Dan Roth  0:03  
This is Wheel Bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:06  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant research. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:09  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives. 

Dan Roth  0:11  
And of course, you can always find us all on car review tweets as well. I've seen all of us have been posting some stuff every now and then I'll check the account like, Oh, we posted

Sam Abuelsamid  0:21  
stuff. Yeah.

Dan Roth  0:23  
So that's good. It seems that, you know, people like the short snackable format. So

Sam Abuelsamid  0:30  
the opposite of what the show is.

Dan Roth  0:32  
Yes, absolutely. Well, we'll keep it tight. So let's move on. We consider

Sam Abuelsamid  0:35  
this a gourmet meal. So you have you have your snacks when the car review tweets, and Wheel Bearings is the gourmet meal. Of course, you know, 

I was gonna say we have courses in Italian meal that runs into the two o'clock in the morning.

Dan Roth  0:51  
And now that we're where they Christmas, this is a Well, maybe not quite the Seven Fishes yet. That'll be afternoon. Let's see one of the appetizers. Of course, Sam will just jump into your cars because the top of the list you're driving the 2020 Volvo V 60 cross country

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09  
yeah since we last recorded I've had a couple different cars I spent a week with the V 60 cross country and my my faith and folks in station wagons is definitely reaffirmed after driving that thing. I still love station wagons even if they are sitting too high. But I'm still a big fan of wagons and particularly the V 60. You know, I you know, I like the the S 90 but for me personally, you know, it's it's a little bigger than I would prefer, you know, unless I was you know, like back in my high school days when you know we had to haul around engines in the back of my shop teachers. You know 71 dodge Monaco wagon. Now he had a 771 Monaco wagon I mean that thing was ginormous. had about 16 feet of rear overhang. You know you could fit me in the back of it and we regularly use that for runs to the to the scrapyard to pick up parts for the cars we're working on. But, so

Dan Roth  2:04  
the fact that the fact that you had a shop teacher and you had a shop class and you would work on cars, none of that is none of that exists anymore. I know. It's, it's It is,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:13  
it is truly tragic that, you know, it's, it's almost impossible to, you know, find, you know, an auto mechanic class in a high school anymore. Yeah. And, you know, I'm a huge supporter of education. You know, I think, you know, it's, it's a normal public education is enormously crucial to the, to the health of our society, you know, but the reality is, not everybody needs to go to college. You know, I mean, there's a lot of things in society, a lot of jobs that need to be done that don't require a university education, but do require education. And I think we, we, you know, it's, it's tragic that we don't have enough vocational education in this country. You know, and some, a lot of it is available, like through community colleges and stuff and I think, you know, a lot of Lot of people that you know, are looking that want to get good jobs should really be looking to community colleges for, you know, things like mechanics, you know, plumbing, electricians, you know, there's, there's an enormous number of jobs that cannot realistically be automated right? can be can be definitely good well paying jobs, you know that you make a decent living at. You know, you don't not everybody needs to be a Silicon Valley billionaire or a coder like you know, we we don't need to have an entire country of coders. We don't need 300 million coders, you know, but we need people

Dan Roth  3:39  
that will end the thing that I've realized and I wish I had in some ways I wish I had gone into a trade earlier was those rich people those still Silicon Valley Tech pros? They're completely useless when it comes to like holding a screwdriver using your and when they're giant mansions have, you know a problem? Who do they call? They call the blue collar That's right. And and G Have you seen what plumbers drive lately? Like? Yeah, pretty nice cars like rafters Yeah. And like some of it isn't like you can write off the business expense and I get that too but you know really, really good trade folks are. I mean they are the heart of the nation. Yep. And I got us off track so I'll get us back on the

Rebecca Lindland  4:22  
show.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:25  
We haven't done one for two weeks. So you know, it's worth a tangent or two bottled up

the V 60 cross country, you know, you take the V 60 jacket up an inch inch and a half, something like that, you know, put some cladding on the wheel arches, you know and make it sort of semi pseudo SUV like you know, like, like a Subaru Outback. But it's still it's still a Volvo V 60. And, you know, that makes it genuinely a lovely car to spend time in.

Dan Roth  4:56  
It is very posh. You can't really get an engine in there. Unless it's like a you know 12 a rotary or something. Yeah, another

Rebecca Lindland  5:01  
thing. One of the things that I, I like about waggons as well as First of all, they're just they're so easy to get in and out of, and they still give you a lot of cargo space, they still and I know you don't like how high they are starting to ride, but I think there's such a good balance between that sgv of which some of those h points are like at my chin. And, and just being able to load and unload quickly, easily. Get it, you know, let your dog can get into your groceries, groceries in and

Sam Abuelsamid  5:33  
out, you know, get your dog and

Rebecca Lindland  5:35  
access to the roof as well. You know, that's absolutely on the Buick Regal tour x launch. That was one of the things that they commented on was that, you know, the vehicle was actually it was so much there was a lot of utility there because you could easily access the roof as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:53  
Yeah, I mean, our last two family cars before the Civic that we have now. We're both Volkswagen station wagons. We had a facade wagon a 2000 pissant wagon and then it 2010 Jetta wagon you know and they were they were lovely car you know it's the beauty of it is you get the driving dynamics of a car It feels like driving a car you have this big extra space in the back and a big opening in the back to put stuff in you know so if you like to go to you know state sales or you know if you want to go camping or you know, go skiing for a weekend, you know, you're not you're not playing Tetris trying to get your stuff into the trunk of a car, you know, or trying to heave it up into the back of a suburban or something which we'll talk about later. You know, it's it's really easy to use. And you know, I guess you know, the the extra you know, inch or two of ride height that you get in something like the the V 60 cross country. You know, gets you know, does make it a little easier to slide in and out. You know that the age point is a little bit higher but not so high that you don't need, you know, big running boards and a handle on the There's a pillar to grab on to the heave yourself up into the seat, you know, you just sit down and, you know, it feel it's very comfortable. You know, and as we've talked about on numerous occasions before Volvo's, you know, aside from the census infotainment system are a genuinely wonderful place to spend time they have very comfortable seats are supportive, you know, you know, the the materials are, it looks great, you know, everything feels really good, you know, and it's a premium car so it you know, all that stuff should be that should be true and it is you know, and it has a you know, this one has the Bowers and Wilkins premium audio system, which sounds great. So that

Dan Roth  7:39  
was pretty good. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  7:41  
so I mean, it's it's not an inexpensive car, but you know, when you look at it against its competitive set, you know, cars like the, the Audi A six or B is probably the A for you know, BMW three series soaring.

Rebecca Lindland  7:57  
Would you go with the Audi allroad on the VC Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid  8:01  
yeah the yeah the all roads the various all road models you know if you if you compare it to the competitive set, you know it's it's reasonably priced it's not outrageously priced the base price for the V 60 cross country you know this is the T five so it's the turbocharged two liter 250 horsepower you can also get the T six that as a supercharger and get you over 300 horsepower but the base price is 45,000 the one I drove was pretty much loaded with you know at $57,000 just shy of $57,000 including destination charge you know, it had a lovely metallic paint finish on it a white finish

Dan Roth  8:43  
have the brown trim

Sam Abuelsamid  8:45  
the brown interior trim

Dan Roth  8:47  
no like I'm sorry. So the last one I drove center had like it was like a white metallic all the cladding you wait and then had like brown accents on the exterior? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  8:57  
yeah. did have that. Man is that a good look at It is it's a fantastic looking car. You know, and I think I, I would personally say I think the V 60 is probably the best looking car Volvo makes right now. You know, I think it has fantastic proportions and

Rebecca Lindland  9:12  
I love that xc 40 though it's so cute. Oh, yeah, the

Sam Abuelsamid  9:18  
adorable, but the V 60 you know is is more elegant. It's beautiful. I think it's a beautiful car. Yes, the XC 40 is it but but the V 60 just has that elegance to it, you know and with the current Volvo design language it all just works really well with that shape of that car.

Dan Roth  9:36  
I really like the the the detailing on that design. Like if you look it's not just it looks like they put a lot of thought into Yeah, even like around the the rear. So whether the the rear quarter panels transition into the back of the car, there's a chamfer around the whole back of the car. Yep. They it's just it's one of those like little things that you just notice and you just kind of look at it. Like how They actually went out of their way to do that.

Rebecca Lindland  10:05  
This summer and I remember I you know, I have issues with some of the Volvo transmission right? Like they, there was just something I didn't love the way that it shifted but but the last two that I've had, I haven't had that same feeling from so I don't know if I'm just getting used to it or if it just, they're just a little bit of an adjustment there but I'm becoming more of a fan because I didn't love it at first.

Dan Roth  10:32  
I remember maybe you got one that was abused by the press and abused

Rebecca Lindland  10:38  
to talking about your mouth.

Dan Roth  10:42  
So I agree with you, Sam. I really like the v 60 i think is a really great offering from Volvo. I think it's it's the middle of their range. You know, it does all of the things that the big ones do. It's a tidy sized, easy to drive,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:56  
and it's a better size, I think then the last generation v 60. Which, you know, for a second it was had a very cramped backseat it was on the small size. And this one, I think it's just right.

