Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.14.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of HGreg West Palm Beach

Episode Date: December 14, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits HGreg of West Palm Beach, to see if the sales rep will disclose the Takata Airbag Recall on a used 2016 Jeep Wrangler Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, here is the recovering car dealer live. You were listening to my recorded announcement. I have to make one modification because Rick Kearney, our expert on mechanics, computerization, electronics of automobiles, the man that can ask any question on the technical aspects of a car is taking a well-deserved vacation. And we're going to miss Rick. He normally sits over to my right here, and he can answer anything. But we're not going to give up. We've got Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and myself, three Stu Stewart's in the studio. And we've been around

the business a little bit, and we can answer some mechanical questions, but not all of them. But wait, We have Google. Yeah. We have Google. We have Google. Yeah, I forgot about Google. I mean, that's two-thirds of my brain. Make it nine-tenths of my brain.

And we also have a couple experts standing by. So please don't hold back on your questions on mechanical issues with your car. And if we can't answer it, we do something on this show that you don't normally see. A panel experts do. We just say, I don't know. Or that'll be after we Google it. I'll probably start with a joke and then try to fake it. And then we'll get serious.

But sometimes we don't know. You know, actually, when we go through all our resources, I got to believe we're about $9.99. But there's some things you just don't know. And then you just be honest and transparent and say, I don't know. At any rate, you are the source of the show. You folks out there in Facebook land, because we're streaming live on Facebook.

Facebook.com forward slash hurl on cars. We're also streaming on Twitter and Periscope and Facebook, I said, YouTube, and you could just stream us directly, can't you through? Was there a change in that? Yes, that was my big announcement. So last few weeks, our listeners had been letting us know that the live stream at Stream Earleoncars.com was playing holiday music. Well, that's been fixed. It's been redirected to the new site.

So you just go to the old site, stream earl on cars.com, and you'll be able to hear the internet stream with the audio. Yeah, www. dot stream earlancars.com. You know, if you're cool, you don't say WWW anymore. That's just, but for old folks, like me.

That's a 2000s. It's very, yeah, 2000, yeah. So stream www. Streamirlencars.com. And that way you stream us and Facebook, Periscope, anything. The text number, that's become old reliable. Used to be our phone number was all reliable.

I'm going to give you our phone number anyway, but, hey, what's the telephone these days, right? The telephone number is, for the record, 877-960-99-60, that's 877-9-60. Now, I'm just being silly about the telephone number. The telephone is really cool because you have that personal connection. You hear the voice, you hear the laughter, you hear the anger, you hear the emotion. Phone calls are really great, so we do encourage you. some regular callers that we love to be on the phone, just wouldn't be the same as if they were on text or Facebook. But text has become our utility. That's like our base, our core, and we

build a nice backlog of comments, questions, criticisms, and we like you, we don't like a type of comments. Our text number, 772-497-6530. That's area code 772, 497-4-97-6-97-6-97-6 And if we don't get to it right away, we will get to it. We usually end up getting to all the texts before the end of the show. Another unusual thing about this show. Well, I got to talk about the show. Our mystery shopping report, and I know you regulars have heard this a thousand times, but we have something totally unique.

You won't find it on television. You won't find it on radio. I guess maybe on 60 minutes. Qualas kind of a thing. We do a live undercover agent visitation of a car dealership in South Florida and sometimes North Florida. We haven't been out of state yet, although we have some out of state agents that will report in, but we go in and pretend to buy a lease a car. This is really interesting. I promise you. We do it in the second half of the show, and we visited a car dealership, I think it was yesterday. So they're hot off the press, and we tell you exactly what happened.

We're going on an advertisement typically, and we go through the process that you would go through if you're buying a car. We named the dealership. We named the salesperson. We named the sales manager. It's really cool. I swear to you, you'll love this. The Mystery Shopping Report. We have an undercover agent who's doing a marvelous job, and it's not easy.

He's courageous. His family has even gone in with him occasionally, and he just does a marvelous job, mystery shopping report. And the other unique thing is, is Nancy Stewart, my co-host, my wife, my partner in this show for about 17 years. We started out doing a half an hour, and she's learned a whole lot about the car business from the radio show. A lot of them, premier calls, and she's been by my side this whole time. And the best thing she does is she encourages the ladies out there to call in. When we first started the show, all mail. It was like a locker room.

It was just like, you know, all guys calling in talking about their trucks. And now we have pretty close to a 50-50 audience. And that's thanks to Nancy Stewart. I'm going to ask Nancy to tell you about our special offer for those of you who haven't heard it for our first time, lady callers. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the show. We're going to have a great one for the ladies.

We want to offer you $50 for the first two new lady callers. And you can, you'll be able to text us your contact information. That text number is real, real important. So I'm going to mention it a few times, 772-4976530. That'll be your way of receiving the $50. Once you call in, you've got to call in. And I know you all have something to say. A few of you are a little bit shy from my information this week,

but I'm going to encourage you anyway to give us a call so that we can build a platform here for Earl Stewart on cars. We enjoy talking to the ladies. Again, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And any of the ladies that are listening out there that haven't received their $50 check, please take advantage of the text number and contact us with your contact information at 772-4976530.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, thank you. I think we've got some text building up over there, and Stu is collecting those. Who's watching our Facebook input? I'll tell you, guys, before you get started on the text, let's go to Howard, who called pretty early this morning, and Howard gives us a call often. He's a regular caller, and he's from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning. It's a pleasure talking to you this morning. I have a great experience in Earl's dealership yesterday. Oh, good. Should I tell you the great experience? Yeah, how to do with Earl? I'd love to hear it, and I just have to tell the new folks that this is not an infomercial, but you know something? Who doesn't like compliments?

We're not trying to sell you anything, even though I am a car dealer in full disclosure. but Howard is a wonderful guy, a great caller, and he's also a good customer of mine. So, Howard, I really appreciate it. Yeah, tell us about your experience. Yeah, believe you, I'm not a shill for you. I just, this is actually what happened. A friend of mine who's well up in years doesn't drive anymore. Last year, he stopped driving.

His wife is 10 years young, and she drives, and her Mercedes, the lease was up. It's going to be up to 20th this month. So he's a little panicky. He said, I don't know. Should I buy the car? I mean, I said, wait a second. Before you do anything, let's go into Earl Stewart, Toyota, yesterday. And let's, you know, discuss this.

Sure. So pleasantly surprised I was able to speak to Josh. It was a very nice young man. Thank you. My youngest son. Yeah. He sat down with us and explained, you know, explain the situation about the one-year lease is not available.

I told this gentleman, I'm not going to mention his name, I said, you're turning in your Mercedes. They're giving you an option to buy it. It's a three-year-old car. And I told him, that Mercedes could be in the shop every other month. No, real, because I have experience with Mercedes. You know, friends of mine and family, had them and they were

they're not reliable I mean as far as my experience I'm not going by consumers reports because I didn't look it up sure but I'm not going to ask you to comment on the Mercedes because you know that's not you know

what I'm here for I'm here to explain that this gentleman here is panicky because his wife has to turn it in and they want 57,000 dollars to buy three-year-old

Mercedes, $57,000. A lot of money. So, yeah, right. So Josh said, you're better off buying the,

you know, a Camry, which is right. So I was trying to sit down with Josh and discuss the advantages

of buying a car instead of leasing the car. So that's how we stand right now. And, well, thanks, Howard. Yeah.

Why do you comments on this? Yeah, it's a great thing to comment on because in South Florida, we have a lot of this going on. A high population of older folks like me, and at some point in time, you have to ask yourself, you know, how much do I want to invest in this car? How long can I drive this car? And all these unpleasant questions that face us with mortality, and leasing is one of the biggest challenges. With a lease car, many people think it's like a rental car.

You lease a car, and if you stop using it, you just turn it back in where you leased it. That's not going to happen. You have a contract binding for the entire length of the lease. So if you have a 36 or 48-month lease, whatever, and you only use it for 12 months, you owe them the balance with those payments, and there's no way you can get out of it. If you lease a car, of course, you're not building equity, and when the car goes back and you have to pay all those payments, there's nothing to bail you out. Those payments are like rent receipts. They just float off and disappear into thin air.

So for older folks, sometimes purchase is a better option because you are building equity as you make your payments. And if something happens, you can't drive anymore, then you have some equity and you can hopefully at least break even by selling. the car without having to write a check for 36 monthly payments. So leasing for an older person is something that they should think twice about. Exercising the option to purchase on a lease is a whole new question too. It's a matter of arithmetic. In this case, the Mercedes, they were asking $57,000. You could have taken that Mercedes if you were seriously considering exercising that purchase option, and you could have gotten three bids on it from three Mercedes dealers. You You could take it to CarMax, you could take it to We Buy Anycar.com, you could take it to Carvana.

I mean, today you can get a good bid on your used car from multiple sources, and that tells you is $57,000 a good price or a bad price. If the highest bid you got is $49,000, then you don't even think twice about it. On the other hand, you might find a bid over $57,000. this happens very rarely that you get a bit higher than your option but it does happen so if you get a bid a couple thousand dollars over the option to buy you can flip the car

and make a fast profit that's highly unlikely happens very seldom but it's worth checking out and Howard that's a great typical case happening every day in South Florida I know that and he started to get panicky because

the 20th is coming up soon you know and yeah exactly And how it stands right now His wife who drives It's going to come down to your dealership And speak to a salesman Sure Because she's not

She has no experience with Toyota And Josh explained It has leather seats It's the XLE It has all the new features I think it has more features Than the three-year-old Mercedes Safety features

Or the same More or the same features Probably more because of a three-year newer car, the technology safety, especially, is going at warp speed, and you had a three-year-old car. You probably have multiple features

that you should have that only come in the newer model. Okay, so I'll bring him down probably next week as soon as possible. Howard, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. He'll bring him down and his wife. Oh, great.

And this way, you know, discuss this in the detail. But I appreciate you help, I give kudos to Josh. He has a lot of patience. Oh, thank you. Do you like Josh better than me now? I would say that. I'm different entities, you know.

Thank you, Howard. Have a great weekend. Take care yourself, my friend. You too. Bye. Thanks, Howard. Remember, folks, you can take advantage of your anonymous feedback. That's another form of communication that you can use and utilize it in a way that is very

unique. That being we just don't know who you are, you remain anonymous. So www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Okay. And we have some callers lined up, so we're going to go to Doug, who's been holding. And Tino, just hold on and we'll get to you. Hi, Doug. Hi, how are you? How'd you like that sunrise this morning? Oh, my God. It was great. with all the dogs. Is it, are you calling for Ollie this morning or is this your call? I'm calling for Ollie and Tim.

