[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Tommy, how is your thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Skiving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Has it happened yet?
[SPEAKER_01]: It has not happened yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are recording this before Thanksgiving.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have a lot to talk about because we did a bunch of interesting things.
[SPEAKER_01]: First and foremost, we just got back from Omaha.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll tell you what we did at Omaha.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a road trip to deal with some off-roaders and speaking of photos, we're answering the question, what the heck is happening to off-roaders?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a headscratcher, and then we're gonna be talking about what you do at the end of this podcast when you don't have a spare tire because we have a great solution for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, sounds good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, I've got this little study from our friends at IEC cars, and this is an important study at this time of year because they did some research to find out what holiday is the best time to buy a new car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, wonderful, okay, so I would always think Black Friday is a time to buy a new car.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's number nine on the list really yeah number nine it's actually only um... well they did it by percentage more deals than average so basically more deals you can get the average and it's only nine point five percent better on black Friday that's number nine number ten is Halloween six point eight percent better time to buy a new car shall we do it in tfl order and go
[SPEAKER_01]: from 10 to number one?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, number eight, what do you think that is?
[SPEAKER_01]: This could be a time of year or could be a holiday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mother's Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's December.
[SPEAKER_01]: In December, you're more likely 15.2% of the time to get better deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Follow by, it's coming up, another holiday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mother's Day Christmas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's December.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they broke apart Christmas and December Christmas.
[SPEAKER_01]: 15.2% the same percentage.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about your mom's birthday?
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I my lovely wife's birthday?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, don't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: What day though?
[SPEAKER_01]: The holiday.
[SPEAKER_01]: 11 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Veterans day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: By car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm veterans day and you're 23.1% more likely to get a good deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the days have a really big impact.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next month is a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: January.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_01]: February.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, February is a great time to buy a car because 36.2% more deals in February than rest of the time of the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's number five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number four.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a day named after.
[SPEAKER_01]: important people in our government uh... presidents exactly it's uh... forty seven percent more likely to get a good deal k more deals more good deals done right number three is a month uh... may uh... no January good time great time to buy car apparently is fifty five point six percent
[SPEAKER_01]: that's a little surprising because you think New Year's they would try to get all their inventory out December some surprise January's well you just said number two New Year's Eve New Year's day yes yep 58.6 more deals than average okay and then number one what's the number one day
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a holiday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mother's Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a three-letter holiday for short.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's next miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's named after a famous African American.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm L. K. Day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: A 65.5% more deals than average on MLK Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the day you want to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the conversive that they also have
[SPEAKER_01]: the worst times a buy a new this is use car sorry not new car these are use cars okay so i i screwed it up use cars guys all right here we go number five just give me the list i can't follow stay okay don't buy it on father's day yeah don't buy it in July don't buy it in may don't buy it on fourth of July okay and the one day or one month you never want to buy a use car according to i c cars is June
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Black Friday surprises, of course, which has passed that, despite its retail hype Black Friday only ranked 9th, we know that a cold versus warm months, the best month, our January, of course, winter holidays are also a good time and summer holidays are the worst time for deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our friend, the car pro, where I listen to a podcast, he says all the time is a good time to buy a new car.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is used cars, not new cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it doesn't he benefit from lead generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He might, or he might advertise, he might advertise dealers, or they advertise with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you know, one is a good time to go out and get yourself some new or new to you wheels.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sounds good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's an interesting little study because like I always thought that December was the time to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's definitely one of the best months because it's it's happy on the days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy on the days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you a toilet on person coal or a happy on today's person?
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to call like deal to remember or deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real and deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's haunted days and Toyota thought those are the two big ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, December to remember some people like this December to remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what it's December to remember It's interesting people get really into like the Honda day or Toyota thought thing They get but they seriously some people are haunted.
[SPEAKER_01]: They people some day are Toyota thought you know the craziest part of all this is you've got these great commercials now people being surprised by you know
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... December to remember lexas right these happy families uh... coming out of the house and there's a brand new rx hitting the driver with a big red bull or Santa Claus is being driven by you know a bunch of lexai uh... and uh... throwing out presents and then you go to the dealership but it's the worst experience oftentimes right now
[SPEAKER_01]: What can I do to get you in the car?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is like this disconnect between what the commercials do and what the real life experience is like, where you sit there for four hours, waiting to sign some paperwork while they make sure that your credit or your first born is also accounted for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you seen that video sketch of the SNL skit the surprising your wife with the new heart?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a good one too, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't afford this.
[SPEAKER_00]: How much did you put down on this that she's not happy at all, it's a new Lexus?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really funny skit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bought your mom a new car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my wife had never ever do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we're squashing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it just creates more stress and more financial distress for my family.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the only Lexus parked out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not thinking of Lexus.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be Mercedes, Audi.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be any of the premium brands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any of the standard brands.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if I should have put that on day, she'd be like, why did you buy this without telling me?
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd be pretty upset about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so let's talk about what we're doing in Omaha.
[SPEAKER_01]: We made another, well, you made, not we, the company, you made another interesting purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Purchase, you have that rare disease known as Land Rover.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I just, where you went and bought a new Land Rover that we probably, well, tell them the story and tell them the clues that we had that this thing was gonna be bad and tell them how we're sorting it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it only involved driving the Omaha for like 500 bucks in gas and lodging.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to pick out a auction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, our friends use car donated auction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, so they weren't a donated auction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing about pick out a auction is, I've had some incredible experiences with getting lucky with cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is not a typical dealership where you can go and test drive cars in the history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, say you donate a car to NPR.
[SPEAKER_00]: It ends up at a place like pick out a auction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the team over there sells it off and gives it proceeds to NPR.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they also get a cut on top of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like a you know an option for you 18% it's not cheap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so but then the car is don't go for a lot, so so Matt called me up and said hey, I just bought the slander over this was not I don't think a donated car by the way
[SPEAKER_00]: He just bought it and he knows I have a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also a used car dealer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, do you want it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, let's go take a look at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's say 1996, land over discovery one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is your holy grail of land rovers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why I'm there right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five discoveries with two in the middle being LR3s and LR4s and then back to discovery five, but there are five of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you for some reason want the holy grail, which is the first one, which is actually like a defender underneath, which is grand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's why you want them, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of the rawest of the discoverer in their shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a solid axle V8 power off-road beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reason I love these is because when I was a kid, I was obsessed with camel trophy, which was, of course, the very famous off-road safari, where they took a bunch of landovers anyways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Discovering one of the pretty hard to find, I've been shopping on and off for like 10 years, and they're either really expensive and really nice, or they're totally used up, they're off-road rigs.
[SPEAKER_00]: the just shot right so finding one like this that still has paint on it that doesn't have tears in the interior is a pretty good find the thing about it though is because we don't really know the history behind these cars is kind of a gamble by some of these so when I bought this from peak peak you know there's a couple clues we had that something might be wrong with it well first of all the interiors in spectacular shape for car with how many miles 139 thousand and let's face it these cars were meant to go
[SPEAKER_01]: They were meant to go 30,000 miles.
[SPEAKER_01]: 500,000 was kind of the end of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's unusual is whenever you see one, either there is like clear code is gone, or there is just a ton of rust.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have aluminum bodies, so it's kind of hard to spot, because the outside's always look nice, but then once you look underneath, you'll see the rot, or the headliner's falling down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here is the clue that this one may have not been so great, which is what we're looking at right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we looking at, Tom?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking at three empty bottles.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're looking fully stocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the full Exxon Valdeze supply of oil and coolant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So two bottles of coolant, both empty and a bottle of oil, was there oil in the bottle or was it also empty?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that was also part full.
