Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.15.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Buyers Zone in West Palm Beach

Episode Date: December 15, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Buyers Zone in West Palm Beach to purchase a car with an identified Takata Airbag Recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

WSVU, North Palm Beach, W240CI, North Palm Beach, W295 BJJJ, W223CJ, West Palm Beach. Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back. This is Earl Stewart on Cars, or Earl on Cars. Can everybody hear me?

Yep. And I've got my colleague here adjusting some buttons, but I think you can hear me. They also refer to me as the recovering car dealer. I'm here on your true oldie station. I just want you to know that we really are a live radio talk show, even though this is the true oldie station. We are not going to sing to you. We're going to talk to you. And you're going to talk to us, we hope, because it is a live radio talk show.

And it's really what makes it exciting because you never know what's going to happen. And whatever does happen, bam, it's right out there in cyberspace and the radio. And we're streaming this on Facebook and we're all over the place. You can text us, you can call us. Our number is 877-960-99-60. You can write that down if you want. 877-960 and I'll give you the text number later I'll tell you how you can find this on Facebook now who are we and what do we do and bear with us you regular listeners

we got a lot of them very proud that we've got a good following here on Earl Stewart on cars but for the newbies what we do is we tell you advise you suggest how you can buy a car without being ripped off by your car Now, just buy a car, lease a car, a lot of people leasing today. How not to be taken advantage of. Repair, maintain your car. You know, the car dealers can come at you from all directions. You buy a car, you bring it in every couple, twice a year, every 5,000 miles, something like that, to have it maintained.

And you've got a problem, you have to have it repaired. You're in car dealerships or independent garages or visiting your own mechanic really more often than you probably want. then you probably want to, but it's okay if you get a fair price and they fix the car or you get the right car at the right price. And that's what we do. Any questions you may have. I've been in the business since 1968 and with total transparency. I am currently a car dealer. Now, this is not an infomercial. We don't pay the station for this time. We're here is a public service. We're here, and I say we, because in the studio with me, I have Rick Kearney, who is a certified diagnostic master technician. Master diagnostic. Master. Yes. He is.

And knows everything about the mechanics, or I should say the computerization. Excuse me, we're going to let Arthur know that we know he's holding, and we'll be right with you. Oh, hi, Arthur. Arthur. Good morning, Arthur. Good morning. Good morning. I've got a question, and then I'll give you a slight story. Are service writers at the dealerships on a commission basis? Yes, they are. And this is just total common practice. They're not really service writers and not really service advisors. They are commissioned salespeople. Okay. I'll give you the story. In April of this year, I went to my time.

coyote dealer to have an oil change. And I was informed that I needed a brake service to the tune of a little over $200. Well, I decided I was going to forego that and get another opinion. And I took it to my local garage repair place. And the man said to me there, I walked in and I said to him, I was told by my dealer that I needed breaks. He tore the car down, took me out, and showed me. He says, you don't need breaks.

They're fine. I said, thank you very much, and I left. This past week on Tuesday, I had an appointment at the dealership again to have an oil change. And again, the same scenario. The service writer came over to me and said, Mr. Ehrlich, you need brakes on your car. I said, well, I'm going to forego that. And I went back to the repair place that afternoon and had the car torn down again, and the man says, you don't need brakes.

you've probably got another 8 to 10,000 miles on the brake pads. Well, Arthur, I appreciate you sharing that with us. It's a wonderful story because it's fairly common. And it's really the fault of the system because you don't want to go to a doctor and have him diagnose you if his compensation is based on how many people he diagnoses with diseases. You know, you want someone that is going to give you an unbiased opinion because it's just important to find out that your brakes are safe and sound as it is to find out that, well, not maybe not,

but it's important to know that you don't need work. But they're all commissioned. If they don't sell you a service, they don't get paid. And you should always get a second opinion just like you do with a doctor. But bear in mind that the second opinion is also getting paid on a commission too. Well, that's true. What do you trust? It boils down.

Sometimes you can do a. show and tell and Rick Kearney sitting beside me could give you some advice on this but when you have a diagnosis that your car needs work you can ask to see and have them show they could have showed shown you the brakes and they could have shown you what it was that proved that there was a break service required if you want to go to that trouble now on the other hand a perfect excuse that most shops will give you is we cannot let you come into the shop because because our insurance company says this is too dangerous. You know, if someone wants to argue with you like that,

then you just find yourself another service department. Yeah, well, it's a good thing I didn't send my wife because she would have said, go ahead and do it, the first time that she was there. Yes. You know, that becomes the problem. You know, I went because I knew a little bit better. I know there's a sensing device on the brake pads

when it starts to squeal. That's the time that you definitely need brakes. Arthur, you can mention the name of the dealership if you want to, if you'd prefer not to. I certainly understand. And one thing I would also recommend to you is that you call and try to speak to someone in charge there, the general manager of the dealership. Certainly, at least the service manager for whom the service advisor works for. And say, I came in, you told me I needed a break work. I took it to an independent shop.

They inspected my brakes. and said my brakes are perfectly fine. And this is a person that told me that, just go on record so that if, in fact, it was a glitch, one person doing something wrong, they would have a chance to make a correction. All right.

Now, when I got home, I received on my email a letter from the dealership saying, thank you for your service. If there's any problems, give us a call, and it gave it the person's name, and I called them. And I had an appointment with them yesterday at 11.30. And they brought my car, and they took it down to the end, and they took all the tires off. And the service manager and this young person went down, and he's trying to show me a new pad against my pad.

And it says, look at this. And it was down, but it was not even halfway down against the new pad. Then he showed me that the end of it is chafed, you know, at an angle. He says, see, it's wearing unevenly. I just, do me a favor, will you? Put the car back together again. bought the car here. I've been servicing. I buy a new car every five years. You just lost me as a customer. Well, good for you. Rick Kearney, our certified diagnostic technician, has a comment.

Hey, Arthur. What model Toyota is that? It's a 2013 Avalon. One of the things about Avalon's and a lot of Toyota models, the brake pads, the very ends of them, actually have a, what we call a, a chamfer. They're designed that it's not a simple block of friction material with a straight 90 degree angle right to the metal. They actually have a little curve cut on them

at the ends of it. And the reason for that is that when the brakes apply, it kind of helps smooth out vibrations. It makes the brakes quieter. Well, you know, the engineers figured that one out. Well, a lot of people will look at that pad

and they see that little thin edge on the ends of it. And they think, oh, that's wearing uneven. There's something wrong. It's not. It's the design of the pad, and it's the way it's meant to wear. So I guess that was mistrained. So what you do is you look at the entire pad,

and if the surface seems to be about the same thickness for the middle section, if it's looking pretty even on that middle section, then you're totally safe. And as long as there's more than four millimeters of brakes, if there's three millimeter or less on that friction material, So that's when I start recommending breaks, and if it's four millimeters or more, then they should be replaced. Arthur, thank you very much for that call. That is, as I say, you really did exactly the right thing the way you pursued that. And congratulations for being an educated consumer and sharing your story.

And that young technician needs more training. Yes, he does. Yes. Oh, positively. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Please call again. Thank you so much. Yes. Please give us a call again. Our number is 877-960-99-60.

And before we go on, I'd like to remind the ladies give us a call this morning, and you can win yourself $50. The first two new lady-callers, win yourself $50. I know you can use that this time of year. And our text number is 772-4976530. We have Dave, who's calling from West Palm Beach. Thank you for holding, Dave. Good morning, guys. Good to talk to you again. Listen, on the Fox Business Network the other day, airbags came up again.

And they went through the entire article, and I felt pretty good about it. You know, we're going to have another recall, and I got all the way through. And I thought about everything that she was saying about Takata having a bankruptcy issue, and then these cars and those cars that are going to be recalled and the number of cars. And when I replayed it, I took a lot of notes. And what occurred to me at the end of this article was that this almost like, okay, a couple of notes really quickly. Toyota, 2002 to 2005, there are four more vehicles that are being added. Now, those are very old vehicles, and I kind of missed that the first time I went through,

but it amounts to 70,000 new vehicles with a total with these particular airbags of 30 million cars. Then she goes on to say that if you own one of these cars, you will get a notice. of recall. Now it's one point that I had, yeah, right, really. So then she claimed that if you take any of these particular vehicles to the dealer with the possible risk that they will most likely repair it or replace it without cost. Then they made these vague references as to whether or not it would be the manufacturer, the dealer, or Takata, that's actually going to pay for it. Now, when I watched that article the second time,

you know, I came across as feeling like they're placating. This is ridiculous. And yet, 2000 to 2005. Now, I've talked to you before about how I like my old truck, okay? So I do everything to keep it going good. I spend a lot of money keeping this thing on the road. It's a joy to drive. It's a 2002 Explorer XLT with four-wheel drive.

It's not a cheap car to keep up or to drive even. But it's a wonderful car. And when I had an airbag problem and I had called you guys about it, you said, you know, that old, you know, they probably not going to want to mess with it. The dealer is probably going to give you grief. And I really tend to believe you over a person. particularly some newscaster and throws out all this vague generality. So my feeling here is that if you are, in fact, going to get a notice that if you own one of these cars,

how many people are actually going to get a notice? Because probably less than 1% of the original owners of cars from 2002 to 2005 still have those cars. Exactly. So how in the hell, heck, would they? send you a, be able to get a hold of somebody, just send them a nurse. Well, you just saw, Dave, you hit. The whole thing just seemed like a paint job, you know. Dave, you hit on the biggest problem we have,

and there's a lot of movement now among consumer groups to come up with a whole new system of being able to contact folks and get repairs done on recalls, especially safety recalls. And some of the things that you heard on that Fox News weren't accurate. It's always the car dealer that will take care of the bill or the manufacturer who reimburses the car dealer when they repair a safety recall. One of the reasons that these recalls go out in waves and they go out later is because with a Takata issue, the ammonium nitrate, the accelerant, and the inflator degrades over time. So you can take a brand new Takata airbag inflator and it's, they say, safe.

once the airbag inflator hits five or six or seven years of age, then the danger begins because of the time factor and the degradation. But that's a terrible system. Most people don't get the notification. One and four safety recalls are fulfilled. That means three out of four are totally ignored. Most of the cars you see on the highway with safety recalls today, if you knew which ones they were, they're not going to come in.

