Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.14.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Starling Buick of Stuart, FL.

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Buick dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new Buick Encore GX SUV. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

Hello, I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also, this is my son, Stu Stewart. our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, here we are. We're not in full force. My son, Stu, slipped away to Philadelphia. And it'll just be us chickens here. We got Nancy Stewart, my co-host.

We got Rick Kearney, we got Jonathan Cantor. So we got a pretty good crew here. And really cold in South Florida. If you're streaming us, I got a sweater on. And you have to understand, I'm a South Floridian. I'm born in Florida. So if it goes down to 45 or 50 degrees, I feel like I'm in Antarctica. So I'm always cold when the weather gets like this.

I know you norther, there's you guys up there where the real snow and real cold does laugh at me. but I'm cold, so I got my sweater on. I got my blue shirt, I got my sweater. It's a blue sweater. We're at an exciting times. I know my regular listeners get tired of me saying that, but if you're just tuning in, trust me, we've been doing this show for 20 years plus,

and the car business has always been interesting. I mean, you know, there are strikes, there's all sorts of crazy stuff goes on, but we've never, we've never had. a period in our history over the past three or four years like we've had I mean it is just nutty and it's interesting to be an observer and that's what we are we observe and then we pass along what we observe to you our listening audience the original purpose of the show I guess it still is a purpose is to prepare you

for visiting your car dealer you want to get your car repaired you want to get your car maintained most people I think. Most people go to car dealerships. There's thousands of them all over the United States. And for some reason, car dealerships have been frozen in time for about 100 years where they try to rip you off. I have to laugh and I say that.

I am a car dealer, by the way, for you new folks. So I'm speaking from the inside and outside. I'm a purchaser. I'm a consumer, but I'm also a car dealer. And in the past three or four years, the world has turned upside down for car dealers. We've got a battle between the regulators and the dealers. The dealers are winning that battle. I think that maybe a lot of the regulators surrendered a long time ago.

That was usually the big issue on the show. But now we've got electric vehicles. we have autonomous vehicles and we have the what can I call Elon Musk Elon Musk other than the richest man in the world what can I call Elon Musk he builds spaceships

he builds electric vehicles he builds autonomous vehicles and now he's begun his political career is probably arguably the closest advisor to our new president coming up, Donald Trump. So you put all that together and you have, at the very least, a total amount of uncertainty is what's going to happen, right?

I mean, this show used to pray for regulators to come in and do their job to give the car dealers to mend their ways and not lie, cheat, and steal, and you violate every unfair DeFestepid Trade Practice Act of all 50 states with impunity. That used to be our mission here. But now everything's going upside down. We got new manufacturers.

If you're not in the electric vehicle business, you're going to be in trouble in a few years. And some of you are already in trouble. By you, I mean the manufacturers. And Autonomous is coming up. So it's just a huge amount. I'd love to hear some folks out there about anything. I'd be honest with you, I don't want to tell you what to call in on.

I just told you what I see as a car dealer. We have a car dealership, by the way. We have a toilet dealership at North Palm Beach. Rick Kearney works for me. He's a certified diagnostic master technician, and I always leave Rick out of it too much because when the show starts and the rubber meets the road, The questions are about maintaining and repairing your car with immunity without being taken advantage of.

And Rick Kearney, he's a certified diagnostic master technician. This guy knows more about cars than most anybody I know. Anybody, I'll just say, I won't even qualify it. I don't know anybody that knows more about repairing cars and Rick. So if you got a little issue with your car, a squeak, rattler, roll, a smell, something strange going on, You don't want to take a chance. I mean, you're out on the turnpike. You're out on $9.95.

You're going too fast. You don't want to have a problem. So if it's something that's worrying you, there's two ways. It's a safety issue, but it's also a cost issue. And, you know, if you run into a car dealership and say, my car has a funny noise, would you please fix it? I'll be in the waiting room and just give me the bill. I mean, that's not the way you want to do it.

You're really going to get taken advantage of, so you can call a ring and find out, hey, there's nothing wrong. Or if there is something wrong, he'll tell you where to bring it for maintenance or repair. You also tell you about what it ought to cost, and should you invest in that car, or should you maybe consider trading it on another car? So, Rick Kearney, and here's how you reach us here at Earl on Cars. the main number is 877-960-99-60 that's 877-960-960 now the person that's watching that telephone is Nancy Stewart she's my co-host she founded the show with me 20-some odd years ago and she has built this show to a forum for the ladies we started this thing out just a bunch of the guys like me and Rick you know calling back and forth and chatting back and forth. Now, about half the people call on the show are female, and they are showing us and telling us and sharing with us

the female view on buying cars, maintaining cars, and repairing cars. So we were only reaching half our audience 20 years ago. Now we're reaching all of our audience, and I can thank Nancy Stewart for that. So, when the calls come at 877-960-960, she stops, she looks at Rick, looks at me, says, hey, we got a call, we interrupt ourselves, and we prioritize phone calls to 877-960-99-60. I've got an interesting comment here from Tom Stuckel on YouTube. He says, good morning. Please let Earl know that his efforts are working.

Starling Chevrolet in Orlando, Florida, is now itemizing its dealer and electronic filing fees as part of their advertised prices. Wow. Good job. Starling Chevrolet. Starling Chevrolet in Orlando is playing it fair. They're playing by the rules, the laws set down by our state legislature. All their fees are now included. in the advertised price exactly where they're supposed to be.

And they're even itemizing it in. But the fact that now, if you're looking for a Chevrolet and you're in the Orlando area, check out Starling Chevrolet. At the very least, you're going to get the honest price, the advertised price of the car, with the fees included, no surprises after the fact.

Well, who was that caller? That was Tom Steckle. Tom, you made my day. I mean, I got tears of my eyes. Little successes. Little success at a time. But that's something else. That's a win.

Well, I want to turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart now, and one of the things that she'll be covering with you is a very special sounds too good to be true offer for first-time women callers to the show. So we're not satisfied with

just 50-50, we want to get as many of you ladies calling the show as possible. And if you listen, just for the next few minutes, you're going to find out something that's really going to tempt you. Nancy, the mic is all yours. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Yes, we are here, and

we are live. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Tell us a call. First two new lady callers, 877-960. 9960. That's 870. 960 9960 so boy do we have a great show ahead but on what you said earle about musk and everything in between wow i'll tell you since november the 6th you know when you know it finally hit everyone that trump won i have read so much

And I'm baffled. First, let me start with Musk. How much is Musk worth? He's the richest man in the world. His wealth is increasing so fast. Of course, there's about four or five guys that are competing. But right now, he's worth something on the order of several hundred billion dollars. He's worth $361.7 billion, as in B.

Be with him. Baby, baby, baby, baby, that's a lot of cabbage. That's a lot of cabbage. Yeah, and boy, what a donor, you know, he was. And, you know, I was really surprised that Timothy Mellon, who they mentioned in the article, you know, was the, well, Musk beat Timothy with the donations and knocked him out of first place. He was, I'm going to say, $197 million donated to the presidency. I'm really anxious to see what the folks. I'm really anxious to see with, I don't want to turn this into a political show, but Nancy's, what is she just brought up now, it's got to stimulate some questions. And I would love to hear those questions.

And you know how to reach Nancy. Yes. And me and Rick. 877-960-99-60. And we got a whole lot to get to. We'll go right to the phones, and we'll talk to Roger. Good morning, Roger. Oh, Roger, I hear a dial to me.

Give us a call back, Roger, if you get a chance. 877-960-99-60. Now back to the recovering card dealer. Well, we've got some more ways you can reach us, and actually our number one source, probably, I have to say, is YouTube. It's YouTube.com forward slash hurlone cars And I forgot to mention earlier

that Rick covers the YouTube channel And some of our most astute educated Interesting What other adjectives can I use Are YouTubers YouTube.com Ford slash Erlong Cars

You can stream us And here we are And in South Florida We're North Palm Beach But we stream all over the world literally all over the world, all over the United States, and then some, I mean, we, Canada, and we're in Minnesota and Tennessee and New York, and so we are not, yeah, I'll allow. So we have another, we probably have, oops, I've seen as he raised her hand.

We're going to go back to the phones. I'm going to interrupt you for a minute, and we're going to talk to Roger. He gave us a call back. Good morning, Roger. Roger's calling us from Green Acres. Welcome, Roger. Good morning. Good morning.

What's up? Yeah, I spoke to you a couple weeks ago. I spoke with, you know, the car expert guy. Oh, yeah, Rick Kernan. Right here. Hi. Yeah. And basically, I was having trouble with the engine, stuttering, and he said, get some dry gas and put that in, try it out.

And I just wanted to call back and said, that seemed to. That has seemed to solve my engine problem. But I have a new problem that showed up. I just can't believe I'm having one problem after another, but I'm kind of stymied. So here's my new issue. I start up the car first thing in the morning, 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock, whatever. And I can drive it 5, 10 miles and no trouble, or even drive it 20 or 30 miles. If I stop the car and turn it off and park and let it sit for an hour or so, like I got

some business to do or whatever. I go back out, it starts up fine, and we drive some further. So, but what the problem is, is if I, after the second or third time, and the day starts warming up, and I, let's say that I want to drop off some mail in a mailbox or something, so I go to the post office, turn off the car, walk in, take care of my business, come back out, now I can't get the car to start up. And basically, here's what the symptom, as it seemed like it's firing and it wants to start. But the brake, well, you have to push on the brake to get the start, and suddenly the brakes are super hard.

