The hosts reflect on the end of 2025 and share their thoughts on the upcoming year, 2026. They discuss the challenges of holiday gift-giving in a consumer-driven economy and the evolution of car culture, particularly around the expectations of car enthusiasts. A humorous recount of Marshall's experience with WeatherTech mats for his BMW leads to a broader conversation about quality versus quantity in products. The episode wraps up with insights on the importance of research and development in the automotive industry and a hopeful outlook for the future.
In this conversation, Marshall and Nick explore the complexities of holiday gift-giving, the evolving consumer culture, and the expectations surrounding car ownership.
They discuss the impact of social media on personal lives and job departures, the importance of humor in car culture, and the quality versus quantity debate in entertainment, particularly in the NFL.
The conversation also touches on the significance of research and development in business and what the future holds for their company in 2026.
Chapters
00:00 The Holiday Dilemma: Navigating Christmas Expectations
03:02 Consumer Culture: The Shift in Gift-Giving
05:58 Car Guy Culture: Expectations vs. Reality
09:02 WeatherTech Woes: A Gift Gone Wrong
11:56 The Importance of Car Care: Personal Experiences
14:54 Social Media and Job Departures: A New Norm
20:43 Navigating Car Culture and Social Media Dynamics
24:48 Reflections on Time and Social Media Usage
28:34 The Intersection of Online and Real-World Experiences
29:54 Quality vs. Quantity in Entertainment
34:49 The Importance of Research and Development
39:41 Looking Ahead to 2026: Growth and Community Engagement
"...if you got, you know, a Silverado, if you got a family van,..."
A family van is a type of vehicle that is spacious and comfortable, making it great for families with kids. It usually has lots of seats and room for bags.
A family van, often referred to as a minivan, is designed for transporting families, offering ample seating and cargo space.
"...w, a Dodge Ram or a Ram, if you got, you know, a Silverado, if you got a family van, I think it's the right..."
The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck that can carry heavy loads and is great for families or work. It's known for being strong and having a lot of space inside, making it a popular choice for many people.
The Chevrolet Silverado is a full-size pickup truck known for its strong performance, versatility, and capability. It has been a popular choice among consumers for both work and everyday use, often praised for its towing capacity and spacious interior.
"When you have a BMW coupe, when you have that type of experience, you just replace as many of you have heard on this podcast..."
A BMW coupe is a two-door car made by BMW, which usually looks sporty and is fun to drive. It's different from their four-door models, like sedans.
A BMW coupe refers to a two-door variant of BMW's lineup, known for its sporty design and performance. These cars often provide a more engaging driving experience compared to their sedan counterparts.
"...you just replace the OE mats with new OE mats."
OE mats are the floor mats that originally come with your car when you buy it. They fit well and match the car's interior design.
OE mats refer to Original Equipment mats, which are the floor mats that come with the vehicle from the manufacturer. They are designed to fit perfectly and match the interior of the car.
Velcro is a type of fastener that sticks together when you press two pieces together. It's often used in clothes and shoes to make them easy to open and close.
Velcro is a brand name for a type of fastener that consists of two layers: one with tiny hooks and the other with loops. It's commonly used in clothing, shoes, and automotive applications for easy attachment and detachment.
"...or you have like an AMG floor mat or like what I did in my LX..."
AMG is a part of Mercedes-Benz that makes faster and more powerful versions of their cars. They focus on performance and luxury.
AMG is a performance division of Mercedes-Benz that specializes in high-performance versions of Mercedes vehicles. They are known for their powerful engines and sporty features.
"...he's got a raptor. He could be in that thing for three weeks. You wouldn't even know he drove it..."
The Ford Raptor is a tough truck made for driving on rough terrain. It's built to handle off-road adventures while still being comfortable to drive every day.
The Ford Raptor is a high-performance off-road variant of the Ford F-150, known for its rugged capabilities and powerful engine options. It's designed for both on-road comfort and off-road prowess, making it popular among enthusiasts.
"...got himself a 944. Oh, yeah. So all days is a fun time for people to buy cars."
The Porsche 944 is a sports car made by Porsche that was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. It's known for being fun to drive and is often considered a good entry-level Porsche.
The Porsche 944 is a sports car produced by Porsche from 1982 to 1991. It is known for its balanced handling and performance, often praised for its affordability compared to other Porsche models.
"I thought it was something around, you know, something about that, but, but the other, the other car that I want to talk about is, uh, coming from, uh, from your side, your team."
Porsche is a famous car brand known for making sports cars. The '89' refers to a car made in 1989, which could be a specific model like the Porsche 911.
The mention of 'Porsche 89' likely refers to a model from Porsche produced in 1989, which could include the Porsche 911 or other models from that era. Porsche has a rich history and is known for its sports cars, particularly the 911 series.
"And this is how PPF works. And it's all written by AI."
PPF is a special clear film that you can put on your car to keep the paint safe from scratches and damage. It's like a protective cover for your car's paint.
PPF stands for Paint Protection Film, a clear film applied to a vehicle's exterior to protect the paint from scratches, chips, and other damage. It is commonly used by car enthusiasts to maintain the appearance of their vehicles.
