Earl Stewart on Cars - 12.30.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Beaman Toyota of Nashville, TN.

Episode Date: December 30, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Tennessee, to visit a local Toyota dealer in the Nashville area and see how much over sticker price they will charge for a new 2024 Toyota Highlander Platinum SUV on their lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. We're back. You're how not to be ripped off by a car dealer crew. Been doing this for many, many years. going into the new year now that's a cliche but time does fly when you're having a good time this is the time of year

where we think about what happened and what's going to happen and on the show we kind of do this every week so maybe it's a little repetitive but we're getting into a watershed moment in the auto industry, retail and wholesale we've been

you know history moves sometimes slow technology sometimes slow, sometimes fast. So we've been creeping toward this change, this watershed moment for a few years anyway. So we've been talking about a lot, but New Year's is, you know,

it's symbolic and New Year's Eve and all that kind of thing and makes you really think, think, think about what's going to happen. I get excited for the younger people because a lot of what's going to happen is going to happen slowly and the way cars will be sold and the way cars will be manufactured,

electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles and ethics and honesty and the dealership echelon if there are dealerships around in the next few years. We don't know about that either. Kind of scary because, as you know, our family does have a car dealership and we've been a toilet dealer since 1975,

so we kind of like that. We don't want that to change, but it's going to. Facts are facts. It's good for you. And I say you, you're a consumer. You're listening to the show because you probably have a car already, or if you don't, you're probably thinking about buying or leasing one. If you have one, you're probably thinking about how do I maintain or repair it.

And that's what we do on the show. So really, the nuts and bolts, what we're all about is to help you make your life a little bit easier. When you go into that independent repair store or that dealership service department, when you lease or buy a car, we make it a little less scary. So we'll stick to the nuts and bolts, but we can't help thinking about how exciting it is. And, you know, the excitement of the electric vehicle is kind of calming down now. Now, 2003 was a just hysterical Tesla, Elon Musk, Autonomous, I mean, everybody. And it's starting to simmer down a little bit.

It's kind of funny things kind of pendulum like, you know, they kind of meet, they kind to come back to the middle. And so we're now in 2024, we're looking at the electric vehicle, all-electric vehicle, I have be clear about that. All electric vehicle mania is calming down. You know, the first and tenders, people like Nancy and me, you know, here we are, uh, toilet dealers and we went out and bought a, you know, a Tesla, you know, electric vehicle, all electric vehicle, not just a Tesla, all electric vehicle, but the plaid, a super, uh, fast model that has autonomous driving. So why do we do that? Because we like new stuff. We like new technology.

So people like us pretty much fulfilled their wishes, and people like you, the average person, you're not looking for excitement, but you're looking for transportation. You want safety, reliability, you want economy. And so look at what's happening in 2024. The hybrid is king. And the hybrid is the most reliable vehicle. Nancy and I were talking about in the car on the way to the studio. So, you know, we're coming back toward the next.

mean here in terms of activity of the car buyers, but we can't forget what's really going on in the background with artificial intelligence and with autonomous, you know, autonomous is not getting less, you think it is, but, you know, this joke in San Francisco, the General Motors autonomous taxis, they took them off the road. They were running over people, dogs, everybody, I mean, it was terrible. But there's also autonomous vehicles by Waymo, another autonomous vehicle owned by Google, that are in five or six cities, and they're just doing fine. So autonomous vehicles are still with us.

So we have to kind of measure what we talk about on the show, as to what is and what's going to be. And we'll focus, we'll try to focus as much as possible on what is, because what is is is you've got to get in your car and go to the store today, or you have to go to work on Monday and you want the car to start. And when you go get the car repaired, you don't want to surprise. You know, you come in for an oil change

and you walk out with a $3,000 repair bill. You don't want that to happen. And that's the reason we got Rick Kearney with us. Rick Kearney is our certified diagnostic master technician. You want to save yourself a lot of aggravation, heartache, money. Give Rick a call at 877-960-9960. That's 877. 960, 9960, or better yet, stream us at YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars.

YouTube.com forward slash Roll in Cars. Rick monitors that channel, and that he's looking right at the post, and so he could post something and he'll see it and he'll read it, he'll answer it, and that strange noise, that strange smell or vibration, he could probably tell you what the problem is and what it should cost to fix it. Or maybe you shouldn't worry about it and don't even worry, worry about fixing it. So give Rick a call. You can also text us at 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530.

Stu Stewart's sitting right across from me here in the studio. He keeps track of those. He also keeps track of your anonymous feedback. And I saw a couple of freshmen that came in when I sat down. in the studio when I first got in this morning. So we accumulate those. That's for the people that need privacy. Privacy is becoming more and more important to the world.

Seems like we're getting less and less of it. As we get less and less of it, it becomes more and more important. So if you don't want people to know who you are and what your comments are, what your questions are, I respect that. I'm not like that. I shoot my mouth off and everybody knows who I am. And that's just a problem is, I'm glad the rest

the world isn't like me. It would just be, it would be very confusing. But I respect your privacy. You can say something, comment, ask a question, and we don't know where it came from, who you are, where you live. We're not going to come after you. Your anonymousfeedback.com. Why, who you are, A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Anonymous, Your Anonymous Feedback, just like it sounds, dot com. And we'll monitor those and read them. you know, you might have to censor him a little bit if you want to get too emotional or profane or profound or, you know, we'll just kind of bleep it out.

But we'll get the essence of your message across, I promise you. I'm going to turn the mic over now to Nancy Stewart because I've been yakking too long. She monitors the phone calls, which are crucially important, and that's 877-960-99-60. Got a laptop right in front of her, and we got Jeremy in the control room. here at the studio and when the phone call comes through, Nancy will tap me on the shoulder

or tap Stu or Rick on the shoulder and say, hey, we've got a caller. We respect and we want the callers. The personality comes through in the audio version of the old-fashioned phone call. 877-960 and we've got some great callers out there. We love them. We've got some great textures too, but we've got a lot of people that call with very, very interesting comments. questions, and they're part of the show. They're part of the team. Now I'm going to turn the mic over and Nancy, who has a very special offer, by the way, for first-time female callers. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Gosh, we do have a lot to be thankful for, most of all, our listeners, our callers, all of you, texters. You make the show, and it has been a fantastic year again because of all

of you. You know, before I start the show, I'd like to share an important message with the audience. Our vice president of digital operations will be going on vacation, and therefore there'll be a few changes, and those changes are going to occur next Saturday, January the 6th. So we'll be mentioning this message periodically during the show so that maybe you could make a notation if you're interested. For those of you watching our program online, next week on Saturday, January the 6th, the Earl Oncar show will be broadcast using audio streaming only. We will not be video streaming to either our YouTube or Facebook sites. To listen to the live audio during that show, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, go to stream earl-oncars.com and click on the play button in the top center of the page.

As always, if you have a question or a comment during our live show next week, you can call us at 800-960-99-60. There may have been a little bit of an error on that number. I'm not quite sure. Guys, let me repeat that. Let me rephrase that. 877-960-99-60. That's next week's show.

You can call us at 877-7-7-6. 960-9960. We will also be receiving your text messages during the show on our text line at 772-4976530. Please send us your comments so we can read them online. Finally, you can also reach us using our anonymous feedback site. Go to your anonymous feedback.com and we will read your messages during next Saturday's show. That's January the 6th. The video recording from our January 6th show will be posted to our video sites during the following week. We will resume our live video streaming on January the 13th at 8 a.m. So you might want to make a note of that. You know, as to Earl's opening about electric and hybrid and all of this, I have to share with you that hybrids stand out, if you don't know by now. This year's survey shows that hybrids are becoming more reliable,

but plug-in hybrids are less so. On average, hybrids are 26% more reliable than vehicles with only an internal combustion engine. Interesting, isn't it? Give us a call tool-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-2-49-7-60, and you can also text us when we do get to the minimum. Mystery Shopping Report to let us know how you rate the Mystery Shopping Report. The Mystery Shopping Report this Saturday is going to be from Beeman, Toyota in Nashville. Is that right, Stu, Beeman?

Beeman. Beeman. So Agent Lightning did the mystery shop, as she always does. Did a fabulous job. And speaking of being thankful. We're thankful for her also, and a fabulous job that she does week in and week out. I'll mention to the ladies that this morning we have $50 for the first two new lady callers. So give us a call.

Your thoughts on anything at all, anything at all. You can win yourself $50. 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960. Now back to the recovering. Well, I'm going to go right to the phones where I see that we do have a first-time caller. And her name is Karen. She's calling from Stewart.

Good morning, Karen. Hey, good morning. Welcome. Thank you. So great to hear from you. I want to let you know before we get started. You've won yourself $50 this morning, and if you stay on the line, you can give Jeremy in our control room your information, contact information, and he'll give it to me, and I'll write that check-out and get it out to you. Oh, well, thank you so much.

Happy New Year. Yeah, thank you. Yes, starting off with the bank. Yes. So what can we do for you this morning? Well, I have a question. I have a Toyota Camry, 2017, and somehow or another, underneath the passenger seat, it got wet. I have no idea how.

So I swapped up, I mean, it wasn't a lot of water, but underneath the carpet and stuff, I put, I dried it out, I put a fan on it for a couple days. I've sprayed stuff. I have a thing of some container of baking soda underneath the seat, and there still just has a wet smell kind of musty that I can't get rid of. Do you have any suggestions? I think Rick can help you. Yeah. The first thing I'd recommend doing is have a mechanic check the drain hose for your air conditioning.

