Celebrating 300 Episodes! Biggest News Stories of the Past 6 Years, Best $30,000 New Vehicles

Whether you drive a car, need a car, or just occasionally mummer ride with friends, you've

come to the right place. Join Jill and Tom as they break down everything that's going

on in the auto world. New car reviews, shopping tips, driving green, electric cars, classic

cars, and plenty of great guests. This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast. All right,

this is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast and I am Tom Appel. Thank you for joining

us today. When you have a chance, check us out at ConsumerGuide.com. You know the drill.

Check out our best buy picks, read my new car reviews, and fun stuff too. You know what I did,

Jill? What did you do? What a waste of time. Hi. But it's awesome. No one's going to read it,

but it's awesome. For my favorite car ads, the 1983 Chrysler Fifth Avenue ad celebrating

Chrysler's presence at the 1983 Miss Universe pageant in St. Louis. It is a terrible newspaper

ad. It looks like high school kids did it. It's all clip art. Fabulous. Is Ricardo Montamon in it?

No. No, he should have been. Because actually, this was one year after Rath of Kant. Got it.

So he should have been in it. Yes. I don't know. If you have that asset, why don't you? Why don't

you use it? Yeah. That voice is Jill Simonillo. She is contributing editor here at Consumer

Guide, prolific freelancer in North American Car of the Year juror. And Jill, do you know what

we're celebrating today? I do. 300 freaking episodes. 300 freaking episodes. Most of which I

sat here with you. That is correct. So bonus patience award for me. Or me. Whatever. Yeah,

whatever. Both of us. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. We made this work in the studio

with us today. We're not going to even wait. We're not going to pretend. Damon Bell. Damon,

one of our original co-hosts. The time just rockets past. I thought it was five years. It's six years.

Six years. 2019. Almost to the day. Oh, yep. Yep. Almost to the day. Also in the studio,

Jennifer Newman, editor-in-chief of Cars.com, our first guest ever. I'm back. We just can't get

rid of you. You're kind of like a bad penny. Very true. You know, it's crazy though. Damon looks

every minute six years older. You do not. I credit that to Rhett and all and hair dye. So

yay for those. Just for the record, I 100% feel sixty.

I found out that if you just slowly gain weight, you don't wrinkle.

Yeah, you just sort of keep stretching. But now you can't lose it. I'm just going to put that

out there for you. And there's no side effects to that whatsoever. It's just all outside. No,

it's all good health. It's all clean living. I still have my headphones on. I can take those off.

Anyway, we're going to celebrate all six years. My wife sent the cake.

We thank Jill for the cake. So that was nice. She doesn't listen to the podcast. So we don't

really need to thank her. I'm thanking her anyway. All right. I'm offering it up to the

universe. I'm having gratitude. My mother listens to the podcast. Hi, mom. All right. We have things

to do. And then I want to talk about the last six years a little bit. And I was looking through

some stuff and I've been taking notes for like a month to get ready for this. And it's been a crazy,

crazy six years. Like, we could not have been in this business at a weirder time.

Yeah. I mean, I guess there could have been the Chrysler bankruptcy way back when,

during the Liya Coca days. That was kind of nutty. I mean, the bailouts in 2008, maybe. Speaking of

which, someone today came up to me and asked me if I heard about the Stellantis bankruptcy.

I'm like, what? And like, you would think my phone would have been on fire with

with those news notifications. And I went to automotive news and I went to the Chrysler

website. And I don't know what that is. There are things worse at Stellantis that I

that that is fair. Like the recall of the Jeep four by ease that are going on right now. Yeah.

Yeah. The whole tech pushback at Stellantis is interesting. Four by E not working. Eh,

we don't need a six cylinder engine. We'll go back to the Hemi. It's all a little frustrating.

You know, one step forward, two steps back kind of thing. Yeah. But anyway, you guys have news.

Cars.com has news. Yes. Yes. I'm pointing. I'm pointing to Jennifer. You're pointing and

there is no visible here. And you know, you shouldn't point. That's no, no, no, I know. But

if she'd answered super quick, I probably wouldn't have come off as as dumb as I said it seemed.

Jennifer, you guys have news. We have lots of news. Yeah. I mean, one of our one of the big

things that we've been looking at, of course, is affordability. And we've been thinking about

that. You have been all over everything. Well, it's a really important topic. Yeah. I heard

auto line or no, no, I'm sorry. Automotive. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've been talking

about it with a pretty much anybody who listened to me. So also, you know, I don't know that my

spouse is listening either. So if it makes you feel any better. But one of the things that, you

know, we're we've really focused on this last year is affordability and really trying to help

car shoppers find those affordable vehicles given just some of the difficulties that I think everyone

is experiencing inflation, higher interest rates, things like that. And so one of the pieces we've

published recently is our best new cars for 30 K. So that is us helping a little bit to guide

those shoppers. List is interesting. I just went shopping with my daughter for a car.

So and that was around our target price. Like we didn't want to pay a lot more than it. We ended

up paying 32, I think. Well, that's not bad with stuff like all in that's reasonable. Yeah.

But so you had mentioned wanting to hit that price point. Is that kind of the key to affordability?

Like there's not a lot of those you can do, right? Like stretching payments is a terrible idea.

I know it is. It is a really bad idea. I understand why people need to do it because,

you know, cars are a need. They're not a want for most for many people, they need it. They needed

to go to their jobs. There's they have to have it. And so they're thinking about those monthly

payments and what they can afford you. I think this room, everybody in this room, we know you

need to really think about the total cost of the car and thinking about how long that loan is going

to be. But unfortunately for some people, that is not reality. And so they've got to think about

the monthly payment and stretching it out is what makes it possible. Do you guys have a price

calculator? We do. Okay. Yes. How do people find that? Because people should do exactly what you

said. It's not just about monthly payments. You want to figure out how long you're paying for them

and what you're paying for. And the other thing that's happening, and I wanted to ask you about

this, it just occurred to me today. If you stretch your payments out, six years, God forbid, seven

years. We're hearing about 84 month loans and stuff. The other bad thing that happens is one,

you can't trade in your car because you're underwater on it for more time. But the other

bad thing is you're starting to hit the maintenance years. So you have a car that was your new car,

you haven't traded in yet. You're the first owner and you're starting to pay for stuff.

