobile retail business unlike airlines or even electronics i mean you look at apple you know there's a product that came out and it's it's marked it directly to the consumer by apple and they are an amazing company and they have really maxed out their retailing uh it's a very user-friendly safe way to buy a smartphone but with car dealers every dealer's different we mystery shop different dealers every week. Some people, I mean, I think your question was, how is it going to be post-COVID? I think it's going to be pretty much like it was pre-COVID. The car dealers are fat and happy now.

They're making money, hand over fist. The manufacturers are making money, hand over fist. It's one of these COVID things that surprise everybody. Certain industries are being decimated, like the restaurant. Indoor dining is dead. Car dealers, because people decided in the COVID, crisis with these psychological impact that they wanted cars, new venues, and they're buying them so fast. Prices are going up, profits are going up, volume is going up, and as the COVID subsides, you're going to see them riding that tidal wave of success, prosperity. They're going to have a lot of money, and they're going to continue to do things the way they've been doing them. They're changing slowly. That's because of the education of the consumer. And the faster the consumer gets educated

and relies upon the internet and the wealth of information available to them to buy through a Costco auto buying program or a true car auto buying program, once they look at consumer reports, once they listen to this show and listen to the advice, it will slowly change. but I think it's going to be a good five years post-COVID before we see any significant changes in the way all those are retailed. I'm sorry it took too long to answer, but my heart is very much into your question. I wish you were going to be sooner. Yeah, no, thank you. I'm wondering also what, you know, Stu or anybody else has anything to add.

But, I mean, that's, I appreciate it. I'm just wondering, though, right, if the dealerships on the tactical level have been accustomed to getting deals with more gross, you know, and that they're operating in a constrained environment where, you know, for every, say, three Camry's you sell, you know, that you'll only get allocation for one and a half or two, you know, that's a much more conservative approach. when it comes to the management of the desk and, you know, how much their incentives and what have you. And I mean, if you look at the factory, too. Let me ask, too, to address that. He had a point. Yeah, well, mainly during this summer, the biggest effect we saw from COVID as far as inventories. Grosses did go up, and it was a function of supply and demand when there was less vehicles to sell. Dealers took advantage of it, in some cases, you know, were forced to, to try and get. get more margin on the lower volume that they were selling that's especially with the large

volume manufacturers like Toyota Honda that that's past we have more inventory than we what we know to do with and Toyota is heavily incentivizing vehicles it's back to the old the old model and just speaking from our experience with Toyota they're not changing least they're not indicating their entire business model is volume volume volume they because the the manufacturer doesn't care they make their their their margin when as soon as they wholesale the car to the dealer they tweak that with incentives but for the most part they're making a they're making a ton of money when they when they don't they don't care what the car dealer selling it for in other words what's happening

on the tactical level it's becoming harder and harder to justify a bigger margin because a customer can go to these these vehicles are not rare and not hard to find. So once the inventories were replenished, which we started to see by the end of the summer, things kind of went back to normal. Interesting. Well, and just one other thing that's kind of related to this that I read in the Wall Street Journal about a week and a half ago, maybe it was discussed in last week's show. I'm not sure, but GM had put an ultimatum out to their entire Cadillac dealer network and said that they have to get on board to sell the, I think it's the lyric, the all-electric SDB that they have

coming out in about two years, and I think they said it was a quarter of a million to become certified and get the training, the equipment, the GC fast charge infrastructure, or they could take a buyout. And, you know, I found that, I found that a very interesting way. Well, that's, I mean, that's something we actually considered about two years ago. we did a complete remodel expansion of their dealership. And our question was, are we going to invest heavily in all these charging stations? Now, we did, but we did at a much smaller scale, and that was informed by our understanding of Toyota's near-term and mid-term plans for electric vehicles.

We know we're going to get some, but we're not going to do the whole lot. I don't remember if it was Volvo, or there's another manufacturer where they're going to try and electrify the entire lot, because at some point you're going to have all electric vehicles and you need to be able to do these. So it's a major capital investment for dealers. And I'm honestly not surprised that Cadillac or GM is forcing their dealers to do that. Well, car dealers have been doing that since I was

beginning of the business. They come in and they try to dictate to the dealers. Unfortunately, they've created a monster in their dealers. Their dealers don't have to listen to them anymore. And there was a time when you could intimidate a dealer to do anything you wanted. And that's really what spawned the state laws to protect dealers. So now most dealers, not alas, the weaker dealers, the financially insecure,

undercapitalized dealers can be vulnerable to a manufacturer's demands. But a dealer that is doing well, and most car dealers are doing very well today, they ignore. The Cadillac dealers, I read that article, Nick, and the Cadillac dealers will ignore that. First of all, the worst case scenario, they might have to turn around and sell their franchise, but a Cadillac franchise would be worth far more than the cost of them or what Cadillac would want to give them for going along with their demands. But that's not unusual.

Toyota made us build a Scion showroom a number of years back. We spent a lot of money on signs and training and building a separate area. to sell the Toyota's cyan in case you don't know what I'm talking about because cyan no longer exists. Every time the manufacturer tries to do something, they have to have the cooperation of dealers. They didn't get it and so cyan went away. It was a great idea but they had to get past the monster that they've created which is an independent toilet dealer and we control ourselves now.

The manufacturer cannot control dealers anymore. If we had refused to to put in the Sion facilities and all that, we wouldn't be allowed to sell the Sion brand. They wouldn't make us sell the dealership, like they're putting the pressure on the Cadillac dealers, but, you know, it is a heavy-handed approach that's gone back probably for 100 years. That's interesting, and I am aware of Sion.

I did not own one, but I did a number of years ago, riding to L.A.X had heard a mouthful from a lift driver that the XB, you know, the cube, small SUV hatchback that the windshield there seems to really attract lots of rocks and, you know, gets a lot of chips. So I heard an interesting anecdote on that. But anyway, I just did want to say one other thing, though, just on the, you know, electric vehicle and, you know, intermediate term trends, you know, as a three-time electric vehicle buyer from non-Tesla, you know, franchise auto dealers. You know, I really, really wish,

you know, it's great that they're trying to get the equipment and the infrastructure, but something that's really lost is the training, you know, both not understanding the electric vehicle customer, you know, you go to like the Chevy dealer that I went to. I mean, they knew absolutely nothing about the car. And I mean, this is one of the region, one of the largest dealership absolutely and i was educating them you know yeah and uh and that training is really important as you well know especially uh in the areas that you're speaking of nick it has been great speaking to you we certainly hope we'll hear from you again and uh tell your friends to give us a call and uh your lady friends uh i usually give away $50 for the first two new lady

callers so have yourself a wonderful weekend and stay safe. Most definitely. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, 77-960-90-60, or you can text us 772-497-6-5-30. And don't forget, you can go to Earl on Cars and read his latest column. True Car, almost as good as Costco. It's True Car to buy your next new car.

