Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – October 27, 2025

He is Robin Leach. He is Jada Markin. This is CarKeys.

Good morning for this week's show of CarKeys with mostly Robin Leach and Jada Markin.

We are in the middle of maybe the early part or middle of fall and the weather's getting colder.

And I want to start with a couple of topics about cold weather and your vehicles.

First thing I want to tell the listeners today is that I have been conducting a study of air pressure

in tires on the basis of the outside temperature. And I did this by setting all the tires on

one of my Jeeps at 35 pounds at an approximate temperature on the day that I did this of

38 degrees outside. I have an inflator that you can set the pressure you want it to go on

and off at or off at when it gets to the tires. So they were all fairly equally set and the

Jeeps of current production have a wonderful tire pressure monitoring feature on their

vehicles and if you find it in your menu of adjustments you can do on your dash, you can

see what the temperature is in each tire, whether the car has stopped or moving as

you're driving down the road. It can be distracting, which is not a good thing to do as we talk

in this show about distracted driving. But for this particular topic I wanted to

cover, you know, produce a knowledge base it would be informative for us to figure out

what to do with your tires because when the weather gets cold the tire pressures go down

and when the weather gets hot they go up and when you drive a vehicle from start they

start at one pressure and as the tires warm up the pressure in the tires will go up

as well. So this is what I have can transmit to this week's show listeners. I started out

this morning on this morning show temperature work was in the very low 30s and even high

20s. When I got in my car in the Jeep that I set the tire pressure at 35 at 38 degrees

and they were all showed 32 pounds, well between 31 and 32 pounds on the four tires

in this morning's temperature. By the time I reached and drove approximately seven miles

to our broadcasting area, they had risen to 35 pounds more or less, 35 in one or two, 36

another, 34 in a third and so on and that's another thing that you will notice if you

want to follow this kind of manuscript and do the same thing with your vehicle if you

can see what the tire pressures are as you're driving. They will vary as you drive and not

necessarily stay exactly all the same pressure all the time when you're moving or even when

you're standing still and the sun is on one side of the car and the shade is on the

other. But the other day after I had first done this setting at 35 it went up to

34 degrees and the tire pressures went up as high as 39 pounds in one of them and 38 and

37 in the others and they sat there for the most of that day. So if you have set your

tire pressures or anybody that does this regularly the general tire pressures I find

in most of the vehicles not SUVs with special tires on them necessarily or trucks is somewhere

between 32 and 34 pounds as noted on stickers which can be found in most vehicles either

on the door jam most of the time the driver's door jam or on the gas flap if you have a gas

flap or cover on your gas tank filler deck. And therefore most of the time as temperatures

vary they're going to be going up and down from this setting that you may have set at whatever

temperature you remember to set it up. If you had set your tires at 34 or 35 pounds

when the temperatures were 75 degrees or 70 degrees and up you're going to find that

33 degrees they're going to be down 4 to 5 pounds a tire and if they get down into

the 20s it is really time to probably add air to your tires before it gets even colder.

Not that they won't roll at 22 degrees or 15 degrees but the pressures will go down they

won't necessarily go flat but it is not good to run tires underneath either very low below

the recommended pressure or very high above the recommended pressure.

So the moral of the story is it's time to check your tires.

That's the moral of this lecture is it's time to check your tires guys but I would wait until

it's below 30 pounds 30 degrees or more because if you do it at 40 you'll want to do it again

when the temperatures are regularly in the 20s maybe later on beyond this shows addition.

This is where I have a little beef with my beloved Volkswagen Tour Reg.

The vehicle is rated to toast 7,700 pounds I think which is a lot for an SUV.

The recommended rear tire pressure is 39 pounds.

The problem with that when you put that tire pressure at 39 pounds day in day out is that

the tires wear unevenly in the center and you go through rear tires like you go through

rear tires like a knife goes through butter J.

Something like that.

So anyway so I tend to put you know less pressure I try to equalize the pressures and usually

go somewhere around 35 all around.

The problem with that is as soon as winter comes around the warning will go on if there

is a delta of 6 pounds so as soon as my tire pressures are below 33 pounds in the

rear you know the system goes on and the warning goes on until you put back the...

Enough air.

Yes.

Yeah.

Anyway that's just a little beef other than that.

Well there's another beef I have with another car that's German based and that's the Audi's.

The tire pressure monitors on the Audi's are not anywhere near as effectively efficient

and interesting to watch as they do not give you the tire pressures in the tires anywhere

I can find in the menu.

And when a tire goes down below a spec let's say 29 pounds as you said you had a delta

of 6 pounds more or less in your Touareg I guess that's the way it is in maybe some

of the German cars as well.