Okay. The reason being, if that drain hose is partially plugged up, You may be getting water condensation from the air conditioning, backing up in the box and overflowing, and even though the water may seem to be gone, you may still get some water going down into the padding, the jute underneath the carpeting, and you're actually, you're not getting rid of the original problem. You've got to make sure that everything is dried out very well in there. Then I'd recommend damp rid. You can get it at Home Depot, Walgreens, lots of places, Amazon, and damper it is actually designed.

It's a desicant for the air. D-A-M-P-R-I-D-R-D, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. And it comes in buckets and even little bags, and you just simply put this in the car, close up all the windows. It's especially good on a bright, sunny day, so the sun will heat the inside of the car. The water vapor will get sucked up by that dampret. and once it gets rid of that moisture, that will help get rid of a lot of that odor.

And then you can try maybe having the carpets shampooed can help get rid of some of that mustiness as well, and that will reduce it a lot once you get the moisture gone. But if you've got an ongoing leak situation, you know, you're still getting water in somehow. Yeah, you recommend somebody check the drain hose. How much would it cost her to check the drain hose? That should be like an hour's diagnosis. So at our shop it'd be $100. Figure 100 to 150 maximum.

Yeah, I've got a quote before you. Just ask them how much will it cost me to check my drain hose and my air conditioning. And that's the first thing you want to check. But maybe you ought to try the damper it first, and if it doesn't come back, you save yourself the visit. And do you have a sunroof? No, uh-uh. Okay, so no sliding roof. All right, that's good, because sometimes the drains for those can get blocked up as well,

and that's another source for water getting inside the car. But yeah, I would try the damper and see you can get it dried out really well first. But also, and if you have someone that, you know, if you're handy or someone that feels handy, they can pull the carpet back a little on that driver's, the passenger's side way up front, and you'll see the rubber hose coming out of that box. and it should be going to the outside. Just try pulling that hose loose from the box a little bit, and if you get a gush of water out of there,

then you know you've got to get that taken care of. Okay, so it's underneath the seat. Right, but it's... The water's going to flow right down into that front floorboard, and it's going to run right underneath the seat, and that's where it's going to start to pool and puddle up underneath there. Okay. And Karen...

Okay, well, yes, ma'am. What I was going to say is that damper it is my to-go-to product, and I use it quite often, and the absorption power of the product is just simply amazing. I use it inside my car all year-round, and I use it in the garage. There isn't any place that I haven't applied it. And as Rick said, it comes in many forms. You can get it in the bags non-scented. you can get it in lavender you can get it in the buckets it's just an amazing product to start with

okay i will do that then thank you so much you're welcome karen again thank you for calling thank you for supporting ladies and helping me build a platform right here at erwan cars have a wonderful weekend thank you you 77 960 9960 or you can text us That's 772-497-6530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. You know, as much as we recommend, we should contact them. They should be giving us like...

As a commercial. Advertising. Yeah. We're great for that. Nancy should get money at least. Yeah. Well, it should go to Big Dog. Huh?

She should go to Big Dog. That's right. After listening to Karen, the message to the general audience is, if you have an issue that you need help on, this is a perfect example of how Rick can save you a lot of money. If Karen hadn't called the show and she'd driven into a car dealership and said, I have this odor, and I don't know what it is,

but it might be dampness, it could be rain, I don't know what it is, then you've basically given them an open checkbook to suggest things that they can do. And you have to remember that independent repair shops and car dealerships, the technicians are paid on commission, the people that in the service drive, they call themselves advisors, they're salespeople, they're paid on commission, and the more you spend with them, that's how they feed their families. So Karen knew that the most likely thing was the drain hose from her AC. So what she could do is she could just say, how much will you charge me? to dealership B or independent repair B, how much would you

charge me to check my drain hose and my air conditioning and unplug it if necessary. Now she's got she's in control. And so that's the reason we love these calls is to save you money after you talk to Rick. Absolutely. You know,

ladies and gentlemen, as we get to the end of the year, you know, you might want to take inventory of things like auto insurance. Sometimes, you know, we become so comfortable with our policies and we just don't check them. And we truly believe here at Erlon Cars in just reevaluating things and checking out your auto insurance. And never, ever assume your policy covers everything because you may find out at a moment where there's nothing you can. really do about it. So evaluating your auto insurance, what's covered, what's not, and how much

you can save yourself a year. So you might want to pick up the consumer report, take a look at all of the information that they have for you in regards to this ongoing problem where a lot of people are just taking advantage of with their auto insurance. We are going to go go back to the phones and we'll talk to Howard. Howard's a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. By the way, if you want to check your air conditioner to see that the water is flowing,

after you have a good drive and the air edition was on, look underneath the car, see if the water is going out. That's a good way to find out of it. Boy, that's perfect, Howard. How many times we have done that ourselves, personally, at home. And, well, that's why I love our callers. They're out there to inform us and everyone that's listening. Thank you, Howard. Then she'll know from day one that she has a problem. And then she could, you know, if she's thinking she has a problem, she doesn't look under there.

It's going to be a conundrum. Okay, well, anyway, let me, my question is about breaks. It's always for Rick. The emergency break. Okay. Can you explain? Explain the emergency brake on a, let's see, in a Camry and why it's never changed? You mean the parking brake? I'm sorry, the parking brake, correct. Well, it's the correct term for it. Parking brakes were designed way back, and the idea was because a lot of cars back then had standard transmissions, manual. and of course not very useful in Florida because we were mostly flat here but if you're up north

and you park on a hill your parking brake became your backup source just in case the say your clutch was a little worn and it started to slip a little bit your car could begin to roll or if you did have an automatic transmission and something failed in the transmission say the parking Paul broke your car again, it's basically a rolling missile going down the hill. So they made the parking brake as a backup source to keep your car from rolling and moving while parked on a slope. And generally because it's simply a, you're not moving at all, you pull the, activate the brake by stepping on a pedal or pulling up a handle, a handbrake, that engages these brakes to lock the rear wheels then the car is held in place it's they don't really wear because you're not

using them as actual brakes to slow the car it's simply a locking mechanism holds it in place it's also the hand brakes are great when you're like taking a sharp turn and you yank up on it and you you do the what's that called power slide in in those cases you're going to wear them out and you will need to replace them eventually back in the 80s no oh they've been doing out a whole lot more Yeah, I'm just talking about you and me, you and me. Well, we're thinking of the old Tokyo Drift. Yeah. What exactly is it a pad?

What does it look like? Depends on the vehicle. Some of them simply use the rear caliper with a threaded screw portion. This simply manually engages the caliper by way of a cable. Modern systems now use an electric parking brake where a motor will engage that rear caliper, or you can even have a little tiny set of brake shoes inside a tiny drum on those back wheels that are engaged again by a cable lock. Now, Tesla has included this parking brake, emergency brake, whatever you want to call it,

in his software for emergency stops. And so right now it applies the conventional brakes and also the deceleration, obviously, of an electric engine, but in addition of that, if it looks like you're going to whack the guy in front of you, it'll engage the parking brake, too, so kind of cool that... Every means necessary. Computer does all that work for you.

That's amazing. Yeah. Okay. Good information. I appreciate your help and you always... Rick, you're great. You know everything. You're just trying to stump them every week, and we used to have a contest. I try. I can't do it. I can't do it.

Everyone's a while. Yeah, no, I think I once stumped them or something. You might have. There's been quite a few times that, I mean, nobody can know it all, but. We're not sure. Sometimes Earl will correct you, but that's true. I know it all, yeah. Yeah, yep.

Okay, Howard. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Howard. Happy New Year. Thank you for informing us. Let me ask a question to the ladies. What questions did you ask?

before you decided to purchase a vehicle, lease a vehicle. What was the most important question for you and the type of vehicle that you were looking for? Hey, 77-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. $50 for the next new female caller. $50. Give us a call. now back to the recovering car dealer unless the guys have got something over there for me

from mary i have a text from amory good morning may everyone have a safe happy healthy and prosperous new year cnbc is reporting that cars are depreciating at a slower rate due to the lingering effects from the pandemic supply chain issues and reduced production i was wondering have you seen depreciation slow here in south florida or to put it another way are people getting better value for, still getting better value for their cars when they trade them in for a new one than they would have before the pandemic. Thanks. I read the story too. Yeah, they said over now after the pandemic, after three years of ownership, it depreciates cars are 10% less than they were before the pandemic. And when I first heard that, I interpreted that to mean that, well, when car prices

were actually rising, shortly after the use car prices were rising after the use car prices rising after the pandemic, that maybe that's an average. But the article says that CMB, they said they expect that to continue, that basically about 10% off the depreciation has gone away. Electric vehicles are depreciating at a higher rate. And there's an inventory that is building up in used car lots. So that's good news and bad news. If you want to buy an EV, you can buy a used EV for less than you could a year ago.

if you want to buy a new EV, that's a different story because, but the demand for the new EVs is actually slumping, so it's not a good, it's not going to be, relatively speaking, as good a year for EVs as 20203 has been. That's right. And then we have another text here. This is from Mark C. He says, on your next show, he sent this yesterday. Can you address the Tundra recall and how your dealership is handling customers or demanding a resolution of the problem? Toyota has no fix for. My daughter and son-in-law have not driven their truck for safety reasons since the recall months ago.

