Windshield wiper inserts are the rubber parts that help clean your windshield. When they wear out, you can replace just these parts instead of the entire wiper blade.
The windshield wiper motor is what makes your wipers move. If your wipers are stuck because of ice, trying to use them can break the motor that controls them.
The power window motor is what makes your car windows go up and down automatically. If something is wrong and you force the window, it can break the motor that operates it.
A powertrain warranty is a type of insurance for your car that helps pay for repairs to the engine and transmission if they break down due to manufacturing issues. It doesn't cover regular wear and tear from driving.
Lack of maintenance means not taking care of your car by skipping regular services like oil changes. This can cause problems and might mean that warranties won't cover repairs.
The Toyota Highlander is a type of SUV that can carry many passengers and is designed for families. The 2022 version has a lot of safety features and is comfortable to drive.
When a car is 'out of warranty', it means the company that made the car is no longer responsible for fixing it for free. If something goes wrong, the owner has to pay for repairs.
When a car is sold 'as is', it means the buyer agrees to buy it in its current condition without any promises that it will work perfectly. If it has problems, the buyer has to deal with them.
When an engine is 'knocking', it makes a loud noise that usually means something is wrong inside. It can happen if the engine isn't working right and can cause big problems if not fixed.
Assurant is a company that provides insurance and warranties for different things, including cars. They help people cover the costs of repairs if something goes wrong with their vehicle.
Tread depth is how deep the grooves are in your tires. When they get too shallow, your tires aren't safe anymore, and you might need to replace them. In some places, tires are legally worn out when they are down to 2/32 of an inch deep.
Tire wear is how much the rubber on your tires gets used up as you drive. If your tires wear down too much, they can be dangerous and need to be replaced. It's important to check them regularly to stay safe on the road.
'30 seconds' is a way to measure how deep the grooves in a tire are. The deeper the grooves, the better the tire can grip the road. If the grooves are too shallow, it can be dangerous to drive.
2/32 of an inch is a way to measure how worn out your tire is. If your tire tread is this shallow, it means your tires are too worn and need to be replaced to stay safe on the road.
Snow tires are special tires made for driving in winter weather. They help your car grip the road better when it's snowy or icy, making it safer to drive in those conditions.
In a rear-wheel drive car, the back wheels get the power from the engine. This can make the car go faster and handle better, but it might be harder to control on slippery roads.
In a front-wheel drive car, the front wheels get the power from the engine. This helps the car grip the road better in bad weather, making it easier to drive safely.
All-wheel drive means that all four wheels of the car get power from the engine at the same time. This helps the car stay stable and grip the road better, especially in rain or snow.
The tire pressure warning light is a light on your dashboard that tells you if your tires are low on air. If it comes on, you should check your tire pressure.
The DOT code is a special code found on tires that tells you when they were made. It's important to check this code to know if your tires are too old and need to be replaced.
The sidewall is the part of the tire that goes from the tread to the wheel. If it gets damaged or old, it can cause problems like blowing out while driving.
A four-wheel alignment makes sure all four tires are pointing in the right direction. This helps your car drive straight and can prevent uneven tire wear.
Stopping distance is how far your car goes after you hit the brakes until it stops completely. If your tires are worn out, it can take longer to stop, which can be dangerous.
The Jeep Wrangler is a tough-looking vehicle that's great for driving on rough terrain like mountains and trails. It's popular because it can handle adventures and has a unique style that many people love.
LIVE
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of my car guru.
I've kind of been a debunking mood.
I've been doing that a lot lately.
People walk up to me and say, well, something like, um, you think
I need new tires, Lenny?
I don't know.
Let's go look.
We'll go look at them.
And no, they don't need new tires now.
They needed them a year ago.
I was driving to work this morning.
It was very cold.
My windshield wipers were stuck to the windshield.
So I finally broke them loose and I'm driving to work and I say,
I got to get new windshield wiper inserts, not wiper blades inserts.
That's what it's called.
That's what wipes your windshield.
How long did they last?
Not as long as you think that's something else I have to debunk.
I mean, I have been told by many mechanics that you need to
change your windshield wiper blades two times a year coming out
of winter and coming out of summer because they wear down the
rubber and you know, depending on how often they're used, they
take quite a beating, you know, back and forth and back and
forth and all the stuff that they wipe off of our windshields.
I mean, it's a, it's a tough job.
So my rule is once a year and I've had my F 150 a year and a
half.
Have I changed my wiper insert yet?
No, I have not, but I'm doing it today.
I know it's just going into winter, but I want to be ready.
So that's the kind of thing that, that I debunk.
I know those seem trivial maybe to you, but you know, if those
wiper inserts, if they wear all the way down and it gets to
the point where you have part of the metal of your windshield
wiper arm touching your windshield, you will cut quite the
little, what would you call that?
