Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – December 1, 2025
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Term
extended warranty
An extended warranty is like extra insurance for your car that helps pay for repairs after the regular warranty runs out. However, it might not cover everything you think it does.
Term
transmission issue
A transmission issue means there's a problem with the part of the car that helps it change gears. This can make it hard for the car to drive smoothly.
Term
NADA
NADA is an organization that helps people figure out how much cars are worth. They have books and resources that show the value of different vehicles.
Term
insurance policy
An insurance policy is a deal you make with a company to help pay for damages or repairs to your car if something bad happens, like an accident. It helps you avoid paying the whole cost yourself.
Term
bridge insurance
Bridge insurance is a special kind of insurance that protects your car's value when you're in between selling your old car and buying a new one. It helps in case something happens to your car during that time.
Car
Subaru
Subaru is a car brand from Japan that makes vehicles known for their ability to drive well in tough weather, like snow. They often have a unique engine design that helps with performance.
Term
powertrain warranty
A powertrain warranty is a promise from the manufacturer to fix major parts of your car that help it run, like the engine and transmission, for a certain time or mileage. It's important because these parts can be very expensive to repair.
Car
Lucid Gravity
The Lucid Gravity is a new electric SUV made by Lucid Motors. It's designed to be very luxurious and has a lot of modern technology.
Term
gremlins
'Gremlins' in cars are little problems or glitches that happen unexpectedly. They can be annoying because they might not have a clear reason and can be hard to fix.
Term
pricing
Pricing is how much a car costs, which can change based on different factors like the model and features.
Term
two-wheel drive
Two-wheel drive means that the car only uses two of its wheels to move, either the front or the back, instead of all four wheels.
Car
Rivian
Rivian is a company that makes electric trucks and SUVs. They are designed for outdoor adventures and have features that support that lifestyle.
Term
touchscreen
A touchscreen is like a tablet or smartphone screen that you can touch to control things. In cars, it helps you use features like navigation and music without buttons.
Company
Tesla
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars. They are known for being high-tech and have a lot of features that you control with a screen.
LIVE
He is Robin Leach. He is Jada Markin. This is Car Keys.
Welcome to this week's edition of Car Keys with Jada Markin and myself, Robin Leach, and
we are doing this show during the holiday season and
we have weather to talk about. We've got other things to talk about, and so let's get going.
And so my list, before Jay gets in,
includes something that I've experienced on the day we did this show as I was driving
to my point from which I am speaking now. I
left my
location early in the morning at 4.30 or 5 o'clock and everything was dark, and I
have
experienced driving conditions, which made me think an awful lot about the following things.
One is watching out for deer.
We all know, many of us know, that dusk both in the mornings and the evenings, along with the darkness,
itself can be a dangerous time to be driving
along our roads, no matter where they are,
but much more dangerous when you're driving at speeds that can be driven during the daytime safely, which means, in my case,
between 60 and 75 miles an hour on the trip that I take in many days,
to the slower speeds at night when you can't see very far with headlights and all that.
Today's trip
was one which included a three-lane road
going each direction, and I decided, thinking about it since it was dark, traffic was sparse,
but the speeds were not, as I experienced as I was being passed,
except for mine, which was more
retained to the speed, posted speed limit of 65 miles an hour, as opposed to what I usually travel,
which is 75 miles an hour, and I thought about where the deer are going to come across the road,
if they were to jump out in front of me, and I decided on the three-lane road, that it was best not to travel in the right hand,
normally called the travel lane, the slowest of the three, supposedly,
because I thought that leaving an empty lane in front of me would give me more
chance for reacting appropriately, should an animal jump out off the side of the road, that on the same side I was driving,
into the driving lanes.
So that is something that I have decided is the safest place to be in
totally dark weather, and maybe even in dark,
in dust conditions, as you are driving in a multi-lane
superhighway that allows high speeds, but may be in a deer-prone area.
That's one thing. Two.
