Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on Episode 298, a wheel bearings we've got the all new Ford Ranger the Ford Bronco, the new GMC Canyon. More on the Cadillac Lyrik a new sports car from Honda. And a very very bad new Evie from Vietnam. All that more coming up next

this is episode 298 of wheel bearings. I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guide us insights and I am Nicole way from from two cars. And Robbie is not with us this morning because he had a little family emergency he had to deal with so festive best wishes to Robbie hope everything's okay there. Let's let's go get started. What? What do you been driving?

Nicole Wakelin  0:54  
Well, I had some fun stuff to drive this week. So right now in my driveway is the Toyota rav4. So I have just like the I don't know, is it kind of a go to crossover for people? I mean, the thing is,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07  
it's the best selling right now. Yeah, no, it wasn't it wasn't

Nicole Wakelin  1:09  
a tied for with the CRV at one point or weren't they? Weren't they duking it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14  
out? Yeah, it's, I think, last I checked, it was a little bit ahead. And it had overtaken the Camry as the best selling non truck. So you know, the best selling nameplates in the US are the F 150. The GM trucks into RAM 1500. And then after that, you have the everything else and the rav4 for the last couple of years has been the top seller. So it's kind of a big deal. It's a little bit of a big deal.

Nicole Wakelin  1:43  
It's a big deal. So they made a couple changes. It's no like Big Read, redone all new, I don't even think it's refreshed. It's just sort of like typical, there have been some changes this year. I think if I would describe this one,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54  
handy dandy usual model year to model year usual like

Nicole Wakelin  1:57  
we just did a few things to make it better but nothing to knock your socks off. So you can get this with a gas a hybrid or plug in hybrid, which they call the prime just like they have the Prius Prime, I just had the gas. So I have the traditional is that a traditional engine now

Sam Abuelsamid  2:12  
with the gas Yeah, internal combustion internal combustion engine.

Nicole Wakelin  2:15  
So it's a 2.5 liter four cylinder, it has 203 horsepower, 184 pound feet of torque, it's an eight speed automatic transmission. There's all wheel drive, this trim is priced at 33 770. That's what I have for my base price on this one. But there's a couple little extra bits and pieces that they've added on. There's the larger touchscreen on this one fancy audio system. And it has the adventure grade convenience package, which is a couple little eggs again, little tiny features make it a little bit better. So my total all in with destination that I'm going to make you guessed price is $39,894. So just comes under 40. Sam, what do you think the destination is on you? I mean, you win?

Sam Abuelsamid  3:01  
Well, in that case, it's gotta be $1 I guess 995 bucks.

Nicole Wakelin  3:07  
No, it's surprisingly a good chunk higher $1,330 which I was surprised how high that was.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:15  
I guess I'm not as surprised as that would have been a couple of years ago. I mean, everybody has been jacking up their delivery charges. This

Nicole Wakelin  3:23  
is true. So it's not like it's you know, so but on net, net net. All done. You're gonna get this for under 40 grand. So it's not cheap, but it's a decent price because you're getting one that has a lot of features. It's nice, the internet, it's it's still it's a Toyota. They have nice interiors, even in the fancier trims. They're never something that you look at and you think like, wow, this is an upscale, it's not it's not supposed to be a luxury brand. You want that go find a Lexus, you know, so it's but it still has a nice interior. I think Toyota does a good job of still providing something that is comfortable and like appealing when you open the door. Even though you don't have super fancy expensive materials. It's roomy inside their seating like Cynthia said for five front row passengers doesn't matter how big you are even Robbie, I think is gonna be able to get comfortable in the front row of a rav4. If you're in the backseat again, it's still pretty roomy. It's it's a crossover, you know, it's not huge or compact SUV, however you want to look at it. But there's still a decent amount of headroom and legroom and it's not one of those that slopes down so aggressively in the back that if you're tall, you're going to feel like your heads had rooms kind of compromised because some of them look. They look really super sleek on the outside. And then you put anybody over five feet in the back and they're kind of doing this hunched thing. This one still has good room. It seats three in the back. But I think with just about every compact crossover. It seats three you don't want to do that. You really just want to put like you can put three

Sam Abuelsamid  4:48  
is too narrow for Well, three kids, you could do it. Yeah, three adults unless they're, you know, fairly slim shouldered. They're not going to be very comfortable for any length of

Nicole Wakelin  4:58  
time. That's it like three women might be able to sit back there three men with men, you know, broader shoulders, generally speaking, you're gonna be squished back there. So it's for two people in the back. It's nice to drive. I mean, it has a good amount of power. It's not going to win races. It's not super aggressive. But it's also not dull. It's enough power that it's engaging. You can accelerate fairly easily the only time you can't if you really mash the gas, like if you're trying to Oh, God, I'm about to miss my exit. I may have done that slam the gas on and try to get over. It's like, no, no, it's not to go. It just has a very slow response. And then once it realizes, like, oh, wait, she's in a rush. And suddenly, it will give you that power. But in that heartbeat, you're like, You're not helping me make the exit I'm about to miss and get in front of these cars to merge over. So it's it's fine acceleration, just typical, getting up to highway speed driving around town. But if you need that boost of power, it's a little bit lacking the things they added this year, there is a larger standard touchscreen, it was seven inches, now it's eight. But I had a larger touchscreen in this one, and I've just blanked on the size. Because it's optional, you can get a lot Oh, it's a 10.5 inch screen that comes along with a little package, it was like a $1,400 package, it also adds in JBL audio, so it's it's an extra, otherwise, you're gonna get an eight inch touchscreen, you get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that connects pretty well. Sometimes I find seems you will find this the wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto sometimes it feels like it takes, like when you're trying to pair it or when you sit back down in the car. It's it doesn't.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:35  
Yeah, a lot of times when you first when you get in the car, you know, when you're doing wired, you get in the car, you plug your phone in and start the car. And it's there. As soon as the screen boots up, you're there. But with wireless on a lot of vehicles, I find that it takes as much as a minute for it to read to find it reconnect and, and get everything going. And so, you know, especially if you're, if you go if you need to go somewhere, and you know you need your nav. If you're if you need your directions, you know it's okay to be sitting there waiting for it to catch up. Which is why most of the time, I just plug in my phone,

Nicole Wakelin  7:14  
I do the same thing because even though I like wireless because you don't have the cord, you know, not a little mess on your center console when you're trying to plug things in. I hate that delay and it's weird a minute doesn't seem like a lot until you're sitting and you've just hopped in the car someplace like at a valet stand or something where there's traffic or you're trying to get out of a parking garage. Like when you're in a rush. And then it is a really long time you feel like everyone behind you is like come on move and you think I don't know which way to go. I don't have any navigation. So that's when it's frustrating. So I love wireless but I also hate it for that exact reason. They have digital instrument clusters now on this like it's a standard digital instrument cluster which I think is kind of neat. Because I think as more and more cars have digital instrument clusters when I get one without one suddenly I feel like I'm like rock in 1985 It just feels really do you think that like that now when you see them that they don't

Sam Abuelsamid  8:06  
Yeah, sometimes.

Nicole Wakelin  8:09  
So they sort of feel like weirdly outdated when they don't have a digital instrument cluster so I like that it gets good fuel economy it's supposed to get the official on the Monroney I'm holding is 25 City 33 highway 28 combined and I happen to drive this to go drive the all the Kia seltos this year which was they did the Drive Program in Newport Rhode Island so I just drove to it. Yeah. Which is mostly highway driving and it's about an hour and 45 minutes and I think my What was it about like it was fluctuating back and forth. I was I was around 26 miles per gallon which is good because you think well highways Yeah, but right when you get into Newport is not highway so you have a lot of twisty turny streets stop and go kind of congested traffic, and I had a little rush hour traffic on the way back, which also didn't help my fuel economy at all. But it was fine to drive it that it held a good amount of cargo. It's easy to get around in a little city. I mean, when you're in a little city, you don't know where you're going. Having a big cars you're trying to suddenly change lanes is a problem. It was nice to have something that was small enough to zip back and forth as I was trying to follow directions to get out of downtown Newport. So I liked it. The My only my only like real negative was that if you really want a lot of power, if you need to accelerate really fast and you're already at highway speed, it takes a second to respond.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:29  
Yep, you know, the naturally aspirated engines like that 2.5 liter Toyota, you know, they generally don't have a lot of low end torque. So you've got to get them up into that three 4000 RPM range before they really start to pull. And the that one doesn't have a CVT, right. It's a it's no

Nicole Wakelin  9:54  
it's an ace beat. Yeah, this is an eight speed automatic on this one. So it's not a CVT, although you do get a heck of a lot of no Always when you're like me, I still hear it. It's not the CVT wine, but you hear everything working really, really hard.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:07  
Did you try it in Sport mode?

Nicole Wakelin  10:09  
I did I try that. And I don't find I didn't find significant differences, did you?