Dan Roth  11:07  
This one Yeah, it's a little better you still like so Volvo and like, I don't mind the extra the right height because it's kind of putting the Volvo wagon back with a Volvo wagon was, you know, my 240 was it had a lot of ride height man was there was a lot of space between the wheel and the top of the fender. So like, even as the pseudo SUV thing, it's just kind of sort of bringing them back up to where they had been. To a degree, they're not really super high, you don't really pay for it dynamically. It's really good.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:36  
Well, and there, you know, there is an off road mode on this one that actually does lift it up a little bit higher. You know, I mean, oh, not that you would ever, you know, really take a car like this off road, but I guess not

Dan Roth  11:47  
on purpose. Yeah. But

Sam Abuelsamid  11:49  
yeah, I mean, there's different drive modes, you know, so there's the comfort mode and the normal mode and the off road mode,

Dan Roth  11:56  
but I was just disappointed by the cargo space behind that like the you know, in Actual cargo area it's it's, it's good, but it's not as good. I don't think maybe it's just my perception but I think that the Jetta wagon is actually larger

in overall cargo space,

Sam Abuelsamid  12:12  
it may be I think, I think it may be a combination of the the cargo cover that they have on there. And then there's, you know, there's a fair bit of intrusion from the sides, you know, for the wheel wells because I think there's stuff, you know, electronics and stuff stored in there and the subwoofer, things like that. Yeah. You know, I think I think it's a good size, you know, and, and the beauty of a wagon is, you know, if you do need to carry larger stuff, you know, you can pop those back seats down and you actually have a really large space back there. You know, with a typically a flat load floor like this one has, so i think i think it you know, it can work out really well.

Dan Roth  12:51  
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely it's more wagging me than anything is this. I want more wagon options because there aren't as many you know, it competes with what is it compete with it? There's nothing Is the Subarus but they're sort of like a price class down right right and there's there's Mercedes but they're priced class up and so and there's there's and

Sam Abuelsamid  13:08  
then Volkswagen you know what you know which is more in the Subaru price class you know they still have the the alltrack although I think that may be going or Sam stare at the standards for what volt Vw sportwagen is going away but the I think the alltrack is sticking around

Rebecca Lindland  13:23  
the same I found the sticker from when I had the Volvo t five all wheel drive cross country. Is that is that what you had as well?

Sam Abuelsamid  13:31  
That's that's the same thing. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  13:32  
So that one and I apologize. I I was looking back on my schedule actually had it more recently. And I don't think I've talked about it on the show, because I had a much better experience with it than I did with Volvos that I've had and and so maybe the earlier ones as we talked about what we're a little bit more abused, but also but yeah, so that was I I think I actually had to drive it in some Bad weather and it was really surefooted like it was. I didn't miss the height of the SUV, you know, like I felt like I was actually almost more secure because it was a little bit cold as a little bit slippery. I was driving to the airport, and actually was really really well behaved and it was so nice looking on the road. I told him Yeah, you know what, I think I had it after. I don't think I've been on the show since I've had it. So I apologize. I got my date my dates mixed up. But it's a really good car. If you're gonna

Dan Roth  14:32  
if you're gonna mix up dates, this is the best date I thought really like it

Sam Abuelsamid  14:40  
Yeah, and you know, this thing's got a lot of you know, this particular one had a lot of nice features in it like the cross country pro package, you know, which gives you four zone climate control. You know, for way, power lumbar for the for both front seats, not just for the driver's seat. The you know, the 19 inch wheels.

Rebecca Lindland  15:00  
I thought the safety features were not very intrusive either, you know, like they were. They were well done. Yeah, the feedback was.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:11  
Yeah, and pilot assist has gotten progressively better over the last several years since the first time I drove it on the when the, when the XC 90 was new, what I guess, three, four years ago, you know, I tried pilot assist then, and was very unimpressed with it. And, you know, it has gotten progressively better over the last several years. Each year, they seem to update the control and it you know, it's still not, you know, it does some degree of lane centering, you know, on a highway curve, you know, 70 miles an hour, you know, it's often not necessarily going to stay in the lane. So you do have to keep your hands on the wheel. But it does a nice subtle job of, you know, keeping the car centered in the lane most of the time. You know, so it's not it's not driving itself, but it's It's definitely a doing a good job of a success.

Rebecca Lindland  16:02  
So, you know what I actually I'm looking back now and I tried the different drive modes. And I found I found comfort to be the best one ego. I wrote that it's the calibration was unpleasant and shifting gears unexpectedly and unevenly. So I didn't say an eco mode for long at all because it just wasn't a pleasant driving. It was, it was it was probably short shifting prematurely, you know, trying to keep the engine revs down as low as possible. And then Dynamic mode, it increased the revs but and tighten the steering, but it wasn't a significant difference. And I actually wanted I had the off road it and it's just for rough roads, it says but I would have rather had a snow and mud mode.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:47  
Yeah. And you know, that's something you find on a lot of newer vehicles. Now, you know, the snow and mud mode. When you get into deep snow, you know, you infer the traction control. For example, you actually want the wheels slip a little bit more when you get in deep snow or sand or you know, loose dirt. You know, because you will get more traction if it you know, if the traction control is too aggressive and you know, tries to stop the wheel from spinning, you can easily end up getting stuck in those kinds of conditions so that those deep those deep surface kinds of modes can help you keep going and keep keep you from getting stuck in those conditions.

Rebecca Lindland  17:24  
So I mean overall, though, it was, it was definitely I, I liked it a lot. But then we also talked about visibility because the visibility was super narrow. So my brother Steve, who believe it or not, is six foot three. So he and I were driving home and when he got home, there was none left for everybody else in my family is 510 and above, and my two sisters are five and nine, but I am not bitter.

Dan Roth  17:53  
small but mighty. That's exactly. So moving on. Sorry.

Rebecca Lindland  17:56  
So one of the things that we noticed was Because the windows are so narrow, the and the belt line is so high, the visibility was pretty compromised in it and I felt like I needed to rely on blind spot monitoring more than in others and I'll give you a for instance so you know when you put your if the window is down and you put your elbow on the on the top of the door I could not like my forearm would not fit in that space. Like the window was so narrow. Yeah, well, I

Dan Roth  18:33  
think that's a common problem with a lot of cars. We're starting to see that reverse a little bit but they they have shrunk the daylight openings at the sort of the altar of style and I think probably some side impact performance as well. That's my that decided it is my theory, you know, metal.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:52  
That is that is definitely a part of it, but it's also it's also a design trend. You know, that kind of started in the early 2000s maybe Leaving the late 90s You know, one of the first cars that really did that was the original, the first generation Audi TT. And you know, following that a lot of other cars, a lot of designers start going in that high beltline direction. So, you know, it was it was a, it's a mix of the two, you know, the side impact, and, you know, just a design trend, right. And that, and both of those, you know, they've started to figure out how to how to give the side impact protection, you know, without needing such a high belt line. And so on some newer vehicles we have started to see the belt line start to drop down again, which is a good like it Yeah, these games are very prominent example.

Rebecca Lindland  19:35  
So so my brother Steve, is shorter torsos, very long legs, and he felt a little bit cramped in it. He said. Like it just it was he was aware of the room. You know what I mean? And so I didn't know if you had felt that at all. Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:53  
I'm kind of the opposite. I'm more long tour. So

Unknown Speaker  19:55  
you would feel like

Sam Abuelsamid  19:58  
yeah, I mean, I didn't have an issue. With with the roof fly

it was fine for me. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  20:04  
Because you're not you're not dissimilar in size. You know to myself Yeah, I'm like 511 Yeah, so he's taller but but with wise you're both like about the same size and Joe I but yeah, he definitely said that he was that it was just it just felt a little cramped, warm. And you know, what I said in my review was that it's not a barrier to purchase, but it's just something to be aware of on a test drive. Like, if you're looking for really open it, you know, a brighter sort of field to a vehicle. I don't know that this gives it to you as much because I do think those windows are pretty narrow.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:41  
Right and this and this is a good reason why you should never ever ever, ever, ever buy a car without test driving it first. Well, yeah, and and and when I say never ever I mean never Don't you know, if you have not driven it, don't buy it.

Dan Roth  20:56  
Well, that's that's the like the most common advice I give to people when they want to talk about car Like, what's great? What do you like? Like, you know what, what I like doesn't doesn't matter, you need to make a list and go drive the things you like. And it the one that you like the best is the one you should buy.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:12  
Because, you know, I mean, everybody's got different tastes, but also everybody's bodies are a little bit different. You know, I mean, everybody's got slightly different proportions. You know, some people have longer arms or shorter arms, longer torsos, or shorter torsos, and not every car shape the same way. You know, so it this that's why I say it's really important to actually go drive it and make sure the car really fits you. You know spend at least half an hour driving it around and make sure that it that you can see out of it and then and that everything fits and is feels reasonably comfortable and is easy to access for you because if it's not, you know, what's what may seem like small annoyances at first will grow to be very large annoyances later on. So yeah, especially especially if you've spent, you know 3040 $50,000 on a car.

Rebecca Lindland  21:59  
Do podcast on car shopping tips.

Unknown Speaker  22:04  
Yeah, absolutely have money. Right?

Rebecca Lindland  22:08  
Because there's thing it's an overwhelming experience. It's not positive. You know, you know, you got to fight with the f&i guy coming up. Like there's, you know, there's a lot of negative feelings about something that should be a lot of fun and should be a fun process and exciting and I think that, you know, we can provide some quick and easy guideline to things to keep in mind, just things to pay attention to. I think that would be a good interesting show.

Dan Roth  22:36  
Okay, okay. I agree. Let me let me write it down.

Rebecca Lindland  22:40  
Exactly. Alright.

Dan Roth  22:45  
Let's see how many people hate Google.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:50  
Don't do that. I hate it. When people do that on podcasts.