I never see anything like it, like everything's frozen up. And the only way I was able to get the car restarted was to sit and wait for it to cool down, and then it started right up like nothing was wrong, and I'm able to drive again. So I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the positive traction, transmission in the front end and all that stuff, and it has to do with the calipers, possibly.

That's my question. Refresh my memory on the year, make and model, please? Yeah, it's a 2017 Nissan Quest. Okay. My favorite car, and I'm about ready to change to a new favorite. And what part of the country are you in? Green Agree. Okay, so you're down here in South Florida.

All right. Yes, yes. Hmm I mean like this morning I went and met with my friend to have coffee at Wawa It started up just fine Drove over there no issues

No stuttering no nothing Parked the car We sat there and had coffee for 30, 40 minutes Came back home no issues It's going to show up around 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon Which is crazy I don't even understand that

Yeah the hard pedal on the brake That one That almost seems like something's going on with the vacuum booster because the way that works is it uses engine vacuum to help assist you when you step on the pedal at engine vacuum is that great big black ball looking thing on the firewall where the brake master cylinder is and when you step on the brake that's supposed to help pull the brake pedal harder it's what gives you the assist in your brakes and the fact that you got a hard pedal that tells me that that vacuum that vacuum

that that's not holding vacuum. I would be looking at the check valve, have the mechanic look at the check valve for those brakes because if it's not assisting getting that pedal down and you're not getting the brake pedal pushed far enough to activate the lights, that may cause the engine, especially on the push-start motors, not to start.

It may still crank on some models, but the computer would not be firing the fuel to start the engine. Potentially also, go ahead. Crank. It does crank. Yeah. And when it cools down, the pedal softens up. And the minute that pedal softens, I know I can start it.

Yeah, that's why I wonder if something's going on with that check system where it's instead of getting vacuum, it's building pressure or something, and not letting you get that push the pedal down enough, that's the first place I would have them start looking and my next thing I'd be looking at is the temperature sensors for the engine itself because when the car is warmed up a certain amount the computer will read what its temperature is

and it's going to adjust how much fuel it puts into the engine based on that temperature so if that sensor is giving the computer wrong information it may not put enough fuel to start the engine or it may put way too much and cause it to actually flood out a little bit to where it won't start and you've got to wait until some of that evaporates away before it can crank up. Yeah, those are all good ideas. I like your thoughts. It sounds like to me this is not a job that a home mechanic can take care of.

No, unfortunately cars have gotten so complicated with the way the computer systems are operating now, the fact that the computer is taking over the control, of the engine, it really takes a lot of that out of the hands of the average do-it-yourselfer. Just because of the diagnostic equipment required to be able to go in there and look at those sensors and see what they're doing. Yeah, this is one of those cases. These tools get quite expensive. This is one of those cases where it were at Nuer, you would want to go to the dealer and have probably a technician from Nissan work with the technician at the dealership. and use the diagnostic equipment that unfortunately only Nissan dealerships have.

There's an effort now to get to make any independent repair facility eligible to buy the necessary diagnostic equipment. But something this subtle and difficult to diagnose probably can only be determined exactly by a Nissan dealership, and you don't want to spend the money because you've got older cars. So it is, that's a tough one. Yeah, that's exactly. Apparently you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking. Yeah. And unfortunately for the independent mechanics,

it's kind of like trying to be a computer repairman. You have to have diagnostic tools for Windows, for Apple, for Linux, for all the others. With an auto mechanic, he's got to have the proper programming for Toyota, for Nissan, for Honda, for Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, all those different makes. every one of them are just different enough. They won't sell it to them because they will not, they will, their laws, their different states now are moving to make a law that the manufacturer of a vehicle must provide sell, not give. But right now, you know, a Nissan dealer cannot buy, I mean, Nissan, Nissan dealer can buy it, but independent can not buy the same

machine. Yeah. And you'd be amazed actually with Toyota engineers with, with Like our Toyota factory, the representatives that we have here that are the field tech specialists, they will contact the engineers at Toyota and say, hey, I've got a sensor that's doing this. Please send me the specifications on how it works. And the actual engineers from Toyota will say, no, you don't need that. They are so tight-lipped with their information. And all the manufacturers are this way. We've got four people holding on the phone.

We've got four people holding on the phone. We're sorry that we can't give you a better answer, Roger, but we'd love to hear back from you what happens. I'm going to have to check around and see how I can get to take a look at it. Well, that's the direction I would start, though. Okay, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks for the call.

Thanks for listening. 877-960-9960, and you can also text us at 772-975-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback. get in touch with us and remain anonymous. Your Anonymous Feedback.com and we have a dog of the week and Tomato is back. She's a young lady that was with us before.

Tomato? And she will, well, entertain us with a video later on in the show. Agent Lightning, I believe, went to Fort Lauderdale to do the mystery shopping reports. Stay tuned for that also. And don't forget, you can take advantage of Zoom, and you can take and give us a call at 926-5890586,

and you can talk to Jonathan, our producer. He'll get your information, and you can win yourself $100 this morning if you're a first-time Zoom caller. Meeting ID number, the Nancy just gave you. Write this down, even if he don't, Zoom. zoom us now, but if you've got a PC or a smartphone and you want to see us, talk to us, then we can see you. It's kind of cool.

And we just had the Zoom capability for the past couple of months. So what's that meeting ID number again, honey? That's 926-589-0586. Shot that down. Like I said, you can win yourself $100 this morning. If you give us a call this morning, it'd be a whole lot of fun. We can see you and you can see us. That number again is 926-589-0-586.

We're going to go back to the phones and talk with Kevin. Kevin is calling from Buffalo, New York. Good morning, Kevin. Hey, good morning, Earl Stewart 218 and Earl Stewart listeners. I really enjoy your show, and I want to share some facts that you've taught me through the several years of listening to your show. I recently bought Alexis a few years ago, And I remember Earl saying, if you take your Lexus to a Toyota dealer, the oil changes are cheaper and things like that. That's true.

Between the Lexus dealer and the Toyota dealer, the oil change is $30 cheaper. Wow. I made my appointment with the Toyota dealer, and I had my car done service, and I've been there before. And then I drive away, and several miles after driving, it says, low oil comes on. Oh, boy. Wait, it just happened once. It's something resetting. It happened in a few minutes later.

So I stopped the car, and I called the dealership. And the dealership said, check the dipstick. There was no oil on the dipstick. They said, we'll send a tow truck out for you. Thank you. You know, it's inconvenience, things like that. But the thing I remember Rick saying is persistence, patience, politeness. So, again, I paid to have this service done.

And Rick talked earlier with Roger about the technology of the new cars. So I figured I'm going to Toyota, which makes Lexus, they should have the best. trained people to work in my car. Well, obviously, the bottom line is the technician did not put enough oil into the car. And that's what I had to have it. And they must have a problem with this. They're not knowing there's issues because they said, we'll tow the car immediately. But, you know, most people, you know, I didn't yell.

I didn't scream because, again, Rick says patience, politeness goes the long way. So again, I'm inconvenienced. The more inconveniences that had my rescue dog in a car because we went for a nice little ride. go to the park, walk around. Dogs have a calming influence, don't they? Well, not really, because it's got a lot of nose prints on the window, and I every time I sit in the car, I get dog hair. But, you know, what I wanted to say is what you taught me,

you know, I would get a cheaper oil change, politeness, you know, be nice to the people. And even when I got the car for the second time, you know, they said, well, refund you your money for your service. You know, that part was nice. and then I got back in my car and they still have not reset the oil changed light. And the worst thing I said to the clerk or the technician,

I guess customer service is not really important right now. What concerns me is that they can't change the oil and have somebody monitor this, how do I trust them with their brakes, my brakes, and things like that? That's more important. Well, let me, you know, Rick is the expert on this, but I think he'll agree with this. One of the other things that I say on this show often is that the starting point for a technician is that we call it the lubrack.

So for oil changes, the young person, typically a young guy, says I would like an automotive career. I'd like to be, hopefully he has aspirations to move up the ladder. Where this started at Lexus dealerships and Toyota dealerships is on lubrication. wreck. So they have no experience. They have very little training. That's where they're getting their training. So I warn people listening to this show, you know, you think about oil change is just about the simplest thing you could do, and it's pretty simple if you know how. And if you understand how you have to tighten the, you know, torque, the nuts, and the measure the oil. I mean, there's only a few things you have to remember, but if you don't do those

few things right, then you end up with a burned-up engine like you almost did. So thanks for bringing up a subject that really answer two things we talk about. Save money with a Toyota over Lexus or with Honda over Accura or, you know, with Cadillac or Chevrolet over Cadillac, go to the cheap spread of that manufacturer. The technicians typically are trained just about exactly the same way. underneath the skin, the cars are all identical. But you're absolutely right about that. That's, you know, why, the guy, the guy is, your comment was, what about a guy that does the brakes?

The guy that does the brakes has gone through a course. He's learned about brakes. He's had probably an experienced technician work with him. And he was an apprentice and transmissions, air conditioning, anything that they do, they have to learn. and they have to pass test in a car dealership. ASE is a national standard, and you have your ASE badge that you earn and have to keep renewing by refresher courses, transmissions, air conditioning, brakes, and everything.