Torto corporate is mum along with the dealer that sold them the truck. It seems no one wants to give a straight answer because it boils down to an issue of money. Again, how is your dealership handling the situation? Well, there is a temporary interim fix for it. Now there's a clamp that's going over. It's available right now. You can bring it in and get fixed. There's a permanent fix that will be available in the summer that you still have to come back.

and to do that. How our dealership is dealing with when the customers come in, we run a recall check and if their tundra is affected by it, we schedule or do the fix for it right then. In situations where there is not a fix and people are waiting a long time and that does happen because this recall, I think, was announced in August or September and it's for the fuel leak, a potential fire. If there's a case where there's no fix, Toyota pays for, we'll pay for a rental vehicle, and we advocate for that if Toyota refuses.

Or is a fix or isn't a fix. That's what I'm saying. They come in. They don't want to drive the car. We get them a vehicle to drive. Well, that isn't always necessarily the case. Well, if there's available vehicles. Yeah, no, what I'm saying is it's a great point because if you're listening, here's a real-life

experience that I had this week. A customer called me, as I say, we have a toilet dealership. And it was a safety recall on his vehicle for a Toyota safety recall. And he was told by the toilet dealer that there were no loaners available. And he says, what do I do? It was an airbag. And he says, what do I do? I'm afraid to drive the car.

So I had deja vu. I said, well, I'm really sorry that Toyota told you. And it may have been our dealership. I think perhaps it was another dealership. Long story short, we're going to get them a car. And hopefully Toyota will pay for it. Most dealerships don't do that. It sounds like the dealership that they spoke to.

He sent this to us Saturday, yesterday. And, oh, I'm sorry, last Saturday. What was the Saturday's date? December 23rd, okay, I think the interim fix came out like on the early part of December. Yes. So their dealership either is not aware of the notice that was sent out. I mean, I got an email for it. So there's an interim fix.

It's pretty cool. I actually, you know, look through them sometimes. They tell you you need gloves, these cleaning supplies, this, and it tells you everything you need to fix the car. And so the dealership either was not aware. They didn't communicate it throughout the dealership. or they asked before this fix came in. But if they've been talking to the dealership, it would be kind of a nice thing if the dealership would have called you

when they got the interim fixed to let you know you don't have to worry anymore. But try and get another vehicle or just take it to any Toyota dealership right now and they will fix it for free. Yeah, the point is sometimes you have to stand up and demand it. I mean, it's a no-brainer. The manufacturer attorneys, I mean, the people that are in the know about liability and things like this, It's just engraved in stone that if you have a vehicle that the National Highway Traffic Safety Association has called off the street because it's dangerous, then the manufacturer of that vehicle is going to have to provide transportation to you so you don't have to drive the car.

Now, if you don't mind driving the car, that's on you. But if you say, I'm afraid the car is unsafe, I don't want to drive it, get me a vehicle to drive, then I would. would like to know about a manufacturer that said no to that question because that manufacturer's asking for a whole lot of trouble from attorneys because you have to protect your customers. Great information. That number is 877-960-99-60. You can use that to reach us. We're right here. We're waiting for your call. As I said earlier, you make the show. Everyone is very, very important out there and we definitely appreciate you coming to an end here at 2023 and looking forward to you joining us continuing to join us in 2024. We're going to go back to the phones and

we're going to talk to Neil who has been holding from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Neil. Good morning. I just want to say thank you to you guys. You guys are terrific and I've been buying my cost from you guys for a long time. But I have a question for Rick. I have a 2010 Prius and it has about 165,000 miles on it. I bought it used because I had an accident with my other Prius and I bought it as a holdover. Of course, it was in 22 when we had the pandemic going on. But my question is that the car, I took it for a wheel alignment, I thought it might be a wheel alignment, and the car seems to, if I let go over the steering wheel on a straight road, it seems to drift to the right. So when I took it in for the wheel alignment, the mechanics said that they looked it up and they said that there might be an old, old recall on something to that effect. Does Rick have any knowledge about that? I don't recall any, or pardon my terms here, I don't remember any recalls coming out for anything due to the suspension on that generation of Prius. However, that being said, a slight drift to the right on a Prius is going to have several different things that can cause it.

First one is if you've got an excessive road crown, you know, if you look at the road, you know, if you look at the road, you'll see that all of our roads in Florida are kind of heaped in the center and they slope to the sides at the edges so that the rain will drain off. So what you need to do is try to find a road that is as flat as it can be. And then my trick that I use as a technician is I will drive along. I never will let go of the steering wheel. But I will reduce my pressure that I'm holding it and just have just a very gentle grip on the wheel.

and as I'm driving, I will center the car up and count the reflectors in the road. If I can go eight or ten reflectors and the car stays pretty well centered in the lane, then it's running straight and true. If it goes substantially towards the edge of the lane or moves out of the lane within, say, four to five reflectors, then that means it's got a drift. and if it moves out of the lane within two to three reflectors, that means it's got a pull. And 99 times out of 100, it's either going to be the road crown or it's going to be in those two front tires. And the simplest solution is before you spend 150 bucks on alignment, go in and ask for a $25 tire rotation,

but ask them to cross the front tires left to right. and most cases, that will correct it. Of course, the first thing you want to do is the freebie, check your tire pressures. Because if that right front tire is a little bit lower than the left front, then it can drift to the right very easily. Okay. Well, I did double-check the pressure, and I just filled them up again the other day with the cold weather that we've been getting, and that didn't seem to correct it at all.

And I did that actually prior to taking it in for the time. the for the wheel alignment appointment that I had. And they told me that I did not need a wheel alignment. They didn't even charge me. He said everything was fine. Oh, good. That's the company that they said that it might have the recall because they looked up something and they had sent me a little bit of paperwork.

So I figured I'd ask you because you are the man. And maybe I'll just bring it into the shop there and see what, I'll bring the paperwork in and see what they could find. Okay. And the first thing you should do. of course is go on safercar.gov and put in your VIN number. And if there are any recalls on your car, then that will show up on that website. That's the federal website for it. But if it's not a recall, odds are it's going to be in the tires. And you simply cross those front tires. And

99 times out of 100, that's going to solve the issue. What happens is one tire is going to have more resistance rolling than the other one does. And if that one is on the right side, it's going to make the car drift a little to the right. And if you get that one to the left, it'll actually compensate against that road crown and your car will go much straighter down the road. Okay. I'm going to try to use it. It's called safercar.com. Safer.car.gov.G-O-V. Yep. Okay. safercar.com. and you can enter your VIN number okay and the VIN number yes okay that's great well I'm actually going to be buying a car from you guys probably today I've been waiting for a RAB 4 and it's finally arrived yesterday and I'll be in the dealership all right and I'll tell

you I've been I've been waiting for over a year for the car and you guys are just super over there how exciting Neil it's a great way to open the new year It sure is. But I want to say thank you again, and guys all have a happy, safe, healthy new year. Thank you. Happy New Year. Thanks for being part of the show. Happy New Year.

877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. Don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. You know, I mentioned earlier about auto insurance, and, you know, one of our many shows this past year. We mentioned how much and how easy it is to save yourself money on your auto insurance, you know, everything from getting married to getting divorced, you know, maybe increasing your deductible from $500 to $1,000. And if you want more information, pick up that special double edition of Consumer Report, and it has everything in there that you need to know to save yourself some money.

I believe that we got John. John from Palm City is with us. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Happy New Year. Same to you guys. Earl Rice at Weekly Bog. He's been writing it for years.

It fias in some other publications, free publications. And I want to mention the blog of the year, in my opinion, he wrote on Thanksgiving Day when he was waiting for his family to come in. And that was about how some people are actually crazy, actually not crazy, but attached to their automobiles. And I want to give an example. Nancy Stewart herself is attached. She could have any brand new car in the dealership or use cars, and she's attached to her Avalon. and she also, from time to time, talks about a 67 Primmis Baracuda. Earl himself saved his father's 37 Pontiac and restored it,

that his father bought brand new. I mean, people like Jay Leno, everybody knows who he is. He actually restored a 55 Buick that he dated his wife and restored it, but he made a retro, on the outside it looks original, but he put every modern engine in it, air conditioning. et cetera. And the one that's really, people don't even believe this. I don't have the exact name handy. But a woman in Illinois got for her birthday a 76 El Dorado convertible. And she said to her husband, when she died 12 years later, I want to be buried in our car.

And it's actually a true story. We had to take seven graves, and they buried her right, and put her in the driver's seat in this 76 elder car. Colorado convertible. So it goes further than that. I met a man down here in Stewart that he saved the car that he not only dated his wife and but they went on their honeymoon with it. So it's an attachment. It's worth reading. It's a old blog that was written December of November Thanksgiving this year. And there's a lot of truth in it. That's a great story. Thanks for reminding our listeners. And I agree with you. There's been so many blogs, and each one of them, you know, have a significant definition to them.

Yeah, we used to name our cars. My first car was Betsy, in 1951 Pontiac Street, Strait Eight Stickshift. So you're right about that, John. I name my Tundra at Tropic Thunder. Yeah. Nobody's ever named their house after a name, but they rained their car with a name. And, you know, John, at this point, you know, of our lives, Earl and I, you know, he'll look at me on maybe, I don't know, Friday, Monday, Thursday, whatever it is, and say, you know, you might want to think about, you know, an idea for our blog, and it's become a family tradition, and it's just amazing. The listeners, the callers, all of you give us a lot of great ideas for everything that we do.