When the road deteriorated to a single lane each way, as this travel
course was, the next thing that I discovered was that there's been a lot of
side of the road patching of
with black asphalt,
not including all of each driving lane by the state of New York, and I assume sometimes
other states do the same thing. What I noted was that the white lines that
usually are very visible along the traveling lane that you're going in, is
blotted out in many cases by these
asphalt patches, leaving a dark
part of the asphalt road extended to the side of the road.
Also in the dark, and when other oncoming traffic is coming at you with headlights glaring on one side of you,
and you have to put your low beams on, and it might be raining or otherwise dark,
you can't really see the side of the road as safely as you can when the white lines are in full view, and
in these cases on the New York road that I was traveling,
once they did the patching, they didn't do the relining of that side. So I consider that another dangerous situation, which also
suggests
being focused on the driving you're doing so that you can see where the road is,
especially when you're in lots of oncoming traffic, which
distracts you from looking at your lane sometimes. A lot of mental notes that early in the morning.
Excuse me? A lot of mental notes this early in the morning. The next thing
was,
well, I guess those are the two main things I wanted to talk about and what I call
dangerous nighttime driving conditions and suggest that
driving at more appropriate speeds and what you can possibly do in the daytime is an appropriate
decision to try to make and stick to when you're driving in these conditions.
How long would that go is the problem that I find is
exhibited with all these new lighting systems.
So we've talked about the lighting systems in the current era of cars
versus what they used to be like back in the day of no halogens, no LEDs, and
generally dimmer lighting systems that are no longer
the norm on these cars that we're seeing on the road today.
I see a lot of what I call fractious light
that distracts me and I have aging eyes, I will admit, but I think a lot of drivers are
experiencing the same thing. Jay with Younger Eye probably says the same thing, but it's very difficult sometimes in the dark,
especially, to actually
be sure that you are located properly in your lane
partly because of the conditions I just
suggested might occur
before we got to this point.
There's nothing we can do about it, but what's really worse about the driving of oncoming cars is some of these
optional light systems that
mostly seem to be showing up on SUV types and pickup trucks,
which Jay and I have mentioned before, that are light bars.
They can be mounted on the roof of these vehicles and they can be mounted along the lower
front fascia, front fascia of the vehicles as well, and they're designed
more for, I think, off-roading and maybe hunting and doing things not on main roads, but they are being used
in certain cases on the vehicles as they are driving on our roads. When they're mounted on the roof,
I find them very difficult to not be blinded by them.
You suppose they aim them, but they can be very distracting and blinding, even if you think they're low,
they're supposed to be low beams on the on the regular lighting systems.
The ones located down at the bumper level
are much safer, but they're still distracting because they can be two feet wide in between the headlights, and
they too light up the road well in front of the vehicle using them, but they can also be distracting on
us going the opposite direction.
So all these are conditions that I've discovered in my trip to this show this morning, and for what it's worth,
I hope somebody's listening and will think
about it when they are driving at the same time frame.
Yeah, I agree with the lights. Those light bars, they are not only annoying,
they're annoying, and they really should be illegal, or at least if they are used,
you know, angled properly so they're not blinding other vehicles. Next topic
is that of
rain,
rain on our roads,
which goes back to the line light,
the lining visibility in both, in this case, the middle yellow lines,
and the white sidelines.
I found, I drove in a reverse direction that I'm talking about this morning,
the night before, so I was going south and it was raining,
and raining requires the use of wipers, which we'll get to in a second.
The other part of it is that rain makes the roads
shine, and
with the headlights reflecting off the rain,
the parts of the road
goes back to the visibility problem that I was mentioning before about bad lining,
or a non-visible lighting.
A lot of the lines have been redone with all our road repaving around our northwest corner, and in fact, in New York State,
so the lines, in many cases, are in very good condition, but where they are not in good condition,
again, the visibility of actually being able to see the road becomes a big problem in a dark night
rainy road,
and in some cases, bad wipers condition.
Your wipers, you really want to have in good condition, because if they don't really clean the windshield in front of you, driver at least,
it adds an annoying factor of visibility.
