Dan Roth  0:01  
Coming up on episode 182 of wheel bearings, we're joined by the prolific Nicole wakeland. And we're driving the Ford Bronco sport, Chevrolet Tahoe, and we try the effects of cold weather on the Mustang Maki. Speaking of the Maki, a listener tried to buy one at a dealer and it did not go well. And so we talked about it. We also talked about the newly debuted Chevrolet Bolt EV that's bigger and costs less. That's all ahead on episode 182 of wheel bearings. Did you know you can support wheel bearings directly? Head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media and you can become a patron today. Your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use to bring the podcast to you. And exclusives and improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be a part of an automotive podcast, like no other had to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media. This is wheel bearings. I'm Jan raw from Forbes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guide us insights.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09  
I'm Rebecca lemon from Rebecca drives.

Dan Roth  1:12  
And this week, we're joined by guests.

Nicole Wakelin  1:15  
Nicole Wakelin from car experts.

Dan Roth  1:18  
There you go. So Nicole, welcome, Nicole. Thanks for joining us. How are things in frosty New Hampshire?

Nicole Wakelin  1:25  
frosty? I'm sitting here the blanket over my lap and wishing it would stop snowing for like five minutes. That'd be cool.

Dan Roth  1:32  
Not today. Not today. I think we're actually getting more today. That's gonna be Yep, good times. All right, well, so let's start with what we're driving. And I think Rebecca, the Broncos sport I want to know, while you were driving this, did people mistake it for the actual Bronco. Because that's the thing that's been happening all over the country

Rebecca Lindland  1:54  
is a thing that's been happening all over the country. So I was a little surprised by driving this that it did not get more points and looks and smiles and questions and such. It could be that it is stupid cold out lately. And people aren't feeling very chatty. But when I had the machi, the very first traffic light, I stopped at a woman roll down like you put down her window and was like, Oh

Unknown Speaker  2:25  
my gosh, oh my gosh, oh

Rebecca Lindland  2:26  
my gosh. And that didn't happen with it with the Broncos sport. Nevertheless, it's so cute. It's so fun. Like the interior is just delightful. So so I had I had the the Ford Bronco sport Outer Banks, for addition, there's five or six different trim lines and such. And the one that I had had the 1.5 liter EcoBoost 181 horsepower, 190 foot pounds of torque, a speed auto. And as I mentioned, four, four by four all wheel drive. This is the car based version of the bronco. So I know a lot of people are

Sam Abuelsamid  3:03  
based on the same it's based on the escape platform,

Rebecca Lindland  3:06  
right the escape. So this is the sport version, the bronco sport, and then the the the big Bronco is going to be coming out later on sometime this year.

Dan Roth  3:17  
Well, yeah, but that's what's interesting is like the bronco sport seems to be fooling everybody. Like, well, I

Sam Abuelsamid  3:22  
think that was, you know, that was the point. They, you know, they wanted it to look like a bronco, you know, it's got a lot of the same design language, you know, because it's, it's part of this family, you know, rather than just doing a single Bronco, this time, they introduced a bronco family. And the sport, you know, is the entry level model for people that don't need the ultimate off road capability.

Rebecca Lindland  3:45  
Right. And it's still it does look very, very similar. You know, so there. This is this is the perfect vehicle for places like, you know, for warm weather climes, where you don't necessarily need a full time, you know, an all wheel drive super off road capable vehicle. I mean, it's just, it's so cute. And I was absolutely delighted with the interior. And I know some quite some people on my Instagram people asked me questions about the build quality of the interior. I thought it was really good. I know a number of us actually have been in this vehicle. Maybe not mine in particular, but have been in the bronco sport, but I thought the fit and finish was really nice. I thought that the selection of materials was very good. There's some different textures to it. Mine had kind of a grayish brown interior and I had some friends over and they were you know, they looked inside. They're like, Oh my gosh, I love that. It's kind of like almost like a flannel gray. And I don't know I just thought they did a really nice job. It was cute like in the back. They have brown and black inter woven or the backseat pockets. And it kind of reminded me of the Harvey pocket books that are made at a seatbelt material that are kind of the required outfit for, for women in the automotive industry. But it's this same look in terms of utilizing, you know, kind of rugged looking materials like the seatbelt material. So I thought they did a really good job on the interior, I thought it was really appealing. So the drive in it was interesting. I some people know I am purging the tree house. And so I'm trying to get stuff organized. And I have a rather extensive collection of faults scrapped, or made brown drip dishes, stoneware from the 50s 60s and 70s in my collection. So

Dan Roth  5:39  
if you would like any, please send us an email to

Rebecca Lindland  5:42  
know if you're selling any because I still haven't given up Wow.

Unknown Speaker  5:47  
Nice.

Rebecca Lindland  5:49  
But so I did, I sorted through and some of it had to go to store. So I actually had probably a dozen boxes of dishes in the back of this thing. And I gotta say the hallway 1315 miles, something like that, mostly on I 95. But a little bit on backroads as well. They didn't make a sound and it's not that they were packed so well. I mean, I did pack them carefully. But inevitably dishes rattle, like that's kind of what they do. And this thing was silent. I was so impressed. And so not only could it hold a ton, but the ride on it was so soft and not not in a bad way, but like very smooth that you know, kind of handled any different tarmac, any potholes, it was really, really impressive because those dishes can make noise. Let me so just having, you know, that kind of experience, it was just it was quiet, refined. And really, really fun, you know, so I really liked it. So the Broncos sport is the sport starts at around 27,000. And then the one that I had starts at 32. And as tested was 36. I did notice that the free was almost 15 $100 on this. I don't know that if that's how it is going to be on the the other Bronco that's coming from the States. This one is made in Hermosillo, Mexico. But that seemed high. I thought only FCA or galantis or Chrysler, whoever they are. I thought theirs was one of the only ones that's that for freight was this high? Well, yeah, well,

Sam Abuelsamid  7:31  
this, you know, this is something I wanted to talk about, you know, perhaps next week, when we talk about the F 150. I'm driving right now, but it seems like Ford is following still lantis in their in this path towards these hidden price increases through the freight charges. Because the F 150 I'm driving the freight charge on that is 17 $100. It came from Dearborn, which is like 20 miles away from me.

Dan Roth  7:58  
Like you could almost walk there and get it. Yeah. It'd be a long walk. But

Rebecca Lindland  8:02  
yeah, right, Sam, because I had one as well. And it was 1695. Yeah. Now what's it on the marquee? Let

Dan Roth  8:08  
me just look at the paper. What's the company in Romulus?

Rebecca Lindland  8:13  
Interesting. So the Monkees 1100. Yeah,

Dan Roth  8:16  
United road needs to make their money at MIT. I

Rebecca Lindland  8:20  
it's interesting. I know, other companies will have different charges for different vehicles. Yeah, so it was I that caught my attention.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:30  
Yeah. And, you know, of course, Ford, like most automakers, does not. When you when you look at their, their consumer website and you look at the prices, the starting prices, they don't include the delivery charge in the price, right, which is, you know, and it's not like it's an option, you have to pay it. Right. So I think, you know, this is something I think that you know, needs to change I think all manufacturers should be required to include any mandatory charges in that starting price. You know, don't because you know, otherwise it's a bait and switch. And this is something actually you know, we're going to talk about the Chevy Bolt later, but this is something that GM has actually started to do is include the delivery charge and the price that they show on the site.

Rebecca Lindland  9:17  
Well and you can spin it to say look free shipping.

Dan Roth  9:22  
Shipping included

Sam Abuelsamid  9:24  
shipping, it's included Anyway,

Dan Roth  9:27  
you have to be careful with those words I listened to the America's Test Kitchen proof episode yesterday about orange juice and they can't say fresh squeezed but they can say squeezed from fresh oranges that's it that's the kind of thing you have to like it's just

Sam Abuelsamid  9:45  
what squeezed from you know, raw oranges.

Dan Roth  9:48  
It's about like oranges Tropicana, so like minute made was constantly in orange juice from concentrate, and Tropicana was was pasteurized and there's the whole thing about, you know, how you process it and And Tropicana was trying to say like, we don't process as well, which is nonsense. Of course they do. But they can't say fresh squeezed. Because it's it's not but you can say squeezed from fresh oranges because at some point in the process it has been and it's it's

Rebecca Lindland  10:15  
the diversions that we

Dan Roth  10:18  
need to divert us.

Nicole Wakelin  10:21  
Champagne only comes from certain regions. If you're from that region in France, otherwise, I don't know you're breaking international law or something. So

Sam Abuelsamid  10:30  
yeah, it's the same with most wines, you know, like Burgundy's and things like that. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  10:34  
But that's a topic that I'm happy to go and explore that location.

Dan Roth  10:40  
And champagne. I wouldn't. Yeah, what

Nicole Wakelin  10:41  
Rebecca, I think that's a good call the next episode of this, I will go with you to me, I'll take one for the team.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:48  
You know, I think if we ever get all the way to Illinois,

Dan Roth  10:54  
Urbana, probably, I think if we ever get big enough that we can have a budget where we can actually assign stories we can we go? Yeah, that'd be great.

Rebecca Lindland  11:05  
So anyway, so I loved I mean, I thought I, I thought the Broncos Broncos part was great. It's really, it's just, it's just a fun, I love the styling on it. I thought it behaved really well.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:17  
And I actually get the engine.

Nicole Wakelin  11:20  
So you know,

Dan Roth  11:23  
what's the AAA? We'd

Rebecca Lindland  11:23  
like to try the 2.0 liter? It was it was at times a little underpowered? You know, you're not going to be overtaking anybody, you know, in a crazy amount.

Unknown Speaker  11:36  
I yeah, I

Rebecca Lindland  11:37  
thought it was okay. I mean, it's, I didn't sit there and think oh, my gosh, come on, come on, come on, like I have, you know, in a smaller engine. But one more violator is 181 horsepower. I mean, it's, you know, as I said, I'd love to try the 2.0 liter, I think that would be really interesting. I think it depends on what kind of driving you're doing. So if you are the type of person that is constantly on the highway, that you're constantly trying to get around, that you're a more aggressive driver, I can see where this might be a little bit underpowered, if you need to, you know, jump the light and be the first one off at the traffic light, I can see where this might be a little, you know, not, not what you would want. But I think for around town, and, you know, more of kind of the errands sort of thing, if you want something that's cute and fun, and, you know, and has the power when you need it, but not necessarily the full amount. I think it's good. I mean, I would I was picturing like, college kids in this, you know, younger buyers. And I mean, that price point is pretty good.

Dan Roth  12:40  
You know, it's not cheap. That seems really expensive for like car buyers missing you got to

Sam Abuelsamid  12:45  
keep in mind. Bronco sport is it's it's only available four wheel drive. There's no front drive version of the process more. And it's not all wheel drive. it's it's a it's a full time floor. It's a full time four wheel drive system. So that's standard. So

Dan Roth  12:59  
it's expensive, and it sucks cast.

Rebecca Lindland  13:04  
I mean, if you compare me six combined,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:07  
you know, if you if you compare it, you know, to, you know, any of the all wheel drive compact crossovers. It's, you know, it's comparably priced. It's not significant. It's not more expensive than, you know, than a CRV or a rav4 with all wheel drive. And it's got a much more capable four wheel drive system than those do.

Nicole Wakelin  13:27  
Well, that's me. It's pricier but you get a lot. I drove both engines at the little launch that Ford did for like a one day program. And that is a capable vehicle. I mean, they really had us off road, they really had us going, you know, on soft sand. And you know, it was something you kind of looked at, like oh, a crossover on this the smallest up I don't know, it was fine. It took it without issues. So you're not getting a typical crossover experience. You're getting something really truly capable if you want to go off roading in that.