One out of four recall will come in. And most of those recalls are the ones that were relatively new. Because as you say, a car changes hands how many times over 10 years, two, three, four times. And the manufacturer system does not enable them to find those people. And they prove that when they do get the notice, they ignore it. So we have a terrible system. What we need to do is put teeth in the safety recall system, Meaning, if you've got a car and you want a license plate, you've got to be sure that all the safety recalls have been done.

It's got to have teeth. Notification has got to be done digitally, by phone, by text. You cannot just send a snail mail to the last address you have on that car. It just doesn't reach the user. And then you have to force the user, sad statement to say about American psychology, If I were a family man and I had kids and I was taken into school and I had a car with a safety recall, you could be sure I'd have that car fixed. Unfortunately, a lot of people know there's a recall and they just ignore it. Can't understand why. Well, that's unfortunate.

That's unfortunate. That's unfortunate. Thanks very much. But, you know, one of the things, though, that was so surprising to me and kind of insulting to me was that this 30 million total that's going to actually going to come up, she said, in 16 months, okay, in the next 16 months. Well, first of all, they're given the car manufacturers 16 months to let you drive around and risk your life before they tell you what the other, you know, 230 million or 230 or 23 million other vehicles that are going to come up in 16 months.

But Toyota, being such, you know, great. guys, you know, they're going to tell you 16 months early about the 70,000 vehicles, and again, we go back to, nobody owns those cars again. So it was almost like a fluff piece, you know, like a paint job. Yeah. It's terrible. It's a cover-up.

It's a huge cover-up, and hopefully one day it'll come out. And we, with calls like yours to the show and this radio show, we're trying to get the word out. And I can't thank you enough for the call. And I we've got Leslie holding from Stewart.

We're going to take her call, Dave, and you're a great caller. Please call in again next. Well, I can't call next Saturday. We're going to be in vacation. www. www.safercar.gov. Yes. That's exactly right.

Enough said. Okay. Dave, thank you very much. Again, thank you, Dave. Earl mentioned that we were going to be on vacation. I'm going to take the opportunity right now to let our listeners know. This is our last live show. for today. We will be back from vacation, and we will be live again on January the 5th, so you can

stay tuned for that show. We're going to go to Leslie, and Leslie is a first-time caller from Stewart. Welcome to the show, Leslie. Thank you. You won yourself $50 today, Leslie. Oh, yay. I could use that for Christmas. I bet you can. You, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, you're You stay on the line and share your contact information with the guys in the control studio. What can we do for you this morning? I was calling because I own a Toyota Sienna, which I love very much, but I'm looking to buy my 16-year-old daughter, her very first car. And safety is my top priority.

So I was looking at the RAV-4, and I just wanted to get your opinion on. that. Well, I'm going to let my son, Stu, he's a lot more product knowledge than I, I can tell you this much, just the best-selling car Toyota has, and a lot of people love that right for. Stu, excuse me for just a second, Stu. Hey, Leslie, I can understand how important it is that you make the right decision for your 16-year-old daughter. I have been there, and I have done that, and that's a big responsibility for moms, right? I mean, you just want to put her in a safe vehicle, so I can sympathize with you. I'm going to turn you over to Stu.

He's going to fill you with a whole lot of information that's going to make you feel very, very secure. Full disclosure, I haven't sold a car in about 20 years. So I'm on the spot here. But here's what I do know is that, and it's not just Toyota, but I can speak somewhat authoritatively on Toyota. Most of the manufacturers are loading the cars up with safety. features that just didn't exist just a few years ago. Toyota has something called Toyota Safety Sense, and it's more like a philosophy where safety features that used to be optional

is now standard on all these cars. And the 2019 Route 4, and I hate this, you're going to hate me because it sounds like a commercial, but it's got more safety features than any other Toyota right now. And it's got things even like a bird's-eye view, cameras, or you can see all around your car. It's got automatic stopping, the lane keep assist. And Leslie, maybe even more important than anything as consumer reports ranks,

the RAV-4 is the best intermediate-sized SUV, or small SUV. It's really a safe car, something if I had a 16-year-old daughter, I'd feel perfectly good about her driving at. Rick has got a point. I hate to seem like I'm continuing the commercial, but I'm going to be getting a new RAV-4 for my wife, very within the next month or so, the new 19. She's due for a new car, and so she's going to be getting her Christmas present, maybe a little late, but she's going to be getting a brand new one. That's the best endorsement we had, is that one right there.

And I'm all about safety. Yeah, definitely. And Leslie, to add to this whole mix, you just hit a hut button, I am going to be driving a RAV-4 very soon. And I drive an Avalon. right now, but the RAVOR is, well, with Stu's advice, I think that that's what I'm going to move into. So I hope we answered your question. As I said earlier, boy, that's a big responsibility whenever you start putting kids behind the wheel, and I did it three times, and I was always worried, always. I hope we answered all your questions.

You sure did. Okay. I just went through it once. I have a brand new driver in the family and that was the first thing I thought about because when I first drive driving and when everybody in this room first drive and you had seatbelts well you might not even have had seatbelts did you no yeah so they were optional yeah so the philosophy has changed I think in parenting and it's uh it's not necessarily you know the cheapest car you can put your kid in it's the safest car that you put your kid in yeah

absolutely the safest car that you can put your child in or excuse me they would be offended if they heard me say child. You're a teenager. Still a child, though. Hey, our co-host in Exile, Alan Napier, just reminded me that texted in and said that the Ravre has got the top I-I-H-S safety pick. There you go, Leslie.

Okay, we've got another caller waiting. Thank you so much. Okay, Tina. You're back. Good morning, Tina. We're always looking forward to hearing from you. I couldn't let you down this morning. I appreciate that, Tina.

What's up? Yeah, no problem. Okay, everybody that trades in their car wants the best value for their trade. You want to have your car in the best condition possible, and you also want it smelling good. So that brings me to the subject of smoking in cars. I see people drive down the road with these big expensive vehicles, like a brand new Lexus, brand new Mercedes,

and they're smoking inside the car, and it just makes me cringe. Maybe they're vaping. So I think we need to have a discussion about why, I mean, of course, health-wise smoking is terrible for you and your passengers, but how does it affect the value of the car and how does it affect, like, the HVAC system and everything else? I can speak on the value.

It kills the value of a car. Depreciates. Especially a car that's been smoked in for years. Yeah. You will never get the smell out. They have ozone machines. There will always be a hence of that smell. And that limits the audience.

I didn't realize that. I thought we had sophisticated. There are. They'll put a machine overnight and it'll always kind of be there. A good nose. Let's put it away. My older daughter, we call her the nose. She can smell anything.

She would smell that. Yeah, you can detect that in a heartbeat. It just never goes away. And so an appraiser will take that into consideration. Now, you can mask it temporarily, so you might be able to fool an appraiser. I'm not trying to help smokers out, but it comes back. Heat, humidity, makes the smell just kind of reappear. It almost grows, you know.

And like you said, you can fool some of the people, some of the time, with all of these things that they have out there. I'm referring to the ozone. But eventually it dissipates, and that scent of the nicotine, the vaping, whatever they're doing in the car depreciates the car and significantly i might say and it takes years though i mean if somebody goes in your car and smokes a cigarette i mean that'll come out but it's years of buildup of tar and all the on the fabric and everything i can't tell you how many cabin filters i've pulled out of cars and they're just brown oh it's hard oh yeah and you just

take a look at that and what do you think about your lungs i think about heading for the bathroom to Well, let's not even go there. Yeah, really. Well, Tana, that's a good point. Be careful. And if you're going to trade under car and you're a smoker, you want to mask the odor. And if you want to maximize your value. I'll also say this, that today, a huge amount of cars are changing hands, at least wholesale-wise, online.

A lot of your big-use car dealers and new car dealers, are buying and even selling their wholesale cars online. So you can, if you sell a car with a, there's no way that anyone buying a car online is going to know whether the car was driven by a smoker or not. And if you mask it temporarily, you get the car sold, the car will be resold before anyone knows about it. That's a good question for our wholesaler because we buy a lot of cars online wholesale as well. and the auctions have something called a condition report

and they disclose everything that's wrong with the car and if it's not accurate you have recourse you can get your money back and return the car I don't know if smells or a slight smell would be on the condition report that's a good question interesting that is interesting

Tina thank you very much do you have anything else you're our most valuable caller I mean I'll say that Yeah, you come up with some of the greatest stuff, and you come up with interesting stuff. Anything else on your mind this morning? Yes. Actually, I went to the gas pump yesterday, and I noticed that there was an option that I didn't really pay attention to.

And it was ethanol-free gas. Now, my car takes 87. And I'm thinking next time I might want to try the ethanol-free because I've heard that you can get better mileage out of the ethanol-free. I know there's disadvantages to it, like it's not as good. great for the environment. But I was wondering, Rick, if you can kind of go into the ethanol-free option a little bit more for our listeners. Rick can make that real short because he's actually performed the test. Yep. And we have one of these rare yes and no answers for you. So Rick will give you that answer based on his own test. Yeah, we have a caller that is a professional driver

and he swears by the ethanol-free fuel. So we did a basically an empirical test. I took my Tacoma pickup got an accurate fuel mileage reading by running a regular tank of just regular 87 octane fuel then ran a tank of the ethanol free fuel and I saw an increase of about

three to four miles per gallon but unfortunately it wasn't enough to overcome the difference in price because the ethanol fuel or ethanol free fuel what they call the rec 90 fuel

was about 30 cents a gallon more here in Palm Beach County on average. So, yeah, it's the main reason for the REC 90 is a lot of really older vehicles can't handle the ethanol as well, antique vehicles, a lot of motorcycles. Believe it or not, lawn equipment runs better on REC 90. And, of course, boats without board motors will always run better on that. So that's why we have such a lot of it around. But it works nice, but it's not really the most economical thing. You don't want to use ethanol because you're saving money.

