Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 201 of wheel bearings. We talk about driving the 2021 Toyota Sienna, the pole star to the Subaru Forester sport, the bra the Ford Bronco sport, the Ford F 150 hybrid. And in the news, we discussed the new 2022 Infiniti QX 60. The the grill of the 2022 Toyota Tundra which leaked out this week, the new Ferrari 296, GTB and Nicole and I discuss our impressions of our first drives in the new 2021 Ford Bronco. And we answer some listener questions. All that coming up next. 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 improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be part of an automotive podcast like no other head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings media

This is wheel bearings Episode 201. I am Samuel bull Samad from guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  1:16  
I am Nicole wakelin from auto

Roberto Baldwin  1:19  
repair to Baldwin

Unknown Speaker  1:22  
Engadget.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25  
Welcome back. Since we last recorded, Nicole and I have both been traveling a little bit, it was actually my first trip outside of the state of Michigan for almost 18 months. And we'll we'll get to what we were what we were what we were traveling to see a little later on in the show. But excuse me, before we started on the garage. Just want to take a moment to thank our Patreon patrons. We've got some new ones we got. Jeffrey David, Marraccini, sorry if I mispronounced your last name there, Larry Bailey and Casey Jones, and all of our patrons for supporting the show. And if you're interested, you can go to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media, the link is on on our site wheel bearings stuck media. And you can help keep the show going. And now to begin the garage. Let's start with the coal. Oh, we

Nicole Wakelin  2:26  
start with me. Okay, what

Sam Abuelsamid  2:27  
have you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin  2:27  
Last week it was this great big huge truck this week. Another truck. I have the f1 50. But I have the hybrid, which I have to say was really funny because I saw it sitting in the driveway and I'm like, oh, an F 150. And I didn't catch the hybrid part. When I went to go in and sit down. And I'm turning on like, what is this? Oh, for crying out loud woman. It's a hybrid. Like I literally got stymied by the Where's because it was so quiet. Where's the insert is happening? It's like, wait a minute, I look at the monroney Oh, it's a hybrid. So I have I drove this actually several times. I have it this week. And I also had it at the launch drive that they did back in like December, whatever. I like this. I think it's a good truck. I like that. It's see I'm not a fan of like pickup because I don't use pickup trucks to go, you know, haul bales of hay and, you know, snowmobiles and dirt bikes, get them all shy, don't Yeah, although we are doing yard work this weekend. So that may change. But so I like that this doesn't feel quite as big. I have a shorter bed on this. So it doesn't have that overwhelming. Like I can't get into a parking space kind of size. So I think it's a good size. And I like the hybrid. I think it's a good power train. It's smooth. You You don't know it's a hybrid except for the fact that suddenly you don't hear the engine, as I've mentioned. So I'm a fan and I love Okay, today, I went with my daughter to get cookies at this place called crumble that makes these amazing cookies. And they're always hot when you get them but they're also really big and they fall apart and we were trying to eat them in the car. And I literally had shown them the little fold out table thing in the center console when I first got it and my workspace the workspace my husband and daughter were totally Evan presser, like when would you use that? I'm like, I don't know, but you could. And my daughter was trying to balance this long box of cookies, like on the console sheet and built at the same time. Oh wait that table down we have the cookies. Like there's your use case scenario right there.

Roberto Baldwin  4:25  
I used it for my computer I had to do I have there's a lot of times where I'm out in a car and I have to stop and pull over and do work and I'm like whoo I'll put the shifter down and

Nicole Wakelin  4:36  
yeah, I thought I know they say it's a workspace but I kind of think it's the perfect lunch space like you know when you're eating You have to eat on the run and you've you know you've got that the french fries and all that you have a little tiny little table you can sit there for a minute take your stuff out. So your crumble cookies because they're amazing. Yeah, so I've I've enjoyed it. I haven't had a lot of time with it yet because like Sam, we were off in Texas driving some things for a couple days earlier in the week. But I do like the f150 hybrid. I think it's great. I think it's nice that we have a really good hybrid option out there from Ford. I think hybrids are good. So

Sam Abuelsamid  5:16  
have you pulled out all your tools and plugged him into the the outlets in the bed yet?

Nicole Wakelin  5:20  
No, but you know, it's funny, I was showing all that stuff to Russ. And like I said, we're doing all this yard work and stuff. He's like, Oh, so I can plug things in. I'm like, Yes, feel free to play with the truck. So that'll be this weekend's adventure. I think. Getting to use it. And you

Sam Abuelsamid  5:35  
can clap some stuff to the tailgate. Yeah, I've got those. You can clap stuff to the tailgate.

Nicole Wakelin  5:42  
Exactly. I was I kind of

Sam Abuelsamid  5:43  
sweet. You can measure things and cut things.

Nicole Wakelin  5:46  
Yes. I kind of wish we'd had it last. Oh, are you doing some camping. So if we if we had had it when we were camping, when been able to sort of Camp slash tailgate out of the back of that thing, it would have been pretty cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:57  
place for us to to brew your coffee. And

Nicole Wakelin  6:00  
I might still just go out there Saturday morning and brew coffee just for kicks and giggles.

Roberto Baldwin  6:05  
We play Mario Kart in the middle of the field on a big screen TV.

Nicole Wakelin  6:09  
Did you Yeah, that's cool.

Roberto Baldwin  6:11  
That's all like Oh, look at this, take that camping.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:15  
Take a big stick a big 55 inch or 65 inch TV in the back of the bed of your truck and hook up your your your switch and your TV and all your speakers get some good powered speakers.

Nicole Wakelin  6:29  
I mean, I get the appeal of it like to have all that because you think about the times you do take your truck out and your you know, your places where you're loaded up with stuff and having fun in the outdoors. It doesn't mean that you want to you know not have any creature comfort whatsoever. So it's kind of fun to have that ability to power all that stuff if you want to not like you're necessarily going to be bring your big screen TV though if you want to Sam feel free, but just to be able to power small things like that. That's, that's kind of neat. I think it's a neat idea. And I think it's something that people who are living with a truck every day as opposed to necessarily doing heavy duty truck work. It makes it a very livable thing to have just when you're doing random you know makes it easier for people who aren't you know, you're just doing stuff around the yard or you're doing you know you are camping, I think that makes it a more livable truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:18  
Or when you're driving down the road and you see an Eevee sitting on the shoulder with a dead battery. You can always pull over and be a good samaritan and let them plug their car into your truck. And you know sit there give them a little bit of a charge enough enough of a charge to get to a charging station by

Nicole Wakelin  7:33  
and go I have power. Just keep going.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:40  
I could stop and let you charge up but never mind.

Nicole Wakelin  7:45  
Just gonna keep driving.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:47  
Charge.

Nicole Wakelin  7:50  
Yeah, so

Sam Abuelsamid  7:53  
does the truck you have have the 7.2 kilowatt hour pro power on board with the 240 volt outlet or just the base version with the two and a half kilowatts.

Nicole Wakelin  8:01  
I think it's just the base. I'm double checking my monroney that I can't read. So I don't have an answer for you, Sam. It's very

Sam Abuelsamid  8:15  
what trim level have you got?

Nicole Wakelin  8:17  
I have the trim level do I have? Oh my gosh, I have the I want to say it's a platinum. Does that make sense? I believe it's the platinum. Yeah. It has the fanciest interior like I love when they get carried away. With the leather interiors inside of trucks. It's like you put it in a luxury car and it's like, oh, it's just gonna be this elegant, quilted leather. And it's gonna be nice, you know? So tasteful trucks are like leather, like your cowboy on the range. And that's kind of what this looks like.

Roberto Baldwin  8:49  
We just laid a dead cow and

Nicole Wakelin  8:51  
everything around it now hide right on there. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  8:53  
let's cut out the shapes and just staple them down.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:59  
Or it could be a limited. The Limited is actually the most expensive one. That's that one started. It starts at $73,000

Nicole Wakelin  9:12  
I also have not the exact price on my monroney so Oh, that wasn't my hint. I couldn't go with that either. So I'm going a little blind on the exact trim and I should have looked at the back before I hopped I assumed I had everything on this.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:31  
Second, you came in unprepared?

Nicole Wakelin  9:34  
I did come in unprepared. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:39  
I'll admit I need to complain to your local fleet manager and to put to put all that stuff online just I

Nicole Wakelin  9:44  
just had a monroney that. I don't know it's you can't read it, which I discovered

Sam Abuelsamid  9:50  
which is which is not very useful.

Nicole Wakelin  9:53  
I'll just grab the monroney and that will have the details. Shoot. No, it doesn't. It does but you can't see him supersite

Sam Abuelsamid  10:01  
All right, so, so if it was a platinum hybrid, that's, that's a $77,000 truck, which is not inexpensive to say the least, you know that. That's more than a lot of luxury cars.

Nicole Wakelin  10:16  
Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of like, I mean, you would pay that for a luxury car because you want whatever cachet the luxury car has, right, you want to be able to say you drive, or whatever, and infinity or you drive a Lexus, or you drive a Land Rover, or whatever it is that you think makes you look and feel good about your car, right? It's impressive to others, and it's just makes you feel good to have that brand is your vehicle. If that's how you feel about a truck, and you want to spend $77,000 in a truck, have at it, you know, I don't think everybody's gonna do that. I mean, if it's your money, and if that's what you that's what you enjoy, then I say do it. And I don't think a ton of people are going to spend that kind of money on a truck, but it is, you know, at least you're spending on a truck. With a there's only so much you can do with an SUV, a truck, like this has a lot of versatility and you can do a lot with it. So it's not like you're buying something that you're you're going to find like I need another vehicle to do all these things. Nope, it's pretty much going to do whatever it is that you need to have done.

Roberto Baldwin  11:15  
Or you think you're gonna end

Sam Abuelsamid  11:18  
it. Yeah. And in a twisted sort of way. You're actually supporting the, you know, the transition to electrification because the profits from the $77,000 truck, which are quite prestigious, help to fund that $30 billion that Ford has promised to invest in electric vehicles over the next four years. So you know, you are you are paying for the future of transportation, but he's

Nicole Wakelin  11:42  
paving the way for future generations to have their all Evie lifestyle. Yes, so go spend $70,000 on the top, Ford F 150 hybrid that you could possibly buy and feel good about it.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:55  
Sounds like a perfectly good rationalization. Alright, what about you Roberta, what have you been driving

Roberto Baldwin  12:03  
drive anything as big as the truck I bought? I drove two vehicles. I'm still driving the second one but they both could probably fit well. Anyway, I drove the Subaru Forester c Park from

Sam Abuelsamid  12:13  
end to end they might fit within the length of an F Yeah, maybe.