And we just want to thank you again. This morning is our morning for thanking everyone, every single one of you for being part of the show. Stay tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report. It's going to come to you from Nashville. And our number here is 877-960-99-60. You can text us at 772-4976530. Mark that number down. You'll need it when you vote on our mystery shopping report this morning.

Your anonymous feedback.com is also very important. We are going to go back to the guys right here in the studio. I got some anonymous feedback to get through quickly. Then we get to Rick. I missed this one. It came in, I think, during last week's show. I think last week we went off the air for a little bit. Or was it just streaming?

We were on the air, right? Yeah. So somebody texted and said, interesting that your program would lose power and go off the air, at the same time you're reading anonymous feedback about the power blackout in Maine. Coincidence?

Now, I don't know if that was from the person sent the first one about the storm cutout power to the town council discussing, like the EV issue. Yeah, that is coincidence. It is. Well, I don't want to say it was aliens. I don't know.

Aliens. Oh, I knew Rick was going to say it was aliens. Here's one. It says, your review of Grecoford-Dell-Rae was a fair assessment. I might even give them an F-minus. Maybe they will change their tactics after seeing this mystery shopping report. But usually this is a cultural thing endorsed by the owner and leadership, and you got that right. This is for Nancy, anonymous feedback.

Nancy, the rest of your team is finally coming around to your way of thinking regarding grading dealers like Greco-Ford of Delray. You guys are the best. Thank you very much. Here's a curmudgeonly adopt anonymous feedback. You can only adopt children. You can only buy or simply own a dog. Well, legally, technically, you don't get adopt a dog with the state of Florida as a parent, but you go through a process, you go through a background check,

and people abandon dogs and abandoned children. So, yes, you can. You can also adopt new habits. You can adopt new ideas. You use the word to adopt because if you're a dog, lover, you feel like you're adopting a dog. If you don't care about dogs, you're buying the dog. Right, exactly.

Right. And if you don't care about chicken, your language betrays your feelings. Right, exactly. If you don't like kids, you don't have kids, you pop out rug rats. There you go. Do we have a caller coming at? We do. Quite a few callers. Good, because this next line's

feedback is about 18 paragraphs long, so. Okay, we are going to go to Dick. Who's calling us from, I believe you are calling us from Boca. Good morning, Dick. Good morning, Nancy, with the beautiful voice, and good morning, and everybody, and wish everybody a very happy new year. Oh, Dick, thank you so much for being part of the show, and happy new year to you and your

family. Love your show and to you. I have a question for Rick, please. Rick, I have a 2011 Ford Transit band. and yesterday we were trying to get the drums off the rear because it has brake shoes and we want to check the shoes I'll tell you, we banged those drums

for two hours, both sides, and couldn't get them off. And it fused? Yeah, you've got two issues that could be going on there. One of them is that the drum in the center has basically rusted to the hub of the wheel. And unfortunately, that's just going to take a PB blaster or some other penetrating spray, maybe heat it with a propane torch, and just keep hammering on it. The other one is

that there's a potential that your brake shoes have worn the inside of the drum enough that it's got a little bit of a lip has grown that is actually over the brake shoes themselves that they've adjusted out. So as you're trying to pull it off, it's actually pulling on those shoes, which of course are hooked down to the backing plate. What you need to do is go in the backside. There should be a little rubber plug that you can remove and you get to the star wheel, the adjuster, and you want to turn that star wheel adjuster in the opposite direction from where it would normally go so that it will adjust those shoes back in, make them smaller diameter and let the drums slide back off of them.

But what you've probably got is a combination of the two. And that's going to make it a real interesting nightmare. And I have seen some cars that just corrosion gets so bad that you literally wind up actually having to break the drum to remove it. Let me ask a question about this. But that's very interesting. I learned more from Rick than I don't learn from anything on these shows. This is an older car, maybe he lives on the water, he's got rust, he got corrosion issues.

So I'm a technician and I'm an independent garage or I'm a car dealership technician. Guy comes in with a car and I can just tell that this car is going to be a challenge. Now I get paid something, it's called a flat rate manual and it's a break job or whatever it is and it allows a certain amount of money for me to get paid. Now, the car behind him, I can probably do it in half the time that I'm going to have to do his car. What happens in garages when that happens? Do you go to lunch when you see the guy come in with a corroded, or do you say, I won't do that job? The new guy gets it.

You got two types of text there. One is the guy that's going to duck it. He's going to run. He's going to go to lunch. He's going to head for the bathroom and take smoke, break. whatever. Then you got the guy that's going to say, now, let me get this done. He's going to bring it in. He's going to be the old guy that's been there 20 years. He knows what he's looking at. He knows what his value is. And he's going to look at that and he's going to say,

all right, I know what this is going to happen in the end. I know what the end result is going to be. And he's going to write an estimate and say, Mr. customer, we're going to need new break shoes, and we're going to need new drums. These are corroded so badly that I'm going to have to destroy them to get them off. It's going to be X amount of labor. This is what I'm going to have to do, and he's going to skip

over the trying and testing and playing, and he's just going to get out the big guns, and he's going to the sledge the job done. This goes back to reinforce the fact that it's not a bad idea to get two or three estimates on something because Oh, absolutely. You don't

know if a guy ran away, to have lunch because he didn't want to work on your car. You were fixing your own car. You guys were banging away at the same way, too. Yeah. Yeah, no, it just made me think. Well, what happens when you drive in, yeah, to the service department? Yeah.

Now, the funny thing about it is about a year ago, he lives up in North Carolina. And about a year ago, the car's down here now. About a year ago, they had the drums taken off, and the guy said the shoes were okay. And he does 600 miles a week. So we came back to check, and it's mostly roads up in North Carolina, so you know what that's like. You're talking mountains. He's using the brakes a lot. Those shoes could be totally worn out.

Even though drum brakes don't wear near as fast as the disc brakes, and of course, being on the rear, they're going to wear even slower because of how the weight transfer is. 600 miles in mountain roads, curving roads, you're using a lot of brake power. and a transit van, he might have some extra weight in the back, which is going to obviously help wear those brakes a little more. But, yeah, if they're rusted that solid, I would simply immediately rework your budget, understand you're going to need new drums and probably new brakes on a new hardware kit,

and I would just bite the bullet and do it. Okay. One last little question, Rick, please. if I was putting and I understand the torch if I was putting a torch on it will I put a torch on the center of it or on the side

towards the center but try to concentrate your heat on the drum itself not on the hub you want to get the heat into the drum because you don't want to work that hub any you want to work the heat just on the drum and be very gentle with it

again it's you're going to be getting the hammers and chisels out and check out first thing rock auto.com and look for their for your replacement parts you'll find some good prices check the quality levels on them for you know for reviews and that but yes yeah i would i would set yourself up right up the bat be understanding you're going to need new shoes hardware kit and new drums and possibly wheel cylinders as well dick i don't want to i don't want you to take any offense with this, but you're a dying breed, the do-it-yourselfer

here's a guy, he's working on his own breaks in his own garage or whatever, and, you know, 30, 40 years ago, this was not uncommon. Today, you know, as I say, it's really interesting to you're talking to Rick like he's, you're both to the technicians, you really are.

It's amazing. It's amazing. We recognize our souls. All right, well, Happy New Year. and thank you for your great knowledge. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Dad.

Good luck to you on that one. Yeah, thank you very much. And, you know, if you decide to go with a mechanic, Earl, well, he wrote a great blog, a column, and it's called A Good Auto Mechanic is worth searching for, and they definitely are, there's a whole lot more to this than anyone can imagine. And when you find a good mechanic,

it's just an amazing relationship that you form with the mechanic and you know this society was of automotive service excellence was formed 53 years ago and it is important as I said to find a good mechanic give us a call tool free at 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 77 4976530 we're going to have to stay with the phones we've got a few callers backed up and one of them is john from palm city i'm sorry john you're on my mind from palm city it's this is john from west palm beach hello good morning uh good morning good morning uh the first the first thing i called about was you were saying about naming your cars yeah i went ahead and name my car, Babs,

Tesla, for big-ass batteries. Because when you buy the car, they want you to name it. Right, yeah. And then the second part is the gentleman with the drum brakes in the rear. I came in halfway through the conversation, so I don't know how much. But if he's going to go ahead and apply the heat to the drum, he may want to stop up at one of the auto zones and see if they've got a drum puller. And that will help him pull the drum.

drum off if he's got a drum, if he's got a puller, you know, like a flywheel puller in that. Right. Instead of banging. And then also like I said, I don't know how much you went into it with them, but behind the, at the drum, there's

a little star wheel. And if he turns that star wheel, it releases the pressure on the springs. And I don't know if you told them that or not. Yeah, we covered that one on reducing the shoes, bringing them in. but I think he's got a combination of the shoes

probably are over-extended and catching a lip on the drum and corrosion of the drum to the hub. Very good. Oh, that's it for me. You guys have a great new year. Thanks, John. Thank you, John.

Happy New Year. I think we've got a few mechanics out there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can use them. Rick's minions. A little bit of competition, Rick. My fellow spirits.

There you go. We're going to go to Frank, who's a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Well, good morning to you all, and happy New Year, of course. Good morning. Happy New Year. Yeah, I look back on the year, and, you know, the shows we listen to, and it brings back a lot of memories.