You get better gas mileage, but it's going to cost you more money based on the cost of the ethanol-free fuel. So good question, Tina. A lot of people out there swear by it. But Rick has actually touched it. So it's basically six and one half dozen of the other. Yep. Yep. You got it.

You got it, Tina. Tina, thanks so much for adding to our show every Saturday. We're going to miss you. This is our last live show this morning, and Earl and I are going on vacation. We'll be back live on January 5th with Stu and Rick. So thank you. Well, I hope you all enjoy your vacation. You deserve it.

Thank you. We're looking forward to it. Happy holidays. Thank you. Happy New Year. See you next year. Thank you. Yeah, Stu said, hey, we'll see you next year.

We'll hear you. Yes, yes, he will. We'll see you next year. That's a real new year. It was supposed to be friendly reperts. Hey, I wasn't going for the, I didn't need a run set on that way. I used it yesterday and they got a big hoot out of it. Anywho, we are going to go to another female first-time caller and she won herself $50 this morning.

Her name is Amanda. She's from Palm Beach Gardens. Congratulations, Amanda. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Stay on the line when we're finished and give the guys in the control room your information, and I'll write that check out to you before I leave for vacation. How's that sound?

Thank you. You're welcome. What can we do for you this morning? I'm in the market for a used van, a couple years old, and I was just wondering, in your opinion, what is a good van? You know, Amanda, I sound like a broken record, but I keep saying consumer reports, consumer reports, consumer reports. Their annual auto issue, I have a copy here, I'll hold it up for the Facebook streamers, and the annual auto issue of consumer reports has a list of the very best and the very worst used cars, including used vans.

So, I wouldn't buy a toaster without consumer reports. Check the list of the best used cars and the worst used cars. I don't say you have to buy one of the best ones, but please don't buy one of the worst ones. And if you look in there, you'll see year-make mileage and price, so you can choose the used car in your price class. and this is based on the most unbiased extensive testing of any other source there's nothing out there with the objectivity of consumer reports they accept no advertising from any auto manufacturer or anybody else and they won't even allow a manufacturer to use their name and their advertising so they're pristine when they give you an opinion and i rather than suggest a something that I would think would be a good van, I'd say go to consumer reports. And by the way, you can get them in any library, and there's also the ability to go online if you have a library card.

I found out this from one of our callers. If you have a library card, you can go online without even going to the library, input the card number, and you can access all of the consumer reports. Nice. And it's a great way to go. Amanda, not only a great way to go, but it's a safe way to go, and Earl and I, we do not make any purchasing decisions unless we check out Consumer Report. And that addition that Earl was talking about is an April 2018 auto issue, and gosh, does it have information in there?

And you simply can't make the wrong decision. And like he said, you can go to the library and pull this up, and if you have a library card. And also the consumer report January or excuse me December edition has come out already and there again they've got so much information it's unbelievable but that 2018 that we were just talking about the auto issue you can go from best used cars to and they also you know attack the the information of people who can't afford right now to make a huge purchase and they give you the dollar amount and it is just so beneficial recall and safety updates the best new cars so and you can pick yourself up something nice for under $20,000 so that's a

2018 autoid issue and then you have the December consumer report that you can also rely on I hope we answered your question yes um at Earl's Stewart, if they would have a used van, do they come with a guarantee? Yes. I don't want to turn this into an infomercial, but at our dealership, we have a 100% unconditional cashback guarantee, and then we also have various guarantees and warranties, depending on the car, depending on what you would like to have.

Some of them are free, some of them you have to pay for, but something you should always check when you buy a used car, is what happens if you don't like it, what happens if you have a problem. You should always get a Carfax report. You should always try to find the name of the previous owner. You should look at the repair history and the accident history and the recall history when you buy used car. Very important that you go to safercar.gov and find out if there is a safety recall on the used car. But a lot of research when you buy used car.

And you want to find out what your rights are if you decide to buy one. after your research if you change your mind there's so many different places that you go Amanda just to you know fill yourself with enough knowledge before you make that purchase and you know I always say that it's just as important that you choose your salesperson as carefully as you choose your car dealer and like I said there's so much information out there that you can arm yourself with that it will protect you as a female Yeah, if Earl Stewart has a van, do they give you the Carfax report on it or anything? Sure.

Yeah, any dealer that is worth of salt, any reputable dealer always has a Carfax report or an AutoChuck. AutoChick is another version of Carfax, different company. And, yeah, you should have that up front. If they don't want to offer it to you, then just turn around and leave. another car dealer. You should also be able to take the car and drive it, test drive it. You should be able to find out what warranties are available. And take it to your mechanic to have a look over. Oh, most important thing. I'm glad you've mentioned that, Rick.

The single most important thing you do is take it to an independent mechanic. Someone that you trust, where you normally break your car for repairs, you feel safe with that mechanic. and he'll charge you. It could be $100, $150, but he will give a thorough check. It'll be the single most important thing you can do before you buy any used car. And Amanda, I'm going to add this to, you know, all this information that we're giving you. You know, I can't emphasize enough that you yourself know what you want whenever you walk into the dealership. And if there's someone there that can't meet your needs, turn around and leave.

It's as simple as that. Because today for a female, it's really very simple for you to get the respect and get the product that you have come in for and no one to talk you into anything else. And you know something? You don't have to be pressured. You don't have to be pressured the first time that you walk into a dealership. you can go home think about it and come back and if that's a true deal it'll still be there right well thank you so much for your help do you ever work in the um showroom so i can talk to you sure you can talk there's always a always a steward in the dealership so you come in

anytime and earl won't be there for the next three weeks he's going to be i mentioned i won't be there until after january i'll be there you can look for nancy stewart too you can see errol next year Okay, great. Amanda, stay on the line, and we've got 50 bucks for you, and please call again. A good luck with your purchase. I look forward to talking to you the next time you call in. I love your show. Spread the word.

Okay, have a great vacation. Thank you, Amanda. Okay, that phone number is 877-960-9960, or you can text us, 772-497-3530. And I believe that Stu is giving me a signal. He has a magic pen in his hand. It's science. This is science. It's a laser pointer.

He has his laser pointer with him today, and he's just having a ball. We're all laughing. Some of us are. Okay, Stu. Okay, so I'll go to the first one. We got us from Anne-Marie, and she texts in all the time. First one is just kind of an interesting question. She says, actually, I lost my spot right there.

She wanted to know about every time we go to the dealer, during the holidays, I see beautiful, shiny vehicles with big red bows. Where do the dealers get these big red bows? I've never come across those in the local craft shops. And I can tell you that they're provided by vendors. There's people that sell all sorts of dealership supplies, and they start showing up around November, and they ask if we want to buy these big bows.

And if you go to a car dealer and you really want one, ask them and look pitiful, and they might give you one. There you go. So we'll give you one once come by. They're not that expensive. But Ambray has another question. She says, concerning recalls, why isn't there some coordination between NHTSA and the insurance companies? NHTSA has the list of recalls and the insurance companies.

On the other hand, if there's a recall and it can't be fixed, the insurance companies should tell the auto manufacturers that those brands wouldn't have the vehicle identification numbers of the vehicles they insure. I think this might be kind of out of oh it is out of sync okay this is strange okay I'm sorry NHTSA has the link list of recalls and the insurance companies

have the vehicle identification numbers the vehicles they insure insurance companies could say John Doe there's a recall on your car get it fixed on the other hand if there's a recall and it can't be fixed the insurance companies should tell the auto manufacturers that those brands wouldn't get insured

insurance companies might be able to apply pressure to the manufacturers to stop building cars that are dangerous, one can hope. You know, that's a great, Anne-Marie, that's a great idea. There's a lot of things that could be done to approve the notification and the response to the notification of dangerous recalls. And your idea is as good as many of them. You're right. You've got the VIN number.

The insurance company has a VIN number of the insured. They have the current address, obviously. They know how to contact the insured, and they could, certainly expedite the process there's a lot of strange things going on with why things aren't improved in the recall process and i i don't i'm not a conspiracy theory guy but i can't get it out of my mind that the money follow the money uh the manufacturers the auto manufacturers and the auto dealers uh things could come to a grinding halt in their businesses if suddenly Every car with recall could not be driven, could not be sold.

It would freeze the economy. You heard Dave call earlier. He said there were 30 million cars. New ones. New ones out there with defective to cut airbags. That's in addition to the 100 million that have already been announced. So if we had 130 million vehicles that suddenly became illegal to drive, I imagine what that would do.

It would be economic chaos. So the powers that be in the ivory towers and the dark, smoky rooms and all the other stuff, they just say, let's look the other way. We could improve the system, but if we did, this might happen. Something might happen. I am a conspiracy theorist, and I think the Illuminati are behind it. There's something behind this. You cannot have a least little bit of hope for the human people,

for people, and not try to help them with this situation with driving around with a bomb in your dash. I mean, come on. Exactly. And that's why we're here. Anne Marie, thank you very much. A very valid point. I think we have another text. Excuse me for a moment.

Steve, we know you're there. Oh, let's get Steve first. And we're going to take your call right now, and Stu will get back to the tech. Good morning. Hi, good morning, Mr. Stort. Mr. Stort, Rick, and all the staff, and everybody at the dealers show, Happy Holidays. Thank you. Thank you.

I just wanted to add a two-part question now, but my question was, what did to call my airbags and the cars that still have them? What are liability insurance or bodily protection insurance that were not required by law to have now go up uh because you know is it in the pricing of this factor because i had a question about that because my i'm in state farm and i'm not happy with my dealers by a certain uh agent and i called and they give me an outrageous price to carry you know the three-fold uh two bodily injury and property you know uh quote i haven't had an accident or a ticket in at least three years you know and my question is that you know do we need to carry that how much and uh does that uh have to do

do with the Tacoma airbags and the price and everything of different geographical areas. Steve, that's an excellent point. That's a Takata airbag, T-A-K-A-T-A. Your point is extremely good, and I'm State Farm, I'm All-State, and I have an insured, and I have a computer, and I see the VIN number, and I have the NISA warnings, and I know that my insured is driving a car eight years old with his defective takot airbag. And I'm ensuring him against bodily harm injury.