Yeah. That is so true. That's a great point. I think people forget about that. At some point,

the warranties, the warranties do run out even when you have generous warranties. And so,

yeah, you're going to start paying, not only are you making a car payment, but then you're also

paying to fix, hopefully small things, but sometimes bigger things too. And the maintenance

things that happen when you get past three, four, five years are bigger and more expensive.

Often. Often. Right. I mean, I've had cars that have just been sailing along for my personal

cars that have been sailing along for years and other cars where after a while you're thinking,

this is costing me more than I'm willing to pay and it's time to trade it in. But to your point,

Tom, we can't, you know, if you're underwater, then you, it's not going to make sense for you. So,

yeah, it's a tough spot to be. And so, yes, I mean, here's the, you can easily find lists of

cheap cars and you can find that on cars.com, right? We've got quite a few articles that are

outlining and we update them frequently. The cheapest cars that are out there. These are,

this recommendation list is a little bit different because we started looking at the average price

on cars.com because we wanted to really think about what the shoppers are going to find when they

go to the dealership lot of a real world figure. Exactly. Exactly. And I think the other part of

it too is we, we thought about safety ratings. So we eliminated those vehicles that have poor

crash test ratings from the insurance insurance Institute for highway safety that just rolls

off the tongue. And we also wanted to make sure that these cars were available in cars.com's

inventory because a lot of times you see these base trims and you think, okay, this is what I

can afford. I'm going to go make that purchase. They're hard to find. It's vaporware. The base

model doesn't actually exist. You may remember, Damon, when we worked together way back when a

consumer guide that Infinity was the first car company to start packaging its vehicles for

online sales. And there was a base, what was it called the G35 at the time? Yeah. Yeah. That car

was not available without a package, but they advertised it without a package. And at the time

it came in at like $29,995 without a package. But that car didn't exist. It literally didn't exist.

You couldn't build one that way. Oh, someone want to walk us through this list? Sure. I've got it

right in front of me. That's handy. The point I would like to make too is, so this is best new

cars for $30,000 or less. I'm old enough that $30,000 doesn't sound that cheap to me. No, I know.

What's the average transaction price? It's like more than $50,000. Yes. So this is $20,000

below the average transaction price. And that is the bad news too. And I don't mean to cut you

off, but just an interesting story and something that's happening now too is because of the tariffs

and no manufacturer is exactly admitting this. But because of the tariffs, we're seeing base

models disappear. Last week we talked about the BRZ. For 2026, they're killing a base model of that.

The Toyota Highlander, they're smaller of their midsize crossovers.

Base model goes away for 2026, raising the price of that a lot. Dealer fees are starting to go up too.

Yeah. And then they're sneaking in destination fees that are raising, so it doesn't look like

they're raising sticker prices. But anyway. So yeah, I've got, well, I'll just run through the

list. One thing is you're not going to get a ton of space under 30K. Like we kind of top out at

Compact SUV. But again, like Compact SUV, one of the most popular, if not the most popular segment.

So yeah, I'll just start at the top. Best subcompact car under 30K, the Nissan Versa,

2025 Nissan Versa. Best compact car, 2026 Honda Civic. Sure. Best compact hatchback. This is one

of my personal favorites, the 2025 Kia Soul. We worked with people that bought souls. Yes.

Like especially coming into our offices, like, what do you think of the Soul? Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. And it was kind of an easy choice. And at this point, if you, if you're enamored with the

Soul, you better act fast 2025. Sadly, in my book is the last year for the Kia Soul. The Nissan

Versa is on the bubble too. Is it? Yeah, I just read that it may not happen as a 2026,

which is a bummer because that is such a good value. So I just was with Nissan and somebody

specifically asked if first it was going away and they said no. They said no. Okay. I mean,

words on the street that it's going away. So I'm sure they're going to keep asking.

Yeah. And it's a zero profit vehicle for them. It's super affordable.

The best compact hybrid 2025 Toyota Corolla hybrid. Best midsize car 2025 Hyundai Sonata.

Best subcompact SUV, 2026 Hyundai Kona. And finally, the best compact SUV, 2026 Chevrolet

Equinox. And I think we were off air when you noted that that's just the front. You can't get

an all wheel drive. Yeah. And in all of these cases, we are not talking top trim levels.

You know, these are kind of base or a couple of steps up from entry level vehicles. But

even at those lesser trims, a lot of these come with decent amounts of standard equipment. I

think the Equinox that we, the trim that we centered on has a heated steering wheel, heated seats.

Nice. These, you know, there are very few vehicles that are completely stripped these days. And these

all have probably, I mean, they don't have everything under the sun, but there's probably

more standard equipment in these than you might expect. It was about eight weeks ago. But when

my daughter and I were shopping, we drove the, we wanted to drive the Hyundai Kona.

And we did drive the Kia Seltos, which they're mechanically similar, but there were no Kona's

of the Chicago land area. None. Yeah. 2025 was sold out. And I'm wondering if not just popular,

but I'm wondering if for tariff reasons, there's not a lot of money to be made on these. If the

supply of some of these might be a little thin this year, which would suck because these are all

great picks. The Equinox is roomy. That's like you or I fit in that thing. Damon is very tall,

by the way. Yes, I'm six foot six. And I'm very wide. You know, most of these vehicles I fit,

well, including the Nissan Versa. Yeah. All of these, I have good spacing. Of all of these,

the Hyundai Sonata might be the tightest on headroom for me because it's kind of got that

swoopy roofline. Corolla might be the smallest door opening is an issue for me. Yeah. But you

get the hybrid there under 30K. Right. So that's good news. Yeah. And a nice one too. Yeah. And

that's going to get you 50 miles per gallon driven correctly. For sure. That's a big deal.

