Jerry Reynolds and co-host Todd Chambliss dive into a variety of automotive topics, including the impending end of the $7,500 EV rebate and the pros and cons of leasing versus buying a vehicle. They take listener calls, providing personalized advice on leasing for high-mileage drivers and discussing the benefits of hybrid vehicles. The duo also shares insights on the latest car reviews and highlights the importance of using trusted dealers. With engaging discussions and expert opinions, this episode is packed with valuable information for anyone navigating the car market.
Topics:ev rebatesleasing vs buyinghybrid vehiclescar reviewstrusted dealerslistener advice
"If you're, if you're self-employed or you own a business under tax code 179, you can write the entire purchase price of a pickup or a larger SUV off on this year's taxes. So if you're, if you're used to paying the government every April and you buy a, say a new F-150 this year and it's primarily used for business, you can write that entire amount off. So you can, you can literally go from, from writing a check to the government to getting a check for the government."
"... if they'd ever come out with one is the Cadillac XT5, the middle size of that."
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There's only one show that gives you straight talk and honest answers about everything automotive.
The CarPro show with Jerry Reynolds.
Jerry was in the auto industry for decades and he's an award-winning automotive writer.
Todd Chambliss, lost without Apple Maps, Google Maps or someone shouting,
Hey, you're going the wrong way.
is Jerry's co-host.
So fasten your seat belt, adjust your mirror and let's get started with the CarPro show.
Well, here we go.
It's our last hour for this weekend, but it's going to be a busy one.
We've got a full bank of calls right this minute.
And if you would like to join us when somebody hangs up, call thechase.com.
CarPro Hotline at 800-926-7777.
If you like the show, spend some time at our website, carpro.com.
Let's go through the different things and this will help you down the road.
Not only can you find all the dealers that I'm willing to put my name on,
because that's not an easy thing to get me to do.
There's all the FAQs that I wrote.
Our podcast is there.
The newsletter, subscribe section is at the bottom of the page,
the front page of the CarPro.com website.
Everything is there and years and years of car reviews.
So if you're looking at a five-year-old car and you want to know what I thought about it five years ago,
you can go to the car review section and do a search there.
But anything automotive that you're thinking about, use that search box at the top.
That is going to be your dear friend.
Just put a keyword in there.
You're thinking about a new Silverado.
Put Silverado in there and it'll pull up not just my reviews,
but it'll pull up any information that we've had on the Chevy Silverado.
And our search engine, I got to say, is very, very good and it's very fast.
So use the website.
If you're in the market for a car, use our dealers.
They're all there. They're based on the brand that you pick.
Ford, Chevy, Toyota, whatever.
And then your zip code and it'll pull the nearest dealer to you.
You may have to drive a little bit. That's okay.
It's worth it to drive to deal with honest people and have a good car buying experience.
If you've had a bad one, you really ought to have a good one because there's a world of difference.
Everybody needs a friend in the car business. That's me.
My friend in the radio business is Todd Jambus.
Yes. I'm glad to be your friend and glad to be here today as we get closer and closer to the end of the month
and of the quarter and of a lot of things.
And like we've talked about before, the end of that $7,500 EV rebate
the government has offered for quite a bit of time.
That is finally going away. You've got what, 10 days left on there, right?
Yeah. It goes out to September 30th.
Now, I did have a story two weeks ago in the newsletter that if you go to one of our dealers to get an electric and they don't have what you want.
If you order it, you can still get the $7,500 when it comes in, when the vehicle comes in.
Which is great to have that.
Yeah, it is. I mean, there's people who really have, you know, real strong opinions on what they want.
And I don't blame you for spending 50, 60, 70, 100 grand. Yeah, get what you want.
Absolutely.
And if you have to order it, you can still get the $7,500 as long as you order by the 30th of September.
Yeah.
So pretty cool. Let's go to the phones. What do you say?
I like that.
And we'll go to Houston to talk to Lawrence. Lawrence, thanks for holding. How can I help you, sir?
Hi. First of all, hi, Todd.