Roberto Baldwin  12:18  
The first vehicle was a Subaru Forester sport. I like to break up the the Subaru fan club because people who buy Subarus just love Subarus typically it's it is a it's almost a cult like but there's the utilitarian Subaru people these are the people like all I need all wheel drive because I live in the mountains and you know, I want to I have five dogs they're all Golden Retrievers You know, there's there's that group and then there's the performance group to build to buy a wr XT STI is the br Z's. I fit into the second group, the performance group, but I appreciate what the Forster is. Even though it is very it is pokey. And I absolutely hate that CVT but at the same time I'm like oh, I could just put so many things in here it's kind of like as I get older I'm like you know maybe I don't need you know a lot of power just to go to the store maybe you know I shouldn't be driving tend to I shouldn't be practicing my drifting while I go to the post office.

Nicole Wakelin  13:21  
That's what I think that's exactly when you're going to practice you're drifting

Roberto Baldwin  13:26  
around the corner there's so yeah, so I i part of me actually liked the car even though again there's all these little caveats that the regular drivers don't care about that's that's in and the regular Subaru fan is totally fine with but then but then there's the part of me is like man this this is you need a bigger Come on. You need a bigger engine or you need to throw a throw a turbo on here and man this car would be so much better if it had a manual transmission if you just even just getting rid of that CVT and putting in a manual transmission even with that Lino that that that that that small motor that small engine would would would win that's

Sam Abuelsamid  14:11  
got the two liter right

Roberto Baldwin  14:12  
yeah, I think it's 180 I have a written down somewhere in a script I said it like 50 times and now I can't remember it because then I had two other videos I did after it so now all the cars are mushed together in my brain it's not Yeah, it is not a fast car and by any means when you ever you when you put the put the hammer down. All you do is get lots of like really weird noise from there. You know, like why it's essentially the car screaming why while while you're trying to push it to its limit, quote unquote. You throw a lot of stuff in it. You can fill it full of mulch. You know

Nicole Wakelin  14:56  
it's very truck. No, you can't

Roberto Baldwin  14:59  
you know anything. It's it's actually pretty comfortable. And I appreciate the Subarus sort of dedication to having a dash that is uncluttered. And like, this is the stuff you need. There it is, it's been in the exact same spot for the last, I don't know, 20 years. If it ain't broke, don't fix this sort of idea. They do have their infotainment system which is you know, it's essentially looks like a, you know, an Android tablet that's plugged in, it's fine. It works. It's not a big deal, that secondary screen that they have above the infotainment system on the dash, that's kind of nice, you know, you get a little quick view at your mpg or the you know, the weather or whatever else information and the time of day, etc. And yeah, it's it's it is a Oh, and it's also there's a ton of visibility because it's like sitting in a giant fishbowl because the windows on the forest are just so tall. You just feel like you're in a giant greenhouse. It is so it just feels so spacious for like a

Nicole Wakelin  16:05  
special edition the forest or fishbowl

Roberto Baldwin  16:07  
or is their fishbowl and I love the idea that they call it a sport when there's literally nothing for you. Other than the little plot

Sam Abuelsamid  16:15  
it does have those red accents. Yeah, it has.

Nicole Wakelin  16:19  
That red is sporty.

Roberto Baldwin  16:20  
It is the history so it has a little accent. And I've always been a fan of the that sort of weird quirky boxy station wagon look of the forester, and they they keep they've stayed with it, they've stuck with it, which means they, you know, the, you know, the storage area in the back isn't cut off by, you know, by a sport back or you know, slanted, whatever, you know, you're you're no more of the cupid's proper wagon, ie some. Yeah, it's a proper wagon. It's just a really tall wagon. It's it's, you know, they now it's an SUV because it's a little bit taller. But the reality is the forester is just a wagon. It's always been a wagon. As far as I'm concerned. I'll always be a wagon.

Nicole Wakelin  16:58  
You can't call it a wagon in the US because people hate station wagons. We Yes, I know. So it could be one it could be the most wagon looking wagon ever. But it is not a wagon,

Roberto Baldwin  17:08  
the most wagon that's ever. And that's not a wagon,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:12  
but it's an SUV, you add one at one inch longer coil springs and and you know, some black, matte black wheel arches. And it's an SUV. That is literally all it takes. Yeah. I mean, I thought you know,

Nicole Wakelin  17:34  
I don't even think that I don't get to someone who just changes the word wagon to SUV in a press release, boom, done.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:41  
Well, I mean, so you do have to do a little something. I mean, there have been attempts by by marketing people to you know, call something a crossover. When, you know, without, without having gone to that effort of, you know, raising it half an inch to an inch and putting those black wheel arches on there. And it's a complete failure. Case in point, the Chevrolet Bolt, yeah, they watched it. They called it a crossover. Did they really? Yeah, yeah. Everyone laugh You know, it's clearly not a crossover. It's a it's a hat. That's a compact hatchback. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that, except that Americans don't want to buy those. Yeah, but they recognize that without the extra one inch of, of, of, you know, spring height, and the black wheel arches. It's clearly not an SUV or a crossover. It is clearly a car at that point. If they had just added those wheel arches it without even lifting it up. Just adding the wheel arches probably would have been all they needed to do.

Roberto Baldwin  18:40  
Yeah, he didn't even have to lift it up. So no, it's 29 miles per gallon. I got 26.3 I believe. As I was driving around, I ended up driving a lot more than I had anticipated. I was like, Oh man, I haven't driven this car enough. And then I looked down and it was I was like 300 miles. I was like, Oh, well I guess I have so it's Yeah, it's it is a

Sam Abuelsamid  19:04  
defensive You didn't even realize it. Yeah, you're

Roberto Baldwin  19:06  
just like, Oh, this is a night you're just kind of cruising around. It's got a nice ride. It's not Yeah, it's it's it is a it is it is a perfectly adequate for the Subaru people who all are about you tell her utilitarian aspect of a Subaru for the performance folks. Eventually, because we know we no longer have the STI in the wagon or the STR and the WR x wagon in this country. You know, this or the outback is you're probably what you're gonna what you're thinking about when you want to get something for the family, but you want to stick to the to the Subaru or you can get the essence which is I don't know, bigger or the cross track I guess two and I like the outback in the forest or more than I like the cross track. I don't know why. I think it's I think it's just I feel like the cross track even though they sell billions of them because isn't it up, it's a crossover. loves the cross track.

Nicole Wakelin  20:03  
People love it like it love it. They love it. I think there's like three people on my street that own one. So it's like, I feel like I see it all the time.

Roberto Baldwin  20:11  
Yeah, it's everywhere. It's I think there's their best selling vehicle. So anyway, Crosstrek is probably what you're gonna get if you need a little bit more space. You get the forester. If you need even more space, I guess you get the scent. And then I drove the the Broncos sport now I've I I've only driven it to Santa Cruz and back. I've had it for a few days. So I'm prefacing, my, my everything with that. I am not impressed at all with the bronco sport. Really? Right right off the bat. The steering feels very rubbery. Like just I'm like what is happening with the steering I am not a fan of the steering it's it's a Ford Escape. It's just a really pretty looking Ford Escape. That's and that's what it comes down to. And at the Ford Escape Ford sells, I don't know seven, 8 billion of those every year they're gonna sell you know 10 billion of the bronco sport because it looks nice. It's the Ford Escape. But it's just I I expected more I think when you have this anticipation for a vehicle and I you know, the anticipation is even higher for the bronco which you guys can find about later. But the Broncos sport and we will the Broncos sport, I just felt like Okay, okay, this is you know, I you know, I'd read some stuff people seem to like it, and I just cannot get excited about it. And I think I feel like it really let me down. It's really let me down so far. It feels just I'm inspired outside of the design it just like it just feels

Nicole Wakelin  21:49  
you know what I think is funny about the Broncos sport is the number of people that, you know, there's a two door or four door Bronco and the Broncos sport and they're not the same. They're not just like different

Sam Abuelsamid  21:59  
jerseys. They're completely different.

Nicole Wakelin  22:00  
They're completely different. And in talking to just regular Joe's on the street, the number of people that don't understand that, like people who are really hardcore get it, but like, Oh, yeah, I saw Bronco. I'm like, No, you saw the Broncos sport. No, I saw Bronk. No, you didn't because literally the first one shot to consumers like two days ago, you have not seen one yet. And people don't understand so I wonder how much genuine confusion there is like man, this isn't his offer to you and cool as I thought it was like cuz it's not a bronco. It's Broncos. Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  22:29  
I had people come up like, Oh, you got the bronco and I kept having to say no, it's it's the Broncos. Sorry. What do you think about it? Um, well, I think it looks I liked the design of the Broncos for a lot. I like the like the top. I like the front. I like the back everything about it. And then I get in it and then I drive it. I'm just like, and I'm like, Oh yeah, it's a Ford Escape, which I've always been pretty about. I think I didn't escape launch. And Ford asked me so what do you think I'm all you're gonna send a lot of these so it doesn't matter what I think. And they're like, Oh, yeah, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:58  
I'm like, No, it is you're actually selling more Bronco sports than they are escapes. It's not because he escaped but

Nicole Wakelin  23:05  
because it looks cool and cute. And the name you because all those people are saying I have a bronco no you don't you have a bronco sport, but that's not what they're telling their friends. They're saying I have a bronco. So for everybody knows there's a difference.

Roberto Baldwin  23:19  
Here's the thing is like if you have the choice between a Ford Escape, and a bronco sport, I would just buy the bronco sport. It's a cooler car. It's not it just looks cooler. The infotainment I love you know that that Ford's grabbed a lot of the the infotainment sort of insanity that Lincoln has. And put it in the dash and so you know, I you know, I like that dash cluster I think it has all the little horns, the little Broncos galloping everywhere.

Nicole Wakelin  23:49  
I love that thing. What they did with the infotainment I used to hate sync whatever synced before the sync for it was sink makes you want to hit it with a sledgehammer and I've totally turned the corner now. smack it was sink smack because that's what you're doing all the time. And it was just I really truly used to hate it and I'm like actually really like this now like, it's not just like is if it got better. It's like good leaps and bounds better than what it was. I genuinely like it. I like they have great their screens Aren't you know, five inch screens and their base trims, they give you screens you can actually see, yeah, you get a proper screen.

