Car Pro Radio Show February 7 26 Hour 3

Welcome to the CarPro Show.

Jerry Reynolds, the CarPro, was in the auto industry for over 35 years.

And in addition to getting his sixth win from the Texas Auto Writers Association for Best Radio Show in Texas,

he's a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, along with fellow members Dan Rather and George Carlin.

His co-host, Todd Chambliss, just became a member of Applebee's Hall of Fame

for finishing off 84 check-in nuggets without using a dipping sauce.

Now, let's get to straight talk and honest answers about everything automotive on the CarPro Show.

Wow, that's a really good trick on Super Bowl weekend.

I'm telling you, I'm pretty proud of that.

You should be.

I'm the record holder and I'm going to go work to keep that record, so...

Bye, gosh.

Everybody's got their claim to fame.

That's right.

Well, we're talking cars here on the CarPro Show and I'd be more than happy to help you make a good, smart car buying decision.

I don't have any lines open right now, but when somebody hangs up, if you wanted to grab it, call this number.

It's thechays.com, and Chays is C-H-A-I-Z, Chays.com.

They help my listeners with extended warranties.

And they are very, very good at finding the best warranty at the best price out there.

They shop a lot.

They do the shopping for you, which is the reason I got them on the show was because there's so many bad warranty companies out there.

Man, I just wouldn't even know what...

I've never recommended a particular third-party warranty company ever.

24 years.

I've never said, yeah, talk to these guys.

They're great.

Chays knows them all.

They only recommend the best ones for my listeners, and they'll shop the price for you.

So there you go.

Thechays.com CarPro Hotline is 800-926-7777.

And again, no lines right now, but when somebody hangs up or we go to a break, then call then.

And if you do get through, tell me your issue as quickly as you possibly can.

I run out of time way too often with callers, and I hate it.

My goal here is to absolutely help you.

And people get wrapped up, maybe they're nervous, being on the air or whatever, but they give me way more information than I need.

Cut to the chase.

Give me the rarest digest version if you got to tell me a story, and then we'll make sure that we get your handles.

Right now, we're going to go to Tennessee and talk to Carl in Clarksville.

Carl, what can I help you with?

Yeah, my niece lives in Des Moines, Iowa, and she needs to get a new car.

Yeah?

She's six-foot, her husband's six-two, and they have two kids and with a third one on the way, I was wondering what kind of vehicles would be good for them to look at.

Well, it's going to kind of depend on their budget.

There's a lot of good three-row SUVs out there, which sounds like that's what they need with a kid on the way.

How old is the oldest one?

Five.

Okay, so they're going to grow and, you know, having a car seat in the middle of the second row and putting kids on both sides.

That'll work for a while, but if I were them, I'd go ahead now and get a third-row seat.

Do you have any idea what their budget is?

Not real high, I don't think.

Okay.

A lot of good choices out there.

You know, I think the Ford Explorer is one of the better three-row SUVs out there for the money, and part of that reason is the incentives are always good.

I love the Chevy Traverse.

It's been terrific.

The Kia Telluride is another good one that's roomy in the back.

And if those are too far out of the budget and they decide they want to just go with a two-row SUV at this particular time,

then I would look at the Hyundai Tucson.

It's great.

Comes with a 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty.

And I think that would be my top pick in a two-row.

The Honda Passport is new and one of my all-time favorites, the Nissan Murano.

And it's got good incentives as well.

So there's a lot of choices out there.

It is going to come down to budget, I promise you.

What they can afford.

And how much room that they think they can get by with.

They want to spend more now.

They can make the commitment and get something that's going to last them through the bigger kids getting bigger and then still having a car seat.

Or they can just plan on getting a two-row now, which will do them for probably be all right for three or four years.

And then those other two are going to get to be too big for it and they're going to run out of room.

So that would be my advice.

Would it be worth it for them to drive down to Texas to deal with one of your demons?

You know, I'm hesitant to say yes because the last thing I'd want them to do is waste a trip.

And frankly, there's just not enough markup in cars these days to where I could say with certainty.

Yeah, I can save them a thousand dollars.

That'll make the trip worth it.

If they know what they're doing and they do their research, the answer is no.

I don't think I can save them enough to come that far.

If they were in Oklahoma and I help a lot of listeners in Oklahoma, they were there.

I'd say, yeah, come on.

But Tennessee, that's a little different story.

I just don't, I don't know that I could make it worth their while.

Okay.

Appreciate it, Vince.

All right, Carl.

You take care of yourself.

Carl opened up a line at 809267777.

We had two reviews in, actually no, we only had one review this week.