Great Read. And there's so many other columns right there. and you can certainly entertain yourself and accumulate a whole lot of, well, some, whatever you want to call it to go out and buy yourself a car or get your car service. So catch that. We'll go back to Rick has some YouTube. Donovan Lewis has a question. He tried to get in last week. We ran a little short on time.

He says, why is there such a huge difference in the dealer experience between, between American brands versus Japanese brands versus European. I was in three different dealers, one from each region, and the experience in the American brand was so bad, the dealership was dirty, old, tons of salespeople, very little mass, and extremely pushy. The European and Japanese brands were far better. Everyone was much more professional, nicer, everything was new and clean. It's sad to see the American car dealer being that bad,

And this is not the first time I've had this experience in an American car dealer. It always seems to be a second-rate experience. The European brand was a very nice experience. What's your thoughts on that one, Earl? Well, part of the problem is a little complicated, but part of the problem is the American brands, the General Motors, the Fords, the Chryslers, they're the first franchises that came around the country, and a lot of these franchises have been around a long, long time. And anybody could get one of those franchises.

Typically, the manufacturers over-dealered, we call it. They put too many dealers into a market. And they're not very profitable. And because they're too dense, and they compete against each other. I'm talking about General Motors Ford and Chrysler. And along came the Japanese and the Europeans. Now, these cars came in more slowly, and the franchises were built more slowly. And the Japanese and the European manufacturers were a little bit more choosy, who they let have franchised.

Because the quality of the vehicle was something. The demand was exciting and more. And right now, today, the most profitable dealers in the United States are number one Lexus and number two, Toyota. Chevrolet dealers are probably down around number 30 in profitability. So, the Japanese hold their dealers to a higher standard, the Europeans hold their dealers to a higher standard, and it's kind of like anybody that wants a Chevrolet franchise, or I'm exaggerating a little bit, it's very easy to get a Chrysler or a Chevrolet franchise, not in any market, but if you wanted a Lexus dealership today, forget about it.

You wouldn't be able to get one. I don't care if you were the President of the United States. You wouldn't qualify. Or if you're Earl Stewart. Or if you were Earl Stewart. I know, because I've tried. I want a Lexus. I'm begging you.

Give me a Lexus right, John. But they won't do it. So supply and demand, quality, and that's the reason the American experience in general. And there are some great exceptions. I mean, trust me, there's some toilet dealers out there that you don't want to go near. And there's some Chevrolet dealers out there. do a fantastic job but in general the American experience is less and that's why it's also harder to push a less than profitable dealership into investing in facilities yes so it's

hard to make the argument to a Toyota or Honda when they say hey you got upgrade your facilities I can't afford it and I go we see your financial statements we know you can afford it so all right uh this is we got a text from ma'amoree our favorite texture this one kind of I mean you're uncomfortable, but we're okay. Do any Toyota vehicles have a donut spare tire anymore? Any full spare tires on trucks? Thanks. And this is from an old dinosaur who drives a car with a key, a CD player, and a donut spare.

To answer your question, you're hard-pressed to find any Toyota vehicles with a full-side spare. That's going to be your trucks. That's going to be a forerunner, Tacoma, Tundra. Camrys now have donuts. Some of the cars don't even have spares. like the lower models of Corollos, the hybrids will have the inflation kits, which Rick strongly recommends against using because of the problems that happen. Go ahead.

Use the air pump, but don't use the chemical. Right, don't fill it up with goo because that will ruin your sensors and you have a big problem and more expense. So that's the way the whole industry is going. They're trying to get the vehicles lighter to meet the CAFE standards. Go ahead. He says he's dinosaur, but he sucks about what? What's this CD thing?

Is that supposed to replace my 8 track? I try to read it as a kid player. I don't know what it is. I don't know. I don't even know what MP3 is. Is that supposed to replace my 8-track player? I think so. All right, moving on.

I heard John from Palm City talk about diesels. I almost screwed up and put diesel in my gas car. What would have happened if I had done that? Would I ruin my engine? Also, on another note, I have heard that diesels can run. vegetable oil, even discarded French oil. True? It's booming. So, yeah, what would it happen if she had squeezed the grain handle? If you only got just a little bit of diesel in there, it would hurt the performance some, but it would run the, eventually just run the tank out and get fresh fuel

in there, and you'd be fine. If you got too much diesel, too high a concentration, your car would stop running. Okay. What would happen is we'd have to drain the tank completely. completely, flush it out and flush out the lines and run a flush through the injectors to clean all that old diesel fuel out, because diesel fuel is much thicker than gasoline. And once we get it all flushed out, then we could run fresh fuel through and you'd be back in operation. So what would that a coster? I'm going to say in the neighborhood of around $400 to $500.

So it's a pretty expensive mistake. Yeah, but it will not destroy your engine like it. If you were to put E85 in an engine, that could destroy the fuel tank and the fuel lines and possibly cause damage to the engine, multiplying that by thousands of dollars. I'm curious. I'm going to embarrass my brother. I hope my brother, Josh, is listening. A long time ago, he rented a diesel truck for a moving situation.

Oh, boy. And he put gasoline in the diesel truck. What would happen when the situation is reversed? Most cases, it will simply stop running and not run, because gasoline usually will not ignite in a diesel engine just from the compression. There's no spark to set it off, and there's not quite enough compression there to set off gasoline just by compression alone. So it was pretty dumb of him to do that. It's a common mistake, because nowadays these pumps are confusing. Trust me, it can happen.

We know that. All right, moving along, we have a text from Fitz. Oh, do we have a caller? Yes, we have a caller, and it's Dawn from West Palm Beach. Hey, Don. Good morning, Dawn. Welcome. Good morning.