We just said, good morning. Oh, great. So what's Ollie driving today, Doug? Yeah, Loule! Ollie wants to get a car, but we told him he can't do that anymore. He's getting too old. He's 21. Oh, geez. Do you?

Meow? He just tried. He was crying. That's too funny. I have a question. I have a question about my car that got struck by lightning. And then he got hit, and they ran. They left the whole front grill on that stuff.

So it's all fixed up. But my question about car fact is how can I find out if anything is going up on my car. before I bring it in because a lot of dealerships they're showing an interest in my car but if I bring it in will they look it up

and see that it's it's got that damage I mean not damage it's got the record yeah yeah but now it's like brand new because they can't play to them yeah exactly yeah Doug that's for the people

that haven't heard you call him before Doug's cars you heard him just saying now we're struck by lightning and that's You know, it's unusual. You don't know what damage your lightning does to a car. A huge surge of electrical, and even the best technician can't tell you what parts of the car were affected. I think you're doing the right thing to trade that car or sell the car. And this is a chance for you to get even with the evil car dealers out there

because you are under no legal obligation to divulge anything about that car. You don't want to walk into a car dealership and say, hey, my car just got to. hit by lightning and I want to sell it. You're going to let them do their due diligence and their research and some of them will and some of them won't. But today you have more ability to go, you put your

car, it's all like putting your car at the auction. You can go to Carvana. That's a big national company and they buy cars. Automation, the biggest retailer now, their big campaign on we buy cars. You don't even have to buy our car will buy

your car. And of course, we buy car.com. You've seen that commercial that drives you crazy. They're a legitimate outfit. And then you can take it to what make car do you have? What make his... Okay. Take it to a couple of Honda

dealers. You know the used car departments. I look I got too many cars in the family. I'm downsizing. What will you bid for my car? I'm going to sell it to the highest bidder. You know, you could spend two or three days and you could get a half a dozen legitimate bids on that car.

car. And I would sell it or trade it, but be sure when you trade it that you're getting the high bid that you were offered when you were shopping the car. Well, I can bring it to Earl Stewart, but you know about it. Yeah, I'm a, I probably won't be your high bidder. But I'll give you the, I'll give you the bid. A smart dealer will put on it, and then you need to find a dumb dealer. I can recommend a couple dumb dealers to you, too. That's the whole point between buying a car and leasing a car. And if we would have bought this car, we would have been in big trouble,

but because we leased it, you know, the whole other different stories. Yeah, I think in my case, leasing it was probably a good thing because... Oh, yeah. Oh, it's a great thing. I mean, that gets you off your hook entirely. But you might get lucky and find out your option to buy is less than what you could get for it. And it's less likely because you got hit by lightning. and it's a possibility worth going through the exercise, I think.

But anyway, I'm glad you're okay, even if your car isn't. It runs pretty good. The only problem is when I get it in the morning, I get a little shock. No, I'm just kidding. That's very funny. Hey, listen, thank you very much. Doug, you're great. Sam, I hear you in the background.

Holly, you behave yourself. Yeah, I got to say for Sam, Doug, you're very lucky. She's a very, very informed, Sam. And what a great life partner for Doug to assist him in, you know, this whole car thing. And it's great to hear from all three of you. Yeah, and being a full-time musician, Tim puts up with a lot. I'm sure. Thanks again and have a long.

Bye, guys. Have a great weekend. Remember that telephone number is 877, 6, or excuse me, 960. 9960. Is that your boyfriend's number? They just went on that. And you, oh, that's a funny. I like that.

Thank you. Anyway, the text number is 772-497-6530. And again, I'm going to remind the ladies, you've got to give us a call. You want to win $50, the first two new lady callers? You can do so this morning. You can use that money this time of year. So don't forget, 877-9-60-99-6. and I want to remind everyone again

Your Anonymous Feedback.com Please, we'd love to hear from you. Now we're going to go to our wonderful female caller. She's with us every week and she shares so much information with us. Some we don't have never heard. So good morning, Tina and welcome to the show. Good morning, y'all.

How you doing? Doing great. Hey, Tina. Hi, how are you? I was watching the infamous, famous Scotty Kilmer the other day, and he bought up a really good point. If you care about your vehicle, do not get an oil change done at a big box store. Go to a reputable mechanic that knows what they're doing

because he has heard too many stories of people going to these big box stores and these techs, they're just in a hurry, they don't care. They leave the oil cap off or they won't even bother to put the job. drain plug in and he's seen a few people lose their engine because of this. So just an FYI. I know it's convenient. I know it's quick and easy, but it might not, it might end up being a disaster if you're not careful. Yeah, true story, Tina. Yeah, that can happen at a dealership too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, most definitely at a dealership, Tina. We've heard it often and I'm glad you brought that to the forefront this morning. It's happened at our dealership before. Yeah, yeah. No, I'd say a starting

position for a mechanic for a technician. First thing they do when they apply for a job, if they get higher they start them on the lubric, which is where they change the oil, and you know, they show them how to do it. But there's a lot more than being shown how to do

it. You have to learn and you have to be careful and you have to be responsible. So it's a little bit of a crapshoot, a Russian roulette anytime you get your oil changed. And I don't know a better advice on what you gave. Find mechanic that you trust you've had experience with and if you have to pay a few bucks a few bucks more

to let him change the oil it could save your money in the long run well my question to you earl is that like a reputable dealership will they have somebody like say for instance there's a beginning technician that's doing loopwork will they go through a checklist and have somebody double check to make sure that the oil plug is in properly and the oil cap is covered you know will they have somebody double the work before the car is let out to the client. Well, this is where being truthful and transparent is very painful. And you heard Stu say earlier, and I will corroborate that. At our dealership, we've had problems.

And it's kind of a niche in the armor or whatever the word is that all service departments have. People have to start out somewhere. And most of the people that enter the profession of technician mechanic today come through the lubrication department because it's the most basic simple. If a person is conscientious and he is trained properly, he should be able to change your oil completely safety, safely every time. Rotate and balance your tires. That's another safety item. Sometimes they don't torque the lug nuts properly. As you mentioned earlier, the drain plug.

You can over-torget, under-torget, and you don't put the right amount of oil in, or you don't put any oil in. This is carelessness. So it is a, and in the best of dealerships, it can happen. Now, we're not talking, you know, likely. We're talking about maybe one set of a 5,000 times. Way less than that. Yeah, or a thousand times, okay? I mean, it's, you know, a high-volume car dealership will have hundreds of people come in every month.

and if it happens every three or four months, you're talking, you know, pretty little odds. But it's just something I'm trying to endorse your recommendation, which is find a mechanic, even in a dealership or wherever that you trust, that's done your word before and ask for him when you come in. Stu? And ask them what is their follow-up and what is their inspection process? I mean, ideally, and it doesn't, the problem is when the system breaks down.

So in our dealership, a newer tech, oil change, loop tech is supposed to be paired up with a more experienced one. They're two-man teams, and they're supposed to both check each other's work. When they fail to follow the process, that's when it goes bad. So ask the service department you go to and say, what's your process for making sure everything's done correctly? And then if you really want to, you can stand out there and watch them do your car. Exactly. Not to beat a dead horse, but all dealerships have a great process. but it's the execution of the process where you drop the ball.

And experience is very good. If you have someone that you had experience with over the years, take the car to that person and let them change your oil, and you'll be absolutely safe. And Tina, this service that, you know, you might say that it's rather, you know, minor and it's a maintenance, but I'll tell you what, if you don't do your homework and write down all those questions that should be asked, whether, you know, you have an experienced mechanic or not,

letting them know that you are informed, you know, about the oil change, the lug nuts, the drain cap, because, you know, it's not deliberate, but carelessness, it happens. People get distracted. I should say mechanics get distracted in tech. So thanks for bringing that to, again, to the forefront. That's a very important issue. your homework on a mechanic and make sure you're dealing with someone who is experienced because

any one of those topics that we just talked about certainly can be detrimental to your engine and to you on the highway okay thank you very much thank you i'm glad i was able to bring it up there and one more thing before i go the weather is beautiful people are out on their motorcycles everybody please watch out oh boy motorcycles make sure the evening You have your side view mirrors and your rear view mirrors adjusted properly and check your blind spots. That's right. You might save a life. Thanks, Tina.

Thank you very much. Thank you for keeping us informed. 877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And I think from the looks of Stu, I think he's running out of ink. He has so many texts. My bag has about 30 pen, gel pens in there, so I will never run out of ink. I was just thinking about Tina's question. It is really, it would make an interesting study.

How does, I mean, we know that there's a lot of inexperienced texts that maybe have just done, it might be the first week on the job when they forget to tighten the cap or the drain plug. But for a technician who's done this literally tens of thousands of times over a career, what causes somebody who does a routine that you would think it would be as basic as brushing your teeth to forget? We know that there are distractions, but it's interesting. especially an experienced tech ought to know how crucial it is. I mean, what an expensive and even like life-threatening mistake, a simple mistake for getting to do a simple routine thing can have.

Yep. Don't know. Absolutely, Steve. Absolutely. All right. We're going to start with a tech question here. And the question says, I have a 2006 four runner, and the low pressure, low pressure tire pressure light is blinking.

Can this be fixed without removing all the tires? I looked it up, and it looks like the batteries are dead in the sensors. Well, I can answer that question for you. You're probably right. It is one of the battery sensors. Batteries for the sensors has died. But the good news is you do not have to remove all of your tires. The scan tech tool will tell you which tire it is where the battery is dead.

And the battery levels are the remaining ones. So it can be done with only taking a part one tire to replace the sensor. And in full disclosure, I didn't know that myself. I texted Bobby Galarza. So thanks, Bobby. Fantastic. Yeah. That's where the system's working. I just thought, you know, I was getting ready to fire a wreck. I thought we didn't need him anymore. You're going to put me in the shop? Yeah. I can, I can Google and I can text, but I can fix cars, I don't think. Yeah, we actually, we have quite a few.

Let's start with the, you know what, I'm going to take a chance with another tech question, a non-toid. I recently bought a 2010 Hyundai Alantra. I think I have a transmission problem. When I come to a quick, stop, the transmission bangs when it's going in the first. When accelerating fast, the transmission slips between first and second. And I think you're absolutely right. That sounds like a transmission problem. And I googled it for you. And in the 2010 Hyundai Alantra, there are numerous complaints about transmission slipping problems. Unfortunately, you are out of warranty in a 2010 Hyundai Alantra. And it is an expensive repair. It's about $1,600 to get fixed. I'll tell you. Where can you go for all?

all this free information. Did you hear, Stu? Just know, he covered it all. Where did you find that particular information? That actually came up. Google's is getting really good at finding the relevant information and feeding it to you up at the top of the search page before you even go to a website.