You can find out which tire it doesn't tell you which tire is low except very briefly when

you turn the ignition to the start mode and these are push button start mode modes that

you have on your dashboards of the newest vehicles.

And if you are not looking at the dash as the computer sets up the dashboard on a German

car and many actually many cars you will miss it that it says the left rear tire the left

front tire needs checking because the tire is below the recommended pressure.

It flashes as far as I could see less than two seconds if you're not watching it and

then all it says is that the yellow light or caution light on the dash it says low

pressure that indicates a tire figure green and it's yellow so it means there's some tire

but you don't know which one that needs to be checked.

And then you put the...

Is German engineering why make it simple when you can make it very complex?

That is right.

German engineering why make it simple when you can make it complex and annoying because

then when you put the you find that you first of all you have to find out which

tire it is by using a pressure gauge before you put air in because you don't want to over

inflate any of the tires.

I just don't think you should be driving out.

You should just stick to your jeeps.

I do.

Somebody else stick to the outings.

But in any event I have to maintain the tires in that car properly for this other

person and then when you fill the tires up you've got to go into a very

complex menu find where the tire pressure settings are under a settings.

I think settings index and then you have to push a button and hold and it

automatically sets the new tire pressures presumably to the specs but you

don't know whether they're all at that say 33 pounds around or what they are

if you filled up one tire that was at 29 and you set it at 33.

You don't even know what to set it at actually to fill it up because you

can't find what the other tire to set out without using a pressure gauge outside

the car what a nuisance but back to checking your tires right now as the

weather gets colder is this week's safety recommendation on this show.

There we go moving on I was talking about my Torek for two seconds there

and for the dozen of us who have Torek in the hole that's about the

population you're right in the northeast seaboard although the Torek has not been

sold in the US since 2017 it had been sold in the rest of the world and but

Volkswagen finally pulled the plug on it very sadly it was a great vehicle this

year the third the third generation of it which we never got here in the US was

a fantastic car it just was an 80 to a hundred thousand dollar vehicle that

Volkswagen could not sell in the US and I did a little research and and looked at

the history of the car and it came about in in the late 90s early 2000 is

when the Torek was planned and then you know designed and executed under

Dr. Pete Pieck who was I think the nephew of Dr. Porsche and at the time the head

of the Volkswagen group and he had grandiose ideas of moving Volkswagen's

the line of cars upscale and then you know with the Torek and the Volkswagen

Phaeton those were great vehicles but but it just just never got any traction

and having luxury brands within the group whether it be Porsche or Audi Volkswagen

was left to keep making econoboxes and I'm being a little facetious here because

obviously they make well what was the Porsche a match to the Torek in the

Porsche lineup the Cayenne Cayenne yes okay which by the way and this has

nothing to do with anything Porsche is coming out with an electric Cayenne in

the weeks if not months to come okay well can we go on sure we can I'd like to

just finish with a some cold weather tips besides the tire lecture I just gave

everybody check your windshield washer bottles and make sure that you have

you refill them with washing fluid that will withstand I would recommend 25

below degrees minimum for our weather which last year as we know was filled with

ice filled streets and driveways because the weather was so cold that any any

liquid material that fell from the sky didn't disappear for long periods and

while it was great for snow making which doesn't have anything to do with this

car show it was cold enough to freeze the windshield washer fluid in a

couple of my vehicles and I don't know why they will freeze let's say in between

the lines between the reservoir and the windshield wash wipers dispensing area or

the nozzles that flow it on but it seems to happen and I found that I was

putting in 20 I fluid that was rated for man is 20 but the temperatures were

right around zero and when my windshield washers would not work and I don't know

where they would have worked better with 25 below zero rating on the windshield

washer fluid but I the fluid bottle was not frozen but the windshield washer

hoses seemed to freeze and I didn't think windshield would create that kind

of effect on the windshield washer fluid if they were if it was designed to

withstand up to minus 20 or minus 25 degrees before freezing but besides

having your windshield washer reservoir full you should be sure that you've got

fluid that is they don't I think standard standard rating in most areas at

garages is minus 20 but they also have some that is good to minus 35 and those

are for states like Minnesota and countries like Canada up in the north

where the temperatures can go down well below 20 degrees below zero when at

nighttime temperatures and even daytime temperatures then I can get the tires I've