"...the joy of downshifting, of putting in the clutch and downshifting to a gear of running up the RPMs and then shifting into second..."
Downshifting is when you change your car's gear to a lower one. This helps the engine go faster and gives you more control when you want to speed up or slow down.
Downshifting refers to the process of shifting to a lower gear in a vehicle's transmission, which can increase engine RPMs and provide more power for acceleration or deceleration. It's often associated with a more engaging driving experience, especially in manual transmission vehicles.
"...downshifting to a gear of running up the RPMs and then shifting into second, into third, into fourth..."
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning. When the number is higher, it means the engine is working harder and can make your car go faster.
RPM stands for revolutions per minute, a measure of how many times the engine's crankshaft makes a full rotation every minute. Higher RPMs typically indicate that the engine is working harder and can lead to increased power output.
The Holiday Dilemma: Navigating Christmas Expectations
Consumer Culture: The Shift in Gift-Giving
Car Guy Culture: Expectations vs. Reality
WeatherTech Woes: A Gift Gone Wrong
The Importance of Car Care: Personal Experiences
Social Media and Job Departures: A New Norm
Navigating Car Culture and Social Media Dynamics
Reflections on Time and Social Media Usage
The Intersection of Online and Real-World Experiences
Quality vs. Quantity in Entertainment
The Importance of Research and Development
Looking Ahead to 2026: Growth and Community Engagement
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Welcome to the pints and polishing podcast, the most influential and listen to podcast in auto detailing. Welcome to the community.
All right, as everybody knows, I've traditionally been a Bahumba guy over the past years, really not my favorite weekend.
For those of you that did send me a Merry Christmas, I sent back the meme, the audacity, right from the Grinch going the audacity that you would even say that to me, right?
Like, it is an interesting time to be jolly, but Nick is also interesting time like talking to the freight delivery guy today was dropping off some stuff for us.
And he's the FedEx freight guy and he particularly was complaining been married like 37 years has no idea what to get his wife anymore.
Can't complete all these gifts.
He's like just going on and on about, hey, he's just over, right?
So we got you and me, we got this guy.
Imagine there's some other listeners out there that is Christmas broken like it's just a lot of stuff, man.
I know everybody feels it, but you're buying so much throughout the year seems like there's just always stuff coming and going.
Talk to one of our team members, Rob, you know, he feels the same way.
It's it's just, you know, we all get what we want in the moment now is that like you get to the end of the year and what are you really supposed to do?
You know what I mean?
No, it's like, I just don't I just don't know.
Look, I look at it.
I got two very young kids.
That's a cool part.
The adult stuff.
Let's just all be done.
Okay, like we all buy what we want when we want largely.
Yeah, can you find a little gift here and there that might be something that somebody wanted and you listened and they wouldn't have bought it for themselves?
Yeah, man, that stuff happens.
But largely, I think that stuff just feels like it's out of the system.
Bingo.
Then that's exactly what me and him talked about jokingly for a half second was just like, you know, now it's just here's a link or here's what I want.
You know, my daughters, all I did was send them Apple cash.
Yep.
Did I get a phone call?
Yeah, you know, it's it's especially kids of a sort.
And age, I mean, I'm sure we were all like this.
It's like, you want to move on, but you want to still get, you know, the benefits of the parents money.
And it is what it is, man.
Like I had a wild eight weeks in the year where, you know, my family doesn't live here.
And so we had all kinds of visitors and two weeks at a time, a week at a time and a weekend here.
And it's like, that that's the great part.
I just think the gifts for adults have just gotten to a weird place where you just go.
I mean, everybody gets what they want now.
It seems like that's the economy.
You know, it's not even it's not even about the wealth that you have.
It's like everybody in the economy is always buying something from Amazon or Walmart or Target.
Or so you get to the end of the year and you're like, well, what else is there to buy?
Which it wasn't always like that, which is what I was talking to our teammate Rob about.
He's like, you know, I didn't grow up this way.
But my kids and, you know, my family's kids, everybody gets what they want throughout the year.
And now you get to the end of the year.
And what are you supposed to it's just a really tough thing.
You know, the the economy, we talk about being down and there's a theory that you can spend their way out of it.
Right. We talked earlier about something you sent me.
Can we spend our way out of Christmas?
I don't think so.
You know, I think that's the problem.
We spend too much.
Well, I heard something 70 or 80 percent purchases were, you know, by now, pay later, you know, around Black Friday.
Something like that.
Some kind of crazy statistic, which you and I grew up at a time when it was called layaway.
You know, but layaway was like, you had to pick the gift out in July and then you had to pay, you know, if your family was in Kmart.
Kmart was a big one.
Yeah, Kmart was a big one.
We had a place called Hearts, which I think was like a localized place that went against Kmart.
Same thing there.
It's we've lost a little focus.
You know, it's become a lot about the gifts.
And, you know, let me share what I did on social media.
It's all kind of I think a lot of us feel like it's just become a little too much, you know, like it's just relax a little bit.