Hello.
I was calling because I've got a question about leasing vehicles, which I've never done.
Yeah.
And I wanted to, I've heard you talk about it a lot. I'm in outside sales, so I drive quite a bit, probably an average between 100 and 200 miles a day, five days a week.
Right.
And I'm driving a 2005 Cricer Town and Country that's pushing 192,000 miles and it still drives great, but it's getting up there.
So when it comes time to replace it, I was wondering if, if you lease, are those payments tax deductible?
Or what are the tax benefits of leasing versus a straight out purchase, which I think now they're talking about having the tax on new car purchases deductible as well?
The interest on new cars is now deductible.
If you're, are you self-employed?
Yes.
Okay.
You can write.
The other consideration is if I were to change and become a W-2 employee, but still in the same driving situation, what would apply?
If you're, if you're self-employed or you own a business under tax code 179, you can write the entire purchase price of a pickup or a larger SUV off on this year's taxes.
So if you're, if you're used to paying the government every April and you buy a, say a new F-150 this year and it's primarily used for business, you can write that entire amount off.
So you can, you can literally go from, from writing a check to the government to getting a check for the government.
Does that apply only if you pay for it in full or if you finance it, does that still apply?
If you've financed it still applies.
It doesn't make any difference.
I've got, I've got those rules in my newsletter and I rewrote the article because these rules change every year.
I rewrote the tax code 179 rules.
I added in the new thing about being able to write off interest.
There's a section on bonus depreciation and I had a CPA help me write it.
So first off, I want to make sure it was accurate.
But secondly, I wanted to put it in language people could understand because these, these topics are complicated as hell.
So it's there.
If you'll subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page at carpro.com, you'll get yesterday's immediately and you can read all about it.
But you are a prime candidate for doing that right off since you're self employed.
Now, if you're driving 100 miles a day, you do not want to lease.
That'll kill you.
You're talking about 24, 25,000 miles a year.
A lease will eat you alive.
Don't do that.
Go ahead and buy it.
Yeah, buy it.
And I love leasing.
I do it myself.
But if you drive more than 15,000 miles a year, I don't recommend it.
And the other thing, if you're using the vehicle you lease like you do, the wear and tear can be horrific at the end of the lease.
Now, with any lease, if you buy the vehicle at the end of the lease, you don't have to worry about miles, wear and tear, nothing.
But that kind of defeats the purpose of the lease.
You want to be able to walk away at the end of the lease.
So subscribe to the newsletter, use my dealers, and let's get you in a new truck between now and the end of the year.
Man, I've heard of a TV show, I guess, in the past called Orange is the New Black.
I think that was one of those streaming videos and TV shows.
Seems like Orange is a popular color.
Some of the new iPhone 17s are orange.
And in the Quick Shifts section of the newsletter, Jerry talks about the brand new 2026 Escalade IQ with a pumpkin spice latte color.
Yes.
Is that just striking and shocking, or is that actually kind of cool?
It wasn't cool to me.
I didn't think it would be either.
And I love the vehicle.
I reviewed it a month ago or so.
I thought it was awesome.
But I'm sure I don't want it in pumpkin spice.
What is the color of the interior?
Is it also that pumpkin color?
It kind of looked orangey to me.
It looks like it's a little sick or sunburned or something like that to me.
Remember, yours truly is colorblind.
I still find that shocking.
With all the colors you have to go and talk about when you review cars.
Well, what about, you know how many cars I've ordered in my lifetime?
Probably a ton, I would think.
Thousands and thousands.
And colorblind.
And colorblind.
I will.
You found a way to get around it, I guess.
I really did.
But that's why when I review a car,
if it's not an obvious color to me,
and I remark on it,
I'm not sure I like this color.
You got to take that with a grain of salt.
Right.
Because you may like that color.
You know, I just had that expedition that was green.
That really sick color green.
It was called Wild Green.
That's so wild in my opinion.
It was wild.
The wrong kind of wild.
It wasn't a good wild.
No, it was not.