Miss Helen, please say the number for the call-in more slowly. I had to call the dealership to actually get the number. Oh, okay. I'll work on that. On a positive note, two. weeks ago or so, somebody called in and said that they didn't have a CD player, a track player, a cassette player, or anything in their car. And we had a 2015 car that did not have any of that. And a young person told me to download all my CD on a laptop, which was 32 of them,

I believe, and then download that on a thumb drive, since all of the newer cars have the port, whatever it is, MBS or USB. USB port. There you know. And put it in it and also with the car, instead of it playing all 10 or 12 songs straight in a row, somebody that has technical information can set it up where it bounces back between the different

CDs that you put on the thumb drive and that was really great to solve that problem. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. What a great idea. As a matter of fact, on the screen, you can usually bring up the folders that will show what CDs you have so you can pick and choose certain ones

that you'll want to play from. And you put the thumb drive in and you can mix or you can repeat or all those fancy. Shuffle them up or play them in sequence? Yeah, that's the word shovel. That's the reason I love you callers, Don. It's just absolutely amazing. I didn't even know that myself. Really a cool idea. Nancy's got

a whole bunch of CDs in the closet and those are old time goalie, all these favorite songs. We could do that. Yeah. Cedies. track tapes, I got it all. Another idea is if you have an old cell phone, as iPhones are great for this, you know, an older one, simply delete everything off of it, even if it's not connected to cell service, and simply use it as a music player, put all your music on to the iPhone,

and plug that right in, and let it connect up and play is like a regular player, and it's great. Wow. A lot of great information right here at Earl Stewart on Cars. Don, I have a question for you. How would you like to join us in our quest to accumulate some volunteers for Earl's vigilantes? Do you consider yourself an auto expert or close to it? You know what an expert is. An X is... No, tell me. An X is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure. well you know we really don't we want we just want someone to try to help people that are less fortunate in terms of their capacity to buy or lease or maintain or repair their car you probably have some friends out that you're helping right now don't you oh I'm 76 and so I have been into antique cars and corvettes over the years and so forth and I have been in the antique cars and corvettes over the years and so forth and I

I'm very much into that, and I'm also going to be coming to the dealership to wheel and deal with Ms. Helen, possibly, on a new Sequoia. Uh-huh. And that was my second question or statement. Why hasn't Toyota improved their gas mileage on their big buses, meaning Tahoe's and Chevy Suburban and the same thing of the GM? and the Cadillac, they've increased their gas mileage 2022 on the top end. And Toyota is still at that 17. Well, that's your question. I think competition will make them move eventually.

Are we talking about the large SUVs? Yeah. Probably, I'm going to guess, and this is not to be cheeky, is the big SUVs that Toyota has, the Sequoia, Atlantic, they sell about, a dealer might sell one every three months because it's not really a vehicle of focus for Toyota. Yeah, the motivation that manufacturers have to lower the gas mileage other than supply and demand is the requirements

that they have a certain gas mileage by the federal government that they have to meet a standard every few years. They have to increase their fuel economy. Otherwise, they're penalized a lot of money. So they look at their low-selling vehicles like land cruisers in Toyota's case, and they don't emphasize their re-engineering and designing those as much. They look at their volume vehicles that they sell more of. The Highlander, for example, is a volume SUV for Toyota, and they have considerably improved their gas mileage. The other thing is gas prices are down considerably, and people don't talk gas mileage like they used to anymore.

We find out that people buy SUVs, and they don't care that they could buy a smaller vehicle, a lighter vehicle, and get greater gas piles. They want the bulk, and they want the SUV. It's in style. Rick has a point. One other thing that's going to be coming very soon, Toyota's also starting to switch away from the V8 engines. They're going to be going to a turbo v6, which will produce the same horsepower and torque, but we'll do it. so with a better fuel economy sure does that answer your question is that is that going do you think that's going to come out by 2021 near the end or 2022 or further down the road uh 21 and 22 you're going to see those they'll start coming out okay and uh don to sorry to interrupt you but i just want

to thank you for the call. And guess what? We're all in the same category as you are. Earl turned 80 yesterday and I turned 78 last week. And we have a lot of, well, auto knowledge under our belts. And I think you do too. You sound like as if that you are an educated consumer and you've accumulated a lot of information. So give it a thought, earlsvigilandies.com. You would not only be, well, helping you know consumers but your own community and you get a hat yeah i'll get your hat don and i'll also work on that number 877 960 9960 how's that great that was fantastic oh thank you don i appreciate you complimenting me you have a wonderful weekend thank you and you have a great a great holiday as well. Thank you. Okay, that number again is 877-960. We're all going to

start dancing here in the studio. I was kind of doing that. I was doing a little table dance. Okay, Stu, I think you've got some text to get some. Yeah, we're starting to read a text we had from Fitz. Sounds like a right question. I own a 2,000 miles of 626 with almost 190,000 miles on the odometer. The coolant tank slash reservoir keeps developing hairline cracks and coolant oozes out of the tank while the tank is under pressure. Duck tape. Huh? Duct tape. There we go. Let's move on to the next text. When all this fails, that's what we use. Duct tape on everything. I've replaced said tank three times in the past. Should have used duct tape for this reason. And also, sometimes the coolant level in the tank gets low because of said oozing.

Any idea why this problem keeps occurring over and over again? Can you suggest any he fixes. Post-script, I know the metal version of this tank doesn't exist, and that's from FITS. Yeah, sometimes those plastic tanks, the quality of the material they're using, just doesn't hold up with the heat under the hood.

And unfortunately, there's really not a good fix for it. Is it the Miles? I mean, he's driven it for quite a long time. That's a pretty good time. You've gotten a good life out of that car. 20 years. So I suggest keep driving it,

And as long as those tanks aren't super expensive to replace, pop a new one in there or maybe look for an aftermarket version. Was there all's idea any good? A duct tape? I wouldn't go with duct tape, but I would actually consider maybe like that flex seal spray on stuff. I would give that a try. And other than just leave a little, put a piece of tape on,

so you can peel off so that you'll be able to see the level still. make a little window so you can see that level but maybe try some of that stuff and other than that keep driving that car until the wheels fall off of it. Get your money's worth out of it completely and run it until the catburn no more. You're speaking figuratively right?

No. You're not seriously suggesting that he's on 995 and you want his wheels to come off as a signal. Oh no I just mean to keep driving until that car will not run anymore. He's teasing you. Hopefully they fall off in your driveway when you're inside.

You know, this is really great. We sit here every week, and I don't think we give Rick enough, well, accolades and acknowledgement and compliments. He can answer just about every single, all questions. I think that John called this morning to, I think he was playing a game on you, Rick. Let's stump Rick, because he asked you a question. Well, but he also asked about a chemical that really is an illegal. additive to be put into engines. Look out.

