Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, what happens when they break & Lexus TX 350

WATD presents John Paul, The Car Doctor, All Things Automotive.

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Now, here's John Paul, The Car Doctor.

And good Sunday morning everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Car Doctor program

on award-winning 959 WATD.

My name's John Paul, The Car Doctor here to help you with your car problems on this October 19th.

And the only reason I'm mentioning the date, it was my wife's birthday yesterday.

I should have mentioned it last week, and I didn't, so happy belated birthday to my wife Joanne.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago we had the folks from AutoShine AutoBody on to talk about the

AutoBody business, and we got into the weeds a little bit about things like so many cars today

have some form or another of advanced driver assistance systems, sort of referred to as ADAS

in its four-letter acronym.

And we talked a little bit about calibration and the technology and what you need to think about

if you're getting your car repaired these days.

And with us on the phone is Sam Perattus, Vice President of Insight and Innovation for Repairify.

Sam, good morning, and welcome to the Car Doctor program.

Good morning, thanks for having me.

And first off, tell us what Repairify is.

So Repairify, I think the industry would probably be more familiar with the brand name Aztec, that's A-S-T-E-C-H.

That's kind of how the company got started.

Repairify is kind of the larger brand that encompasses Aztec and a few acquisitions that we've made,

but the company collectively is focused on vehicle diagnostics and electronic repairs.

So we got our start in the industry as kind of the original provider of remote OEM scans.

What does that mean, right?

An OEM scan is utilizing the same diagnostic equipment that you can find in a dealership.

But what our technology allows us to do is to remotely connect those tools,

which are very expensive and only applicable to like a small variety of vehicle makes

and connect them to any car in the world provided that one of our pieces of equipment

is there to connect it to the OBD2 port.

So that was kind of the genesis of everything, was just doing diagnostics,

helping build awareness of kind of the state of these electronic systems and sensors in cars.

And then of course we got the rush of ADOS equipment and proliferation of it

and sort of business has grown a lot into calibrations and other types of electronic repairs.

And your background, you, from what I remember is you came from the industry,

you were a tech for a while and then you went to work for Aztec, right?

That's right, yeah. So I worked in a garage in Austin, Texas for a few years right out of college

and then was actually hired on Aztec originally as a technician about seven years ago.

And then from there kind of just expanded out and grew within the company

and took on responsibility for several of the technology teams.

And when it comes to getting cars repaired and, you know, living in Massachusetts

we kind of live through the right to repair laws and, you know, a lot of that

and that became sort of a bit of a fundamental start for kind of a memorandum of understanding

that vehicle manufacturers would provide information to be able to repair vehicles

including the ADOS stuff. How is it really going in reality?

In terms of like the right to repair stuff?

Yeah, yeah. Are the manufacturers allowing body shops and for that matter,

mechanical repair shops, are they able to find all the information they need these days?

I would say, yes, it's definitely working.

I mean the only reason we're able to do what we do as a business is because of right to repair laws.

If right to repair laws weren't a thing there wouldn't be common diagnostic port standards

and other communication protocol standards that we can leverage to do this

and probably the OEMs wouldn't even allow us to buy their tools.

They would prefer if everything just got directed into dealerships.

So the right to repair legislation is definitely enabling the industry to do more than it would have

if it didn't exist. All that said, there's still some problems, I think,

with everything being fulfilled to the spirit of the legislation.

So it's still difficult to access some of these things.

What the legislation does I think is make it possible, right? It doesn't make it easy.

You sort of mentioned it early on, but I remember part of this legislation I spent,

and I'm not a political person at all, but I spent time at the state house testifying and all this,

and there was going to be kind of a universal scan tool that was going to work on every single vehicle

from whatever the alphabet, from one end of the spectrum to the other.

And I don't know that I actually saw that, but you're able to do it remotely now, right?

Right, yeah. So as far as I understand it, I think the piece of legislation you're referring to

is basically the one that was kind of defining what OBD-3 would look like, right?

So for listeners that don't know what OBD is, it's a standard diagnostic port that you use to connect a scan tool to.

It's what the Emissions Shack uses to pull emissions data.

What do you get vehicle inspections done?

So there was that piece of Massachusetts legislation that basically said,

hey, we're going to move to a new wireless standard, right?

It'll still be a standard communication interface that everybody can use,

but it was kind of mandating the creation of a board to go figure all this out,

and of course that immediately got stopped up in the courts.

So as far as I know, that's still the plan.

I think just like with a lot of things in our industry, it's going to move along pretty slowly and evolve over time.

I still think OBD-2 ports are going to be around for a while just for the convenience of having a common physical connector.

But yes, so while we wait for that to happen, which could take a decade still,

we're stuck with OBD-2 and we are able to do a lot now with that.

It's a very old interface. I think it was first introduced in 1996,

but kind of taking that old interface that's just a 16-pin connector

and coupling it with our technology, which allows it to basically be a connected device online,

is what enables us to kind of build that remote interface with the vehicle

and get some of the benefits that you get with like a modern telematics interface,

but in a vehicle that predates those or for a user that doesn't have access to them.

The other big kind of topic with right to repair right now is,

how do repairs in the aftermarket get access to telematic interfaces

and these other things that are currently kind of proprietary to the OS?