Roberto Baldwin  24:22  
There's not a lot of latency that I could see. It's easy to connect things to it. Yeah, there's I mean, there's a lot to like about the bronco sport outside of the driving experience for me.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:34  
But do you have that

Roberto Baldwin  24:36  
it has the 1.5 EcoBoost with the eight speed automatic transmission is I got the Outer Banks four by four I haven't had a chance to take it off road. I really don't think I need to go to the off road park with this. It's not it's it's the Broncos

Unknown Speaker  24:55  
can do off Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  24:57  
They ran when I did the rebel route. They ran three Bronco sports in the rebel rally. So here even made it to the end. So I mean, there's a crossover and a class as a crossover class. But still it ain't easy.

Roberto Baldwin  25:10  
So here's the here's my thought about off roading with an A, generally, is that a lot of the sort of opera was the dirt road. When I was a teenager, I would take my dad's late 70s dodge Aspen station wagon off roading all the time, and I would get it sideways. And I would just fly I would pass other for other, you know, big, you know, like, I'm from a small town. So a lot of people had big raised like two or two trucks or whatever, I'd be barreling past them. So, you know, other than, you know, off roading stuff, like just the regular SUV stuff, I could do that with my Honda Civic and the 90s. I could do that with an 70s dodge Aspen. I'm not that impressed with the I can do that with the forester I can do with I could probably do with my br z i could do with the jag and

Nicole Wakelin  25:57  
give it a little bit of credit for doing 1200 miles in the dirt in the rugged in the rubble in the hills in the sand dunes. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a little. I'll give

Roberto Baldwin  26:07  
it a little credit, but I'll give most of the credit to the drivers.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:10  
Okay, yeah. You know, the bronco sport. You know, one thing that does differentiate it from the escape besides the looks is it does actually have a proper four wheel drive system. It's not, it's not all wheel drive. So it's it's a full time four wheel drive. It's got a locking rear def, and, you know, a bunch of other things in there. So it does actually have, you know, beyond just you know, dirt roads. I mean, it can actually go places that you probably wouldn't want to go with with that Aspen. I mean, the Yeah, I mean, you know, the

Roberto Baldwin  26:46  
the the long wheelbase on the Aspen was his downfall. That's that's where, you know, it's a wagon. So

Sam Abuelsamid  26:51  
yeah, and you've got a short wheelbase on the on the Bronco, Bronco sport. But, you know, the the challenge, I had the bronco sport in February, I think February or March. And you know, we had a bunch of snow. And while when I drove the first drove the Broncos sport last fall when they did the launch drive. And, you know, we went to an off road park near here. And, you know, it's actually fairly capable, you know, crawling over rocks and, you know, going up steep hills and all this stuff. You know, where there isn't much traction, but it doesn't have as much ground clearance as the big Bronco. Yeah, and you know, in wet heavy snow there, you know, the tires, even though they are technically All Terrain tires, didn't really have enough traction to pull it through, even with four wheel drive. And I actually did manage to get it stuck in some instances. It basically just bought it Yeah, just bottomed out, you know, you know, it was sitting on the skid plates on on the cell, and the tires just couldn't get any grip. You know, I was just sitting there spinning all four tires and, like, so get some assistance to to extract it. But yeah, other than that, you know, it is it, I found it, you know, pretty good. The one I had was the was the two liter. So it's got quite a bit more power. You know, you're right, though, I think, you know, the steering is not the steering feels not great on it. But you know, it's, it was okay. But, you know, Jay generally, you know, I mean it, it's, it's a fine vehicle to live with. And, you know, with that high roof, you know, one of the cool things is they you know, they offer an accessory bike rack that you can put inside and you can put two mountain bikes inside the thing, you know, because because it's tall enough that you can actually fit them standing up inside, which is which is a nice feature. You don't have to leave them sitting outside that and a bunch of other details that they have.

Roberto Baldwin  28:54  
I'm always surprised every time I get out of the car, how low it is. As an SUV for sale. I always feel like slamming my foot down. I was like oh geez. Okay,

Nicole Wakelin  29:04  
miss the last step coming down the stairs.

Roberto Baldwin  29:07  
Oh, gosh.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:09  
So it's only it's only about an inch the or the you know, it's about an inch higher than the escape. You know, the roofline is several inches higher, but you know from the floor, like when you step out, it's only about an inch more than when you get in the escape.

Roberto Baldwin  29:26  
It essentially has the same ground clearance as the forester. So the fortunate 8.7 and the Broncos 8.8

Nicole Wakelin  29:33  
So would you get the forester would you get the bronco?

Roberto Baldwin  29:36  
I would get the forester that's and that's an even though I hate that CVT, if I had the choice, I would get the forester even though I absolutely hate the CVT and the forester I don't like the steering in the bronco more. Okay, fair, because I like to go around corners. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, it's again, it, Ford's gonna sell a billion of them. It is a completely adequate and good car It looks great.

Nicole Wakelin  30:01  
Completely adequate. I love it. It's completely quit it is completely. It is it

Sam Abuelsamid  30:07  
is better than being inadequate. Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  30:08  
And it has four by fours, which is nice instead of all wheel drive. I don't think any, you know, point 5% of people will use it. I've gone to the off road park a couple times. And I have seen Rangers but I haven't seen a bronco sport yet. But you know it's it's still early days. So we'll see outlet next time I go. Maybe I'll take it this weekend. Maybe I'll load it up a cruise the offered Park, and I'll get it stuck now see if I can get it stuck with a wall. Yeah, a point. Maybe I won't take it actually.

Nicole Wakelin  30:43  
He's like, Wait a second.

Roberto Baldwin  30:44  
I scraped the bottom of the Wrangler on some of the stuff while I was driving when I have that. So I'm like, I hate

Nicole Wakelin  30:50  
the sound even when there's like skid plates on the bottom of something and like I'm on a program and it's on purpose supposed to do it. It's like nails on a chalkboard. I'm

Sam Abuelsamid  30:58  
like Oh yeah. Oh

Nicole Wakelin  30:58  
god. What am I breaking? What am I breaking? They're like nothing they're skid plates. No it breaking something.

Roberto Baldwin  31:04  
So anyway, Broncos sport, you're gonna buy if you love it if you like the way it looks if you're cool with the the escape and but you want a little extra something something for four was four by four, go for it. But I would I would get in it and just go around some corners a few times just to get a again, I it's probably I feel like maybe it's nitpicking on the the end of an automotive journalist, regular person's on getting there. I'm like, What the hell's this jerk off talking? He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:33  
Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of adequate. I had the, I had a couple of vehicles. I had the 2021 Toyota Sienna, which is actually more than adequate, you know, for a minivan, you know, and I, I am a huge proponent of minivans. You know, I think that, you know, a lot of people that are driving around in SUVs and crossovers, you know, because of their family, and because they've got kids and stuff would be much better served by driving a minivan. And the Sienna is a great example of a minivan. You know, the, the old Sienna was very definitely aged. It had been outlived, its, it was well past its sell by date. But this new one is much, much better. But when I first You know, when they delivered it, I walked out and I saw it in the driveway. First thing I noticed, as I realized that even for proper minivans, you know, manufacturers are increasingly trying to make them look like crossovers. And yes, you know, this, the Sienna is a prime example. Yeah, the, the styling when you look at it, it basically it's the the new Highlander. If you kind of stretched out the body a little bit and lowered it down a little bit. I mean, it's got the same, you know, kind of flared out bulging fenders. And the the thing that really caught my attention was looking at the hood. And, you know, this year, kiya launched a new version, they launched a replacement for this adult their Sedona minivan, which they adopted the carnival name, which they've been using overseas. And the thing that the big thing that they changed with that is, you know, again, the whole front end of it, go instead of having a hood that slopes down, you know, and you know, has that kind of minivan sort of wedgie shaped to it. The hood is very horizontal, and it looks more like an SUV looks more truck like than the old one did. Even though the rest of the proportions are classic minivan. The same thing is true. The Sienna is the siennas hood is much more horizontal goes out and then drops down. And Chrysler did the same thing with the Pacifica refresh this year, they raised the grill up and tried to make it a little more crossover ish. And I'm, I'm almost certain that Honda will do exactly the same thing when they redo the the Odyssey in the next year or so. So you know that and I got to thinking about this. And I realized, you know, this isn't the first time that a manufacturer has tried to do this with a minivan back in was in the mid 2000s. Sometime, GM with their minivans before they finally discontinued them entirely. They were clearly ahead of the curve, as they have been many times over the years. They were just they were just way ahead of their time. And the public wasn't ready for it yet. Like you know going back to the original Cadillac v 864 and 1980 you know with cylinder deactivation and then the Chevy uplander You know, when they, they went from you know, the classic, you know, stubby nose minivan shape to a more horizontal grill tried to make it look like a crossover before they launched some some proper three row crossovers with the the traverse and the rest of that family. And it was a it bombed because the public was not ready for that kind of minivan yet, but now it seems to be working or Well, we'll see. I mean, minivans are out of style anyway, but we'll see. We'll see if this helps revive minivan sales. But everybody's doing it doesn't

Nicole Wakelin  35:20  
even call there's a minivan QIA calls it it's an MPV

Sam Abuelsamid  35:26  
Multi Purpose vehicle purpose

Nicole Wakelin  35:27  
vehicle right so they won't even put Ghana there. It's the Kia Carnival MPV minivan is a is a bad bad. It's like wagon.

Roberto Baldwin  35:38  
minivans are amazing because they do so I was talking to somebody a mother. And she was like, Oh, I'm thinking about getting you know, she was talking about all the different SUVs. I'm like, No, you should like you know what, go look at the Honda Odyssey or the Pacific. This is before the new Sienna came out. And she's like, what? No, I'm like, Okay, let's and let me let me paint a scenario for you. You're carrying your child in one hand, you have a bat, you know, you have their diaper bag in the other. So like, yeah, almost all you have to do is push a button and the door opens. And then you put your kid in the thing. You don't have to like sort of struggle and then reach it just opens for you automatically and every time you have to put things in the bed

Sam Abuelsamid  36:14  
The seat is right there. You're not right. Shut up. And

Roberto Baldwin  36:18  
yeah, it's not up in in it's not down in in like a sedan. It's perfect. It's made just for you to put your child in the car. And you know how much room you have. You have all the room and the world however much room you think you need an SUV, you're you're going to get like almost double that.