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically, I thought it was profiting at this point because it's you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them was just given away a reservoir worth of coolant, which is awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, of course, the known issue with these is the fact that they have these sleeves, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they kept boring the block out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an old bui can, and they kept boring out, and they put sleeves in there, and then those sleeves loosen up, and then they hit the head gasket, and then they blow the head gasket.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not so much a problem with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually the other way around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the head gasket's fail, and then the engine overheats, and then the liners will slip.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when it overheats, it goes to a lot of coolant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So having two empty bottles of coolant is a pretty good clue that there's something going on with this power tray.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought maybe we got away with some magic though, because even though it was out of coolant, which I just ignored is maybe a leak.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did run it for a long time, so we wrote it, wrote it around for like 15, 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made sure there wasn't like Slurpee in the oil cap or the cool and cap, and it seemed fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, drove it back to the office 35 minutes, didn't overheat?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like 10 minutes and driving it back home, the rear window came sliding down on itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, that's just another common problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're familiar with these cars, they go through regulators like you go through iced teas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, put me regulator, that was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But 30 minutes on the way home drove perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the oil pressure was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the way the other thing we figured out when it got fully up to temperature is the oil light would flick around an idle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which means that there may not be oil pressure, which means that there might be something dropping.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the engine might be cocked, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, drove it home, ran great, drove perfectly, except for the oil pressure like coming on, didn't overheat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I drove it 35 more minutes from the office back to my house, and that's when things started getting weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: I noticed the temperature was kind of all over the place.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's looking there in the video.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's because you spilled oil over the exhaust manifold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're blaming me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because you did, you spilled oil over the exhaust manifold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, drove it up to my place and noticed the cooling temps was going to go in everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when I parked it in the garage, I heard it, even though the temperature was reading fine, you could hear the cooling system boiling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you could actually hear the gurgling and the sloshing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I parked it, came back in the morning and there was cool and dull over the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it clearly had bubbled over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so so did some more investigating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next day started it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was blowing a little bit of coolant out the back smelling a little weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think we've determined the head gasket shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe there's other things that are shot as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it needs an oil pump too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that could just be the start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I contacted a friend of mine I met this year at the National Land Rover Rally in Moabuta, a guy named Joe who runs an awesome YouTube channel called Lost Cause Ranch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all he does is fix old land robbers on camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like his, he's got a couple of the cards so he's got a cool Mazurati.
[SPEAKER_00]: But his stick is he's got 21 land Rover or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he kind of brings you to the process of restoring him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he was kind enough to actually meet us in Omaha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for some reason, this is, is he saying, yeah, it was a five-hour drive for him to meet us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I pitched him, I'm like, hey, can I just pay you to fix slander over?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, yeah, I'd love to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, let me figure out when we can tow it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, even better, I'll meet your halfway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Joe was the real MVP of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's the thing about headgast, because we could try to fix it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, it would just end up back at a shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the point, our luck working on stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we don't have the expertise, nor the time, nor the bandwidth to be actually working on these, at least not something that guy who's done a million times could do it in sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and there are shops that will fix them, but we're in a very expensive part of Colorado.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times, I mean, the quotes I've gotten in the past for head guests are like four to seven thousand dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the typical quotes in their Boulder, Denver area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you spend thirty five hundred dollars on a car, that's a tough stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a tough math equation to make.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I trust Joe, he's really good guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to make some content with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just texted me, he got a home safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said the car looks great.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said definitely he's got bad head gaskets.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK. Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said for sure that's the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he did some investigating himself and it was blown cool in all over the place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, here's the thing, though, that I think is important to remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we spent, you spent, this is your car.
[SPEAKER_01]: You spent three and a half thousand on this first car with, you know, a blown head gasket.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably should have spent less.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you think about it, body work is a lot more expensive than mechanical work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you could probably replace the engine for let's say $3 to $5,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you actually had a repaint to car because of clear quote with shot or if you had a bondo repair all the rust, that would end up costing a lot more if you wanted to do a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in some ways, people are focused on the mechanical issues when the cosmetic ones can be a lot more expensive to fix, at least fix well.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you could rattle cannon, but then you wouldn't have a very nice vehicle at the end of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, look, I think what we'll get it to a point where it's very good mechanically, and hopefully we'll fly out to the Bugaiwa, and then drive the 13 hours home or whatever, I think it'd be a really fun trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll get it there where it's going to be good in solid.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just going to take a little bit of a little bit of wrenching on his part, and I really appreciate him meeting us out there, because I was not so from to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: and of course we want to do something else on the way out there and on the way back actually I was put in super cruise jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to you want to tell them what happened there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so we towed it out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a video come in at altifald.com or we took a press truck which is a new GMCCR 1500 with the 6.2 liter V8 and this is the Seared Denali Ultimate.
[SPEAKER_00]: which has every possible bell and whistle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also 87,000, MSR-T for 1500.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a 6.2 VA, which is nuts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's way too much money to spend on a 1,500, but we had massaging seats, ventilated seats.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got the beautiful leather and the cool wood dashed-o.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a nice truck, but it's a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the cool things about these new highly equipped GMC is you get super cruise, had a lot of you to super cruise and tow.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the only,
[SPEAKER_01]: actually it's the only manufacturer GM that allows you to tow autonomously basically eyes on the roads hands off feet off pedal pedals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and like this is different than a lot of other systems where you still have to have a hand on a wheel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super cruises full hands off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you do they're they're changing this I think but for a long time you had to be on only on a mapped highway
[SPEAKER_01]: right keep expanding the map highway so it keeps growing it's still geo fence to some extent they're putting it on side roads I recently tried it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing we wanted to try though is can you actually tow across country autonomously that was and right now we're at level two autonomy there's five levels and level five would be yours yeah well.
[SPEAKER_01]: no steering wheel to pedals, no weather conditions, there's no geo-fensing, the car can drive itself under any condition, any weather, any circumstances, but at level two basically you're the conductor of this train and you have to keep eyes on the road and what I hate about level two is what I think a lot of people hate is that
[SPEAKER_01]: Humans are really good at driving and we're really good at not driving.
[SPEAKER_01]: So otherwise we're really actually excellent drivers and we're really good at not paying attention like texting or watching movies But we're really bad at is sitting there watching the computer Do it's thing and then taking over whenever it just deems that it can't do it or deems that you're not paying attention
[SPEAKER_00]: So as a result of that, not only are you watching the road, but it's watching you to make sure you're paying attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's kind of, it's nagging you a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's telling you, keep your eyes on the road because if you don't do that, it flashes at you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The steering wheel has a little light on top.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts out blue and then when it goes into full super cruise, it turns green.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if I look at my phone or if I look at you or if I look at the person next to me that green will start flashing and eventually it'll turn red and it'll turn super cruise off and if you do that enough it puts you in super cruise time out or jail is called it, which is what happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean the thing is like if you look at out the windshield you'll never
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes it gets confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the most part, you'll never get the warnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when you start looking at the screen or at the side, we'll know then it'll start flashing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you do do that too much, it puts you in supercrews jail and it locks you out for the drive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like, GM is punishing you for not paying enough attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now it's, we're driving through
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably one of the most desolate parts of Colorado, which is Eastern Colorado.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there are these towns that were built every 50 miles when they were building a railroad, like Fort Morgan, Sterling, Ogilaga, Ogilaga.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that your grandson?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so between them, there's nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, we had an issue at work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got into a heated discussion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And next thing you know, super crew says, no, I'm not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing that it doesn't do when you're telling, which is actually kind of annoying, is super cruise.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you signal, actually, you can have two choices.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can signal lane change, and it'll actually do the lane change for you, which is nice, or you can have it automatically do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're coming upon a slower car or truck, and you're, let's say, doing the speed limit and the vehicle in front of you is doing 65.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll actually pass them automatically.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll check behind you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll check in front of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of that works when you're towing and every time you do try to actually change lanes It kind of is unhappy with you like the seed vibrates like if you're it feels like you're gonna hit somebody I never understood why it just was so hard to change lanes while you're using super crews while towing Yeah, I mean, I think that Even though it has its Fight foibles part of it too is like
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to change these by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's another thing to be able to sense how long the trailer is, which some trucks can do, and then also safely be able to maneuver a lane change with a varying number of trailer lengths.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all things considered, I really liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you said something smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the way out there, I didn't put me in.
[SPEAKER_01]: super cruise jail what it did was it made like a nine-hour trip seem like a five-hour trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it takes like 40% off the fatigue, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're still saying that you still have to be engaged, but you're not constantly babying the truck down the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think especially that was true today when we were coming through Western Nebraska, we had these really, really big crosswinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So probably 30, 40 amount of our crosswinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And supercruised an excellent job of making really small, delicate maneuvers through the steering wheel to keep you centered in the middle of the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hitting every tomboy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't hit a lot of trouble, he's put, even while towing, like it kept you right dead son or the middle of the lane.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like having to do that when you went in super jail, I see like you're spending a lot of time with these micro corrections.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the computer can do it better faster more accurately than a human can, especially.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as it doesn't let you have me, just don't let you have me, you know, I don't think, well, just look out the window.