So there was a little box that appeared that had kind of cold information from various sites, and there were just a ton of reports online from various forums about the Hyundai Launcher Problems. So you don't even have to find the chat room or anything like that, you just go to Google and make your Google entry relevant. Make it

try to talk in normal English just the way you would ask the question. And if you keep it short and succinct, it's amazing how fast Google can do. It's getting better and better. I remember back in the day when you had to put special characters

and quotations and there was like a technique to search. All I said was 2010 Hyundai-Launtra transmission and boom, all the information. I just had a horrible thought. Now it's magic. I just had a horrible thought. We don't need it.

We're being replaced by Google. And what we can have, it would be Google on cars instead of rural on cars. Exactly. We get the voice recognition. And I'm obsolete. And I don't even realize it. Well, this is probably the first sting of that realization that you got. But the reality is with, I'm not, I'm going to sound like, I'm sorry, Rick, I'm

going to sound like Rick, but the whole world is going to be automated. And even careers and professions that you think cannot be automated, they will be doctors, lawyers doctors for sure yeah all right let's go on excuse me my comment mr car dealer mr recovering car dealer you can't be replaced thank you very much okay this is on Facebook this is from Carl Jr which I thought was a restaurant but oh it is yeah I have a 2018 Chrysler 300 with Firestone Firehawk GTR tires on it I have 20,000 miles on the car and the tires have very low tread I asked the dealer about it and he said he would do a tread test and would see what he could do. Then I stopped at a Firestone store and got an answer.

I thought it was pretty rude. The associate said that they put low grade tires on basic cars today. I said my car is far from a basic car. It's a $36,000 car. This doesn't seem fair. Please give me review on this. Thanks, Carl Jr. The answer is tread wear index and you look on your tire and you'll see a number probably around 300, whereas you could have one with 500. or 600. The treadware index measures the softness, hardness ratio on your tire. The harder the rubber, the longer the mileage you get on the tires. The newer cars, a new car, as a matter of fact, typically have a lower treadware index. They don't like to put the harder rubber tires on a new car. My theory is, when you buy a new car and you road test it, you want to smooth

ride. The softer rubber will give you a smoother ride. Also gives you fewer more. miles per set of tires. I don't mind a little stepher ride, and if I were trying to maximize my mileage, I'd probably choose a high treadwear index, maybe 600. And with a treadwear index of 600, that's stamped on your tire, by the way. You can read it right there. TWI, so it's TWI and then a three-digit number. And you can get 60,000 miles to a set of tires with a 600 treadware index.

So that's my answer. Yeah, and the guy at Firestone, he might have delivered. it rudely but in the sense he was telling to the truth he probably it's not cheap cars that do it it's all new manufacturer cars yeah when you have if you bought your car new and you're going to buy your next set of tires ask the question what treadwear index do you want to put on my tire on my car you don't you don't want the same tires that you had before as a matter of fact technically you can't even buy the same set of tires because every manufacturer has their tires built, Firestone built, the tires for the car this person bought, and they put them on the

car as a manufacturer. You cannot buy them in the store. That's right. Okay, we're going to go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We have three that came in this morning. First one says, I haven't heard you talk about it yet, but rumbleon.com. It's an app, and it also has an app, and it's selling tons of cars and trucks with airbag recalls with no fixes. I found 20 during a 15 minute search. Wow. And I personally thank you for that because it's tough finding these cars. We do these massive searches every week trying to find them.

And having a new resource will make things easier. And what is that again, Stu? It is rumbleon.com. It sounds like a, well, it sounds like a, well, it sounds like a, RU-M-B-L-A-on.com. You know, let me comment on that, too. Yeah, as I say off on the show in full transparency, I am a current car dealer. and I do the show as a consumer advocacy but I have to admit that I do have a car dealership

and we try not to pretend like we're not an infomercial thing where we're the real deal to help you but it's been good to help it helps you and helps me being a real car dealer because I'm on top of what's going on today in the retail car business with that said last Wednesday in a management meeting we were talking at my dealership

about how we could increase our profitability in our service department. And one of our sources of profit in our service department are what we call campaigns on recalls. We do recall. We fix recalls on Toyotas. And when we fix the recall, Toyota pays us. And we get to put that money in the bank. It helps our profitability.

So we want to allow our profitability and under warranty, which is where this profit goes, was down and the answer was we're not doing as much warranty work because we're not to get as many recalls in and the question in the conversation went this way why can't we get more Toyota's in that have recalls that need to be fixed safety recalls and the answer was because we don't know where the drivers are we know who the driver was when he bought the car because we've got the VIN number but if they traded that car once or twice or three times That car could be in a different state by a different owner, and we can't locate them.

And then somebody said, it was me, actually. Well, why can't we find them? Because they have to buy a license plate and a registration every year, two years, for their car, no matter what state they're in. So you should be able to match the VIN with the current owner. And then you contact the current owner and say, you've got a dangerous recall that needs to be fixed. And I said, why can't we get these numbers from Toyota? Toyota. Well, Toyota doesn't have those numbers. Honda doesn't have them. General Mothers

doesn't have them. So we have a system here now where we have only one out of four cars with a recall being fixed. Seventy-five percent of the cars with recalls on the road, millions and millions of cars are on the road, have not had the recall fixed. And we can't find the people because the manufacturers won't go through the due diligence and the trouble to find where they are. There are state laws, now, you know, with some deference to the manufacturers, there are state law privacy laws that prevent people from putting together the name of the owner with the event number.

So if you bought a car and it was used car, the state knows your name and they know the VIN, but they won't sell that to Toyota or Honda. That makes it difficult. Yeah, they make it easy for you to find your own customers, but that's not, that's the problem. It's everybody else out there. I mean, there's an app that, I don't know if you just mentioned it because I was Googling something. There's an app, you go one car at a time and scan a license plate, and it pings the DMV, and then it runs the VIN number for you. It's just a little bot.

I mean, it's a little computer program. And a dealer can do that at his dealership. As a matter of fact, they sell scanning tools that will scan every car that comes onto your lot and do that with the license plate, but you can't go out there on the highway and do that. You can't go in every parking a lot. in the world. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Let me mention that telephone number again before we get back to Stu, who has a lot of text.

That's 877-960, and you can text us at 772-497-6-530. Don't forget, ladies, I mentioned when we opened a show that you should give us a call. First two new lady callers, you can win yourself $50 this morning and also take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. back to Stu. Yeah, we'll continue with the anonymous feedback. Hi, I know you've mentioned accessories like pinstripes and mud guards. They're usually overpriced by car dealerships. If a customer requests to add those items, do you sell them at a lower price or the same

as the other dealerships? And I can take it. Take it. Yeah. No, we don't mark them up. And like, this is not an infomercial. So I'll make it really quick. No, we don't do that.

Give an example. A pinstripe that costs you about 30 bucks. mud gar is on four tires about 150 bucks so it's not thousands of dollars and we don't do that there's nothing wrong with selling accessories at a car dealership the pre-instillation of the accessory

and the obscene markups of a thousand or two thousand percent is what is wrong and hiding the fact from the advertised price of the car so suddenly you buy a car at the advertised price and you find out it's got a thousand dollars worth of dealer

installed accessories on the car that's what's wrong. You should always try to buy an accessory you want, shop, get the best price, you know, from the dealer or from an independent. Yeah, I mean, it's really easy to go to just petpoys.com. That puts you in the ballpark of what the market prices because they're priced competitively

and just, and also if you're Amazon. Or Amazon, exactly. But then, you know, we're about, you know, labor installation. But if a car dealer, you just let them know, you beat them up a little bit. And that kind of is a good segue of negotiating into the next your anonymous feedback that came in.

says, hello there, for decades, the dealers have trained consumers to haggle and negotiate. You can't expect this deep-seated mindset to fight for the best deal to be undone overnight. You can't reasonably expect for someone new to your dealership to believe the salesperson when they stole that Earl Stewart is a one-price dealership. The knee-jerk reaction is that this is just another dealer lie. I know Stu's comment two or three weeks ago, whether it was said jokingly or in sincerity, to raise the price for a negotiating customer was short-sighted again,

that consumer would be subjected to the dealer's little game and would not have a better experience than anywhere else. Thanks, Andy. Well, I'm really offended, Andy, because I thought my jokes were obviously jokes. You know, I thought it had a good sense. And that was my joke. Exactly.

Well, yeah, we sound similar sometimes. And by the way, the idea of car dealers advertising one price and not really being one price because they slipped the, hidden fees in on you. We have an example of that in today's mystery shopping report. And I don't believe people from being skeptical. People come into our dealership and we put our lowest price on every car. And people are skeptical and sometimes they get angry and they want to haggle because they think it's a game. And the reason they think it's a game is because a lot of dealers out there like this dealer, we mystery shop yesterday. They lie and they say, we're one price. And when you come in there,

they're not one price because they have hidden fees that they add to the advertised price. I'm going to tease Andy a little bit. You know, this is anonymous feedback. Don't put your name in there. I'm just kidding. But, you know, Earl's right. And actually, you're 1,000% correct. We do train that at the dealership is when a customer comes in,

we know we're lumped in with every car dealer because that's what we are. And people have been beaten like dogs for 100 years. And we expect we're going to come around here and say, we're really nice, believe us, we don't expect people to believe us. And we, and we, so our salespeople don't have their feelings hurt day after day, we let them know to expect people to have their guard up. And that's, and then hopefully, you know, then it changes. It's shocking, you know, to find out that what you said is, you know, very true. And it's going to take a while for the consumers, for that to sink in. Yeah, the world's changing. Yeah, that we're changing.

Every, you know, the culture is changing. And we want to build a better reputation. for the auto industry. Yeah. There's no calls. I got plenty of text. We're sliding into an infomercial, folks. All right, let's move on. Thank you for the service you provide.

This is a text, by the way. I'm getting divorced, and I have leased two cars. How do I switch the lease of one of the cars to her name or other money-saving way to handle it? A 36-month lease, which I'm six months into. Well, you have to go to the leasing company, and you have to get their permission, because that's their collateral.

And if they have you and your soon-to-be-ex-husband on the contract, then it's going to have to be an agreement between you and your husband and the leasing company can't be unilateral. Yeah. There is a secondary way you can do it. There's a thing called swap a lease, which is not officially sanctioned by the leasing companies, but it's used pretty commonly.

It's like a sublet. Technically, you're not supposed to do it, but in a pinch, I guess you could if the leasing company didn't cooperate. Okay. This is from Andreas. This is one of our longtime Facebook fans and a member of the Sunrise Club.

