Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – September 2, 2025

He is Robin Leach. He is Jada Markin. This is Car Keys.

Good morning, our hello to our listeners for this week's version of Car Keys with Jada

Markin, Robin Leach. J is going to give us a report from Lime Rock, which is where

he is as of this show's taping. And I want to start out by saying that we are rapidly

finishing the summer season, which means we will be heading into fall and then winter,

of course. And I want to start out by suggesting some comments for people to

start checking their cars and various area departments in prepping their cars,

your cars listeners, for this coming winter season. There are three areas,

maybe they're more, J can add in that I think you should be thinking about

looking out on your cars as you head towards the snow season. The first one

is tires. We talk on this show periodically about tires and tread wear

and tread depth and other things that affect cars performance on the road,

depending on what condition your tires are in. In the wintertime when you

have the chance of snowfall, you really want to know that you have

tires that can rip through the snow and reach the pavement with some form of

traction. And tires with very little tread life left are not the answer to

that. So you should take a walk around your car and check each of the

four corners for the tire tread depth situation. Normally they would be

about the same if your tires are in good condition and your cars have been in

good alignment and has not caused tires to wear unevenly. But maybe you put on

two tires in the front and you didn't put two tires in the back and you may

find that there is some marked difference in tread depth. So the more

tread depth you have, the better for winter season driving. The next area

of course is being... Hold on, hold on, hold on with the tires. Go ahead.

Well, I think it's always the obvious about tires. I mean, if you can put

snow tires on the car, you're better off. Or else, obviously, all

seasons tires are reasonably adequate. But all-wheel drive doesn't negate

the advantage of a full-blown snow tire. If you have summer tires, you do have

to be careful. And that's all I'm going to say about tires. Some summer

tires, like I put on my little sports car, are not meant to operate under

certain temperatures, which is around 35, 40 degrees, I believe. Fair

night. So there is that little issue with summer tires. But you should

not be running summer tires in the winter anyway. So that's all I have

to say about tires for now. All good additions to what I started out

with for you listeners. So just be very observational on your tire

condition, what type of tires you may be running on your cars. And if

you've got the money to afford a separate set of snow tires, only

tread wear, that's a good thing to be able to do. But then I'd like

to know, I'd like some of you listeners, if you're listening and you

happen to put studded snow tires on.

Take them off in the summer.

Take them off in the summer and stop flattering around our asphalt

roads, as I hear often, once the snow is gone, because they do damage

to the roads and they are a wasted wear factor for those tires to be

used in the next winter season. Next, I was going to go before Jay

supplemented my comments on the tire situation is, be sure that

your windshield washer system is working properly. And then you

have filled your windshield washer bottles, which are normally

under the front hood of most cars, if not all cars, with

proper anti-freeze protection windshield washer fluid. That is

not the anti-freeze you put in your radiator in your car. So

don't dump that stuff into your windshield washer bottle, because

that will not do a great job of clearing wind windshield. But you

do want to be sure that A, your bottle is full of minus 20 or

minus 25 degree below protection, because even sometimes the lines

between the bottle and the windshield washers where they

come out can freeze even with this, with this protection

feature in the windshield washer fluid. I guess that's those are

the two main areas. All windshield wiper blades, you want to

have windshield wiper blades that are not streaking when they go

on when the windshield gets wet. You should always, if your

car is parked outside and there's a big frost factor on

your windshield when you start up, be careful, but please

remove, take each of the windshield wipers on your front

windshield carefully in your hand and sort of peel it off the

windshield before you have to turn your windshield wipers on

if you do so before they have thawed from being frozen to the

windshield. That plus good windshield wiper blades are

probably the final area, unless Jay has something else along

those lines to add to this particular topic, and we will

not and turn your wipers off. I mean, we're getting way out

here. I mean, it's winter and I was going to say it's good.

We're going to forget this. Turn your wipers off in winter. If

you're going to leave your wipers on the windshield, because

when you restart the car and the wipers are stuck to the

windshield, it is not good for the electric motor.

Also the other other thing is if you can lift your blades

off and some hoods do not allow this to happen and put them in

an upward position vertical to the windshield overnight, that's

another good idea to keep your wiper blades from freezing to

the windshield.