Well, it definitely broke for me.
It broke the image for me.
I had of a car guy ride the first time in a sense.
I remember of really asking somebody for a gift and being specific because I felt I talked to the well, I can't say
right, can I, because you're going to say I didn't ask the right guy.
I talked to other people who associate themselves as car guys.
And what does the average person around Tulsa or Oklahoma say?
If you're a car guy, why don't you get your quote unquote cool car?
Well, next, you got to get you some of them weather ticks.
And you got them got to get you some is the way not the proper English.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Tulsa English.
Got you get yourself got to get you some weather text, right?
That's the next thing.
Before I give my opinion.
OK, I want everybody to realize that there's a tech sent.
I'm an official car guy now.
There's a weather tech box.
So Marty's like trying to throw this out there like somebody was a bad guy out of the gate.
It's like, no, no, this was sent by you, not by us.
OK, so everybody's going to try to make me the bad guy here, mainly Marty.
And for everybody doesn't know, Marty got himself a little BMW.
First experience as the owner in the brand.
Nice little, you know, coupe.
It's, you know, comes from a guy who's taken well care of it.
You got to get it cleaned up.
Five years old, though.
We can say it like he's an old car.
And by the way, I'm all for that.
As you anybody that listens to culture, we think it's kind of the next thing.
As you and I started to do something.
It's something that we think there's more and more guys are going to start doing.
Yeah. And we we see our viral moments on that side of the house.
It's all usually older stuff, right?
Like that gets people fired up.
And so.
For whatever reason, you didn't come to me.
I don't know what that says about you.
What that says about me.
Evidently, you talk to somebody who represents themselves as a car guy.
OK, and now we start to, again, learn the lessons we've been trying to teach
at clutch culture, be careful who you listen to.
People don't know what they're talking about.
They act like they know what they're talking about.
So you get advised to buy weather tax or have weather tax as a gift idea or whatever.
It's not just advised recently.
This is the way.
I mean, the whole time I've been in the car industry.
Now, everybody around here is once you get then the next thing is you got.
And by the way, if you got a F 150, if you got a, you know, a Dodge Ram or a Ram,
if you got, you know, a Silverado, if you got a family van,
I think it's the right move for a lot of people.
They're not going to care for it.
That's not your situation.
Your situation is you work at a place and own a place.
That literally your car almost never gets dirty.
So it's not.
And then we bring into the fact so people know the opinion that was shared.
When you have a BMW coupe, when you have that type of experience,
you just replace as many of you have heard on this podcast,
you just replace the OE mats with new OE mats.
That's, that's all that you do.
It's not rocket science.
They literally just sell the shit on a website.
You go, click, this is the part and they send it to your house.
That's what I did on weather.
Yeah, so let's all break it down.
I'm going to lay this out.
What did you find out when you went to put the weathertex into your car?
First of all, I opened them up and I go,
this is vaguely familiar to the knock-offs my wife got on Amazon.
Yes, yes, vaguely familiar.
Like just a different thing right here.
And I was expecting a real thick, like a just the amount that I paid.
Yep.
That then sent the, hey, I need this for my gift.
Like send me my Venmo money.
Yeah, I said, you know, this is the way that's what we do.
Right. A lot of heart and soul into this gift.
I saw gaps.
I just was expecting like the theory that was always sent to me was right.
It they they do it specifically for your car.
And I know that lip comes right up.
And you don't see any gaps and nothing could ever fall in there.
Wrong. Yep.
100% wrong.
Oh, even the worst part, which I sent to you and it was at Mildren.
Or who did that?
Yeah, it was a million.
Was they didn't even use which you put in the specific is a BMW.
Yep. BMW doesn't have hooks.
No, they had the flat Velcro flat Velcro.
Like, so first, yes, I had to vacuum up all the black that comes off of the
the the backing of these old mats is what it is vacuumed all that up
and went to go put it on.
And I go, wait, no hooks.
Well, why is this thing got a holes for hooks when there's no hooks?
Now I got these giant holes for the hooks.
What was something spills on there?
You didn't do.
Oh, there's these things I'm supposed to put in there to
nah, I'm out.
Like, I don't return things.
I'm horrible.
They're getting this returned.
You said I'm drawing the line.
I'm drawing the line here, man.
Yeah, I hear you.
I thought I was going to get the next level of car guy and got my ass kicked.
Yeah, no, I say this, I mean this sincerely.
I have them in my family mobile.
And they work, right?
I mean, you go, they work.
The back is starting to curl up because of the heat, which everybody who ever
has ever seen a weather tech knows what I'm talking about.
They start to get that curl around the edges.
It serves a purpose.
I don't know that I'm right about this.
I remember a higher quality product.
You know, I just definitely do from weather tech.
It's pretty low quality these days.
I don't know what that is.
It could just be a placebo effect and I'm not correct.
And maybe I just remember, you know, something that wasn't true when they
first came out, it's not good.
And when you have a BMW that does floor mats well, or you have like an
AMG floor mat or like what I did in my LX, you take away sort of the luxury
feel when you lay your feet on the plastic and you hear your feet clanking
around in your feeder, sliding and you're getting in.
So that's why I wouldn't make the call.
But again, if I'm using an F 150 as a work truck, man, whether techs
have a place or those types of mats have a place, I think for a guy like you,
they have literally zero place.
Like no place at all.
Like they got a place in the box.
You got vacuums everywhere at HQ.
You got you got all kinds of chemicals to clean it up.
You keep your stuff nice.
So let's talk about that, right?
Because the reason why I still wanted some mat is I do can still consider myself.
I said it, I, I don't know how people get in and out of their cars.
And I never track in and out things.
I don't get it because I look at my formats.
They're disgusting after like four days.
I'm okay.
So I don't know how it happened.
I have to have this conversation.
Not a lot of people ride in my passenger seats.
And, and by the way, I've kind of kept that my, I'm just not big on people being
in my car now with two kids.
Obviously there's a separate issue now.
I can get in and out of my driver mat for like three or four months at a time.
And person gets into the passenger side one time and I'm like, what happened over
there? What happened?
That's me.
That's me.
I attract dirt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm like, what the hell happened over there?
That's me.
I mean, and you just, I, and you and I have taken care of enough cars.
Like there's just people that you do business with that are like me.
And then there's people that are like you, right?
Like you can't really explain it.
Like doing it all this time, you actually couldn't explain it to somebody.
Like I can get in.
I have a customer I'm thinking of right now.
He's got a raptor.
He could be in that thing for three weeks.
You wouldn't even know he drove it and he could drive it every day back and
forth to work and to appointments and whatever.
Then I have other people the day after we get done.
I'm like, what happened?
What happened here?
Don't know.
I just, I just did that.
Like, yeah.
So the lesson learned here is a, ask me what to do.
Number one, number two, plastic floor mats have no basis in
your life.
The, the Titan has gone.
The work van has gone.
You're on to a new phase of your life.
I just don't see you owning a car from this point at your age all the way
until your time has come that you're going to need weather tech mats.
Now, Mike, that is, it has broken Christmas broke weather tech for me.
You're going to, are you going to be an email guy?
Let me tell you about my experience with weather tech mats.
Oh my God.
Social.
I know.
Boy, people love doing that.
Oh, but you know, you mentioned, you know, these other car guys, you know,
the cool party's a listener.
He's a user.
My buddy, Stuart, it was a guy that I asked about, got himself a 944.
Oh, yeah.
So all days is a fun time for people to buy cars.
Yep.
Now, for all you car guys, what year did he get and why did he get it?
Yeah.
Do we, we talked about this, right?
Did he get an 89 89, but don't give it away.
I want people to guess.
And if they really know why he particularly got an 89, I had to ask him, you know,
I was like, what, because his dad was a Porsche guy always had Porsche
pictures up all over the place.
So I thought it was something around, you know, something about that, but, but
it wasn't, uh, the, the other, the other car that I want to talk about is, uh,
coming from, uh, from your side, your team.
Now, Dale, I'm not sure if that was particular towards me after the jokes
I've said recently, I missed this.
Well, I was, oh yeah.
No, it's a good one.
It's more, uh, it's another guy making fun of Jeep guys.
And, uh, I haven't seen it.
Yeah.
Go into the specialist group.
Dale, it's, you know, he knows I'm joking.
We, we have a good time.
Uh, but they're, it's, it's hilarious about how many, how many, how many
ducks they have.
And then he goes, his well-shaven leg out on the, you know,
didn't like Dale, didn't Dale, uh, share a post of a van, a detailing van
that like went up and down the street and like, yeah, got drunk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Way to spend your, I mean, that happens on the holidays quite a bit.
Quite a bit.
Uh, the other day, are you an eggnog guy?
Oh, I'm not.
No, me either.
Yeah.
I can drink it, but I just have one.
I'm okay.
Yeah.
I can't, I can't even hardly have a sip.
I had to, I always do it every year.
I'm like, let me take a sip of that.
I'm like, oh, that's enough.
I'm good.
It was enough.
Yeah.
I can do one.
Mm hmm.
I can do one.
But so this was part of why, you know, it was having a joke, right?
Like my buddy steward, car guy, Dale, car guy, Jeep guy, car guy.
Wrong.
What is it about you car guys that you can't let people be and just
enjoy like, like, I thought I arrived at a moment of weather text.
You could have just let me go off into my, no, I can just enjoy what
you know, because I think what's missing from car culture.
Is this is how everyone used to be, even when they're your friends.
They would buy a car and you'd tell them why they were wrong for
buying the car and you'd have a laugh.
Everybody would make their joke.
That's why we don't like car guys.
Yeah.
But you would still say, yeah, it's a cool car, but you'd still
bust their balls about the car.
Like that, that's, that's part of this, you know, I, you played sports.
It's locker room culture.
You know, like, Hey, you bought that, you're a douche, you buy a car.
He tells you you're a douche.
You all have a little laugh.
Everybody has fun, but you still like their car.
You're just making the jokes.