[SPEAKER_01]: The signing a piece of technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually says no, and it's actually worse to that because when I put you in super cruise jail, it just says system deactivated, see owners manual.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how you reactivated because we never got there because you know, then you got to pull, if you were in a Tesla, what would happen is with Bullseye driving, it would basically force you to stop the car, cycle it turned on off and started up again and then you would have it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if GM system doesn't, we never got there because I was so annoyed I just wanted to keep driving, but yeah, it's not a good system when the manufacturer put you in jail because, and that let's face it, I was paying pretty good attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing there to hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just didn't like the fact that I looked over at you for more than two seconds at time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little silly at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does, when it works it works well, it also kept disengaging a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, on the way back, and that was not me not paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think part of it was like, especially going down 76 in Colorado, the pavement got really terrible, and it was, it was just all over the place, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the, the lack of, very visual lines when, when you're going over essentially like a rough run it out road, really kind of confused a little bit, which was disappointing?
[SPEAKER_00]: The disengaged three times.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say, up into that point, we had used, we'd done 75% of the 16-hour journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't work when you hit construction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went through construction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that would be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mine didn't work really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I actually thought it did a really good job of keeping you perfect in the middle of the lane.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing it doesn't do, and it's supposed to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So remember, we had the Hummer EV, which also had it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this also had the same issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've heard that it's gotten better, but it really has a dare moment when I was so close to the truck next to me that I felt uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the newest systems are supposed to be more human in the way that they work where if you're next to a big 18-wheel rig, it actually moves over.
[SPEAKER_01]: so that you're right now next to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this case we were so close to one of the trucks that I almost had to take control because we have a very wide trailer and the first thing I did was look over in my mirror to make sure that we were going to hit the truck with the trailer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So are you now anti-supergroup?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to wait till level three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually disagree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that super cruise really made that turn easy, and I did ultimately end up trusting it a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a lot of time with the Tesla system, the beta.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see the potential, but it's not there either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but the Tesla system's all over the place, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really good, and then sometimes it'll just try to take an exit, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be very ambitious with what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I haven't used blue cruise in a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The early blue cruise was also kind of the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: And keep in mind, these were dead, straight roads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I genuinely thought that super-cruised it very, very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was pretty impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think from Denver to Omaha, there's not a turn to be seen, except for when you go from, what is it, 70 to 80?
[SPEAKER_01]: 76 to 80.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's the only turn there is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've used it, like, going up I70 into the mountains where it gets really twisty, and it just slows down way below what the traffic is doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say the speed limit is like 65 if you're something that's twisty, but it'll do like 45.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but as a whole, I really like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, it's kind of,
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did a lot of like talking on the trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the part that I think Tesla also, you know, I've been kind of down on Tesla a lot, because they have done a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you listen to this podcast, you know that I hate the fact that they got rid of all our buttons, they put everything in the screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that Tesla has done, which is unfortunate, it has made this,
[SPEAKER_01]: practice, which I think is wrong, common, and that is where you roll out a bit of software or you roll out a car that's not ready, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be fully tested.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, where they use the customer base as a beta tester.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I feel with super crews.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am the beta test.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I didn't get that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got, I got that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But put me in jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am the tester of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are breaking the rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: You break the rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go to jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you never a piece of software should never put you in jail that you paid for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I do understand your point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I respect your point.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as a whole, despite all this, I still think 75% of that journey was done hands-free.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was under ideal conditions.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no rain.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the win was not ideal.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not ideal.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you see what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's become commonplace now for many auto manufacturers and even the legacy ones to roll out a car that is not ready for prime time and then sell it to people and they...
[SPEAKER_01]: You can look at the EX 90 Volvo, where they actually had a replace the entire computer, because it wasn't ready to actually be completely functional.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is the new trend is to use the buyer as a beta tester.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're seeing it with Jeep now, where they're recalling every 4 by E. Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that's another can of worms.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that's a beta testing problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think that you do Well, I think they're software Initially they said the reason that that the four by ease weren't working was that there was a software fix But now it's a hardware fix and people are supposed to park them outside so it's both right It's like they they haven't completely I may be part of it has to do with the fact that we're really on the edge of cutting technology with
[SPEAKER_01]: electrification.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so obviously the internal combustion engine has been around a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when you go from let's say carburetor to fuel injection, there might be some hiccups, but it's still the basically the same drive trade.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now that you're going into autonomy combined with electrification, combined with hybrid, combined with
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's just a lot of moving parts and so maybe if you were to actually fully test it by the time you got it out to the consumer The rest of the industry would have skipped ahead to generations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I don't know but I don't I don't like being a beta tester for cars I think it's dangerous
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think you're on the money.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that Tesla's the worst at it by far.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Tesla system, you can go full hands free through cities and school zones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my experience, that is not nearly ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least GM saying, OK, you can only do it at first on pre-map interstates, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where it's much simpler to do at when you're not battling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like this is the answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The computer was better, so that's a computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tesla is the computer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who said the computer was better driving the humans?
[SPEAKER_01]: At the beginning of this, you said that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I said in crosswinds, the computer did better with easier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought you made the computers are better at driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, I don't think that at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said in crosswinds, towing, I thought it did a really good job, even better than I could do a keeping the truck set.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think computers probably are better at driving than humans, because they don't get drunk, they don't get sleepy, they don't get frustrated, they don't get road rage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but there's a lot of nuances that are tough for computers to work with, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and they've proven that waymos, right, are doing really, really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the difference between a duck and a baller?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like sure Seriously, computers got to know that because I'm saying that I'm being funny But there is a inherent truth in that and that is a computer has to know that a duck can fly out in front of you Whereas a Pole like pole can't right and so it has to identify everything and has to know what that thing is capable of doing And that is very hard for computers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got some compensatory when I read that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so if you guys are
[SPEAKER_00]: let's see the podcast and you want to join in on the live discussion we have an option to do so at patreon patreon dot com slash tfl car so huge thank you to everybody who follows this live so Jonathan has a question for us transitioning us into our next segment
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I was watching Jay's May review of the Ford Broncos Sasquatch earlier today.
[SPEAKER_00]: He concluded that it looks good and probably would do great off-road, but as a road car, it sucks ass.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen his review, but I know what you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, he argued that it would handle better both honored and off-road.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had smaller wheels and tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious what your thoughts would be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have wheels gotten too big on off-road vehicles?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take a, I'll take a, maybe a different stab at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the brits don't have the same off-roading conditions that we have here in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're looking at it from a British, so actually we're going to talk about that and that's a great transition.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think in Britain,
[SPEAKER_01]: when you look at landovers and landovers for a long time they've been like and landovers started as a replacement for a tractor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are farm vehicles and if you ever see a British review, what is a time it's always the same thing, whether it's top gear or car wow, what do they do with their off-roaders?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do they always do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the typical shots usually a country know like a grassy hill and it'll be the car really working hard to get up this wet grassy hill.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that that is like a very typical thing that like ranchers and you can't do battle or they'll have green lanes where there's a very muddy road, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think they have the same regular access to rock crawling that we do out west and in the U.S. Or even like in the east where they do these extreme buggies that go up these very steep inclines in the forest that go
[SPEAKER_01]: giant boulders right or king of the hammers.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are very typical American things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're getting them up, a very steep hill with a grassy surface, you don't need big tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're rock-crite crawling and if you're going over, you know, some pretty hardcore Western terrain, either, you know, un-
[SPEAKER_01]: Manicured mountains because a lot of European mountains that's face that are very manicured Right, this is you know, they've been around a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's past everywhere There's dirt roads everywhere in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it is the way that God intended it right I'm just being very American now and that is natural and that is a much harder thing But no oil field in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I say
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a much harder amount to traverse than this manicured dirt road that goes up to the top of the zoomspits or whatever you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that I'll give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll listen to this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, God, what is it called?
