Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.26.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mike Maroone Chevrolet

Episode Date: December 26, 2020

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

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

Your auto team is back on a very chilly morning in South Florida. 38 degrees this morning when I was out checking out the sun. and that's pretty chilly for South Florida. We're broadcasting and telecasting all over the world, of course. I have to keep reminding myself this 17 years ago. We're a little old 30-minute radio show and it was just radio, pure radio. Call in and that was it. It was pretty exciting and still is. We still have the call in. But over streaming. We're streaming Facebook and Twitter, Periscope, YouTube. We're literally all over. We have a a nice coverage of the United States.

And we shoot out every now and then to all over the globe. Like Bali is my favorite place. We actually had a call from Bali. So thank you for joining us on this chilly morning. Probably chilly where you are, too. After all, it is winter. So it's supposed to be chilly. But we don't get 38 degrees in South Florida very often.

So it's something new. I had to search around for a black leather jacket that I don't wear very often. And here we are, to answer your questions, to hear your comments, to hear your suggestions about how we can improve the show. We have a very unique sort of a venue to come in on, it's called Your Anonymous Feedback.com, totally anonymous. us. Stu, my son across from the table from here in the studio is looking at anonymous feedbacks, I'm guessing, as we speak. We seem to get a lot more of those and almost anything else. People like their privacy, their anonymity. And they're usually pretty thoughtful,

constructive, interesting feedbacks. And you could just do the old-fashioned text. I can't believe I said old-fashioned text. Text, I can still remember trying to get used to texting. And now it's become part of our lives. So you can text us at 772 4976530. 772 4976530.

Coming up on the new year, R2A, 2021, we've been through a dozy of the 2020. Change our lives kind of a year. A watershed moment is another word they use. the whole world changed this year.

Can you believe it? The pandemic, and we have the light at the end of the tunnel. We have the vaccines coming out. 2021 is going to be a lot better. It changed everything, including the auto industry. And that's why we're here. We're here because of the retail auto industry, how you buy a car, lease a car, get your car repaired,

maintain, et cetera, et cetera. And that's all changing. It's changing a little bit. more sluggishly in the retail auto business. And we can talk about that later as we get into it. Meanwhile, let us try to help you with your day-to-day thoughts and problems and challenges with your vehicles. We have Rick Kearney in the studio.

I mentioned them in the recorded introduction earlier. Rick Kearney is a certified diagnostic master technician. That's a mouthful. And it just basically means he knows just about everything there is to know about an auto If you have a squeak or a rattle or even an odor, or a drivability issue, a pole, whatever you want to say. You can call Rick on this show. You can use the old-fashioned telephone number. 877-960-9960.

That's 877-960 or Facebookus, YouTube, Twitter us, Facebook.com, forward slash Erlon cars. Or you can stream us anywhere. You know, you can be in Zimbabwe and you can stream us. www.Stream earloncars.com. Yeah, stream earl on cars.com. Ask Rick, why is my, why is my Chevrolec Camaro making this noise? And he can probably answer for you. A lot of folks don't feel like going into car dealerships or independent repaired garages these days, because of the pandemic. And depending on what location of the country you are in, you just don't want to go in at all. I mean, it's really scary. So Rick, it might be able to help you. You know, you can do a quick check. He might be able to tell you something that we'll either put your mind at ease because

there's nothing to worry about or maybe a fix. We've had people call in that Rick has advocated a way to fix it. You can send us a video or even an audio file if you really want to. they get fancy, and we can listen to it and see if we could do a diagnosis. And then we've got Stu Stewart sitting across from me. He's our cybermaster, and the most interesting part of our show is our mystery shopping report. It's toward the end of the show where we send out an undercover agent to a car dealership somewhere in South Florida, and we pretend to buy or lease a car. We name names.

It's not anonymous. We go in there, well, the shoppers anonymous. We don't reveal their identity. But we name the names of the salespeople, the sales managers, the car dealerships. And we tell you exactly the way this went down. Was there transparency? Was the advertisement honest?

Was the car advertiser at a price you could buy it for? And we tell all the facts and the numbers. and we put them on our earluncars.com website. We have an archive there of shopping reports going way back to earlancars.com, and you can see hundreds of car dealerships in Florida that were shopped, and we have a group of dealers that pass the test. We grade the mystery shopping report at the end of the show. If they pass, you can buy a car safely from this dealer,

but there's some certain reservations there. Always have to be careful when you're buying a car. but you have to be less careful on a recommended list. But on our do not recommend list, don't even think about buying a car from those dealers because we grade on the curb. And when we fail a dealer, trust me. Some of the ones on the recommended list aren't that great.

So, just watch out. It's kind of like Consumer Reports. You don't have to have the best car recommended from Consumer Reports, but you sure don't want to have the positively do not buy that car. buy that car. Well, we have the positively do not buy from this dealer list, and we have the other dealers that are just kind of average, or maybe almost, a little below, or a little above, but we don't have any really scary dealers on the recommended list. The scary dealers

are on the do not buy list. So there's kind of like what the show is all about, and then Nancy Stewart, my co-host, my, she founded the show with me. We got together and said, us to a show, close to 20 years ago, half an hour, and it was a lot of fun. Had hardly any calls, and we kept going and plugging and trucking, and suddenly it grew to a two-hour show, and here we are. Here we are with a studio of experts, and Nancy Stewart is, I would say, single-handedly, almost, single-handedly built the audience of the female listeners. And we're very proud of that.

I know Nancy's very proud of that. And we have a whole bunch of women that call the show, and they're very articulate. They give a perspective. Let's face it, folks, men and women are different, right? I mean, equality is equality, but they're different. And they think differently, and they buy differently, and they constitute the purchasing power of 50% of the planet.

And the United States, they buy 50% of the cars, they service 50% of the cars, and they think a little bit differently about the way they buy. And the smart retailers out there are paying attention to this. So, Nancy, let me turn it over to you, and let's hear about that special deal we have for female callers. I will. Excuse me.

I'm so happy this morning. I actually have two new lady callers holding right now. Amazing. You've made me very happy. And we are building a platform here. and the ladies do help me. I speak to them throughout the week and they call

on Saturday mornings. They're a big part of the show now, as Earl said. So I am going to go straight to Austin, Texas, where Jessica has been holding and Sandra, if you'll hold on, we'll get right to you. Good morning, Jessica.

Morning, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, awesome. Welcome. I have a a car that I'm still under warranty, and I want to know what is, and as far as the service department goes, what is the thing I can look for in order to know that a service department is going to treat women well?

I'm just not real trustful about service departments. That's a tough one. Oh, I was just saying that's a tough one, because across the entire, country, car dealerships are, number one, there's very few women working in the car dealerships, especially in the service department. You'd be hard-pressed to find a female service advisor and then good luck trying to find a female technician. I guess, I mean, that's a really good question. I think maybe just if you look at the, if you can get an idea of the overall reputation, the other things they do, if they have, I mean, I know online reviews are a little sketchy,

but a reputable dealership, if they're doing good things or treating and consuming, right in other areas it might be a good indication that they are more friendly or to women but yeah there's there's really there's I'm not sure isn't there like a website an Angie's list or something like that that identifies these I think you know one thing you can do is you can go online to the individual dealers websites and some dealers will list their staff some dealers were actually a photographs of the staff and you can get a feel that way if you see a dealership

that has 20 salespeople and they're all men, that'll give you a flavor of maybe what they're thinking. Speaking for our dealership, and I say in total transparency, we are car dealers, we own a dealership, and we strive to find female employees. It's difficult because the car dealerships have such a bad reputation. Let's face it, a lot of women just say,

I don't want to subject myself to that. So it's hard to find women that want to work in the business, but if you don't find a cardiologist at least trying, because when a woman walks into a car dealership, we found most women would prefer to deal with another women, and we found that something that even more interesting, many men would prefer to deal with a woman. So they're in high demand, but they're low supply. Check the websites, Jessica. and if you have 20% or so or 25% that's pretty good.

If you have a dealership with zero women employed there in the sales or service area, that I'd be a little dubious that they would be as considerate toward women as they should be. And Jessica, I'll chime in. This is Nancy Stewart. It's a better, well, the 21st century has taught us a whole lot of things. The Boys Club, it's still around.

But number two, there are a lot of options for you to find out what dealership, you know, respects women and just, you know, they come first and they treat them, as I said, with respect. But you can find out all that information, just like Earl said, you know, you can find out about the employees and not only in service, but in sales all the way around. and so the environment has definitely changed, but we're still working pretty hard to make it a whole lot better. And you have a lot of options, so take advantage of that, like girls said. Is there any other questions? No, that's a good start. Oh, great.

I appreciate it. Okay. You won yourself $50 this morning, Jessica, and I thank you for supporting our colleagues. us right here at Earl Stewart on cars. Thank you so much. Happy holidays. You're too. Okay, we're going to go to Sandra, and Sandra is calling us, and she is a first-time caller.

She's calling us from Wisconsin. Oh. Good morning, Sandra. Good morning. Welcome to the show. My sister bought a car from you. She has said so many good things about you, and then she said, you actually answer females questions.

Yes, definitely. Okay, I've got one. I've got a 2004 Ford Lariat pickup truck, and the headlights will not go off. I was driving home, and even with the switch on the side, it does not go off. I had to disconnect the battery. help. Is it possible, and you probably check this already, some vehicles are set up to leave the headlights on for 30 seconds a minute after you turn off the car? Like, did you wait long enough to see if that was set up like that?

Oh, yes, because I do have the automatic lights on, but then I says, okay, this is strange, and I actually turned the switch, and that didn't work. I started the car, and turned the switch off and shut off the car. That didn't work. And finally, I disconnected the battery. When I reconnected the battery the next morning, the headlights were still on. Interesting. You know, Sandra, I think that Rick can answer your question this morning. I have to hand it to him.

