Dan Roth  0:03  
This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:07  
I'm Dan, I'm not...

Dan Roth  0:08  
You are

Sam Abuelsamid  0:09  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid, I'm not Dan Roth.

and I'm from Navigant research. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:20  
And who should I be? 

Dan Roth  0:23  
You're also Dan Roth.

You can't escape

Rebecca Lindland  0:28  
And I'm Sam Abuelsamid, oh no.

I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives.

Dan Roth  0:36  
All right, well, I'm glad that we're all punchy this evening. Clearly none of us has caught the latest Corona virus or whatever.

But you guys are back from the Chicago Auto Show. That was a great episode we did last week remote in three parts that was actually it was great. We had a nice, normal size show and in three easy to assemble bites and so

I am

enjoyed it 

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00  
You didn't do any audio alignment just had to drop them in. Yeah. What do you use logic? 

Dan Roth  1:06  
I use audition. Okay. But it was Yeah, it was night I've recorded some bookings just for giggles and off we went

inside baseball aside let's talk about what we're driving because it's been a little while you guys didn't talk about that last week. Because you were talking about what you were sitting in instead.

But Sam, you have the well hang on hang on. Hang on. I was just sir with the media cars but now I'm thinking

yeah, you you went out to Illinois. I looked at the pictures you uploaded to slack I was like a detective is like where is she? Where is that thing? I'm so in the background and one of the pictures there was a AAA truck and I lifted the area code off the AAA a figure out where exactly you were.

was also dodging doing other stuff I didn't want to do. But uh, yeah. So you went out to Illinois and got a nice sort of tie a time in in like a high miles vehicle. 

Sam Abuelsamid  2:11  
Hold on a second. Dan you could have just looked at the license plate on the 

Dan Roth  2:15  
I know, I knew it was Illinois, but I didn't know like, well, so a, it was did they drive the thing from Illinois to Connecticut? like is that granite and looking at didn't look like Greenwich. And so I was like, okay, so must be Illinois. And I was like, all right. Oh, there's generica there. Okay, so that narrowed it down to basically the general area. And and I looked at the picture of the interior and I saw like the college sticker on the back. I was like, okay, it's a it's a university in Indiana. So I did my detective work. 

Rebecca Lindland  2:46  
You were busy. 

Dan Roth  2:48  
I was it was like I was eating an apple. It was lunchtime.

Rebecca Lindland  2:51  
I have to remember  which pictures I upload next time

Dan Roth  2:57  
Yes, be careful.

Rebecca Lindland  3:00  
So and I'm going to give a shameless plug. So my cousin Pam, and her husband, Jeff, and therefore amazing, wonderful kids. They live out in Wheaton, Illinois. And Pam actually has a really fantastic floral business out there where she does called bloom floral. And she does flower arrangements for all different kinds of events and such. And so, and her husband, Jeff is a pastor in Elmhurst, and actually, my college roommate lives out there as well. So what I typically do is after the Chicago Auto Show, then on that Friday, then I go out to Wheaton and spend the weekend and see people that I love, which is fun. So you were in Illinois anyway, right? Exactly. Yeah. So historically, I had I usually will grab a press car from somebody, but the reality is that generally, it is snowing there almost every day in February, and they have a they have a like a

What's it called when the,

like tandem driveway, I was thinking of the railroad, the shotgun houses, but it's a tandem driveway. And so and they have three cars. So adding a fourth car, we just end up juggling cars. So instead, I got an Uber or Lyft I actually got a lift specifically and just didn't have a car. But Pam and Jeff both do a lot of really fantastic charity work and and they have they support a lot of a lot of people within the community and such. And so I actually had to pick up somebody to bring her to a commercial kitchen, where she volunteers and works and such. And so in the process of doing that, I drove a 2008 Honda Odyssey with 198,000 miles on it

and what

maze to me was just how good this thing still was. Like, I mean, and this thing has not been garage. It's you know, it's been out in that beaten weather all these 12 years. And it was just it was fun to drive an older vehicle like that because keeping in mind that, you know, the average vehicle is 11 and a half years old, and this is what people are driving. You know, it was just it was such a great example. So, of course, you know, the the first I didn't think it had any kind of backup camera at all, but it actually does. It has the one that's in the rearview mirror, like the little corner two by two inch one. You guys remember those? Yeah. So embedded in them in the side of them in the edge of the mirror? Yes. Which I discovered the second time that I backed up, because the first not be the interior rearview mirror. Yeah. Yeah, back in the day, Dan, before they started.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:00  
Putting screens everywhere in cars. You know, on a lot of a lot of the early vehicles with backup cameras, they would just put a little like, like Rebecca said, like a little two inch square LCD embedded in the interior rearview mirror and project, you know, project view from the camera. right on there.

Dan Roth  6:19  
Yeah, I think I mean, I think I vaguely recall that from like my first days of press cars. And it's just it makes me curious why it was such a big deal. When Who was it that just released it just said that they've got the first backup camera that's integrated in there and some I don't know, I forget. It's probably just sort of like marketing PR nonsense. That pretty much was changed something around and like now it's it's this fancy camera display in your rearview mirror and we're

Rebecca Lindland  6:52  
thinking of, oh, you're thinking of the camera view where flip them you flip the rearview mirror and then you can actually see That entire back. So like for towing or if you've got storage in the back, I think

Sam Abuelsamid  7:05  
that we're actually now there was actually another recent announcement that I can't remember who it was. But just keep talking. It's not It's not important. It's

Dan Roth  7:17  
not important. The things I say are important. Let's just

with with 200,000 miles on it, what's there is it this is I think this is actually one of the things that is kind of interesting to our listeners because they own vehicles that are I'm sure a lot of them own vehicles that are this age are getting their normal people have cars that are are up there in age and miles because they're so, so expensive. And they take a long enough to pay off that by the time you're done paying for them. You want to get all the use out of them. How was their experience like with ownership and has it been troublesome has it been I mean, I'm not sure how much you've chatted about. But

Rebecca Lindland  8:00  
right? Not at all, they haven't had any issues with this vehicle. And, you know, they I mean, one of the reasons that has so many miles on it is because her family, my cousins are in Pennsylvania are in eastern Pennsylvania, and then also New Jersey. And they, they, I preached, they've driven it down to Florida as well on family vacations, because there's six of them. And so, you know, so and her family, my uncle used to have a place in Florida. So you know, these are these are both a combination of highway miles, but then an awful lot of local miles as well. I mean, you know, she, Pam is also a voiceover actress. And so she may go into Chicago every now and then but she really primarily is around town. And so there's a combination of these long drives, you know, at certain times of the year, and then just hauling kids back and forth. All of our kids are athletes, all of them play sports in one way or the other. One goes to Taylor's you mentioned in Indiana and the other three all went to Wheaton nearby, but

Dan Roth  9:09  
we didn't wait, wait, which Wheaton there's a week near

Rebecca Lindland  9:13  
Wheaton College in in Wheaton, Illinois. The Christian school? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  9:18  
Not the Wheaton College is here. And

Rebecca Lindland  9:20  
no, no, seriously, we're the same. Now. There's two Wheaton colleges.

You are learning so many things tonight. Dan, I'm proud of you.

Unknown Speaker  9:31  
I went to state school. I was not.

Rebecca Lindland  9:35  
But yeah, so you know. I mean, that was the thing that struck me as I said was that this is a typical car that's on the road today. So this was clearly a very dolled up affair because it did have that backup camera. I it it doesn't have remote. It doesn't have any kind of remote star or anything like that. It's you know, it has the electric on the on the key fob. It has the power doors. And you know I'm remote unlocked on the key fob but you know the the tailgate engine and of course it has the stolen go or not the stolen go What is the magic seat that Honda calls it

Dan Roth  10:13  
the magic so what does the magic seat dude it moves out makes a hall like a hallway in the middle right?

Rebecca Lindland  10:18  
No so the magic see so the day it there's a big cavernous

Unknown Speaker  10:25  
bed oh good

Unknown Speaker  10:27  
call for third the third right

Rebecca Lindland  10:28  
the third row tumbles into that

Sam Abuelsamid  10:33  
space. I don't know if Honda use the magic seat term on that for the minivans. That was the fold up seat in the fit at but yeah, you're right, you know that these, these were this third row seat you know just kind of flips back and into that bin so you have a flat load floor back there. And that's actually the way the other minivans the Toyota Sienna and the Chrysler minivans, work now is what work now as well. So it's it's like the stolen job basically the same concept is stolen go. But I think Honda was actually the first to do this.

Rebecca Lindland  11:07  
Right? They were so I thought they still called it I was doing some research I thought they still called it the magic seat but the magic slide is I think what they call it, but it's basically it, it falls mostly flat into the the third row. And then it had those, it has the, the quick release doors that close automatically on the two sides. But it's again, it's not I don't think you can close the doors electronically. And there's not like a button like you have to pull the handle and then the door goes. So you know, it had I mean, this was again, this is clearly an upper range model because it does have a lot of amenities in it. So it was just

Sam Abuelsamid  11:53  
these photos, you know it you know, it looks like you know it's in pretty amazing shape for you know,

200,000 miles

Rebecca Lindland  12:02  
on it, it is in amazing shape inside and out. And with four kids inside, like, I mean, it's impressive four kids, two dogs at any given time, you know what it would that van has put up with? It's just phenomenal. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it was because it was and the way it drove. It was quiet. It was you know, the steering was maybe a little bit loose, but I actually ended up driving it to the airport, which was a good 30 miles. And you know, so really got a feel for it on the highway as well. The visibility was terrific in it, of course. But you know, again, it was just, it was impressive. It was just impressive for that many miles to be in that good condition and not garaged either. You know, so Pamela told me she's like we really haven't had major issues with it. You know, I will say that her husband is a little bit It's picky about his vehicles and so I'm sure he's taken exceptional care of it. But it also shows how much life you can get out of a vehicle. Even if you can't garage it, but just taking really good care of it. It has very little body wear on it. You know, there's a little pat a couple of patches, a little rust on it, but again, we're talking about Chicago 12 Chicago winters

Sam Abuelsamid  13:27  
melted. I mean,

Rebecca Lindland  13:28  
it's incredible.