Rebecca Lindland  22:54  
commercials are doing it on Alexa now. Wait,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:58  
but they're not supposed to do that. Either

Dan Roth  23:02  
when we secrete just fired up, so that's like the cross country but Sam, you're also driving the 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe, which this is the redesigned Santa Fe right, that just looks fantastic on the road looks like an expensive German car.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:16  
Yeah, I actually drove to Santa Fe earlier this year as well it says the second time I've had it. And, you know, this, this is a vastly improved, you know, mid size crossover compared to the previous generation. Yeah, the previous generation wasn't, wasn't terrible, but it wasn't. I thought, you know, I found it somewhat underwhelming, but this one is so much better, you know, in every way, I mean, it's it's a good looking vehicle. And like, you know, like the other Hyundais You know, this current generation of Hyundais they have been kind of diverging them a little bit more, you know, so that each model you know, there's there are some Hyundai specific design cues, you know, like Kind of the general shape of the grill, but they they've been moving them apart more. So each each one looks more distinct. So, you know, this doesn't just look like a three quarter scale version of the palisade. You know, and it doesn't look like a scaled up version of a Tucson. But you know, there are some there are some things that, you know, for example, on their SUVs, you know, they're doing common, you know, there's some commonality across the utilities like from the Kona to the Santa Fe to the palisade. You know, you have, you know, in the front you have the slim led driving lights and then sort of the blocky headlights down below which, which is actually something that Jeep did kind of first, you know, on the Cherokee, the Cherokee a few years back, yeah,

Dan Roth  24:46  
but Hyundai has mastered it, they're still Yeah, they just look really good.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:49  
Yeah, you know, it looks really sharp. You know, and the, the interior of this thing you know, is really nice, you know, like, like other modern Hyundais you know, they done a wonderful job on the cabin. You know, it's it's much roomier than the previous generation was especially in the backseat. You know, so what we have now is the Santa, you know, the previous generation you had, you know, the, the Santa Fe Sport was the two row and then they had the, just the Santa Fe was a, sort of a, an undersized three row you no longer but under still undersized three row, this time for the Santa Fe, they've gone back to just having one variant of Santa Fe which is a two row that's really roomy. And then for you know, if you want a three row you step up to the palisade which is, you know, proper three row and you actually have room in that third row seat, you know, for actual human beings and stuff, you know, and they've done a done a really nice job on this interior, you know, there are some hard plastic surfaces in there. But you know, overall the stuff that you actually touch and interact with, you know, does is softer touch has has nice, nice finishes on it. Yeah, and there's some really nice detailing, like, on the speaker girls on the doors, you know, they've got this sort of diamond skinny diamond shaped prismatic pattern on there. So it's not just a flat speaker grill, you know, it has some texture to it, you know, and then the metal trim pieces across the dashboard and the top of the doors, you know, has some texturing to it, you know, so, I think it's, it's a, it's nice to look at, but it's also really nice to drive. You know, the one I the one I was driving as the 2.4 liter four cylinder,

Dan Roth  26:32  
so that's non turbo, right? That's,

Sam Abuelsamid  26:34  
that's it's a non turbo. Yeah. So it's like 190 horsepower, 188 horsepower, you know, which is you know, it's not an enormous amount of power, but it's it's more than adequate for you know, for pretty much any driving, you're not going to use this one, you know, if you're going to be towing heavier trailers, but you know, for just general commuting, you know, it's a it's a really nice option, you know, it's not, you know, and this thing is not huge, but it's very roomie, you know and the eight speed automatic that Hyundai does is you know a really smooth shifting unit it's got their, their stop star system which works really well. All Wheel Drive and Hyundais Driver Assist features their their Lane Keeping Assist, and they're adaptive cruise control work really well on this thing and it's a full stop, stop start or full stop and go adaptive cruise control system. Unlike the Honda passport I drove last time, which you know, that's that's still an older style advanced adaptive cruise control that cuts off when you get down to below 20 miles an hour. This one you know in traffic, you know, it'll bring you to a full stop and then resume again. Yeah,

Dan Roth  27:45  
we can we can talk about the Honda system when we get to my car. Yeah, well, moving on. But

Sam Abuelsamid  27:52  
yeah, so I mean, overall, you know, that and, you know, aside from the, the engine You know, this one was this was a limited, you know, So this was pretty much loaded it was all wheel drive, you know came in at 38,005 80 including the delivery charge. You know and it it has you know, pretty much everything you want in there you know including, you know, wireless charging pad for your phone. The the infotainment system, you know has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support and it's just it's a it's a just a really nice commuter vehicle. You know if you want you know something to haul your family or your friends you know, for five people and comfort and you know, have lots of room for gear and stuff in the back.

Rebecca Lindland  28:38  
So coincidentally, I actually had the, the Santa Fe limited two point O with the four cylinder turbocharged.

Dan Roth  28:49  
I had that which has like a couple weeks ago, a bunch of horsepower,

Rebecca Lindland  28:52  
it dies and I had a similar experience and it were it was just one of the it was just nice to drive. It was engaging. And I remember thinking, you know, I feel like I own this car within a few hours of driving it. As opposed to other cars that you know, we have for a week and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I still don't understand this car, which I kind of experienced with accurate MDX, which we can get to as well. But I just and it was coincidentally my cousin asked me about the Santa Fe cuz she's in the market. She's got one kid and he's a junior in high school. And so you know, he's very active and and got a lot of stuff to haul around and stuff. And I just told her, I said, it's just a really nice vehicle. It's, it comes I mean, the one that I had, like, Sam, you know, it was fully loaded 38,007 30 delivered. Mine was front wheel drive, so it did not have the all wheel drive capability, but I just remember it being friendly, you know, easy to use, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  29:56  
there's no question it just it just works.

Dan Roth  29:59  
It just works because They're doing the work. They're doing the work to make the cars not just good for, you know, project objectives, or you know, to have something in the market. They're doing the work to make the cars. Good. Exactly. And just like pure,

Rebecca Lindland  30:12  
and they just and it just like you just get in it and you're like, I understand this car and it understands me. And I think also, I did have the same kind of experience with the interior. There were some hard plastics that I would love to seen a little upgraded. Mostly just because I feel like I'm so spoiled by that Hyundai palisade interior, but, but overall, it just, I just think it's such a good car. There's so much competition in this space. But I just feel like the Santa Fe, I think they really did a really, really good job on it.

Dan Roth  30:43  
Well, you know, do you think that that feeling like, oh, there's these occasional hard plastics and stuffer a little disappointing just because the rest of it looks and feels so premium or you just you forget that you're in a car that isn't it?

Rebecca Lindland  30:58  
Well, absolutely, I mean, we're very spoiled. And I also tend to not love black and we are definitely spoil. Yes. And I tend to not love black interiors. Also, I like more contrast, I want something warmer. So you know, it's like a black on black on black. And then it has that, you know, the tasteful touches of bright Chrome, as they call it. I, you know, that just doesn't really warm me up very much. But otherwise, you know, it looked really nice. It just again, it's it's one of those you don't feel like you're fighting with your car all the time. I just want to turn the radio on.

Dan Roth  31:36  
It's really hard to compete with with Hyundai in any segment that they're in because they're just, we could talk about driving dynamics and stuff like that. But just in terms of average car buyer and overall value. They're just really good. And they remember Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  31:50  
yeah. And the base Santa Fe starts at 27,000 delivered. I mean, come on.

Rebecca Lindland  31:55  
Yeah, that's I mean, I remember and I don't know if this still is still true, but several years ago ago seeing a presentation and the only the only company that Hyundai was losing market share to are losing owners to was key.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:13  
Which, which while while Hyundai and Kia marketing executives refuse to acknowledge that they are part of the same company, you know, they are the same company and they're, you know, the hardware is all the same, you know, there's changing, you know, differences in design and, and some of the feature sets on given models, but they are basically the same vehicles and, you know, if, if, if your, your toughest competition is yourself, you're in a pretty good place. They're also they're

Dan Roth  32:38  
also very good at taking the same set of hardware and making it different character wise for their different brand.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:44  
Yeah, that that is very true.

Rebecca Lindland  32:46  
us they are incorporated separately. And so they are technically competitors. It's only backing Yeah. It's all starts with the same tree.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:56  
Yeah, the marketing companies and this is true, you know, as well for You know, most of the foreign brands is the, you know, they have they actually have multiple companies that are wholly owned subsidiaries multiple business units, you know that, you know that they have and this is true for Honda it's true for Toyota and Hyundai and Kia and Nissan. You know, the way the companies are structured, they have, you know, the marketing and sales business, they have an engineering business. So for Hyundai and Kenya, you know, it's the Hyundai America Technical Center here in Ann Arbor. You know, they have their manufacturing business unit, which is a completely separate business unit, which builds vehicles are both brands. Yeah. So you know, that it's kind of a weird corporate structure, but ultimately, they all feed back up into Hyundai Motor Group, you know, along with Genesis as well. They all feed into Hyundai Motor Group, which is the company at the top of the

Rebecca Lindland  33:51  
chain, but there was executives on both Hyundai and kiya wanted to make it clear to me that they are they are because they're ready separately in the US specifically. So there's the US and Canada issue because all the same is true in your regulatory standards that they can't collaborate, they can't do anything they have to treat themselves as all competitors and they actually don't know the specifications of the vehicles that are coming out. So like Hyundai didn't know I'm sorry kid didn't know that Hyundai was getting the the electric third row seat, things like that, because they're they don't, they're not allowed to communicate with each other on things like that in the States,

Sam Abuelsamid  34:32  
except, you know, who knows all that stuff? The guys that say no, do engineering for both? both brands.

Rebecca Lindland  34:41  
Marketing and Sales and product planning, you know, that are based in the US. Yeah,

Dan Roth  34:47  
yeah. I mean, marketing and sales. They don't ever talk to the tech guys.

Rebecca Lindland  34:54  
Had a great experience with that vehicle as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:56  
So tell us about something you didn't have such a great experience.

Dan Roth  34:58  
Yeah, I was gonna say like, let's let's move. on to your record and I think the theme for the rest of our garage segment here is that Honda is very good to us and they put us in their cars and you had the MDX a spec from accurate

Unknown Speaker  35:11  
I did.

Dan Roth  35:13  
Oh, it sounds like it's I just reviewed that for Forbes it went up today. So

Rebecca Lindland  35:18  
you know what, why don't you tell us about your experience because my phone is ringing and I need to turn it off.