He posted a picture of a barge, dredging sand from beneath the waves. He has Earl's Treasership Facebook comment made me think of this. From Wikipedia. Dredging is a form of excavation carried out under water or partially underwater.

in shallow waters or ocean waters. It keeps waterways and ports navigable and assists coastal protection, land reclamation, and coastal redevelopment by gathering up bottom sediments and transporting it elsewhere. Might it be possible to attach a sieve to this dredger and use it

in an alternate fashion? Search the depths of the ocean for dealerships, honesty, and integrity. That was elaborate, but you know what? Yeah, somebody needs to figure that out. I'm going to hold up our camera. That's the treasurer. that Andres was talking about, and it was just off the Jupiter Inlet, and it's a giant, giant ship,

and they're dredging, I think, for Spanish de blooms. Are they really? Yeah, and they're shifting the sand, and there's probably a galleon down, the Spanish gallion down there, and it's so cool to watch them. It's been a source of entertainment. They've been north, south, they've been all over the place, and what's amazing is the ship is so large, and it moves so fast. What gives them a right to get that?

You know, if you waited a few more years, that might wash up on the beach behind your house. That might be, but you've got to pay, Florida half. Really? We're digressing. Okay, sorry. Johnny and Riviera Beach, Texas. Oh, excuse me.

John has joined us. John's calling us from Palm City. Good morning, John. Hello, John. Yes, good morning. Good morning. Good morning to everyone. Happy holidays.

Happy holidays. On my mind because I heard of a stolen car. So stolen cars are on my mind according to the Insurance Info Institute and 2018 750,000 cars were stolen.

According to their list, the number one car that stolen is a Dodge Charger with the hemmy in it naturally. Two was a Dodge Challenger. Three is Infinity, Q50, another four. is infinity, QX80,

5 is a GMC Sierra, crew cab 1,500, and et cetera, et cetera, and 6 is a Nissan Maxima, and it goes on and on. The least stolen is a BMW 3 series, a Tesla

4-wheel drive and a Buick encore. Also, for some reason, the Volkswagen Beetle is not on there either. But my point is, I Especially when we had the hot weather, you go into a parking lot and somebody that doesn't want to get, shut the engine off because they don't want to go into a cool car, they stupidly leave the car running with the doors lock. Yeah.

A very easy car to steal. Sure. Another one, you see in some areas, people park it either they did it for the day or they're commuting, and they leave the car with a sun visor, you know, across the front dash. That's an indication to somebody that that car is not going to be moved so soon, so it gives them a little time, you know, to enter the car. Yeah. But it's a serious problem, probably on an increase because cars are so expensive and also relatively easy, especially we had during the storm,

the hurricane and the Caribbean islands, they can ship them out fairly easy without any hassle to get it out of Florida. I just, it's a warning, especially for people that only these particular cars to be on a lookout and put any type of additional, if they're in an area that's not so great, the cars parked outside, additional anti-seft devices. Yeah, you know, you've got a, the cops will tell you, ask any cop that three out of four cars that are stolen is some nut that left his keys in the car. and it's all you know you don't have to be a genius today if you're a car thief and defeat the you know burglars alarm systems or the theft deterrent systems all you have to do is find somebody that's not real smart and follow him around he'll leave his keys in your car you hop in the car and he drives off I know people to do that I mean I know people right now I won't mention any names I don't want to embarrass anybody that leave their keys in their car and I live in a community community is very safe. We haven't had much theft at all. The last car that was stolen, I asked

the cops, what happened? Oh, they left their keys and their Mercedes in the driveway. I have no sympathy. Yeah. Well, the biggest violation of that, you'll see at a gas station. They'll go inside for beverage or something and they'll leave the car open and most likely many of times the keys

right in the car. So it couldn't be easier for somebody just to run in. quick, and they're gone. No cure for stupidity. Technology can't help you. None. Unfortunately, I don't want to bring up the time with the holidays, but this is

reality. That's a lot of cars for 2018 that was stolen, $750,000. Wow, that is a lot. Hmm. Interesting. All right, I'm looking forward to the shopping report. Oh, thank you so much, John. That's a good one. You love it, John. Thanks very much. Have a great weekend.

Speaking of the Mystery Shopping Report, we are going to be, we should shopped H. Gregg in West Palm Beach this week, and it's, as I say, a doozy. And also, let me mention Earl's column. We got a lot of responses from that column. It's a very interesting one, how to get the lowest price on any new Toyota, any Toyota dealer. So you want to read that at Irwin Cars. And I would like to retract my comment. I don't want to be mean. It's really easy to leave your car running now with the push button it's I do it occasionally

it's possible I could have my car stolen from me I can agree with you I've done the same thing yeah and it's actually we've talked about it on the show a lot too I mean especially the car in the garage and carbon monoxide well I know people who do it on purpose and just very good for that's yeah no sympathy for that

well the people I know that have done it on purpose are hoping that the car gets stolen I don't know whether anyone knows why are you side glancing Earl are you trying to getting your car stolen. You're looking for some insurance fraud to dabble in? Okay. All right, this is from Johnny and Riviera Beach. I think you'll like this one. Did you hear what happened to a Rigo Dodge Chrysler Jeep Monday morning, a ransomware attack, hacker took control of all the dealership's computer systems and demanded an X amount of dollars to turn them back on? Rather than

given to the hackers, Jim Arrigo, president, and owner of the dealership decided to write a check for $285,000 to buy 200 new computers and start all over again. Even though for three days, no cars could be serviced or sold, Jim still paid his employees their full salaries. Jim said he would not let those hackers grinch steal the spirit of the holidays from him, his family, or his employees. This is some scary stuff. The city of Rivier Beach gave in the computer hackers and paid them $600,000 in Bitcoins before the computer system was freed. These days, more money as being stolen with a keyboard and the click of a mouse than anyone walking into a bank and robbing it. I hope this texture is listening because I have the rest of the story and the true story.

You're not going to tell them what I told you, are you? I said I was the one who hacked him. The true story is that Rigo Dodge and my dealership happened to use the same IT company. And about six months ago, the IT company went to Rigo, Jim Arrigo, and said that you realize your computer system is ancient, and you have a lot of computers there that can easily be hacked, and we should update your servers and modernize so that you cannot be hacked and held for ransom. And Jim Rigo says, I ain't going to spend that kind of money. So it was our computer company the hack them. so they got hacked and yes i did hear about it in fact a facebook friend elizabeth sent me that information on the video clip channel 25 jim orego bragging about how the fact that he wasn't going to succumb to

a hacker and pay the ransom he probably ended up paying more to save his computer system than he would have paid the hacker but anyway uh when i saw that i got nervous and uh i called i i IT company, and that's how I got the story about what really happened to Jim Rigo. Well, it's kind of funny because we do have a proposal to Upgrader security in my email I have to review. Yeah, and I told, that's because I told the IT company to do it ASAP. But we have, we have modern servers.

Jim Rillo servers were like eight, nine years old. Yeah, probably had tape backups. He had some old stuff there. What a crazy world. We're pretty cutting edge. Okay. Another text. Another fun one.

Don't you think that you may be asking your fans to overthink the whole car buying process? Isn't life complicated enough? If anyone really followed all of your advice, it would take months to buy a car and cause you to have a nervous breakdown. Cars are fun. Go through the Internet Sales Department and don't overthink. You got one part right. Go through the Internet Department. Well, not even, not necessarily.

Yeah, I sometimes think I'm, you know, flooding the... the listeners and the viewers were too much and I and of course some people out there just want to have the fun of buying a car if you got if you have enough money and a lot of people not a lot of people but some people have enough money where they can go into a car dealership and they can not haggle or hassle or haggle if you want to write a check and drive the car home but don't worry about it and so if there are a lot of people don't care if the car dealer made an extra five or ten thousand thousand dollars on them goes five or ten thousand dollars to some people is chump change uh i guess i'm my advice is to the people that can't afford to do that some people that buy way more car than they can afford pay way too high a price and i just try to maybe maybe i overdo it now listen here here's what i think when we speak when we give advice we're talking about everything there There's so many facets to the car buying process. Yeah, and it is a lot.

But not everybody has a trade. Not everybody's trying to get finance. Not everybody's trying to figure out a lease. You take what you need from the advice for the particular situation that you're in. So good advice. Get multiple bids from dealers through email or a car buying service. That's good advice. The rest of it, you might not need to think about until you have to come back and get the car service.

So it is a lot. Take what you need. sometimes sometimes it is a lot you know but it's well worth it in the end and first and foremost knowing what you need and what you can afford and that really just sets everything up and the rest comes very easy and buying a car is a lot more complicated than it should be and car dealers are a lot more dishonest than they should be I mean when I hear myself say that I think you know I guess some people out there saying I can't believe that most

car dealers are not dealing honestly with you folks that's a true statement I mean most of them aren't some of them are but I'll be kind over half of the car dealers that you buy and deal with are being dishonest and trying

to take advantage of you we prove that week after week after week on this show they will tell you that this is the price and then they will add hidden fees and then they will add dealer install accessories They'll lie about interest rates and leasing terms and conditions, and we see it happens.

So I guess it is a flood of information. I'm doing a 180 now. I'm justifying. The amount of knowledge that I try to get across to the consumers out there buying cars is necessary because of how complicated. And the dealers are professionals. It is their card game. It's their game. They know the rules.

They make the rules. and you go into their card game to play when you buy a car. Absolutely. And you know, folks, truly, we're not here to be part of the problem. We are here to be part of the solution. And in this complicated world today, there's a lot of people that need this information. One other thing I want to address with that text or the anonymous feedback is the Internet Department, it is a good rule of thumb, but you're not protected when you go through an Internet department.

It's still staffed by salespeople. It still follows the policies of the dealer. It's a good start, and typically it's better than going into walking in the front door. Absolutely. Good point. But the same games are still played. We see it week after week when we mystery shop. Just the very fact of the dealer fee issue, you know, you can get a price quoted to you. Most likely, you're not going to get a, they'll put the hidden fees in there for you.

Treasure Coast Toyota is a good example. Yeah, exactly. So it's okay advice, but it's not perfect advice because you are not safe. Okay, Nancy's got a text. I do, thanks, Duke. I have a text from Ginger, speaking, purchasing a vehicle, and she wants to know when the best time of the year is to purchase a vehicle. And before I hand this over to Earl, I'll tell you that, you know, today, right now in December,

I think it's a great time. And also, you know, we're all thinking about that special gift for the family. Emily. And during this time, there's a lot of special incentives. And guess what? These dealers want to get rid of this inventory that they're left with. Now, I'll let the recovering car dealer finish that up. That's one of the most commonly asked questions. And the answer is the end of the month is a good time to buy a car. The end of the year is a good time to buy a car. The reason for that is of the incentives and the bonuses, paid salespeople, paid dealers. There's an intense competition between dealers and between manufacturers, and the dealers world and the manufacturers

world operates on a 30-day cycle. So at the end of the month, there are often many reasons that the dealer will give you a better price than in the middle or the beginning of the month. The caveat is do your shopping and your homework and your consumer reports study and get your competitive pricing before the end of the month and save off the final decision until the end of the month. This is December, and of course December 31st, January 1st, January 2nd is pure pandemonium in the car industry. The manufacturers, it's important for their stock price, for the CEO of General Motors and the CEO, of Honda for their bonus money and the car dealers bonus money, the salespeople bonus money, there's a crescendo at the end of the year. So do your homework before the end of the year and get some competitive bids. Take your best price, put it in your pocket and wait until December

31st or January 1st or January 2nd. And that's when they close. They close the books, typically, do what, three or four days after the end of the year? Yeah, depending if it falls on a weekend. This year, this time it's January 6th for Toyota. Yeah. So second or third or fourth of January, December 31st, you will get yourself a better deal than you would right now. Yeah, the dealers are really trying to get rid of this unsold inventory.