So what do you do? Do you have any comment?
Yeah, I'm asking you, what should you do?
Get new wipers, and you should also control the speed at which you may be driving.
I actually experienced a situation which really was quite frightening in this morning's
darkness, and that I actually was wondering at one point whether there was a vehicle coming at me in the lane that I was in.
I'm not sure that I was correct in that analysis,
but I, I braked rather sharply,
and I did notice a little bit of movement. I thought to the right of the oncoming
vehicle, but I was more concerned about a car behind me, which was actually trying to travel at the
posted speed limit speed I was going at,
because he did not, or they, it did not have
really a great distance behind me, had I had to really continue at what started out to be a panic stopping situation until I
was sure that I was not being
about to be
in a head-on collision as the vehicle ended up in the right lane as it went by me.
So did you do any driving during this holiday weekend?
Yeah.
Holiday weekend?
Well, and so I'm trying to get to the next point here is
how did you find traffic conditions?
Because I'll tell you a little bit more about my, my experience
in a second, but I'm curious.
Well, the traffic conditions going to an airport, which I also had to do over this weekend
were, was, uh, as bad as it could be, uh, trying to get, as we know,
going to New York airport, which is where I was headed with a family member that needed to fly
away from the holiday weekend here.
Um,
the traffic was, was, uh, of course bad.
Uh, and but the, it, it took, I think it took us,
we went via the George Washington Bridge at one point because we were going to Newark airport
and it took 35 minutes to get
from the beginning of, from before the actual entrance to the bridge
and then onto the bridge to get across the bridge, uh, to get into New Jersey to get down to Newark.
Um, and the same was, the same condition was,
present, uh, in terms of traffic, uh,
coming back home from the airport.
So traffic was really packed going both ways.
And that was probably a hard call because you were going for, you were traveling from southern Connecticut, right?
And just going to the I-95.
Yep, correct.
To across the bridge and back.
Yeah, that's a, that's a tough one to, to circumvent.
But, uh, if you're coming from our neck of the woods, there are options to get over the Hudson River.
There are, and ways which is a travel, uh, means by which we travel, uh, navigation-wise,
took us the way we took to get to the George Washington Bridge and, and beyond.
And we could have gone over the, with a Cuomo Bridge, but they, they decided that George Washington Bridge was the way to go.
Yeah, and, and that, you know, in some instances, there's just nothing you can do.
There is nothing you can do.
Correct.
I did quite a few of those airport runs over the weekend, uh, uh, like in four days in a row.
And, and, and I do those runs on a regular basis, as you know.
And, and, uh, what I found is that even though traffic was, uh, uh, quite dense, uh, there were more cars on the road,
I would say than even at peak traffic, uh, times during, during the week.
Right.
And there was congestion, um, in every direction.
Usually, if you go in and out of the city, traffic flows one way in the morning.
One time in the day, right?
At night.
Yeah.
Um, on Thanksgiving Day, for instance, there was traffic going in every which direction.
And I found over the years, and I've traveled to Boston over the years, you know, on Thanksgiving Day, um, traveled to New York.
Traffic is going in both directions.
And that traffic is really concentrated in like between 11 o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon.
And then again, late at night when everybody comes home with lots of turkeys, you know, bellies.
But what I found was that even though there was a lot of traffic and traffic was overall fairly slow,
things moved actually faster than during the week and, and with all the yahoo commuters on the road.
Um, and my point is if traffic slows down and people follow the rules of the road,
you are actually moving traffic more efficiently and you're actually not losing any time
versus everybody racing and trying to get there before the other guy.
And it was actually almost relaxing.
It was, it was intense because there were a lot of cars on the road and you had to pay attention.
But traffic was predictable.
People were doing, some were doing stupid things and, and you have to allow for the fact that
most of these drivers were, were driving in unfamiliar conditions, uh, um, right, you know,
on unfamiliar roads.
