Sam Abuelsamid (00:01) This is episode 433 of Wheel Bearings. Almost at 344. But that would be like almost two years ago. Nicole (00:06) You Roberto Baldwin (00:10) See, it's the time between Christmas and New Year's Day. So time doesn't matter. Like this week, nothing is real. There's nothing real. Not really. There's a really good book that I want everyone. You guys start talking, I'll tell you, I'll find the book that I'm reading. It's really good. Nicole (00:12) time. Mm-mm. Sam Abuelsamid (00:20) Truthfully, does time ever really matter? Nicole (00:23) Let's not start philosophical this particular week of year. Sam Abuelsamid (00:30) All right. I'm Sam a ball, Sam it from Telemetry. Nicole (00:30) God. I'm Nicole Wakelin from Autoweb, we'll say this week. Roberto Baldwin (00:37) from, did you say Ottawa? Nicole (00:39) Well, no, auto-web. Not, not, not Ottawa. Ottawa? don't think, I don't think so. I don't know. Roberto Baldwin (00:41) Auto web, okay. Sam Abuelsamid (00:43) Have you ever been to Ottawa? Roberto Baldwin (00:45) Ottawa. Yeah, yeah, you've probably been there. I'm Roberto Baldwin from SAE International and the book I was talking about is called The Order of Time. The Order of Time. Give it a read. It'll it's it's a great read. No, that's the whole point of the whole the whole point of the book. Sam Abuelsamid (00:58) Does time have an order? Nicole (00:59) Feels like a lot for the week that we're talking about right now. Sam Abuelsamid (01:04) Stuff just kind of happens and falls in somewhere Roberto Baldwin (01:07) Like there's no such, Nicole (01:08) and you roll with it. Roberto Baldwin (01:08) like, there's a lot of things, like there's no such thing as now because you can't quantify something that's by time you think, you perceive that it's happening as has already happened. Yeah. So there's no such thing as now. There's no such thing as like, if you're on one planet, someone's on the other planet, there's no shared like space and time. The idea that if you live higher up in the, you know, the further you away from a, a, from gravity, the slower time moves. So if you live in the mountains, you'll, you're actually younger than your friends who live at the sea. Sam Abuelsamid (01:16) that's already in the past. Does this book also discuss the time variance authority? Nicole (01:37) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (01:40) Uh, no, doesn't talk to the tele-variance authority. Nicole (01:40) my gosh, you guys, you nerds, stop. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (01:44) But it gets really, it gets really like how did like how we perceive time. It's, it's, it's, it's great. If you're a big time nerd. Nicole (01:50) Should I be expecting Loki to just bust into the middle of the show and run across your screen now, Sam? Roberto Baldwin (01:53) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (01:53) Good. You never know. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (01:56) You never know. Anyway, The Order of Time by Carlo, what's his name? Gosh. Nicole (01:59) Okay. Roberto Baldwin (02:03) no, I'll tell you the time in a second. Carlo Rovelli, R-O-V-E-L-L-I, The Order of Time. It's wonderful. Nicole (02:06) That sounded very smart, whatever was happening there. Sam Abuelsamid (02:12) Okay, I will look it up and see if it's on Hoopla or Libby ⁓ while Nicole tells us what she's been driving. Nicole (02:20) I have been driving now and for I have this for three weeks because of the way the holiday works. So I'm really, really living with the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid, which after two weeks with it, I have my thoughts. First of all, the seats heat up really, really super fast. And so does the steering wheel. And that is a plus. My negatives are that this hybrid, it is loud. It like I've been driving around with family in this car like is your car OK? ⁓ Yeah, it's fine. This is what it sounds like. No, but like people are really noticing it like you do feel like when you mash when you mash the gas on this, it's like really, really. You expect me to like go. It sounds so that it has. It's a two, two liter four cylinder hybrid. There's three electric motors and it has a CVT that sounds every bit like a CVT and it has 196 horsepower. It's just not a lot. It just is. You know, it has the hallmarks of something that is like very much. want to a little crossover, but I don't have a budget like and I needed to feel like a starter car vibe, which if you're going for is fine. I mean, it's attractive inside. I'm in the top trim. I know. Well, no, but like you're not vibe starter car. You have a starter car budget or so, guess. So there's the S, the SE and the XSE. I actually have the XSE. So this is the top. Sam Abuelsamid (03:32) Does anybody really want to start a car vibe though? Okay. Nicole (03:48) trim. You can't get this any fancier than what I have this and the total price with a couple of extra little things they put on there's a convenience package that's a tilt and slide moonroof that's like $1,200. Premium audio is $800. They have this two tone exterior it's another $500. So with everything all told this is $35,999. That does not include the destination. I'm gonna take a guess on destination on this, guys. Sam Abuelsamid (04:21) $13.95. Nicole (04:23) $1450. So Sam wins. So I'll tell you, once you add that in, $37,449. So it's not outrageous, definitely not. I mean, considering that it has a pretty good list of features to it. Like I said, already said it has the heated seats. It has a heated steering wheel. It's got heated mirrors to it. There's a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, so it has a nice digital instrument cluster. Roberto Baldwin (04:24) UGH! Sam Abuelsamid (04:25) Yes, got it. Nicole (04:49) There's a 10.5 inch infotainment chest screen which weirdly does feel a little small and I was just kind of thinking about that, how big is it? And as I'm looking and it's 10.5, that tells you how big infotainment screens have gotten. Like 10.5 on an infotainment screen was huge, right? And I look at it now and it feels kind of small but when you have things that are these huge landscape screens and things that are like sort of wrapped right into one display along with that instrument cluster to give them. Sam Abuelsamid (05:02) 6.5 used to be considered huge. Roberto Baldwin (05:04) Huge. Nicole (05:17) the illusion of being even bigger than they are. Suddenly 10.5 inch screen seems small, but it works just fine. ⁓ For some reason, my Toyota keeps thinking I'm talking at it. It's constantly trying to to respond. I'm like, I'm not saying Toyota stop. ⁓ But I mean, I like it overall. I feel like it's not an especially inspired car. This is a hybrid. you're paying for that, you know, the hybrid fuel economy. is EPA rated at 46 city, 39 highway, 42 combined. So you're getting great fuel economy. And if you're commuting a lot and you want a little extra space and you want the convenience of having something that's considered like a crossover, then this is great. ⁓ It had, I do would have to say the backseat is snug. When we had ⁓ Russ sitting up front. we had to do the careful, like the short person sits behind Russ and the tall person sits behind me. So because if you put tall person behind tall person, you're in trouble. You just don't have that much room. Right? Yeah, that's a life lesson. But I mean, even putting like the shorter person behind Russ, he still had to pull his seat up to a point where I'm like, I thought if this was a long trip, you would not be comfortable. You know, his knees were just a little too squished. Roberto Baldwin (06:22) That's just a life lesson. Sam Abuelsamid (06:24) Yeah. Nicole (06:39) You can fit three people in that backseat, but it is tight. It is really snug. had my both my girls back there and the one fiancee and they were all squished back there a little bit. ⁓ So it's not especially great. Reza's he sits he sits he sits behind me. He sits behind me because when I'm driving, that's the most room. Then Kitten Rose fight who sits behind Russ and who gets to sit in the middle. I think it's like. Sam Abuelsamid (06:53) Which position did Reza get, behind Russ or behind you or in the middle? Okay. Nicole (07:09) Just toss the dice, roll the dice and see what happens. it's not, I think whoever's first in the car gets to decide where they plant their butt. Yeah, right. Shotgun rules apply. So it was totally fine. We've actually had some crummy weather the last couple of weeks. We keep getting a couple inches of snow, a couple inches of snow, a couple inches of snow. So the roads have been sort of perpetually messy, sloppy, snowy. It's been great. Sam Abuelsamid (07:13) Does seniority win in that case, Roberto Baldwin (07:16) Is whoever yells shotgun our shotgun rules in effect? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (07:21) Ha Nicole (07:38) Haven't had any troubles with it, so it's good in the snow. And it's not like there's like a snow mode on this or anything, because I looked. It's normal eco and sport, I want to say. So there's no snow mode. even with sport, air quote sports, this is a hybrid, a little hybrid, like inexpensive hybrid. It's not that I don't like this. It's just not a very exciting car to drive. It's not very engaging. Sam Abuelsamid (07:49) Sport in quotation. Nicole (08:04) It feels more appliance, like you're getting something because you want it to do the job that you wanted to have fuel efficiency. You need something that's a crossover and you just want it to do its job and it does. ⁓ and also it's a Toyota, so you'll have it for ever. Like you will get tired of this and trade up to something different and somebody else will still be driving around in your old Toyota Corolla Cross hybrid. It will outlive you. It will survive everything. Yeah. So you will have this forever. So overall, I mean, I like the features. Roberto Baldwin (08:25) It will outlive you, whether you like it or not. Nicole (08:34) I like that at this price point you're still getting cool features like the heated seats and steering wheel and stuff. Those are small things, but you know they make your car feel a little bit nicer when you have these extra little features. ⁓ I like that. The only thing I truly didn't like is that it's very loud. That when you accelerate hard, it is slow to accelerate and it is extremely loud. So you hear it enough that I mashed the gas a couple of times on the highway with everyone on board and everyone did that like, whoa, that doesn't sound good. So. Sam Abuelsamid (09:02) mean, that is really the classic Toyota hybrid problem. Is that because of the way the system works, it's extremely efficient, but it's the four cylinder engines that Toyota uses in their hybrids, they don't sound great. And when you got to rev it up to 4,000 RPM and just sit there droning, it's not a pleasant experience. Nicole (09:06) Exactly. Roberto Baldwin (09:06) Yeah. Nicole (09:11) Mm-hmm. It just doesn't sound good. Roberto Baldwin (09:19) Yeah. Nicole (09:24) Right. It just it just sounds it sounds awful. And if you if you need like if you're at speed and you're trying to slow moving cars, the good news is like, yeah, does. It gives you a little bit. You know, it gives you a extra juice. You can pass relatively well when you're at speed. So it does well. It's just getting up to speed that it just doesn't sound pleasant. And it's quite enough. The ride itself is quite enough on the highway. It's not about there being too much road noise or wind noise. Those are all fine. You know, it's good. You can carry on a conversation with people in the backseat, no problem. It's not intrusive. Even when it's snowy and a mess and there's plows going by, it's fine. It's really just that noise. When you accelerate, this is a noisy car and it does not inspire confidence. ⁓ So that was my negative about it. But overall, you know, for the price, for the features, comfortable, fuel economy is great. You want a little commuter car, this is a good choice. Roberto Baldwin (10:19) Just turn the radio up when you're about to accelerate. Nicole (10:21) a lot, turn it up a lot. Yeah, right. Noise, noise canceling headphones. You don't hear sirens, you hear nothing. Sam Abuelsamid (10:24) Or some noise canceling headphones, maybe. Roberto Baldwin (10:26) Yeah, maybe not that, but. Nothing. Living a dream. Sam Abuelsamid (10:35) So, you recommend that someone buy, because you can get the Corolla Cross with just a regular four cylinder without the hybrid. But I think even that one still has a CVT. yeah, and I assume you've driven the non-hybrid Corolla Cross. Would you recommend one over the other? Nicole (10:46) Yeah. I have, think in the, so that's, okay, it's gonna depend on your employees. I'd have to look at the exact fuel economy on the gas and I don't have the gas fuel economy in front of me. if it's, is it that much for Sam? I continue looking it up. If you really value the quietness, if you want that smooth, quiet experience driving, I think I'd probably lean towards the gas. I think you're gonna get a little bit more oomph. out of that and probably not