And that's something that, yeah, I'm not out there looking for illegal chemicals to put in cars. No, not at this point. Okay, let's get back to stew. Rick doesn't dabble in the dark arts of normal mechanics. Here's a good one. I have four kids that I haul around in a Honda Odyssey all day. Needless to say, the interior is nasty. Very nasty.

Crumbs, spills, trash, you name it. Other than telling me to control my kids, you try it. I'm sure parents of young kids will commiserate. Any suggestions to make things easier for me? And actually, they do. I got something for you. Duct tape. Duct tape, exactly.

Wrap the kids in duct tape. And they're just completely immobilized. That's what I used to do. I had three, well, when they're younger, they would trash our cars as well. There actually are things that the hardest part is down in between the seats where the French fries and the other garbage goes down. There is covers that go in there that prevents the things from getting in the nooks and crap. crannies and they actually looks pretty good at you put it over the seat i think it clips and then you put the car seats over that and when they spill all that stuff all you got to do is take this up

shake it out or and wash it so it helps and yeah i completely commiserate with you because my car is always clean my wife's car is always nasty and that was because the kids but they're all growing up now they don't do that all these interesting they trash their own cars now I am going to interrupt you to introduce Bob from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Bob. Hey, Bob. You there? Bob sounds like a small robot. Oh, sorry. There is.

What's on your mind, Bob? My question relates to a recall I received on a 2018 Camry. And that recall indicates that there is a problem. with I think it's low pressure fuel pump, and at high speed, the engine may stall and maybe difficult to restart. And I wonder if there was any further update by your mechanical people on what they've heard from Toyota, because at the time they said they didn't have a solution, they were working on it, and time uncertain as to whether they would get a fix ready for that.

Rick, an answer to that. Yep. It's a parts supply question, right? now. They're trying to get a good supply of the fuel pumps so that when they announce that, yes, we're ready to start repairing these cars, they have enough fuel pumps to handle the huge influx of customers that are going to show up at these dealerships. They've got to get a company to produce these pumps, get them out to the different parts departments, and then get them out to the dealerships so that we can be stocked up and ready to go because when this one hits, it's going

to be a huge wave of cars a lot of them but we have a secret trail to tell you and bob i'm going to give you a secret here don't tell anybody about this because until you're a one second everybody else is listening you turn your volume down but bob leave yours up if you're a toilet dealer or you work for a toilet manufacturing turn off your radio or the youtube or okay here's the secret bob if you feel uncomfortable about the fact that the vehicle you're driving your 2018 Camry could be on I-95 going along at the normal speed of 80 miles an hour. And your fuel pump failed and you're in the middle lane and your car no longer had any power that you might feel your life was being threatened.

And this would be something you're afraid to drive that car. If you were to share that with your Toyota dealer and he were to share that with a manufacturer, Toyota, they just might give you a free loaner car to drive and take your car and hold it and then prioritize fuel pumps that come out because they're having to pay for your rental car. And then when the fuel pumps come in, you go to the top of the line.

They fix your car fast, which is good for you. And it's good for them because they can get their rental car back and don't have to pay for it anymore. So that's an inside tip that I want to give you, but don't tell anybody I said that. yeah because okay yeah the official yeah the official roll out I'm sorry I know we just got an update yesterday on the availability and it is kind of insane because some of them go far out as late March 2021 so people who are driving these vehicles right now

these are the people are driving 2018 to 2020 Tacomas make a little bit of noise with your dealer and get it taken care of well that dealer is you all right well we hear you Give us a call. All right, I will. I called on the service writer. Thanks, man. We've had that call that type every week for a while now,

and people are concerned about it, and obviously Toyota just doesn't want to make a recall on this because they don't have the pumps available, and they just have millions of free loaner cars out, free to the customer, and they're paying the dealers for it. We kind of like it as dealers because we get paid by Toyota, for the loaner car. So we love it when people come in and ask for a free loaner from Toyota, because Toyota pays us for your loaner. So welcome one and all.

Do I talk to the service manager about this or the service rider? You just have a, I deal with there. Ask Mark Feldman. He's a service manager at our dealership. Mark Feldman, F-E-L-T-M-A-M-A-N. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay, fine. The other interesting, well, the thing that interests me is a previous comment that you had made about Carvana. And, of course, I see those ads very frequently on television, which are very enticing. I would not do that because I'm sold on Earl Stewart, Toyota, and I really am. So I wouldn't do it, but I'm interested in whether or not there, from an Internet sales point of view, highly competitive, would you? Yes and no.

They're competitive because they do national television. It's intense. It's unique. It's very good advertising. And so they've made their name. Awareness is huge. So that's why they're a competitor. But in terms of price and availability,

I won't say availability, they've got a pretty good availability, but they're a factor in the market. I mean, they got a lot of money. of money. They did an IPO, and they have hundreds of millions of dollars, and they're a factor, and I believe if you look ahead 10 years from now, companies like Carvana will be doing a lot more share of the market than they do today. Well, one of the interesting thoughts I have on that, Earl, is what do you do for service

have to you buy a car from Carvana. I mean, you've got to go to a local dealer who didn't sell you the car. Well, either that or independent mechanic. I mean, CarMax is the same thing. There are, if you buy a used car,

typically if it's an independent used car dealer, typically they don't repair cars. CarMax doesn't. They have a minor thing that can do minor stuff for, but they don't really do it. So, yeah, when you buy a used car, you usually have the challenge, and you don't necessarily want to bring it back to the dealer anyway.

You might want to find another dealer or another independent mechanic, but that's true with a new car, too, as a matter of fact. So Carvano's buying their cars directly from Toyota, for example, if they're selling Toyota or any other brand of Toyota. No, they're only selling use cars. They buy them like you do, and then retail.

No, they don't buy them from the manufacturer. They get them from auctions, and I imagine if people bought from them and traded it in a vehicle. They buy their cars from the same place that their car dealers buy their cars. Car dealers have an additional source, which is trade-ins, and Carvana has trade-ins also, but they buy them at the Mann-I-M auctions. They go and buy a lot of cars, and they pay the market value,

and the car dealers are out there bidding against Carvana, and the high bidder gets the car, and then they take that car, and they market it up a couple thousand dollars, and they sell it to you. So the source of used cars is the same for everybody. Carvana, CarMax, new car dealers, used car dealers. Everybody buys cars at the auction. Okay, so what I didn't get clear from them was the car that I buy, if I were to buy one, I'd buy a used car from them, right?