checked the tire depth on the tread to sell my tires and there are a couple of

vehicles which I will definitely not use in snowstorms unless I replace the

tires before snowstorms occur because they have worn down to probably

where the wear indicators are parallel to the rest of the depth of the tread and

that is telling me that they are not going to be of much effect in snow snowy

conditions on the roads therefore being very dangerous to drive the vehicles

anything besides creeping speeds yeah you can jump in now well now we were

lucky to get to almost three lectures for the price of one yes we did we I

just wanted to talk a little bit about fall driving and the fact that we are

getting to the end of the what would I call it entertainment fun driving

season and at the track this weekend we had a the third annual Miata con and

this was a gathering of all Miata's the Mazda Miata has been a sports car

since you know that's been sold by Mazda here in around the world actually since

1989 and it's really become a cult car like like few others and there was at the

track there was a car show on Friday and Saturday and also several groups of

racing on track it was kind of interesting is this two different worlds the

car show world and the racers world and kind of what I find a little sad is

there's really no connection between the two groups of people and and you know

both are obviously auto enthusiasts and but everybody was doing their thing at

the track and so there were I don't know there must have been several

hundred Miata's at the track some were purely stock some are totally goofy one

had burned in a I think in a garage fire and had been restored only to the

extent that it was made street legal but it was basically had a melted hood

melted everything that was plastic was melted the lights were melted so it's

kind of a carnival or you know a Halloween presentation of cars but it was

fun and it's great to see the enthusiasm that people have for these

cars and I saw one car and it was a red original Miata and I walked up to the

owner who was an older gentleman and asked him how long ago on the car and he

said well I ordered it new in 1989 110,000 miles all original and it was a serial

number 801 this person is listening to us and I just think it's it's very cool

to kind of know the story behind cars and and that's where you know a lot of

people find the value in cars you know the story the pedigree the whether

it be a famous car having belonged to somebody famous or or having some kind

of history I think that car that stay in the same family for decades it's a

pretty cool thing also there were a bunch of aftermarket parts manufacturers

and sellers you know the original Miata aftermarket parts suppliers company

called Moss but since then they have been you know gazillion others and it was it

was pretty cool to see people just go up to vendors and and buy new parts and

some people were taking some parts off their old cars and throwing them in

trash cans and I didn't actually know somebody was going around the trash

cans trying to rescue Miata parts well Jay I'd like to jump in I have a

VW van as you know it is original to me back in 2000 and it has a hundred and

thirty five thousand miles on it and their rough spots around the gas cap is

rusting away and the rocker panels got some severe rust on it and I hope it

doesn't rust out from under me as I'm driving down the road sometime but I

like would have it or jealousy would like would have it in my summer

vacation area Westport Mass a neighbor to where I am drove up in a in a what

looked like a showroom condition new black Euro van like mine and it made me

think about how that was maintained versus how I have not maintained my van

and so that goes to your comment about the masses you saw over there at the

track it was showroom condition this van it has only sixty thousand miles on it

and I told the guy and when he wants to sell it let me know why you know you

need to restore yours get to know it might not restoreable anyways we don't

need to discuss that on the show okay but this is it is fun to see how

how people keep their cars and when you go to a event like you went to

where there were but would you say a hundred by hours around or were that

many or how many would you think they are at least yeah there were more than that I

believe yeah yeah and all colors and and all as you said goofy goofy

restorations or adjustments and some are very goofy some are really cool

some are really track oriented you know suspension parts roll bars others

had supercharges on them some had turbos yeah people have put you know gmls

Corvette engines in in really oh yeah they fit just they just did perfectly in

the Benjabay of a Miata perfectly and what do you think it does to the 5050

weight ratio front to rear I think it disappears it changes the balance of

the car but you know I've never talked to anybody who had done the the conversion

but I've read about them we've seen them they've been tested magazines yes they

actually drive pretty well it you know it shies away from the whole concept of

the the Miata the idea of the Miata was that it was meant to be a light not

very powerful but light simple fun car and the current generation that's been

around since 2016 which is the fourth generation the ND so there's been an A

B and C and now we're on the ND I did drive one a couple years ago and it they

drive exactly like the original ones do they feel tinny they shake and they

rattle their light their fun they're not significantly faster than they were

originally and that's why you you see so many so many older ones and I just

missed buying one locally a second gen that was for sale for under five thousand

dollars and I should have just bought it I just hesitated and it was gone it was

gone it was a nice car but but there are plenty around I I read an article

recently about comparing the the evolution of the Mustang and the Miata and

when the Miata came out in 89 or 90 the price of the two cars was about the

same you could get a Mustang with a V8 for I think the price was around

fourteen thousand dollars and for about the following ten years the base the

base price of the Miata and the base price of a Mustang were about the same

and then the difference just went you know skyrocketed as the Mustang

became bigger heavier more powerful the price went up and the price of the

Miata stayed you know where where you know more yeah more or less stable yes

and and today you can buy a new Miata for around thirty thousand dollars great

cars I read up on the story about him and and you know the who who the

bio with biological father this automotive journalist died recently I

believe no no that's Tomatano who was the original designer who died recently and

anyway great story and yeah very well as we all know cars have gotten a lot

heavier during our lifetimes from the days of old when the Miata's were the

sports car to have and and the RX-7s which I own one of four nights alone and how