Is there a lube oil filter badge? There actually is, and there is even an ASE, it's what they would consider more of a minor one, but there is actually an ASC certification for maintenance technicians. Now, that would be an interesting question to ask the technician that did your oil change. If he had that, maybe he didn't. But I'll give you a little insider secret here. Flat rate technicians, which when you move into the shop and you're actually doing more work on the cars,

you come off of what's known as the hourly position where you're not being paid for every hour that you're there. and you move on to what's called flat rate, where basically you're a commissioned employee at that point. You only get paid for the work you do. Break jobs pretty much on every manufacturer pay more money to the technician than the amount of time it takes them to do the job. So it's what's considered a gravy ticket. We love break jobs because they're straightforward, they're easy to do, and a good technician will do an excellent job and make your money at it. He just said, what about a break job?

Yeah. So the secret behind that means that the older, more experienced techs are going to snatch up those tickets, and you're usually going to have a much higher qualified tech doing that job because he wants that easy money. Okay, we've got a bunch of people. So that's one advantage that will help you on that particular situation. Well, thanks very much, Kevin. Great call.

Listen, I don't want to not belittle this company, but I'm going to still give them a five-star rating because they admitted their mistake. And I look in the mirror every day, and I say, I make mistakes every day, too. I can't yell at them for admitting their mistakes. So that's all I'm going to continue on. So the last thing, Earl, is tell you listeners, I got a recent college graduate when I bought my car and I graduated in 1979. If you don't ask for things, you're not going to get it. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for the call.

Great call, Gavin. Please call again. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, and you can also text us at 772-4976530. And I mentioned earlier that you can join us on Zoom if you have an account, and the meeting ID number is 926-589-0586. and the first Zoom caller can win themselves $100, so give us a call. Yes, right.

And we're working on the YouTube issue for any folks that might be getting in on one of our other signals. YouTube channels are down right now, but we're working on it. I'm having back shortly. Okay, let's go to Barry. Barry's patiently holding from Tampa. Good morning, Barry. Good morning, everybody. where I live, a lot of people have an electric golf cart for short trips around town

and a separate gas-powered vehicle for longer drives. I'd rather have one vehicle that does both these jobs than two. So maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that plug-in hybrids may do the best job of merging these two functions because EV mode in a regular hybrid is a bit of a joke, and fully electric cars are associated with range anxiety. So my question is whether you think that the next generation of technology or maybe new politics will render plug-in hybrids obsolete or whether they have a long future. The history we've got with hybrids already is going back 25 years since Honda first hit the shores here with their, I forget what model they called it, but Honda actually beat Toyota just by a few months with their, hybrid technology, and hybrids have become a successful feature because it's that crossover

between gasoline and electric. And one of the issues that they had with hybrid cars was that at the time, the government said that for emission standards, the catalytic converter and the emissions had to be at operating temperature within three minutes of the car starting. and it wasn't until years later that they changed that to say that it had to be within three years or three minutes of the engine starting and when they changed that little bit of wording it made it to where hybrid cars can now run off electric for like the first 15 or 20 or 30 minutes

so the newer electric hybrid cars and the plug in I got to cut to the chase here the reason the plug-in hybrids are not the answer is because they are not designed to give you a charge of any kind to speak of, they will give you a charge. But I have never heard of a plug-in hybrid that would give anybody more than a hundred miles worth of driving. Right, but the advantage to it is that you can charge it at night, and you get the first 30 or 40 miles on electric. Then you can, if you're really doing just a short trip around town and coming right back home. Yeah, the plug-in hybrid is a total failure.

I mean, it's a total failure. That's all I need for most days. Yeah. Well, it may be a good advantage to you. I mean, to consider, I would definitely be comparing the prices between a plug-in versus a normal hybrid. But a hybrid still, for those short trips in town, is going to make good use of that electric system, and you're going to get great fuel economy and... How many miles do you drive a month?

Well, it varies, but maybe... maybe well under 1,000 in most months. Well, so you really don't even need to, I mean, you've got, you're not a, you're not a long-distance driver. So, yeah, if I were you, I'd buy an EV. You know, you've got, you know, I don't know an EV on the road now that won't get your 300 miles. The newer ones won't get your, at least 300 miles, and you don't even drive 100 miles.

Yeah, but the thing is that when I want to go along, You know, I want to go along. I don't want to have to be hunting up charging. Yeah, I understand that. But once again, if you got a Tesla and you had a 300-mile range, there's no place in the United States that you can drive to that doesn't have Tesla charges a stone's throw away. If you ever look at a map and go to Google and say,

show me a map the United States with Tesla chargers available, they look like an ad bad. There's Tesla chargers. everywhere. So it's it comes you for the fast charge it's 20 minutes for you know for the quick charge

so it's about not much longer than filling your car with gas so I I would you know the EVs are a bargain now and and you you can have one in your garage or not but if you take a trip you're not going to have you're not going to be

wanting for a place to charge your car yeah that except I think about when the last hurricane came around and there was a widespread power outages I could still get around with my gas car. Yeah, well, I don't blame you for feeling that way. A lot of people feel that way.

Nancy and I are both driving Teslas. We have a toilet dealership and we're driving Tesla's. We love the car. We've never had a problem with charging and we're like you. We put about the same amount of dollars a day.

or a month on the cars you do and we've never even come close to the and we've taken a few trips longer than normal and there are charging stations everywhere especially in florida happens to have wall-to-wall charging stations but even if you're out in the midwest or california or northeast uh go to go to google say show me a location of all tesla charges in the u.s you won't believe how many there are listen thanks very much for the call we've got a few homes. Yeah, Barry, thanks and give us a call again. We loved speaking with you. 877-960-99-60. And it's amazing that Toyota, they introduced the hybrid in Japan back in 1997. It just seems like yesterday, you know, and the electric vehicles, the hybrids, it is the way. It was a laughing stock of the world.

I can remember President General Motors making really nasty cracks about it. Everybody said it was fun. We got one Prius to sell about every two or three months. That's all was available. And slowly, but surely, it caught on. And now Toyota is the leading manufacturer of hybrids. Virtually every car in the Toyota line has a hybrid version. And didn't we have an interesting,

a visit when we were trying to renew our license on Wednesday, December the 5th, that was quite a visit that, well, you ended up not even getting your license, and then we found out that we found out that we don't even need a license because we're both driving EVs.

Is it okay, I announced that? Autonomous vehicles. Yeah, this is amazing. Just for fun, I chat, GBTed this. In Florida, fully autonomous vehicles, those capable of operating without human intervention are permitted on public roads without a human driver present.

Without passengers and such vehicles are not required to hold the driver's license. So the point is, and I don't think Florida realizes this yet. I mean, they put that law in the book, who knows, not long ago. But a fully autonomous vehicle does not require you to have a driver's license. Exactly.

So anyway, we'll talk about our visit. It is quite an interesting one. Earl has some information for you. But for now, we're going to go back to the phones. And we're going to talk to Megan. Good morning, Megan. You there, Megan? Welcome to the show.

Yo, Megan, are you there? Oh, yes. Hi. Sorry, I didn't hear you. Hi, Megan. I have a Accura 2014, and it has a 96,000 miles on it, and I bought it used. And I bought it because it's supposed to be a good car and such. But I started to have this problem with the starter where it would have a grinding noise,

and it would take a few times to start it. And then it got worse, and then it would take, you know, sometimes four and five. It was very random, and then it would start. So we brought it to our mechanic that we trust, and he said it needed a new starter. He put the new starter in. It was still doing it. We brought it back to him. He says, no problem.

He replaced the starter. Then he said he did some research, and there was a recall on the part, and he ordered it, and he said it should be fixed. I drove it the other day, and it took five times. Now, I recorded it like you had suggested once before, so he could hear the noise, and it's still taking four or five times to start the car, and sometimes it will turn right over, and other times, and then I'm afraid I'm going to get stuck. I don't know what to do with this part. I hate a point. I hate to put another $1,000 into it, only to have it turn out happen again. What are your thoughts?

Have you heard of this before? Well, the first thing I change, he said there's a recall. If there is, the first thing I would do is go on, just on Google, is my car recall.com. And what this will do is, there's also safercar.gov are two websites that will take you to the National Highway Institute. This is the federal government. And you can put in your VIN number, which it'll be on your insurance card, your registration, and a couple of places. on your car that are easy to find, and that will tell you if there are any open safety recalls on your car.

And if you see anything that's related to that, go straight to Accura. I just check her car does not have a recall. Oh, 2014 Honda Accords do not have a recall on the starter. Okay, I thought she said it in Acura. Oh, Accura, Accura. Yeah. But regardless, I would check anyways, just to be sure that you don't have any open recalls. Well, let me recheck that. Safety recalls, the manufacturer is required to fix them, regardless of the age or miles on your car.

And if it's going to take a longer period of time, they even have to give you a rental car free while it's being done. So you'd be totally covered on that with no charge whatsoever. And if that's not the, if that's, you don't find anything under that, then the next step is I'd be going back to that mechanic and saying, hey, wait a minute, look, you've already charged me for this. It's obviously not right. What's going on? You need to be prepared to take care of this because, you know, you charged for this repair and you haven't made it right. It's his responsibility to make sure he solves that issue. If not, unfortunately, you would have to be.

have to go the other route of, and this would be, you know, the more expensive thing. I would be going back to Accura and saying, hey, you know, my mechanic tried this, what's going on? Is this what he really said? Or is it possibly like what's known as the ring gear, which is what the starter motor actually engages to? A starter motor, it's a little electric motor with a gear on it. And when it starts spinning, that gear is supposed to pop out. and engage with a great big gear that's on the back of the motor and that's how it turns the gasoline engine over

to start the engine. So if that ring gear has gotten damaged by that starter motor being bad, that could be the cause why it's still making those grinding noise because the teeth can't interlock properly. And unfortunately, that could be an expensive repair because the engine or transmission has got to be removed from the car because that gear is actually directly in between those two items.