Yes, you can't buy a new car. It's not a brand new car. No. No. Now, CarMax has a few, very few new car dealerships, but in order to get a new car dealership, If you want to sell Chevroletes, you've got to knock on General Motors' door and say, please, Mr. General Motors, I want to be a Chevrolet dealer,

or you have to go to an existing Chevrolet dealer and say, I want to buy your dealership. They don't pass out new car franchises. You have to pay for them, or you have to be on the preferred list at a manufacturer. I see. Well, all right, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart. I always enjoy listening to your program and talk to you.

me Earl, Bob. I make me feel old when people call me. Mr. Stewart. Thank you so much, Bob. We'll do, Earl. Thank you. You know, I'd like to ask you if you'd like to join Earl's vigilantes. Have you heard us talk about it? I have. I think

I would decline. Yeah, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that kind of thing. I don't think, I had nothing wrong with it. I just, you know, it's something I wouldn't really be comfortable doing. Oh, I understand. You wouldn't be comfortable in that type of element.

Thank you so much for your call. Keep on listening to Earl Stewart on cars. Have a wonderful weekend. I will. Thank you. Are you going to get a chance to mention the car? I think it's a wash car titles. I was reading that.

I don't think right at this minute. Let's take some more text. Yeah, we've got a big list to get through. Oh, boy. All right, so this is from Joe, who is, I guess, a dual citizenship in Ohio and Boca Raton. I may not go to Florida this way. because of COVID. I'm putting my second car on a trickle charger, and this sounds like a

real question, so listen up. While on the charger, can I start the engine and run it for a little while? Thank you, and happy birthday to my Sicilian compatriots. That would be Nancy, otherwise known as Helen sometimes. Can you start your car while you're on a trickle charger? Yes, you can. Simple as that. Yep. Nothing to worry about. Nope. Okay. Very good. Let's sump over to anonymous feedback. show award. Sucinct answer. Very good. If we did everything with yes and no answers, it would be a really boring show.

Yes, it would. Let's see how Rick can do. How succinct can you get? Rick, tire pressure. Explain why you recommend setting tire pressure near the maximum shown on the tire. That's from Gary.

On anonymous feedback. I recommend that because running at those higher pressures while still safe will give you better fuel economy and better tire wear. Make your tires last longer. A little rougher ride. I agree. Exactly. Okay. And I've always done it too, and we've been doing it for years and years and years and years with our personal vehicles.

And I can honestly tell you, don't let the rough ride dissuade you. I don't know anything else. I'm so used to it. I mean, I could imagine I get a softer ride, but I just don't know. So we always pump hers up a little bit. I love checking the pressure on our tires. I'd say they're all step back. I come out in the driveway with my gadget. That's really nice. The apps, a lot of manufacturers have, Toyota has it. You can check just from your phone, your tire pressure in each individual tire. I think that's so cool. You're doing so much for your tires, you know, especially you won't replace them as quickly, you know, if you didn't pay attention to them. I'm going to interrupt Stu, and we're going to go to the dog walker, Dave, from Palm Beach. Good morning, Dave.

Yeah. Listen, Earl, I'm curious. You know, we're talking. We're talking. We're talking. talking about car dealers with a gimmick, you know, like perhaps what we're going to hear more about later in the show, I was wondering if you had been familiar with or ever heard of a car dealer out in California, it wasn't just California, but all up and down California named Cal, what were things like that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was a, he was an icon. He was a little bit like the dealer that we shopped that will be coming up very shortly for Chillo.

When you have that persona and charisma and charisma, what was his name again? Billy Fichello? He had, he had that what do you call theater personality

that even though he was lying and exaggerating and promising things, he couldn't deliver. You were entertained by that. And I guess a lot of people just didn't take him seriously. And he was very successful.

He finally, as I recall, he went too far one day and said something terrible. There was live TV commercials back then. And he said something terrible and they threw him off the air, I think. Well, they did in California. Now, this is what I find to be

the most interesting part about this. he was up and down the coast, but I was in Southern California, and so mostly I was familiar with Santa Ana and Wilmington and those commercials, and he had more up towards San Francisco, but I went to Las Vegas in 1980s with my parents and my grandparents, and sure enough, he had viewerships in Nevada as well, and I had no idea. But what a character, you know, Cal Worthington and his dog's spot. Yeah. And they wear everything.

It could be a dog. It could be a tiger laying on the hood of a car. It was always Cal Worthington and his dog's spot. He had ostriches. And the guy, you remember the way the guy used to dress? Do you remember the way he used to dress? He used to Western attire and a big white cowboy hat. You know, he had Bengals before Bengals were proffey.

were popular. I'm aging myself here by telling you all this, but, yeah, he was something. Did you remember Fletcher Jones when you were in Las Vegas? Yes. Yes. Yeah, he was a character, too. He always had a pet, and he did the live commercials too, holding a dog, and one time he had a, one time he was holding a cat, and the cat scratched him, and Fletcher screamed

and swore at the cat and threw the cat off the stage. On live TV? Oh, boy. Well, go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal. That was his tagline. Yeah. What a character. Hey, listen, really enjoying the show again.

Another good show. Thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate the call. I'm going to Google Cal Worthington and see if I could find some YouTube's, because I would love to watch some of those. old things. I wonder if they exist, but I'm going to try to find them. I'll bet you somebody's put them up,

put some of them out. They were just too entertainment to not try to archive somewhere. I see Rick tapping and searching out of there. Thank you for sharing. All right, have a nice day, guys. Thank you. Have a great week and stay safe. Speaking of YouTube, are we at a point now where we should cue the...

That's during the shop. You'll be in the shop. Okay. All right, anonymous feedback. Do you have recommendations for dealers in the Denver area finding it difficult to negotiate with for a Toyota Ravreve for hybrid

any suggestions they will not provide a Costco price on hybrids is that normal I don't know anybody in the actual Denver area we do know dealers in the Denver region which is a large area encompassing several western states probably too far from the guys we know are probably too far from Denver

closest would be what I would tell them is go to Costco and go to the true car and find the dealers that are certified and you can see their prices right online without having to visit them that's that was his problem that they're not listed on on on Costco and want to know if that's if that's a normal and it is normal because Costco gives the dealer opportunity to submit their price if it's not low enough for Costco so a low supply high-demand

vehicle like a ref or hybrid which isn't that of a low supply but it kind of is they might be selling them above a price Costco will agree to list and it won't show up But if you expand, put in different zip codes, go expand your radius a little bit. You might find a dealer who is offering a low enough price for Costco to list. To True Car and Costco. That's the reason I did by columns, back-to-back, one for True Car, one for Costco. They're both great programs, and you should use both of them.