There's not a question he can't answer. So I'll give him the mic, and he'll address the issue. Awesome. Well, my first thought would be a switch has shorted, that the switch is, even though it's turned off, the contacts in it may be shorted and keeping them on. The other thing I would look at is the possibility of the relays that control the headlights, because with automatic headlights,

they don't simply have the power going straight to them. That relay system may have shorted out inside, and it could be due to water intrusion or something like that, If you've got a little bit of a water leak, you may not notice anything, but the water can actually follow the electric wires. It'll run right along the wires and get inside the block where the relays are. Ballpark, what would those two issues cost? If it was issue of water, the relay, or are they short? If it's just to switch a couple hundred bucks, if it's a water leak into that relay system, you know, into the wiring like that,

first you'd have to find the water leak get it repaired that could be several hundred and then getting whatever those uh whatever component has been damaged again could be several hundred to a thousand and you would all right it could get quite expensive i what i noticed on my way home is um now i don't think it's water because it was snowing so there's less chance of that when we don't have the downpours up here that you have in Florida. And it was about 30 degrees out. But as I was driving, I noticed there was a pause when I tried to go from high beam to low beam, and then it wouldn't go to low beam at all.

It just stayed on high. So I had looked in the book and said something about the relay And I went on YouTube and found out where you hide it So I really try I live up here in the woods I better learn something about a vehicle You sound like a do-it-yourself lady

You kind of have to be If you live out in the woods Bless you If there was a relay, what was the cost? The YouTube thing showed the handle on the column there. The lever might be loose, and that's something I'm going to explore today. But I thought, okay, let's see if there's any quick fixes. Otherwise, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and say, okay.

Well, if you can get to that switch that's on the steering column, the lever that has the switch built into it, and simply unplug the electrical connector, and if the lights go off, then it's the switch. Ah, that is great news. Great news, right? I actually know someone who has been fixing vehicles of mine for a long time. It's kind of a shade tree mechanic, but he just... drove over the road for a number of years, and so far he's kept our other equipment going, so I will tell him about this, and between the two of us, maybe we can get this thing so I can shut my eyes once in a while.

Sounds good. Hey, Sandra, somehow I can picture you taking the engine apart and putting it back together again. Well, I did try that one. and I had to change a drive train, and I ended up not knowing how to put it back together, so I had levers sticking through the floor, and I usually get some help nowadays. Yeah. Well, now you've got $50 to go toward repairing your car. I'm sorry?

Now you've got $50 to go repairing that switch or that relay. You won $50. Sandra, thanks. That's awesome. Thanks so much for giving us a call this morning. You are supporting the platform here that I continuously try to build, and it has been a great Saturday morning because I've had two female callers. So enjoy your day.

Good luck with your switch, and I hope to hear from you again. You will. Now that I found you and know where to listen, You'll be hearing from me any chance I get. Oh, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Happy holidays.

The same to you. Happy holidays. Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your company. You're a big part of the show. And we always take a moment to thank everybody that is part of Earl Stewart on cars. So give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget Your AnonymousFeedback.com.

We so enjoy hearing from anyone at www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now we're going to go out to Vero, and I believe Bill has been holding. Good morning, Bill. Yes, good morning. Happy holidays, everybody. Thank you. Happy holidays.

What can we do for you this morning? Okay. I had more of an etiquette type of question as opposed to something particular about the vehicle. I just want to say I've been a fan of the show. I'm a first-time caller. And I just want to thank everyone there, and especially Earl, for your knowledge. I just think it's invaluable to consumers, and it's such a help. and really appreciate what you do.

Thank you very much. So my question is this. Thank you, you, welcome. My question is that, you know, listening to the show, I know I need to do my research. So I've done my research, and I've picked out a vehicle for my wife. It's going to be an Accura RDX, and it's going to be a purchased, a 2021 new vehicle. So the only thing that I know exactly what I want on the vehicle, and I've gone to to my local dealer website, and I'd see that they have the particular car that we wanted.

The only question we had was the color. So I went to the dealership the other day with my wife, just primarily just to look at the colors available. So when we got there, we had to wait a while for a salesman, so they did send the salesman out, and I explained that I'm just really in the market for the vehicle, but I just wanted to see the available colors they had. on this year's model so the uh the gentleman took us around and we looked at some of the cars and uh he uh the issue i had with him and my wife did was that he didn't speak english very very

well it was very hard to understand him and uh the other question i had was that he didn't seem very knowledgeable there were some things about the vehicle i asked him about he didn't quite know very much because I know the RDX has had some issues with breaks. He says, oh, I know nothing about that. So my question is this, what would be the proper etiquette to, say, go to a different salesman? How would I handle that? Because I know, obviously, salespeople, well, that's my customer, I helped them. But I spent about a half hour with them.

We didn't test drive the car. I just gave them my name. Oh, and let me just say that I have a history with this dealership because they do do the service on my other actress. So I know some of the people there, but no one in the sales department. So I wanted to ask, Earl, you know, what's the best way to handle that, or should I not, should I stick with that particular salesman? And I just wanted to get his opinion on it.

Yeah, Billy, you hit on one of my challenges as a dealer, the advantage of doing the show and also being in the business. Yes. You understand. I understand the challenges. And you're so right. I am struggling to come up with a system where I can match the customer with the salesperson. In other words, you want to have that ability to communicate. First of all, you said earlier that you have a difficulty understanding. Now, without any sort of prejudice or political incorrectness, the fact of the matter is an accented person to some people is more difficult to understand. That's a challenge. But we're talking about a transaction here of a lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars at Accura RDX is probably in the, what, $50,000 range? Well, a little less, but it's a lot of money.

and you want to have clear communication. The short answer to your question is, speak with a manager, general manager, and explain your situation. Nothing the sales manager wants to do more than to sell you a car. So you have the right to tell him, and I know you would do it courteously with respect,

say your salesperson is a very good person, and I have a difficulty understanding him, I also would like somebody with a little more technical knowledge. I really like to have some that I can clearly communicate with, and I can answer some of the questions. Sometimes you just have to do that. And I know how you feel so many people don't want to hurt the salesperson's feelings. They understand the economics of it.

That's a potential sale that salesperson may not be paid for. Depending on the cardinalship, sometimes they do share commissions to compensate for situations like this. But you're spending too much money to worry about niceties. It's important that you make your decision accurately with all the information you need. So speak to the general manager or sales manager and say, please assign a different salesperson. It's hard for some people to do. And it's easier probably maybe to start that way before you meet another salesperson who you have to change from. But that's my advice. Very good. Yeah, that was pretty much what I was thinking about as well, but I just thought, you know, it would be prudency at Q. But I would do it in a sensitive matter and just say he's, you know, obviously a good salesperson, so not as to, you know, give him any bad marks or something. And I didn't spend too much time with him. So I do agree that, you know, had I spent the days, weeks with them on the phone doing the, I

would have certainly, you know, continued with him, but it was the initial thing. And, and, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, and you're right. I am a, you know, a degree engineer. So I am more in a technical person. I like to look at the engine and X questions and where things are and services. So, uh, he was falling down a little bit on that end. But, um, I, I agree with you the difficulty of finding someone or matching someone to the person. But I thank you very much your like to go with a great suggestion. And, uh, have a great 2021. you and your staff. Thank you. Thank you. Great 2021 to you, Marty, and thank you so much for calling, and we hope to hear from you again. We are going to give out that telephone number again,

which is 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60, and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And we are going to go to West Palm Beach, and Marty has been holding. Thank you for your patients morning good morning hi how are you we're well thank you what can we do for you this morning I've got my own theory to this question but I know you're the experts thank you why why doesn't Toyota put memory seats at least in the high-end Camry's who I don't know but they used to and that was I think I think they took them out in 2020 and I'm not there's there was no announcement

no there's no I've had 18 19 20s there's no memory seat in the Camry and I'm my being back look they never did Rick shaking his head at me well thank God I'm not salesperson Avalon's yes but not the Camry's I could have sworn that the XLE did but okay no I've got a

2020 XLE it's got every option but no memory seat my theory is they want you to buy the high-end Avalon. That's right. Avalon's have memory seats. As a matter of fact, even the top-line tundras have memories can have memory seats. Yeah, that's what I have.

For people that don't know what a memory seat is, it's a really cool little device. You set it to your particular dimensions and preferences, and so you, your wife, and I guess you have four different selections up to four, and just pop in and hit that button, and you've got your perfect setting every time you're on the car. I agree with you, Marty. It's something that I think Toyota dropped the ball on. Yeah, I think it's more than that. I don't know if it's the Avalon theory. They sell about three Avalon's a month.

And even in the Avalon, I've had Avalon's, and you had to buy the Limited to get the memory seat. If you got the lower-priced Avalon, you didn't get the memory seat either. Yep, you're right, you're right, Marty. It's probably more of a plot to get people to buy Lexuses. And Marty, you know, that Camry, what a great car. ever drove with the camera it's a beautiful it's a beautiful riding car I have no complaints about anything right but the only reason why my wife drives the car

when she drives the car she's got to move the seat she usually lets me drive usually I just drive that one she drives her car yeah but the part I don't like when you take it in for service the service guy or wherever you go if you're valet it they're moving the seat exactly it takes me 20 minutes to get the seat back to where I like it now you're talking Earl's language that annoys him terribly yeah well Nancy's 5 foot 3 I'm 6 3 and she puts her car back my car out of the garage and if I'm going to try to put the car back in the garage I can't get in the car I can't even reach the memory

seat to push the buttons right but that's I just thought that it's just a ploy and their part because it's got to be cheap to manufacture because sonatas have it, accurate accords have it, so I'm sure Toyota could do it. Yeah, well, I hope they're listening to this show because if a lot of people feel like you, it's cost

some sales, and I thank you very much for your input. Yeah, Marty, that was a great analogy on your part. Thank you so much for tuning in to Earl Stroudon Cars, and we hope to hear from you again. Okay, have Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you also. The number here is 877-960-960, and the text is 77272-497-4-930. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And I'm sure by now Stu is on overload with some text this morning. Yes, we have quite a bit, quite a few coming in. But I'm going to start with a text from Anne-Marie because she has the best questions. All right. Happy New Year. I hope you can give me an idea on why my 2013 Camry isn't getting the highway mileage that it used to. Normally my camera gets over 30 miles per gallon on the highway on 300 plus mile long summer trips with the AC on. Yesterday, it was cold by Florida standards, 54 to 39 degrees. I used the defroster and the heater from time to time. I fought very strong headwoods for the 300 plus mile trip. My camera got around 25 miles per hour. Why? Did the headwinds make that? much of a difference. Could the winter blend gas affect mileage? I try to use the cruise control as much

as traffic would allow on both trips, but both trips were over on the same route. My speed wasn't excessive. So her question is, what's going on? Yes, the wind can make a very big difference in your fuel economy, and yes, changes in fuel quality from place to place can have a big effect as well. I didn't know that the wind could have that big effect. Oh, yeah? You ever drive an FJ cruiser? Remember when we had those? They looked like a Tonka toy? Yeah.