I guess my first memory of being in the car, business, so to speak, was pumping gas at Shell down in Miami, Florida, the grand total of 75 cents an hour, and gas was still 27 cents a gallon, so that shows how long ago that was. Yeah. But I really enjoy listening to the folks that call in for questions for Rick, because I had done oil changes and tune-ups and balanced tires, if you remember on the old days, there was a bubble balancer,

balanced where the weights were, doing a tune-up with feeler gauges and a light, timing light, things like that. Mm-hmm. Getting out the dwell gauge to check the point, Oh, exactly. It was an interesting chapter in our lives. But I love when they ask you questions, and I sit there and go, well, I think I know the answer. And when you say the exact same answer, it makes me feel good that, you know, the memory banks are still working. It's amazing how some of the old technology, the really old stuff, I mean, I remember being trained in tech school many years back, we pulled out these large technology, the really old stuff. I mean, I remember being trained in tech school many years back. We pulled out these large. kind of looked like a round platter that you installed it clamped on the wheel of the car and you jacked the car up and if it was the back wheel so that you could use the engine to run it you would do that and you had two little wheels in the center that you would adjust and it would actually show you where to put a weight on the rim and how much weight to put on it to balance that wheel and you would have the window part way down and you'd watch the glass and when you were adjusting those wheels when that glass stopped vibrating, that was when you knew that you had that tire balanced properly.

And if it was the front tire that didn't have the motor to it, you had this little device that almost looked like a little lawnmower, and it was an electric motor with a wheel that went up, and it would spin that front wheel to get it up to speed so that you could then watch it and balance that thing. That was before all these computerized wheel balancers. Yeah, I know, I've worked on a lot of the old tech way back. and I know the history of it and it's one of the things that helps me understand the new technology

Did you ever shoot a horse? Did I ever shoot a horse? No. Thank goodness. I'm not shoot or shoe as I said. Oh, I don't? I mean like shoot like take pictures but I have watched videos of how it's done now that's and then when I mentioned about the drum brakes

with the star wheel and stuff I go man I forgot all about that because there's been so many disc brakes I mean And this is so easy. At the time, I was in the Air Force up in Ohio, and I was lucky enough to treat myself to a brand new 9-11S portion 77. And I said, well, maybe I'll check the brake pads. And I just jacked it up and you can pull the wheel off

and a couple clips of, you know, just say it gave me something to doing a weekend, but it was an interesting chapter in my life. But it's always good to hear. Now, the other thing, too, I noticed that one guy, on the commercials, come join our family. Well, I feel you guys are more family than that Schumacher guy. It's really nice each weekend.

It's funny you mention that because it drives me crazy when I see that commercial. But it's just vanity on my part. We really are a family and everybody else claims they're a family but...

Exactly. Frank, how many times this year have you called and mentioned this very topic. Let's join the family, or come join the family. Oh, I know. It's so corny. So corny. I mean, he's sitting there going, you know, like if you need more money.

But the one thing I do notice, we've talked about, you know, back when I was a pilot and stuff. Of course, they would say took an act of Congress to make an officer and a gentleman. And I took offense to that because they made me an officer, but my mother raising me, brought me up as a gentleman. and I saw that Earl must have had a good mother, too. I go back years ago when I saw you guys walking out of a restaurant in Juport near Indian Town, and Earl's opening the door for you and guiding you in. It's just a very part-warming memory to remember what a great family you really are. Thank you so much, Frank.

We definitely appreciate you, and we all want to take a moment and wish you a happy New Year, and thank you for calling you and your family. Thank you so much, guys. Have a good one. Bye-bye. You know, we talk about things that we used to do. Earl and I were on our way into the studio this morning, and he oftentimes reminds me not, well, how many times I've been around the sun,

but it definitely still has the same meaning. I was talking about keeping a portable jump starter, you know, on board for. emergencies, not only for your phone or, you know, for all of your devices. And I was talking about my jumper cables. He made me feel quite ancient, you know, because he said, people don't do that anymore. And he was saying, you know, he was talking about technology. He's the app guy, technology. Well, things change is too fast to comprehend, really. So it's a, it's, it's, It's quite a right. There are some people that just, they're frozen in time, and that's fine.

I mean, they love their time, and they love what they do, and they should live their lives to the max that way. Other people have to adapt, and, you know, let's face it, our grandchildren are not going to be, you know, working on brake drums, and they're not going to be jump-starting their cars. So the things are changing. I like the ride. I like the excitement of the way things are changing.

Exactly. You know, I remember how I was reluctant to jump into the Tesla and just take off. And now, you know, I can do it with my eyes closed. It's a very comfortable feeling. I prefer you keep your eyes open when you're driving the Tesla, but I understand. But it, as I said, it's a very comfortable feeling now. And it just, the Tesla is a part of me. I'm part of the Tesla.

Give us a call tool free at 877-960-90-90-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Your Anonymous Feedback.com is extremely important. Take advantage of it. Rick, I believe, can share some YouTubers with us. Oh, we're actually a little quiet so far this morning. Oh, really? Okay. Lots of folks chiming to say Happy New Year, though.

So for all my YouTubers, happy new year. And remember next week, we will not be streaming on YouTube, but stream earleoncars.com. We'll have the full audio feed. We'll all be here. But Jonathan, lucky guy, he's going to be off on a little vacation. Hey, Donaldman, get us a post here. Yeah, we can't go without Donaldman. I got some stuff.

And I asked also for potential announcement. I might try and do a lot. I might try and do a one camera stream next week when you're gone. Oh. So I'm just going to look into it. I can't promise. So check in. If we're not there, go to stream roll on cars just for the audio feed.

But I'm going to try it with my phone. Oh, I figured out how to stream on my Waymo. On my. On your glasses, sir? Yeah, my glasses. I want you to do that. On your meta. No, we can't get complicated.

Jonathan manages multiple streams, different things, audio, graphics. Last thing, Jonathan wants to hear. is his phone ringing these are the new meta glasses. You should keep this on. Yeah, raybans and I can actually text, I can hear music, I can

video, I can take snapshots and I can live stream with my meta glasses. Yeah, and he can walk through the house. They look good. This is very important. He can walk through the house with his meta sunglasses on and he could be videoing anything. Anything.

Like you cook and lasagna. By the way, folks, just to let you know what our unsung hero actually does, this man is in this studio before 5 a.m. every Saturday morning to set up all his cameras, get all the angles, everything measured out, have all the street, everything checked out, all the cabling and everything. He goes way above and beyond. He's the unsung hero of this show. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for mentioning that. A well-deserved vacation for him. Yes, enjoy the cruise.

I bring tears to my eyes, you know, above and beyond the call of duty. Maybe Lance from Tennessee can do a song for Jonathan when he calls it instead of me. I think he should. Jonathan is on some hero. Lance will change that. Yeah, definitely. I like that idea. Jonathan is also responsible, you know, I can get up in the morning, you know, at any hour.

of the morning and I look at my computer or, you know, my telephone and there's a message reminding me of something that I shouldn't forget when I do the show. And in so many different facets without beating this up, Jonathan has been there and what a support system and informed person that he is right here with this platform of all of us. He's very important. I'm going to mention real quick, I have $50 for the next new female callers, and let me put this out there. When you're looking for a car, is it most important to you as to what it's going to cost you for maintenance to keep that car on the road? Give us a call tool-free. Ladies, help me build this platform here.

You're an important part of the show. or you can text us at 772-4976530. We're gonna go back to the phones and talk to Marty, who also has a lot of information for us and joins us most every Saturday. He has become part of the show. Thank you, Marty, and happy New Year. Happy New Year to everybody there.

I got a question, I guess, either for Stuart Earl. Okay. How come when you go on Kelly Blue Book, you get a higher price for a trade in on your car than when you actually come into the dealership and they don't give you anywhere near that price? I let Earl Hamill that one. Well, Kelly Blue Book is not as bad as it used to be. Everybody has got on the bandwagon of data and access data and online data. So actually, Kelly, Kelly Blue Book is, I think it's owned by Cox Enterprise.

It's all these individual companies that were out there are slowly being bought up by much larger companies. But the reliability is increasing. The one that I think you really want to be careful of in terms of appraisals is NADA. And that's pretty clear, National Automobile Dealers Association. because they send a survey out to their dealers, at least they used to, and say, what do you think a used Chevrolet of this description is worth? And, of course, dealers also want to inflate the price because the higher the perception of your trade in value, the more likely you are to buy a car. But, no, Kelly Blue Book is not that unreliable. Dealer values and Kelly Blue Book values have seemed to converge over the years.

But I think that might be more, might not be such a good consumer thing. I mean, like you've mentioned, Cox, there's this big consolidation like right now. We used to, you know, we have these different systems and, you know, companies that we work with, and they are getting consolidated on these big umbrellas. And they do work to serve car dealers. Car dealers is what pays them. We work with Kelly Boo Book. They, we work with them, it's an internet leads to try and get, to purchase cars.

And we pay them a lot of money to do that. that so um and consumers don't pay kelly blue book anything so i think it's more of a dealer thing which is good auto is the source right now v auto that's not available to any consumers it's indirectly available because you have to have a friend who's a dealer yeah yeah i mean basically the same way back in the old days if you had a friend who had a black book that you can get your hands on or something like that um but yeah i mean i just feel the you know obviously all the car dealers MSRP right now is the lowest price that you're going to get from anybody. Yeah, you're right.