Here's a related question, Anonymous Feasack. Where do I find your blog on how to use the Costco program? It's really simple. go to earloncars.com. It was posted on November 30th, Monday. It's the second posted blog post. So if you go to earluncars.com, scroll down a half a page and you'll see it.

And it's titled Costco Auto Buying Program, your best bet for a low price. And as a bonus, the one right after that is true car, almost as good as Costco to buy your next car. So read them both at earloncars.com. Okay. Next. I saw a really long, like 40 or a 50-foot SUV.

Something like that would be really nice to have. What manufacturers make really long SUVs like that? I want one. What? A 50-foot SUV. I think you saw a limousine, and they're not made by the manufacturers. They're modified. And I don't believe that they're safe.

I mean, I've seen, like, a large, like a Lincoln Navigator that literally is 40 or 50 feet long. It's designed for part. parties and it's a it's a it was a terrible accident not too long ago with one of those types of vehicles I think it was a bunch of gals from a wedding yeah that were driving one of those stretch limousines it was as you say built by a third party and they're not safe I'd stay away from those you know that was a horrible accident or more anonymous feedback since customers have no way of knowing how much a dealer paid for a used car i.e. wholesale or a trade in How do we determine what is a reasonable price to pay for a used car?

I'm assuming the goal should be to pay less than the retail price listed on the car on the website like Edmonds, N-A-A-R-Celley. It is a tough thing, but the good news is you have the Internet. And in most cases, people are looking for cars that are fairly common. They're looking for Honda Accords, Camrys. There's a million of them out there. And so you're going to do the same thing that we advise week after week on the show. is get multiple quotes.

It's not going to be on the same vehicle, but you try and find one with the same. Your make model miles, close enough miles, and trim level, and do your comparison shopping. I can say that a model that a lot of dealers have taken right now, they call it velocity, is in the, back in the past, they would just arbitrarily markup cars for $5,000 and try and sell them.

Most dealers are using programs like V Auto. It's a waste of time. to try to guess the dealer's cost. You just got to compare. Exactly. It's competitive shopping, and that's, you've got auto trader, you've got Cars.com, you've got a lot of sources on the Internet, Kelly Blue Book, and you shop and compare, and competitively compares them.

What the dealer paid for it really doesn't necessarily translate into any information you can use. So, shop from at least three car dealers. Okay. Go ahead. I was just going to mention that we have the mystery shopping report coming up very soon. So you want to stay tuned for that mystery shop of Ficello, Nissan, of Clearwater, Florida. It's very interesting.

And also one more shout-out to everyone, Earl's Vigilantes. You can still sign up and you can help those in your community if you think that you've got a little bit of auto expert, Earl's Vigilantees. aunties.com. Now back to Stu. All right, we'll try and do a lightning round just get as many as we can before we start that. This one is a text, says if you were going to buy a car for your

daughter, would it be a Subaru Forrester or a Toyota Rav4 regarding safety and value? I would recommend going to consume reports. I bought my daughter a Rav4, but I have a connection at a Toyota dealership. I would buy my daughter too if I had a daughter, but

I guess because I'm a toy dealer. I think the Super might be ahead of the Ravre for on consumer reports. I'd have to check that. That's probably, I'd go to consumer reports and buy whatever they said. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, but we've got to move through these texts and questions. We have one here for Rick. Rick, I have a 2009 Kia Optima.

The back passenger door lock intermittently fails, won't lock or unlock. When using the key fob, I have to manually lock or unlock the door. What could be the cause? two years ago I took it to the dealer. Dealer said it was the main control unit on the driver door. I had it replaced and it solved the issue for 14 months. Apparently it's not working anymore. Thanks for your help. It could be either that control or it could be the door lock actuator itself, the little motor on the latch that works the lock and unlock the function. Okay. Last one, I think we need to jump over to the mystery shopping report. To clarify about the

Costco buying plan, if a person went to two additional toys, Toyota dealers besides the Costco dealer with exactly the same car and with the same accessory packages, would the price of the car minus the dealer fees be the same? And if not, could you please explain? Well, if I understand the question correctly, you're looking at Costco prices at multiple Toyota dealers. The only way to do that is Costco gives territories around a Costco warehouse to a dealer. So if you're looking for a Toyota dealer, there's only going to be one in that immediate area.

To find another Toyota dealer on the Costco program, you'd have to expand your search radius and go a little bit farther away. Maybe 20 miles or something like that. It won't be huge. Just basically as far apart as you find a Costco warehouse, there's going to be a Toyota dealer associated. And since the prices would be pretty close. But you should do that. And you should do the two car price. Listen, to spend an hour or two hours in your living room or your home office or

wherever you got your PC or your smartphone, to spend a couple hours online is going to save you a lot, a lot of money. So check, you know, check as many car dealerships as you can. Check Costco, check true car, check the dealer directly. Competition is your friend. In two hours of intense research online, you'll save thousands of dollars where you might have to walk out the door. And also don't forget about Consumer Report. The latest edition of the December issue, they have some top-rated information here on tires, cars, SUV, so you might want to consider that. All right, I apologize to all the textures and en masse feedback subventers I didn't get to. I promise we'll get to you next Saturday.

Absolutely. We are going to go ahead and address the mystery shopping report. Well, we're going to do the YouTube first, or are we going to do it? do this. In the report, there's a, there's a point where it's a key to bring it. Okay. Mr. Shop of Fuchillo, Nissan of Clearwater, Florida. 220 miles, 221 miles. For starters, it's a long distance mystery shop 221 miles from our studios here at Palm Beach Garden of Florida.

I think this may be the second furthest dealership we've investigated after Alan Turner Hyundai and forgotten that name in Pensacola, 600 miles from here. But what really makes this a report... You gotta do it. Huge. Huge. Huge.

Huge. And that's because this guy, Fichillo, that's his trademark. Everything is huge. As a car dealer were shopping, Bob Fichillo, owner of a pretty big deek. It's a very big group. I didn't know was that big. He's got... Somebody say it's huge.

Yeah, huge, right. 35 dealerships, 31 of which are in New York. Huge. and Jonathan's on me he said to Rochester area and he must be out of the Rochester area because he couldn't get 35 dealerships just in Rochester

I wouldn't think the remaining four in Florida Billy Fichillo I love that Billy Fichillo is famous for his commercials and his memorable catchphrase it's going to be huge let's take a look

a list for you listener out there radio guys at one of these ads in which Billy Fichillo speaks to God about Hyundai's. Okay, roll it, Mike. Roll the table. Oh, my Lord. I never thought there were so many Hyundais here in heaven. They're building new roads to accommodate all these new Hyundais that get over 30 miles a gallon that have 10-year warranties. It's very similar to Ridge Road in Greece. They're enlarging that road to accommodate all the Hyundais that are going to be sold because you know they get over 30 miles a gallon.