Amy got sidetracked and she didn't get her second one in.

She's going to have two this week.

But I had the 2026 Kia K4 GT.

Yeah.

A cool turbo hatchback, fully loaded, small.

You know, they call it a car.

It's really close to an SUV.

I mean, it's really close.

I'd say like a small to a mid-sized.

Small.

Small, okay.

It's pretty small.

But, you know, it had everything in the world on it.

Coming in at 32 grand before any rebates or discounts.

That's pretty good.

That's for today.

Yeah.

That's really good.

So if you want to see that and you're not a newsletter subscriber, don't worry.

You can subscribe right now at carpro.com and you'll get yesterday's delivered to your

inbox immediately.

All right.

I mean, you could have it within three minutes, plus all the other stuff, my award-winning

video of the week.

Then there was Todd's.

Then there was mine.

Yeah.

Not so well received.

Didn't score.

Didn't make this on five like yours.

That's a shame.

But thanks for trying.

Okay.

800-926-7777.

If you wait too long to trade, you lose.

Find out if now is the right time for you.

Call Jerry Reynolds, the car pro, 1-800-926-7777.

Well, we mentioned just a few minutes ago that your review of the Kia that you did this

week is in the newsletter this week.

So I know that you were driving sort of a very quick zippy green.

Is it a BMW that you were driving around in?

No.

It was an Audi.

An Audi.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

It was one of those cars.

It was a green Audi that you were driving earlier.

Oh, was it green?

That was pretty nice and fast.

It was.

RS3.

Yes.

It was super fast and just a ton of fun.

You mentioned there was a Sonos car stereo in that too.

Yeah.

I think that's the first time I've ever reviewed a car with a Sonos stereo.

I didn't know that they made car stereos, actually.

I didn't either.

I've got Sonos equipment at home, but I didn't know they made car stereo.

Let me tell you something.

They make a good one.

Oh, bad.

It sounds fantastic.

Oh, bad.

So now you're driving a different vehicle, kind of an about face in a way.

Yeah.

It couldn't really be much different.

Yeah.

It is the 2026 GMC Sierra 84 electric pickup.

Ah.

And it is outstanding.

It has got so many cool features.

The tablet in this truck, center dash that runs everything.

It's, I think it's 14 inches.

That's huge.

Oh, it's like, well, my laptop's 14 inches.

Okay.

Yeah, I can see that.

But it's sitting on its side.

Right.

Right, exactly.

So yeah, it's boy, it's got some neat features.

Range on that.

You said 400 plus over 400.

Yeah.

For I got to look up exactly when I got it.

It was at 95% and it's had 410 miles to go.

So that's for you.

Sounds like it's going to come in around 440 or so and lightning fast.

Just amazingly fast.

But the thing is so big.

It's huge.

What do you compare that to say a three quarter ton truck?

Ford, yeah.

You know, either a GMC three quarter ton Chevy or Ram or, you know, Ford three quarter

ton.

I mean, it's a big truck.

Wow.

But it's nice.

Okay.

John and CME Valley, California.

You're up next on the car pro show.

Hey, John.

Hey.

Hey, good morning to Jerry and Todd.

Hey, thank you, buddy.

A question.

I'm going to make it fast.

What do you think about the 2025 Dodge Ram 6.7 2500?

I've had it.

I had the, what do I have it in rebel Ram rebel or was it the power wagon?

I don't remember, but I love the truck.

The features were great.

Engine seemed like it just had all the power in the world you could possibly want.

Um, one thing I'll take, I'll say about Ram heavy duty is I think their ride quality

is the best out there.

As far as Ford and General Motors go, they ride better.

It just doesn't beat you to death like most three quarter tons do.

So yeah, I got nothing but good to say about it.

What do you use your truck for?

I use it for towing and most of the time I'm just driving up and back and forth to the

lake without anything in it.

It's, it's, it's a nice, I bought the limited type.

Oh, nice.

And I was wondering, I had two, I had two recalls on it in four months.

Yeah.

Have you heard anything about that?

No, but you know how many recalls there are?

You know how many recalls there were last year?

Over, over a thousand different car recalls last year.

That doesn't, that, and, and you know, I've said this forever, John, recalls are not an

indication of long term durability and, and they're not.

It's just, it's flukes.

It's, it's, and I blame the car companies for part of it.

I mean, if you just look at their model, they don't, they make very few of the

parts that are on a car.

They, they farm it out and put out bids for certain parts, thousands of them per car

and they take the low bidder.

Yeah.

Think about that.

Yeah.

So when you get these recalls, it's because typically 99% of the time it's, it's one of

the suppliers that they beat the hell out of for a better price.