Dan Roth  35:24  
Okay. We can compare notes. I like the MDX a lot, especially in a spectrum. I think it looks great. It's very comfortable. This one like you were saying how you don't like all black and tears. This one has the solution for that with bright red leather seats without cantera centers accurate does a really nice job with their a spec vehicles. They're just a little tight here. They're a little bit more enthusiast oriented. They feel good to drive and they're they're comfortable, they're disciplined. This is all of those things, I think where I had issues with it, and it's going to be the same place. You had issues with it was just the ergonomics and the the secondary controls you know it's it's really hard to fault the way the MDX goes turns and stops at it. It has the feet the the V six that's 300 almost almost 300 horsepower. The Nine speed automatic, it's efficient it has a great snarl when you get on it it has multiple drive modes it's just you know it's really pleasant to be in it's a good size it's got three rows it looks better than the pilot which is based on and it's very thoughtfully designed for a family SUV user the end we even had snow with it and it was very short What did I was a little concerned because it's on those those big a spec wheels with lots of tire didn't seem to really slide around much and it was it was pretty well behaved. So I was so impressed with that. The problem comes in when you trying to like operate it like it's got the It's an older model for Honda now, and for accurate as well, just the architecture overall is just older. So it's got the two screen setup with the screen below and the screen above and one of them has a touchscreen The other one is not and there's a rotary multifunction controller knob and there's some hard switches. So if you want to, if you're using, you know, like a phone projection system, you can hit the smartphone button and it'll bring it up on the upper screen and then you control it with the knobs. There's a lot of steps to using this thing and for stuff like HVC all of the buttons are kind of tiny touch points, the only two HVC buttons that are actual hard buttons are the defrost and I think that's because legally they must be the rest of it is I don't know that that I don't think that's true. Oh, okay. I that was my assumption is that like you just have to have fast access to the difference because there's, you know, there's even a spec for how quickly the system will clear the fog of

Sam Abuelsamid  37:56  
this test Tesla. Tesla's don't have hard

Dan Roth  37:58  
but Tesla does this. Follow the rules.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:01  
That is true, but

Rebecca Lindland  38:03  
I just couldn't

Sam Abuelsamid  38:05  
recall other vehicles that had the had the defrost and the touch interface.

Dan Roth  38:09  
Yeah, that may be true. It just struck me as like, why would they put some of it here and then the rest of it in there because you don't know where to go as user, you're not sure where the controls you are into the controls you need are. And I think that was the biggest issue I had with it. And I spent a week with it. Like you said that you feel like, you feel like you get to a point where you have sort of figured it out, but it always makes you think so I think Yeah, learning curve on this car is going to be a long one. It's going to be something that you spend a couple of months before you're truly sort of like second nature with it and it still has a lot of steps to get to stuff things are buried where they should be right there at your fingertips. And so I think that that goes back to the the idea of cognitive load. It just makes you think too much it makes you take your attention off of the road and look at the thing to figure out what the hell You're supposed to do. And the answer to just leave it in auto is, okay, that's like a half solution, there are times where you just need to have manual control over it. And it should be easy to figure out because usually those times are like, when it's snowing and there's a lot of fog on the inside of the windshield, and you got to figure out how to get like get the heat in the AC up there. And or, you know, move the airflow around or something or one of the other functions like the infotainment, you know, the nav, it's not the easiest system to use, and that that concern me. I hope that they're, they're doing better with that, but not holding out a ton of hope. Having seen newer systems and newer Honda's not be quite as you know, refined as they should be not not as much of an evolution but the driving experiences is pretty good. The only thing I thought it was a little weird was that there's kind of a delay in some of the things like when you shift the train mission from from, you know, Park to reverse a park to drive or drive to reverse like there's a delay where it sits there and thinks about it and then it engages you know, like, is this thing broken? Like what's going on did it ignore me and then it does its thing the the seat that powers back for easy access, you know Entry Exit there's a delay there you know, you turn the car on and I started adjusting the seat up a couple of times before it then started to do its thing and let's go Okay, it's just there's there's, it's slow to do that stuff. And I don't know whether that's just how they designed it. Or if it's older, sort of, you know, Body Control computers or, or whatever. I haven't really gotten into it, but it's a it's a good vehicle. It's stickers, the stickers is about 5657 you add some packages to it and it can get more expensive but it's it's a solid driver. I liked driving it and that was the thing that is the soul of a sports car and there was sort of my my, my takeaway so If you like driving you like driving it, if you can figure out the rest of the controls, I think you'll come to come to an understanding, but so I babbled enough. So, So enough about me Rebecca, what about you?

Rebecca Lindland  41:12  
So it's interesting because I, I compared it to that I said that wasn't as heavy. It was it was heavier than his competitors. And it's not as athletic. I felt like I was driving more of a draft horse versus a thoroughbred.

Dan Roth  41:29  
Well, let's define its competitors, though, which would show you comparing

Rebecca Lindland  41:32  
Well, when I think about, I guess I'm thinking about things like the BMW X five, the Audi Q seven, the GMC even the GMC Acadia Denali, or the three that I wrote down as vehicles that I've driven that and again, it's a combination of drive experience, and infotainment and interface experience. I think one of the when I was talking to somebody because Honda is very good to us, and Sam and I actually attended the Christmas holiday party last week. I What? What was kind of discouraging i think is the best way to put it was when I talked to one of the accurate people about my experience with the interface. Their response was, well, you were only in it for a week. And I contrast it that with that feeling that I had with the Santa Fe that we just talked about, where this vehicle, the Santa Fe, welcome to me in it was intuitive, easy to understand, boom, boom done. If I heard pardon, from that accurate MDX voice recognition thing one more time I was gonna say,

Dan Roth  42:41  
Oh, see, I didn't even bother with my God. It's not. That's not my default. Sort of control

Rebecca Lindland  42:47  
is good because I couldn't get it to work like I wrote. So I picked it up. It was not ideal. So I picked it up from JFK. You'll let it was like 1130 at night. It's dark. It's not how you take delivery of a vehicle, I get that. But I ended up driving almost halfway home because I couldn't get the radio to work. And then once I got it on, then I couldn't get I couldn't figure out how to turn the volume down because I couldn't find the switch because it was dark. And so then I finally found the volume switch, which was welcome, and was able to turn it down. And then I was into then over the course of the next couple of days, I tried the voice recognition for things like navigation, because it is so laborious to type it in. And oh my gosh, all I kept saying First of all, I thought I was in Delaware. I have no idea why I thought I was in Delaware. It finally figured out that I wasn't in Delaware. And I don't know why that was the default.

So and then just

Dan Roth  43:50  
always interesting to look back in the systems and see where the car may have been. Oh,

Rebecca Lindland  43:54  
absolutely. But I mean really like I don't know if I made a sometimes I will I will videotape, I probably didn't because I was driving most the time when it was behaving like this. But, you know, it just kept saying Pardon? Pardon? And oh my gosh, just go here. So I found like you that the whole, it just it required so much effort to deal with that interface. The two screens was super confusing. You didn't know where to look, you know, it sort of it runs that. It's it's one of those things where you know, Sam haitch hates touch screen. I don't mind them. This has both, and neither of them are good.

Dan Roth  44:36  
Yeah, I don't mind touch screens. And I think Sam was probably gonna say the same thing. I don't mind touch screens if they're well done the No, I haven't found one that's really well done.

Rebecca Lindland  44:44  
So I just the thing what I like about touch screens, I don't want to, I don't want go down that tangent is that it's immediate, like the feedback is immediate as opposed to with the dial, where you've got to roll in turn and push and pull like and of course. Right now I'm in Alexis l Alex 570, which is a whole nother issue. But to your point to you know, it's interesting across Acura, there are so many different systems, you know, the NSX has something that's like at least five or seven years old. And then you've got this one that's kind of in the middle because the MDX Sam Didn't you say it was due for a redesign soon?

Sam Abuelsamid  45:23  
Yes, it's a new MDX is coming in mid 2020.

Rebecca Lindland  45:27  
And then, and then you've got that crazy touchpad thing that is an absolute nightmare in the RDX and you know, I just I think they kind of need to get their act together when it comes to this infotainment because there's, there's none of them are good. And I don't know who they're getting as testers, but I haven't enjoyed any of them. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:52  
you know, it's unfortunate, you know, the comment that you got from somebody at Honda that you know, that you only spent a week it you know, and all of us have spent time in various accurate models for the last several years. You know, so this is not the first time we've been exposed to this crazy dual screen configuration. You know, and it's it's never been a good system. It's never been intuitive. It's never been particularly functional. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's it's unfortunate that somebody made that comment. The good news is that there there isn't all new MDX coming next year. You know, the MDX is the oldest vehicle, I think in the accurate lineup except maybe the Ilex but, but there is definitely a new MDX and also a replacement for the TLS coming next year. I was talking to john occator, the head of Acura at the party the other night, and and he said those are both coming in 2020. And I expect that the the they will get the new you know, that touchpad system that's in the RDX and actually I am I am like the Apparently the outlier. I actually liked that system. I think it works pretty well. And it's more consistent. And and, you know, it does it does take a little getting used to but once you figure it out, I think it does work quite well.

Rebecca Lindland  47:11  
I think my biggest issue with RDF system, and they may have changes but there was no I couldn't hang up the telephone, I can hang up my phone.

There's no button on the steering wheel to hang up your phone.

On the on the RDX I think they changed it because it required It was a two step motion. Oh,

Dan Roth  47:32  
yeah. See, that's the problem that I had with with the MDX is a lot of stuff was multiple steps and it's just like this needs to be easy. Yeah. And you know, I'm surprised though like infotainment aside, which I sort of expected wasn't going to be my favorite thing. I'm surprised that you felt that it wasn't really as nimble or light on its feet as the x five or you know, some of those other movies that are just way more massive because it to me It felt it felt sporty.