Now, I've got next week for review,
I've got some kind of Lincoln Aviator
in a color called...
Oh.
I think it's called C-Note Green.
C-Note Green.
C-E-N-O-T-E.
Oh, is that S-E-E?
Sorry, the letter C.
The letter C.
Okay.
That's weird.
C-E-N-O-T-E.
C-Note.
C-Note.
I don't know.
That's weird.
Okay.
But it's green.
I guess green is the new black.
I guess it is, actually.
That's crazy.
I like some greens.
But I'm not sure that expedition didn't do it for me.
No, that was kind of strange.
Dude in Dickinson, Texas.
Yeah.
Dude.
Hey, dude.
How are you doing?
Good, sir.
What can I help you with?
Well, I'm looking about.
I'm confused about a Highlander, a Grand Highlander,
a Highlander, or a Hybrid.
And I thought about the pilot touring.
And I just want your opinion on those.
But I've never had a Hybrid yet.
But I was kind of thinking about it.
Well, it's, I mean, if, and I've said this too many times,
probably on the air.
But if I'm looking at a Toyota or a Lexus and it comes in a hybrid,
I'm going to get the hybrid.
And it's because they do such a good job with their hybrids.
So, you know, Honda, I like the pilot.
It's a, it's a, it's a nice SUV.
There's, there's no question about it.
Their hybrid system is still very new.
I don't know the longevity of it yet.
I don't know what it's going to cost to replace the hybrid battery
at some point down the road.
You know, there's a lot of unknowns with it.
Whereas I can tell you on the hybrid Toyota, it'd be,
I'd be shocked if you didn't get a quarter of a million miles out of it.
So.
Well, I was looking at that.
And another thing I looked at is their 25, 25th anniversary.
Is that in, is that a hybrid or not?
All the, all the Highlanders now are hybrid.
So, yes.
Okay.
So, you know, they've got the Grand Highlander too.
I don't know if you've seen that.
Yeah.
No, that's actually, I'm glad you brought that up because I,
I thought about that, but I didn't.
Oh, I thought it was, I thought it was great.
I reviewed the Grand Highlander and I just fell in love with it.
It's bigger.
I, I, I wish they hadn't named it the Grand Highlander because it makes you think it's
a nicer Highlander than the regular Highlander.
And that's not the case.
It's a completely different vehicle.
It's longer.
It's wider.
It's taller.
It's got more room inside.
The powertrains aren't even the same.
And I, you know, it was just stupid to name Grand Highlander because it makes you think
of the Highlander, which isn't a bad thing other than I think people are going to draw
conclusions that they're like the same vehicle, just one's nicer than the other.
That, that's not true.
So I'd give that some thought.
I've got, I'm blessed to have some great Toyota dealers in the Houston area and some
of them are south.
So go to carpro.com, talk to one of my dealers, the one that's closest to you.
And I would go with the Highlander.
Nothing against the pilot.
I just want to know more about it before I really start recommending it.
David near Youngstown, Ohio.
Welcome.
David, what can I help you with, sir?
Hi, Jerry.
Hi, Todd.
Hello.
Talk to you guys.
Thank you, buddy.
As I told your call screener, and by the way, super polite call screener.
I've talked to a lot of calling shows and sometimes they're rude as can be, but your guy was great.
Thanks.
He's been with me a long, long time.
Cool.
Well, like I told him, I made arrangements and flew out to California and dealt with
one of your dealers out there and bought a car and drove it back.
Wait a minute.
I don't.
You, you, you live in Ohio and you flew to California to one of my dealers.
That's correct.
Put that man on an ad.
I got to know which one.
Who, who, who'd you talk to?
Rosefield Toyota.
Sacramento.
Yep, yep.
He's about an hour and a half away from where my sister lives.
So it was a, you know, it was a visit to my sister as well, but I, I'm partially retired
and I was going to buy a car and I didn't want to buy new.
It's just not good value.
Right.
Especially for me.
Um, and, um, if I'm going to buy a used car, I wanted to get one rust free, which isn't
going to happen in Northeast Ohio.