Rebecca Lindland  13:59  
Yeah, I would have loved to I mean, I thought it handled You know, we've got some ice and snow here. And I thought it handled it really, really well. I didn't have any issues coming up my driveway. And I actually had another vehicle that we're still under embargo, but that was a two wheel drive that I did have problems

Dan Roth  14:14  
with the Lamborghini

Sam Abuelsamid  14:20  
tires.

Rebecca Lindland  14:21  
It's not, you know, my driveway is not an easy driveway to get up and down, especially when it's when there's ice and snow and the bronco sport handled it really really well and very easily. I like the ground clearance on it. So there's a level of confidence in it that I thought was really really good. I love that

Dan Roth  14:41  
it is blocky, like the first escape the second generation of the first escape. So where did that come out? 2007 2008 the square one that looks Truckee? That's my favorite escape.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:00  
At first, it was a 2008 model.

Dan Roth  15:03  
The first first was much well, so. Yeah, okay. But they restyle that for 2008. And I remember because I wrote the post for auto blog about it. And I was super impressed. And it was just friendly and cheerful and had a crappy interior, but it was it was pleasant. And then they've gone to, you know, escapes that are, they look more like, you know, focus, which is fine, because that's what they are. But I like the return of some some sort of T square lines to it. And I think that it's, it's, it's so funny, because it's like the same thing as the escape and a lot of ways. But the stuff that makes it different makes it very different in they have two different personalities.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:53  
Yeah, right. And, you know, this, this time around this generation, you know, they, they really did split off, you know, they took the escape, and rather than trying to make it a crossover for everybody, you know, for people that, you know, want to have a more active lifestyle versus you know, people are just using it as a suburban commuter, you know, they split it and they made the escape more car, like, you know, still higher, like a crossover, it's more got a more car like personality to it. And they, you know, then they created the the bronco sport, you know, as the one for people that you know, want to go off into the woods that don't, you know, don't necessarily need to be crawling around Moab, you know, chasing chasing Wranglers, that's the big Bronco for them. But, you know, that want the capability to get to those trail heads, you know, with their, with their mountain bikes stashed in the rack inside the back, you know, and this is one of the things you know, they made it taller than the escape the roof is several inches taller. So you can actually wear it right, and so you can stash to two bikes inside, you know, so they're locked away, they're secure. You know, and having that four wheel drive capability. And it's, you know, it's, it's aimed at a very different kind of customer base. You know, obviously, some people are gonna cross shop, you know, those two, but it's really looking for two very different target markets.

Rebecca Lindland  17:10  
Yeah. And I like the fact that they glass pops out that you can separate opens up, you know, tailgate as a two it's a multifunctional tailgate so that you can actually have the glass open, which is rare these days, so you can stick a surfboard out or something like that. And I really liked it. And again, you know, now that I think about it more, I was in probably four inches of snow of unplowed snow when I went to take pictures at the beach. And it really did incredibly well it in that in that level of snow and the four by fours certainly was the reason for that. So, you know, this,

Nicole Wakelin  17:50  
it's a very, very versatile vehicle.

Rebecca Lindland  17:52  
It's one of those things like, if to me, if you lust after the Landrover defender, but you cannot afford it. I think something like the Ford Bronco is a really good alternative and you know, half the price, at least not saying the same buyers gonna buy it, but it's like the landlord. You know, the defender may be aspirational, but the Broncos sport is achievable.

Dan Roth  18:14  
Yeah, I think we're seeing some of that conflating of this, the look, and I don't I don't think either brand really cares. I think it's fine. Maybe Land Rover feels a little bit differently. But so Nicole, when you they had you out in the in the terrain on it, like what did you What did you do with it besides sand? Like did did you actually manage to get it stuck?

Nicole Wakelin  18:37  
Now that we It was like a lead follow type situation. So it wasn't like you could go off and just you know, have at it and see if you could get it stuck. But they had you going up some pretty steep terrain, a decent amount of like articulation, you know, some wheels in the air. Taking some very, there are a couple of really really sharp tight steep turns, you know, the kind of stuff that would sort of hang you up, you know, you can feel it card, like losing its ability to keep that traction and keep in control and start sliding. They had us doing some a little bit of high speeds, not super high speed a little bit faster stuff in the sand. So you could kind of have a little fun with it. And of course they showed it off, you know, with someone out there really giving it what for and it was you know, it was it was hard pack sand, loose sand. There was some gravel, steep, you know, up and down sharp. It was a little bit of everything. You know, it's one of those courses designed to

Sam Abuelsamid  19:31  
show here to Michigan for that drive. Yeah. Okay,

Nicole Wakelin  19:34  
yeah, I flew out to Michigan, it was like a fly in in the morning fly back in the evening kind of thing. So they did give you a pretty good taste, but I mean, it was like you know, not even 24 hours you're there for it's a very quick drive when everyone's flying in and flying out the same day. It's not like you really have a full day of driving. But it was enough to give you a taste of whether you thought this is actually going to be something I would want to take off road Is this something that just you want to take off? Or to name only? You know? And it could it did feel capable everywhere. And it was sort of the consensus that, you know, well, this is for looking like just a boxy crossover is what it looks like it actually handled itself on was actually quite capable. We drove both engines. So we got a taste of both of those power trains and spend some time on the road with it, too. So,

Dan Roth  20:23  
yeah, the

Rebecca Lindland  20:24  
How was the 2.0 liter? Was there a significant difference?

Nicole Wakelin  20:27  
I think, yes, you definitely you can notice a difference. I mean, you know, it's it's a decent increase in power between the two. But it, I think, I mean, if I was buying it, I tend to go for the larger the more powerful engine just because anytime you take a car on the highway, I hate getting onto a highway and feeling like the car in my rearview mirror is way, way, way, way closer than I want it to be by the time I get. So I think but I don't feel like you were back. I didn't feel like the the smaller engine was underpowered to the point that it was not fun to drive. You know, it wasn't, she thought, oh, gosh, this is struggling, this is miserable. It will get me out of this thing. But yeah, you definitely notice the extra power. And I think it makes a big difference. More. So if you're going to be doing something off road, you know, if you want the extra power, the extra torque to do that, that bigger engine is going to make a difference. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  21:18  
And keep in mind, too, that these the loans that we're getting normally we have a car for a week. And these we're getting for three, maybe four days. And I know for me, I think for most of us, the weather has been so atrocious that there are days like today where we're not doing I'm not doing any driving, the cars are coated in ice. And so we're not getting the normal seat time in this. But you know, the bronco I did, I did take on the Merritt Parkway as well route 15, which has a lot of hills. And again, I never felt like I wanted to like come on, let's go. You know, it was still it was still very, very capable.

Dan Roth  22:01  
So that 1.3 the last 1.5 The last time I drove that I was impressed with it's the last time I drove the Ford triple I can't remember which size it was but I was impressed with its its, you know, torque it, it doesn't feel like a three cylinder because it's pretty muscular. And it's it's not all that small. So it has good torque until it runs out. So that's that's where I felt like it's, it's more powerful than you'd expect. And then it just sort of drops off at a certain point like it. So it's, you find the limits of its is I guess you'd call it bandwidth. And that's I think the difference between that and the the two leaders, the two leader probably has, you know, you can stretch it's got more power overall and it can sort of stretch it a little bit too.

Nicole Wakelin  22:44  
Yeah, it goes from I'm double checking 190 pound feet up to 277. So

Dan Roth  22:51  
that's a lot. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  22:52  
it's a big difference. So that so you're gonna feel it is it is noticeable. Yeah, it is definitely something you're gonna notice.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:00  
Yeah, I agree. I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider the one five, you know, significantly underpowered for most, most people. Yeah, I think I think most people will be more than more than fine with it.

Dan Roth  23:10  
Yeah, it just feels like it runs out of breath at a certain point. Yeah. And it which it does. Alright, so. Nicole, you are driving the Tahoe that I was supposed to have because I had the escalator that you were supposed to have

Nicole Wakelin  23:26  
an escalator I'm gonna call you out on it Dan. I have never once ever in my whole life driven and escalate and I still haven't you kept it from ending up in my driveway. I'm

Dan Roth  23:35  
sorry. I blame the COVID

Nicole Wakelin  23:37  
I know I'm gonna blame you because it's more fun. It's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:41  
We do that all the time with Dan so

Dan Roth  23:43  
that's fine.

Nicole Wakelin  23:45  
Yeah, I have I have the Tahoe the premier is what I was driving in. Like Rebecca was saying we've had miserable weather here. So if I wanted to drive it I was going to take it out in snow and ice and the kind of stuff that you should not be going out and driving he's

Dan Roth  24:02  
not yours. So who cares? This isn't this is not actually how we operate. We are very responsible but

Nicole Wakelin  24:07  
I am very responsible is very careful. And this is as the one that I had it was just over $71,000 so it's not cheap. You know it's it's gonna hold all your family and friends and half the town but it is it's an expensive vehicle. It is great to drive the like they're driving on the highway. We had a time I was driving and there was probably a good four or five inches and it is sort of gotten packed down to that icy rutted mess that's very likely to send you careening off the road and for cart that big. I mean, it's big, it's substantial. It doesn't get away from you. I was truly impressed driving it on the highway like that because I you know, I thought okay, I gotta have I gotta go where I need to go today. It's gonna be kind of sloppy. I'll take it easy. I wasn't even nervous. It was there was no sense of the car getting away from you and big vehicles will do that and that kind of stuff. I know the whole four wheel drive thing makes him better. But there's that heaviness when you hit a rut and it tosses you to the left or tosses you to the right. Suddenly all that weight is not your friend because it really throws you, you know?

Dan Roth  25:12  
Yeah, exactly. I feel the same way with the escalate. And that's about as much as soon as escalate because we talked about last week, but I think this generation of GM SUV feels really not necessarily nimble, but light on its feet in a way that you wouldn't expect. It still feels heavy, but it feels wieldy instead of unwieldy.

Nicole Wakelin  25:33  
Yeah, there's, like big vehicles can feel kind of cumbersome. I mean, you know, you have the four wheel drive, so that you're, you have better traction, and you have the ground clearance so that you know, you're not going to get stuck in that, you know, one foot snowbank at the end of your driveway, but they can when they when you start to lose control or things are sloppy. They're not fun to drive, they can be challenging, and this actually is very controlled. It was very wieldy I'm going to use that word. Yeah, it was very unwieldy. So you don't feel you don't have that you know that suddenly you're like left right left right. Whoa, let me get back sleeves up and get back in control. That didn't happen once and the drive that I went on was probably an hour I had to drive to get where I was going in that kind of messy sloppy snow so I was I was impressed. It was nice.

Dan Roth  26:16  
Did you have the the 5.3 liter V eight or the diesel?

Nicole Wakelin  26:20  
I had the five three Yeah.

Dan Roth  26:23  
How's that? Because I I haven't tried it with that engine and does it feel underpowered? Is it What's it like economy wise How does it do? No,

Nicole Wakelin  26:33  
I it does not feel underpowered. I mean when you when you want to move it moves, you know driving low speed cities, whatever. But when you're on the highway, and you really want to hammer that gas to get some some get it to move. It goes I mean, you feel you've again, you feel the weight of this, it's not a small vehicle, nothing is going to make you feel like you're in a sports car in this thing. Like you know, you're in a great big beast of an SUV. But it never had that sense of feeling that you hit the gas and had to think I hate that that sort of lag where you're like, Okay, come on. What I want is for you to go because I'm trying to merge Come on, come on. It never does that. It really does move and what I liked about it is that it's quiet like it's not luxury car you know Mercedes Benz can't hear anything outside your windows don't know the world exists kind of quiet. But it is very quiet. You don't hear that big engine working. When you hit the gas in which this is going to carry people you're not in a sports car. It's people mover and you want to be able to talk to the people in the third row without screaming yourself horse you and do you really

Dan Roth  27:37  
feel the car?