So that's the direction I'd be going with at first is check for any open recalls and then go back to that original mechanic and say, hey, you know, you need to make this right. The thing is, is we brought it to him three times and he hasn't recharged us. He's like, no, I'm going to make this right. But he says he hooks it up and he put in three starters. No recall. Three starters? I would show him the recording.

And even when you get there, now here's a little trick I like to use, especially if it's something that shows up only when the car is cold, when it hasn't been run for a while. Drop the car off the night before, but you hold on to the keys. And then when you go back there, go back the next morning and say, okay, come sit in the car with me while I show you what it's doing. so that everybody's on the same page and he knows exactly what he's supposed to be chasing what problem he's trying to solve right I did send him the video and it did do it for him

he thought he solved the problem and he kept it because I want to keep it another day so we can start it when it's cold sure enough it did it again so that's when he said I need to look into this further he ordered some other parts to it he said and he said that somehow so it can sit well i'm not sure maybe chassis or something i'm not sure if i'm saying that correctly and he ordered those parts

he said it's all good i took it home it did it again and five times it took to start so now i'm like how many times do i give the car up to him for a week at a time for him to get to it How much have you spent so far? Over $300. Yeah, but be real careful because you are dealing with an older vehicle. Yeah. Hey, Megan, what, you said you had a 2014 Accura? Yes.

Boy, I noticed that there's been some... RLX. Pardon me? RLX. An RLX? Okay. Boy, there's been some significant recalls, you know, on this vehicle. not on the starter though they they recommend no it's a variety of things that have gone wrong with the 2014 but they talk about battery problems and and wiring and ignition switches and everything that Rick spoke about this morning

unfortunately that that may leave you in a situation where the dealership is your next step okay really because of the fact that dealership mechanics are very specialized um we deal with one brand all the time so those weird little problems that an independent mechanic may see one in a in a year a dealership mechanic may see one of those every week just be sure you ask for an estimate of the repairs and there's also going to be a there's going to be a diagnostic charge likely so you want to know up front before you turn your car into their hands, what is the preliminary and final estimates? In Florida, when you get an estimate on a repair of a car, they have to come within 10% of what they told you. But it's got to be in writing, and you have to ask ahead of time to protect yourself. And Rick, would this be a possibility that if the installation of the starter was in improper, it could cause the misalignment and even premature wearing of the starter.

It's a possibility, but a slim one. That would be more of a slim one for, I'd have to do a little more research on where that starter's installed at, but most times with, especially with the Japanese cars, the starter's only got one way it can go in, and if it's installed properly, it's pretty much That's it. Megan, take it to a dealer, an ACU dealer, and just cover yourself by getting an estimate before you allow them to work on your car. And call us back next Saturday and let us know how that went, please? Oh, okay, I will.

Thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it. I listen to you every morning on my way to work. Oh, great. We love that. Give us a call next week. We love hearing from the ladies. And you can text us at 772-4976530, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers and also $100 for a Zoom caller.

And if you have a meeting ID, you can give us a call. You can talk to Jonathan, and he's our producer. He'll get your information from you and put the call through at 926-589. 56. That's 926-589-0-8-9-0-5-8-6. We are going to go to Howard, who has been holding. Good morning, Howard. Hello. Welcome.

Hey, Howard. How good morning, everybody. Good morning. I'm talking to you. I haven't a question. I'll make it fast because you're backed up. What happened to the Avalon? They went away. Like all brands, Avalon kind of ran its course now, and they've been replaced by the new Toyota Crown. Howard, are you asking me? Because I miss my Avalon.

I loved that Avalon. I think it was a 2020 that I had. I finally gave it up. I said goodbye to the little lady. That was a beautiful car. And there's so many cars, you know, that. the Avalon, the Seleca, the Salera. I could name a whole list, you know, that have been discontinued.

But like Rick said, that crown, what a beauty. If you get a chance to drive that, I did. And it is really a beautiful car. I have no complaints from anyone about the crown. Okay, I have a couple of questions. I'll make it fast because you backed up. How long does the Prius battery last? and do you have to get a new one, or can you get a rebuild one?

I highly recommend going with the factory original batteries for the... I'm assuming you're speaking of the hybrid battery. No, you didn't use to recommend that, but that's the way it is now. You're talking about a factory rebuild. Yep, the factory remanufactured battery. They're properly recycled versus a lot of these companies that have popped up What they're doing is they're finding old batteries, and they're taking the cells that are still relatively good, and they're trying to match them all up and make a decent battery out of it, and they're not working well.

Yeah, they've had some real issues with that, whereas Toyota makes sure that each cell is brand new. They're reusing the hard components and things that are safe to reuse and making sure that everything is working properly on it. And the nice part is, really, there is no lifespan anymore. 10 or 15 years ago, I'd have said, well, hybrid batteries are lasting around 140, 150,000 miles. Now that, with the new technology, that's kind of gone out the door. They're two, 300,000 miles I'm seeing on a lot of these HV cars. And they're not wearing out like they were before. Unlike 12-volt batteries that, you know, every couple of years in the Florida heat, you got to replace it.

No, these things are the life of the vehicle. They're making incredible mileage out of these newer HV batteries. All the models, all across the board, every manufacturer. What do they cost now, Rick? The price, believe it or not, in 2001, the Prius hybrid battery was over $10,000 to replace it. now that's down to like about 3,000 or under I mean the you know that's that's made a huge improvement but even then it's not like it's the sort of thing where plan on having that money ready because odds are you're not going to need it those batteries just are

lasting like I say a quarter million miles or more that's amazing good information And my last question, the starter and the ring gear, a friend of mine went to a mechanic and kept on putting starters in. And then he realized the car was used for delivery. It's used for delivery. It's a lot of stop and go. So the ring gear went. But the mechanic, it wasn't a dealership, gave him a tremendous price for it, and he junked the car. So my question is, how much does this ring gear cost?

Well, it's not really the cost of the ring gear. The gear itself, you're looking at maybe $4 or $500 for the part because all it really is just a flat plate with gear teeth on the outside on automatic transmission cars. The problem is that in order to access it, it's in between the engine and transmission. It's actually bolted onto the crank shaft of the engine, on the outside of the engine. so you have to separate the transmission and engine enough that you can unbolt that ring gear and trust me those bolts are torqued in there they are torqued to almost 200 foot pounds in a lot of cases

so you have to separate that engine and transmission usually by removing one of them then unbolt the ring gear take it off put the new one on and put it all back together you're looking at 15 to 18 hours labor to replace that. So, you know, it's a very labor-intensive job, and that's why that price goes up so high. Great information. Thank you very much. The nice part is that there's an easy way to check it, really, is you remove the starter motor, and most mechanics will have what's known as a sporescope, which is a little camera

on a flexible stock. We've got five callers. Holy and Howard said goodbye. There is a way to get in and look at it and inspect it to see if it needs to be done. But mechanics can do that. Rick, let me ask you this. For the people up north, I'm talking about, you know, north, out of the state, New York. Does the extreme heat and cold affect the longevity of the battery?

And, of course, how they drive the car. Not unless you were talking like Nunavut, Alaska. Yeah, somewhere really up north. Okay, well, you heard that here from Rick, anyone who's listening from Alaska. Okay, we're going to move on. We've got, happy to say, ladies lined up here, and that makes me very happy. But first, let me tell Jane, hang on, Jane. Jane's calling us from Indiana, and Lisa, please hang on your, she's calling us from Jupiter.

We're going to talk to John, who's a regular caller from Palm City. Good morning. Welcome, John. Just a fast question. Yes, good morning. Just a fast question, because a lot of people are on hold. I have a question at the beginning of the show you mentioned about Sterling Chevrolet. Is that the same Sterling?

That's GMC and Buick here in Stewart, the same owners? Is that Starling or Sterling, Rick? Starlin. Starr, A-R-L-L. That's the name of the dealer in Stewart. Well, Starling Chevrolet is in Orlando. I know, but it must be the same owners because it's the same spelling, yes. That's very possible.

We'll have to check out the one in Stewart, the Starling and Stewart, and see if they're going by the Orlando M.O. It would really be great if it's spreading to South Florida. Okay, that's Jed. I want to hold you up any further. I was curious about that. We'll check that out. I appreciate the call, John.

and we'll maybe Mr. Chapplin. Thank you. John, it's always a pleasure. Okay. I don't want to hold the line up any further. Okay, thanks, John. Thanks for joining us every Saturday morning. Our number here is 877-960.

And you can also text us at 772-4976530. Please take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. Now we are going to go to our first time female caller, and her name is Jane, and she's calling us from Indiana. Hey, Jane, has it warmed up in Indiana? No, it's very cold. I think it's 20 this morning. A friend of mine just came back from Indiana, and she said it was for a reason. Yes, she's right. What can we do for you this morning, Jane?

Well, I've acquired a 2017 hybrid Toyota Rev 4. A 2017? Yes, and I was on hold when you're talking about batteries, but I did miss that part. I'm going to go back on TV and re-watch that. But the main reason I called was that I have a clunk sound that when I'm at a stoplight and I pressed the gas to go, it makes a chink.