much lighter they all were because they weren't airbags they weren't heavier

doors with side impact protection and sizes kept creeping up as well and as

and now they've gotten to the days where we have the electric vehicles which

are faster than anything a non electric full drive in most cases except maybe for

a Corvette and some other high performance European and and American cars

but they're so heavy the electric cars are so heavy but you don't feel it

except it does help them I think stay on the road very effectively because of

their weight well you know that when you're driving your electric cars in

your experience as against what a Touareg is or are any fossil fuel car similar in

size well we know electric cars are heavier but and I'll get but I'll get

back to the weight and why cars are heavier in a second but the center of

gravity of an electric car is is fairly low I've seen rollover test you know

there when they do the safety test and and and they hit a car from the side and

they just send it rolling they can do that with an electric car they send a

hit car rolling right they don't roll yeah correct and and most cars will just

roll a number of times and then they I remember seeing that with I think it

was a Tesla and the car just rolls like once and then falls back and

then rolls back on its lands inevitably lands on its on its on its on its

right side you know on on on its four wheels but back to why cars are heavier

I think it's pretty pretty simple I mean the cars are all also a lot safer than

they were 30 40 years ago I remember riding the first time I rode with you

in your Mazda RX7 I saw that first turn coming and I you know I tried to

remember I tried not to remember that we were on 14 inch tires that were the width

of a bicycle tire and and you driving the car and thinking what happens if we go

off the road cars are much safer now you know we know tires everything is

bigger but but also much safer yes much safer indeed but annoyingly complex

electronically as we have talked about it as well the simplicity of the old days

with the knobs and everything and no computers running the dashboards and

just seat belts no airbags as long gone and you don't want to get hit one of

those by anything that is constructed today the way it's constructed because

you probably won't stand a chance of having the car come out being

repairable of his old cars right correct so anything else on that limerock

besides the Mazda sort of event there was that were they able to drive their

cars around the track or no matter what they did the car show cars owners

were allowed to take their car for a couple laps what they call parade

laps right you know but that's at low speed and no passing and it's literally a

parade lap or no I don't know how many laps they did but yes yesterday was also

the last car show of the year for that FCP your organizers and these are car

shows that had that happened at track on Sundays a handful of time a year I

think there's no no no charge to go anybody can go and and this company

has the ability to to snap their fingers and bring in a hundreds of cars and

yesterday was a BMW and mini gathering and again some very very nice cars I

was there in the pit lane there was also bring a trailer was also present

and had a few cars there they had a racing BMW from 1988 they had a an

original 1989 or 1990 BMW M3 in pristine original condition and again just a

lot of history unfolding in front of your eyes and and and some people just

there with their series five and seven just regular sedans but you know just

a very you know different different people with different cars some purely

stock some very modified some quite original you know and people try to

gather together like the guys with wagons will will stick together and so

that was the last last of their shows well let's let's let's just talk about

leaves on roads wet roads or they are falling like snowflakes in a lot of

cases around our listening area still the trees have not totally

delete themselves although they are getting very thin Lee well it's certainly

close to it every time the wind blows another 90% of whatever is left on a

tree seems to descend to the ground and if they end up on roads and in shady

roads and it's wet and it's cold the leaves don't necessarily blow away just

because the wind is blowing and they can be on curves on roads can be as

dangerous as snow is and in the in the winter time when the snow's falling so

you just need to drive everybody to drive a little bit slower if the roads are

not totally clear and if your tires are not totally got deep treads and if

there's nothing else that would distract you from driving too fast on the

road that's another safety tip we're getting a lot of safety tips from Robin

this week well it's that time to think about it and and it's about time to wrap

it up too okay well with that in mind let's go rake leaves let's go rake

leaves off the roads and let's check the tire pressures going forward if you've

got more than one car check them all because they're all going to have gone

down about the same amount if you're driving more than one car at any given

time in the season until next time we are car keys with J. DeMarken and Robin

leech all right car keys with Robin leech and J. DeMarken is produced at the

facilities of WHDD 91.9 FM Robin Hood radio.com sharing Connecticut

Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – October 27, 2025

About this episode

tire pressure monitoring feature

distracted driving

cold weather effects on tires

PSI

tire pressures

Audi

Volkswagen Touareg

Volkswagen Phaeton

Porsche Cayenne

windshield washer fluid

tire tread depth

wear indicators

Mazda Miata

aftermarket parts

Moss

rocker panels

restoration

turbo

supercharger

Chevrolet Corvette

Mazda MX-5 Miata

fourth generation ND

Ford Mustang

V8 engine

Mazda Rx7S

electric vehicles

center of gravity

Tesla

airbags

Bring a Trailer

BMW M3

Request an Explanation

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