Sam Abuelsamid  27:43  
You obviously don't have you know, adult children that are gone. You know, when you know when they're when they're when they're still young. You

Dan Roth  27:48  
know, when they come back like that you actually want to talk to them.

Nicole Wakelin  27:54  
In college, she could come back she could sit in the back I could chat with her.

Dan Roth  27:58  
I'm I actually like to do we have teenagers now. So I do like it when they actually deign to speak to us. It's great,

Nicole Wakelin  28:04  
right? When they finally say like, Hey, Dad, you're like, Whoa, they spoke English my

Sam Abuelsamid  28:09  
existence.

Dan Roth  28:10  
So what makes the what makes the premiere? Like how is it equipped? Because you can get it cheaper, and you can get it more expensive? What is it?

Nicole Wakelin  28:18  
Yeah, cuz they have the you can definitely get more expensive. But I think with this one, you're getting a pretty good range of stuff. I mean, you're getting like a Bose audio system. Oh, there's a 10.2 inch infotainment screen like it's a pretty giant input screen. Yeah, it's huge, which is nice. Especially so you know, you have infotainment screens, what's the smallest ones are like I think still five inches, six inches like Toyota. Okay, yeah, like these really tiny screens. It's hard enough when you're in a small car, and the screen isn't that far away from you. Suddenly, you're sitting behind the wheel of something this big with a huge front seat, and you have a tiny screen and you're like, I have no idea what that says like you can't reach it. You can't read it. This is huge. So it's it's nice to have a screen this big in a car this like this. And you have all sorts, there's like wireless charging and, you know, power seats. It has all the kind of bells and whistles that you'd expect in something that's gonna run $70,000 Yeah. And I was looking at delivery

Sam Abuelsamid  29:16  
for that price tag.

Nicole Wakelin  29:18  
What's that?

Sam Abuelsamid  29:19  
I said it better for that price point. Right.

Nicole Wakelin  29:20  
And you were talking about the pricing delivery on the Ford stuff earlier. This one destination charge was 13 $100

Rebecca Lindland  29:28  
Okay, so that's actually less though. I mean, what do you think? I wonder what it is on a pickup tracks because

Sam Abuelsamid  29:33  
probably the same I

Rebecca Lindland  29:34  
see. 95

Nicole Wakelin  29:36  
Yeah. So it's a chunk. I mean, that's, it's, you know,

Rebecca Lindland  29:38  
a lot but it's not nearly as much as some of the others, right? Yeah. But no, they are definitely they are absolutely getting up there.

Unknown Speaker  29:45  
Mm hmm.

Rebecca Lindland  29:46  
I get what I mean one of the things I like about the GM, the GM vehicles, these full size SUVs is there and we've talked about this before I think when I had the the Chevy Suburban diesel, these are purpose built You know, this is for a specific lifestyle, a specific type of probably family, that they need the capabilities, they need the towing capacity they need, you know that maybe that four by four off road capability they live, you know up a dirt road, like they need the capabilities. And that's why I'm an advocate for having these types of vehicles in the in, in the showroom like you don't have to buy this vehicle. There's plenty of others that you can buy. But I just love the fact that they're still available in that truck based, super capable, large SUV that people need. I mean, a lot of people buy these because they actually need them.

Nicole Wakelin  30:42  
Well, it's it's interesting, because people tend to sort of rail against the idea that you buy the same thing, people who buy a pickup truck, and they're like, you never haul anything but air. You know, they don't need it. And people do the same thing to the large SUV. Why do you need an SUV you don't have the Brady Bunch for a family, you don't need something that big. But you'd be surprised with how much space you sometimes do want. You have two kids, you have their friends in the car, suddenly, you've got four kids riding along in there and the amount of stuff. And if you're an active family, if you're someone who likes to go camping, you like to go on road trips, you like to do any kind of outdoorsy stuff. Suddenly, just a regular, you know, two row SUV feels ridiculously cramped. You want that third row, if not for people, you want that room for cargo and you really truly use it the few times that I had big cars like this, when we did camping when the girls were little, suddenly it was just oh, I get why you would want this with a family. Even if you don't have four or five, six kids, just to be able to think I don't have to pack everything, like playing a game of Tetris. I can just put it all in the back because there's plenty of room. It's fantastic.

Dan Roth  31:51  
Yeah, well, there's that argument to that, like, why do you need the SUV for that, you know, you can get a lot the same amount of space or more more efficiently in a minivan. And that's true. And it's an option and you should look at it. But if you're gonna do that space plus towing something,

Sam Abuelsamid  32:07  
then you're you know, you're in a whole different use case, right? And you need the SUV for the telling, right gonna, if you're gonna tow something big, yeah, or anything more than like a, you know, a pop up trailer,

Dan Roth  32:19  
right and like pop ups there's there are you know, things you can tell it that are pretty light. But you really don't want to get to the edge of your towing capacity and and you know, minivans, I'm assuming that the most of minivans gonna tow is probably like 3500 pounds. That's not a ton. It's enough for for a lot of stuff. But if you've got a small camper or a boat that you use on one of the lakes or snow, a minivan can definitely do snowmobiles, those aren't that bad. But you find real quickly that you you have run it out of capacity, plus, you know, towing capacity plus payload with with people and stuff. They're just not, they're not designed for and you can, if you are comfortable with being reckless, you can go over the towing capacity. That's your choice. But

Unknown Speaker  33:07  
I do not recommend I don't recommend

Dan Roth  33:09  
it on the podcast.

Nicole Wakelin  33:11  
The other thing with with minivans like yeah, they're they're like sort of like the ultimate family holiday because your kids can just fling the door open and hop right in. It's not like they have to reach up and grab a hand. It's five inches above their head.

Dan Roth  33:22  
And I do love minivans. Don't get me wrong.

Nicole Wakelin  33:24  
Yeah, right. And I there's and you can get all wheel drive minivans out there. But the one thing you don't get in a minivan because I have done this I have is their lower, they just don't have the ground clearance of an SUV. So when it comes time to just have to plow through like I said, if you're doing any kind of anything where you're even like a dirt road, it's a little bit rough, you know, where you got some ruts if you're going if you're going into a field to park the car to fair if it's the wrong kind of field, you know, and if there's snow and you try to get through a driveway, you're probably going to get through the snow bank in your Tahoe you might not get through the snow bank and your minivan just because it's low enough. They're just gonna get stuck four wheel drive or all wheel drive or no it's gonna get stuck in a in an SUV probably isn't because it's higher.

Dan Roth  34:06  
Yeah. And we have the choice.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:10  
This is why manufacturers make all these different form factors. Because you know, everybody needs everybody has different needs. If you live in New Hampshire and and need to go through forefoot snowbanks you that's why you have tacos. You know, if you if you live somewhere where it's warm, and you don't have that need, then a minivan is maybe a better choice. Yeah, or steel or Miata. Yeah.

Dan Roth  34:34  
Well, it's it's truly the SUV can tell us the Miata to the racetrack. So you can

Sam Abuelsamid  34:40  
That's true. The or you could just drive the Miata to the track

Dan Roth  34:44  
when you get serious. But the thing that I love about the big SUVs is that they they really are like an all purpose vehicle. Yeah, sometimes you're carrying around more capability than you're using. But when you need that capability, it's there. Some of its coming. Again, we have the choice to pay for the comfort that we use and the efficiency thing and the the impact on the environment isn't my favorite thing to think about. So we're getting more options and we can choose more wisely about that. That's, that's coming. Make your own peace with that.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:20  
Suppose for long, we're gonna have electric, you know, full size SUVs. I mean, they're they're coming in next couple of years.

Rebecca Lindland  35:26  
And there's so much more efficient than they used to be. Oh, yeah, Emily cylinder

Sam Abuelsamid  35:30  
deactivation with what did you get Nicole?

Nicole Wakelin  35:34  
Oh, you know, and I'm gonna be honest, I didn't check the fuel economy in it. I didn't look so I don't even have an answer for you. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:41  
When I had the Yukon Denali a couple of months ago, I think I got like 14 with it. 14 or 15 rails with the six two.

Rebecca Lindland  35:49  
Yeah. And also we have that we have a diesel version. And if you can fit six people and only take one vehicle, rather than four people on a second vehicle, that's also something Whoa,

Dan Roth  36:00  
now you're starting to make the case for trains.

Rebecca Lindland  36:06  
There's always a case for train. Yeah.

Dan Roth  36:09  
But yeah, that's, that's true. And, you know, like Nicole said, like, we I sort of fell in love with the big SUVs for the same reason. Like when we if we were to go somewhere with all you know, there's only four of us but you know, you've got the dog dogs, a member of the family, if you want to go somewhere for like a weekend, well, you got to pack the kennel for the day, the little

Rebecca Lindland  36:27  
crate thing.

Dan Roth  36:28  
Yeah, it doesn't fit in everything, you know, barely fits in the back of the Grand Cherokee. And I, you know, folds flat, so I put everything on top of it. But then you've got like, full luggage full back seat full in the front, and you get like, you know, here's the thing for snacks, and you just you wind up really cramped even in a mid size vehicle. So having that extra space is is nice. And so if you can spring for 70 grand, see get some more square footage, it's it's, I like them,

Nicole Wakelin  36:57  
I was just looking to see like, okay, so the premieres the top, the LS, you can get into it with a four wheel drive for 53. Right. So that's a pretty big swing, you know, it's, it's a big difference. So if you aren't concerned about caps and chairs and leather seats, and some of the bells and whistles 53 for a vehicle that size, with the capability, it's really about the versatility you can whatever it is, whether it's people or whether it's cargo, or whether it's putting your dog in the dog crate in the back or towing some huge, heavy piece of equipment, you have a lot of options for that price. You know, and it's you know,

Dan Roth  37:30  
I think that's actually the same reason why people buy the big pickup trucks now too, because the crew cabs are the most popular form. And the reason why it's so popular is because they're freaking huge, they got an enormous backseat, and you can put dirty crap in the back if you need to in the in the bed. And so it's it's two thirds of an SUV, and you don't have to worry about getting the interior messy if you need to, you know, put dirt bikes in it or something, you know, so it's great. They're popular for a reason. Yeah. All right. So moving on, uh, Sam, you want you had the Maki, and this dovetails nicely with getting into topics. So you had the Maki in the cold.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:11  
Yeah, so you know, kind of overlapped a bit with with when Rebecca had and we talked about it last week. And you know, Rebecca is experienced with it. But I want to focus on cold weather performance with EBS. And, you know, this is this is a real issue. Because, you know, with something like a Tahoe, you know, in winter weather in New Hampshire, you know, one of the advantages, obviously, it's a disadvantage in many respects. But one of the advantages of a big internal combustion engine is it's a source of waste heat, you know, that engine generates a lot of heat that is not transformed into, into usable power to move the vehicle. But it's great if you need to heat the cabin. And you know, because you can just run that, that coolant from the engine through a heat exchanger in a cabin, warm up the cabin. Wonderful. And it doesn't, that doesn't put any extra load on that engine. Although there are other things about cold weather driving that do put extra load on it, like your your rolling resistance goes up and things like that, that just seems faster. With an electric vehicle, you don't have that source of waste heat, which means that if you don't warm up the car in advance, you know, if you want to raise the temperature from, let's say, for example, six degrees Fahrenheit, up to, you know, something more comfortable, like 65 that takes a lot of energy and you're pulling that straight out of the battery because you're gonna have to run some sort of either a heat pump or a resistance heater to heat up the air in the cabin, and also run your seat heaters and things like that. So this is this is why, you know, if you have an Eevee you know, in winter weather, you can generally count on range dropping by roughly 30 to 40%. You know, whatever it's rated at so In the case of the Maki, I was driving as an all wheel drive extended range, it's officially EPA rated at 270 miles of range. Realistically, you can expect to get maybe, you know, in winter weather performance 160 to 170 miles at the most, which, you know, truthfully, for almost everybody, you know, if you're plugging it in every day, you know, plugging in at night, when you come home, that's more than adequate. That's more than almost anybody needs for their daily driving, you know, long distance, you know, road trips is another story, but for your daily driving, that's, that's more than sufficient. So what, what I did, when I had the machi, the the first full day I had it, I took it out for a long drive to evaluate the range, you know, and that that first day, it started off at about 20 degrees in the morning when I left. And I had I had it plugged in overnight. And I used a feature that all EBS have, which is the ability to precondition the cabinet. So when the car is plugged in, you can program it, you can say, this is the time I want to leave. So I want to leave at 830. And I want it warm. And what happens is while it's still plugged in, it's actually you know that say 745, eight o'clock, it's going to start it's going to start up the vehicle, or at least start up the heating system and start warming the cabin up to you know, your predefined temperature. And, you know, it's doing that while it's still plugged in. So it's not taking juice from the battery, which is great. And then you can just go and you can drive. And you you still have a lot more of your range. And so I spent the next several hours driving it, I drove 164 miles.