And is his premium going to go up? It certainly should. If it's going to go up, should I notify him? And if I'm not notifying the individuals that have the unrepaired dangerous recalls that they are having a premium increase because of that, what am I doing to cover my cost because obviously the cost are there? I must be spreading those costs among all my insured. Now, that sounds to me like grounds for a class action suit.

I would say so. If I were a State Farm insured and my premium was going up, and I called a lawyer and said, my point is my premium went up because State Farm will not pass the cost along to those who have not had their airbag or any other dangerous recall repaired, I had mine repaired, and I'm absorbing a portion of the cost for their increased premium. And that's wrong, and I want to file a class action lawsuit. So, great call, Steve.

I know a good class action lawyer. I think I'll pass that along to him. Okay, thank you. All right, and my other question was, with your cars on a newer one, what do you suggest to the customer that buys a new camera rate, or a Toyota, what should we carry on this? I mean, I'm going with Allstate right now. I have the best thing, but I mean, I like to carry, I got the minimum,

but I'd like to carry 150 and 100 if I can, but if I have to carry 10, 10, and 10, at least it's there. But, I mean, they're not telling us the rates are going up. They're saying, oh, because you're in the area, and we don't, you know, that's it. But, I mean, my word, you know. Yeah, Steve. I'll let somebody else call, and I'll listen here.

Thank you. I shop your premium, Steve, is what I was going to say. If you've been with State Farm or Allstate, I forget what you said, call four or five other carriers. I promise you you'll save substantial money. And thank you very much for your call. Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart. Happy holidays. I hope I can trade in my Kia soon.

Try to get the payment down. Thank you. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you for listening. Give us a call to all free at 8779-9-600. 9960 or you can text us at 772-49760 and you know I think that I feel a little generous this morning with the holidays I think I'm going to extend an invitation to a lady caller we have one more $50 check to send out to some lucky female caller so give us a call ladies help us build a platform here for women and where

they can come to get information and share a few of their, you know, car purchasing situations that they might have had, whether it was good or bad. Again, our number is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-6530. And remember, we are going on vacation. Today's our last live show, and we will be back on January the 5th will be gone for about three weeks. We've got another text here, don't we? Back to Stu. We do. It is from Stan in Riviera Beach.

Stan says, Isn't it to my disadvantage to let the car dealer know that I have bad credit? Isn't that an opportunity for them to charge me with an exorbitant finance rate? What should I do? Stan. Stan, you're right. It is a bad idea. I think for two reasons.

First of all, it'll put you at a disadvantage in the negotiation. And secondly, because what you think is bad credit, it might not be as bad as you think it is. Always go in with a positive attitude. But more important, get some competitive bids before you even talk to a car dealer. Even though you think you have bad credit,

if you have a credit union, talk to your credit union where you bank, get a quote from your bank. That way you'll have an objective view of your credits, too. If you have a smartphone on your Android or your iPhone, download Credit Karma and sign up, get an account, and it will monitor your credit. It sends you alerts every time your score goes up or down. It has a list of every credit account you have open, and it's the best tool you can have. And so if a dealer tries to tell you that your credit's bad and you think it's good or vice versa,

just open the app. It tells you exactly where you're at. Credit Karma, C-R-E-D-I-T-K-A-R-M-A-R-M-A. That is correct. Credit Karma. Yep. I love that. It's one of the best apps ever, and you get email alerts.

and that's just a great tool. Yeah, definitely. It wasn't available just a few years ago. You heard it right here. Credit karma, you can just check on your credit rating and stay up to date so that these, well, car salesmen don't pressure you because they say, oh, you've got the worst, you know, the worst credit rating, and this is what we're going to do for you today.

True story. Just recently, I spoke to somebody who had bought a car from, our dealership a few years ago and was very concerned that her credit score had become terrible since she had bought the last car. And I said, okay, well, how bad? She was, well, I think it dropped down to a 680. And so, you know, that is below average, but that is not terrible. And it was likely she could qualify for some of the best rates that the banks offered.

And she didn't know that. You go to a bad dealership and might say, ooh, that is bad, you know. Yeah, exactly. And you're under an awful lot of pressure. We're going to take a call from Laurie, and she's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Larry. Good morning. I have two questions.

I have a Toyota Highlander. Once the gas light comes on, do I need to get to a gas station right away, or is there a little bit of room there? And how much? Boy, I'm glad you asked that question, because I have the same problem. And we've got the guy that can answer that question. Rick, what's the story? First of all, you have the light gum. on, and then it says low fuel.

Yep. Is there a specific mileage that you can drive when those lights flicker? And before Rick answers that, maybe I shouldn't be part of that conversation, because you know what I do. Okay, Larry, back to Rick. There really isn't a specific answer to that because everyone drives a little different and gets a little bit different fuel economy. but on average when that light comes on you can pretty much figure that you have about one and a half to two gallons of fuel remaining to drive your car so for the most people that's going to be anywhere from 25 to 40 or 50 miles

but there's two lights you have the you have the one that's the little orange light right and then you have the one that says low fuel comes up says low fuel which one is one and a half gallons uh the the low fuel is going to be the last one to come on. And when it comes on, you need to be looking for a gas station. Gotcha. You're so willing to have to. Yeah. Very good. Does that answer your question, Lori? Yes, it does. And then the second question regarding mileage, my mileage is still not up to what the mileage said on the car. How do I improve the mileage? You know, what I would do is I would have someone that someone like Rick Rick is my hero when it comes to gas mileage

he just he prides himself in the way he drives when he wants to maximize his gas mileage. You probably have some friends that are really good and you know what that entails. I'm a terrible driver I got a heavy foot. I break too much and I accelerate too much

and my gas mileage is terrible but a really good driver can anticipate stoplights. They coast to the stoplight. I hate people who do that, but that's my temperament, my mentality. And when

the light changes, they accelerate very slowly, and they can really get good gas balance. So I would take my Highlander, you said you had it Highlander, I think. Right. Okay, to someone that you know is a really good

high-mile's driver and see what that person gets and then compare that to yours. Now, if you both get, poor mileage compared to what you were told the car should get. Then you should bring it into your dealer and have him check the car and see if there's something we could do to help. Rick. Now, as just a couple things to try, first off, the first thing I do is I look on the sidewall

of the tire and look for the pressure, the tire pressure rating as to what the maximum pressure is safe to run in that tire. And I would set your tire pressures up to that. because you know Florida's our roads are actually pretty good compared to a lot of the nation and they're a little bumpy but you know you'll get a little harder ride but you really won't notice it after a short time the other thing I would do is remember that everything in your car gets its power from the gasoline so if you're running with your lights on all the time the radio the fan everything that you're using that uses electricity in the car

that's all coming from the gasoline. So doing things like setting your air conditioner a couple degrees up and turning off any extra things that are running will increase your fuel economy, even just little bits, but those little bits add up. Yeah, the tire pressure, Lori's good for two to three miles per gallon. That's one of the best ones. That's one of the best ones.

And Lori also what affects your gas mileage, you know, a lot of people just drive around with their trunks just loaded. you know with anything and everything and that definitely affects your gas mileage for sure but one thing I don't do whenever that light comes on to let me know that you know I am a little low on fuel is that I don't panic because these new cars today they can they can take you pretty far but it's a great idea to keep an eye on that and your tire pressure that affects everything in just the same way you driving that vehicle

it all affects your gas mileage I hope we answered your questions this morning do you have any other question no that's it okay you definitely did thank you Laurie thanks so much for listening thank you

have a great day bye bye okay was Lori supposed to get 50 bucks no she was she wasn't a first time caller No, but you extended that invitation to another. And Lori is a previous call.

She's a previous. Very good. Okay, we got some text. She just hung up on this. We have a question. There's no name on this one. Actually, I'm sorry. It's from Benton and Lake Worth, Benton.

How much of the deposit should I put down on a car? Is there a certain percentage of the cost of the car that the dealer should be asking me for? I asked for a little clarification if he was referring to a down payment, and he was. So is there a certain amount that you should, that you should look at. Yeah, there's a big difference between the deposit and the down payment. The deposit is something that is voluntary.

Some dealers ask for them. Some dealers don't. And the amount that they ask for varies. No, he was referring specifically to a down payment. Oh, down payment. Okay. Down payment depends on the lending institution. And they should have consulted with the

institution that is going to finance your car before they told you what the down payment would me. You typically would probably want to put as little down as possible, although there are some people that like to put a bigger down payment so they can lower their monthly payment. But that's true. Yeah, what I would ask, it's like any kind of loan, whether you're buying a house, so they look at loan to value ratio. So in other words, how much are they going to loan versus the value of the car? For a really good credit, most banks will loan over 100% of the value of the

car. As the risk goes up to the bank, they ask for more of a larger down payment. And this is something customers probably don't ever ask the salesperson. You know, what is the loan to value that your bank is requiring here? And let them show you because the bank is going to show it to the dealer. They're going to show it on their computer screen or fax something over. Yes, they still use faxes and ask to see that. So if they had asked you for a very large down payment, ask to see what the bank's loan

to value on that deal is. And if they show that to you and if it's different from what they told you, go to another dealer. Well, you raised another point that, Nick, thanks for calling. Hold just a couple of minutes. I want to answer this question about the deposits. There are pay plans out there with car dealerships that actually compensate the salesperson on how high down payment they can get. And what I almost lost sight of is that salesmen are paid on commission.

The more profits they make on the car, then the more money they make on that sale. So the larger the down payment they can get from the customer, the more they can mark up the profit. Sometimes car dealers and salesmen are limited on the price they can charge on the car because of the down payment specified by the lender. So if the lender specifies a loan to value down payment of X dollars, maybe the dealer can only make a $1,000 profit. But if he could get an extra $1,000 down payment, then he could make $2,000 profit. And not just on the price of the car. the bigger the down payment they can get out of you,

the more stuff that they can shove down your throat in the box and the finance office. Exactly. So the bottom line is this, and it was a great question. At first I didn't think it was. Now I think it's a great question, something we should have covered on this show before. Always negotiate for the lowest down payment you can possibly get on the vehicle. If you decide you want to change your mind later and put more down, But get them to agree on the lowest down payment you can get and always ask them the loan to value ratio.