Dan Roth  13:30  
They that's what I mean those things they just get devoured by salt around here, so

Rebecca Lindland  13:34  
Yeah, exactly. So kudos to Honda because it really it's a remarkable vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:40  
And and just to

verify what you said that they Honda does, in fact, refer to that third row as a magic seat, but they do okay. Yes. So you were right.

Dan Roth  13:54  
It was interesting because my, my brother and his wife bought one of those The same year, um, and it hit it hit like the hundred and 20 hundred thousand mile range and there's an expensive service they need, like the timing belt is expensive to get like where items you know and any car these days has has something around that age that gets expensive but a co worker has been this like the same same year. And you know every car has different circumstances so who knows what, what theirs is gone through. But she came in a couple of weeks ago and it was like the check engine light was blinking and sick. Is that bad. I'm like, yeah, that's that's not that's not good. Yeah, that

Rebecca Lindland  14:41  
that's never

Dan Roth  14:42  
like when it's when it's on. It's bad. When it's blinking. It's worse. So let's let's check it in a quick Google was like, Oh yeah, that's something major. That's like a major misfire. And apparently, sometimes the spark plugs like to come apart. And so you get like the electrode smashing around and cylinder so I was like, I'm not good. Yeah. And I ran with like a very obvious skip. It wasn't it didn't sound like, you know, like, like hammering like if there was something actually in one of the cylinders were sick you should have this flatbed to the dealer so that they can diagnose it and it doesn't break on the way because, you know, my cowboy days I've been like I will head out to will aim for the dealer and see how far we get. That's not not anything I would recommend for anybody else. And so if you're hauling

Sam Abuelsamid  15:31  
a bunch of kids or Yeah,

Dan Roth  15:32  
exactly if you have a minivan you kids are you need the minivan because kids and this is sticking to the deal and they call it back she's like so they said I need like a new engine any rings because it was you know, pulling oil past the rings and falling the places like oh, you could just haven't replaced the plugs. It'll be fine for why she's like, we have to fix it like I need the car to work. So if they assuming they've rebuilt the engine now on the cylinders and through rings in it and hopefully did the bearings in the last ended stuff. But it was it was a surprise to me like that's the first real instance I've seen of a modern car needing, needing that kind of thing. And I think part of it is just, you know, the kind of use a minivan gets, but they're always hard miles there in town, there's stop and go. That's like the hardest miles a car can do. Exactly. And, you know, not everybody commits to fixing the car, when it runs into that kind of thing. They usually just say like, well, we'll just, let's get a new one, especially if it's at a dealer service department, they they will happily refer you to the sales guys. So they can sign you up another six years of payments for a job that you would you know, you could have put it on a credit card and paid it off in a couple of months. But, you know, we want to talk about reality. Sometimes you just want to smell better. So yeah, but it sounds like they haven't had that issue. It's not like a not an endemic problem with the Odyssey

Rebecca Lindland  16:59  
now It's definitely not and they also have was their other. They also have an absolutely ancient ancient Ford f150 and they sold their like 1986 Toyota Camry for $1 to somebody this weekend as well. I missed that train just like it no sorry maybe in 1990 or something my name was 2000 rather or 2000 it was all it was really old and that wouldn't had all sorts of they were having all sorts of issues with it and somebody else was driving it and then Honestly, I can't think of what her husband drives because I barely saw it. But um, yeah, so it was it was an array of of, of typical vehicles that are on the road, you know, that people are driving.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:53  
We have a family friend that also the currently have an odyssey a 2016 That they, for that they had like a 2002 or three Odyssey that they they drove pretty much into the ground, you know, and, you know, hauling around the kids and, you know, hauling around hockey gear and all kinds of other detritus over the years. And, you know, they, they had a great experience with that one too, you know, and I think you know, what you described Rebecca sounds like you know, it's the ideal use case you know, for a minivan You know, when you've got a family to haul around, you got people to haul around, you know, a minivan is just so much more useful and practical than an SUV, you know? Absolutely.

Rebecca Lindland  18:40  
Well and you can get you through so many life stages because it can get you through all the all the children's life stages. And then in their case, you know, like her her mom, my aunt is 80 and so you know, getting out of that van was super easy. And you know, and then you know with the seats, moving and stuff you can put you can still put so much gear in and and in Pam's case she started this floral business so now they haul some stuff, you know, in the floral business and it's just, I mean there's there really are. There's so many uses for a minivan and it's they're, they're really hard to be in many ways, even though man I did feel matronly driving that you know

Dan Roth  19:26  
I drove vans when I was not even married, you know and like, you

Rebecca Lindland  19:33  
still got married none.

Dan Roth  19:38  
I'm just saying like as part of my jobs, you know, sometimes you wind up in in the van and you know, they have their uses and that's where the the charm is. Yeah, I'm still amazed I got married. Not because I didn't want to and it's kind of she And the other thing with the minivan that's handy is if you're a voiceover artists, it can be a handy, you know sound booth no matter where

Unknown Speaker  20:08  
she is. She's a member of sag or AFTRA. I believe

Rebecca Lindland  20:10  
she is. Yes. And then she also has a children's book out.

Unknown Speaker  20:14  
Yeah, that's really talented lady guys are all entrepreneurs.

Rebecca Lindland  20:18  
He's a pretty cool he's a pretty cool check.

Yeah, so it's, it was it was a lot of fun. A great, great weekend.

Dan Roth  20:24  
Are you ready? I gotta get back in brand new highly luxurious cars you don't own?

Rebecca Lindland  20:29  
Well, so I'm in a Lexus, Gx 570. Right. We talked

Unknown Speaker  20:33  
about dad. So we'll talk about that next time. Speaking of cars from 2008.

Unknown Speaker  20:43  
Yeah, but the GX is no spring chicken either.

Rebecca Lindland  20:45  
is no spring chicken either. And fortunately, the the floor mats are labeled dziak so I can remember which one I'm driving. But the other thing I'm doing next week is the Corvette Stingray drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:00  
Hey to

Rebecca Lindland  21:02  
get really

Unknown Speaker  21:02  
excited about where where is that? Can you divulge if you can't say like

Rebecca Lindland  21:08  
I just I used to think about it's in Las Vegas.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:11  
Oh well that'd be a good good

some good road sir once you get out of town up into the mountains You

Dan Roth  21:16  
know what though I feel like they're they're really short selling back car they need to bring it up to like Palmer Motorsports Park or like club Motorsports up here in New Hampshire this time of year to show off.

Rebecca Lindland  21:29  
It'll be interesting to see what the what the roads are like and such. But I'm also very interested is when we think about all those screens. I'm interested to see how all those buttons play out. Yeah,

Dan Roth  21:42  
I mean, so my expectation and we can we can revisit this. When you come back. My expectation is that you're going to use it and you're you're gonna sit here at least say it's not as bad as you think you may actually really like it might actually work really well.

Rebecca Lindland  21:54  
Ya know, it might it might I'll be interested. So I shall report back

Sam Abuelsamid  22:01  
Are you may just drive it and have so much fun driving that you forget the buttons are even there. I probably more likely

Rebecca Lindland  22:07  
that is more likely because it is a convertible so

Sam Abuelsamid  22:10  
Oh, better

Unknown Speaker  22:14  
convertible. She

Sam Abuelsamid  22:16  
was such a conversion.

I am

Rebecca Lindland  22:19  
My gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:22  
portables are the best

Rebecca Lindland  22:24  
first car I ever bought was a convertible,

Dan Roth  22:26  
the very first car I ever rolled was not a convertible, but it reminded me that it's good to have a roof there. So in case you roll, it scarred me for life. Second would have been that would have been like,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:37  
on the other hand, if you have a convertible, then you have a lower center of gravity because you don't have all that extra mass up there. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  22:44  
less likely to roll. Yeah, when you're 17 you can roll anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:52  
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  22:53  
All right. Well, now let's talk about actual night or do something.

Rebecca Lindland  22:59  
Now it's not the country DePaul I don't know where my head was. It's just the

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
target. Target.

Dan Roth  23:05  
Yeah. So make sure you take the target roof off or, you know, so the equipment I was actually not completely different, but like, I'm really interested in that car because it seems like they've done such a thorough job of engineering it. It's such a big change. Just you know, the way they talk about like how the back glass is extra thick they had a real problem with noise trying to get the noise down because you went from having the engine three or four feet away in front of you to right behind your ear. Yeah, sure. So they had to do a lot of work to make and not just keep it quiet but get the right sounds in the interior because you still want to hear roar through the intake and stuff like that. You really can't hear the exhaust on it much at all. So it was just it's such an interesting car and like it's been cooking for so long, the mid engine Corvette and and really, it's as much of a shift as The 84 Corvette was the Dave Hill.

Rebecca Lindland  24:03  
No, absolutely, it's it's stunning. So we are going up to Spring Mountain, which I haven't been to before.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:09  
Nice. That's a nice track.

Rebecca Lindland  24:10  
Yeah. So which I prefer because I did, I was on a track outside of Vegas I with the Fiat 500, Abarth years ago, and I didn't love it, but I think part of it was they had put chicanes in it very specific, and points that were much more. It didn't have flow. Like it was a super technical track, but without the nice flow that you want, from a technical track and it just, I don't know, I was kind of dreading it. But no Spring Mountain, that'll be really, that'll be cool.

Dan Roth  24:38  
Well, hey, take lots of videos and stuff. I'll keep you posted. If you can. Yeah, you're gonna send you a GoPro cincher GoPro.

Rebecca Lindland  24:46  
You know what, I have a GoPro, but it's really old.

Unknown Speaker  24:49  
Yeah. I got a ticket out though.

Rebecca Lindland  24:50  
Yeah, I know. Right. Maybe I'll order one. We'll see. I have a few days.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:55  
Yeah. You can write it off for taxes right for next year.

Rebecca Lindland  24:57  
Exactly. Now

Unknown Speaker  25:03  
driving the high performance

Sam Abuelsamid  25:04  
edge the edge st which no explorer I

Dan Roth  25:07  
store st I'm sorry, explorer St. So how is it?

