Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.28.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Carls' Buick GMC

Episode Date: December 28, 2019

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

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, are linked to your car. 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, folks. This is Earl, the recovering car dealer, live and in color. And you were just listening to my recorded introduction there by me, by the way. And I wanted to welcome all of you, regular listeners. We're building an international audience, or is it international? I think technically maybe we had a call from Bali once. But we do all over the USA, and it's amazing to me. We're calls from Texas and California, Canada.

Very cool. Streaming Facebook. We're on Twitter and YouTube, and it's really, really exciting how this show is grown. I can't believe it's been 17 years since Nancy and I started this show, half an hour on Seaview Radio. They went out of business and they were bought out and the show went from a half hour to an hour

and now it's two hours and who knows. I don't know. We have no competition. We're the only as far as I know, the only show, TV, radio or anything else that actually tells the truth

about car dealers. Tells the truth about car dealers. There's something unique about car dealers. They're operating in the 20th century and the rest of the retail world's operating today, 21st century. They're operating by the old rules. They're entrenched by state laws and that could be a whole show to explain that, but they're protected. They're a protected endangered species car dealers are. And because they're operating by the old rules and the old culture and the old thoughts and ideas about how things were retailed, almost back to the days

of horse trading. The haggle hassle goes back to the way horses were bought and sold, you know, back in the old west, you know, John Wayne, when he bought a horse. He negotiated them. That's the way horses were bought and sold. And that was the transportation. And it's become entrenched the way you buy a brand new 2020 car. That's right. Ever try to get a price from a car dealer? I mean, have you ever called a car dealer? I know you must have, maybe once, you might have gone online and say, look, can you please give me a price on this new whatever? And you know the song and dance. You need to come in.

Are you going to buy the car today? Will you give me a deposit? It's the only product that you can't buy and get a price. You can go on Amazon, you can go to Target, you go to Walmart, Costco. Any place you want to buy something in retail, and you can get a price. you can't get a price from a car dealer and their reputation is in the sewer pardon the expression. Gallup has done an annual

poll on honesty and ethics and professions every year since 1977 and car dealers are at dead last or next to last every year if I sound a little emotional about this is because in full transparency I'm a car dealer and I'm a recovering car dealer

meaning I used to do business that way So I know what I'm talking about. One of the interesting things about the show is that because I was doing it this way, the way the car dealers are doing it today, back 25, 30 years ago, I started a business in 1968. I know all the tricks. They haven't changed. That's the strange thing about it. They don't have to change.

A bait and switch. They just polish them up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, they're polished. They put a little lipstick on those. Exactly. The dealer fee has really becomes, they've gone into multiple dealers. fees by all different names and they know how to hide the fees better. Anyway, that's what this show's all about. And we're so happy to have you there. We thrive on you. I mean,

I can get up here and pontificate. I have a tendency to go on and on. I apologize in advance. But your calls and your comments and your text are really cool. I mean, I learned something. Everybody in the studio learned something from you. And we have a telephone number, 877, 960 9960. You might want to think about writing that down because I'll give it to you again. If you don't have a question now, you'll probably have one later.

877-960-9960. And more popular because things are changing. Text. I text more than I talk on the phone now. Text is kind of cool. It gives you a record of what you said, what's the other person said. You can delete it if you don't want to look at it again. And you can get to it when you feel like it.

Telephone rings, it's kind of intrusy, right? You know, you can be brushing your teeth, you can be eating dinner. You don't want to have to answer the phone. If you get a text, it goes, Bing, you know you got a text. And when you get through it, what you're doing, you read the text. We can get to text on this show a lot easier. And we like the personal touch of the phone call, so please call if you can. Text number, 772-497-653.

Oh, that's 772-497-653. and just tell us what's on your mind. Facebook.com forward slash Earl and Cars, Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars, YouTube, Twitter, Periscope. We're all over cyberspace. And less I forget, I know I'm yacking too much, Mystery Shopping Report.

Very exciting mystery shopping report. I know I always say that, but Asia Thunder, our undercover Asian, was busted. And we actually had to abort a shop and due to his amazing versatility, and this man has been tested under fire, and I have a lot of respect for Agent Thunder. Agent X was good. The regulars will know Agent X was fearless. Agent Thunder is also fearless, and he's very fast on his feet.

He has cat-like reflexes. He has cat-like reflexes. That has set him apart. Exactly. Everyone. Exactly. And it's so exciting the way he moved, and you're going to hear this mystery shopping report in the second half of the show. Stay tuned for that if you do nothing else.

Okay. I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart, my co-host, and she is a female advocate. On the car, in the car on the way to the studio, she brought to my attention an article on consumer reports that is going to make it even more important for you ladies to think about calling the show. And it has to with the fact that did you know that cars are designed today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association to be safe. for men, not women. Hard to believe, right? I mean, that's the truth. Consumer reports, the crash dummies and the standards by which all the car manufacturers get their coveted safety design, I mean, Toyota, General Motors, Chrysler, they want to have that super safe, very safe

rating by the National Highway Traffic. That safety rating is based on keeping men safe. And women are 73% more likely to be injured because the crash dummy is to protect the man. I mean, clearly women are likely to more because they're smaller. And that's, I mean, can you imagine what would happen if Nancy put on a football uniform and played a game of football against a bunch of men? That's what we're looking at now when people drive cars. So Nancy, tell them about our special deal for lady dollars. They're looking at the body mass index.

They're looking at your height, your weight, all of that. And so, you know, four decades, and women still are not recognized in, you know, all of those tests and children. Outrageous. Yes. That telephone number is 877-9-60-960, and ladies, what do you think about those statistics, that article that came out in the Consumer Report? And don't forget, $50 for the first two. New. First two new lady callers. Give us a call and let us know your thoughts. We would love to hear from you. And don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. The lines are lit up. I'm going to interrupt myself and everyone else and go to Greenville, South Carolina.

Very good. Good morning. Good morning, Greenville. Are you there? Good morning. This is Andrea. Andreya. Hey, how are you guys? Hey, man. How are you guys? We're doing good.

Great. What's happening in Greenville? Hey. Oh, not too much yet. It's still a little bit early, but I was thinking back on last week's show where you guys had talked about low-time pressure, spare tires, the fix-a-flat, and the little pumps to refill the tires, right? Mm-hmm. And it reminded me of something that happened to me about. 20 years ago, my friends and I, we wanted to go to a concert in Atlanta, and not a car big

enough to take all of us at once, so we rented a vehicle, and we drove there. Okay. Now, this was, of course, the time before GPS or smartphone, so the only way that I knew how to get where we needed to go was by printing out the Mast maps. Okay. And, of course, from that, we knew where to go. That was our destination. But on the way, in Atlanta in this a huge city there was some construction and on this road I had oncoming traffic and I had to pull all the way over to the rock and they were doing construction on the curb and I hit I hit the the dragon with the front wheel and cut the wheel open and of course we lost all the air in the tire sure right

so we quickly pulled over on the side we found a little space and we decided well let's take a look in the trunk sure enough there was a spare tire in there and we decided let's get going let's just go and put this tire on I started taking the bad tire off while my brother was getting the spare tire out and he

immediately noticed that spare tire had zero airing Oh no None at all Yeah well that's a lesson Of course we didn't want Yeah we didn't want to put it on Because I didn't want to drive on a flat

tire so of course we're in the middle of Atlanta a city that's completely foreign to us. His friends started simply with that spare time walking down the street just to find gas station. They didn't know whether they were going to run into one or not. They just started walking. I stayed back in the car and I continued taking that tire off and they eventually came back. Yeah, filled the tire with the tire. Oh, wow.

Well, that's an experience you'll never forget. Never forget, yeah. That's right. So, absolutely. So now I took, of course, the car back the next day after we were done with the concert. We got just in time. Everything was perfect after that. And I told him, what are you doing sending me out in the car with a spare tire not having any air in it where it's really not a spare tire at all?

It's dead weight in the back, right? Exactly. But ever since that day, I always made sure that I had a pump in my car, a compressor. Well, good for you. Andrea, that's a lesson learned for a lot of people. You started with a bad experience, and you've probably got thousands of people right now thinking themselves,

I'm going to check that spear in my trunk and be sure that it's got air in it, or if not, I want to be sure I have an inflator just in case I have a similar experience. So that's the reason we love you callers. You spread the word and educate people. You think of things we don't even think of, and I can't thank you enough for that call, Andrea.

Yeah, and the really amazing part from the story is that my brother's friend took this story that I just told you, and he turned it into his essay that he turned in to, I believe he ended up going to Stanford as this, I guess, the writing portion you have to get into the college. Wow, that's a heck of a school, yeah. But our ordeal to overcome a strange and foreign situation. Yeah.

Well, that's a great story. That's a great story. Thank you so. I hope you can call again. We love calls from out of state. We're in Florida and Greenville, South Carolina. So happy to have you call us. And spread the word in Greenville. If there's anything, any of the folks there, they're friends or neighbors or relatives, hear about us. Tell them to tune in. Love to hear more from Greenville. Hey, Andreas, are you watching on Facebook today? No, not in the moment. I have somewhere I have to be at this morning, but I figured I need to be the first one to give you guys a call. Thanks a lot. Okay. If you talk to any ladies, tell them I'm giving out $50 for the first two new lady callers.

We'd love to hear from you in South Carolina. We'll do. Thanks so much, guys. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Thanks for the great advice. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We've got Howard who has been holding.

Thank you, Howard. Good morning. Hey, Howard. Good morning. Yeah, good morning. Not so nice morning this morning, but I'll take it over the north any time. You know, it's amazing that the caller spoke to you about the spare tire. Yeah.

Last time I spoke, I said, all you have to do is get a compressor. They cost about $40 in Walmart. Put it in the back. Anytime you spare need there, you use the compressor. You can use a pump. That'll take you about a half an hour to an hour before you could fill up a tire with air. So I suggest a compressor.

It goes into your cigarette lighter and no problem. Yeah. It ought to be a standard of equipment on a car. I haven't seen a cigarette lighter in a car in a while, though. Sometimes. Power outlet, I think he meant. Okay. I have a question for Rick.

why is the tire you have 15 inches and then the rest of it is metric so in other words the size of the tire goes by 15 16 18 19 they're all inches

but the rest of the measurements are metric so why did they do that to confuse people Well, yeah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you exactly, it's called government stupidity, and they messed around with a metric system, what was it, 30 years ago, and they screwed everything up, and you'd be surprised the confusion in the scientific world because of the way things are labeled. You know, Europe is different than the U.S., but the U.S. is a mixture, and it's just government, inconsistency, and inefficiency, pure and simple. Well, here's the real quick breakdown. Tire size is the first number is usually three digits, and that's the millimeters, the width across the tread of the tire.