And I'll tell you what I love negotiating and what a time of the year to do just that. Give us a call, toll free at 877960-996. or you can text us. And remember, ladies, you can win yourself $50. First, two new lady callers. As Earl sometimes says, I'm begging you. Give us a call. $50.

And you can also text us at 772-497-6-530. And don't forget, we do have the mystery shopping report coming up. And that's from H. Greg in West Palm Beach. I see that we have a caller. And that caller is Richard, and he's calling from Jupiter. Good morning, Richard. Yeah, good morning. Good morning.

Yeah, just wanted to comment, listening to your comments on buying cars and people discussing how difficult it is or how it's not a difficult. I just wanted to relate my current experience. I am an 82 years old. But I bought a lot of cars and all kinds, sports cars, and the sports cars. everything else. But my recent car participle of Tesla, I wanted to relate that it's an outstanding

experience. I mean, there's no haggle, no nothing, and you might want a mystery shop. We have. We have Mr. Shropton. And you're absolutely right, Richard. It's probably the best car buying experience

we had. And everybody I talked to if you'll want a Tesla. If you want to buy one, the system, the process couldn't be better. They're one price. You order your car. There's total courtesy and consideration. They try to sell you a higher price car, but that's just salesmanship.

And they try to sell you accessories, but that's just salesmanship. There's no hidden fees. I'm not sure if there's a hidden fee or not, Stu. I think there was a processing or a dock fee. There was, yeah. Absolutely. It was small, though. I think it was just a

facility. And mine, I recall that on mine. Yeah. But you don't even really have to go into a dealer. No, you don't. You can sit down to your internet. Exactly.

Exactly. Richard, what model are you driving? Model S. The S? As in Sam. I had a 13,000 miles on it. Zero problem. It's a wonderful car.

Yeah, it is. No, it's a that Tesla model has the dealers very concerned and they're very nervous about Tesla getting active and more dealerships but they're more afraid

of the Tesla model being copied and the dealership's very existence relies on the the way they sell cars which is flim-flam I can understand that I've dealt with dealerships all my life

for a lot of cars and they ought to be very scared Yeah. They are. Some states, Texas, like they won't allow Tesla in to cross the bad. Yeah. Yeah, so they're really, Elon Musk and Tesla really gets them nervous.

And hopefully one day they will have a positive influence on the rest of dealers. No reason all dealers shouldn't be honest and transparent, just like Tesla. Well, my limited experience of service, which has been almost zero, but no problem. just going for a couple of checkups. Yeah, yeah, electric cars. To handle the service rate, too, but I think they're going to get overwhelmed. Yeah. Very true.

More cars they can handle it. Well, Richard, thank you. That's very accurate. And if you want a Tesla, we can promise the audience you'll get an honest, pleasant buying experience. I agree. I just want to comment on it. Thank you, Richard. I love your program.

I listen every week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, thank you. You know, I have to mention this. I just recently read a number. article about insuring the Tesla and the cyber truck and it was an amazing article and go to the internet and Google that the prices they compared it to the Ford and some

other vehicles it's amazing what it costs to insure this car 877 960 or you can Texas at 772-497-6-530. Okay. We have an anonymous, your anonymous feedback that we missed last week, and I'm going to read it. It's a little bit, actually, I apologize, it was from the week before that, so this one really slipped through the cracks, but it's relevant now because last week we mystery shop, Toad of Hollywood, and this is about Toad of Hollywood.

Oh. You might have seen this. It's a little bit long, but I'll read quickly and clearly. Good morning, Earl. I would like to give a shout-out for a good salesperson. person at Toyota of Hollywood with a caveat. First the caveat, Toyota of Hollywood is a circus-filled, ranted pool of scammer salespeople. I can say this from previous car buying experience from them.

But if you do the research and have your numbers ahead of time, have a pre-approval from your own credit union and seek out my salesperson, Richard Kelly, you have a better than average chance not to get scalped. I did my research, as you said, I added all the tax, tag, and title costs I would be willing to pay. and then I deducted what their dealer fee was, $900 approximately. There's a little bit more than that. And that's the number I gave to Richard Kelly, my salesperson.

I told him, this is what I'll pay, write it up however you want. He tried to bump me with an extra $400 for the tag, and I told him I know what transfer tag costs are, and you can make a little money off it. But if you think I'm going to pay an extra $400, then I'll just get an annual Broward County bus pass. He asked where did you get that number from? the amount I was willing to pay.

And I said, Earl Stewart told me to research it, and I did. He went to the manager, and I got up and meandered around the dealership. He was waiting for me when I meandered back to the desk. Nice trick, nice to touch. I like that when I meandered back to the desk. He went to pull out a worksheet, and I said, don't bother. Just get a signed purchase order, or I have to go to Earl Stewart, Toyota. He grinned and went back to the sales manager and came back with a signed buyer's order.

I had to go to the finance office, and that's a whole other experience. experience. I didn't finance to the dealership and the finance manager was making shady comments to me, but it was still a lot less stressful than trying to avoid the slick shafting that the finance manager would have liked to give me. In the end, I didn't care about the shady finance guy because I got the car I liked at the price I liked. Shout out to Richard Kelly for not being a big D bag like so many others in the dealership. Interesting. Thank you, anonymous. And that's the, you know, you prove the point you go in prepared. You go in there. You do your research. You know what you're willing to pay and leave. Do you think he read my blog, how it gets the lowest price? I think so. Well, if you're anonymous, if you're listening, if you want to give us a follow-up, that would be really nice. And thanks for the heads-up about meandering. I like that.

Yeah. That's a good way to get their attention. Well, you know, typically it's like it's kind of like a, what is it, car chases dog or a man bites dog? You know, it's usually the other way around. And our mystery shoppers will sit there and wait sometimes for 30 minutes. I'm going to hold up a copy of the blog. Is that coming across? Yeah, how to get the lowest price on any Toyota from any dealer.

And this is starting to sound a little like an infomercial. This is not because we have listeners all over the world. And we have listeners, you know, this listener was in Hollywood, Florida. That's a long drive to my dealership. We have listeners in Canada and California. If you want to buy a Toyota and you're anywhere in the United States, read this. What we do simply, this blog is Earlandcars.com. You can go Earl and Scot or Florida Weekly or Hometown News.

I think it's in hometown news last week. But Earl and Cars.com. we tell you to go to our website where we post all of our prices on all of our cars. And you can actually get the tax and tag included in that. And that's a very good price. Might be a better price somewhere else. Some Toyota dealers will sell cars for less than we do. Mostly they don't.

Most of they sell for more than we do. But if you negotiate well, you can get a really good price at any dealer. Now, take our price as a starting point, that's our lowest price, and you can actually do it out the door, including tax and tag, or you can do it without the tax and tag. You might be in a different state where the sales tax is different, and the tag is different. So go to earl Stewarttoldoiotto.com and pick out the Toyota you want to buy and go to your dealer, the one closest to you, just like this gentleman did in Hollywood, and say, here's the price I'll pay. if you sell it to me at this price I'll buy it or you might even try to get it for less you know why not start out trying to get it for less

you might sell it to you for $100, $500 less and worst case scenario if you get the price I'm posting that's a good price I can promise you it's a good low price and folks go to Erwin cars and read that column how to get the lowest price on any Toyota from any Toyota dealer and I'm going to take Terry's call right now. He's calling from California.

Thank you for your patience, Terry. It's been a while since we heard from you. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome. I wanted to, yeah, thank you.

You know, I found you guys on YouTube, and I really appreciate your show. I took copious notes on all kinds of different things. I feel like a more educated buyer now for getting a car. But I went to a Toyota dealer, and I looked at the Maroni label, which I never knew existed. I didn't know the name, just the sticker. But on the very top of the Maroni label, it says MSRP, the price, and then underneath that it says optional equipment. and it listed some floor mats and different things. And then on the bottom it said delivery and processing and handling fee, you know, $955.

And then on the bottom it says total. Does that total mean because it's a different MSRP price from the top to the bottom? And I'm wondering is that, which is the actual MSRP price? Is it the one on the top, but the one on the bottom after they add all the stuff? Well, Terry, if this is the legitimate Monroney label, and sometimes it can get confusing because the car dealers will take a label and they will copy the color, the font, the type style, and everything to counterfeit and become as if it were part of the Monroney label.

So you have to look at it sometimes real hard to be sure that it's not a separate label that's pasted alongside. But if it is a Monroney label, the MSRP is given of the base car, and then they add the options and freight and other items to come up with a grand total. So the grand total should be on the Monroney label the legitimate manufacturers suggested retail price. The danger is the dealers slip in another label and they start putting on their dealer installed accessories and they make it look like it's part of the Monroney sticker and not being there with you. If you could take a picture of that and text it to me, I'd be glad to give you an exact comment. But from your description, it probably is part of the Monroney label.

Stu, would you agree? I do agree. Because I work for you. It seemed like it is, because I looked at several cars, and they all had the same label on there. At different dealerships? No, I just want to do. Yeah. It should be, Terry, it should be.