And I don't know if that's normal, but it makes me little. please be about something wrong. Hmm. A sound like that, the first thing I'd be thinking of is the brake pads shifting a little bit. I know that's, there's actually a, unfortunately, a certain amount of noise that'll be normal with the brake pads

because they're held in brackets and there's supposed to be little spring clips that help absorb that sound so you don't really hear it. The problem is they have to be able to slide in and out freely so that they can apply the pads onto the brake rotor. But if those clips have become broken or missing, the pad gets a little extra free play. And say when you're in reverse and you step on the brake, the pad is going to shift to one side. And it's only a tiny movement like a quarter of an inch. But then when you go forwards and step on the brake again, that pad's going to move.

a little bit because it's going the opposite direction and it can make a little a little clicking noise. So I would ask the mechanic, if it's really concerning you, have them check the brakes and make sure that each of those, all those clips are properly installed. On an older car, somebody might have had a break job done already that somebody might have taken those clips out or if they had it done aftermarket, they may not have installed the clips back in place properly, and that might cause that issue of that noise when you are starting up and you first hear the brakes move that little bit. And, Jane, be sure to ask the technician or the service advisor, whoever you deal with, to

give you an estimate, a written estimate in advance, as to how long it will take them to diagnose your issue. I mean, if there's an issue that they can fix, that'll be additional charge. but when they look at the car, you don't want to be surprised by a big fat bill that you didn't anticipate. Just by asking, it'll usually be less than it would otherwise be. Oh, well, that's great, Kip. And that 2017 that you're driving, that's a great vehicle. I just talked to so many people that are driving used RavForce.

It's a great car, Jane. was a great choice I'd hang on to it I have one little quick question okay is there a warning sound I can put on when I leave the car to make sure it's shut off because I ran into the bank and I came out my car was still on oh yeah unfortunately with with hybrids they can be silent when it's in hybrid mode the best thing to remember is when you get out of the car and you hit the lock button to lock the car, you should hear that beep on the outside.

If you don't hear that beep, the single beep when you hit the lock, then that means your car may still be in the ready on position. Oh, I never hear that beat. Do you think that maybe you need to increase

the volume so that you can hear what recalls that beep beep? What might have happened is if somebody didn't like that, they may have on to the dealership and had that turned off. Oh. So what I would do, that's in what's known as a customizable feature.

If you stop it, it's your local Toyota dealer and ask them if they can check that to see if that's been turned off. Most dealerships will charge you like about $70 to $75 to do a quick diagnosis. And if it's simply been turned off, they'll reactivate that feature for you. But yeah, that should be set up to where when you hit the lock button, You should have what's called an answer back from your car. You should hear a beep. You should actually almost hear the doors themselves locking.

And the parking lights on the car should blink one time to let you know that, yes, it heard the lock switch. You heard you hit the remote. And it has locked the car up. And it's flashing those lights to say, yep, I've done that. Oh, great. Okay, Jane. Thank you, Jane. Do you have any other questions? No, thank you.

You're welcome, Jane. Stay on the line, and please give Jeremy your contact information so he can pass it along to me, and I'll write you had a check for the $50 that you won this morning. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Lisa, who's been holding patiently. Thank you, Lisa. She's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning. Are you still there, Lisa?

Oh, good morning. I am. Hi, how are you? Hi, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. So I have a quick question about the price of, I drive a 09 Camry, so I've had to do a lot to keep it. You know, it's running great. I'm in the, you know, in the dealer all the time. You guys love the service. I'm all happy. I wondered about the price of the diagnostic when, so when I walk in there and I say this is happening or that and they have to charge me right to look at it if i come back the next

time and i have the same issue i need to pay that amount again and is there any wiggle room with that or like even the hourly labor costs i just wonder that because i'm spending quite a bit to keep it running as well as it does and some of my bills are are quite high not that i'm i'm not you know, saying that they shouldn't be that high. I just wonder because, you know, when you go to a dealership and you don't know, you are quoted a price and there's really no choice or anything. So, I don't know, it was just something I thought about when I was listening to the other lady with the starter issue. Yeah, they should.

Let me answer that. They should, you know, it's fair to charge a diagnostic fee. And apparently, and it's a situation where they charge you a diagnostic fee, and they quoted it in advance and after the repair based on their diagnosis the car wasn't fixed and that's a whole new ball game there

because they made a mistake you should be credited with that diagnostic fee because it was wrong I mean they spent the time but they gave you some bad information and made a repair that wasn't necessary

so you start all over again you're going to get another diagnostic fee but you should get a credit for your previous diagnosis, so you're not going to be, you know, you could spend a long time there getting diagnosis that were wrong, and that shouldn't be your expense to bear. Okay. What about the hourly labor cost? Is there any wriggle room with that?

It's just a matter of competition, like pricing any product. Every dealership has a labor rate, and typically within a marketplace, they'll be fairly close, although the thing that you need to understand is that car dealer's labor rate is not an hourly by the clock number. They'll tell you the labor rate, we charge $175 an hour, and it'll be two hours. That $175 per hour is a flat rate hour, which is just kind of a, it's not a clock hour, Meaning if it took about half an hour to fix it, you're still going to get charged to $275.

So instead of getting into hours and rates, the best thing to do is get the bottom line and say, I don't care how many hours or what the flat rate number is or what the hour number is. All I want to know is dollars in American dollars, how much do I have to pay for you to diagnose this? Yeah. Hey, Lisa, what period of time had passed

since you got the diagnosis and you found that you were having problems again? Oh, I would say long enough that it needed to be looked at differently. And each time it's been like totally legitimate. You know, when you're driving in 09, things are going to go wrong. And I get that. So I'm so happy with my service person there. Whatever he says, I'm going with it. I don't ever quibble.

That's a great feeling. You're a lucky girl. I'll find something like that. Yeah, great feeling. Oh, this is why when I finally give this up and get something else, I cannot leave Earl Stewart because I'm like, it's like I can even send a text message and he'll tell me, come right now, or you can wait until tomorrow. Like, where do we get service like this? Where do you get service like that? Absolutely.

Right. So believe me when I tell you, whatever I buy again, next, because this eventually is going to, you know, have to be replaced. I have to have its service there. It's just like it's my go-to, and I have no, I never have any complaints, but I, sometimes when I look at the bill, because it's quite high sometimes, I'm like, I wonder if I can say, can you do anything on the labor cost, can you do anything on the diagnostic? I don't, I don't, I have never asked. It never hurts.

It never hurts. Everything is negotiable. Everything. Absolutely. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. Yeah, you're right. And you're driving in 2009, you said, and I'm just going to assume you have no car payments. And like you said, you don't want to pour a whole lot of money into the Camry.

But weighing out, you know, the fact that you don't have a car payment, the Camry's been good to you. And it is a great vehicle, you know. And what a great story you shared with us. You're not stressed out. you're just really happy with your mechanic yep happy i like every time i go i say if you tell me i need this i'm doing it like who you know usually with cars especially with women yeah you know it's rare yeah and i always hear you guys talking about these outside mechanics who knows what they're really doing what's parts they're using it just is so like i just don't want to go

anywhere else yeah i don't want to but you know you don't want to leave your comfort zone Right, that's it, because by this time, we need comfort zones for everything, right? Oh, boy. Our car. It's just the way it is. But thank you so much. I appreciate it and, you know, have wonderful holidays, everyone. Thank you so much, Lisa.

And thanks for calling back again. We love the female audience, and we continually tried to build it. Yep, absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Okay, we are going to, we finished up on the phones. Would you like to share anything with us, Rick, from FaceTime or your anonymous feedback or YouTube? Well, I've actually got, Kim appreciates life here.

She says she's got her, let's see, it's a 2002 Lexus RX3,000, and she says she's getting a squeaking sound up near the steering wheel. So, Kim, the first thing I'd look at right behind the steering wheel, there's what's known as a plastic cover. We call it the clamshell. It's a two-piece thing that bolts around that steering column and kind of hide all the electronics and the switches and everything. Yeah, if you're getting a squeak noise right there, it's held by little screws into the plastic, and that plastic sometimes starts to break down a little. If you're not looking to replace that anytime soon, try just giving it a little bit of a wiggle, because when it starts to get out of place a little,

it's going to rub against the back of the steering wheel and start making a noise like that. So if you give it a little, just a little tweak with your fingers, quite often you can get it back in place, create that little gap that should be there, and that will eliminate that noise for you. And the other thing I got is I know we're two and a half weeks away from Christmas, and everybody has that one person that you never can figure out,

what the heck do I get them for Christmas? You know, that crazy gift idea. Well, here's something you might want to consider is a gift certificate for a place that does the really special detailing on cars. I mean, think about it. A lot of us, you know, we don't always think of the idea of, you run your car to a car wash, okay, that's good.

You're always like, yeah, I'm going to stop. Use the vacuums next weekend. And, you know, the idea of standing in line, get that vacuum going and you're there just breaking your back trying to clean it up your windows are dirty on the inside and outside a good professional detail job that makes your car shine like a new penny

they scrub the inside of the windows the outside they vacuum they shampoo the carpet they clean the seats they get all the nukes and crannies and you get back in the car and it's even got that pleasant smell and it just, it feels like a brand new car again for a while. I mean, a simple gift certificate to get their car detailed and really shining like new. That's, in my opinion, that's a great gift for somebody. I love it.