Then the second number is usually two digits, and that's the ratio of the height of the tire compared to the width of the tire. So if we're not confused yet, we're going to get even worse. And in the third ratio, or the third number, which again, two digits, is the interest. of the diameter of the rim until you get into those nice big mud tires that the guys put on their trucks on the four by four trucks and then they said well let's just make it simple for those guys and it's basically like if you have a 31 10 and a half 15 it's 31 inches across 10 and a half inches tall sidewall and a 15 inch wheel so for the the mud tires they made it nice and simple for the rest of us they said we're just going to confuse the

heck out of you I love that arbitrary confusion it is it's great it's just they did it just because they could I think you still their own yeah one of the point I'd like to make I have neighbors here in my condo some of them are from Quebec others are from Toronto and I ask about deal of fees and the only person that said that that they charge dealer fees is a guy from Toronto. Interesting. They said Quebec doesn't charge dealer fees. Have you been experienced with the Canadians

about dealer fees? I haven't once. Well, I know a Toyota dealer in Vancouver and they didn't have a dock fee in Vancouver. Interesting, yeah. I would love to hear some calls from Canadians and especially Quebec if what is the dealer fee situation of the USA.

I think anybody probably close to the border might have them. It probably might have something to do. If you're competing, for example, with USA dealers and because we have a common border, there's a lot of competition. My guess is most of the Canadian car dealers that are near the border do have the dealer fee. If you don't have a dealer fee, take it from a dealer that doesn't have a dealer fee like me. One of our biggest challenges in being competitive with our competition out there is they can run the car and advertise it for $15,000, and they add a $2,000 in dealer fees when you try to buy it.

If I try to advertise my car for the real price, I can't be competitive because people get tricked, and the hidden fee gives the profit to the dealer. So the Canadian dealers are forced, in my opinion, probably those near the border of the USA to be competitive. that's one of the insidious things about dealer fees. Even if you don't have the inclination to want to cheat the customer, you almost feel like you have to cheat the customer to be competitive. They're contagious. Yeah, contagious, exactly.

What do you think, Howard? Well, thanks for the call. Appreciate it. That's very interesting. Thank you. I did Google it, by the way. And in Canada, it's around $300. So they do have documentation, hidden dealer fees up there. So the guy in New Vancouver was just a good guy.

like us. Yeah, and who thought he wasn't being a dealer free, but he was. No, no, I met a guy on a trip a long time ago from Vancouver, and he was dealer free free. We got some callers holding here. I think we've had a few people, callers from Canada. We're going to go, ladies, just, you can hang on. We'll try to get to everyone. We're going to go to Tina right now. Good morning, Tina. Hi, how are you guys doing this morning? Good. We're doing real good. better than good did you have a safe and happy holiday

uh yeah we did as a matter fact how about you yeah nice and quiet well good that's uh I wanted to usually I talk about more serious subjects but I wanted to talk about first loves we all have a first love and my first love

was a 1995 miata with five speed and a modified suspension I thought you were talking about boys I tried it yeah I just love that car, and now there's a dentist, a tire dentist in Pennsylvania that has that car, and he has it as a classic car, and he loves it just as much as I did. So I'm wondering, y'all, what were your first loves as far as a car went? My first love was Gretchen Sennie, as far as women went, and she was the most beautiful eight-year-old I've ever seen. Just a clarification, I was eight years old at the same time.

Where's that dump-up? I can't see that. My first love, Tina was a, in cars, was a judge. It was a, it was a Pontiac GTO, and it had four on the floor. It was carousel orange, four on the floor, three to beryl carbureters, and boy, that thing went hum and roar. And I love that car. I fell in love with Julie Deeskin in first grade. I don't think I've ever loved a car, though.

You see where the show's going, Tina? okay so i didn't mean for it to go there and by the way uh you got okay diana mine even if you're not interested uh mine uh was the uh which is a really delicate subject and uh did you hear what he just said the barracuda i'm gonna move over there and knock him off the chair my uh my beautiful blue barracuda oh boy okay rick what about you you go you go girl uh i think I think it'd have to be my old Yamaha Varago motorcycle. Uh-huh. I put 60,000 miles on that bike in 10 years.

Uh-huh. And once you got over your first love, Stu, what were you? I've never loved a car. Never. Well, I've liked cars. Okay, there you have it. I've enjoyed cars. I'm not a car guy, which is really weird because we're on Erlon cars, but I'm just not a

car guy. Being honest. I practically lived out of my barracuda because I had three kids. We'd go to the drive in back in those days, and you did a lot of things. Okay. Okay, Tina, what else is on your mind? I think girl just cut me off. He's jealous of your parakeet.

Well, we got a bunch of callers holding, and I want to be sure we got to the other callers. This is going to be a different type of show this morning. You know why? It's our last show for 2019, and we're going to get crazy right here in the studio, and all the craziness might come from the crazy girl. Okay, go ahead, Tina. Okay, and on more serious note, everybody needs to get on to NHTSA.gov, and they need to check for recalls on their tires, and also from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles or loved ones that have children in their lives, they need to get on NHTSA.com to check car seat recalls.

That's a great New Year's resolution for everybody. Absolutely. Just check your VIN. If you can do one thing on January 1st, we'll do it today. That's great, Tina. It really is because there's a great article in the Consumer Report about these car seats. Thank you for mentioning that. No problem.

And I believe it was last week that Rick mentioned the fact that there was a car, Rick, that was in an accident, and you said, you know, replace that car seat. Yeah, I wouldn't trust a car seat that had been in even one accident. I mean, you're strapping a baby or a child into that seat. Replace it, folks. Air on the side of caution. Okay. Thank you, Tina.

Thanks a lot, Tina. Happy New Year. We look forward to hearing from you in 2020. You're an important part of the show. 877960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. and now we are going to go to a young lady that's been waiting from West Palm Beach and been very patient. Pegg, good morning, Peg.

You there, Peggy? Hi, good morning. Hi, good morning. Are you a first time caller? No. Okay. Welcome back. Thank you.

So, I don't know if this is a question, what my thoughts on it, on the tire, if you had talked about it, Last week I missed it, but I had an unfortunate experience driving to work last week, and I got a flat tire, and I have a new car of 2016 Infinity, sedan, the Q50, and I got a warning that my tire was low on air, and I thought, all right, I'll put the mare and end the way home from work, and it went flat. well I pulled over called AAA and roadside assistance pulled up and said I can have you on your way in five minutes open up your trunk I don't have a spare tire there's no spare tire

so I had to have my car towed to the mechanic this could have been really dangerous had I been in an area that really wasn't safe but wasn't great that I was on 995 what is the reasoning I'm surprised because usually there's some sort of They didn't even have a donut or an inflator or a none. Your trunk was empty, and you bought that Infinity New?

And as far as you know... I bought it in 2016, so it was 2,000 years old when I bought it. I mean, two years old, sorry. But there's not even a well of space for a tire. If I were decided to put one in there, I would have to have it just free-floating. Yeah, I think somebody probably removed it. I think there is some sort. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Some sort of a spare device. Yeah, there's usually an alternative. There's not a spare. A lot of, I mean, we talked about this. A lot of them include spare tires, but there's a fix-a-flat or something, some sort of alternative. There was nothing. Just it's flat. Even the roadside assistant said there is no space for you to put a tire.

Oh, that's horrible. I called my mechanic, and he said it's because of fuel efficiency that they have decided to do away with it, I think. But even the roadside. assistance man said I've never seen this before. Sure. Well, there's not even a space. You need to address

that and unfortunately you have to buy a spare of some kind and you can use you could also use the compressor idea that we had a call earlier in the show Howard that says he always carries a compressor.

You can buy them at Walmart for 50 or 60 bucks or you can get a donut kind of a spare. something or just you know you say you can't fit a spare at all in there but you should have something that would get you in an emergency rick as a point the only other real option is a lot of cars now come with run flat tires the biggest drawback they're almost twice as much yeah right and and the biggest drawback to them not only the the price of them but if you do get a puncture in those tires they have to be replaced they cannot be repaired so

So it's not a great option, really, in my opinion. I prefer a spare tire on a vehicle, but just unfortunately the manufacturers are going this way. So when you're looking at new cars, folks, automatically ask them, hey, does this thing have a spare tire? Look the car over. Really, you know, crawl everywhere in that car and make sure you know what you're getting into when you purchase that car. Thanks for sharing that with us, Peg. I appreciate it. Sorry it happened, but your story will get a lot of people to be alerted to that fact.

Check the trunk of your car and be sure you have something that will get you out of an emergency. It could have been a lot more serious than it was, and you were fortunate. But thanks very much for the call, Peg. Yeah, thank you for sharing that story with us. It will bring a lot of attention to, you know, so some of us that have not even taken a look, but took for granted that spare tires in the trunk. Ladies and gentlemen, take advantage of www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We'd love to hear from you, and you do remain anonymous.

We've got a mystery shopping report coming up and all kinds of good stuff, so stay with us. We're going to go to Dave in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. What can we do for you this morning? First of all. My wife's first love and every love since, and you've got to keep in time, I know we've been married 50 years, has been every Toyota Seleca GT she ever owned. She loves them more than me.

We have something in common. That's quite a car. I drove that for a long time. I love the Seleca. And you love more than Dave? Listen, we're talking a lot last couple of weeks about spare tires and flat tires. I remember back in the 70s when I lived in Southern California, and I used to help out an off-road pit crew for the Baja 1,000, Baja 500 off-road races in Mexico. Wow, exciting. And, yeah, and we would carry tires, fuel parts, you know, throw them in the back of the truck. and just drag down there and just help out. But one of the pit crew, the real pit crew,

the real pit crew, was down there, used some gizmachi on his air conditioning compressor to fill tires. And, yeah, and I don't, it always surprised me. It still surprises me that you could make something that would work. like that but it kind of made sense you know it's a compressor yeah did a rather quick job of it too I wouldn't imagine it would probably be really safe well maybe we'll Google that and maybe there is you know every time I hear something like that I go to Amazon or I go to Google and I usually find out

that somebody came up with this I just didn't know about it I bet there is something like that you Googlers get to work and it had something that I think to do with him installing some kind of like a Schrader valve or something that he would have had his little special hose. Rick has got a skeptical look on his face. Yeah, he's great. But we can't ask Rick because

it'll get too scientific. He's grimacing. I think we should hear from Rick. We haven't got time. Okay, guys, nice to have you back on IHeart Radio. We lost you there for a couple of weeks. Well, thanks, Dave. Thanks very much.