Sam Abuelsamid  25:13  
It's It's, it's, it's it's powerful. It's got lots of power. Yeah. And generally I like to explore the new Explorer. It's definitely much better than the old one, you know, it's got better visibility, you know, it's it's roomier. You know, since I initially did the last drive in the Explorer last June out in an Oregon you have had the opportunity to drive the palisade that Hyundai palisade and the Kia telluride. And, you know, those, you know, I think from a packaging standpoint are actually probably a little bit better. And certainly the I think the palisade in particular, you know, has probably, you know, some slightly nicer interior, you know, maybe a little more upscale looking Then the Explorer, you know, but neither neither of the Hyundai Kia, SUVs, you know, have the they're both based on front wheel drive platforms they don't have the kind of performance capability that the Explorer st does. You know, I wouldn't call this you know, all all out performance SUV You know, I think I'm I'm less convinced of the efficacy of putting the SD badge on this and on the on the edge than some of the folks at Ford Performance have tried to convince me that they deserve it. But you know, nonetheless it's it's fairly quick. You know, but being powered by an afford EcoBoost v six. You know, as is often the case you know, there's a lot more boost than there is eco the week the week I had it, you know it was it was on the cold side it was you know in the mid 20s most of the week and the Noticing averaged about 14 and a half miles

Unknown Speaker  27:02  
per gallon, we said for 2.7

Sam Abuelsamid  27:04  
or the knowledge of this the three liter

400 horsepower. All Wheel Drive is standard on the st. You know, so it's it's a bit of a pig when it comes to using fuel

Rebecca Lindland  27:19  
14 that's

Sam Abuelsamid  27:23  
Yeah, it is. It's it's not good.

Unknown Speaker  27:28  
What were you doing with it like was he just, I mean, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  27:32  
just just driving it around. I mean, I didn't even you know, I didn't even you know, thrash it very much. You know, it was mostly just driving around town, you know, a couple of highway trips. You know, I was mostly around town driving it wasn't a lot of highway driving on it so that you know, that definitely, you know, pushed it in that direction. But still, you know, it's it's just not very fuel efficient to to put them on Lovely. Yeah, well, and it's rated the EPA rating is a 10 city and and 24 Highway.

Rebecca Lindland  28:07  
That's how you drove it is how people will drive it. You don't

Sam Abuelsamid  28:12  
know. Absolutely. Wow. And a cold weather conditions, you know, this is probably going to get about 14 to 16 miles per gallon with this thing I would think, you know, unless you're being really gentle with it.

Yeah, and that's bad. Yeah.

It's not good. And, and this is, you know, and, you know, the, like I said, you know, when I first drove it, you know, it's, it's, it's a nice engine, but it's not that big a step up from you know, from even the certainly not from the 2.7 liter or no see, they have the even the the other v six is also a three liter but it's just it's a less powerful version. It's 400 horsepower in the st it's 365 in the accent. Tea, or the limited? And you know, so it's not that big of a jump in power, it does have, you know, more tire and bigger brakes and things like that on the st. But, you know, I mean, you're not you're not going to be driving this thing like a sports car. And you know, you're better you're probably better off I think even going with the the base 2.3 liter four cylinder, you know, which has 315 horsepower, and it's going to be significantly more fuel efficient than this. And there's also the hybrid version which is even more so

Unknown Speaker  29:32  
the hybrid again, I mean,

Unknown Speaker  29:35  
the

Dan Roth  29:37  
I think they probably made the right decision giving it more engine and St. Trim then really tightening up the chassis, which I'm sure rights and handles, okay. Yeah, more than fine. But the thing that's going to impress that buyer i think is like when you stomp on it does the damn thing go and I'm just Sure it does.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:01  
Oh, it definitely goes. But you know, like I say even the the, you know, the mid level trims with the regular three leader they go pretty well too you know it's not that much quicker that's that's the thing. It's not the difference in performance is not that noticeable because the other engine is so close to this that there's it doesn't seem like it's worth it and you know, especially when you consider that this thing cost just shy of $60,000 Oh, yeah, the the sticker including delivery came to $59,520

Unknown Speaker  30:37  
I'm sorry, that's, that's that's an eighth price. I mean for that.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:42  
You're all you're better off to buy The Aviator and the aviators got a nicer interior.

Unknown Speaker  30:48  
Can you can you do they overlap at that point? I mean, I'm sure you can. Yeah, they're

Sam Abuelsamid  30:51  
pretty good for there. They're pretty close.

You know, the other thing that annoyed me about this one When I drove it last June, you know, so the st. And the Platinum are the only explorers that have the the 10 inch touchscreen in the middle. And what Ford did was when they decided to put the 10 inch in there, they went the the base models have an eight inch screen and they picked the 10 inch because and they they turned it 90 degrees and made it a portrait screen instead of a landscape screen. Because you can fit a 10 inch screen in the same width as the eight inch screen. So it fits in between the events that are on the on the dashboard. And when when they did that they did they didn't you know they did some rearrangement of the sync three interface but they didn't do a very good job of it. It's not very complete. And you know when you're just using bait, you know the the built in stuff, the built in sync three stuff. It works fine. But when you're using when you're using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay now it just uses the top half of the screen for the CarPlay display. And then the rest. Yeah, it's got a big box, it says Android Auto preferences or Apple CarPlay preferences. So it's basically wasting, you know, more than half of that screen. So they didn't recalibrate it, nor it It didn't reflow everything. Wow. And you know, so it's, it's not really, I would not recommend you know, going with that one. say if you want an explorer, I would go with you know, the mid level like the X lt or the limited and get the, you know, stick with the eight inch screen instead of upgrading to the 10 inch because it's you're not really getting anything extra for

Dan Roth  32:52  
it. So this is just more illustration of how the ecosystem launch is not gone. Well. Like this is part of the reason Whitey Ford. Yeah, told that your way of saying and Joe Eldridge to take a hike. He made a classy exit. But this is this is one of the one of the things is dragging for down right now is the launch of the Explorer and The Aviator, but mostly the Explorer, right the way that it's rolled up, because that's that's the high volume model. Yeah. So it just seems like the sort of product plan or just the ideas behind it were not fully baked, or,

Sam Abuelsamid  33:29  
like it certainly seems that way.

Rebecca Lindland  33:30  
Yeah. Nobody would do they think nobody would notice or that it wouldn't matter? I think the screen?

Sam Abuelsamid  33:36  
I don't know. Yeah. You know, I think they're, they're hoping that people, you know, people mostly just stick with the standard sync three stuff, which you know, works better than the, you know, using CarPlay or Android Auto in the same. You know, I think next, you know, probably, you know, for 2021, you know, or maybe you know, partway through 2021 it'll probably get an upgrade. sync for which should be better, you know, because that's, that's actually designed to support portrait screens, among other things. And so, but that won't be back backward compatible to the 2020 models because it requires different hardware. And, you know, as you've been talking about pulled up the Lincoln aviator, the mid the mid level aviator reserve model starts at 56 190. And it has the same power train at the same three 400 horsepower V six

Dan Roth  34:31  
there, I'm sure that they're they're two different frames of mind. Right, the st is dressed up differently. The thinking is clearly

Sam Abuelsamid  34:42  
Yeah, I mean, it's gotta look sporty or look to it. Yeah, yeah. And the Lincoln is more luxurious, but, you know, I think, you know, for for that kind of money, I would probably go with the Lincoln you know, if I'm going to spend 60 grand on it. I would go with the aviator

Rebecca Lindland  34:56  
well, and also just what else in the market can you get for 60 grand You know what? That's right. And that's like

Sam Abuelsamid  35:03  
one and a half Palisades.

Rebecca Lindland  35:04  
I mean, I Gosh, right. And that's the thing is that

Sam Abuelsamid  35:09  
the Sonata

Unknown Speaker  35:11  
Odyssey and a down payment.

Rebecca Lindland  35:15  
I mean, people don't shop in isolation and it just sounds. I feel like sometimes and Ford is not the only one guilty of this, but I feel like they sometimes, you know, just operate in isolation. I mean, not that they don't do their due diligence when it comes to pricing, but there's a lot out there for that kind of money. It's crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:33  
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. Yeah, it's, it's not that it's a bad vehicle overall, but it is it is kind of thirsty on fuel. And the, the, the infotainment just doesn't really work on that portrait screen.

Dan Roth  35:48  
Well, they I'm sure that their expectations for the st in particular are not high volume.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:55  
is actually I don't know about that really like on the edge. I The st is now over 20% of sales which To be fair, the edge st

Dan Roth  36:04  
storms down the highway like something German, I was so impressed with that thing. I it's not a great handler either. It's a little clumsy, but man, it's got long legs. Yeah. And it was it was not that it was not thirsty to the tune of 14 miles to the gallon when I drove. So,

Unknown Speaker  36:25  
you know, how does it drive? I feel like we didn't necessarily drive

Sam Abuelsamid  36:28  
really well. I mean, you know that the the st is definitely a little stiffer than the mid level trims. But you know, it's not, it's not uncomfortable at all. And it's got really good driving dynamics, because, you know, this is a new rear wheel drive platform. You know, and it's got the similar architect rear suspension architecture to what's on the Mustang. It's an integral link rear suspension system. So it's a multi link setup. The the front is struts and that's another difference between the explorer and The Aviator, the the Explorer has a struct front suspension system on The Aviator they actually go they have a completely different setup with dual control arms short long arm suspension system on the on the front. So it's actually even a little better. But nonetheless You know, this is this is still a really good package. You know, and I think I think it generally has you know, better driving dynamics than what you're going to get on many of the comparable vehicles in this class. But it's not you know, I guess, you know, looking at I'm looking at the pricing, you know, the limited you know, which has which is also has the has the 365 horsepower version of the V six. You know is it starts at 48,000 and you can also get that one with with the hybrid. And then you know, the st starts at 55 and you know, the st you know, you go from a chrome grill and, and chrome trim to blacked out trim And grill, you know, so it does have a little more aggressive look to it. But it's just, you know, it's just not that much more. So it just doesn't seem to me, you know, if I was if I was buying an explorer, you know, I would go with with a limited rather than the