It was like driving a brick wall down the highway. Are there any numbers like that? In other words, if I'm on the I-95 and I'm going directly into, let's say, a 20-mile-an-hour headwind on the Camry or a cord or whatever car you're driving, are we talking one mile per gallon? I think Ann Murray is talking about five miles per gallon. Quite a bit, yeah. Well, part of it, the design of the vehicle, how wind-resistant the vehicle is, you know, how sleep cars for cutting through the wind,

is going to have a big difference, how hard that wind is blowing and what angle it's hitting your car at, but also other factors, too, are going to be involved, such as the traffic, but also the fuel quality she spoke of. Here's something that might have been a factor, but it would be several things, I think.

Yeah, I went down. She's talked about her tire pressure as well. So her tire pressure on the tire, the max is 51 PSI. The recommended is 35, and she had them to 38, maybe getting it up closer to the tire manufacturer, max pressure instead of the... But she's not talking about increasing her fuel economy. She wants to know why it changed, so I'm assuming that... She said she had brought it in for service prior to this trip, and didn't she...

check the tire pressure, it was lower than she normally keeps it. But it wasn't dramatically so. I think you stumped us on that one. I think Stu's got the best answer. I think the tire pressure, if it was much lower, would be more significant than the wind resistance. It's probably a combination of all those factors together. And, of course, the colder air makes your tire pressures go lower,

so that's going to cause a little more rolling resistance too. All right, so let me ask this question for Anne-Marie, because she's probably thinking of it right now. Is there anything that could be wrong with the car? I mean, we always hear people complain about gas mileage, and then we tell them it's the way you drive it, and we tell them it's the tire pressure, and we tell them it's the headwinds.

But sometimes it's the car. Is it possible that on this 2013 vehicle, is it possible there's something that we could do diagnostically, that would be affecting our gas mileage. There's a possibility that something could say a leaking injector or something. But most cases, that would show up as a check. You'd get a check engine light first would be caused by that. The car would see the problem.

I got you. I'm going to say about 90% of the time the car would see a problem like that and throw a check engine light for it. Okay. And, Marie, thanks for joining us every single week. As you can hear, you really got our minds working. Thanks so much. Folks, where can you go for free information?

That's what we're doing here to help you, the consumer, and all our listeners and the faithful that have called us every single week. We're going to go to, you know, I need to mention before I announce this next caller, Earl's Vigilantes. I didn't mention that earlier. Where the hats. And Earl's Vigilantees is something you can sign up for, and you can help the, you know, the consumers or neighbors in your community. And if you consider yourself any type of an auto expert, you know, I'm not asking you to be able to take an engine apart or anything, but just to answer some questions and just sign up for Earl's Vigilantes. It's pretty exciting, and we're having a real good time with it. And we got hats and shirts, all kinds of stuff.

So go to www.orgelsvigilandies.com. And we are going to, boy, we have a lot of phone calls today. We are going to go to Lance in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Lance. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. You're welcome. I have a question.

I see a lot. I'm looking to purchase a vehicle, new vehicle, right around that $40,000 range. And I see a lot of commercials. You get $5,000, $10,000. back from the like the manufacturing price but I think a lot of those you have to finance suit the dealership on realistically is there like a number that you can follow with like a vehicle that costs like 40 grand I mean I'm kind of thinking you know with taxes it's going to be another three grand realistically if I

go in there say okay um say I just have the cash or I get the money from the bank and I go in and out the door the sticker prices 40 grand is could I get that vehicle for that or is could I get more rebate or or is there a rule that you follow when it comes to these rebates on some of these new vehicles. The best thing to do is to ignore the advertisements and whatever they advertise, just, as I say, put no credence in it whatsoever. Every advertised price you see from a car dealer is a lie. I hate to use that word. It's a strong word, but the car dealers are not telling you the true price. You cannot buy the car for the advertised price.

practically any other product. If you're buying a refrigerator or a loaf of bread, they advertise price is the price you pay. With a car dealer, it is not. So you decide the car you want to buy. You do some research online. If you want to buy it directly, get at least three out-the-door prices

from three different car dealers of the same maker. You're buying a Chevrolet, you go to three Chevrolet dealers for the exact same vehicle, same MSRP and tell each dealership what you're doing I'm getting my best price out the door

now the out of the door price is a price you're right to checkout for and bring it to the salesperson and you get in the car and you drive home you don't pay anything more on an out of the door price the other two things I recommend are the Costco auto buying program

and true car true car.com there are two online buying services that will give you a good price without the hidden fees. So you said true line. True line is like a website type thing. True car.

You know, T-R-U-E-C-A-R.com. W-W-W-TruC-C-R.com. And, of course, Costco, I recommend Costco over True Car, but they're both good. And go through their program. If you're not a Costco member, it only costs you're 60 bucks to join Costco for a year. You know, that will be the best 60.

I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that Costco rebate thing. I've kind of talked to a few places, but, okay, well, I appreciate the information. That helps, because it's been like 15 years since I bought a new car, and I'm kind of not knowing what to do here, but that gives me a pretty good start. Yeah, exactly. And Lance, you can go to Rowan Cars, and you can read all about several columns that he just recently wrote,

and that's on True Car, and also Costco. And I'll tell you, you can't go wrong with... consumer report. That's another way to really get what you want. So there's a lot of options out there, and there's nothing like a knowledgeable consumer because you really have control when you either go into the dealership or you, you know, go to the internet department. So I hope we helped you. Definitely. You guys did a lot. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Lance. Have a great weekend. Okay, without a do, I think we should get back to Stu.

Let's get to anonymous feedback. The first one came in while Marty was talking. It's pretty funny. It says, I have a suggestion for Marty for a cheap memory seat, a post-it note on the steering wheel that says, hey, put the seat back the way you found it. I don't recommend doing that with your wife, Marty, but when you bring it into the service department, absolutely.

especially when you're doing your husband a favor. Right, exactly. You know, I think that's a universal issue in families. It's an issue at my house, and I have a little car, and if you don't put the seat back the right way, I will slam my head on the top of the door getting in the car. Have you ever gotten a car and pushed the wrong memory button, and it's a one for a midget, and you're six foot three,

and then you're being crushed against the steering wheel? Yeah. And then when you get crushed, you can't move. You can't get out of the kind. Now you can't reach the button anymore. You have to blow the horn and ask for the paramedics. Well, you don't have to blow the horn because you'll already be blowing the horn because your body is crushed into the steering wheel.

I've also gotten in your car hit the memory seat and got yours and thought I was about to take a nap because I laid back so far I was practically. Really? Honestly, Rick. A lot of cars, the memory seat, when you turn the car off, the seat moves all the way back and down and the steering wheel moves up out of the way to make it easier to get in and out. Well, I wonder if you can't reach the ignition because your arms are pinned to your chest by the steering wheel.

Well, when I get into a car and I start the car up, and then all of a sudden that seat suddenly comes forwards all the way and way up, and suddenly I'm jammed up against it, and I can't reach the ignition. And then I have to try to reach down to the seat to move it back so that I can safely drive the car into the shop. Okay. Oh, you're going to enjoy this one. Anonymous feedback. Your attacks, this is directed towards you, Earl, your attacks and other dealers and dealer fees are disingenuous. The part you leave out is the fact that dealers' profits are being driven down to nearly nothing from factory pressure and fierce competition.

The dealer fees are the only profit they can make. Car dealers are important parts of local economies and to starve them the way you are trying to do, they didn't finish the sentence. Okay. At the end of the day, even with dealer fees, consumers are paying less for new and used cars than ever before. Next time you preach, tell the audience the whole story. You know, it's so clearly a car dealer that wrote that. Right. And this car dealer is so clearly, he's not misinformed, he's just not telling the truth. The facts are this, and you can Google it, you can check automotive news, you can check the Wall Street Journal.

Car dealers are making more money. today than they've ever made. They're making obscene money. The auto manufacturers are making obscene money. They don't need to lie and cheat and steal to make money. They think they do, but they don't. And I'm not being disingenuous. I think it's wrong to advertise a car for a price that you won't sell it for. I think it's wrong to advertise a loaf of bread or a refrigerator or a TV set for a price you won't sell it for. You go online now and you find any car dealer advertisement for a price, try to buy it for that price.

You can't do it. So am I being disingenuous to think that that's the wrong thing to do? And don't give me this crap about car dealers not making money. They're making tons of money. I mean, car dealers are, I think 2020 will be a record profit year for car dealers. It is with all the dealers. And the year before it wasn't too bad either. And Cardi always make a lot of money, so don't give me that crap about we have to lie, cheat, and steal to make a profit.