Yeah, it really shows the complexity of what happens.

People think sometimes body shops, they just replace doors and fenders

and paint and prep and go on with that.

What should, if somebody got in a fairly significant crash with their car,

what kind of questions should they be asking the body shop folks

when it comes to some of these sensors that are in their vehicle?

I guess both the body shop folks and the insurance adjuster

who's kind of writing the check for it.

What should people be thinking about?

I think it's a lot of things for people who don't have expertise

in vehicle repair, just monitoring the situation.

I wouldn't recommend necessarily trying to make your own determinations

about what needs to be done to the car,

because it can get pretty complicated and nuanced what the requirements are

and a lot of them aren't even readily available on the public internet.

You have to have access to an OEM repair library

and kind of trace citations through three different documents.

The thing I think I'd recommend to vehicle owners who are having their vehicles repaired

is just make sure that the shop even has an awareness that your car has ADAS on it

and that these things need to be checked.

It's got a lot better over the last five years or so,

but I still have moments where I'm kind of alarmed that

vehicle repair facilities are just kind of ignoring ADAS entirely

and doing things like taking bumpers off and putting them back on.

So I think the easiest question to ask is what ADAS equipment is on my vehicle

and can you show me that you've found the relevant documentation outlining

when it needs to be calibrated and then if it does need to be calibrated,

how it should be calibrated, what are all those kind of prerequisites

for ensuring that the calibration is done properly.

That's things like making sure the tires are inflated to spec,

making sure the fuel tank has the right amount of fuel in it.

It can get pretty detailed.

But you just like a body shop that's really kind of got it together

will usually be able to provide you a packet of documentation on this

because the insurance company is typically asking them the same questions

when they're seeking reimbursement for performing these procedures.

Good to know.

And most of the calibration now is, I guess for one of a better word,

static calibration where the technician sets up targets

and makes the whole system work.

Do you see a time where, and maybe it's already there

and I'm just not aware of it, that cars will be able to self-calibrate themselves?

Yeah, it's a super interesting debate.

So we know this is a possibility because a lot of cars already do it.

So Tesla is kind of at the extreme end of the spectrum

in a lot of ways regarding vehicles.

But particularly with calibrations, they have some of the most sophisticated setups

in their camera systems.

But there's no static calibration procedures to calibrate them.

You just simply drive the car.

It self-diagnoses when the cameras are not working.

Basically shuts the 8-offs off and then it'll tell you

just keep driving and when it's collected enough information,

it'll re-enable the systems.

So we already have cars that are essentially full self-calibrating

without having to have any kind of diagnostic interface whatsoever.

Then kind of a step down from that, what the current evolution is

for warrior main three manufacturers is what we call a dynamic calibration.

So dynamic calibration is actually pretty similar to a self-calibration

that's requiring that a diagnostic tool be connected to the vehicle,

which is going to give the driver some prompts and things about

what it wants to see specifically.

I want to see some road signs.

I want to see the lane markers, and it'll kind of guide you

through performing a drive cycle to give it all the information

that it needs to build a calibration profile.

And those occasionally have things like you have to go get a bubble level

and tighten some screws on the sensor to make sure it's generally

in spec, but it's not nearly the level of precision

and process that comes along with performing a static calibration

where you actually have to place targets with millimeter level accuracy.

Yeah, and I remember some years back Tesla getting a little bit of trouble

because they, and I think the term was they were putting their cars out

in shadow mode, so it was sort of they were doing exactly what you described.

There was sort of self-calibrating as the vehicle was driven,

not letting the owners know that that stuff was going on kind of in the background

and the cars, the car owners were being used sort of as tests for their technology.

Yeah, as I understand it, and I've never bought one,

like this is how they roll off the factory floor.

Like I've heard this account from people that have purchased Tesla's

with zero miles on them, like they come off the assembly line,

not calibrated, right?

And then like the first 200 miles of you owning it,

is it reading everything in and then building a calibration profile

and then it's off to the races.

So what's interesting about it is like, yeah,

it's very different than what all the other OEMs do,

but like the thing that you do after repair is exactly the same thing

that you do immediately following the original assembly of the vehicle.

So in that way, it very much is an OEM way of doing it.

Yeah, and you know, we think about advanced driver system systems

as lane centering and blind spot monitoring,

but it can be as simple as a windshield replacement, right?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, I think that's probably the most common one that we're seeing get disturbed

because it's not that often that you have your bumpers off, right?

Like if you've been in an accident, a front or rear end collision,

obviously that's going to be involved.

But you know, over the course of owning a vehicle,

most people are not getting their bumpers off,

but having your windshield changed because it's got a rock chip in it

or something like that is far more common.

And essentially like this is the easiest one out of all the 8S equipment.

If you've got a windshield camera and you're changing the windshield,

you're going to have to do a calibration and it does very much matter.

You know, these small changes in kind of the lensing of the glass

in front of the camera and just the general resolution of the information

that the camera is capturing is very sensitive.

So I've never seen an instance where a vehicle has a windshield camera

and has a windscreen placement performed and doesn't need a calibration

except for Tesla.

And really, Tesla does need a calibration, right?

It's just you do it yourself.

Yeah.