If you're not getting, and now you're getting less money on the trade-ins. So to me, it's a double whammy for the consumer. I mean, this is me personally. So I just... It's relative, Marty. It's all relative. I mean, cars cost less today than they did a year. we go. So everything is relative. And I think probably when this FTC thing happens in July,

keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer. When this FTC thing happens, I think you're going to see prices come way down on July 31st, 2024. So if you're in the hurry for a car, you've got to buy a car today. It's a better deal today than it was a year ago, but it's still too much money. You're right. yeah all right well very good thanks for answering my question have a happy new year and we'll miss seeing you on live sort of next week well maybe let's do we'll cure that I might cure it for a low not a low tech but a very scaled down version but Jonathan does it might be a shaky cam it might look like a documentary in here either either run into the one picture just keep changing

Cheers. I can do that, right? We can do that. At any way, it will be very interesting. Have a happy, healthy New Year. Same to you, Marty. Thanks, Marty. Thank you for joining us every Saturday morning.

You have become a very important part of the show. You know, ladies and gentlemen, you know, this past year has been filled with so much change in this industry. and some of it's been good, some of it's been bad. But the interesting story to me was one of Earl's columns that he wrote on Amazon to the rescue. And Jeff Bezos, how he is going to make car dealers honest. That article and the FTC, I could go on and on. And my point is we're headed in the right direction. and we're headed there with you.

You're a big help. You're a big part of the show. While I'm doing my thanking, I do want to mention Jeremy. I'll tell you, he keeps the wheels turning, and he is a benefit to all of us, especially me. Thank you, Jeremy. Happy New Year to you and your family. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497.

6530 and the man of the hour is uh well actually this is Lance from West Palm Beach unless he left Tennessee down here on vacation not sure Lance good morning oh there's no way I'm from West Palm Beach no well you sound you talk like you're from West Palm Beach everybody talks like you down here I'll say I'll say one thing Earl you're doing a good job Oh, thank you. Thank you. But I couldn't let the year close without a little quick tune. Okay. Well, it's just about 2004.

Bad deals and dealer fees are out the door. But if you have no real place to go, listen to Earl Stewart on cars on the radio. You worked on that one. You worked on that one for a long time, I could tell. That was different. That was better. Did you know our Mr. Shopping Report is in Tennessee? We got a toilet dealer in Tennessee, Nashville.

Oh, yeah. Good. Hey, I've been seeing a lot of commercials on, I think, on YouTube or TikTok for Roarman, Toyota. Well, this is Beeman. This is Beeman. They're owned by the Hudson Auto Group, but there are. in Nashville, Beeman Toyota. Well, of course.

Yeah, Roorman is, uh, where is he? Indiana. Never mind, I just Googled it. Well, Nashville is, of course, the state capital. Cold up here today, no snow. And, um, but everything else is looking good. Earl and Nancy and Rick and Stu,

happy new year. Thank you. forward to a great 2024. Thanks, Lance. Happy New Year. Thank you so much, Lance. You're the man. Come down to visit. Yeah, definitely.

We look forward to hearing from you every week, Lance. You've really become part of the show. Thank you. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. I think we're going to go back to Stu while we have a chance. I've got some messages here.

This is from Lee. What causes the tailpipe vapor to happen when the temperature is low? My Avalon was emitting a lot of vapor last night, even after the engine was warmed up. I'd like to handle this one. All right. Well, tailpipe emissions consist. 13% of tailpipe emissions is water vapor, regardless of how hot the car is. And when water vapor encounters cold air, it condenses.

And so when it chilled, it got cold last night. that water vapor. So even when your car is still hot, it's still spewing out 30% water vapor. Just like when you're a kid, you're up north and it's cold out, and you go, and you can see your breath.

Yeah, as long as... So that's why Lee, and I googled that while Lance was singing. Sorry, Lance, I was listening. I was multitasking. Whatever way you have to stay on top of things, you just take advantage of it. Oh, there is some anonymous feedback.

I will read this one, unless we got a call. Do we have calls? No, we're good. Okay, because this person has sent the same message a lot, trying to get to the top of the box. So we haven't been able to get to it. Here we go. Everyone in the industry says that the last day of the year

is the best day to get a good deal on a new car because the dealership might hit a year-end bonus. But with your dealership specifically, you never charge more than MSRP during the inventory shortages, and you're still not discounting from MSRP. Well, there are some modifications there. If someone comes in looking for a deal at the end of the year, would you guys discount a new car and or would you give a much more of the trade value than you would like?

I know the MSRP and a new Toyota is still a pretty good deal, but the trade-in values have gone way down, and I'm not going to buy a new Toyota if my trading isn't high enough. I'm also not going to shop the trade-in anywhere else because I don't want to pay sales tax. I understand that your use car department doesn't want to break even on cars, but if you're getting full pop, as I would say, on the new car, would you pay more than you really want to for the trade? Here you go.

I'll turn that over to you. Well, that's the tradition, and that tradition is not good for the consumer. It's called negotiating and haggling. And we've taken the position over many years that we give our lowest price to everybody. If it was the king of England, the president of the United States, or the Pope came into our dealership, they'd all pay the same price.

said you would. And that's our lowest price. We feel like we have to be true to a low price because if we're not going to budge the price and it's a high price, the buyers are going to go to our competition. So we put our lowest price in every car. I think part of the aggravation of buying a car is knowing that the car that you bought yesterday and you parked in your driveway, you pay $2,000 more or less than your next driver. a neighbor who bought the same car, you know, the same day. To me, that's a barbaric way to do business, so we chose not to do that. And by the way, we think this will be cured very shortly with the FTC rulings and with

Amazon starting to sell cars directly to the consumer. And they've started out with Kia and Genesis and Hyundai. And then you can bet that a lot of other manufacturers will jump on. that bandwagon. So yeah, but let's go to the last day of the year. You can still get a better deal if you shop around the last day of the year. And by the way, the last, I hate to confuse people, but the last day of the year is not necessarily December 31st. The year ends for the auto manufacturers and dealers several days later. And it might be January the 6th or January the 4th or whatever. But at the end of the year, there is a selling.

a frenzy. And that's because commissions are involved in bonuses and incentive monies. So the manufacturers incentivize the dealers. They pay them extra money if they sell a certain percentage to the amount of cars their quotas for. That's right. In the case of Toyota,

2024 doesn't begin until January 3rd. Yeah. We go through Tuesday. So it goes out of this. If you've got the time to devote to this, as many car dealers, what's you know of the exact here, make, model car, options, etc., that you want to buy,

that you, as many car dealers as you could go to at or near the end of the year, or maybe a couple of days even passed, and get bids. Because we have done this back in the day before we became a one-price dealership. 25 years ago, if you came into our dealership, we had sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars involved in certain quotas who we had to head. I'm serious. Toyota would, based on the number of cars

that we would hit at the end of the year, we could be $200,000 richer or poorer if we hit that number. So you could theoretically come into our dealership 20 years ago and you wanted to buy a car and this is going to be the last car we're going to be able to sell to hit our quota. We give you the car.

I mean, we haven't literally done that, but we have sold cars and lost money and lost money because we had to hit our quote. And so with that crazy mentality that most of car dealers and manufacturers still involve in, the end of the year, if you want to work hard and you want to buy a Ford, go to 24 dealers for the exact same year-make model car, and I guarantee you you will get one doozy of a brush. Eventually it's going to get back to it. The dealers I've spoken to, nobody wants to get back to that because it's easier now.

and it's less hectic. But, you know, eventually it's going to happen organically. It's just the way markets work. And so we'll see how it goes. That inventory is real, real, and they're looking forward to getting rid of it. So there's a lot of deals out there. And addressing the MSRP issue, because they refer to it, we've actually, you know, there are some models that are not selling as rapidly.

The demands down and prices are going down. slowly. So, for example, a Toyota Tundras. If you like tundras, you might be able to get a deal on a tundra, and we're lowering price, and we actually will be below MSRP on that. So it's happening. It took longer than we thought it would. Yeah, a good thing about one price is if you find a one-price dealer, good luck with that, and he gives you a price today, but you can't get the car for six months. In six months, If prices come down $1,000, you'll sell you the car at the price it came down to. So it works for you both ways.

That's right. All right. I don't think we have any more messages, and I'm hitting refresh. Okay. Rick? Do we have dogs today? No. I've got an interesting bulletin here from automotive news.

Okay. I'm going to make an announcement before we go on. I haven't mentioned Big Dog Ranch. We do not. as Stu just asked, and we don't have a dog today, but I want to let you know that you can go to www.bdrr.org, and you can take a look at all the dogs that they have for adoption. So take a look there, and next Saturday we'll more than likely have a dog of the week. And might I remind you that Big Dog Ranch, it is the largest cage for.

free, no kill, dog rescue in the United States. Now back to the recovering car. That brings back, it comes to mind the anonymous feedback we had about you don't adopt dogs, you own a dog. And you're entitled, I had a lot of friends. I used to hunt years ago. I hate to admit, not only was I a crooked car dealer, but I also like to shoot animals. Midlife crisis. So I've changed.

But I know a lot of sports people that own dogs, and they keep them in cages, and they don't let them in the house, and they use them to hunt with. And I respect that. I don't like it. That's not me. But Big Dog Ranch loves dogs. So if you don't love dogs, don't even think about Big Dog Ranch. But if you love dogs, they love dogs too, and they go above and beyond the call of duty to take care of thousands of dogs. they don't euthanize dogs

and they have hundreds of dogs at the ranch and it is like a luxury ranch is what it is like a dude ranch and I don't know why dogs want to leave so it's amazing so big dog ranchrescue.com it's just

wwwbdrbdr big dograntsrescue.com go to their website and give a dog a home yeah and let me tell you the greatest time of the year is to go out Now, while we have this beautiful weather, visiting Big Dog Ranch would definitely be a treat to take the kids out, take a look around.