Dan Roth  38:17  
the st. Well yeah, and you're never gonna feel that even though that was a 35 horsepower difference. Yeah. Hey, you know, like, trim back to back, maybe you'll feel it, but in practice, you're not you're not going to notice that that's started out. You're not

Sam Abuelsamid  38:36  
so but, you know, from from there, you know, I also had the new escape for a week, which was, I think, you know, I would actually go with if I was, if I was in the market, you know, I would probably actually go with the Escape is I don't need a vehicle as big as the Explorer. Now, obviously, some people you know, Need a three row SUV? You know, but the escape i think is actually you know, is more my style. You know, I like that smaller size, it's more nimble feeling it's certainly a lot lighter than the Explorer. Now, you know, the one I had was the was a platinum you know, or sorry, a titanium Yeah. And you know, it was pretty much loaded had a really nice color on is it what they call dark Persian green, it's really kind of a dark bluish green color to it, which is a really cool looking color. And it had the two liter EcoBoost which you know, in in the my time with it, I averaged about 27 and a half miles per gallon which is much better. So, Dan, yeah, you know, and this is this is also all wheel drive. And you know, it had auto stop start which the Explorer also had. But, you know, I think the thing about the The Escape, you know, is compared to, you know, it always comes down now to, for me to comparing, you know, everything else against the comparable Mazda. And when I compare that when I compare the escape to the CX five, you know, we've complained in the past about the pricing on the CX five, this escape was $39,775. And while the interior is way better than the last generation escape, you know, it's just it's not as good as the mosta. You know, you there are hard plastic surfaces that are within reach. You know, it's it's nicer than before, it's certainly much better laid out and before. You know, one of the things I do like about the new Escape is they did lower the belt line, the visibility out of this thing is much better than than the previous generation. I think the driving dynamics overall are a lot better. But you know, If you're going to go with a titanium, it's going to be pricey just like the explorers pricey. I mean, you can certainly get, you know, an escape for a lot less money, you know, get the get them starting in the mid 20s. But if you want the high end escape, it's going to cost you.

Rebecca Lindland  41:17  
Well, I think we can all agree to that Mazda has done a fantastic job on their interiors. And I think it's one of the places that that GM and Ford continue to struggle with is just, you know, some of the interiors just are not, are not as good as the competition.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:38  
Yeah, that's, that's absolutely true. I totally agree. I

Dan Roth  41:41  
liked driving the escape. And I think it looks really nice. I'm exterior in particular, you know, and it feels like the focus is based on so it drives pretty well. And I get what you're saying like if you're in the market, you'd buy The escape but I think if you if you're in, in the Ford market, that's what you would buy, but if you're in the market for that classic vehicle, you know, yeah, I think that there's as good as the Escape is, man the competition is right there with them. And, you know, even the rav4 is really really good in that class. It.

Rebecca Lindland  42:22  
Yeah, the hybrid I love. I love the hybrid version of but again, we're talking about competition, there's so much competition, and that's a and it's put,

Dan Roth  42:29  
it's expensive to that that's the problem I'm having with all the recent forums is that they're, they're just, yeah, they're pricey.

Rebecca Lindland  42:37  
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:39  
And, you know, while Ford is, you know, certainly had launched challenges with the Explorer, you know, just trying to get them out of the factory, you know, in a condition that is acceptable for delivery to customers. You know, I suspect that the pricing is has also been a challenge for a lot of customers. You know, it's 30 They're starting to get, you know, kind of unaffordable. And that's not good.

Unknown Speaker  43:05  
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Roth  43:08  
I mean, for 60 grand, you could drive what I drove.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:14  
Which was before we get into that, I just want to touch on one more, one more car that I had. Since we last talked. Right, we're driving, and just briefly, and that's the Mazda three. But I had a Mazda three with the six speed manual transmission.

Dan Roth  43:29  
Oh, how was it was it everything is everything we hope to be?

Sam Abuelsamid  43:33  
It was excellent. It was absolutely outstanding. You know, I love the monster. I love everything about the monster three except the visibility out of it, which, you know, it's the opposite of gun the opposite way that Ford did with the escape, which, you know, higher belt line, you know, the hatchback, you know, it is definitely harder to see out of the hatch has those like, yeah, it

Unknown Speaker  43:53  
has this like late 90s Alpha pillars. Right. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  43:58  
I had the same issue. With the Mazda three, it was the sedan. But looking out of the front windscreen, that was the one that I had really severe glare from the sun. It was like the really bad, right? It just was, I don't know, it was just the angle of the. And it was something that I tried a couple of times. And it was every day it was like that. You know, I don't know. It's just it was very, very, it was it was distressing, because I felt like I didn't have good visibility.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:27  
Yeah, I didn't notice that, you know, may have had something to do with our relative seating positions. I don't know. Sure. For sure. But, you know, I, and I think the weather when I drove the Mazda, I think was more overcast. And so maybe maybe it was didn't just didn't notice it as much. But I didn't notice that I didn't have that problem. When I drove the the all wheel drive monster three a few months ago.

Rebecca Lindland  44:53  
I bring it up just because the general issue of visibility, whether it's out there front of the back is and as you said Those belt lines, like the Ford Escape the belt line has been lowered for better visibility. And so it's just something that, you know, I think it's something that we've been we've talked about a few times now.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:11  
Yeah, certainly something I'd like to see manufacturers dress more, you know, start moving back in that direction of lower belt lines. But, you know, aside from that, you know, the manual transmission and the Mazda three was was just a joy to use, you know, it was it was a lot of fun to drive. And with that hundred and 85 horsepower, 2.5 liter that's in there. It's got plenty of performance. You know, it's a fun fun part.

Unknown Speaker  45:40  
I mean, what else can we say?

Rebecca Lindland  45:43  
Now, that's awesome. I saw somebody driving a manual. It was a old, older BMW Z three this morning. I was like, You go girl. It was awesome.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:54  
Nice. The nice thing as well is that Mazda is not restricting the manual transmission to just the entry level models. I mean, you can, you can actually get it in higher trim levels in the Mazda three. And you know, I mean this one was pretty well kitted out, you know, it had leather interior and everything and it was it was just a great place to spend time

Dan Roth  46:15  
that I mean that sounds like the class of the the segment that you a you can get it with a manual because I don't think that everything else in that segment especially not in a higher trim level you can get with a manual.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:28  
No, absolutely. It's one of the one of the few that you still can get with a manual.

Dan Roth  46:33  
And yeah, I mean, the Golf is going to go away except for the GTI so that's gonna be one less choice. So yeah, thank you. mosta Yes, now we just have to keep buying and that's I think that's that's the challenge. We love them but we don't actually buy them.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:50  
So we're really driving

Unknown Speaker  46:51  
I had so for $60,000 I had the Jeep Gladiator verba con

Dan Roth  47:01  
Which is a that's a big truck price for a midsize truck. And I was I was really charmed by it in some ways. You know, because it is all that it's cracked up to be. It's all that we anticipated it would be. I think FCA made the absolute right call to make it a crew cab. So there's the four door. Certainly the rancor unlimited outsells the good old two door Wrangler by a lot. And they knew smartly that. I mean, you could just look at the ramp side of the business and see that pickup trucks are doing the same thing. Everybody's buying the crew cab pickups, and so they added I think 31 inches to the frame and stretched the wheelbase by 1919 and a half inches, something like that. So it's long But it doesn't drive quite as you've driven this it doesn't drive as long as it is. So that was that was a pleasant surprise. And that longer wheelbase sort of settles it down on the highway which is completely not its element and you know as the Rubicon it has a little bit of wander on the highway it doesn't doesn't really want to go over 70 miles an hour, which is fine because its fuel when you do that, and you know, those big tires still, it's not like there's any slack in the steering of the ship. They're just squishy, you know, so you gotta gotta keep a little little hand on the wheel on the highway, but in broken pavement or you know, off road, it's really you know, it's deep it's in its element to break over. And the I think the breaker rankles really the only one that suffers person departure, I don't think are are much different. So if you're actually offering It's it's really capable it's a little longer and it can't go over you know quite as much as the shorter one so you probably get stuck when you get to brave but I was also impressed by how refined it is you know the jail is a very it's they've taken the Wrangler and they've made it about as refined as you possibly can. It's it's smooth it's really well behaved it it's actually pretty quiet i think i think it was you Rebecca that said they were impressed with how quiet the last Jeep was. So I it's crazy. Yeah, you know, certainly again, I'm a highway the Rubicon with the tires. Makes a little noise and there's some wind noise but there's really not as much wind rush around that flat windshield as you would you would expect it expect

Sam Abuelsamid  49:49  
Yeah, cuz I take the doors off.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  49:54  
jeeps like and the

Dan Roth  49:55  
the the gladiator in particular like you get on it. It just looks like this weird kind of lobster. When, when you have all that stuff off of it, it's this weird exoskeleton strange. But yeah, this had the hard tops those little, it was quiet and is a good place to spend time and it was really charming, where it had a spray in bedliner. And I think it had a cargo management system, you know, the rails, I don't know if that's standard or if that was an option. But I really loved the way I could just reach over the side and get stuff in and out of the bed. Like, you know, trucks used to be instead of like the size of the first floor of my house, where I need to stand on the tire and yank myself up in into the bed to get stuff so it's nice that it's that tidy size, and it's a little narrower than some of the other trucks in the market. So it at least feels narrower. So it's, it's cozy, and you look out over the hood and fenders like you do with an older, older trucks. It has all that charm and I think that's why it was was charming. You know, this Easter eggs all over the design so you can get your surprise into light going. It's just it's, it's very expensive as Rubicon, I think it starts at like 33 for the sort of base model or the s or something like that. And that's really it's got all those charms still in that trim, and it's a 33 K is not cheap. So it's still expensive. And I know that there's there's up to I think, like up to $9,000 on the hood of these now because that apparently they're not selling like they had thought they would so that that's a surprise, because they think they've really done. They've done everything right. It's very clever. It's very, it's very thoughtful. It's the most thoughtful midsize truck. I think there is, you know, because of what it is, but it's

Sam Abuelsamid  51:51  
usually the most expensive.