I appreciate it. Spread the word. And I didn't even know we were off I-Hart, but if we're back on I-Hart, thank you very much. And we look forward to hearing from you again. I love guys like you that have been around for a while, and I would have got anything to have been out there with you when you were helping the pit crews out at the Baja. That is, to me, that's excitement right there. Oh, yeah, they were great adventures. We had a blast. Call again, please.

And we were just kids. You know, we were in high school. Yeah. We were just kids. Oh, exciting. That's great. All right, thanks guys Take care

Bye bye Okay You know On Christmas Eve My brother-in-law said You know They ought to come up With edible

Wrapping paper for dogs So you can give your dogs I'm like that's genius And then we googled it And apparently it exists Everything's been taken Yeah can I ask a rick a question With the caller before

On the run flat tires So I got a pair of expensive Run flat tires And I get a nail And the tire doesn't go flat because it's a run-flat tire. Now, why would I want to fix the hole? Because it's got a nail in it, and it won't go flat.

Why do I want to fix it? Ah, but the tire does go flat. The difference is that the sidewall of the tire is such a thick, heavy-duty rubber that the tire will retain its shape, and you can safely drive on that tire for up to 50 miles. and up to 50 miles per hour. However, at that point, that tire is going to start breaking down and falling apart, and you've got to do it. But even one puncture in that tire, even if you happen to spot it,

before that tire even loses air, it cannot be repaired. That's why they call run flat tires must be replaced. Not go flat tires. It's not a no flat, it's a run flat. Exactly. Oh, very interesting. Okay, so I learned from the show. I learned from Rick.

I learned from everything. Do you got any more callers holding? We do. All right. Let's go. Let's hear him. Bring on. Are you in suspense?

Are you? I am. I hear a suspenseful music playing in my head right now. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Hi, John. How you doing? Welcome.

Happy New Year. Good morning. Good morning, John. This John. Happy holidays, John. Happy holidays, John. Anybody that's Michigan. on the consumer reports to the latest February 20th to 2019 issue, it's unbelievable the

information, and people will really get scared that are buying the EV, the electric vehicle. They break down by specifically six states that socket until you want a registration. I'll just mention them fast, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Minnesota. Well, all those states are terrible. 19 more proposed with fees that are unbelievable because they're missing out on the gas tax in those states. Great article on it. I want to mention that. Also want to mention things in this issue on every issue, like, for instance, which I was shocked, which my friend has, a Ford escape.

They're talking about the new one. I didn't know it's a three-cylinder. But they're talking. They give the ratings and the scores, and specifically a vibration that's in. them, brand new cars, coasting, and low speeds. And like a better car than that, a fabulous rating would be the Subaru Outback. But I just want to say this consumer reports, if anybody doesn't get it or read it, it's got to the library, Barnes & Noble's or get it a mail prescription. Some people probably didn't get the new one now with the Christmas mail. But this

is a must. It's mentioned many times with use cars, news cars on this show and I just want to tell people that it's a must reading. I also want to say for the New years, I want to congratulate Earl, Nancy, and the crew

for the wonderful, wonderful show, the education that they give the public, no other station anywhere like it, giving up their time, the only time you will hear is when they get a vacation or they're going to a convention. And also, not only to you and the work that you do,

but the radio station that handles you and even a publication like the hometown news, which last week had that great letter to the legislature. So thank God for these people that do handle your shows and your information, and congratulations for the New Year's, and I hope it continues for a long time. Well, thank God for you, too, and callers, like you, John. You're arguably

I think you definitely are our oldest and longest, most loyal caller. And the show wouldn't be what it is today with you and a lot of folks like you that has stuck with us through thick and thin. You even stuck with us after we got fired from the original station and then you waited a year

until we came back when they got a new owner and we got hired back. So thanks, John, and happy New Year to you. I'm touched by your words. Thank you. It took me a long time to find you. I remember. Keep on with the great work that you do and giving up your time to educate the public. You're the greatest. They've got

to be nervous beyond belief when they're waiting for your shopping. We believe. Happy New Year, John. God bless you. Same to you guys. Thank you. Jonathan was on his knees. I think he's proposing to me. I'm not sure. He saw an opening after the little spat he had over the barricade.

20,000 people out there wondering, who is Jonathan? That's okay. That's okay. It's a radio show. Folks right now, we're having a little technical difficulties on our internet side apparently the weather here has knocked the internet down just for a moment so right now YouTube is offline for us. We're working on it.

Facebook is working though. Let me check. Nope. Facebook's not working either. It was up until until Rick said something and then well I better give the text number out again because we lost two forms of communication. Text number for you YouTubers and Facebookers.

Now we're almost there. It's intermittent. I'll give the text number out anyway. I'll give the text number out anyway, 772 4976530. That's 772 4976530. Please text us. We love text. And don't forget

also, we have the anonymous feedback which a remarkable number of people use. Even those who don't, I think, have to. But they just like it. There's something about some people like anonymity. And your anonymousfeedback.com.

Nobody knows who you are. whoever it may be. We could get calls, emails from anybody. Your Anonymous Feedback.com and say anything you want, we get it immediately, and we'll answer it. And you can say anything. We read everything unless it's, you know, profane. Profane. Or too controversial. Or, you know, violent. But usually we'll redact the worst parts. No, we'll read the violence. Huh? We'll read the violence. We'll read the violence. We sanitize it for the airwaves. Yeah. We adhere to FCC regulations, but we get the message to you. You're ready for one?

Yes, let's do it. Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to thank all of you for joining us each and every Saturday morning. And gosh, so far this morning, so much information you've all shared with us. It's just amazing. I want to bring to the attention our viewers, listeners, that Consumer Report that John mentioned from Palm City, gosh, I'll tell you what, if you get a chance, pick it up or go to the Internet, pull it up, go to the library, whatever. It has a lot of great information. And Peg and Dave, everyone that has called this morning, Tina, thank you so much for all the information. And let me remind you,

ladies, first two new lady callers, I'd like to hear from you. I have $50 for you. And I had put a question out earlier from the Consumer Report. How do you feel about making cars safer for women, 7-960-90-60 or you can text us 772-4976530 I think we're going to go to stew who has a hey I'm filling up the page with my little text hash marks we did get a text from somebody just a second ago said that we are alive on iHeart radio still so it's not a streaming I think it's an internal problem here he had to reboot this PC so we'll be streaming the video pretty soon okay so we're no problem there all right so I'll go to your anonymous feedback uh com first. And this is referencing to a conversation we had last Saturday. It says, hello, Toyota people. I just want to ask how many Toyota's in that blue flame color you've sold year to date. And please tell me Rick is not driving a blue flame color truck. Sorry, not sorry. Puk emoji. In fairness to Rick, it's not a blue flame. It's more of a navy. My truck is nautical blue, which is the dark blue.

Yeah, blue is not a popular color. and if you're going to buy a truck or a car and you keep it for a long time, no big deal. If you want to trade it every three, four, five years, you're going to get hit on the depreciation. People like white cars and black cars and beige cars. And, you know, it's a color that can affect the resell value. And Rick's got a great looking truck, and it is meticulous. Thank you. And the color is great.

But to answer the question of the anonymous feedback, submitter, we sell about at our dealership, about 5% of all our sales is blue. And we do have reports that tell us. So it is the least popular color. And I think that's probably in line nationally with car sales. So 95% of all vehicles sold are not blue. That gives you an idea. Moving on. I like blue. I like blue. I've gotten arguments with appraisers because they devalued it because of blue. And I'm like, but it looks good. Looks good to you. Yeah, I like blue cars.

Text came in from George says, why is the 2020 Prius Prime not readily available in Florida and not included in Toyota-thon pricing discounts like it is in the northeast and western states? Well, it's demand and also production. I mean, I can tell you this, that we have, in last 90 days, have sold three. Not to get too technical,

the Southeast region has a 30-day supply of these things. I'm sorry, a 15-day supply that means they have enough. There's not a whole lot of them, and nobody wants them. Well, everything is profit generated by the manufacturers and the dealers, and oftentimes dealers or manufacturers will come out with a car that is interesting, exciting, maybe good for advertising, but a whole lot of people don't buy them. It's kind of like the Chevrolet Corvette is a image car,

and we had the, you know, Toyota's Supra, which, It was an image car. Don't sell very many of them. Dealer's overcharged for them, and now the price is dropped on that car. So everything is profit generated. When you want to know why a car is not available, it's because enough people didn't buy it, and they reduced the production. Yeah, if they're not having a problem selling them, they're selling everyone they get,

they're not going to put any incentives on it. This was from Rigo. It's a text that came in. Rigo says, we got an out-the-door price on the phone from a local Toyota dealer. They were the only ones who did this, by the way. We held them to this price once we arrived. and they gave it to us no hassle except for a typo that we caught on the paper, sneaky, sneaky. To their defense, it was confusing to see a zero put right on top of a six.

They won our business. We got the best deal out of the greater Houston area, $1,000 less than the next lowest price, and we've been trying for days. E-mailing is a fantastic way to buy a car, and we must have shop 12 dealers or so. I would love to hear the name of that dealer, because I'd like to applaud the dealer in Houston. So if the texture is listening or someone who knows the texture is listening, we would love to salute him. And also double check because you say he gave you an out-the-door price. To be interesting to see what the price was and look and see if there were any hidden fees added on top of the price.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but I am cynical about car dealers. But if this is a pure case of Althodore price being given over the phone and you buying the car, at the outdoor price with no hidden fees or dealer installed accessories added. We would love to brag about this dealer and steer the folks in Texas to buy more cars from that dealer. That's right. I know two dealers in the Houston area. There's Don McGill has two Toyota stores, and then there's in Baytown. There's a community Toyota.

So I bet it's one of those three. There's probably a whole bunch of dealers in the Houston area. Yeah, but those guys are good guys. So we'll see. This is anonymous feedback. This question is for Earl. Are you still friends with Craig Zinn? after you mystery shopped his dealership?

I'm friends with him. I don't know if he's friends with me. Craig and I were never real tight. We just knew each other, and we'd like to talk to each other. He's an interesting guy, very successful, very flamboyant, and got a great smile. Got some great pants. Yeah, great pants.

He's a real snazzy dresser. and I don't think I think probably we are still friends but there has been no communication you know when you get to be a big really big dealer and you've got a lot of dealerships oftentimes these dealers

have managers that run the stores and they rarely go into the dealerships and they're really not involved that's one of the problems with the car business today is a large dealership change in groups owned by one person or maybe one public company they don't have the hands-on and things happen in their dealership

they don't know about so for all I know Craig Zinn never heard about what we said on the mystery shopping report I didn't make it a point to call him maybe I should he might be grateful for pointing out a little problem in the store

this continues here as a question for Mrs. Stewart that's you are you afraid Craig Zinn or any other dealer might Arkansaside Earl somebody Google that for me A, R-K-A-N-C-I-D-E. Arkansas, Earl? My Arkansas, Earl.