[SPEAKER_01]: Intercooler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those guys are the most knowledgeable to gentlemen I have ever heard about sports cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: They know them backwards and forwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have taken them on track.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to know how a car handles, talk to those guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they were talking about, in the recent podcast, they were talking about off-roaders.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were kind of wondering whether electric off-roaders are going to be any good because their logical thinking is, well, off-roaders should be really good because they have a lot of torque and they have instant torque.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, what they're missing because they haven't done a lot of electric off-roading is problem with electric off-road is the same problem with electric anything and that is at their heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And weight is the enemy of performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have seen that over and over again, even with the last quite motoravian that I took up a very steep incline.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem always is, when you add 2,000 pounds of batteries,
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to make the thing, no matter how much torque you have, no matter how much instant torque you have, you're going to make it very, very poor off-road.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen it over and over and over, whether it's the cyber truck that we took off-road or the Hummer EV, the weight always gets in the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And best, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're smashing a lot more stuff into a pointy rock, because you've got a lot more weight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it worst, the other problem with, in general, electric off-road is to sit there and and Jeep just did this as well, I'd believe with the recon, is that it's too tempting to get rid of the mechanical locker and substitute it with an e-locker and an air experience, e-lockers just aren't nearly as good as real lockers because of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what E-Lockers do is they allow the computer to decide how much we'll spin and traction you need versus you because once you lock it mechanically, the machine has no option but to give you all the torque to all the wheels.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I still don't know because I'm pretty sure Andre said in his review it was a mechanical locker on that recon, but that is a, that's a really big.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could be wrong, but Sam on his podcast, which is a great podcast by the way, Will Bearing said that it was a mechanical e-locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I want to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want a factor?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, I just did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, according to AI, 2020's is recounted with the E-locker electronic locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, that's an E-locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just from a locking differential.
[SPEAKER_01]: An E-locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a electronic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Locking differential.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what a Rubicon has.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a mechanical.
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait, so an E-locker's not a look for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're confusing an E-locker with a virtual locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Hummer EV has a virtual locking differential, where it tries to simulate an e-locker is a mechanical locking differential.
[SPEAKER_00]: E stands for electronically acted like.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mechanical locker that's a mechanical locker that's electronically activated versus a ARB airlocker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So e-locker, I think that's just a mechanical locking differential.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're arguing the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, no, I mean, I think to finish your question, Jonathan, yes, a Bronco, I think would be better and is better on the road if you get like a 33 inch tall tire one compared to a Sasquatch on 35s because there's a lot less on sprung mass.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also, excuse me, you also have a lower center gravity, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You change suspension geometry when you jack a vehicle up the high.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is some truth in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It, it is fundamentally though, I think, in correct to say it's, it's better offered in all.
[SPEAKER_00]: terrains.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think across the majority of terrains, a brachau with bigger tires is better than a brachau with smaller tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: But James made, I skim that review, I know he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's ultimately practical.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's always, he's always been the exact opposite of Jeremy Clarkson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the problem, I think that the point that he's missing is that A people want bigger wheels
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's why designers design all their concept cars with massive wheels and tires in the end they look cooler and be There's this inherent compromise, and it's kind of the dual sport issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about motorcyclists now They're diametrically opposed.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's good on road is except for weight of course is different offroad and so if you want that offroad is bad off Yeah, what's good on road is bad offroad and once and
[SPEAKER_01]: Good off-road is bad on road.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so obviously higher center of gravity is bad on road.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of wheel travel typically bad on road.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of tire usually, you know, depending on what you at least at the height of it bad on road.
[SPEAKER_01]: because you're much farther off the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's this compromise.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the Bronco actually does a really good job of working that compromise to the extent that it's at least compared to the regular, it's a lot better on-road.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I might be because it doesn't have solid access.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause solid access in general are better off-road than yet their worst on-road.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I also think that,
[SPEAKER_00]: The perspective depends on really how good do you want your card to be on the road, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, like if I own that,
[SPEAKER_00]: two-door Sasquatch Bronco in the UK and had to drive down B-roads a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'd be pretty miserable because it's very, very wide, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The steering is pretty slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The suspension response is pretty poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I'm living overha, I don't really care about all those things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a lot of time going straight, stopping, turning, going straight, stopping, turning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think for that kind of use case, a Bronco is more than adequate.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's going to do what you need it to do and it's going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: with enough confidence where you don't feel like it's going to be a danger to yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we also have this thing with Range Rover and Land Rover kind of is freaking full circle, and that is they have done the best out of anybody in trying to make it as transparent as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: In America, let's look at the Wrangler and the Bronco.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to go off road, there are all these switches and things that do everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can lock the rear, if you can lock the center, if you can rock the front, if you can disconnect the sway bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's all this stuff you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Land Rover and Range Rover have tried to make that invisible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once upon a time, there was a little dial on a Range Rover or a Land Rover where you would kind of select the kind of terrain you were on and then the electronics would
[SPEAKER_01]: do their magic and make the car and then eventually they've got away from that where the car based on the computers and wheel speed knows what terrain is on and so it does it all and from a change may perspective or maybe from a British perspective that's the best way to do it because it's completely transparent or driving along and you hit snow all of a sudden the car knows you're in snow you're driving along and hit rain it's just for rain
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it is to the detriment of ultimate off-road performance as we found because the latest land-rovers or a range-rovers, even though the brits think that they're great off-road, I think are nowhere near as good as a range of the ors of Bronco when it comes to serious the kind of serious off-roading that we're doing here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would never want to take, and some might have to do with the cost of it because they're too precious and too expensive, but I would never put up the current defender against the Bronco,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that also depends on, like when you describe is off-roading, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: To look at what we do is not off-roading.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's rock crawling, which is different, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's segregate the different kind of off-roading, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, a vranko will kill a defender on rock crawling.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just will, you know, that obstacle we do the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, yeah, it's just what the defender won't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but if I had to drive the Lightroom Trail, which is 100 miles of rough dirt road through Moab, you're going to have a more comfortable ride.
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably take the defender.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not better off road, it's just more comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess if your value comforts over a more athletic ability, then yeah, it's going to be better, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if I have to drive from here to the top of the Dalton Highway,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a land cruiser would be the best choice for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well land cruiser is the one that's going to get you there and get you back.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least in the past it would have.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure nowadays there are some questions about toters reliability and there's some real questions so that's why I bring it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the past that would have been the one that would have gotten you there and back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well I think any new car will get you there and back any new car.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the Dalton and Mac?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the four by Amy Natavi.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just don't park it inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, I think we're at this interesting crossroads right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is a little bit of a shame, so the height of off-road community for me was like 2021, because when it up happening is you had the perfect confluence of COVID shutting everybody out of work, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You had the introduction of things like Starlink and other services and a lot of people to work remotely, and then you have people with tons of time who could then go out and explore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we saw is this huge explosion of winter vans and the off-road accessory world
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're, I say, overlanding, Tommy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, in my opinion, though, the Afro world is kind of on the decline now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I was just at the over the next phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still very cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you really get the sense that a lot of these big companies have either merged, consolidated or going out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people were scared of being around other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So because of COVID, so they wanted to get the heck out of Dodge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now that we're back to normal, people aren't that scared of being at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, right around 2021, the car manufacturers realized, oh, people really want to talk for a thing that's built them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the problem is car manufacturers take 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years to get their products at the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you started working on your product in 2020, your off-road trim, it's probably going to be ready 2024 or 25, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're just doing a trim version.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now what we're seeing is I think a slight decline in interest in the off-road community because everyone's back at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: and all of these off-roaders here in the market now at the same time, and I don't mean specifically hardcore off-roaders like Broncos and Ninoces and that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean XRT trims, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: XRT, X Pro, wilderness, tremor, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all just exploding on the market right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's an interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that fundamentally they do look cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe they provide a little bit more of the equipment you need to go out into the dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they don't actually give you the confidence to regularly want to hit a trail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it goes, it's on both ends of the scale.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you've got the, let's call them more affordable off-roaders, you know, the family hauling SUVs, like you said, everything from the passport, trail sport to the Hyundai,
[SPEAKER_01]: XRTs, these things are kind of posers in some ways, because they have all of the off-road look, but they don't necessarily have a lot of the off-road credibility when it comes to the bits and pieces that you need, or even like the new Raff for woodland, the woodstores I like to call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just an appearance package.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they have done nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: to change the suspension, they have done nothing to change the power train, they have done nothing to protect the underneath of it, these are vehicles that look like they're off-road but they're lacking the stuff that you really need to go seriously off-road and probably the manufacturer has synced themselves and I think this is smart that most of these people will never take this car off-road so why do we want to add all this weight and cost and complexity?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah for sure, we'll never be used and on the other end of the scale now you have like land
[SPEAKER_01]: Mercedes, Lexus especially, that have all the off-road goodies, but the body-cladding or the tires are designed in such a way that you could never take them off-road because either the tires are not meant to go off-road or because the approach angle, I'm looking at Lexus, I'm looking at you, Lexus, Alex, which is actually the real Land Cruiser underneath, is so horrible that the first thing you would do is you would tear off that giant chin of the thing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a spindle drill.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have the basics that you need to get you as a good approach to departure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other problem with those real expensive ones, same thing with the GWagon, is that they're too expensive to take off for a period.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would not want, when we have done it, but I would not want to take on LX or GX or GWagon seriously off road because you're going to break expensive things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what about when they're 10 years old?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but that's, you know, that's a whole different story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's good for the, for the world, though, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that leaves you with this kind of middle segment, which you can probably count on one hand of real off-roaders that you could actually take off road and not be afraid of breaking something.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm talking about rock crawling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about desert writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about the kind of stuff that we do in the American West.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking about, let's say, mudding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, which usually probably doesn't break.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but desert running breaks a lot of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I would say, you could take a, you could say, adventuring.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could take a gladiator mojavey and that's what it's built for, right, and take a desert running.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could take a raptor and you could take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but you couldn't take, you could take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: A land cruiser and take a desert running, you break it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's only this middle segment, which are like three stereosophoters and a handful of trucks that you can actually take off road.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can, the ones that I would put on that list.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're really seriously want to do any kind of serious off-roading, whether it's rock crawling or desert running or something that involves bashing the vehicle beyond the, the, the, the type of going up, you know, steep hill in what grass situation, then you would get like a raptor, are.