It's the best buy in the market. It's huge, Rochester. Huge. Very fascinating. Hey, Mike, can we run that again? I mean... Oh, my Lord. I never thought there were so many Hyundais here in heaven.

They're building new roads. to accommodate all these new Hyundai's that get over 30 miles a gallon, that have 10 year warranties. It's very similar to Ridge Road in Greece. They're enlarging that road to accommodate all the Hyundai's that are going to be sold, because you know they get over 30 miles a gallon. It's the best buy in the market. It's huge, Rochester, huge.

I like how he works himself up at the end. I thought he's like, you're running out of time, so he speeds it up and goes insane. So if you're looking for some real entertainment, entertainment. I encourage you, forget about Netflix one night and just start binging on Vichilla commercials on YouTube. And that's what I'm going to do. They are entertaining. He's got a ton. I promise you'll not be disappointed. Everything about Vichilla's dealerships are over the top. And Billy Vichillo promises a lot to get

customers in the door. Free cruises, cars, trips around the world, free houses, actually That was the one we checked out. Yeah, yeah. So why are we going all the way to Tampa area to do our weekly report? Well, Agent Lightning this week was there. And personal matters dictated that. And we figured what the heck while she's over there, why not check out Billy Fuchillo? And that's what we did.

And I hope you enjoy this. Again, bear in mind, we had a call earlier about Cal Worthington and California. ago. I mentioned Fletcher Jones, another crazy car dealer from Las Vegas. Well, we got a crazy car dealer. Still around. And here he is. He's huge. And he's Billy Facillo. She found, Agent Lightning did found a 2020-2020 Nissan Rogue for the amazing low price of just $19,000, $9.99 for an SUV with MSRP of nearly 27,000, and that's a big discount. This would be a great deal. And again, some might call it huge.

First Impressions. You love it. Did I turn two pages? Nope, first impressions. Okay, good. I can't lick my fingers with my mask. First impressions were good at Fichillo Nissan of Clearwater. A young salesman named Robert greeted me politely.

I'm a female. I'm speaking of the first person as Agent Lightning now, female, as I entered the showroom. He was wearing a mask, and he was, everyone else was. That's good. So the first impression is very positive about Fuchillo Nissan. Robert led me to a table where he took my photo ID, asked me a series of questions, printed on the back of a worksheet. That's interesting. It's almost like transparency.

They're putting up front qualifications that you've done. may not be able to make. The purpose was determined whether I qualified for any number of rebates from Nissan or the dealership itself. And it wasn't clear which were which. And the Nissan incentive qualifiers were, and I'll hold it up briefly for the camera here, and that's what it looked like. It went from finance for Nissan Motors acceptance, inactive retired military, recent college graduate, owner loyalty certificate, truck cash recipient, Titan and frontier, registered Nissan in your household, and where are you currently employed? So all of those answers to all those questions indicated some kind of a discount.

Napleton did that, remember? Napleton had the... Oh, that's right. I forgot. I called the disqualifier worksheet. So I answered on the shop. I answered no to all the questions. I had a feeling that I wouldn't qualify for the low $19.99 price that brought me in the door.

But I went ahead and showed Robert the ad. Robert wasted no time and asked me if I'd read the fine print. I mean, that's up front, right? Did you read the fine print? And before I could answer, he advised me that almost no one ever qualified for their advertised prices. Now, it's not a refresher. the car salesman and the car dealership tells you as soon as you

bring out the advertisement but did you redefine print? Of course I said no didn't even see it and he says well listen almost no one ever qualifies for that advertised price and it's so brash it catches you off guard

and what you should do at that point is run screaming out of the dealership get in your car and leave but you don't do that because it's such It's disarming honesty is the way I can put it. When you actually picture somebody doing that, it's really funny. You do that for a thing.

Yeah. I looked at the fine print and remarked how difficult it was to read. Well, that's the purpose of fine print. If we made the fine print and large print, it wouldn't have... It's supposed to be you're not supposed to read it. I'm just making that up. He didn't say that. Fine is such a nice way to describe it, because it ain't fine. Yeah. It's tiny.

Tiny. And here's the fine print. When you read it, you still don't know what it is. $3,000 NMAC. Who knows what that is? Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. I know, but I don't know that. I'm helping the listeners.

$500 NMAC, a holiday bonus cash. $500 owner, NAMAC, owner appreciation. Factory and centers expire soon. At any moment. Could be any time. And are subject to change. Dealer's discount is 200871, price plus tax tax and DMV fields, fees, prices, prior sales excluded.

I'm not sure what that means. Well, that means that if I just read this and found out I did have some of this stuff, too late because you didn't tell me when you bought the car earlier. That's what it means. Okay. Yeah. Somebody bought the car yesterday and realized that he didn't, that he didn't. did qualify too late see dealer for details may not be combined with other offers

offer expires January 4th 2012 right up there they said soon and then they tell you down here January 4th okay and again this is a Facillo Nissan Billy Fichillo Nissan and Tampa area Clearwater Clearwater yeah Tampa area on the west coast of Florida because we're international now where the hell's clear water exactly I didn't see any reference to military or college grad rebates, nor was there anything about Titan or Frontier Pickups. That was on the back of the sheet, they showed me.

But it wasn't in the fine print? It wasn't in the fine print. I played a long-fane disappointment. I asked Robert if he had any new rogues in stock he would get closer to the ad price with. He said he'd have to check. He asked me if I would be financing through them. If I did, I may get additional rebates.

Okay. Always say you're going to finance with. with them even when you're not going to, because if they think they can make a lot of money on you when they finance the car, they might be a little bit gentler in terms of selling to the car up front. And then you can always change your mind,

which you should, because you should not finance with them. You should finance either pay cash or use a bank or credit union. I said, my husband and I plan to pay cash. Robert acknowledges him left to find my robe. 10 minutes, Robert was back with a key and a printed copy in the fine print and large and easier to read. I just read that earlier. He warned me again that my price would be somewhat higher.