I love the idea. Rick, in, you know, your experience, what contact would you say, who have you been in touch with as far as detailing? I know you take care of your own vehicle, but you must have, through the years, had, you know, customers when you were working. Well, unfortunately, myself again, because of the ease of the fact that I'm right there when I'm at work every day, our own dealership has a detailed department that just does some fantastic work. So, I mean, just for me, it was the convenience of I'm going to be at the shop for eight or ten hours anyways by get their first. thing in the morning send my car over to detail and they've got all day to get it taken care of and then I go pick it up at the end of the day I mean so that's just that convenience for me

so consider see if you're going to bring your car in for a maintenance and a lot of most dealerships have got a shuttle van they can take you over to the mall and nearby mall you go over to the mall hang out for a while have a lunch do a little shopping and let them know that you want a full detail done it gives a couple extra hours and when you get the shuttle back boom your car's all cleaned up and shining like a new plenty new penny okay for our listeners who's looking to have someone come to their place of employment or their home apartment yeah that is that a little more yeah what i would do there is i would go on um like the car forums and various sites like that that they do words. It's people in your area, the other citizens, the other people around you

that give the ratings and ask them what sort of mobile car detailing people that do the best work for the best price and ask what their recommendations are. And quite often you'll get such a feedback of information on, hey, yeah, this guy does a great job, shows up on time, makes the car look great and boom you're all set ready to go. I sent you some anonymous feedback if you want to take a look Rick. And you know Jonathan

just passed me a message and he said that to check out mobile detail services in your area by going to Yelp Absolutely. And that would be a good avenue. That might be something I'm going to take advantage of.

Detailers are really hard to find. There's a whole lot of them but I'm talking about, you know, the kind of, well, detail that you spoke about. Yep. Well, why don't we get in some of these anonymous feedbacks? I think we should. We're clear on the calls. Let's see, here's the first one.

We'll go with, hello, Earl Stewart. I really appreciate your videos. I'm in the Tampa, Florida area, and have been wondering why recently some dealerships are calling their dealer fees another name or another term. It varies from dealer to dealer. Your video explains why. I did not know that the Attorney General said they were going to crack down on that. I doubt they will, due to the lobbyist's stranglehold that car dealers have in Florida. As a side note from someone who's lived in Florida for some time,

I buy Hondas, even though their quality has gone down in the last 20 years. It's $3,000 to $5,000 cheaper to go home to Western Pennsylvania and buy a new Honda Civic, then drive the car back, than to actually buy from a dealership in Florida. This is due to the up to $1,000 dock fees, up to $3,000 warranty protection, paint protection, the $1,000 dealer fee, which now has a new term, the $1,000 pre-delivery service fee,

this is on top of the $1,000 delivery charge that Honda has tied into the MSRP, up to $599 electronic filing fees, I would never pay any of those charges, except the dock fee which has to be paid. It's just that the dock fee in Florida is the highest or second highest in the country. And while, yes, you can haggle some to most of these off or down, it's been my experience with Honda.

Bear in mind, I pay cash, I do not finance, that I could not get all of these removed. I guess it could be that I'm a bad negotiator. Therefore, I find it much easier and cheaper to buy in Pennsylvania and drive the vehicle back, even though I'm putting 1,100 miles on a new car right off the bat. Anyways, those are my thoughts, and you and your team, please keep up the great work.

Oh, thank you. You'd be surprised a number of people that will actually leave the state to buy cars. It's an informed consumer that does that because they did shopping in comparison of prices. I've talked to a number of people, and they've told me stories like this. you really have to

let your fingers do the walking through your laptop take your smartphone and then a half an hour or 45 minutes you can get quotes from several states you're really lucky if you live on a border line of the state you can shop two or three states but how long is you going to take to find if you can save $1,000 you can have the car shipped to you

without even having to worry about getting there and getting back for less than the money you save. Yep. And bear in mind, that dock fee that they said they couldn't remove, nah, they are not required to charge any of those extra fees. The only things that they are required to charge are going to be listed on that Munrooney label, and that's part of what Honda says these are legitimate fees,

the destination fee that's included in the MSRB. Except for sales tax and license fees. Right. And your licensing fee, the registration, which is a Florida state charge. And like Earl says, the way to tell the difference on a legitimate fee versus just extra profit to the dealer is whether or not you have to pay sales tax on it. If that fee is included in the part that you are paying sales tax on, then it's bogus. It's a junk fee. It's a junk fee.

If you are not paying sales tax on that fee, then it is a legitimate government fee. And you should not be paying sales tax on the registration, the tire fee of about $2 per tire, and the battery recycling fee of about $5. And bear in mind that the people that you're dealing with the sales person, for example, he might have been on the job for two weeks or he might maybe for two years. oftentimes the person that you deal with to buy the car is brainwashed by the dealership to believe that the fees they're adding are legitimate. So the junk fees that are on your buyer's order, on your vehicle buyer's order,

are to be blamed on the dealer, the general manager, the people that run the dealership. The salespeople and sometimes even the sales managers are not involved in, that decision and they may even be told these are legitimate fees so uh best thing to do is take your out-the-door price and if they want to put the junk fees on the outdoor price say okay i'll compare your outdoor price with other out-the-door prices and i'll go with the lowest one so you don't care what they call their profit called electronic filing fee called a dock fee called an administrative fee very few dealers even call them dealer fees anymore because because the cat got out of the bag on the dealer fee.

And so we have dealers now charging junk fees and say, we don't charge a dealer fee. Yep. The real part where they're getting you is when you get an advertised price from dealership A and an advertised price from dealership B, and A is $200 cheaper than B, so you go in there to buy the car

and when you're in the box, the finance box, and you're signing the paperwork, and all of a sudden they say, oh, by the way, we have the dealer fee and this fee and that fee and thus, and suddenly they add another $12 or $1,500 onto the price, and you're saying, wait a minute, the other dealership had all that included in the price, and they were only $200 more, now you want over $1,000 more for your car, that's where it's a bunch of BS, and that's where our state attorney general should be getting on the ball, and she's not doing it. You know, she actually made her announcement in January of this year.

What's our Attorney General's name? Ashley Moody. Ashley Moody started warning the dealers in January of 2024. I've got a copy of this week's Automotive D. So much for that New Year's resolution. There you go. Florida, hold up for the camera here, says, Florida dealerships warn about bad violation. That's the current

automotive news. So we know, I mean, we hear on this show, we have heard of no action by Ashley Moody on what she said she was going to put in one effect in January, and here we are in December. No action

whatsoever. And how many times have I passed out that number? And I'll do it again. 866-9-61, 7226. Give Ashley Moody You call these junk fees, these add-ons, these hidden fees, it's just, it's amazing. It's just, it's a minefield.

And they're changing up, you know, calling them documentation fee and dealer prep fees. I mean, the list is endless. Yep. Okay. I, you're on an incognito. Excuse me for one moment. We have one more call. Oh, cool.

And that call is coming from Pompano Beach. And it's Mary, Mary calling. And we have talked to her before. Good morning, Mary. Welcome back to the show. Oh, thank you so much. I listened religiously. I just listened a few minutes ago and just wanted to ask a question and also mentioned,

I just came back from New York, and I picked up a 2005 Subaru forested touring for several thousand dollars less than I would have gotten down here. I think I mentioned once before, New York State has a law that dealers cannot charge more than $175. I recall you're telling us that. Yeah. So what I wanted to ask was because I heard you say that you could just ship the car. I used the auto train because I was coming back anyway. But that is a viable alternative. But my question really is, where do you find reliable shippers? And what's the criteria? Are they an association?

Are they licensed? Their license are bonded. They're competitive. If you know anybody in the business, you could call me or you could call another dealership. All dealerships have two or three shipping companies. They rely on because we're bringing cars in from all over and shipping cars. all over so we have a and we can tell you what our rate is and you should be able to get you know if you if it's a friendly person you're dealing with they'll give you the same rate but yeah

you got to be sure they're bonded and licensed to transport and you want to get some references and as I say call a dealer that you know or anyone that has the usage of these people so they could give you a recommendation And that's great. Thank you so much. But also what I wanted to ask is I see the snowbirds come back and forth, right? And people will get these carriers and they expect, like the building that I live in, you know, they fly down and they expect their car on a certain day. Two weeks later, the cost is still not there.

And so I don't really know anybody that has a company that's very, very reliable. as far as on a residential basis. Anyway, so do you have any hints, recommendations, or other than word of mouth? What I can do is if you could contact us on our text number or you could, I would have to check and see currently, we probably have three or four now, but send us a,

an email or a text, and I'll get a list of the dealers, transporters we use, and share that with you. I'll tell you what we pay, and you should be able to pay the same thing. But, yeah, you're right. I wouldn't entrust my car to something I'd never dealt with before and didn't have any references for. They could really get you into a lot of problems. Right.

Well, I really appreciate that. And the text number, I'm sorry, could you give that? 7-7-2. 497-6530 772-497-6-5-30 I really appreciate it, thanks I tell you guys are great we appreciate you too Mary

thanks so much for being a regular caller and listening to the show every Saturday morning okay I think we're going to go back to Rick do you have a text message from Anne-Marie? I do and we We will start with Anne-Marie's first, and then I've got an awesome one here from Negan 1. Okay. Good morning, Ann Marie.

She says, good morning. I have a question for Rick. I know he's a Toyota Master Diagnostic Tech and not a Ford Master Tech, but I'm hoping he might be able to tell what's going on with my friend's 2013 Ford F-150 platinum model with 105,000 miles. This is the first issue he's had with the truck. Hey, it's pretty good. The problem is that the key fob no longer unlocks the truck. He's only able to unlock the truck by punching in the code on the keypad on the driver's side door panel. He's replaced the battery in the key fob to no avail.

The truck has an actual key for the ignition. There is no lock on the trunk for the key, because the truck is designed so only the key fob or the keypad would unlock the door. Hmm. I find that odd because what happens if the battery dies on the truck. Exactly. You can't get in the truck. If that's true, Ford, bad idea.