We've just lost the lightheartedness.
And in guys, if you don't know how many viral moments we've had
at clutch culture this year, people are so sensitive.
Trust me, car culture where you're making jokes is the best car culture.
That's the best time you'll have.
People get like, if you kept those weather texts, it'd be the best
thing that could happen to the group chat because we'd be like, we'd
have that forever.
So I actually, now that I think about it, the mistake was we should
have said great idea and then just kept going.
You could have.
That's what we should have done.
That's what you should have done.
I think that's the fun part of all this.
Well, but that's, but you guys don't have the fun.
You just want to dog everybody.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
So one thing people didn't see me is they didn't see me go put it out on social.
Right.
Like I'm not going to go leave a comment about weather tech.
Right.
It's not me, but we will always talk about it is interesting.
He is interesting.
What people put out on social and especially around the holidays.
Like, listen, I feel you could feel as somebody who I, the
last job I had, well, I got let go on the holidays.
Yeah, it ain't fun.
100% brutal.
Yeah, you just come out of the holidays and then you're let go and
you're got God damn it.
That was tough.
Yeah.
So I remember that moment to see the people in 2025 and they're like, Hey,
you know, I put my life into this industry and I want everybody to know I was
let go.
Huh?
Like that.
I feel for the guy.
By the way, I see this.
This isn't, I mean, we're not even talking detailing related.
I see a lot of people that I know loosely or, you know, actually, you know,
acquaintances with and all kinds of industries.
It's like, for some reason, we've, we've gotten this weird thing like where we
have to like, um, announce our departure, you know, like it's an airport.
You know, it's like, Hey man, this isn't an airport.
You don't have to announce your departure.
Like it's, you know, you got, you got to move on.
And like you said, I don't want to see anybody lose their job period, let alone
around the holidays.
You've experienced it and it's not the greatest experience, but you know, we,
we kind of try to inform our crowd of like, you know, there's, there's just some
things that are better off not being on social media.
Right?
It's like you said, I'm not going to go on weather tech and have my name on a
comment on weather tech's Facebook post.
Why?
Because Hey man, it just doesn't fit my car.
It's not what I thought it was.
We'll work it out on the back end.
It's all good.
Things just don't work out.
Right.
It's kind of like what we talked about just a minute, just a second ago of like
people that don't get into car culture and understand the joke is the fun part.
It's like, I think that's kind of happened with social media.
Like, Hey guys, this, this, you can make this place a lot more habitable for
everybody.
If everybody just kind of didn't go on weather tech and, and you know, say this
didn't work out for me, weather tech's crap.
It's like, you're not saying that.
You're just like, it just doesn't fit my car.
So I'm just going to, you know, deal with weather tech and I'll make it right on
the back end and it's all good.
You know, the question is always why, right?
Like, why does somebody and why do people and why, right?
Like, and something hit me this weekend.
Well, how many movies I watched and everybody knows I love movies, but
it's only so many movies for teenagers that you can watch.
So the time that I did get to watch something adulty, we watched Landman.
Interesting.
What a bad second season this is, huh?
I like the second season.
There is.
Okay.
So there's some, there's some law moments.
I'll give you that.
And I bet you with this episode that I'm going to talk about, you'll say there
was a big law moment and I'll give you that.
There he is.
And this was where the grandfather gets, you know, they, they go through the,
the, the funeral of the grandmother and that was forever long of like a whole
episode, brutal, right?
Didn't need to go on to that long.
But it was interesting.
They talk and then finally talk about how bad of a woman she was, right?
Like, yeah, exactly.
And the grandfather, this guy goes, I wasted my life.
Yeah.
And whatever you whatever, like, doesn't matter whatever somebody says after
that, somebody who's old, fictional character or not.
Yeah, it hit you.
It'll hit you.
When you become a certain age, your ear perks up.
And to your point, it hits you like he wasted his life dot dot dot.
Yep.
I just think of these moments.
I just think of the people and go, thought it meant so much to put out
everything going on in your life.
And you need to update people who you think like, like, yeah, you need to tell
everybody, but like, how much of our lives when we get to it?
Do we go, man, I wonder, did I waste telling people like talking to this?
Yeah, we talked a lot about on this podcast.
I'm sure people are probably tired of hearing of it.
I mean, look at the AI posts that people are like doing daily on Facebook or
Instagram and, you know, writing out how, you know, this is how a coding works.
And this is how PPF works.
And it's all written by AI.
And you go, I mean, I don't care if it took you five minutes or it took you 50 seconds.
Like, is that what is this doing?
Right?
It's called AI slop is sort of the technical term everybody's using now.
Yeah, man.
I mean, we have to, you know, I have to say it for myself.
I think you have to say it for yourself.
You can get lost on social media.
You can waste a lot of time.
You can use time wisely.
You can do everything in between.
I would just say to everybody as we end the year and we're going into 2026,
when times get tougher, that wasted time, there comes a bill with that.
And if you got the money to cover the bill, then that was all a great use of time.
99% of what we see, that bill is going to come do.