He said he'd go get the vehicle and ask me to meet him up front. I bet him outside, Robert Park, the Silver 2020 Nissan Rogue S, with an MSRP of $26,870, just like the one in the ad. Hmm, exactly the same MSRP. There was an addendum, here we go, addendum next to the Mononi label, we call that a phony Monroney, $2,995, let's call it $3,000 and worthless stuff, a year of resist all paint protection, worthless, one year key and remote replacement, worthless, one year of nitrophil, really worthless, wheel locks, that's worth a few bucks, yeah. all weather massive window relatively cheap and nowhere near if you added all that together

is so far short of $3,000 you could forget about it would be a couple hundred bucks yeah so that's the jack the price of now Robert went over the vehicle and we got into a conversation about the

advertised price he acted like it was just normal for car dealer has to have no basis and reality which is true I mean Robert's truth was disarming.

He agreed that their ad was a gimmick to draw me in. I mean, we're having this conversation. You're here, aren't you? And he didn't seem terribly remorseful about it. That's, you know, usually when you catch your guys stealing, they stutter and they stammer and they apologize or they try to lie out of it. But Robert just said, hey, yeah,

we lied to get you in the door, and now you're here. It would make the most of it. You know, you're here. Let's see what we can do. Okay? We got you. You don't want to run out of here and go home.

He's going to take a lot of time. You've got to love Robert, just like you like Billy Fichillo. Robert turns attention to the addendum, $3,000 worth of worthless, maybe $200 worth of stuff for $3,000, proudly stating that Mr. Fichillo, friends calling Billy, Mr. Fichillo adds his package to a all of his vehicles because of the great value to his customer. Now, Robert's just told you that he was lying to you, and now he's telling you that Mr. Vichillo says that $3,000 is worth a lot of money, probably worth more than $3,000.

And he expects I'm going to agree with him and ain't going to happen.com. After a quick test drive, we returned to the showroom. Robert left me at the table while he went to speak with his boss. the return of the sales manager to decide. The sales manager began by trying to get me to finance with them. I held my ground. I've told you before many times. That's where the money is made at car dealerships,

break even, make a few bucks to the new car department, and then slam them on the finance and the products they sell you in the business office. That's where they make their money. Average about $2,000 a car. For every car they sell, they average about $2,000, maybe $1,800 on the car. that and make much less of that on the new car.

The percent of sales worksheet, the sales price was $23,909. They added $7.95 dock fee. That's a hidden fee, dealer fee, by many, many different names, sales tax. And a hefty, too hefty, really, $720.50 for license and fees. And we'll never know exactly what that is until we get into the box, into the finance office. I have a suspicion that there's some non-government fees in that $720. Then they subtracted a $3,500 rebate, and that was a Nissan factory rebate, making my out-the-door price $23,483 rounded off.

The salesman, I asked, I was happy with a price. I said, maybe. I would have been if I hadn't come in expecting to pay $19,999, and not $23,909.4,000. $20,000 higher. He said that the $3,500 rebate made the price actually $20,409, not much higher than the ad price. I said I would need to think about it. We said our goodbyes and I left. We expected some huge discounts. We were not disappointed. Although the final sales price wasn't terribly higher than the ad price. So many old school tactics were employed before we got to that. Baton's which had, impossible to get rebates, giant addendum, and the rest of it.

So it was an exciting ride. It was an entertaining ride. And it's a typical car dealer, old school, razzle-dazzle, and what can I say? It might be worth the price of admission just by watching the Vichillo YouTube's and the advertisements. Yeah, I mean, I think Agent. Lightning did herself a favor when she objected to the addendum. Yeah.

So when Robert went to speak to the manager, he probably said, she ain't going to have any of this stuff. She really objected to it. So they came down and they gave her well-up getting a good price. I checked it on TrueCard, and it's a great price. Yeah. If you can show a little toughness, a little resilience, if you can be, people just don't like to become aggressive

and go head-to-head with car salespeople. But if you can just muster up a little bit, remember, they want to sell you the car. They don't want you to leave and go home and not come back. So the more resistance and objection and concern you show, the lower your price is going to be. Nancy? At what point are you stamped an aggressive person when you throw the salesperson in the trunk? Absolutely. I'm going to ask Agent Lightning if you can get a salesperson in the trunk.

we'll just try I think we should let's go around let's see how the votes go well we have some coming in Linda on Facebook it says I voted F a bunch of liars

you saw that in Facebook too yeah I like that and then Jonathan Wellington to the salesperson salesman was honest about the lies that's a little cognitive dissonance for me he was honest about the lies

but a lie I stole a lie and he gives him an F so we got two Fs. So far, I'm not going to fail them. I'm going to give them a C-minus. I've got Donovan with a big fat F, Nate Ward, yuck, a D-minus. Tim Gilliland, telling me you're cheating me doesn't make it any better, a huge D. Mark Ryan with an F, the customers should not have to work that hard to spend their money. Carmen Green says, I'll give it a D-plus, definitely not the worst I've seen.

John Strine says F, same old, same old bait and switch. And for me, I'm going to give them a D barely passing, but folks, you better gear up when you go in there. Absolutely. I got a couple more. Mark gives them a D.

And then Frank comes and says, interesting shopping report, and actually a B for being entertaining. Oh. Yeah. A lot of bait and switch. And as Rick said, you better gear up, you know, knowledge is power. What are your grades, Nancy? D.

Oh, D. Okay. I'm going to give them a C minus like Stu. I think that in spite of what you say, the fact that they came down to a fairly decent price, the fact that the salesperson, you know, an earlier comment, I don't care whether they tell me they're cheating or not if they're cheating. You know, when they tell you you're cheating, at least that's a degree of honesty. I mean, we had that a couple other times where the salespeople actually shone.

The salesperson was tired of being beat up and the salesperson, you'll get that every now and then. The salesperson says, listen, car dealer, I can't control him, he runs these ads, he lies to you, you come in, you're here. And that was bait and switch, and I'm going to try to get your good price. That's a degree of honesty.

So I think I'm going to go with a C-minus, largely because of the salesperson. But, you know, I don't know. I think he knows people don't take him seriously. And I think he knows that the power of, he's probably enormously profitable. I know he sells a ton of cars. At one time he was the largest Kia dealer in the United States. And maybe the Hyundai dealer, too.

So he sells, he's very successful with what he does. So he does it old school, and he does it in a refreshingly different manner. I don't like the sneaky people that really truly love. and do not admit it, and we're out of time. Yeah, we all agree. Ladies and gentlemen, that was a mystery shopping report from Fleshella Nissan of Clearwater, Florida. Thanks for tuning in.

We'll see you right back here next week. Same time, same channel. Stay safe. Thank you.