Oh yeah.
So, uh, what would you get?
Except I bought a Mazda three, a 2018 Mazda three.
Nice.
I love those.
That's a great little car.
Oh, they're fun to drive.
Yeah.
Zoom, zoom.
Nobody understands that about Mazda.
I have to explain that they, they're just different.
I mean, they, they're sporty.
They drive sport.
They are.
And, and, but you have to quality.
I'll put it up there with a Toyota for quality.
Well, we'll see because I've owned toilets and Hondas and I own a Honda right now with
170,000 miles on that.
I'd be no problem driving that anywhere.
Oh, sure.
We'll see if the Mazda holds up.
But I'll tell you what, I got rid of a CRV because it was just boring to drive.
Yeah.
Not this month.
It's fine.
Well, man, I appreciate you.
I appreciate you letting me know about that.
That's, I've, I've, I've had some people do some very long distance transactions to,
to deal with one of my dealers.
I'm not sure that you didn't, you didn't win the prize so far.
Absolutely.
Oh, how to Sacramento.
Holy cow.
Brother, take care.
Thanks for letting me know.
Jerry Reynolds, the car pro knows things about buying and leasing a car that you just couldn't
know.
So call the car pro show 1-800-926-7777 and welcome back to the car pro show with Jerry
Reynolds, the car pro and the newsletter this week.
Obviously the most clicked item, which we commented earlier, we thought it was unusual
with all the other news stories out there, but folks were interested in luxury vehicles.
So for this year, the top 10 luxury vehicles are listed there from iccars.com and Lexus,
BMW, the ones that you would typically see are all in there.
And Lexus taken two or three spots, I believe so.
Yeah, of course.
Which I mean, I'm not surprised.
I'm a former Lexus owner and I mean the quality and the service and everything.
I mean, obviously it screams luxury, it screams comfort and people want to be taken care of
and when they are looking for luxury, these are the ones that they typically go towards.
Well, yeah.
And what I love about Lexus is the dealers that they choose.
They don't, there's not a, I mean, Dallas Fort Worth right now where we live is 7.5 million
people.
And from one side to the other is what, 75 miles?
That's about right.
There's four Lexus dealers here.
That's crazy.
Four Lexus dealers owned by two people.
Now that I didn't remember, but you're right about that.
There's two park places and there's two, two Sewells.
Yeah, yeah.
And both those places are the top notch.
It don't get any better than that dealerships.
Yeah.
For service, for sales, whatever you want.
Never had the Sewell experience, but it's legendary, but I have had the park place
and it is, it is all that.
Absolutely it is.
So that's, that's one of the reasons people are so happy with Lexus is because they got
the best dealers.
That's right.
Joe in Los Angeles.
Welcome.
Joe, how can I help you?
Well, first of all, I want to commend you.
You do a great job and I very much appreciate what you do because I'm not a car person
and your advice is really welcome.
Thank you, sir.
That's very kind of you.
You made my day.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
So I've been a very loyal Kia customer starting with the Optima hybrid.
My wife has the Nero hybrid and I just, my lease was up on the Nero EV, which I love.
And I wanted to trade up and I got a great deal on the Kia EV6.
Yeah.
And I love the salesman and the dealer.
The car's been a total nightmare and I, and I'm in the process where I think the dealer
or the corporate will take the car back and get me out of my lease.
But my concern was, have you heard about it dropping power while driving?
We're literally, you're stuck in neutral.
You could be on the freeway and you just lose power.
No.
And I told the dealer, I don't want this car.
I don't blame you.
I don't blame you.
And they offered to fix it.
The ICCU was broken.
But when they did that, they found other defects.
And then I read that even when they have repaired it, the problem has recurred.
And I said, I don't want to be the, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, I don't blame you.
You've got every, how many repair temps have they done?
Well, I did discover they did one a week before I got it.
Because when I called up corporate, they said, you should have known that.
And then they found three more defects in the first two months.
And the service manager who's terrific said, I have to report these repair orders
every time to corporate.