I have fond memories, speaking of space, I have very fond memories of the Kia Soul when that

was redesigned in 2020. When it was new, I took it on a family vacation in the Lake Tahoe area.

I fit my family of four in our luggage for the week. Well, the boys were like five and seven at

the time. They're still taller than me, I think. Actually, yeah, they're probably both are now,

but at the time they were. But again, family of four luggage for the week, we squeezed everything

into that Soul and it was not uncomfortable. We didn't have a whole lot of room to spare,

but it worked just fine. The subcompact SUV you've got the cone and that's hard to argue.

Did you guys think about the kicks at all?

Yes. And again, our ceiling was 30K and we felt, you know, we were picking the best. We

deliberated on a lot of these. I think there was some pretty strong debate on Honda Accord versus

Hyundai Sonata. Sure. And I think we landed on just the Sonata's features for the money,

kind of gave it the edge. Again, when you're talking about price being a primary factor,

so in the case, interesting point, I started to catch off there at this price point. And if you're

struggling to get into that vehicle, you want as much stuff as you can get, right? Because you're

going to have this car for a while. Yes. And in my book, at least again, talking about space,

the Kona is one of the most spacious of subcompact SUVs and both for backseat space and cargo.

So that definitely gave it the edge as well. Weird thing about the kicks was that when we were

shopping, that nice car, great interior design. Stylish. Yeah. A lot to like there. Really weak

on power, even though it's got a bigger engine for 2025. But the other thing is that if there's

some key features, you have to get the top trim level to get. One of them is the heated steering

wheel. And my daughter really wanted a heated steering wheel. You have to get the top trim level

that includes the glass roof, and then you're comfortably over 30. Yeah. I think you're like

hitting 32, 33. And I don't like Panoramic. Yeah. Oh, you're weird. I'm not a sunroof guy.

Actually, they have no appeal to my daughter either. I don't know if that's a young person

thing or just seems like an extravagance. Yeah. That's a long way from like T-bar roofs.

I'm indifferent about them. Like if they're great, if they're not, like I never open them.

Yeah, me neither. And again, you got to have a vote too. So I like a Panoramic, but I don't like

a sunroof moonroof. I don't ever. So I have one car that has a Panoramic and my other car has a

just a, you know, sunroof and I never open my sunroof because I feel like the glare comes down.

I've really particular comes down through my sunglasses and then I don't like it.

I had an 84 sunbird, 84 pine egg sunbird that we purchased new. And the sunroof never fit into

the gasket. And you could tell looking at the car that the sun was literally a different contour

than the roof. And the eventual fix was a new gasket that stuck out like a quarter inch. And

each time you're like, Oh, this is nasty, but it was a pop out sunroof. So you could, you could

either snip it up like two inches and have it like that, or you could remove it entirely and

put it in a bag in the trunk. But it just sucked. If you were driving around and start to drizzle,

like, Oh God, then you had to pull over, get the trunk, take the sunroof out of the bag,

and then single handedly, you know, you're one person trying to get a glass sunroof over the

scratching the roof. Yeah, I kind of lost interest in sunroofs in 1984.

Yeah. And again, like a six foot six guy talking a lot of times the housing around the sunroof

steals an inch and a half of precious headroom, precious, sweet, precious headroom. And, and

yeah, that's not good for tall folks. Oh man. Speaking of affordable cars, did you guys look

at all like first time financing additionally being a problem? Like, does that even compound the

cost issues? We really haven't dug into the financing question so much. I think just because

it's, it can vary so much from, from shopper to shopper. So that's not something we, we dug into

yet. Who knows, we might get there though. There was a very strange thing that auto week used to

do. And when I say used to, I mean, like in the 80s, but they used to do a car review. And one

based on, and then, and then take what you putting 20% down, making regular payments on

the car they tested exactly at that price. And they would calculate when you would have 20%

equity in the car. And this was theoretically the date that you could go trade in the car.

And if you bought a car that was exactly the same price, you would have a down payment.

You would have the 20% down required for a loan without paying a surcharge under our penalty on

the loan. And it's weird because no one thinks like that anymore. And even then that was seemed

like it was this complicated chart. And I'm like, what the hell? And I kind of, I'm kind of good

with numbers. I'm like, what is this chart? But it was usually comfortably into the ownership

of the car. Yeah. Yeah. Like more than two, three years before you could trade it in. Well, I mean,

you know, who knows? I don't know. I think we know people are holding onto their vehicles longer,

right? So I'm not even sure when, when do people start to trade those vehicles in? I think they're

honestly, you kind of want to hang on to it for at least past five years.

Some people get itchy though, they'll do it the minute they can.

That's true. That's a good point. Oh, where can we find this chart?

This was our article is on our site. In fact, if you go to the news section,

it's kind of the banner lead article to click on there. But yeah, it's go to cars.com slash news.

Yeah, cool. People should check that out. All right, we're going to take a break. And when we come

back, we're going to talk about the last six years. That's a big conversation. All right, we'll be right

back. Questions or comments? Drop us a line at carstuff at consumerguide.com. That's carstuff

at consumerguide.com. Welcome back to the Car Stuff podcast. And we're back. This is the

consumerguide Car Stuff podcast. I'm Tom. She's Joe. She's Jennifer Newman of cars.com and he

is Damon Bell of cars.com. You guys, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. I can't believe

how fast time flies. It's weird. But but six years have gone by. Yeah. And it's been the craziest

six years I think of the auto industry in our lifetimes. Maybe there was the Chrysler bankruptcy

under Lee Iacoco. That was crazy. There was the big bankruptcies 10 years ago that was during our

actually during our tenure. Yeah. The Great Recession and stuff. But like the tariffs and

stuff. It's crazy. Yeah. I wasn't it was it Mary Barra who said the auto industry is going to

change more in the next five years than it's changed in the last 50. It was it was something

along those lines like I'm already off topic but Mary Barra is a huge I think symbol of that change.