Dan Roth  51:53  
Yeah, that's true. It is the most expensive. I certainly found that it was pricey. Can I get decent fuel economy with it? So I was impressed with that the eight speed transmission or I think it's a speed that like the power trains really well behaved and it did it I posted to the Twitter account it sounds like a theramin in reverse, which I was confused

Unknown Speaker  52:19  
Yeah, I I can't say that I would

Dan Roth  52:23  
suggest it for like a hardcore like if you need a truck. It's just a lot of outlay for a work vehicle. But you know, it has its has its charms. But Jeep has become this this premium thing like back in the day when the like the original namesake Gladiator. They were different. They were work vehicles, and they were primitive. And this is about as far from primitive as you're going to get it. It's maybe sort of like a primitive layout. But it doesn't drive for me to dress really, really pretty well refined. So

Rebecca Lindland  52:59  
well. I think What we've talked about before, when I had the four door Wrangler was just that a vehicle that is so unbelievably capable off road can be so well behaved on road.

Dan Roth  53:12  
Yeah, yeah, I'll agree with that. You know, I was I was I was pretty impressed by it. And sort of just it's, it's I guess it was used the term because it's misapplied everywhere else but the bandwidth.

Unknown Speaker  53:28  
It can, it can do a lot and it it does. It's got

Sam Abuelsamid  53:31  
a lot of dynamic range.

Unknown Speaker  53:32  
Yes, it does. It does a lot well, and you pay for it, but, you know, that's okay. That's, that's sort of the cheap theme. If

Rebecca Lindland  53:45  
I think you know, I think you do pay for it. But I think before, I think in the past, it was it was really going to be tough to have a Jeep Wrangler as a daily driver. It was just wasn't comfortable enough for that. I think this is the first one that you know, legitimately. It's a daily driver. I my brother has the JK, and that's pretty comfortable. But I wouldn't necessarily want to drive it around all the time. I think with this one I do. Like I didn't want that thing to go away. I was I would kept

Unknown Speaker  54:20  
I was okay. waving. Goodbye, sir. Can you hear the room kind of little Hi, sister. You know?

Rebecca Lindland  54:25  
Yeah, I know. That's true. And you had the glad right. You had the gladiator? Yeah. Yeah. So so the Wrangler itself, just the four door that I had. And it was fun to put that top down. You know, just so the one touch cloth topic. It was great. It was just it's so versatile. Oh, yeah. It has it has

Dan Roth  54:42  
those charms, for sure. And I just by the end of the week, I didn't you know, and you know, I'm just I'm apparently not a banker.

Rebecca Lindland  54:53  
You are such a curmudgeon. I

Dan Roth  54:55  
mean, I like them. I like them, but it's you know, I always feel like I'm I always feel I'm giving them sort of short shrift because I don't, I don't get a chance to get them off road. And now I know like that's where they are. I always say like, Oh, they get tiresome because what I wind up doing is daily driving commuting in them and that's not what they're for. Well, that's what people do. The people who do it are committed enough they want to do it. I you know, I'm old and conventionally I want I want luxury. What quiet?

Rebecca Lindland  55:28  
I'm pretty sure you're the youngest one on this podcast. FYI,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:31  
yeah. He's old at heart.

Dad was born old.

Unknown Speaker  55:40  
I'm growing into my personality.

Dan Roth  55:46  
So yeah, it's it but the gladiator you know, we waited for so long for this and I think they made the right call to make it afford or I think that they did a ton of work. And it really it could not have been executed any better. So good good for them. It's it's really charming, and I think they nailed what the buyer is going to want.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:11  
You know what? One thing that's curious is that, you know, last week in Chicago, they unveiled the gladiator Mojave. Yeah. Which is the first Jeep you know, they've had, you know, trail rated badges for jeeps before you know for the ones with the true off road capability, you know, with the four wheel drive, low range and locking rear deaths, things like that. But and the gladiators The first one is designed for high speed off road driving. And, you know, I think they're going to be bringing that Mojave badge and the Deseret badge to other jeeps particularly the Wrangler at least I was a federal was curious that they decided to do it on the gladiator first before the Wrangler

Dan Roth  56:53  
Well, I think it brings it in line with you know, the Raptor it makes to compete with the Raptor and There's there's not really I mean, a range of Raptors not really

Rebecca Lindland  57:04  
well and globally overseas. There's really some fantastic, fun Toyota pickup trucks that people use in the desert. And so Toyota

Sam Abuelsamid  57:14  
Hi, Alex.

Rebecca Lindland  57:15  
Yeah, exactly. So it could compete nicely with with those kinds of things on a global basis. Yeah.

Dan Roth  57:20  
So I again, I think it's it's a smart move, but I, you know, the Tea Party can't go on forever, either. So I, I'm really curious to see that it's not selling as briskly as they thought it would, because there was such pent up demand, or there was such a parent pent up demand, but maybe they've maybe they finally hit the end of the road with that. I don't notice it. But, you know, on the flip side of that, they brought a Honda Civic sport touring. And so, Sam, you've you've talked really kindly about the Honda Civic sport and how it really is a good handling GTI alternative. And you know we've talked about the looks which are not everybody's cup of tea, but wow, it really in touring so touring is the sort of like luxurious trim is but sport touring like it really does compete pretty dead on with the cheetah, it's different thing. It's not quite as powerful as a

Sam Abuelsamid  58:29  
GTO. 80 horsepower,

Unknown Speaker  58:32  
but it goes down the road really solid and it handles really well.

Dan Roth  58:37  
I was really impressed with it. You could hustle the crap out of it and it just wanted more. Which you know, so to the power when I'm questioning my judgment and the cars like Yeah, let's do this.

Unknown Speaker  58:52  
That's, that's good. That's that is a good chassis.

Rebecca Lindland  58:57  
I think so in that I got I almost got my speeding ticket. Yeah,

Dan Roth  59:00  
probably, it's at the center exit exhaust and yeah, it's it's not quite as it's not as upright as the GTI. So the hatch area is not as useful. But it's still not, you know, it's not a not a coupe, you know, so it's, it's a, it's a car it's got it's got

Sam Abuelsamid  59:20  
plenty of space back there though. I mean, you're right, you know, the slope of the rear hatch, you know, it's kind of notched in the middle, you know, so there's a vertical part and then a sloping part there. You still have 25 cubic feet of cargo space behind the receipts with the receipts folded

Unknown Speaker  59:38  
up with really with the seats up like

Sam Abuelsamid  59:42  
2025 cubic feet, you know, because it's a pretty deep well in there. And so there's actually a surprising amount of space back well,

Unknown Speaker  59:49  
that's bigger than it looks.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:51  
Yeah, no, I mean, when when we got rid of the Jetta wagon, and replaced it with the Civic, you know, I I went and I checked checked the measurements, you know, and it was actually pretty much as much space in this thing as there was in the Jetta wagon.

Dan Roth  1:00:06  
Wow. Just not with the roofline, right, but just sort of writing the script. That's impressive. That's good.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:13  
Yeah, it's it's as a driver's car. I liked it quite a bit.

Dan Roth  1:00:20  
I still hate their infotainment. It's, it's fair enough. It's like pokey slow, like it makes you wait for stuff. And I don't think that's acceptable at all. Like, especially when they've got functions like the climate, you gotta hit the climate button and then it brings it up in the screen and like, again, there's a lag like it makes you wait. No, that's bullshit. That's come right up. And so I yeah, how did they're getting

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:47  
but there's knobs there to just twist, you know, to change the temperature.

Dan Roth  1:00:52  
Yeah, but the fan. The fan might have been on a rocker I forget. I forget exactly what it's been a couple of days, but There were some especially so the air direction and stuff like it just it made you wait. And there were other things like just jumping when you started up, it takes a little while to get through it stuff. It's not responsive right away almost like it has to boot up for a minute or two. So I Han is getting better but they're still just, they're not quite there

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:23  
with their infotainment systems in in Honda and Acura are just the worst.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:30  
The audio systems the part of it is is usually pretty good especially in how sure

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:34  
the especially Yeah, but the the interface is just yeah, brutal.

Yeah, it's brutal. So get

Dan Roth  1:01:42  
to it guys because the rest of the cars pretty brilliant. It really the steering was a little dead too. But he was weighted well and stuff. I just wanted more feedback. But a really, really good car and it makes me in my imaginary purchase decision. It's hard depict now between that and the GTA the GTA, like you said is more powerful but the hundred felt really really good to drive and you could do it again so it has that charm with the GTA like it it can it can be your all purpose car and still be fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:18  
Yeah I mean when we bought ours you know we took a look at the sport in fact I had I had a sport press card, the base level sport just two months before we got ours. And the the thing with the sport The reason why we didn't go with the sport or the sport touring you know, because they have the sport which is based on the bass LX civic, you know, but with the, you know, slightly more power and it has the base audio system, it doesn't have the touchscreen audio system and it didn't you know that it's missing some of the options. And then you have the sport touring which is the high end version. It has the leather seats and everything. Both of them are on 18 inch wheels. And frankly, we didn't want it. We didn't want one with 18 inch wheels. We went with an E x, which is the mid level trim because it's still on 17 inch wheels, because we wanted that little bit of extra sidewall height, which, you know, given you know the nature of potholes around here you know, I'll take all the sidewall we can get you know for most daily driving

Dan Roth  1:03:25  
Yeah, I can I can see that this didn't feel harsh or bad.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:31  
Yeah, no, it's it's fine in that respect. It's just you know, when you when you hit those potholes or those big frost heaves, you know, you don't have a whole lot of rubber to work with there to protect those whales. Yeah,

yeah, that caught me earlier this winter. They tell you about the G 78. Apollo with the G 70. Now, you

Dan Roth  1:03:48  
know, $2,600 worth of damage to the g70 correct the weeow did something to one of the control arms. Yeah, yeah. Oh took it took it out of service for The next guy screwed the next guy was supposed to get it, which

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:03  
if I didn't get that far, I mean,

Dan Roth  1:04:07  
it was that night I do. I remember hitting just like when they make the dash shake, like that's a pothole. And then I got to work the next day and it was swapped places like they were coming to swap the car and I'm looking at over and I see the crack in the wheel and I'm just like, Oh, I should tell them about that like there's a piece missing that's that's never again and so I was like yeah, you guys should get that looked at. You'll make it back Take it easy. There's no TPMS lighter anything it didn't bring an air leak but yeah, so I feel Yeah, I'm not wanting the sidewall. I yeah, I like having rubber between the wheels in the road. It helps.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:51  
Depending on where you live, you know, may not it may be less of an issue to you know, I mean, if you live in northern climes, you may want to forego the sport. gilfer one of the other trims

Dan Roth  1:05:01  
Yeah, I think overall every every Civic is gonna feel pretty good to drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:05  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So

Dan Roth  1:05:08  
yeah, that's my my glowing report and from there, we burned an hour on cars so we should probably talk about like new stuff. Okay,

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:16  
so well, okay. Well I just I want to mention as we jump into news, because just by coincidence has just popped up on my feed the Honda Odyssey is being recalled

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:30  
I saw that earlier. newer one so yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:33  
it's a new one but it's a 2018 to 20 model years. But if you have one, particularly the EAX l Turing and elite minivans they are under week

Unknown Speaker  1:05:44  
under recall for

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:47  
fire hazard electrical fire hazard. Yeah, the wire harness for the third row accessory power Alec and get pinched between the unibody and rear trim panel.