Sam Abuelsamid  10:17  
It's been a while since I drove a regular rav4. But yeah, it was it was not it didn't make it didn't seem to make a particular difference in the past. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think for the most part, it's, you know, it's adequate, the performance is adequate. It's not, you know, it's not going to get your adrenaline pumping. But

Nicole Wakelin  10:38  
yeah, but I feel like that's not what this car is for this? No. I mean, you gotta give a car credit for doing what it's supposed to do. This is not supposed to be a performance car. It's not supposed to be fast. This is supposed to be a, like a small, efficient, crossover daily

Sam Abuelsamid  10:54  
commuter, you know, hauling the kids around. So a couple of kids

Nicole Wakelin  11:00  
want power? Well, you're gonna have to get something far more expensive and far less fuel efficient. There's a trade off, does what it's supposed to do quite well.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:08  
And I think there you can get, can you get the rav4? Now, with the 2.4 liter turbo as an option? I think I think they do, because they used to have they used to offer a V six, I think

Nicole Wakelin  11:23  
I can double check. No, I think it's just with it, as I'm looking now. Just the two liter four cylinder that's it, that's your only option. And then you have the

Sam Abuelsamid  11:32  
better the the hybrids and the plug in hybrids, if you want to, if you want to performance rep for you gotta get the prime. Yeah, exactly, like 300 horsepower, and all the electric low end torque. You know, it's almost like driving an Eevee. And that thing, you know, the prime if you can swing the price, you know, it starts at $40,000. And if you can find one, which is actually the bigger issue,

Nicole Wakelin  11:57  
that really is the trick with all of this, right, like, yeah, exactly the car one.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:02  
We don't have that you can you can find a rap for Prime, you got 40 miles of electric range. And, you know, and more performance than the gas or the regular hybrid. So that one would be the one to get if you actually want performance in a rav4. Yeah, okay. You had something else to write,

Nicole Wakelin  12:23  
I did, I also had and this was for a loan and I'm kind of surprised this is when they sort of work directly to get I had a rivian r1 s, I have not had a chance to drive a ravine before or other than like 35 seconds. So it was nice to actually have some real time with them. First of all, if you want to have a car, then this was the r1 s is the SUV so it's big and also has a really distinctive sort of oval shaped lights on the front. So you are not subtle driving this everybody will look at you and go with it. Like because you just don't I think even if you're in California this is not the the car that you're going to see all the time. It's less common and it looks so funky, but like in a good way. I think it looks nice. I like I like that it

Sam Abuelsamid  13:07  
looks different. Yeah, they've given it a distinctive face that doesn't look quite like anything else. I mean, you know, when you look at it in profile, that's a pretty standard SUV shape. From the front when you see that face, you see those headlights. Oh, okay, that's a rivian it's you know, Jeep has their seven slot grille. And but reviens got those lights.

Nicole Wakelin  13:29  
I feel like a lot of them are trying to make more distinctive like front ends either for the lights or the through the grill in the lights are the easiest way to do because even if you see the lights, you have no idea what the grill looks like at night. But the lights those standout. Like the one I can always recognize behind me is a Volvo because they have those Thor's hammer headlights. Volvo when it's behind you because it always has this headlights even if it's nighttime, you can see that so I feel like BS the review like you that's a review and like there's no way you can mistake this for anything else. So this is a luxury electric SUV, it starts at $78,000 It's not cheap, is not cheap. This is not the every man's SUV. But it's really it feels like that price. Like we see when you when you have a luxury car or a high price. Even though it's not really truly a luxury vehicle, you still want it to feel like the price it is I don't wanna spend 78 grand and feel like you get the same thing for 50 like I want it to look like it costs a little bit more than what everybody else has car look like. And this is the inside is just absolutely beautiful. It has these rich leather seats and there's these bright orange accents and even like on the back, the pockets on the back of the front seats have like a little buckling kind of thing like little metal accent does absolutely nothing other than look cool, you know, just premium detail. And on the backs of the headrest. There's a little hook so you could hang like your coat or I guess your ladies could hang your purse or whatever bag you wanted to hang there. These are little things. They're not super important. They don't change how your car drives, but they make it feel brochure.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:00  
Yeah, well, and you know, when you're going to if you're going to pay that much for a vehicle, you you want those details you want you want that stuff that been that they thought that somebody thought it took some time to think about and how to implement it. And of course, you know that those details do add a significant amount to the costs, you know, it's not, it's not a trivial cost to add those things, which is why it's expensive,

Nicole Wakelin  15:24  
right? And it doesn't seem illegal. It's just a buckle. Oh, yeah. But instead of just making one flat thing, they've got to have the buckles and have them attached. Now that's like, all these little bits and pieces add to the cost of the vehicle. But I feel like they do it in a good way in this. It's got really impressive power figures. There's different setups you can get, they all have all wheel drive, but there's like a dual motor, there's a dual motor performance, and then there's a quad motor. So you get three different flavors of rivian with varying powers,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:53  
except that quad motor is actually the only one you can get right now. The others are coming soon. Coming soon.

Nicole Wakelin  15:59  
So So with a quad motor, what you get is 835 horsepower, they say 908 pound feet of torque and zero to 60 time of three seconds for this behemoth of an SUV. Three seconds. It moves.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:16  
Yeah. Well, one thing though, I wouldn't necessarily call it that. I mean, it's big, but it's not. It's not I wouldn't call it a behemoth. If you've driven the Hummer rather compact by compressing

Nicole Wakelin  16:29  
everything is small compared to a Hummer. Are you kidding me? Like a super duty truck is smell?

Sam Abuelsamid  16:34  
I mean, yeah, this is this is basically the same size as a Grand Cherokee El,

Nicole Wakelin  16:38  
yes, it's it's very low profile. It's very long, like I was looking at it. It's sitting in my Drive. And I looked at my side of my driveway a few minutes ago, just looking at that roof. I'm like, Man, that was a long route when you're looking down on it. So it's, it is big. But the thing is, it's like that kind of three, what did I just say three seconds, for it for a large ish SUV. So you definitely have all the power you could possibly want to get it's not lacking in power, you want to accelerate, it's gonna sorry, you mash on that pedal, you're going to move even if you're already at speed, you have no trouble getting more speed compared to the route Ford is slightly more responsive. Just a tad Scottish. And so you get again, there's varying miles of range. And I think the highest range that you can get this width, which is with the large battery pack, and the quad motor, which is what we have, it's 321 miles per charge, which again, is way more than enough than anyone's ever going to need during a typical day. And for the two of you are like I don't know, I drove 322 miles where you are not the average person mostly be fine with 321 miles, so that it's easy to live with every day. What takes a little bit of getting used to is there's a 16 inch touchscreen that controls all the things, everything. If you want to control something other than turn the wheel. It's in that touchscreen, which is good and bad. Like I liked you know, I'm a touchscreen fan. I hate the Mazda fiddly controller. But there's balance between what I want to have a knob for and what I don't. And one of the things that struck me in in this just, it drove me crazy. So the air vents, you can see them, you can't physically move them. You cannot take your finger and slide the vent and move it from one side to the other. You're like big deal, whatever, you have to go into the infotainment system. And you have you can select each event and you can like tap it off and on individually each vent. Then you can like route like slide your finger around an aim at air at any direction you want. Which sounds great. And it looks cool and you feel like the future Star Trek everything's infotainment touchscreen. But that's not easy to use when you're driving. And everyone said, Well, how often do you change the vents when you're driving, I change him a lot. Like the sudden suddenly comes through your side of the car and it's beaming you in the face, you're gonna want that AC vent pointing right at you. Even though the rest of your passengers might be not in the sun and don't want it or like on a really the flip side, it's winter, it's freezing cold you have the moment you sit down and it's 10 degrees you want all the heat directly on you. But then you kind of want to push those bends a little bit out of the way as the car warms up

Sam Abuelsamid  19:15  
or you know you're transitioning from your defog of the windows to the heat you know you've got to redirect that stuff you know when you get first get in the car on that cold morning. You want your D floggers on and then sometimes you know as you're driving along, you need to go back and forth you know if you if you go to turn off the defog and go to heat, your windows start to fog up after a while you got to switch back and forth. Doing that through a touchscreen interface is terrible design.

Nicole Wakelin  19:42  
It's horrible. I mean it like when you're just sitting there and you look at it you first start playing with it you think it's the neatest thing ever? And the second you realize you have to move those vents like that when you're driving you're like this is the worst idea ever. You just me and I literally was playing with him like no but am I missing this and like no Nope, I'm gonna break this vent that probably cost $5,000 Nope, I'm gonna leave it right there, because you can see them a little louvers, but you can't move them. I mean, you could probably break it, you broken some motor in there, I did chose not to do that to not make the review people unhappy with me. But so that was so it's that weird balance, I feel like that that automakers haven't figured out in the tech, there's a lot of stuff that works well on the infotainment screen, there's a lot of stuff that we really just need to be able to do the old fashioned way. Not everything needs to be technology, focus, sometimes just a louver you can slide back and forth. That's all you need just a little louver that's it

Sam Abuelsamid  20:36  
knob, you can twist to adjust the fan speed. Right, I don't see it. Granted, some of the some of the voice control stuff works pretty well. Like if you want to, if you if you just want to adjust the temperature, you know, you can say Alexa, you know, set the temperature to 72 or 65 or whatever, whatever you're comfortable. And they use the rivian uses Alexa voice services for the voice control, which is kind of I mean, in my experience at least it was kind of hit and miss it works well. Sometimes navigation it has trouble with

Nicole Wakelin  21:09  
Yeah, I found like asking it to do things it was like Well, let's see what it's gonna do today. Like it was like you said hit or miss. Still my favorite voice anything is the system in Toyota and Lexus right now. I feel like their new system. I don't know if it just likes the timbre of my voice but it always hears me. It always responds. It always does what I ask. It's the only one. I don't know. I sometimes think they like certain voices certain enunciation, I must say things right.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:36  
It's worked well for me and everything except the Lexus RX. Yeah, that was when he did you. Yes, it absolutely refused to recognize that I was asking it to do anything where you

Nicole Wakelin  21:45  
were just unknown. It was like you're dead to me. It didn't take off that car, Sam. But no, it was having none of it. No. So the reveal. So the rivian is is a great experience, one of the things like and it has some neat little sort of fun features. So there's a key the key fob that actually unhooks and can be a carabiner. clip into something totally unnecessary, but a nice feature, then you have a key card, you can also use your phone, we have a key card looks like a little credit card, if you want to slide that. And you even have like a little tiny little wristlet, like a little rubber bracelet that's waterproof, that you can use that. So if you were going swimming or something, and you don't want to have to bring anything with you, you could just