For all his mystery shopping, carbine tips, he's revealing, really like to show. Well, thank you. Spell that one more time? Arkansas, Ar-K-A-N-C-I-D-E. I don't think fear comes into place for me when I think of the recovering car dealer.

He has walked through a minefield on his journey and his quest to, well, change the way car dealers, the automotive industry does business. And no, there is no fear. And last time I was afraid, I think I was in Sister Bertrand's office and she was holding a very large stick. I can see where this is going. That would do a great, if I were assassinated, just think, what we'd do for the ratings for this show. Think about it.

You'd be martyred. We'd be syndicated. We'd be national, international. We'd probably be on television. Yeah, we'd have a movie. Yeah, it would be great. You could be closer to that than you realize this morning. And Rick and Sue and Nancy would carry the show on.

Nancy's only afraid of a nun comes after you. Exactly. Okay. All right, the next one. We'll get back to that definition of that 75 cent word in a minute. Well, I'd like to say that Nancy is fearless, so I think I can summarize your answer. No. You're not afraid.

than nothing. Okay. Good morning, Earl. I thought I heard something pretty interesting on your show last week when you mentioned the car buying program from Costco. Did I hear you say that you would sell the car to a buyer using Costco's program cheaper than the sale of any regular car sale you had made previously? If so, it would seem that people should use the Costco car buying program if they intended on buying a new car from your dealership. Why would anyone not use the car buying program if it's guaranteed, or at least at your dealership, to be the lowest price possible. Well, I say, you know, that is a question. I've got people at my dealership now listening to this show that are trembling because sometimes the truth hurts, and the truth is

that we don't like to sell cars to people on the Costco program in terms of our business sense. Remember, I'm a consumer advocate. Stu's the consumer advocate, Nancy and Rick, we're doing here what we do to help you buy vehicles. But we're also, in the this is the transparency, and this is a, you know, kind of a contradiction, we also sell cars. And when we sell cars, we make money. We try to price our cars to make a profit, and we have found that with the Costco program, because we post our lowest price on all of our cars now, out the door, Costco says you must sell it for less. And we do because we have to abide by the Costco auto-buying program.

And we feel sometimes when we're selling cars at the Costco price, we're actually losing money from a net profit standpoint. I don't want to get technical on you, but there's something called gross profit. But when you take into account all the other profits or the expenses you have, it reduces it to a law. We couldn't sustain that. We couldn't sustain it.

And so if you hold the dealer to the letter of the law on the Costco buying program, it is a great deal for you, and it is a bad deal for the dealer. And yes, we, the simple answer to the question, yes, we do sell Costco members for less than our one low price. Okay, we got a text from Robbie. It says, good morning. I have recently received emails from a BMW and Mercedes dealer saying, great news.

We want to buy your car and we are now paying the amount Kelly Blue Book offers. So look up your car and you will know what we are willing to offer. Even if you don't buy another car, is this just another way to get you in this? dealership, and that's from Robbie and Stewart. Scam. It's a way to get you in the dealership. They don't really want your car. They might want your car, but that's not the reason I sent the letter out. They send the letter out to everybody, and they want you to come in because you can believe

you get a great deal on the car, and then they try to sell you another car. Or if they have to buy your car, they'll try to, what we say in the trade, steal it, buy it for less than it's really worth. It's a scam. It's a numbers game. They'll send out 100,000 emails, 12% of the people will open them. Half of them will read it. half of those will actually call and half of those will show up and they'll sell 20 cars.

Yeah, all solicitations like email, direct mail are a numbers game. And it makes me think of Nigeria because I get, there's a lot of Nigerians that have my email address. Very popular. And I've had 150 uncles that have died and it left me all their money. And I'm supposed to send them $20,000 or wire $20,000 in good faith. And then they'll give me my $20 million that my uncle in Nigeria. when he died. Well, I heard that they stream our show in Lagos, Nigeria.

Yeah. And the thing is that if they send out a million of those, I'm one of the million, and there's some poor slob that believes his uncle died in Nigeria, and that's how they make their money. If they have a 1%. Exactly. Car dealers make their money the same way. As Stu said, they'll send out 10,000,

and if they get a 2% return, what's that 200, and if they have a closing ratio, a 1 out of 4, then that's 50 cars they'll sell because of the scam because 50 people are suckers and fell forward and that's the name of the game. It's a long way of telling you, Robbie, delete the email and add them to your spam list. Exactly. I love getting the phone calls. I find it so exciting to have a conversation.

Nancy taunts the callers for hours. Really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay, this is on your anonymous feedback. Earl, if you'd like to have a guest on the show to bring meaningful content, then I'd like to nominate Steve Leto, that's Steve L-E-H-T-O. He has radio experience, as a consumer advocate, makes lots of consumer-oriented videos,

and as a lawyer who you'll appreciate, he's easy to find on the web and has many avenues to get in touch with him. He's a great guy and would make an excellent guest and participant on your show. As an alternate, you should have old-school dealer educator Steve Richards on the show. So he'd show you the bad and ugly side and general distaste for the car buying experience signed, not Steve Leto. Just kidding. Well, let's contact those people. I think they're out of state.

I've heard the name before. This particular advocate of Steve Lito, I think, has called us before. And there's no reason why. I'd like to have somebody in the studio, but a call-in guest would be good. Yeah, we can do that. And let's check it out. We should have. and this applies not just to attorneys, consumer advocate attorneys, but also to

legislators, and I'd love to have the Attorney General of the State of Florida or the governor or a senator or a representative or, you know, even some local authorities. We'd like to have some government and attorneys, advocates, anybody. I mean, that it's advocates for buying cars without being ripped off. I love to have you call in. and we could give you 15 minutes on the show once we screen you and we'll screen these two recommendations. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that should be our New Year's resolution for 2020. Sure. I agree. You got anything, Nancy? Not yet. Okay, I got more text. Let's go over to Rick. Yeah, Rick.

I got a couple here from YouTube. Ernesto is asking, what is the yearly average for miles that people drive anymore? It always used to be 12,000 miles. Is that still the same? It's 12 or 15. I always say 15,000 miles. A lot of leases you see are allocate only 10,000 miles.

That's the reason we alert people to be careful. The ones we're familiar with Toyota, they consider 12,000 miles a low mileage lease and 15,000 standard miles. And Ashley James is asking, how does Lexus award dealers? Can Earl get a Lexus award? Boy, I tell you, well, I'm going to give myself a... I'm going to get myself in trouble again. Unfortunately, a Lexus dealership, the old expression would be is like a license to steal. That's not a very good analogy.

But Lexus dealerships are almost priceless, and there are very few of them. There's only like what? How many Alexis dealers do? 300, 500, $300, $300, $300.500. Yeah, less than a third of that. And so a Lexus dealer is extremely profitable. They typically make, you know, probably a million dollars a month or close to it. And they're awarded with a lot of politics.

I'm just telling you like it is. I got a lot of toy of executives out there that clutched their chest, slumped over on their desk when I said that. But politics is everywhere. It's in commerce. It's in government, obviously. And to get an Alexis dealership, you have to have a lot of pull, a lot of friends. And Toyota has to owe you something.

You know, and that's not to say they won't pick a good dealer. They want to have good Lexus dealers. But just being a good dealer for the consumer is not going to get you a Lexus dealership. And they're free, by the way. When you get a new Lexus dealership, there is no car dealers called Blue Sky. I know I'm getting too technical here. but if Toyota awards me a Lexus dealership, all that cost me is what it costs to buy the land

and build the building and buy the equipment. If I were to buy that same Lexus dealership that existed, I would probably have to pay an additional $100 million on top of the cost of the land, building, and equipment. So an open point for Alexis dealership is like a gift from Toyota for about $100 million. dollars. Wow.

Every Christmas. And they just don't come unless you have friends. Exactly. That's the way it goes. Or if they're not mad at you. They can't be, forget about it. That's the answer to the question. If you say things like this on the air and everybody knows it, they ain't,

www. ain't going to happen.com, meaning Earl ain't going to get. Yeah, we had moved up to like number 10 on the list. They just knocked us back down. 100 thanks thanks dad anyway all right well they're not mad at you they're mad at me I think you just proved the theory that the texter was trying to point out earlier he was I believe alluding to fear and you can hear right now ladies and gentlemen there's no fear in that man yeah unless I'm coming after him give us a call

to all free at 877 960 or you can text us 772 497 16530. Don't forget, ladies, two new lady callers, $50. Stu? Yes, sister, Nancy. Anonymous feedback. Hello, love the show. I currently have a 09 Kia Optima. I want to buy a Toyota Highlander soon.

I'm going to buy it in cash so I don't have a car payment. Reason is a while back I went through the experience of being laid off and having a car payment. Are the latest auto, or the latest safety feature is worth me saving up for a new 20, 2020 Highlander, or am I better off buying a 2018 or 2019? Thank you. We've been talking about all the new safety features that come out on the cars these days, but I can tell you that on the 2018 and 2019 Highlander, they got pretty much everything you can get.

I mean, there might be some additional things on the 2020, but if you get a 2018, the backup camera, all the airbags, the lane departure, assist, the rear cross, all that stuff is available on most of those models. so I think you could save some money and get a used one. Yeah, and I've got a, in the Florida Weekly, the current Florida Weekly, the blog I wrote is entitled, Get the Lowest Price on Any New Toyota from any Toyota dealer. He's talking about a used Toyota, I believe, used Thailand or a new. New Orias, the question was, yeah, yeah.

But this is in the current issue of Florida Weekly. And this is to empower those anywhere in the United States that wants to buy a Toyota, because we, as far as I know, until I heard this feedback from the Houston person, that there was somebody else quoting out-the-door prices, as far as I know, we were the only one. So you can, if you want to buy a Toyota and you live in a Paducah, Kentucky, you can go to the blog, hurluncars.com, and it says get the lowest price on any new Toyota from any toilet dealer,

and you can get an out-the-door price from the Toyota of your choice. take it to your local Toyota dealer and say, this toilet dealer will sell me the car out the door, meaning I can write them a check for this amount of money, and there won't be anything, even tax and tags included, added.

If you can do the same for me or beat it, I'll buy the car from you. So all you folks out there was it 15% of the people buy Toyotas, so 15% of the United States will buy Toyotas. See what the lowest price is that

I'll sell you one poor. If you're outside the Southeast region, they're going to be at our price. Yeah, and I say that in the blog. I'm glad you brought that up. You need to add about $1,000 outside of the Southeast United States, meaning Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama. And if you're in the rest of the USA, there is a lower price because Southeast Toyota distributors adds about $1,000 to the cost of the cars

that the other dealers don't have in other parts of the United States. So help the Toyota dealers out, help the buyers from other Toyota dealers out, just get the lowest price and have them match it. You know, in Florida, with how high the hidden dealer fees are and the Southeast Toyota add-on fee, still be the deal. It's got to be the highest-priced-priced-of-the-country. Yeah.