When she got to General Motors and she was she was going to be a scapegoat. If people remember

the the ignition key scandal and that was a big scandal and it was a big mess up by GM but they

had the problem with the ignition keys. They were breaking those with the cobalts wasn't it. Yep.

Yep. And the problem was that they would break in the key and the car couldn't be turned off.

And one of the issues with it was that for some reason the the old parts and the new parts had

the same part number so they didn't even know if the parts had been replaced and it was a mess

and she got through that and then she started and I never mean this as an insult thinking like a

woman and no one at General Motors had ever done that before because General Motors had been entirely

conquest right market share sales and and growth. Yeah. Just big big big and they were in they were

in Australia and they were in China and they were South Africa and they were in Russia and like

General Motors was everywhere and she just cut all the Western Europe and she just cut all the

unprofitable stuff. She went crazy and they're not about market share anymore and they're not

about being one of the three biggest companies because they're not. I think they're down to like

six million cars and they've never been more profitable. Well pre-tariff like everything's

messy now. Yeah I was gonna say nobody's profitable right now I don't think. But that's a really new

crazy way to run a company. Yeah. General Motors had never been run like that before and and their

cars are better than they've been maybe since I've been writing about cars. I mentioned off

air that I just driven the Escalade IQ the Cadillac Escalade IQ the electric Escalade it's

really impressive. But anyway enough of me I just wanted to kind of get a handle on what you guys

thought were the biggest stories of the last few years maybe the weirdest ones to work around

the ones you didn't want to write about. I feel like this is such a there's no way we're going

to get through everything here. No no no no but I did. We have cake to eat. Yeah we do have cake

I posted at my stories. You know I did some due diligence leading up to this I'm like well

that's not like you. I'm gonna take some notes. I'm gonna write some thoughts down and be prepared

like. And then you forgot those notes. For the first time ever. You stopped at a bar and left

your notes on the bar. But you one of the things you had is a you said most significant craziest

events and the first thing I wrote which I don't think is gonna surprise anybody COVID. Yeah yeah

course. COVID was crazy to me just because of the resilience of the retail side of the industry.

Everything should have collapsed and everything collapsed a little sales fell a lot.

But even before we got to the chip shortage thing dealers were dealing with us

and they were selling cars. Yeah it was kind of crazy. It should have been crazier than it was.

Meanwhile we were getting test cars that were wrapped in toilet paper. Yes it had alcohol

wipes in the center console and yeah. But think about I mean speaking of the dealers and their

resiliency you have to remember the way they continued to pivot and pivot and pivot through

every hurdle that was put in front of them and then you know not only helping to serve how

they service cars but how they sold cars how they were using you know technology like FaceTime or

you know digital call you know basically zooms you know zoom meetings or whatever to do essentially

walkthroughs with customers you know it really I think it shows it's a good reminder especially

as the automotive industry is dealing with things like tariffs and lots of other question marks

just how nimble this this this industry can be essentially. And it's funny because we had I'm

sorry. I was gonna say they because they used VR to do their like design meetings. Yes and I was

to the ninth person with basically a smartphone camera and like hey here's the new. I forgot about

there's so much COVID stuff that it just it changed part of it was like the trauma of COVID

right. I think everyone's repressed a lot of things but it's like oh yeah there was time when

there were virtual showroom visits and you know all these things that. Well and it just changed the

way I think we in general operate but especially how the automotive industry could operate which

was kind of cool you know from the like using VR to design collaborate together to the virtual

showrooms to the zoom meetings you know the the over zoom meetings. It really turbocharged

yeah the logical adoption. Yeah yeah and I mean we actually ourselves since we couldn't go into

studio during COVID we were doing like a zoom version or I forget even what they called it

clean feed clean feed and then we had like a chat going because we couldn't see each other and it's

like hey I want to talk here. Yeah and I'm like no no I'm raising my hand here I want to talk.

I apologize to our listeners during that era. And thank you for sticking with us if you were there

with us during that era. And I blame me the most I was constantly stepping in other people's feet

when we were trying to talk. You still constantly step on everyone's feet. Yeah I know I know. Yeah

at least yours. Yeah thanks. Your tiny tiny little feet. Can you can even reach them. No I don't

think you can. You try to step on my feet. You guys are going to start kicking each other onto the

table here. That's true. Can you even reach them. That might have been our first ever FATCHO because

it's a good one. He didn't intend it as a FATCHO. One other thing before we before we barrel pass

the topic of COVID which it seems like we're pretty close to doing. Think about the things that

like seemed like oh this is just around the corner in late 2019 and COVID just obliterated. Wiped it

out. The thing I'm thinking of car sharing. Remember Cadillac. I wrote down Car Share. Did you write

that down. Yeah. Maven. Oh my gosh. You see and I like I forgot about Maven that was General Motors

right. Yeah that was GM. Yeah wasn't yeah wasn't Link and Co. Link and Co. Yeah you spelled it right

too. L-I-N-K. From my own notes I spelled it right. That's not like you know I don't spell. No I actually

wanted to just I just got on this link and Co. Which was presented to us and I'm trying to remember

if they had an auto show appearance or not. But I think they did. Link and Co was a Chinese company

I think even at the time owned by Geely and it was going to be Volvo related products a little bit

like Polestar is now. But the whole deal was going to be subscription based. Yeah. So you were going

to you were going to subscribe to your link and Co car. And we and I have talked about the myth of

subscription services because at first a subscription was everything. You would subscribe and every

month you could change your car. Yeah. This was the crazy idealized world of a subscription car.

So you would get a car and they would cover the cost of insurance maintenance all that stuff.

You were just paying one monthly fee and you could swap your car out. And Cadillac tried it

and Porsche tried it and I think Mercedes-Benz tried it. I think all three of them tried a big

time in New York. Right. And like Manhattan I think because of the compactness. I feel like

Hyundai might have even tried it down in Florida or something with their EVs. There but there were a

lot of companies that were trying it. And then Volvo did it and like oh yeah we sold out our

subscriptions but they wouldn't tell us how many that was. Five. So it may have been six. Yeah.