But overall, I found the traffic move much better than let's say during, uh,
I, I, I agree with your concept that if, if it's moving slowly as a unit,
it seems to move continuously better than what I call the accordion effect when people are trying
to go at normal posted speeds, which is higher than what you're, you're suggesting they try to go
when they're going at a common speed, uh, slower.
And that accordion effect is very much of a nuisance because who knows why you are able to go
a mile at 65 miles an hour, say in three lanes of traffic.
And then you're slowed to, uh, maybe as much as five to 10 miles or 20 miles an hour.
And then all of a sudden it breaks a mile later or five miles later, whatever it is.
And you don't know why you were ever slowed in the first place.
But that's what happened.
So you, you, people trying to go faster tend to get into the accordion, uh, situation.
And that's how you get bottlenecks.
And you get bottlenecks.
And, and so it, you know, sadly it, you know, I have to come to the conclusion that, uh,
imposing speed limits, especially when you have heavy traffic is really effective.
Well, I think the New Jersey turnpike or some of the Jersey roads have
lighted signs that they can change for that kind of thing.
I believe there's no enforcement.
If there's no enforcement, it doesn't matter.
Right. And there is no enforcement.
I have never seen so few enforcement vehicles in the same traffic areas that I have traveled
as I have even over the holiday weekend that we're talking about.
And, and this morning, I don't think anybody comes back on duty.
I don't know.
There was no, there didn't need to be.
The traffic is very light as you suggested in the late night and early morning conditions.
But I was surprised at how much southbound traffic was on.
684, which is the road I was talking about earlier.
As I was going north on, on that 684 with very little north moving traffic at the,
at the time of day that I mentioned at the beginning of the show.
And, uh, a lot of people passed me because I was thinking about my dear discussion
at the big, as we had at the beginning of the show.
And I, uh, no dear jumped across, thank goodness.
But I didn't want to be the one that was going to be hitting one,
should it have happened.
And I figured I could see it better from the middle lane, uh,
and have more, uh, uh, time to adjust to miss hitting a dear that I would have had.
I've been in the right lane trying to go to, you know, either the posted speed or higher.
But so I'm, I do have to be on both sides.
Just you, you bring up something.
I find myself and I don't know if that's the case for you.
If I'm driving on a fairly long drive, you know, multi-hour drive,
and I start thinking about something seriously like today's show, in your case.
Uh, do you find yourself slowing down?
Yes, but not by much.
Okay, but a little bit.
And of course I, uh, and sometimes I'm not slowing down
because during the daytime, um, and if the traffic permits,
the traffic flow permits, the traffic density permits,
I use cruise control and you and I've talked about that.
You don't, uh, but I am often on cruise control,
which I find I can navigate quite successfully without, uh,
having to turn it on or off or breaking it off and, and resetting it again.
Uh, just by, uh, picking the right lane.
Cruise control and, and, uh, and, uh, uh, self-driving cars.
I, I actually rode with somebody this weekend who, uh,
had been on a, on a taxi ride in California
and got picked up with a, by a driverless car.
And, uh, this person said it was an interesting experience.
It was a little weird, a little awkward.
It was her first time, uh, but overall it was a good experience.
You know, it had, it looked like a, uh, you know,
with a dome on the top of the car, it was, I don't know,
it was probably way more or, or one of those companies and, uh,
and she said, uh, you know, at first she thought it was a, a news,
a news station, uh, a vehicle coming to pick her up.
But, uh, you know, it, uh,
what was the speed limit generally is this car was traveling with her in.
Was it a, in a city so it was slower?
Was it, I think it was a, a, a, a city drive.
We didn't talk much about it.
Um, well, we should get more firsthand knowledge about that.
I know.
We probably won't see it on our broadcast area.
Uh, anytime soon.
Um, but, uh, that's an interesting situation.
Did she know in advance that it was going to be driverless or did she just,
Nope, she did not.
Nope.
Well, that's also, and what happens if you want to refuse getting into it?
I have no idea.
You refuse getting into it, right?
And then call for Uber or somebody.