Bad form. Any ideas why the fob and lock don't communicate? I'm betting he's already replaced. Okay, it does say he's replaced the battery and the key fob. It could be that the fob itself has actually died. The way that we would check this at a dealership is we have a little R, what's called a radio frequency detector and so that when you push the button on the remote, if it's got a good signal, the device will show us that, it'll show on a little scale there that, yeah, the signal's good or not.

The first step I would do is go to the dealership and ask them to test that key fob to see if it's got a good signal or not. just age and wear and tear sometimes those key fobs and bouncing around in your pocket the electronics can get just worn out and break and it'll shut down that key fob that's the first place I would check

and then double check also because a lot of cars have a button down hidden under the dash or maybe in the glove compartment that actually can turn off that key fob signal so that that way you can

and say if you're parking your car at the airport for a couple of months, it's not looking for that signal, and therefore it will help save the battery on the car. So I would check to see if you have a button like that that can cancel that, and if so, make sure it didn't accidentally get bumped into the wrong position. Those keypods last about, what, two or three years? They can last a good long time. Like, my key fob for my truck, I've had 10 years still working great, actually 12 years now. So, yeah, sometimes they can go, you know, it's an electronic device.

It's bouncing in your pocket. You've changed batteries, right? Yeah, oh, yeah, you change the battery once in a while. But they might get a little wet inside. They may get some dirt or lint in there. I was just going to say. Just enough to burn it up. And, yeah, and you might have to replace that little key fob.

Yeah. And they're usually like about $100 to $150. They've really come down. And it depends on the environmental conditions. You know, that plays a pretty big part. Yep. Okay. And how often you use the keyfod? That's another, you know, determining factor. Okay. Just to go to this real quick one to get this out, Negan 1 sent me a picture of the, it looks like a contract form, sales contract form from Lexus of Englewood, which let's see is in Englewood, New Jersey. And on this line, they have the price of the unit, $62,000, a maintenance contract for $5,000, an external service contract or extra service contract for $9,000.

Toyota Motor Insurance Services for $1,200, tire and wheel protection for $4,500. And then explain this one, no. So optional sales commission, not required by law, $1,240. Oh, my. I don't believe that. Optional sales commission? Wow. That almost sounds like, do you want to tip your salesman?

Exactly. Okay, folks, Jonathan tells us that we're getting on to time for Big Dog Ranch. Yeah, thank you, Rick. Yeah. Wow. I got any copy of that. It was a lot of information. and Rick just shared with the audience.

I hope that everybody was just as impressed as we were. Yuck. Okay, we have got tomato back, and tomato has been out at Big Dog Ranch for, I think that maybe she's been back there for three years. Has she? Two years. And she's a real sweetie pie.

She's just looking to hang out with an easygoing person. Mm-hmm. It might be a little hard to find today. I'm not sure. We're all a little uptight. But anyway, tomato's a really cutie pie. And you'll see when you take a look at the video that Jonathan is about ready to start. But she just wants to be, you know, loved. She needs a home. And she should really like to play with some children. What do you mind if I called her, tomato? Tomato? She really just needs a home with some bacon and lettuce, and she'd be great. oh my goodness that sounds pretty good so at any rate big dog ranch we talk about them every single week and the great job that they do out there and with this cool weather again like last week

i'm going to encourage you to go out to big dog ranch take a look around you'll definitely be amazed and it's it's just something to go out and take a look at at the... Well, think about it. You wear a fur coat all year long, and when you get a cold snap and you're a Florida dog for three or four days,

you talk about energy. I mean, if you go out to a big dog wrench now, it's going to look like a Daytona 5-lettering because those doggies are going to be running. They love it. They've got this cold weather, and they finally are not overheated. Exactly.

And she is four years old, and she is considered an adult. and also she's a retriever, Labrador mix. So Jonathan, would you roll the video? Hi, my name is Faradavino. I work at Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and this here is Tomato. She's a little love bug that likes to have fun in the sun, likes to go on walks, enjoys getting her little bats whenever she needs them.

Absolutely wonderful dog that I think should try to find a forever home as soon as possible because she's been here for a year now, and definitely deserves all the love and attention and treats that she can get because she loves all three. She's super, super sweet. She's about four and a half years old. She's excellent on a leash. She loves to cuddle.

I think she'll do pretty well with just about any dog as long as she has a proper introduction. She's really cool, you guys. She shouldn't still be here. Come adopt tomato. Where's her little babies? Where's her puppies? looks like it looks like she might have litter not too long ago and isn't she cute

oh she's gorgeous have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a dog because their sense of smell is so intense that they can smell things that you can't even think about that are you know might be a quarter mile away they smell I mean it must be like a hole and when you think about that and you look at any dog they're always going they're always going they're always, you know, everything is a... That sounds like me. I imagine it almost like, you know, when you get out and your dog, you're going for a walk and your dog is sniffing every little spot long.

I imagine it's like, that's how dogs send their text messages. They leave a little message there, and the next dog comes along and sniffs, and they're reading the text message from that previous dog. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, it's just... Oh, man, to be able to have, to smell anything from miles and miles, away and it just gets so much information.

It can be bad too. I mean, depending on what you're smelling, but yeah, but also remember that by purchasing Earl's confessions of a car dealer, you can purchase that book for

1999 and guess where all of that goes? 100% goes right to big dog branch. So if you go to Amazon or Earl on cars to purchase that vehicle, The, as I said, the proceeds go right to Big Dog Ranch for that book 100%. For you new listeners, one of the reasons that we are in love with Big Dog Ranch

and we have for many, many years, supported them, they are, first of all, they're huge and they are a no-kill shelter. Now, you think about that, most shelters are euthanizer dogs. I mean, there's no, they can't help it, because the dogs come in faster than the dogs go out. And after X number of weeks or months, the dogs are euthanized. I mean, you stop and think about it. If you're a dog lover, that's a terrible thing. Well, Big Dog Ranch takes dogs in from these shelters that are underfunded and can't do otherwise.

I'm not angry at those other shelters because they are doing some good. But before the dogs euthanized, big dog. dog ranch brings these dogs in they have they have buses and trucks and they have they they're they're all over the country bringing dogs in fact they bring in dogs from outside the country yeah china yeah so it's just they are at a great organization uh big dog ranch rescue dot com b d r r as in big dog ranch rescue dot com is it dot com dog org yeah and you could You can go to big dog ranch rescue.org, and you can fill out an application to adopt because they do a background check, and you can save some time. But if you go out there, go out to Puppie Land and so many of the other places, it's a whole lot of fun.

Yeah, even if you have no interest in the dogs, it's like going to Disney World to go out to Big Dog Ranch. you heard Nancy mentioned puppy land this is a miniature city of dog houses just for puppies and it's like going

and there's puppy land and you walk down there and all these little puppies incredible cute little puppies more than you can imagine and then you could go to maternity row

they have a maternity area where all the little shelters for these dogs, which are really nice, by the way, I have pregnant dogs. And they say, well, they give birth, they take the puppies to puppy land. And then they have veterinarians,

they have trainers, they have recreational areas. It's on many, many, many acres. And when you go out there, if you don't want a dog, go out to Big Dog Grants Rescue, just to walk around. Because if you have a problem with depression, the holiday stress, you go out to Big Dog Ranch for an hour, and you'll be the happiest guy or gal on the planet for a day or two just thinking about.

Yeah, it's a beautiful place. Definitely cheer you up. Okay, we've got to get to the Mystery Shopping Report, and ladies and gentlemen, I did give that number out where you can vote for our Mystery Shopping Report, and that number is 772. 4976530 and our mystery shop is from Fort Lauderdale. Agent Lightning went to Holman Honda and well you see for yourself. Enjoy. Well I have a confession to make. This is the rough copy that Agent Lightning normally submits to my son Stu and Stu is in Philadelphia now and he didn't get a chance to edit this. So I'm reading a rough copy. So forgive me if I stumble. But as Nancy said, this is Holman Honda in Fort Lauderdale. And Fort Lauderdale is down there where the, you know, that's the

Sodom and Gomorrah part of car dealers, South Florida. And that's the heart of it. So we'll see. Is Holman Honda participating in the carnage of taking advantage of customers or not? I'll read report to you the best I can and you'll vote after this is all over A, B, C, D, or F and here we go. I'll speak like I were Agent Lightning. I arrived on mid-afternoon and was greeted by a salesman who noticed me looking at a Civic

Honda Civic parked on the showroom floor and I was looking inside he asked me if I like six-stick vehicles I said Oh no, thank you, is this a stick shift? He said, yeah, which is highly on you I mean, just to read that, we're a car dealership. We have a haunted toilet dealership, and I don't think we have sold a stick shift

at least off the new car department in a long, long time. So it's just unusual to see a new Honda on the showroom floor with a stick. It might have been there for a couple of years. I don't know. People aren't buying them. Honda, why you build a stick ship vehicles? I said, no, thank you.

He said, yep, okay. If I was interested in civics, I said, yes, I'm interested in civics. I had one regret ever getting rid of it. We both laughed. He then suggested we take a walk to their lot so he could show me what they do have. I followed him as we were walking to the door. I said, I didn't get your name. He apologized.