[SPEAKER_01]: A regular Raptor, a Ranger Raptor, and the other Raptors are going to be really good, either a Canyon or a GMC, 84x, or the AZ edition, right, because they have three lockers on them, those are serious trucks, maybe a Ford F-150 tremor, maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: no you don't think a drummer especially the one with the torso front end yeah sure that one's fine yeah i do so there's a very small segment of vehicles bigger than you think okay what else what else it would be in that segment of vehicles that you could do i mean you've got full size trucks zr2 right you get powerwagon in there
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a real life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think any any I should say any three quarter time any heavy duty truck is good off road It's just too big to heavy and too wide power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty good You can put a third locker on anything and it's gonna be pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just too big.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just too big and too heavy
[SPEAKER_00]: But they do work like they do especially because they can fit thirty five.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you that I've taken every You know three quarter time off road and I've never enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, but what time do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I did it one time with Nick where he was flat, you know, Nick is from at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was with
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeep was he with Jeep was confused with Ram and he the last version of the powerwagon of the previous one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He really, like, took that seriously off road and just, you know, had a lot of fun with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the only time I've ever had fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did wipe out hell in powerwagon and Moam, that was pretty extreme.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had Nathan actually do the the downhill park because I was too scared and I think I'm going thrown off by the desert running thing because there's like two vehicles that that doesn't run and those two vehicles aren't good at rock crawling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, two are good at rock crawling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Raptor R is not good at rock crawling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't fit on any trails.
[SPEAKER_00]: Way too wide.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's, all right, just range your after.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, range your after, but I think let's look at the off-road space at whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say vehicles that you regularly take on like a 4 or 5 out of 10 trail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think any of the full-sized off-road trucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: are fine like you said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the tremor with the front lock is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also a lot of trucks that that that are sort of kind of like any any pickup is built pretty tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can probably bash it pretty hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I want to like let's say a Chevy trail boss.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's got kind of half.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna say it half-assed shocks, you know, that are kind of rare.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, you know, those, those shocks have really no real off-road credibility except for their color.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so those trucks will do it, but you're gonna punish them, and I wouldn't want to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about, like, like, when we did Kelly Flats in the Ranger after, there are very few vehicles that I would take up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is hardcore.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a nine out of ten, that's an eight of ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're speaking specific about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's what I want.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be a goal that is serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because you think that's more extreme than most people want, those people want to do a four or five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, agreed, agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the problem is it's not like you're going on a ride where you have to be this tall and then if you're this tall, everything is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem off road is it goes from a one to a nine, like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me try that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to be ready for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's why you need on ex-off road.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're not on a nine, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: See that sponsor plug?
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, but even in Moab where like there are trails like battle master and poison spider that are known to be difficult You can still go on a pretty easy trail and then end up like black bears a good example of that That is an easy trail, but it gets pretty Look at you on x will tell you hey, this is a sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you do sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you on x. I know but like but you're missing out on a lot of cars Okay, okay, what am I missing?
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw Nissan Frontier Pro Forex It's not flashy, but if there's that new rush one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the thing is BS not in that
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's, why would you partner with Rouse?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's known for superchargers and then not do a supercharge version.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they gave it better shocks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's my points.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any pro forex, including the Rouse for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely have a front locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a neat front locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying, to me, the front locker is a litness test of something that is gonna be, that is a litness test.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it has a front locker or a torsion, I'll even go with a torsion.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, I'm good to go anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it doesn't have a front locker, I'm like,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a terrible comparison.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my, that's my witness to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I just did the whole Rubicon trail and use the front locker maybe twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't need a front locker, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Front lockers are one of those things that everyone thinks they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree, okay, but the problem with that, it's a slippery slope and pretty soon you can be taking, you know, in 1970, I'll be on that trail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I think you need a rear locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you need a rear ground clearance.
[SPEAKER_01]: A center locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, everything is a center locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, name a car without a center locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Cole's car had the center locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a rat for it just for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my point is, like, rear locker is key.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you're off road, you get the majority of your help from your rear locker, because that's where you're being pushed up the hill rather than pulled.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying, if the manufacturer, it's a witness test.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about how you use it, which is what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're saying it's based on what you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying it's based on what the manufacturer designed criteria or, and if the manufacturer put a front locker on the vehicle, then they were serious about making this an off-roader.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the problem with that, which I completely understand is
[SPEAKER_01]: The G-Wag and has three lockers, and yet that thing is too expensive and too precious to take off.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you run into this problem where the thing has off-road goodies, but because it's got the wrong tires and tires are the most important by far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's, let's, let's, let's we read on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's got the wrong tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: Easy to change, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Easy to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very easy to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look, I think that if you look at it more broadly, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not fair to say the new land cruiser isn't enough for odor because it doesn't have a front locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a I mean I took that on it's it's an off-road or but put it up against a bronchle in the bronchle killer because it has a front line But that's a level of capability.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that people don't need once again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's people by stuff not for what they need I understand that but like I would if I was buying a bronchle now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wouldn't get one with a front locker
[SPEAKER_00]: I just never use the front lock.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're very you're a contrarian Tommy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, but seriously like if you don't need it That's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like like the wheelies Jeep right the wheelies it is your that's your that's your criteria This is my criteria.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've got a different criteria, but your criteria is too hard to meet is what I'm saying
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's not, it's not that hard to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a bunch of vehicles like I just named it that have front lockers.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, so Lexus, they're all actually they're all around 50K, which is I understand a big number.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I can get a 45,000 or a $50,000, actually $55,000, which is what it starts at, or a $50,000 Bronco or Wrangler.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I want to use it for serious off-roading, I'm going to go with the Bronco or Wrangler.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to go with the Wrangler.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, if you want to use it for
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, going to this grocery store, which is what most people use it for, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what most, but people don't buy the thing that you mostly use a lot of things are going to use it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I respect your point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that your perspective is a lot of what's the problem with the industry, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is people buy way too much capability they never use?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's yeah, but like it's right so like when I'm not that person right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna use it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna buy a Rainier use front lockers.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you gonna use a front lock on the trails a lot of the front locker and you you tore up those wheels On Kelly flats in the Ranger after sure, but that's because it was a 9 and a 10 but we're never on 9 and a 10 trails We're always on 4 to 6 right if you look at ironclats 4 to 6 hells revenge 4 to 6
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, fins and things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fins and things.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm saying is when I'm sitting there at the stoplight, going to get my Starbucks, and I'm in that Ranger app, or I'm in that AT4X, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see those big tires on the next two, the guy in the Tacoma, I think to myself, you bought the wrong truck.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's me, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is me.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the same money, you just spent a lot more money, and you didn't get the same capability, especially if that person's in a TRD Pro, or in a
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, uh, and a trail hunter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your perspective is just as valid as I think you're just about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, that's what I'm thinking when I'm sitting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's a thing though.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then a foreigner, here he pros, not a valid authority in your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the one that I would pick as the one that I want and capability because I want to be the guy out there on the trail that, you know, can push that little.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there a lot of guys think like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a guy thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unlo- it's completely logical.