And she got to where she would have to go.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'd like to switch to extended warranties on vehicles.
I have just discovered that an extended warranty is useless and,
and, and certain conditions, which I will, uh, sputter about or rant about right now.
Um, I have said to other people that I had a lifetime warranty on one of my jeeps.
And let me tell you when lifetime warranties are not lifetime warranties.
Uh, if you want to keep the vehicle, they are not lifetime warranties.
When you want to keep a vehicle, when the cost of the repair is greater than the,
uh, every day reduced value, reducing value of your vehicle once you drive it off a lot.
Um, I had a transmission issue with one of my jeeps.
And I thought maybe I ought to have it checked and, and, and fixed under the so-called lifetime
warranty that I've had in my glove compartment since I purchased the vehicle new in 2014.
Only to find out that there's, there is not necessarily small print, but there's
print that I hadn't read in 10 years or the 12 years that I've had the car.
Uh, since I had the warranty sitting in the glove compartment that said the following,
if the car repair, the cost is greater than the, uh,
the, at the time of the problem value of your vehicle, uh, the maximum that your warranty
will pay you is what the vehicle value is.
So in this case, I had a transmission issue.
I was told the transmission would, if it needed to be replaced, it was going to cost
$10,000 and my vehicle had a value of a prop, have a value of approximately $3,500.
According to, uh, I know it's a nat, nata, NADA, use book value or not.
And so they would not replace the transmission, even though the vehicle is in otherwise
perfect running condition.
And I have no intention of getting rid of it.
Uh, so if you buy and the, the, let's say there are extended warranty programs out there,
I am being besieged by mail, uh, and on my phone and calls to my house from a couple of
the companies saying that the warranty is close to expiring on one of the vehicles I have.
And, uh, you know, you have a Black Friday specials, Black Monday specials, a holiday
specials off the regular price, which I don't even know what the regular price would be.
But if you get an extended warranty in your car, uh, especially the newer cars that have
life left of them and hopefully value and cost a lot more than the Jeep did, uh, be
very careful that if you're going to keep a car for a long time and the extended warranty has
printed it saying that if the cost of the repair that you might need on a warranted pro,
warranted item in your car and not all the pieces of your car are warranted, um, they won't fix the
fix the problem by replacing what is needed.
And you will be only offered what the, they may, they may say that you will only be
worried what, uh, offered, uh, in lieu of fixing it, uh, the value of the car that may be much
less than the cost of the repair.
So these warranties, which are in essence an insurance policy are very similar to, uh, when
you get into a crash with your car and if the cost of the repair is greater than the value of the
car, they'll just write you a check for the value of the car.
If you do not have bridge, what do they call it? Bridge insurance.
Yeah. And so, I mean, and it's a problem with driving older cars and classic cars,
right? Determining the value of the car.
And I have, you know, I'm kind of on the gamble with one of my old cars.
Yes, you are.
Uh, with a, you know, because if I ever get into a fender bender, they might just write it off.
But, um, back to your extended warranty.
I, I unfortunately don't have an update because I got flacked off, uh, this past week.
Um, I have a similar, uh, extended warranty on a, on a Subaru that I own,
which is now running in two-wheel drive.
Um, lifetime, right?
And, uh, I went to the dealer with, with the paperwork that I found in the glove box and
with the unlimited miles and unlimited time, uh, uh, warranty, power train warranty.
And I have yet to hear back from them.
So I'm going to put that in writing and, and.
Well, I'm into that because my transmission is obviously a power train warranty, warranty
item.
And of course the power trains are cars.
As we've been talking, these cars will go 200,000 miles, but God forbid that if the
print in the warranty says that if the repair cost is greater than the value of your car,
which my Jeep is now 10 years old or 12 years old, they won't, they won't fix it and let you
drive it another 10 years.
I have a solution.
We should just all get electric cars and get rid of.
Oh, okay.
Okay, Jay, enough on that.
No, it's not enough.
That was a quick solution, but I don't want one yet.