Nicole Wakelin  36:34  
Well, you know what I have a fair number of people who are empty nesters who are older, like people who are getting like retirees. They love minivans for exactly what you're saying when they get in everything is the right height. You don't have to step down. You don't have to step up. And if you have friends along for the ride, they're not trying to create like you can just open those sliding doors get right back in if you're not as mobile as you used to be getting in and out of a minivan is super easy and super comfortable. Like I must know at least a half a dozen people who are older are like no, I'm in a minivan. I'm like, why are you in a minivan because it's so easy to get in and out of? It's so easy. So

Roberto Baldwin  37:11  
yeah, all the seats are comfortable. For normal to tall people. You're not crammed in a third row isn't a joke. It's not like a fake third row or a third row for like toddlers. It's like a real like, Oh, you can put actual adult humans back

Nicole Wakelin  37:26  
there really like minivans truly now that you said they're really the only when you look at that third row, they're really the only ones that you can get into the third row without having to be something of like a contortionist. Really, because even the ones that you know, you pull the seat forward, it has better access. They've You know, it slides it moves it so it's easier. But still, if you're not nimble, you're like, wait, I gotta like Hold on one shoulder, sideways, step up. And it's not easy ever to get in the third row of an SUV. Never ever, ever.

Roberto Baldwin  37:57  
No, it's never anything. minivan, though. minivan to me minivan. That's the that's we're changing the name of the podcast to T minivan.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:07  
And, you know, the other the other thing that's, you know, different, significantly different this year is it's got a standard hybrid powertrain. So, you know, like the Venza you know, they went Toyotas going all in on hybrids. And so that's the only powertrain the same, same, same setup that's in the the Highlander hybrid, the 2.5 liter four cylinder and with the, you know, power split hybrid and a front plus an electric motor for all wheel drive on the rear axle. You know, it's great, it's quiet, it's smooth. You know, it's not exciting. You know, it's, it's not like driving a Hellcat. But you know, most people don't care about that. They don't want that. And certainly anybody driving a minivan? almost anybody driving a minivan probably doesn't care about that. I'm sure there are people that would love to see Chrysler stuff a Hellcat into a Pacifica. But see, the Sienna hybrid powertrain is great. I didn't quite manage to match the the EPA fuel economy rating, which is 35 miles per gallon. I only got about 31. But, you know, still, you know, 30 plus miles per gallon in a minivan. Yeah, is phenomenal. You know, I mean, that's, that's really outstanding. And, you know, I think that anybody that buys this thing is is, you know, is going to be really happy with it, you know, if it's, if it's the type of thing that suits your needs and your lifestyle, you know, it's got all the, all the safety features that Toyota is making standard on all their vehicles now. This was the Xs II, so it was, you know, completely, you know, maxed out with everything. It had the rear seat entertainment system, you know, a 1500 watt inverter you know, so you've got lots of power, you know, if you if you do take it for a camping trip, you know, it's got have enough power from that 120 volt outlet to power your your coffeemaker would include complete with a grinder without tripping a circuit breaker. It's got, you know, all really nice leather interior for zone climate control. It's got all the goodies in there. And it still has to end to end, which is Yeah, well, we've talked about that before, we don't need to discuss it anymore. But it does. Yeah, yep, plug your phone in your CarPlay or Android Auto, and you're good to go. That's, that's all you need. And delivered price $48,029 which is, you know, it's pretty steep. But, you know, it's cheaper and a lot of, you know, it's no more than most crossovers. You know, and you can, you can certainly get it, you know, for more like, $30,000 if you can live without some of the, some of the nicer amenities. Because, you know, really, yeah, everybody's got tablets, and phones and stuff. So who needs to pay 1400 bucks for the rear seat entertainment, you know, and, and you can, you can get, you know, the, you know, slightly lower end interior, if you've got kids, you know, you'd probably don't want the really fancy interior Anyway, you know, you want something that's going to be easy to clean and everything. So, no, it's it's it's a really good minivan. And, you know, I'll be curious to see if Toyota launches a Sienna prime with a plug in hybrid, at some point to go up against the Pacifica hybrid. Because, yeah, they're they're doing you know, the, the rav4 prime is doing quite well. And so I think I wouldn't be surprised if next year we get a Sienna prime to go along with it. Alright. Yeah, the the other vehicle I have had, just for a long weekend was the pole star to finally got into that one. And, you know, this is it's an electric Volvo which is nothing wrong with that, that's a very good thing. It's, it's a sedan, sort of a tall sedan shaped five door hatchback, which actually, you know, given, you know, the size of the vehicle, you know, it's sort of a more compact size, you know, the Fastback roofline, which means that if they had made it an actual sedan, it would have had a really tiny trunk opening. So it's actually a lot better to make it a hatchback because you can actually get stuff in, you know, you can fold down the rear seats, you got lots of cargo space for, for all your stuff. You know, if you look at it, you know, it, it looks like a Volvo. You know, I think we've seen cotton, you know, some Pollstar concepts recently that kind of the styling is starting gonna start to diverge away from the Volvo design language, or at least the current Volvo design language. We don't know what the next generation Volvo language looks like, which apparently sounds like it's going to be quite a bit different from a conversation I had with somebody earlier this week.

But you know, it certainly the Pollstar to certainly looks like a current generation Volvo complete with the Thor's hammer, you know, signature lighting in the headlamp clusters. The The only thing about this car that I was not crazy about was it has a very high beltline. And so when you're sitting in it, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, the window sills are Up above my shoulders, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm not as tall as you, Robbie, but you know, I have a long torso. So it's unusual for me to feel like I'm sitting so low in a car. You know, and so visibility is not great. But aside from that, you know, I like the rest of it, you know, the interior is, you'll, if you've driven any Volvo in recent years, you'll instantly feel pretty much right at home, you know, the steering wheel, the, the shifter, it does have a new center console with a larger display. And this is the first model live launched with with the Android automotive infotainment system that is replacing census which, you know, we have complained about regularly in the past years on the show, before you guys arrived. So this is a system you know, it's a version of Android that is specifically set up for for cars. And unlike the version of Android automotive that Chrysler is using in the Pacifica and other new models. Chrysler has still lantis has opted not to use Google automotive services. So you don't get things like the Google Play Store. google maps google assistant, they have, you know, Amazon Alexa and TomTom maps and you know, other various other services that they're putting in their Volvo and Pollstar going all in on on the Google services. So you do have Google Maps and And the Google Assistant, when you get in the car for the first time, you can log sign into your Google account. And if you have previously trained google assistant to recognize your voice, once you sign in, you just say, okay, G and it pops up, and it'll recognize your voice. And you can give it all the same kind of commands you use with your phone, or your Google Home devices, you know, whatever other devices, you've got that run the assistant works really well. There's the play stores on there with a selection of assorted apps that you can download, you've got the full blown Google Maps, which, you know, when you're using maps shows up right in the instrument cluster and gives you, you know, shows you your directions, right in the cluster there along with your, your speed and state of charge. The system worked really well. And it also does have support for Apple CarPlay. So if you are an apple and iPhone user, you can connect your iPhone, and you can use CarPlay instead of Google Assistant, but or, you know, instead of the Google stuff. So, you know, I found that the system worked really well. It was a responsive system. And, you know, this is it's a new interface. Yeah, I thought it was pretty well laid out. Easy to use. And, yeah, and, and then the electric powertrain, you know, to come standard with a dual motor, 402 horsepower, setup, 78 kilowatt hour battery, it's officially rated at 233 miles. And the defaults to a low region setting. So it behaves more like a conventional gas car, if you put it in the one pedal driving mode with maximum region, they, you know, you will get more range. And it you know, as soon as I did that it popped the the rain, the estimated driving range from up from 230 to 250 miles. I didn't drive it all the way to, you know, to to just, you know, to completely deplete it, but I, you know, I put about 160 miles on it, and it had still had plenty of range left. And I think you could probably easily make 250 miles if you're driving it in one pedal mode. So and it's quick, you know, it's 3060s, about four and a half seconds. So it's probably the cook quicker than any current Volvo. And I really enjoyed it, except for the high beltline. That was my only real complaint.

Roberto Baldwin  47:30  
It feels like the cars like 10% too tall, like in between the the, the bottom of the, and the beltline, from the bottom. And it just Yeah, like it felt like you look at it like, Oh, this is cool. And you look at it again, and you're like, Oh, wait, this Why is this? Why is this so chunky, between here and here?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:46  
Yeah, it does, but it does have quite a chunky look to it.

Roberto Baldwin  47:50  
Yeah, it feels like especially when you look at the Pollstar one, which was so sleek, and sort of beautiful and aerodynamic. And I think without the postcard when people look at this, like, Oh, this is this is really nice, but when you put it next to it, like oh, it's like it's a little chunky brother.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:09  
Yeah, I mean, the shares, it's the same platform as the XC 40. And you can now get the XC 40 recharge, which has the same electric powertrain in it. Yeah, with the XC 40 body on it. And I'm gonna have to get my hands on one of those and try it out. Because I know I didn't have that same feeling of it feeling to the sides feeling too tall and the XC 40 when I drove it so I want to compare that this might be one shot one time when I actually prefer a crossover crossover version to the sort of crossover ish sedan type vehicle

Roberto Baldwin  48:47  
driving I haven't driven both I still like the the pole star to again I have a very long torso and long arms so it I think for me it's not that much of an issue but I think the rest of the human race will have probably a little bit more we're like you know you want to put your arm up on the on the window seal your arms up over by your here. He was like Okay, now I kind of look like a like a vulture

Nicole Wakelin  49:11  
handlebars on the on the motorcycles are the holding the motorcycles.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:16  
Yeah, choppers. Yeah, I feel like your hands are like,

Nicole Wakelin  49:22  
half above your head.