And when I left, you know, with the car already pre warmed. And I left the the climate control at about 62 and also use the seat heaters which are two. Yeah, well, the seat seat heaters and steering wheel heater are much more efficient for keeping you comfortable, it's much more effective, because it's right in contact with your body. So even at 62, I was still comfortable in the car every once in a while it turned up a little bit, warm it up a little and then turn it back down. But for the most part, I just use the seat heaters and the steering wheel heater. And my hands and my backside were nice and warm. And it was comfortable, I got 164 miles out of it still had 81 miles of range left on the meter when I got back. So that's 254 miles or 245, amazing 245 miles. And you know, and it was about 30 degrees by the time I got home. So that's that's actually really impressive. You know, so, I mean, in moderate weather conditions, you know, you should easily be able to get 300 miles or more out of one of these things, you know, unless you're, you know, blasting around, you know, back roads and really, you know, driving it like a Mustang, you know, if you're just driving it like a, like a regular vehicle, you know, just daily commuting 300 miles of range is absolutely very realistic in in warm weather conditions. But you will with an Eevee you will get less range. And you know, on subsequent days when the temperature got significantly colder, and it was down into the single digits overnight. You know, even even with preconditioned, you know, when I got up in the morning, and when I took a look at it, it was showing, you know, 160 170 miles of available range when I unplugged it, even at 100% charge. So that's that is something that you absolutely need to keep in mind. So if you're going to have an Eevee in cold weather climates, make sure you take advantage of the preconditioning functions, you know, if you're if you're commuting, you know, or even even if you're not commuting, you know even even if you're only going out sporadically, if you know you're going to be going out in an hour, you can just go in the app, you know, tell it to warm it up, you know, say okay, I want to leave in 45 minutes, tell it to warm it up while it's still plugged in. And that'll help your range a lot.

Rebecca Lindland  43:59  
I wonder I assume that it's the same in hot weather.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:03  
So the same is the same is true for hot weather. Yeah, if it's if it's really hot, you can you can actually have it turn the air conditioning on a coolant down before you leave.

Rebecca Lindland  44:11  
Yeah, I remember talking to somebody from a manufacturer who shall remain nameless. And they were doing hot weather testing in the Middle East when I was there. And they said that the results were pretty miserable, and really struggling to get any kind of any kind of decent range. But this was also you know, 767 years ago, and so I think they've done a lot of work in compensating for that and just that thing and you know, I was in these four products that we've all kind of had recently. One of the things I really like and it's just it's a silly feature, but it's just it's that emotional solution I've talked about before, where the when the when it's you know, 19 degrees outside and you get in the car and you turn it And the heated seats are still on. And the steering wheel is still, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's almost like a it senses the outdoor temperature and says, you probably want this. You know, I like the fact that I don't always have to go back and put the heater on again, but the steering wheel on again, it's like you should know that. Now one thing I was wondering with the app, because I know like my little cocoa, my Buick Encore, I know I have that same kind of like you can start it up and all these different things. And I never remember. Can it work with your calendar or like your app to say or ways to say, Hey, we know that you're, you know, you're going to be driving soon? Do you want me to precondition your Ford Mustang Maki, it should. And I'll take the royalties on that

Sam Abuelsamid  45:53  
I don't think I don't think the the the Ford app that the fordpass app does that yet doesn't do calendar sinking. But I think that is something that's in development. But you can, you know, like, if you have a regular schedule, you know, if you're not like us, and you know, you, you leave for work,

Dan Roth  46:12  
Nobody leaves for

Sam Abuelsamid  46:13  
work. At the same time, every day, you can go in the app, and you can set up a schedule. So you can say, Monday to Friday, you know, I'm leaving at 730 every morning. Yeah, and I want it warm, or cool or whatever, whichever is appropriate. You know, or weekends, you know, nine o'clock, you know, if I want to go do some grocery shopping on Saturday morning, things like that. So you can set up a schedule. And so it, it's not speaking directly to your calendar, your other calendars yet. But I think that's that's something we will see in the not too distant future. Especially, you know, a couple years from now, you know, when Ford starts rolling out their next generation six system that has this based on Android automotive, you know, because that's going to have full support for all the Google Apps. So if you're at least if you're using Google Calendar, or you know, or other calendar apps that are running, you know, that it can run right on the car, you know, then it'll have you can you can give it access to all that stuff,

Dan Roth  47:11  
you're gonna know where you are and what you're doing at all times.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:13  
I already know where you are, what you're doing. All the cars are connected. Yeah, but your cell phone provider knows where you are all the time.

Rebecca Lindland  47:21  
Yeah, you know what they know it already, I'm also taking advantage of at least make my life easier.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:27  
If they're gonna, if they're gonna abuse us, you might as well give us something for

Dan Roth  47:33  
the apps that learned like there, I think Volvo and maybe BMW and some of the other premium brands already do that, where they use a little bit of AI to sort of learn your patterns, and provide information that might be useful to you. So like, the Volvo app will say, Hey, you know, I've detected there's a traffic whatever, on your, your normal route, you may want to plan ahead or something like that. So it definitely exists, it just may not have trickled down to the super mainstream yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:06  
Yeah, problem with that. So there, there is one other thing I want to address as well. And again, you know, I mean, this, this was something I experienced with the Maki, but it's it's a universal thing with EDS, again, related to cold weather, and that's charging performance. So the Maki supports charging from DC fast chargers at up to 150 kilowatts, you know, at 150 kilowatts, you should be able to get, you know, to, you know, from basically, you know, empty to an 80% charge, and between 35 and 40 minutes. However, lithium ion batteries are very sensitive to temperature, if it's too hot, or too cold, they don't like to take charge, you know, they have a relatively, you know, they're like humans, they have a fairly narrow range of temperatures where they're comfortable, you know, usually somewhere in the range of 40 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. And if it's if you're outside of that band, they don't like to be charged as fast, they won't, they just they simply won't take a charge as fast. Or if you do try to force it, you know, it can damage the battery. So when I went to take the machi to my local electrify America charging station, you know, just a few minutes away from me here and plug it in to top it off. I found that it would, because the temperature was about, I don't know 15 degrees or so at the time, it would not charge it over like 48 kilowatts, which is about one third of its rated speed. So to do a full charge on it would have taken over an hour and a half, almost almost two hours to do.

Rebecca Lindland  49:50  
That's what I found when I was at the charge point one it was going to be almost four hours. Yeah. It actually didn't give it I didn't know exactly how much it was going To be but it was so Bob, I charged for an hour and 15 minutes and got like 25 miles me was painful.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:09  
That may have been a different situation, you know, there may have been a limit of the the charger, right? The charge point chart, I don't think charge point has 150 kilowatt chargers yet.

Rebecca Lindland  50:19  
Yeah, no, it wasn't it was a level two. Oh, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:21  
Okay, that's why Yeah. But you know, this was a level three DC fast charger, and it still would have taken over an hour and a half to fully charge at those temperatures. And, you know, again, this is something that manufacturers are working to address, you know, so one of the things that Ford's working on that's going to be in an upcoming over the air update for the machi is preconditioning the battery. So if you, if you put if you go into nav and you know, point it to a charging station, you know, you want to go charge it up and say okay, I'm going to the charging station, so it knows that you're going to charge it, it will actually manage the cooling system of the battery, to heat it up to bring it up to a temperature where it can take a charge at a faster rate. So then when you get there, then you can just plug it in, and it'll start charging, you know, at, you know, 150 kilowatts instead of it 45 kilowatts, so you'll get that charge in there much faster, because the battery has already been pre warmed. But if it's been sitting overnight, in your driveway, you know, or sitting outside for a couple of hours, you know, and those kinds of temperatures and cold soak, then you know, it's gonna take a while to warm up that battery to a temperature where it can take that charge. So, so that is that is again, something to be aware of, you know, and this is this is a universal Evie issue when you live in cold weather climates like this. Or similarly in hot weather climates, you know, they'll cool down the battery, though, to the degree they can, so that it can take a charge faster. But I did I did experience you know, the plugin charge with with the Maki, this is a new standard that was just finalized last year. And electrify, America is the first charging network to implement it. Ford, Volkswagen Porsche are all you know, they're they're all putting that into their TVs now into the software. So when you get one of these vehicles, you can set up your fordpass account, you know, login, put in payment information, you know, just put in your credit card or your debit card into the fordpass account. And then I pulled up, you know, they the car was already set up with a fordpass account from Ford, they had already pre configured it. So I didn't have to do that. You pull up, plug it in, wait about 30 seconds wallet, the charger communicates with the car authenticates your account. And then it just starts charging. You don't have to mess around with any RFID tags or, you know, putting in your credit card information or anything and setting up any kind of account. You do it one time, you know when you get the car, and then you never have to worry about it again. So hopefully all the other charging networks will be implementing this over the over the next couple of years.

Dan Roth  53:06  
So I think they're great. I think that people are focused on the range number a little bit. Like as a distraction. Just the range is mostly going to be fine for what you're doing.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:21  
I think, you know, range concerns were a legitimate concern. You know, 810 years ago when we had the first generation Nissan leafs and focus electrics and things like that, that had

Dan Roth  53:31  
I do remember driving a leaf in the winter and being like, oh, man, how's

Sam Abuelsamid  53:33  
it rain?

Dan Roth  53:35  
On the highway just want you to go down.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:38  
For the first time, the first time I had a leaf, you know, at 74 miles of range. And I was supposed to go to Detroit. I live 35 miles from Detroit. And I was going to a baseball game with with the folks from Nissan and I went to look for where there was where there was a charger near Comerica Park. And it turns out that, you know, there were two level two chargers, a couple of blocks away from the baseball stadium, but I had no idea, you know, if they were actually going to be available, what, you know, what, what kind of condition they were in. And, you know, so I looked at it so well, I've got 70 mile round trip, I got 74 miles of range, when I come back, it's gonna be dark, the headlights are gonna be on also consuming more power. I think I'm gonna leave the lead from the driveway and take my Mustang.