gonna notice this droniness quite so much. But ⁓ you are gonna take that sacrifice in fuel economy. So if that's your priority, if your priority is that you wanna get every single ounce of value you can when you're driving and that you're not paying for gas and if you're someplace like California where gas is stupid expensive, then go with the hybrid. But if that's not the be all end all, if that's not, you know. Did you look it up Sam? I thought I saw you typing. So what's the fuel economy on the... Sam Abuelsamid (11:52) I did. Yeah. So the, the, the Corolla Cross hybrid ⁓ is rated at 42 miles per gallon combined. And that's all wheel drive only. ⁓ The front wheel drive Corolla Cross is rated at 32 combined. ⁓ And let me find the, ⁓ the Corolla Cross all wheel drive. ⁓ So the Nicole (12:00) Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty big job. That's a pretty big job. my God, I bet that's even worse, right? Sam Abuelsamid (12:18) The all wheel drive gas crawl across is 30 miles per gallon combined. So it, it's a, it's a notable difference. Yeah. Nicole (12:22) So that's a pretty significant job. That's a significant job. that would be my thing. If you really don't care about the fuel economy that much, go ahead and get the gas. Otherwise, that's a good bit of difference if you have a long commute. If you're driving 20 miles to work, no big deal. If you're driving an hour to work each way or an hour and half or something like that, that hybrid's gonna save you a lot of money and it's probably gonna be worth it to get the hybrid and ⁓ find a good playlist on Spotify or something, you know? ⁓ But I so I don't think I wouldn't recommend not getting this if if you're getting it for the reasons that one gets a hybrid Which is generally the fuel economy? Sam Abuelsamid (13:01) And the noise problem with the Toyota hybrids is really, it's really mostly just a problem when you're accelerating hard. ⁓ When you're just driving, ⁓ just normal driving, it's not bad, it's fine. Nicole (13:09) Mm-hmm. It's fine. Yeah. If you're just cruising at highway speeds, totally fine. Road and wind noise are good and you don't hear have that intrusive whine from the CVT. The engine doesn't intrude. It's fine. It's really just when you accelerate. So your playlist just needs to play when you're getting on the highway. That's really it. But it is one of those things you notice like, you know, I. Sam Abuelsamid (13:37) You need an audio system that is specifically tied to your throttle position. as you accelerate, want the audio system to get louder for momentarily. Nicole (13:42) Right? Roberto Baldwin (13:44) You want to get louder? Nicole (13:46) the audio to go up. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (13:50) Yeah. Nicole (13:50) So I think I said it has an audio upgrade. It's a JBL Premium Audio, which is a nine speaker with a subwoofer and an amp. It's $800 spring for that. So you have a better audio system to cover the sound when you accelerate. That $800 is worth it. Sam Abuelsamid (14:01) Yeah. Okay, fair enough. ⁓ All right, anything else on the Corolla Cross? Nicole (14:14) No, that's it on YieldyCrawlacross. Sam Abuelsamid (14:16) Yeah, next week I'll be talking about the Honda HR-V, is kind of like Honda's direct competitor, most direct competitor to the Corolla Cross. And that one, ⁓ for whatever reason, Honda does not offer that one with a hybrid system yet. So it'll be interesting to see that one, see how that compares. Nicole (14:25) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (14:26) Herb. Herb. Nicole (14:28) The Herve. Hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (14:43) ⁓ alright and robbie you had nothing to review this week right Roberto Baldwin (14:48) I don't... No. No, I didn't have anything. I'm trying to think. I'm like, no, I didn't have nothing. Nicole (14:53) He's like, do I? No. Sam Abuelsamid (14:53) All right, well I had the Lexus Texas plug-in hybrid, which is the official name of course for this particular variant is the Lexus TX 550H Plus all-wheel drive. So the TX is the Lexus variant of the Toyota Grand Highlander. So it's their larger three-row crossover. Nicole (14:57) Texas, Texas! Roberto Baldwin (14:57) Lexus Texas. Sam Abuelsamid (15:23) You know, so that means that it's a little bit longer than the Highlander, ⁓ actually has enough, ⁓ it's got enough extra length that the third row is actually usable by, you know, by people with legs. And ⁓ it's, you know, it's quite a pleasant drive. ⁓ The TX plugin, you know, has the same ⁓ basic hybrid architecture as the Corolla Cross, but it has instead of a little four cylinder engine, it has a 3.5 liter, excuse me, 3.5 liter V6. So there's three different powertrain options in the TX. You can get a 2.4 liter gas four cylinder, turbocharged four cylinder gas engine. You can get that same engine with the Toyota hybrid system. which is the same hybrid system that's in the Corolla Cross, but with slightly more power. Or you can get the plug-in hybrid with the V6, which also has an 18.1 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery pack, a little more electric motor power. And that gets you a grand total of 301 horsepower. And for reasons that are of Never quite made sense to me. Toyota does not list a total max torque for its hybrids. They only list the total max power, but not a torque value. But they do list, in the case of the TX, they list the torque for the motors by themselves. So in the case of the TX 550, you get 199 pound feet from the front motor and because this is all wheel drive, it's an electric rear drive system so there's no drive shaft that runs down the back to the rear axle and you get 124 pound feet of torque from the rear. The, it's rated, EPA rating for the plug-in hybrid is 33 miles of electric range. I, you know, it's been Kind of cold here, mostly just above freezing, which means that it's been miserable and raining all day today and a good part of yesterday and a good part of the day before. So there's no snow on the ground, but it's cold enough. When I had it plugged in and took it out to do my usual drive loop to measure the driving range, electric driving range, like I said, the label value is 33 miles. I got... 27 miles before the battery ran out and it pulled on the engine So, you know had the heater running so that's gonna drain it a little bit more a little bit faster in Warmer weather you can probably get close to that 33 miles Usually in the past with most of the Toyota plugins particularly the rav4 and the Prius I have beat or exceeded the label value for the for the electric driving range. So I think you probably could at least match, if not exceed that 33 miles. So that puts it a little bit less than what you get, for example, from a Volvo XC90 plug-in hybrid, which is a similarly sized vehicle. The XC90's got about 100, what, 140 more? horsepower, so quite a bit more power. But in electric mode, the TX has got a little bit more electric power than the Volvo because the Volvo only has electric drive on the rear axle. So it's got about 145 horsepower from the electric motor on the rear. In the case of the TX, You've got combined total of about 210 horsepower from the front and rear motors. So if you plug it in, can fairly easily, without really trying to baby it or anything, you can drive it around in electric only mode pretty easily, even in cold weather. You're just not gonna go quite as far in cold weather, but you can use it as a daily driver. In electric mode you're not gonna get the full performance, you know The 300 horsepower that you would get if the engine came on but you know 210 ish 220 horsepower That's that's enough that you can you can do you know? It's it's more than adequate for your daily driving even for such a large vehicle because you got plenty of torque as well So the the tx the The one that I had was finished in, let's see, what do they call this color? ⁓ It is Matador Red Mica, which is very bright red, which is not a color you would typically expect to see on something like a big Lexus three-row crossover, but it works. I liked it a lot. The design, ⁓ starting with the TX really, ⁓ Lexus really started toning down. Nicole (20:58) You Sam Abuelsamid (21:17) the look of the spindle grill. So you still have kind of the trapezoid shape for the lower portion of it, but it's most of it is body color. You have like four slots with some trim in those slots. So you can still see a bit of that spindle grill look in there, but it's much more toned down than compared to like if you look at Alexis LX. The the Lexus Land Cruiser version ⁓ that you know is much more you know in your face You know, it's it's a fairly tame design overall but really nice interior very comfortable comfortable seats ⁓ Much larger screen. I think it's a 14 inch center touchscreen ⁓ You've got ⁓ knobs to control ⁓ the temperature and volume So you got the dual zone climate control in the front with a couple of knobs with the display in the middle so you can see that each front passenger can see their individual temperatures. You've got temperature control, ⁓ a third zone for the second row seats. ⁓ The ⁓ third row seats, like I said, adults can sit back there. Probably don't want to take a cross-country road trip. but you'll be fine, you if you got three couples going out to dinner or something like that, you'll absolutely be fine sitting back in that third row. There's enough headroom, there's enough leg room back there. You probably don't want like three Robbies sitting behind each other, but you know, maybe one or two Robbies and then, you know, maybe a five, 10, you know, five, nine person would still be comfortable in one of those rows. Yeah, yeah. Or seven eights, seven eights are a Robbie. Nicole (23:07) Three quarters of a Robbie. Roberto Baldwin (23:10) Three quarter Robbie, seven eighths Robbie. Sam Abuelsamid (23:13) Yeah. And yeah, so, you know, I genuinely thought, you know, for a ⁓ premium three row ⁓ crossover, you know, this works really well. It's not quite as expensive as the aforementioned Volvo. You know, so it's not cheap by any stretch. It's definitely quite a bit more than what you would pay for a Grand Highlander. ⁓ The Grand Total, came to $84,795. Guesses on the destination charge? Nicole (23:48) 1495. Roberto Baldwin (23:50) 1495, 1595. Sam Abuelsamid (23:54) Nicole gets it, was $14.50. Nicole (23:56) Woo! It wasn't. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (23:56) ⁓ I should have said 14. Sam Abuelsamid (23:58) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (23:58) I should have $1. No, wait, we don't do that anymore. Sam Abuelsamid (24:00) No, yeah, it still would have been Nicole. ⁓ Even if you said $1,400, Nicole still would have got it, because she would have been off by only $45. yeah, ⁓ not a whole lot of options on the plug-in hybrid. There's just a couple of packages available. The big one is the technology package, which includes the heads-up display and a few other items. There's a wireless charging pad up in the front. Nicole (24:04) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (24:30) At the bottom of the at the front of the center staff or the front of center console I've got ⁓ movable cup holders ⁓ That you can you can take them out You can actually remove them if you need to put in a very large big gulp ⁓ the mega big gulp or something like that ⁓ What else What one of the features that I do like that that they have on Lexus and some Toyota models is the front cross traffic alert So when you're at an intersection ⁓ They it uses the cameras and front corner radars to detect vehicles coming from either side and it'll give you alerts both in the instrument cluster and the heads-up display if you have that So that's a that's a nice feature to have ⁓ It's just you know, it's just a genuinely very nice Not not wild-looking but you know, very nice ⁓ three-row premium crossover ⁓ So if you want something that's a little Little more ⁓ than a Grand Highlander in terms of design and features. This is definitely one to consider. Nicole (25:38) Very cool. I just want to think calling it the Lexus Texas makes it fun. Maybe that should be my car, a Lexus Texas. Roberto Baldwin (25:42) Lexus, Texas. Sam Abuelsamid (25:42) Yeah. Well, you know, mean, Toyota and Lexus are based in Texas, ⁓ North, you know, for North American operations are based in Plano. So, yeah, you know, why not? And I'm sure that that only had a little bit to do with their naming decision for the for the TX. All right, let's move on. Let's see. ⁓ So. Nicole (26:00) Ha ha ha ha! Sam Abuelsamid (26:11) It's the 28th of December as we're recording this. it's the end of 2025. And so you get the usual looking back, looking forward ⁓ articles all over the place. ⁓ And before we get into little discussion of ⁓ looking back at 2025, I ⁓ found an article on Inside EVs the other day about Nicole (26:14) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (26:40) the EVs that they are most looking forward to in 2026, the new EVs. And there are, despite everything that's going on, there are still a number of new EVs. There's about 30 or so that are scheduled to launch in 2026. Having a hard time saying that one. so, inside EVs picked out, There the seven that see who wrote this one This is Matt Hogan picked up picked out the seven that he's most excited about for the new year ⁓ And so let's see he's got the Rivian r2 The honda zero series ⁓ Which also includes the the Acura rsx? the slate ⁓ The kia ev3 Which actually I think at this point may not actually be coming Roberto Baldwin (27:14) Mac Sam Abuelsamid (27:40) I'm not sure what the status is. Yeah. know, I know they, they, they put off the EV four and I think they, they've also paused the EV three as well, which is unfortunate. ⁓ the, BMW. Well, I mean, you know, he might've written this a few weeks ago, you know, and, ⁓ you know, I had a lot of times these stories, these holiday stories, you know, you write them in advance and put them in the queue. Nicole (27:41) I thought that wasn't coming here for some reason also. Roberto Baldwin (27:44) Good job, Mac. Womp Womp. Good job, Mac. You want me to text him? Tell him he's wrong. Nicole (27:59) Right. Maybe it is. Sam Abuelsamid (28:08) you know, so can take some time off. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (28:10) No, I'll text him and tell him he's wrong. Nicole (28:12) It does actually, as I'm Googling it is saying it's still saying it's coming to the US. that's, so I don't, I'm not, yeah, everything I'm seeing says yeah, it is still coming unless they've changed that, which, you know, we'll see. Sam Abuelsamid (28:15) Okay. Well, I'll have to check with James. ⁓ There's the BMW ix3 the ⁓ new Chevy Bolt ⁓ the midsize lucid ev And and then under honorable mentions, he's got the the new Mercedes S CLA ⁓ And also the Mercedes AMG GT XX ⁓ So is there anything on here anything anything that you think is missing from this list that should be included that you either of you two are looking forward to for 2026. Roberto Baldwin (29:02) Not that it's missing. Nicole (29:02) forward to. you know what I'm kind of interested to see is the recon. Sam Abuelsamid (29:11) Yeah, despite your recent history with Jeep. Nicole (29:14) still interested in saying I want to buy it. I said I'm interested to see. I think that could be interesting. I'm curious how that's going to play with the removable doors and stuff. Is it going to feel like an EV Wrangler? What's it going to feel like? So I'm curious. I am curious about that one. Sam Abuelsamid (29:20) Yeah. Yeah, it'll be real interesting to see how that one actually does off road. Nicole (29:35) Yeah, that's going to be key. They implied that it's going to do it. When they did their, where was it, LA, their big thing, it sort of was, no, no, this is going to be an off-road vehicle. had all these different areas waiting that it does and all these different things. ⁓ I don't know. I'm curious about that one. I'll put that on the list. Sam Abuelsamid (29:42) Yeah. What about you, Robbie? Roberto Baldwin (29:58) ⁓ I mean I don't think there's anything missing that's That I think should be on here to be honest I drove the CLA EV I forgot to tell you guys So I did drive a car ⁓ But I only drove it I am allowed I'm double checking but yes, it looks like I am allowed to talk about this one ⁓ But yeah, no, I think it's it's it's really nice. It's it's better than the hybrid So if you're getting one or the other just get the EV Sam Abuelsamid (30:10) Yeah. Are you allowed to talk about that one? Nicole (30:13) You forgot. Can I speak about this or am I in trouble? Roberto Baldwin (30:29) That's it. Just get the EV. It's the better car. They look exactly the same except for the grill and the diffuser because you don't need exhaust pipes for an EV. But yeah, anyway. But yeah, mean the R2, think a lot of people I know are actually a lot of people I know are really waiting for the R3. And then a lot of people I know are really excited about the slate. So those are sort of the two sort of normie. ⁓ excitement, but these again Excitement doesn't equal auto sales. So we'll see how we'll see it. What's what we'll see the thing with the slate is that not not every auto make automotive journalists is in on it They're like, nah, I don't think so. So it might do well Like if we were all super into it, it wouldn't it would fail It would fail. So it's it's it seems pretty polarizing. There's the people who like the idea like it Nicole (31:04) Correct. Sam Abuelsamid (31:17) yeah, that would definitely be a disaster. Nicole (31:19) Yeah. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (31:25) Other people are like, well, I don't think so. mean, they should have four doors and you know, lot of things that they keep adding to it. I'm like, well, now you're talking about a $40,000 truck. Now you're sort of, that's not the same truck. ⁓ The things you're adding to this make this a more expensive truck. And then it's just a Maverick. Now you're just making, you just built a Maverick. Good job. Nicole (31:35) Mm-hmm. Exactly. You built another truck. Good job. Roberto Baldwin (31:47) Yeah. So, yeah, think the CLA EV is really, really nice. But yeah, I don't think there's anything else. I mean, I think the Bolt coming back is great if they can do the correct job. When's the Ford thing, like 28 or something? 27? Nicole (31:59) you Sam Abuelsamid (32:05) No, it's it should production should be launching in q4 and then it'll go on sale at beginning of 2027 is the plan although You know Roberto Baldwin (32:12) Switch. Okay, well The Ford plan is like the Tesla plan at this point like okay, whatever Whatever you say Jim thumbs up, I guess Sam Abuelsamid (32:23) Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, there's, you know, in order to build those, they have to be building the LFP batteries at their plant, their battery plant in Marshall, Michigan. And I've been hearing there's some challenges there ⁓ that, you know, equipment coming in with ⁓ either no documentation or the wrong documentation as you know, and so they're The engineers are having to go through everything, trying to figure out how to set everything up. Roberto Baldwin (33:02) Are they buying everything on Tmoo? What's going on? I just, there's just no, every time I think about four, think the lack of the inability to just focus and do the thing you say you're gonna do. Just do the thing. I'm gonna do a thing. Do the thing. Don't like, I'm gonna do a thing. I don't know. And you kinda half ass it. Nicole (33:04) You Sam Abuelsamid (33:04) Kind of, yeah. It's all... Nicole (33:21) I think. Roberto Baldwin (33:30) and then we get a card, it's not great, or it comes out late, it's, you know, no one quite knows what it is because no one's on the same page at the company. Just do the thing, stop buying things from Tmoo. Nicole (33:44) Robbie's advice, don't buy car parts from Timo. Don't do it. Sam Abuelsamid (33:50) or manufacturing equipment, especially not manufacturing equipment. Roberto Baldwin (33:53) Yeah, don't, don't outfit your, don't outfit your new factory. Sam Abuelsamid (33:55) Don't buy your battery. Yeah, don't buy your battery manufacturing equipment from Tmoo or Shien. Roberto Baldwin (34:02) No, it's, cause it has that thing that spins around when you go to buy it and it gives you, I've never bought anything from Tmoo. I always look at things and they're like, nah. Cause I don't want things that break. There's like, like if I'm what I can just go to Harbor freight. Sam Abuelsamid (34:11) Yeah. I if you want things to break, I was just going to say that if you want, if you want tools that going to break, just go to Harbor Freight. You don't need to go all way to China. Roberto Baldwin (34:22) I buy like zip ties and roller things. I buy like a lot of like little weird things, but I don't buy tools from Harbor Freight. I don't want a socket to bust. Sam Abuelsamid (34:32) You definitely don't want to get your jack stands from Harbor Freight. Roberto Baldwin (34:35) I do not... God, I do Nicole (34:35) God. Roberto Baldwin (34:36) not want to get my... Yeah, yeah, that's not a... That was terrifying. Gosh. Anyway, yeah. R2, slate, and then... Nicole (34:40) and be back call. Sam Abuelsamid (34:41) Yeah. All right. Well, okay. So let's look back at 2025. Let's start with what was, of all the stuff you drove this year, what was the biggest surprise? What surprised you in a good way? Nicole (35:07) biggest surprise? The biggest surprise. Roberto Baldwin (35:09) ⁓ the GLC on the sand. That was bonkers. Yeah. And the sand dunes, when we got there, there was another, there was a Chevy product. That was an SUV that was like kind of near the sand dunes and it got stuck. And so they had to send a CLA out to get it out of the sand dunes. So the, driving an electric midsize luxury EV on sand dunes and being like, yeah, no problem. Sam Abuelsamid (35:13) Yeah? Okay. Roberto Baldwin (35:39) That was like the sort of the biggest surprise because it's it's it doesn't make sense. No, is anyone else gonna do it? No, but if you're a person who's like well I want to get a CLA and it kind of snows here sometimes or it's rainy You're gonna see videos of me drap doing doughnuts in the sand and you're gonna be like, well, yeah, if he can do that, it'll be fine Sam Abuelsamid (35:58) Yeah, probably can do it, anybody can do it. Roberto Baldwin (36:00) If I can do it, fight! Nicole (36:06) Did we lose Rami? ⁓ okay. okay. Sam Abuelsamid (36:07) Well, he's still there. He just froze momentarily. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (36:11) I had to mute my mic so I could blow my nose. Sorry. Sam Abuelsamid (36:14) ⁓ okay. What about you, Nicole? What was your biggest surprise of the year? Nicole (36:20) I'm really trying to think, you know, it's funny, I'm literally looking back. What did I drive last year? Right? You kind of have to look back and wait, what really surprised me? I don't know that there was a car that especially surprised me in 25 in a good way. I feel like, no, yeah, right. But like I feel like. Sam Abuelsamid (36:26) I know it's hard when we drive so much stuff. Ha. Roberto Baldwin (36:47) I had one really bad surprise. Nicole (36:49) Now I feel like they generally speaking the cars that I drove this year Very much met my expectations, but didn't surprise me by exceeding my expectations necessarily I'm literally draw. I'm like trying to think of I'm like looking I'm truly looking at a list is rocking like what did I drive this past year and I don't know that there's anything that really surprised me I'm looking I'm looking what about you Sam? Roberto Baldwin (37:02) I think Sam Abuelsamid (37:17) For me, I would say the biggest and best surprise was the 2026 Subaru Salterra and Toyota BZ. ⁓ After just two years on the market, they fundamentally re-engineered those vehicles. They don't look dramatically different. Although, depending on which trim you get, if it's got the body color fenders, ⁓ it actually does look surprisingly different. ⁓ Nicole (37:25) Mmm, that's fair. Sam Abuelsamid (37:46) the driving experience, everything about it, the range, the performance, the charging, ⁓ the interior, ⁓ that was ⁓ a huge, huge improvement to those vehicles. And they're priced more competitively than when they launched. They drive a lot better. ⁓ Everything about them is fundamentally better. And I'm actually quite looking forward to driving the wagon version in February with the Beasley Woodland ⁓ and to see how that is. But that's probably the biggest and best surprise to me of 2025. Nicole (38:19) Mm-hmm. So I'm looking now I found another list of cars. like, where are the rest of the cars I've driven? I think I had two surprises. Can I have two now that I can remember what the heck I drove? So my two surprises would be the first one would be the Honda Passport because we took it off road. Like we really took it off road. Like it wasn't just dirt. Like we did some challenging stuff in that thing and it was really good. Like it was impressive. It was. Roberto Baldwin (38:39) No. Sam Abuelsamid (38:49) Yeah, that's a really good one. Nicole (39:00) definitely the kind of drive where you would have thought you wouldn't think a Honda would do it, honestly. It did some really technical stuff. So I was really pleasantly surprised by just how capable the trail sport version, the trail sport, right? I have the right term in my head. The trail sport was. That was the one we took off road and that was. It is genuinely an off-road capable vehicle. You can do some stuff in that thing. The other one that surprised me for totally different reasons was the Nissan Leaf. Because the old Leaf was just sort of fine. And it was an all-sur-ran. And it had been around for so long. It was so early in when they introduced vehicles. Then people kind of forgot about it. And it was like nobody really paid attention. The new Leaf is really good. Like it's really, really good. It's a nice car. It's track car. The numbers are all great Ford. It was fun to drive. So those two probably the leaf because I didn't I actually did not expect that to improve as much as it did. And the passport trailsport because I did not expect it to be as off road capable as it actually was there. I did find something once I found what I had driven. There we go. Roberto Baldwin (40:04) BAM! Sam Abuelsamid (40:07) Awesome. All right, what about biggest disappointments of the year? Roberto Baldwin (40:08) Bam. I mean, I'm just gonna say Ford. Sam Abuelsamid (40:17) Ha ha ha. Nicole (40:18) The whole company? Roberto Baldwin (40:20) I just don't know what are they doing? And I don't think they know what they're doing at some point. I mean, it's a company that's been, they are fortunate that they had the F series, because if they didn't, they'd be in big trouble. ⁓ And they have the Bronco. And then everything else just feels like, and I don't think that they kind of have focus on what they're doing outside of that. I mean, they have the Bronco, the Bronco is a big launch, big deal for them, good for them. Sam Abuelsamid (40:33) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (40:47) I still see them around. I still like, cool, Bronco. The F series is still the F series. ⁓ But outside of that, mean, they put out an EV, they put out another EV, and then they just sort of like stagnated while others who seem to have some sort of focus in the company are moving forward. mean, we're doing 800 volt, we're doing this, we're moving to the next, you know. Everyone else is evolving and Ford seems to be devolving in this. ⁓ ⁓ And what is going on and again they have f-series money so they can kind of do whatever they want They're gonna get a kick. They could coast off that for decades ⁓ But I mean that you know writing off with 19 billion or some ridiculous amount of my half of a Twitter so Yeah, yeah and and that I really think that's all down to just Nicole (41:34) in half of a Twitter. It was 19 billion, 19 point something billion, right? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (41:35) Yeah. Yeah, 19.5. Roberto Baldwin (41:45) a lack of commitment in what you're doing as a company. I mean, again, the F series, the F-150 Lightning, for most people the best F-150 you can buy, but also sort of a misstep because as a company you're looking at Tesla with the Cybertruck, which obviously was also a misstep by that company, ⁓ and thinking, we should also do a big truck. automakers are like everyone else. You see somebody doing something, we should do that too. we should do that too. That's why we got also AI in cars. Let's stop. Those are my big disappointments. Just stop putting the word AI or the term AI on everything and saying it's AI. Just stop. use, what do I use? What's that thing called? Grammarly. Used it for like ever. It'll catch, you know, typically it'll catch. you forgot to put a comma here. You misspelled a word there. All right, fine. And now it's like, now powered by AI. It's gotten worse. Nicole (42:31) right. Roberto Baldwin (42:42) But also it's does the same thing like and and you know con Conch or con the thing that do my expenses with it's like, ⁓ it's gonna read you concur. There we go it's gonna read your receipts using AI, know, read my receipts five years ago Didn't have the word AI in it. I don't know. What are we doing? Stop it. Those are my disappointments Ford's lack of focus AI ⁓ Nicole (42:52) Concur. Concur? Sam Abuelsamid (42:52) concur. Nicole (43:06) like a focus man. Okay, what about you Sam? I don't think we need to, my biggest disappointment is about a car that would not go. There we go. My Wagoneer S, that really was my big disappointment because I love that stupid thing. I kept the license plates, they're sitting in my garage, ⁓ but... Sam Abuelsamid (43:10) Do we even need to ⁓ guess what your biggest disappointment is? Nicole (43:27) Yeah, taking a gamble on an EV from a car company that has questionable reliability. Like, well really, like, gee, right? So, and I took a gamble on it, and I was, I thought, let's take a gamble, and ⁓ I rolled Snake Eyes. Yeah, Snake Eyes. That was my biggest disappointment this year. But now next year I'll have the fun of picking something new, so. Roberto Baldwin (43:37) Yeah, it's cheap. Make out! Sam Abuelsamid (43:54) Well, my biggest disappointment was, I guess, kind of Lincoln as a brand, but particularly the Navigator. I know. Roberto Baldwin (44:01) ⁓ they were doing so well. It was like a good couple years where Lincoln's killing it and then they're like, Sam Abuelsamid (44:09) Yeah. Yeah. And then they, you know, they brought out the Nautilus last year and then the navigator this year. And there's, there's, there's still a lot to like about those vehicles, but there's, there's just the thing that they did with the big full width screen and putting too much stuff in the touch interface and having that stuff controlled by a nearly vertical this touch screen that is down low ⁓ at the front of the center stack, they completely broke the interface in that car and made it so I just don't want to drive it anymore. Roberto Baldwin (44:51) Yeah. It makes me angry getting in that car. My in-laws bought a Lincoln. They're like, oh, we're going to get a Lincoln. I was like, oh no. They're like, oh, a 2021. I'm like, oh, no, no, you're cool. I'm like, oh, you're getting one of the good ones. All right, cool. Yeah, you're golden. Nicole (44:59) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (45:04) Yeah. Nicole (45:05) You Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (45:11) I actually got angry getting in that car. like, what is this? Why is this way down here? What is happening? Why does Lincoln hate its customers? And I don't know what the demographics are for Lincoln. I'm assuming a little bit older. ⁓ And when you have a little bit older of a, don't do that to them. Come on. They just want a car. I want to do it from here to here. I don't want to, you know. learn all this weird stuff and I definitely don't want to look down to do things. Nicole (45:44) Ugh. Sam Abuelsamid (45:46) Yeah, definitely. All right. Anything else? Any other highlights or lowlights of the year, Nicole (45:59) He clarifies just automatically. Roberto Baldwin (46:00) ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (46:00) Because there's so many other things that ⁓ we probably shouldn't be delving into here. Yes. Nicole (46:04) One could complain about if they chose to, yes. Roberto Baldwin (46:07) I mean, I am cautiously optimistic about the Ford Skunk Works because it's outside of the sort of Ford. ⁓ Ford and GM are giant behemoths of machines. there's, you know, I think everyone sort of knows that there's always conflict inside of those big companies. ⁓ You know, you're doing this, I'm doing this. I'm not gonna share this with this. it's sort of a, I don't know why that's an issue, but you know, sure, whatever. ⁓ But ⁓ I do hope that Ford can sort of get it together with this new universal platform, even though it's not gonna be in Europe. Which is part of the universe, last time I checked. Sam Abuelsamid (46:48) Well, really, you know, the United States is the universe, is it not? Roberto Baldwin (46:53) That's true. That's true. So, not really. I mean, Japan matters and Germany and, ooh, Austria is really pretty. Man, that's a pretty place. Yeah. Nicole (46:54) You Sam Abuelsamid (46:56) mean, does any other country even matter? Yeah, mean, you know, Ford has said all of the right things with the universal EV platform. You know, what they say they're going to do, you know, and, you know, what, what they've talked about, you know, from a technology standpoint, you know, it's, it's, it's the right stuff, but, you know, they have had a little bit of a problem with execution. ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (47:40) I want to, I hope this is like the reset. They're like, you know what? We've all had a bad time in our life. We're just like sort of half-assing things. And we're just like, we're just, we're just exhausted and tired. And then we're like, you know, I'm just going to reset and start doing my life better. I hope this is their reset and they start doing our life better. And it lasts longer than two weeks. I hope it's not like, like, I hope it's like a new year's resolution. We're like, I'm going to stop eating fatty foods and carbohydrates and start going to the gym. Nicole (47:57) their reset, they're going to start doing life better. Roberto Baldwin (48:09) And then week three, you're at Pizza Hut. ⁓ So I hope this isn't like a resolution thing. We're week three, they're down at all meat extravaganza pizza with a stuffed crust. I hope they're still drinking the smoothies and doing the gym stuff and doing the thing that they should do. So fingers crossed. Nicole (48:14) Week three, pizza. Sam Abuelsamid (48:32) I hope so. I hope so. Roberto Baldwin (48:34) Cautiously optimistic. Sam Abuelsamid (48:37) And anything else for you, Nicole? Nicole (48:39) No, not for me. Sam Abuelsamid (48:41) Just hope your next car purchase works out a little better. Yeah. Nicole (48:45) Samesies. Just hope my next car of purchase, yeah. Mm-hmm. I just want, uh, I just want my next car of purchase to work out better. I just, I just want my car to go. I want it to go. I just want it to go. Sam Abuelsamid (48:53) Ha ha. Roberto Baldwin (48:53) I just want my car to go rolly, rolly, rolly. I just want it to roll. Sam Abuelsamid (48:59) When you press the start button and step on the accelerator, you want it to actually do something or reverse, depending on whatever you select. Nicole (49:03) I would like it to go forward. Yeah, go forward. well, generally forward if I'm picking forward, let's have it go the direction I'm actually putting the transmission. That was a concern for a time. yeah. Yeah, yeah, The cars, ⁓ such technical creatures. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (49:14) Ha! ⁓ Alright. Roberto Baldwin (49:20) ⁓ cars. So complicated. So complicated. Sam Abuelsamid (49:27) Software's hard. Hardware's hard. It's all too complicated. Nicole (49:29) Software's hard. Engineering's so difficult. Roberto Baldwin (49:29) Software's hard. If we think about, remember the old Cadillacs and Lincolns with their weird electronics and everything? They would break within six months of you buying the car, like in the 80s and 90s. And everyone would be like, well, you don't buy the cars with that stuff because that stuff just breaks. I feel like sometimes, oh yeah, it's zero. Nicole (49:49) We, power windows. Remember everyone's like power windows would always break. Right. Sam Abuelsamid (49:53) Now cars are just all, like the whole car is that stuff now. Nicole (49:56) whole car breaks. I take a broken power Roberto Baldwin (49:57) Yeah, the whole car is it. Nicole (49:58) window any day. Roberto Baldwin (49:59) I guess that's that's why I'm I'm I'm I'm very pro slate because I'm just like, I'm like, I know this stuff is going to come. But some some companies are having a lot of Again, like you said, software, I mean, Volkswagen is given really in brilliant billions of dollars because they're like, just throw their hands in the air like, don't know. Sam Abuelsamid (50:19) We can't do it. We tried. We tried several times. We reorganized. We fired everybody. We hired new people. fired them. We hired more new people. And we still can't do it. We don't know. Here, RJ, you do it. Nicole (50:19) We can't figure this out. Who's done it? We still can't get it. Somebody help us. Roberto Baldwin (50:30) You know what, here's a bunch of money, can you guys do it? Here, can you make like your little bear, bigfoot monster on our car, please? Nicole (50:40) Just make it look like our car, but your stuff underneath. thanks, bye. Roberto Baldwin (50:45) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (50:45) All right, let's move on. ⁓ So it is the end of December. know, weather's cold, a lot of parts of the country. I think in New York this weekend, Northeast, they're supposed to be getting big snowstorm coming through. ⁓ And we have frequently talked about the benefits of using winter tires ⁓ if you live in those kinds of environments. ⁓ I actually have Nicole (50:49) Okay. Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (51:14) a car in the driveway right now that is equipped with winter tires. Great. Got a Subaru WRX TS. Talk about next week that came with winter tires. Yeah, it was great when I took it out yesterday. There's no snow on the ground, it's the temperatures around freezing. Yeah, because when the temperatures get below 40 degrees, Roberto Baldwin (51:21) ⁓ on winters. my God. That sounds like so much fun. It's ready. Yeah, so you still want the winter tires for that. Sam Abuelsamid (51:43) Most tires get very hard and they lose their grip. And winter tires are specifically formulated, the rubber is specifically formulated to stay pliable at low temperatures. So you still have some grip. And there's a bunch of other things they do on winter tires like the tread design and everything else as well. But the big thing is, one of the big things is the rubber compound. ⁓ But not everybody can necessarily. make the case for having a whole second set of tires for their car. And there's inconvenience involved with swapping your tires out and out a couple of times a year. So Consumer Reports published an article on the best all season tires for winter driving. ⁓ Because that's the reality is as much as we push for winter tires, most people are going to use all season tires on most of their vehicles. ⁓ There's a bunch of good stuff in this article. One of the things they talk about is when do you replace your tires? For most normal driving, your tread depth, so the depth of the grooves in the tread, usually when that gets down to 2.3 seconds of an inch, you absolutely need to replace your tires at that point. But if you're going to be doing a lot of winter driving, they recommend you double that to 4.3 seconds, which is 1.8 of an inch tread depth. Because you need to have that extra tread depth to move the snow to get a grip. so they picked three different, based on their testing, picked three different sets of tires for different categories, or three different tires for different categories of vehicles. ⁓ So for ⁓ the basic all season tire for mainstream cars. ⁓ What they picked was the Nokian tires remedy WRG five, ⁓ which according to Consumer Reports, gives great snow traction, ⁓ better than average hydroplaning and ice breaking traction. So those are all really important. ⁓ And then they picked the best all season tire for SUVs, the Michelin cross climate to ⁓ Nicole (54:02) Thank Sam Abuelsamid (54:08) And this one, according to them, does really well for snow traction and for ice breaking and also does well in hydroplaning. when you get deep water. And then for trucks, ⁓ they ⁓ pick the Continental Terrain Contact HT, also very good snow traction, decent hydroplaning and good ⁓ ice breaking. And finally for an ultra high performance all season tire. They picked the Continental Extreme Contact DWS06. ⁓ And that one, ⁓ not as good in any of those categories as the other all season tires, but it's tuned more for performance. So depending on the type of vehicle you've got, you want ⁓ an all season tire, it's gonna give you better ⁓ performance on dry pavement than some of the others. This Conti is a good tire ⁓ Any any thoughts on this? I mean you guys well Robbie probably don't have winter tires on any of your cars, but Roberto Baldwin (55:19) got high performance all seasons though. We get a lot of rain. I drive a BRZ. I have the Bridgestone Patenza all seasons and they're like, I was looking at their little grid and they're like pretty, they're like in the middle, but they're like, they're so good compared to like what used to be. So I was like, well, I should get these Contis. And they have some, they have some that are higher up on the rating. But I think they're just really expensive. Sam Abuelsamid (55:39) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (55:47) Yeah, so they have the Contis, but above it is ⁓ the Michelin Pilot all seasons. They're like 30 bucks more, 25 bucks more. ⁓ But yeah, even with my, on, let me scroll all the way down to my Bridgestone. So ⁓ the Contis are 71, that's their little overall score. And the wheels I'm driving on, 57. But they're so good. I was like, all right. So they could be like 25 better. ⁓ So yeah. So I mean, the, you know, if you're thinking, you know, if you're, you're, still looking like old, especially for performance, like old sort of tire, like the latest, like all season performance tires are really, really good. I'm going around in rain. I'm trying to break free. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. ⁓ Nicole (56:37) They are. Roberto Baldwin (56:43) because you know, ⁓ so yeah, no, think, especially if you're driving anything like that, I've seen people with summer tires, I saw someone, had a brand new BRZ. It was last year, it was raining, there was a left turn near my house, the light, and the person went around the corner and they overcooked it just a little bit, they went up on the median, it's like a curb median, so it's like three or four. Nicole (57:01) Oof. Yikes. Roberto Baldwin (57:11) feet wide and however tall a curb is, a couple inches. And they had spun it around and it was high centered on the median. And the person in the car was just crying. And I was just like, because it's a manual transmission, it's a rear wheel drive vehicle. They're like, oh, this thing's great in the summer. And then they decided that they didn't switch out those tires for when it rains here. And when it rains, it's like, oh, everything's flooded. Nicole (57:19) Yeah. Like you would. Roberto Baldwin (57:41) We have, we should. Nicole (57:41) Yeah, mean, there's I mean, I'm any place that's really winter, I still would rather have a winter tire. But if you're in the in-between time, you know, someplace where it's like you you still need something with a little extra. There are really good all season tires out there. And that's the thing, that winter is so specialized. You do have to spring for an extra set of tires. And although it's it's you know, in the end, you're not you know, you're getting twice the tire life. You've got two sets of tires. You know, they all last longer, but still going to someplace to store those tires. You have to pay to have them swapped out every season. The time to do it like there's there is a commitment to having winter tires on your vehicle. And if you're not somewhere that truly has, you know, you're not worrying about all the aspects of winter weather. It's really just like Robin was saying, when it's rainy, when it's like when it's a little colder. There are some really good all season tires out there for those people who are in the in the in between I feel like winter tires you got to have some like you're you know when you're in some place where winter tires are what you need like You know if you live someplace wintery or not Roberto Baldwin (58:31) Yeah. Yeah. I've done all seasons on a WRX up to Tahoe where the snow here is apparently slicker than other places according to people who've lived other places. I'm like, I don't know, this is the only snow I've ever known. And I haven't had issues, but also, you know, I grew up in the snow and then, so I know a little bit better, you know, I'm a little bit smarter about driving, but the all seasons, you know, occasional snow, I had someone who was like, you should get studs. I'm like, what are you talking about, man? You're a junk person. What's happening? This person made a lot of money. They made way more money than I did. Sam Abuelsamid (58:44) You're- Nicole (58:47) Yeah. Right. ⁓ my gosh. You're a drunk person. Sam Abuelsamid (59:12) Yeah. I mean, you know, if you live somewhere like, you know, Montana or, you know, Wyoming, ⁓ you know, up, up in the mountains, you know, or the Dakotas or, you know, maybe Northern Minnesota. Yeah. Maybe you want to get studded tires or, you know, Northern, Northern Sweden. You definitely want, you know, or Northern Canada. You definitely want studded tires. ⁓ but you know, in most, I mean, most places it's not even legal. Roberto Baldwin (59:33) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (59:40) to use studded tires, especially on pavement, on dry pavement. ⁓ So that's definitely problematic. When we were doing Operation Frodo the other week, ⁓ there were sections along I-80 ⁓ where there were signs or tire chain change out points, and they had areas where vehicles could pull over. when ⁓ in these sections, They have signs, depending on the weather conditions, they will turn on the signs and say, put on tire chains now. And legally, you're supposed to put on chains. And so they have areas where you can pull on to put the chains on, pull off, and then also to take them off. ⁓ And those are definitely much more limited use. ⁓ You know, I have had winter tires on some of my cars in the past and they're great. ⁓ But, know, given the, you know, as things have changed over the years, I mean, certainly all season tires have gotten a lot better than they were 30 or 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago. ⁓ And, you know, I haven't had winter tires on any of my vehicles for, you know, for at least the last 20 years, although my, daughter, When she had a Toyota 86, she had a set of winter tires that I'd put on and off for her and store her summer tires in her garage. ⁓ yeah, it depends on what you're driving and where you're driving and how much winter weather you're actually getting. yeah, you go to the, there'll be a link in the show notes to this article and there's a whole tire selector, there's a link within the article to the tire selector and they've got all of the tire ratings and ⁓ Consumer Reports tests all of these tires. So everything that they've got rated here, they've actually tested in various conditions. So it's definitely worth a look. And they've got not just the winter and all season tires, but they've got all the different categories of tires in here. So if you're shopping for tires, this is definitely someplace you probably want to take a look this and on tire rack at their tire ratings as well. All right, ⁓ let's see. ⁓ you know, there's been a lot of supercars built over the years ⁓ and some of these cars cost millions of dollars, but sometimes when you're building very low volumes of cars, especially if you're a smaller manufacturer that does nothing but build supercars, ⁓ it costs money to design a lot of the various small bits and pieces that you need to have on a vehicle, that don't necessarily, you know, that aren't necessarily going to be obvious to the consumer. And so a lot of times, you know, companies will use parts from ⁓ more pedestrian vehicles ⁓ to, you know, to instead of designing their own custom components for every single little bit. Like back in beginning of my engineering career, ⁓ when I was working for Delco, which was then part of GM, working on the Lotus Elan and Lotus Esprit ABS systems, I got to spend a lot of time in those two cars. And, you know, they had at that time quite a few parts from other GM vehicles. you know, hmm, this airbag and this very expensive Lotus Esprit. Nicole (1:03:26) Ha ha ha ha. Sam Abuelsamid (1:03:31) looks exactly the same as the one from that firebird over there. ⁓ So, you know, it's not uncommon to ⁓ use parts from other vehicles. And Tom next got an interesting ⁓ sort of listicle. These supercars save money using parts from boring everyday cars. ⁓ And you guys had a chance to take a look through this. Nicole (1:03:55) It is funny, like the different bits and pieces that they've like, I like how they talk about the Jaguar's world beating supercar borrows parts from just about everywhere. like the entire car was a collection of spare parts. It's like, and when you look at the list, a little bit of Citroen, a little bit of Aston Martin, there's a little bit like, there's a little bit of everything in here. Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:07) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, I mean, that is free. You know, the the transmission and that came from Renault. You know, was used in a bunch of Renault vehicles. And you had to be careful with it because of that, because it was very easy to break. ⁓ Nicole (1:04:36) It's funny because Roberto Baldwin (1:04:36) Yeah. Nicole (1:04:37) there's this perception that if it's a really, it's a super car, right? You've got all these beautiful like stunning components. Especially there's a Pagani on that list. Like, my gosh, the inside of that thing, right? This is so cool. Everything is so custom. Well, not everything. underneath there. Sam Abuelsamid (1:04:40) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:04:52) The car would be like 15 million dollars. Nicole (1:04:56) Right? Can you imagine if all those parts, like the parts they didn't borrow from other cars, like if they made everything as unique and one-off ish as the stuff that you see. ⁓ my gosh. Roberto Baldwin (1:05:09) Faraday did a walk through their headquarters in Torrance years and years and years ago. And they kept saying, we're building this, we're building that, we're doing this, we're doing this. And I'm just like turning to people, like, did these people not know how to build a car? Like you don't do that. You get suppliers to build all these things or you buy from a partsman. This car is gonna be like $350,000. And then recently I'm like, how much is that Faraday? $350,000. Nicole (1:05:25) You don't do that. Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:33) Yeah Nicole (1:05:33) Hahaha! Sam Abuelsamid (1:05:36) Well, yeah, the Lamborghini Diablo is another good example. When the Diablo first came out in the early 90s, ⁓ it originally had pop-up headlights. And then sometime in the around 96, 97, they did a mid-cycle update of the Diablo and they replaced it with fixed headlights. And when you look at it, if you, like me, you're old enough to been around during that time period, like, those headlights look vaguely familiar. ⁓ And then when you look at it, you realize they use the headlights from the Nissan 300 ZX, the early 90s 300 ZX. So yeah. And the, ⁓ the McLaren F1, the tail lights came from a bus. Roberto Baldwin (1:06:15) Yeah, that's fine. I mean, if it works, like we need tail lights. they're this size and this guy, like, hold on, hold on. mean, let me jump into the parts bin supercomputer. Hey, there's a bus. Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:27) Yeah. I mean, they're just basic round tail lights. You know, so they're, nothing fancy. There's nothing nothing fancy about the design. So they just used one from a bus. Nicole (1:06:36) You Roberto Baldwin (1:06:49) MWAH MWAH Nicole (1:06:50) Makes sense. these things, like they don't, it seems so bizarre, but why not? They make it work. It all still works in the context of what you're seeing and everything, you know? Sam Abuelsamid (1:06:51) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:07:03) Plus you can order them from the bus company. How much is this light? Oh, it's gonna be $40,000 and you go on the bus company's website and find it for $10. Done. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:05) Exactly. Which, given some of the other things you have to do with an F1, if you own an F1, the electronics in F1, if they ever had to do any servicing on the electronics, that stuff was all programmed using a compact laptop. Most people probably don't even remember the brand Compact. They made computers. ⁓ They used a compact laptop. Nicole (1:07:36) wow, yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:07:40) to program the electronics in the F1. And basically no modern computer is compatible with it. So the McLaren has, they buy these laptops from like eBay and other places. They have an inventory of these laptops just sitting around so that they can use them. if a customer, I mean, there were only 106 F1s ever built, but if a customer, needs service on their vehicle. A technician can grab one of these laptops and go out ⁓ or they send the vehicle back to the UK ⁓ and they use these, 30, now 30 plus year old laptops to communicate with the electronics in the F1, which is gonna be, just think about what that's gonna be like 30 years from now with the software defined vehicles that are coming out now. Will the tool still exist? to do any service on these things. Probably not. ⁓ Yup. All right. Let's see. had, there was another one here from Jalopnik. Where'd it go? ⁓ used cars that you shouldn't buy. ⁓ And so rather than specific models, they had categories of seven cheap used cars that aren't worth the trouble. Roberto Baldwin (1:08:44) You gotta keep that around. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:07) And there's this old saying about buying certain kinds of ⁓ cheap cars. It's the most expensive cheap car that you'll ever own. ⁓ the car may be cheap to buy, but actually fixing it or keeping it running can be extraordinarily expensive. Like buying an old Mercedes Benz or BMW. Nicole (1:09:24) Crazy, crazy, crazy, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:09:30) buying an S-Class or a 5-Series? Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:09:33) Yeah. So yeah, that's one of the categories, the heavily depreciated luxury sedan. The tastefully modified racer. The multi repo buy here, pay here special. Yeah, you know, that's, you know, that's one word, you know, you don't really know the history of the car. Nicole (1:09:43) peacefully and it's this bright green car they have in the image that is awesome. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:00) Yeah, or if it's been if it's been repubed multiple times, and probably better to just walk away. The one owner former fleet workhorse, you know, so you know, car that's been used, you know, for, you know, ride hailing or door dash or Instacart or something like that. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:15) rental car. Nicole (1:10:19) like the next one, the early EV experiment, because it calls out exactly the vehicle I said that surprised me this year. It mentions, it has a little Nissan Leaf in the picture there. Something that was, it was great when it came out, but now, like it says, it should be represented in an automotive history museum, not your garage. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:29) Yeah, the first generation Leaf. Roberto Baldwin (1:10:39) Yeah, for the money you're gonna pay him, was just gonna call, get a modern EV. Nicole (1:10:43) Right? Get a new one. Yeah. Or just not an old beat up one. Sam Abuelsamid (1:10:45) Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the leaf in particular because of its air-cooled battery tended to have much more degradation of the battery. You know, there's a lot of other older EVs that are fine to buy as long as they had liquid-cooled batteries. And then of course, there is the salvage title dream build. ⁓ Salvage title, you know, means it's either been in a crash or it's been flooded or, you know, something else. Nicole (1:10:55) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:11:20) And those, know, sometimes they may, you can clean them up and they may look okay, but there's usually a lot of problems hiding underneath some. Roberto Baldwin (1:11:31) Yeah, salvage titles aren't always ⁓ sketchy. I mean, yeah. It's definitely like, if you're a mechanic and you need a car that you know just to roam around town with, then yeah, maybe a salvage title makes sense. But for the average, don't. Don't. Just don't. It's like my cousin one day is like, I'm going to buy a Saab. I'm like, no, you're not. I'm like, you know, you're not going to buy it. He's like, wait, I'm like, no, I'm not going to work on your Saab for you. it's gonna be my side or no side okay anybody on the end i broke down and i can eighty dollar part of the senate which are like two thousand dollars like dude and i went over his house fix in forty five minutes with a dollar part you never pay me back by the way so he's listening you know me eighty bucks to Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:15) Heh. Nicole (1:12:16) jeez. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:19) I mean that's what happens when you work on relatives cars. Roberto Baldwin (1:12:22) Yeah, 80 bucks. Nicole (1:12:22) Right? Sam Abuelsamid (1:12:25) And then the final category here is the Craigslist Unicorn Grandma car. And they've got a picture of an old 1980s, ⁓ probably early 80s or late 70s Buick, big Buick two door sedan. these are the ones that, the old apocryphal story of only driven to church on Sunday by grandma. probably want to stay away from those. they're so low mileage, yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:13:02) I'm not being driven. Engines love to be moved around. Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:06) Yeah, you know, think things like, you know, rubber and plastics and gaskets, you know, they, yeah, they, don't age well. They, you know, they get tires, get dry rot, you know, belts and gaskets get dry rot, you know, things will leak, things will seize up. ⁓ So yeah, you definitely, you definitely want to keep the fluids moving, keep everything moving periodically. ⁓ And so, you know, if it's, you know, the garage find, you know, Nicole (1:13:11) don't like to just sit. Sam Abuelsamid (1:13:35) is often more trouble than it's worth. Unless it's something that's extremely valuable and that after a full restoration will have some value to it, it's usually not worth the effort. Roberto Baldwin (1:13:47) I've worked on two Beatles that have sat one for like over a decade and one for like two years. And both of them like you had to replace the fuel lines, you had to replace, because there's just like, one of them like almost caught fire because the fuel line just cracked and it was shooting gasoline out onto the firewalls. Like, So yeah, and that's just like a few, you know, for those that's like a year or two or yeah, the sort of sitting around car. Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:04) Yeah. Nicole (1:14:05) Peace. Roberto Baldwin (1:14:15) Again, if you are mechanically inclined, cool. But if you're gonna like buy this car and you, oh, I just need a few things done and you give it to your mechanic, it's gonna cost you so much. Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:28) Yeah, if you're looking for a perpetual project, fine, but otherwise, probably want to stay away. Roberto Baldwin (1:14:29) Ahem. Yeah. Nicole (1:14:33) It's a project. Roberto Baldwin (1:14:34) Yeah. Check all those belts and hoses if you get that car. Sam Abuelsamid (1:14:40) All right, the Nissan Versa. It's like the last of the cheap little cars in America, because the Mitsubishi Mirage went away last year. The Versa, there's been rumors about this for a while, and it's now official that the production of the Versa for the US market ended this month, earlier this month. And so, you know, whatever cars are left on dealer lots, that's it. After that, there will be ⁓ no more, it's the last new car that you can buy for under $20,000. Roberto Baldwin (1:15:22) Blah, blah. Nicole (1:15:23) I'm sad about this because I feel like it, you know, I know that Citian's cars aren't the thing that they once were and that people like the little, you know, crossover thing, but it's nice to just have, like, this was exactly the kind of car I would have bought when I first graduated from school and was, like, didn't have a huge budget. and wanted something affordable and I'm sad that there's not an option like that anymore. That was a good option for first time buyers and the Versa was a solid little car but clearly not selling enough to make it worthwhile. What is wrong with people? You can't, don't have a big budget, you know? Sam Abuelsamid (1:15:53) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:15:58) Well, every... Someone was complaining online about there's not enough small, cheap cars in America. And then, of course, all the automotive journalists popped in there and started listing cars that were small and inexpensive. And it's not that they're not there. People aren't buying them. You know, I've had people complain to me like, why can't I get a hatchback with the manned transmission? I'm like, you know, the Golf is still there. It's still a car. You can still get a Golf. Nicole (1:16:07) Gotta buy them. Still out there. Roberto Baldwin (1:16:28) The cars are there, just everyone wants to complain about, oh, there's no cheap cars, no cheap, I'm like, you're not really trying. And at the end of the day, you're not. Sam Abuelsamid (1:16:35) People would rather overextend themselves to buy something fancier. Instead, you could buy a Versa for under 20 grand, have a full warranty for three years, and it's generally gonna be pretty reliable. ⁓ And it's a decent looking little car, and it drives well. Nicole (1:16:42) Yeah. Mm-hmm. It really is. Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:00) It's a shame. I had one earlier this year and it's a good little car to drive and you could still get it with a manual transmission. The manual version was like $17,400 for the base trim and it was a decent little car. Nicole (1:17:10) Mm-hmm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:21) But it's almost gone. So get them while you can. Snap up your verses while you still can. Roberto Baldwin (1:17:29) Get your verses. I was sad when they got rid of the hatchback and they just have the sedan now, but you know, again, there's no hatchbacks. I'm like, cause you're not buying hatchbacks. I don't know what to tell you. It's, it's the same people that are like, ha ha, know, millennials don't know how to drive missions. And I'm like, okay, you're, you're a parent. Have you taught your kids how to drive a man transmission? And they're like, well, no. I'm like, then shut up. If you're not, if you're not going to pass on the knowledge, I don't want to see your stupid meme on Facebook. Nicole (1:17:29) Versus Sam Abuelsamid (1:17:51) I did. Nicole (1:17:53) Yep. Yep. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:00) Shut your pie hole. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:05) I taught my kids, one was interested to learn, the other one was not. But they both got lessons in driving a manual. ⁓ So I passed on the knowledge, I did my part. Nicole (1:18:06) Put your pie. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:19) You did your part. Yeah, Nissan Versa. Pour one out for the Versa, Kia Soul's gone. Kia Soul's... That's a magical car. Magical. Nicole (1:18:24) Bye little niece-a-versa. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:29) Yeah. Nicole (1:18:29) Oh, that's right, that made me sad. That was just so fun. I know, it was just a magical little car. It's got all the magical cars, oh gosh, if they ever get rid of the Miata, then I just quit. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:44) That's that's their halo if they even they sell four of those a year. They're not gonna get rid of it They're not allowed to less unless like like I was Nicole (1:18:47) They can never get rid of it. Don't do that to me, Mazda, please. Don't. Roberto Baldwin (1:18:56) Those people that buy up companies and then ruin them? Sam Abuelsamid (1:18:59) private equity. Roberto Baldwin (1:19:00) Yep, unless private XB5s lost it, they should be fine. Sam Abuelsamid (1:19:05) ⁓ All right, ⁓ so Volkswagen like a lot of other brands has a bunch of vehicles that they build and sell only for the Chinese market They don't export them anywhere else which is unfortunate ⁓ because ⁓ They've got they've actually got some surprisingly interesting stuff that especially that they've launched this year ⁓ Including the newest the ID unix 08 which is kind of a weird name And Unix, unlike the operating system, is spelled U-N-Y-X. ⁓ But ⁓ this is a mid-size crossover. It has a CATL LFP battery and has a range of 730 kilometers, or about 450 miles. ⁓ That's on the Chinese light duty test cycle. So real world is probably somewhere between 300 and 350 miles. But still, that's pretty impressive. And it's a decent looking vehicle. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:06) which is still pretty good. Nicole (1:20:08) Mm-hmm. It does look pretty good. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:14) And it's 800 volt, so it charges quick. It's all the things the ID buzz should have been. Nicole (1:20:22) Poor ID Buzz. Poor Buzz. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:23) ⁓ I need buzz. Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:25) Well, speaking of the buzz, they have paused production of the buzz for 2026 because they've got enough of them sitting around that they don't need to build any for a while. Nicole (1:20:30) Mm-hmm. Roberto Baldwin (1:20:36) ⁓ I just I just needed to depreciate. know I know all the problems with it, but I still want one The buzz is like the Wrangler like I know all the problems with a Wrangler, but I really want I've always wanted a Wrangler I will tell regular people don't buy a Wrangler Because it's a Wrangler and but still you want to be able to hear the person next to you while you're driving don't buy a Wrangler Nicole (1:20:36) which is not good news for the buzz. Sam Abuelsamid (1:20:39) Yeah. Nicole (1:20:42) Yeah. Hahaha Sam Abuelsamid (1:21:01) Well, the ID Unix 08 has, with the single motor rear drive version, it's got 308 horsepower. ⁓ And then there's also a dual motor all wheel drive version. ⁓ The electronic architecture was co-developed with Xiaopeng, a Chinese automaker. So it's a modern zonal architecture so it can support all the over the air updates and everything. ⁓ It's got ⁓ very fast DC fast charging rates. doesn't say exactly what the charging rate is, at least in this article. Yeah, it's an 800 volt system, but even in China, a lot of the 800 volt systems are now getting up to, they're getting five, six, 700 kilowatts, which is double what we get here. And there are some vehicles that are supporting Roberto Baldwin (1:21:38) Yeah, it just says 800 volt. What? Nicole (1:21:57) Ha ha ha ha! Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:00) megawatt charging now. Roberto Baldwin (1:22:01) Did they have the megawatt charging stations? Probably. There's probably like... There's probably like billions of them. You just pull up, it's faster than getting gas. You can't even go inside and get beef jerky. The car charges too quickly. That's the... Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:04) They do, have some, there are megawatt charging stations in China. Nicole (1:22:16) Hahaha! time to at least run in and get beef jerky. I'm not doing it. I need at least my road trip snack. Come on. Roberto Baldwin (1:22:25) I need my Fritos and my beef jerky and my giant Diet Coke that's gonna make me pee in 20 miles. Nicole (1:22:29) Beef jerky and diet coke. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:32) Well, you you pull up, you charge it, and then you pull your car over to the side, and then you walk into Bucky's and get your beef jerky and your barbecue and your ginormous Diet Coke. ⁓ And, you know, hit the restroom before you hit the road, and then drive about 10 miles and turn around and drive back and drain your bladder again. Roberto Baldwin (1:22:46) Yeah. Nicole (1:22:55) You Roberto Baldwin (1:22:55) Now I can make it to the next spot. I can make it. Sam Abuelsamid (1:22:57) Okay. Okay. If you say so. Roberto Baldwin (1:23:00) I just got the drink. It's the, you know, I just got it. I got a good 30 minutes. Sam Abuelsamid (1:23:04) All right. ⁓ Let's see. ⁓ so, you know, every, every, every Saturday morning, I get this email from Hagerty with some of their links to some of their articles that they have that week ⁓ on their site. And this one caught my attention yesterday, ⁓ which is about options to remember or maybe not. So some of the some of the interesting options that used to be available on cars, ⁓ at least on some cars. And there's some fascinating stuff here. ⁓ Like ⁓ Chrysler, ⁓ this one I that they had an option in the 1950s for a record player. ⁓ But ⁓ they also had a package called the Special Fifth Avenue Ensemble. which included a cigarette case in your steering wheel. Nicole (1:24:04) Ooh. Roberto Baldwin (1:24:10) Ladies, please note, a cigarette case built in the hub of the chic new Fifth Avenue steering wheel hands a cigarette to you at the flip of a convenient lever. Ooh, makes me want to smoke. Nicole (1:24:21) Wow. Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:23) Ha Roberto Baldwin (1:24:25) I'm gonna start smoking just because of this car. Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:28) mean, that's a much more stylish steering wheel than you find on most modern cars, Nicole (1:24:28) You Roberto Baldwin (1:24:32) It is pretty stylish. That's pretty nice. Nicole (1:24:34) mean, that is pretty snazzy looking, I gotta say. Roberto Baldwin (1:24:37) Grab my ciggie. Nicole (1:24:39) Could you put other stuff in there? Like if you didn't smoke, could you put like the candy cigarettes in there? like, I feel like, mm-hmm. Or a piece of gum. Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:45) Probably. I don't see why not. Roberto Baldwin (1:24:46) I was thinking about this as a child, I was obsessed with candy cigarettes because you could blow on them and then like, yeah, the dust that they... Nicole (1:24:52) They were and the little poof of yeah. Because they were a grown Sam Abuelsamid (1:24:55) The dust, the sugar dust. Nicole (1:24:58) up thing and it was getting to do a grown up thing and smoke, which was not cool, but it was cool. Let's face it, we thought it was cool. Is it looks cool? That's it. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:00) Yeah. No, it was cool. the smoke. The reason people smoke is because it looks cool. That's it. That's it. No one starts smoking because they're like, Ooh, this tastes delicious. Everyone starts because it looks cool. That's it. That's the whole thing. And everyone, everyone's, while someone will argue with me about that, I'm like, no, it looks cool. Once you've started, now you're, you know, there's a whole other, now you're a hook, but everyone starts because this looks cool. Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:11) Heh. Heh. Nicole (1:25:11) No, ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:21) Now you're hooked. ⁓ I like the description here, the special plastic steering wheel with dispenser cigarette case. Nicole (1:25:33) my god. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:34) I wonder how many, like, do you have to load it, I guess? Does it pop off? Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:37) Yeah, I mean, I would Nicole (1:25:37) There must be a little spot where you just Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:39) assume, yeah, they're. Nicole (1:25:39) it has to be an easy load to a pack of cigarettes. Hopefully you're not like going like one, two, three. Just whoosh. Yeah. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:25:45) Yeah, I hope you can just like shove them all like a cigarette pack, you know, like the little metal packs that they had back in the day. You pop it open, you offer a cigarette to a spy. Nicole (1:25:55) I mean, that's, I mean, sure. Yeah, that'll work. Sam Abuelsamid (1:25:59) ⁓ There's also the station wagon rear window washer, which Nicole (1:26:04) This is the most over engineered thing I've ever seen in my life. Was this actually on a car? It really was? Roberto Baldwin (1:26:10) you Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:11) Well, let's see. I don't know if they actually put it in production. Nicole (1:26:13) No, wait, this is a late 60s corporation were offered with an optional magic window. This is the most. What engineer did this without a marketing person looking at it? So the whole window goes into it all the way down. Roberto Baldwin (1:26:20) Disappear. So it got washed in the tailgate. Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:20) and Yeah, so it had a retractable rear window. Yeah. Nicole (1:26:32) And then it cleans it. So. Sam Abuelsamid (1:26:34) And then presumably it goes back up again. mean, you know, today, today we have, you know, rear washers, you know, because when you're driving down the road and messy weather, you know, your rear window gets all gunked up and you need to wash it from time to time so you can see what's behind you. But this can obviously only work in nice weather because you don't want to be opening up your rear. Yeah. Nicole (1:26:55) When you don't, when your rear window isn't messy anyway. Like when you want this is when there's like salt and dirt and muck. They were, it was like, they were really close. Like someone should have slid this back across the counter to the engineer and be like, nope, give it one more try. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:01) They were so close. They were so close. Did I get you? You almost got it guys. You see what we're doing at the front? You see the front? Where we have the little washer and the thing goes back and forth? Just put one of those in the back. like, oh, yeah, all the things here, you've got all the things there. Nicole (1:27:16) Try that in the back. You have all the parts, you've done this one so already, just put it in the back. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:26) Let's put it in the back. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:27) My personal favorite of these is the traction in a bottle. Nicole (1:27:32) I'm trying to figure out what this is. Squirted. This literally just says in this description that it squirts sticky goo on the rear tires. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:34) That was my favorite police song. Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:34) So. So. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:41) Light liquid tire Sam Abuelsamid (1:27:43) This was offered on the Camaro in 1969. So you had a bottle in the rear fenders, hopefully on both sides, ⁓ and was filled with some kind of sticky goo. They called it liquid tire chain. And you push a button on the dash, it's squirted this goo onto the rear tires. ⁓ And ⁓ presumably it was supposed to give you a little more traction. Roberto Baldwin (1:27:43) chain Nicole (1:28:06) Mm. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:13) All right. Or he just sunk deeper, one or the other. Nicole (1:28:13) Okay. Right? Huh. Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:20) ⁓ Strangely, they don't offer this option anymore. I don't know why. Roberto Baldwin (1:28:23) Yeah, the goo, they ran out of goo. Turns out the goo gave everyone cancer. Like most things from the 60s, it turns out cancer. Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:28) Yeah. Nicole (1:28:29) You could inhale the goo. People were huffing the goo. They were just pushing the button and sitting by their tires. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:28:38) And then there was the Dodge Superlight, ⁓ which added an extra beam ⁓ in there for the headlights. ⁓ Yeah, mean, nowadays they can kind of do, they can do this sort of thing with the adaptive headlight systems ⁓ that, you know, are just, have just recently become legal in the U S ⁓ and those, I those systems are amazing, ⁓ you know, because they can create Nicole (1:28:46) I guess that's kind of cool. Yeah. They're very cool. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:07) custom patterns, know, so as you're driving down, you know, driving down a rural road, you can have your high beams illuminating most of the road, but as soon as, as soon as the sensor detects a vehicle or something approaching, it will dim part of the pattern or, you know, dip it down so you don't blind an oncoming driver. And, you know, I tried that, I had that last time I had a Rivian R1, it had those on there. It was pretty amazing. and then the Honda CR-V picnic table. Roberto Baldwin (1:29:40) We had one of those, we had the CRV with the picnic table. Yeah, with the picnic table? Yeah, take it out, put it up, put it back in the car. We're like, hey, we tried it, and you put it away. Nicole (1:29:40) That's that's we have one of those too. We have one of those. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:43) The first gen CRV. Yeah. Nicole (1:29:48) We had that. was awesome. But they brought it back in the passport. You can get it in the passport and it's sturdier than the old CRV. Like this one had legs that just folded open the CRV legs. The passport has them. like screw in individually and it actually feels like the table wouldn't break if you sat on it. Unlike this old one is a little spindly, a little bit rickety, but it was cool. I actually used ours. We broke it out every now and then. So there you go. It was useful. Sam Abuelsamid (1:29:54) Yeah. Yeah, the CRV table was a little spindly. Roberto Baldwin (1:30:15) Damn. Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:17) ⁓ all right. And then the last thing before we get to some listener mails, listener emails, ⁓ I was watching a TFL yesterday morning and, ⁓ Tommy and case, ⁓ took, have, ⁓ TFL has a 1927 Ford model T and, ⁓ they took it and put it on a chassis dyno, to see just how much or, or rather how little power it actually makes. And, Nicole (1:30:40) my God. How little? Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:47) The results were pretty amusing. Nicole (1:30:50) What did it come up with? What was the? Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:53) ⁓ eleven point two horsepower Roberto Baldwin (1:30:55) Yeah. Nicole (1:30:55) 11.2 Yabbi. What was it supposed to make? Do we know? Sam Abuelsamid (1:30:59) I think the original rating was like about 24, 25 horsepower. Nicole (1:31:07) So it's lost about half, more than half, roughly half. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:11) You need to check some... Nicole (1:31:15) 11 horsepower. Barely goes. Barely goes. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:17) Yep. Yeah. mean, yeah, it, this model T maxes out about 45 miles an hour. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:24) Yeah, that's about right. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:26) which is probably about as fast or faster than you really want to be going into Model T. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:28) You wanna go? Yeah, it's Nicole (1:31:30) Right. don't think I want to go that fast. Yeah. No, I've only ridden in one once and I was like, OK, that's enough. Thanks. Bye. I don't want to die today. Not today. Roberto Baldwin (1:31:31) the death trap. I don't wanna die. Sam Abuelsamid (1:31:41) All right, let's let's get to some listener messages ⁓ starting off with Adam Jackowinko our old friend Adam ⁓ Just wanted to provide my two cents about the Mach-E frunk removal story You talked about last week Ford has said that their data shows people largely don't use it. So they made it optional You know why they don't use it because it's a hassle to open at least in the u.s There is no frunk button on a Mach-E key fob So you have to either go into the vehicle and manually pull a big lever twice to open Nicole (1:32:04) Huh? Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:11) pop the hood like most any other car or you have to pull out your phone, unlock it, open the Ford app, wait for that to load, press the front button and wait for that command to pop the front. So what I and some other dedicated owners have done is purchased an F-150 lightning key fob on eBay and programmed it to the Mach-E because in addition to all the same buttons, the lightning fob has a front button. This solution works perfectly and now makes it super easy and convenient to pop the front. Nicole (1:32:12) Hmm. haha Roberto Baldwin (1:32:32) Nice. Nicole (1:32:33) Nicely done. Sam Abuelsamid (1:32:40) I have a 2024 Mach-E and use my fob to pop the frunk all the time for groceries, takeout food, that I don't want to stink up the car, anything I don't want rolling around, and storing valuables that I don't want to risk getting stolen. It's incredibly useful, but I can see why most people with an OEM fob wouldn't use it. From my perspective, anything that's less convenient to do, people will naturally do less. Kind of makes sense. ⁓ Ford did not provide owners with any easy way to open it, so most people don't open it. Nicole (1:32:45) Hmm? Haha. Yep. Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:09) Then Ford uses that data showing people don't use it to justify removing it. Every Mach-E owner that I show my Lightning FOB to says, wow, that's neat. If I had that, I'd use my frunk more. I'd also bet anything that people with Teslas and Rivians adjust their air vents a lot less. Nicole (1:33:27) Yeah, I didn't even know you could do that. You could take an F-150 lightning key fob and program it to work with a Mach-E. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:33:27) Probably. Make sense. ⁓ I mean, use basically the same, the fobs basically all have the same electronics in them. If ⁓ you go to any given manufacturer, all their key fobs are gonna be basically the same. Depending on which vehicle you have, some of them may have more buttons than others, depending on what features are on there. If it's a car, it's probably not gonna have a power tailgate button, things like that. Nicole (1:33:57) Mm. Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:05) But in this case, for whatever reason, ⁓ gave a fob with a front button to lightning owners, but not to Mach-E owners, which makes no sense. Yeah. Nicole (1:34:18) That's weird. Roberto Baldwin (1:34:20) I mean, we can just go back to the beginning. If you want, can just rewind back to the beginning of the podcast where I talk about disappointments. Nicole (1:34:26) This is on the list. ⁓ Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:26) Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:34:28) It's just like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Come on, Ford, what are you doing? Nicole (1:34:34) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:34:38) All right. ⁓ And then we had, there was a couple of messages, a couple of threads in the Wheel Bearings Discord. And ⁓ if you're not in the Discord, if you're not participating in there, it's some fun conversations going on in there. Just shoot us a note. I sent out a note to all the patrons the other day with the link. But if you want the link, just send us a note at feedback at wheelbearings.media and I will send you the link to join the Discord. But Nicole, you want to address these? Nicole (1:35:10) Yeah, so I got to I got a long one in a short one. So the short one is from Jeff D. And he said their Bosnia at least deals to be had on Polestar three and four. I think Nicole should consider one of those. So on my continuing quest to what am I going to replace my my old car with or my my new old car? ⁓ So that's a possibility. I could look at a Polestar. I do like Polestar. Does it is one of those ones? Which one is one doesn't have a rear view? Not a rear view or a window. Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:37) the rear window. That's the four. That's the one we drove in Montreal in July. Nicole (1:35:39) That's the four. Okay, Roberto Baldwin (1:35:40) Bye. Nicole (1:35:40) that was that. So I was thinking forward. had a blank. So we did like. Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:42) And that one also has software controlled vents. Nicole (1:35:46) See, does the three also have software controlled vents? Okay, so the four then, Jeff, no joy. But the three... Sam Abuelsamid (1:35:48) The three does not. The three has manual vents. Roberto Baldwin (1:35:52) Out of the picture, no. Nicole (1:35:55) Okay. Three could be on the list. I can move the vents. Okay. The rear window wasn't a deal breaker. I was just trying to remember the car on the other one, but the, the vents are a deal breaker. So that's, that's a possibility. The other email comes from Staniel. looks like Daniel with an S T at the beginning Staniel. It says, I just topped on that my two cents from Nicole's car search. I'd recommend the lyric as well after two and a half years and 40,000 miles of you software fails early on, but reliable since. your software fails, she could pick up a little. Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:25) Yeah, well when they did the original launch drive, the software was really buggy. Did you go on that one in Park City? Nicole (1:36:31) I don't think I did. Roberto Baldwin (1:36:32) I went on it, the software was trash. just, it just, they were like, the software doesn't, they just told us, the software doesn't work. And they're like, okay. So they told us, and we're like, all right, so we know. When you don't tell us and then like the software is horrible, yeah, you're gonna get a bad write up. But if you're like, hey, it's just not done. But we wanted you to drive the car. And they're like, okay, all right, we understand. Sam Abuelsamid (1:36:33) It was bad. Nicole (1:36:39) Okay. It's incomplete. ⁓ It says I could pick up a low mile 24 lease return and still get Android out on Apple CarPlay, good point, or I could pick up a new one and use my phone as a hotspot for connectivity MSRP on a new luxury 1500 horsepower old drive. It's in the mid 60s, has everything I need. My biggest beef with the Lyric is its range. Well, more than adequate most of the time, 330 miles is really constraining cold weather to the tune of maybe 150 miles on the typical 80 percent charge. Wow. Frankly, I don't think Nicole's ready for an EV yet or more appropriately. I don't think EVs are ready for Nicole yet. She seems like she will spend whatever she needs in order to do exactly what moves her. And then she keeps for 10 to 15 years. I don't think the car that car has been built yet, especially with battery chemistries evolving as quickly as they are. And I am inclined to agree with you that the EV that I want doesn't exist yet. That it's, I'm just, I'm just not, it's not there yet. I need to wait a little on an EV because I'm not going to get what I want out of an EV yet. That's genuinely what I think. So I think I'm probably going to end up getting either a hybrid or ⁓ an ICE vehicle just because I don't feel like the EV I want exists. I feel like it's not there yet. It's not there yet. I am even just hearing software glitches. My eyes start twitching. What do mean software glitches? What does that mean? And I know you're talking about the open, but still, what does that mean? What does that mean? Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:18) Yeah, no, think the software on the GM vehicles is actually in a pretty good place now. I'm hearing a lot fewer issues with GM software in the last 12 months. Nicole (1:38:30) See, you're not making me feel any better. It's in a better place. It's a lot fewer issues. What I want to hear is it's perfect. Period. There are no issues. Period. That's true. Seriously. Seriously. Yeah, my nephew just bought a new car and his complaint is there's too much technology on it. It's like there's too much stuff. I'm like, well, welcome to 2025. Yeah. Roberto Baldwin (1:38:38) ⁓ I don't know that car you're gonna buy. Sam Abuelsamid (1:38:40) then you don't want anything built in the last five years. Roberto Baldwin (1:38:43) Yeah, gas, electric, anything really to be honest. Yeah, I think, again, that's why people are excited about the slate. They're like, don't need all that. Stop it. I just want, brrroom, drive away. I guess in the slate. Nicole (1:39:01) Yeah, you just want, what do you want? What is it that you want, Roberta? ⁓ Roberto Baldwin (1:39:06) They just want, just, brrm, drive away. Or if you're getting an EV. whatever little low mileage sound is. Nicole (1:39:12) Is that what your EV sounds like? That's interesting. There we go. So there we go, there's my latest. This is a task to be pursued in the new year, so I'll let you guys know as I figure this out. I know, it's kind of fun to see what you suggest. Yes, the why. Why would Nicole want that car? Like a reason. There's got to be a long one, but you gotta give a reason, not just like it's cool, no. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:33) Keep sending in your suggestions and importantly your justifications. Roberto Baldwin (1:39:35) Never stop. Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:39:43) I mean, we're. Usually it's us that's stuck giving advice that doesn't get listened to ⁓ from people that ask us. Now it's your turn to provide the advice. Nicole (1:39:51) Right now you guys, this is, it's your opportunity to know what it's like to be an automotive journalist. Don't buy that car. They go out and buy it. You should buy this one. They don't buy it. Bought a Wrangler. We like the Wrangler. We, my husband loves his Wrangler. He loves his Wrangler. Roberto Baldwin (1:39:57) What it's, yeah. Yeah. Don't buy a Wrangler, Nicole. average that's the thing people late ever I would love I love a Wrangler would I tell a regular person about one no that's the thing yeah Nicole (1:40:13) No, I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either. But it's the right car for him. It's the right car for the right people. You to know the right car for you. It's all about picking the right car for you. Not for a six foot Robbie. Roberto Baldwin (1:40:23) Yeah. Sam Abuelsamid (1:40:28) All right. Well, thanks everybody and Happy New Year and we will talk to you in 2026. Bye Nicole (1:40:33) Happy New Year! Bye everyone. Roberto Baldwin (1:40:36) Woo! Bye.