I'd guess. I don't know. We have a question. This is a Rick question. What's going on with Toyota doorlocks? I had one fail, and then I went online, and they're going bad everywhere, and they're super expensive. Well, Toyota's going to probably put an archicide order out on me, but they're crap. Toyota doorlock actuators, the power door locks. Are we going to say that word on the air?

Well, the FBI hasn't broke the door in yet, so I think we might be good. They're failing all over the place, and we're constantly. replacing door lock actuators on just about every model that Toyota makes with power door locks. Is there a technical bullet on that, Rick? There's not really even a TSB on them. They're just, and I keep sending in dealer product reports every time we get one. You do. And we have a ton of customers that we are doing goodwill repairs, replacing those doorlock actuators,

even when they're out of warranty. And here's actually, this is what some of the, uh, technical experts when we call the tech line assist program, they tell us, oh, well, customers are using those air fresheners that have the liquid in them, and those have a little bit of silicone in it, or they're using silicone spray on the rubber around the window, and that silicone is getting in and killing the doorlock actuators. And my answer is, boy, that sounds like a whole lot of what I used to shovel when I lived my uncle's ranch.

Well, I didn't know about this. I learned, I didn't even know in my own dealership that we had a chronic problem with door locks. Is this on all models or on all years? Just about any car with power door locks, we've been replacing actuators. As a matter of fact, my own truck, I just had to buy one just the other day.

I had to order one up. I've got to install it on one of my back doors on my pickup. And these things are not cheap. retail price close to $400 each. Why couldn't we get you a goodwill on your truck? Well, I just haven't asked for you. Because Toyas mad at them, because he keeps saying things like this. Yeah, but is it for Rick?

There should be a recall on these things to replace them, but they need to figure out what's going on. We'll definitely pursue that. And all you folks out there who have a doorlock problem, love to hear from you. And the thing you need to remember is that Toyota knows it's a problem because they're offering goodwill. Goodwill is like extending the warranty. When you know you've got a product problem and you don't want to recall it, they will extend goodwill because it sues their guilty conscience because they know they're wrong about it. So folks out there with Toyota doorlight problems, heads up, take it to the dealer and tell them that you want it fixed under goodwill. And if it doesn't happen, you should raise some hell.

and I call Toyota say, I know you've got a doorlight problem, and you should fix it, and not charge me. Right. Very good. Or face arcicide. Yeah, absolutely. This is from Bobo. Quick question. Shouldn't paint blending be covered under manufacturer's warranty?

I have an FF door paint, which is a front fender, folks. Actually, just a front fender. I have a front fender door repaint, manufacturer defect, and the shop told me I need to blend the nearby undamaged paint. front right door and it costs like 60% of the damaged paint. However, the dealer told me that the blend has not covered under warranty because it's undamaged paint. Is he right? I'd say he's wrong. I would fight it to the death. Yeah. And I think you just need to probably try another dealer called Toyota. Is it a Toyota? It doesn't say. Yeah. Whatever, whatever make it is, I would try another dealer. The manufacturer's warranty

is supposed to make you whole with respect to the repair. So certainly, if you had defective paint on the fender and they don't blend it properly into the rest of the body, they haven't made you whole. You can't, they devalued your car. I suspect that there could be something known as warranty fraud going on where the dealer is getting the full reimbursement for the repair and they're saving on the paint materials and labor

by only doing the one panel. You could be right. But yeah, that's a, boy, I love that question. I hope everybody out there understood it. I hope the sender will go to the dealer and get it taken care of the way it should be. Yep. This is from PV. If you purchased a vehicle at off-lease only and the window sticker on the vehicle identified it as a previous accident vehicle,

along with off-lease-only comm's website also identifying the vehicle as a previous accident vehicle, then you purchased a vehicle that was involved in a severe accident. and your vehicle sustained structural damage to the frame that may be dangerous. Have it checked out by a professional. Now you understand why its price, its value was so cheap.

It had been severely wrecked. This is all in caps, by the way, when off-lease only sold it to you, and they knew it. Yeah, well, that's kind of like the CarMax, or I mean the off-lease-only secret to success. They figured this out a long time ago, and I give them credit

because structural damage is not what everybody thinks it is and with unibodies and frames no longer being integral parts of the car that the unibody damage is not endangering, is not a safety issue and so there's a legacy believing it is

and because people believe it is it is and when you do damage your car and you do damage the unibody it severely affects the resale value Well, off-lease buys the car at a severely reduced rate because they go through the auction at lower prices. But they also pass the cost along to you. They're one price. They put their lowest price on the car, and you buy it, and what you save is what they saved when they bought it at auction.

Yeah. And the texter pointed out, it was disclosed on the window sticker on their website very conspicuously. A lot of dealers, and we see this in the mystery shop, do not disclose it conspicuously off-lease only. You know what you're getting. You still want to take it to your mechanic because there can be safety issues with a wreck car, and you want someone to check it out. I had a caller yesterday, and he was shopping CarMax and off lease. I said there are two good places.

I said, you can get a good buy at either place. I said, off lease is really protect yourself in the clenches, and be careful because they buy cars on the cheap, and they sell them on the cheap, and there's no guarantees or warranties to. speak of. There's some little bitty thing in the first five days or something. And don't finance it at off lease only. But you can still get a great buy at off lease. It's a good place. To buy cars, you're careful. Sister Nancy? Nuncy.

Nancy. 877-960-9960. I like that. That's got a ring to it. Sister Nuncy. Yes. Text number, 772-4976530. I got a text from Leslie. and she's inquiring about car seats. And she wants to know where the best place would be to go to get information and find out the number one rated. Well, without a doubt, Leslie, I have to steer you towards Consumer Report. They have a whole lot to say about these car seats that are out there.

And somebody Google Exhum Reports and look up Car Seats, I mean. According to my information, over five million, can you believe it, over five million car seats, and most of those will incline into sleepers, have been recalled. That was last spring, I believe. And also, unfortunately, there has been some deaths. I believe that there may have been 70. So go to your consumer report, and you can find all kind of great information and recommendations. Hope I answered your question.

Number one, Consumer Report, recommended child seat is the Chico, C-H-I-C-C-C-O. Number two is the Chico, C-H-I-C-C-O, number three, number four, number five. No, number five is a G-B. Get yourself a Chico. Get yourself a Chico. CHI-C-O, tested price, $180, buy it on Amazon, and probably save a few bucks. I took baby Jake home and a Chico. 18 years ago.

Yeah, oh. How nice. What a great memory. And you see how long that took me? No time at all. Consumer reports, don't buy anything. A coffee pot, a car seat, a car. That's the best way to go, Leslie.

I agree with Earl's information just gave you. And, you know, you'd probably think to yourself that Fisher Price because it's such a popular car seat, but they were major, major players in this recall. It really, it's a very serious situation. Over 5 million were recalled. Thanks for your text, Leslie. Yeah, and by the way, just general advice, you can save yourself two hours a week. You don't have to listen to the show. Any car questions, just Google.

I guess that's what we're doing. No, we have some retained knowledge over the years. I'm just teasing. But we do have some fun here, don't we? This is partially entertainment. You don't want to miss the entertainment. You can Google Earl Stewart. Yeah, exactly.

Everything we ever said is on. Everything I know was on Google. Exactly. But this is infotainment, folks. That's a whole show. That's what we call it a show. Steve from New Jersey, who was a long-time listener, and a texter also references Consumer Reports.

He says, hi, Earl, Steve from New Jersey. you are a keen supporter of consumer reports. If at all possible, it would be great if you could get Keith Barry on your show. He wrote the October 23 article about the high risk of injury and death of female occupants and cars. Oh, cool. Yeah. Keith Barry. Keith Barry, yeah. Very good.

Well, we'll certainly dry. Wouldn't that be something? Is that B-A-R-R-Y? B-A-R-I, yeah. Or why, yeah. Rick? One quick note, folks. When you do get a car seat, stop by your local fire station.

The firefighters are actually all trained on the installation and proper installation of those car seats to make sure they're anchored properly in the car because that's actually a very important factor. No matter how good the car seat is, if it's not mounted properly in the car in an accident, that can become a flying projectile. And the fire department will help you put that in? Absolutely. Great advice, Rick. These car seats and sleepers, they are so called.

complicated. I mean, they were complicated when Jake was born. I remember Earl and I struggling to get this child into... That's right. I just threw that on you. Transparency. Struggling. Earl's smiling a bit. I'm pretty sure he remembers. But this stroller that we were trying to put Jake in... Yeah, good luck folding that thing up. They're easier now. When my son was born, and they just came out, or just before, something called the latch system. So it used to be, used to use the seat belts to secure the seat. And then all the manufacturers started putting these like anchors in there. And there's these little anchor things that tie on.

It's easier. But some cars, it is hard to do. So I agree with Rick, you know, get somebody who knows what they're doing to show you how to do it. And the firefighters love it. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. row. Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, your anonymous feedback. We want to hear from you.

And we're still waiting for the ladies to give us a call to new lady callers. Now back to Stu. I got a really good one. You're going to get really excited about this one. It's from a dealer. Oh, boy. Or maybe it's a salesperson. But it's from a dealership. I sell Mazda's. In fact, I sell a lot of them at a Mazda dealer in Florida. Earl Stewart claims not to have dealer fees when in reality all they do is hide the money elsewhere. We pride our ourselves in being, we pride ourselves in being full disclosure. We also pride ourselves. Car dealers pride themselves in a lot. We pride ourselves and, I don't even know if that's a, that's not even a verb. Okay. We also pride ourselves in having a lot of class, which is probably while

we're close to becoming the number one Masta dealerships and dealership in all of Florida. Wow. Best part is, I've never had to bash another dealer, brand, or salesperson to build value in my product, or to convince people that I'm the salesperson they should purchase from. It sounds like you guys are the desperate ones bashing another brand and dealer. I've always been taught that if someone speaks poorly about someone else, it says a lot more about the one speaking than it does about the one being spoken about. Maybe check out some videos on class, integrity, dignity, or head back to car sales 101.

We don't want to do that. You might have some better luck with your sales. Sorry that your customers would rather buy a Mazda. Before you jump in on that, I just have to point out that Mazda has about 1% market share. So, anyway, I had to take a little sweat. Well, you know, Mazda is, you know, Mazda is in my heart forever because I was the first Mazda dealer in the Eastern United States. I got a franchise from Mazda in August of 1970, and I actually flew to Jacksonville to meet with the chairman of the board of the Mazda. They're based in Hiroshima.