And there's going to be nothing to cover that bill.
And I think that's what you and I have watched for the better part of you and I knowing each other.
Right?
This has been a topic of conversation you and I've talked about going back to 2019 when we met.
You know what I mean?
It was just like, we've seen insanity and look, I don't think anybody does social media perfectly.
And I'm not judging how anybody does it to your life and whatever.
I do think it's a worthwhile conversation to put out there to go.
We should all probably think about it a little bit heading into 2026.
Yeah.
I think the waste is the keyword for me when I think about it.
Like we all need to have some time where I do.
Like I just want to go the new, you know, we all know there's a moment we would love to just,
I just want to, I just, I don't care.
I just, just, and that's interesting now in 2025.
It has become a part of humanity.
Yeah.
Swipe.
The average human loves to get on their phone and just mindlessly.
Okay.
And I'll tell you a weird thing.
You're right.
We can't judge.
We just become who we are.
Yeah.
I have a three year old and a five year old.
They'll go into a photo album on your phone and instinctually get addicted to swiping
back and forth between photos.
So Apple turns out Samsung pretty smart people.
They, they know, and then social media picks up on that and then they get into the swipe culture.
The, the question I often have being as somebody who talks on the internet, put stuff out on the
internet, how many people don't swipe and then leave a comment and the comment is combative
or angry or I don't agree with this person.
So I'm going to leave my two cents.
That's what interests me more than the swiping culture because I'm the swiper.
I just, if I don't like it, I just swipe.
I've never left the negative comment.
I've never said something negative on somebody's stuff.
Doesn't matter who it is.
Doesn't matter what it is.
I just don't do that.
The more fascinating thing to me are the people that take the time to write a comment
about content and I, I see this on other people's.
I'm not even talking about ours.
I'll just see like this post is kind of like a whatever post.
Why are there 1,100 comments and then you go read the comments.
You're like, Jesus, 1,100 people literally took the time to like say something mean to
this person who's making content.
I'm like, that, that is way different to me than swipe culture.
For me, I just, I could, I can't understand it.
I don't think I'll ever understand it.
It's happening of people of all ages.
I mean, you and I joke all the time about looking at people we know are 50, 60 years
old in the way they act on Facebook.
I mean, so it's just across the board.
It's a wild thing.
Sure.
And I mean, it gets even wilder when we don't like judge them like you car people judge
other and we just talk about it.
So, you know, the, the, you know, people put out content and we say, why, listen,
I'm glad that they put out the content because it gives us content.
Sure, I agree.
Like we can then be like you, the car guy and just joke and laugh at other people.
Yeah, but we can't be that way.
Basically, like my group text with no matter what the friend group is, is just funny
stuff from the internet that people did.
I would say that's like the number one thing that I get on my phone.
You know, when, when people get into those moments and they start wanting to tell
these people that they think are following them and listen to them and like them and
all this stuff, you know, we, we, you and I talked about, and we talked about it
publicly like these online moments that come into real world moments, you know,
like SEMA, people have already started asking me, you know, about mobile tech
because of, you know, how much we've had into mobile tech.
Will we be back, you know, when do online go into real world face to face?
And what does that look like next episode?
Of course, we're going to talk about what we think of 2026.
And I know that's going to be even more of a topic and more of a heartbeat of how,
how do markets and how does marketing, how does all the social media, how does the economy,
how does everything, how does it funnel into what we believe at hyperclaim?
Now, I talked to a guy earlier on the phone.
He was a sales guy and it was a new conversation.
And so of course, he asked us me about hyperclaim.
Who are we?
What are, right?
Like, that's always sort of the type of discussion.
And then, well, what are we going to do?
Where are we going to go?
It was specifically a raw material supplier.
So everybody knows.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And, and we talked, we had a brief moment about quality versus quality, right?
You, you've always been a quality person.
Yep.
I want you to talk to me about quality of your entertainment this past weekend with the NFL.
Oh, brutal.
So because, right, we, you got quantity.
There was more games played, more games shown this season than we've ever seen.
The quality is worse than I've watched less.
Agreed.
Wasted my money on, on, on fantasy football and I'll keep wasting it just because I've
been in the, this, this league for so long, but I'm not even watching anything.
You asked me, did I, I didn't watch a single minute this past weekend.
And that's, that's crazy that the NFL would get that far with quality versus quantity.
Yeah.
They, so I'm not a, I've been kind of out on the NFL with all the penalties for a long time now.
I still don't understand how you hit somebody and you get a penalty
in a game where you're supposed to hit people.
You and I grew up around the game.
Like it just doesn't make logical sense to me.
So I've been kind of out with the whole thing for a long time, but you know, it's Christmas.
For me, Christmas has always been the NBA games are on.
You kind of have them on in the background.
You just let them play all day, whatever.
So, you know, NFL goes, well, we're not going to let you just have Christmas anymore.
We're going to sell a new package and we're going to have Christmas games.
Cool.
Whatever.
I mean, it's more entertainment for us.
I don't care what they do to the NBA.
I don't own either league.
So I'm just like, Hey, more entertainment.