[SPEAKER_01]: I completely agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not practical.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of it makes sense, but I want to be the guy out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: who can press that front locker, and I'm not doing it because like a lot of guys by raptors aren't as they'll never see dirt because they want the biggest baddest off-roader because to them the raptor represents the top of the line off-roader and they'll never take it off-road.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will take my off-road and I will push that button and I will be very happy when I push that button because I have that button.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean the problem is so that you're quitting front locker with the most
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make that argument.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say you're about to go in on the Rubicon trail, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I give you a choice of two vehicles.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give you a choice of a new 400T Pro.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, I don't want to, I hate the Rubicon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I Kelly Flats.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're sitting on Kelly Flats, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're looking at a part of Tag Hill.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a choice of two vehicles?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tier D Pro, no front locker, but lots of clearance, rear locker, you get crawl control, you get multi-arrant select, choice number two, cyber truck, front locker,
[SPEAKER_01]: which are you taking up Kelly flats that's not fair you know you're preparing an electric heavy vehicle you're going back to that argument I made about the battery weighing 2,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right argument two deardy pro for honor LX-570 over trail front locker
[SPEAKER_00]: Alex the new the one that you against here's my argument again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't take that off road because it's too precious It's a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not your car.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's toilet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would feel hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not whether it's mine or not mine I would feel horrible breaking it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's more capable
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would not want to take it up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I'm talking about like vehicles that that just fall off because they're too expensive and they're too precious And I wouldn't want to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm looking at this very kind of limited fifty thousand dollar range where you get all the off-roading But get there not too precious to take off road and you get the most case.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that's why I'm out Don't you think the problem is so like a Rubicon 392 that's a front locker, but that's a hundred thousand dollar trip or cheap right
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, why is that not too precious?
[SPEAKER_01]: But a $65,000 Lexus LLX is not too precious because even though it is a very expensive, it still has, you know, bumpers that are meant to get hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It still has all the underbody cladding so if you take it into some rocks and you smash it all you're gonna do is damage it's good plate.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the case with the LX.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna do some serious, you're gonna, if you take the LX apart for a kill, you're gonna come down if you come down without rolling it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna come down because it's got the wrong tires
[SPEAKER_00]: That's got good tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got Falcons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're going to come down with, like, I would guess $10,000 worth of body damage, or more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm just saying that $32, you won't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's my point is, like, just because as a front locker doesn't mean it's got the most capability, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: My mind it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the LX is a good example of why it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: The LX has a front locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because I'm talking about $50,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I'm excluding the LX.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm including the G-Wag, and I thought I made that point, or any of their two pressures.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want those vehicles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nor do I want the inexpensive ones that are kind of the posers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want the ones that have all the off-road cred.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that the engineers to me that it's like I said a litmus test the engineer thought about it and yet This is what because I understand that that is what eventually determines and I'm also not okay I'm gonna use a word e-locker, but I'm talking about virtual lockers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think virtual lockers And I'm sorry Ruby, and I don't think they work as well as just real mechanic.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's 100% sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am on the same page with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think for me do we beat this that
[SPEAKER_00]: No, let me hear you give me your list of what you would consider an off-road machine that you would take regularly off-road.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not saying you have to go do pretty keen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you my list.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Around $50,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we're at.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: New.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Bronco.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wrangler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's a handful of pickup trucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can it size pickup trucks?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Ranger after, AT4X, you don't have to have the AV edition, just a regular one, what else is there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Frontier, Pro4X.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't have a front locker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really stuck on this front locker thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a raptor, you know, just a regular raptor, but they're getting too expensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a front locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got a torso.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said including a torso.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, if you don't know what a torso is, it simulates a part.
[SPEAKER_00]: ZR2 Silverado.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm not a big fan of ZR2 Silverado.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scott, you're front locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I hesitate to put full-size trucks on that list because... You put a raptor on the list?
[SPEAKER_01]: I hesitate, but I did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think there is a lot to be said to having a vehicle that is small and relatively agile, so especially in places where they're, you know, where you're.
[SPEAKER_01]: going through the woods, or where there's a shallow or a narrow canyon, you can get through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you start getting into these big full-sized trucks, it gets very awkward and very ungainly, very quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think for my list, I grew with a lot of it, but I would say really any Jeep, you're good to go, as long as you could tires any Jeep.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we tried the base one in it almost rolled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well that's because it's street tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big emphasis, any Jeep with good tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we put on good tires and it still wasn't grand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really good when you unlocked that sway bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it was so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So any Jeep on good tires?
[SPEAKER_00]: Any Bronco on good tires?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I would put actually any TRD foreigner on that list.
[SPEAKER_00]: TRD Offer of TRD Pro, I think are going to get you where you need to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same thing with Tacoma, Tier D Afro, the problem with the Tier D stuff and the trail stuff is it's just a lot of money for what you're getting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those things like, well, let me give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our Canyon AT4X was $57,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to get the TRD Pro or Trail Hunter Tacoma, you're looking at another $10,000 on top of that, that's a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're capable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's a most capable one there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have their front locker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so you're missing that and you're paying more for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what I'm seeing here though, that is the, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not, they're not good values.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you go for a range of rafter at 57, you're also getting a six-cylinder and you're getting adaptive, adaptive suspension, which none of the other vehicles included in the Canyon have.
[SPEAKER_00]: There isn't any value for money either.
[SPEAKER_00]: There isn't argument to be made though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it's valid now, but there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just gonna hold this value better.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll have better resell value for sure even the range or our range or after Tommy held its value really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we kept it here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put on 10,000 miles and we only lost I want to say $5,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think this is maybe less so with Toyota now because the big argument, but definitely truth Nissan, that's a better made truck.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of front here if you want to keep it 100,000 miles is going to have less problems in the Ford.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's got no it's got two less turbos it's a six-speed automatic or as an eight-speed maybe say speed now torque converter no turbos no no interior gizmos is the basic track like the front here and if you guys are out there and you hate the little and I don't like the turbos in the GM products and I don't like them in the
[SPEAKER_01]: Total products because I think they're buzzy and I don't think they're as fun to drive as the old Sixth cylinders in some cases even though they were pretty under power if you want that Sixth cylinder you are gonna get that in the front here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you like that traditional Honest, you know, non Naturally aspirated non Terrible charge vehicle the mad is a truck for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think the reason all jokes aside I've been pushing back on your locker problem is that 20 years ago, like, when I tried to take my discovery one through the trenches, it got horribly stuck because it relies exclusively on open, front and rear differential, which means it's a two-wheel drive car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I were to run that car my slip test would be a major fail, but what I'm seeing now, and largely pindier by Land Rover, and really pushed to the limit by Toyota with Crawl Control, is these electronic systems, especially under a rock crawling situation, where you want limited wheel spin and exchange for forward mobility thanks to traction.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crawl control systems, the multi-terrain selects of the world are getting like 80% as good as a front locking differential.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let me be so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree, but let me ask you this, you know, we had the NES Grenadier, which was specifically designed as an overlanding vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, specifically designed, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that was meant for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, and yet, Tommy, that also has three lockers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why does that have three lockers and not the traction control system?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think ultimately the three lockers and mechanical lockers are better solution.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that the electronic system is better, but they're not the endopial.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think there are more satisfying solution because there's something really satisfying about like in that in that ineos, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Pushing those little buttons up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hated it though, because you had to push it four times and then it didn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work when they made it too complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had to do it in the right order.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think Ford isn't the all that one, and I sound like a Ford family, but they have the all that right where you push it and it locks, and you push it in the locks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the Jeep, you have that big lever, and you've got to kind of put it down, put it into neutral, and put it into foreloat, and then you know, hit the button for the trail control, whereas with the Ford, it's like a lot of like, I'm like, especially with the sway bar disconnect, the Jeep always has a hard time, which is right, I'm like, where is the Ford?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm lucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of all our capabilities, you can't be triple locked, but in terms of regular trail use, I think it's worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because then you have to unlock it every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a place like you're going to be locked there with all those S serpentines.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I'll lock up because you'd be, you'd be, you'd be going off the mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a problem I actually have with the forwards in our Bronco, is they rely so heavily on lockers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like just getting off of our trail that we use, the mud hole, there's this one part work, it's really articulated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when I drive my lander over through there, it lifts a wheel, goes good, good, good, lifts a wheel, goes good, good, good, good, and then drives out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to do that in our Bronco and it opened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Case locked at the rear end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right
[SPEAKER_00]: it would make for look bad if I posted this short, but it was such a dumpy little obstacle like it shouldn't have been stuck in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should have just used a traction control system which it already has.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are different levels of traction control systems.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some companies do a much better job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Land Rover Ranger did, I mean they invented it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they do an incredible job to have that weird one with that knob right that would control the control.