I believe it's, you know, Hiroshima. And I was awarded the Mazda franchise, and I had that for many, many years. So, you know, I love Mazda when they have the rotary engine, so I digress. The fact of the matter is to this salesperson or manager or whatever of the soon-to-be-the-largest master dealer. Congratulations. I'm glad you're doing that. And I understand your position, and I appreciate the call. At least you had the courage.

Of course, it was on anonymous feedback, but I can understand that too. It wasn't anonymous. Oh, it wasn't anonymous. It was a text, yeah. A text. Okay. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to text him back, and I'm going to invite him to visit our dealership.

I might even try to hire him because we do have an honest, up front, out-the-door price on our cars. We do not have a dealer fee hidden or otherwise. No hidden fees whatsoever. And I believe this young man may actually have, or young woman, may actually have the sincere interest of the consumer. at heart. So heads up. I'm going to give you a call personally and we'll have a conversation and I want you to prove to yourself that we are who we say we are. And if you'd like to work for a truly honest dealer, we'd love to talk to you, interview you. So thanks again for having the courage to send us a text. I appreciate it. Next. Earl. Dealey, Lake Park is

holding. Yes. Hi, Dealey. Good morning, Dealey. Good morning, everyone. I want to say that I really enjoy your show every Saturday. It's so informative. Thank you. Thank you. And my question is, I purchased a Toyota back in the 70s, since then, brand new, since then I've had two Subaru's brand new, and then a Ford brand new. So it's time for me to buy a new car. And I want to buy a car. And I want to buy a car. from your dealership. However, the car I want is not a Toyota.

It's a Subaru. Well, you want to buy a new Subaru? 2019 or 2020, correct. Yeah, we can sell you a used Subaru. Unfortunately, only a Subaru dealer can sell you a new Subaru, but what we can do for you

is if you want a new Subaru, you can contact your Subaru deal that you'd like to buy from and we can coach you, I'd be happy to help you to be sure you get a fair price and as I say if we had

to use Subaru that fits your needs we'd be tickled deaths I'll tell you you can go to our website and look and see what we have online and if we have any Subaru Stu's probably looking at it right now I wasn't. I was shopping he was playing poker

online. I'm not to getting to getting a Toyota, except I really don't care for the RAB fours or the SUVs that are made. It's just like a personal preference. Oh, I understand. I'm just leaning towards like a Subaru cross-check because there's kind of like a smaller SUV and kind of a little sporty. Sure. Well, you should buy the car.

First of all, Subaru is a great car. I mean, if there's, Subaru is absolutely a success story. They really, really have come on strong. safety, reliability, and maintenance, check consumer reports you probably already have. It's just a great vehicle. And I love their advertising, by the way. The dogs. So you couldn't go wrong with Subaru.

We got one, by the way. Get one one. We have one. We have one used Subaru in our use car inventory. And we're glad to sell you that one, but that's not a very good selection. I suggest that you shop around and buy one from your local Subaru dealer. But check with us. You can text me or Stu or Nancy,

and we would coach you through the purchase process and tell you what a good price is at the Subaru dealer. Be sure you get a fair, no hidden fee, no dealer installed accessories type price. And that's what you want, and that's what you should buy. Okay, I thank you, and like every week I've been learning more more as to who to trust, who not to trust, or what to look for, and

now I'm really sold on your dealership because I need to find the car. Thank you very much, Daly. Thank you very much. Thank you, Daly. Happy New Year. Give us a call again. After you make your purchase, we'd be interested in speaking to you, and happy new year to you. 877-960, or you can

text us at 772-4976530. Remember that shopping report's coming up, and we want you to be part of the grading process. Now back to Stu. We have an anonymous feedback response. It says if Earl was offered a dealership from GM, either GMC, Chevy, et cetera, would he accept it? Also, if any manufacturer offered him a dealership outside of South Florida, i.e. Gainesville, Jacksonville, Pennsylvania, Pensacola. Would he accept it?

I would definitely like to buy another dealership. I would, it would depend on the dealership. Oh, you mean an open point? An open point, I would probably most say unequivocably I would probably take. An open point, as I explained earlier, is like a gift of cash from the manufacturer. Most all new car franchise now have some value, what we call blue sky. So people accept open points a lot more quickly than they would having to negotiate to buy at a very high price in South Florida. So we'd love to have another dealership, GMC, General Motors, or otherwise.

If I get to move back to Gainesville, I'll do that. Love Gainesville. Go Gators. Yeah. Good question. So we're caught up with texts. Okay. And no more YouTube?

We're actually good right now. Fantastic. Let me mention just one additional thing. And I want to thank the Florida Weekly for running my article about attention, the governor and the Attorney General. Here it is right here. Open letter to Governor Ron DeSannie, Florida House Speaker, Jose Oliva, Florida State President,

Bill Galvano, Attorney General Ashley Moody. And thanks very much for running that article. The hometown news, as was pointed out earlier, by John from Palm City. They ran it in the op-ed section, and they also wrote a letter to each of these individuals, in our state legislature and our governor and the attorney general asking them to please comment on this article now I haven't received any comments yet and I don't think that the hometown news has received any comments I don't know if Florida Weekly has received any comments but basically this this article was asking the legislators and the regulators why they don't enforce the state law the state law that says you must include all fees, hidden fees, in the advertised price.

And why don't you enforce this? Now, for the first time I'm announcing that we are going to run this particular blog column as a full-page ad in the Tallahassee Democrat. And I didn't do it right away because I wanted to, after the holidays, when all the politicians were back in Tallahassee. So I think probably will, in the second week of January, I'll be running this blog article in the Tallahassee Democrat, full page. And I want to know why Governor Ron DeSanti, why Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva,

why Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, or why Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody, does not enforce the law that we have. You made the law and you're the regulator to enforce the law. Why don't you enforce the law? Virtually no car dealer in the state of Florida. follows the law to include hidden fees in their advertised price. I would say one out of what's due, honored?

I don't think we've seen it once. I mean, Hollywood did it, but then they had a different... They didn't do it. Well, yeah, they had a dealer fee was included in the price, but then they had another dealer fee. That's right. And when you went to the dealership, they didn't follow the rule.

The advertised price, but... It was close. And part of the angle is the dealers might include is Stu said, Craig Zenz, Hollywood, Toyota, they'll include their dealer fee that they call a dealer fee, but they don't include the dealer fee that they call an electronic filing fee. So virtually no car dealer anywhere in Florida follows this law.

So this is just a heads up to all you regulators and legislators out there. We're going to ask the bosses, the Senate president, the Speaker of the House, the Attorney General, and the governor. You know, Governor DeSanti, I like what you're doing. I see, you're, you're, I think it's DeSantis. DeSantis, yeah, I'm sorry. You always leave, I apologize. Oh, people misspell my name.

I apologize, Governor DeSantis. Governor DeSantis, I like what you did. You got elected, and you actually are taking some action from both sides of the aisle. You're not being all Republican or all Democrat. You're doing what you think is right, and I think you're a good guy. Take some time. I know how busy you are, Governor DeSantis, to take a look at the Florida statute. statute 501.976, paragraph 16.

Florida statute 501.976 paragraph 16. Read the law. The law says basically car dealers have to include hidden fees. They call them dealer fees in the advertised price of the car. Name of the game, it ain't happening. It isn't being done. It's being frequently violated by everybody. All you have to do is look at the advertisements in Tallahassee, where you spend a lot of time

and see if you can find an advertised price that includes the dealer fee in Tallahassee. So I'm talking to Governor Sanchez, I'm talking to Jose Oliva, I'm talking to Bill Golano, and the Attorney General, Ashley Moody. Ashley, it is your job to enforce the law more than the legislators. You're the enforcer. There's the law. statute 501 976

Paragraph 16 Enforce the law Ashley if you're not listening I know somebody's listening that knows you and can speak to you can communicate with you communicate with Ashley

Ashley Moody Florida Attorney General and say take a look at the advertisements online or on TV see if you can find one car dealer that is obeying the law Okay. Great point. Congratulations on being recognized on that article. I have a text that pointed out that I was spreading misinformation, and it says,

Hello, it's absolutely not true that you can go to any fire station. They will help install your car seat. I was a firefighter for over 30 years. So, of course, I Googled it, and that is correct. That is an urban myth, apparently. there is a website. It's the National Child Passenger Safety Certification. You can search in your community for a specialist who can help you, but it doesn't happen at the fire station. So I apologize for that. Yeah.

Oh, I am corrected too. Yeah, Rick, too. We should have snoped it. Mm-hmm. And by the way, snope.com, www. That's snoop.com. Snopes. SNL-P-E-S is a great debunking website.

and shame on us. But congratulations on correcting a mistake. Thank you. To what you said, Rick, I recall seeing it advertised on TV, not the fire station, but it was your local police that you could stop by.

True? I found it highly doubtful that when you make a blanket statement like that, maybe there's one police department that would do it or could or would want to, but I just don't think every police department in the United States, would do that. And they're probably the same thing.

There might even be a fire department that did it one time. But this is how urban legends grow. Exactly. And we're all about the truth. Exactly. But actually, I found the NHTSA website, just nhtsa.gov, that will refer you. You can search, if you use Google how to install a car seat, you'll find a ton of resources out there. Now, speaking about it, I'm glad you said that, because when Tina was talking about nhtsa.gov,

National Highway Traffic Safety Association. dot go I was going to say I thought the website was safercar.gov it's probably both right safercar.gov and nhtsa.gov

yeah safercar.gov takes you directly to the recall site and nhtasa.gov takes it to the just their overall website and then from there you can get a link to go to the other very good. Okay well Palm Beach County

the pbcgov.org which is a Palm Beach County website our government website says, Palm Beach County Fire Rescues certified child passenger safety technicians will check your child's car seat for proper installation, safety and recall status, as well as educate you on how to properly install the seat yourself, and on their website, they have where you can schedule an appointment, and they have, I'm seeing six different locations here, or five locations, rather, where you can go to have your, to set up an appointment, appointment. The first Wednesday, second, third, fourth, Wednesday. So it is Palm Beach County, but we don't know about any other county. And we're global. And we are global. But you can, you can Google this for your county, for your location, and they have people that you can go to that will make sure your car seats install properly, and they're certified to do so. In Palm Beach County.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. We have an interesting text here. I can't, there's not really to read. It says, a call if you like. I have a story for you, but I don't want to be on the air, so I'll afford you the phone number. Oh, okay. I'll call you. And I'm also going to call that a car dealer, car salesman by the way, that was a post on YouTube channel. So the only way to respond is to for you post on it. So Jonathan is sending you. Oh. Yeah, he'll send you the link. Oh, I got you. Okay. Shall we get to the mystery shopping report? Do we have any other? I'm good to get. Dexter calls. Okay, let's go to our mystery shopping report. and a knife. I think I can find it here. It's somewhere. I was shuffling my papers around a lot.