Let's let's talk about a few more summer things and events. I

mean, it's so nice out and we have a few more weeks of good

weather. So yeah, like I don't know, you mentioned that I

was here at Lime Rock Park and Lime Rock is part of this

historic festival that happens every year in our area and it is

the opportunity. I think it's the best opportunity for car

enthusiasts to see up close some very, very interesting,

sometimes very valuable cars and this all starts out. We

have talked about it. I think a couple of weeks ago, the

Thursday parade that happened this past week between Lime Rock,

Salisbury, Lakeville and ending in Falls Village. And for those

of you people who have never been to the Falls Village, I

call it a cocktail party in the center of town where all the

cars meet at the end of the parade. It's just a fabulous

gathering of very beautiful cars of all ages. And it's not just

the cars, it's the people and the stories. And it's fascinating

and it's amazing how many car people and cars we have just

in this area. It's truly incredible. And Robin, you

could, don't you have old cars? You should showcase one car

too. Well, you know, it's nice to report from it as which is

being done as we are taping this show. So it will be too late

for listeners to go this year. But this is something that

cars should put on their calendar every year. And we

will probably bring it up periodically in the future as we

get closer to next year's event. But it also is supplemented

by the Falls Village event too, which is also a place where

you can see a lot of over great older cars that have been

restored and fills the streets of the town of Canaan, which is

technically we call it Falls Village once or twice a year,

Jay, is it once a year?

There is a car show in July that has already occurred.

Yeah, there's a car show. I think it's in July that that

I've missed every year. That's pretty good too. That's also in

Falls Village. I think that the type of cars are very

different. But again, I have not been to the Falls Village car

show and the one in the summer. I can only attest to what was

there this weekend and and and you know, there and there was a

car show here at the track yesterday and some of the cars

are the same. There were probably a lot more cars here

yesterday. I know that the local roads were jammed early

yesterday morning and that went on through part of the morning.

You know, we had I don't know how many hundred troopers for the

NASCAR event and then here I think I don't know what happened

but there was there was a bit of a mess around the roads here

on 112. But I was already here. So I it's only here, say

far, but far, you know, for our listeners interest because

we keep referring to yesterday and the day before our shows

are taped weekly on Mondays. So you can do the figuration when we

say yesterday was a Sunday in this van. But I want to talk

about the cars themselves. And you know, I think we this is me

personally, I have, you know, the cars that are of interest to

me are the cars that I looked at when I was a kid. So I'm

partial to the cars of the 60s and 70s. And even 80s. And now we

see cars from the 90s, making it to, you know, Historic's

Festival. And I'm going, wait a minute, those are not old

cars. But then again, yes, they are. You know, 30, 40 year old

cars are vintage cars. And there's a great collection of

triumphs here. There's a great collection of there's a

huge contingent of racing Porsches air cooled 911s

announcements that have been in the news as we've been arriving

towards September 30, which is the date that the $7500 national

tax credit ends for any cars electric car purchases that have

not occurred before September 30 of this year. So if anybody is

listening in there planning, you're planning on getting an

electric car and you want the tax credits, you better have it

done by September 30. That's just a minor announcement as part

of our show. Not really minor $7500 is not $7500 is not minor,

but it is it is a date that is coming fast. As we head into

the fall. A couple of other things. One of the things I was

reading in one of my periodicals was what car makers

try to do to enhance car sales. And slant is I don't know I

didn't know that this could be as was possible. Slant is produces

which is Chrysler G and all that knowledge has a Durango model

out and they've got something called a SRT Hellcat jailbreak

version of the Durango, which is a big sort of midsize

crossover, I guess. The headline I'm reading here is the

2026 Dodge Durango, which has they yet to hit the dealer's

lots, I think, is getting a customized little jailbreak

edition that allows for more than a six million combinations of

features such as color options for brake calipers, badging,

seatbelts, wheels, and who knows what else to make up more

than six million options available. I don't even know how

you can design a vehicle that would have six million options

available. It's a mind boggling number. I think you help enhance

the sales of a vehicle whose sales have been diminishing, but

the vehicle is not disappearing. Jay, let me barge into

this. Yeah, I think it's totally ridiculous. First of

all, I think it's not six million options. It's six million

permutations, so combination of options. So you know, we're not

here to do math, but you know that that you know, yes, okay,

six million permutations so you can get green calipers and

yellow seatbelts or whatever. Here's a here's the thing. We

sell cars in this country. Dealers buy cars months in

advance. So dealers are stocking cars. So the

dealers are going to be spec ordering these vehicles, and

you're still going to walk on the lots and buying whatever the

dealer has. Nobody is nobody is buying is ordered spec ordering

a Dodge Durango in any foreseeable future. And I just

think it's ridiculous. And I think Stellantis is any other

manufacturer and any other manufacturer that tries this

is is is is I agree with you, Jay, ridiculous. I wouldn't

even think about wondering what my brake calipers should, could

know I want to be what color I have no problem with I have no

problems with the ability to order cars but right that then

needs to be a sales model and and so yeah, make it that you

can order a car if you go order if you you know the

extreme opposite is Porsche where you actually do spec order

cars and you go down the list of options and I've tried to

do it just for argument sake, even though I'm not in a market

for a new Porsche, you can't just do it in one session, it

takes hours and hours to go down the list. And it's tedious and

it gets really irritating because you kind of forget what

you started the boxes you started ticking. But again, if

you if the if the business model is to sell cars by

allocating, you know, reservations and then you

can spec order your own car. Great. But American car

manufacturers and the and the sales model in this country has

never been about that. It's been about putting inventory on

lots and letting people walk the lots and walk out with

whatever was shoved down their throat. And I'm being a little

hard here, but that's the way I see it.