Okay, now we demonstrate that every single week. I do not believe we've gotten an ad price honored. I don't normally attack anonymous feedback. I don't like to attack anybody because, but when I see something that I know is clearly disingenuous, you don't believe what you said in that article. And it was too, the way it was worded, I know you're not stupid. you're just as honest. There you go.

And isn't a Carvana that is advertising now, no dealer fees, and they talk about other dealers? I just saw this yesterday on TV. Anyone want to chime in? Well, they're not a dealer, but they are pointing out, I think, that at a dealership,

you're likely to get charged a dealer fee. Yeah, and they're just sick of it, and it's not necessary. So I thought that was refreshing that it was just brought to the forefront. Yeah. absolutely you're all right now I can't say that word on the air okay so last week we had a text from fits who had an issue with his Mazda 626 and leaking coolant so he's

got an update update on the 2000 Masa 626 with the hairline crack in the coolant tank that was oozing out coolant actually it was two weeks ago when he sent the text I suggest a duct tape remember you did I remember we all got a chuckle but he didn't listen to you thankfully he said he He did what Rick said, but instead of using flex seal, he used epoxy. The epoxy worked very well with no more oozing of coolant. Good advice from Rick. Oh, wait a minute.

I also tried duct tape and gorilla tape before I called in. Oh, that's right. They both were failures, so there you go. Don't listen to or listen to Rick. But the epoxy sure did work. Thanks for advice, Rick. There you go. Cool.

Glad it worked. Okay. Let's see here. This morning is the text. This morning, my tire pressure warning light was on when I started my 2018 Route 4. I realize this may be caused by the 30 degree temperature, but how do I know? I really don't want to make a trip to the dealer, although it's your dealership and I know it'll be fun, but I don't want to risk a flat.

Does the light go off on its own when the weather warms up? You can just get the car driver, right, Rick? The friction with a road will break it rise up, and about 10 miles or 5 miles. you'll see the light will go out. If the light doesn't go out, then you got a problem. The first thing I would do is take a walk around the car and just visually inspect all four tires to make sure that no one of them is sitting super super low. Exactly. And other than that, yeah, you can just drive the car or just go to your local gas station and air up the tires a little bit. Make sure you use a good tire pressure gauge to get an accurate amount in there.

So it does go off on its own? It will when they warm up enough. Okay, that's good to do. That's good to know. Because that would be really ridiculous. I mean, we do have a lot of people in the service department on cold mornings because of that. Yep. And hopefully we're advising them that next time when it happens, give a little time and inspect like you suggested. Well, we're also, when they come in for that, the first thing we do is set the power pressures correctly to where they should be. And so they're perfectly safe that way.

Okay. If you're having that phenomenon in the cold weather, and it happens every year in Florida because we have that swing. then you probably aren't putting enough air in your tires for the whole year. If you, you know, I think the spread that we've heard to earlier was like 51 to 35 or 35. Right. Well, it could be anywhere from some cars recommend 30 pounds, some 35. Tires can have a maximum pressure, some of them for 35, some of them for 50. It's a very wide range.

My point is if you use closer to the maximum. which I recommend, and certainly for fuel economy, you won't have that swing. I have a question, though. Does it trip the light when it hits a certain PSI for the car, or is it after a certain reduction? Like if you had it up at 50 and it dropped down to 45, that's a big reduction, but still within the range,

would it trip the light? There's a pressure level that we call the threshold that can be set. Some of them, we can reset it ourselves as a mechanics can, using a scan tool, where you'll set that threshold, say, at 25 PSI, maybe at 20, maybe at 26. Some cars, it's actually permanently set it like 26. So it's a number it has to hit. Right.

And when it goes below that level, that's when it turns to light on. There we go. See, I'll learn something, too. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a brief. Oh, wait. Dinner break. Anyway, we're going to take a pause. for the Texas, and we're going to go to Howard.

Howard is a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. Happy New Year to you guys. Thank you. Happy New Year. Okay. I have a question for Rick. Concerning tire pressure, is the readout in your car, is it more accurate than using a gauge to find out your tire pressure? A lot of the cars will show you the pressure that those sensors are reading on the display.

They're pretty accurate, but I still like a good old-fashioned tire pressure gauge. Just double verify. Okay, next question. The gauge, I got a pencil gauge, you know. It's not the greatest. I used to have a gauge with a battery, and I think they're more accurate. So what do you think about these two gauges? The pencil gauge or the gauge that has a battery in it?

Well, at the shop, I use the type that has a big digital readout, and the reason for that is those numbers that are about an inch and a half high are much easier for me to see with my old eyes. So I like the digital ones. They can be quite accurate and much easier to read. Okay, the only thing you have to change the battery once in a while, and it's hard to find those batteries. Another question concerning, this is a little caveat for the viewers. When you adjust your side view mirrors, you should always adjust it so you don't see the body of the car.

just a little bit out where the body of the car disappears and that's the best view from the side view mirror. You agree with me, Rick. I do. Okay. Okay. Oh, sorry, Howard. I kind of do this and I don't know if anybody agrees with this.

I always try and keep the slightest hint of the body of my car. That way I don't know if it's too far out. If I can slightly see it, then I know I don't have to adjust it, so I know it's set properly. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Another thing, if you have people that buy cars in Florida, southern Florida, and they don't come with antifreeze in the cooler, in the washer,

what happens that if you go, if you buy a car, let's say in September, and for some reason you have to go back up north, what happens is that the anti-freeze in the window washer freezes, and then you've got a big problem. So I suggest anybody that buys a car in Florida and goes back up north in the winter, what they have to do is they have to actually get rid of that fluid and put antifreeze in.

Now, Rick, how would you do that? I would just run the washers until the water was out, or the best way. Actually, just let the engine run for a little while, and it'll warm up and melt all the ice back down. I thought you would put a little tube in there for the suction and drain it out. But, okay, that's another thing. Okay, great, because a friend of mine that happened. Is there any damage cause if that tank freezes with the windshield washer fluid?

If you had just water in there and it froze completely solid, I can see the possibility of it either building enough pressure to push the pump out of the bottom of the washer jar or cracking the plastic jar. Oh, okay. All right. But I think that'd be pretty rare. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Happy, Happy New Year, and be well. Thanks, Howard. Thanks for joining us. I'm glad you're here in Jupiter rather than, well, up in the north end of the country. We're going to go to Paul. Paul has become a regular call, or he's calling us from Missouri.

Hi, Paul. Hello, how are you doing? We're great. Good, good. I got my camera. three weeks ago. And I'm calling with a question that I don't really want to ask because I don't want to have the problem. But I think this will be for Rick. My Android Auto is switching on and off constantly, and I don't know what to do about it.

Make sure that your phone has been updated to its latest settings. And then if it's still giving you issues, stop into dealership. and ask them if there's a software update for your car. The radio software updates come out any more, like almost every three months. It seems like there's a new update for the software on the radio. Is that something that you have to pay for? If you're under warranty, no. Okay.

All right. I might take it up there today and see. I got a really good deal on it. I feel good about it. And if you're... If your car happens to be out of warranty, most places they'll probably do it for around $40 to $50 for the update. Okay.

Paul, if you want to give us the name of the dealer you bought the Toyota Camry from in Missouri, give them a little plug for any people listening out there. Yeah, it was Cold Toyota in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Okay, well, thank you very much. and you folks in that area if you want an honest deal, Paul got one, and maybe you will too. It's always nice to know.

Word of mouth is a powerful form of information and we'll spread the word for, give us that name one more time. It was Code C-O-A-D, Toyota, and it was a lady salesman and a lady finance manager that I dealt with, and they were both wonderful. Thank you very much.

I didn't feel under pressure with anything. Tammy Halls was a Selvin and Alicia was the finance lady and they were awesome. Well, congratulations. I was in that within a couple hours. Thank you very much. I'll probably see you live in the car now. So happy for you, Paul.

Thanks for being a regular caller. Yeah, if my wife kicks me out today, I'll be happy. I'll get living in my car. We'll see y'all later. Have a happy New Year to you. Happy New Year, Paul. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, you can still sign up for Earl's Vigilantes. Earl's Vigilantes, if you're tired of the car dealers and their dishonesty, you can easily sign up, and you can help some of the consumers in your community.

So it's www.orgelsvigilantes.com. We are going to go to, whoops, okay, we're going to go back to Stu. I'm hogging all the attention. You got any messages over there from YouTube? I've actually got a couple. Right now, I've got two of them that actually kind of fit together. Old Man J. Motoring is asking, he says, Good Morning.

How much of an effect is using regular gas on a car such as a Lexus NX300 that calls for premium fuel? Is it bad? And as a matter of combination with that, Robert Prophet says, has someone seen what would happen to a new Camry if they started to use 88 octane gas like performance miles per gallon and so on.

If your car calls for regular unleaded fuel, you should use the 87 octane fuel. If it calls for premium, you definitely should use the premium fuel if you can. Using the lower octane fuel in a car that calls for premium is going to cause pre-ignition or spark knock and the computer is immediately going to pick up on that and it's going to retard the timing way back. Can I say something? I thought we had a different answer last time we talked about this. I thought that first of all there's a nuance of, there's a recommendation and a required.

Some manufacturers require high tests. Some manufacturers recommend high test. If you recommend high test, not require, I thought we agree. You could try a test. Yes. And if you don't feel any performance, if you don't hear anything, if the car is still running the way it did before, keep on using it. And if it doesn't ever bother you, and there's no performance issue, save yourself a lot

of money and go against the recommendation. Right. On the recommended, I would have no issues with keeping it at 87 octane. Yeah, but it's easy to mistake, recommend, for required. And I don't like the nuance. Very correct. So, yeah, if it's required, I would stick with the premium. But if it's only recommended, use that 87 octane.