Sam Abuelsamid  22:22  
bring this, you can lock everything else in the truck, and stuff in the

Nicole Wakelin  22:26  
truck. And that Yeah, so like nice little features. Again, it goes to that whole luxury pricing luxury features. These are not huge things, but they do make your life a little bit easier. And I feel like that's a lot of what a luxury vehicle should do. I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in it, I think the thing that might be the deal breaker for me on it like okay, Nicole, you got $70,000 to burn is this going to be it? Touchscreen, the touchscreen controls are a little too much for me,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:53  
I can I can see that. I felt I felt exactly the same way. That is, to me the single biggest flaw with both this and the r1. T is having. And, you know, to be fair, there ravine is not the only one that does this. Tesla pioneered this. And they they basically did follow the same template, as Tesla. You know, so they have no Tesla, with the model three in the model Y in particular, they have everything in the touchscreen. And you know, on the steering wheel, you've got a couple of rollers, roller and rocker switches on the spokes that are unlabeled. Because what they do depends on the mode that you're in, did varies

Nicole Wakelin  23:38  
thing that's also I find, I find that confusing. The only thing I can think Sam is after you've like we have the car for a week, right? We have it for a day. If I have this car every day all week, you know, for a month or two or three months, would it suddenly become very intuitive? I'm gonna think it might, you know, like, you start to learn more things are on your car, and you don't really think about it anymore. So I'm thinking it's just there's a certain learning curve that takes some time, I'd rather not have that learning curve to adjust me.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:07  
Well, and I think for the steering wheel controls, I think that's true. I think you know, for the stuff that's in the touchscreen, you will have a better idea you'll you'll learn where the stuff is in the menus. But you still have to look at the screen to actually control it.

Nicole Wakelin  24:24  
Exactly. And that's the problem. That's the challenge if you still have to look at the screen. You know, the whole thing point is to not take your eyes off the road for too long and they're doing everything they can even with screen positioning and things to keep your eyes as close to the road when you do have to shift down to look at the screen. This takes your eyes off the road and it really takes off the road.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:43  
Yes. All right. Well, I had a late Change of plans in my Drive schedule this week. I was supposed to have a mock up so that I could try out the new blue cruise 1.2 But day before I got a note from Ford saying, Yeah, we need the marquee for something else. And we'll get to reschedule than that. So they sent me a Ford Bronco heritage edition.

Nicole Wakelin  25:08  
Which one heritage those are the fancy colors, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  25:11  
That's yeah, the one I've got is race red with white. So the heritage, the heritage edition is a trim level they launched for the 2023 models that basically has some color combinations that are kind of a throwback to old school, late 60s, early 70s. Broncos. So you know, it already had the design cues of those old Broncos. But now you've got kind of that early 70s color cues. So this one has, the body is in race red, with a white stripe down the side down down each side, white top and white wheels and the wheels. They're similar to the ones that you can get on the Bronco sport that their alloy wheels cast alloy wheels, but they have you know, these slots in them. So they they actually look like steel wheels, though, you know, it looks like you know, 70 if you look at go back and look at photos of a lot of you know, early SUVs, and vans and stuff from the 70s. You know, they often had these white painted steel wheels. And so these look like steelies and they're actually cast alloy.

Nicole Wakelin  26:18  
Yep. I love the look of steel.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:22  
And then there's also the white grille and then the red Ford word Ford in the grille. So it looks it looks pretty cool. It's a cool looking truck. The Heritage edition comes standard with the Sasquatch package, which means you get you know, the good off road stuff. You get the 35 inch wheels, the 35 inch tires, mud terrain tires, with with the white, the white wheels, and it's a pretty cool, pretty, pretty fun look to it. I liked the design, the one I have is the two door you can get it as a four door as well. And it's a 2.3 liter four cylinder EcoBoost with a manual transmission. And so it's you know, it's it's, it's, it's a going to be kind of a rarity, I think you know, the number of these that are going to be built in this combination is probably going to be pretty small. I think most people are going to go for the 10 speed automatic. This is a seven speed manual, which is really actually a six speed because the one ratio is a crawl ratio, it's for when you're off roading.

Nicole Wakelin  27:34  
So call it the seven speed Okay,

Sam Abuelsamid  27:36  
yeah, I mean, it's got seven speeds, it's just, there's only six that you're ever going to use on the road, you're you're not going to want to use the crawl ratio on the road, you know, unless you want to be driving along at 10 miles an hour at 5000 RPM. So, you know, it's it's a it's a crawler but you know, that's what this thing is designed for. You know, put the Sasquatch package on there and everything you know this is designed for going off road it's you know, the one I have the top it's the hardtop the modular hardtop so comes off and a bunch of like so I think seven different pieces. So you got four roof top panels that you can take off individually over each of the seats, and then the two rear quarter panels, the quarter windows and then the rear glass that I think can also come off and then the spares mounted on the on the tailgate which swings open sideways as it does on all Broncos and you can take the doors off and all that stuff I haven't bothered to do any of that this time have done that in the past the with the four cylinder engine, you know it's 275 horsepower. You know, this is you know, it's not a lightweight vehicle but it's not ridiculously heavy either, you know, in the two door four cylinder manual is about 4300 pounds. So it's you know, it's chunky, but it's not it's not absurd. You know, it's like less than half of the weight of a Hummer EV but you know with those big tires on there, and the gearing you know, it's you know, it doesn't it doesn't feel like it's accelerating excessively rapidly slow

Nicole Wakelin  29:22  
not accelerating excessively rapidly okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:25  
Yeah. Let's just say this is this is not a Mustang and it's not a Bronco Raptor, you know the Raptors you know quite a bit quicker and but you can you can also get this you know, the heritage as with all other Broncos with the 2.7 liter V six, which is about 315 horsepower and fair bit more torque than the four cylinder but you can't get the V six with the manual. So you know it's it's it's adequate for for performance, and it's got enough performance for for off roading as well. It's got enough torque work there for off roading. So if you want to know if you'd like the idea of, you know, manual transmission when you're crawling over boulders and stuff like that, you know, this has got you covered. And you know, the two door, if you're going to do rock crawling is probably the one to have. Because the shorter wheelbase you've got on all of them, you got fairly short overhangs, so you got good approach and departure angles. But the old the two door, you got the shorter wheelbase, you got more of a breakover angle as well, which was going to make it a lot easier when you're going over the really rough stuff. It's got good ground clearance is plenty, plenty of ground clearance. There's fixed running boards on here, but they're like tucked right up to the body. So they're, they're not hanging down. So climbing in and out because of the 35 inch tires, you know, it's fair, it's a bit of a climb up into this thing. You know, and, you know, because the rocker, the running the running boards don't extend down from the body, you know, you still got to, it's a pretty good step up to get up into it. Backseat, you know, is snug for a couple of people it's you know, comparable to what you get in a Wrangler. You know, so it's not, it can take a couple of people, but you're not going to want to do a long distance road trip in this in this thing with people in the back. And, you know, the cargo space behind the back seat is also relatively limited. But you know, it's if what you're if what you need is space for carrying more people on a regular basis more cargo space, then what you probably want is the four door anyway,

Nicole Wakelin  31:40  
because it's not easy to get in the back. But it's like it's a little bit of a you got to be a little flexible, a

Sam Abuelsamid  31:46  
little bit of contortion. Yeah, yeah. So you know, the Broncos start at about 34 or $35,000 for a base, four cylinder manual transmission. Bronco, without without anything on it. This one came in, see $49,850 You want to guess on the

Nicole Wakelin  32:15  
I'm gonna go with I'm always wrong. I'm gonna go with 990-570-9050

Sam Abuelsamid  32:20  
God,

Nicole Wakelin  32:22  
I was way too low. 795.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:26  
Yep. Wow, big, big delivery charges on these. One one other detail about the heritage addition, in addition to the white trim on the outside, you also have a white trim panel on across the dashboard. Which again, looks pretty cool. You know, it's different, you know, it's not what you typically find on most vehicles. And then it's got Bronco and red across the passenger side. You know, for that $50,000 You know, that's what the base sink for system on there. So that's like an eight inch screen. So it's by modern standards, that's a relatively small screen in there. It does have Android Auto and CarPlay both wireless capable. And, like the rav4 if you're using it wirelessly, it, it takes you know, when you start the vehicle, it takes probably more like about 30 seconds to get going. It's not quite as bad as the as the Toyota but it still takes a while if you plug it in and it comes up immediately. Figure out

Nicole Wakelin  33:35  
that's that out. Sam Sam put on your engineering hat for a second, how hard of an issue is that to overcome? So that the wireless