Circular, semi-circular groove into your windshield and you
don't want that to happen.
If you see pieces of rubber just kind of flapping around.
It's probably a good indicator that you need to change them,
but I would go ahead and do it now before the winter gets
too bad.
We still have plenty of time and just make sure that, that
when you turn on your windshield wipers that they are not
frozen solid to the windshield because you could damage your
windshield wiper motor.
Also your power window motors, they can actually burn out
if they're tugging on a glass, a side window that's frozen to
the weather stripping on your, on your door.
So don't do that either.
Let, let the interior of the car heat up a little bit so they
have a chance.
Okay, let's debunk a few more things.
This one's a little bit more serious.
Is there such a thing as a lifetime warranty?
Well, I certainly hope so because we offer that on every new
Ford and every new Nissan that we sell.
It's a lifetime powertrain warranty.
Okay, what's that Lenny powertrain?
That's basically your engine and all its internal parts, not
external parts, just internal your transmission and its
internal parts, your drive axle and that's about it.
Anything that's bathed in oil or transmission fluid.
So if you were to have a failure and you have 300,000
miles on it, as long as the defect is due to materials or
workmanship, it's covered.
If it's normal every day wear and tear, it's not.
So does a lifetime powertrain warranty sound better than it
is?
Well, kinda.
It kinda does, but you know, if you have something with 150,000
miles on it and a rod breaks or a ring gives out, you know,
some internal part in the engine breaks and it wasn't due to
the lack of maintenance, then it's going to be covered.
But if it's because of a lack of maintenance, it's not going
to be covered.
A lot of people say, well, how are they gonna know if I
changed my oil?
Trust me.
These people that come in and inspect these things, if they're
having to replace a, you know, $12,000 engine, they know.
They know what it looks like.
It's just like you go to the doctor and somebody dies and they
do an autopsy.
They can look in there and say, well, this person was a smoker
or this person ate too many fatty foods.
Too high cholesterol.
They can tell.
There are telltale signs and of course the general public,
they think, well, there's no way they can say, yeah, they can.
So the key to that is just to follow your maintenance schedule.
Although sometimes you can follow the maintenance schedule
and something will break.
Just like it did on that 2022 Toyota Highlander I was talking
about the other day, just 70,000 miles on it.
And something broke on the inside.
We didn't tear the engine down.
It didn't really matter.
I mean, it was locked up.
We had to replace the engine.
I ended up paying for it.
It was out of warranty and the people bought it as is with no
warranty, but I stepped up to the plate because they'd only
owned it for two weeks and more than likely would have failed
if I had kept it.
If somebody had been out on a test drive, it would have failed.
It would have started knocking just like it did with the customer.
So we had to step up and fix it.
We put their replacement engine in it this weekend, this past
weekend, and hopefully that will be happy about that.
But you would think that the wonderful Toyota company would
have stepped up and replaced that engine, but they denied the
claim.
They said they would have paid for it if it was still in the
hands of the original owner because they had maintained it
faithfully at a need, I'm sorry, at a Toyota dealership near you.
Near us and we were told that Toyota would have paid for it,
but because the vehicle was traded into us on a new Nissan
Pathfinder, we turn around and sold that vehicle within two
weeks to somebody else and then within that two weeks, the engine
locked up.
Nope, they're not covering it.
So I guess their warranty was on the people, not on their
product and that's kind of the way it is with these lifetime
power train warranties.
Let's say that 10 years from now, you still have that warranty
in place and you decide to sell that vehicle to a friend.
He's not covered just you.
And that's the way those lifetime warranties work.
You know, if they call it a lifetime warranty, that that sounds
a little bit more complete than a lifetime power train warranty,
but you need to ask the dealership that you're shopping at.
When you say lifetime, tell me exactly what you mean.
Could I see the policy and see what's covered because all
lifetime warranties are not created equal.
It all depends on, you know, what the document says.
Just because somebody says, Hey, this has a lifetime warranty
or a lifetime power train warranty.
You better read it and find out who's backing it up.
Now do automakers like Ford, Honda, Toyota, do they offer
lifetime power train warranties?
No, they sure don't.
Those are typically only offered by insurance companies.
Now the one we offer is, is by an A plus rated multi-billion
dollar insurance company called Assurant.
So I'm pretty sure that you can be certain that the claims
will be paid if it's not due to some fault of your own.
So and that's important to understand.
And when I come back, I'm going to talk about an interesting
financing analysis that you should do.
If you're thinking about paying cash for a vehicle as opposed
to taking advantage of extremely low interest rates, I'll be
back in just a minute.
All right, I am back.
Now, now this is the kind of thing that a lot of people
don't think about doing.