Would you like mine? Yeah, let me have yours. I can't find it. Thank you very much. Okay. This is kind of you're going to like this. Oh, I told earlier that Age of Thunder got busted, but it's, uh, it was so cool. It was Dewey. Oh, really? Doey busted him. Is that right? Yeah, a little bit of a ball. Yeah, well, I'll say, I'll be able to. I'll, thank you very. I'll, thank you very. very much. Okay, mystery shop of Carl's Buick GMC. Now, plan A for this week's mystery shop was Infinity of

Stewart. We found a payment added there that promised a low payment was zero dollars down. When we sent Ager of Thunder in to find out if Zero really meant zero, his cover was blown. A former salesperson,

who I just found out his name was Dewey. Hey, Dewey. Yeah, Dewey Tate? No, not Dewey. Doey Ball. Dewey Ball. Yeah. I had another friend named Dewey Tate. Doey Ball. Doey Ball, worked for us for a long, long time, spotted Agent Thunder and in foreign management. Sales manager confronted Agent Thunder and asked him to leave. Mr. Shopping is not risk-free. I mean, you know, to be honest with you, I was just terrified that this was going to happen sooner because he's been all over and he uses his name, real name, and he has never been. been busted up until now. So we really push the envelope. We might have to bring him in out of the cold for a while. Yeah. I don't know. Burn notice.

Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Agent Thunder, he's a true professional. He found another dubious ad from another treasure co-dealer on his phone in infinity of Stewart's parking lot. So he's standing there and he got the

ad out and it was like across the street. They were very close anyway. I think they're all on U.S. 1. Yeah, on U.S. 1, yeah. This one was even better. Carl's Buick GMC was advertising a new 2019 Buick Encore for 25% off.

And that's a huge percentage, and you actually see them higher than that. 25% off, high catching, and we had to see what it was all about. Earl Sturland Cars has investigated Carl's Buick twice before, once in May of 2016,

and again in July of 2018. Yeah, Carl's Buick has been around for a long time, hasn't it? About 20 years. Yeah. And it's a, you know, a locally owned,

I guess the guy's name is really Carl. Yes, I think in our old Mr. Shop where we have his last name, but it's Carl, and I think he opened it up in 1999. Yeah. The first time we visited him was to check out an ad that, like today's mystery shop, promised a huge discount.

Back then, they used obscure rebates that very few people qualified for it to get top... I'm sorry, get to the top... To get to the top, to get the advertised price. And you were tired last night, I don't blame me, I was tired too. In addition to that, of course, the dealer fee was added to the discounted price as well. So the second time we shopped them was a Takata test, and sadly they failed the Takata test,

but almost everybody fails the Takata test. We had a suspicion that the 25% off ad would also turn out to be a bait-and-switch. The fine print disclosure was extremely hard to find read, but it did contain some. some clues that support our feelings. I took the fine print on my copy of it, and I'll hold up my copy of it, and I got out my magnifying glass, and I still

couldn't read it, but I guess on, you know, with a good copy, you can't read that, but it's virtually impossible to read it. Well, I got new progressive lenses, and I can see tiny, tiny. Yeah, yeah. Let's see here. We have, okay, blah, blah, blah. One of the things

that raised our suspicion was, is that they give a single stock number. And it says STK, STK, STK, hashtag 194-5-1, and that's code. It's one car, and every car in a dealer's inventory has one of these stock numbers. And it legally, technically, gets them off the hook saying that this specific car is available

at this price for sale. It also protects them in case it is a good price that means they only have to sell one car at that price. Typically, it's a dubious reason. It's a devious reason, I should say, to put the stock number in there. If you're advertising a price, you should be willing to sell that MSRP, make model car, to anybody at that price. But when you say, I'll only sell one. That's a red flag. It also specify prices do not include additional fees.

and costs of closing, including government fees and taxes, any finance charges, any dealer documentation fees, or other fees. I like the other fees. It's like anything else we can think. Everything. A piece of fee. They should just say, this price means absolutely nothing. You know what? That might be a legal disclosure.

I mean, that might not my thought, this price doesn't mean anything. This price is not valid in any way, shape, or form. and he put it in the fine print it's that's i think that's a great disclosure bullpucky yeah you know we ran a uh i know i'm digressing but we have time we ran an ad uh in hometown news years ago and uh we advertised a car for one dollar uh do you remember that we did that yeah we did yeah we we had a full page ad but we oh yeah yeah yeah in the spoof we had the fine print and we and we in the fine print we said this is not true and our dealer fee is $20,000 $20,000.

Let's do that again. Let's do that again. Yeah. That was fun. And maybe we'll do one in Florida weekly. Yeah, let's do it, yeah. Yeah. We have to do a used car because Toyota won't let us advertise a car for a dollar.

Yeah. Oh, geez. Well, even with disclosure? Even with disclosure. Oh, okay. All right. I digress so much. I forgot where, oh, here we are.

Okay, we had a pretty good idea of what Agent Thunder was getting to, but hey, sometimes we get a surprise. Okay, here's the report. I'm Agent Thunder, like I went in myself, speaking the first person. I was greeted by an older salesman named Leonard. Once I entered Carl's Buick Showroom, Leonard was a very friendly, welcoming guy. He shook my hand and asked how he could help me.

I replied by showing him a copy of the ad for 25% off, a new Buey Concord. Just like my experience the week before at Napleton's Palm Beach Accura, Leonard cautioned that the advertised car was just a base model. Second time in a row that verbiage has been used and suggested we look at a better equipped trim level. I interrupted to assure him that I was okay with getting a base model. I told him I had a two-year-old and another baby on the way.

I anticipated this car getting pretty trashed, and I didn't want anything too fancy. Leonard accepted this and said he'd find the ad car for me. Before he did, he offered me a cup of coffee. I accepted, sipped it as I waited for him to come back for me. He was back in a few minutes and I made a copy of my driver's license before we headed outside. The Encore was parked outside. The MSRP was $27,360, about $1,200 more than the MSRP of the ad car.

He told me he was going to go out and get the ad car. And he went out, but he didn't get the ad car. And at this point in time, he didn't say anything. He just wanted him to have something really nice. Yeah. I didn't say anything. I pretended like I didn't know it wasn't the ad car, but I did. I mean, $1,200, difference.

There was also an addendum on the window that listed a protection package and prepaid maintenance for $1,223, kicking up the MSRP by $1,223. Leonard saw me reading it and told me not to worry about it. See, you know, they're sensitive about this. They probably hate it. Yeah, they hate it. They do.

Salespeople don't like that kind of stuff. Leonard was a pro when it came to his vehicle presentation. He helped me adjust my seat, went over all the features thoroughly. Then we went on a test drive. Leonard shined on the test drive. He made jokes and easy conversation while, interjecting information about the car when appropriate. I

liked Leonard. Now, I'm going to say that again. I liked Leonard. This is so important to understand for everybody. A good salesperson, and I mean that a salesperson

that can sell a lot of cars and make a lot of money for himself and the dealer, I mean that kind of a good salesperson, not a morally good salesperson. A salesperson that can sell a lot of money, sell a lot of money, sell a lot of cars, make a lot of money,

is likable. And I talk to so many people that know where they want to buy their next car because they buy their car from their friend, George, who works at the Honda store. And George is just a prince of a guy. And he is such a nice guy.

He's got a family. You know, he belongs to my club, my church, his kids play on my house. a baseball team, kids' baseball team. This is the way someone sells a lot of cars and makes a lot of money. And I'm a car dealer. We look at likability when we hire a salesperson.

You can have the most honest person in the world, the hardest working person in the world. But if they aren't likable, they can't sell cars. So when you find a salesperson that you really like, a red flag ought to go up and a siren ought to go off because that's the guy that can get you or the gal that can get you. Leonard also talked at length

about Carl's Buick's reputation for honesty and family values. I use this to ask him for his opinion about the ad. I asked Leonard, be straight with me. Is this ad legit? Leonard said it was absolutely legit. I mean, what'd you expect?

Well, I shouldn't say that because we've actually had sales people that have spilled the beans. They say, yeah, it's not legit. It's just get you in the door. But even that statement is to garner your trust. And now they build the trust between you and the salesperson.

So salespeople are a good salesperson is not only likable, but he's smart. Okay. So Leonard assures me it's legit. He said they're using a $5,000 rebate. to help them get the sale price. That's from the manufacturer, General Motors, which is 25% off MSRP.

I asked if everyone qualified the rebate, and he said that everyone did, okay? That's a common trick. You know, are you a college graduate, are you a member of the military, whatever? Leonard went on to say that they did not, they did have the base model in stock. Now he tells me, okay?

We got the baseball on stock, but the one we were driving was a nicer trim. He thought I'd like it better. Well, he should have told me, right? Up front. I told him that I did like the bells and whistles. I agreed. I asked if I could get the same discount on it.

Leonard said yes. When they have the bells and whistles, there's more profit billed in. So if they give you the same discount, they're making more profit. So it was a deceptive switch. And he did it in a remarkably friendly manner. and most people probably would have gone along with it. Back of the dealership, Leonard asked me if I was ready to write it up. I said I was.

Leonard said he would print all the numbers up, and if I liked them, I would take it home. I sat down the way to return it with a buyer's order. I noticed that Agent Thunder mistakenly thought this was a buyer's order. It's not a buyer's order. It's a worksheet. At first I thought, boy, this is unusual, because most all car dealers have gone from showing you

the legitimate buyer's order. A vehicle buyer's order is a legal document, but they don't use legal documents anymore. As they get more and more corrupt, they learn to use worksheets because they can do about anything they want to, and there's no law that apply to a worksheet. Oftentimes there will be a disclosure on the worksheet

that says this is for, you know, negotiation purposes only or, you know, this one in particular, this one in particular said this is not a legal document. Right. So, this is not a contrary. On the worksheet, he discounted the MSRP by $1,300, making the top line sale of price $26,000 even. I always get nervous when you had even numbers.

That wasn't smart. It should have been $2.01 and $0.19. That's what I used to do when I was evil. When we'd advertise the price, we'd always... There's got to be a reason you're being that particular. Yeah, exactly. Then he added a $699 dealer fee, called it a dealer fee, right? $114 electronic filing fee, which is also his divot fee, but he called to something else, hidden fee.