Porsche enough. Stellantis is also revised vitalizing the

charger, I believe it is a charger with a gasoline powered

version of the next generation charger. But they're omitting a

very big option, at least in the beginning, which is that of

the Hemi V8. And they're trying to do it with the six

owned versions going forward. Jay, I'm not sure it is charger

coming in electric version. Now, but the interesting thing is that

they're bringing back a gasoline or they're enhancing a gasoline

version of the next generation charger as opposed to continuing

to try to make this push towards electrifying this

particular car as well as other electric cars, which is also

being postponed by other manufacturers to as we go

towards 2030.

I just see one desperate situation after another in the

Stellantis world, but that's just me.

Yeah, that is you.

Hey, I don't know.

Let's go to the topic of the slate, which we've discussed

in a couple of previous versions of this show. One of the

things that is happening as the slay is trying to get to

market is that the price has already jumped for the minimum

intended minimum price of under $20,000 before you started to

having to add options. It's now more like $25,000. And the

problem with this is I understand that the couple of

manufacturers, and I'll state because I think I saw the

name is Toyota, are trying to bring forth a new smaller

pickup truck in the $30,000 under price range, albeit

maybe today will be fossil fuels or that is gasoline

engine version versions of this and not electrified. But as

Slate prepares to make his debut into our American market, and

it is very appealing when you read this, when you read the

stories about what it's going to be. And they're trying to

get $50 or $100 deposits from people and they want to build

150,000 a year. Could the slate be J? This is for your

comment. Too little too late type of situation.

No, I don't think I don't I don't think so. I don't think so

at all. But the concept is going to evolve. So you know, we

remember when Tesla was going to come out with a $30,000 model

three, and it ended up being, you know, but it actually

happens now. But that's another story. I think this I mean, I

haven't followed the latest news on Slate. But, you know,

for little little trucklets, I wish we'd get the Suzuki Samurai

back, which I saw. I saw a new one in in Europe just last week

or the week before when I was there. And it looks very much

like the original one. You really have to look at it

closely. It is hardly any larger. So it's a very, very

compact little SUV. It looks as boxy as the original. And

yet it's a totally modern vehicle. And I just wish we'd

see this on our on our side of the pond. So yeah, I think

there's a market for, you know, cool little electric trucks

or SUVs. Yeah, short answer. Slate has appeared in the

September version of car and driver with a very long and

detailed article on the slate. And along with probably I

haven't read this word by word. But it's just, you know, keep

getting delays here and delays there. And every time there's

a delay, the price has an option to change a little bit from

what the headline says. That's a totally ridiculous. I think

optional suggestion about what the slate is all about. I just

think that, you know, we've talked about the slate J and you've

looked at the you've looked at it in depth, I think more than I

have. The question is, you know, Ford's got the Maverick,

right, which comes as a hybrid version of its basic power

train. And I think it was and may still be just under the

$30,000 availability situation if you can find one with

nothing, no options. Will this slate at $25,000 sell better

than a Ford Maverick with a combination of a hybrid power

train, which I think is more practical still, as we move

towards the electric world of cars. And people are still sort

of not necessarily going towards full electric yet in numbers

that make a lot of sense.

Well, the slate is not yet out. It's going to take another

couple years. So things are going to change between now and then

then I look forward to seeing it. And, you know, there's always

room for another vehicle, I think so.

Okay. Anything major about the goings on at Lime Rock of the

weekend that is about to end as we are doing this show?

I just saw a very nice early 70s Cadillac El Dorado turn in front

of me. I was just like, it's like a throwback in time. And it's

just, it's just very cool, just nice old cars. I wish I

agree. Some of the old designs are really, you know, it's a

heart you heart back to those days of those designs. Square,

of course, they were both sides in many cases. When you're

talking about the 80s and 70s versions of cars, right? When did

the size start diminishing?

1977. Remember, 76 was the last of the long hoods and long tails

and 77. Everybody chopped their cars like GM chopped the

Chevy Caprices and Ford chopped their LTDs or whatever they

were called, country's cars.