Rebecca Lindland  47:59  
Really, that's so Interesting, it just it, I don't know, it just sort of felt heavy. And I do recall the pilot being even worse in that regard. So it was not as it was not as heavy like the pilot, I was very conscious of driving a seven seater around and I remember saying this on the podcast, the pilot was just, it drove enormously. And I felt like and the though that I mean, obviously with the SH the a spec, all those things are going to be a little bit more athletic. I definitely appreciated the acceleration. I appreciated that the nine speed was smoother, but I still just felt like I was in a in a larger, heavier, bigger vehicle. And the other thing too, that I ran into was that I had to put my foot so far down on the brake pedal to engage the stop start. I thought that was really Yeah,

Dan Roth  48:56  
I think that's a good thing. Because then we can we can pivot to this one. Next but I'm driving the CR v touring this week and it that's the way they've figured out their stop start and it may be from feedback from from user clinics or something where you don't always want it because some stop start systems can be really aggressive and right so Honda and accurate have decided like we're going to make that you need to be more deliberate about it. Yeah, well actually engage it

Rebecca Lindland  49:22  
and I forgot because like, you know, I don't know that I I don't stand on the brake pedal. Yeah, I started as soon enough to make the car stop. But I actually had to, I again, I had to think about pushing it in enough to engage the stop start because the first time it happened, I was like, Oh, I didn't even know this car was set for stop start because it had I again, I driven it for a couple of days and, and yeah, it's just, you know, I mean, I had to accurate in my 20s I love these things. I want this brand. You know, it's there's so many good things about it, but it's just frustrating. To not walk away and be like wow that was such a great vehicle especially again there's so much competition in this category

Dan Roth  50:07  
I think for the price it does what it does pretty well you know there's not really a ton of options to add to the a spec it's it does have that little bit more aggressive kind of look and feel whether or not it actually comes through in the driving dynamics

you know, the cells a lot of x five M's to

Rebecca Lindland  50:31  
Yeah, so mine so mine was 56 to 95 is tested

Dan Roth  50:37  
yeah so that's that's like that's list price.

Rebecca Lindland  50:39  
Yeah. And that so that I had made a note about the Technology Package 5000 I will drive is 2000 obviously if you need it if you don't need it, and those were my two recommendations on packages and then and then oh accurate watch the drivers a system. I thought that was really good though I had I did have a good experience with that. It was very non intrusive good audio good haptic feedback. I that that was much more of an aid than I, you know, then an intrusion.

Dan Roth  51:11  
So I was confused by that because this is I think just the state of the industry. Certainly the haptic feedback I I you can turn it on and off, but I thought it was also supposed to do lane centering, which I don't think it does.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:26  
No, not not on the X right.

Dan Roth  51:28  
So but the symbol is the symbol. Oh, no. In other car. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:32  
They all use that they all use the same icon. Yeah, four Lane Keeping Assist, whether it does centering or not tip. Usually, if it's centering, there's also usually a steering wheel icon that goes with it. So you'll get you'll get the lane icon and then a steering wheel added to it.

Dan Roth  51:49  
Yeah, it's and I'm not I'm not a huge fan of their haptic feedback. It's effective, because it bumps the wheel. You know, you feel this thump, thump, thump through the steering column. I just it always makes you feel I got a tie. Right. And that's about you know, and that's I kind of skipped over this. But the last thing I guess I, I feel as a dimeric for the the MDX is just the as the dammit cruise and this is the same with the

Rebecca Lindland  52:18  
Oh yeah, that was

Dan Roth  52:20  
it's not good. It's a again, I think it's probably older it'll actually did so the accurate will do all the way down to a stop and it'll do stop and go traffic. But it's just not smooth. It makes you carsick. And so I was just like, you know what, forget it. I'll just do it myself.

Rebecca Lindland  52:35  
Yeah, well, and and I've had that. I mean, I do remember distinctly i had i think that Toyota Highlander, and I literally did get carsick using the adaptive cruise. It was like New Jersey, stop and go Sunday traffic and it was a mess. But I also have recently started to hear reports that some of those adaptive cruise controls are actually causing accidents because they're not like I always find, I'm always afraid that they're not going to stop in time and maybe we New York is such an aggressive driving area, but I don't think that's the case. People just zip in and out. They and I feel like the car's not going to stop in time. So yeah, I don't use it. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  53:10  
and you know, the thing about adaptive cruise control is it's not going to do full breaking. Yeah, it's not going to do you know, it's, they're typically limited to about point two 2.25 G's of breaking, which is, you know, actually what you do, you know, most of your breaking is in the range of between point two and point three G's or less. And, you know, that's, that's what ACC is typically set up to do, at most usually usually no more than about point two G's. And, you know, when somebody cuts in, you know, it's often you know, it may not be break in may not be capable breaking fast enough to to avoid a collision. So, even when you're using ACC, you do have to pay attention, you know, this, you gotta remember this is an assist system, it's not self driving. So

Dan Roth  53:58  
that's, that's it. Robin

Sam Abuelsamid  54:00  
though, and this, you know, this is this is true even have a Tesla with autopilot. That's, that's as fast as they'll stop with the ACC. And so you know, you have to be aware, you know when if somebody's going to cut and you got to be watching all the time somebody is going to be cutting in. And this is the problem as you said, with all these systems, it's it's very easy to become complacent and not pay enough attention, you know, when you're using these systems because you know, the most of the time they work fine, you know, and then when you get one of those situations and you know, then all of a sudden, you know, you you're in a bad place because the car didn't slow down fast enough.

Dan Roth  54:38  
Yeah. Well, and there's sold as the Yeah, I'd be interested to see what the actual sort of sales technique from the showroom folks is because they may be sold as Oh yeah, it'll drive itself in traffic, which is sort of a half

Sam Abuelsamid  54:51  
truth. They should not be they should not be doing and

Dan Roth  54:53  
they may not I don't I I would like to hear from people who may be in the automotive retail sector. sort of give us a spot check. Like tell us what what do you as training? What do you give these these folks? And then do you ever, like pay attention to what they're actually saying? And then trying to close the sale?

Rebecca Lindland  55:11  
Well do they? Do they use it on a test drive?

Sam Abuelsamid  55:16  
I would say probably,

Rebecca Lindland  55:18  
I mean, that would be a good place to try it out. Again, you know, don't spend the 10 minutes and go on the planned route that the dealer gives you. You got to get that thing on the highway, you got to test the acceleration, you got to test these kinds of things.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:32  
drive it in the kinds of places where you're going to drive the car. Yeah, not not where the where the salesperson wants to

Dan Roth  55:40  
go. I'm the thing just take off.

You're not even gonna know it's gone. They're off trying to close a sale.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:48  
Yeah, you know, and, and that's actually, you know, the last several times that I've been car shopping, you know, when I wanted to take a test drive, you know, I you know, I gave him my driver's license. They took a photocopy of my Drivers License, they put a dealer played on there and said, Go for it, you know, and they oftentimes did not ride along, you know, you know, they might ask if they want if they if I wanted them to come along. And if I said no, you know, they said, Okay, fine, you know, go ahead. Yeah. And so if you get the opportunity to drive without the salesperson along, you know, absolutely do that. You know, and then ask your questions when you come back. Yeah, you know, that way you can focus on driving in the kinds of scenarios that you drive in to the degree you can you know, and a half hour or so, and you know, really evaluate it the way you would use the vehicle.

Dan Roth  56:36  
And if you use up all the fuel in it, please like put some in it. Don't be a jerk.

You know, like

this. Yeah, I'm sure there's a whole other side of horror stories from dealership retail that we can get. So I just briefly touch on the CR v touring because man this year is really, really good. And especially in Touring trim, it's nice infotainment Still is not good. I keep grabbing the passenger side temperature knob thinking it's a tuning knob because it only has a volume knob. So they've still got some work to do on their, their infotainment and it's weird going from the MDX to the CR v because the systems are similar but different. And so again I'm hunting and pecking for stuff that that was one way and one model and is not that way in this model. But again, it makes up for it because it's really good to drive and it's a great size and it's very thoughtfully designed and I love the low lift over height of the the the cargo area and the backseat is pretty roomy. You know the CRV has grown over the years. It's just it's a solid choice. I I think that the top two in this segment right now are the rav4 and the CRV I drove the escape and I liked it a lot better than the old escape, but it's not. I was it's a third at best year. I'm disappointed Because it should be better but the CFE in the rav4 really, really hard to beat. They're very good.

Rebecca Lindland  58:04  
Is the CRB getting a hybrid?

Sam Abuelsamid  58:06  
Yes in the early part of 21 I drove the first first sometime in the first quarter

Rebecca Lindland  58:11  
I drove the rap for hybrid the summer and that would be to that was really really good.

Dan Roth  58:16  
Yeah, I love damn I was like, man I this is a hybrid yeah supposed to hate it. I'm carpus No, I was and I drove the the SSE so it's the sporty er version of that for hybrid and it was it was really good.

Rebecca Lindland  58:27  
They did a nice job with that for sure. Yeah.

Dan Roth  58:31  
There's a lot of iron to talk about this week

Sam Abuelsamid  58:33  
to say the least.

Dan Roth  58:34  
Yeah, first thing on the list. sort of fits that to a tee. The the 2021 Chevrolet, suburban and taco were displayed. And these portend the new escalate which will be coming later, which will be similar but different. But there's big changes afoot for these traditional Stevie's Finally, internet opinion was mixed. So what do you guys think?