Dan Roth  1:05:56  
It says yeah, that's that's probably important. You know what though if it burns to The ground it gives you an opportunity to get a new car

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:03  
accident. Well, there's been three fires and and no reported injuries.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:07  
No. Car fires are no joke. They

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:11  
are quick. So start looking at March 16 is when the mail is when the notice will go out by mail, because that's efficient because it's required.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:22  
So, you can't you can't assume that everyone has email.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:26  
I know, I know. I know. I understand that. It's required.

Dan Roth  1:06:29  
But no way like with a recall what happens is they send the thing out and like there are people who are just never going to take any action. And they're just no matter how many notices they get in the mail. Like it goes in the little file. And like Yeah, yeah, it's under recall, and then they'll take it to the dealer and the dealer was a it's into recall, but we don't have the parts so that always helps to.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:50  
Well, yeah, the most fun is when you keep getting recall notices for a car that you don't own.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:57  
They bought somebody mailing list Right. Yeah, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:02  
well, no, it's not that it's, you know, for recalls they actually get the information from

Unknown Speaker  1:07:09  
the DMV from the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:10  
from the DMV, you know, so they get your, your address and everything. But the problem is, you know, the the car and question was the car I bought for my younger kid who had moved to Oregon with the car. And you know, I had transferred ownership to her. And she, you know, that car has now been retired completely. It's, you know, it was traded in on something else. And the state of Michigan just still has it in their records. And I'm in no particular mood to go down to the Secretary of State's office. can imagine I'll die. I'll just toss the recall cards in the in the recycle I

Dan Roth  1:07:53  
think the Secretary of State probably has better things to do anyway. Then help you help your situation help you not get postcards

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:02  
no but Rico calls her series a Tesla actually also has a recall on the Model X crossovers power steering issue and I don't mean to be a recall expert here but I'm Ford has a recall as well. They're just all popping

Unknown Speaker  1:08:17  
right now there's a couple hundred thousand next doors or something right like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:21  
Yeah, yeah and and the thing with recalls you know when you get a recall notice you know, that's it's almost you know it's always for a safety issue. So you know, please You know, make an appointment to get your car into the dealer as soon as possible and have it addressed before you know before it becomes a problem for you. You know, you don't want to be the victim of something going wrong like that. And the thing about recalls is it doesn't cost you anything except whatever time it takes you out of your day to go.

Dan Roth  1:08:51  
You can go sit in the brand new cars in the dealership, you can drink their free coffee and take, you know a whole pile full of brochures. How many They still do. That's what I used to do. I used to get the brochures in the car going for service I had I had a nice collection. This

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:07  
I remember sitting in there stick my laptop in the waiting room. That's right. They've got why someone

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:11  
Yeah, yeah. All right, but you're right. Okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to you.

Unknown Speaker  1:09:20  
She still has it on the room.

Dan Roth  1:09:23  
Nikola Badger is super interesting except for it's another EV pickup, which were, I think we've had about our fill of these things. But it's a it's a hybrid, but it's it's a different kind of hybrid pickup, which you said it's not new.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:39  
It's not a not an not a new concept. No, you know, it's, it's actually it's all electric. And it is also a hybrid because it uses a combination of a battery and a hydrogen fuel cell. And, you know, for those that don't recall nickel other they're a startup that is developing fuel cell tractor trailer You know, Long Long Haul class eight trucks. And, you know, they're they're powered by hydrogen fuel cells. So what they've done is they're taking their fuel cell technology, combining it with a battery and putting in a full size pickup truck. And using the fuel cell as a range extender. So you get about 300 miles of range from the battery, and then about another 300 miles or so from the hydrogen, you know, being converted into electricity in the fuel cell. And you know, this is not an entirely new concept. In fact, I first drove a vehicle that had a very similar type of setup back in February of 2007. Ford had prototype edge with that they call the edge high series. In fact, the month before that the Detroit Auto Show they showed a concept called the air stream, which was a minivan concept that at least on the spec sheet, you know, as concepts Kob concepts never actually match what they claim. But it had this it was supposed to have had the same plug in hybrid fuel cell power train, but they what they ended up doing was actually putting that into the edge. And the plan was they were actually going to build a fleet of about 100 of these for testing. But by early 2008, you know, as things were starting to go downhill in the economy, for decided to abandon that project, but I had I did when I was writing for Autoblog, I actually did have an opportunity to drive the the one prototype, I had actually had a couple of prototypes, I drove one of them went over to visit one of their engineering facilities in Dearborn. And it actually works pretty well because what the cool thing about it, you know, is using the fuel cell is a range extender that way. Fuel cells like a lot of other propulsion systems are A lot more efficient when they operate in a steady state mode instead of transit mode. So, if you if you just have a pure fuel cell vehicle, you know, the fuel cell has to crank out more or less power to, you know, just like an engine, you know, depending on how hard you get on the accelerator pedal. Yeah, if you can have the fuel cell, if you can have your main power coming from the battery, and have the fuel cell operating at a steady state mode, just recharging the battery all the time, then it can be much more efficient. And you can you still you still have completely zero emissions. But you know, you you're also fully electric, and you can have more range so you can have a smaller battery and a smaller fuel cell.

Dan Roth  1:12:47  
I like the idea. Um, I actually was scratching my head about it, trying to figure out why it doesn't. It hasn't had more applications because like, that's the issue. Right with with an EV is the range and the recharging. The problem you're gonna run into here is a I guess how fast the fuel cell can put energy back into the battery and then be Where the hell are you going to refill it?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:17  
Well, the first part is not really a problem so much. I mean, you can, you know, you can size the fuel cell, you know, for whatever output you need, you know, so you can definitely keep up with the battery. The chart, the refueling, hydrogen refueling is the real issue. You know, there's about 40 hydrogen stations in California now. And that's, you know, that's about the only place we can find any hydrogen stations. I think there's a few opening up in the northeast sometime this year. But, you know, right now, you're basically basically stuck in California.

Dan Roth  1:13:54  
Yeah. And that I die. That's so that's the issue like there Gonna make this thing work? It already works. Are they just far enough behind the eight ball though that the, you know, charging infrastructure is going to going to be built out of their building charging infrastructure? nobody's talking about hydrogen infrastructure except for maybe lend or air gas, which I think there's Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:18  
I mean, there's there's a few other companies and you know, Toyota and Honda and Hyundai, you know, have actually made some investments, you know, in companies like, let's forget the name of the company now. First energy, I think, in, in California, that operates a lot of the hydrogen stations there. It's, you know, I think, you know, where we're actually going to start seeing more of it where hydrogen fuel cells are actually are more likely to have applications early on in the coming years, is in some of these trucking applications, you know, where you've got vehicles, you know, Toyota, for example, is testing some tractor trailers at the Port of Long Beach, powered by fuel cells and are currently building up a new fleet of next generation ones with Kenworth. I think building 10 of those, you know, and you know, those are trucks that you know, return to base every night. And so they only need that they only need one hydrogen filling station to support that fleet, you know, and then for the niccola trucks, what they're doing is they're building out a network of hydrogen fueling stations, across a lot of a bunch of the major interstates across the US, you know, for transcontinental trips. And they're actually going to be generating the hydrogen on site from electrolysis and using solar wind power to generate the hydrogen on site at those stage Wow, the end of

Dan Roth  1:15:51  
that sentence ended so much better than I thought it was going to know it's gonna be thinking that they're gonna end they're going to generate the hydrogen from natural gas, which,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:02  
I mean, that's, that's where most hydrogen comes from right now, but they're moving away from that towards what they call green hydrogen. So generating it from from water with renewable electricity,

Unknown Speaker  1:16:14  
good for them. And it's, that's fantastic.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:17  
And for, you know, for bigger, heavier vehicles, you know, hydrogen fuel cell fuel cell systems actually make more sense, you know, it's to get comparable amount of range and performance. It's it's a, it ends up being a lot lighter than for the batteries that you need for the same kind of performance and capability.

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:36  
And also reef refueling. Yeah, that is significantly shorter as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:42  
Yeah, you can, I mean, you can refuel a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and about the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas tank, whereas, you know, refilling you know, charging up the batteries in a truck. You know, I mean, Tesla, you know, for their semi has claimed that you'll be able to charge it to 80% In in 30 minutes, you know, for their for their semi, but you know, that's going to take like a one megawatt charger. Yeah And yeah, so that's gonna require some pretty heavy duty cooling some pretty big cable

Unknown Speaker  1:17:14  
brown off the grid,

Unknown Speaker  1:17:16  
minor details whatever one megawatt

Dan Roth  1:17:21  
is this company speak new Tesla, like is is Nikola. More serious less vaporware than that, because I don't take the Tesla truck seriously at all. I think it's just nonsense. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:34  
I think the auto, I don't know about, you know, the the Badger will we'll see, you know, if they can actually get that to market, you know, their trucks, you know, their heavy duty trucks, I think, you know, those are definitely serious, you know, they've got some pretty, some pretty serious investment. You know, they've got a partnership, especially with Bosch, you know, developing all the electric propulsion stuff and you know, there you They're working on getting those trucks into the marketplace and they've gotten a lot of orders for them from a bunch of big companies, you know, big fleet operators. So I think that they've got a pretty, pretty decent chance of, you know, these getting to market and having some degree of success on their heavy duty trucks and we'll see what happens with the well and the they say they're partnering with an OEM for the because they want to say who but there's there was a report yesterday on inside DVS com that it might be FCA, you know, so we'll see.