It's pilot program. But the whole thing just didn't work and there was a bunch of barriers

to it. And one of it was what's a new car. And after 10 people have subscribed to a car for a

month and got a little bit greasy they had to clean it. You know and it's all of a sudden

it's got 10,000 miles on it. It's like do you still can you subscribe. Is that a used car. Yeah.

You take it out of the subscription call but that never happened. But right. Right Sherry.

Yeah. I'm going to buy a car and just let other people drive it and they're going to

leave five bucks on the seat. What was that. Yeah. That was weird but we were confusing

right Sherry and right Haley at the time. But yeah those are the things that I thought of.

But yeah I mean rolling into 2020 this idea that traditional car ownership could possibly become

a thing of the past. Man just COVID killed that notion. And who's maybe as we get further away

from it it might come back. I guess there's still you know upsides to it. And again the

average consumer is more open to the idea of subscription based things. So yeah. Well and

I think one thing that COVID did help usher in was Uber and Lyft. Because you know especially

being in Chicago like I take public transportation all the time. I don't have a personal car. My

husband has a car that we share. And then I get test cars but I love to take public transportation.

I love to take the L. I love to take the bus. I love to people watch. And I can get anywhere I

need to go because I live at a major intersection. I'm like a couple blocks from the blue line. I'm

like a block from three different bus lines. And so I love public transportation but during COVID

nobody wanted to take it. And so everybody was doing like Uber or Lyft to get to the airport

or to get to wherever they wanted to go. I remember this about Chicago too. Chicago was

enjoying like elevated before COVID and elevated use of public transportation for a while. And

COVID quashed that. Just killed it. So I mean I think that was one thing that COVID really helped

usher in was it solidified Uber and Lyft. Because I think they were still kind of on shaky ground

at that point. You know people were still you know especially people of a certain age were

still invested in like taxi cabs and you know hailing a cab and things like that. But like the whole

app services and being able to get the car to come to you like I feel like wherever you're at

yeah wherever you're at and you can just put a pin on it and then the car comes to you. I mean

it's amazing. And you know I think that was coming regardless but I think it came faster

because of COVID. I want to get Jennifer's input but I just thought of something when you're talking

about a car coming to any place. Do you remember any three words? Yes. No. I think I just deleted

it off my phone. Was that like the abbreviated nav? It was it was some sort of super pinpoint

navigation system that was more accurate than a dress or it was supposed to be. And literally

every single location on the planet could be identified using just three words. And it could

literally be like cheese, gym shoe, you know. Oh you would have way too much fun with that.

I don't know what came of that though. I think it's still I think it's still around and I

I think there was a use for it because you know if you are in places that are don't have an address

right like you're on a GPS location come on. Yeah that's a fair point but anyway so

altitude and latitude. I think it's still around I don't think it's gone away. I know it's off my

phone though. I've got a friend that lives in McHenry County and his address is what's like the

Chicago Automobile Trade Association does not have a conventional address

that actually confounds navigation systems but like lots of McHenry County is just these

really weird west and north numbers you're like the and the navigation system will not help you.

So I don't know if the three names thing was going to get better with that. I don't know.

Your your three words would be Mokwas, Montabon, Salami. I was going to say Kordoba but you know.

I would have chose pretty much those. Yeah I might have substituted gun smoke for Salami.

But yeah yeah definitely Montabon. Yes. So what do you think was a big event of the.

Well I couldn't get over the pandemic as well but for me it was the chip shortage.

And I wrote that down to you. Sorry to sorry to bring this down a little.

But you know just thinking about the chip shortage and the difficulties of navigating that the

impact the long lasting impact that it's had on new cars but also on use cars.

Prices are up and I think we can point it directly to that that shortage.

I have a question for you about the chip shortage. Okay.

And cars.com and I don't know if you guys are dealing with us or anyone is dealing with us

but there are now vehicles coming up used that don't have some features. Yeah that's right.

That might have been expected. Specifically like General Motors built a lot of V8s with

house cylinder deactivation during the chip shortage. Right. And the fuel economy took a hit.

I think it was one full combined number because of that and I don't know our consumers aware of

that. Is anyone tracking that. I don't know that anybody is tracking it. I know we reported on it

during you know during COVID and when this was becoming an issue and this and and removing

some of those features was how the automakers were bringing cars to market because remember

how tight the new car supply became as well. So it just one thing after another. So I think

that's a great call out for used car shoppers is to really go through. You always need to be

you have to pay attention to the vehicle. Right. You've you've got to do your homework.

You've got to do your research and so having those sort of deeper conversations and making sure that

you're really getting the features that you think you're getting. Exactly. You don't even need to

know that you don't have cylinder deactivation. You just need to do your research on the car

and you can do a check on the EPA. Yeah. Right. And just see what your car got then and just know

if that number works for you. Those things were even called out on the on the window stickers.

Yeah. On the monies like you know and and there was probably something where hey we you know

you can bring this back in when the chip shortages passed us and we'll put that you know feature

back in. I don't know how much that actually probably not. But there were like so many features.

So it wasn't just cylinder deactivation. I think that was just the biggest one.

There was HD radio. There was I think even auto stop start breaks. They kept the brakes.

They kept the brakes. But the emergency brake maybe that went. But no. But like I think auto

stop start on some vehicles ended up going away and I was like amen. Let's make this for real.