You know, at good point, what happens if, you know,

you have a relatively new car that gets in a crash

and you know, the scans and the calibrations weren't performed?

Are you going to get check engine lights?

Are you going to get dash warnings or is just stuff not going to work?

So it depends a lot on like which system it is, right?

Nature of the accident, every collision is kind of a, you know,

unique damage event.

So I would say generally speaking, right, what's going to happen

if you've got kind of a normal circumstance

and you and the shop didn't do diagnostics on the 8S equipment

and they didn't do then the calibrations that were required

as a result of diagnosing them and figuring out what it needed to be done.

Probably what's going to happen first in most circumstances

is they'll fix all the collision repairs

and then take it out for a test drive

and whoever takes it out for a test drive will notice

that something's not working properly, right?

Like Lane keep will keep trying to pull you out of the lane

or you'll be getting alerts for things that aren't there

in your blind spot or automatic emergency braking

and they'll drive it right back to the shop

and then they'll go look up why this is happening

and figure out that they need to do calibrations and do them.

So a lot of it gets caught, you know, at the end

and kind of the QA process before it gets back to the customer

but this is still a significant inconvenience for everyone

because now the shop has to file a supplement to the insurance company.

They have to delay delivery of the vehicle to the owner

which isn't a good experience.

So that's probably most common.

Second most common is it gets through that process

and gets into the hand of the consumer

and then they have the same experience.

Either, you know, dash light comes on

or one of these systems is behaving abnormally

and then they take it back to the shop and complain about it

and we go through the same process.

The one that I think is, you know,

there's a lot of systems in place that are designed

to make sure that these features fail safe

and kind of self-diagnose and don't create unsafe situations

but it is still very much possible

and that's, you know, the main reason that we feel strongly

everybody needs to be ahead of the curve

on these calibration procedures,

not waiting until something goes wrong

is because we do think it's certainly possible

that, you know, light keeps not functioning correctly

and it, you know, sees something weird

and causes you to appear in oncoming traffic

and, you know, it results in a second collision.

So that's worst case scenario.

There's a lot of things that, you know,

are trying to prevent that from happening

but it's definitely on the table.

Yeah, and, you know, it was probably

no more than five years ago.

There wasn't a single car sold in the United States

that I know of that had LiDAR

as part of its advanced driver system.

Yeah.

Now with, you know, things like the GM BlueCruise

or whatever they call it

and Ford Systems and Genesis, I think, as well.

We're starting to see LiDAR being incorporated.

So even more critical to make sure all these calibrations

are done correctly, right?

Yeah, for sure. LiDAR is incredibly sensitive, right?

Like for the same reason that it enables such advanced functionality.

It's also very, very subject to disturbance.

But it'll be interesting to see how that one develops

because I think actually most of the, like, Ford and GM systems

I think are not using significant degrees of LiDAR.

Like if you've seen Waymo's or, you know, other, like, autonomous vehicles

on the road, the little bini sensors on them, right?

Those are kind of the industrial-grade LiDAR.

They're super expensive, right?

Right.

I have questions about kind of the staying power of them

just because if you bump one of those sensors in a collision,

you're like, the calibration's expensive,

but like replacing the sensor,

which kind of has to be sitting behind the bumper spinning somewhere.

You mean the thing that looks like a...

Or the thing that looks like a radar tower on the roof of the car?

You know, not the most aesthetically pleasing thing in the world.

And then, you know, 15 years ago, by now, you know,

the planet was going to be occupied, and you mentioned Waymo,

planet's going to be occupied by self-driving cars

that seems to have slowed down just a little bit.

Although I think just recently in Vegas or something,

they reintroduced their self-driving fleet.

But, you know, this idea of ADAS calibration

will even become that much more critical

when vehicles drive themselves, right?

Definitely, yeah.

I mean, that's kind of where all this is working towards.

I think the goal of all of these systems

is to obviously assist the driver at this stage,

but, you know, I think what consumers and manufacturers,

both want is for them to continue to evolve

into fully autonomous self-driving vehicles.

And obviously at that point, right, there is no safety net, right?

The guy doing the test drive after the collision repair,

who's going to see the warning light come on

or, you know, feel that it's pulling into another lane

and then correct it isn't there to do that.

So, you know, we have to be certain

that everything's very buttoned up

when it comes to monitoring the health of these systems.

So, how can your company repairify,

help body shops and general repair shops?

I mean, let's face it, like you said,

you might have to take a bumper off

to get to an airbag sensor

and now you want to make sure you put it back where it belongs

so everything's going to work the way it should.

How can your company help with technology

and equipment to make sure everything's put back together

the way it's supposed to be?

Yeah, so this is a very, like, pervasive problem

what you're stating and we have one product

that's really just specifically focused on solving it.

It's called ADOS Think.

It was kind of the first product

in what I would call, like, the estimate scrubbing space.

So, what it does is it integrates with

Estimatic softwares, right,

which is where estimators in a body shop will go in

and they'll look at the vehicle

and basically do a visual and other assessment

to figure out what all needs to be done to it, right?

Am I going to replace the front bumper?

Am I going to paint the rear bumper?

Do I need to change the glass?

And so they write up an estimated line-by-line

with each labor and part operation

that needs to be done

in order to return the vehicle to pre-accident condition

and the real purpose of it is to be a quote, right?