Rebecca Lindland  54:29  
Well, and also, you know, I heard a great stat one time though, like, when you think about when the low fuel light goes on in your car, you've got like two to three gallons left, and that's like 60 miles, and you know, 6075 miles and so you're driving with your low fuel light on always in the older movies. And that's enough to you know, to give you your engine.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:56  
Yeah, well and that's that's the thing about current generation ease, you know, like The Maki, the Chevy Bolt, Tesla's everything that's coming out now has gonna have, you know, 200 plus miles of range. So even in these cold weather environments, you know, if you've got, if you've got something that has a nominal 200 mile range, you're still looking at 130 miles of range, even in this kind of weather. So it's really not an issue for almost anybody anymore. So I don't think the range is an issue. But like I said, there are absolutely things that you can and should do to mitigate it to the degree you can like preconditioning it, you know, for either hot or cold. And, you know, be aware that it's going to take you longer to charge.

Nicole Wakelin  55:41  
It's, it's weird to me how range like he said, originally, range really was an issue and he had 17 miles of range, it was like driving with your, you know, low fuel level light on all the time. But it's been such a long while since that was what the typical range was. And somehow it's like, stuck in everyone's head. I can talk to any random consumer about TVs and the firt. Like, friends, whatever. And the first thing you see Yeah, yeah, but the range? How far do you typically drive in a day? on a road trip? How often do you need to drive 200 miles in your average day? And are you driving to the middle of nowhere where there's not a single place where you could just top that off just a little bit if you needed to be, but somehow that that got into the collective consciousness of everybody that EBS don't have the range you need, you're never going to make it there are only two charging stations in the entire nation, you have to find those to charge your car. And that's been hard to shake, like no matter how much they say, hey, there's extended range batteries, and even the not extended range batteries give you huge amounts of range. All anyone hears is there's not enough range, I'm going to run out of juice, I'm going to be stuck on the side of the road. I don't know how, how they shake that. I don't know what campaign needs to happen to convince people. It isn't the issue. It was 10 years ago.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:01  
Yeah, it's it's, uh, you know, it is a tough challenge. You know, I think, you know, manufacturers are starting to try and tackle that part of it, you know, is just having these longer ever longer range vehicles, you know, but there's, you know, then there's the, you know, the trade off with cost and weight, you know, so I think, GM with what they're with what they're going to be doing this year with their everybody in campaign for their new TVs, I think, you know, that's one of the things that they're going to try to address this year. So we'll see what happens. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  57:31  
I think, you know, I've said it before, but we haven't made the argument for how an Eevee is better. As a better solution for mobility needs than internal combustion.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:43  
I'll give you one, okay. You plug in your car at night. And you know, when you have when you're leaving in the morning, you unplug it. You don't have to go stand at a gas station when it's 15 degrees out and pump pump fuel in your car.

Rebecca Lindland  57:59  
in your garage. Otherwise, you're you're schlepping through the snow and ice and

Sam Abuelsamid  58:04  
you know, I didn't have it in the garage. I had it parked in the driveway. Hey, you know, I just I just pull out the cord and drape it over my garbage bin. Yeah, and, you know, and then drive off, you know, it takes me five seconds to unplug it. And

Rebecca Lindland  58:17  
I know, I'm not saying that they're not it's just we haven't made that argument. Public.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:22  
Right. So there, I mean that that is an absolute advantage to not not having to stand there, you know, at a gas station when it's that cold. By all means.

Nicole Wakelin  58:31  
My favorite thing and it's about ease and I everyone knows you're quiet. Everyone knows they don't have an engine. But really you don't appreciate not having the engine until you're trying to start your car early and your family still asleep and your engine sounds suddenly sounds like a freight train when you turn the ignition right not having that not waking up your neighbors we have a neighbor who has a very loud unnamed vehicle that guy goes to work at like five o'clock every morning and I hear that I wouldn't hear him if he had me V and on a weird note I drove it was a plug in hybrid. So not an Eevee but still you have that you know low speed running and electric only thing. We were in a national park and all the animals stayed put because you're nice. You can see everything I'm like this is the weirdest side benefit is that like, like the little deer were running and fleeing from everybody else here to come a little plug in hybrid. They're like, hey, they didn't move. So it was really there's all these weird side benefits to the quiet. dark mode.

Dan Roth  59:36  
JACK lighting mode. I get arrested for that. I'm sorry, I always have to go dark. I don't know why. Let's move on into topics. But first before we do that, Nicole, I know you introduced yourself at the top of the show, but we should give you a chance to sort of tell our audience who you are where to find yourself. stuff what you do? Again, all of those those self promotion II things.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:05  
Okay, all the self promotion things. Thank you I actually I freelance. So I write for a bunch of different outlets online I write for car expert, I write for auto buy tell I write for Rebecca drives, big one lead with that. I don't know what I was thinking. I also write for the Boston Globe and the guys over at car talk. So I'm kind of all over the place. And I'm pretty active on social media, too. It's just my name, Nicole wakeland. If you Google that, you will find me on Instagram and Twitter. And you'll find my website, which is just Nicole wakeland.com. So I'm really kind of I'm kind of all over the place to a lot of different stuff reviews and first drives back when in the before times when those were a thing? Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:00:52  
So like, Is there a particular

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:54  
in Nashua? New Hampshire?

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:56  
Yeah, I'm in New Hampshire. So I'm about an hour north of Boston. Yes. And tax free. Tax Free in New Hampshire.

Dan Roth  1:01:05  
Is there a particular like perspective that you come out with this? Because the I mean, I'm sure you will. You will note, as Rebecca I'm sure you will also note, the auto journalism industry is kind of dude heavy. Is there a particular thing that you do better

Unknown Speaker  1:01:23  
than heavy duty, right?

Dan Roth  1:01:27  
Is there a particular perspective that you feel like is is missing that you kind of try to put into your coverage?

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:36  
It's I don't know that it's necessarily a woman perspective, or a not dude perspective. But what I try to put in my coverage is that, you know, we can all talk tech and numbers and talk in circles about that at a level that the average consumer is never going to gather. Most people don't, you know, there's gearheads that are really into that. But I think it's important to talk to people in reviews in a way that is relatable, you know, the things that are going to matter and give them just enough numbers to make when it makes sense. This engine has x horsepower, this engine has x times two. So just to give them enough for it to make sense, but just giving the level of detail that some reviews give, I feel like sometimes it does a disservice because people tune out. So I like to write reviews that give the key features for the person who's going to want that car, what's the family person going to want from their SUV? What's the you know, what's the person buying a new little starter crossover for their college kid? What is it? What matters to the college kid? Does it have what it needs? So I tried to write reviews that are relatable, because I think that's something important. I think sometimes reviews go over people's heads because it gets you focused on on tech and numbers and details that really aren't something that a large percentage of the population understands or that matters to them, or is relatable,

Dan Roth  1:02:53  
completely agree. Like, here's the numbers. Here's why it's good. Here's why you should care. Yeah. All right. Well, let's, let's jump in and talk about some numbers. We can stick with the Maki for a minute, because we had a listener write in with questions about Maki buying. And so we've talked the car up on the show. And if you want to go get one, you've got to deal with your local Ford dealer who, you know, should be a nice experience. They should know what they're doing with it. But apparently, you can run into some challenges. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:25  
yeah, so Adam, jack lengow, who I don't think has ever written to us before, at least not since last week he wrote to us. He says I wanted to share my Eevee shopping experience recently as I think it highlights a problem with Evie adoption that sometimes doesn't get much attention. Usually here we hear things like range, charging network and even build quality when people talk about EBS. But what struck me is the dealer experience. In my Eevee shopping what I'm finding is a big difference between Tesla and other TVs and that's dealers Tesla's by Tesla buying is technically pretty easy. No haggling, no hours at a dealership, pick what you want and do everything online. The sales process is relatively simple in my experience. What I'm finding and shopping for Ford's new Evie the Maki is that this facet is this fascinating paradox where dealers are simultaneously woefully unprepared for how to sell a vehicle yet very prepared to take advantage of you and it creates a very bad buying experience. I've spoken with four dealers in my area with Maki's available for purchase. I've asked them about Ford options, which is a new Financing Plan available specifically on the Maki and and what I plan to utilize it. It's clearly listed on Ford's website. Only one of the four dealers had a clue what four options was. I had to explain it to the rest and he drops a link in here and I'll include that in show notes. And then I asked if they participate in the clean the California clean fuel reward which provides a 15 $100 discount right off the top of a new Eevee in California, not a rebate but an actual date. discounted time of purchase, which technically, I think is a rebate not but not like a mail in rebate. At any rate,

Dan Roth  1:05:06  
is that ever like a rebate that goes through rebate or tax?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:08  
Yeah, it's not it's not tax credit,

Dan Roth  1:05:10  
does it go to the dealer? Like, is it something that the dealer has to, you know, like the person gets the price lowered, but the dealer has

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:16  
stuff? Yeah, this goes right on, the dealer has to sign up with the program to participate. But otherwise, it's designed to be a seamless discount for the customer. I think the way it works is that for dealers that sign up, you know, they take the 15 $100 off the the purchase price, and they get reimbursed by the state for that they

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:34  
have to wait for their money instead of the customer waiting for them. Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:39  
So only two of the four dealers are participating. And one of them never heard of the program. I had to send them the written permission how to sign up. For a buyer in California, it wouldn't make any sense to purchase an Eevee from a dealer who wasn't participating as you're losing out on an easy 15 $100 discount. Absolutely. But you know who is on that list? Every Tesla store in California? yet for all of their lack of knowledge about selling an Eevee dealers know one thing very well, that demand is high. So they were Johnny Johnny on the spot when it came to marking up the car, one dealer in my area at a $15,000 markup on Maki kernville. Arizona

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:15  
again Do we know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:17  
somewhere in California he didn't he didn't specify a small state. Anyway, another I spoke with told me what the markup was $5,000 but he'd knock off 1500 so it only be 3500. How nice of him. While dealer markups are not exclusive to EBS, there are intricacies to purchasing an Eevee that don't exist in the gas car world and many dealers seem to be stuck in the past are unwilling or unable to help customers navigate these waters, but perfectly ready to take advantage of you when possible. So I feel like this is a bit of a problem. If we want people to adopt DVDs. Nobody likes going to a car dealership to begin with. But even if there were a very high profile, Evie, like the machi, the manufacturer can't effectively educate dealers. And dealers are aren't going to make the effort to understand how to sell these cars or make it easy. What can we do? So

Dan Roth  1:07:09  
who has lost?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:11  
This is the dealers are a known issue. And this is exactly why Tesla refuse to sign up franchise dealers to set up a franchise dealer network.