I vaguely remember a BMW 3 series test car that was all deck like most vehicles that are in a

press fleet optioned up pretty well. This one had leather poultry all the kind of nice stuff

and then manual driver seat. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. And I think there was even a note on the Minroni

like you know delete for chip shortage or something. I drove a Silverado during that period

and there was something that there was a 50 buck credit for and I can't remember what it was. I'm

like I want way more than 50 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. It was probably the cylinder deactivation and it's

just like this is worth way more than 50 bucks. It is. And it worked. It's one of the few systems

that worked really well. I just people we interviewed in the last few years and folks from Bright

Drop. Yeah. No more. Yeah. Nicola. Yeah. More whopping. We didn't interview these people but

Jaguar seems to be more of a I don't know what's going on. Yeah. They don't they don't talk to

anybody really. Yeah. Yeah. I worried about that. I did forget to thank these guests that we had that

made extra effort to be here. Henry Ford, Paul McCartney, the Cone Brothers and Barry Manilow.

Yes. If you missed those. What the heck? Ricardo. Yeah. If you missed those episodes be sure to go

back and listen to everything. Started episode one. Spend a lot of time on the Consumer Guide

website looking for those episodes. Read a few articles. Some of them had to be conducted via

medium but it's just part of it. Well, you know, time's a time's a medium an empath.

I'm an empath. That's right. Oh man. One thing I wanted to talk about two things I wanted to talk

about. If you guys remember right before COVID like one minute before COVID Ford launched the F-150

Lightning huge event and all of a sudden they had 200,000 hand raisers. Yep. How the hell did

that go so wrong? And I think exactly how that went so wrong. The problem was COVID actually.

I think part of the problem actually was COVID. I mean part of it was COVID but I think huge buzz

part of it is they just didn't have their SHIT together and they put out a vehicle that wasn't

ready for prime time. Well, the other thing too and the car was going to start at 40 grand.

Well, it was going to start at 40 grand. It was supposed to have 320 miles of range but only had

160 miles of range in cold weather. I mean they just they just didn't they didn't have to charge.

They didn't mention anything about paying for the big battery and it was like only 150 I think

kilowatt hours for charging. It wasn't like a fast fast like the ultra fast like the Hyundai

vehicles. I mean there were just so many little things that they missed. That was the other thing

I wanted to talk about. I have had and I'm going to I'm way too happy about this and I don't think

my journalistic eyes are entirely clear. I've had four fantastic Electrify America experiences

in a row like this like like perfect fast. Everything about them except they were expensive.

What did you talk about Willis? 58 cents a kilowatt hour. I think you're lying.

No. It's specifically Electrify America. Okay. Okay. Now there's one not like two minutes from

here. It's a 10 unit thing and it's been fantastic. Okay. So I'm an AV owner and we did a family road

trip from Chicago to Boston in our EV this summer. Oh yeah. And I meant to post about this and I

haven't. I should probably there's a lot of exclusive information right here folks. So Chicago to

Boston. Chicago to Boston. How many miles is that? I think it was over a thousand. Each way. Yeah we

and we on the way out we we stayed in the U.S. on the way back we came through Canada. So we

on the way out we didn't have any issues. No. Every single charger we stopped at.

Easy. Quick. The majority were EA. I think we used a Mercedes or did you charger out in

western mass I believe. But yeah didn't have an issue at all. It was easy breezy. I couldn't

believe it. I could it was it was huge and going to that thinking about the lightning

for its lightning. I think the other issue with with that vehicle is the infrastructure wasn't

there yet right. So you know you're you're asking consumers to make I think a lot of the early EV

owners such as myself a lot of us were willing to make the sacrifice the sacrifices to make it work

right. When you're when you start with a pickup truck there's a lot of utility there that's needed.

I'm not sure that that those owners were willing to quite make those you know those tradeoffs and

then that that public infrastructure was it was a huge missing component I think. So for us I'm

happy to report you know this summer it was great. I will say we just did a quick a quick trip to

Kalamazoo to see my youngest son and we did run into one problem at an EA charger station charging

station that we always go to and that the whole thing was taken down. We pulled up and it was like

but it's fine. We were able to drive another 20 miles. It's not a big deal when you went to Boston

you said everything went great going there. Yeah on the way home it was a little more exciting in

Canada. We had a little bit we had a harder time finding chargers that would work

and so we managed to I think we stopped to charge we couldn't get it to work it was it was something

that we hadn't heard of before and what we ended up doing is we booked a we found a hotel that had

charging and we've got the last charging spots we were able to charge overnight and then get back

into the US which is a nice thing and I know a lot of like not budget but like just over budget

hotels yeah have a bank of level two chargers yeah that's exactly it and so and that was actually

key as well on our trip both ways is we you know I'm on my little app trying to find a hotel and

was looking specifically for hotels with EV chargers that helped. We have to break but I want to

ask you something just follow up on something you were kind of a pioneer in installing home

charging yeah and yours was really complicated. Yes it was. How has that been working?

That's a great question. I don't know if we have time. Yes just for the listeners my I live in a

townhouse in Chicago my parking spot is in the alley it is on the opposite end of our townhouse

row so it was about $4,500 to install our EV charger we had to trench through the neighbor's

yard I have great neighbors. We just replaced our our charging unit because we had what was a juice

box they went bankrupt somebody else bought them we were having problems getting getting our juice

box online so we we ended up getting a wall box installed and use ComEd rebates to do that. The

hitches we need to update our 2022 Ionic 5 that we got to take it in for service because we cannot

charge at home right now something happened so there must have been some update like a software

update and we are we are now having problems charging we can only fast charge so I'm sorry to

hear that me too when you guys did that stuff I thought it was so cool that you guys were

experimenting with us and doing that and I remember yours was just like a crazy project oh yeah it was

it was involved a lot of coordination and a lot of talking to my great neighbors and I'm glad we

did it because ultimately it's I think that's so important to be able to speak to consumers about

the variety and pricing when it comes to installing an EV charger right we we know that affordable

vehicles right now are used EVs so okay go get a used EV but actually how are we gonna charge it

what like what's what's what's realistic for you and so you know we want to be thought about the

guidance we're giving shoppers you mentioned affordable EVs and one of the things that makes me

sad is that there is a lot of Tesla Model 3's and Model Y's out there used that are shockingly

affordable 25k-ish they're good cars they're proven they've been on the road from you know

there's millions of them out there oh globally but people won't now look at them for political