It's what they deliver to the insurance company

initially to determine if the vehicle

is going to be a total loss or not,

but when they do that,

they give us a pretty good level of detail

on the nature of the repairs that they're performing,

which really contains most of the criteria necessary

to determine if a calibration is required.

Because I think common misconception, right,

like these sensors, they don't do a good job

of raising their hand and saying,

hey, you took the bumper off,

you need to calibrate me.

Doing a scan on them isn't frequently going to tell you

whether or not a calibration is necessary

because there's no sensor to determine

if the bumper's on or off of the car, right?

But the reason that the bumper is kind of the critical component

is because either the radar's attached to it, right?

And so it's getting repositioned when you remove

and reinstall the bumper,

or in the case of body repair,

you put on an aftermarket bumper

that has a different plastic thickness

slightly that can change the lensing of the radar waves

that are coming through it

and give it a different perception

of kind of where it sits relative to the vehicle.

So anyhow, this estimate contains all these lines.

What ADAS think does is it reads through all of those lines,

looks for things like remove and reinstall the windshield,

remove and reinstall the bumper,

and then it compares them to the manufacturer

position statements and repair procedures

that are kind of the standard

for when this stuff needs to be done.

And within seconds, after completing your estimate,

it returns you an ADAS calibration report

that lists out every sensor that's been solved on the vehicle.

And then what the procedure is

that kind of documents when it's required,

the procedure that documents how to do it properly,

and then if those criteria have been met

and the calibration is required or not.

And then, of course, we provide some detail

around what equipment you need to use,

just other kind of logistical assistance to the shop.

So this is another thing to kind of go back

to your earlier question, right,

that consumers can ask for is to see kind of the

ADAS calibration report.

It's kind of like asking for an alignment report.

Yeah, no, it absolutely makes sense.

And for people who want more information,

garage owners want more information,

Repairify.com is a good way.

And I just clicked on the site

and something I'm a little bit more familiar with,

one of your sub-brands is BlueDriver,

an OBD-2 scan-to-dongle that syncs up to your phone.

And it's a tool that I actually keep in my car all the time,

just in case I'm on a road trip or something

and a check engine light comes on,

I can plug it in, click on it,

and see if it's something I need to worry about.

Yep, yeah, it's a great tool.

I have one in my glove box as well.

That's our consumer grade product.

What's really cool about it is kind of,

because it lives under the same umbrella as Aztec

and the more professional grade diagnostics,

we have a lot of the intelligence around

kind of how to interpret the diagnostic information

that you get back that we use for the professional market

and capture the professional market,

powering the capabilities of that BlueDriver app.

Well, Sam, I want to thank you for taking some time

out of your Sunday morning and joining us

on the CarDoctor radio program.

I know I learned a lot about calibration of ADAS

and how important it is and why it's necessary

when repairs are needed.

So I want to, again, thank you for taking a little time

out of your Sunday.

Yeah, happy to do it.

Thanks so much for having me.

All right, thanks, Sam. Take care.

That was Sam Paradas.

She is the Vice President of Innovation for Repairify.

And my name's John Paul,

and we need to take a break.

Pay some bills.

You're listening to the CarDoctor program

on 959WATD.

When we come back,

we'll talk about the luxury family cruiser

that have been driving around in this week.

You're listening to the CarDoctor program on 959WATD.

We'll be right back.

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Now, back to the Car Doctor.

And welcome back to the Car Doctor program

on 959 WATD.

You know, when it comes to luxury cars,

you know, Lexus is one of those.

And Lexus was sort of, you know,

they had the RX 350 and 400

and, you know, a plug-in hybrid,

I mean hybrid.

But that's sort of in between not giant segment,

you know, like a Cadillac Escalator,

Lincoln Navigator.

You know, there is a big Lexus

built on the land, kind of on the, you know,

Toyota Land Cruiser platform.

But, you know, that's, for some people, that's too big.

Well, Lexus did something interesting.

They came up with the TX,

and the vehicle that I drove was the TX 350.

And again, it's, you know,

when the three-row luxury SUV segment,

you know, you think of luxury trucks

like Cadillac and Lincoln.

But, you know, some of those are just too big.

But still, you want to be able to carry around

five or six people in comfort.

So, Lexus said, we have an idea.

We have the Grand Highlander.

Let's turn that into a Lexus.

And that's kind of what they did.

So, the Lexus TX, I think,

is for somebody who prioritizes space

over in comfort over kind of that off-road kind of thing.

You know, if you get in it, you know,

some things will seem somewhat Toyota-familiar,

which is good.

At first glance, it's pretty apparent

that they both share the same platform.

But I think the Lexus premium badge,

it feels like a Lexus inside.

There's no question.

The TX seems more sophisticated,

more aerodynamic.

I think the Lexus grille has changed a little bit

over the years, and now it seems to flow better

into the bodywork.

I like the LED lighting, just cleaner lines.

It looks less trucky and more luxurious,

I guess, so a little bit less utilitarian.

Step inside.

It's pretty clear that this is a Toyota product

of some sort, but once you start to touch things

like the leather surfaces and, you know,

the authentic metals and, you know, soft touch surfaces,

you know it's a Lexus.

The layout is pretty friendly inside,

big digital instrument cluster

and a big infotainment touchscreen.

It seems to work much quicker.

I use the navigation and Cape Cod

so that you don't always go well together

because right now they're doing all this

road construction because of sewer installations

and the idea that this system

knows where all that's happening

was pretty impressive.

I've had to go to the dentist more than I wanted to

in the last week or so.

You're kind of a cleaning.

You have a broken tooth, cracked tooth

and I kind of knew that.

So back to the dentist, back to the oral surgeon.

But every time I went, I used the navigation system

and it took me a little different way

and it worked really well, so nice.

The TX Pampers always occupants.

It's quiet.

It has a really nice sound system.

Now I'm sort of tone deaf,

but when it gets up to a certain level,

you know it's nice.

And it's got this nice little lighting systems inside

that really make it feel like it's put together really well.

How is this Lexus different than the Grand Highlander?

I think it's all about the character on the road.

This has got adaptive suspension.

I think it's quieter, more composed, just a better ride.

When I was writing down notes about this,

I used the word, it glides over our less than perfect roads.

A glide might be a bit of a stretch,

but no, it does a nice job.

It absorbs bumps very nicely

and it's a good, comfortable ride.

The models that have the TX 350 badge

are powered by a turbocharged 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine.

It's a big vehicle, but this 2.4-cylinder engine

makes 275 horsepower.

So this little engine does really well

and it comes with an 8-speed automatic transmission

in either front or all-wheel drive.

Ours was all-wheel drive.

This isn't for somebody who's going to go off-road.

This is for somebody who needs to get out in a snowy day

to bring their kids to school or go to work

or whatever the case is.

If you want more than 275 horsepower,

yeah, you can get the hybrid,

which gives you more horsepower.

But I don't think you need more than 275 horsepower.

It seems plenty peppy.

Now, maybe if you put six full-size adults

and some stuff in the back

and you're driving up through the hills of New Hampshire,

maybe you do need it,

but to me, 275 horsepower is just fine.

Fuel economy, mid-20s.

Not bad for a vehicle that can carry six or seven people.

I mean, it's a family vehicle, family hauler,

I guess, a good way to say it.

I said that before.

And it sort of refuses to compromise on refinement.

It takes the Grand Highlander's really good foundation

and layers on that premium driving experience,

along with a more luxurious cabin.

If you want a quieter, smoother,

and I guess more emotionally rewarding daily drive,

what was I thinking when I wrote this?

Emotionally rewarding?

Sounds like I went to therapy this week.

But yeah, look at the Lexus TX.

It's a really nice vehicle.

You can justify the price.

It's around $60,000 or so, $62,000.

I think the base price is around $52,000.

Part of the big bump up in that actually has to do

with the sound system.

It's pretty expensive.

But first-class expression, modern, family-focused,

luxury SUV, good vehicle.

If you're in the market for that type of vehicle,

something you should look at.

Our phone number is 781-837-4900.

781-837-4900.

And, you know, Jesse's quietly on the board.

But Jesse, you and hometown ghost stories

have a big event coming up, right?

We do.

We've got a couple coming up, actually.

But yeah, this Friday, we have a live event.

It's a live podcast.

Live event?

Where's it going to be?

It'll be at Barrel House Z in Weymouth, Massachusetts.

And that's this Friday.

It starts at 6 p.m.

Tickets are on sale.

It's going to hometownghosttories.com.

But yeah, it'll be fun.

There's a lot of stuff going on.

So it'll be the live show.

We also have vendors that will be there

selling kind of spooky artwork

and different kind of Halloween-related items.

It's going to be fun.

We have an opening podcast.

It'll be live music.

My brother Seth, Seth on guitar,

East Coast trash pickers.

That's the band.

He'll be there playing guitar and singing along.

And then it'll be hosted by Marshfield's own Colin Campbell.

He's a very entertaining guy.

So it's going to be awesome.

We're looking forward to it.

And there's still tickets available?

There are.

Yeah, it's a big venue.

So there's plenty of tickets.

But it'll be cheaper if people buy their tickets before.

But a cool Halloween event,

like live music, live podcasts,

there'll be some horror movie trivia and stuff.

So perfect way to kick off the Halloween season,

swing on in, have some finally made craft beer.

Or if you don't drink, don't.

But there'll be food, food trucks and all sorts of stuff.

It's going to be a good time.

And you said spooky vendors.

Can I buy a box that's got a ghost in it or something?

We've done that before.

But maybe, maybe we'll see.

Last year there was a few vendors

and they had some pretty cool stuff.

So there's a whole new list of vendors

that'll be there.

But it'll be fun.

And this is one of, you have another event as well?

Yeah, the other one's the following night.

It's very different.

So this one's not like a live event like that.

I mean, it's a live event, but it's different.

So this one we're doing, it's a ghost hunt.

And there are literally like maybe three tickets left for this

because we're keeping it very limited for this one.

But it'll be down in Fall River.

Right next to the Lizzie Boarding House,

there's another boarding house.

It's now turned into a coffee shop, Miss Lizzie's Coffee.

And people can come in.

And that would be like a live actual ghost hunt.

So if people are looking to do some ghost hunting,

you can come join us on Saturday.