Dan Roth  1:07:20  
I think there's a bunch of real direct like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:22  
what this is. But I mean, I remember back in 2007, when they were just getting going talking to Darryl Siri, who was their senior VP of Marketing at the time when they first announced this. I mean, this is before Ilan was CEO when he was just their chief investor and chairman of the board. Yeah, Darrell told me at the time, you know, this, this was one of the primary reason why they were setting up a company stores because they didn't, they didn't want to have to deal with this nonsense with dealers. Because the problem, you know, the challenge of the franchise dealer system, there are advantages to it. But one of the big challenges of it. These are independent businesses separate from the carmakers. Once you know, they are actually buying the cars from the manufacturer from the factory, and then selling them on, you know, they're buying them at a wholesale price selling them to consumers. Once they have possession of that car, they can do basically whatever the hell they want, you know, they can add on any markups they can discount it and they can, you know, force you to pay for undercoating and you know, all kinds of other nonsense. And this is this is why, you know, many manufacturers have been trying to find a way to work around this problem, you know, because in states in most states in the country, there are laws that prohibit manufacturers from selling directly to consumers, they have to go through a franchise dealer, and there are limits on what they can force the dealers to do. For what it's worth, I did pass this email along to a couple of my contacts at Ford. And as we were talking earlier, I got a note back from from Mike Levine, and he's passing it on to the folks in marketing. But you know, this, this is a real issue. And this is one of the reasons why when Ford announced the machi, one of the things they did was they created this online ordering system. And you know, Adam, you know, went to dealers, you know, trying to buy something off the lot. But you can also just go directly, you know, to Ford calm. And GM is doing the same thing with the Hummer. And I think they're going to be doing it with some of their other upcoming movies, where you can go through the whole order process. And basically, you know, at the end, you select a local dealer that you're going to take delivery from, but you can do all of the stuff online, you know, the last part of the transaction has to happen at the dealer. But all the other stuff upfront you can do online before you ever interact with the dealer. Now, the problem with that is you know, because you're ordering direct from the factory, you're not you're not buying out of a dealer's inventory. you're ordering a car, and so there could be a wait, you know, and When you've got something like the machi, or there's a backlog, you know, that wait could be several months, you know, and if you if you want to buy something today, then you know, you basically have to go to a dealer to do that.

Dan Roth  1:10:13  
Relax, wait. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:17  
I think that's what what's difficult also is a lot of consumers don't realize that the manufacturer doesn't have control over the distribution, the dealer, every dealer experience is different. Because they're, even though manufacturers have dealer training and dealer courses and everything, it's still is, that's an individual business that the dealer owns, not the manufacturer. And so this is why it's, and this is also why it's very challenging. If a dealer doesn't want to sell an Eevee, people will go and say I want to buy an Eevee No, you don't, you know, take this, that's already on their lot, because they're paying for that. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of opaque conflict between the manufacturer and the dealer, and the manufacturer loses control at that dealer at that point of the dealer. Now they can, you know, they can, they can, quote, punish, or, you know, not cultivate that dealer by, you know, giving them cars that aren't easy to sell or not, you know, giving them first dibs and things like that, then that can come back to haunt the manufacturer as well. So managing that relationship is really a full time job for people to keep the dealer happy. But also make sure the dealer is representing the manufacturer in the appropriate way. And it's a big challenge. And it is exactly one of the many reasons why Tesla and some of the other newer brands that are coming out or not doing a traditional franchise dealership, the other thing is, if you if you want to close down a dealer, you have to go to that state and deal with the franchise laws in that individual state or that dealer. I you know, GM was able to close down some of their dealerships when they declared bankruptcy, because it wasn't that it was a federal law issue. And the individual state, federal state, franchise laws did not apply. But otherwise, you're you're you're going to each state and dealing with the individual franchises. So it's a really messy, messy process.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:24  
And, you know, one of one of the things that GM has done recently, Cadillac did this, you know, after they announced the lyric, they actually went to all their dealers, they had Cadillacs got about 850 dealers, and they said, Look, Cadillacs going electric, whether you like it or not, you know, by the end of the decade, we're going to be pretty much all electric. If you don't want to sell and support electric vehicles, fine, we'll give you an option to get out. Now. If you don't want to make that investment in the training, the parts and the service. Tell us now we'll buy back your franchise, and they offered him up to $500,000 to buy back their franchise and, and stop selling Cadillacs. And they had about 150 of their dealers that Okay, fine. There you go. Give us give us a check. Yeah, and I mean, those are mostly dealers in smaller markets that sell, you know, you know, probably in many cases, fewer than a couple of dozen car Cadillacs a year, you know, they're usually dueled with some other brand. You know, and they're, they're selling relatively few cars, so it wasn't worth it for them to make that investment for a relatively small number of vehicles that they would have to support. And I think, you know, this is the sort of thing we're probably going to see more of going forward, we're gonna see manufacturers, say to dealers, you know, at least for a while, you know, until it gets to the, you hit a critical mass where, you know, they're just not going to have any option but to sell e V's, because that's all there's going to be available. You know, they're, you know, they're probably going to have to do more of these kinds of arrangements of buying out dealers that don't want to sell or support these vehicles, for sure. But, you know, the the markup is a whole, that's a whole separate issue from selling TVs, that's, that's something that too many dealers do, you know, on popular cars. And, you know, I think the, if a dealer is insisting on a markup, fine, turnaround walk,

Dan Roth  1:14:21  
I don't have to pay it. This is where I don't know, in my experience, and maybe you guys can speak to it as well, but in my experience, auto writers are aren't necessarily new car buyers. So that's a blind spot for us unless we talk to consumers. And unless we just sort of try the process. We're just we're not buying new cars on a regular basis. We're not in dealerships that often so we don't run into that kind of, you know, those kind of shenanigans. I certainly am taken aback when I read these stories and just like I would walk out like, you're not going to mark up the car like You're making money on it already. If you want fatter margins, I get it. But like, I'm not where that margins coming from.

Rebecca Lindland  1:15:07  
is always fun though to go into dealerships, especially as women, Nicola, and I can tell you, especially if we're by ourselves,

Dan Roth  1:15:16  
how does that work? Do you have any stories you can share? Oh,

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:19  
oh my god, I have I literally just went, my daughter is in college and got a killer internship, which means she has to be at school, which now she has to get to that internship that doesn't have a bus, so we got to buy her a car. So we went running around a couple weekends ago trying to help her do that out where she's going to school. And she's only ever driven my car in my husband's car, and written in the back of a million press cars, but she doesn't have any kind of frame of reference. So I'm like, Okay, let's, let's put you in a bunch of different vehicles. So you can actually see what new cars feel like and see what these options feel like. So I walk in knowing exactly what I want her to drive. I don't I don't need an explanation. Oh, that experience of walking into the dealership and having them be like that. Okay, little lady. Let me show you how this works. I do. I'm gonna throttle you across this desk. One guy tried to explain to me how all wheel drive works. And I was like, all right. And and my daughter said to me, I am. My daughter's mom is a good thing. He could only see your eyes over your mask, because you have asked me if he had seen your face. She's like, I could see how angry you were with him. It's really not that important. Most of the time. You don't really need this. It doesn't really matter. She's in Wisconsin, by the way, FYI. It might matter here.

Dan Roth  1:16:38  
Yeah, there's in Wisconsin. So what kind of what did you get?

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:44  
Your ex totally No, I got her Ford Mustang. Going into these different dealerships. And it is a really, you know, I thought of that I was thinking about it. As we were like three or four different places. I thought my gosh, if you really don't have a handle on what you want to buy, if you don't understand, I thought I would not have gone where we went, I wouldn't have known what to get. I would have been easily suckered in by some of this stuff. The sales guys were saying without knowing like, dude, that's totally not the case. Like, and I only know because I'm a journalist. But the way that there was one dealership that did not sort of do that, talking down, assuming that I didn't know anything, only one out of the four that we went to so kid gets a gold star. Alright, so but it was, it was a frustrating experience. I had someone tried to explain to me how four wheel drive worked ones at a Jeep dealership and said to me, to me, Hey, I was telling my husband about the Wrangler at the time, and I'm pointing out the dials and he's like, Well, you know, you could take this off road. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, you could No, no, but you know, you wouldn't really like this Wrangler, Wrangler. I know, it's like, you're gone, we're out, done. I'm out. And it's like, What is wrong with you people like, yes, trading, it's very frustrating.

Dan Roth  1:18:04  
Well, I see that that like, that's part of actually what sort of frustrates me about the whole, like, automobile industrial complex is like, they don't know how to talk to consumers that aren't middle aged men. And it's just it's so it's, it's annoying. And you know, and even at that, like when we went and bought, when we went up with the Grand Cherokee that the shopping experience was a little weird. Because we had a shortlist. And you go in there, and you sort of have to, like, you know, throw your weight around a little bit and be like, No, no, no, buddy, you have to do you have to say something or act in a way that like, lets them know, like, I don't need your dog and pony show, I know what I'm talking about. Just like leave me the hell alone. Give me the keys to the car, we're gonna test drive it. And so that was frustrating to me. And then when we got back from a couple of them, like the sales guy would get me like, away from my wife will have been back. So like, what do you want to buy? Like, how should I you know, what direction Should I push her? And I'm like, Oh, my God, we lost the sale. Like I'm not no, like, that's not how it works. It's gonna be her car. I want to make sure she likes it's not my decision. Like so yeah, it's weird.

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:12  
Yeah, they do. They do tend to when I walk in with my husband do dealership 99% of the time, assume that he's buying the car, whether it's my car, his car, or whoever. And it's not uncommon and I only once ever have had something where we walked in, we sort of walked in together and it was our car. And as we're talking and as we're going over the things, the salesman was great and he was not being condescending, and he was talking sort of equally to both of us. And I you know, you're saying like you suddenly you've you've clued in that you know more than the average shopper and they realize it and the guy literally said, He's like, I'm sorry, I have to ask you, are you involved? Do you know something about like that? He was nice. But is it because you clearly know more about this and most people I told him he actually got even better than it was almost like he had fun like, Okay, did you know about this? Did you know about that in a fun way. didn't end up buying that car sent to other people to that guy to buy cars, because it was such a positive experience with him.

Dan Roth  1:20:05  
That's cool. Yeah, you know, well, they'll figure it out one day or not.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:13  
You know, the beauty of it is, you know, there's more than 3000 Ford dealers across the United States, find another one. There, there are dealers out there that will not treat you, like, you know, like you're an idiot,

Dan Roth  1:20:26  
buying out of state is such a pain, though, that's, we bought some used cars.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:31  
In California, you know, there's hundreds of Ford dealers in California, you know, and I mean, and the same goes for every other manufacturer, and they have lots and lots of dealers, usually more than one, especially if you live in a larger area, there's usually more than one. You know, unless it's, you know, one of the smaller manufacturers, you know, if a dealer is giving you a hard time, or isn't treating you with respect, just walk out, go to one other one, even if even if you have to go across town, you know, to, you know, to make the purchase, you know, the thing is, once you once you buy a vehicle, you know, if it needs to go in for service, or you know, warranty repairs, or anything like that, you can take it to any dealer, it doesn't have to be the one you bought it from, you can take it to any dealer that sells that brand. So, you know, just just gonna say, you know, buy from somebody that treats you with respect, and doesn't, you know, doesn't try to rip you off. If they're, if it's at all apparent that they're trying to do that just walk away, because this is, you know, for most almost everybody is the second biggest purchase they make after their house. Don't get ripped off. You know, don't don't let them take advantage of you. Yeah, go ahead, Rebecca.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:41  
Well, I

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:42  
was gonna say, one I love to buy from women. Because, you know, at the Porsche dealership, here in Greenwich, they have a young woman there, she has been there for like eight years, and she rocks it, because she knows exactly what she's talking about. She's not condescending, you know, she's not gonna try and, and pry you away from your spouse. You know, and then there's a incredible woman at Aston Martin here as well, that you know, if you can find and I remember, I remember I had a great experience. years ago, I end up not buying the car, but it was at a Nissan dealership from a woman. Same kind of thing. You know, it's just fantastic experiences with dealerships that have women, salespeople, and if you are a woman, a dealership is actually a great place to make some good money. You can actually kill it as a as a female car dealer. I mean, I'm because, you know, I find you a lot of men will be more willing to ask questions of a woman because it's less of a pissing match. Like what Shouldn't you know that

Dan Roth  1:22:46  
or you just have to put up with all this just like just the just the not I feel bad for all the nonsense that that you'd have to put up with to do that, though. Like that's

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:58  
their number one thing. And this is what I tell dealers, when I if I've spoken at an event or something is when any woman whether she's with another person, or like I like to go in solo just to see what happens because it's kind of fun, and mess with them a little bit. But you know, you go in, anytime a woman darkens the doorway of a dealership, she is there to buy, she's not there to browse, she is there to purchase. Because browsing is what we do at the shoe department. We go into a dealership to buy. And it's the same thing in electronics stores. It's the same thing at Home Depot or BestBuy. Like those. It's very stereotypical. So don't send me hate mail. But you know, I don't I don't just go to Home Depot just to look around. I go to Home Depot for because I'm buying something and like yeah, or Lowe's yesterday, I was at Lowe's. And I had two separate guys asked me super nice, not condescending, what can I help you with? And I appreciate that. And, you know, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:00  
that I do shopping with me when next time I go to Lowe's because nobody ever asked me if I need help. I'll be wandering around for 15 minutes trying to find somebody to say, you know, can you get that off the top shelf there?