That'd be country FC.

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:32  
And the thing the thing looks really cool. It does Nicola. I just love the fact that they use Nikola as the first, right. Yeah, the Tesla thing that's

Unknown Speaker  1:18:42  
hilarious. It's nice, the Badgers. I mean, the honey badger just doesn't give me

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:47  
Well, yeah.

But no, it looks really cool though. I mean, it looks like the kind of truck that it's supposed to look like. I don't know if it has shatterproof. windshield windows, we And my

little fingers are going with that.

But it looks cold up. Yeah, for sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:15  
Is there? What are the combustion byproducts of hydrogen just isn't it water just not not co2? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:24  
Nope. Okay.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:26  
Yeah, that's your God. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:29  
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's oxidation cell. Yeah, it's just an oxidation reaction, you know, so you're putting in oxygen and hydrogen, and you get water vapor up. Okay. All right.

Dan Roth  1:19:40  
I'm just trying to poke holes in it just to be like, where did this fall down? Sorry. I'll stop

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:45  
there. Yeah. infrastructure,

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:48  
infrastructure.

Dan Roth  1:19:50  
Infrastructure doesn't seem like the the more difficult one like you with ease the infrastructure is kind of the harder part. The fuel cell here is the harder part just because and it's not because The technology isn't mature, it's actually quite mature. It's the cost of it, like you said, and just, you know, the cheap, the cheaper the membrane, the cheaper the fuel cell at. And, you know, they're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:11  
making a lot of progress on, you know, the cost of the fuel cell stack itself, you know that that has come down substantially. And it's, it's continuing to come down with each new generation of these things. And they're working out the manufacturing processes, so they don't require as much of a cat as much of the catalyst material platinum and palladium in there that the is for catalyst. And, and designing the the fuel cell stacks for mass production instead of, you know, for one off builds.

Dan Roth  1:20:43  
Yeah, that's great. That's platinum and palladium. I guess that those don't get cut out of cars parked in places like that's great too. Can it be like a rash of fuel some facts?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:54  
Well, I think it'll be a little more challenging to pull this fuel cell stack out, than to pull

Dan Roth  1:20:59  
out a never Stuffed anyone with a sauce? No. It's funny. It's just yeah. I didn't realize was the same catalyst material. That's, that's interesting.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:10  
So let's stay with new stuff. You went to the for Russia innovation day for, for Sita for

something like that for OSHA. Yeah,

you went to innovation day.

Yeah, they had an innovation day and actually want one of the things that they're working on is also fuel cell systems, both hydrogen storage tanks and in their own fuel cell stack design. But I don't want to get into that right now. But what you know, they did show a couple of interesting things one was was their mirror system, which is in production now in Japan on the Lexus CES and the Japanese market. Can't get it here yet, because it's not legal here. But they showed some interesting little additions to that compared to what we previously seen on the Audi e Tron, European spec Audi e Tron, you know, because you've got the side cameras on the cameras mounted on the side of the vehicle, and then projecting onto displays on the inside of the vehicle, usually somewhere around the base of the a pillar. And one of one of one of things they've done on here is they've done a little augmentation. So, you know, when you're looking at the display and seeing the rear corner of your vehicle, it actually shows you know, it's it's projecting red line going around, you know, so you can actually see right on the road where the corner of your vehicle is. So as there's another you know, when there's another vehicle coming up, you can actually see where and it'll, then for other vehicles, it'll show lines, project lines on their overlay lines on the Display where the corner of that vehicle is. So you can actually see where it is on the road relative to your own vehicle. And when it's when it's a certain distance away, that'll be green, as it gets closer and closer transitions to orange, and when it's too close, then it goes to red. So when you you know, so this is kind of their way of incorporating blind spot monitoring into this and and they're actually integrating not just the camera, but also the rear corner radars use for blind spot monitoring to help you know with that proximity sensing at the rear corners.

Unknown Speaker  1:23:39  
What are they doing about

Unknown Speaker  1:23:43  
it? Did they talk at all about how

Dan Roth  1:23:47  
it can be difficult for a year eyes actually sort of focused on a screen versus mirror glass? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:54  
yeah. So they did talk about that. And you know, one of the one of the bigger things Challenges is, you know, especially flickering from LED lights. And so, you know, they've got higher resolution cameras, higher frame rate cameras, and are doing some digital filtering in there to eliminate flickering, but also, you know, trying to make it so that it seems more like a mirror, you know, trying to emulate the behavior of a mirror. It's not going to be exactly the same from a focusing standpoint, but it's getting better.

Dan Roth  1:24:35  
Yeah, alright guys, I didn't think about the flicker, man that would drive me nuts to have an LED and LCD or LED because that's the thing your periphery is more actually,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:44  
if you ever if you ever point a video camera at you know, at an LED light, yeah. And look at the display, you'll see that flicker. Yeah. And that would be very annoying. And so you know, they've, they've, they've addressed that with higher frame rates and digital filtering in there to eliminate flickering. So, you know, the nitsa right now, you know, has some, some stuff up for comment, you know, they, they've opened up a comment period on things like electronic mirrors, and they're evaluating, you know, whether to make changes in the regulations here to allow those, you know, one of the things that they told us today was, you know, they they were testing these mirrors on an F 150. And was it said they got 1.6% reduction in fuel economy, with the mirrors relative to the standard mirrors on the F 150. And, you know, that's not insignificant, you know, engineers, you know, to get a one and a half percent improvement in fuel economy, you know, they

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:55  
you know, they go to pretty extensive lengths to get that kind of improvement. For sure, is that I, the Audi e Tron that I drove back in December last year, had very negative had electronic or different kinds of mirrors that are not allowed in the US is similar to those the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:15  
same same thing.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:17  
Yeah, those those took a little while to get used to for sure. But then after, you know, probably an hour of driving, it was just kind of like whatever. But they were definitely a little it was a little tricky, but you're right, it really helps on Arrow and, and it would be great if the regulations were homogenous. So that, yeah, save money and

Dan Roth  1:26:40  
like things that are supposed to be regulated are going to be D regulated, and the regulations that we have are going to be completely nonsensical. But at least if they do allow it in the US, we're going to get another half a bajillion horsepower into the

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:54  
line. And we can all agree that we're from the government and we're here to

Dan Roth  1:26:59  
help Yeah, sorry. I, you know, I'm just being really jaded and old today, I'm sorry. Yeah. What's this connected Wellness Business that they were talking about?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:11  
Yeah. So this is another thing that they were showing, you know, they had a couple of different interior bucks, you know, showing off some things that there's some interesting things are doing with active noise cancellation and, you know, they had one, you know, they had an F 150 setup, you know, with for, you know, an automated driving thing, you know, where you put it in an automated mode, the steering wheel pulls away from you, but there, you know, they also had had it set up with center screen that, you know, if the, and they had cameras on the eight pillars, you know, to look at the occupants, you know, look at the driver in the front passenger. And, you know, based on, you know, the cameras evaluation of you know, how tall you are, where you're sitting, you know, it could automate medically adjust the seat to give you a comfortable seating position. I want that.

Unknown Speaker  1:28:05  
No, no, I want that no, no, no, leave me.

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:12  
You can tweak,

tweak it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:19  
They had an infotainment system that they developed, you know, so the center screen is actually on a pivot. So that if the past is the front passenger wanting to watch a movie, the screen actually tilts away from the driver. So the driver can't really see it. And then the patent the front passenger seat tilts inwards towards the screen so you're looking head on at the screen, so you can watch a movie without distracting the driver. Okay, but that would have

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:46  
to be headphones only because if you put on a movie

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:50  
they had they had speakers in the headrests and in the speaker. So that's actually actually let me rephrase that they actually didn't have speakers Is that all? All of the sound in this thing was generated by actuators on various ingenio mounted on various interior surfaces of the vehicle? It actually sounded shockingly Yeah, considering you didn't have to do

Dan Roth  1:29:12  
so that's Yeah, that's something I I forget whatever else I saw that I did. It's really clever because you don't have the typical packaging problem of a conventional speaker with the motor structure and you know, large magnet that you've got a package you're you're creating, you know, you're resonating the panel with a, you know, a transducer. So it's a little more compact and then, you know, because the magic of DSP and stuff you can you can make it sound good now, like we couldn't back in the day. So absurd. I mean, it just turns the whole panel into a speaker, or, you know, it vibrates the panel and the sound radiates from it. So it's, it's

Rebecca Lindland  1:29:54  
Well, yes, so those kinds of like speakers those like specific speakers, the first time I saw them was actually in Turin, Italy, at the the National Museum of cinema. And they have this huge open space. And they've got, they've got like, loungers, and everybody can watch their own movie in them, even in this open space. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:22  
yeah, and you know, so we, you know, demonstrated that you know, so you basically get your own little personal bubble of sound around you. And, you know, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't really intrude on other people. So everybody in the vehicle can be watching something different or watching the same thing, or listening to different things. You know, and then taking that a step further, this connected wellness idea, they actually had had a bug with pressure transducers mattered in the foot well, and you could, you know, sit back in the seat, put your feet you know, put your feet And then, you know, go have it, do some exercises, you guide you through some exercises,

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:06  
or is there a foot massager in there because don't toy with

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:13  
massaging seats. So at the end of your exercise session is the seat would be, you know, would go through a full massage, full body massage, which was really nice. But, so, you know, you had these pressure transducers on the on the floor, you know, and so, it had me go through, you know, press, you know, press down on it with the balls of my feet, you know, to see, you know, you could set you know how much pressure you wanted, you know, like how much of a workout you wanted, and then it would guide you through on the screen again, the screen that tilts towards you, you know, so you know, tell you, you know, you would see you know, left foot, right foot, press down, you know, release, you know, press your heels and so on. So you could do a bunch of different exercises. I mean It's kind of a goofy, but you know, it's something that, you know, could be could be interesting, you know, for, you know, for long road trips,

Dan Roth  1:32:08  
yeah, we you know, and it, it's easy to make fun of it in some ways, but I made it to two places where people probably spend the most time are their bed and their car, maybe the desk at work, I really like their bed, like, you spend an awful lot of hours in those two places. So some of this stuff is is Goofy, like you said, but and some of it may may surprisingly, find an application I know

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:35  
well, as well. And there's actually multiple applications because also if you think about, you know, a longer plane rides, for instance, or long haul plane rides. These are things that are actually really serious for like deep, deep BOCES, things like that. And as as we drive if we move towards autonomous vehicles, and we do have situations where we're driving for four or five, six hours, and not actually Actively driving or even if you're driving and get, you know, you can get all sorts of bad things if you don't move around enough. So there actually are legitimate health reasons, or these kinds of things. I just am a total sucker for that.