Sam Abuelsamid  33:42  
of that delay, I have had some cars like some GM vehicles where it comes up almost immediately. Okay, so yeah, it can be done. But it does. Wireless is always tough, you know, especially, you know, when you've got changing conditions, you know, especially if you've got multiple people using the vehicle and you've got maybe multiple phones that are paired to it, you know, trying to figure out which one to use. You know, that thing things can get a little a little hairy there. The the one the Bronco I have also has the auxilary switch package which goes up on the roof by the by the mirrors so you've got six pre wired switches for if you want to put a winch on there or exterior lights and other stuff. You've got a lot a lot of you can it's all pre wired and I think there's a there's a connector under the hood where you can hook all that stuff up so you don't have to run the wires and switches the the I did get download the trail package which was actually just released last week, the trail app. So this is something that Ford has worked with somebody on so you can it's got trail maps, so if you're gonna go off roading that And you can use this to, and it's supported in CarPlay. And Android Auto as well. Yeah, to go off roading, and then you can put your phone, you can be shot. I didn't, I didn't have a chance, I didn't have time to take it to an RV park. A favorite RV park was closed this weekend. So I didn't have a chance to go up there. But I getting it all paired up is a little bit of a challenge when I first tried it with carp when I tried to try to live with an Android phone. And when I tried to log into the the trail app, it would not go to the login screen, it kept crashing. And then I tried it with an iPhone, and I could get logged into the trail app on the phone. But when it tried to connect to the Bronco, it kept saying, you know, incompatible vehicle. And so I sent a note to to our friend Mike over at Ford and, and said, hey, you know, I'm having some issues with this. And I explained, you know what, and I did a little screen recording on my, on my pixel to show him what was happening, how it was crashing. And then the next day he got back to me, said, Okay, try it again. Now, I guess he passed that information along to the engineering guys. And apparently, they fix something on the server side that corrected it. So so that it works. And what you can do with that, as you say you have trail maps on there. I think for free, you get I can't remember, I think it's like 700 trail maps. And then you can get a subscription to get a couple of 1000 trail maps. And if you mount your phone, on a bracket on the on the windshield, you can use the camera on the phone to record as you're as you're driving. So it records all that stuff. So it's pretty cool. If you're actually going to do some off roading with a Bronco, I would definitely recommend that you get the trails out the Bronco trails app, the app is free. And like I said, the free version gets you several 100 trails that you can use. And so you can put in put in your location. And then it'll show you where there's RV parks available near you or trails available near you. And then bring it up in the navigation. So it all it all works pretty well see what else. Fuel efficiency actually was not as bad as I expected. You know, I've done mostly a bunch of highway driving because I had a couple of trips to Detroit a trip to Royal Oak this week. And it's averaged just about 19 miles per gallon. Which is not terrible. But it is yeah, you know, I mean, this thing has the aerodynamics of a barn door. You know, it's, it's acceptable. Yes. And, you know, I think, if you want, you know, some of the other cool like you have, for this $50,000 price point, you get things like the locking front and rear differentials, you get the rear,

Speaker 1  38:22  
front and rear differential locks, you don't get the trail control, or the trailer, the trail turn assist, you have to step up to a different package to get that so that that adds more to the cost if you want those features. And if you're gonna, if you're gonna go off roading, I would definitely seriously consider getting whatever package has the trail turn assist in there because that is a route when you're on really tight trails. That is so helpful.

Nicole Wakelin  38:49  
I may have this try that out when they did the launch of the Bronco and I was like okay, whatever, you you literally feel like you're just pivoting on a dime, like you will tight. It is unbelievable. Like because they haven't they have a course of preset trail. They know we can make it through. So in your head, you know that you can make it through and you're like I can make it through that. It just looks so tight. So when you use that you're like that was not just it wasn't even hard. It was super simple and easy. So yeah, if you really do technical driving if you really go off road oh my gosh, you need that.

Speaker 1  39:20  
Yeah, because what it does is when when you enable that you turn the steering wheel all the way to lock in either direction. And and then go it basically applies full brakes to the inside rear wheel and locks the inside rear wheel so the truck the Bronco just turns around that wheel so it's almost like a tank turn works really well. So that's that's a very handy feature to have. What else Oh, you know the ride quality on the thing even with the the Sasquatch package was actually surprisingly good. Yeah. Nice thing is, you know, this time of year we still got a lot of potholes around here. 35 inch tires. Nice, tall sidewalls. No danger of popping a tire on a Michigan pothole pothole in Michigan or New Hampshire. Well, given given that, you know, the, I've had two flats, you know, in the span of about four months. Yes. So this, you know, this one works. This one worked out fine. When you're going around corners, if you're going around corners a little too quick, you can feel that it's a little soft. You know, it's not, we're not talking, you know, Mustang handling here. But it's what you would expect for an

Nicole Wakelin  40:31  
Bronco that can handle like a Mustang. It's a bronco. When it's off roading, it's a Mustang.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:37  
Car. That would be a tough challenge. But But, ya know, definitely, you know, it's fun to drive. And you do have to pay attention when, you know, visibility out of it is not great, it's better than the Hummer. But it's still not great, because you're up fairly high, you know, you've got very horizontal hood that goes straight out. And, you know, it's easy, you know, you got to pay attention, if there's something in front of you or behind you, you know, it's, it would be very easy for things to get missed back there. Oh, one other detail that, that I found particularly annoying on this one. Because this is a manual transmission, you know, you drive when you drive a manual transmission, which I do used to using the handbrake the parking brake when you park the car to keep it from rolling away. You know, with automatics, the automatic transmission has a parking pawl in there that does that it locks the transmission so it can't roll. This one does not have a traditional manual parking brake. It's an electronic park brake. And the switch for the electronic park brake is underneath the left hand side of the dash. And it's kind of down low. And it's not really visible. If you want to see where it is you kind of have to reach your head around the steering wheel to see it. And it's it's easy to forget that it's there. So it's a little bit of a pain to use. So I would definitely recommend if you're driving one of these, you know, at the very least, make sure you put it in gear when you park it don't leave it parked in neutral, so it doesn't roll away. But yeah, so that's, that's the Bronco heritage edition.

Nicole Wakelin  42:20  
I just like to look at the Heritage edition. I think maybe the heritage didn't always call it that any kind of sort of throwback car. I think that it's nice to see a modern car that's actually designed to look like it's not I think that's kind of

Sam Abuelsamid  42:31  
fun. Yeah. All right. So I believe that in the past week, you also drove a sort of SUV ish type of vehicle that maybe was to not live you quite as happy.

Nicole Wakelin  42:46  
Yeah. So okay. I really wanted it to be good, Sam. I drove the vinfast VF eight. So I drove this once before in Vietnam back in September, they flew a whole bunch of us out there. But it was a very short drive, they, you know, give us a tour that included very, very many things in a very brief amount of time in the car, which we knew going out. And at that time, I really kind of felt like Okay, guys, this isn't quite shipping to the US yet. You need to do some work. There were some things I was like, hmm, this is not ready. And to their credit, they developed this thing really, really, really fast. I think they maybe went a little too fast. So then I thought okay, now we've got the US first official media drive for this. And they had I was actually on the way with the Canadian journalists. So it was the nicest automotive wave I've ever been on in my life. Everyone was very polite.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:35  
So I say sorry, a lot. They did. In fact, one kept

Nicole Wakelin  43:37  
saying sorry, just to kind of mess with me. I'm like, stop it. Now. You're not being a nice Canadian. So there is so

Sam Abuelsamid  43:44  
we're probably saying sorry, you know, in place of place of the vinfast people.

Nicole Wakelin  43:48  
Yes, right. Yeah, place to them. So they hadn't for us to drive. They had the VF nine, which is the next one coming out, which is supposed to be coming out this fall, I think. So there's not even a very long timeframe between the VFA, which is actually on the roads today in the US. They've delivered 300 units. And I think they said something like 1500 More are about to be ready to be delivered. So this isn't like a coming soon. This is here. You could see one driving down the road and the VF nine is coming in the fall. So I don't really see here's the thing. I hate to just bash a vehicle and sound like I'm bashing a vehicle to be a jerk. I'm not I want the vinfast to be good. I want them to succeed. tons of time and energy and man hours and blood and tears go into every vehicle that we ever drive. This one just doesn't quite feel ready and it's like if any one of the things that are wrong felt wrong, it'd be okay but so many things aren't quite there. The fit and finish on the inside isn't there when I shut the door. The door handle is like the kind of you know what I'm you're going to know what I mean. Trying to think how to verbalize this. The plastic when you drive something that's pre production, and it's not the finished plastic that you will drive When you have it and you can just tell when you look at it, it looks a little off it feels a little doesn't

Sam Abuelsamid  45:04  
have they don't have the texturing on it, you know they're using a pre production mold. It's just very smooth texturing no doesn't necessarily have the right color match and things like that. That's what

Nicole Wakelin  45:15  
the actual handle is like, and it flexes a little bit when you grab it goes. Like it, squeaks. Right. All of them had that same handle, maybe not all squeak like minded, they all had that handle. The leather isn't quite tight enough on the seat. So you see spots, where there's sort of a little bit of a buckle like a little bit of a lump in it. No big deal, right? Yeah, until you sit in that seat over and over. Now that buckle becomes a crease. And I have a problem with leather seats. Then, so that was so the fit and finish. Things just don't feel quite right, the infotainment screen which I should have the size in front of me and I don't, but they have a large infotainment screen, there is no instrument cluster, there's just the infotainment screen and it's large. So like the left hand, I'm going to say maybe third of the screen serves as your instrument cluster. So you're glancing over there for your speed and for anything related to your vehicle, which takes a little getting used to and here's a weird thing. I thought I was having a hard time getting used to shifting my eyes constantly, right? If I wanted to check things that were there, because I thought my sinuses were Max Miss messed up, because I've been flying and it's allergy season, because I was giving ever so slightly like the sort of motion six sensation. I was driving. I don't think myself motion sick when I drive. And I'm like, wow, I just must have like sinus issues until the reviews of this came out. And another journalist said for the first time in his life, he got motion sick. And I was like, Oh, wait, actually the movement of the car. So I didn't peg it to that at the time. But now I'm like, Oh my gosh, was that actually it because I only felt that when I was driving it. And that has to do with the suspension system. It's very, it's weirdly sloppy, like if you if you go over a little hump in the road, like if you think you know, you go over a speed bump, and you get that like, like kind of like BUMP BUMP BUMP, it kind of like sways a little. Well imagine that just on any kind of little hilly kind of bump in the highway. But the road but it goes more like you feel like you're driving a much heavier vehicle for the amount of sway that you get, say typical sedan sways wants something and it's done. This is like funk funk folks feel like it takes a second