Dan Roth  1:24:12  
I usually just walk away from people I see him coming. I'm like, No,

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:16  
I have to climb this giant ladders. They get mad when you put it right where I need to go. But no, I think you know there's there's a tremendous opportunity in the franchise dealer network to improve and to make the experience better. My sister bought a used Jeep Grand Cherokee on Long Island at Novak motors and I say that deliberately because it was a great experience for us. And you know, the same kind of thing, Nicole, we were actually in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and we were looking at the infotainment and the guy was kind of playing around with it. I was like, No, no, no, you got to do this, this and this. And then he kind of looked he's like

Unknown Speaker  1:24:58  
ooh,

Dan Roth  1:25:04  
Captain Marvel Get out of here.

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:08  
I think that's you know, the biggest thing I would love people to take away from just what happened with buying the Mustang, the Mk II. And with our various buying experiences it truly there are lots of cars out there. If you don't buy that exact trim, and that exact car on that exact lot from that exact salesman, right, this second, you will still find a car, there is still the right car at a dealership where they're not going to treat you poorly. Or they're not going to be condescending when they're not going to mark you up outrageously. And you don't like just don't ever feel cornered into having to deal with that guy. And oh, you can't go anywhere else. Or if you just don't like that walk away. Like I said, it's the second biggest purchase most people ever will ever make. If you don't like the experience you're having get back into your car and drive away and find another dealership or another car. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:25:57  
for sure. Well, that's the end of that. So What other questions do we have from our from our listeners?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:04  
All right, so john bhana steel loves show and he's a Patreon subscriber. Thank you so much, john, we appreciate it. And a follow on to Alex Roy's issue with small displacement, direct injection engines. I have a question on a 2017 Volvo XC 90 inscription with the turbocharged and supercharged two liter engine. I love the motor and agree with you that I'm never wanting for power. My concern question is around durability. I have 63,000 miles on line now. And I've recently entered into a situation where I drive between Ann Arbor and Montclair. Let's not discuss it in Pennsylvania very often. That's Montclair, New Jersey. By the way. I've seen other YouTube channels who shall remain nameless, claimed that such engines are too complex and the high pressures they run under will limit their lifespan. I'd like to be able to keep this car for as long as possible. Can I expect traditional Volvo durability from this motor? do better than regular maintenance? Or is this design one that will force me back into the market sooner rather than later? Thanks much, john. PS I didn't have choice didn't have a choice in the name but I do love it. We love We love your name, too. And anyway,

Dan Roth  1:27:16  
like I said, john barleycorn must die. That's sort of reminds me of excellent traffic zone should pick up Welcome to the canteen, it's a great record, medicated guru as good

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:24  
as I'd have to do with

Dan Roth  1:27:26  
di small has nothing to do with it. So I've I don't know that the pressure is really a big deal. However, you're generating the pressure, you're still managing it. So it's designed to run those kinds of pressures. I the only thing I've heard about with that engine a little bit being part of the Volvo sort of ownership circle, and it's mostly cranky old guys with the rear wheel drives that I'm talking to. So they look askance at the new stuff as well. And there has been some chatter about oil consumption. But I am assuming at this point, it's it's on like the earlier versions of that, and it's been solved. And I don't think you should worry about longevity with it, quite honestly.

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:09  
Well, and I am a little confused. As I've said before, I'm here for the remedial questions. So I am confused on why it what what exactly is the duress the higher pressure? Is it? Because he's running it at like, presumably 70 miles an hour or something? Like, is it because it's the steady? Is that the issue?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:37  
No, I don't i don't think i think i think it's just a small, small displacement, boosted engine, you know, in general, is gonna have you know, higher loads on it, you know, then, you know, something like, you know, 5.3 liter smallblock, you know, which is going to be a relatively low low, low stress engine,

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:58  
you know, like running at a lower lower RPM, it's,

Dan Roth  1:29:02  
it's the pressure in the cylinder. So it's like the, because with the supercharger and turbocharger, you're actually compressing air before it goes into the cylinder. So it's,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:10  
it's just it's power power comes from taking air and fuel and mixing it together and igniting it, the more more air and fuel you stick in their, you know, into into a volume, the more power you're going to get out of it. Because, you know, with a big VA, and you don't have to get that much air and fuel in there to get lots of power out of it. With a small two liter engine, or a 1.5 liter turbocharged engine,

Dan Roth  1:29:36  
you gotta go, you got to pick him up.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:39  
You're gonna be forcing a lot more pressure in there that said, you know, these engines are designed for this purpose, you know, these, these are not, it's not like back in the 1980s You know, when they first started using turbochargers on mainstream vehicles, you know, and slapping them on to, you know, existing engines that you know, and they They generally did not have great durability. These are engines that were designed from the ground up for this purpose to be direct injected. And, and, and turbocharged, and in this case, supercharged as well. They're designed to handle the stress, I don't think it's going to be a problem. I've not heard of any particular issues, you know, with this modern era of engines, I mean, cars today are lasting longer than they ever have. You know, so I don't I don't see that as an issue. If there is one, if there is any issue at all, with this one is because it's both supercharged and turbocharged. There is an added complexity, but that's on the outside of the engine. You know, and you know, the superchargers usually belt driven. If, you know, if the supercharger you know, if the supercharger drive belt failed, it's not like, if you had a timing belt that failed, if you have a timing, if you if your if your valves, you know, your camshafts are driven by a belt, and that belt fails, or even a chain, then, you know, you could end up with bent valves, you know, if the cam stop turning, and the pistons keep going. But you know, this is on the outside of the engine, the only thing that happens if your supercharger belt drive belt fails, is you stop getting that extra boost at low RPM, it's not going to kill the engine.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:14  
I just I just wish I have always thought that engines were under the most stress in stop and go traffic in kind of right like, and so in terms of, you know, putting miles on this, on this particular engine, in the case of highway driving, I would think that that's significantly less of a of an issue than if he is doing 30,000 40,000 miles a year in stop and go traffic.

Dan Roth  1:31:43  
I think that's absolutely true. But I think the other the other issue that they're concerned about is the complexity of it, because you've got all the different systems to generate the the pressure, but I think that that's not so much of an issue like it like Sam said, it's been designed for it. So it's that higher pressure is hard on gaskets and sealing and stuff because it it's like when you take it's like when you over inflate a balloon, right? Like you get to a certain point and it's it can only stand so much and so you kind of doing that to the engine as well you know, you've got a small engine, you got to get big power out of it, you have to put in all that pressure. But it's it's again, like it's designed for gasket technology these days has gotten really good. We've had turbocharged stuff for a long time. The thing I'm probably going to see at some point is maybe the oil seals in the turbo start to fail. And you'll see that as like a puff of oil smoke when it starts up or whatever that's gonna happen. It's aware item at a certain point they last a really long time now, when I first started buying turbocharged cars I insisted that the turbo be replaced because I used before I bought from the dealer in the last couple we bought it was like no I don't ever I don't replace turbos and O's anymore. They're good modern

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:01  
turbos are liquid cooled, have liquid cooled bearings and everything so don't have the problems with the oil poking up inside the turbo things like that. So,

Dan Roth  1:33:10  
john, I don't think you should.

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:14  
You shouldn't worry about your 2017 Volvo XC 90 inscription with this 2.0 liter engine you'll be fine. But I

Dan Roth  1:33:19  
do wonder why so so let's see he's driving from from where Ann Arbor to Montclair. Yes. Move,

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:27  
but otherwise, you're fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:28  
Well, I think that is a somewhat longer than normal commute. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:33:31  
But isn't that really that's kind of close to where Volvo is in the US anywhere? Aren't they in Rockley?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:38  
Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Do you have a problem? Just pop. Oh, yes. and say hi to Russell and Tom we sent you.

Dan Roth  1:33:47  
Yes. Maybe we have an 1800 you can borrow.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:53  
Now we have another one. One more. This is from Shawn Whitehurst. Love the show. Sitting in my garage right now is a Nissan LEAF that I own and a rented expedition max. Your podcast resonated with me when reviewing the Yukon XL Denali love renting massive SUVs for long haul road trips, but I would hate to deal with them on a regular basis.

Dan Roth  1:34:12  
Now we just got done saying at the beginning we love these things.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:15  
Well, I guess I mean, this this is but this is a perfect example of you know, the using the right tool for the job. You know, in a case like Nicole's where you have a regular use for a big SUV like that. It's nothing nothing wrong with owning it. You know, that's perfectly legitimate, you know, and Shawn's case it sounds like you know the leaf is the better choice for him for his daily use. And you know, renting you know, a big SUV when he when he needs it. So, it says love running massive SUVs for long road trips, but I would hate to deal with them on a regular basis. Right now after 15 miles the expedition is beating the suburban. There's a grab handle for this driver and auto running boards that suburban lacked. So presumably doesn't mention here, but I think he had a suburban previously. And so, you know, I think I don't I think the current generation Suburbans, you know, certainly the Tahoe and it's got grab handles all over the place, doesn't it?

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:16  
Yeah, there were there were grab handles galore. And there was a step. They weren't like deployable. They were fixed, but there was a step so that you could get in. Yeah, so that's like, almost like a trim level thing. Like if you want that, just pay for the trim. That has it. And you can get that.

Dan Roth  1:35:33  
Yeah, I worked.

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:34  
But you know what, though? A lot of times, I remember being on GM events. I'm just gonna pull up my pictures real quick. Because this was 20 years ago, practically.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:48  
I the last week. I mean, yeah. Well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:53  
I'm hesitating. And I apologize for the delay. Because I remember talking to his last name was white, I can't wear his first name, but he used to be head of GM trucks. And he was very tall. And of course, I'm very short. And we would laugh about getting in and out of these vehicles. He actually taught me how to show at GM Proving Grounds. And, but there was not always a handle at the a pillar for the driver. And I would complain about it. And his philosophy was, well, that's what the steering wheel is for. And I said, No, the steering wheel is for steering. And it just it always annoyed me that I would have to grab the steering wheel. So there's definitely one at the a pillar for the passenger, but I believe that there might not be one and I'm looking at the diesel. So this is this is this year is right now. Of course my angle is like just off on my pictures, but I don't know if there is I don't think there's a handle for the driver. So

Dan Roth  1:36:57  
I've noticed that there's sometimes and one of the one of the rationalizations I make in my own mind for that is that's a visibility thing. Right It's another thing in your line of sight at that a pillar as a driver. And it's also another thing when they crash test them it's another thing for somebody's head to whack into. Yeah, that's true.