Roberto Baldwin  49:23  
You got the big bars, bars for your butt for your your Volvo or both. Your Volvo postar? Yeah, yeah, it's it's, it's it's an Eevee that's it's it's from a startup will quote unquote, startup that's, that has all the niceties of a Volvo. You're like, Oh, I feel okay buying this because I know it's really kind of, it's a Volvo.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:46  
At least for a while. And you know that they just announced this week that the next pole star model. The pole star three is going to be the actual crossover and it's going to be built starting next year. In In South Carolina and the Volvo plant in South Carolina, the Pollstar two is actually manufactured. And it's assembled in China. Because Volvo is owned by GE, which is a Chinese automaker, and they have a bunch of brands. So this one is coming from China, the next, the next one is going to be built in the US. So it bypasses some of the tariffs on Chinese built vehicles. And you know, this one is, it's a little pricey. You know, it's 59. Nine is the sticker price, with delivery, and the 12 $100 metallic paint that was on this one, it came to 60 to 550. Yeah, you know, this is, this is a card it's clearly trying to compete with, with the model three. And, you know, I think, you know, it's not, it's not fully competitive. I mean, the model three does out, do it in a number of ways, you know, certainly in terms of range, and, you know, the model through performance, we'll, we'll run it by a bit. But, you know, if you want an electric car with, you know, decent range, that is a little different, you know, if you want if you know, if you don't want to be, you know, driving the the Silicon Valley Camry, which is really what the model three is now, if you want to if you want something unique, you know, then you know, this is definitely something you should consider. Yeah. All right. Shall we get to some news?

Nicole Wakelin  51:31  
We, shall we.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:31  
So, where shall What should we start with the infinity? The Qx 6060. Okay, so, as we record, earlier today, infinity, revealed the new Qx 60 which is there a three row crossover? It is infinities version of the Nissan Pathfinder. We haven't driven it yet. we've only seen it. What do you guys think of it? so far? Based on what you can see,

Nicole Wakelin  52:01  
on my first impressions were that I liked it, I think the styling is good. You know, infinity is a luxury brand. So it has to look sort of sleek and sexy and look like you paid what you paid for that car. And when you look at the exterior is beautiful, the interior looks stunning, they have a couple of photos in the with the quilted leather, and it has this very rich, sleek feeling to it. I think it looks great. And from what they're saying about what it's going to have, it has like a V six and a nine speed automatic, and it's, you know, it's it feels like it's gonna look and drive nicely. You know, until we actually get our hands on it, who really knows, but my first impression was a positive one.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:47  
Yeah, well, you and I both driven the Pathfinder. And, you know, this has the same power train that's in the Pathfinder as the same suspension and probably be tuned slightly differently. But, you know, it's basically

Nicole Wakelin  52:58  
I think you would tune it to be a little bit more little smoother. I mean, the luxury cars have that certain amount of, like, I always think of it as float, you know, they float over bombs, like you feel the bump, but it's never a bump. It's just who it's like these little, so I would think they would tune in a little bit more smoothly, but who knows? Yeah. But Pathfinder, so I would imagine I would like this, you know,

Roberto Baldwin  53:22  
I yeah, I can I concur. It is Yeah, I like the way it looks. I think that the profile is really nice. I yeah, and it does evoke that that sort of that luxury that infinity is going for and really nice on is going for and the interior I do like the little quilted diamonds.

Nicole Wakelin  53:43  
Oh, I love that on the dashboard.

Roberto Baldwin  53:46  
Panel makes you want to just touch them.

Nicole Wakelin  53:48  
Just Just to play with it. Like they should pop like bubble wrap.

Roberto Baldwin  53:52  
There the bubble wrap of car

Nicole Wakelin  53:53  
pop. Very luxury car, by the way would amuse me. I

Roberto Baldwin  53:57  
kind of like the way the the the the infotainment screen sort of emerges out of those little, little What do you I guess? diamonds? Yeah, no, I think you know, Nissan needs some wins and fit. So which which so you know, infinity needs wins. And I think just from from the look, I think this is gonna do well for them. You know, of course, we start to drive it, I might drive it and hate the and hate the steering. So who knows,

Nicole Wakelin  54:23  
you know, we'll pull up this this old episode say remember when you guys like that?

Sam Abuelsamid  54:29  
One, it's interesting that they did abandon the, the the two, the two screen infotainment system that they've had in many of their vehicles. I can't remember if the QX field Qx 60 had that dual screen system. I don't think it did. But but this one, you know, they're they're moving to, you know, the single screen, you know, stand up tablet type of layout that you see on most modern vehicles now. And so, you know, it's a little more conventional looking, but you know, it's It has a lot of the same kinds of neat features that are on the Pathfinder, like those second row seats that, you know, when when you need to get into the third row, the second row seats, you know, the whole thing flips forward, you know, you don't have to fold it down and then slide it forward, the whole thing just tilts up and forward. So if you have, you know, car seat in there, you can leave the car seat, and you don't have to remove the car seat to get into the third row, things like that. The, the exterior styling, you know, I thought was interesting, when I saw it, saw it on during a background or last week, it immediately reminded me of a cross between the Lincoln Navigator and you know, contemporary mountain, you know, the the newer Mazda is like the CX 30, and the Mazda three, you know, which have that very smooth, you know, body sides, you know, kind of sculpted, but no sharp edges on it, you know, and then moving to this wraparound look at the the rear pillar on this thing, you know, very much like the, like the navigator moving away there, you know, I was on this call with Alfonso Baya, the head of design for for Nissan, and asked him, you know, Nissan, for the last decade or so have had this, this look, you know, to the C pillar, the rear pillar, you know, we've got kind of a hook in there, and I can't remember the term they used for, but they're, they're getting rid of that. And and this is the look, we're gonna see on infinities going forward. What do you think of that?

Nicole Wakelin  56:30  
I think that looks good. I like that. It's, you know, we were talking about the joking about making things look like an SUV, and that, you know, you put red on it, and suddenly, it's sport, I feel like the luxury brands are going to Okay, what we do to make our car look like luxury, is you have to remove all the creases, you have to make everything really smooth, you have to sort of make it all sleek and rounded. That's, that's the elegance, the luxury vibe that they're all giving. So I agree with you. And I think it looks good. I do think it's an improvement. I think, if that's the way that they're going, Sam, if that's the direction, I think it's a positive direction, and one that's going to bring more people to the brand, as opposed to sort of something that almost a little dated like last year's luxury, this looks like where luxury cars are going. So I think I think it's attractive. I think it's a good move.

Roberto Baldwin  57:16  
Yeah, yeah, I think you know, and I, you know, what I do like, I like the I feel like more automakers are sort of like, they went maybe a little too far end with the displays and dual displays, the three displays, 12 displays, I don't know, however many displays. And so you're getting people to finally like, you know, we don't need to display to adjust the climate control. You know, people want I want to be able to just turn something for the volume, and I want to be able to adjust the heat and the cold and mean, and we're still gonna have a lot of displays in the TVs. But I think for luxury vehicles, you meet this, I think, yeah, I think it's going to make people happy. I think it's it was maybe everyone a little went a little bit too in on display with the dual display stuff. And I'm happy that they they saw the display that people want and people need but also tangible things that people can touch. I know it costs more, and you can't update it. But luxury, but how

Sam Abuelsamid  58:11  
often do you actually need to update your climate control interface?

Roberto Baldwin  58:15  
Exactly.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:16  
If you do it right. It should be good for the life of the car.

Roberto Baldwin  58:20  
So let's What do you want to do? Well, I wanted to get hot, but I also want to get cold and I want the fan to be like low or off only and also higher. Active between after that like well I'm the fan to be variable and I want to either get hot or cold or just at least keep the same temperature.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:39  
Okay, yeah, at least in the Pollstar you can just say hey Gee, you know set the temperature to 72 degrees or it's too hot you know and it'll turn down the temperature for you

Nicole Wakelin  58:49  
you know what I want every temperature system to have so when you set it to auto when you set it really cold cuz it's a your car is really hot and there's only one but like it can only come out high speed like blowing your face off kind of air I'm like I want the ice cold. But can I some of them are like you can have high medium or low I want a low amount of cold air blowing at my face. Not like I have just walked into the Arctic during a blizzard I just wanted I wanted ice cold but not that much of it. I want them all to have a button that has high medium and low that would make me that's what I that's all I want from my climate control. Just let me adjust the fan while still keeping it freezing cold.

Roberto Baldwin  59:26  
The auto with high medium low like Ford has it I think Hyundai has it as well where you can like oh, I wanted you know to be 62 degrees. But I don't want to 62 that while it's while you're getting there. I don't want to feel like I'm standing behind a prop a propeller.

Nicole Wakelin  59:39  
Exactly. Like I want you to do your best to make it 62 while not blowing my hair off of my head in the process. Give me just turn down the fan level Joey

Roberto Baldwin  59:49  
here behind Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  59:51  
Yeah, that's all I want. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:55  
And of course, you know, the the Qx 60 as a new luxury as PV must have a large grill. But you know, it's still comparatively modest relative to another grill that we saw this week. The, the, the 22 Toyota Tundra, the the tundra is finally getting a redesign and a photo of it leaked out this week. And this thing's got a serious grill. What? What, what what? What can we say about this grill

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:29  
is big.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:31  
It looks like a bulldog, a little like Naagin out like a bulldog, like a mouse just sort of disappears into the underside of the dog. kind of feel like it does that. And then it has the eyes and it looks like it's almost crying because it has those events underneath. It's a crying bull. It's so and then it just sort of they extended with the black bumpers, so it just looks I the giant head Oh no. Yeah, I can think about there's that giant giant

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:59  
Toyota

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:00  
underneath it like the Toyota in case you didn't know Toyota. And there's that light bar underneath it, which makes it look like I don't there's that like it's a lot it's almost those the length of the word Toyota it's so big. That light bar I don't know what's up with that.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:15  
They should make it read and have a little thing go back and forth. So it's night writer and or Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:19  
yeah, like kit. Oh, perfect.

You know, have it have it be programmable make it whatever color you want.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:28  
And, you know, it's like a little disco. You

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:32  
can change the color based on the season. It can be pink, it can be orange and Halloween.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:38  
I think we actually I don't actually I don't think they actually I don't think they actually can do that. I think it's illegal. Because last year when we saw at the the GM Evie day, when we saw the Cadillac lyric for the first time, you know, it's got the lightup Cadillac logo in the in the front. But it's only in white didn't have any of the colors that are usually in the Cadillac shield logo. And I asked why you know why they did it that way. They said that because of motor vehicle, Federal Motor Vehicle safety regulations, all the lights, except for turn signals, all the other lights on the front have to be white. So for

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:16  
people that do all the crazy, but don't people do colored stuff, like around their headlights and stuff. I feel like there's stuff like you've seen them go aftermarket.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:25  
Yeah. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're legal.