Sam Abuelsamid  47:15  
for that motion to stop. Like it's severely under damped. Yes, like

Nicole Wakelin  47:19  
it's severely under damped. So you're like, Whoa, that's too much motion. Um, same thing left to right, like when you turn that the time it takes for to resettle, if you do, turn to the right turn to the left, or you know, changing lanes. It takes a little too long. The it's so many things and the ad is the driver assistance stuff. I don't know what was happening, I was getting error messages that kept popping up, I had a yellow triangle that kept popping up with an exclamation point. I don't know what it was yelling at me, it was just a yellow triangle. It there was no indication to why it was an angry yellow triangle with an exclamation point. And sometimes it was on and sometimes it was off. And sometimes it's blinked. And then there were other messages that came up for like a boom. And I couldn't tell if that was a two quick warning. Or if it's like not working on back like I don't even know what was going on with the systems it was and then the lane keep assist I'm gonna say it was lane keep assist that I feel like you drift a little to the right, it's too sensitive, like redonkulous ly. So So I am driving literally in a straight line very consciously, like keep this thing as centered as a human can center a vehicle. And if I just ever so slightly move to the right. It wants to correct me and bring me back to the center. But it does it so aggressively. That it literally throws me into the other lane of traffic. I couldn't drive this with one hand, I couldn't take one hand off the wheel. Because it was so aggressive in its corrections. I had to be ready to correct it back and say nope, I'm in the correct lane. That is oncoming traffic, I'd prefer to stay on this side of the road. It was it's not ready and a lot of these things are things that can be like over the air updates you can change how your these systems work. It's not like necessarily

Sam Abuelsamid  49:00  
some some things things like you know the damping, you can't change that with an over the air update. Or change the steering field with an OTA update.

Nicole Wakelin  49:07  
That's a bit like the the ADA stuff. Let's say they can fix that with software, right engineering man, they could do that, couldn't they?

Sam Abuelsamid  49:13  
Could they to a point? Okay, depends on what the hardware is that's on the car.

Nicole Wakelin  49:18  
And I'm trying to I'm trying to cut them some slack because I really don't like having a vehicle that there's just a lot that I don't like and it was this collective. Even the you know how the and I didn't one of the things they did like so in the infotainment system when you have it in CarPlay sometimes getting out of CarPlay and getting back into the cars native infotainment, the native system is a little bit funky. It doesn't you have to swipe the screen or two or you know, to get back this one you just checked any of the spots if you touch anything that's like where the instrument cluster is anything that sort of like black screen, you know, it's not actively showing something. Boom, it takes you right back to the system's native. infotainment. I'm trying to come up with something don't you laugh, Sam

Speaker 1  50:00  
In this, there's Jalopnik had a piece yesterday or the day before the headline. And this is sort of a summary of some of the highlights of the reviews. Critics agree the vinfast VFA is very, very bad, from flaky turn signals to broken eight as features and as a suspension that induces nausea. Critics are not impressed with vinfast first electric SUV for America. And, you know, one of the things that we've we've often talked about in the cars that that we review it and I think over the last several years, I think we've all come to the conclusion that even the quote unquote, worst cars available today and stuff like the Mitsubishi Mirage, are not terrible. You know, they're just, you know, they feel cheap, you know, they're like, that I liked the wrap up on this Jalopnik piece. The real commonality between all these accounts is that overnight, the VFA has obliterated the notion that there are no terrible cars for sale anymore. Thankfully, it's hard to remember the last time a car released overwhelming disdain, a car that every critic agreed simply wasn't ready. And you said this last September, when you came back from Vietnam, you know, we were sitting in that hotel room in Montana.

Nicole Wakelin  51:17  
I know. And here's the like, it pains me if you could see the expressions I'm making, fucking, it pains me to have to be this hard on a car. Because I am not the person that hates a car, just to hate a car. I don't hate it just because everybody else says it's not good. I don't hate it, just to be that a whole that's like at its cars. garfi

Sam Abuelsamid  51:39  
just being cranky, it's not, this is a truly bad car.

Nicole Wakelin  51:43  
This is truly not good. And the thing of it is, though, Sam, I feel like like, if they had just take one more time to do it, if you just take it

Sam Abuelsamid  51:52  
with, you know, when we talked about this, that when you came back from Vietnam, you know, at that point, they were saying, Yeah, we're going to we're going to deliver cars in December. This was in September, you said they were gonna deliver cars in December. And your response to that was, you know, you should really take another six months. You know, give give it another six months, do some refinement on it. And we're now middle of May, you know, so almost six months on from when they were originally planning to deliver cars. And it doesn't sound like it's gotten notably better,

Nicole Wakelin  52:23  
doesn't the only thing that I could say was noticeably better. Now, I also have to say, remember, I drove this for maybe 10 or 15 minutes in Vietnam, it was a really short drive. This was a proper dry program. We had hours in his car. So we really drove it. So some of this I may not have noticed on a really short drive, it could have been the same or they may have made it better and it's still not great. The one thing I did notice was that the acceleration was better when I drove it in Vietnam, I felt like it did not accelerate the way that it should have for an electric vehicle. It felt woefully held back. They talked a lot at the time about how the percentage of charge in the battery significantly impacts acceleration, because they throttle it down on purpose to preserve battery life. I felt like it accelerated more strongly now than it did then. But it still didn't have quite the pep I expected. Like that was noticeably different to me positive that was noticeably different that it accelerated better than it did before. I like how it looks on the outside like the styling is kind of fun. I know some people think the front is too busy actually like the way this looks.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:24  
Yeah, it's it doesn't look it's not a bad looking car. Like the it looks

Nicole Wakelin  53:27  
great. I think the exterior styling is fantastic. I really liked what they did on the outside. I really like how it looks. So Styling wise, I think it's great. Unfortunately, it's the substance part of it is that you don't have it just everything feels like it needs to be tweaked a little, you know I had,

Sam Abuelsamid  53:43  
but it's okay, though, because you know, this thing is 350 miles and only cost $30,000. Right?

Nicole Wakelin  53:48  
No, no, actually cost $50,000 is the base price on this. And I believe right now you can only lease it and I think the lease is $414 a month. So this is that's the other part of it. This is a $50,000 car, you know what I was saying about the rivian 78 and it feels like 78. This does not feel like 50. The thing is I couldn't I couldn't recommend this even at a lower price. Because I don't think the AI systems work that the driver assistance systems work well enough to be on the road right now. I wouldn't recommend it for the queasiness that it induces. I wouldn't recommend it for the low power if those things worked. Let's say for a second. Those things worked. I still don't think it feels like a $50,000 car. I think it should be a $30,000 car. It's overpriced. Even if it's working, there's not enough on the inside to make it feel to command that premium $50,000 price point. But as it stands right now, I couldn't I could not recommend it and it kills me to say that because I I've literally never said that about a car before Sam. I've never driven a car where I thought I could someone was telling They were considering this right now, on May 14, that 12:38pm I'd be like, don't get it yet hold, see if they're able to fix things. See what happens if you're really set on wanting to try then fast on wanting to get a new Eevee from a new automaker who is not just it's like they've been in Vietnam, but they are new to the US. And you really mean

Sam Abuelsamid  55:21  
been in Vietnam that long. I mean, I think their first cars were like 2017, or 20,

Nicole Wakelin  55:26  
maybe even five years so that but at least they've been there five years, like they're not brand spankin new, they've had car gas cars in Vietnam since then. But if you really want to give them a shot, and you really want if you really are into this, for some reason, just hold a second, like if you don't need to buy hold and see what they do, because I just don't feel like this is ready. And I really wish they had done more in the last six months. I don't know what changes were made. But I mean, it was, it was pretty uniformly like you said, everybody pandas and it, I'm not lying, it breaks my heart to be this hard in the car. I want to say this is great, but these things are horrible. It looks good. The styling is great. That's about all I can give it.

Speaker 1  56:09  
And the range is mediocre. The VFA according to the EPA, website, VFH. Eco is rated at 207 miles, the VFA plus is only 191 Miles

Nicole Wakelin  56:22  
aren't good. I mean, you're getting a $50,000 car with those kinds of numbers for range. That's not great. It's not great. And I hit and on my particular wave, there were people that like I had problems that let me continue driving. There were two journalist I believe, that had problems that didn't allow them to continue driving. So like it just, it's 100 ways not ready and the people at vinfast You know, not just the people at the very top of the food chain, who of course, you know, in any company, the guys at the top, we're gonna say, This is amazing vehicle, we build the next best thing. Everybody seems to be very vested in making this work. Like you feel like the people are genuinely looking to try and produce a good car. There's a genuine sense of excitement from the people at vinfast. And they are very forthcoming. I know there were some criticisms about them not really giving you the full thing. I always felt like any miscommunications I got from vinfast were genuine honest, like, Oh, I thought it was this. She thought it was that sorry, this is the answer. Like they will get to you at the end. That happens, right? And that happens. So I have no criticism of how vinfast is handling things, like their peer people, their team all of that top notch, and they're working really hard to get you what you need. But the car is not, it's not ready. And like I said, there's 300 of these that have been delivered in the US already. I don't I don't know.

Speaker 1  57:41  
More More from excerpts from the Jalopnik piece. Scott Evans at Motor Trend says, I may not like the way it turns signal sounds, but I expect it to work every time I use it. One of the VFH at the launch event couldn't do that. Similarly, multiple VF eights including our test vehicle, which had fewer than 1300 miles on it at h HVAC systems that can only blow cold air when set below 80 degrees and only blow hot air when set above 80. But never warm or cool air regardless of whether automatic or manual climate was selected. And see these are

Nicole Wakelin  58:13  
things and the thing that's baffling about the SANS family. We've been doing this for a long time you and I've driven a lot of cars, every now and then we'll get in a car at a launch program. And we're all like what the heck happened? Why is this working and Toyota or Lexus or Ford whoever's, like, what the heck and there was a software issue and somehow we've all discovered it or there's an issue we've all discovered and they address it. Like know why that's doing that. You see panicked engineers taking notes and it's like, Oh, crud, and they fix that. Imagine this times 1000 So many things I don't know how it it's already shipping. I mean, it's not even like ship finish it before it ships it is shipped like this. We have sent it this way. There are people driving these this way.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:59  
Yeah, based on what you described with the lane keep assist, you know, it sounds like it's not even safe to drive.