So they cut their quality and send them apart and they put them on the car and then

they got to pay the warranty bill for a recall.

And not only that, but harm the reputation.

I mean, the system is just totally jacked up and wrong, but nobody listens to me.

I've proven that.

So bottom line, don't worry about the recalls.

You bought a great truck and I think it'll make you a really good one.

Thanks for calling pal.

Some people buy a car because they like the color.

Others smart people call the car for Jerry Reynolds first.

Here's the number 1-800-926-7777.

All right, let's talk to Fabrice in Los Angeles.

Welcome.

How can I help you?

Hi there.

Hello Jerry.

Todd.

My question is not about car, but car insurance.

Yeah.

I see on Facebook, Instagram, all the newer, smaller insurance like cars, insurance K-A-R-S.

And I wonder if they even legit because I don't see any reviews anywhere, anything.

So I don't know if they are smaller companies from the big companies on the online.

I think progressive do that too.

So what have you heard about those smaller and are they as easy to call them if one day you have an accident?

Yeah.

And I'm leery, I'll be honest with you about the insurance companies themselves.

I still use an insurance agent.

And I like the fact that if I have a problem, I can call my insurance agent and versus progressive and GEICO and those sort of things.

I have been a very outspoken critic of insurance companies because I see what they do.

And I got no patience for them continually jacking our rates up.

And when it comes to paying a claim, then they don't want anything to do with me.

And that's why I use an insurance agent.

I've got a good one in Dallas that shops the price with different insurance companies and finds the best deal.

What I've said all along, every insurance company that ad that you see on TV tells you the same thing.

We saved this person this much money per month and we saved this person this much money per month.

Well, I want to know who pays the claims the best.

Tell me that.

Are I going to have to argue with you and fight you and take you to court?

And that's probably what's going to happen when you use companies like that.

So if I were you, I'd stay away from that.

I'd find a good agent that represents a good company.

And welcome back to the car pro show. Jerry Reynolds, the car pro and me, Todd Chambliss every single week in the newsletter.

The quick shifts news about the automotive world along with some commentary from Jerry, some unusual stories.

I would say one of them that I really liked, of course, is the yearly planters nutmobile that they solicit looking for drivers for that.

You have to dress as the, I think, as the nut to think you have to get to a cost.

I thought of you when I read that.

I don't know why I don't either.

That's that's kind of troubling.

And then the story I thought was even the most interesting is the the the pickle that the Baltimore mayor is in.

The city is rethinking what do we do and having a mayor driving around in a hundred sixty three thousand dollar vehicle that taxpayers paid for.

The original vehicle started with a sticker of it's like a cheap grand wagon here.

Right. Ninety nine thousand dollars.

Then you add on the sixty five thousand dollars of the sirens and lights of the communications gear, all the protective stuff.

And then you're paying some people pay less for a house, I would imagine in some areas.

I don't know how you run a wagon here up to one hundred and sixty plus thousand dollars.

Maybe it's one of those things where just like we were talking about the government having to pay more than they probably should for some of those security vehicles.

Maybe that plays into it, too, since he's a mayor.

I don't know.

Well, since when did mayors need sirens and red lights?

That's another whole question.

That seems like much.

I mean, Baltimore's there's a crime level there in some parts of that city.

But the mayor's not going to fight it.

No, he shouldn't anyway.

I mean, police should be doing that.

Is it just in case he's got to go to the bathroom real bad?

Well, he got to go.

Sometimes you got to go.

No money is going to help you.

If he's getting red lights, I'm getting red.

I think you got to look into that.

Yeah, why not?

Bill Elk Grove, California.

Welcome, Bill.

How you doing, pal?

Hi, real good.

Thanks, Jerry.

Listen, I've got a twenty two Ram Longhorn Limited that I ordered with the Eco diesel.

Yeah.

And only only has this just shy of eleven thousand miles on it.

We were driving in last October and it just stopped.

No bells, no whistles, nothing.

It just stopped.

Got to the side said push to restart, which it did nothing.

Toted in engine locked.

They dropped the pan bearings.

Engine was done.

How many miles were on it?

Just shy of eleven thousand.

Wow.

Great.

And they the dealership was great.

They put brand new brand new engine.

No, no, no problems, you know, complete under warranty, you know, no issues, but I've got

trust issues.

Yeah, and rightly so.

I'm looking, you know, and people are, you know, they're having other problems and things

of no other problems with the truck.

It's a great truck.

Oh, yeah, it is.

You know, they extended the warranty on it.

They've got another three years, a hundred thousand on the new engine, which is fine.