Sam Abuelsamid  59:01  
Well, I was I was at the reveal and also at a technical background or they did earlier in the day at the gym proving grounds in Milford. And you know, the GM is rolled out, you know their new full size pickup trucks over the last year and a half the Silverado Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra and now they're, they're finishing it up and they've done the heavy duties earlier this year. And now they're rolling out the the full size utilities which are, remain, you know, the best selling full size utilities on the market. You know, so they started with Chevrolet next month out in Colorado or Wyoming or something veil, the veil, they're going to show off the new UConn the beginning of February, and in Hollywood, they will be showing off the new escalate and, you know these, you know, like past versions of the suburban and taco you know, the other utilities, you know, These are derived from the pickup trucks but you know, this time they have diverged further than they have in the past, you know, and the big change is they're finally putting an independent rear suspension system on these on these big SUVs which means you know that the the knock on the GM SUVs, full size SUVs you know over the past decade compared to the expedition and navigator has been you know, the third row seating you know, which was not good, right you know, because you had you still had a live axle in there which means you know when you've got a solid rear axle and because the differential is moving up and down along with the wheels as you go over bumps and stuff, you have to give it more clearance so that means that the rear part of the floor pan has to be curved up you know to go over that and you know to give it that give the axle that clearance. When you go to an independent rear suspension, you know, the differential no longer moves you're only moving at the ends, you know at the at the wheel And so you can have a much lower, you know, the rear floor of the cabin can be several inches lower. So now instead of having a seat that's mounted basically right on the floor, you know, and you sitting with your knees up, as you were in the previous generations of these vehicles, now you have a much more natural seating position in that third row, and on top of that, you know, they GM has also made them several inches longer. So they've stretched the wheelbase stretch the overall length. You know, and particularly in the taco, you know, that third row in the top row is now actually for the first time at really usable by adults. I climbed back there, you know, and it was, you know, I've only sat in there for a few minutes, but it was much more comfortable to sit in much easier to get in and out of than it ever has been in the past and a taco.

And then, you know, the, the other one of the other big changes, you know, relative to the pickup trucks is that they've also adopted Jim's new electrical architecture their what they call their their digital vehicle platform which includes new cyber security features but it also includes the ability to do over the air software updates and the the pickup trucks will probably be getting this when they do a mid cycle update probably sometime 2021 but you know, they wrote they debuted this on the Cadillac CT five and CT four, and on the the CA Corvette, and it's this new electrical architecture is going into all of their new vehicles going forward. Which which said means you'll be able to get over the air software updates to almost all the systems in the car. And you know, it also supports capabilities that weren't possible before. Like being able to go electric and do other things. And you know, at some point we will probably see an electric version of these SUVs because they're doing an electric version of the pickup truck is Well, so it's it's going to be, you know, it's going to be interesting to watch you know, what sorts of features they bring with the the suspension in the suburban and Tahoe. They're offering three different variants, you know, there is the base coil spring and passive damper system. The middle level retains the coil springs, but adds the MR dampers the Magneto real logical damper. So, these are the active dampers, that fluid in the dampers actually has magnetic particles in it. So you know, and they use a magnet on either end of the damper You know, when you energize that, it aligns those magnetic particles and changes the viscosity of the fluid. So you can go from a nice soft, plush ride to, you know, really tight, you know, control, well controlled ride for better handling, and it can do it instantaneously. And then the top end has a four corner air spring setup with the MR dampers and we had a chance At Milford to go for a ride, we didn't get to drive but we went for a ride around the ride ride and handling course at Milford back to back against the navigator against the expedition. So we went in the expedition with its adaptive damper system against the Tahoe, with the the air springs and Mr. dampers. And, you know, the difference in ride quality and handling capability between the two was pretty dramatic, you know, the, the control, the body control in the Tahoe was so much better, you know, the, the road the track we're on, you know, has a lot of varying road surfaces, you know, they use it for, you know, for evaluating the the ride quality and the handling of the vehicles, you know, so you've got things like going over railroad tracks, you know, different kinds of bumps and potholes. And, you know, in the expedition, you know, over various surfaces, you know, you could feel your head, you know, bouncing you know, shaking back and forth. As the whole body of the vehicle was moving around, and the taco was so much better controlled so much smoother, and you know, we did one lap and the the expedition then a lap in the Tahoe at the same speed and then a second lap at 20 miles per hour faster. And yeah, and you know, this this thing is at least from a driving dynamic standpoint, looks set to be the class of the field in big SUVs.

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:26  
Wow. So when you say it's on the fly, can you Is there like a knob or like can you can you just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:32  
how does it it's all it's all automatically controlled. So there's sensors, there's accelerometers on the on the suspension that measure the body motions and measure the wheel motions and you know, it will end you know, based on your speed and you know, steering angle and using the accelerometers measure longitudinal lateral and vertical motion, you know, it will automatically adjust those dampers on the fly as you go. And I mean, this is this is not new technology. This, you know, this was actually invented at GM back in the late 1980s. It was actually first used in production by Ferrari in the late 90s. Wow. And you know, since then it's been used on a number of other brands and it's been used on a lot of GM vehicles. You know, a lot of Cadillacs have it a lot. You know, the Corvette has had it for a long time. They've had it on Camaros and, and other GM vehicles. So it's used and it's quite widely used. GM Actually, it was invented at dalco when it was part of GM. And then it was sold off when, when Delphi was divesting a bunch of businesses in the late 90s and early 2000s after spun off from GM. So that's an independent it's actually owned by a Chinese company now, but it's it's really good technology. It's owned by BWI Beijing, less industries. But, but it works.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:58  
Well. I'm looking forward to this because I I have to say that I had really pretty positive experiences in this vehicle. I in this, this whole platform of vehicles. And, you know, it was funny back in October, a friend of mine who is about my same size and she's got two or three kids and she's I saw her getting out of this giant Chevy Suburban. I'm like, What are you doing that thing? And she said, I know she goes, but I absolutely love it because I hated it. When I first got I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And she goes, now I absolutely love it. And, you know, she said, he told you know, it tells what they need to tow it kids compile in and out of it. It can take abuse. I mean, she just loves it. And I'm really glad to hear that that third row is now going to be more usable as well. So I'm going on that GMC event in in January, I think it is. And so that'll be an interesting thing to see if it's comparable cuz I wasn't able to attend the Chevy one. But they haven't had the drive yet. Right? It was just the rebel.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:03  
Okay, yeah. Yeah, they just did a ride along so we got to ride shotgun in the Tahoe, but we didn't get to drive,

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:11  
you know, from a standpoint. I'm sorry, these vehicles are so critical to GM from a business standpoint because they make a lot of money on them. And there's really not a lot of them, you know, available anymore. So I'm glad to see that they're, you know, they're going head to head with something like the expedition. I because that that's a very viable candidate as a direct competitor.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:34  
Yeah, what I was surprised to see during the presentation was that, you know, the GM trucks you know, are about 55% market share combined between the Chevy GMC and the Cadillac are about 55% of the market for full size SUVs, the expedition and navigator Second, you know, combined, they're about 30%. But what really surprised me was the Nissan Armada is 9% of that market segment. I was surprised at the solid many.

Dan Roth  1:09:06  
I like the Armada. I mean, I like the Qx 80 better, but that's funny that they sell that much. Although when you start to look at it right, the Armada, I bet is really price competitive compared to her. Sure. The the taco or the expedition or the suburban? Well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:25  
as well. You know, like the capabilities. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:09:29  
That Yeah, that's, that's true. Um,

I, I'm just, I'm concerned because I don't know that I have the best barometer for evaluating these trucks and SUVs because I really liked that GMC Sierra that I was in a few weeks ago. And it took an absolute shellacking from Car and Driver when they did a test of the threes, sort of full size pickups, or that maybe more than three maybe they had the tundra in there as well. But it it did not finish well. They said it just didn't feel up to the task the the Ford and the RAM. Did you know the ram certainly has a nicer interior. It's a lot heavier, slower, but it just felt better finished and the driving dynamics were better. They they said that makes me concerned that I'm going to be impressed with something that's not actually market competitive. They did the interiors over on these and they look, they look good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:26  
Yeah, it's much nicer than than any previous generation GM trucks.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:31  
Yeah, I like the GMC Sierra a lot. And I love that multi, multi gate, tailgate thing. Multi pro tailgate. I liked that Sierra. I was on the launch and I thought it was fantastic. I spent all day in it and really, really enjoyed it. And I thought and I thought the diet, the driving dynamics, were good on it again, it grows smaller than it looks. I felt like that. You know, it was it felt athletic. I mean, I haven't, I haven't driven the F 150. I've got the Ram 1500 right now. I Which is, I mean, it's also it's just a lot of fun. It's such a beast.

Dan Roth  1:11:03  
It's a lovely interior. Oh my gosh, that that cabin is.

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:07  
The interior is It's gorgeous. Yes. And my brother Larry, who is taller than my brother, Steve. I he's driving it over Christmas break and he loves it. He He said it's a he's having a hard time finding parking spaces for it. And I told him that was even the shortbed. But no, I think that, you know, Dan, I think sometimes that there's almost a bias still against GM. But it's hard to compete with them in this platform. I feel like it's just they just do such good product.