So it's Kevin. Holman Honda salesman Kevin. Yeah, he had to be every bit of slight exaggeration. I hope, maybe not. Agent Lightning says he was seven feet tall. Got to be able to you. Anyway, Kevin had about five civics on the lot, and I chose this one. I noticed the cars in the lot had the old-fashioned club locks on them,

and this is, you know, security device club lock kind of a thing to prevent theft for the dealership. He replied this, he was getting really bad. down there with theft and apparently in South Florida with a lot of other things in South Florida not only do our cars have low jack but we put the club blocks on them as well now I smell a rat I shouldn't I shouldn't editorialize but they got locks and lowjack and all these cars I wonder if they're going to try to sell it to agent lightning time I don't want to get ahead of myself it won't stop them but it'll slow them down

Oh, cute, just like these. I said, I'd really like the car, and we'd like to see the price on it. He said, perfect. How soon are you playing on buying? I said, likely this week. I keep hearing Black Friday specials being advertised on the radio. Kevin said, all dealerships always have specials with pricing. Sounds like me, right?

Yeah. Have you ever known a dealership that wasn't running a fabulous sale or a special? Yep. Well, that's awesome. We don't. He then asked me for my information, put me in their system, computer system, used himself saying he'll be right back with the price. A few minutes later, Juan, the sales manager, came back with him and had the price sheet in his hand. He asked, what exactly am I trying to do today?

I said, well, if the price is right, I'll buy the car. He starts saying something about they have a protection package on their vehicles. And just like if you go to McDonald, they offer you fries. this is their upscale. I said, well, I'm down this way and being up front with you, I was planning on stopping at a few more places on the way back, up

north. He says, no need to do that. We want your business today. He says, how do you say it? All dealerships put a little air in their prices. But I'm willing to sell you this car for a great deal today. I told him, I'm being

honest with him, with you and I don't want to do a lot of back-and- So if you could just give me your best price, I would appreciate it. He said, perfect. He appreciated me being honest with him. And he would be right back with a price. A few minutes later, he returned with this sheet. I have a picture of it in front of me.

Just asked me, what I thought. I replied. I expected to be much closer to MSRP out the door. And he said, well, this is just my first try with you. I mean, not even concealing this, the game, right? The game. This is my first try with you, and we can go back and forth and see what's going to work. I said, I told you, I was being up front with you, and from the beginning,

I wasn't looking to do a lot of back and forth, and then I was going to shop by the dealerships. He replied, give me a number here, cross out the $37,000, and tell me what you want to pay. No shame, no shame whatsoever. And I said, I'm not. doing that. I said, give me a good number and we'll go from there. He said, okay, I'll be right back with a better deal. A few minutes later, he came back with his sheet. Okay. While he was gone, Kevin said, oh, while he was gone, Calvin said he expected him to come back with a much more aggressive price knowing that I said I was going to shop around, but when he returned

was just a little bit less of a price. I looked at one and said, okay, thank you. I'm not interested. Juan replied, what do you mean? I said, even Calvin thought you were going to go back with an aggressive price. He said, well, I still have some room to work, but I'll be back at just a few minutes.

Let the games go on. I said, I don't really feel like wasting anybody's time. I was up front from the beginning and frustrated with his games. He's just like, give me two minutes, So I said, you're on the clock, to which he said with a pompous attitude. Not a good idea, being pompous with your customer. With pompous attitude, start your timer then.

At this point, I was very mad. And I looked at Calvin and said, I'm sorry for wasting your time today, but I'm leaving. I don't need this. Beep. Here's a beep. I don't need this blank-any-blank attitude, and I walked out the door. When I got back to my car, there was a truck park behind me. Old school blocking me, blocking me in.

So I had to keep moving forward and back it up to be able to get my car out. And while I was doing this, Kevin came back outside to give me his business card and said he would be happy to have another manager work with us if I would just give him a chance. I said, no. I'm not interested right now. I'm too mad. I'm leaving, and he said he understood. He apologized for Juan's behavior.

On the clock, he says, start a timer running the audacity of this short, arrogant younger salesman blew my mind. So really, you don't see Agent Lightning blow her cool very often, but she really got angry there, and I don't blame her. And I just have to think I'm looking at my automotive news here, announcing Ashley Moody, cracking down on dealers. And there we have it in South, in Papineau, right?

So we're going to go ahead and review the numbers? Fort Lauderdale, Holmenadell. Review the numbers on the sheet? Yeah. So Agent Lightning exposed another unfair and deceptive trade practices act, multiple violations, and Ashley Moody is nowhere to be found. She definitely isn't. You're going to vote on this, folks.

And, you know, we go on the curve. I say that if there is mercy to be shown, scoring-wise, we show mercy to dealers that are surrounded by other bad dealers and South Florida, as I say, is the worst to the worst. And so you've got to decide, is this a really bad dealer for Florida, or is this a medium dealer for Florida, ABCDF?

So that's 772-497-6530. That's where you can vote on Holman Honda of Fort Lauderdale. Okay, what do we have? All righty. Well, one quick note here, Donovan says sales of manual transmission cars have actually increased in the past few years with younger buyers, which is kind of surprising to me because it seems like a lot of younger drivers don't really, they're not interested in learning how to work a stick. but maybe that's a comeback on them. Who knows? Overall, have, with it,

does a younger buyer increase all set the overall purchase? But I am surprised like you are, Rick, that even, especially with younger buyers. Yeah. I mean, an old guy like me might say, oh, my first car was a stick ship. I'd like to see what they're like

and go find one for, you know, to redo my younger days. But why would anybody want a stick ship? Well, one thing to remember, Honda has always had a good presence with what we call the tuner crowds. These are the younger guys that love to modify and adjust cars. And they don't like automatics. They like the stick shifts to get them out for racing, showing up at the track

and really showing off their cars, modifying them. But correct me if I'm wrong. If you have a good automatic transmission and you're at a drag strip and you floor it, you're going to out-accelerate somebody that has to manually shift the guard. Sometimes you can, yeah. Well, I thought you always did. I thought that the design of the modern automatic transmission,

I know this, you're not going to out-accelerate an electric vehicle. No, no. So the old acceleration thrill is, to me, I'm surprised. Well, they like the idea of the control, upshifting, down-shifting. They see all that in the Fast and Furious movies, and they love to be able to play. It's just a feeling thing, but. But once again, I heard something I didn't know of Donovan, the sage.

I'm going to call them the sage from now on. That sounds good. You know, did we share the fees, the number of fees with this mystery shoppering report? I didn't hear. It was summer in neighborhood of about $6,000 worth the fees on there. Break it down in detail. and I'm standing up and my hair's on fire. It's a bit crazy.

Yeah, it is definitely, definitely. Okay, are we ready for votes? We are. Jonathan and Palm Coast, I don't appreciate the fact that they're playing games with the customer right off the bat. I'll give them an automatic F. Damn. Negan 1 says, Big Fat F out the door fail.

Donovan says, this is why you don't go south. F. Tom Steckle. They have to protect people from thieves inside the dealership. F. Tim Gilliland, easy F. Andrew Blasinski, F. Sad way to do business. T-Cash says so sorry, or so sad, hearing this on December 7th, just another shady car dealer that will live in infamy. And I, he didn't actually say a grade, but I'm reading an F between the law. lines there. Reluven infamy. John Z. Fradley says F for making Agent

Lightning furious. Neo-Shazam says what we have here is a failure to communicate. F. Joseph Kelleher F. Dealerhip failed big time.

Was that Jack? Ickish. F-F-F-F. Oh boy. Mark H. The salesman flew too close to the sun melted down into an F I'm telling you Brian said

Lacko this is the easiest one to grade F Kim appreciates life says double F for Fort

Lardale Florida I love my YouTubers I'm telling you And Ken Asher comes in with F or F plus due to the

holiday season and myself I won't quite go to the F level because we are trying to keep them at least somewhat me so I'll give them the D-minus but what a shady, slick, slimy feeling place

that was even surprised me really surprised me. Nancy? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you decide to go to Fort Lauderdale, be prepared I mean, you better have your, you know, bulletproof vest on because it's pretty crazy down there. And, you know, this salesperson, it's seven feet tall. Is that what Asian Lightning said?

Seven feet tall of complete arrogance and rudeness. And we don't have time to go through the whole list. It's kind of like the junk fees. So, at any rate, my grade, F. I'm going to give them an F, and I can't remember the last time I gave out an F. I always scold people for not grading on the curve, but I've got to tell you, that's the worst I've heard. So that's an F. I think I agree on that one.

Absolutely. Okay. Would you like to, we have a couple minutes. Would you like to talk about the driver's license, registration? I always talk about our autonomous experiences, and I can say Nancy and I drive everywhere we go on fully autonomous. We drive either the cyber truck or we drive the Tesla plaid, and we are constantly, well, they are not perfected yet, but they are fully autonomous. and your motor vehicle notification card yeah so yeah we were laughing at the beginning of the show because we had to get our driver's licenses renewed we both our birthdays that are in December and you get nervous when you're in your 80s I'm I'll be 84 I'm right I always say I'll be 84 I am 84 next week and Nancy's 82 and well I'll be 84 of the 11th so the point is you You think about not driving anymore,

but now we're happy because we live in Florida because we know we don't need driver's licenses to drive a fully autonomous car. Your number was 79 that they called? Wait a second. And I was 80. Hold on. So we're sitting there, and a half hour goes by, and I said to Earl, something's not right here.

I got to get up in investigate. I'm a good investigator and lo and behold they had oh really cool it was hysterical when we think about it

okay we have one minute Rick one quick note here from Donovan he says by the way Waymo will be coming to Miami soon

which means totally autonomous taxi cabs robo cabs yeah so that's going to be an interesting little little edition there, folks. They're very successful.

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