You want to see, if you're financing through Wells Fargo or Bank of America, you want to see in writing what they specified is the loan to value. If you want to see the most shocked expression you've ever seen on a salesperson or a manager's face, write this down. Show me the callback sheet. No one's ever asked that question before. They probably won't show it to you. but it's going to say probably not it shows you the the rate that the bank is giving the dealer and also the amount that they're willing to finance which would tell you the size of the down payment you actually have to give them i'm a do a blog on that i love it callback sheet that is

really that's fantastic information right now yeah wow finance managers across south florida across the world now or wait a minute what is this where's my oh there's a red laser dot now Let's not forget, Nick. We've got Nick holding on the line here. Yeah, we do. Okay, we're going to go to Nick who's been holding. Good morning, Nick. He's calling from Stewart.

How you doing today? I'm good. How are you? Okay. What can we do for you? I have a question for Rick regarding death mileage and the computer on my Prius. Okay, I have 2012 Prius P. I've had it for four years.

and I get really good mileage on it because I use the computerized mileage read out there to alter my driving, so I get the best mileage. Excellent. And the way I do that is by staying in electric mode as much as possible, otherwise if I'm just running on gas, I'm not going to get better than 40 miles per gallon. And typically they're getting 50s, and the best they've ever done was 63, over 500 miles on a tank. Nice. My biggest issue here is with the computer program that governs how long you're in electric mode. I know it has to be like between, I know, 30 and 80% of the battery. You can't charge you over 80 and it won't go below 20 or 30 or something.

But I know that sometimes they have chips like high-performance chips that you can replace to increase performance and efficiency. and I know that when I start my car in the morning, it usually won't go into electric mode, maybe briefly, but not for long periods for the first 15, 20 minutes or so, wants to warm up or something or some kind of timer. And then it starts getting efficient. It stays in electric mode,

and my mileage starts going up. And the other thing is when I stop, if I'm doing errands and I stopped to go in the store, a car can be all warmed up doing great. If I stop and turn it on again, I have to wait five or ten minutes. something like there's some kind of timer on it before it'll engage electric mode consistently. Anytime I stop the car, you automatically got to go through that waiting period before it wants to engage electric mode.

And I'm wondering if that's like programmable, if that can be changed, or if there's some kind of chip I can change to change that. Unfortunately, there is not. And the main reason for that, now those chips that you were mentioning, those were available, back in the 80s where you could actually change the power module chip in the car. And nowadays, there are some small tools that can be plugged in that can make certain adjustments on the way a car will run. But for the most part, the federal government cracked down and said, no, the consumer cannot make changes to the programming of that car because anything you do to change it

would affect the emissions rating of the car. and the government says you cannot do that. You're not allowed. So unfortunately, there are no magic programs. My best recommendation is keep doing what you're doing and just keep working on your driving habits because that's really the best way to improve your fuel economy for what you're doing.

Obviously, it sounds like you've gotten rid of any extra weight in the car. You're keeping your tires up, obviously. You're following all the great rules. and doing the best you can. But it just, you know, sometimes you do kind of hit that upper level where that's just all there is to it. Nick, what kind of mileage are you getting on that, Prius C? This tank I'm getting 53 miles per gallon.

I typically get over 50, one or two kayaks on a roof. But then again, I don't usually go on the highway. I don't usually go over 30 or 40. Right. So that air resistance is going to be the worst. Going up to New England there over the summer with a couple of kayaks and going like 65 miles an hour, which I never do. I was getting like 40 miles per gallon, 39.

That's like the worst I ever get. I'm retired. I don't usually go on the highway if I don't have to. And even on the highway, I don't go over 60 or around town. I don't usually go over 40. And that keeps my mileage up. But it's really frustrating when I started up in the morning and it just won't engage for the first 10 miles. Or whenever I stop for an errand, then I get to my mileage up.

back in the car two minutes later and only engage for five or ten minutes. That's what kills my mileage. Well, are you talking to the actual electric override mode? No, I'm talking the little blue light that says EV. Right, the EV mode, right. Yeah, unfortunately, when you first start the car, even though it's warmed up quite a bit, the federal government still requires that the catalytic converters within 240 seconds have to be at operating temperature. which is over 500 degrees. And so that's why they're seeing that delay. It's because it's trying to warm up that catalytic converter

and make sure it's getting the proper emissions ratings. Again, it was the government messing with this for a while. When I stopped during daytime when it's fully warmed up, and I stopped sleep in a minute, and I turn it on again, it goes through that whole protocol again, whereas it's actually burning gas, where it would be burning electric and emitting zero, if it would go back into electric mode in the first five minutes.

Right, but it also needs to be able to recharge that hybrid battery a little ways so that you've got enough power in it that it can run EV mode properly and effectively. Yeah, true, but it's extremely frustrating when the hybrid battery gauge is reading full and it refuses to engage in electric mode, and it's just discharging that extra power away from where. Yep, I understand it. Nick, you might want to Google that. there might be something illegally you could do, but we can't advise you on the radio. Yeah, there's, it's possible.

Go to the Prius Chat room. That program is not adjustable by the service department or anything. No, the dealer would be prohibited by law and by the manufacturer, but there's some real geniuses out there online, and you go to a Prius chat room. Have you ever been on the Prius chat room? Yeah, I have. Yeah, they got all sorts of interesting comments and suggestions that a dealer couldn't help, you with, but somebody that was a black market might be able to.

Well, there are some guys out there, and I won't admit to knowing anyone. There's a whole lot out there. There's some guys that have done some really wild things with cars, especially with Prius. Yeah, and, you know, I'm going to talk about another topic. We're talking oranges and apples here. I've tried to tamper with certain appliances in my home that have government restrictions on them. And, well, I didn't achieve my goal. And it's a little bit annoying all of these restrictions.

Nick, sorry, we couldn't come up with a neat solution for you, but I appreciate the call. You know, 53 miles per gallon, that's not too shabby. Especially when he's carrying kayaks. No, it's not too bad. Yeah. That's really good. It could be better if I had more control over engaging electric mode, but I don't.

Yeah, you're right, and I totally agree with you. There should be something you could do, but that's the law, federal law, and it's unfortunately we have to deal with it. Right. And another question. Mine's of 2012, I believe, have the nickel-cadmium batteries, and newer ones have lithium ion. Is that right? Is that right, right? That is correct. Is there an advantage to the lithium ion? Is mine upgradable or no? It's not upgradable because the cost of it would be almost more than buying a new car.

but the lithium ion does have advantages in being a lighter weight and producing that power more consistently, shall we say. It produces a more smooth power flow out of the battery than the nickel cadmium. Okay. All right. Thanks for the information. Call again, Nick. You're a very informed, intelligent guy.

I love to have you call again soon. And thank you very much for calling today. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with us. We're going to stay. Tracy's online and Stu has his laser pointer at. And Tracy, I'd like to introduce, I'd like to introduce you, you are a first-time caller, and I have $50 for you.

So if you stay on the line, I can get that, they can get that information from you. And I'll get that check out to you. Sure. Hi, I'm a first-time caller, and we do listen to your show almost every weekend, so thank you for all the information to provide us. I am looking at a 2018 Camry, and I understand the engine is different this year than it has been in the past. In the past, the engine, now that Camry has proven over time its service record has been good. So I'm looking to see what the advantages or disadvantages are of buying a car. like a 2018 camera with a brand new engine that hasn't been proven over time for a service record.

Can you enlighten me on any of that? I will, you're talking about a new model, new design, new engine. Has it been shaken down. Yeah, whether it's a Toyota or a Buick or a Honda, I always advise people to wait until it's been checked out. A lot of people love to own the first new model when the major change is. made, people that are loyal to that brand, want to be first in line and own one. I think prudence dictates that you give that car a year or two on the road before you buy that car. Toyota is a very, very good manufacturer.

Honda is a good manufacturer. Quality-wise, they're very good vehicles. But I like to go to consumer reports and get an owner's evaluation of cars. and you can't get an owner evaluation of a brand new model and a brand new engine. And Rick is sitting next to me, our computer auto scientist guy, and he'll tell you, he gets surprised. He sees a brand new model, and he's probably blown away by the technology. And boy, what a cool engine, great fuel economy, great torque, great power, blah, blah.

And then two years later, you get a bulletin from Toyota that says, you've got to bring it in and make this change. Software update or something like that. Get the bugs out before you buy your next car. One of the best examples I can give of that is our 2016 Tacoma. When it came out with an 8-speed transmission, Toyota came out with what they call reflashes, where we reprogram the computer,

and it took them six tries, six different reflashes, before they were able to get the shift points correct on that transition. Right, we go in and we download the program from Toyota into a computer, we plug it into the car, and upload it to the car, and it changes the programming in the car. And this has to be a program that Toyota has created, was authorized by the government for emissions controls and that, and then it's, you know, we can't touch anything on it.

I can't change anything. I can simply put it in the car. but it took them six tries before they finally got it right. And that's a fluke because Toyota doesn't build good cars. And it just depends on your state of mind, Tracy. If things like this were you, I'd buy a previous year's model with a tried and proven engine. The chances are the new model and the new engine is going to be fine. But frankly, statistically, you're less likely to have a problem with a tried and proven engine.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Tracy, I hope we answers your question. And, you know, right here, you know, we're trying to build a platform for ladies. You know, I've been, well, saying it over and over again. And it's ladies like you that are, you know, making our dream here at Ron Cars come true. Because isn't it time that salespeople, well, they learn what women want. and the end result here is that they can capitalize. There's a huge, huge market out there

and an opportunity for these salespeople and car dealers to cash in on because we make up about 51% of the car purchasing transaction. So if there's anything at all that I can do for you, please feel free to get in touch with me. And again, you won yourself $50, so stay on the line. and give the guys in the control room your information. Great. Thank you so much for everything you guys do.