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:19  
And that because it's I mean, I can see it now I'm listening to your reasons. But I've never I feel like they're on a big SUVs because they're they're still kind of high you know, it's not like their demos. So even like my my line of sight is a little lower than where the handle is, but I can see how in the right accident that's your you're bashing your head on it, but I hate using the steering wheel, I had an SUV and an SUV I had a truck I want to say it wasn't for like an F 250 or something. And there were no running boards, there was nothing. And I was trying to hype myself up by the steering wheel. And I actually after a week with that thing, my arm was sore because it was this weird, awkward, like, hike up into it. So yeah, for this because you do need something and the steering wheel is not and also the steering wheel moves. So you know you pull on the steering wheel, it just comes down to you like that's not helpful.

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:12  
No, I know I've run into that too. I'm, I'm again my pictures just cut off which is so annoying. There. I have one picture where the this the grab handle for the passenger is visible. And presumably it would be in the same place for the driver.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:30  
And there is not one yeah, the Yukon I was looking at my photos of the Yukon it does not have a pillar grab handle. And I think I think Dan's right. I think it's probably mostly because of the occupant protection standards, you know, the crash standards. You know, having that there would be problematic.

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:50  
Everything is a compromise is one in the expedition though.

Dan Roth  1:38:55  
Yeah, again, it could be so as SC hotel, you are the driver as an engineer

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:02  
for the driver. Yeah, not for the suburban.

Dan Roth  1:39:04  
Yeah, I think that's what it is. And some vehicles have them some don't. And so I think it's just how they've solved that problem because everything is a compromise.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:14  
You know, it obviously depends a lot on you know exactly where the a pillar is, what the angle is, you know what, it all these pieces have to come together. And so in some cases you may be able to get away with putting a grab handle on the a pillar. I know you know, there have been some vehicles I've had, I think the Ram Ram 1500 I think has one,

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:35  
the F 150 has one as well because I see it in my pictures. It's low. It's definitely low, which I think may be the reason may help with the visibility part of it. But I thought it did because I don't remember having issues getting in and out of that thing. And of course that's a beast. It also does have the automatic running boards, which will go which will activate even when you walk by the car which is a little different Dressing something

Nicole Wakelin  1:40:01  
I actually hated that I don't like like the running boards to be fixed because they do activate. Like, here's the thing you reach into the backseat because you want to grab the bag you left in the backseat, and the running boards deploy and whack you in the shins, because you're just you're not getting it and you're just opening the door and leaning in. And you just open the door and lean and you're like, Oh, you're right, it does, right. And the number of times that has happened, so I want them to be fixed. Just always there so I can lean over them. Not something that's gonna shoot out and give me bruises and missions. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:31  
or on demand. Like so that it doesn't happen every single time because you're right, like I'm not always needing to get into the vehicle. I just need to get something.

Dan Roth  1:40:41  
Now you sound like me complaining about automatic stuff.

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:44  
This is this is first world I'm telling you.

Dan Roth  1:40:47  
I just I wish to be in control of the machine at all times. Don't second guess me.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:53  
That's it for questions.

Dan Roth  1:40:58  
Let's move on to the bolt. Evie, which I said it's extremely underwhelming vehicle because it's a bolt. And it's a bigger bowl. You

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:07  
love the bolt.

Dan Roth  1:41:07  
I do love the bolt but I don't think it's gonna change anybody's opinion. And I think that's part of the problem is the bolt is a it's a hatchback. And nobody buys hatchbacks. It's a great Evie. It's just sort of, you know, all that effort. And it doesn't look like a trailblazer or blazer and I think that's hurting it. Fair enough.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:31  
Yeah, I mean, it's got it's got some of that blazer looking at, you know, the, the way the C pillar sweeps up and you've got the you know, the little black strip in there to make it look like a floating roof. You know, the The main difference is, you know, the, the Evie is mechanically identical to the existing bolt and and for 2022 the the bolt is getting a visual refresh, it's getting it got a new facia, and a new interior new seats, which were some of the big complaints about the bolt, a lot of people didn't like the the seat comfort, and they thought that the interior look cheap, because it was hard plastics. You know, so it's got a upgraded interior and, and better seats, and the and the head lamps. And the the front end looks different. The Eevee that basically they added three inches to the wheelbase and another three inches of bodywork behind the rear axle. And then the the hood is raised up to give it a little bit more of a crossover ish stance to it. So it's not sloping down the way the regular bolt is. You know, you got more room inside, you got the option of supercruise sunroof is available now. And they cut the price cut the price across the board for both of them. So

Dan Roth  1:42:48  
supercruise is a big deal. And I think the pricing is actually a big deal that you were explaining that the other day and I was actually impressed because they cut the price. And they took out some of the sort of hidden gotchas and the pricing so it's it's like an out the door price. And it's Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:03  
so they're listening to the price of the standard bolt at 31 995. So 32,000 that's including the delivery charge $895 delivery charge, and the E v starts at 34,000 the $2,000 extra for that. And then they've got a launch edition of the Eevee that's like 43 for that has everything, all the available options, but because GM is no longer eligible for the federal tax credits, you know, they kind of needed to do this to make it competitive.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:34  
Yeah, that's that could really hurt them. I think the EU B is really cute.

Unknown Speaker  1:43:38  
I mean, I

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:39  
that needed that's what should have come out first, which I think we've talked about ad nauseum but

Dan Roth  1:43:46  
it's kind of like an electric Coco

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:49  
It is like an electric Coco that's what I was thinking she's pretty

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:51  
similar in size.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:53  
Like a Chevy trucks the Buick Encore

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:56  
Yeah, it's it's like five inches shorter than a trailblazer. So smaller than the Trailblazer it's it's close in size to the to the Encore and tracks.

Dan Roth  1:44:06  
Isn't that kind of a problem of the trailblazers is not that big. Well,

Unknown Speaker  1:44:09  
I

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:11  
I had the Trailblazer a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it. I thought it was a good, that's a good size that side but I like that size, you know, for a one or two person household, provided your dog isn't the size of a Great Dane. And I think that you know,

Dan Roth  1:44:27  
Clifford

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:31  
the Big Red Dog. Um, I think that I like the styling on the on the bowl TV. I liked the movie, I liked the fact that it's only $2,000 more, I do think that they could see a serious decline in sales of the Bolt EV but it's also one of the worst times that they are no longer eligible for the 70 $500 tax credit. Maybe the by the administration will take pity on them and extend that because there's so much competition coming out that You know, GM still suffers from the idea that people don't think of Chevrolet as a tech brand. And so they continue to have that kind of challenge of getting people in and to what we were talking about earlier, their dealer network needs to get on board selling these as well. And so so there's a lot of challenges even though they've I think they've done a good job improving both vehicles. There's a lot of challenges in the Evie space right now that unfortunately, they had an opportunity when it was pretty much of an open field that they didn't quite take advantage of. So there's, there's ground to be made up here. I think, even with these products,

Nicole Wakelin  1:45:37  
I think I think part of their challenge is going to be even though they've you know, given better options and improved and the styling is is better with the What did you call it, Dan? Not very exciting. Yeah, extremely underwhelming vehicle? Well, I think because the bolt, Evie, when people first saw that, especially that sort of plastic fantastic interior that it had really has a lot of work to do to shed that image for anybody who was shopping for an Eevee You know, it really wasn't a great interior. So no matter what they do, they're sort of that if you drove one and or if you test drove one or if you looked at one neat little I don't know how I feel about this. Will you come back and give it a second glance now? Maybe you won't. Maybe you feel like to get to something where you actually like that there's such a big leak they couldn't possibly have made it, you know?

Dan Roth  1:46:24  
Yeah, I think that's fair. I personally wasn't offended by the interior. But I think I gave it

Nicole Wakelin  1:46:29  
I was offended by it.

Dan Roth  1:46:34  
I think part of it was

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:36  
Hold on. You were interior but you were not offended by the bronco sports interior.

Nicole Wakelin  1:46:43  
The Broncos sports.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:45  
Mostly hard plastics, too.

Nicole Wakelin  1:46:46  
Yeah. Okay. But

here's the thing the bronco sport at least has, like, it makes sense to me that it's that way. Like, you're like the bronco sport has a sort of ruggedness to it. Yeah, it's totally this plastic interior. But there's a certain go and get this thing messy and dirty and muddy and gross. And you're still going to be okay in it. Like I was okay with that, that sort of, kind of like how, you know, if you look at a base, terminal Wrangler, it's, I mean, it's very, it's very basic, it's very stripped down, you feel like you could like your dog could run through that car and you can take out a hose and just hose it out. And like good to go. I'm okay with a bronco. Because that is what that car sort of holds that same place in my head that I want it to be something that is super easy to clean out, and fancy leathers and Alcantara and whatever is not that so but the bolts I don't I want it to be a cool snazzy electric vehicle. And when it just was very plastic, I was not actually offended. I just didn't think that it was lived up to my expectations with this fancy new tech should be it's a it's a new tech. It's sort of something you want it to feel new and forward thinking or I do anyway. And the bowl TV didn't do that. For me.

Rebecca Lindland  1:47:52  
I wanted to feel like I was driving the future and I did not.

Dan Roth  1:47:56  
But there you know, it's funny because I the past that you gave the the the bronco or the Wrangler it's the same kind of pass, I get the bolt, because it's like, well, I mean, they have to do something to keep the weight down. And so all that extra stuff, all the niceties weigh more, and the cost as well like weight and cost are sort of the two killers and the nicer materials in the interior are the place where that costs, like, that's the place where it comes from. Because

Nicole Wakelin  1:48:22  
I get it. Yeah, I

mean, I get that's what it is. I

get that, you know, you can't have heavy stuff. And these really, you know, yeah, it's a cost and be weighed. I totally get that. But I want them to keep the cost down and the weight down without oh my gosh, they're gonna hate me without making it look like a play school vehicle. I want it to feel like a car and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:40  
it look like a Cozy Coupe.

Nicole Wakelin  1:48:41  
I don't want it to look like a Cozy Coupe. And although it was like fine to drive, and I get I get it, I was like this. It. No, it didn't work for me.

Dan Roth  1:48:50  
I think that's fair. I have I've heard that complaint about the boat interior more than once. So I think you're probably on to something that people feel about it. You know, I just I look at it. And like I see it's a little different than the bolt I just, I again, it's just I don't know how, how much it's gonna stir the emotions to buy. I like that the bolt is such a normal experience. But I think that it's also it's, it's a normal hatchback. And that that's the problem is that it's a hatch even now, it's just sort of like it's a normal, bigger hatchback or, you know, compact crossover. I don't know if they've totally nailed it. Maybe they have the tax break thing is an issue, but I think they've smartly addressed it because like we talked about last week, we had a question about the tax breaks, you have to have an income level to support getting the tax break versus just just counting the car and so GM has figured out how to how to move that financial hit somewhere else or how to pay for it. Some other Way to bring the cost down to get the car priced competitively. So I think the price is great. And I think the car itself is great to drive and more space was would be welcomed. Overall in the bolt is a fantastic little Evie, and it's something that people should look at. But I wish it was better to look at. So Nicole, thank you for for joining us. I hope you come back again soon and can have more discussions about how playschool hates

Nicole Wakelin  1:50:32  
baseball and Chevy now.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:33  
Thank you.

Nicole Wakelin  1:50:33  
Thank you so much for the show. This is fine. I enjoyed this. You guys are great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:37  
Thanks for being here.

Dan Roth  1:50:46  
Thanks for listening to wheel bearings. Hey, we love to listen to our listeners to drop us an email to feedback at wheel bearings dot media with your thoughts, questions or conversation starters. That's feedback at wheel bearings dot media. You can also find us on Twitter at wheel bearings cast. Don't use any vowels except for the A in cast. So that's why LBRNG s cast. Thanks again, we hope to hear from you soon.

Nicole Wakelin  1:51:17  
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