And you'll be just fine. I will say this. I have a Lexus that requires high test, and I don't pay any attention to it. And I've noticed no, I usually use high test, but sometimes the other high test, and I put in regular, and when I do, I don't get any noticeable difference in performance. So if I continue to use the regular, I probably would, but I don't continue. Right. But the other thing is, you won't notice it because the computer is going to make those adjustments

before you even realize it's happening. Well, then why do I want to put in the high test and pay all that money? Because it will have an effect on your fuel economy over time, and you're going to lose a bit that way. Am I going to lose a bit that will offset the savings I get by using a regular? No, it wouldn't. Okay. But it could have detrimental wear on the engine over time.

Uh-huh. Okay. And the other one I've got here is Helen Lasky. Says, what are your feelings on having the tires rotated every oil change? I read an article and it said it isn't necessary unless there's pronounced wear on the tires. My opinion, if you've already gotten bad wear patterns starting on the tires, you're not going to correct it by rotating the tires. Once they've started wearing oddly,

you're going to wind up with those tires just continuing that way and they're going to wear out a lot faster. Rotating the tires front to back, which is what most manufacturers recommend, keeps the pattern from developing. It keeps it from causing a bad wear pattern on the tires. Let me jump in on that too. Tireware is a function of mileage, not time. Oil change is a function of both.

So if you're driving two or three thousand miles a year, as we have some people that drive two or three, you still want to change your oil. I mean, you still want to change your oil every 12 months. Oh, yes. But if you're only putting 2,000 miles on your car, why would you rotate and balance the tires? Well, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the balance.

The rotation, I would simply stick with a 5,000-mile cycle on it. Okay, 5,000. So 2,000. Right. If you're doing, if you need to do the oil changes a little more often, that's part of the... Her question was oil change, and if you want to buy, if you have to change your oil every year, if it's synthetic oil, even if you don't drive the car. Right.

So if you don't drive the car and you change your oil, there's no sense on rotating or balancing your tires because you didn't drive the car. Well, I was kind of hitting on the part where she said she read an article that said it isn't necessary unless there's pronounced wear on the tires. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's my concern. That's not true. You're right. Right. If you've already got a bad wear pattern started, it's too late.

That's why you should rotate the tires at an even cycle of it, say, every 5,000 miles. else. Not when you change your oil. No, not necessarily in every oil change. Okay, let's move right along here. Got a text. You guys have talked about dog safety restraints before. Why wouldn't these be made mandatory for dogs and cars, just like it is for humans?

If the powers that be don't care about the safety of dogs, they should at least care about the danger to humans when a 60-pound pit bull turns into a flying missile in a collision. Well, the same thing would apply for a Scottish Terrier. You don't want a missile. I don't know. I'd rather be hit with a Scottish Terrier than a pit bull because... I guess you're right. It depends on what N hits you. I'll tell you the fact the matter is,

as people, as the marketers of the world, the retailers of the world, understand how much people love dogs. I think they need to... even if they don't like dogs, they should realize that if they want to sell more cars, they should provide safety restraints for dogs. Absolutely.

Because people love their dogs more than they love other people. Absolutely. I could see even a manufacturer just doing it as an option. As a test, they'd gauge the interest in it, and I bet you millions of people across the country would choose that option to protect them. I wonder how many cars Subaru sold extra because of their really cool car commercials with doggies.

Yep. And dogs are, you know, they're part of our lives now. Yeah, big time, no. What do you do with Oreo? Oreo just says she sits in the seat. We don't have a strain, yeah. She didn't drive around the car that often, I just should lead to a vet trip down the road.

Is she in the back seat? I know. She sits in the front seat. Oh, does she? Of course. Yeah, of course. She's very small. I wouldn't mind getting hit with her in a collision.

She just bounced right off me. Ooh. More anonymous feedback. Local TV station has an excellent article about odometer rollbacks from Carfax. Here are the facts. 1.8 million cars are on the road with rolled back odometers. 450,000 are sold each year with rolled back odometers. For $200, the tool can be purchased on eBay and Amazon.

Legitimately use is for use from repairing the vehicle, vehicle instrument clusters. The Minnesota Attorney General's website has an excellent article with the Minnesota car laws covering the sale vehicles in Minnesota and they just thought that would be a nice topic but that is definitely a danger out there we look at vehicle history reports like Carfax and Auto Check and we hope that the information is accurate and up-to-date it's the best that you can get but it's not always up-to-date and certainly if

there's people out there using you know special equipment from you know Rick's tools to roll back an odometer I didn't think it was possible to roll back an odometer. I thought that, they said you can buy this on Amazon. I remember reading that anonymous feedback and I never completed my task. I was going to do that to see if I could find something on Amazon that would allow me to roll back in odometer. I don't, I don't believe if someone wants to do that. I'll search when we get off some of these text. It's a major thing to be able to reset odometer. I mean, can anybody do that now? I didn't think so.

I think it would require some special equipment because I know I can't do it. I don't have any equipment that none of my tools would allow me to change the odometer on a car except to physically change it out for a different one. I'd be amazed if you could buy that on Amazon, but we'll find out. Okay, there's some stuff out there,

but I don't know if it's legitimate or not, so we'll look into a little bit further. Okay, back to anonymous feedback. Earl, you could probably get away doing a mystery shopping report if you go far away enough from home so you don't get recognized. Maybe after this pandemic, you could fly to Seattle or somewhere and do your own. I would feel very sorry for any salespeople who winds up with you. You know, I do online a lot. I do a lot of online, which doesn't give me the gratification I'd get if I did it myself.

I thought about that going, I really would have to get out of it. of Florida because I am infamous in Florida. You notice I said. Seattle's a great idea. Not famous. And too many, it's a small community and too often, even our own mystery shoppers get busted

because salespeople move around. And I would hate to drive all the way to Tallahassee and find out one of my old salesmen was working in the dealerships. Watch out. Here comes Earl. I think Seattle is an excellent choice. And I anticipate you probably will be traveling once you're safe to do it again.

So you should have your travel list start that right now. I'd love to do that. That's what would be a lot of fun. All right. Okay. Here's a text from Daniel G and PBG. And for our out-of-state listeners, that's Palm Beach Gardens. If I call a dealership ahead of time for a price, don't they have to honor it when I arrive?

If they try to raise the price or add a bunch of extras, that would be lying to a consumer and therefore illegal. What am I missing? You're missing getting in writing, and I can't say that often enough. Any conversation promises prices that you get with a car dealership, have them an email or at least text, ideally, you know, a contract, but you're not going to get that. So if you're dealing online and you're trying to get an out-the-door price, you should have an email from that salesperson saying that you can buy this Honda cord

out the door plus government fees only or just out the door period including all fees for this price and you have that in an email they're pretty much stuck i mean it might not be a legal document but if they refuse to honor that the the uh the uh ruckus that could be raised by you with the media and with the manufacturer and with a general manager of dealership they're not going to screw around with you. Get it in an email in writing, but if they tell you online, if they do it verbally

by phone, they're just going to say, you misunderstood me. That's right. I like that. Ruckus. Ruckus. I'm going to create a ruckus. I like Bruehaha. Unfortunately, it's not illegal to lie to the consumer. It's morally illegal, but it's not legally illegal. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call

tool free at 877-960-90-60 or you can text us at 770. to 497-6530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Now we are going to go back to Stu. Okay, jump over to anonymous. I'm alternating anonymous feedback text. Okay. Well, this is going to be fun.

Do you have a call coming in? We have a call and he is a regular caller from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning and happy holidays to everyone. Oh, thank you. China has its own electric car, very few people aware of it. It's called it, it's called the K-27, it's from the K-27, it's from the Candy Corporation, which is traded on NASDAQ.

That's a company that was founded in 202, and it was listed on NASDAQ and 206. I have no idea how good the stock is doing, but this automobile that they have, it goes for 59 miles on one charge. It has a top speed of 68 miles per hour, and they want to bring it into United States at a cost around $27,000. So I don't think that much of it, but it's an attempt, another attempt, of a country that makes its own EV car. And the company that I want to talk about now,

its potential is beyond belief, and people don't even know they're making it. They've been working on it for seven years, Apple Corporation. They're coming out with a fully around 24, 25, fully electric car, and they also are going to claim that it's self-driving. So people keep talking about Tesla, but there's going to be other people sitting out there waiting in the dark, and you will know everything that Apple comes out is usually 100% successful. By the way, the Tesla that's made in China has a lot of recalls, problems. Nothing major, but there's safety recalls, mostly loose bolts and other things that you don't read about. But Tesla's having their own problems, and in China it's recalls, but not so bad on safety that anybody got hurt or killed.

But it's a big problem with these, like I say, loose bolts in the car that's manufactured there. It's funny how they don't do so well in China. General Motors sells more electric cars in China than Tesla. And I think the Chinese are real sticklers for quality. You know, consumer reports finally again gave a do-not-recommend on Tesla, one of their latest models. So their quality leaves something to be desired when it comes to little stuff. but the Chinese, you know, they consider the General Motors

electric cars better than Tesla's. What more have you been reading about the Apple car? Have you heard anything further on it, full electric? No, I'm like you, Apple, you know, Tim Cook and that company, they have all the money in the world. They have, you know, they have more cash available than most countries, and that's what it takes. They have the software, they have the talent,

and they can do anything they want. It's not a car. It's a computer. And they're real good at computers and software. And if I had to bet on who would be the number one seller of vehicles, if they really put their mind to it, I'd say Apple. Yeah. I've been reading, John, the same thing you've been reading.

I did hear that they're going to probably partner with a manufacturer. They'll design it and then give the specs to, like they do with the iPhone. They don't manufacture it. And that Tesla is in consideration, Volkswagen is in consideration. And there's a German company, I can't remember the name that they're thinking about. Oh, here's a, John, you'll love this. Elon Musk in 2018 called Tim Cook and asked Apple to buy Tesla. And Elon Musk, this is fact, this isn't a rumor.

Elon Musk was running out of cash. He had about two weeks of cash left. he thought he was going down and he called Tim Cook to sell his company Tesla to Apple. Tim Cook wouldn't take the phone call. Wouldn't talk to him.