Now's the time to go. Don't wait until the summer. The weather's perfect. It's brutal. But yeah, now, yeah, what a great weekend. And the dogs are like going crazy out there. Everyone knows what the cold weather does to the dogs. It just is energizing, most definitely. So if you can't get out there, visit the website at www.

Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org now to what you were saying? This is a news bulletin that took me by surprise. I don't think Stozy, you know, the money news yet. But it really got my attention. We've heard the name of the company, BYD, as a Chinese company. Electric cars? Electric car company? BYD is set to dethrone Tesla as the top electric vehicle manufacturer,

all electric vehicle manufacturer, the fourth quarter of this year. I had no idea. How many Chinese people there were? Well, and that's, they're not going to be exporting them to the United States because of the tariff that the United States is putting on exporting electric vehicles. China has the world's biggest PMA. And there's Elon Musk, I mean, who has been. Let me ask you this question, B-Y-D and S-A-I-C.

are they two separate motor corporations? I don't know. Okay, I'll look that up. Elon Musk's counterpart is a Chinese guy named Wang C-H-U-A-N-F-U-N-F-U Chon-Fu, Wang Chon-Fu, yeah.

And what he's done... Never mind, go ahead. It's just absolutely astounding. So the fourth quarter, They're going to be selling more electric cars, all electric, not hybrids, all electric than Tesla. And this is an automotive news, so that's a pretty reliable information. Nancy and I have two of our idols. One of our idols is Warren Buffett.

And then Charlie Munger, his partner who passed away last week, two financial geniuses. We just follow them all the time. And come to find out that Warren Buffett bought this B-YD stock. He invested $250 million about 10 years ago. Nobody ever heard. It was a battery manufacturer then. This is confirmation of, just confirmation that the Oracle just knows his stuff. Yeah, the Oracle of, what is it?

Omaha. So now that same $250 million is worth, I think, $7 billion. dollars. That's what I'm saying. He's the Oracle. Yeah. And 10 years ago, when everybody laughed at him, now they're building batteries, who cares. But to me it's exciting to think that

this Chinese billionaire that's building this car will be building the car for thousands of dollars less than the cheapest Tesla. So Elon, if you're listening, you know, I love this because...

If he's listening, he'll call in. I love competition. I mean, what's going to happen is Elon is going to be building a car that's better than B-Y-D and then the competition. The thing that worried me about Tesla was the fact that they're so successful and they're decimating the competition. Without competition, then you've got a problem. Now, there's no more problem. We've got B-Y-D. I can't believe, like, Buffett did that 10 years ago.

I learned about B-Y-D yesterday when I saw this story. Yeah. He bought 10% of the company 10 years ago. And so there we are. Oh, it's worth $8 billion. It's $230 million is worth $8 billion. Just a drop on the pile. Did you know that B-Y-D, what the definition of that is?

Yeah, big yellow dog. B-Y-D is Build Your Dreams. Really? That's great. Bill your dreams. In S-A-I-C. would be Shanghai automotive industry. So they are indeed two different corporations.

Let me read this quote from Charlie Mugger because Nancy, I love this guy. I love that guy. And Charlie, he was 95, I think, when he passed away. Best friend of Warren Buffett and just a really cool guy. This is a quote from Munger. B.YD was a miracle.

And Munger called Wang a Gene. saying he kept the company from going broke by working 70-hour weeks and described him as a fanatical engineer. The guy at B.D is better at actually making things than Elon is, he said. I mean, that's the way Charlie Munger talked. So it's cool. I like guys like that to just speak their mind. Charlie was to the point, you know, whether you liked it or not. And it's good for you, too.

You're going to be driving an electric vehicle. and I'm talking to our audience now whether you like it or not in 25 years because most of the states by then will require that you buy an electric vehicle. So whether you like it or not, here we've got competition and you're not going to have one guy that's going to be holding you up for a lot of money

which Elon would do if he could get away with it. But now we've got competition. So the good news is for electric car vehicle buyers, which is everybody, prices will be low. You know, here we are talking about the future, and I have to sit here and say that our great grandchildren, you know, come to mind. You know, it's just going to be an amazing time for everyone. You know, the mazes and lilies and Jackson's and Jadens is just an amazing future that they have at their fingertips. Rick?

This is a little off subject on that, but from Nagan 1, he says he's been looking at trying to try and to buy a used RAM TRX, which is like the Tyrannosaur Rex, big, massive truck. T-R-R-X. He says, but the interest rates are killing him. He says, 8 to 9% for used with good credit and new vehicles, not that much better. He's wondering, for you and Stu, what do you think interest rates will do in the next year, in the coming year? Coming down. Coming down.

Definitely. They've already paused and that's, then the next thing will be some reductions and that'll trickle down to the, you know, consumer interest rates. There you go, Negan. Hold on for another few months and that ram may be in your driveway next to all those raptors you've got. And the selling price will probably come. Well, I don't know. Is that like a super car sort of thing that where it's like they order it and they get millions over MSRP? Well, if he's looking at it used.

then no. Go to your credit union. We're talking banks. Now, if you haven't checked your credit union, you should. It's one of these dirty little secrets that nobody talks about. But the credit unions have a loophole, and they bypass having to pay the federal government a ton of money. The federal banks to be insured by the government have to pay for that insurance. And credit unions bypass that, so their cost are lower.

and you can finance a car through a credit union. A bank that Nancy and I do business with just became a credit union. I got a letter at the end of the year saying that this bank that we work with is no longer a bank as a credit unit, which is good news for us. That's a place to go.

Absolutely. I think that it is worth mentioning this printout that Jonathan provided all of us with for next week's show, January the 6th, and now it's an important message from Earl on Cars program. For those of you watching our program online, on Saturday, January the 6th, the Earl On Car Show will be broadcast using auto-streaming only. We will not be video streaming to either our YouTube or Facebook sites.

Keep this in mind. Things will change a little bit, not much. To listen to the live audio during our show, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, go to stream earl-oncars.com and click on the play button in the top center of the page. As always, if you have questions or comments during our live show, use our call number 877-960. You'll be receiving your text message. during, we will be receiving our text messages during the show on our text line at 772-4976530. Please send us your comments so we can read them online. You can also send us a message using our anonymous feedback. That's our anonymous feedback site. Go to your anonymous feedback.com and we will read your messages live. on the show. I can't emphasize that enough. Take advantage of that site. You know, sometimes we're just a little bashful in calling in or texting. So there you have it. Our video recording from our

January 6th show will be posted on our video sites during the following week. We will resume live video streaming on January the 13th, January 13th program. We want to thank you here for being a loyal fan of Earl on cars. Thank you. Earl, would you like to get to the Mystery Shopping Report? Folks, you can vote at 772-497-6530. That's where you can vote on the Mystery Shopping Report from Beeman Toyota of Nashville. I'll speak of the first person if I were Agent Lightning, our Mystery Shopper.

I walked into mid, in mid-afternoon, 2.37 p.m. actually, and was greeted by a customer representative for the front desk. She smiled, a big smile, and asked, how can I help you today? I responded. I'm interested in seeing if you have any grand highlanders here. She then inquired, have you spoken to anyone here at this dealership yet, to anyone at this dealership yet? I have not, I replied. A few minutes later, a salesman came around the corner and asked, have you been help yet? I replied that I hadn't, and he said, perfect, I'm Montoyo, M-O-N-T-O-I-O. I'm Montoyo, follow me. We went back over to his desk, and he asked, what exactly are you looking at today? I expressed my interest.

I'd love to get my hands on a new hybrid Grand Highlander. But I know how unlikely that is, and we both laughed, as you know from this, that there is a scarcity of certain models, and that's a Toyota model. that is relatively scarce. He then suggested, I do have some regular Highlanders. Would you be interested in one of these? Possibly, what do you have available? I inquired.

Montoya told me I have three Highlander Platinum's in stock, two black and one gray. Could I see one of the black ones, I asked? He carefully replies, your thing. I'll be right back. I'm going to pull one up for you. I walked with him to the door and waited inside as it was freezing,

literally, 32 degrees outside. This is Nashville, Tennessee. We reached the door. Montoya apologized. I'll be right back. I need to get my skull cap. I never think hat would have beene. Yeah.

Beanie, I don't know. It's too cold to go out without it. Maybe Montoya was bald. I don't know. I waited inside. He quickly returned and ran to get the car. He knocked on the window where I was sitting to let me know he was.

back in. I walked outside toward the new 2,024 Highlander XLE, the MSRP, was $54,387. I didn't see an addendum. It's good news. We always comment on lack of, or is there an addendum. We proceeded to go for a test drive. He detailed all the features, very helpful in explaining

everything. Once back at the dealership, he inquired, what do you think? I really like it, I said. Are they offering a specials or price breaks for the end of the year. You heard the anonymous feedback earlier about that. Yes, some dealerships do. And that's a good time to shop if you, if you're going to choose a time to be into the month or the end of the year. This, I mean, right now, the, I mean, Toyota hasn't done any, like, you know,

really incentives ever now. Do you actually have cash incentives if you finance? But there's still individual incentives. There's salespeople's incentives. Yeah. There's year-end incentives. There's still a psychological thing for even a formerly competitive business to the end of the years. If I were going to buy a car a week before Christmas or a week after Christmas, I'd buy the car a week after Christmas because I think my negotiating would be a little bit more strong at that point.