reasons and that's a shame because it's a really there's a bumper sticker for that yeah there is

but it's a great way to dip your toe into the EV world for not a lot of money with a car that's

probably not going to be troublesome yeah that has great access to a great network anyway we're

going to take a break and when we come back quiz time quiz time questions or comments drop us a

line at carstuff at consumerguide.com that's carstuff at consumerguide.com

Hi it's Brendan from Sons of Speed you've heard me and my colleague Paul on the car stuff podcast

whenever Jill's out of town but now you can hear us every week on the we are motor driven podcast

along with Jennifer from auto exotica and Harvey from rides and drives we talk about

everything from sports cars to trucks to EVs and our favorite speed so join us each week by

searching we are motor driven wherever you get your favorite podcast. Welcome back to the car

stuff podcast and we're back this is the consumerguide car stuff podcast I'm Tom Appel she's

he is Damon Bell of cars.com and Jennifer Newman of cars.com thank you guys for being here

oh thanks for having us and I know we covered it but Damon was one of the first hosts of the

consumerguide car stuff podcast Jennifer was our very first guest and we talked about car seats

now you don't care about kids anymore right is that yeah I'm over it I'm over it yeah

still care you know what I'm going to do real quick we've got about 15 minutes to do the quiz

but I've got my thank you list so I'm going through my thank you list real quick okay okay

this means like I will rush you along because this means that I can't uh stall during the quiz

right so go yeah all right Steve and Johnny yes all right they've been a guest they've

haven't helped enough promoter the late in Chicago late night radio legends they're awesome

and they're responsible for our opening yes and bumper music all right uh Sam Fiorani our favorite

guest Sam you're awesome a lot of people don't know this Sam has jumped in so many times when

a guest dropped out yeah we never want to mention that because we are so glad to have Sam here yes

but he's been super flexible and he's always great to listen to uh Paul and Brendan our co-hosts

our emergency steppin coals the emergency Jill got called away yeah check out that we are motor driven

podcast it's great uh my good friend Nick DeGilio that guy's been relentlessly and senselessly

promoting the podcast yay thank you he's joining us in a couple weeks because he's got a new book

so that's called Patty Vasquez hosts of driving at home with Patty Vasquez and WCPT

I'm on her show all the time and she promotes the podcast she's great uh John Hanson John Williams

and Lisa Dent of WJN Radio thank you for promoting the podcast thank you for having me on the show

the guys at Drive Chicago Mark and Jim you're on their show all the time I'm on their show all the

time they're awesome uh producer Paul and Lady B at WCPT our first producers producer Randy thank

you very much we were just talking about how good the sound quality is here yes the show sounds

fantastic uh my old friend Stan Milam WCLO radio in Jamesville he retired but I used to do a show

every Friday for I used to be standing on Fridays after lunch I'd lock my door I'd go damn it I'm

standing so don't bug me don't bug me I do an hour every week on that station that was great

Robert Calangelo of Green Sense Radio we were always doing each other's show he's gonna be

joining us soon probably this year still we'll probably get that in all of our great guests

and then my old boss Lou who talked me into this uh it's funny because he came into my office one

day he's like uh should we have a podcast and I'm like probably and he goes look into that

well and you and I had been talking about before that yeah and so the fact that you

would pay for it was like amazing yeah yeah so lots of people to think if I didn't thank you

directly thank you to all of our guests all the people we worked with it's been a lot of fun

and thank you Jill I relentlessly mock you and you're pretty good about that not great about it

well my mom likes you so I have to you know yeah and thank you Tom for keeping this going all this

time my pleasure it's been fun it has been fun you know it's crazy too now in year three we don't

even need to get your six like no but people were year six not year three year six three hundred

it's been a lot longer than three years that is that is the senility yes it is uh yes it is

but people do approach us all the time about being on the phone they do and and I do want to point

out because I occasionally get comments that people are like I don't think you and Tom even like

each other and I'm like no no we do we actually like each other oh yeah no yeah no we're great

friends off here uh huh all right it's quiz time yes all right this is quiz 300 except it's not we've

skipped some quizzes in there uh but today's topic is who said it okay this is gonna okay I'm gonna

make a prediction right now Damon wins uh trillion dollar L trillion trillion dollar Elon or Edsel's

dad okay so I just need you to tell me if it was uh Elon Musk or Henry Ford who's got the following

okay we'll start with our guests Jennifer you go first oh no who said it yep quality means doing

it right when no one is looking Ford I'm gonna say Ford the other option was Elon Elon Musk Henry

Ford feels that feels 100% like Ford it was Ford you all three good points one two three Jennifer

damn it oh you're not going to be able to keep track of that that's adorable that's great no you

and I can win no matter what yeah yeah use jays uh oh yeah

no that way i and j e oh this went terrible Jennifer jill Damon okay and you all have one

point okay that's better thank you all right there is no cash prize so don't worry about

too much uh since we're just going in that order now chill I'm going with you okay uh life is too

short for long-term grud no life is too long for short-term grudges

life is too short for long-term grudges no life what again I started drinking too early life is too

long for short-term grudges I mean that kind of sounds like Henry Ford he seems like a grudge

holder to me but then so does mr musk um Ford was kind of a bastard yeah yeah yeah um life is too

long for short-term grudges yeah no pleasant I'm I'm gonna go with Ford all right that's that's

that's not really sage it's like basically like yeah you need to cling to the bitterness

yeah it seems like terrible advice yeah it's not advice just to mix things up I'm gonna say musk

all right I also say musk it was musk yeah all right so that's Jennifer and Damon okay I have

only one point we didn't really discuss the rules there are five questions plus the bonus question

right oh you need uh well you need to win to win yeah yeah because there's more than one person

all right third quote this one goes to Damon I usually describe myself as an engineer

hmm I'm gonna say musk said that also musk yeah I think musk it was musk hey all right you all

good points that means that Jill is down by one this is anyone's game question for the factory

is the machine that builds the machine musk or Edsel's dad I think that goes back Ford yes it's