[SPEAKER_00]: It works really well though.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it makes like a drumming sound, it's just, it's a lot of drama that you don't necessarily need.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just want to kind of the quiet one like Range Rover has where it just does it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I just like maybe I'm just spoiled on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just...
[SPEAKER_01]: It pours isn't great, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm going on the Rubicon, yeah, I want Triple Lockers.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm just going out of five out of ten, there should no reason I have to lock the Rubicon, 15 times on a trail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It should just kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should just work.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like having a secret power, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we cut to our, did you ever watch underdog?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't know what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what underdog is coal?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was his cartoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where there was this little dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he had, yeah, I think he had a little ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Inside the ring was a pill.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you look up underdog?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, underdog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the movie made from the cart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look up the cartoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the movie that came from the cartoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is underdog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I do know this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does this look, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so he had a ring, and the ring was a little pill, and when, you know, he was in trouble, it's like pop-by, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He would eat spinach underdog would take the pill and turn into this, like, super dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I feel about lockers, like it's my little magic pill that I push, and then, oh, look at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want the takeaway here that Tommy hits lockers, because I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a very valuable tool, but at the same time, I think they're,
[SPEAKER_00]: In some cases, especially front lockers overrated and unneeded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I'm at.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we cut to the next segment?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk to our friend at modern spare, because this is more and more cars as you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I look, Tommy, we actually curate our sponsors because we want to make sure that this is something I'm sure that a lot of people don't do, but we want to make sure that these companies are legit or upfront and
[SPEAKER_01]: actually providing value and I think modern spares onto something because I didn't know what the solution was to all of these vehicles that no longer have spares, these that they have fixed a flat which is problematic at best or they have no
[SPEAKER_01]: spare whatsoever and with these guys what they do is well let's go to the interview and we'll tell you what they do because it's a really smart solution.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey guys welcome to a very special guest and that is Matt Kunz who's the director of marketing for modern spare and we're going to be talking about spare tires or their lack thereof and Matt here's a statistic that just blows my mind half of all new cars
[SPEAKER_01]: no longer come with spare.
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do we go wrong?
[SPEAKER_03]: This may be considered kind of a boring topic, spare tires.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a great interest to me, not just because of my job.
[SPEAKER_03]: But
[SPEAKER_03]: More so because there's kind of a story behind it, more so than car makers just wanting to save costs, they've been put into a situation that they have some constraints that they have to manage.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that figure that you quoted of almost half of its
[SPEAKER_03]: Technically, almost half of all new passenger cars don't have a spare tire anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a lot of different factors that are pushing the car makers into having to make that decision.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess it is a cost factor, but
[SPEAKER_03]: They're under so much pressure to save weight and to meet efficiency standards, that every pound matters.
[SPEAKER_03]: But one of the biggest surprises that we had in a very beginning of modern spare, this is back in 2017, is that cars have become so much more advanced with their drive trains, whether it's all-wheel drive systems
[SPEAKER_03]: that to design a spare tire properly what car makers used to be able to provide without too much trouble, a little doughnut spare, very simple thing that you never thought about having to buy or pay for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Newer cars just won't tolerate them and that was kind of like a
[SPEAKER_03]: an aha moment for us initially when we recognize that there were a few car models that could use an aftermarket spare tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: Man, we kind of learned the hard way that just finding something that would work.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't that simple.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's gotten more technical over the decade where, man, we really have to do our homework.
[SPEAKER_03]: to make sure that the cars set up right to accept the spare tire.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, well, you guys are still more than just spare tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're selling peace of mind because, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't think of a worse situation than being stuck somewhere in the dark and the rain in the snow with a puncture and not having a spare tire.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go in the back of the trunk, you open up the trunk and you look underneath the trunk and all you find is air and I'm not talking about the air that's in the tire.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just talking about air and then knowing that you're stuck out there and then, you know, let's say you're out of phone service or your significant other is not available.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you guys have clumped with is a really clever and smart solution to that problem, which is basically not just a spare tire, but a spare tire, the specifically fits the vehicle that you're in and comes with a jack and it comes with all the tools you need to be able to get yourself home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of walked me through how you came up with this concept and how you guys are providing peace of mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our founder, Cody Fulmer, he's a sharp kid.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a deeply passionate car person.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he, early on in his youth, really developed a passion for Corvettes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, two, car people, car people kind of have tried, you know, like, I'm a heavily, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: air cool Volkswagen person, you know, some of the water cool stuff later on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I grew up in the 80s when in, you know, the GTI was the poster on my wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Cody grew up around Corvette and the Corvette was a car that eliminated the spare tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the C5 was kind of the first rollout where they just said, you know, we really don't need this.
[SPEAKER_03]: and he was part of a core vet club and they had an experience where he they had gone on a club road trip and somebody had gotten a spare tire in a remote area and that situation kind of ruined like the whole outing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it got him thinking it was like you know I'd bet that if I could come up with a
[SPEAKER_03]: a simple solution that wouldn't take up a lot of space.
[SPEAKER_03]: There would be a market for this aftermarket kit.
[SPEAKER_03]: that would enable me to get my Corvette home, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's kind of the genesis of modern spare a lot more simple than what we are now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just recently purchased a C4 ZR1, which is the first ZR1.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm not mistaken, I think the rear tires on that are
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... and you know you're not going to be able to put a spare to twenty five in a corvette or you know unless it's a pickup truck corvette uh... because it's such a huge tire uh... and then if you did have a spare you'd probably have to have uh... you know like no room for that target top that the car has uh... and so obviously uh... these are cars that just from a practical standpoint probably can't have spares but the cool thing is you guys have thought of that
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we actually went through, went to the drawing board at, you know, the proverbial drawing board of designing a spare, because there is the simple notion of just replacing, you know, a spare tire with a full size version, but good, good heavens, like if you look at a Honda CRB of brand new and even a hybrid touring model.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that wheel entire combination that comes with that car, they're enormous, you know, they're 19, 20 inch wheels to begin with.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the thought of carrying a fifth one of those with you is just not practical.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the first thing that we realized is that it was going to have to be compact, you know, it didn't pick up a lot of space, not unlike what the donuts, the donuts spare tires were, that the car makers provided for so many years.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, we ran into that situation where we started realizing that finding something off the shelf just wasn't suitable.
[SPEAKER_03]: The cars are too intolerant of kind of this wide margin of specifications.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to have considerations, especially for weight capacity, not only in the wheel, but in the entire when you factor in electric vehicles and
[SPEAKER_03]: you know how heavy a performance model 3 is it's it's not a light car and so to design a spirit tire for that there's a lot of factors you have to consider just it's a different world we live in
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, again, part of the reason why a lot of the car makers are deciding to just mix the spare all together is, um, it's just a different world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there are two other solutions that automakers use, of course, one is run flats and I got to tell you, I don't know anybody who likes run flat tires, they're just, uh, they're just miserable, right, you make, it may get you home, but.