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:28  
Okay, I'm willing to I guess, do you ever see anyone getting pulled over? No. You see, like, tweaked out there? Yeah. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:37  
like, you know, the factory factory couldn't do that. I'm sure I'm sure there will be somebody that will offer, you know, an aftermarket replacement for this light bar that lets you do the picture colors and, you know, do whatever else you want with whatever flashing patterns you want to use, you know, I'm sure I'm sure there will be people in traffic. I'm sure that there will be those, you know that we'll buy this thing, you know, and set it up as a strobe you know, just to try to, to trigger people that, you know, have epilepsy disorders in China. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's a bit much. We don't know anything else specific about this truck yet. It should be released in full in the next week or two, I think. And yeah, well, we'll just we'll talk we'll come back to it later. Maybe

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:33  
you can kind of see the word tundra that's on. It's like on the top of the bumper that's also black in there. Yeah. Yeah, it's really like Toyota, but they don't it's the same font. So it's not like Raptor or Ford. Or it's just like this big strong font. It's just like, Toyota and it was

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:53  
really tiny. If you look on the hood, the TRD PRO thing. teeny tiny little intricate look on the hood.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:05  
vents by the windshield. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:07  
Just like teeny teeny, tiny. So maybe this is the grilles it'll be on the TRD Pro. It'll be less

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:16  
maybe the other versions will have something a little more sedate. Like today can only hope

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:21  
it wouldn't take much to be more sedate. Like would take very little.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:26  
Yeah. Alright. On the on the opposite spectrum of design from this. As we record this today, this morning, Ferrari released their latest model the the 296 GTB. This is the replacement for their long running series of V eight sports cars. And it's it's a little bit smaller. It has a 2.9 liter twin turbocharged V six and a plug in hybrid and I think it looks fantastic. What do you guys like?

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:04  
Absolutely beautiful. I love it. it I love it.

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:07  
Yeah, it's great. It's beautiful. And it looks like a car from the future. That looks cool. Because a lot of people a lot of automakers when they try to make the car the future it kind of misses the mark or it's very it's very polarizing. I feel like everyone's gonna look at this be like, Oh, yeah, I don't think there's anything really polarized. We all like it. So there you go the

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:28  
inside Did you check out the interior shots? This thing is unbelievably gorgeous. So pretty. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:34  
they did a fantastic job on the inside as well. You know, beautiful shapes, beautiful. Looks like you know, fantastic materials.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:44  
All those beautiful swooping curves on the outside carry right on through, it's just, it's a stunning, stunning car. You know,

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:53  
people really know.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:54  
It's like, they designed pretty cars or something like they've done this a few times, I'm whatever, it's

Roberto Baldwin  1:05:59  
their jam,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:00  
it's their jam, 800 819 horsepower. And that and that includes a 165 horsepower electric motor as part of that setup. So this is significantly more power, it's more powerful, quite a bit more powerful than the f8 tributo, which is this replaces, it is 300 pounds heavier, thanks to the battery, but that battery also gets you 16 miles of electric driving range. So you know, if you're driving this thing in European cities, where, you know, there's a lot a lot of cities in Europe that are creating zero emission zones in the city centers. You can have this thing you know, save the battery power and as you drive into central London or Paris, you can just switch it over to electric mode. I don't know, but I can't imagine driving a completely silent Ferrari. But

Nicole Wakelin  1:06:55  
China does seem a little bit broken. Doesn't it? Make have a glorious? Yeah, that that what he just did that it's not going to have that?

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:05  
We're gonna have the fried Gong. Yes. Still, I mean, you were driving it every I don't think you need to sound people are gonna see it and be like, Oh,

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:16  
yeah, yeah, just the look of it. Oh, my gosh, doesn't matter what it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:19  
sounds like.

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:21  
Really could sound like anything. Who the heck cares if it looks like that? That's true.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:25  
Yep. All right. Next up, Nicole and I each took separate trips to Austin, Texas this week. And we were there to drive the Ford Bronco. And

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:40  
we actually brought out the Broncos sport.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:42  
Yes. The real Bronco, the big Bronco. The

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:46  
real real, the real real deal.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:48  
Yeah, yes. And we had slightly differing opinions of this thing. So why don't you go first, Nicole. And then I'll tell you why you're wrong.

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:56  
We have. Okay.

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:59  
I didn't drive the bronco. So I get to play referee today. Here we go

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:03  
back here and go stop fighting. I know. First of all, I really liked it. I thought it was great. I like how it looks. And off road. I loved it. And there's some off road features in this thing that are amazing. And I'm gonna mess up the name of it. But there's like a trailer, I mean, a turn control to look it up, Sammy. There's a turn, trailer trailer, no trailer turn trail turn. Yes. And it basically give you a really tight corner, you just push a button on the dashboard. And it kind of lets you almost pivot on the inside rear wheel. It's like you can do donuts, one guy called it the donut button. Because if you just push a button and you hit the gas, and you just crank the wheel, and it has to be, it's not just like you do a light turn to the right or light turn to the left, you have to sort of peg it as far to the right as it'll go or as far to the left and then it will engage and it like really lets you just like pivot right around something. So if you have a tight turn, that's cool. That was a cool feature. And you could use that on some of the off road driving that we did. And it worked beautifully. I liked that. I thought it was long. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:04  
it's it what it does is it locks up the inside rear wheel. So as soon as you turn the wheel all the way to lock on either side, then it'll lock. It'll lock the inside rear wheel so it just won't spin and the other wheels will just drive around it.

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:19  
Yeah, so you just like sit on that wheel and you pivot. It's really cool. And then they also had a semi hydraulic sway bar disconnect. Could I get that right Sam they get the whole thing in there. So instead of it being just mechanical because the semi hydraulic thing which I believe the Broncos The only vehicle that has that right now and it's a little class, you can you don't have to worry about like Okay, that looks like I'm going to need to disconnect that I should do that before I attack that area. You can be in the middle of it and say oh, I need to disconnect this boom and you can do it. So you're not limited to when you do it whenever you want to do that. Go ahead and do that. Which if you're a hardcore off roader is a pretty neat feature. I honestly don't know how many people are that hard. Like, I was wonder when these vehicles have all these features, how many people that have this are actually going to need this? But if you do need it, it was very cool. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:13  
our neighbor across the street with his 97 Wrangler, he, he would love stuff like this. Yeah, he, he doesn't, he doesn't drive. He doesn't drive the Wrangler on the road. He flat toes it behind his RV to go to places to drive it, you know, in the kind of environment.

Nicole Wakelin  1:10:29  
Yeah, so for that guy, that guy is gonna love these features and the offroad I really did think it was brilliant. It handled beautifully. It did everything that you would have hoped a bronco would do. And then some, you know, they had us going through water it had rained, so things were really slick. You had that like it was in Austin, Texas, you have that slick mud on these rocks as you're trying to climb out of the water, even climbing up some sort of like rock face. You know, the big huge rock slopes. It's just one giant rock that you have to crawl up. It's like Sure, sure. No problem. It handled. Fantastic. offroad so off road. I loved it. Thumbs up Yeah, river just gave it a thumbs up on road. I had my issues. I didn't hate it. But I wasn't as impressed. I found I that I had a soft top. It was loud enough that I honestly thought for a second like Wait, is this not closed entirely like is something not secure? Did somebody take a look at something before I hopped in this and didn't really like push everything back down in place. But no, it was all secure. I found it. I found it loud in the soft top. The hard top was better, definitely. But the soft top was, it was really loud. I was surprised by how loud it was. And I also found it and I did not have the Sasquatch Sasquatch package on either one. I found it a little bit unwieldy at times on the road, if you're taking especially in the four door, when I was taking, they had us doing some really nice little twisty roads, which was sort of fun. In the two door, it worked within the four door I felt like I was I felt like I was having to brake harder than I would have expected and to get the speed down to scrub off more speed than I wanted. Or I felt like it was a little Rolly, I felt like there was more role that I wanted. So I I did not like it's on road manners as much as I hoped. And I think part of it was I had really superduper high expectations for this I just did because I knew that Ford has worked so hard on this. And it's a huge, big deal. So I think I set my expectations somewhere in the stratosphere, I probably needed to dial those back in a little bit off road, loved it loved it loved it, it was unbelievable. on road, not so much. And now Sam's going to tell you the wrong thing go see him.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:56  
So totally agree with everything you said about the off road behavior. I mean, it was really impressive, some of the stuff that went through. And you know, the sway bar disconnect that you mentioned, Jeep also offers a sway bar disconnect on the Wrangler, but it's, I think their mechanism is a little different. But you can you can also engage it at any time. And what it does is you know, particularly but I think it's actually more effective on the bronco than it is on the Wrangler because the Wrangler still has a solid front axle, whereas the Broncos got independent front suspension. And so what it does is allows the wheels to move more relative to each other. So you know that they had this demo, you know, we're going over some some big dirt moguls and get it into a position where it was up, you know, basically on two wheels, and then disconnect the sway bar and you know it, the front kind of drops down because all of a sudden, you know, the you know, the other wheel can drop down and you know, get the ground so you can get more traction that way. And that worked really really well and the trail or the trail turn assist is also a really great feature. Another feature that I found really useful off roading was the the the cameras you know if you get the if you get the optional 12 inch display, the standard displays in eight the same eight inch display that's in the bronco sport. But if you get the 12 inch sink for system it's got surround view cameras. And you know most most of the time with surrounds you camera systems. On on other vehicles, you know the they have to by law, they have to turn them off at like I think four miles an hour three or four miles an hour. So once you start moving, you know they have to turn them off. So it's not distracting you but in the brocco when you're in one of the off road modes so if you're in normal mode, they will turn off the cameras or turn off right away. But if you're in one of the off road mode like mud and ruts, or you know, the, you know, the the sand or other off road modes, they will stay on till you get to about 20 miles an hour. And, you know, when you're going off roading, that's actually really, really useful. Because especially, you know, the, you know, one of those big rocks that you're describing on the, on the the ghost pepper trail, I think is probably the

Nicole Wakelin  1:15:26  
spicy trail. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:28  
yeah, when you go up, you know, you're at about a 25 degree angle, you know, going up this thing. And you because the hood is flat, you know, it's pretty horizontal, you can't see anything that's in front of you. You know, because a lot of these hills are relatively short, so you can't see where the end of it is. But with that camera on, you can see exactly where you are and what's in front of you. And you can switch modes between the different cameras, so you can have the straight ahead, front camera view, you can have the surround view. And there's there's a view that shows that splits the screen and shows you the two front wheels, so you can see exactly where you're placing your front wheels, which you

Nicole Wakelin  1:16:08  
can actually use that. Yeah, there were a couple of spots where the rocks were really tight on some of those and you kind of looked at it and you thought, okay, no, they wouldn't be taking me here if this car didn't fit. But it doesn't look like it should fit. You and you when you use that mode where you can see the wheels and suddenly you can see like, No, actually, I'm okay here like I do have some space on either side of me so that it definitely does make the cameras make those tight spots. And the I'm only seeing sky above me What the heck is in front of me when I come down off of this spots, much less disconcerting, and much easier to manage.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:43  
Yeah, normally in situations like that, when you're off roading, you would have a spotter. And you'd have if you're ideally, you're not going out on trails like that on your own, you know, you've either got somebody who's riding with you, or you've got, you know, multiple, you've got a group of people in their, their SUVs, you know, and so, you know, somebody will get out and spot you know, and guide you to where you need to go. But, you know, with this, you can almost get by without having a spotter, which is which is really handy. And, you know, the other thing, you know, one of the cool things we did on during this event was they have this what they call the fun hammer course this dirt trail, you know, and they had a couple of special drivers there including Vaughn getting Jr. was there doing hot laps with us, you know, so we got to do a Hot Lap around this this dirt trail. And you know, the thing I noticed at relatively surprisingly high speeds, you know, given the kind of conditions we were in Yeah, there was surprisingly little head toss and a saying yeah, it was you know, the body control was really good. Yeah, so it was you know, keeping the body stable even while the wheels were moving around, you know, over all these bumps and berms and everything. And so it was it was a surprisingly comfortable ride doing that and a lot of fun to did did you did you drive any of them on the off road trails with the doors and the roof off so completely open air.