And that gives you your apples and apples comparison. And when you're shopping to buy that car, you pick the one you want. You get the bottom line on the Monroney label, the MSRP, and the discount, you get off that. MSRP because who's going to pay MSRP you don't pay that much you should get a significant discount and by having the same car with the same MSRP at three different dealerships you go with the dealer that will give you the maximum discount from that number but is the delivery and freight and all that is that because I understand in your show that's something we don't pay yeah that's something that's something

that you have to pay if it is the manufacturer's number. The manufacturer breaks out the freight cost and they have freight costs added to the MSRP. I'm not sure why they just don't include it to the number but it probably dates back to

a time when the freight used to vary and now they use standardized freight and there's also the administration what was the other fee besides the freight? You said you said that had

edge guard that said protection package $413. There's a that's a red flag okay I'm glad you told me that

that dealer has added a sticker to the Monroney and he is tricked you trying to trick you into believing

that is the manufacturer's suggested retail price so he's added his own protection package the manufacturers don't have

a protection package Distributors do. I mean, we have a, you know, Southeast Toyota, or Toyota dealers in those some five Southeastern Estates, they will add what they call a Toyo Guard,

a protection package, to their, to the window sticker, which is the Monroney. And what you need to do there, if you're in the southeast, and you're trying to buy a Toyota, say, I don't want Toyo Guard,

I don't want the protection package, I want a car without it, because when it comes, car comes from Toyota, the manufacturer to the distributor it doesn't have the protection package the distributor will add it and gulf states is another distributor for toyota what type of what make car are you looking at this is a toyota prius okay uh i'm not sure and it had i know open up the the back and it had the package of you know the carpeting and the uh everything in there for the 259 dollars and i said well well, does this come, you know, when this is on the dock after they deliver the car from wherever, you're saying that Toyota prepackaged this car with all this stuff, and he goes, yes.

And I said, well, so if I don't want it, how do I don't want to pay $259 for the carpeting. I mean, that should just come with the car. Yeah, carpeting is strange. Floor mats is one thing. I've never heard of adding carpeting. Yeah, can you, could you take a picture of that and text it to me or email it to me? Sure. I'd love to see that, and you have our text number 772-497-6530-7-7-7-2-497-6-5-30.

If you could get us a picture of that, and I will get back to you. But it sounds to me like somebody has added that to the Monroney label. I know no manufacturer or toy or anybody that would put a protection package included in a mononi label. Yeah, and then the bottom price adding the $9.55 comes up, you know, $1,500 more than... Yeah. That's what I thought. I said, well, aren't you guys reimbursed for... Because the invoice price, they don't list. Yeah.

But if you buy a... Like at your dealership, if the invoice price, does that include... the transportation fee. Yeah, it should. Yeah, absolutely. It's included in the invoice and in the MSRP.

Do you mind mentioning the name of the dealer? It's in San Luis Obispo, California, and it's the Spring Toyota. Spring? They actually just, yeah, Spring Toyota. They actually

sold their business to another town that's, 30 miles. And I found out that the Toyota dealers are, there's three dealerships kind of close to me within 100 miles and they're all owned by the same person.

We'll go to their website, Terry, and we'll check them out. And that way we'll be able to give you a better idea by looking at their website. And thank you very much for calling in. And if you get me that picture, we'll get you an accurate answer.

And I thank you very much for the call. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terry. Give us a call again. That number is 877-960. Ladies again, I'm going to remind you. Please give us a call. You can win yourself $50, the first two new lady callers. And you can text us if you're a little shy. At 772-4976530. And I believe that Stu is, well, got some texts stacked up over there. Yes, I do. This is from Bob. Good morning. Love your show. Several weeks ago, Rick talked about a Toyota TSB, that's a technical service bulletin,

that flashed and fixed a 2018 and 2019 Camry 8-speed transmission shifting problems. Can you provide or tell me where to find the TSB number? All my efforts to find it have been unsuccessful. Thanks again for the show. That's from Bob. Bob, if you're listening, the TSB number on that. It's TSB-330-17. that's 0 330-17 and I did not have that information I texted Bobby Galarza or our tech extraordinaire who got right back to me

yeah technical service bulletins all the manufacturers have those and it's a good thing to look into if you have something wrong with your car that doesn't sound you know you get a you get a dodge and a you know a little tap dance a lot of car are not even familiar with their own technical service bulletins. And there's so many of them that come out. A technical service bolton is something that the manufacturers put out to fix a car when the owner complains about it. And you're not allowed to solicit that business. You have to have the owner come in and say,

my steering wheel is vibrating, and then you're allowed to go and look up the technical service bulletin that tells you how to fix it. It's like a undercover secret warranty and very difficult to get the dealers to admit it. That is correct. And honestly, I don't know if that information is available out there on the interwebs. I don't know. I don't think it's just information that the techs have.

We do get emails when there's a technical service bulletin that's issued. They'll send it to the dealers. And I'm not sure if it's a public thing. I think probably on chat rooms and if the word gets out, but it's probably not a, you know, a website that has all technical serviceables. It should be, but there's not. Okay. This is from another Bob.

This is Bob in Minnesota. It says, retread tires, are retreads as good as new tires? If so, why are they not promoted? You know, maybe we need to get an expert on that. My gut feel has always been retreads are suspect, and I remember seeing the tread. line on the highway and saying oh that was a retread but my guess is the technology is probably improved and retread tires are probably okay let's ask uh uncle google that's that's what i'm doing right now yeah here we'll fill some fill some time as i type yeah no i i you see them like i do

i 95 in the turnpike you're driving along with there's a big chunk of tire laying there and i've always assumed assume that with these retreads that you think of old tire and you do something sort of a vulcanizing process, but they're not safe. All right. Well, I have a website that came up says modern retread tires are safe, so safe that even school bus fleets use them. And that's from the U.S. Association of Tire Retreaders. Folks, when you're Googling, make sure you check your source.

Honestly, I don't know if it's from them, but there's a lot of information on retread tires. So, you know, filter the information, look for a credible source. I don't see anything from the NHTSA or the IHS, which would be the agencies I'd feel most comfortable looking at, but we'll follow up next week and do a whole presentation.

Something rings true that truckers use this and if there are any truckers out there that have that experience with their companies using retreads. Love to hear from you. Yeah. Bob also has a follow-up question on tire pressure checks. He says, discount, tire stores

offer free air pressure check and provides special Mark Lane for that service. You drive up and you're done five minutes no need to be a customer for the service it's a great marketing technique especially here in minnesota yeah that's great i mean any smart service department will give a free tire pressure check isn't an opportunity to sell you a tire or maybe sell you something else so as long as you're aware of the fact that the reason they're doing it is to try to sell you something as long as you can just turn around and leave and say thank you very much for the free check exactly all right

We have a question on YouTube. This is from Ashley James. Is Earl's store under SET? Local dealer in my area charges $699. Is this an SAT thing? Can you please explain? We are underneath the Southeast Toyota Distributorship. That includes the five southern United States, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina.

And now they don't regulate the various fees that the dealers charge. So I'm guessing the $6.99 is a hidden fee or a dealer fee. There are, and we talked about this earlier this week, SET does charge all the dealers as a part of the invoice of the car an administrative fee, and it runs around $7.75, $800, depending on the cost of the car. That should not be itemized. If you're buying a car, that's not even going to appear in your transaction, but it's there a part of the cost of the car.

It actually raises the price of a Southeast Toyota car considerably over. cars outside the region. Yeah, if you live in a border state to the southeast, for example, if you live, what's north of North Carolina? Virginia. Okay. If you live in Virginia near the North Carolina border, you should buy your car in Virginia because...

Oh, sorry to interrupt. SET does make accommodations for those border dealers. Oh. And they actually can, they don't charge them that fee if you're right across the, right across the way. Okay. How far across the border? I don't know. I know because you keep pushing it further and further.

back. Eventually, they'll drop it down here. You know, if you're two blocks from the border, I can see it, but my guess is if you're 20 miles from the border, you're going to save yourself about $800. If you drive to Virginia.

So if you live in North Carolina near the border, drive north to Virginia until you find a dealer that doesn't have that extra $800, cost it on the car. I have better advice. the student has become the teacher. Still follow all the advice of the store

because I would imagine if you're up in that border, things can get pretty confusing. And Virginia dealers might try and take advantage of that. So still compare bottom line prices no matter who you're buying from. Well, yeah, absolutely. You should go through the normal due diligence no matter why you buy the car. But I would rather buy a car from a Toyota dealer

that paid Toyota $800 less for the car than when they've had $800 more. And, you know, right now we've had three Southeast Toyota executives with palpitations and and probably saying some nasty things about Earl Stewart

Hank loves you this is one of the yeah right that's one of these things You can get away with anything I can get away with anything I can get away with anything because I'm an old guy

and I know where all the bodies are buried that was a threat folks No it wasn't a joke Okay Moving ground along Huh? You're finished Oh no no no no

I got to pile it up here So I can knock them down pretty quick is one, no name on it, it's a text, says, I just want to say Apple CarPlay is awesome. It's the best thing car manufacturers have come up with in years. However, my girlfriend has the Google Android version, and it absolutely sucks. I don't have first and experience with the Google CarPlay, whatever they call it. I do have experience with Apple CarPlay, and it is pretty awesome.

Yeah. Is it? Yeah. I talked about it last week or week before. I love my Google Maps with Apple CarPlay and because, no, I mean, it gives you the feeling

like you're flying. You know what Google Maps looks like? That's exactly. The actual satellite. Oh, I thought we were flying. Yeah. And I just, I feel like when I'm driving, I pretend like I'm in, you know, about 1,000, 2,000 feet. Yeah. And you see all the lakes in the ocean.

And Nancy loves that. Folks, it's an amazing experience because we are airborne. I can say this, though. I think it's a question. a lot of people had on their minds prior to Apple CarPlay coming out is, you know, if the phone manufacturers can make something so easy and so user-friendly, what's a problem with car dealers, with car dealers, with car dealers, and why can't it be as easy as my phone? And, well, I guess the solution was.

It will be. Well, they said, put the phone up on the screen. That's basically what you got. Yeah. Pretty good solution. Jonathan in Wellington texted us, says, if I buy a Toyota from a dealership using the Costco price, can I request leather interior or other specific options, or am I stuck with the base model?

Any car that the dealer sells, as long as it's, you don't want dealer installed accessories, but if it's a manufacturer of car, any car the dealer sells will have a Costco price. Your problem is being sure it really is the Costco price, and they're not adding hidden fees. This should be disclosed in the Costco pricing sheet. That's the reason you must see the cost. pricing sheet, members pricing sheet. If you don't see that, they're going to try to pull the wool over your eyes. Okay, last text. This comes from Suzanne. I wanted to ask, is there a better deal if you buy after the new models are in and try to find a previous year model? Or if possible,

can you find an end of previous before that or a demo? Or a demo for the best price, because even if a demo, I know you can put a lot of miles on Toyota's. I've had four. and sold my last one with 150,000 miles. I always thought getting rid of a car 100,000 miles was about the best you could do. Earl, I will keep listening to hear the answer. Thank you and Merry Christmas. We always listen to your show.

Oh, thanks a lot. Yeah, counterintuitively, you're better off to go with the current model. If you've got a 2020 and a 2019 choice right now, go for the 2020. The one caveat is that, a brand new model with a major changeover consumer reports advises that you wait a year or two before you buy the current model. That's up to you. Some people want to have the first one off the line and the flashy new. But you want to wait a month or two before you buy that 2020.