But if it's in the garage, you know, what do you do?

So, you know, I just do I keep it or.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty high.

I know.

And I don't blame you.

I lost confidence in that engine in twenty eighteen when the original Eco diesel came out

in twenty fifteen, I touted that engine for three solid years and never regretted it.

They ran into a problem in twenty seventeen with emissions.

So they changed the engine.

They missed a full year of production.

And when they came back out in twenty eighteen with the new Eco diesel, it wasn't near what

the old one was.

It didn't get the mileage that it did.

It wasn't as reliable as the old one.

I had the old one, the original Eco diesel.

I had listeners telling me three hundred, three hundred and fifty thousand miles and

never had a problem and still going.

I haven't I haven't had that experience with this one now with that warranty and a brand

new engine.

I wouldn't dump it yet.

I would give it some time and see how we try to keep an open mind and just cross your

fingers and pray that by the by the time from the time that your engine, the original engine

was new to now that they've corrected whatever it was.

I wouldn't I wouldn't give up yet.

OK, I'm kind of leaning that way.

You know, the dealership, like I said, they were they were great.

Yeah, two of them in stock, you know.

So in two days, they had the truck back.

And I kind of wondered why would they have two of these engines in stock?

But I don't know what they did and they put it in and no issues.

And you know, I'm driving happy.

Like I said, I love the truck.

I'm a pop trim guy and I just love it.

I love the I love Ram trucks.

I do.

And I've loved that engine for a long time.

Give it a shot and let's see what happens.

I think you'll be OK.

I really do.

I look it costs them a lot of money to put that engine in.

I don't think 20 grand.

Yeah, I don't think they would intentionally put another engine

in knowing that the same thing could happen.

They don't want to spend another 20 grand on it or have to go through a lemon

lawsuit, which you probably qualify for.

But I'd hang on.

I would let's give it another shot and see if I can help you.

I'm here. You know how to get me.

Good to talk to you, pal.

Greg in Rome, Georgia.

Greg, welcome.

What can I help you with, sir?

Hey, Jerry, two quick questions.

You bet.

So my daughter, my daughter had a Subaru Outback company car

and they they just let her know a couple months ago that she can she can upgrade

to a Tesla Y. So she took it and now they're going to allocate her

$350 to buy a plug-in charger, not a supercharger.

So I told her, honey, that's that's you plug it in.

It's 110. You get three miles an hour.

It'll take forever to charge that.

It'll take days.

It really will take days, three days.

And I know, and I think it comes with a 220 adapter,

but that only gives you 10 miles an hour.

Yes, 10 miles of range per hour.

She she's got to get a level two charger.

If she doesn't want to spend that $1,500 or whatever that number is.

Well, it, you know, the chargers themselves, and I've got one in my garage.

I bought one years ago.

Charger itself was five hundred bucks.

But depending on the electrical work, my my my junction box

was about 10 feet from where I wanted the charger in the garage.

OK, OK.

So the wiring was three hundred bucks.

And so I was in the whole thing

out the door for eight hundred bucks and tickled to death.

And that's a supercharger.

That's what now it's a level two charger.

You if which means which means what?

Which means that I can charge pretty much any electric that I've gotten.

I've reviewed a ton of them.

They'll all charge within about four hours, five hours at the most.

So it's an overnight charge for her.

If she plugs it in when she gets home, it'll be done

easily by the next morning when she gets ready to leave again.

A supercharger will charge it in about 20, 20 minutes.

But it's also going to cost.

It's also going to cost a hundred grand, minimal.

So I don't know if the terminology is a level two.

That's what she wants.

I've got the one that I bought.

It's on my website.

If you'll put EV charger up in the search box, you can pull up the article

I wrote on it. That might be the way to go.

But that's going to be a must if she's going electric.

Every case is different when it comes to buying or leasing a new vehicle.

Get advice you can count on from Jerry Reynolds, the car pro at 1-800-926-7777.

Interesting behind the scenes legal battle that was going on between

the parent company of Dodge and folks who bought some Durango Hellcats,

the SRT Hellcats, thinking it was going to be a one year limited edition SUV.

But then what happened?

The next year they did another run and they claimed it diluted the value

and the premium price they paid for what they thought was going to be a one year run.

It did.

Yeah. And so Dodge won the whole thing at the end of it.

Yeah, I mean, when they said that it was the last run,

yeah, they had no intentions of bringing them back.

But then they saw the demand for it.

Yeah. And they ran it again.

And a judge said, that's chance you take chance to take.

Yeah, you know, yeah, I never understood that lawsuit.