[SPEAKER_01]: the 99.9% of the time that they're on the car, they make it rough right, they make it right rough, they make it uncomfortable, so you're really paying a price for that, and then of course the other solution is the compact air with some kind of tire sealant that's in the back of the vehicle, which sometimes can work, but it depends on the kind of puncture you get.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if it's a critical failure, obviously you're not going to seal it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes that may work, but in a lot of cases, that's not going to get your home either.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, in both cases, run flats in principle, actually are brilliant.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I remember years ago, first reading about them, and the concept, I was like, oh, well, that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is long before I was having anything to do with spare
[SPEAKER_03]: it just made perfect sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: BMW is probably no lean heavily into run flat tires going back almost 12, 15 years ago, just across the board.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like the perfect solution.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I didn't
[SPEAKER_03]: realize how much people hated it to run flats until because when I came on to modern spare, getting to know, you know, our little niche in the industry, I spent a lot of times speaking with our customers and I was, well, I'm still kind of surprised at the level of hatred that they will express their own flat experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm part of the, so you know, one of the things
[SPEAKER_03]: how fast they wear out.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I can't speak to a particular brand, but this is what I'm hearing for my customers is they're getting 20,000 miles worth of tread life.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I come from a frame of mind where if I'm buying a good set of Michelin's or continental, I'm wanting to get 60,000 or more.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that,
[SPEAKER_03]: That that that that's crazy to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, besides the fact that they're handling in their right quality is so poor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take a quick story.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom had a mini which had run flats and she calls me up and she's like, hey, there's this light on my dash and I'm like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go and I look, and I go to her house, I look, and the light is, of course, the TPS monitor saying that there's not enough air, and I'm like, how long has this light been on the car?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, oh, I think it's been about two or three weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, you've been driving on a flat tire for two or three weeks, and she had no clue that her car actually was not very safe at this moment, because she didn't understand what that little eye comment, because of the run flat, it allowed her to keep driving at like, it was normal.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first thing was I got rid of those and you know put on some regular tires Yeah, and and maybe in a sense you could say that they serve their purpose, you know, they they kept her Yeah, they did mobile for a time I've got a home and what happens been back and home and back and home and back for three weeks Yeah What we found is
[SPEAKER_03]: People will think, okay, I lost their pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm in a bad spot.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna make it to a tire shop.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a pretty strict range limit on run flats that you're allowed to drive on it without our pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And at a certain point, the tire shop says, I'm not going to repair this tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been compromised.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they won't accept the liability.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, then you think, okay, well, I need to replace that tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're in an all-wheel drive outie or a BMW X drive, a pretty sensitive all-wheel drive system, and you're 40% down on tread life on all four tires, sticking one new run flat, it's not gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how to compare it the way it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in a case like that, that deflated tire now becomes a significant expense.
[SPEAKER_03]: versus a standard tire that can be replaced with a spare.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your down the road, as long as you need to get the tire repaired and you still have usable life out of that tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is what the customers have told us and why they have kind of that hatred forum.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't realize it was that bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of people are swapping out their run flats, getting a spare tire and they have,
[SPEAKER_03]: a lot more choice, I've actually had quite a few BMW people say like it's like getting a new car because I've got, I'm now I'm discovering how enjoyable the car is to drive.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's truly a driver's car.
[SPEAKER_03]: without having to run flats performance quality.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to show our listeners if you're listening, you'll have to just trust me on this, but if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you guys were kind of an affected, send us one of your modern spares, and I'll have this because when you order one, this is what you get.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may be thinking, you just get the doughnut, but you don't, you get an entire kit,
[SPEAKER_01]: with this really nice bag, that includes the tire specifically for your vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is not a tire that's made for all catches, it's your vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it works with the specifications, let's say you've got a Model 3 Tesla or Model S. This works specifically with your vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then inside this package, you also get the jack.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't have a jack, you can actually lift your car.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of an all-in-one kit that you can just throw in the back of your trunk or
[SPEAKER_01]: and get, you know, get complete and out of peace of mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is just, you know, brilliant with you guys have done, especially given that most cars don't have these, or these, you know, a majority of cars don't have these nowadays.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what we're really talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, it's that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a comprehensive solution to, I think, an issue that a lot of people at some point dread get having.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it take the time to share that kit that you showed there represents a lot of work.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could talk for hours because anytime a car will actually get kind of indicated, we'll be told by customers saying, hey, I'm getting ready to buy this car and I found it doesn't have a spare.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes a customer will learn that a new car model won't have a spare before we're able to learn about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we kind of have to work quickly to get access to it and and learn what that particular car will need spare tire wise.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so yeah, it requires a lot of work, even, even as something as simple as the jack to raise the car, nowadays cars have not only do they have very specific and precise lifting locations, but many of them will use all kinds of strange lift points that a universal jack just won't work on.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we found that out for Tesla's, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got these little pucks that you have to have that are specific to a Tesla so that because underneath, of course, you've got a battery tray so you don't want to puncture the battery tray.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have to have a little bit of a cushion between the jack and the battery tray so that when you jack it up, it's safe and, you know, it's usable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good example there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're seeing it more and more like Honda kind of has their own style of look point and and you know we have to design or jacks accordingly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let me ask you this man, what's what's your most popular spare, who or what brand, you know, do you sell the most of without a doubt it follows the car models that are the most sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, fair, you know, and right, and so the Honda CRB hybrid is, is our number one selling kit as a single model because Honda is selling a ton of those vehicles and they're great vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say it's the CRV is the second most popular car in America right now after the RAF4.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and the RAF4 actually mostly comes equipped with a spare tire still, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: Then, of course, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, if you combine those very significant part of our part of our catalog, if you were to take all of BMW, that's a huge part of our entire operation.
[SPEAKER_03]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: BMW in their, even at wisdom, they tend to have, you know, 15 different versions of the three series on that platform, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we have to have variations in the different platforms to fit the different trim levels.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, you have your, your M and the sort of M series, you know, you kind of have to pay attention to a lot of the, the break specifications and make
[SPEAKER_03]: tire diameters and all those factors are going to each one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So BMW is kind of a monumental task to build out that catalog and it occupies a lot of our time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wish they were all as simple as maybe Honda.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just not the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think your business is just going to increase in the future because the trend isn't going toward car makers providing spares.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going the opposite way and like you said, because of a number of issues, it's just a lot easier for them not to include it.
[SPEAKER_01]: including liability, including, you know, wait, including specifications for the car, including all kinds of different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this, this business is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's great that you guys are out there providing an answer to a question that a lot of people might have.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think the spare tire business is like, you know, there used to be that saying like there are two kinds of people, those who haven't had a computer virus and those who have had one, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of the same way with a spare tire, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need it until you need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what you do need it, you're going to be like, yeah, the next time I'm going to have one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I'm glad that you guys have, you know, helped, come on board and help sponsor this podcast and sponsor the channel, I'm very grateful for that and I just want to say to all of you guys out there listening, you know, if you value piece of mind and if you want a great solution, visit modern spare, we'll do a link.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the description below to your website and then, you know, you can go on the website and you can see if modern spare does make a tire for your particular vehicle and you guys do a lot of different makes models brands and that number is just increasing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_03]: It is because the trend is definitely going, you could say in our favor, even though
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I have to be empathetic for a lot of frustrated customers that reach out to us.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a pretty dedicated support staff, you know, so if anybody's unsure about fitment, we'd rather you take the approach of getting confirmation and getting guidance rather than make a purchase that you feel is risky.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, the trend is going in that direction.
[SPEAKER_03]: Open up a significant catalog in Europe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Europe is actually worse off than the United States.
[SPEAKER_03]: The number of cars are sold there without spare tires.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they don't do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't do it without spare tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because let's take us still have spare tires.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've taken up enough of your time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to thank you very much for taking the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: to come on this podcast and to tell people about modern spare and look you know we're very grateful that you're sponsoring this and we're also very grateful that you provide this product because it is a solution that I think a lot of people will find that they either need or if they if they haven't found that out today at some point they will need so thank you very much for you know for coming on and kind of talking about what you guys do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate the time and the visit it's been enjoyable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thanks, dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, well Tommy, thanks for your insight, I really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you too, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a fun one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you guys for joining us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where should they go if they want to see all these videos?
[SPEAKER_01]: Video of us go to Omaha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, all TFL.com, it'll be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Big thank you to everyone on Patreon for making this possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll see you in the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Without you guys, we couldn't do it and we'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ciao.