Dan Roth  1:11:43  
Yeah, I like what they've done with their trucks. And so if that sort of provides the path forward for the SUVs, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna be quiet, they're gonna be comfortable. They seem to have a lower seating position so they feel a little bit more car like you feel a little bit more nestled in it than just sitting on it which is kind of nice from a driver perspective, you sort of feel like, you feel like there's a touch a Camaro there. In in the big trucks, just like the way drives feels like you're, you're enveloped in it, which I liked. So, yeah, we'll see that they are they're sort of the moneymaker for GM to a large degree. So they have to be good. And I, from what I've seen, they are,

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:22  
yeah, there's a

feel to them, I think.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:26  
And, you know, I mean, GM has acknowledged, you know, openly acknowledge that, you know, they need to sell a ton of these trucks and SUVs, you know, over the next several years to finance all the stuff they're doing, and electrification and automation, you know, I mean, there's many billions of dollars of investment going into that side of the business. And, you know, it's its investment in products, that probably isn't going to be very profitable for the foreseeable future. And so, you know, they need these products you know, to keep the business afloat. Because unlike a certain Palo Alto based company, you know they can't just go out and sell more stock you know every time they need some need to replenish the the cash flow

Dan Roth  1:13:11  
Yeah, that that kind of stock pumping steam scheme stopped a long time ago for for GM. Yeah, and then escalate it's going to come out when the second man

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:19  
like March February February 4 is the reveal. And it's it's going to be you know, right before the Oscars you know, so they're going to show it to us, you know, on that Tuesday night in in Beverly Hills and then that Sunday that following Sunday, when the Oscars are on they'll be using it to shuttle the the beautiful people around to the red carpet,

Dan Roth  1:13:41  
you know that.

Unknown Speaker  1:13:42  
So let's talk about Cadillac.

Dan Roth  1:13:44  
That's like a mistake because that's not who they are. That's just seems dumb. I mean, I guess it gets the escalate on TV, which is fine, but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:54  
yeah, well, you know, the escalator in particular. You know, it is a vehicle that is very popular with wealthy people, you know, they, they'd like it because it's big AND ROOMY, you know, and, you know, it's got lots of creature comforts. You know, it's, you know, it's popular for, you know, black car services, it's popular, you know, among, you know, basketball players and, and, you know, acting, you know, people in the entertainment industry, you know, as an alternative, you know, to, you know, in the past where they might have been, you know, driven around in stretch limos, you know, casting gods

Dan Roth  1:14:34  
are the worst, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:35  
now, you know, you get into, you know, into the long wheelbase escalator, you know, and it's, you know, the same kind of thing, but, you know, it's, it's, it's something that, unlike those vehicles that were those limos that were often hacked together, and usually not very good, you know, it's a much more solid vehicle. Okay. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:14:56  
Cadillac, they don't so you went You went to the business update lunch with Steve Carlisle and their new cmo. And so you learned a few things, Sam about what Cadillac is going to be doing. The one that stuck out to me was like the now that they've gone all alphanumeric, they're going to spend five years going back to names. Yeah. So they're like, are they gonna use legacy names? Are they gonna,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:20  
they haven't said exactly what the names are going to be, but they, you know, they are going to starting as they start to watch as they launch their electric vehicles, and the next couple of years, they are going back to real names. So I mean, the escalator, you know, has always been the one one exception that never went to an alphanumeric name. It always kept its its name. And they haven't said what the names are going to be. But starting with the launch of their electric crossover, everything following that is going back to some sort of name. That that is more than just x t or CT and some digit is for the love of god us. Like the old names not because I Hollywood and Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:16:06  
Like, you know person, but those names exist already like they're out there. You will spend the last better storage them right exactly. Truck de Ville or whatever you call it, but please, for crying out loud, don't don't try to come up with some name that sounds like a prescription medication and then like you've got to establish it. You can just waste time and money just Yeah, please make a Fleetwood like, wouldn't wouldn't the CT six be a great Fleetwood?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:41  
Yeah, I think so. Except the CT six has gone away.

Dan Roth  1:16:44  
No, it's great. Okay, so the next Yes. Oh, that's also going away.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:49  
At 564 Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we're gonna get another bigger sedan to replace the CT said well,

Dan Roth  1:16:55  
they can just call it the 60 special

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:00  
But, you know, speaking of the CT five, they have started they finally started deliveries of that car to dealers in the last couple of weeks. So that's, you know, that's showing up in dealerships now.

Dan Roth  1:17:09  
So, that's the hatchback, right? Or the No, it's a sedan. This is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:13  
a replacement for the CTS.

Dan Roth  1:17:15  
Okay, so it's just because there's the CT for it's a little smaller right and that bridges the gap between a Ts CTS it gets a little bigger than

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:24  
this the CT four is actually almost exactly the same size as the APS I am so confused by their line

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:30  
well change the name Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:35  
So the CT four and CT five and then you've got the x d four x five x d six and escalate for the utilities. So they, these CT fours is a deal in dealerships. Now. The CT, CT, five is in dealerships. Now. The CT four will be in dealerships in the next couple of months. And the SD six is already on sale has been on sale for several months now. They prepare sold about 4300 of them. And in the third quarter. The You know, one of the big bits of news, you know, from from Steve, was that starting with the CT five, you know, with each new model that's introduced, you know, a few months after the launch of the base models, they will be adding supercruise on everything as an option for everything

Dan Roth  1:18:22  
they should have done like two

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:24  
years ago. Well, well, the reason they didn't do it before, was because they didn't have the new electrical architecture ready, you know, when they, when they did the CT, six, you know, they had to make a lot of modifications to that car, to go to the electrical system in order to accommodate supercruise. And it wasn't real, you know, they couldn't really do things like over the air updates to keep it up to date. So with this new electrical architecture that I mentioned, you know, that's on the Tahoe, you know, it's also on you know, on the CT, five and for and everything else going forward, they will have the ability to do those updates on Iran. regular basis, you know, and add new features to it. So, now that they have that in there, it's a lot easier to integrate supercruise and they will be adding things like auto lane change capability and, you know, more, you know, the ability to operate, you know, on more roads, you know, expanding the, the maps, and, you know, various other features that that are needed for that system. And, you know, so that, you know, that'll come out probably in the spring for the CT five, sometime in mid summer for CT for it'll be on the escalate, you know, by the end of the year, you know, the Escalades going to launch mid year, at the end of the year. It'll have supercruise available and you know, they actually released a teaser earlier this week for the Escalades you know that it was a shot it was a Jeff of the the interior, the instrument or the steering wheel and the instrument panel, and you can see the supercruise light bar on the steering wheel, but you know, they also have This massive 38 inch OLED display behind you know, for this that, you know, this one big display, it's not clear if it's actually one or if it's two pieces, but it's 38 inches of OLED display for the center stack and the the instrument cluster

Dan Roth  1:20:17  
that's curved to like didn't say, yeah, it's a curve, that's a curved display,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:21  
so presumably curved towards the driver, so you can actually reach it. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:20:26  
I think that actually, like, I'm glad that it's organic led so that they can actually get like true black out of it. You know, like the pixels Act, the little elements light up instead of having a backlight, which I think is right. If you're going to do screens, that's the way to do screens so that there's not as much light pollution in the cabin, and then being able to curve it and stretch it like that. I think that actually has a lot of really good automotive applications, allows them to sort of fit things into the space available better than dealing with flat screens. So that'll be interesting. We'll see how much I hate that.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:00  
I don't mean to backtrack a little bit, but I did they say when they were going to start transitioning names.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:07  
Yeah. So that that first EV the one they showed the, the rendering of last January at the Detroit Auto Show that's coming in 2022. So that'll be the first model that has, so we're still two years away from that, okay, before they start introducing names, and you know, that'll be actually that there will be a Cadillac electric crossover actually launching in China in 2021. And, but that will be a different it'll be on the same platform, but it'd be a different body different vehicle from the one that we get. So we get one and 22 there'll be one launching in China and 21. Around the same time that the the the electric pickup truck watches here, so the second half of 21. So it's not clear which one is going to launch first. But then the Cadillac will launch in the first part of 20 too and that'll be the first one that actually gets a name and then everything after that, and one of the one of the comments from from Carlisle was that you know, as we enter the 2020s as an ice brand internal combustion engine brand, the brand will exit as a battery electric vehicle brand and he called the 2020s the end of the ice age for Cadillac and you know, so expects that by 2030 most if not all, Cadillacs will be electric.

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:31  
All right. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:34  
Another another comment he had as well was

about

he said that 300 mile range for an EV is table stakes, you know, in the in the EV market for sure. Cadillac was actually aiming for 400 miles for for all their vehicles. Wow. So what what we won't see when Cadillac finally launches their EBS, as we won't see anything like the Audi e Tron or the Porsche type You know, the Jaguar I pace coming to market with, like 200 miles of range when, you know, when Tesla is selling cars with 300 to 370 miles of range? Well, I don't know,

Dan Roth  1:23:11  
let's talk about classic GM product rollout, which we're still seeing, like, Why Why don't we have supercruise on stuff? Oh, yeah, we, we couldn't actually do that on most of the cars we're going to try to sell you, that's going to be on one very specific model that's going to be expensive that nobody's gonna buy, like, that's just classic GM thing all the way back. Like for decades, they've been like, yes, this is going to be the best one. It's going to have all these features. It's going to have the, you know, the the, what is it the Z 51 suspension or whatever. And like, they do this thing where they'll introduce a model and then they'll get some of them like look at the base models or the base and mid level ones out as soon as they can and then he wait a year for the one the really good one that they really want you to Drive but then all of your impressions of a made on the one that you could drive, not the one they want you to drive and it sinks the model, like. So I hope that that's not what they do as they roll out electric vehicles were like, yes. So the base model gets 250 miles of range. But we you know, if you spend enough to get the big battery, you get 400.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:20  
Okay. Yeah, my my guess is that, you know, when they start rolling these out, rolling these Cadillacs out, the base models are going to be 300 miles, and then 400 miles is the option. Yeah. So I, I think, I think that they have seen the challenges that you know, that brands like Audi and Porsche, and, and and Jaguar have had this past year. And they've said they don't want to be in that position, especially since they're not launching until 2022. Yeah, it would be crazy for them to launch something at that stage. You know, that has such a short range.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:55  
You can be late to the party, but you gotta have the best dress on then.