You're quite welcome. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530. And I'm happy. Does anyone want to know why I'm happy? Because you're going on a cruise. No. Nothing to do with the cruise. We are breaking all the records this morning.

We have an enormous amount of female callers and the females that have text us. So that makes me extremely happy. You're breaking through that ceiling. Okay, back to Stu. Yeah, we have a couple of texts on deck. The first one, I got to chuckle out of reading this one because I think I experienced the same thing. Is it my imagination? Or does the fuel gauge needle barely move for quite a while after I fill up and for the first half of the tank?

then it really accelerates after it reaches half full. My gauge is separated into quarter tanks. Each quarter goes faster than the last. That's from Wallace and Boynton. Is it his imagination? Is it my imagination? It's hard to say because fuel gauges can be finicky critters, but yeah, it generally, in perception,

it generally seems like that first needle will stay at that full mark for a long time. It doesn't move. And all of a sudden, it just drops real quick. Do you guys get that, too? And when you're in a hurry. I don't believe that's true. I think it's all perception. I would say it might have been true 20 years ago,

but I think with today's technology, I would be amazed if the, especially the really, really good manufacturers, I would be surprised that a Lexus vehicle did not have a gas gauge. It was very accurate in terms of how quick it went down, the first tank, half tank, the second half tank. So why do you have that pump in your hand and you're banging it against the car over and over again and screaming, I'm in a hurry? That's just anger management issues. But now, the conspiracy theory in Mesa, what if they're trying to create the illusion of fuel economy?

Maybe if you're test driving the car overnight, wow, this needle barely moves. You're a conspiracy theory. All right, I just throwing it out there. That could be. Oh, I like that. Another conspiracy. There's a lot of conspiracies. They're going around.

Okay. the next one. Ooh, this is a good one. I haven't had this one before. I have spiders in my car. Oh, boy. I almost crashed the other night when a big one crawled across my windshield. I only saw it when oncoming headlights illuminated it.

I don't want to fumigate my car with poison. What can I do? Desperate in Palm Beach Gardens. Whoa. Oh. I don't even want to touch that one. I know you don't like the idea of using poisons in your car, but that may be the only option and I I'll freely admit I actually had this happen once

I had a car that I was a little messy in and it got bugs in it I had roaches in my Chevy burrata oh boy just how old that was how long ago that was yeah you were like a teenager the raid fumigators they're the little plastic cup that you put about a quarter inch of water in it, drop the canister back in, and it makes a dry smoke. It does not leave any residue. It will penetrate all the nooks and crannies, and use two or three of them in your car. It'll look like your car's on fire inside because it will fill it with this smoke everywhere inside, but it will get everywhere in the car. It will kill every bug in the car, and it does not leave a lasting odor. Once you air your car

out for a couple hours afterwards, it'll be fine, and it will get rid of those spiders. What is the predator for spiders? How about putting birds in your car? Maybe not birds, but you're right. You might be on to something like a bylaw. A mongoose. Wait, that's for snakes. I was a pasta strainer.

I used that the other day. Did you see that on Facebook? No. Yeah. I was standing right there at the pool. And something came swimming by me. And I just, I went, oh. And then, and it was, and it, was dark. So I ran in the house to get my postist trainer, and I came outside, and I caught

that little critter. I couldn't figure out what the heck he was, but he was big. Moving right along. No, I had to finish this story. It's a great story. So I took, and I got out of the pool, took the posture trainer, went over to the fence, and I flipped them across the fence. And then he came back, and I went, ah! See, you need the poison. I'll tell you what I would have done. So no poison. I use my postage trainer. Well, I have a non-poison solution. I would I'd have pulled the car over the side of the road, got out, and never got back in that car again. I would have got another car and then moved on with my life. All right, we have another text.

Okay, no humor. Okay. Oh, well, humor's good. Should a test drive, this is from Sam and Lakeland. Should a test drive initiate the start of a business transaction on the part of the dealer? And as a result, require them to pull a credit report against my FICO score. Do I really have to tell the sales rep not to do that before I take the test drive? Salmon Lake.

That's the system, Stan. that's the way Cardios operate it's 20th century it's old school and there's no reason that the your credit score should be checked to take until you're actually ready to buy the car and you want them to finance the car for you they do it pre-screening if you got good credit that tells them a whole lot if you have bad credit that tells them a whole lot it enables them to manipulate your their sales technique to maximize the chances of a sale So I would say, I do not want you to run my credit score.

I want to take a test drive. If that's not okay with you, I'll go to your competition. As we see week after week, if you've noticed, if you listen to the mystery shopping report, you see there's patterns that have emerged over the years. And there's steps to the sale. And so when they train salespeople, the test drive falls in a certain step. The credit check falls in a certain step. And it's done to create an advantage for the dealer.

It's by design. It's not random. And that's why we see it the same way, sometimes it gets boring writing these mystery shopping reports because I go, here we go again. You know, a great way to avoid that without even a discussion or argument is say, listen, I've got a check for my credit union, and I'm a cash buyer. Even if you don't. Yeah, even if you don't. And I want to pick my car out, and I want to get the best price I can. That way, you don't have to discuss your credit, and you don't have to have your report run.

Now, at the end of the day, and you pick the car out, you've got a really good price. You can say, I change my mind. I'm not going to use my credit union. Let's see if you can get me a better price or credit rate. And show me that callback sheet. Yeah, exactly. Show me a callback sheet. You know, I've learned so much on the other side of cars, because I know every wrench I need to take a car apart.

But being a part of this show, I have learned so much on the finance and the buying side. Well, same here. I mean, you see me staring at yourself. When I'm ready to go buy the new RAV, you guys are in trouble. No. You guys are doomed. You know, it's amazing. I'm going to use every weapon I have against you.

You don't need any weapons, Rick. We sit here. I just remember, I control the price. Yeah, but I'm going to be working you. Yeah, but he's going to shop against two other dealers. Because I have learned. You can even not the playing field, ladies and gentlemen. And Rick just said it all.

We learn so much every single Saturday, not only from you, but you learn from us. And guess what? It's all free, free information to allow you to go out there and for you to be in control. I love being in control. I know the ladies love being in control. So moving right along here, we've got the mystery shopping report coming up. You know what I hope? I hope that we see some customers come into our dealership and ask for the callback sheet.

I want to see that, no, I do. That's priceless. I want to see that the information that we're putting out there is resonating. It's priceless. That was great information. Back to the mystery shopping report, ladies and gentlemen, you too can vote on that mystery shopping report by texting us during the mystery shopping report from the recovering car dealer. And you can do that.

Is that up and running? Well, no, because we're having such spotty connection with the live feed. So on January 5th. We'll have voting and a good video. So 772-4976530, and you can vote on the mystery shopping report. And don't forget your anonymousfeedback.com, go there, voice your opinion. Let us know how you feel, your anonymousfeedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

I have something that is, I mentioned last week or maybe the week before, that I was pursuing a class action suit against car dealers. for the charging of the dealer fee and the Florida statute that they're violating. And I had an exciting conference call yesterday with a couple of attorneys. I'll mention the firm, Circey Denny, Scorola, Barnhart, and Chippley. I think a lot of people have heard of that firm. And a world-class action attorney from Miami, we're talking about a nationwide class-action suit. and it's exciting because the car dealers protect themselves in a lot of ways against class action.

And there has been a recent ruling in the courts that has made it possible for a class action suit on this. And basically, we would be able to say to some of the largest car dealers in the country, we go after the ones they were selling the most cars, that you are deceiving and fooling and tricking your customers into paying far more for the vehicle than they should. And the way you do this is that you advertise a price, and when the customer comes in to buy the price, whether you advertise online or newspaper or television, you raise the price by the amount of the dealer fee.

The amount that you raise the price can go as high as several thousand dollars. We know of no dealer that doesn't charge a dealer fee. We have CarMax at one time did not charge a dealer fee. I believe they now have a small one. They do, and even the dealers that say they don't have dealer fees, we know they call them by something else. Yeah, well, car dealers are actually advertising no dealer fee, and they charge it something else.

So this is in process. It hasn't happened yet, but it could change the way cars were sold in the United States. Very exciting because it's something we've been talking about on the show, For 14 years, we can't get the Florida legislator, or we can't get the Attorney General, we can't get the governor, we can't get anybody to pay attention to us. Yep. The states that regulate it, they increase it year after year. I know that in California, there's a cap on it.

Yeah. But it started sort of very slow. I think it's creeping up again. I think it's over $100 now. Well, $100 is chump change. It's peanuts. Because the $100 is up front. In fact, really a dealer fee.

is inconsequential if it's up front and totally fully obvious. And in California, every time you buy a car, you're paying the dealer fee. The dealer fee is always called the dealer fee. The dealer fee is always the same amount, so there's no surprises. The value to the car dealers of the dealer fee and the tag agency fee, the e-filing fee, the electronic filing fee, the dock fee, the administrative fee, blah, blah, blah, blah. phony fees that are counterfeit government fees, the value is they're secret, a dirty little secret.

And when you sign in, oftentimes you don't even know you paid the fee. You get that big stack of paper in the finance department, you go home with your new vehicle. Sometimes you don't even know that you paid these fees. That is the deception, and that's what we're going to try to put a stop there. Here's a little bit of homework for the listeners. If you still have your paperwork from the last car you bought, it might be tucked away. It could be in your glove compartment in an envelope. It could be in a pull it out.

If you didn't think you paid a dealer fee, go find your, your paperwork, look at the purchase order, and look right there. And I promise you, you're going to see a printed dealer fee for hundreds of dollars. The hidden fees are, without exception, always sales tax assist. If you had a bought a car in Florida, sales tax is 6%. So if there's a fee by any name, tag agency fee. e-filing fee, any name. Whatever the fee is, and there was sales tax on it, it's a dealer fee. It's a hidden fee.