If you didn't listen to this show. Yeah. specials of the end of year. Montauer expense, we have special incentive dealer cash you're financing through Toyota, which I believe is $1,000 off. Also of our vehicles come with nanocure, N-A-N-O-C-U-R-E, protect them from acid rain, et cetera.

I googled that. You can buy it on Amazon for 20 bucks a bottle. So that's, after checking my license and noticing it was from Florida, he asked, do you live here in Tennessee? I explain my son does, and I'm hooking by here and leave it here for what I visit.

Do you want to register here or in Florida? I decided I'll go for Florida and I want to see what the breakdown is if I finance. Montoya excused himself to consult with his manager shortly after return with the sales worksheet. As usual, the top line market value, selling price was MSRP,

$54,387. There was a $750 discount and a $1,000 rebate for financing with Toyota Financial Services. That's what we call the captive finance company. If you have to finance for the dealer, you're better off to go through that dealer's captive finance service, the general. The adjusted price was $52,637. It's looking good, right? Well, keep listening. Then he added $1499 for a nanocure, which I told you.

$20. You can buy an Amazon for $20. Of course, you have to pay someone $1,500 to put it on for you. Right. Total purchase was now $54,136. Below that was an ambiguous plus tax tag title fees and payoff. Of course, fees is the operative word there. Fees implies government fees.

but fees are just profit to the dealer. But you don't want to say profit to the dealers. You just say fees, and that's how they get you. Bunceeing plus tax, tag title fees, and payoff, I question, what would those figures be? It would depend on your county. Financing would be able to tell you this. Now, that's the jaws of the beast, the financing department.

It's going there, and they'll tell you. One of the reasons I feel that our mystery shopping reports aren't as complete as they could be is because you really, no matter how much you think you've been taking advantage of by the sales department, you ain't seen nothing yet until you get into the box. That's what the dealers call the finance department. That's where the most profit, at least up until now, during these three. We had it once with Agent Lightning, though. I think she did, when she bought her own car, she turned it into a mystery shop.

Average profit in the finance department for the average dealership is about $2,000 per car. For every car they sell, not per car finance, but if they sell 30% for cash and 70% finance, they're making an extra $2,000 on the average above what their profit was when they marked the car up that they sold you. So, yeah, the finance department will explain it to you when you get in there. He's going to explain it a lot more than that. Oh, he says finance would be able to tell you, but here in Tennessee. Yeah, it's about 10% about the total purchase, give or take $30 or $40. So he's lumping in all of that.

He's saying the fees, tags, everything comes up to about 10% over. Yeah. And that's, he wants to lull you to sleep. He wants, psychologically, car dealers want you to feel like you bought the car. And this is just taken care of the paperwork. And that's when they really get you. And this dealer doesn't want you to look at the fees when you're sitting out in the showroom. Encouraged me to start haggling, give me an offer.

I'm here to work for you. I take it to my manager, see what he says. I said, I appreciate the offer, but the client's smiling. Thank you. I'll discuss with my husband and get back to you. I then asked about additional fees. Do you have a dealer fee here? I mean, they don't ever call it a dealer fee,

but he knew what I was talking about. He confirmed we do $797. It's our processing fee for selling the car. They're selling the car, and they're making money when they sell you the car and financing the car, and then they're going to charge you a fee because they're selling you a car and making money. I don't understand that. Well, we want to keep the money that we made.

Yeah, and all the paperwork. So there you are. The old school phone. Nashville, Tennessee. Lance, are you listening? Nashville, Tennessee, old school. I asked to write that down for me on the worksheet, which you did. Now my real price came to $54,933, $546 over MSRP, which is, you know, that's not really real bad. I mean, that's not what they advertised it for. That's not what they quartered you, but today that's about the market on these cars. I thanked him.

assured him that I would be in touch. Now, I say, you know, I'm patent a beam in Toyota in the back, like that's a fairly, the price is only what it is because the shopper, Agent Lightning, was knowledgeable, and he read her as being knowledgeable and was not going to really hammer her, so it could have been a lot worse. Voting time. Voting time. Oh, boy.

I think these guys committed some transgressions that we haven't really seen in a lot of our shops recently down in South Florida. Well, number one, no addendum on the car, and they have nanocure. That was a surprise hit. The explanations for the fees and the fact that just built into their sales worksheet that they don't show the actual fees, they just say plus tagging fees. And that's, because the next stop is finance. So whatever those fees are, they find out in the box. Yeah, it was a below average performance for me. So I'm going to give them a D.

Okay, I've got Negan 1, D minus, no deal. Nanakure with a question mark. No fee disclosure. He doesn't like that. Joseph Kelleher with a D. Tom Steckle D. hiding dealer fees and $14.99 for junk.

It's no-no-tech on this deal. Tim Gilliland, such a good start until the nannicure and fees. C. Brian said Latko. If she mentioned she knows Lance, she would have gotten a better deal. C.

Mark Smith, I give him a C. Cliff's picks, Big Bold F. Oof. I'm going to say C-minus. I think if you go in there with some knowledge, you can work a reasonable price on it. But, again, we still haven't seen what they might do in the box, and that can – that's where the danger is. That's what real sharks are.

I got some grades that came in. Jonathan Palmcoe says this dealership gets an ambiguous F for fees. I know you grade on the curve, but when I buy a car, the dealership has one shot. shot on me. When they start playing games or overcharge me, I walk away. My grade stays. That's an F from Jonathan. Bob gives a D for Beaman Toyota.

And who is this from? We don't have a name on it, but he says, I would give them a D. Final price is decent, but the path to get there was pretty devious. He agrees with my D. Nancy? Well, short and sweet. Honesty is in

and taking advantage of the consumer is out. And for me, I give them an F. Well, yeah, here we are at the end of the year, and here we are with July 31st. Theoretically, making everything that happened here stop. We also have Amazon selling cars, which would make everything that happened here stop.

So this is going to be a tipping point. I'm going to go with a C-minus. sadly, it's just below average to me. I hope maybe after the FTC report and after Amazon starts to put the hammer to car dealers to be honest, and toward the second half of 2024, maybe I would give this dealership an F. I'd give them an F and they'd be going to jail or they'd be fined or they'd be canceled by the manufacturer. So it's going to be exciting year. I mean, think about these reports, when you think about the Federal Trade Commission rules going into effect.

The rules are there. They're going to be applied on July 30th or 31st. 31st. And everything that happened here would be illegal. And it would be enforced. It is illegal right now. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of it's illegal right now.

People just don't know about it, don't care about it. But, yeah, I'll give them a C-minus. Boy, there you go. It's going to be, will the Mr. Shopping Reports get better and better and better up until July 31st? I don't know. I'm going to try and get some intel from, like, what are the dealers talking about? I want to find out what, you know. It's going to be interesting.

Very interesting. Okay. Well, it's New Year's Eve almost. Yeah. If we still have some time, there was one other subject that I thought was interesting. And the New York Times this morning, they do the forecast at the end of the year. Here's something that's very controversial. This is the fact that will change your life in 2024.

Autonomous driving is not dead in the water like a lot of people think as a result of the fiasco in San Francisco when they threw throughout the General Motors rental cars. rental car, robotaxies, because they were, you know, dangerous. And they were dangerous. And people were having sex in them. Yeah. But there are successful autonomous car projects in six or seven cities now, and they're getting better and better.

And the forecast is that, and I'll make this my forecast, I say that by the end of 2024, you will be able to drive by, and be driven by legally an autonomous car, not in all states, but in some states. I think by the end of 2024, I'm sure Tesla will be one of those. It will be legal, I'm really sticking my neck out here. It will be legal to buy and be driven autonomously by Tesla and possibly some other make cars. I bet I can name two of the states that will be the forerunners. Nevada and Florida.

Well, you're really in Florida. Those two states seem to have been right on the leading edge of, and doing it quietly, but the moment any of the self-driving features have become available, it seems like Nevada and Florida are the first ones to quietly say, yep, do it. Everything's legal in Florida. Really? Oh, boy.

Think how important this can be to older people. I mean, people that voluntarily give up their driver's license or they should and the ones that don't but should. And how nice it would be to have someone that was physically impaired or age at an age or whatever it may be where they know it's not right for them to be on the road. How nice to be able to walk out your front door, have your car pick you up and take you to Walgreens, take you to Publix and take you home. and do it autonomously, safely.

And I hope our forecast is right because I'll probably be one of those people at a couple of years, and I would like to be able to go to the public. We all. We all are going to be that. So, yeah, great stuff. I like your new billboard.

Are you with the Chamber of Commerce? Everything is legal in Florida. You know what you have just done for the population here? They're swarming to the area. airports. Have fun. Have fun on the years of Eve. You can't get in trouble here. You know, folks, throughout the show, I've thanked a lot of you and, you know, your remarkable job tuning into Irwin cars every week. But there's one more person that I'd like to thank, and that's Vic. And if you don't know him, Vic and Alice, he owns the Oldies

channel here, 95.3, 96.9.9. And he has done a spectacular job. And most of all, he has believed in us. And we are really happy to have, you know, met him and been part of his family. Thank you, Vic, and happy New Year to you and your family. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right here and it'll be the new show of 2024. Happy New Year, everyone, and God bless.