So it's interesting. This whole thing is like a novel. It's exciting. All the players I mean, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, you know, I just love reading the news every day. By the way, the number one

selling American car in China There is Buick. Yeah. Exactly. They saw more Buick for China than they do in the United States. You remember the motto, when better automobiles have built, Buick will build them. Oh, yeah. All right.

We're looking forward to the shopping report. Thank you, John. Thanks, John. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. Okay. Rick, do you have anything for us? We're caught up at the moment. Okay, we'll go back to Stu.

We have some anonymous feedback, and, oh, boy, are they lucky that they're anonymous? Oh, oh, here we go. Do you have any idea how irritating it is to hear you go on about women's issues? This isn't the 1950s. Stop acting like a feminazi. Well, that's interesting. I like that. I really like that.

This person, obviously, well, let me see how I can put it delicately. You're not living in the 21st century, and there is still that environment out there, and we still need protected. And that's the reason, is that directed at me? I have no idea. So, you know, a little bit of help from everyone is really very necessary. necessary. This is the 21st century. In the auto industry, we haven't exactly, well, attained this perfection that we should. And to your remark about the 50s, there are days when it seems

like as if it is the 50s. You know, it wouldn't be surprised. It's definitely Rush Limbaugh. We're competing with them. He's our competition. He's checking out the competition. Yeah. I think hit a nerve there. Sorry, Rush. Oh, Rush just retired, by the way. He's off the radio. He's very old. He's very old. And, you know, I'll tell you what, I got a lot of respect for Rush Limbaugh in the fact that he's

a performer. I never believed in his what he had to say. But he was a radio pro. He was a money-making machine. Number one talk show. I mean, that's what we are here. We're a talk show. He's the number one talk show in the world.

And the advertising and the revenues and the products he sold, he was a great entertainer. So I'm going to miss him. Every now and then, I'd tune him in for a little while because he was entertaining. Yeah, very talented, very educated, and I too will miss him. I haven't had the chance to really tune in to him with our new normal. But he definitely has retired. God bless him. He's in his fourth stage of lung cancer.

Yes, yes. So, Stu, what's the next text? That's the complete opposite of the last anonymous feedback. Oh, boy. What did you do for Christmas dinner? We ate a ham and drank a bottle of wine. There you go. Anything else?

Oh, Christmas Eve dinner. Ask about Christmas Eve dinner. I'm sorry. They didn't ask about that. Wow, did we have a Christmas Eve dinner? It was fabulous. We had homemade lasagna by my daughter who dropped that off. Honeybag ham and the wine that Ted gave us.

How nice is that? Yeah. All right. Isn't it true, this is anonymous, isn't it true that if you return a newly purchased vehicle within 48 hours, the dealer to the dealer, they're required to accept the return and issue a full refund. I believe this is the law in Florida. No.

Not the law. Positively not the law. And be very careful. When you take that car over the curb, you own it. And when you sign the papers, actually, you own it. But if you really want to cement the deal, you take legal delivery of that car, you take possession of it, you're not bringing that car back. And too many people believe there's another urban legend, the 72-day rescission, 72-hour, there's a home solicitation bill that if you buy something and people knock on your door and saw you back in the day they sold encyclopedias to protect people. against encyclopedia salesman and Fuller Brush Salesman, that's going way back.

They have this law that says, if they trick you and they trick you in your home, you can return the product within 72 hours. That doesn't exist for automobiles. There is no right. Once you sign and drive the car home, you own it, and the car dealers will not take it back. They will not take it back. That car can have no miles on it. you could put it on a truck, a carrier, and take it home.

You could wrap it in plastic, protect it from the elements. They're trying to figure a way to get you to take that car home. So never accept delivery of a car. Never drive the car home until you're absolutely 100% sure. The car is exactly what you want. The price is exactly what you thought you paid. And that you have no scratches, no dinks, no dents. Everything's going to be perfect.

because when you take it home, forget about it. Now, when you're shopping for a car, you're going to see car dealers that are going to say that they have a return policy. You've got to read the details there because it's so limited. They'll say, sometimes it's so vague, must be returned in the identical condition.

Fine print. It's definitely a mileage thing, yeah. So that's... Three days, five days, and then you read the fine print. So believe me, there is a lot of ways that you're not going to qualify on a return. Exchange policy is BS. All that means is you pay $50,000 for a car and you can exchange it for another car.

Chances are when you exchange it, you'll end up paying more profit to the deal that you did on the car that you bought the first place. That's right. All right. Robbie and Stewart, who is a longtime listener, sent us a text. It was a link to an article, and I hadn't seen this in the Wall Street Journal. And it says Japan says it plans to stop the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the mid-2030s, bucking criticism from 20, Toyota, who said that a rapid shift electric vehicles would cripple the car industry. And I've heard that about in California, and I think the United Kingdom has made a similar pledge.

And apparently Japan is following along with that. Have you read, did you read that article today? Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's happening. I mean, you know, can we believe, 20 years ago, could you believe that the combustion engine would be obsolete? and it'll be in our lifetime. You're just not going to be able you're just not going to be able to buy a car

except for an antique or a collector's item or something like that. You won't see any combustion engines on the roads very soon. Yeah, it's amazing. Okay, jumping back over to anonymous feedback. New car smell. I cannot fathom how people consider this pleasant.

How can the odor of outgassing chemicals be enjoyed? I don't want to even get into the fact that these chemicals probably are carcinogenic. Come to think of it, can you tell me if these are cancer-causing? They're not good for you, and it's psychological. I mean, over years and years and years, you got in a new car and it smelled a certain way.

You know, it's just... You associated it with happiness. You don't smell with your nose and you don't taste with your mouth. You smell and you taste with your brain. So your brain says, oh, that's a new car, and that's the way new cars smell. So the next time you smell something like that, you say, ooh, pleasant feeling. Your brain smells the car.

Yeah, it's like that. Your mind should tell you that the smell's bad for you, but it doesn't. I just can't believe people actually buy spray cans to make their car smell like that. I've had some girlfriends like that that were bad for me. Right, but they smelled good. They smelled good. That was the dumbest thing I ever said on the radio. Yeah.

And look at Nancy. I got a better example. The smell of that big cheeseburger. It's terrible for you. But you love it. That's a better analogy. Okay. Here's a text from Janice in Hollywood, Florida.

At what point should someone consider getting a new car? I have a six-year-old Buick enclave and I have had a few costly repairs. It's out of warranty, including several big air conditioning repairs. Any advice will be appreciated. my advice is don't buy a new car use car is a far better value if you do your homework you buy a late model two or three year old car certified

maybe some factory warranty on it check it out with consumer reports negotiate with three different dealers at least and get a good price you're saving yourself a ton of money and depreciation as simple as that late model used car is a far better value than a new car I think that her the question was like at what point should she

give up on her car I mean getting a different car because she's putting money into her Buick enclave and want to know when she should get out of that is it was an economic year I think she answered your own questions and he it's an economic thing I mean if your repairs are getting the point where they're exceeding the value of your car or approaching the value of your car we use a rule of thumb less than 50% if he had 50% of cost to repair a car you shouldn't repair it you should buy another one. But I wouldn't buy a new car. I'd buy a late model used.

Okay. All right. This is the last anonymous feedback that we got. I remember watching TV shows where cars had nitro boosts when they switched it on, the car would go into hyperdrive. Urban myth, do nitro boost

really exist? Rick? Yes. But only for certain cars that have been modified so that they can handle having nitrous injected into them. It's usually what they call the modder kits, street racers in that, cars that are going to be run on the drag strip.

What is nitrous? Nitrous oxide is... Oh, nitrous oxide, laughing gas. Same thing as the dentist uses for basically to put you under. But what it does is an oxidizer that is sprayed into. the engine in order to give it much more power, but at the same time, it's also extremely detrimental to the health of the engine, wears it out rather quickly, and if done incorrectly, can blow up and blow the entire car up.

Well, mainly for race cars like dragsters and things like that. Yes. Yeah. Not for street driving. No. No. Okay. This kind of tags on. We have a question on Facebook from Steve, We were talking about the return policy and whether or not you really do have 40 hours to return a car. He wanted to know if there is an attorney review period in an auto purchase contract.

No. No. When you sign an auto purchase contract, you're signing an arbitration agreement. You're assigning the fact that you will not have your day in court, that you cannot sue that car dealership.

Almost every car dealer I know, has that arbitration clause in their retail purchase order, their vehicle purchase order. So you have forfeited your right for any legal action except through the arbitration. And as you probably know, arbitration leans toward the business and not the consumer because the arbitrator is a regular customer. I mean the business is a regular customer of arbitration panels. only use them once in their lifetime and probably don't even use it once. So if you're a business and you do a lot of business with arbitration people,

they're going to lean toward you in their decision process. That's been a proven fact. Okay. Robbie, who sent us the article on the Carfax and the Adomondon rollbacks on another text, that's a great question. If a car is totaled in an accident, if it costs too much to repair, does the same apply for repairs to keep it running? I read something on that recently, and I think the answer is no.

If you have, in fact, I'm sure I read that, if you have, it depends on the state, Texas is a good example. Texas is always a good example. In Texas, you can have a terrible, situation with your car mechanically or collusion-wise, and unless it's a total, meaning 100%, you can, you don't have to show that on the title. You can, you can, they will sell you the car in Texas with a clean title, even though it's

90% destroyed mechanically or any other way. As far as a mechanical cost, I don't believe it's applicable. It's only the collision that's legally applicable. Stu is Googling of this as we speak. Tell me if I'm right. You're right. Earl against Google. No, you're right.