If the 2020 comes out and it's a high-demand low supply car, you don't want to buy it today. You want to buy it a month from today or maybe two months. But the 2019, they'll give you a big fat discount. and sometimes it'll even give you extra discounts from the manufacturer. But all those discounts added up will not equal the depreciation, extra depreciation that you suffer by buying last year's model. You know, three years from now, four years from now, when you trade in that 2019, they're not going to know that you bought it in 2020.

They're just going to know that the car is a year older than the 2020. you could have bought and the depreciation differential will sink the ship okay I have a question and this is from Taylor she wants to know why Carfax is not always accurate that's a great question yeah garbage in garbage out computers a human error Carfax is usually accurate we see what do we see about a 90 90 percent 95 percent it's really good But like you said, here's a good example. If a car got into an accident and there wasn't a police report.

Exactly. It's never going to make it on the Carfax report. However, there are things that are more vexing than that. And that's occasionally we'll find a car with a recall that we've confirmed on the manufacturer's site and confirmed on the NHTSA website. But it didn't show up on Carfax or auto check, which is another. Doesn't Carfax have some sort of a guarantee that if they make a mistake they? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think it applies to, like, branded titles, salvage, flood, things like that. I don't think they cover it for if they miss an accident, you know, for the very reason. So they shouldn't have missed, or how about a recall? I don't think that mentions recalls. That'd be an interesting lawsuit. You lawyers out there heads up. Interesting lawsuit. Carfax fails to call to the buyer's attention a dangerous recall.

The person buys the car is seriously injured or killed. Is there any liability on Carfax's part? That would be an interesting legal question. There's a lot, excuse me, there's a lot, another reason why sometimes it is not accurate, and it's a little easier for, you know, someone who's in an accident not to report it, and that's because of insurance rates. So each one auto check and Carfax have their reasons for not getting this information. Yeah, so Carfax, I'm sure they have some C-U-I-A that's called Cover Your Tuckus language in their website.

So there's a whole lot of legalese on the Carfax website when it comes to their buyback guarantee. And I would read it all on the air, but we don't have enough time. It's really boring. But if you just Google Carfax Buyback Guarantee, it has all the information what it covers and when it doesn't. But, yeah, I think it's a valid thing to say. You know, if they miss something like that, it results in an injury or an accident, then, yeah. But I think they mainly talk about these, the branded titles. I mean, that's at least your problem is a mistake on Carfax.

Your biggest problem is the dealer to lie in about Carfax or not showing you holding his thumb over the unfixable recall. This is what we experienced week after week. Yep. Got a text here, Earl. How do we know it wasn't you who hacked the Arigo? Well, you know, there's a rumor about that. I mean, I can neither confirm nor deny that. How do you like that?

That sounds very like politico-spe to me. No, I didn't definitely didn't hack anybody. It's the policy of Earl Stewart on cars, not to comment on that. I'm not smart enough to hack somebody. And if I was smart enough, I wouldn't do it. The truth is, well, the truth is, of course we didn't hack them, but Earl did send me a message me on Facebook, the news story, when it came out, and I replied back, that was me.

I was trying to get her money back. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that, yeah. So I could probably get you put in jail. Well, I confessed on Facebook Messenger, but it was a joke. Yeah. I'm just jokes. Okay, Nancy, do you have a text?

No, I was just going to announce that our lines are closed, and we're almost near the time for the mystery shopping report, and we're going to finish up with Stu's texts. You mean we made it through a show without Rick, and we weren't stumped yet. I want to tell you, I did get a text, and I was going to mention it later, but somebody was asking about our wonderful auto mechanic. Okay.

And as a matter of fact, they referred to him as the certified diagnostic scientist. Very good. Yeah, I don't want Rick to get too excited. I think we got lucky today. We need Rick. You're not getting out of the show if you're listening. That's right. Either are you, Alan.

Hope you're having a great time, Rick. Alan gets nervous sometimes. he's our body shop guy that comes and talks about insurance. Yeah, he's... But he's really good. All right, we have one from Jim and Riviera Beach. He says, and this is a follow-up to the retread tire question. He says, I drove trucks for 39 years, and trucking companies will use recap tires.

But by law, they will not put recaps on the steering wheel. Steering axle, I'm sorry. So I guess those are the two, the front one that when you steer the car, those have to be original tires. You can't retread those. All right. I think we're caught up. Mystery Shopping Report, high point of the show. If you've never heard one of these, you are in for a treat.

Spread the word. If somebody around the house or wherever you are, if they haven't listened to the first part of the show, listen to this part. Gather round. And if you want to read along, this mystery shopping report is on Earl on Cars.com, and there's a link for mystery shopping reports. Very good. Mystery Shop of H. Gregg, West Palm Beach. Back in 2018, Frank, one of our longtime listeners, told us about an independent. used car chain called H. Craig. At the time, we'd never heard of it. We thought it was an

appliance store. We were thinking about H.H. Grigg, and there is an appliance store H.H. Craig, but this is a car dealership. Never heard of them at that time. It's a big chain now. H. Craig has over 20 locations across North America. They focus exclusively on online marketing, promoting their one-price selling process. I remember that, one-price selling process. H. Craig has been in business for more than 20 years, and we were surprised we'd only just heard of them. I guess they were other parts of the country, but they've come to Florida. Until very recently, H. Craig had four locations in South Florida, Miami, Pompano Beach, West Park, and Daryl. Where's West Park?

It's in Broward somewhere. West Park. It's like Lake Park. Nobody knows where it is. Sorry, guys. That's a joke. The fifth location. I mean, it's true. West Park. I think that's in Illinois. Yeah. The fifth location just opened in West Palm Beach. I know where that is.

Yeah. H. Craig's website is impressive, modern, sophisticated. It says all the right things, very consumer-friendly. However, we noticed some changes from the last time we looked, went back in the archives. They got rid of their seven-day exchange policy and replaced it with a three-day, 300-mile return exchange policy. Got a little bit expensive for them. I guess they had to back off. They tried.

Yeah. They also slightly modified the language of their quality safety promise. This is their quality safety promise. We're serious when we say, if it's not good enough for our family, then it's never worth selling to you. Bottom line, if it doesn't meet our standards, we won't sell it. We don't know what their standards are, but if it doesn't meet their standards, they're not going to sell it. Drive home in a car you can count on. can count on. We put every vehicle through our trust verified multi-point inspection.

It sounds serious. If it fails our inspection, we don't sell it, period. Well, that doesn't impress me. I don't know what your standards are. But anyway, it sounds good. We tested that promise during the last mystery shop. Agent X went on to buy a 2012 Chrysler 300 with a no-fix to cut airbag repeat, no fix. Can't fix it, folks. You buy it, you own it, and you're going to be driving behind a hand grenade until they finally can fix it.

Unfortunately, H-Krex claimed to have sold the car just before Agent X arrived. Now, they're damned if they do, and they're damned if they don't. If they did sell the car, they sold a car with a live hand grenade in it that they can't fix. If they didn't sell the car, they're lying, and it's a bait and switch. Either way, at that shopping point, H. Gregg did a bad thing. They switched them to another vehicle with a sketchy Carfax report and a different recall, but they disclosed both issues.

This week, we got a second chance to give H. Gregg the Takata test. I have a hard time with H. Gregg. It just doesn't roll trippingly off the time. And the way they brand it, it's all one word. It's like H. Gregg, one word. G. But H. Greig. Maybe the H is silent. Maybe it says Greg.

That could be, yeah. Greg. He found a 2016 Jeep Wrangler, Unlimited, with two recalls and two crashes. And here's a corny joke from my son. I call that a two-fer. Oh, I'm told they're called it. You rude. I'm sorry.

I've been listening to a lot of Malcolm Gladwell. That's how he said. The first recall was for the front impact sensor in the event of a crash. A wire could separate and prevent the airbags from deploying. Now, this is funny. This turns out to be a good thing. Not really. Because the second recall was for an exploding to cot airbag,

and the two, I guess, would cancel each other out. No, that's tongue-in-cheek, kind of a deftly humor. I win some. I do some. Morbid humor. A knee-slapper. Yeah. Don't worry.

I know you can't fix the airbag. But it probably won't go off anyway. The car is a hot mess. Also, worth noting that the Colorado recall was fixable. It just hadn't been fixed yet. This Jeep was a perfect vehicle for Agent Thunder to go in for the Takata test. Here's the report. I arrive. I'm Agent Thunder now. Not really. I'm pretending. I arrived at the very new, very octagonal modern dealership on military trail. The parking lot was immaculate. I saw that some work was still being done to the facility.

New construction. Just build it. Painting stripes on parking spaces, cleaning. outside windows. Other workers were polishing cars on the lot. There was a big banner that they read H.GG.com. Car buying and redefined. I like that. I did too. The interior looked like they were going for an Apple store vibe. I didn't see any traditional sales desk. Countertops, customers sit side by side like the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. I saw about 40 employees dressed in green. Cool. Nearly every one of them turned to look at me smiling. I had a great visualization of this. Is that like in sync?

But that's good. Like the rocket? A smile. When I walk into Costco, Nancy and I walk into Costco, people smile. There are circumstances here that are very, they're very relevant. And a few people look surprised. Some look confused. I felt like I just crashed a party.

A tall man spoke, please come in. He beckoned me toward him. I walked over, shook his hand. He regarded me with curiosity. name was Eugene. I asked him what was going on and if they were having their Christmas party or something. It didn't seem unusual. Eugene said, sir, you are our first customer ever at this location. Our grand opening is tomorrow, December 14. So here, I walked in to East Greg. They hadn't sold a car yet. They hadn't even opened yet, but they look like they're open. So here I am the mystery shopping report talking to Eugene. I was completely surprised.

he was realizing I was charting new territory. We've never done this. Earlston and Carr's, their very first customer was a mystery shopper. I mean, that's like, is that a bad omen for H.G. I don't know. But hey, let's help them out a little bit. Today is their grand opening. If you're looking for a used car.

Yeah. H. Greg West Palm Beach, grand opening today. Before you go to the grand opening, I want you to listen to the rest of the shopping report. Sorry. I got ahead of myself. I asked him if I should leave and come back. He said, no. No, he'll help.

He said, we'll help. said, we couldn't be able to test drive any cars, but we could take care of anything else. And the reason I think they can. I was wondering about that. Insurance issue. They probably said, you know, we're opening on this day. I wanted insurance. Here's the policy.

I signed up insuring me from now on. They weren't insured. They wouldn't let me drive the car. Sounds good. He asked me if it ever been to an age grade. I said, I hadn't, and I thought that they were a high-line, high-end-line used car. Eugene said they had a high-line store in Pompanoe called H-Greg Lux. There's a mouthful of it.