Dan Roth  1:24:58  
What You're, you're you're never gonna change perception. You know, this is the problem that Audi is having now. It's like, okay, fine, it's rated at 201 miles, how many more do you need? It doesn't? It doesn't matter, that people really only need like, 40

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:13  
Yeah, it's not Yeah, it's not about, you know, the reality. You know, the, as we know, you know, car buyers are not rational. You know, they don't, they don't make they don't make decisions. They don't make purchase decisions based on rational criteria based on what they what they think they're going to need. And, you know, that in when it comes to EBS, they, you know, they want, you know, 300 miles of range, you know, they want to have the same kind of range they get out of their gas car,

Dan Roth  1:25:42  
which is not terribly unreasonable, especially when you consider the the amount that they cost. It's like, what why can it do what that thing just did? You know, and I realized there's lots of answers for it, but at the end of the day, they're the ones that spend the money so

we'll, we'll see how that goes. So Cadillac, I hope they hope they make it. I hope they picked good names, please.

Next thing on the list is the Mazda CX 30. Which is interesting because it slots in between the CX five and cx three, right? It's like right in there it's a little bigger than the CX three little smaller than the CX five Goldilocks, sort of the, it's kind of like just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:27  
just the right size.

Dan Roth  1:26:28  
Yeah, so

what's, what's the story with this thing? Don't fill me in. You want to go first?

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:35  
Sure. So so I really liked this vehicle. I mean, I, it does it kind of it slots in between the two. So it's a little bit it's a little bit bigger than the CX three, it's a little bit smaller than the CX five. I think speaking of names, I think the naming convention may be a little confusing for consumers. But overall, you know, I drove it I last weekend, two weeks ago. Now in southern California, and it was a lot of fun to drive. You know, I it's, it's sporty and fun and you know, kind of does those things? Well, it was very comfortable over, you know, several hours, and my passenger actually made a point of commenting on how comfortable it was a fellow journalist. And, you know, I think that it's, it's, it's good that it is bigger than the CX three, or this US market? I don't know. I feel like it might be a little small for some people like, I guess. I don't know, I feel like that cx five is such a good size that I don't know why this is completely necessary. And, you know, I mean, price point is 28, two as tested, which was the premium. It starts at 21. Three, I got a 2.5 liter four cylinder 186 horsepower. So you know, it did a lot of things really well. I mean, it's a direct question. editor to that CRV and rav4 that we talked about earlier. I you know, and you can certainly see the attention to detail and the interior, you know, was it was very, very nice. It's got some nice it's got some nice, more luxurious features like a heads up display a power liftgate standard in the fully loaded premium. I you know, so does a lot of those things really well. It does not have a touchscreen

Dan Roth  1:28:28  
controller thing that's on

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:30  
Yeah, that's what you hate. I didn't love that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:34  
I thought was fantastic. Of course you did.

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:39  
But, you know, again, I think it's a really really good vehicle. Actually, in my review, I have a little chart to understand like, where it slots in between the CX three and cx five but Sam, you had mentioned I think that you thought that the CX three might go away.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:55  
My my guess is that a year from now, the CX three Will you know for now cx three remains on sale in the US. But it's never been a huge seller in this market. You know, when when I was at the LA Auto Show, I had a chance to sit down with the program manager for these vehicles. And, you know, they explained that when they develop the CX three, you know, it launched back in 2015, when they were developing it, you know, the main vehicle in that segment of small crossovers was the Nissan Juke. And so they they used the Mazda two as the base, the base platform for the CX three. And for the US market in particular, you know, it's it sells reasonably reasonably well in Japan and in Europe, but for the US market, in particular, turned out to be too small, you know, they, you know, they weren't quite sure where the market for these subcompact utilities was going to go at that time. And so they, you know, they used what they had at that time and You know, here, you know, it sells about 13 14,000 units a year, which is, you know, pretty, pretty minimal compared to a lot of the smaller utilities, you know, like the, the Honda HRV and Jeep Renegade and, and, you know, even the Ford Eco Sport, and, you know, because of its size, you know, the C, cx three, you know, drives Well, it's got good driving dynamics, but it's got some, you know, it's got a very cramped backseat. And it's got some, you know, less than ideal ergonomics in the front, like, for example, you know, the, the cupholder you know, in the center console is below the center armrest, you actually have to fold up the center armrest to access the cupholder you know, which, which is which is not great. So, you know, I would guess that, you know, the end with the CX 30. they opted to develop it from the master three platform, the new master three platform, and they developed it concurrently with the new three, you know, so there are A lot of stuff that they were able to do, you know, incorporate into that architecture design, you know, from the beginning, you know, so there's fewer modifications required to that, you know, to make the CX 30 out of that vehicle. And, you know, it's, it's, I think it's a much better size, particularly for the US market, but generally, you know, everywhere, I think it's a more reasonable size, you know, it's fairly compact and the outsides, basically the same size as, as an HRV, or, you know, some of the other top vehicles in the segment. But I think, you know, when you compare it to anything else in that segment, you know, the interior is so much better, you know, it's such a much nicer place to spend time Sure, than anything else in that segment. And, you know, it drives really well you know, it's got the typical really good monster driving dynamics. It also, you know, the only engine available in North America is that 2.5 liter with 186 horsepower, which makes it the most powerful Full vehicle in the segment, by a pretty good margin, you know, the HRV, you know, for, you know, as nice as it is, in a lot of ways, you know, the power train and the HRV really lets it down, you know, the combination of that, that older 1.8 liter, hundred 40 horsepower and the CVT, you know, it just doesn't really cut it in that vehicle. You know, and most of the other competitors in that segment are in that hundred and 35 245 or so horsepower range. So this is significantly more powerful than the competitors. You know, it's got, you know, it's got a decent amount of room inside, you know, the front is great, you know, the rears is fine for a couple of adults. You've got enough cargo space in the back that you can put for carry on bags in there. If you stand them up on their sides, you can before in there. So, you know, I and, you know, we've talked in the past, you know, at times, particularly with the CX five about you know, the value proposition with Mazda is you know, as they've tried to go more premium. You know, this one. That's not an issue at all. I think for this car, I would agree that starts it starts at 21. Three and especially compared to what I'm driving right now. I have the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport right now, which we'll talk about next time. But the Outlander Sport gt that I'm driving, you know, the 2.4 liter, you know, it's, you know, like 28 and a half thousand dollars. And with the feature set that it has on it, you know, the comparable cx 30. You know, and this is a pretty much loaded Outlander, the comparable cx 30 would be the mid level trim the CX 30 select. It's like $2,000 cheaper than that Mitsubishi as

Dan Roth  1:33:42  
my 20 years new.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:43  
That's the X 30 is such a much nicer car to drive than the Mitsubishi. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's just no contest at all. So, you know, I think that you know, you and I drove on subsequent days I drove on the first wave, Rebecca, you drove second day, you know, so I drove from Palm Springs to San Diego, you drove from San Diego back the other way. And, you know, those roads that we drove on, you know, going through the mountains from Palm Springs to San Diego. I mean, that's some twisting mountain roads. And you know, this thing's got really great steering feel, you know, bike ride, great ride quality, you have good body control. You know, it's it's a fun little car to drive. The The only issue I would take with it from a design perspective, I like the overall shape of the body. I think the cladding on the wheel arches is a little too thick.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:36  
Oh, yeah, he wide chin that I thought that was a really interesting visual to me. Yeah, to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:41  
me, it seemed to overemphasize And particularly, you know, with the gap to the wheels, I think it you know, kind of maybe overemphasize that a little bit. I, I personally would make that a little slimmer, but you know, that's a matter of personal taste. You know, I think overall, the Mazda design team has done a great job. You know, so I think it's It's a excellent, excellent little crossover.

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:03  
I agree. And I like the price point a lot, because I have at times given Mazda a really hard time, particularly about that cx five, I agree and just looking at some stats, so just to give people an idea, so the CX three has cargo volume of about just over 12 cubic feet. And that's what the second row in place, and the CX 30 is 20 cubic square feet, the CX five is 30 cubic square feet. So it really does give you a really nice amount of room. And even though it's only it's about two inches wider than the CX three, but it's about five inches longer and the wheelbase about three inches longer and so that's also going to give you a more stable solid feel. Because you're right Sam, those those twisty roads. You know, I remember being really comfortable in them. And as I said, my driving partner Alan Taylor, he was remarking on Joe Allen talented I know right. And he was, you know, remarking how you know, every piece of his perfect hair stayed in place. So it was I was

Dan Roth  1:36:09  
so good on the radio, though I like,

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:12  
I love him. I was it was a privilege to drive with him. So, you know, again, it's that feeling of like, when you get out of the car, do you feel refreshed? Do you feel like this car was easy to be in easy to drive with, you know, all those things, I thought were really a really, really positive experience. And especially, you know, I remember driving the HRV A while ago now. And it's sort of, you know, you're, you always have that feeling that you're in a, in a subcompact car, right, you don't have that feeling of being in a premium vehicle. Whereas I think in the Mazda, the CX 30, I really felt like I was in a premium vehicle.

Dan Roth  1:36:51  
Yet the HRV is I think, that's getting old now too. So,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:57  
yeah, I figure I actually haven't driven an HRV Since it first launched four years ago now has something like that.

Dan Roth  1:37:03  
That same here. It's

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:04  
Yeah, I think I dropped like two years ago, maybe

three years ago, in a while.

Dan Roth  1:37:10  
So I think you're right, you're probably right. 630 is the death knell for the CX three, which still be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:16  
Yeah, at least at least in the North American market. You know, I think that they'll keep the CX three overseas. But I think here, you know, it's at the point where it just doesn't make sense anymore.

Dan Roth  1:37:26  
I think that probably wraps this up. We put a solid meaty podcast together here. So thanks for listening. You know where to find us. We are at Wheel Bearings cast on Twitter. You can send us email feedback at Wheel Bearings dot media, and we'll catch everybody next time. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai