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Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – August 18, 2025
Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – August 18, 2025
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About this episode
Robin Leach and Jay de Marcken dive into the current landscape of affordable cars, highlighting nine manufacturers that offer vehicles under $30,000. They discuss the features of these budget-friendly options, including the surprising availability of SUVs. The conversation shifts to used cars, emphasizing the importance of thorough inspections and understanding warranties. The hosts also touch on the dangers of road safety, particularly concerning tractor trailers and cyclists, urging listeners to stay alert. They wrap up with a nod to upcoming car events and auctions, reflecting on the automotive community's vibrancy.
Topics:
affordable cars
used car buying tips
safety concerns
tractor trailer accidents
road awareness
car auctions
SUVs under 30000
features in budget cars
certified pre-owned vehicles
Cars:
Toyota Camry
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Toyota Camry
"...d Jay you're on. Didn't you used to have a Toyota Camry? I had a Toyota Camry back in 2013 it was a hybri..."
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He is Robin Leach, he is Jada Markin, this is CarKeys.
Good morning everybody on the radio listening to CarKeys with Robin Leach, Jada Markin.
J is out of the country so we'll get some out of the country news but I'd like to start out
with the following commentary about availability of cars that are less expensive than the average
price that we have been touting on this show for week after week when we bring this topic up which
it's now up in the mid 40s as the average price of all the cars sold in the United States.
We talked about mid $40,000 cars not being very affordable for lots of people
and I found out from a source that there are apparently
nine manufacturers that offer vehicles that can be bought if you can find them at $30,000 or less
and I thought that would be interesting because we probably have lots of listeners on
this show we hope of course that would like to know about cars that are available to $30,000
or less and the surprising thing is that there's some SUVs in there but many of the cars
as has been happening at the lower end have a lot of the features that are available on the
more expensive vehicles so you're not really getting a basic car anymore in my opinion
and in most cases. The manufacturers that I have on the list and it may or may not have
everyone that's currently available in Brazil there may be more include Chevrolet,
Buick, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, VW, Mitsubishi, Ford and Nissan. There may be one or two others
I'm missing but those nine manufacturers have vehicles if you can find them on dealers lots
or get them for vehicle for prices under $30,000 that's not $29,995 and up there are some that start
as low as with a $25,000 and some change in front of them and there are some pretty good models in
there and Toyota I think it's got like five different vehicles including a Camry that apparently
does start it right around $29,995 and the Camry has always been a mid-sized sedan level car.
I don't know whether anybody could find one available for under $30,000 at a Toyota dealer
near us but that is it for that topic and Jay you're on. Didn't you used to have a Toyota Camry?
I had a Toyota Camry back in 2013 it was a hybrid and I don't remember what the price was
but it was in the 30s it was either in the low 30s or whatever but I love that car it was a great
sedan it was a hybrid and it got 30 plus miles a gallon and it was you know I didn't get the
luxury I didn't have a sunroof but it had air conditioning and cruise control and all the
things you wanted and I believe all the base cars have cruise control I believe they have air
conditioning and they probably don't have a lot of other things but that's pretty good for $30,000
or less in the today's world. How long this will last to continue the topic beyond what I said
is may depend on what happens in the tariff world but right now hold on for a second there's
always the option of not buying a new car. That's not the point of this topic and you can
comment that yes you can find lots of cars used cars well below $30,000 used Priuses used Toyotas
used all those models that I mentioned and more so that's true the older the used car the cheaper
it will be. Not necessarily it can become very expensive. Well that's if you're talking about
portions what you like to talk about and they go up. They're others. I know. Anyways Jay you're on.
Well I was going to talk about affordable cars as well. I just started the subject saying that
for $30,000 you can buy a heck of a lot of used car and if you take your time and you know what
you're looking for there are plenty out there. Also the idea that high mileage cars are to be
avoided like the plague is no longer quite true because you know cars will go 100, 150,
200,000 miles and so this thing about changing cars at 100,000 miles is just
you know a notion that's a little you know out of date. So as long as I'm glad we're continuing
discussion that brings me into what you do when you do find a used car under $30,000. Depending
on where you buy it it could be as lucky as a pre-owned with maybe a certified warranty on it
but highly unlikely and if you buy a used car from a major manufacturer's dealership you may get
a better warranty situation than you do if you buy a used car from Joe's used car lot
of which there are hundreds or thousands around the country in which I think they are required
by different state laws to give you a minimum of either three months and three thousand miles
or something in that neighborhood after which you are on your own once something goes wrong with
those cars that needs repair even if they will go 100 or 200,000 miles. Let's remember too on used
cars also if you're financing it'll be a higher interest rate. That is very true Mike and thank
you for that point plus you don't know in the used car world whether the brakes are about
finished or whether the you know you have to check tires out and it's a tire creds or
worn or whatever and because there are all kinds of used car places around the country
and they all offer different levels of what they're trying to sell you. Well this is true and
this is why you mentioned the certified pre-owned which is probably one of the best ways to go
around about things. You know when you can buy heavily discounted and CPO certified pre-owneds
are specifically good deals when purchasing a you know a higher end car. So you know
what I think true and we may be out of our 30,000 mile dollar range but the point being with
the certified pre-owneds is that most manufacturers require those cars that will be achieving a CPO
status for the dealer to advertise it so require minimum standards of remaining brake wear capability
on the brakes the drums the discs and whatever and they do require tires to have a minimum
tread wear level or else they have to replace both those components the tires and the brakes
with new new components if the cars they are trying to give a CPO status to
are going to be certifiable at that level and that may even include wiper blades you know use
cars that sit on lots in the blazing sun the wiper blade dry out in the sun they may have come
they may have 70,000 miles on them and whether or not they had new brakes put in during that
time that's a lot of stuff that listeners who want to shop those used car levels need to be aware of
besides just taking out for a drive and seeing how nice it is to drive which they all probably do
well and if you're looking used to you can go to Carfax but I would also
say to people if you're looking at buying a used car and a dealership or whatnot make them
pay for the Carfax and show you what the maintenance and accidents and all are
good point Mike thank you very much Jay yeah no I fully agree and and you should not have
to pay for a Carfax if you're buying a particular vehicle and if you're serious about it
oftentimes if you're looking at the the major used car and new car
uh um web platforms uh oftentimes that the Carfax will be available right there online
yeah and and the serious sellers will provide them without you even having to ask for them
and often you say it's a good way to see where the car has been uh that it hasn't come from spending
you know five or ten years in in upstate Vermont by which time you can see right through the car
through the rust holes um yes and and and yes you can you can see the maintenance that's been
done on the car well yes I interrupt you a little bit just because I happened to review the Carfax
that my wife got with a recently purchased which she purchased and bought Q5 plug-in hybrid
and one of the things that showed up on the Carfax was that at some point tinted window treatments
have been supposedly installed on this vehicle um that they are not currently present on what we
purchased so I don't so to go to the accuracy of Carfax is I guess a I don't say that they're
all probably a hundred percent truthfully accurate because if a service center does not
supply the service records on a car and I don't know whether Joe's service center does it
exactly as Ford Chevy Audi whatever does um they are they are very valuable assets as Jay has
mentioned but they may they could be wrong somewhere along the way so it really takes
you know you really do have to look at it and you have to know something about
what you're looking at when you're looking at used cars about any price or anything for that matter
right okay yeah there can be errors on any service so so guys without wanting to be a doom and gloom
I do want to bring up something that has been bothering me in the last few days um a few days
ago there was a a tractor trailer crash in Florida involving a tractor trailer and a minivan
in which all three uh driver and two passengers the all three occupants in the minivan
were killed instantly and the the truck driver made a bonehead move in in doing a u-turn on the
Florida turnpike and was you know at some point uh sitting across the three lanes of the highway
or four lanes that may even be there and the minivan came in at full speed and just you
know ran under the trailer it brings me to the point that it is one of the most dangerous things