Nicole Wakelin  59:07  
I hesitate to say that something's unsafe because I feel like that's a really strong judgment. But that Lane Keep Assist made me nervous. It made me nervous, because you know, you drive it you don't clutch the steering wheel for dear life with a white knuckled grip. Just driving casually on the highway in California. You got your hands on the wheel and you're paying attention. But this was it was hard enough and jerky enough that I would not take my other hand off the wheel at all. Like I when I had to take my hand off. I was holding really tightly because it is an aggressive it's very aggressive and that's not safe. It was and it wasn't it also wasn't that I had drifted it was I certainly am like what is wrong and if I just get really even just close to the lane, the edge of the lane I don't even have to drift out of it. Like over. It's like wham you're you're drifting out I was like, No, I'm not. And I would still prefer to stay on my side of the road. So yeah, I just, I can't recommend it. I really hope vinfast figures it out. That's sort of the caveat to it all. I'm not hating, I don't hate. I'm not hating on the company, I'm hating on the fact that the product they made could be better. And they if they gave it more time, they could be ready. And I I want them to figure it out. I would like to see them make some changes. I'd like to see them make some changes fast. Because if they don't, I don't I don't know where this goes from here. I mean, I don't know. What do you think, Sam? Can they? Can they overcome the scathing reviews that you just read off?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:38  
Well, I mean, do you remember when Hyundai started in the United States, they had a really, really rough start, you know, their quality was terrible. Now, granted, you know, the, at that time, the cars were a lot simpler than they are today. And, you know, they were they were able to overcome that it took a while it took them some a few years. And, you know, they eventually had to resort to doing 10 year warranties, you know, to demonstrate that they were going to stand behind these things. And you know, they're very successful now. You know, they're fifth, fifth largest automaker in the world.

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:16  
But you know, they still have it's even after what year was Hyundai introduced? Do you know what your however many,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:21  
I think they launched the, the original Sonata in the US in 86, or 87, the Sonata and the accent. So it's long number of years. And there's still people who do you know, don't think highly of Hyundai yet. Like

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:36  
I think very highly of Hyundai and Kia. I think their cars are great. I have no hesitation recommending

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:41  
you get one with a push button start. Exactly.

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:45  
But it'd be the I have no problem recommending those to people, no reservations, recommending those is a car people are looking for cars. And that's one of the ones I'll rattle off whatever segment it is that they're shopping. But sometimes when I say that, still there are more than a few note people that are like we erect those are those are garbage. Those are junk. And I'm like, Well, not anymore. They've been quite good for quite some time. 1986 It's 2023 and people are still trying to shake the notion that Hyundai builds garbage cars they don't. They build great cars they truly truly do. But there's a lot of people who don't believe it can Vin fast pull off the same thing a really rough start fix it and have people say in because they can't go that long. You know like however many years Wait, they fixed it they've changed it. Like the PR effort that's going to be required to overcome this like that VF nine had best be a gift from God. If they're people to buy into vinfast There have to be big changes for that one. I'm hoping they can do it I genuinely hope they can do it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:48  
all right, let's move on from fifth Yes. You also drove I believe the GMC Canyon.

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:54  
I did not think of that. Canyon Hey, that was that actually everything worked. All the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:00  
signals and everything, turn signals work.

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:04  
It didn't get sick. Did all the offer the things it was supposed to do off road like it worked. I was really excited. Everything worked. So that and in fact I see the link that you put in I just realized the link that you put in did you put that link and you did. So I have a nother podcast that I started just for myself for kicks and giggles and fun that my husband is my cohort on called the road reflected and I just realized you use my link in your show notes. Because I talked about it in there. And you can hear me talk about it more on the road reflector with my husband, but I liked the canyon I thought the canyon was really good. They came out with a new 84x which is the more off verde version. There's the 84 now this 84x So you've gone up one did you try this one too? Sam

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:55  
oh no I did not go on this one you did not try that

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:57  
one. So they had us take this on some pretty gnarly roads off road in Asheville genuinely needing to use all the off road features that this comes with not just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:07  
a dirt road like through a no not just a dirt state.

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:11  
You're in a state sorry Hyundai not just rode through the state. This was actually you needed to be able to drive and you needed to offer capability. In fact, there was a section they had us do that if you look online you'll see a million videos because I think we all videoed it because it was just so stinking cool. We went into this it was very steep it was a short spot but it was steep into like a mud pit mud and water that when Sploosh when you came up and it was when you went down it was like the guy goes he demonstrates I'm the Pro and I'm first in line to go behind the pro with everybody sitting there with their cameras. I'm like oh please Nicole don't mess this up. Don't mess this up. Is everybody has their camera like don't get stuck. I did not but I watched him go through when he came to the window and he said How? How you know Are you Are you okay? You got it Jimmy and I said so basically watching you it looks like you crept down really slowly. until it kind of touches the bottom and then you just sent it. He's like pretty much like, okay, I can do that. So it's exactly what you do. And it just went right through. And it wasn't like it was. This was that really it was just mud and water like that sludgy, slushy stuff that is mud. So very slick. And it had no problem every single vehicle in the lineup. Everybody got through, no one got stuck. And the thing of it was, it wasn't like everybody there was an expert offered or an expert driver in trucks, there were varying levels based on the people I knew who were with me, who had some expertise going off road, who had some expertise in trucks and others who were like, Oh, God, I've never done anything like this in my entire life ever still came right through, which is actually the biggest testament to the vehicle doing what it's supposed to do. If you know how to do it. And you do it big deal. If you don't know how to do it, and you still get through, that's a big deal. And so I felt it did it. No problem. I came out with only mud, a mild amount of mud on myself after having to Trump through and take pictures. I get stabbed by pricker Bush, that was not fun. Although the GMC guy was like hacking away and everything to get us through like he was like going through with like a machete through the forest using his arms. So it was really, it was lots of stuff. There was lots of terrain. It was very fun. They also let us play around with the Baja mode, which is sort of like the high speed driving, there was only a teeny little section where we could really open up because this isn't like the desert. But when you open up that Baja modes, fantastic. It was great. So I liked it. I liked what they did on the inside, it still has a sort of premium GMC look and feel, which is nice. It has a really large infotainment screen that standard so there's no weedy little tiny screen and having to move up but trim the whole lineup has a large infotainment screen, which is nice. So I you know, thumbs up. I like the GMC Canyon. I think that was a good offering. And I think for people looking for a mid size truck, whether you want the super capable 84x or their fancy PMS, Denali, it's it's a good choice.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:57  
Well, and it's interesting this year, with the new canyon, they end the Colorado and the Chevy Colorado, which is basically the same vehicle that they've decided to narrow down the scope, the body styles to just one. So now there's only a crew cab, there's no more extended cab traditional cab style version of it. And they've also gone with just one engine this time, the only there's only the 2.7 liter, four cylinder turbo, that is the base engine in the big trucks. But what how was that engine?

Nicole Wakelin  1:07:39  
I think it was good, you know that. And that was a big complaint, or I guess a big concern for people like I can get this configured as many ways as I want and people tend to like to configure their truck in 85,000 different variations. But again, this is not a full size truck. This is a mid sized truck. So slightly different person who's probably not doing the same level of towing or like work on the ranch that someone who gets a full size vehicle. I felt like that powertrain was great. And I had no problems we were going on, we did the off road section. But to get to it there were just twisting highway roads through the sort of mountain area outside of Asheville, North Carolina, and it had no problem going up and down those like you could really hit the gas and that would accelerate a little bit on the noisy side like you hear it but again, this is a truck. This isn't a sedan so you always kind of hear the acceleration you hear it working a little bit more on a truck, but it wasn't intrusive. It accelerated just fine. And I think as far as utility that that if you need a really if you want you know if you want more well then you're gonna have to move away from this but it still has decent towing numbers, it still has decent payload as a mid sized truck, I think you have to sort of qualify it mid sized truck, not full size truck. And as a mid sized truck, the power is fine. The handling is great. Everything is good, you're not going to have the same kind of towing and payload is the big guys if you really need that since there's not other configurations you meet. That's what the big guys are for. The big guys are for so as the mid size it does a beautiful job.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:03  
Okay, well, it's not the only mid set new midsize truck watching the show. In fact, this is a whole fleet of midsize new midsize trucks launching this year. And I think when we're in Hawaii next week, we're going to see another one, the new Toyota Tacoma. But before that last week, Ford or like a selection. Last week, Ford showed off the 2024 Ford Ranger and Ranger raptor for the North American market. So we actually first saw the new Ranger. So this is the sixth generation Ranger. And we first saw this one in late 2021. That's when they first released images of it and said yep, this is coming. You know, it was delayed a little bit because of all the all the supply chain issues and everything else It's already launched in Europe and some other parts of the world. And it's also going to form the basis for the new VW Amarok pickup truck, the new generation version of that, that's going to be sold outside of North America. But now we're finally getting it here in North America. And so, with the previous generation Ranger back in 2011, when they launched the fifth Gen Ranger, that's when they made the shift from a compact to a midsize truck for the Ranger. And at that point, Ford decided, you know, we don't really need the ranger in North America anymore. You know, because it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't cost that much less to make it than then to build an F series pickup. And it's not really getting better fuel economy than the F series pickup. So we're just gonna go with the F series from now on. And, you know, so they sold the built arranger for the rest of the world. And we didn't get it here until 2019. By 2019, you know, the F series had continued moving more and more upmarket, they kept introducing these premium trim levels and selling more and more of those. And the average transaction price of an F 150 was getting up to around $50,000. And so they decided, okay, we need something more affordable in here. And so they brought the, the global Ford Ranger back to North America for four years ago. And they did some mild updates on it, but it was basically the same as the one that sold overseas. And, you know, it was fine. You know, it was good size. You know, the interior, you know, was sturdy, but not particularly premium feeling, especially if you got the Lariat, if you went for an XL or an XL T It was fine. You know, it's hard, because it's all hard plastics and stuff like that. And you know, they were a little more affordable if you went for a Lariat. And when I first drove one back in 19, you know, I drove a Lariat that at the time was like $43,000. And I said, you know, it's a nice truck. But it's not, it doesn't feel like it's worth 43 grand. Yeah, for 10 grand less, you could get an XL t that would, I think would be a lot better option. This new Ranger now, definitely, as you talked about, with the rivian, it feels more premium, you know, the materials are much nicer, much nicer than the the outgoing version, the overall size of the Ranger, the overall length is the same. It's like within, I think it's like a 10th of an inch longer or something then compared to the old Ranger, but it has two inches more wheelbase. And it's also two inches wider than before. And it's a couple inches taller. So it fit you look at it, it looks a little bigger feels a little bigger than before, even though it's the same overall length.