I'm right. And you're faster than Google. That's pretty important. Yes, I am. Okay. Jumping over here, we had a couple of more anonymous feedbacks pop in. When a car dealer offers employee prices, how can one verify this I guess I mean how do you find out if it really is what their

employees are paying well that's a great question of the mystery shopping report today coming up very shortly has to do with employee pricing and who's employees and are they telling you the truth it goes all back to the fact that how do you tell when a car gear is lying that's when his lips are moving he's advertising so yeah if he's advertised he's lying there are employee purchase plans by manufacturers that are good General Motors, Chrysler, has Toyota ever done that? No, Toyota never.

But certain manufacturers do have purchase programs for their employees and retired employees. So if you're a GM employee, you have a right as a former retired employee to buy a car from General Motors at an employee price. It's a really good price. And I think, I'm not even sure whether they allow the dealer to add the dealer fee or not. but that's another story. So employee price is only as good as what they make the employee price. Employee price could be for the car dealership employees, and most car dealers screw their employees when they sell them a car.

So, you know, they add to charge dealer fees. That's a little secret they don't talk about. Yeah, they don't talk about it. That's not, employee price isn't always a good thing. Yeah, so employee price, make them demonstrate to you exactly. people who doesn't still shop and compare that price yeah because I don't believe anything a car dealer says right we could have shortened that entire answer by just saying don't believe the advertising but then we wouldn't have a show exactly

we could just have a message on the screen compare three prices don't believe advertising exactly but you know this is also just like Rush Limbaugh this is also entertainment this well it's infotent that's right all right this is the last one that came in and it's kind of funny in your experience and they're talking about you in your experience what area in the country is the dirtiest nastiest car dealership wise it ain't even close it's right here baby god city we're right south florida south southeast florida actually more so than southwest florida right and this is the the smoking gun this is dodd city and it's just absolutely terrible it is you know it's just because there's so

many car dealers with such high volume it's in toyota uh they call this the show so So if you're in the Toyota executive and you wind up in South Florida, it's District 1. It's the very first one. We're in District 1. And it's the highest volume, the most aggressive. Yeah, it is the Wild West. Well, this will tell you something. I hope I'm not violating some proprietary laws here.

But District 1, meaning South Florida, from Palm Beach County all the way to Key West, on the east coast, the dealers down there are the, it's the number one, I believe, district in the United States. The number two and number three volume Toyota dealers, Hollywood Toyota and Al Hendrickson Toyota and the USA are right down there

in South Florida. And it's the high pressure dishonest, unethical BS advertising that goes on in South Florida, the dealer fees, the hidden fees, and all the other crap that goes on, there's nothing like South Florida for all the manufacturers. Beware when you buy a car in South Florida.

Be careful in North Florida or anywhere in the country, but if you're coming to Dodge City, you better be ready. It's a tale of two cities. So you have Southern California, which is really, really close. You know what? They might even beat South Florida volume-wise, but the state has intervened and kept to put a cap on the dealer fees at 75 bucks or something like that. I mean that's like

a monastery. California is like a monastery. It's Sodom and Gilmora. That's why I laugh. I'm looking at South Florida. I hear LA dealers you know they're like we're L.A. you know that's huge and I just laugh. I go you guys are nothing. Don't turn around and look at South Florida when you're leaving you'll turn

into a pillar of salt. Exactly. I don't know if you can refer to the monastery in the 21st century. I think the reputation is changed quite a bit we're all caught up yeah and yeah we're all caught up okay hey folks don't forget to read earl's latest column attention florida car dealers uh 20 21 new year's resolution i read it and it was quite entertaining and educational very very nice it's too bad we didn't

get a chance to mention this article uh amid covid the average we might have a charge car loan got $4,000 bigger. Yeah. Very interesting. The new normal. This last, I've done this frequently, the 2021 new year's resolutions, 2012. I do this every year for the car dealers, knowing they don't pay any attention to me.

But this one here kind of hit on the issues. If you go to Earl and Cars.com and read the blog, it'll be coming out in the Florida Weekly and the hometown news. But I'll give you the essence. I have five things here that I said. Let me say. Yeah, five. Eliminate your hidden fees. I'm talking to the Cardinals as out Florida.

This is a nutshell of my resolutions recommend. for car dealers of Florida. Eliminate your hidden fees. Eliminate dealer-installed accessories. Post your best, lowest price on all the cars you offer for sale. Don't course or trick your customers and do financing with you. If you feel you can't make a profit doing business ethically and honestly, sell your dealership. You know something? The dealership prices today are at all-time highs. If you want to sell out today, a car dealer can sell out today. and get more money for his car dealership than they're sell out if you don't want if you're afraid to take a chance doing business honestly sell out but i i really like that that was one of

my favorite columns attention for the car dealers 2021 new car resolutions i like that okay now getting to the mystery shopping report interesting mr shopping report and uh roger dean sherman has been around longer than any car dealership I know under the same family ownership. Roger Dean passed away many years ago. We have a stadium named after him in Palm Beach County. But Roger Dean's been around for a long, long time, and to see him sell out to Maruni. And Maruni is originally the president of Auto Nation. And before that, he was in business in South Florida with his father, Al.

I didn't know Al, but I knew Mike. And they bought out Roger Dean Chevrolet. Kind of a historical thing. Probably means more to me than the average consumer because I've been to the carpens of so long. So, December 17th, Roger Dean Chevrolet became Mike Perroney Chevrolet. A lot of dealerships are changing hands here, by the way. The dealership Advantage Ford and Stewart changed hands. What was the other?

We had some dealerships. Arego. Origo changed hands. And last year, we had some dealerships in Del Rey. All our nations buying up dealerships. A lot of things are happening. The transition of ownership is really accelerating, partly because of the high prices and the high profits

that car dealers are making. So Al Maruni and son Mike bought their family dealership operations of Florida in 1977. 20 years later Al sold his nine stores to AutoNation. Mike Maroney continued on with AutoNation as his chief operating officer until 2015. You might remember they named the dealerships Maruni instead of AutoNation first, yeah.

And then later Auto Nation. So if you bought them a car from Maruni, it was likely an Auto Nation store, and then they changed most of the stores back to Auto Nation. Anyway, here we are. We're going to go back and see Roger Dean Chevrolet. We shopped recently. It was not a good shop. It was a bait-and-switch.

And we hadn't shopped them in two years, and they were strictly old-school. and we decided to go back because we got Maruni, who is a national figure. You see, he has Auto Nation, very, he's a philanthropist. It donates a lot of money to Cleveland Clinic, and a respectable guy. And Auto Nation typically runs above average honest, transparent dealerships compared to most other car dealers. So he's a spinoff from Auto Nation. We wanted to see how Maroney Chevrolet would do.

Patty Dean was a daughter, and she originally went partners with Maroney, and then just recently he bought out the remaining interest from Patty Dean, so it's strictly Maroney now. Whenever a car dealership changes ownership, things happen. You do mention Arrigo. They were recently bought out by a very reputable family. And we're seeing changes there and toward the positive.

So it's good news for you car buyers out there is this trend of changing of ownership occurs. So we're investigating the all-new Mike Maroney. We were at that location with Agent Lightning, just over a month ago, and I just said earlier that they didn't do well. It was strictly bait and switch. We failed them, didn't we? Yeah. And we haven't been failing a lot of dealers recently.

I mean, we angst and we scorn, but we give them Ds and D minuses. And, you know, we don't give good grades, but we give them a grade enough, good enough to put on a recommendal list. Otherwise, you have no place to buy a car. So here we go. Back in again after the failed Roger Dean Chevrolet, now Maruni Chevrolet, over Shelby Boulevard and West Palm Beach. Agent Lightning went in to see the dealership. It cleaned up its act. under the proprietorship of Mike Bruney.

Based on the ad that attracted our attention below, it didn't look like it was going to happen. You just see these ads. And this one here is for a 2021 Chevrolet Travers L.S. MSRP, 3495, and $9,27, discount, that's a huge discount. And the selling price, they say, is 2488. There's some fine print there.

but I can't read it, but, you know, this is the ad we went in on. And when you see an ad is too good to be true, it's too good to be true. Here's the report, speaking in the first person if I were Agent Lightning. I bought my son along for this mission to Mike Maroney Chevrolet. We were greeted by salesman named Michael before we could fully emerge from my car. He wore a mask. So that's a little, you know, when they rush the car, when there's the wall, wolf pack out front, and they're standing around, and before you can get out of the car,

they're standing by the side of the car. That's a hint, but there might be a little high pressure. Just a hint. Not necessarily true. Michael got right to the point. He was wearing a mask, though. That's good. So let's give him the pluses where they earned the pluses. He's wearing a mask. Michael got right to the point, asked me why I was there. I showed him the ad for $9,000 off on a new 2021 Chevy Traverse. Michael dutifully pulled a notebook, pen out of his pocket, wrote down the price, and some other information. Then he said he needed to check on it and left us there in the parking lot to wait. He returned on a few minutes and reported that this particular vehicle has been sold.

It's no longer in our inventory. So that's a negative vibration. Time to go. That's when you should leave. Cars gone. Car's gone. I asked that it was the only one they had Michael said

it was the only one they had at that price so I'd almost prefer they lied and said that yeah that's the only one we have we don't have I mean but he admitted that they had other cars the same car but not the same price without pausing

he mentioned that the fine print disclosed that the offer was for a specific stock number. Now I wrote an article you can see on earlancars.com. It's called the old stock number trick, or at least I use that term, stock number trick. Most people don't even know about stock numbers. I mean, we're dealers, so a stock number is how we account for our new and used car inventory. Each has a unique number, and it's a coded number with a hash,

hashtags and numbers and letters and stoop. We have our first grade has come in for the shopping report. We what? We have our first grade that's come in. We're 30 seconds into the shopping report. Jonathan gives him an F. He's just saying no more. Slow down, Jonathan.

It might get really good, you don't know. So nobody knows what a stock number is except a dealer and a salesman. So a dealer had a great idea one time, and many years ago he says, How do I get away with advertising a car and not having it when they come in so I can sell them another car at a higher price? Oh, I know. In the fine print, I'll put a stock number. I'll just put it, and here's a typical stock number, hashtag 12765B. Typical, I just made that up.