So when you, you know, go to them, they will see that we've done a lot of work on the car.
Yeah.
Which is strengthening your case for them to buy it back.
So no, I haven't heard of this, Joel.
I, but there's so many quirky issues with cars.
There's no way I can hear about them all.
And I don't pay any attention to what I read online.
Right.
Because it's just, I mean, there's so much untrue things there.
But if they'll, if they'll buy it back.
Well, corporate called me and they said, we're going to give you three options.
And we're going to write you a formal letter.
Just supply us with your lease agreement, which I did.
Yeah.
So I'm waiting, there's option one, just bring the car back option two.
We'll give you six grand keep the car coming in.
Or you could trade it for the exact same car.
I just want to get rid of it, but I love Kia.
And I wanted to know, I had the Nero EV, I loved it.
And there's a Nero plug-in.
Do you know anything about either model, good or bad?
I do have the plug in.
It's been great so far, but it's kind of in its infancy.
I mean, you could theoretically get yourself back in the same situation.
And I hope not.
Because Kia is making a great car.
No, we've had it.
I have one weird theory.
The new EV six is made in, I think Georgia.
Yes.
The Nero's are still made in South Korea.
So I don't know, you know, maybe something happened in the translation.
But here's my question on the new EV six.
I can't even get a charge more than two hours and it dies.
And on the previous car I had, which was the Nero EV.
I just plugged it into, you know, the three prong, you know, outlet to the charger.
And it always, you know, it was slow, but I only drive 100 miles at most in a week.
Have you heard of anything like causing that?
Because when I brought it to the dealer and I brought the, you know, the charger,
the extension cord and he plugged it in there.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, sure.
It worked.
So I don't know if it's an outlet problem or it's a drain on the new EV six.
Buddy, I'm not going to be any help on stuff like that.
Okay, don't worry.
I'm sorry.
But you know, knowing what Kia is doing and the kind of cars they're building these days.
If, if I were opting on one of your three choices, I would roll the dice on another EV six.
I would bet money that you just happened to get one.
And there's always one that, you know, has got inherent problems that the dealer can't find.
And, you know, the worst case scenario is you get a new one, you love it.
Or the worst case is you have the same problem again and they'll probably do the exact same thing again.
I'm surprised we haven't seen a recall.
If it's a very widespread problem, which makes me think getting another one is way less risky than the one you have.
Well, I noticed when this was manufactured, it was only a few months before I got it in July.
So it's relatively, you know what I mean, new generation coming out of the factory.
Yeah.
But let me tell you that, you know, knowing Kia and Hyundai, when they have a problem, they own up to it and they'll do the right thing.
Now, the big question is, when did you lease this Kia?
July 12th.
Of this year.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you've only made one payment on it so far?
Two.
Okay.
I just made my second one.
I don't want you to lose those.
So in this, when they send you your options, what you want is a substitution of collateral.
What that means is they take your current lease contract, they put the new VIN number on that and exchange it with the old VIN number.
That way you've got the exact same deal.
You've made your two payments, you're getting credit for the two payments, the initial money that was there, you're getting benefit of that.
You want to do a substitution of collateral with a like car, equipped the way yours is.
And if they'll do that, then that's exactly what I would do.
I'm sorry that happened, my friend, but thanks for calling.
And welcome back to The Car Pro Show with Jerry Reynolds, The Car Pro.
Every single week, Jerry puts a lot of time and a lot of effort into the newsletter between the reviews you've got on there.
You've got the incentives, you've got the rebates on there.
And of course, all the news information, it's a must read every single Friday.
It's nine o'clockish here in Texas is when I normally get mine and opening that up and seeing all the stuff in there.
It's sort of the blueprint for The Car Pro Show.
So if you haven't signed up, make sure you go to carpro.com and go to the bottom.
There is a link down there that not only will send the latest one immediately to you,
but you'll be assured of getting it every single week.
And we talk a lot about some of the subject matter on The Car Pro Show there,
but it's always good to read that and kind of be up on what's going on.