Dan Roth  1:33:12  
So all you're gonna do is put your finger on that what a firewall is going to be vibrating with sound, right? Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:20  
feet up on the dash and turn up the volume.

Unknown Speaker  1:33:22  
Get yourself a simple foot. Well

Dan Roth  1:33:26  
it's it's cool. Like that's, that's where innovation comes from, is this sort of forward thinking? weird stuff.

Unknown Speaker  1:33:37  
So

Dan Roth  1:33:39  
JD Power released their dependability study and Genesis sort of swept of the old line players, which was really interesting. As they even they even be sort of perennial favorite Lexus?

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:53  
Yeah, it's really impressive. I mean, Lexus won for the last eight years. And then Genesis, Genesis Lexus and Buick, I for and then a Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen, Lincoln, BMW, Chevy and Ford. So I mean, that's really really pretty and impressive. That's the only place you can find Buick in the top three.

I like my little cocoa Don't make fun of her.

She's very sensitive.

Okay. But it says a lot though. I mean, this is JD Power. This is

Unknown Speaker  1:34:32  
um, this is satisfaction which studies

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:35  
these problems reported. So this is a liability After three

Dan Roth  1:34:40  
years of ownership. It's not so it's not initial quality. It's dependability. Like, like we said, Yes.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:45  
Okay. Right. And the bottom was Volvo jag Chrysler and land

Unknown Speaker  1:34:49  
does not surprise me at all.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:52  
Tesla was not part of this study. Well, you know. I mean, the Volvo thing is disappointing. Jag and Landry. It's like yeah, okay, there's jokes about that. And and and Chrysler

Unknown Speaker  1:35:04  
crisis has struggled for a while. I know.

Dan Roth  1:35:08  
I know they know like our experience with the crystal vehicle has been great at managing that thing clicked off 130,000 miles without a problem back a couple of problems but not like anything like major like that would cause me to be like, Oh, this is poor quality. It's just car stuff, where items where they digging the list of the cars that were at the bottom you know, one of the things is that's sort of been a little not great about the air not not clear about the JD Power figures is the like infotainment systems that can be difficult to use are sort of lumped in as a quality problem. When they're not really there. They're a design problem but they're not and not exactly like a you know, a quality.

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:55  
Yeah, so God says it's it's attracts pretty problems for 100 vehicles during a 12 month period by owners of three year old vehicles. So it's subjective in some ways. So this is JD Power said, these are 2017 models, they averaged 134 problems per 100 vehicles studied a slight improvement over 2016.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:19  
And, you know, I think while Yes, you know, the infotainment stuff is often a design problem, you know, it's, it's still it's a, it's a functional issue for the user, the vehicle, if they can't properly use the system or reliably use the system, you know, or, you know, if it's something that causes them to go back to the dealer, you know, trying to get, you know, something fixed, even even if it can't necessarily be fixed. It's still a problem. Yeah. And, you know, in the, in the announcement, you know, they said that actually the in vehicle technology was the area of greatest improvement this year. So there there is progress being made on That, but it's still an issue, you know, especially with voice recognition, which should start to get significantly better now that they're going to connected voice recognition systems with natural language processing. Bluetooth is an issue and nav systems and, you know, again, nav systems are another area that that should start to get a lot better. You know, and and that'll be reflected, you know, a couple of years from now, based on the vehicles that are coming to market now. But you know, overall, you know, the there's there's a lot of you know, there's been a lot of improvement and a lot of areas and you know, you mentioned the Tesla was not included and the reason why the way they JD Power does these surveys, they actually send out surveys to vehicle owners, and they get the data from, you know, in part from the DMV, but they get they have to get permission from the in some states, they have to get permission from the manufacturer to share that data. And, you know, other states that don't but because Tesla refuses to allow JD Power access to any of the owner data, because they they simply don't want to participate. My guess is because they know that the results are probably not going to be very good. They are the only manufacturer that does not participate. No

Dan Roth  1:38:24  
Sam it's because they're going to take over the auto industry and show all these old car makers how to really do it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:31  
whatever

way you know so that's that's why you won't find Tesla listed in any of the JD Power surveys because they Tesla refuses to share that information.

Dan Roth  1:38:45  
I will be interesting to see what that what that info was. I mean, we we can sort of extrapolate a little bit from

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:53  
Well, you can you can get some of it you know from looking at consumer report that's true surveys because you know, They're not going through the manufacturer, you know, its Consumer Reports, subscribers are, you know, filling out those surveys, you know, directly to Consumer Reports is not getting information from the DMV or anybody else. Whoever's, you know, getting Consumer Reports magazine is getting those,

Dan Roth  1:39:16  
right. That's true. And if there's one thing that Tesla owners like to talk about is the cars. So yeah, I'm glad that some participate in in that study because it's it's really instructive rates. Interesting that the, the things that showed the greatest improvement but still caused a problem in vehicle technology, and that's like the, that's the stuff that has the shortest lifespan, right? The stuff that just moves more quickly than anything else in automotive tech, right? Like the tech is sort of turning over every year and a half really, there's sort of new, new stuff out there and new improvements and you know, car car models. Whatever I mean, I redesigned car it needs to last for what eight years, you know, four years mid cycle refresh another four years in la mina

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:08  
average average?

Yeah, so

Dan Roth  1:40:13  
that's just never going to get, it'll get better. I think it's probably going to be better next time around because more cars are offering the front projection system to like CarPlay and Android Auto.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:25  
Well, that, that and, you know, we're also, you know, starting now to roll out over the air updates. All right, yeah. For vehicle. So, you know, when there are problems, manufacturers will be able to fix those a lot more easily. Yeah. At least if it's a software problem. And, and, you know, Grant manufacturers are also you know, they've recognized that this has been a problem you know, and part you know, one of the one of the reasons why these systems have been a problem is the software but also that they put in underpowered hardware.

Dan Roth  1:40:59  
You know, I was complaining about the Civic system like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:04  
traditionally gone with it the cheapest processors that they could get away with. And now they're starting to put in more powerful computers to run these systems. And, you know, that'll give them more headroom to work with. And, you know, they now have the ability to do software updates. So, you know, in the coming years, you know that you should see that problem get alleviated quite a bit.

Unknown Speaker  1:41:24  
I haven't I mean, I have to confess

Dan Roth  1:41:28  
I sort of switched to an iPhone by protest and I got in a car, we swapped today. So I got in the car, and Apple CarPlay didn't come up right away. I was like really meaning to pair this thing. And use use the system with Bluetooth. What is this? So last century, you said it was really weird The, the speed at which you sort of acclimate to that and because it's sort of a standard interface across Cars, it becomes so familiar that it's like that's what you want to wind up using. Not necessarily the in car systems. That just did. I, I blew myself away with having having assimilated, I did not. Didn't want to it was it was in protest.

Rebecca Lindland  1:42:20  
Look at you earlier.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:20  
I just totally.

Dan Roth  1:42:25  
Jay was so sort of, I was astounded at myself was like, Oh, I guess it's had an effect on my brain. where it's like, I that's what I was looking for. Because I you know, I want it to listen to my podcasts and just it's easier to use the Apple CarPlay interface than it is to Dink around with whatever, you know, embedded system is in there.

So that was I don't know, it just interesting. That's all I'm done now.

And I think we're done too. I think we have

So we'll follow up next week with with one topic that we didn't. We didn't cover and we didn't have any correspondence this week or have we bothered to check, a just haven't checked because we had other stuff came, we didn't have any correspondence to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:19  
catch up on next week. I did want to mention, you know, looking at some of our analytics, you know, kind of what, what kind of devices people are using to listen, it seems that most of you are listening on iOS devices. And most of you are using Apple podcasts, or at least the largest chunk of you're using Apple podcasts or overcast, followed by pocket casts. So, you know, it would help us a lot you know, if you if you haven't given us a rating in Apple podcasts, to you know, maybe go in and, you know, drop us a little five star rating and a review is that it'll hopefully help us pump us up in the

In the rankings and help us show up, you know, for other people searching for car podcasts and, and help us get some more people have told me that we are the best car podcast so well I know the people that know us say that's true. And I actually put out a call not too long ago on Twitter to say like, Who should we have on and so we should compile that list and get some people on because there's some really interesting interesting suggestions that you know, some we can make happen more easily than others. But yeah, somebody suggested RJ skr engine, I think that would be fantastic. I'm working on hopefully that one happens because like I said, be great. I just love to chat about Rivlin, that company fascinates me. And, you know, a couple of other people that were friendly with it, you should we should figure out how to get them on. So hopefully that that helps keep us interesting. Sure, sure. People get tired of listening to me be like both Waldorf and Statler

Dan Roth  1:45:00  
The same time. So

Unknown Speaker  1:45:04  
and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're young.

Unknown Speaker  1:45:11  
And, yeah, well, we made that. So thanks for listening. We'll catch everybody next week.

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:14  
Thanks, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai