This is a 2015 Volkswagen Beetle, but with the top down (a convertible). Converting a car like this into a long-distance trip is different from a coupe because the roof and weather protection are different.
Route 95 is a big main highway that many people use for long trips. Taking it can be faster or more crowded depending on where you are.
Place
Buckees
Bucees is a big roadside gas station chain with lots of pumps and services. It’s popular on road trips because it’s easy to stop, fuel up, and take a break.
The water pump circulates coolant through the engine to control temperature. The host says Volkswagen water pumps can “seep,” meaning they may slowly leak at the seal, sometimes enough to create a small drip or residue over time.
Engine oil keeps moving parts from grinding and helps manage heat. The host is saying their engine tends to use some oil, so they carry extra for the trip.
They’re talking about certain Volkswagen/Audi engines around 1.8 and 2.0 liters that can burn or use oil. That means you may need to check and top up oil more frequently, especially on a long drive.
A test light is a tool that helps you check if electricity is reaching a wire or fuse. It’s a quick way to figure out whether a problem is electrical before you start guessing.
A battery jump pack is a portable booster that can start your car if the battery is dead. You plug it in and it gives the engine enough power to crank.
Lug wrenches are the tools used to loosen and tighten the lug nuts that hold a wheel to the hub. The host notes they’re often not strong or long enough for real-world stubborn lug nuts, especially on a spare tire.
A spare tire is the backup tire you use if one of your regular tires goes flat. It’s important to check it ahead of time because it can lose air while it’s stored.
EPA is the U.S. agency that sets the official fuel-economy numbers you see for cars. Your real mpg can differ because your driving and conditions aren’t exactly like the test.
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric car that runs on a battery instead of gasoline. It’s a common model, so people often talk about it when discussing charging and how EVs fit into daily life. If you see a lot of Teslas, the Model 3 is one of the most likely ones.
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that uses a battery instead of a gas engine. It’s a very common Tesla, so it often shows up in conversations about charging and travel. If a podcast mentions lots of Teslas and charging stations, the Model Y is one of the main models they’re likely referring to.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made by Chevrolet. It’s designed for performance and is popular with car enthusiasts. The podcast mentions it because there’s an event specifically celebrating Corvettes.
Topic
Bay State Auto Shell
Bay State Auto Shell sounds like a local car event in Framingham. The host says it’s a good show, especially if you like older cars.
Framingham is the town where the event is happening. The host is mentioning it to tell listeners where to go.
LIVE
W-A-T-D presents John Paul, the car doctor, all things automotive.
Have questions? Call or text 7-8-1-837-4900.
Now, here's John Paul, the car doctor.
And good Sunday morning everyone and welcome to another edition of the car doctor program on 959 W-A-T-D.
My name is John Paul, the car doctor here to help you with your car problems every Sunday morning at 11 o'clock.
Just like we've been doing for the past four plus years I think on 959 W-A-T-D.
So you know what to do if you want to give us a call 7-8-1-837-4900.
No guest for this hour. We have been traveling this week.
So I'm always a little concerned when I'm back in Massachusetts need to set up the, we'll call it for one of a better word, home studio.
But you know, just to make sure everything's going to work because you know, doesn't always, electronics doesn't always work the way it's supposed to.
Doing my best vice grip garage impersonation this past couple of days.
I mentioned last week we had a death in the family and my wife flew home to spend some time with her sister and I drove home.
And if you're a fan of vice grip garage, they usually start off something like, you know, here's this, you know, 1959 Chevy pickup truck.
Will it run and drive 800 miles from, you know, Georgia to Tennessee or wherever Derek lives?
Well, it was sort of like my trip. Will my untested 2015 Volkswagen Beetle convertible run and drive nearly 1,750 miles home from Englewood, Florida to Dennisport, Massachusetts.
And it did. And I did it in two days, which I normally don't do. Normally I take three days to do that trip.
First off, first time I've ever done a trip that long by myself. Normally, if I do a long distance trip, it could be with a member of the Motor Press Association.
But generally it's with my wife and we usually do three days because usually eight hours or so in a car is plenty for her.
She's usually about ready to, she needs a break. We'll put it that way.
So, but I did it in a little in two days. The first day I left Englewood, Florida, if you don't know where that is, the biggest town near us is Venice.
It's sort of halfway between Fort Myers and Sarasota, I guess would be a good way to describe it.
And I purposely stay off of Route 95 as much as I can. I prefer to take sort of the trucker route, I guess.
I just find it easier. The driving tends to be easier. So that first day drove quite a bit, got up to someplace in Georgia and stopped at Buckees.
Now, if you don't know what a Buckees is, if you ever see one by the sign for it by the side of the road, you need to check it out.
It's a gas station with 120 gas pumps. So it's a big gas station. And this one apparently was brand new.
And it also is a store with, that's probably about three quarters of the size of a Walmart maybe? It's big.
And it sells everything. Food, clothes, snacks, real food. I mean, just it's quite an amazing store.
And I guess because it was so new, there was literally a line to get in, which I was surprised.
I didn't think that would be the case, but they sort of have almost their own little ramp getting in and out of the highway.
Came in, I will say, as expensive as gas is, it was the cheapest gas I bought. I think it was $3.29 or $3.39 a gallon.
So that was my primary purpose to fill up with gas. I wasn't really looking to save money on gas.
And I'm like, I've been watching gas prices for 30 years, like I got to go check out what this Buckees is.
And there were people taking pictures with the Buckees mascot. It's crazy place.
So stopped at the Buckees and got gas and had almost kind of wait, wait.
I mean, every pump had people at it. So that's how busy they are. Who knows how long, you know, how big the tanks are.
But it was a pretty, pretty amazing place. And there was another one I didn't stop at because I didn't need gas.
But the Volkswagen did pretty well. I've always been a little bit suspicious of this car because it has a hint of a coolant leak.
You don't see it. It doesn't drop down. But you smell what smells like hot coolant, which is pretty common on Volkswagen's.
The water pumps tend to seep just a little, little bit to the point where one of the aftermarket water pump manufacturers,
they actually almost have kind of a drip tray, the bottom of the water pump.
So I was always a little cautious. So I spent a fair amount of time watching the temperature gauge.
It has a temp light, but also has a temperature gauge. Never veered. It was 194 degrees for 1800 miles.
Never changed. It was always the same temperature. So that was good. Check the coolant level. Never moved. It was good.
To prepare for the trip, I brought an extra gallon of antifreeze, extra quart of oil.
The 1.8 liter and 2 liter Volkswagen Audi engines tend to use, can tend to use some oil.
Checked it about halfway through the trip. It was full. Checked it when I got here. It was full. Didn't use any oil.
So but always like to have that extra quart of oil in the car, extra gallon of coolant in the car, just in case something should happen.
I used to keep a toolbox or tool bag or something. I've gone to a tool roll and did it sort of the cheaper way.
Went to Arbor Freight, bought this vinyl tool roll thing. Actually works out pretty good. I have some metric sockets, wrenches, screwdriver,
the 6-in-1 screwdriver or 4-in-1, adjustable wrench pliers, stuff like that.
Extra fuses, a test light, just in case I'm looking for a problem. So that's sort of my emergency kit.
Along with battery jump pack and this one was the Nebo jump pack air compressor.
So it's a combination unit. It doesn't take up as much room. And all of this stuff fits in sort of a gym bag kind of thing or little duffel bag.
That's what happens to be a little AAA duffel bag. But it kind of fits. Everything fits in there.
Along with anybody who's ever tried to change a flat tire, knows the lug wrenches aren't good enough.
So I actually threw a little piece of pipe in there so I can use it kind of as a cheater bar for the little lug wrench that's on here.
I'm glad I checked the spare tire before I left because it was flat from sitting in the car for 11 years.
I guess I should have checked that more often. I checked the tire pressure constantly but I guess I didn't check that.
I did put a little bit more air in the tires. It calls for 30 pounds or 32 pounds I think.
I think I put 35 or 36. Again, I could appreciate the little bit better fuel economy and maybe a little bit, you know, deal with a little bit firmer ride.
Fuel economy was quite good. Somewhere between 37 and almost 40 miles of gallon on a car that doesn't normally get that good gas mileage.
Which I think EPA is like 33 or 4 or something like that.
So pretty good fuel economy. Stayed the speed limit the whole way.
You know, a couple miles an hour over or under but usually right around the speed limit.
I'm always afraid of Virginia where if you're more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, it becomes a real issue.
You end up having to go to court or send someone to court.
So no, do the speed limit.
Pretty uneventful ride except for lots of dead critters by the side of the road.
Lots of deer in Pennsylvania. Armadillos in the Carolinas.
Lots of kind of roadkill I guess.
So but overall, you know, pretty good.
That first drive I went up through Charlotte and took the express lane that kind of it doesn't go around Charlotte, but there's a toll express lane.