So it's on Netflix and I believe the night game was on Amazon or something.
And I'm like, okay, well, I have those things as we all do.
We got 7,000 subscriptions now, nothing to watch, but a lot of subscriptions.
And I go on Netflix and now I realize, oh, wait a minute, I'm stuck in the Netflix app
because to get out of that app and then go to the Lakers game or go to the Oklahoma City
Thunder game, or it's just a headache to get to the next app.
So I lasted about 20 minutes and I go, how's this better?
Not that the game is there because I don't care.
I'm happy the game is there.
I got more stuff to watch seemingly.
But now when you have your 8 billion commercials, it is taxing for me to get out of the app,
go into the other app, pull up the other game.
By the time then the NFL game is back on, I haven't watched anything because I'm getting in
and out of apps and I just go, this is better.
By the way, Netflix's announcers who don't do this all the time, they're horrible.
We saw that in boxing, right?
Yeah. I mean, boxing, it can get bad.
Well, I mean, at least they had-
Well, as Netflix tried to get into boxing with the Tyson fight.
Yeah, but they have Ronello who's been in fighting a long time.
Look, it has its problems as well.
It all has a problem.
And the problem is that we once had this place that was centralized that everybody
complained about.
Glockbuster was awesome.
Yeah, called Cable.
Netflix, why'd you do that?
Yeah, called Cable.
And so now I'm on Netflix and I'm like, I can't watch this because I got to get through the
minute and a half commercial and then I'm just like this, I'm out.
So I literally just didn't watch the NFL pretty much the whole day that they sold it.
And I'm very aware why they did it.
Okay, so for anybody yelling into their AirPods or into their car speakers right now,
it's all a money grab and they're a business and they were able to make more money selling
these packages of games.
I kind of understand all that, obviously.
As a fan, I just go, yeah, this isn't good.
First of all, if there's no gambling on football, I think football is way down the
list of a product at this point.
I think gambling's buoying football completely at this point because anybody trying to tell
me the NFL is a good product on a week to week basis.
It's like, but they get like 40 yard penalties because the quarterback under through the ball.
How is that even a penalty?
Like this is stupid.
So it's just people, I get why things like this get done.
But from a quality perspective, I thought, I just think it's like, this isn't it.
I don't know what this is, but this isn't good.
Well, so I bring that up just to talk about the experience, right?
Like experience does matter.
And as we told people, we're going to get into, what is 25?
What is 26?
We'll get into that talk.
Listen, we were not going to go into the specific products.
I want people to understand, though, as we go into 26, the products, no doubt.
Experience will be one of the big keys.
There's some that we're going to look at.
We're going to tip our hat to some old school things that you and I have loved to experience.
Agreed.
And we're going to change them into 2025.
Like products and experience, for those of you that listen, it matters.
Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing for us.
2025 is one of these things we could share with everybody that was sort of,
we had some behind the scenes growing pains as a company, right?
And it was necessary in a good way.
These aren't always a bad thing, right?
There are pains in the moment, but you have to take the steps to get where you want to go, right?
If you're in business long enough, you know, sometimes you've got to kind of
wiggle through the bad times and kind of get through the rough patch.
And then that gets you to the opening where you go, okay, this is why we did all those things.
And so as you talk to the raw material supplier today, which I wasn't on the call,
but you shared before we got on here, he explicitly said, now,
this is what the second biggest raw material supplier in the world, I believe.
Pretty big.
Yeah.
And he goes, I'm a part of a new division.
Because basically over the last decade, everybody's gotten out of research and development.
That research and development, just so you guys know how that affects hyperclean is,
that's what 2025 was for us.
It was basically an R&D year.
It's why we didn't release whole bunches of products.
We had a whole bunch of stuff on the fire.
We had to go to reformulation.
We had to make a tweak.
We had to secure raw material.
We had to do all these things.
Sometimes double secure because even when we secured it.
Yeah, double secure.
But what that means for you guys and all of our supporters is this,
is that that's the only way to really deliver the experience.
That's the only real way to get you to go, okay, this is something different.
Yes, it's a product I may use from XYZ, but this one is different.
And that concentration in 2025 caused growing pains.
And it just is going to always do that when you're trying to take it the next step.
And I think the interesting thing from your conversation with this supplier
was basically he's like, if we don't jump back into being involved in research and development
with companies like ours, they're missing out on what's going to happen next.
But he admits nobody does what we do.
Like they just don't do it.
They just rest on things the way they used to be
and they keep ordering the same raw material and mixing it the same way.
And here's the second biggest raw material supplier.
And just so you guys know, that's not to detailing.
That is to every chemical manufacturer in the world that makes any kind of chemical.
He's basically saying across the board in every chemical business,
R&D has been lacking for a very long time.
And because of what Russia's done, cutting off oil or threatening to cut off oil,
massive amounts of Europe are starting to look to the U.S. to manufacture.
But who in America is manufacturing?
Yes. And it's a conversation we have all the time on the car side,
on this side, on that side.
I don't think we can ever properly share the decision we made years ago
and what that meant for us.