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:55  
Does it look that way? When you see it in person? Could you Yeah, yeah, yeah, it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:58  
does it. And the design, you know, the previous Ranger was a little more rounded looking kind of, you know, almost felt like more of a throwback to the late 90s, early 2000s F 150s. If you remember those, they were more rounded looking before they went to the more squared off the does squared off design. And so the ranger had a little more rounded look, this one adopts the same kind of design language that we see on the F series, you know, more squared off chunky looking, as well as even on the Maverick, you know, and since they since the Ranger came up, they also brought out the maverick at an even lower price. And so now you've got these three distinct levels in there. And, you know, so you've got in the headlights, you know, they've got the signature C clamp signature signature lighting in the headlights and, you know, the front end looks a little more like a like a modern f150 You know, the sides are a little more sculpted than before. Looks a little more modern. It's it's a it's a good looking truck. Like the canyon and Colorado. It's Crewcab only no more extended cab version. You know, I always felt those those extended cab versions. You know, they had rear jump seats in there to work basically useless. It's like It's

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:19  
like we're giving you an extended cab because we feel like we should have that option.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:23  
Yeah. But but nobody was buying them. So they said okay, fine, we'll just do the crew cab because that's what everybody wants anyway. And so this time, part of the the, the new platform is a heavily upgraded version of what they had before, which is basically the same platform that's under the bronco. And so a big change was the front part of the frame. It's now hydroformed so it's wider so there's more space for engines in there than before. So that's part of why it's two inches wider. Um, so whereas GM has gone from four cylinder and V six options to just four cylinders, Ford's gone the other way, and they now they have the 2.3 liter four cylinder and the 2.7 liter V six. So the same engine options that are in the Bronco but no manual transmission option, and the Ranger and then the there's also for the first time in North America, the Ranger Raptor, which is, the more the more off road oriented version, you know, joining the F 150 Raptor and the Bronco Raptor. higher performance get the same four liter or two or three liter 405 horsepower V six that's in the Bronco raptor Fox shocks, but it's not quite as aggressive as the Bronco Raptor. So where's the Bronco Raptors goes up to 37 inch tires. There's only 30 threes on the Ranger Raptor. The suspension is beefed up, it's three. The Ranger Raptor is three and a half inches wider than the standard ranger with wider fenders and everything and wider track different suspension. But again, not quite as aggressive as the as the Bronco Raptor. And you know, the Bronco because the shorter overhangs of the SUV versus the pickup truck, you know, it's gonna have a little more off road capability there as well. The the Ranger and Ranger Raptor, go into production this summer, and should be available for sale late summer. We don't have pricing information yet. But so 275 horsepower, four cylinder 315 with the with the 2.7 liter. And it's got some of the, you know, they brought in some of the neat features that they have on the f150 like on the tailgate, you have the molded in ruler, and the tailgate and the molded and cupholders and stuff. And that's just nice little handy feature and the pockets in the top of the top edge of the tailgate for C clamp so you can clamp your your stuff down there you're working on this they have the Bed Step behind the rear wheels. Similar to what GM has had for a while, and but it's wider than the one like the the GM trucks have the bumper step that you can step up to get into the bed for it has it in the in the side of the bed. So it's wider than the bumper set. So you can actually stand on there with two feet rather than just one feet, it's a little more stable, it'll hold up to 300 pounds. And with that extra with the two inches of extra width. You can also put in four foot wide sheets of plywood or drywall or whatever you want. In between the wheel wells and it sits flat on the floor bed. Unlike in the maverick which is narrower where you have to sit up sit them on top of the wheel wells. And then the maverick has you can open up the the tailgate to two different levels. So you can have if you have it halfway open with the straps on there than a sheet will lay flat across the the edge of the tailgate and the and the wheel wells. So, you know, it's a I think it looks good. You know, it's gonna be a very interesting competition. In the midsize truck segment with the GM trucks, the rent the new Rangers, the all new Tacoma, we got the new frontier last year the year before. And yeah, there's a good probability that we will see something from RAM in the next year or so as well. So getting to be very hot segment.

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:02  
I think it's me and I like to see them continuing to leave that segment for because it was a little bit ignored for a while and I think it's a lot of people want to talk but they don't want enough 151 a 1500 and they need something little smaller you still kind of like why crossovers are so cool, you know when a full size SUV, but you want a little bit of crossover, versatility. You don't want a full size truck, but you want a little bit of truck versatility. So I think it's good. I liked I liked the range. I'm excited to see what this one looks like in person. I'm curious to see how much the bigger size and bigger bits make it feel like more truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:35  
Yeah, I mean, it looks a little more tricky than before. So that's good. All right, Honda. They recently ended production of the NSX. It's been 13 years, 14 years since they ended production of the ES 2000 and parently. They may be planning a new sports car coming out this year to celebrate Honda's 75th anniversary. That's exciting because

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:07  
Honda builds nice, fancy sports car.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:10  
Yeah. Well, you know, and the render that they, you know, this is a story from Autocar, the render that they have here shows a front end that looks very much like the NSX. You know, but it's a front engine, rear drive, you know, long hood roadster rather than the mid engine supercar that the NSX was. And, you know, presumably, if they do this, it's gonna use the two liter turbo from the Civic Type bar and the integrity bypass Hill. I don't know about you, but I would love to have something like this coming from Honda would be great to see what they could do with that engine. In a in a rear wheel drive sports car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:20:57  
Yeah, I think this could be fun and where it's like an anniversary vehicle year to celebrate the anniversary, they tend to do fun stuff with that. They're not going to mess around like the 75th anniversary celebration never is just a vehicle or the 50th it's not just like, yeah, we made a fit, they're gonna make something cool. Like because of Honda, you know, they it's 100 Such a interesting company because they make like, the Accord was just like a solid city and, and the CRV, which is just a solid little crossover. And then they make fun stuff, you know? And I like when they do the fun stuff. It's like, underneath these mild mannered cars everyone's buying, there's some actual personality that they save for the sporty stuff. I'm hoping this. This is all the personality all the fun, all the excitement, all the engagement that I know 100 can do, but you don't generally don't see in sort of the everyday Honda.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:45  
Yeah, I mean, you see it and stuff like the NSX, like the Civic Type R and the Integra, but it certainly doesn't make it into the mainstream products.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21:55  
So it's nice to that's why I have high hopes for this because I know they can build some really fun stuff. And I bet this is gonna be fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:03  
All right, one more item before we get to a couple of listener, emails. The Pollstar three. And the Volvo e x 90. Pair of electric vehicles electric crossovers built on a new electric only platform that were due to launch this year have been delayed. They've been pushed back into 21st. Half of 2024 actually went to there's a new pole star store here in Detroit, Michigan, Royal Oak, went over there on Friday, they had the Pole Star Three, they're doing a little tour of some of the Pole Star dealers around the country taking the three around to these. So I went over there. As I walked in. Stephanie Brindley was in there chatting with Mike off era. And that was fun. We were checking it out. And we were talking about this. And they put out and they had put out an announcement the day before on Thursday, as part of pulsars, first quarter financial results. That production which was supposed to start late this summer, has been pushed back to q1 of next year of 2024. And then, for the UN, that's going to be first in China. And then they're going to add production at the the Volvo plant in Charleston, South Carolina. And then that that plant is also going to build the E x 90. So we will get the the currently scheduled to get the Pollstar three on sale here in the second quarter of next year. So about just about a year from now, is what Mike told us. And the E X 90 should be coming out around the same time. And the reason for this software. They, Volvo is having some challenges with developing the software. And seems like everybody's having software issues right now. You know, VW is carry out division, which is their, their software division, is they just they made an announcement earlier this week that they had fired the CEO, the CTO, and the CFO. And this and they were replacing all of them. They brought in the head of manufacturing from Bentley to run, carry add. And they're gonna have other new leaders joining him soon. This, you know, everybody's having issues trying to develop this complex new software,

Nicole Wakelin  1:24:43  
right, you know, I give here's looping back to our vinfast thing, but I give them credit. They said we're not ready. The software isn't ready. We're not ready. We gotta push this out. It's going to affect our deliveries for the year. It's going to affect everything for the year we're gonna ask the people who were not doing what we feel like they should have been doing. But they said, we can't, we cannot deliver this this way. I give them full credit for saying we are not ready rather than like, let's just push it through and see what happens. I mean, this is how this is, this is how it should be done. If you're not ready. Don't put the car out there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:16  
Absolutely, yeah. Get it, you know, get it better. Yeah, it's got for a vehicle, especially something that is going to start at $80,000. Yeah, this standard for what consumers expect today, I think is a lot higher than what it used to be. And, you know, especially when you're talking about software, there's so many things that can go wrong with that. You just take the extra time and get it, you know, to a point where it's at least stable and, you know, works reasonably well before, before you ship it.