It was shockingly expensive.
I looked at my Easy Pass account once I got here and I think that 15 miles of toll roads was something like $25.
But on the other hand, it did save a fair amount of time.
And normally what we would do is we would stop somewhere in South Carolina, get a hotel for the night.
I decided to try to go a little bit further because it was earlier in the day.
It was probably only four o'clock when I went by the hotel that we would normally stay at.
So I'm like, I'll keep by myself.
What am I going to do?
Sit in the hotel room and stare out the window.
So I drove a little bit further, maybe another couple hours, got to North Carolina.
I think a town called Statesville went into a hotel and it might have been like a Hilton or something.
I said, yeah, looking for room for the night.
And they said it'd be 189.
I said, you got anything cheaper.
And apparently the whoever owned this hotel own three other hotels in the area and said, well, the such and such is this much.
And our Comfort Inn, which is only about a half mile down the road is $99.
Comfort Inn sounds like it'd be perfect.
Got there, AAA discount, took another $10 or $15 off the price.
So I think with the tax it was like $89.
So then in the morning left around 6.15.
And normally the why we take three days is because the house has been closed up for months.
Come here and turn the water on and clean up and make sure everything is supposed to work the way it's supposed to work.
And we got here and my wife got here and I think she got here on Monday.
And I think her nephew might have followed her down and turn the water on wait for the water heater fill up turn the power on for the water heater.
Everything was fine. No problems.
Everything worked the way it was supposed to.
She did this sort of little cleanup stuff that needs to be done.
So it didn't really make any difference if I showed up at eight or nine or 10 o'clock at night.
My GPS said, Oh, I'll be there between 7 and 7 30 until I got to Connecticut.
And I don't know about you, but is the traffic ever reasonable in Connecticut?
I don't think so.
I think Connecticut added another hour and a half to my trip.
Got here about 9 30, I think.
But it was pretty uneventful ride.
No car crashes to report.
Nothing.
Nothing bad.
So it was all good.
One thing I did notice while was on the road is there are a fair amount of electric vehicles on the highways.
Now, you know, I'm trying to look at license plates to see, you know, did they come from far out of state?
A lot of Teslas.
Absolutely.
I would say probably the number one electric vehicle you see on the road is a Tesla of one form or another.
Either the Model 3 or the Model Y.
Just a lot of Teslas and some charging stations I noticed right up the street from me now they're putting a charging station in at a bank.
Which I was a little surprised, I guess, but there it is.
Other than that, again, pretty uneventful ride.
Got here.
Car was disgustingly dirty when I got here from just, you know, nearly 1800 miles or 1700 and change miles of road dirt.
So gave it a good wash when I got here.
All back together.
The older car that we keep here has spent a little bit of time here and at my nephew's house seem to be, seem to be fine.
Seem to be doing what it's supposed to do.
The plan is at some point the car that I drove up here will stay here and then we'll look for something different and a little bit bigger to be our car to go back and forth with.
And the Hyundai, which is now currently living in Florida under under a car cover and hopefully hurricane season is nice to it.
So there we go.
A lot of things going on this weekend or in the next couple of weeks actually.
New Hampshire Dragway NHRA weekend going on.
If you're heading up there or you're up there, you happen to be going by the announcement, announcer booth, you know, say hello to Brian loans.
Brian's been on the program a couple of times and he is the NHRA announcer.
So, you know, give him a shout and say hello to him.
Somebody somebody said to me, what do you bring for food on a on a long road trip like that?
My wife packed me a few things.
And but I'm it's more peanut butter crackers like the Namisco pre made ones, beef jerky and Red Bull.
I really would have preferred the ocean energy drink.
But Red Bull is fine.
But so there you go.
Also, I got an email from Rob up at 128 cycles.
He's got a couple of vintage motorcycles for sale.
But if you're up that way, swing into 128 cycles, check out their their cycle cafe museum.
It's really neat and it keeps getting attitude.
So certainly worth looking at.
If you're in Brookline, the Lars Anderson Auto Museum on Flag Day is going to have Corvette Day.
So that's always worth going to the Bay State Auto Shell, the one that takes place in Framingham, where we talk to the folks that set that up.
That's going to be taking place on the 21st.
That's a good show because it's it's mostly all cars from New England and stuff antiques, antique things that I've never heard of kind of older than cars that not that interest me, but cars that I know about.
And I like looking at cars that, you know, they can be from, you know, as far back as the late 40s and 50s, you know, I have some basic understanding when they get older than that.