What a meant for the community.
And by the way, it meant things we didn't even know what we were signing up for.
Like, you know, guys, we made a decision like
we just weren't seeing, again, the R&D at the time.
We didn't know what it was.
We just knew, hey, this isn't right.
And so we started going and developing our system and doing it our way internally.
And it came with growing pains.
It came with positives.
It came with everything in between.
But I think our product list that we have ready to go or in some form going to complete in 2026,
you're going to see a lot more active, hyper clean and offering new and different products.
And some of those things aren't really being offered by anybody in our industry.
They're just unique things that we think can help your overall experience taking care of cars.
And I think the cool part is we finish out and we think of like the closing thoughts of 25.
You know, you've got your side of what you've done.
You've got, you know, the side at HQ of time spin on the R&D.
And I think the analogy is always, I love the shifting gears analogy.
A few people will understand the experience and the joy of downshifting, of putting in the clutch
and downshifting to a gear of running up the RPMs and then shifting into second,
into third, into fourth and that joy that it comes that doesn't matter if I know the leaders,
doesn't matter if I put in the wrong fucking goddamn mats.
I can still love the experience of a manual transmission.
Doesn't matter if my foot goes out the door and that there's four doors on my Jeep.
It does matter a little bit, but I see what you're saying.
Does it though?
It does matter, but in the car world, it matters.
So experience.
Yeah, no doubt.
You each just own and to 2025.
I know that my 26 will be awesome that the, we talk about, you know, sowing and reaping.
The time that I did spend, there was a conversation where I had to talk to you and go,
Nick, but my time, you know, like it is a thing.
And I just, it is my closing thoughts of 25.
You kind of took a lot of what I had written down.
I can't really say much other than go, yeah, I'm excited about reaping in 26 because people
don't realize how much research and development we spend.
I'm gracious.
I'm great.
I don't say that to go, hey, look, I go, thank you.
There's few people that have been able to get to spend the time.
Sure.
So because we were able to create the time for me, right, you took a lot of stuff off my plate.
Over the past years, more and more stuff gets off of my plate to create more time.
You know, that's the awesome part that we get to celebrate, which I got to talk to Rick.
Rick the salesman.
Right.
Like, and, you know, as he tells me his, and I just like, oh, Rick, we've been waiting for this.
Yeah, agreed.
You and I agree, but he hasn't had somebody say that.
No, like Rick, we're waiting for this.
We've been planning for this.
We're excited for this moment.
Yeah, no, I 25 has been awesome.
You know, and I hope everybody out there has experienced in your own business or your own
life or working for somebody that you've had a good 25, but it's easy.
We do it here.
We keep our finger on the pulse of the economy.
We make sure we try to talk about it as accurately as we know how to do.
There's some scary moments coming.
I mean, you and I would tell people there's some scary moments coming.
I think if you're always at least moving forward and doing the right things and you have
reasons for why you're doing stuff, which is why we always talk heavily about spending
that time on social media.
We talked about earlier in this episode, but you're really thinking about that time because
guess what?
We can all waste it.
I can waste it with the best of them.
You can waste it with the best of them.
It's not a judgment of others.
I think there's another thing I would say that I'm pretty proud of it.
Hyper clean as guys, we're in our own lane.
This is our lane.
Whatever anybody's doing, I get constant questions about industry and people and what
other guys we're not even, I can promise you that is not really a conversation
with Marshall and I and our team.
Let people do what they want to do and concern yourself with moving your company and your
business or your career forward.
26 will be a good year too.
It doesn't mean it's not going to have some bumps.
I mean, it could or it could be no bumps.
I mean, I don't know.
Nobody knows, but we think we've done the right things.
I hope all of you guys agree that we take our time with stuff and we don't just throw
stuff in front of you and say, Hey, here's a new product.
I'm proud of that.
We're not a catalog company.
That's not who we are.
It's like, does this work?
Do we want it?
Do I want to use it?
Does Marty want to use it?
I think it's just more fun to come.
But again, if it's not a good experience, we know people won't use it.
So it just never makes it to market till that experience is good.
So here's to 2026.
Our last episode of 25.
Thanks so much for everybody being apart.
Thanks so much for all the comments inside of hyper clean specialists.
It's a lot of fun.
That's why we bring it up every week.
It's a lot of fun, Dale, for you to put that out there and make one of us cheap guys.
It really is.
And that's I love the photos that people put of the cars that they see to the license plates to
then asking a question about something strange that they're seeing on a car that,
Hey, listen, I put this product down.
I don't know what's happening.
Can somebody help me out?
And as we go into 26, that is absolutely place for everybody to go hang out.
Absolutely.
There's a hangout place to be.
It is a hyper clean specialist group to be a part of community.
What does that mean?
It means even in people Canada.
Thanks, Marissa, for going welcome to the community, right?
Like new people that are coming in and then being apart.
And then we get to go welcome and tell us about, you know, your car.
Tell us about your experience.
Tell us about what's going on with you.
Yep.
Great place to be.
All right, guys, look forward to next year.
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