Nicole Wakelin  1:18:21  
I did not every time I tried to get in one that had you know open air somebody else was faster, you know. So I did not manage to get one I rolled my windows down does that count?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:36  
That's it. It's definitely a fun experience driving open air and you know one of the advantages with the bronco over the Wrangler. On the Wrangler if you take the doors off. You know the mirrors are mounted on the doors. So when you take the doors off, you have no mirrors on the bronco they've mastered the mirrors on the the fenders just ahead of the door like at the base of the a pillar. So even when you take the doors off, the mirrors are still there. So you can see a lot a lot easier to to get around that way. When you can still see the see what's behind you. On the road,

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:10  
they also have interjects something about the doors too. One of the neat things about them is not in the tutor, but in the four door they have a little storage system. So each door has its own little bag that it goes into and they're each labeled. So you know which door goes in which bag so you know what's in there. And then they fit in a certain order in the back like standing up and you fit them all on the back and they have this fancy harness thing that secures them in place. So instead of having to take your doors off at point A do your driving, cut back to point a to come retrieve your doors, you could technically take your doors off, you know put them in the back and keep venturing out and not have to return to where you were you can just take them with you. And it's just a four door thing, not a two door thing but it's kind of a neat, it takes up the entire cargo area. So you couldn't really take anything else with you unless you had a rack or you know had something else that you were doing but It was neat that you can take the doors with you I thought that was kind of a neat feature although they are they are heavy. I don't know what the weight differences between the regular doors and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:10  
the Wrangler doors are heavier. These these are about the The doors on the four door Bronco are about 40 pounds each. So they're, you know, they're they're fairly hefty, but they're not terribly hard to take off. Yeah, you know, there's only two bolts yeah each one they're pretty easy to take off and then put back on the wheel arches you know, if you the the fender arches are also easily removed there's like five quarter turn

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:37  
Oh, that makes you feel like you're breaking something the guys like here just click here, here here and here and pull them just just yank it off Oh, I feel like that's not something you should do. Then you just pull it off the car and there it is you got a Fender in your hands

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:51  
so and you know there's they're gonna have tons of accessories available including tube doors to frame doors that you can put on there so you know if you're into that you know that there's all that kind of stuff a lot of the same kind of stuff that you can get you know for that they've had for Wranglers for years you know Ford has worked with various accessory makers to have that stuff ready for for the launch on the road on the on the drive up from Austin up to where the the off rodeo courses I had a two door first edition with a hard top and I had a quite a different experience with it than you did apparently I was actually really surprised at how how quiet it was you know I was expecting it to be a lot louder because you know the shape of this thing it's quite boxy you know I figured there was going to be quite a bit of wind noise and and certainly a lot of tire noise from those big All Terrain tires and you could you could hear my tires

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:51  
off top at all did you drive i did

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:55  
i didn't drive the soft top on the road only only offer you didn't okay so yeah so I should have done that but I didn't get a chance to do that but driving the the hard to do are hard top you know there was you can you got a little bit of the tire rumble but not nearly as much as I anticipated given you know the type of tires that are on there and some very little wind noise as well. So it was actually quite a pleasant ride and you know from that respect apparently quite different from the soft top and I have a feeling that the the four door soft top might actually be the worst case scenario just because of how long that top mechanism that top is. It is pretty long. And so I guess it wouldn't surprise me if there was a fair bit of drumming from the top and Windows you know because it's a multi piece top but the the the hard top you know is is also fairly easy to remove but it you know it it's not something that you can store in the vehicle like you can you know with the soft top the soft top you can fold it back you know basically like convertible it's it's a little more complicated process than a Miata let you know, but it's not it's not too ridiculous. So you can put the top back and drive you know when you get to your destination gulping air, but onroad i thought was quite good. Yeah. And you know, on those big 35 inch tires, you know, it's it does feel it's not it's not like driving a Mustang you know, a twisty road you know, you know some squishiness

Roberto Baldwin  1:23:33  
did you drive the four door on road?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:37  
I did not I am

Roberto Baldwin  1:23:39  
okay so because her i think i think Nicole the four door on the road was where she was having you know? Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:23:47  
Yeah, I had I drove because there was like you drove halfway you went down to this little ramp to the water and then you drove back I didn't or drove continue to drive and it was like almost like a split timewise when I got to that halfway point I was with someone else I had the Ford or softtop and she had a two door hardtop we swapped cars, so I got half the drive in a four door soft top and half the drive in a two door hardtop. I would agree with you that the two door hardtop is definitely it was more composed and much quieter. So that was a very different even driving it we here's the thing when we were driving. Initially, she happened to be leaving in the two door I was following in the four and I felt like she kept pulling away from me all the time. Like I was consistently like, why am I feel like I'm like can't keep up with her. Like why do I feel like because I was having to slow down so much in the corners to feel like I kept control and felt confident the car when we swapped she was still leading the way but now she had the Florida suddenly I'm right on her butt because I'm able to go a little bit faster. So there was definitely a different, like her drive style changed as well. She was driving a little more conservatively once she got in that four door and she's like I can see what's it and she noticed it's similar thing and she noticed The road noise but I definitely hope it was a very different experience between the two and the four and the hard and the soft. I wish we had more time to try on road stuff in various configurations, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:12  
Yeah, unfortunately, it was a relatively short turnaround on the trip and we didn't have a whole lot of time

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:17  
the nickel Have you been in the four door? a four door Wrangler with the softtop?

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:22  
Yes.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:23  
So was it louder or quieter than the four door Wrangler? To

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:25  
me, it seemed like the Wrangler was louder and I'm not talking about the, you know, the tire noise you know, you get big knobby tires on anything. You know, you have those tires, it wasn't so that was more the wind noise. Like Like I said that softtop in the bronco. It was on right I even checked when I got there like you guys is this on right? And they're like, yeah, you're good. So because I thought Am I missing something? Is there a flap that's up somewhere that I'm missing and it's making the noise? Nope, there wasn't I you know you still know what a Wrangler you know you're in a soft talk no doubt and it's not like it's quiet. I felt like it was quieter than the than the bronco and I think I was expecting the same kind of quiet from the bronco like I had this expectation because they're trying to they're not trying to meet Wrangler they're trying to beat Wrangler so I think I had this expectation it would be better than and i and i and i didn't think it was better than in that regard. Like not you know what I mean? That what that thing I'm like, if you're doing a lot of onroad this would not be the best choice

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:26  
Yeah, cuz I said they did have a pair of Wranglers there for some comparison. They had a two door a two door soft top and a four door hardtop. And I took I took one of them out at the four door hardtop just to you know, do a short drive down the road you know and it definitely you know, this is the the ride quality and that one did not feel as composed as the at least the two door Bronco you know I can't speak to the onroad behavior the four door I'll take your word for Nicole that that that one definitely didn't feel as good but you know just you know the the certainly the live axles at both ends of the the Wrangler it just the whole thing you know felt a little bit fancier to me than the than the bronco dead but in the past you know when I when I've driven the current generation Wrangler, you know, it is pretty good you know, certainly the it's it's the current generation Wranglers a lot better than prior generations. But I you know, to me it didn't feel quite as good. Now, you know, I haven't I haven't driven a Ford or softtop yet the the couple of times I've had Wranglers it were both hard tops one time was a full hard top one the other time was the hard top with the the retractable fabric sunroof I forget the freedom roof or what I

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:01  
call it I one touch thing or is that what it is? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:05  
yeah, whatever whatever that that fabric

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:07  
whatever they call it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:09  
yeah you know and you know that one Yeah, that one was was quite you know did was quiet you know I didn't have any issues with wind noise and nothing at least when it was closed but you know, I think on the road you know to me the the hard top you know, hard top the hard top I think the bronco is quieter but it's not the soft top comparison it I I'll I'll take your word for it that the the bronco the Florida Broncos saw softtop was was significantly louder. And I can see why hardy

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:41  
Yeah, the hardtops the hardtop wasn't as much what it wasn't as like, oh my god the hardtop is not, but that soft top that was that was the Bajur? Like thumbs down for me that that soft top felt really loud was really loud.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:56  
Did you get a chance to try the manual? Oh,

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:59  
I did not. I did not Did you get to drive the manual?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:02  
I did. I went for a short drive in the manual. Last like after lunch just before we headed out. And I was less impressed than that one with that one than I had hoped. I thought that would just because the shift quality of the manual was you know, it was a little notchy and it wasn't quite as much fun to to shift as the as the automatic said, I think you know with the manual, you do get a lower crawler gear. It's like a 95 to one crawler gear. But you know, I think you know what you get with the automatics is probably more than sufficient.