I get a little lost because I don't know them well enough.
I don't know to make some models well enough where the cars are the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever.
I kind of I know those cars a little bit better.
So I like seeing those also on Father's Day at the Newport Car Museum is Father's Day.
There's a Father's Day special.
Dads get to go for free with one adult ticket.
So, you know, dad and a kid or whatever can go to the Newport Car Show.
My nephew's oldest niece last year asked me to take her to a car museum and we went to one in Hyannis called the Toad Inn.
It was pretty it's pretty tired, but it's interesting at the same time.
Guy owns the cars that are in it.
They're in sort of this old barn, falling down barn kind of thing.
All the cars seem to have some story that goes with them.
It was probably really pretty good back 10 years ago.
It's kind of not as good as it used to be, but still, you know, for 10 bucks or whatever the cost to go see it worth going.
But the Newport Auto Museum is a beautiful place.
It's like an art museum inside.
No ropes, though, so you can get right up to the cars and look at the cars.
And actually, I think next weekend they have what they call their hoods up weekend.
So every car has a hood up so you can see the engines and check out what's there.
Always a good thing to look at.
And on Father's Day, the Hyannis car show takes place and that is a huge event in downtown Hyannis.
They close the whole Main Street and there's hundreds of cars that are parked there and literally tens of thousands of people that show up.
And Matt Pitta, who is an old radio guy who now works kind of doing the car show thing, but plus some other stuff.
He asked whether I could do my program from there and we might try that.
I don't know how Jesse feels about that.
How do you feel about remote broadcast, Jesse?
I love it.
Do you?
All right.
You know, you love it because always make sure you have a backup program just in case when all things go bad.
I mean, in all reality, you're doing a remote program every week.
So I am, but not with, you know, I'm in kind of a fixed environment, not out on a sidewalk on a card table.
Oh, that's true.
That's where the things can get a little bit tricky.
Yeah.
And, you know, typically with remote equipment, it's now all cell phone based.
And the last time I tried to use my cell phone during this car show, the cell phone network was so overwhelmed, nothing worked.
So even though there's a tower that you can literally see.
So I'm going to try to see if somebody get me a hardwired connection to the card table or wherever it is, it would be.
So we're going to work on that.
That should be, should be kind of fun in its own scary way.
So I may need, I may need a network engineer to help me.
So I'll see if I can find a guy.
Yeah.
Well, there's always Larry.
Larry's pretty good with that stuff.
So Larry's a legend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's funny.
I met Larry years and years ago.
I was doing a remote broadcast at Sullivan Tire in Rockland.
And I don't even remember.
It must have been on WJDA radio or something.
And when I was done with my broadcast, WATD was coming in to do their broadcast.
And Larry came over and kind of looked at my equipment, which was hooked up to phone lines.
And, you know, you know, I think WATD was using a Marty, which is a radio transmitter kind of thing.
And I was using phone lines hooked up through a Comrex box thing.
And he just kind of looked at it and said, but he was very polite and very nice and I like Larry.
And that was probably the first time I ever met him.
And he actually gave me a little bit of advice at the same time.
So it was a good meeting.
So I kind of enjoyed that.
Why don't we take a break, pay some bills?
If you would like to join us, our phone number is 7-8-1.
What?
What's our phone number?
Our phone number is 7-8-1-837-4900.
That's the one.
Yeah.
That's one.
That's the one.
And my phone just dinged and apparently Home Depot was out delivering me something.
So there we go.
Sorry about the ding in the background.
It was still pleasant.
It was pleasant.
Okay.
All right.
Let's take that break.
We'll be right back.
You'll listen to the Cardoct.
Even Cardoct.
Or not.
Sorry.
Carry on.
You'll listen to the Cardoct program 959WATD.
We'll be right back.
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About this episode
A long, solo drive home turns into a real-world reliability check: the host wonders if an untested 2015 Volkswagen Beetle convertible will make it nearly 1,750 miles, plans routes to avoid Route 95, and stops at a huge 120-pump travel center. Along the way, they watch coolant temps, suspect a seep/leak by smell, and prep with extra fluids, tools, and a verified spare tire. The trip continues through EV-heavy Connecticut, then wraps with local car-event updates and AAA roadside help.
In this episode we talked about my drive from SW Florida to Cape Cod in my wife's 2015 VW Beetle. A stop at Bucees, road trip essentials, food, hotels and answer this week's car questions.