And you can read and you can watch Todd's number eight video of the week.
A little bit lower than I would have liked, but you know, it's a guy throwing a folding chair at a passing car.
I don't know what else you want.
You know, you'd been kind of consistently in the top five.
I was had a good run, but you know, sometimes, well, things aren't the same anymore.
Sometimes you have a week, an off week.
I'm going to try my best to get back in the top five.
That's what the Dallas Cowboys said.
Well, there's that.
Well, we want to welcome the KRLD1080 in Dallas audience to The Car Pro Show.
We started live with you guys last week and we're tickled to be with you every single week.
And then there'll be two more hours that play after this.
That's prerecorded.
So you're not going to miss a thing.
So that's good news.
Fred, New Braun Falls, Texas.
Fred, what can I help you with, sir?
Good afternoon, sir.
I appreciate you taking my call.
My wife and I are pushing 88 in January.
We were in a terrible tragic flood out in West Texas this past Thursday in our 2018 Honda CRV,
which only had 64,000 miles on it and we loved, was completely submerged.
Oh, wow.
Anyway, it was a weird freak accident situation.
I'm trying to decide when I'm again looking for a car because we're back home in New Braun Falls,
should we lease or should we go ahead and purchase?
I've always bought my own cars and not leased.
In fact, my wife drives a 2014 Kia Soul that you recommended years ago and she loves it.
It has 50,000 miles.
Oh, wow.
Don't put a lot of miles on a car.
And I'm not necessarily, I can afford whatever I want to, but I don't necessarily have to
have something for a show.
Let me recommend that you do look at leasing.
And I recommend leasing for seniors all the time and it seems to work out extremely well.
There's a lot of reasons why leasing and senior citizens go together.
And I took the time one day to write all that out and it's on my FAQ page at carpro.com.
In fact, I've got a entire senior section at the FAQ page and one of the articles there
is six reasons why seniors should lease.
I think it's worth looking at for you guys.
And one of the reasons, and this was hard to write.
I didn't want to write this, but I had to.
One of the reasons is because it's easier for your estate should something happen.
And that's unpleasant and I hate unpleasant things.
But look, reality is we're all, nobody gets a pass.
We're all going to go.
And a lease makes it easier on the people who remain.
And that was one of the reasons.
But the other is keeping your cash, getting a lower payment, not having to worry about
diminished value down the road.
There's a lot of stuff.
Take a look at that and see what you think.
And then if you need to call me back, please do.
I'm glad y'all are okay.
The car pro show can make you the smartest person on the block about buying a new car.
Call Jerry Reynolds, the car pro at 1-800-926-7777.
And Alan in Buda, Texas, welcome.
Alan, how can I help you?
Hello, Jerry and Todd.
Hey, buddy.
What's up?
Good to talk to you guys today.
I've been a car pro member for years, been listening to you for years and I've made some
car purchases because of your great car pro offers.
So anyway, I heard you talking about hybrid cars.
And I currently have a 25 Hyundai Tucson hybrid about a year ago.
And I like it.
It's lacking in some things, but the price is reasonable.
But what I really would like to be able to have if they'd ever come out with one is the Cadillac XT5,
the middle size of that.
But I don't see a hybrid in that and I'm wondering if they're considering making that.
Yeah, they are actually.
They're redoing the XT5 for the 2027 model year, which means it's probably about a year away.
So I suspect it'll be the 27s will come out next fall, next year about September.
And as part of that, they are doing a two liter turbocharged with a 48 volt electric battery as a hybrid.
So it's going to be a plug-in hybrid, which personally I like.
And people love those things.
So yeah, it's coming.
We're just about a year away, my friend.
And once it gets there, I'll review it right off the bat.
I'm sure I get GM cars real quick.
And I think it's certainly going to be worth looking at.
I wish I had more information for you.
But thanks for calling.
It's easy to see a commercial and think, I'd like that car.
But before you buy or lease, call Jerry Reynolds at the CarPro Show, 1-800-926-7777.
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