Okay.
It is so quick.
Oh, by the way, I saw a, uh, I saw my first lucid gravity in town, uh, over the weekend.
And how is it beautiful?
It is.
Yes.
Uh, I saw it just go back by and it took me a while to realize what it was.
I have some comments about the lucid to interrupt you.
A couple of users, uh, love their lucid except that
both of these people have been experiencing gremlins and or qualitative issues with the
interiors of their cars.
And I have found that I think that lucid has got some kind of quality problem in, or the
early ones for sure, um, in their system that make it really interesting that if you buy a car,
what is the pricing of a lucid down day, 120 something thousand dollars, depending on the
model, which I think that the most affordable lucid started around and I'm saying this from
memory.
So around 70, 75,000 with no options.
If you can find one for a two wheel drive, two wheel drive.
Right.
Okay.
Um, well, not no options, but, you know, they're well equipped.
They're not, they're not so back to your product about the lucid gravity that you said,
because I think they're very interesting cars and the people like their lucid.
It's just that they, you know, things like door handle.
Gravity is an SUV that a, like a Rivian, let's say, okay, that looks kind of, uh,
has that boxy look and looks pretty sharp.
I think that the gravity is a more rounded vehicle.
Uh, I, I hate to say from the angle I thought I thought it was a minivan.
Um, really nothing wrong with minivans, but, but, um, I have yet to see one up close and
and I definitely want to try one and I'm sure it's a great vehicle.
I don't doubt it.
I think they drive wonderfully according to these two owners that I had, uh, have been able to have
a conversation with and one of them bought it used, which of course made this woman,
it was a woman that owned it very happy with the price she had to pay for it or didn't have to pay
for it, uh, however you want to look at that.
Uh, and that goes back to Dan now.
I doubt she bought, I bought, yeah, I doubt she bought a, a used, uh, well,
it was a crazy, it was not new.
Okay.
Well, was it a sedan?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's a sedan, four door sedan.
Yep.
It's a great car too.
Correct.
The company's losing, losing money like, like there's no, you know, the problem,
the problem with some of these newer cars and, and we know about the oceans to Mackle, right?
Uh, uh, is that the, the quality has been sort of a little bit, uh, off and on in terms of the
assembly, uh, or, or electronics.
Uh, this, one of the owners has had a lot of electronics issues with the, I don't know,
with the touchscreen or the menu or the operation of the whole thing.
And, uh, she has yet to sort of really address it seriously because of the inconvenience of
where she needs to go, I believe, to have it addressed.
Um, it's not keeping the car from operating, uh, but it is, it is annoying her.
And, you know, when you buy a car of that substance or cost and value, where you bring
those electric cars and, and I don't know if this is a service center or just a showroom,
but have you noticed, uh, in Queens near Queens Brooklyn, near the Whitestone Bridge,
there was a huge movie theater that got kind of dismantled in the last year or two.
And I just saw that it is turning into a Tesla, uh, facility.
I think I saw it.
Uh, it's a really big, multi-story, uh,
had big Tesla letters on the side of it.
Correct.
That one.
Yep.
And I'm curious to see if it's just going to be a showroom or if it's going to be a service center.
Okay, until next week, everybody.
I hope you enjoyed this week's version of car keys and we'll have another one
in the future, uh, with Jay DeMarquin and Robin Leach as the host.
Car keys with Robin Leach and Jay DeMarquin is produced at the facilities of WHDD91.9 FM,
RobinhoodRadio.com, Sharon Connecticut.
About this episode
Robin Leach and Jay de Marcken dive into the challenges of nighttime driving during the holiday season, discussing deer hazards, poor road visibility, and the impact of modern lighting systems on safety. They share personal experiences with traffic conditions and the effectiveness of speed limits during busy travel times. The duo also critiques extended warranties, revealing hidden pitfalls, and touches on electric vehicles, including the Lucid Gravity, while highlighting quality concerns. Their engaging conversation blends practical driving advice with reflections on current automotive trends.
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