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:38  
What what transmission is in the manual? Do

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:40  
you know offhand? It's a it's a getrag. So it's, it's a it's basically a six speed getrag with you know with an extra you know, ultra low crawler gear. One one other one other thing about the bronco is you know going you know, picking between two wheel drive for high and for low is a lot easier in the in the bronco because it's all electronically switched if you've driven a Wrangler shifting that thing from two to four high to four low is kind of a pain in the neck whereas you know on the bronco just press a button on the on the goat mode knob

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:27  
I you know I was really cool I wonder about that I wonder if they've kept it like that because it's still sort of harkens back to that old school sort of because it's it can make it electronic but I wonder if they keep it that way?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:43  
I just you probably have

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:45  
that that is that that like people want that feel the visceral feel of like you're in for hi could choke you on for low i

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:52  
don't know i think so. I think it's like the F 150 like the wind you know they still has the shifter knob and like all the shifter knob folds down so you can do something or they could just change the shifter like no no no they found out the the customer's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:04  
shifter on the console on the dash and they

Roberto Baldwin  1:31:06  
the customers really liked the shifter knob so I wonder if Wrangler customers really like having that you know four wheel drive for real low you know two wheel high etc on the in the car. I wonder if that's sort of they probably do a throwback

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:21  
the the one other downside to the bronco is the fuel economy is pretty bad. I can't remember what the EPA numbers are but on the drive up from Austin in the two door and that was with the 2.7 liter V six it averaged just about 16 miles per gallon which is you know is not that impressive to say the least.

Nicole Wakelin  1:31:51  
Yeah, it's I don't think you're buying this for fuel economy. I mean you really almost can't even like you're buying this first capability fuel economy be damned kind of

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:01  
or to look cool. I mean, there's a lot of jeeps in my neighborhood out here in the in the burbs that I don't they look really cool, but I don't think they go off road very often.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:12  
I think there's Yeah, the the four the four cylinder Broncos ready to 21 mpg combined is 2020 City 22. Highway. And

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:22  
then what did you say you got how close were you to that?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:25  
I got 16 but that was what the V six is rated at?

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:34  
Do I'm getting I'm looking to and I'm like, Oh no, that trim is even more abysmal. That's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:38  
that's 919 it's 19 combined. So and I got 16 So yeah, yeah, it's the fuel economy is not great. But you know, what said You know, that's probably not what most brocco customers are gonna be interested in.

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:54  
That's not why anybody's buying that but if you really want a new economy then you can get the Wrangler

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:00  
for buying again hybrid

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:02  
plug in hybrid series that battery's dead you're down to 20 miles

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:07  
miles where you have that battery? Yeah, you live in the dream or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:11  
if you're really concerned if you're really concerned about fuel economy, get the Broncos sport. Oh, yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:16  
sure. Find whatever buy it. What am I getting right now in the Broncos sport? I haven't I was

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:25  
what we got in the bronco. Yeah, I'm

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:27  
sorry. It's better. You got the bronco so so I think generally if you're getting a soft top on any of these you should probably expect some some wind noise. I was surprised at how little wind noise I mean it still had wind noise for the four by he had the four door with the with the soft top compared to like a soft top. I hadn't Hawaii the previous generation which is like like the whole time so they've gotten better. I liked it.

Nicole Wakelin  1:33:54  
I think it's I might be inventing this name. I think it's called like the sky one touch or something or close to that and I think it's not really just the I think I've got the right name. But it's just that like center portion that attracts all the way back and you can do it up to pretty high speeds you can retract it and and then you know open and close it. That one's the quietest a lot. Maybe it's like a little bit best of both worlds. You get your you get your soft top you can open and close it on a whim and it's not as loud as full on soft top.

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:23  
Yeah, yeah. Get the hard top just get the hard top and then when you want to get

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:28  
yeah I can never do the heart because you'd have to like take it off and store it. I always place I always think to help you do it and I think

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:37  
the soft top is like an invitation to thieves. reaching your your I don't know whatever you keep in your car you should you're

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:46  
not supposed to leave precious things in your vehicle. Don't

Roberto Baldwin  1:34:49  
leave anything here.

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:50  
No one ever tell you this leave nothing in your vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:55  
It didn't leave it is the is the sun the sun writer. Off top.

Roberto Baldwin  1:35:00  
No, that's not the one I'm thinking of. That's the Sunrider is the whole soft top.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:05  
The whole thing Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:06  
right. It is the sky one touch. Yes. Okay. I

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:09  
knew there was sky in there and like skies. Yeah, Sky one touch. That's the one that I like for the Wrangler. That one's like not really hard top not really a soft top. It's like the just right. It's the best of both worlds.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:23  
It's kind of like the the sunroof they used to have on the Beatles back in the day. They had that. Oh, yeah. Hold back. softtop.

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:31  
Yeah, yeah, yes. There you go. Alright.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:36  
Alright, so enough Bronco. They'll be in dealers momentarily. They're shipping

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:42  
the first one delivered on Tuesday, supposedly, any

Roberto Baldwin  1:35:44  
day now. Just go to dealer and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:50  
all right. So we've got a couple listener questions. First one from Coach Cabrera on Twitter. Will hybrid motors ever make it to the three quarter or one ton diesel pickup trucks? Probably not. I don't I don't I don't think I don't think you're gonna see a diesel hybrid.

Roberto Baldwin  1:36:09  
I don't see the value of a diesel hybrid. Because you have the torque already. You have the Yeah, it seems. It seems like a lot of work for a small market. To do. I don't know something. I guess it's Yeah, I don't think it's it's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:24  
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the main, the main reason for for getting the diesel is if you're doing a lot of towing. That's that's the main advantage to the diesel is if you do a lot of towing all the time. You know, the underloaded diesel, you know, the fuel economy doesn't drop off nearly as much as it does with a gas engine or a hybrid powertrain for that matter. And adding a hybrid to that is going to add cost and weight is not going to give you any advantage and telling. In fact, it may well make your telling worse, depending on how its configured. So yeah, you're probably not going to get a diesel hybrid HD pickup, you will get hybrid heavy duty pickups, just not with a diesel. It'll be with a gas. And yeah, and yeah, those will be coming in the next few years. At least at least from Ford, you won't you won't get one from GM. Because GM has made it very clear that they're done with hybrids, they're not doing any more hybrids. But Ford and actually probably Toyota, there will probably be a tundra hybrid, I would think

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:25  
they grow

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:28  
with a very, very large grill. It might it might even be a double sized grill. But most of it will be blocked off.

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:35  
Most of them look gigantic. It'll just be this giant piece of metal.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:40  
All you see is a grill coming at you.

Nicole Wakelin  1:37:43  
That's it. It's like what is that? I don't know. It's just a grill.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:48  
Alright, and the other question this week was from Big Daddy Henshaw says, Hey, wheel bearings team, big time Mazda fan, wondering what your thoughts are on Mazda rear wheel drive platform and roadmap towards electrification. Hopefully, they bring back the six based on the vision coupe concept. Anybody have any comments on that?

Roberto Baldwin  1:38:09  
I don't know that I have a comment. I was kind of so late to the Eevee thing. And again, being late to Eevee isn't really that big. that big of a deal really, because I think it's more of a it's it's less of a sprint and more of a marathon at this point. Because you know, you still have if you're still making money as a as an automaker, you're, you're fine. At some point, though, you do have to switch over. So I don't Yeah, it's hard like to sort of read the tea leaves of Mazda to see what their how it's going to shake out for them. You know, there they are, you know, as a Mazda fan, would know, you know, they're they're always going to tune their cars a little bit more than everyone else. So you get a little bit more, you know, a nicer experience. So I think I would like to think that their electrification plans, you know, continue that that heritage have given you a little something something in terms of drivability.

Nicole Wakelin  1:39:01  
Yeah, I don't, I don't, I think it would be counter to the brand to have some kind of electrification that really sacrifice the driving dynamics of those cars. That's that, you know, they're beautiful, inside and out. That's part of it, but their drivers cars and to suddenly make them not, you've thrown out half of what makes Mazda Mazda. So when they eventually decided to get that way, you know, to go towards electrification, like you said, there's, there's like a rush, but there's not just because you weren't first right now, doesn't mean that you're you're done for you know, you There's still time to introduce all that stuff in a way that is in keeping with your brand. And my expectation is that's exactly what Mazda will eventually do.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:39  
Yeah. Yeah. The the rear drive platform has been shown. They haven't said what cars vehicles are going to be built on it yet. I have a feeling that we're going to find that out at the LA Auto Show in November. I think Mazda is going to be making some announcements there and that's probably where we'll find out what the first product is off that new platform. And it, you know, given that they just recently discontinued the six. I think, you know, it may well be a replacement for the six. I, I think, you know, it'll take design cues from the vision coop, but it's not going to be a coop just because there's very little market for coupes anymore. Yeah. And, you know, Mazda, Mazda, you know, is a niche brand to begin with. So I don't think we'll see it being a coupe. But I think it will, you know, I think, you know, we'll probably get a sedan that draws heavily on the design themes of that car, and builds on, you know, what we've seen already with the current generation Mazda three and the CX 30. The, you know, and they also have said that they're going to have a new electric platform, dedicated electric platform coming in 2025. They have the MX 30. That's going on sale this fall in the US, it's already been available in Europe for a little while, it's going on sale here this fall. You know, that one's a relatively short range gv, I think it's gonna be like 140 miles or so range. Apparently drives really well, though drives, like what you expect a Mazda to drive. But, you know, I think the, you know, what we, what we see after this next generation of cars, you know, that's where they're going to really start getting serious about electrification, despite their, their instincts to not do electrification at all. But I think I think they'll probably be borrowing a lot from Toyota on that, in that respect, you know, for their TVs. Because Toyota owns 20% of Mazda now, and wouldn't surprise me if at some point, they just swallow the whole thing up. But, you know, we'll we'll have to see. You know, I think like, like you said, Nicole, I think, you know, they're going to try and keep their, their core driving DNA driving dynamics DNA. And, you know, have a very premium feel to it as well. Alright, I think that's it for for this show. Anything else? Anything else you want to add?

Nicole Wakelin  1:42:16  
No, I feel like we covered it all. And we didn't even fight too much about Bronco. I'm so glad. We were fighting a little more offline. Like your

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:25  
Yeah. There wasn't, you know, you didn't get into all the details of driving, driving both, you know, it sounded more like you were much more negative on it, then, you know, then you actually were with the exception of the Ford or softtop. Yes. That. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, everybody. We will see you next time. And don't forget if you like the show, give us a rating on Apple podcasts or anywhere else where they have ratings for podcasts and tell your friends and hopefully we'll see Hear hear you again next time.

Unknown Speaker  1:43:03  
Bye bye bye.