And that one, like I said, very, very, very limited tickets.

So if you want to do it, grab your tickets now.

But yeah, it's going to be fun.

But yeah, people don't really know about the building

next to the Lizzie Boarding House.

Everyone knows about the Lizzie Boarding House.

But next door it's got arguably a worse murder story.

Really?

Yeah.

People don't know about it.

So it's the Lizzie Boarding House.

You have one of the most infamous crimes of all time.

Of course, the Lizzie Boarding Murders.

But next door it was actually before the Lizzie Boarding Murders.

There was another member of the Boarding Family

who let's just say she went into the basement

with three of her children and only two of them.

Oh no, only one of them made it out alive.

So it was a very dark story.

But now the building is rumored to be haunted

by the children of the well.

And yeah, pretty gruesome stuff

and pretty horrifying story.

And you can get coffee, though.

You could.

It'll be closed by the time we set up to investigate.

But maybe they'll have some coffee

just still kicking around.

It's, you know, for people that haven't seen your podcast

or YouTube podcaster, you do occasionally go out

and do some of these live filmings of certain things.

And I was watching one and you guys actually

looked a little shocked when all of a sudden

stuff started to beep and chirp and do things.

We've done hundreds of these and I would say

there is no shortage of fear.

Now we go in here like kind of half skeptical.

You know, like we're not those guys that believe

that every time an equipment, you know,

something goes bump, that it's a ghost.

You know, we always look for a scientific explanation first

and we try to remain very open minded

about what could be going on inside these places.

But occasionally we get the crap scared out of us.

It happens, you know.

We're going to some of the most haunted places in the world.

So it's like the reputation definitely adds a dark

kind of vibe inside those places for sure.

But we actually did Marshfield.

We did Marshfield.

We released a Marshfield episode.

First time ever.

We did the Winslow house in Marshfield

and released a little investigation footage from there.

Wow.

So people want more information?

hometownghoststories.com.

Yeah.

So I just 200 episodes in and I finally covered my actual hometown.

It's in the name of the show.

hometownghoststories.

Finally covered my hometown in Marshfield.

Well, you know, good that you did that.

And you know, it sounds like a fun event coming up.

So for people who want to go for the Friday night event,

it sounds like a good date night kind of event.

Yeah, it does.

I was hoping to get a celebrity appearance

from the car doctor himself,

but I'll just FaceTime you the entire time.

You all you could do that.

Yeah.

You could, you know, if you have big screen, you could.

Yeah, we'll just project you onto the side of the building.

Actually, you could just welcome people in.

There we go.

Perfect.

Hey, why don't we take another break and have,

why don't we see if we can get some people to call in?

It's been kind of quiet the last couple of weeks.

If you want to join us, phone lines are open.

It's 7818374900 7818374900.

Why don't we take a break?

Call in.

Keep Jesse busy.

Keep me busy.

And when we come back,

we'll talk about some of the questions that came in this week

to the car doctor email box.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Hello, Chris Bethany of Bethany Builders here.

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Our goal is to keep your project moving forward

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But tonight is different, it's gonna be great.

Hey, I'm Ashley Jordan.

Tune in to Twilight Showcase Radio,

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Tonight from 8-10 on 9-5-9-WATD.

Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11

for John Paul, the car doctor,

on 9-5-9-WATD.

Now, back to the car doctor.

And welcome back to the car doctor program

on 9-5-9-WATD.

My name's John Paul, the car doctor here

to help you with your car problems.

And let's, and again, if you want to call us,

7-8-1-8-3-7-4-9-8-100.

And let's talk to Rusty from Wuburn.

Rusty, good morning.

Hey, John Paul, good to talk to you.

I haven't talked to you in months.

I was a gentleman that got a 22-cabolla LE

and the pain kept falling off.

Oh, yeah.

And I'd written to Toyota five times

in Mansfield and everything else.

I never got a response, so I just gave up

and I said the hell with it.

I tried, and still it is what it is.

But I wanted to take a different tack

with you today about the car dealership.

Let me ask you a question.

My wife decided on Tuesday, on Wednesday,

she went back in Toyota and bought

our eighth vehicle off the same gentleman,

traded in our 2020 Tacoma for a 22 FIANA,

platinum limited hybrid FIANA,

because she wanted things beautiful.

I couldn't believe it.

And then on Friday, one of my other friends

who had a car that was destroyed,

she parked it right in front of our house

and someone who wasn't paying attention

destroyed it because they were talking

on the phone and weren't paying attention.

I brought her up to Accent Toyota,

same salesman, bought a brand new

2025 RAV4 off the guy.

Do you think the dealership might kick

something back to being like a loyal customer

or something like referrals or anything?

Because they didn't even say thanks

at the end of the day.

I was like, really?

You know, years ago,

yeah, dealerships would do like a bird dog feed.

If you brought a customer in there

and they bought a car,

they might slide you three, four, five hundred dollars.

Today, depending on how they got the car

and what they sold,

I'll tell you kind of a story to give you an idea.

When I bought the car and car that I have now,

I went in and I just wanted a base model,

all wheel drive, little SUV,

and we went back and forth a little bit.

They gave me a price and they said,

you can save a little bit more money

financing it through us.