Then he had his sales tax, but strangely, no title or registration fee. So that's $813 in hidden fees that was not included in the advertised price, which is breaking law, which is what I said before earlier to Ashley Moody, the Florida Attorney General. why is Carl's Buick, GMC, and Stuart advertising prices and violating the law of Florida? I don't know. Maybe Ashley Moody can explain it to me. Then he took off the $5,035 rebate, making my out-the-door price $23,443. I proceeded directly to the exit plan.

How do I get out of here? I needed to take the numbers with me to review it home before coming back after six to take delivery Leonard didn't object or attempt to get a manager to stop me. We shook hands and I left. This is an indication this is an old school dealership

well maybe not an old school Leonard is an old school salespeople they're supposed to have a manager get involved in the every sale and this is a no-no for Leonard he should have done it probably Carl and the manager

would be unhappy if they'd known that he'd let this customer out, meaning me, without a T.O., we call it, a turnover to management. And there you have it. The ad showed $65.90 in savings off MSRP, before adding back hidden fees, Agent Thunders discount was about $300 less or on a considerably more expensive car on which they would have made more money. In both cases, the discounts were bogus because there was $813 in-fee's added, add to the discounted price. The ad card discount was actually 5,777, not

6590. Agent Thunder's discount was 5522, not 6335. So messy, not according to the ad, but not particularly other character. Close. We've seen worse, but it's still, still baits, which

we have some grades coming in. Okay, let's hear the grades. Leonard gives them an A plus. I'm kidding I think that was a joke, Leonard. All right, Jeff. Jeff gives him a D. Nina gives him a D. Craig gives them a C.

Gino and F and Danielle in F. I am hesitant to fail them because because we do great on a curve, this doesn't seem like a more extreme sort of bait and switch, but it still is, so I'm going to give them a D. Yeah, I feel saying

why we, I tend to get emotionally involved every time I do a Mr. Shopping report and then I can't let my emotions carry me away. We just can't fail everybody. We have no place left to Shawbrook. I'm just curious about one thing. I'm looking at the picture of the

addendum sticker. Yeah. And it says on the maintenance plan that for the first three years of ownership, they're giving them six oil changes and three tire rotations. That seems backwards to me because the oil is

According to Google, the 2019 Buick Encore is supposed to be using 0W20 synthetic oil, and one oil change with that oil is probably going to be retail price about $80 or $90. You know what? I bet that addendum sticker is 20 years old, and I bet nobody's ever read the fine brown on it. I guarantee that it's a typo, but don't worry, Carl's Buick, because you're not responsible for typographical errors. Exactly, right. Seriously, it says they can't vouch for the accuracy description or condition this vehicle or its listed equipment. Yeah.

So there you go. I couldn't read it, and I'm glad you did read that. Most people, these addendum stickers, you saw what happened with Leonard. I, as Agent Thunder, was looking at the addendum sticker, and he says, don't worry about that. Right away, you knew that it was bogus, added, puffing up the price of Phony Monroney. Puffington. Yeah. So it's funny, old school denim cigars. It's really hysterical that they put that typo in there for 20 years and nobody ever noticed it. Nobody reached a fine print, not even the dealer.

Well, from YouTube, Frank says a D and Ernesto is giving a D, Mark Smith from Iowa, a D, and Mark Ryan also from Iowa, a D. Yeah. Yeah, there is, I hate to give a, I almost want to give them a C. I mean, the more I think about it, this is almost like a standard kind of shopping award in Florida. Now, there were some other little things and details that we didn't cover. So if you look at the ad, it shows a rebate on there and it says, I just lost my spot, but the rebate, I think, said $5,500 or something like that. Leonard said, here, let me pull it up here. The ad said, okay, a Buick and GMC standalone consumer cash program, they take $5,500 off. Well, the rebate that actually was just a little over $500, so I don't know if an agent Thunder was given the actual rebate or there was some other explanation. But he reduced the amount of the rebate and also didn't discount the car as much as the, well, actually, no, he did discount the car, but the rebate, he kind of shortchanged him on.

he was tap dancing and bobbing and weaving and trying to get the deal and that's he was a good salesman yeah i mean he's uh likable something all up as i said before and the average person would never have been as skeptical as agent thunder and if you have a salesperson with a great smile and tell you a few jokes get your cup of coffee and ask you about your wife and kids and the dog uh he makes a friend You make a friend, and you want a friend. It's not like the old school. You know, you don't have the white shoes and the checkered pants and the old, you Google deceptive car dealers and go to images, and they have some hysterical with a cigar. I mean.

Yeah. Well, I just texted you the picture, and it's up to if you want to show it. There is a picture of Leonard. It's actually a picture of a desk cutout of Leonard that he had on a. desk and that's pretty clever first I thought that might be Carl because you know it looks like maybe the picture of the dealer but you can zoom in oh is that actually Leonard yeah you can zoom in on the name tag and you can see that it is Leonard and that's Leonard right there's a nice looking guy yeah he's

very small he's on the desk yeah hi Leonard so if you go into Carl's Buick ask for Leonard he's one heck of a nice guy yeah I like him yeah I like him too great personality I tell you one thing I'm I'm going to give him a C. I mean, because I'm doing it because of Leonard. And I think he's a good person. You know, what we find is a culture of car dealers. And there's two things involved with why car dealers behave the way they do.

One, they've always done it that way, and it's been going on that way for 100 years. Do you believe that? A hundred years. And people that grow up in it, like I did, when I was selling cars, and when I was in that, you know, management and I started business with my father many, many years ago, over 50 years ago. I saw nothing wrong with what I was doing. I just thought it's the way it was. And so if you think back 50 years and a lot of things we did, they're embarrassing today. The way we treated women, the way we treated Afro-Americans, the way we treated Indians. I'm talking

about Native Indians, a lot of things that we did, we just thought we took it for granted. And car dealers are frozen in the past. And so there's a very interesting case study. This will be studied one day after automobile retail dealers no longer exist, which, you know, in probably 25 years, that's going to be the case. There won't be car dealers, as we know them today. They'll say, like, it's like looking back at bloodletting and other ancient practices. Absolutely.

Absolutely, yeah. So Leonard, he's frozen in the past. He's probably a family guy. He's probably a member of his local church or synagogue. He's probably, you know, he coaches the softball team, and he's a member of the Kiwanis Club. He's a good guy. He's a good guy.

So if you are in the market for a GMC or a Buick, go see Leonard. Just be careful. Yeah. Yeah. And get three competitive prices and do your homework. and let Leonard make a living. Exactly. Okay.

We still have some time yet. I think we have time for my vote. Oh, I forgot. I'm sorry. Uh-oh. Yeah. We ignored you. My apologies.

Okay. I'm a serious trouble on the way home. No, we can, this can go down right here. Why wait? Let's do it. Get the popcorn, folks. Here we go. Let's get ready to rumble.

Okay. I'm not interested in what Leonard looks like. His personality, sure, that's important. You know, whether, you know. Watch out, Leonard. Here it comes. But Carl's Pueck gets a D-minus from me. A lot of tap dancing, you know. It's just, why does it have to be this way? It's a minefield out there. Do your homework.

There you go. Well, you passed him now. I was very easy on Leonard. I thought something was about to go down. That's the way I play the game. And then I jump on you. You know, the salespeople that I like that we encounter on the Mr. Sargent reports are the ones who will actually be frank about the dealership deceptive practices.

And if you can find a salesperson that you really know, and he will be honest about the misleading advertising. And you say, listen, I understand, I want to buy the car, I want to buy it a fair price, I don't want to steal it from you, I want you to make a reasonable commission. And, you know, if you have a person that you can trust to meet those guidelines, that's kind of fun, because you don't have to go through all the BS. You don't have to do the haggle hassle, meet the manager, and all that. But some of you out there have a salesperson that you've double-checked and he understands the rules of the game,

and he gives you a fair price. I mean, I'm not one of these people. I think a lot of people aren't, you don't have to get the lowest price that the dealer ever sold the car for. You just want a price that was fair that you didn't get to take advantage of. You don't want to pay a $5,000 profit to a dealer

when the guy that came in yesterday bought the same car and he made $1,000 on. Maybe $1,000 is a fair profit for the dealer. But you don't want to pay him $5,000 if $1,000 is an okay profit. I agree. Okay. okay we're not out of time we'd like to sing us a song

well i have an idea uh to our panel here this is our last show for 2019 anybody have a new year's resolution well you know it's funny i have a new year's resolution that i did in my blog column there you go how do you like that for an opening the 2020 the 2020 can i find it here if you can pull that up on oarlandcars.com

It's, oh, here it is right here, 2020 New Year's resolutions for car dealers. Pull that up, 10 resolutions for car dealers. And if you go through that, it headlines everything that you really have to be careful of. First one is display your lowest price on every new and used vehicle. And you know that ain't going to happen.com, but I got to tell them anyway. Add no hidden bogus fees. never pre-installed dealer accessories especially if they're not

including the advertised price don't deprive your customers of the American inalienable right to shop and compare your lowest price with the competition only business that deprives you to that right TV sets, refrigerators,

toothbrushes, anything you want you go to Amazon, Target, Walmart, you can shop and compare prices you can't do it with car dealers. Number five, do not switch a customer that wants to buy a car to leasing because you're going to make a lot more money. Someone comes in to buy a car, sell them a car. Don't switch them to lease because you average over $1,000 more when you lease a car. And if your customer wants to finance this car with you, or from a fair competitive rate,

offer to sell them, offer to sell them products like extended warranties, only if it's a value to them as something they truly can use at a fair price. Never, number seven, never sell a used vehicle with an unfixed, dangerous recall. We find all car dealers doing that. Maybe one out of 100 will say, I can't sell you this car until we refixed it. One out of 100. Never display conditions that increase the real price of the advertised vehicle in unreadable fine print. Every dealer does that.

We saw that today. Today, you'll see it every day. And we've got two minutes. Don't falsely give hope to prospective customers with bad credit by understating the conditions that they must meet to obtain financing. For example, any credit application accepted, or we finance good people with bad credit. Or we want to get everybody approved.

Yeah. You know, of all the things that you do, you cartilage out there, the ones that prey on people with bad credit. credit are the most disgusting people. I mean, when you take advantage of somebody down on their luck, I mean, there's nothing more embarrassing or humiliating to a person to have bad credit. It may or may not be their fault, but either way, to pray on these people by promising things they can't deliver is terrible. Bye-bye, everybody.

Ladies and gentlemen, happy New Year. Thank you for joining us this morning. We'll see you right back here next Saturday, 2020. Redmond, Two. Redmond. Red go. Go. Oh,

Oh, more. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Thank you. Vendopo. Vendopo. Venn. Let's go. Let's come. Oh, wow.

No. Oh. Thank you.