And that's the trick, because you can't tax, because an official fee is kind of like a tax. You don't tax taxes. Yeah. So it's illegal to charge, well, a real tax, it's illegal not to charge a phony fee attacks. For law, if a dealer was not charging sales tax on his dealer fees, They could cancel his department on a vehicle license. So they all charge tax on the phony fees. As Stu said, go to your desk, wherever you keep your papers,

get your paperwork out for the last vehicle you bought. If it was recent, you should be able to find it pretty quickly. And look at the vehicle buyer's order, the installment sales contract, all the paper, and see anything that was added to the quoted price of the car. If you can't find your paperwork, call the dealer where you bought it. Ask your copy. And ask them to send you a copy. Vehicle buyer's order, installment sales contract.

And you can analyze that. And then you'll find out what you really paid for the car. Some of you, if you do this, are going to find out that you paid. Well, we have the dealer we shop last week. That was Pompano. That was a Rick Hendrick store at Pompano. There were $2,500 in dealer fees. There were three different dealer fees.

$2,500. And that was on a $6,000 car. A $6,000 car. A third of the price. It's insane. And if you need help, you know, deciphering these very complex, long, confusing documents, take a picture of an email it to me. Don't email to Earl.

He's going to be on a cruise. Stu at Earleoncars.com. And then I will help you understand what you're looking at if you're having trouble with it. And I might even point on a fee that you didn't know was a bogus fee. So Stu at Erlong Cars. They come up with fees that the ones that are the cleverest are the ones that are related to the license plate and registration. And those are typically called e-filing fee, E is an electronic or electronic filing fee, and the other is tag agency fee. Now, they are related to the tag and registration, but they are an outside company, a profit-making company that the dealer employs to do the paperwork for him that he used to do himself in his own accounting department.

The charge for this fee, typically, is about $10. We use a sumer. We pay an outside agency $10 to do our paperwork. The dealers take that $10 fee and mark it up to $1,000, $1,500, whatever strikes. The good ones market up only to about $200. Yeah, sometimes it's $200. But they can market up whatever they want to. There's no control in the state of Florida as to what you call the dealer fee or how much you charge.

Anyway, look for this in the news. It'll be national news. It'll be a class action lawsuit. against very large dealers, multiple large dealers all over the United States that are charging dealer fees. And when this happens, it will be in the billions, with a B, billions of dollars. And when this happens, all car dealers will stop charging these hidden illegal fees. And we'll have a big party.

Yeah, very happy. Huge. We'll pop open the bubbly. Very happy. Huge party. What do you have for us? We are caught up with texts. All caught up.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you know, whenever Earl was talking about the dealer fees, we were all chiming in. You know, you can be the sharpest, the shrewdest car buyer, but there's so many ways for these dealerships to take advantage of you. And, you know, for some of the ladies that I've spoken to, they feel really very embarrassed. They don't even want to share their story. And I tell everyone, you're not the only one. There are a number of men, women, the millennials, everyone, they don't care who they take advantage of. So take advantage of what Stu said earlier by, you know, getting in touch with him and he'll help you to decipher the dealer fee and so many other charges. It's STU at earl-oncars.com.

S-T-U at Earle-on-Cars.com. Stewart, Toyota.com. No, just earlongcars. Oh, you shortened it? Oh, yes, the radio show email address. Okay. All right. You got a lot of emails.

Okay. And don't forget, you can vote on that mystery shopping report, and you can do so by texting 772. 772. I forgot the text number. Somebody told me the text number. 497-6-5-30. There you go. I'm glad you're here, Stu.

Well, there's a sign right behind you. I can see it. You can't. 772-497-6-5-3-0. There's another funny. I know. Back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, mystery shopping report.

Mystery Shop of Buyer's Zone, never heard that name. Nope. Buyer Zone and West Palm Beach. For the last mystery shopping report of 2018, we would be remiss not to expose or congratulate one or more car dealers for how they handle the sale of a used car with a deadly Takada Airbag. recall on our last show i mentioned that for 22 consecutive weeks hard to believe 22 consecutive weeks we have mystery shop the car dealers big and small whoever ties to car cars for sale shockingly only two only two disclosed the existence of the recall the first was easy pay easy pay cars and

Stewart a bill wallace dealership by the way to their credit not only did they do they do disclose the recall, they actually stopped the sale amazingly. Easy pay cars went even further and fixed the car before calling Agent X to say it was safe to buy. So kudos to Bill Wallace, who owns Easy Pay, it's a buy-her-pay-her car lot in Stewart, Florida. They got one of our highest grades ever, I think. That was definitely the best job ever done on the Dakota show. The only one that was a true pass. an easy pay in Stewart

folks if you're up in that area they're on the good dealer list the second car dealer to pass the Dakota test did so only technically the salesman at Hendricks Honda and Boyn Beach pointed out the recall on the Carfax report he reviewed with

Agent X but it was ambiguous about whether the car had been repairs had been made the used car manager then told Agent X that the repair had probably been completed he also failed to provide any documentation that would clear up the confusion. I remember

saying last week, it just seems like they didn't care. Yeah. Whether the, it's a Honda dealership. It would have been so easy. And then they would have been paid by Honda to do the fix. The parts were available but they just didn't seem to care. Exactly. Let's move on

with the sale. Yeah. For the record, one week after a mystery shop, according to Honda's own recall website, Hendricks, 2000, nine, Honda Civic, with a defective passenger side airbag, is yet to be repaired. That was 11 o'clock last night. As of 11 o'clock last night.

So there's two disappointments. There are disappointment in the morals, the ethics, the empathy, or whatever you want to call it, of the people that's Pompano Honda. And the other disappointment is the fact that they don't listen to this radio show. Yeah. Because if they listen to this radio show, they'd have probably fixed it. It'd help our ratings, too. Yeah. Pompano, Honda, shame on you.

Now, if something happens, listen, what is their culpability? We are publicly calling out that car. Someone's going to buy that car. It may or may not blow up, but if it did, what happens? They're going down. Hendricks received a low passing score, squeaked by, for pointing the recall out to HNX. However, in light of this new information,

they may ought to rescind our passing grade. It's true that the recall wasn't hidden, but bad information was given to our shopper, that the defective airbag was probably replaced, and it wasn't. A real customer may feel that was good enough, never bothered to verify for sure. As we now know, the repair was not made as of 11 o'clock last night. So I just felt bad about giving him a passing score, but I was so tickled. I was so tickled that we'd done 20, two shops in a row without a disclosure.

We finally got somebody that disclosed it. I just said, let's give them a passing score. I say we take it back. Maybe we need to take it back. Last week, we shopped a big franchise dealer. This week, we looked into a small buy-here pay-here

buyer zone on Dixie Highway and West Palm Beach, just south of Southern Boulevard. Don't remember what they look like. Never, don't remember the name. Nancy commented, that to me on the way and driving to the studio this morning

and it made me think about the fact that a little auto zone and tens of thousands of other little used car lots like them sell most of the used cars. We focused on the big Al Hendrickson Pompano Honda

Palm Beach Toyota we focus on large volume dealers but most of the vehicles if you just say vehicles you don't say new are sold by little mom and pop stores that you've never heard of they might sell 20 cars a month 30 cars a month 10 cars a month i don't know how many they sell you don't know who they are and they're all over the place and the people that buy from these little mom and pop shops are the ones that can't afford to buy from the larger dealers don't have the credit to get

financed at the larger dealers so they go these little bitty places so in a sense these are the true dangerous. These are the biggest dangers. I promise you that most of the cars that are sold with effective talk-out airbags, the most dangerous ones are sold by the buyer zones of the world, by the easy pay of

the world, by the beach cars of the world, all the little mom-and-pop shops. Prime autos. Yeah, prime autos. Exactly. And we don't mean to single them out, single them out, but these little car dealerships, used car dealerships never heard of, are really caused.

a lot of problems. Once again, the vehicle in question. But one thought, the best shop we ever had was one of these little... Yeah, Easy Pay and Stewart was the best we ever had. And now we're on another little mom-and-pop shop. This one was also on a 2009 Honda Civic, just like last week. Honda is the biggest problem in the world when it comes to Takata Airbags. They had the greatest percentage of them. They bought more Takata airbags than anybody else.

They sell a huge amount of cars. And it seems like every other car we do is a Honda. This is 2009 Honda Civic, almost 10 years old, with a passenger side to cut airbag we call. Buyer's Zone had listed online for $7,995. Agent Nick was deployed for his final mission of 2018. Hope it's not his final mission, period. No, no, no, he's still with it.

Operation Report and the first person, I called ahead to see If the 2009 Civic was available, I spoke with a salesman named Lester, who told me to come on down. He had the car we agreed to meet at 2.45, and he instructed me to ask for him when I got there. I found Byersone easily. As I approached, I saw it was a small car a lot on a corner, packed densely with cars. I didn't see any available parking, so I parked my car across the street of Walgreens. I found Lester inside the small office. He was friendly, led me outside to find the Honda.

It was parked near some picnic tables. Isn't that picturesque? Picnic tables. Where do you find a cartelage of ship with picnic tables? Served as an outside office. That's one of the luxuries of living in Florida. Yeah. Okay.

This time of here. Yes, this time. This is where we would return later to work the deal. Mr. Butterflyed the car, and I just learned, I've been in the business 50 years. I did not know what butterfly the car meant. And my son here... I've heard it. I don't use it, but...

It's like a shrimp. You pop the doors, the hood, the trunk. A picture of a shrimp. Open it up. Yeah. Cardinals love their little language, their little vernacular amongst themselves. And some of it's pretty vulgar.

But butterfly is not bad. I asked Lester about safety and the vehicle's mechanical condition. Specifically, I want to know about Bayer Zones inspection process. That's the name of the cardiologist, a buyer's zone. Cute name. Lester offered to adduce me to their mechanic. We walked over to a large tarp-like sunshade that served as a mechanical bank.

Again, only in Florida, a tarp underneath a tarp. Rick, have you ever worked under a tarp? Only in my front yard. Okay. That's where you got your experience. It looks like it's where we get the term shade tree mechanic. Exactly, exactly. So we have this picture here.

So we walk from the picnic table to the tarp, and we have a picture of that. Very picturesque. Lester assured me that all of their cars are carefully inspected for quality and safety. The mechanic took a break from working on a big black, shady suburban to talk with me. He said that the Honda checked out. He said he'd put on new tires and new brakes. I asked him if it was a safe car, and he said it was. Lister nodded in agreement with the mechanic and led me back to the 2009 Honda Civic.