Eugene told me about H-Greg in their process. They remind me of All Fleece Only with a genius bar setup. He walked me to the counter, showed me a slideshow on the computer screen. This slide show explained the H-G way. The first slide claimed that they were the Costco of automotive. That's what they said. That's what they said. There's a picture in the report if you want to see that.

Ain't going to happen.com when you get into this a little bit further. But that is clever. I like that. I mean, I would almost want to copy that because Costco is my kind of store. It is. But the explanation, when they explain why, they claim that they buy in, because of the volume they sell, they can pass along savings. That's not what Costco does.

But it's the idea they understand what good is. H. Craig probably shops at Costco. Yeah. Everybody shops at Costco. You think it's a person? In China, Nancy told me this the other day. She saw on CNBC. In China, when we're having all the terror problems and all the negative and anti-American,

they're standing in the line to get to Costco. They want more Costco. Shanghai wants to open up more. I cannot think of a place I would least like to be than a Chinese Costco. Well, if you're a Chinaman, you want to go into a Chinese Costco. It sounds really crowded. Yeah. There's over a billion Chinese people.

Now we're getting You're getting politically incorrect And my apologies to all our Chinese Americans out there I have the fear of crowds, that's all Well, that's true It's so Basically the slides explain How H. Craig was a one-price store

With no haggling and no hassle It showed the three-day, 300,000 mile 100% money-back guarantee Eugene then explained that Everything is sold as is there's a warning for you as is and priced accordingly he said if there's a den on the car

they don't fix it he says the cars go through a rigorous inspection they're all checked and come out running right now rigorous inspection because he said it was a rigorous inspection and they don't know

they don't see the inspector they don't see you know anyway I don't need to go any further I said I wanted to buy the 2016 Jeep stock number 500 126. I told him I saw it online for $23,598. Now, that's an advertised price, right? It's online. That's an advertisement. That's supposed to be the out-the-door price plus government fees only.

I'm looking at the advertisement now. Yeah. All I see is 23, 598. Yeah. I asked if it was available. Eugene reminded me that I was on their, I was their very first customer. Of course, it's available. It's got to be available. The only time that could ever possibly happen that is right that is really very much is a car still available what do you think i'm surprised that eugene didn't just like shake his hat what a unique mystery shopping report yeah we tease agent thunder we tease eugene said that we could go look at the car but it reminded me that it couldn't be driven until they officially opened didn't explain why and i speculate it was the insurance issue i asked how much he knew about the jeep he said he knew a lot about the vehicles in stock

All the salespeople had been studying up. He said, getting ready for the grand opening. I asked him if he knew about any accidents or safety issues. Eugene said he didn't know, but he checked the Carfax report. We walked out to find the vehicle. It was clean and red. I listened to Eugene, talk about the features, gas mileage, etc. I looked around the car.

It was in perfect shape, somewhere in terror, little rust and places. After 10 minutes of presentation, I interrupted them. asked if we could go over the numbers. Eugene was happy to oblige. He reminded me that H. Craig was 100% transparent. I think they trained them with lots of buzzwords.

Costco. Transparent. Transparent. One price. Exactly. rigorous inspection. That's exactly right. Now, if you just tuned in, this is our mystery shopping report pretending to buy a car from a store called Ace Greg who are having the grand opening today and they're in West Palm

Beach. And this is the mystery shopping report. he asked Eugene did sales related questions on the way back end was I financing or paying cash how much money did I plan to put down did I have a trade I had answered all his questions by the time we reached the genius bar that's what we call it yeah Eugene asked for my driver's license and insurance card then left to make copies and bring back a worksheet buyer's order combo and a Carfax report we looked at the Carfax report first Eugene pointed to the summary and said there had been in an accident. Then he leaped to the first accident on the report and said that the damage was minor and that it had been repaired well. It passed inspection in the shop. He didn't mention the other accident. He didn't mention the other accident or the report of two recalls. That's not good. He looked like it was ready to move on. I asked him if he thought there were any safety issues. He didn't. It had passed her inspection. I asked if I had, I asked if I had, I asked if I

I had seen a recall, and he looked at the report again. See, this is what happens in so many dealerships. When you push and push and push, they finally find the recall on the Carfax report. He thumbed his way to the first recall and said, it looked like an airbag issue. I took the report and inspected it. I asked him if it was a Takata recall that I'd heard about. He said he thought it was. He moved to the numbers, the online price.

Now, listen to this. The online price was 23,598. We already said that. That was the advertised price. But they asked an $899 pre-delivery service fee. Folks, that's profit to the dealer. It's hidden. It's a hidden fee because it wasn't in the advertised price.

And it is illegal in Florida. H. Gregg is breaking the law. Okay? If you're listening, H. Craig, sue me. Because you can sue me for anything, but you can't win. because the truth is a perfect perfect defense against liable as slander. So H. Gregg is breaking the law

by advertising the price of their car and adding profit, adding to the price. We've only seen one dealer included in the price and that was Toyota Hollywood. But then they added it anyway. They did it anyway, and they also added H. Gregg

a $399 electronic registration filing fee. So that's rounded up to $1,300. They understated the advertised price by $1,300. They violated the law. They committed a crime to suck somebody in, to buy the car, and then sneak this in on them. These are non-government fees.

They are profit to the dealer. And it's just a damn shame that they do this sort of thing. I said it looked good, and Eugene asked what time I would be in on Saturday. That's today to when they're grand opening. I couldn't buy it until their grand opening. I said, they're going to check with my wife, and I'd call them. Now, let me go back a little bit to the $399 electronic registration filing fee.

I had a phone call, a nice phone call yesterday from a gentleman in Port St. Lucie-Stewart area, and he'd read my blog, and my new blog is, how to get the lowest price on any new Toyota from any new Toyota dealer. And he said, Earl, I noticed that you said the out-the-door price included tax and tag. He said in the past, you've always said Althodore plus tax and tag.

And we had a nice conversation. I explained that Althodore wasn't literally correct to have to add tax and tag and that it had become accepted. I said, the reason I came out out with this blog article, which you can read at earluncars.com, is because dealers have come up with hidden fees that sound like they're part of tax and tax. And H. Gregg did this. $399 electronic registration filing fee. So you could go into H. Craig and say, I don't want to pay

any hidden fees. All I want to do is pay for tax and tag. They say, well, part of the tax and tag, is a $399 electronic registration fee, but that is not part of tax and tag. That's profit to the dealer. So they disguise fees to sound like they're part of tax and tag. So we thought, for the purpose of my latest blog, how to buy a new Toyota from any Toyota dealer at the lowest price, we thought we should go ahead and give you the full price.

So you go to our website, earlstuart.com, or, no, Rollstoyote to Toyota. Rolsteoettoeot.com, and you put any Toyota model in there, and you go, and you can get the total price, including everything. Everything, the tax and the tag. Take that to your Toyota dealer in Syracuse or Apocca or Apalachicola or wherever you want to go. There's a little email function. You put the dealer's email address in there and send it directly to them.

Exactly. And say, if you beat this price, we got a deal. So take my price, which is a good price, But you might be able to beat it. And if you find a lower price, that's great. If you don't, make them match it. And a great way to get a good price. So don't be tricked by hidden fees disguised is tax and tag.

And all the dealers have gone on to this now. Almost all dealers are charging tag agency fee. That's BS. E-filing fee, BS. Electronic filing fee. BS. Only gets the out-the-door price. That's right.

Okay, we got to vote, don't we? I guess we sure do. Well, they failed the Dakota test, too. H. Gregg, West Palm Beach Grand Opening today, and you ought to go in there. It's a clean store, it's a modern store, people are polite. You've been forewarned if you listen to this, and check them out. Go to H. Craig and tell them you listen to Earl Stewart on Cars today, and that their shopper that they had yesterday, their first customer, wasn't really their first customer.

It was a mystery shopping agent by. Earl Stewart Eugene I'm really sorry Sorry Eugene but Real quick though on this I included And by the way you can guys Anybody listening

Can go on to earloncars.com And read the mystery shopping report And actually see some of the pictures We took and so you can see it First hand or second hand They have a sheet Their inspection sheet And I'm not going to read everything on it

But there is nothing on here really Well I'm going to read it really fast There's only 21 items Driver seat condition Gage operation engine noise normal smell, clear all the lights like the tire pressure sensor, gas, zero trip A, transmission smoothly, clutch upwards normal, alignment, brake feel, soft hard brake, ABS works, cruise control body suspension, steering, long distance condition, normal distance condition, and fill out log.

There's nothing in there that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. That's quite a laundry list. Pretty general. Yeah, it's nothing specific. So when he says, yes, it's safe at past inspection, there's nothing that even addresses a recall on here. So if you're going to H. Craig and the Grand Opening Day in West Palm Beach, I probably have some hot dogs and soft drinks and who knows, it's going to be a, it'll probably be pretty nice. And if you want to buy a car from them, just remember you have to add $1,300 to the advertised price because they have two hidden fees. They have a dealer prep fee for $900, and they have an electronic filing fee for $400.

And so that's, when you go to their site, website, take the advertised price and add $1,300. That's what you really pay. And that way, you won't be surprised when you go in. Okay. I got some grades coming in. Ed gives them a C. Susan gives them a C. I'm sorry, C minus.

Susan gives them a D. Michelle gives them an F. Nick gives him a D. Linda gives him a huge F. A huge. Thanks to everyone. Thanks to everyone for participating and, you know, taking all. on these mystery shopping reports and letting us know how you feel about it.

Okay, Stu, Earl. I'm going to give them a D. I'm going to pass them. They didn't do anything that all the other car dealers aren't doing. And I'm sad to have to do it, but can't give them a really good score. Is H. Gregg a real person? I don't know. I doubt it.

I think they copied H.H. Craig for name identification and awareness. I've heard of them. Yeah. We're changing the name of our dealership to Apple Toyota. Yeah. There you go. We've got two minutes left. Folks.

Okay. And you're going to vote? Oh, my vote. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. D-minus.

Okay. Folks, I think I'm not going along with everyone else except Linda. And the shame here is that these people have 20 locations. And who knows. Who knows what they've sold? And it's an amazing dealership. a huge dealership, and you can go anywhere, almost anywhere, and find a H. Craig. And for all of these violations that don't represent who I am, I give them an F.

There we go. The Black Widow strikes again. Exactly. Hey, text me after the show. Give me some ideas where we're going to shop next week because I can use all the help that we can get. Absolutely. And let us know. Who would you like shop if you had a good or bad experience?

just shop us and give us a recommendation because we look for it every week who are going to shop if you want to get revenge yeah exactly folks we've come to

an end of another show we'll be right back here next week at the same time don't forget to read Earl's column how to get the lowest price on any new Toyota from any Toyota dealer

and a special have a great time Rick thanks Jonathan Thanks to everyone who helped us here this morning and to our listeners and our callers.