There's a lot of things car companies ought to be sued for that they don't get sued for.

But yeah, I get it.

And if you've got a demand, you've got a hot product.

I mean, who can blame them for, you know, doing another run?

Of course, try to talk to somebody who paid high dollar for that.

But like you said, you know, you roll the dice.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

It costs to play.

That's right. It does.

You're going to pay to play.

Exactly. You want a rare car and you want to be the first on your block

to have it, you're going to pay. Yeah.

And they did. Yeah.

Greg, middle of the in Texas, near Dallas, Fort Worth.

Greg, what can I help you with, sir?

Well, hello, Jerry and Todd. Good to talk to you.

You too, buddy.

I'm looking at pickups for pulling a travel trailer,

probably 25 to 28 footer at the most.

So loaded, maybe not over 7500 pounds.

Yeah.

And I want good gas mileage and a decent ride.

So I wanted 250, you know, when I'm not pulling.

So I'm looking at the 150 and I was looking at the F 150 400.

Seems to be the best gas mileage and the best pulling power there is.

I don't want with the pulling package to be able to pull 14000 pounds.

You can get it without the pulling package and still almost 12 and a half

thousand pounds. So that leaves a lot of headroom in there.

Oh, yeah. I was wondering, can you suggest anything else better than that?

I've looked around for gas mileage, decent ride,

sticking with the halftime and, you know,

looking at the whole package, that seems to be the best deal to me.

But yeah, it is.

And it's a it's a I assume we're talking about the 3.5 EcoBoost, right?

Yes. And it's been a great engine.

And the only combination that I think

might be even better than that is the

Silverado with the diesel, the halftime Silverado with the diesel.

When I reviewed it, I got, of course, not not towing,

but I got almost 29 miles to the gallon on the highway.

Yet the towing capacity was up in the 10,000 pound range.

I think it was 9,500, which would be enough for you.

But, you know, with the diesel comes a whole other subset of issues.

Diesel fuel.

And I'd rather I'd rather stick with gas personally.

Then go then go with the 3.5 EcoBoost.

It is absolutely the best.

You will not know that trailers back there with that EcoBoost.

With a follow up on that, anything equivalent in a decent gas mileage SUV?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not one thing.

Sorry, that vehicle hadn't been made yet.

So I don't know why they don't make it.

I know it's, you know, you've you've got the weight of an SUV

that's going to be a lot more to start with.

And that's the problem that you run into.

You got the weight of the SUV and that cuts the towing capacity.

So, you know, pick up in your case, 7,500, 8,000 pounds.

That's going to that's going to do it.

Talk to Trey Russell, the GM at five star Ford Carrollton.

You can't get good advice from someone who doesn't really have a lot of experience.

That's why you need to call the car pro Jerry Reynolds before you get your next

vehicle, 1-800-926-7777.

And we go to Rosine in Austin, Texas.

Rosine, what can I help you with?

Good morning.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my call, even though that my question doesn't really

go with what the show is about.

But that's OK.

You were OK.

You were mentioning about the government switching SUVs.

Yeah.

Do you know if they have GMC?

Are they GMCs or Fords right now?

They have got Chevrolet right now.

The Suburbans. Oh, oh, Chevy's OK.

So why would they go to a BMW?

Because that's a very expensive, a high maintenance automobile.

I mean, that's a taxpayer.

So I'm going to pay for those.

Plus the maintenance.

I have a son that's a mechanic and he told me he worked on.

He replaced a battery on his first mini Cooper.

Yeah.

And it took him an hour and a half because you have to take the windshields off.

The Cali, which is some plastic that's been between the windshield and

the wipers.

And that is the battery situated somewhere in the fender.

He said it cost five hundred dollars.

Where he said for a Chevy or a Nissan, you would only take half an hour.

That's probably true.

Now, in this case, the upfront cost.

What was the difference time?

It was like two hundred thousand dollars per vehicle.

The BMW is like, excuse me, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on average,

where the Suburbans nearly half a million.

So it's double.

So they can do a lot of maintenance on it.

Now, most of these vehicles, it all comes through GSA,

which is a division of the government that takes care of equipment.

And most of them are very, very low mileage vehicles.

They're either right around Washington, D.C., or they load them up

onto Air Force One and a cargo jet and take them to their destination

where the president's going to be.

So they're they're they're very low mileage and they're a lot less money up front.

Good to talk to you, kiddo.

If you think you want a hybrid or maybe an electric, call the car pro Jerry Reynolds first.

He'll help you decide one eight hundred nine two six seventy seven seventy seven.

Car Pro Radio Show February 7 26 Hour 3

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