They take the simplistic approach.
What seems obvious is not always very obvious.
Here's the example.
Let's say that you have $40,000 in the bank.
Well, hopefully you have a lot more than that, but you've
saved that much specifically to buy a new vehicle.
And let's say, okay, let's the bank is not going to pay much
more than probably would three and a half to four and a half
percent.
Now, let's say you put it in a, I don't know, Charles Schwab
account, something that's tied to the stock market.
And it's been really going crazy lately and you could earn
a lot more than 10%.
But let's just say that over a five year period, you average
10% return.
So instead of taking the $40,000 out of the account, you go
and finance a car, $40,000 vehicle and you do it for the
same to five years at 0% and then take out each monthly
payment out of that money market account.
How much will the gain be at the end of five years?
And a lot of people say, well, you're taking all the money
out now.
You're just taking out each monthly payment.
So you're just drawing it down slowly, almost like an
annuity.
So what they call this is an arbitrage, yeah, a R B I T
R A G E style question and the math works strongly in your
favor if you decide to leave the money in the money market
account.
So the way this works is at the end you end up with no car
debt.
The cars paid off and you still have $14,050 in savings.
So your net gain is about $14,000 and that's real profit
not paper profit 0% financing you get the free use of money
10% return that money is working for you while you spend
it.
Now if you had just paid for the car then at the end of
five years you have a car that's depreciated which would
you rather have just the car or $14,050 and the car.
I think that I'll take the 14,000.
Now let's say you can't earn 10% you only earn 5% you're
still going to gain $6,000 if you get 7% you're going to
gain $9,500 so it works at lower interest rates as well.
So this is something that people need to do to analyze it.
The excuse I hear for not doing it most often is I don't
want to make monthly payments and you really don't have to
you just have the money drafted out of your account and
then you'll never know the difference.
I just bought a new vehicle for my wife financed it through
Wells Fargo.
I'm not going to make monthly payments.
It's coming out of my bank account every month.
I don't have to write anybody a check or remember it or end
up accidentally being laid on a payment or whatever.
I just set it up to where it comes out automatically and
then I don't have to worry about it.
So that's a good way to keep your credit pure.
You know if you're never late you never miss a beat then
it's just going to drive up your credit score and even
lower your cost of borrowing money over time the next
time you need a loan now you can't get better than zero
but just keep in mind that most car deals right now especially
at the end of the year or anytime during the year they
don't offer zero unless they take something away.
Normally they'll have a pretty large rebate alternative to
the zero percent financing.
So you have to take that into account as well.
Okay.
Let's see.
I had another myth buster.
I always wondered why they measure tire depth tread depth.
I know you you lay awake at night wondering the same thing.
Why do they measure tread depth in 30 seconds of an inch.
I mean it keeps me awake at night.
No it really doesn't.
But Bill made who used to be my co-host on this program.
I would say you know Bill your tires are officially by law
worn out at two thirty seconds of an inch and he would always
look at me and say you mean one sixteenth you know and I say
yes Bill it's the same but two thirty seconds is the way it's
measured so quit arguing with me.
Well why is it measured in 30 seconds of an inch and so I
wanted to straighten him out and plus I wanted to get some
sleep.
Okay so tires and wheels and most automotive standards in the
U. S. were developed when there was a lot of mechanical
machining it dominated manufacturing.
We didn't use computerized measuring like we do now lasers
and all that and fractional inches were the norm half inch
quarter inch one eighth one thirty second and so forth.
So measurement tools calipers depth gauges they were already
standardized in these binary fractions using 30 seconds fits
perfectly into this system.
It's easy to divide even bill mead can do it easy to read on
simple gauges and consistent with other automotive measurements
so there's your baseline explanation.
Now let's just look at it realistically one sixteenth of
an inch according to the tire experts is to course it misses
important where one sixty fourth of an inch is too fine.