out there cars have become structurally a lot a lot stronger than they ever were you see crashes happen
where cars tumble and roll and hit things and and and the the the passenger the cell remains
pretty much intact and and people uh oftentimes can walk out un unharmed unharmed unharmed not
unharmed well unarmed too but unharmed uh but if you're gonna hit the back or the side of a tractor
trailer most likely and even if you have an suv which has a higher hood most likely that that
engine compartment is going to go wedge itself under the trailer and you're going to hit the
trailer with uh the uh the base of the windshield and basically the occupants get crushed and
decapitated and it gets it's it's it's you know really ugly um and and so i've been thinking about
that and how can that be avoided well the first thing obviously is to be paranoid on the roads
and not really trust any of the tractor trailers um as you know they are just a sample of the
population even though they are supposed to be professionals there are probably uh uh a bunch
of them that are just you know uh not safer drivers than than than anybody else um and and you know
what can you do well there really isn't much and keeping your eyes peeled in the case of this
minivan could that minivan have seen that tractor trailer uh uh you know across the
highway sooner maybe and you know maybe but it doesn't change the outcome right i'm i'm my only
point is keep your eyes peeled um it is also extremely dangerous you see cars ramming into
tractor trailers from behind and unfortunately of course i saw one or two of those videos
and now my social media feeds are just getting populated uh with all those crash scenes and
and it's ugly and and so in a lot of the times they you know it reminds me that you know what
can we do to avoid that um is you know vehicles have uh automated um uh uh breaking uh capabilities
now when when they when the vehicle quote unquote sees an obstacle it should hit the brakes and
try to you know come to a stop if the vehicle if the obstacle is right in front of you and if that
obstacle is a is a trailer you're you're just going to go right under and um you know it's sad um
you know i've been thinking about that you know what can we do you could have systems on on on the
back of the trailers that would be uh a little like what we see in the back of construction
vehicles a lot of the state state vehicles or construction vehicles on the road have these
big you know 10-foot bumpers in back of them so that if you go slamming into them when they're going
to stop um you know you have a chance of walking away from it um and so it brings me to you know
school buses and ramming into school buses is not a good thing either uh not ramming into them
and and hitting kids is not a good thing either uh we're getting into school bus season um
um moral of the story i guess is just keep keeping our eyes peeled well i'd like to try that was a long
rant i'm sorry no that's okay jay i agree with the keeping your eyes peeled is necessary not for
that particular topic in this subject matter but the other thing that i find on our local roads
which are two lanes you've got uh delivery trucks that are that pull in the driveways forward
and then you've got to back out onto the highway to get back out now i do not know uh how far a
delivery truck's view in the rear is to the driving person who's driving that truck but when you have a
20-foot delivery truck that your big ups truck for example or a fedex truck uh larger than the
than the smallest vehicles and they start pushing their rear ends out into the highway
this is when you also need to be having your eyes on the road and not on anything else and uh because
they don't they may not know something's coming in time to stop backing out uh and uh that leaves
it up to the driver of the vehicle that's going down the road and hoping to have the right away
totally alert and totally ready to take protective action which is breaking in time
not to hit that truck or at the worst case having slowed down enough so you don't get the
kind of accident that you just uh discussed with the tractor trailer that was uh perpendicular across
the multi-lane road and why that van driver did not see it a half a mile away or whatever
is beyond me but that happens and uh you know you want to stay living you got to be alert
well you need to make sure too people driving tractor trailers are qualified in this case
that driver shouldn't have been in that truck well we don't know about it for several reasons and
and and we we know that for several reasons well it's important to mention that though because
we're going after the van driver the truck driver was not qualified and should not have
been in that seat period uh we're totally totally in agreement with that and and by no means
am i putting the am i blaming the victim in this case uh but but but all i'm saying is that
you know it doesn't the point here is that in a crash it doesn't really matter who's at fault
it's well of course it does but for your sake it's you know what can you do to avoid it if
if the situation is is survive an impact yeah and hopefully not get into an impact but
but you know but yet again cars cars are a heck of a lot safer than safer than they were
you know 20 or 30 years ago um and i've said this a bunch of times too
you know the structures are way more solid than they were we have way more airbags
in the cars um but that is not a reason not to be staying alert
jay anything new in the european field of automobile use and and uh i've been here for a few days i
haven't been on the roads very much so i i don't have much to report uh you know other than you
know more safety stuff and discussions i was talking about somebody here about uh the fact that