I checked out the tires that had just been replaced. They looked new, but were four different brands. That is not interesting. I mean, I could see two different brands. Maybe three, but it's almost like they had to do it on purpose. It sounds like they put on new tires that they bought secondhand at the shop down the street. Or they took them off a car that had some other problems, you know. It would be interesting to look at the expiration date, the DOT.

Let's change the tires. You go that way, I'll go this way. We'll meet back here. Everybody grab a tire. Lester maneuvered the car out of its spot, closer to the exit. He moved to the passenger seat so I could get in a drive. He's now sitting behind the defective to cut airbag. The car was in decent shape.

Brave Lester. Appearance-wise, the AC Blue Coal. You know, I read the NHT. A disclosure on the airbags, and they don't say that if it's a passenger-side airbag, the shrapnel may kill the passenger. They say the shrapnel may kill the people in the car. So we talked about that last week, and it is a fact, excuse me, Siri's talking to me on my iPhone. It's a very good chance to get you in the back.

So it is a fact that no matter which airbag goes off, no matter which airbag goes off, you're going to have a problem. Yeah. So just because it's a small of the car, the worst probably is. Exactly. You said last week, a hand grenade goes off inside of the car. Don't feel safe because you're in the back seat. Right. Okay.

I mentioned this to Lester as if he had ever been in an accident. This car had ever been in an accident. Lester, on Q, offered to produce a Carfax report review. They said it had a hard pull to the right. Yeah. Yeah, Art pulled to the right and so on and so forth. I think that's what prompted them to ask about the act today. Last week, we commented about the Carfax reports,

and in fact, we had a call this week said, should, would I get a Carfax report? We haven't had anybody that said we don't have a Carfax. We may have had one. Yeah, I think I've seen it, and it was a small lot. They actually said you can get a Carfax report, but you have to pay $34.99. That's right, yeah.

Auto check is another thing, which is. just as good as Carfax. He handed me the Carfax Report. I immediately began to talk about the number. I think you skipped over. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Lester asked me to have a seat at one of the picnic tables,

about 50 feet from the tarp, the service department, went inside the building. He came back out with a hand-ridden write-up sheet and a Carfax report. I saw the write-up sheet at a price of $6,900, quite a bit lower than the price of $7,000. 995, I've seen online. Now, this speaks to, what are we going to call that?

A mistake? A mistake. No, I don't know. I mean, never happened. No, my theory, we've seen it a couple of times. I think the theory is they come in with a discount so they can say, listen, I've already discounted the car. But, you know, they're controlling the pricing from the posting online to everything.

Yeah. Chances are they've got about $2,000 invested in this car. They're not worried whether they're. sell it for $6,900 or $7,900. He handed me the Carfax report and immediately began to talk about the numbers. I stopped him. I said, I had concerns about the mismatched tires and the bad alignment, the hard pull to the right. Lester said that for $200 more, he'd be able to put two matching tires in the front.

Uh-huh. Well, you got to, man. Can't make this stuff up. Lester's got a lot of nerve. I mean, yeah, sure, we'll take care of it if you'll pay me to. do it. I told Lester that I wasn't what I had in mine. I said I thought they should pay for the tires and the price was too high anyway. Lester said he would call his boss and took out his cell phone. I looked over the Carfax and Lester was talking to Brian, the boss, on his

big LG phone. I saw there was a severe accident in the 2012. Look at the Carfax report. They rendered the vehicle undrivable and resulted in the deployment of both. front airbags i also saw the takata recall now i got a question okay maybe for rick you have the same question i have right so if the airbags deployed in the accident they replaced them it's like if they replace it is it likely they replaced them with tacitas i guess if that's what was available at the time right they would have had to okay yeah that was my question and um i think it depends i think the accident did you say two years ago no it was 2012 2012 Oh, okay, that's a long time ago.

So chances are, when they replaced it, they replaced it with the same problem. Because the problem didn't come out until two years ago about the Takada airbag, and then it really hit the fan. Yeah, the recall was announced in 2016. Yeah, 2016, so, yeah. So at any rate, we just got another set of bad Takada airbags. I was wondering, as I read this, well, they replaced the airbags. There was no notation in the NHTSA recall report, and I guess there should not have been,

They just put another bad ticotid. The only good news is it was, hopefully, the ammonium nitrate was a little newer. Now it's only six years old instead of... Depending on whether it's been sitting on a shelf somewhere since 2016. Anyway, a lot of questions. I also saw the Ticada Rico. Yeah. Okay, I looked at Carfax over a while Lester talked to Brian.

Okay, we did that. I interrupted Lester and asked him. to ask Brian about the accident and the recall. I said that these may be deal killers for me. I needed to have a safe car. Lester relayed this to Brian, his boss. Then it reported back to me that Brian said there was nothing for me to worry about

and he would be out shortly to talk with me. Lester got up and went inside and I waited. Lester returned without Brian. He sat down in front of me smiling and said that Brian agreed to put two matching tires on the front of the car, and keep the price the same.

He then reviewed the numbers. Selling price was $6,900. He added $197 for a dealer get ready. That's got to be the lowest dealer fee I've heard. Yeah. $197 for dealer get ready. Then they had a sales tax tag registration. It was COD, cash on delivery.

We'll give them a couple points for a very low dealer fee. Lester asked, do we have a deal at these numbers? I replied that I need to think about it. Lester said he'd better go get Brian and got up again. He was back in 30 seconds with Brian, who had immediately offered to take another $500 off if I did it right now. I said I still didn't need to think about it

and talk to my wife. I said there was a hard pull to the right. Brian said he would take it to a local shop to have it aligned. And by the way, it might not be an alignment problem. Who knows what friend is causing that hard pull if it was in a massive accident It could be a lot of things I said I was worried about the accident on the carfax report and the airbag recall I asked to reassure me are these safety are these serious safety concerns? I as Brian said no the car is safe and the title is plain now Wow Here is either just a very very negligent careless

uh dumb statement or a very devious uh statement which is a lie to the customer whatever it is it's very serious recall does exist and he said the recall did not exist and that's just not right uh so he he failed the tecotic test big time and if you haven't uh if you haven't read the uh safety risk under the Takata airbag recall I'll read this from the Carfax report in the event of a passenger side frontal airbag inflator rupture metal fragments could pass through the airbag cushion material potentially resulting in injury to vehicle occupants I notice this is the passenger side doesn't just say for the passenger and I talked about this earlier the risk of such an occurrence

increases over time is imperative you see schedule an appointment with an authorized Honda dealer now to avoid this condition of the future. So there you have the severity of this thing, which this salesperson apparently, he didn't tell it factually. Was it inadvertent? He had the Carfax report in his hand. I can't see how he could not have known. But it seems like he didn't even care about it because there is a fix available for that one.

It simply says it's incomplete. No brainer. Okay. We need to do a vote. We have some input. We have one, two, three, four, five, six. Seven grades have come in so far. All Fs and one big, fat F.

We'll get this from time to time. Well, let's go around the table. Who wants to go first? I'll go first. They got points for a small dealer fee. They got points maybe for discounting the car at the first write-up. But nothing, nothing they did can excuse them for how they handle the same. staccata thing yeah it was bad yeah one of the worst i think yeah so so f big fat f that's

yeah i i have to agree nancy i give them an f and uh you know you think someday a little happen when you have a report like this here that the mystery shopper will come back to us and say you know what um lester came in and he said oh my goodness you're you're i didn't realize you were here for a safe car. Hold on for a second. We have the safe cars over there in the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have those in another building.

It would make a good dealer fee. A safe car fee. Yeah, there you go. If you want a safe car. You got to pay a premium. It's $999. Exactly. I'm going to drive down there and give them my report.

Go do it. You have nothing to do today, except for get ready for a long cruise. Failure. The other thing, by the way, I wanted to say everybody failed. I mean, obviously the company failed. Lester failed, and then this mechanic, the mechanic's working on the car. I mean, he's not involved in the sale so much. I mean, he could have spoken up.

But why did he put four different brand tires on the car? They're putting used tires on that car. I guarantee it. Probably, yeah, takeoffs. Yeah, and the manager failed, so F, F, F, all around. Yeah, you know, I just, we talk about this. There's a little levity here, and we do it over and over again. It becomes redundant.

or a lot of the audience. Some of you probably get tired of it because the same thing happens. Deception, deception. There's got to be some people out there listening. Regulators, legislators, legislators, attorneys. Some very intelligent folks.

This happens all the time. Car dealers are lying and not advising customers about deadly safety vehicles and they're selling the cars and no one's doing anything about it. And Agent X isn't a natural shopper. He pushes where most customers won't push. Customers, I mean, this is not an insult, but people are trusted.

I have an idea. People are afraid to call. The attorneys, the legislators, the regulators are afraid to call. Call us on our anonymous feedback line. That way, we can't tell, we can't tell who you are. So if you're an informed legislator, regulator the governor anybody why don't you do something about making it illegal to sell cars with dangerous recalls that be www. your anonymous feedback.com

www. y-o-u-r-anonymous A-N-O-N-Y-M-U-S feedback f-E-E-D B-A-C-K dot com send us a message as to why you're sitting on your hands Mr. or Mrs. Legislator. We have a new governor. We have a new attorney general. Got a lot of new folks in office now. The new people and the old people. We can't find out who you are.

Why don't you do something about the Takata and the other dangerous recalls? We want to know. By the way, did you ever win a spelling bee? No, but I was a good speller. Yeah, you are. I was a good speller. My grandmother was an English teacher.

She used to hold me accountable. I'm a Sizzy. Ladies and gentlemen, we are at the end of our show. And as I reminded you earlier, we are going on vacation. And we'll be right back here on January the 5th. So we're looking forward to you tuning in on that particular Saturday. And I want to wish all of you a very happy holiday and a happy new year.

See you next year. All of us at Earl on Carly. and Stu, when will we see you? Next year. Next year. Have a great weekend.