I said, rather not do that.

It was getting late in the day.

In fact, they technically had closed.

I said, yeah, make me a deal.

Let's just close the deal.

Give me the price as if I financed it

and I'll go finance it through AAA

or credit union or something.

I said, now that it's all done,

tell me what you made on the car.

I'm sitting now with the finance guy

and coming to find out he used to work

at the infinity dealership.

A woman I worked with, her husband,

was the infinity regional rep,

so he kind of knew people, each other.

I said, spin your computer around.

Tell me what you made.

It was negative $1,900.

And I'm like, how did you make money?

How do you sell cars when you lose two grand?

And he goes, well, because the person before you

bought paint protection, wheel and tire protection,

gap insurance and something else,

and we made about $10,000.

He said, so really what it comes down to

is how much profit they made on the car

and how much profit they made on the other stuff

like an extended vehicle warranty

that they'd probably make $1,000 on or something.

My son didn't take the warranty on it.

She was 82 years old

and she bought a brand new 2025

and she just said, I'm paying for this.

I don't want any of the extended warranty.

And why would you?

Because it's got a three-year warranty

and a five-year drivetrain warranty,

so why would you?

Why?

It doesn't make sense.

If anything, at the end of five years,

then maybe you consider it,

but not to have two warranties on top of each other

makes no sense at all.

So the story is, because they probably

didn't make a whole lot of money on that car

and the idea that they could hand you

$2,300, $400 for bringing that customer in,

that doesn't happen anymore.

Occasionally, I'll still see somebody hand out

a $100 Visa gift card,

but that actually comes from the vehicle manufacturer,

not really the dealership.

You sold two vehicles in less than two days.

My wife ran it because my wife drives a lot.

That's why we got the...

Because we have a lot of construction in Woolburn here.

We're going through tires last night,

so we got that guarantee with the tires

and everything to run something over.

So that's my opinion.

I think that was worth it.

But other than that, it's just...

Where's the courtesy nowadays?

Because now you could have gone anywhere for this vehicle.

This is like my...

And I wasted half my day up there with her

to get the vehicle.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, no.

I would think that at least a good salesperson

would come over and stick his hand out

and shake your hand and say thank you

for bringing somebody in.

And if there's anything we can do for you

when you come back, you know, free oil change

or something, you would think they would try to

make that happen.

But, you know, it is...

Unfortunately, sometimes the world doesn't always work that way.

Oh, I know.

I know.

I would just think, you know,

that's almost $100,000 in vehicles

that were just sold the last two days alone.

You're lucky you didn't have a tip cup out.

Yeah, you're right.

You know, I still...

The tip cup fell off my pillow.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I still talk about the, you know, the...

And I guess the term now is tip flation

where everybody seems to be looking for a tip

and, you know, a 20% tip in a restaurant

isn't good enough anymore,

and now they want it 30%.

And, you know, the story about the fully automatic

robotic car wash in Florida

that asks for a tip.

Yes.

There's no people.

You know, there's...

There's not a single person there,

but when you pay for it with your credit card,

it asks about a, you know,

10% or 20% gratuity to who?

Right.

There's nobody there.

You know, so I guess the good thing is,

you know, the sales guy wasn't there going,

hey, you know, you just bought two great cars.

You know, if you could slide me $20 for being good to you,

that would be nice, you know?

I know.

It's just, you know,

just like in the old days,

you get something sent in the mail.

You do.

I mean, you know,

I was happy when I had a tree cut down in my yard

and the guy left me a bill inside a coffee cup.

You know?

Yeah.

Yep.

No.

Unfortunately,

Yeah.

No, but it's a little disappointing.

And while we were talking,

I just looked to see whether, you know,

did Toyota come out with any, you know,

technical service bulletins about paint falling off the car

and nothing at all.

There's a bit of information about acid prevention

and repair of acid rain damage,

but acid rain is different.

Acid rains, you know,

like water spots that never go away.

Right.

So now, so there's nothing,

nothing really here about any kind of paint.

But I am surprised that they didn't.

And you said you wrote to both the regional office

and the national office?

Yeah.

I wrote to Mansfield four times.

No one ever got back to me.

Yeah.

I, you know,

These are handwritten letters, too.

Yeah.

Which usually does a little bit more,

you know, we've talked about this before

because handwritten letters are so rare.

They usually,

they usually now get a little bit more attention

than an email.

I might try, you know,

I might try,

did you write to the national office, too?

I certainly did.

Twice.

Yeah.

It's disappointing.

Yeah.

It's kind of disappointing.

You know,

Yeah.

It's very frustrating.

Yeah.

No.

I,

Yeah.

I,

I'm surprised because I have heard that,

you know,

I've heard people,

in fact,

regular listener of ours

wrote to Lexis corporate.

I think you found the highest name

you could find on the Internet,

wrote to them about an issue

and the dealer didn't want to do anything

and, you know,

corporate took care of it for him, so.

No.

Yeah.

And just,

I don't know what to do.

Like I said,

four times to the place of Mansfield,

the other office,

nothing.

Yeah.

If you,

if you want to,

if you have,

if you have a copy of that letter

that you sent

and you can email it to me,

I'll try

and, you know,

put in that you also recently purchased,

you know,

updated a little bit that you recently purchased

to Toyota vehicles.