Nicole Wakelin  1:25:53  
Right. So it's a bummer. But kudos to them for saying no, we can't ship this like it if we got hold.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:59  
Yeah. All right, let's, let's do a couple of listener. Feedback things. Let's start off with Eric S.

Speaker 1  1:26:08  
Eric wrote to us feedback at wheel bearings, dot media, which is where you can all reach us. I'm writing to the email from this week's show. Referring to last week's show complaining about how long it takes Nicole to come up with her weekly publication. Nicole, ignore everything that person said. The fact that someone was annoyed enough by your intros that they felt the need to scold you about it is nutty. It blew my mind so much that I'm writing my first ever email to a podcast. I listened to your podcast for variety, not every cars a supercar of car reviews, to hear things explained from an engineer and yes, your fun, unpolished, organized banter. I'm sure there's an NPR style podcasts out there, where the hosts are clearly reading directly from a script that can that that person can find. If there isn't, maybe there is a reason.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:58  
Keep being you and doing what you've been doing and ignore every email, except maybe this one.

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:03  
ERIC S, I'm not going to ignore your email. You're my favorite listener ever. Everybody else come up with a cool email to send me and you'll move to the top of the list. It was really sweet. I thought it was funny that someone was so bent out of shape about that, that's fine. And I appreciate the support Eric, I'll just keep being me and everyone's gonna have to suffer through.

Speaker 1  1:27:22  
Alright, the next one is, let's see. Let me get this going here is actually a an audio message that we got from Adam Jakob Blanco, who's written to us before.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:36  
And we I think we talked I think he sent us an email a couple of weeks ago about the Cadillac lyric has parents trying to buy Cadillac lyric. And so he's got some feedback for that. So let's play that,

Speaker 3  1:27:49  
hey, we'll bring screwed this is Adam in San Diego. And I just wanted to give some feedback on the Cadillac lyric since the listener last episode was asking about the noise cancellation. And during that process, I also wanted to give some feedback about the car itself, because my parents ordered one on day one of ordering and they just got their debut edition this week. And I went to their house to help them. I went to pick up the car with them. And I helped get the car home and help them set up the car. And I have some thoughts as well on that I think some people might find interesting. As far as the noise cancellation goes, I think it's fine. It sounds really nice in the interior, it's pretty quiet. It's kind of what you'd expect for a Cadillac, I don't notice the noise cancellation all because it's passive. I don't notice the tires, road noise or anything like that. So I don't think there'd be any concerns with that. And I think it's pretty much a nice, comfy, cushy ride. As far as the experience of getting the Cadillac goes, I wanted to share that we went to the dealership, I went with my parents and the car was filthy. When we arrived even though the salesperson said it's here, come get it. They weren't ready at all for us. Once we finally got in to sign the paperwork, they tried to add on a $5,000 Cash markup, as well as $3,000. In additional dealer add ons, including a tracking system for a car that has OnStar might do an alarm system for a car that comes with an alarm, and Vin etching and paint protection. And so my parents are in their 70s they're retired, they were excited to get a Cadillac but the whole experience really soured them on the brand and the experience on the dealership. I spent three hours negotiating all of those things down in a way for them. So that was a pretty pretty poor experience overall not not surprising there since a lot of dealers do that these days. So that was unfortunate. And then when we got the car home, I spent the better part of the afternoon as well as the whole following day, giving them advice on how to use the car set up a car. I don't think this car is for the technology faint of heart. It may be a little challenging for some Cadillac demographic buyers, if you will, who may not be entirely tech savvy. That's not to say all of them aren't but it's tough. It's a lot of infotainment functionality. My parents are pretty tech savvy. And they were struggling with just these things like setting up the garage door opener, because it's not really intuitive how you do it. And then actually using the garage door opener is similar to the glove box functionality. There's no hard buttons for either, which was very frustrating to them, because they've never experienced that in any car in their life. So you have to hit the screen for opening the glovebox, as well as opening the garage door once it's tied into the car. In fact, by default, you have to swipe on the screen and then tap on the screen twice just to open the garage door. If you're tech savvy enough to figure out that you can make a shortcut, it can do it in little as two taps on the screen. But that's the least amount of taps you can do to open your garage door. And if the car isn't anything, but when the infotainment screen is on, then you can't do it like if it's in reverse. Or if you don't have the right screen up on the infotainment, you actually can't open the garage door at all. So that's pretty odd and frustrating. Also something I noticed the back seats have a large plastic base to them at the bottom of your back and the top of your butt where you're kind of your butt goes. It's very uncomfortable. None of us actually like sitting in the backseat, because of the large plastic trim that went across where your butt is it kind of hurt our all of our butts sitting in the backseat. So that was kind of weird for a car that should be pretty comfortable in all seats. The one thing I will say it was pretty cool is it has like a little piggy bank, they call it feature. It's like an Easter egg for the belt buckles for the back seat. So you actually if you look for it, if you if you didn't see it if you can, when you before you fold the back seats down, you can put the buckles in this little deposit repository sort of place where they hold the place so that they don't, the belts don't get hung up on the seats when they fold down. It's a really cool feature. I'm surprised no car that I've seen has ever done that before. So anyway, I just wanted to give that overall feedback on the lyric and the purchasing experience and some of the quirks that I noticed about it. So thanks for the shout. Bye.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:07  
Thank you so much for sending. This is Adams. All right.

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:12  
Well, he has the single most soothing voice I've ever listened to in my entire life. He does really calming. So that was really interesting feedback, especially the number of things that they Vin etching, and all this stuff that they tried to take come on dealers.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:28  
This is what this is why people hate dealers,

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:31  
my people hate dealers. But I think it was needs to be addressed the sound and also the how tech for this car is that can be a challenge for anyone, if you are tech savvy, but as he said this sort of the demographic buying a Cadillac that might be a bigger challenge. And you know, generally speaking, the older you are, the less tech savvy you are with the newest and latest and greatest. It's just the way that works. People I love all the older folks out there who don't like tech, that's fine. But it does pose a problem that if you don't have someone who can help you with some of that stuff, you're going to find yourself going back to the dealership or you're going to be taking your parents back to the dealership or spending time sitting in the driveway like Adam just did.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:08  
Yeah, you know, and the garage door opener. You know, most most modern vehicles have you know, HomeLink system built in there, where you'll find three buttons up by the headliner there where you can program it to open your garage door. So you don't have to have the the garage door open or clipped on your on your visor or anything like that. And Cadillac has put that into the touchscreen interface, which, you know, again, if it would be one thing, if you know if it was always visible on the top layer of the screen of the interface. But you know, if it's buried down there somewhere a couple steps down, you know, that's not great. That's, you know, that's really unfortunate. I, you know, I don't know, I think I mean, I've only had the one opportunity to drive the lyric at the drive program last June in Park City, and didn't really spend any notable amount of time in the back seat. Have you had a chance you have that just to spend more time with a lyric? Have you

Nicole Wakelin  1:34:15  
spent a lot of time with it? No, I haven't had it for a lengthy amount of time. So a very short time and it was just driving it I didn't even get a chance to sit in the backseat because we had such narrow little windows where we were driving it. But that's interesting. I'm really curious to see what he's talking about in the backseat. Like Cadillac lyric is hurt our butts. That's not really what Cadillac

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:34  
No, hopefully we'll have more of a chance soon. Because there was a question a couple of weeks back that we were waiting for a response from from GM on as far as you know, the ramp up of the builder at production. And during their their q1 earnings call. They did they did say that, you know their plant. They I think they built 2000 lyrics so far. through the end of March in total, which is not a whole lot, but in q2, they're expecting to significantly ramp up the production rate on those vehicles. As a, they were getting waiting to get more batteries from their Lordstown battery plant. So hopefully by the end of this quarter, we should start seeing a lot more of them coming out. And hopefully, we'll get a chance to spend more time with one in the not too distant future.

Nicole Wakelin  1:35:29  
I agree. I'd like to drive on for more than the brief time I had.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:33  
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much, Adam. And if anybody else wants to record something for us and send it in, that we can include in the show, you can record that and put it in a Dropbox or OneDrive or whatever, send us a link. Or if it's if the file is not too large, you can just attach it to the email and send it to feedback wheel bearings, dot media, and we will definitely include it. All right. Anything else you want to talk about this week?

Nicole Wakelin  1:36:04  
I feel like that's it. I feel really good chat even without Robbie. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:08  
All right. Well, thanks, everybody. And next week, we're going to take the week off, because it's my wedding anniversary, and I'm going to be enjoying it on a beach somewhere in the middle of the Pacific with my wife. That's fantastic. Everyone needs to get away. And so we're gonna give Robbie and Nicole the week off as well. But there will be a show. You know, with all of the interviews that we did at the New York Auto Show this year. Most of some of those have been posted previously on the Patreon feed. So if you're a Patreon supporter, you may have heard some of them but there's also some new stuff in there. And for all the rest of you. There's going to be I think six interviews on there with people from Hyundai from steel Lantus, from Ford, and, and from Kia. So look for that, the usual time. It'll be coming out next Sunday. And we will talk to you again in two weeks time. Bye. Hi