But that's a typical stock number. It means something to the dealership. It tells them how long it's been in stock, if it's a newer used car. and, you know, it has information only that he understands. But you're reading, if you're reading the fine print, which you can't, but if you could read it, blow it up, you see, you see this Traverse, LS, and you'll have the price of 2488, and it'll be this obscure little number, hashtag 2751B. It doesn't say only one car at this price, which is what the law would require, and if the law did require that, it would not be in fine print, but it's adding insult to entry

to not even give the courtesy of the disclosure in the fine print, but hide it with a stock number. Stock number doesn't mean anything to the average person. Anyway, so he says that the fine print disclosed that the offer was for a specific stock number. It did not disclose it, because you didn't know what that meant. Okay, I told him I didn't think that kind of thing should be allowed, I'm speaking for Agent Lightning. I consider it to be false advertising. Michael pushed back and argued that the offer is put online. Michael is a salesperson at the beginning of the month,

and the vehicle will eventually sell. The stock number is specified to let customers know it may sell and no longer be available. Michael... He's so honest. Michael, the stock number doesn't tell anybody anything. You know what it means, but you're not buying the car, Michael. I'm buying the car, and it doesn't tell me or any customer, any of that.

You know it, but I don't know it. It's almost like Michael believed himself. Michael then pivoted to the switch, here we go, and offered to show me another transverse that were available. He reminded me that these would be priced higher than the ad. Still, painfully honest. A painfully honest is a better way Because it was painful and it was stupid

Because if he really believed that the stock number told a customer anything Then he's stupid If he knew it didn't then he's a liar We went along with it to let him lead us back to his cubicle It's a little bitty desk inside the showroom I observed that all employees wore a mask Now is another good one Let's give you know thumbs up

wear a mask, except for those I can see in private class offices. That's okay. Looking at the computer screen, Michael said he had three, 2021 traverse Ls is in stock. He showed me a screen, and I picked up, I picked the silver one, with an MSRP at 34095, the same as the ad car. So here he has one, this exact same car, but he won't sell it at that price.

So that's the purest definition of, bait and switch. He might have just said, no, that was the bait car that's gone, and this is the switch car. And that would have been... I wouldn't be surprised. That would have been honest. Okay. He left to get the key. Michael came back with the key and led me and my son back outside. As we went over the vehicle, my son, I like this. Ancient Lightning's got a sharp son. My son helped set up our cover store by reminding me that dad wants to be sure we don't agree to anything too far above the ad price and that he wants to see the numbers before signing in.

I'm sure Michael was listening to everything we said. The kids got talent. Maybe we could do as soon as he attains majority, the age of majority, we can send them out. He'll be a great shopper when he gets of age. We took a short test drive, went back to Michael's cubicle. as we sat, he asked if I was a Costco member. Now, let me... I've looked into it somewhere.

Mind everybody. We're talking about Mike Maruni, Chevrolet, Oklahoma, Boulevard, and West Palm Beach. Just bought out Roger Dean Chevrolet. That's who we're shopping. Okay, as soon as we said, he asked me if I was a Costco member. He said I could get an additional $1,000

off if I was. I said I was a Costco member, but he never asked to see my membership card. I asked some questions about this, beginning the show, he was in charge of the mystery shop. Costco, I was dubious that they were really a Costco member. Costco, in this case here, is offering $1,000 off of this vehicle,

if you're a Costco member. They do that for General Motors dealers, and I think for certain other dealers. So that was a $1,000 off. I thought, I didn't know where that came from, but Stu found that particular ad for this particular Chevrolet from Costco. And I would have to assume that he is a Costco member.

But he never asked to see my membership card. And that'll tell you something right there. Costco requires that you ask to see the Costco membership card. So take it for what it's worth. Michael asked for my driver's license used it to fill in my personal info and his computer then he left to go get the numbers

he returned to five minutes with a worksheet that was still branded with a Roger Dean logo and name. That's sloppy. You know, it's legal sloppy. Mike Maroney, if you're listening, or if someone knows Mike Maroney,

that's sloppy. You know, you don't want to use... You buy a dealership. Yeah. Liability purposes. says, you buy a dealership, you don't use the old documents with the old name of the old owner. It's just not good. Michael asked for my drive, blah, blah, blah, blah. The top line was $34,000, for some strange reason, $200 more than MSRP. We don't know what that was. He showed me a savings of 2668 and the sale price of 31 62626 he added $754 in government fees that's that's so

inflated there's no there are no there's not 754 in government fees in Florida so saying in terms of 6% sales tax and registration license DMV charges it couldn't approach $754 maybe 400 for new tag more 50 possibly so they're hiding some more hidden fees and that's what you do right you hide them they wouldn't be called hidden fees if you didn't hide them so they're hiding some more fees and they're calling the government fees which is a terrible violation because you they're not government fees they're profit and then they got one day disclosed they will tell them about this big fat hidden fee but we won't tell them about

the other ones and the other ones uh proctoc yeah nine nine hundred ninety five dollars for proctococ we're not sure what that means. Because it's similar to the experience that you get with a proctor. Exactly. A prokologist documentary of fees and sales tax. Then he subtracted a $2,000 rebate for an out-the-door price of 33338. Boy, Mike Maroney, as you're listening, you're having a heart attack as we speak.

Michael then asked what I wanted to do, what we wanted to do, me and my son, I said, I need to go over the offer with my husband. He didn't seem bothered by this. Offer me his business card, I told him I'd be in touch. Here's the epilogue. Remember what I said about dealerships changing when they undergo new ownership? Well, maybe that's not the case here. Same bait and switch advertising with big, unobtainable discounts. Similar sales experience, we had a difficult time getting a true car price to compare to Agent Lightning's price. However, judging by the market averages for this model supplied by your car, we do not feel it was a very good deal. So there you have it.

In fairness to Mike Maroney and Mike Maroney Automotive USA, they probably haven't had time to clean things up. They just took total ownership on December 17th, and you've got a lot of employees with Roger Dean, and you've got a culture that's been embedded for decades. Time to clean a house. Yeah, and so you're going to have to, I would say the folks at Roger Dean, or Mike Maroney Chevrolet, there's going to be a house cleaning coming up, or either that or there's going to be a mind transformation coming up.

I just know that Mike Maroney, I know a little bit about him, I know him a little bit. We have a common friend, Steve Moore, some of you old time will remember Steve Moore, Chevrolet, and he was part of all the nation also straight shooter honest guy Mike Bruny is a straight shooter on the sky and I think you'll see this cleaned up but right now I don't think it was cleaned up and I think we need to take a vote and see how we did here it was going to be easy yeah we already well the first there's a bunch of Fs came in so we had

so we had John Jonathan and Wellington give us give him an F and then Linda over on Facebook who's up freezing her buns up in Georgia gave a really right after that another F and you know what this is going to be my new my new year's resolution is I'm going to be not unfair but fairly aggressive more aggressive in the grading and I'm going to agree it's an F I think that we've been too kind with the with the curve grading yeah so I'm giving an F I'm agreeing with our listeners okay you know too kind for too long actually you want to go on yes I do. I'm going to give

Mystery Shop of Mike Maruni Chevrolet an F. Failure. Rick. Got Guy Larrabee with a solid D. The only saving grace was the mask. Tom Stokel, grade F. Babelieu Farrb

says Maruni, Spawn of Satan. Oh, no. I think that one probably is an F. Mark from St. Louis, J for a joke. And Mark Ryan F. Tom Gilliland, F. And for me, it's an F.

Yeah, it's unanimous. I'm like Stu. I hate to give out F. But in this case here, I say go to Schumacher Chevrolet. I go to, what's the Chevrolet dealer in Del Rey? Is that automation? Graco? Does Graco have one?

I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't have from a cook, though. I almost got carried away there. Auto Nation on Lake Worth Road. Oh, that's right, yeah. Of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you've got automation Chevrolet, you've got Schumacher Chevrolet, stay away from Mike Maruni Chevrolet, used to be Roger Dean Chevrolet, but it's going to change.

And I think when it does change, I'm really going to make a drastic prediction here, when it does change, it's going to change for the better. I believe that they will evolve, the new Marrooney Chevrolet will evolve into the number one Chevrolet, in this area to buy a car. I think it will happen, but it sure hasn't happened yet. Not yet. And I go back to my comment I made earlier. 2021 is going to be so different from 2020 in terms of retailing. I think people are starting to really understand.

In the Wall Street Journal today, I bought the article in. there was an article about, I just thought the one I'm looking for, there it is right here, yeah, got a picture of Carvana, and the headline is COVID has acted like a time machine, and they're saying Carvana, who was a used car, national used car company, they have convinced people that five years ago you'd say can't be done. it's okay to buy a used car site unseen. People are buying cars online from Carvana site unseen. And that's the way cars are going to be sold.

And new cars, used cars, and if you're going to sell a car, site unseen, you've got to be trusted. You have to be Amazon. You have to be Apple. You have to be... When you buy a product from a quality company today in the 21st century,

you trust them you can return anything you buy on Amazon or Apple Costco return it they give you a money back

and you believe them and they're honest they're transparent that's the way I'm thinking the promise land you remember how when online buying

first came out I mean I honestly was nervous I bought books from Amazon when it was a bookstore when they started offering other stuff I was a little

you know a little sketchy I'm like what happens if I don't get my product they've established trust over for the last couple of decades

car dealers have got a long way to go. And they bake returns into their cost. And that's okay. And they sell the returns for less money. But to allow a person the right to return a product, you have to do that if you're going to be online. And if you don't do that, you're not going to make it. Great advice.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this holiday season. We definitely enjoy your company. Have us safe and enjoyable. weekend and happy New Year to everyone. We'll see you right back here next week.