And I'll forward it to the,

the PR guy for Toyota,

he's,

he's out of Austin, Texas.

I think Austin,

somewhere in Texas.

And,

and,

and I'll send an email to him

and see if he can,

you know,

send an email back to the regional office

and see if there's something,

see if that catches somebody's attention.

No, I appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

My email,

Jay Paul,

JPAUL at

northeast.com.

Oh yes.

I've seen it a hundred times.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks Rusty.

Take care.

Yep.

Our phone number again,

781-837-4900.

If you have,

maybe you have a success story.

Maybe you have written to

somebody about something.

I've actually had

pretty okay

luck writing and calling people

recently.

This summer,

we replaced our barbecue grill

and we bought it

through Wayfair,

I think,

and it was supposed to come

assembled

and I,

and it came in a big box,

unassembled

and

I don't have any problem

assembling it,

but I was kind of intrigued by it.

They said it was going to come assembled

and I,

I called them up and I said to them,

I thought it was supposed to come assembled

and they said,

oh,

yeah it was,

or we were going to send someone out

and put it together for you.

And I said,

oh,

okay.

So I didn't get what I paid for

and they ended up,

I expected them to send me like a

barbecue grill cover

and some,

you know, cooking utensils

and they took,

they gave me like 30% off

for some 30% refund

and I did the same thing

recently

with Home Depot,

I bought a vanity

and

the vanity

came damaged,

but I didn't notice it

till the day I was putting it

in the bathroom

and

we ended up,

we ended up getting

a little bit of a refund.

Well now,

the phones are all of a sudden busy

and we only have five minutes left.

So,

why don't we start at the top here,

let's go to Dick and Plymouth.

Dick, good morning.

John,

just reading,

let's listen to you about the guy

that got no satisfaction.

I don't know if I told you this,

I called in

or I was gonna call in.

A few years ago

I bought a Subaru

from a dealer down the Cape

and we were about $300

off on the price

and they finally met my price.

The day I come to make the deal,

all of a sudden the $300 got lost somewhere

and my four wife

was going for me

for dealer to dealer to dealer

and they end up giving me

left paint protection

and a few other things

but with no warranty

so I had no recourse

but they gave me it

for not to shut me up.

So I went out of there

and I wrote a letter to Subaru

and I almost got the salesman fired

and Subaru

sent me a check for $500

and I only was looking for three

good for anything

at the dealership service parts.

I actually bought a luggage rack

with a ski rack for a roof

and they also sent me a kit

that had a little air compressor

a cordless vacuum

and something else.

It was three items

that were 12 volt

for the inconvenience

so they end up giving me

about $500

with the stuff anyway

just by writing a letter

and that was Subaru.

Excellent.

Well, thanks for the positive story.

Alrighty, thank you.

Alright, thanks.

Let's go to Jim in Lakeville now.

Jim.

Good morning, John.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Good, thank you.

Hey, John, a question.

I've got a 2012 Acura TL

which has probably been

the best car I've ever owned.

Yep.

I've got $135,000 miles on it.

The only major repair I've had

is replacing the alternator.

Now I'd like to keep the car

as long as possible

and I wonder if it makes any sense

to pre-empt replacing parts

like the starter motor, fuel pump

anything that could go

when I'm on the road

and get that out of the way

so I don't have to worry about it.

That's a real good question.

The problem is there is so many.

I mean, you could say

why don't I put a starter in it?

The problem is

what I've been seeing lately

is so many bad replacement parts.

Yeah, so it's almost like

I hate to say it

but it's almost like

I'd want to keep that starter.

To just replace that starter

is not a big job in that car.

It's probably only an hour or so.

But I don't know.

I think if the starter's working

okay, I'd leave it alone.

Something like a fuel pump

or a water pump.

If you're somebody who

waits and

if you said to me

drive till the low fuel light comes on

and then I get gas.

Yeah, I probably put a fuel pump in it

because you're overheating the pump all the time.

But if you're somebody who gets gas

when you get down to a quarter of a tank

or a half a tank

you're taking it real easy

with the pump you're doing well.

No, I would just continue to do

the regular prescribed

maintenance of the vehicle.

Do what you're supposed to do

at certain times.

Follow the maintenance table

or the light that comes on.

How many miles did you say is on this?

135,000.

So, I mean, looking at that

there's really,

you replace the coolant

you do the regular oil changes

you change the transmission fluid

and if it's

and change the differential fluid

other than that, you know, oil changes

and spark plug type stuff

this probably has a time

of belt on it, I think.

Yeah, so as long as you did that

you should be in good shape.

I did that around I think 95,000.

Yeah, so that's about

when you should have done it.

So you're in good shape.

Okay.

Alright, take care.

Yep, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Sorry, Bobby, we weren't able to get to you

but we, you know, you can always send me

an email at jpaul at aanortheast.com

That music means we need to go

if you want tickets to Jesse's show

go to hometownghoststories.com

Until next week, make sure you wear your seatbelt

drive safely, be good to your car

and if you do see an emergency vehicle

by the side of the road, slow down

or move over, it saves lives.

Talk to you all next week. Bye-bye.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, what happens when they break & Lexus TX 350

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