And so it's unnecessary precision one thirty second hits the
sweet spot it's precise enough to track where and simple enough
for technicians and consumers so a new tire is going to be
anywhere from 10 to 12 30 seconds the legal minimum in the
United States now you can't even sell a tire this way you
people do there's a lot of used tires sold with a little bit
of tread but if it's under two thirty seconds it's illegal to
sell a tire in the United States snow traction drops
dramatically at anything below six thirty seconds wet traction
degrades noticeably below four thirty seconds so those
thresholds fit pretty pretty neatly in thirty seconds of an
inch so that's why this I've got a tread depth gauge right
over here you should have one they're cheap you can get them
in any tire store well maybe not tire store but maybe auto
parts store but it measures it shows me exactly what my tread
depth is and when you're measuring tread depth you go all
the way across the tire and take several measurements one on
the you know the outside of the tread one in the middle and
one on the inside the tread and if you get any of those
especially on the inside that are less than two thirty
seconds less than the if you stick a penny put link you know
has Lincoln on it and stick it down in the tire with Lincoln's
head pointing down if you can't see the top of his head you're
okay if you can see the top of his head your head you're less
than two thirty seconds of an inch wasn't that convenient for
the US Mint to make pennies that that you could use to measure
your tread depth on tires that was so nice of them so if you
are going into winter and you have less than six thirty
seconds of an inch you're probably gonna do a lot of
slipping and sliding around you can put snow tires on the back
if you're rear wheel drive vehicle if you're a front wheel
drive vehicle you need to put them on the front if you're an
all-wheel drive vehicle it really doesn't matter because
you can go just about anywhere you want to go as long as you
have adequate tread depth and proper inflation if in your
tires you know some people actually put more air in their
tires because they think it'll get a better gas mileage and
it might help a little bit but it'll also cause their tires
to wear more in the center of the tread it's best to just go
by the little sticker on your in your door jam Darby's side
door it tells you how much air is supposed to be in your
tires and if you go too far below that then your tire pressure
warning light will come in come on on your dash unless you
have it covered up with pictures of your grandchildren or
children in that case you won't know and then also check the
age on your tires there is you want to do you want to have
do that well just get down on your hands and knees and you
will find the letters D O T and then you'll see a series of
numbers and there will be a couple of numbers at the very
end and those numbers are the year the first numbers are the
year that the tires were made and then the second number is
the week of that year that those tires were made and if
they're over seven years old you should replace your tires
that's just because well we've talked about that rubber
ages and they develop cracks and weak spots in the tread
sometimes you will see a bubble or a little bump develop on
the outside of the tire not on the tread you'll never see it
if that happens you'll feel it when you're going down the
road but it will be on the sidewall of the tire and you'll
feel these little irregular bumps and it's probably because
your tires are aged out and very subject to blowing out
that's the worst possible time so if your tires are more than
seven years old and they are in the tread depth is less than
two thirty seconds your past due for new tires now there are
a lot of tire deals out there right now as a Ford dealer
we have a great deal I think they'll let's say what is it
you buy four tires and you'll get a hundred and fifty
dollars back plus a no charge four wheel alignment I think
that's their deal which is very good because Ford has great
buying power and we're able to get tires from them at the
same price that they bought them for and we can pass those
savings on to people who buy them from us so that's a pretty
good deal no that's a real good deal but your dealer may have
a really good deal on tires as well just the important thing
it's not where you buy them it's that you buy them when you
need them that's the most important thing I mean just
think if your tread depth is too thin it's not a problem just
driving straight down a dry road but when it rains when it's
really cold when you're driving too fast going around curves
and or if you have to panic stop you know somebody is stopped
all the sudden in a road and you have to slam on your brakes
if you don't have enough tread depth that could increase
your stopping distance and could end up in their trunk
that's one of the things I just don't mess with breaks and
tires if I can steer and stop I can avoid 90% of all accidents
the rest of them it's out of my hands it's out of your hands
okay I'll take my last break I'll be back here in just a minute
I just got an interesting message from a listener says hi
I've been listening to your podcast and got the episode where
you mentioned racing out to you to see what my trade-in would
be worth they offer their 17 digit I didn't count the digits
but their VIN number they say it's a 10 2011 Jeep Wrangler
unlimited hard top in good condition for its age I've
always kept it clean recently replaced the windshield but
soon it will need new tires it's a one owner me the check
engine light is on which is not great for the exhaust system
and there's a minor scratch on the driver's side above the
rear tire cover I'm located in Houston Texas or else I'd be
coming to your dealership and I appreciate that so much
so this is very helpful to have this kind of information
I'm probably gonna need a little bit more in order to pay
it exactly as far as value but this is what I do in addition
to giving just regular advice on buying selling trading
getting automotive service if you need any specific things
you just send me your information to my cell phone
which this person did 423-552-2020 or send me an email to
Lenny Lawson 2020 at gmail.com or send me your email address
and I'll forward you a copy of the my car guru guidebook
which is like your defense against a bad car deal 32 pages
long in it so send me your email address and I'll send you
a copy well thanks for listening to this edition of my car
guru and I'll see you next time
About this episode
Common car owner myths are debunked in this episode, covering everything from tire maintenance to the truth behind lifetime warranties. Lenny shares practical advice on when to replace windshield wipers and tires, emphasizing the importance of regular maintenance to avoid costly damage. He also explains the nuances of lifetime warranties and financing strategies, encouraging listeners to consider the benefits of financing over paying cash. The episode wraps up with insights on tread depth measurements and the significance of maintaining proper tire conditions for safety.