Ford yeah Ford I will say Ford as well no that was see I was gonna break out there but I mean

that sounds like something for it would say it does all right finally that this is you uh Jill you

I'm doing a lot of you today I know that's very like bad luck for you it's bad uh when everything

seems to be going against you remember that an airplane takes off against the wind not with it

Henry Ford Elon musk why couldn't you bring up the everything is black quote

you can have any color you want as long as it's black that's questionable whether you actually

said that too is it really yeah um played against him yeah yeah um read the read the quote again I

will uh when everything seems to be going against you remember that an airplane takes off against

the wind not with it that sounds very optimistic and I don't hear either that coming at like optimism

like coming out of either one of their mouths um it's very optimistic um okay so I'm probably

not gonna get this but I'm gonna I'm gonna say Ford you're saying Ford Damon I'm gonna say Ford

as well because I was at the Henry Ford Museum this summer and realized that Henry Ford tried to

have individual personal aircraft oh that never got off the ground no pun intended like

but but he would I think have been more aviation focused than musk all right so we got a Ford Ford

and I'm gonna say musk uh it was Ford dang so that one goes to Damon and Jill so the best

any oh no Damon has won yeah congrats congrats damon wow I predicted uh the bonus question I'm

breaking a rule okay I'm doing the same bonus question two weeks in a row oh you're gonna

talk about the hallmark today's topic is even more hallmark movies oh uh let's see you went first

so you're gonna go first now Damon um was it frosted frosty or whatever hot frost hot frost

I need you to tell me that sounds vaguely off-color yeah it does kind of was yeah yeah uh

which is the real hallmark movie are you ready mm-hmm sure all right crashing through the snow

Manhattan yuletide mix-up holiday in Hamburg or merry muzzle tough so which one is sorry what is the

yeah you need to tell me which is the real hallmark movie so only one of those is real yeah

crashing through the snow manhattan yuletide mix-up holiday in Hamburg or merry muzzle tough

how do you spell merry m e r r y okay well that'd be weird if it was m a r y i don't know

that'd be a entirely different thing exactly yeah um i'm gonna guess crashing through the snow

is the real one yeah all right uh jennifer uh the hamburg holiday holiday in Hamburg and

jill you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna go completely different i'm gonna go with the

Manhattan yuletide mix-up one are you yeah crashing through the snow was the actual one

yeah exclamation point okay so we know who really watches the hallmark channel it is not the two

ladies in the room i've never seen a hallmark christmas movie but i've been told that they

have very cute female actresses in them and they often have like cool muscle cars and stuff so just

like a cartoon where they kind of pepper in like adult references there's scraps thrown to whatever

male watchers might be stuck sitting next to their significant this is from a friend right

actually don sequo told me this wow yeah down underneath the bus i don't think i can give up

three episodes of adam 12 for one hallmark movie have you seen one no but i but i have seen adam

12 i just i appreciate that this is like they're all formula yeah but that they're like hey we need

to put in a 69 shelby gt 500 to play which is nice yeah you know yeah uh crashing through the snow i

have the imdb um um description here are you ready yep maggie and sam are crashing christmas

when he proposes that they team up against his sister's perfect christmas neither is prepared

for the blended family challenges that lie ahead does it mention anything about 69 it doesn't

and also i don't see the thing here that would make me want to watch this yeah unless maggie as

you mentioned earlier is cute which which is a thing i'm looking her up right now and um i mean

i think she's cute i mean right yeah i mean cute was she ever an adam 12

probably not she looks way too young for that

i mean unless this is i suppose for for a young actress a hallmark movie is probably a

notch or two above a soap opera in terms of kind of well kim delaney got her starting soap operas

oh and just breaking news crashing through the snow is going to be on the hallmark channel

on tuesday december 2nd okay perfect wow white mid tv

i mean it was that was that my dvm i can't remember is that four four set four eastern three central

i don't understand that i don't understand that either yeah it says four i would i would i would

watch that movie if it had this theme music that's playing all right we i'm gonna go around the table

real quick uh car you guys have driven in the last five years that you would buy yourself

just real quick i've got one ready and loaded uh hunday velaster and all right with a stick shift

anybody lucid air there's one of the parking lot oh that's what i'm driving home let's walk

you don't want that i think you're in an ev9 right now right i'm in my personal car oh got it got it

i saw the ev9 in the lot um you know i would probably have to go with the golf bar with the

manual so 2024 model i have to my wife and i talked about this we might actually try to buy one at

some point um this makes me very old but i really want a crown signa uh it's it's it's really good

looking the only thing it isn't just super nice inside it's kind of a cheap interior i thought

those were kind of the the crown was a step above like a camry in terms of materials i'm not sure

i didn't i didn't love it and by the way but the hybrid works really well in there i see a crown

signa in my neighborhood every day when i am on my walk and i think of you you know it's it's the

red that soul red that was a quiz question that was like the color they share with um mazda that

beautiful but i think of you every time i pass it did you notice that the uh mazda's signature color

is is a crystal soul red soul red crystal man i got that exactly as wrong as you just got the words

mixed up but they build that in alabama they build the cx 50 in alabama oh that's why so

it the same plant it's showing up until it is in that color too yeah all right guess what we did

we had a great conversation that's what we did so thank you guys so much for being here we appreciated

300 episodes i don't think we'll celebrate 500 maybe we will we will it's coming up so quick be

optimistic i mean i'll be here will you uh jennifer remind us how people can check out this stuff

head on over to cars.com slash news to check out our latest expert uh reviews videos as well as

consumer news oh cool well you guys happy thanksgiving merry christmas all right all the things all right

so big thanks to uh our guests today thank you jill thank you to producer randy and the good folks

here at talk zone and we will talk more about uh more about cars again next week next week

remember to check us out at consumer guide dot com the car stuff podcast is produced by jay

turn media to advertise on the show please drop us a line at car stuff at consumer guide dot com

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