in in the cities bicycles are now allowed uh to ride uh in a quote unquote the wrong direction so
one they can go in the opposite direction of a one-way street uh and i'm not even sure if that's
the case in in in the cities like new york or not i don't think so but i honestly don't know
but it's becoming a problem and i hate to pick on cyclists uh because i do my
darnest to uh uh give them respect and space but uh you know respect is a two-way street and
um you can't just be people get here in europe people are getting a little tired of cyclists
running the wrong way and having all the right i would like to tell the listeners that there
are some uh cyclists that are riding the electric bikes the wrong way on our streets too um
where i uh have been much of the summer on the weekends uh is a vacation spot and there are kids
out on electric bikes as there are around our listing area we've talked about kids riding
those electric bikes in our area on sidewalks which should be illegal and shouldn't be done but
still sometimes are done but the kids riding bicycles going the opposite direction um to the
oncoming traffic in the same side of the road i think is a very uh another area where you as the
driver of the the car or truck uh on that road need to be alert because some of these kids ride i want
to tell you they may it doesn't matter what direction of riding but some of these bicycle
riders especially the ones who think they're hot on the bicycles ride without any hands on the
handlebars and uh whether they're electric or whether they're manual i've seen bicyclists with
hands waving their hands as they're riding down the road uh on a bicycle uh be it manually pedaled
or or not they do they know they're texting they're texting on their phones too yeah they
can be texting on their phone it's just crazy what people think they can do when they're
riding a non-car truck four-wheel vehicle on our public roads
robin it seems like you don't remember being young do you oh i sure do
and you were a lot smarter i was i wasn't brave enough to take my handle hands off the handlebars
and pretend i could go down the road uh willy nilly uh at uh 15 miles an hour or whatever i
might have been pedaling i've always it's like it's like driverless cars j you know i'm not big on the
driverless car uh the the drive self-driving cars so that you can take your hands off the wheel
maybe and uh maybe not permanently but try to read a book or something while you're going along
as some early tesla uh look i think drivers uh were known to have done and and did not end up
surviving yeah but that's that's improved quite a bit since then let's let's get up to
snuff with how good all the cars how good self-driving is right now self-driving is is really
becoming much more relevant and is going to be on these streets much quicker than you think
yes i agree and it's fine and you know if you're going to read a book don't sit in the
driver's seat sitting the back of the car let the car drive well i wasn't saying anything they do
they just take their hands off the wheel you know i drove a tesla to uh to uh sharon from hachka school
in early days and uh basically i had my hands on the wheel but were they gripping the wheel no
they weren't but they were ready to grip the wheel and the tesla steered itself perfectly
until we got to a curve where there was a uh there's a reservoir uh for the sharon town
on the left and there's a quite a right quite a uh well sort of longish right hand turn and the uh
steering didn't quite keep the tesla all the way on the inside of the lane at that point how many
years i'm sure you were going 50 miles an hour all the way right how many years ago probably i was
because i'd go 45 or 50 around this particular curve all the time slowing down usually from
60 on the straightaway how many years ago was that well tesla's been out for how long jay you know
you're not answering the question 2015 so how many years ago you were driving that it doesn't matter
i was tell it does it does matter it matters a lot you're dissing self-driving when you're
talking about when it was in its infancy and it's become miles and miles better that's very
trustworthy hell they've got they've got teslas that are delivering themselves to the customers now
that's right they're on park from the parking place and driving right up that's true right but you
know like some of those cars might still be on the market they're only those trucks don't make
u-turns on the interstate either that's true just saying but we're not here to rant about that
kind of movement and stuff okay so let's talk let um we i didn't pay much attention it was a monoray
week so uh monoray week is just a whole uh california version and bigger version of our
historic festival about to happen in a i don't know week or two now um in in in in an around
limerock and uh it was the opportunity to see i guess i didn't see any because i was on the other
side of the pond but uh some very fancy cars and very nice cars very expensive cars southerby's
meekham uh barrett jackson all had auctions uh and i know a few cars you know some cars went
for gazillion dollars and i know robin doesn't like to hear about nice cars but uh it's it's
it's something to uh to see and i'm sorry i missed it so i'm gonna try not to miss i know i won't
miss what's happening at limerock in a week or two that's august august 29th through september
first all right guys well sounds like it's time to wrap up well uh say to our listeners we
hope we'll have more interesting things for you on the next version of car keys with robin leach and
jade demarkin is produced at the facilities of w h d d 91.9 f m robin hood radio dot com
sharon connecticut
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