And now also were huge boats and disappeared and all that. But

boy, when you see them today, it does for those of us who are

old enough to have been back in that earlier era. It is really

a wonderful memory enhancing what I think happened.

The biggest trend I think is if you compare, you know, when

when we were younger, like in the 60s or 70s, I was not I'm

not going to say there were only but either the car market was

basically European manufacturers and American

manufacturers and American manufacturers at cars that were

way bigger than I'd say average and the European cars were just

so small. And it's interesting when you see them now, you

know, side by side, the old cars, it's like the European

cars are so small, the little fiat's, the little mini

Morse's, the little Triumph's, MG's are so small cars. And we

had in those days here, we had, you know, big boats. And now

it's like all the cars, you know, if you look at what GM

produces, Ford produces, or the European manufacturers, all

those cars are just pretty much the same size, you know,

within a certain model range. Anyway, and so cars have

become a lot more all the same. But then again, there's a

Pagani here on the on the Midway and you know, a Pagani is

multimillion dollar car. It is a work of art. It's a sports

car. What they call a hypercar. It's not my my type of car,

even if I had all the money in the world, which I don't.

But it's it's a work of art. It's cool. So yeah, a lot

going on here. But a lot of stories met a shop owner that

has a shop just in Lakeville that preps Porsches. And I knew of

the name, but I'd never met the gentleman and very nice guy

and, and builds old Porsches or rebuilds old Porsches.

Well, we you've mentioned this particular place a couple of

times earlier and earlier shows as well. So have you have

not been to his shop though, right?

I have not. But I certainly will in the very foreseeable

future.

He's got pretty good business, I understand from my limited

knowledge of his presence in our area. Yep. And we are, it's

interesting. I'm not the West Connecticut colonel's got very

good service garages, when you say, and then you have

specialists like this Porsche guy and who's tucked away and

down a little side street with I don't think there's any

signage on the street. No, the main street to get down there.

Certainly doesn't need it. He doesn't need it. So it all makes

this area that we do our recording and the show in a

very sort of specialized place from to be living in,

driving in. And I guess we could bring up as we get

towards the end of this show. The fact that there's been

a lot of repaving going on, you brought it up, I think

an earlier show around our corner. And the interesting

thing I'm watching is what happens when the newly paved

area meets the area that may have been paved two or three

years ago, but they're not going to continue paving putting

the new paving on to recently paved old area. It's you know,

you can really tell the difference drivers when

you're the tire noise that you get in your car changes

as you go from a newly paved road where it might be much

more quiet and less noticeable. And you drive on to a road

that is two years worn down two years, two to three years

down, and the noise picks up as the roughness of the

pavement is starting to appear as the surface slowly

erodes, I guess, or loses its new smooth luster.

Yeah, and I find myself accelerating and picking up

speed when I'm on new pavement. Absolutely. And then you

hit the old pavement and the friction increases between the

tires and the and the road and you slow down where you

might have been going downhill and speeding up. Any more

things? A little safety tip. Trying to think of

something. While you're thinking, I'm going to just

say, get back to the old bicycles on the road

situation. I'm over here in my Massachusetts summer place

and the people are out bicycling, and we are mostly two

lane roads. And some of them are two lane of older width

designed in the newer two lane roads. And we have lots of

trees draping over these roads. And let me tell you, when

the sun is out, or when it and you go, you see a road

lined with trees, it gets a lot darker. And unless the

bicyclists have their blinking lights on, and now all

them have them on in the front, most of them have them on

the back. They are very difficult to see drivers. And I

know it happens around our Northwest corner as well. We've

got a lot of bicycles going around there too in the

summer months and into the fall and picking up lights.

Let's you know, school buses are back on the road. So

they are indeed. Beware of that. And don't pass

them. They're getting school buses with cameras on

those side markers to go out. But I know a lot of towns in

Connecticut have got cameras now that are designed to

capture people who break the law and pass a school bus that

is either stopped or stopping to pick up children or

drop them off depending on what time of day it is. Okay,

enjoy the rest of summer. Yes, enjoy the rest of the

summer drive safely. And we will be on with another

show very soon. This is Carkeys, Jay DeMarcan, Robin

Leach. Carkeys with Robin Leach and Jay DeMarcan is

produced at the facilities of WHDD 91.9 FM, Robinhood

Radio dot com, Sharon Connecticut.

Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – September 2, 2025

About this episode

Porsche 911

Challenger Hellcat

Dodge Charger

Suzuki Samurai

Ford Maverick

Cadillac El Dorado

Cadillac El

Holden Caprice

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from CAR KEYS